SG Tidbits 365 & Online Competition

SG Tidbits 365 is a S’pore Discovery Centre initiative and they are currently running an online contest (ending on the 31^st of December 2009) where one can win prizes like an Apple iPhone 3GS by submitting a photo or video with bite sized captions to showcase an interesting or fun fact about Singapore.

What you will need to do is to submit photos and write a short caption – and you’re done! Alternatively, you may submit a YouTube video as well. Do check out the main site for more details and for the terms and conditions.

Mini Blog Contest

Besides the photography competition above, there’s a mini blog contest to give away prizes as well!

Don’t forget to read up on the Terms and Conditions of this mini blog contest.

I’m honoured to be invited to be one of the five Singapore bloggers to organize a contest, in conjuction with SG Tidbits 365, of which you will stand a chance to win a Holga camera¹. To suit the colour scheme of my blog, the organizers were very kind to provide me with a blue Holga camera to give you. I promise, no gimmicks, no tricky registrations, no purchases, no marketing.

Giveaway - Blue Holga camera

In case you’re wondering what a Holga camera is, it is actually an inexpensive camera that was famous (or rather, infamous) in churning on distorted, discoloured images. But, hang on a second. That’s what makes Holga cameras so endearing, so do their photos. Here’s a few photos I’ve picked off Flickr, taken using the Holga camera just to give you an idea that all the distortions are not actually a bad thing, afterall.

The contest on this blog will run from the 9^th of November to the 22^nd of the same month. To participate in the contest, simply try to guess the locations where were the two following photos taken, and then type in the locations in the Google Form here (alongside with some of your personal particulars so that the organizers and I will be able to contact you if you’ve won). The clues to the location of the places in the photos are found in the caption underneath each photo:

Location A - Clue: Where Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple is located.

Location B - Clue: One of the oldest HDB estates in Singapore.

You should check out the photo gallery at the SG Tidbits 365 website for the answers – the photos are actually entries submitted by competitors running for the online competition (as mentioned in the earlier part). If you have any idea where Location A and B are, quickly make your way to the Google Form and respond to the questions.

Of course, common sense dictates that you shouldn’t be leaving the answers in the comments section – afterall, you would want to have less people running after the Holga camera, right?

Winners will be contacted between 24^th and 30^th November. The Blue Holga camera has to leave in one way or another, so what you need to do is just to make sure that you’re the one who’ll be laying your hands on it :)

Next up, the terms and conditions of the competitions. Do read through the list carefully before jumping right in. I’ve decided to use a normal font size instead of rendering it in fine print *laughs* so, here you go!

Terms and Conditions

1. All submissions have to be submitted by 2359 on 22 Nov 2009 using the Google Form found in this blog post.
2. Each participant may submit up to three entries but only one entry with both correctly identified locations will stand a chance to win.
3. The winner will be determined via lucky draw from all participants with correct entries.
4. Each winner is only eligible to win ONE prize from this contest.
5. The winner has to collect the prize in person on the stipulated date, time and venue, which will be revealed in the winning notification email.
6. The prize cannot be transferred, negotiated nor exchanged. Only the prizewinner and not any other person or agent, may claim the prize. 24seven, and its partners for this contest, reserves the right to use the winner’s name, picture and information for publicity purposes, including but not limited to print, broadcast and online media.

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• My Itchy Fingers (7)
• The dreamy spaces of Facebook HQ (8)
• Off to Old Turf City! (6)

Facebook Headquarters by Studio O+A

Of course, there are more photos available at the site which I’ve linked. You should really check it out.

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From: L** **** ****
Sent: Sat 10/31/2009 12:25 PM
To: “BS***-LEC-09S1″
Subject: Another WARNING from ** L**: BS***-LEC-09S1

If you have nothing better to do, PLEASE DO NOT email me with panicky messages like “Oh my god!!! Does that mean i do not have a mark for CA? cry …”

WARNING: If I get any of these STUPID emails again, I will REALLY REALLY FAIL whoever sends me these emails that DRIVE ME UP THE WALL!!!!!

I regretted sending the email about possible uploading problems if your file contains non-alphabetic characters like “-” as in “BS***-xxx” There is ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM with this filenaming convention.

FOR THE LAST TIME, if the system acknowledges that it has received your upload, then THAT IS IT!!!!! If I have not received your assignment file after the deadline (over now), I will SOON BE CONTACTING you. If you don’t hear from me, you are OK.

SO PLEASE DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT email me further with STUPID, STUPID, KIASI, KIASI EMAILS asking me to check your uploads.

WARNING WARNING WARNING – IF I EVER RECEIVE ANOTHER SUCH STUPID EMAIL FROM ANYONE FROM HEREON, I WILL NOT BE NICE ANYMORE AND WILL FAIL (READ CAREFULLY) I WILL FAIL YOU!!!!

This email made my day. I just feel very, very, very obliged to dedicate a post to his email. Wow, and all-caps sentence? Groundbreaking.

Moral of the story – if you have a cohort of almost 400 students, ask them to hand in their research paper in hardcopy. And don’t whine about the technicians, L. They’re innocent. You have trampled on their dignity like a mad bull on a beautiful lawn, and mama karma is now on her way back giving a good kick to your butt.

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We gathered at Clementi Bus Interchange early in the morning. I can’t believe I actually managed to pull myself out of the bed again despite being severely deprived for proper sleep in the week before – that just tells you how excited I am of outings! Oh, and as a comparison, I almost always run 5-10 minutes late for morning lectures *weak smiles*

At Sixth Avenue, on our way to Old Turf City.

Took bus 156 from the interchange and alighted at Sixth Avenue. Oh boy this place holds so much memories – before I entered university, I’ve spent 6 years of my life in middle, high school and junior college. My boarding school happens to be a mere 15-minute walk away from the place and they have really great food! Plus, one thing I love about Bukit Timah (aka Tin Hill) the area around Sixth Avenue) is that they have all the nifty shops catered to niche customer bases – from wine shops to small cafes serving exquisite cuisines, and Sixth Avenue had a restaurant serving the best Indian cuisine you could ever find and not to forget, an ice cream parlour called Venezia.

Breakfast time!

We chose to have outings very early in the morning because we need to play the “waiting game” afterall, and still ambitiously wanted to beat the late morning sun and heat. That meant that many of us were yet to have breakfast, so we settled for breakfast at an Indian cafe. My attempts to locate the McDonalds joint I went a couple of years ago failed because it was closed down. What a shame – all of us were desperate for a short relief from the blistering heat of a Saturday morning in an air-conditioned fastfood joint.

Mr. Darrick!

So that’s Darrick! The cute and chubby friend of Chunks. He was a little quiet when I met him at Clementi Bus Interchange but when Chunks, our mutual friend turned up he started chatting away like there’s no tomorrow, hah. Poor Darrick suffered from a sprained ankle before we even managed to make it to Turf City – damn the uneven road.

Chunks. He's always making funny faces at the camera.

And that’s Chunks. ‘Nuff said *laughs*

Most of the other photos are tucked behind the jump, so do explore the rest of the entry if you have time :) thanks!

Gerry and his vintage film camera *drools*

That’s Gerry and his interesting film camera. He amused me with the way he loaded film into the camera. Gerry said it most probably had at least 5~7 owners before it landed in his hands because it was a rather vintage camera, but I bet it still takes wonderful photos!

Chunks and his Sony camera.

I swear swear swear that the reflections on the lens are not photoshopped into the photo in anyway. I have no idea why it appeared half yellow – I believe that’s because of the glare from the uncovered scene behind me. We sat in a shaded part of the cafe because we didn’t want the morning sun to get us, teehee.

Chit chatting over breakfast. Omnomnomnom.

That’s Chunks and Darrick enjoying their breakfast! I recommended Chunks to get the sweet lassi but it turned out to be a little too concentrated for our liking. The huge chunks (no pun intended) of ice inside didn’t help either. I’m sorry, but so far the photos I have are largely limited to the people sitting across me and to those who were sharing the same table as me. There were actually around 8 – 10 others on the tables to my right and behind me but well, since I have people in front of me I might as well just shoot them instead.

You want?

That’s Darrick trying to feed me his Indian kneaded bread! I’m just kidding. Darrick was totally mortified by my attempts to get him photograph and he used several decoys to distract me like a kitten to a string ball. Nonetheless, his bread looks damn good, you bet!

Urban Decay

Old Turf City.

Old Turf City was superceeded by a new horse racing track located near Kranji, so everybody simply moved to the new location, leaving the Old Turf City high and dry in the middle of a huge green lung.

To those who are intending to explore Old Turf City, do note that the management and security guards are extremely cautious about photographers, especially those that come in big groups and are armed with the black machine of death – the dSLRs.

Photography in Old Turf City is somewhat frowned upon by the guards – we were greeted with a guard that came right up to us and told us that no photography is allowed on the compounds. He probably didn’t know that turf he’s tasked the guard is opened to public (accessible to members of the public) and even though it is a private property, does not give any person the right to stop us from photography.

Know what rights you’re entitled to as a photographer, and the do’s and don’t’s of photography. I wrote an article on photographer’s right and you might want to check it out if you’re free.

Back to the story, as operations at Old Turf City ceased, the spectator’s stand became redundant structres that were no longer used by people, sans the basement levels which were converted to a leaseable space rented out to Giant Supermarket and a few shops. The higher floors were completely deserted and were perfect subjects for urban decay photography.

After being approached by a few guards on the ground level, Sam reminded us to be more careful of the overzealous ones and together, we scaled the dark, eerie stairwells to the spectator’s stand. We arrived at the lowest floor of the spectator’s stand. The floor was dusty but were not strewn with trash. Tiny hills of dried bird discharge piled up underneath wires and holes where pigeons and sparrows would rest. A few decomposed carcasses of birds, seemingly electrocuted by chewing on or perching on bundles of fires, hung from the ceiling. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight.

The abandoned escalator.

The escalators or people movers were either covered up in huge blue plastic sheets or were left alone. A thick layer of dirt and dush had accumulated on the steps and the handrails. Of course, we weren’t foolish enough to use them to access the other floors. We preferred the staircases.

Death by handrail strangulation.

The stairrwells were an interesting sight – they were relatively clean and free of cobwebs. It seemed that it was still regularly used by entities that were yet unknown to us. On every single floor a new yellow sign spelled out the floor name. They were obviously freshly installed. I wonder why.

Further up the spectator's stand, a HDR.

Climbing further up the spectator’s stand. The entire place were strewn with dried bird discharge, debree and surprisingly, very little garbage. The metal supports of the wooden benches rusted away.

Abandoned? I guess not. A HDR.

On the top floor of the spectator’s stand laid the secret – the highest level was partitioned by dry walls into small little rooms to accomodate foreign workers and immigrants. I’m not sure about the legality of it to do so but I wouldn’t want to know either. The escalator leading to the floor was covered up in a huge canvas and an abandoned, broken bicycle was carelessly chucked underneath the sheets.

Another security guard approached us. You are not allowed to take photos of this place, and this floor is beyond public access, he said, face expresionless with a slight apologetic tune to this monotonous instruction. Sam, knowing that things are amiss, apologized and we all retreated into the (surprise!) elevator – yea, they had a WORKING elevator in this dilapidated complex.

Lower floors of the spectator's stand, a HDR.

We wented to the lower floors to take more photos. The guard seemed to be tailing us. Yet again he told us that the floor is out of bounds to public. But there wasn’t any sign that says so, unlike the top floor. Sam retaliated in the least confrontive manner. His tone softened. Are you doing a school project or something? Hoping that he would leave us alone if we said yes, we nodded our heads furiously. Sorry, but you guys still got to get out.

There wasn’t any shouting. We were so quiet I bet I heard my own heartbeat. The pin-drop silence was occasionally interrupted by the sound of dirt bikes from the distance.

Defeated, we explored the outdoors. Now I’m talking about dealing with the midday sun. We checked out the dirt bikes, the bonzai garden and quickly retreated to the shades of the trees, or the shadow of tents randomly dispersed throughout the open field. A girl’s rugby team had a training nearby, and their parents were having some midday barbeque party.

Mervyn and camera.

We made a final stop at a tent before heading for the shuttle bus stop. That’s Mervyn and his big-ass camera lens.

Group photo on the bus.

A group photo for the record! We left for Clementi Interchange on the free shuttle bus. Chunks and I sent Darrick off first before joining the rest of the gang at Subway. Both of us weren’t particularly hungry so he got milk tea (again!) and I settled for peach red tea. We celebrated Mervyn’s birthday at Subway too!

Happy birthday, Mervyn!

Happy birthday, Mervyn!

So, that wraps up our photo outing to Old Turf City and our encounter with security guards :)

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Overflowing with excitement, my heart started to pound. Slowly crawling up my throat, I thought it was going to fall out anytime soon. I fumbled for the keys in my pocket, frustrated by the repeated attempts to differentiate the cold hard metal of the letterbox key and the coins that I forgot to keep.

The letterbox squeaked open. I grabbed the stash of letters and ran back to my room. I didn’t want to see what’s in it until I get back. I struggled to open the card access door – I hate the new, techy feature because we can no longer make duplicates) – dashed for the bed and started sorting the letter immediately. Bank statements after one and another. It has been a long time since I last sorted by mail.

Oh, and here it is. Surprise!

Postcard from Trina, 9000 miles away.

It arrived! The postcard Trina mentioned some time ago about mailing to a special person finally arrived – and yea, I didn’t know I was the recepient until Trina asked me to check my mailbox to check of anything special had arrived :) I was jumping up and down on the bed with the postcard in hand. Thanks for the awesome surprise, Trina! This is the very first time in my life receiving sometimes from somebody overseas. How sweet of you to draw the doodle. I just love it.

I can’t believe it wasn’t smeared or folded in any way even after it travelled for 9000 air miles and was passed between so many hands. Except for the smoothened out corners, it feels as good as new. And here’s a photo showing the front and the back of the postcard:

Front and back view of Trina's postcard. Thank you again!

I hereby dedicate this song by KT Tunstall to Trina – The Other Side of the World.

Title: The Other Side of the World (from the album Eye to the Telescope)
Artist: KT Tunstall

Life is getting busier by the moment – my exams are due in less than 5 weeks, and I still have got reports to submit. Gah. But I’m taking it well. In fact, I realize I’ve became slightly healthier recently, as I went for swimming the first time out of so many months (and I returned with a body ache which lasted over the weekend, so much for not exercising!), starting eating better and healthier food and etc. It has been a long time since I last had instant noodles – I never liked the taste and the hassle of cleaning up. I’m now sticking to cookies and less candy bars.

Oh, and one final rant. It came to my attention that in the past few years several presentations on the architecture and design of Changi Airport Terminal 3 had been shamelessly plagiarising my photos (seen in this post). A few days ago, in my GN02 elective (where we had to pick a development and evaluate their design and environmental friendliness) presentation session, yet another group used my photos. When I asked one of the team members where they got their photos from, he told me that they took all of them themselves, and even had the guts to point out who took all of the photos.

I was very infuriated and disappointed that people actually disregard copyright, so much so that I had to put up a notice on that particular post. I license my photos under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, in case you’re wondering. Feel free to use it but don’t modify my works (like remove the watermarks, the group just did that) and remember to give due credit to the original author/creator. It isn’t a very hard thing to do, is it?

And to that group of losers who shamelessly took my photos, you know who you are.

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Anyway, as what the title of the post tells you, here is a 180 degree panorama I have stitched out of a handful of photos taken at the Floating Platform on Marina Bay, Singapore, during one of the outing two weeks ago. The one you see here is the resized version – click on it to reveal the larger panorama in the modified lightbox. Yea, I spent a great deal of time a few nights back hacking and modding the Lightbox 2 plugin to make it panorama-friendly, heh.

Anyway, I recevied a lovely postcard from Trina a few days ago! I was so thrilled because this is the first time I’m getting a letter mailed to me from overseas *bounces around* I promise I will give it a good write-up when I’m done with my deadlines :) and I’m very amazed that after travelling half the globe and probably through many hands, storage boxes and containers, nothing was smeared on the postcard and it’s still looking great!

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Leave Me, a short film by Daros Films.

Leave Me is a four-minute short film produced by Daros Films, a  Tulsa-based independent film company founded by Ryan Dunlap (@dunlap).

Who says shorts are, well, too short to evoke any emotional attachment among the audience? Leave Me is a perfect example of a short done perfectly, artistically, beautifully and soulfully. Leave Me tells a sad tale of a widower finally finding solace in photos found in his wife’s (Amy’s) camera.

I was speechless when the credits started rolling – the finaly scene drove chills down my spine. I watched it over and over again, checking every single detail in the film. If you do it, you’ll realize the first scene actually have some photos that depict the scenes you will encounter in the later part of the short.

The short was the winner for the 36-hour film festival. The competition required them to include 3 out of the 7 elements¹:

1. Sunrise
2. $100 bill
3. Binoculars (or spyglass)
4. Disguise (could include fake mustache, monster mask, etc.)
5. Dutch angle
6. Line: “You’re holding it in your hand.”
7. Line: “I forgive you.”

If you watch the short a few times you’ll see that the director have tried very hard to include as many of the above elements as possible – some of them may not be very obvious but if you watch it a few times over you’ll eventually find them.

I hope Jack finally found eternal bliss with Amy.

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A day in town with Chankeet

After a long hiatus of not writing anything meaningful, my photo-laden posts are coming back. I find that my entries constantly cycle between photography, design, bookmarks and tutorial – not something that I am particularly proud of because I would love to strike a balance between the four. But since I already getting started on this entry – which is, sadly, yet another photo journal entry – I should just let things take their own pace.

It was last Thursday. My afternoon lecture and tutorial class were cancelled and I only had to attend one plant biology lecture in the morning – sparing the day for myself. I learned that Chankeet, a college classmate of mine whom I haven’t been in touch with until he got a camera lately (which gave us things to talk about, hah), was clearing his leave on that day as well so I asked whether he wanted to meet up somewhere. Since his treated me lunch at Crystal Jade the week before, I am determined to get back on him for that.

The rest of the entry have been tucked behind the read more tag. Oh, and I have chronicled this entry on my Flickr photoset too – check it out if you’re interested or if you’re not intending to go through the entire wordy entry, heheh.

We met up in town around 12pm for lunch. Hoping to beat the lunch crowd, we decided to have lunch early and headed for Astons at Suntec City soon after we met up at City Hall station.

At Astons, Suntec City.

Being people who live to eat, both of us were discussing over IM what and where to get lunch for our town outing. In the end CK recommended Astons because he had lunch there with his NS friends before and said that it’s very economical.

He was very right! Astons looks very simple at my first glance – a non-descript stone wall, floor of poured concrete and a glaring devoid of any other interior decoration. I’m glad that the owner didn’t spend too much on unnecessary flair and extravagance because that will mean passing the cost savings over to customers like us. The atmosphere was okay, the service was average – well, I don’t expect much from them too after reading the reviews of the so-so customer service.

Here comes the bomb – the chicken chop that CK had cost less than $7 while the prime ribeye I had only made me $14 poorer. The combined prices of our food could only get us a measly plate of spaghetti in other Western food outlets around town, considering the high rental, terribly overdone interior decor and unnecessarily attentive staff :P

One thing I had to pick with Astons is that they serve the receipt right up after you’ve placed your order. Not a particularly pleasant thing but then again, I shouldn’t be whining so much when I take the price savings into consideration. It’s funny how much flaws I am willing to overlook for huge price discounts – especially for food!

CK's chicken chop and my ribeye. Omnomnom.

Oh and I tell you the sauce that they serve with the rice is awesome. Their fries taste different (at least, from what McDonald’s and many other Western food outlets in Singapore have to offer).. at least different in a unique way. The ribeye was done the way I wanted it to be (medium rare) and I have nothing but praises for that.

I couldn’t really remember what we talked over lunch since we talked just too much that day, but I vaguely remember talking about how his camp life is and, oh yea, the dirty couch in his office that he didn’t want to sleep on.

After lunch, upon his suggestion, we went over to Esplanade to get some photos.

CK and the other photographer.

Another photographer and his female friend were taking photos of the art exhibition on display at the walkway leading from City Link Mall to Esplanade. Unfazed by our presence, he started taking photos of the lights. CK and I were busy shooting the artworks and occasionally we took photos of each other taking photos.

Radiance

Sunlight from a cloudy day filtered through the glass of the skylight and radiates around the opening. Above me was a net hanging from the ceiling. Symmetry was obviously lacking but I’ve tried my best to align the net with the skylight – speaking of which, perhaps it’s the asymmetry that made it beautiful.

The florist's

Through the squeaky clean display windows of the shop, I took a sneak peek at the interior of a florist. It’s a little heaven in there!

What's on the phone?

Moving our way up towards the Esplanade library, we spotted this huge wall displaying the crayon artworks of little kids right at the escalator landing. How lovely! We stopped for a little while to admire their work and to take some photos.

It has been a long time since I looked at a painting or an artwork, so I examined the works carefully. It’s heartening that the judges chose those that look genuinely drawn by children’s hands as the winners – I’ve seen one too many paintings that look too good for their age, probably created with lots of help from mommy and daddy.

In front of the huge wall.

The wall exhibit in its full glory!

The display adds an interesting burst of colours to the plain brown wall. I love it! :)

We headed for the sky garden at Esplanade, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cityscape but a slight drizzle that starting falling shortly after we set foot on the top floor hampered our plans. Defeated, I suggested Max Brenner Chocolate Bar for a perk-me-up. CK and I were busy checking the menu at the doorstep at Max Brenner’s when a waitress approached us and asked if she could help us out. When CK replied that “we’re just looking”, she chirped “Oh, that’s great!” and disappeared behind the glass facade. This is the first time I’ve received a positive, cheerful response even when we didn’t show much interest in getting anything. Got to love their service! In the end, we still settled for Max Brenner’s.

Multitasking - one hand on the phone, the other on the camera.

We starting taking photos once we got seated, and took a very long time deciding what to get. CK was on the phone with mommy dearest and he was taking a photo at the same time, haha!

CK's ice blended oreo cookies and my chocolate souffle.

If you’re looking really carefully, you will notice that the ice blended oreo cookies (spelt coockies on the menu and CK insisted that it should be pronounced at COCK-ies but he changed his mind when the waitress asked for our order, lol) drink is served with a metal straw. Perhaps that’s the kind of straw you don’t want to find yourself nibbling on – I have a very bad habit of chewing on them and I will definitely chip my teeth if I do so with this drink.

Photo for the drink!

We spent another good 10 minutes taking photos of our food. My vanilla ice cream happily melted away because I didn’t know that the souffle was that warm, lol.

To the left is a photo of CK snapping away on his drink. To be true, we were still a little too bloated from the meal as Astons (although it seems that the serving at Astons is small, it’s actually very filling). So we talked even more over his drink and my souffle.

I remembered talking about how our friend in JC got harrassed by his project mate at the latter’s home – J was bouncing on R’s lap and R was so freaked out that he left in a hassle shortly after. I LOLed so hard at that. I have no qualms with people having different sexualities but that is really one interesting experience to talk about. Oh CK also shared his shower experience in army, which sounds far from pleasant. Imagining bathing in cubicles without any doors or blinds of any kind, and with a queue of comrades waiting right outside the cubicle pestering you to finish bathing asap. On a side note, my other friend whom I went out with today told me that he was even forced to share a shower with someone else because there was simply not enough time for everyone to bathe. Owwwwwwww mans.

A smile for the food!

The last photo taken before we dig in. As you can see, the side of my ice cream in contact with the chocoalte souffle had already joyfully melted into a gooey mess :P

After high tea at Max Brenner’s, we were shivvering so badly from the cold (at least, for me). CK couldn’t finish his ice blended cookie drink so he made me finish the rest of it. Brrrrrr. The weather was a little towards the cloudy side that day and it was freezing cold in Esplanade. We left the freezing hellhole and went out to the waterfront promenade.

A photoshoot in town

On a Thursday? What an odd choice. Perhaps they wanted to avoid the weekend crowd :) A photographer and his assistant took group photos of a bunch of professionally-dressed office workers. Sweet!

We slowly made our way to the floating platform. After climbing a flight of stairs, we arrive at the spectator’s stand. It’s actually pretty huge! I will post a panorama of the place soon when I am finally done with stitching it up.

Array.

A beautiful array of blue seats at the spectator’s stand opposite of the floating platform. Haven’t been to this place before, I asked CK if the seats are comfortable. He gave me a grin as I tried them out. Not. Then he pointed the other opposite end where the dark green seats were. That’s where I sat with Yueqi for the National Day Parade celebration.

HDR - Singapore CBD

A pseudo-HDR of the cityscape of Singapore’s Central Business District (CBD). It is generated from one single RAW file and processed using Photomatix 3 and Photoshop CS4. I hope I didn’t overdo the HDR effect!

At the spectator's stand.

We roameda round the area a little. This place was packed to the brim during big events like the F1 race and the National Day Parade but it looks so desolate, quiet and peceful on an ordinary Thursday afternoon. Never have I been to a place so big and yet to empty.

Couple by the waterfront.

A couple sits by the waterfront near the concert stage outside Esplanade. What a lovely scene!

Are you thirsty?

A peddler at the bottom of the Esplanade Bridge greets passerby with ice cold drinks and ice creams. Chankeet bought the ice cream bread and I had a can of coke instead. I had a hard time choosing what to have – should I settle for a bottle of mineral water? Or do I need some caffeine rush/perk from Redbull? In the end I still picked my all-time favourite.

The chocolate souffle I had earlier is still making me feel nauseous when I see food :P haha. Speaking of having too much food in a single day! CK was trying to make me have some of his bread but I was totally not interested in having a bite :/

RAWR! Ice cream bread!

CK is posing for the camera but he was genuinely enjoying the bread.

We walked along Singapore River and took a few photos there. It was a pretty quiet and slow day. I think everyone was totally zonked out after four days of hard work and can’t wait for TGIF.

Skycrapers along Singapore River

Skyscrapers loom above the waterfront sidewalk along Singapore River. A boat stops at the tiny pier to the right. Building height restrictions in Singapore made the three tallest buildings in Singapore to stand at a height of 280m.

Checking.

Double checking his shots before he moves on. CK is one careful photographer.

We arrive at the Parliament House. I played with a stray cat outside the fences of the place as CK looked on. He took a few photos of me with the cat :) the stray smells a little bad and I feel so sorry for it. I washed my hands later at a washroom because I couldn’t bear to touch my camera with all that dirt on it.

Traffic arrows

Traffic arrows – In Singapore, they are kind enough to paint arrows at junctions to tell you where to go :) got to love the perspective in this photo! We crossed the junction and stopped by Peninsula Plaza to check out some accessories for our cameras. CK was looking for a cleaning kit for his camera but in the end he decided that he should get it off a photographer at Clubsnap instead of being ripped off here. I finally got a new 49mm filter for my Konica Minolta lens. It was filter-less for the past three months and I was so afraid of getting it scratched.

Dinner @ Xin Wang Taiwan Cafe

As night falls, we wondered where should we go for dinner – initially I was consdering the prospects of dining somewhere near his home because I will need to get my external HDD back from him, but he was thoughtful enough to bring it out that day. We wanted to head over to Marina Square to get food but before we manage to reach there, we were abducted by the lovely menu at Xin Wang Taiwan Cafe so we picked that place to have our dinner instead.

What's on the menu?

We whipped out our cameras, startling the guests seated at the tablesright beside us. We snapped away happily – even when the waitress asked for our order we said we’ll place it with her later. Haha! On the table to my right was a group of girls from NTU, I think. Their timetable looks exactly like mine.

CK browsers through the menu with camera in hand. He picked some fermented chicken thing for dinner. I was a little indecisive with what kind of noddles I should get, so the waitress helped me out by suggesting I should try their sesame oil chicken noodles, their chef’s recommendation.

For drinks, CK ordered their signature milk tea while I chose to have their iced honey lemon tea. Mmmm.

CK and his milk tea!

This is the photo I used for the cover of this entry :)

So this is our dinner.

CK’s fermented chicken chop finally arrived! Not any part of his dish tasted like fermented stuff though. Right in front of me is my bowl of sesame oil chicken noodles.

Sesame Oil Chicken Noodles!

Here’s a close up shot of my noodles. The chicken is swimming in the soup underneath the noodles so you can’t see them. I’d give it 8/10 for the taste :) Although it’s a rather simple dish it tastes really great.

Yea, hello there!

A last photo to wrap up this entry, a portrait of CK. I’m so going to make him pay me for this nice photo, muahaha.

Have a great week ahead, everyone! Hope Monday isn’t going to be too harsh on everyone.

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Teddy turns 20!

I just turned 20! Props to Chong Yen for that photo. It was taken during a train ride back to Malaysia on the previous Saturday :)

Thank you everyone who sent me birthday wishes through Facebook, Twitter and in person! My birthday only gets better by each year and I’m sincerely thankful that I have a great bunch of friends to celebrate with. I’ll talk more about that later!

Fireflies by Owl City

Since Carol introduced me the song on Facebook a few days back, I’ve been hooked to it! Fireflies is a synthpop song composed by Adam Young, the sole member of Owl City. Believe me, it’s really lovely – especially the start! I simply dig the very groovy and adorable tunes by the synthesizer. All the years of synthesizing music at home at the cost of making him an insomniac sure made Adam a very talented composer ;)

Title: Fireflies (from the album Ocean Eyes)
Artist: Owl City

Every year I will use the part of the lyrics of my favourite song on my birthday to be the title of my birthday post. This year, I chose the line: If ten million fireflies / Lit up the world as I fell asleep.

Another word intensive entry ahead, but I promise photos (after Day -1) and good stories ahead! Check out the rest after the jump ;)

Day -1: Life as per normal and dinner at Hanabi!

2^nd Oct, the day before. The gathering at Hanabi!

It was Friday. Morning was usual – I promptly woke up at 8am in the morning, all thanks to the much effort I have invested in the past five days trying, desperately and dreadfully, to fix my bonked biological clock. Sleeping at 4am everyday with 3 hours of sleep and then taking quick naps during lecture breaks is NOT my way of life for the next half of the semester, I warned myself. Not only is this deadly sleeping pattern giving me eyebags that are taking more and more time to appease, but also it’s starting to get the attention of my parents. I remembered the week before recess my parents phoned me and kind of grilled me over the phone, I’ve been checking your Facebook and you’re still posting updates at 4am?! Whooopsy daisy.

Struggled hard to finish the BS201 presentation due next Friday and sent the attachment out to my groupmates. I’m still impressed that while it took me 4 days at home to finish barely a quarter of the presentation, I completed the remaining 30+ slides on a single day. I hate to leave the warm, comfortable embrace of my home in Malaysia but I have to admit that my working schedule simply breaksdown into nothing except for an endless circuit of sleeping and rising (with massing face-stuffing with food in between) at home.

Later in the afternoon I got a little excited and hyped because I was about to meet Claudia (@claudia10), Dayna (@amourchaleur), Ivy (@nanyate) and others at Hanabi Japanese Restaurant in Odeon Tower, somewhere downtown (if you’re really looking for it, it’s very close to Bras Basah Complex and it’s just opposite of Raffles Hotel¹).

I was tweeting like mad with Dayna about our first meetup – she lives around the Jurong area too (so do I, since I live on campus in NTU) and have known each other online for quite some time, but never got the chance to meet up. So, this will be my very first time meeting up with so many online friends! I knew Claudia through my first freelancing job and Ivy through… I forgot. That’s quite some time ago! I think I knew her through Marz ;)

We had a really great time chatting over a wide range of topics – from how Ivy laughed about somebody announcing through her office’s PA system after the Indonesian earthquake that there was a ‘tumour (tremour, I suppose so) in the office‘ to how Claudia’s cat played with her toy and scratcher her (and her poor colleague too). Dayna, Ivy and I also talked over how frustrating is it to code for IE6 users – haha, I totally knew we’re going to venture into that topic – and how terribly, painfully and frustratingly slow my blog was loading when my site was still hosted with a Malaysian server.

In the end Claudia paid for the buffet – thank you so much Claudia for the treat! I didn’t announce that my birthday was in a few hour’s time during the meetup because I thought that would be very selfish and awkward :P Nonetheless, I really love our first meetup! We should get together more often, when Ivy and Claudia are less busy with their work. Good luck Ivy for the upcoming event you’re organizing and Claudia, do get more sleep!

I took the train with Dayna to make our way back to Boon Lay station but we lost each other at City Hall station when I went to top up my card. I bet both Ivy and Claudia had a really huge LOL moment – they left for shopping at Raffles City after dinner – because Dayna and I reported to them that we lost each other haha. Finally our rendezvous was at Redhill where I boarded the train to meet Dayna again. Sorry!

Around 12am, the biggest gay in town Chongx came to my room and wished me happy birthday :) we set off to The Sun, a convenience store open 24/7 located near our hall to get some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. We settled for a brownie flavour and got so sick finishing the whole tub, haha! I think we seriously overestimated our eating capabilities.

Day 0: Dinner at Japanese Village (and the crazy celebration)

3^rd Oct, the day. Happy birthday to me!

Woke up a little late in the morning because I was up all night replying to Facebook wall posts. Thank you to the many who wrote on my wall! I lost count of the number of wall posts because I was too busy replying to each and every one of them. I would love to let my friends know that I really appreciate their birthday wishes :) afterall, I’m very grateful that they actually bothered to leave a short but sweet birthday message even when they’re so busy preparing for school.

My fingers were still numb. I had problem grasping the toothbrush, let alone the tiny whiny dental floss because of the typing.

I spent the rest of the afternoon lazing my birthday away – I refuse to do anything productive on my special day and would rather spend the lovely afternoon lying on my bed listening to Fireflies and Believe on repeat.

Chong Yen misfired a text to me as he organized a meetup at Pioneer station so that we could go to Japanese Village at Jurong Sports Complex for dinner and for my birthday celebration. I laughed so hard at that.

I met up with the rest of the gang at 6.30pm at the station. As the crowd started to trickle in, we made our way to Japanese Village. Finally, here’s a photo for your unstimulated eyes. Sorry for the lack of photos previously!

Outside Japanese Village Restaurant.

The sushi there are going for 99c per plate (not inclusive of the red ones though), so it’s a really big bargain to eat there. The food there is rather good and although not as fantastic as Hanabi’s – that’s for sure, if you take the price difference into account! – but that doesn’t make it any less desirable place to have a great weekend dinner.

Ohnomnomnom! Look at the fish roe.

Sweet.

Of course, the food isn’t the important part – it’s about a good ol’ get-together with my friends. We’re all so busy with school life that we barely meetup in huge groups as much as we did in our first year in university. Most of us will only gather when there’s a birthday celerbration – well, I shouldn’t be complaining because at least we’re still seeing each other for a handful of times every month :)

De Zien and Chong Yen brought their dSLRs today – and with me in toll with my Sony Alpha, that makes three cameras around the dinner table! We had so much fun taking photos of each other and of course, the crazy celebration later in the night.

Then the started lighting up my birthday cake. That’s a lot of candles on it!

Zee burfdae cayke.

The birthday cake with a little desaturation treatment and selective masking. They had so many candles on the cake that Chong Yen, who was initially rather disappointed with the fact that we were seated in a dark corner of the restaurant with no proper light, exclaimed that his shutter speed is finally entering a decent range :P haha! It just tells you how bright the scene is.

Then I saw sparks shooting off the candles. Oh, the trick candles! They have this tiny little sparkling thing (fireworks on a very miniature scale) embedded in the filament of the candle such that it’s almost impossible to blow the candles out in one breath. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to make me do.

Meanwhile, a group of kids dining at the restaurant gathered around our table.

I took a really deep breath. The candles didn’t go out.

Chuckles from the kids bursted out into laughters as I failed the next few attempts. I swear that one attempt was so close! I only had two of the many candles left burning but the candles miraculously rekindled each other. DAMN.

After much trying (with my face ballooning into a red tomato), the torture gang relented and allowed me to finish the job with a few tries. Phew.

Then they tried to stuff marshmallows into my face. Someone asked for a number and I heard somebody (probably Chong Yen) shouted out 20. Oh shit, I let out a silent scream.

With Chongjyn and Chongxian (they’re brothers, if you’re wondering) on my left and Kevin and Hong Kiat on the right, they started to stuff marshmellows into my mouth. Kevin was holding onto my cheeks as they force fed. Before they managed to get the 10th one in, the gag reflex was too much to bear and I gave up. What a torture :P

Kevin tried for the fun of it. He managed to get 11 marshmellows in.

Feasting on the leftover marshmellows.

We feasted on more marshmellows as I took a breather. Hey, at least they’re letting the birthday boy rest a little while. I thought it was over. I was wrong.

Letting out his signature evil-laced laughter, Chongx dug into a plastic bag. We have something special for you!!! He exclaimed.

To my greatest horror, a tiara emerged from the bag. Yea, a TIARA.

They made me wear it the whole night - from that point onwards until I reached home.

Oh, and here’s the gang! From left, top row: Kok Xian, Chongjyn, Li Yuan. Middle row: Weng Fei, De Zien. Bottom row: Hong Kiat, Wend Li, Kevin, yours truly, Chongxian and Chong Yen :)

Somebody dropped the bomb – Terry should let someone sit on his lap! It later then evolved into chants of making me sit on Wend Li’s lap instead… with the damn tiara.

The photos are too graphic to share but you get the point. Basically I was made to sit on her lap with me lying across, then Kevin made sure that we wrap our arms around each other. Then bolts of flashes went off. Chongxian pulled up my shorts. Instinctively I screamed hey! and used my hands to cover my groin. Okay, that’s a really weird reaction from me and… well, this is just TMI².

After the torturous experience in Japanese Village, we settled the bill and made our way back to the dorm. For the last act, they forced me to wear that pink tiara onto public bus… I immediately scuttered up the second deck of the bus out of the public eye, haha! I was way too embarrassed at that moment.

The night ended with me falling asleep in front of my laptop as I uploaded the photos of that night onto Facebook, only to be awaken by Chankeet’s message for a lunch meetup tomorrow at Jurong Point. Phew, thankfully he woke me up or else I would’ve spent the night sleeping in a crouching position at my desk and waking up with a terribly back ache the next morning.

Day 1: Lunch meetup at Jurong Point

4^th Oct, the day after. It’s not quite over yet!

Woke up in the morning and went back to sleep. I was too tired from all that crazy stuff the gang made me to do the night before :P Dragged myself out of bed to prepare myself for a lunch date with Chankeet.

Darn, the frequency of bus 179 is realy bad on Sundays. I was 15 minutes late as I arrived at Jurong Point.

And I found him in front of the icing shop looking at people decorating their own cakes – it’s more like a DIY cake shop, just that the bakers will supply you the plain cake. For the decoration part it’s all up to the customer. How interesting! I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. Interesting eh? He asked. I nodded :D

After much deciding, we settled for Crystal Jade because he said the ramen served there is nicer. Edwin, a friend of mine who learnt of our decision on Facebook because I tweeted about it, thought that Ding Tai Fung’s ramen is better.

Ooooh our ramen!

He also ordered the stir fried chicken with cashew nuts (Kung Pao chicken³ – don’t ask me why is it named that way). We talked over his NS life and the fact that his ORD⁴ is in a month’s time, and about my life in NTU also. We haven’t met each other proper since we graduated from HCI⁵ in 2007.

I felt so bad when he spent me for lunch! And the fact that I poisoned (defined by De Zien) him to buy his new Sony 50mm f/1.8 lens a few days back didn’t make me feel any better. My birthday was over and he still insisted on treating me. Ah, nevermind then. I shall reserve my chance for his birthday in April.

Sinfully delicious soup dumplings.

Oh, and we also had soup dumplings⁶ as a side dish too, besides the Kung Pao chicken heh.

He’s too free and complained how boring life is doing office and administration work (more logistics than anything else), so he insisted that he send me off at the bus interchange. Thanks for the lunch and the bubble tea :)

Later in the afternoon a typo error (screenshot credits to Jon) of mine made Jon laughing like a madman and even inspired him to write a post about it. Seriously, the typo wasn’t intentional at all! I’d blame it on the countless replies I’ve made to wall posts because of my birthday :P

For dinner I met up with a few members of the gang again, talked over dinner, my relationship status with a person (much to the attention of others when I declared it to be complicated via Facebook weeks ago) and other stuff. We even headed to another canteen for desert before heading back to our room, where I started typing this entry from the start ;)

If ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep

… I would just stand and stare.

Fireflies. Day 56. By Alison on Flickr.

Every year I happily proclaim that I had the best birthday celebrations ever. The truth is, every year is the best in its own right :) thank you everyone for your treats, gifts, texts and wishes. My life is nothing without you.

It’s the friends who define a person, not the person himself. I always keep that in mind.

That’s why I ran out of words to thank you, everyone.

p/s: I did a birthday post last year too in a similar format – if you’re free you can head over and read it.

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The one and only group photo taken at the Pulau Ubin jetty.

This is the one and only group photo that we have – taken at the Pulau Ubin jetty shortly after arrival. There’s a total of 43 of us. No prize for finding where am I in the photo though – I’m the one wearing white in the front most row, next to Zoe who’s donned in peach.

Due to the amount of photos and narration, the rest of the story behind the photo outing has been tucked behind the jump. Check it out!

p/s: To give you a rough idea of the size of this entry, it has 48 photos with 5,300+ words. That’s almost twice the amount of words I sorely need to finish my academic writing course’s research paper *oooof*

Navigation

If you can’t make yourself to read through this entire entry, it’s okay! Simply select which section you want to read and proceed. Each section is annotated with the number of photos so you can approximate the length.

1. Good morning! – 2 photos
2. Travelling from Pasir Ris to Changi Village Jetty – 8 photos
3. On the way to Pulau Ubin (Ubin Island) – 2 photos
4. On the island proper – 14 photos
5. At Chek Jawa – 15 photos
6. Goodbye, Ubin! – 6 photos

The photos of the Ubin trip have been uploaded to my Flickr photostream too! You can check out the set, or my blog’s gallery.

If not, good luck! Grab some coffee and let’s get started.

Good morning!

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The day started very early for me – I slept at around 2am in the morning after returning from the trip to Singapore Flyer with Wendli after Claudia passed me two free passes to the F1 event. Thanks Claudia for the passes :) I’ll blog about that in another entry heh. Waking up at six in the morning proved to be a huge problem to me – simply wrestling myself out of bed and away from the alluring comfort underneath the sheets (I was thinking of using ‘between the sheets‘ but it sounded so darn wrong) took me fifteen minutes.

Got dressed and I grabbed my Lowepro SlingShot 200 and bolted out of the door. Rushed back into the room to fetch my tripod to my greatest dismay, scuttled up three flights of stairs and headed for the bus stop. I meet up with Yuenchin and Norman at the bus stop and made our way to Pioneer station. Along our way out of NTU, Yuenchin diligently texted every other members and friends living on campus whose bus stop was along the bus route so that we could board the same bus. When we were just about to get to know each other, the bus screeched to a stop at Pioneer station.

Met up with even more people around the Jurong / Boon Lay area at the Pioneer station concourse. We took the 8.20am train to Pasir Ris station where the meeting point was – which was, well, conveniently on the other side of the island, and 27 stations away from Pioneer.

Sunrise at Pioneer Station

The early morning sun and its glare poured in through the eastern opening of the station platform, silhouetting everything in front of me. This is the only photo that was not modified in any way in this post – what I did was only to resize the photo :) the colours are too lovely for me to work on!

Yuenchin and Ivan talking on the station platform.

As we waited for the train, we talked a little more. Thomas humorously noted that the size of our group so far at the station had already exceeded the attendance of the club’s previous photo outings. Wow, I can’t imagine how many participants will there be when we arrive at Pasir Ris station!

Travelling from Pasir Ris to Changi Village Jetty

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Many of us spent the train ride from Pioneer to Pasir Ris catching up our sleep debt – the rest engaged in conversations to kill time. I was half awake, listening to the blabbers most of the time but barely talking because I was too zonked to speak something intellectual, heh. Call me in a trace-like state throughout that one-hour journey across the island.

Do not grab the pole!

Waited for other participants to arrive. Chongyen as in the second train after mine (my bad for not making a wakeup call to wake you up) and a little while more Chankeet arrived as his dad gave him a ride from home. Lucky dude. We went around to gather some food for breakfast as Thomas and Zoe shuttled between mini groups around the station’s concourse to record the attendance. The station manager came out soon after, requesting us to leave the station and gather elsewhere in the most gentle and careful way I’ve ever seen because our ballooning group of 30+ was starting to obstruct normal pedestrian traffic. Ah, that just speaks volume of how huge that outing was!

We boarded bus 89 to make our way to the jetty at Changi Village. I’m still surprised how we managed to squeeze 30-odd people in an already half-full bus. I reluctantly got myself a seat during the ride when a lady alighted. I want to stand and talk! Sitting down makes it so hard for me to chime in on a conversation haha.

Zoe and that stare.

Yuenchin, our assistant honorary general secretary started giving out consent and indemity forms after we arrived at Changi Village. We wanted to make sure that each participant is voluntarily participating in our outing and we aren’t responsible for any loss, damages, injuries or death resulting from the outing. I reluctantly signed off the form – I know that I won’t need the form anyway. Just be safe :) Oh, and the photo above. That’s Zoe and the attendance list.

On the way to the jetty.

Chankeet and Chongyen became friends along the bus ride (they were chatting away as I shared my seat with another lady), and their conversation, while punctuated with Yuenchin’s calls for the signing of the forms, as well as Thomas and Zoe’s attendance taking, continued all the way to the jetty and extended till the rest of the day. Chongyen (left) and Chankeet (right) making their way to the jetty.

Francis, our beloved welfare officer!

Many of us were still screaming hunger because all of us woke up very early to catch the earliest buses and trains to arrive at this remote (by Singapore standards) place of the island. Lucky for those who live in areas closer to the jetty! While members and other participants were given their sorely needed morning break, the main committee members stayed back for a short meeting.

On the left is Francis, our beloved welfare officer! He was put in charge of the boat trips, first aid kit and other miscellaneous preparations – two thumbs up for his effort! Without him the outing wouldn’t have worked out as we planned and everything would have been in shambles. Thank you Francis!

Wan Ting and her breakfast. Ohnomnomnom.

Slowly our members returned from their breakfast. Wan Ting was holding this Chinese finger food in her hand – basically it’s a biscuit filled with soft and sweet paste. She insisted that I took photo of the food in her hand and not her face. Not. Before she reacted I snapped away, and I think she looks good – well, at least I didn’t have to photoshop away biscuit crumbs on her mouth. She’s one clean eater.

That's Sam!

Actually it was an unintentional effect. Rongliang was pointing at Sam (most probably telling him off for being such a big glutton early in the morning *laughs*). I was taking a photo of the scene when Rongliang’s finger poked its way into the scene, superimposing itself against Sam. Ahha, I love it!

Crossfire!

A photo outing is not called one wtihout any incidencet of cross-firing. Basically when one starts to take photo of another photographer in the pack, the victim will immediately retaliate by taking photos of the instigator – and those around them would jump in the fun and take sides, participating in an almost never ending circuit of mutual photo taking.

We made our way from the food court after getting breakfast to the jetty. The bumboats at the jetty charges SGD2.50 for each person and will usually wait till they’re at full capacity before departing for Pulau Ubin. They charge an additional SGD2.00 for those bringing their own bicycles along. The trip to the island took around 15 minutes, which is pretty fast!

Shooting in unison at the jetty.

While we waited for our turn to board one of the bumboats, we took photos of others boarding. Chongyen, being a left hander, has an interesting vertical grip on his camera – I usually do it the other way round. When it was our turn, we didn’t manage to gathering 12 people just in time to board the boat so the boat guy (I know there’s a better word for that but I can’t remember it now) threw a mini tantrum demanding that we get our butt on the boat as soon as possible or he’s not going to ferry us over.

On the way to Pulau Ubin (Ubin Island)

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Unfazed by the poor anger management on a peaceful Saturday morning, we were all smiles while riding on the bumboat.

Group photo on the bumboat!

Yeap, that’s us! I was using a very huge aperture when this photo was taken and so not everyone is in focus. My bad! The ride wasn’t particulary bumpy so we actually moved around on the bumboat to get our photos taken.

Arriving at the Pulau Ubin jetty. A celebrity-like arrival?

Soon before we realize, we were arriving at the island’s jetty! Two bumboats load of photographer were unloaded before us so we kind of got a celebrity-like welcome from them – the constant clatter of the camera shutter tells us all. Finally, we’re on Pulau Ubin proper!

On the island proper

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So this is going to be the wordiest and longest part of the post. After all that hassle, we’ve finally set foot on the island and start our photo outing proper.

Bikes on display.

The entrance to Pulau Ubin was grand – they have this beautifully carved wooden arch greeting visitors arriving at the jetty and bidding goodbye to those who’ve spent a fruitful day on the island. We took a group photo there – yep, that’s the first photo in the post!

We separated ourselves into a few small groups – some went to rent bicycles while the rest of us chose to make our way to Chek Jawa² by foot.

I picked the harder way, but I never regretted my choice.

We walked past the bicycle stores, and an uncle actually stopped us in our tracks and started a conversation with us. He ranted about how heavy rain flooded with bicycle shop – I cringed, letting out a soft whine and muted cry – and to the weather, the rustic feel of the island. Not wanting to be held back, we nodded furiously at his seemingly endless decries of government’s ways to urbanize the island. Finally we were let off the hook :P

Array of aluminium cans on display.

Vendors on the island prey on forgetful people like me – who’ve very unfortunately left their water bottles elsewhere. The drink cans look so alluring – I swallowed a gulp of saliva. I moved on, unwilling to give in to the rather exorbitant prices – it’s around 30~40% more expensive compared to those I can get on the main island of Singapore.

Left turn ahead. Watch out!

Leaving the comfort of the little jetty town, we embarked on a journey on foot to Chek Jawa. The road was still paved with well-maintained tarmac winding between the twisted branches and forlorn, rusted fences. Signs like the one shown above tells us that although Pulau Ubin has resisted many developmental plans the government had for it in mind in the past decades, the government legislation still had a significant impact – which includes roads and pathways well demarcated with signs and boards.

The Stare!

Along the pathway, chartered vans ferrying visitors to Chek Jawa directly as well as those who prefer to travel on bicycles frequently whizzed past us. The people trailing behind our group (that’s me plus a few other photographers) will have to do the warning shout. Look out!

With so many photographers travelling in a pack, crossfiring became an inevitable subject. That’s Yong En giving me the stare as I took a candid photo of him and his tripod. Wow, lugging that heavy three-legged black beast around isn’t an easy thing.

On the way to Chek Jawa

Along the journey we self-assembled into small groups of 4 to 7, forming cliques that shoot together (and take part in that frequent crossfiring events). We talked about photography, discussed about techniques and asked about each other’s equipment. I had a great time imparting some of my limited knowledge to Chankeet (he’s new but doing awesome), and we even shared lenses because we’re both using Sony systems.

Zoe and Chankeet. Zoe gives that blank look.

Outside a desolate house, a few cliques gathered to wait for each other. The old granny in the house came out to greet visitors as they enter her house, and surprise – she sells chilled canned drinks too! :) I didn’t dare to buy from her though because she stores them in a mouldy styrofoam box, but I think there are those who’re willing to fork out dollars to help her with her little business.

Thomas, Zoe and Sam coaxed other members to quicken their pace or else we won’t be able to make it to Chek Jawa by noon. We hastened our footsteps, navigating our way through the 3km trek through the Ubin Jungle to Chek Jawa.

Spider on the web. It's a trap - beautiful, amazing, delicate but yet lethal and deadly.

I heard ooohs and aaahs from the people ahead. Looking into the general direction of the sighs of amazement and impression, I saw a group of photographer whipping out their cameras and were busily snapping away. As I approach them, I saw this big spider on the web, awaiting for prey. It was a pain to capture – I had to resort to manual focus. It took me around 8 shots to get the focus perfectly right *phew*

Crossfire with Thomas.

Thomas came out of no where and starting shooting me from behind. My instincts kicked in almost immediately. We started another round of crossfire with two amused spectators looking on.

Snip snap snip snap. Shutters fired off with a machine gun’s speed and accuracy.

Thanks to Thomas, I just decreased by shutter life³ by another good five counts.

The placid, napping dog. How lovely!

Further down the road we were greeted with a cute canine resting by the side of the road, underneath the shades of the canopy above. Unfazed by the huge amount of attention it was getting, it only woke up to get rid of the flies bothering it. As our cameras snapped away, there it laid, placidly on the tarmac.

Whizzing past.

A bicycle whizzed past me as I took this photo. Slightly obsessed with arrays and patterns, I try to spot them whenever I go – and the reflective guide poles lining the side of the tarmac was a perfect scene. To the left was a village house with – surprise – solar panels, while to the right is a lovely hut manned by an old lady who sells ice cold canned drinks. With thirst almost too overwhelming to bear, I gave in.

Ice cold.

I lifted to heavy lid of the refrigerator sitting at the porch of the hut. The lady behind the mosquite net asked if I wanted anything. I nodded.

Walking out of her comfortable hut, she gently lifted the lid of the refrigerator. A burst of colours greeted me and suddenly I realize that I need to make choices. Coke or 100 Plus, she asked.

I was thinking of jasmine tea.

Worried of being dehydrated towards the end of our trek and needing someone to haul me back, I picked up a bottle of 100 Plus.

Berapa? ⁴ I asked her.

One fifty. She gestured. Oh, she replied me in English. Undeterred, I replied, Terima kasih ⁵

No problem. That’s what she said. Haha! Maybe that was a very not subtle hint to me that I shouldn’t be conversing with her in Malay although she is one. Whoops.

Zoe enjoying her bottle of 100 Plus.

A few others joined me in getting themselves rehydrated. Zoe grabbed a bottle of 100 Plus. One hand clumsily holding onto her dearest camera and tripod and the other onto the bottle.

Hello cutie pie!

A caucasian couple was bringing their cuddly little toddler out for a day on the island too! The sun is getting really warm and so dad poured some water, cupped it between his palms and wet the toddler’s hair. He squirmed a little in his seat, only to be reassured by dad’s apologies. We were taking photo of the family and mom was very kind – she even asked her baby to look into our direction. As he look at me he gave out a hearty laugh. I had no idea why – and I was so bemused that I forgot to take a photo of him gurgling at me.

Now this reminds me of a prickly issue that I always have to beat myself up with – photographing kids in public. Is it a yes or a no? Or does it lay in a grey region ill-defined by local laws and legislation? As far as what I can gather of from the Internet, photographing kids in public is not illegal and the parents have no right to ask you to delete the images. If they want to, ask them to get a warrant because deletion of photos is an intrusion on your personal property rights.

While having their baby photographed is perfectly fine with the couple above (thanks for being so nice anyway!), I have experienced a fair share to rejection, cursing, cussing and etc. from other parents. I remembered there was once at the Hort Park outing where a little boy on tricycle was quite close to us, so we started snapping away until dad stepped in and shouted furiously at us to stop photographing his child. While he didn’t ask us to delete our photos, I think he should be aware that one should expect some form of photography if you’re out in public.

For more information on photographer’s right, I have written an article on that issue before. You might want to read it up and make sure you know the rights you, as a photographer, are entitled to.

Further down the road, we were greeted with this eerie sight:

Sure Die (if you enter).

I wonder what is the message suppose to mean – is it just a work of a bored vandal, or a precaution of something that beholds if you do enter? I’m not sure. None of us dared to probe the dilapidated, barren and ruined house though. We moved on.

Soon after we left the house, the comfortable tarmac road we were walking on so far turned into a muddy path heavily eroded by constant vehicle movement. Cyclists stopped in their tracks and pushed their bikes up the hill, avoiding the bumpy ride. We followed the path and ended up climbing a 30m tall hill before descending again. We should’ve continued with the tarmac road, I thought. But the muddy path was the shortcut -  we couldn’t wait to get to Chek Jawa!

At Chek Jawa

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After almost three hours of trekking, we arrived at Chek Jawa visitor center. All of us heaved a sigh of relieft. We’re finally there!

The friendly security guard at the booth doubling as a tour guide.

The friendly security guard at the information booth doubled as a tour guide – he knew the wetlands like the back of his hands, rambling off a string of things we could do and places we could visit at Chek Jawa. Conveniently he also informed us of the location of the toilets – he must have known that many of us are desperate for a long-waited toilet break after so many hours of walking… without a proper toilet in sight.

Testing out the flash.

We visited the Chek Jawa Visitor Center. Converted from a villa constructed in the 1930s, the visitor center held exhibitions of marine specimens as well as information panels introducing visitors to the fragile beauty of the wetlands.

It was kind of dark in the cottage and Chankeet was asking how would I deal with such a situation. I dug out my newly bought TTL flash and handed it to him.

Try this, I said. He fired away.

Overlooking the observation jetty outside the visitor center.

The cottage / visitor center had a breathtaking view of the sea. While lacking the dreamy white sandy beaches one would expect from a tropical island, the rocky shores gave us a different feeling of the seaside. Desolate, barren and stoic. A concrete jetty whose anchoring pillars were made to resemble wood (to mimick the natural living environment for sea organisms) extended out into the sea. Oh, that’s Chongyen in the photo. I am still amazing, till today, that how he managed to keep his white shoes perfectly clean during our trek through the dreadfully muddy path. He’s some ninja!

Black & White: The Jetty.

Here’s the breathtaking view that I was talking about – only to be rendered in black and white.

Underneath the blazing sun.

Underneath the hot sun, we took photos of ourselves sitting on the stone walls. I don’t have the photos with me now though – Zoe used her camera for the group photos, heh. We soon retreated to the cooling, dark embrace of the cottage. The little island on the center left of the photo is Pulau Sekudu or Sekudu Island⁶.

Thirsty Zieg at the vending machine.

Exposure to the sun made us all thirsty again. A vending machine with overpriced drinks sat happily beside the information booth. Without any further consideration we just went for the drinks in there. Here’s my can of ice lemon tea while Zieg, in the background, gets his drink for the afternoon.

The observation tower.

After enjoying a brief reprieve from the sun, we resumed our exploration of Chek Jawa. While we didn’t manage to visit the coastal broadwalk due to time limitations and that everyone was getting really exhausted from all the trekking, we managed to haul ourselves up the observation tower. We were treated with a panoramic view of the wetlands, the tropical jungle as well as the not-so-distant shores of Singapore and Malaysia.

Crossfire, again!

Another crossfire.

Another round of crossfire was initiate again as we made our way to the top of the tower. Chankeet, Chongyen and I were travelling in threes to the top of the tower and so, the inevitable happened. We started shooting each other over and over again.

Chongyen was stealthy though. He stayed ahead of us and would surprise us as he peeked out from the corner of the staircase landing. Bah! I managed to catch up with him and on the photo to the left you can see him doing that trick again.

The elevated walkway above the swampy jungle grounds.

On our way up the observation tower.

Along our way up the observation tower, we were greeted with a good view of the elevated walkway leading to the tower. The shades look so alluring, don’t they? I wish I could just lie on the planks and fall asleep underneath the shady trees :) the lush green foliage is just too torturing to look at!

At the top of the observation tower! Whew!

After some climbing, we arrive at the top of the tower. I got some cold feet half way up the tower because that’s when the sway of the tower gets very obvious – afterall it’s a rigid metal structure meant to hold only 20, and it was almost full capacity when we went up, with another family making their way up the flights of stairs.

It felt incredibly hot up there because of the lack of shade. Sam jokingly theorized that it’s because the tower brought us closer to the sun. So what we did was to frequently climb down on flight of stairs to hide underneath the platform to avoid the sun for a little while.

Shoot me, shoot you.

Yet another crossfire with Chongyen. He asked me to freeze my position because he said he could see his own reflection in my lens. I couldn’t see mine in his though.

Hello from below!

From the edges of the observation deck, our cameras hang precariously off our shoulders as we took photos of the people underneath the observation deck. And guess what – people down there were also snapping photos of us from below!

I forgot whose idea was it but someone suggested that the unfortunate people down there should form ‘PVS’ so that we can take an ‘arial’ shot of it. Ah, now that’s something smart that I didn’t think of at that time – I’d blame it on the cooked brain because of the sun.

PVS - Photo and Videographic Society

So that’s our club – Photo and Videographic Society (PVS). There was a shortage of manpower (and nobody was willing to climb down 4 storeys anyway) so they had to use camera bags and tripods to substitute for real people.

Seeing that we’re running out of time, we chose not to continue with the coastal broadwalk and headed back to the gathering point instead. Francis called for three vans to pick us up so that we were spared the fate of having to walk all the way back to the jetty again. Chongyen fell asleep on the van and nearly fell off his seat when we hit a rough bump. Oh boy!

Goodbye, Ubin!

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After a tiring day on the island, it’s time for us the head home! We paid the driver for his service and headed to the jetty, waiting for the bumboats to fetch us back to the main island of Singapore.

Here comes our bumboat!

Here comes our bumboat! We joyfully leaped onto it. With a stomach ravaged by hunger, we can’t wait to make our way back to have some good food. Chongyen was practically whining about how hungry he was since we arrived at Chek Jawa, haha!

A group photo on the bumboat.

From left: Zieg, Chock, Seokpeng, Adnan and Mervyn. All tired and weary but what makes us so happy is that we have a load of photos in our cameras now! The bumboat was slicing through the calm waters and the wind was strong. Finally we’re having some wind to cool us down.

The crank.

The boatman skillfully navigated his way to the Changi Village jetty as we snapped away during our bumboat ride. The noise of the engine was a gentle murmur as he slowed down the boat during the approach. The jetty is just inside! And I know that means food ahead for starving Chongyen. Actually, I’m kind of famished too! What I had all morning was just a quick bite on a few pieces of biscuits, a bottle of 100 Plus and then another can of ice lemon tea.

The jetty is within sight. Hurray!

Finally, the jetty is within sight. We started to pack up. All I had in mind when this photo was taken was “food! lunch! food! lunch!”.

Wearied, jaded, tired, exhausted, fatigued, limpy, feeble, worn out.

That’s probably the limit of my vocabulary. Chongyen has it all on his face. Everyone is exhausted from the trip – but happy too! Finally, it’s time for our late lunch! We gathered at the food court close to the jetty and had lunch there.

Lunch time! Ohnomnomnom.

Lunch was hilarous – I was sharing the table with Chongyen, Chock, Seokpeng and Agus. The two girls took photos of everyone posing with their food, complete with the double victory signs on both hands. They’re still incredibly enegertic and chatty even after the outing, woah.

The end!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the entry! I had a lot of fun writing it too – not only does it help me to reminiscence about this fantastic photo outing that I had with my club and friends, but it helped me to recall all the funny, insignificant, important, surprising events that occured along the way.

So, dear readers, have you been onto a photo outing with your friends? How was your experience?

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