gardens by the bay :D

came back to this place again lol.

woke up at 7 yesterday to go exercise at gardens by the bay. while we were there, my sis met some patient of hers who happened to be working there. so the patient gave us 5 35% discount tickets for the entry to the domes. woa the power of having contacts :P

remember this place? yea being bored, and since we were there to exercise anyway, i cross hopped from left to right each step down haha. my mum too. its actually quite cool le, like dribbling exercise lolol.

walked all the way to marina barrage, with the sun shining damn brightly. then we realised to go back, we have to walk back the same path... was sweating like mad by the time we reached back gardens by the bay again. supposed to go home after that, but my mum insisted that since we were there, we might as well go into the dome. well, didn't regret it at all :D

firstly, we went in the rose garden. well, its full of pretty flowers (duh lolz). my camera was being serviced lol, so we used iphone to take pics. hey iphone is good ok. well ok la. it sometimes changes purple coloured flowers to blue, i don't know why. probably some filter in the camera. and i cant control ISO fully. but everything else is pretty much good enough.

the aircon was really cold actually. especially with my sweaty shirt. the air was rather nice too. maybe cos there's so many plants there. anyway, some photos haha. not going to put too much (really!). there were really many interesting flowers there, like those with white leaves, but i failed to take nice photos of them. din't upload to fb cos im scared to get judged lolz.

i really like these ones. the colour gradient is amazing. din't have to edit these.

of course i din't just take flower shots la lolz

after that we left to go into the cloud forest.

the first thing u'll think when u go in is 'damn cold'. why is there like a gigantic waterfall in an aircon place? cos its suppose to mimic some rainforest. its damn impressive at first sight. with all the water spray hanging over the air.

taken by iphone man :D. of course editted la, iphone cant control iso.

but damn it looks good :D

anyway, we entered from the third level of the 'rainforest'. there are seven levels in total. seven freaking levels :P. theoretically six, since the second level is out of bounds. probably has all the pipes and machinery there. anyway, the plants here were also quite interesting, though not as beautiful as rose garden.

tried to take the interior of this flower. its freakin hard man, i was in a half squatting position.

yea darn off center cos my hand was shaking like mad in that position :P

these leaves nothing much la, but it looks nice :D

apples :P! basically this flower is a single, fat petal with some tongue like thing sticking out. probably the stigma? i don't know i dropped bio :P

went up to 4th floor, which is some sort of cave. ok ya its just stalagmites and stalactite(s). actually there was only one, and they had to build a big frame of metal just to support it /o\. oh yea and there were mirrors, i dunno why. but its kinda cool, so i took a pic of it.

yea pretty confusing... im in the pic btw. orange shirt lolol.

there was also a walkway from there which we can see the upper levels. darn cool okay. this is what the sixth and seven level looks like from here:

its called pandora or something, but it kinda looks like some insect legs to me.

the upper floors nothing much ba. fifth is a waterfall lookout, which i also have photos of, but not putting here. sixth and seventh is that walkway. seventh floor is a garden. it was full of pitcher plants and i took a photo of the mouth thing, but its really ugly. as in not cos of me i think :P. but yea that's the top floors.

but its quite cool strolling around this place still. anyway since its a 'rainforest' imitation, more greens than flowers, but still pretty interesting. i'd say this place is nicer than the rose garden.

the exit was at the first floor. there was also a 'secret garden' here, with mainly small scale plants la. there was this strange leaf i saw:

but otherwise the flowers and plants here are like small scale versions of the rose garden and the third floor.

there was also a information place at the first floor. its darn cool ok. the whole gardens by the bay is self sustaining. i can't really remember the details, but they burn compost for the energy required to keep the environment in the domes cool, then the air goes up to the supertrees to i dunno what, then the ash is used as fertiliser and all that stuff. and they reuse the air and all that. and also rain water runs off the dome and passes through filter beds so it can be used for irrigation. ok i don't really know, but its really interesting man.

so yea we left after that to eat late breakfast. at singapore flyer, because there wasn't much places to eat around this area. went to eat at that 1960's like place. guess what i bought XP.

bought hao jian :D. walao here the big plate $10 sia. and its not that big, but cos it has huge oysters, though actually i don't really care so much about the oyster size. we ate a really sinful lunch there lolz. my sister's got some famous seafood hokkien mee, which is really good. we also got bak kut teh, and satay bee hoon, and those assorted fried stuff on sticks that it comes with. darn good :D. and freaking unhealthy /o\

its darn scam though. in the past this plate a plate of fried oyster would have cost like $1 or something. and one plate of hokkien mee was like $2. the inflation for food is seriously wth man. i mean even though $1 was harder to earn last time, food was still pretty affordable. not like now >.<. really felt like a tourist yesterday, going to gardens by the bay and eating under the flyer. and spending so much /o\

anyway, me and my sisters were talking about how gardens by the bay is really a must visit place for tourists. its actually a really amazing place to go to, like equivalent to going overseas to seeing some famous place. and that actually singapore is a pretty great place to visit for non-singaporeans.

we even came up with a 5-day rough plan trip, just to show it was really easy to do so. there's like sentosa, universal studios, MBS area (a lot of stuff), zoo, bird park, night safari, discovery and science center, and then there's shopping places, and if tourists want to, they can go visit the kopitiams and chinatown. 

so yea, i somewhat realised that Singapore is a really interesting place actually. yet we are all so sian of living here for some reason. maybe if i was born in another country, i would also be bored to live there after this much of time.

but it still i think i might want to migrate to japan some day haha. change of environment is interesting. four seasons sounds really interesting to me. and also the culture there is amazing. i dunno la, still to early to determine anything yet heheh. but im quite sure im probably not going to leave anytime soon (don't worry :P)

ok la that's enough blogging liao. took me really long to finish this post lolol. bye~~

it's ok if no one notices. as long as u do.

re-energising day :D

sorry for not posting ah. i know i din't blog alot about stuff that happened ah. too late already i guess.

have been feeling quite sian for many days already. so today was quite interesting. even though i really didn't do much, it's just that i got myself to do the things i liked again. for some reason, the past few days i couldn't get myself to do these things. maybe that's why i felt so bored and went to do all the meaningless stuff.

today really nothing much de. all i did was downloaded new music, finally did a bit of english because the rest of my group is in tioman. and actually it didn't feel so sian doing it cos i had new music. then i saw all the photos of tioman ppl and even though i didn't get to go, it looked quite fun. so i felt slightly happy. even though it can't beat actually going there and doing the stuff.

then i finally found another anime that i like. one that makes me feel like how i did last time. i mean there are lots of nice anime that are out there, but i wasn't motivated to watch anime much for the past two weeks, because i couldn't find one that was particularly appealing ever since i finished toradora. so yea i have Hyouka to watch now. its like something to look forward to now :D

lol compared to what others did, what i did today is like nothing. but i guess its rather easy to perk me up lolz. aiya enough ranting of trivial stuff liao. the four day holiday is finally over. tioman ppl are back :D. yea i still look forward to going back to school even though next week would be full of tests and stressful stuff. whatever la, my mum nagging at me to eat dinner now. bye :D ~~

its easier to just keep things and feelings simple :)

cluster outing to kuishinbou :D

aka crazy-ass dinner :S. everyone felt so terrible after eating it lolz. and to be honest it wasnt really that good either. but the outing itself was pretty fun :D

we left at abt 6. was intending to leave by like 5:30. but some guyyyy had to say they could reach NTU in 30 minutes from school. so we reached there later :o. i dont even know wtheck we were doing lolz. trying to shoot a basketball through the exit sign. and bhavesh was there to see it XD.

actually we've done and said alot of retarded stuff in front of bhavesh alr heh. and i shudnt be so wary of him lolz. he's like completely cool with all the crazy stuff we do. like staring down at other clusters while the jap students were here /o\. to satisfy the needs of desperate ppl XD.

so yea we took MRT to boon lay together with him. though ppl like jookee were doing stuff like trying to pull cluster gate in front of him, suggesting we jay walk, jm saying he ahem the signature for his form. but yea he's cool with it. and he keeps making references to the crazy stuff we do, and we just stand there smiling sheepishly. lol. cool guy man :D

reached kuishinbou (that's actually the actual kana for it, though it looks quite weird) at abt 6:50. not too bad la lolz. the first thing most of them went for was the sashimi, since its the most ex thing there. i cant really eat too much sashimi though, i just get sick of it. so i stuffed myself with a LOT of random food. and spammed sushi cos i love sushi though it makes u really full.

also tried mapo tofu :D (yay my blog title 8D). its actually quite good. the sauce is awesome, and its not that spicy as in the anime, but pretty spicy. but it was rather filling also. still went to ate like half a plate of it lolol. i prolly wont get much chance to eat it again though compared to pepper lunch, unless i move to japan :D.

after went around walking the mall. obsessing with cameras and 3D tvs. we attracted to much attention liao la, cos of all the laughing at doing crazy stuff on each other. but whatever if anyone comes to ask us what school we are from, just take a leaf out of mr lim's book. "im from RI". just kidding :P.

went back for second round and this time we really gorged ourselves. i dint even know why i went to drink so much soft drinks and eat the ice cream. but by the time we were done, everyone was like 'ohhh'-ing about their stomachs. took the train back with a bunch of pregnant guys lolz. at least there was 'valid' reason to used reserved seats lolz. oh god but the way we were being on the train and the bus, if any teacher from our school sees it, we're prolly get all screwed though.

so yea, i dont think we'll be going back to kuishinbou ever again :O. ok i think i'll end this post here. goodnight~~ :D

i really hope its not the wrong thing to just keep trying

explosions at the kelong

ok the title is kinda screwed up /o\.

28/7 saturday
woke up at abt 7 and took about 3 hours to reach there. i got scolded somewhat badly on the way there, because the camera had no card /o\. very fail as usual heheh.

reached kukup at abt 10:30 and went to the kelong there. the sea breeze was really comfortable and shiok. the view is quite good in some sense too. as in even though the water was brownish and all that, the photos still look very nice :D. the tide was still quite low though, so we could see all the mudskippers and the fiddle crabs (the one claw bigger than the other one).

the host of the kelong, which was some ahma, prepared some snacks for us. then we just slacked and talked around. we went to observe the mudskippers la. apparently when they 'fight', they look like their dancing lolz. like both of them face each other, then one moves forward and the other moves backwards. and then they keep doing that. so retarded /o\.

after that we relaxed for awhile, ate more snacks, and sang abit of karaoke, and watched olympics lolz. there was also a 7 year old boy there. he is quite good with words lol. at first everyone was like talking to him, joking around, but after awhile, they all get bored of playing with him. so yea he stuck to me all the time.

went for lunch after that. managed to buy an sd card from some photographer haha. thanks goodness.

so yea went back and my sis and i went around taking photos. by then tide was quite high already though, so couldnt see the mudskippers. actually there are much more pics in fb, but there are too many, so i wont be showing much here.

view from our kelong




we came back to rest until about 5. then we went for a boat trip to the fish market they had.

on the way there




the fish market




it was pretty small, and there werent actually much fish to see. but there were these fishes



they cant be eaten so they were just there for display. because they have this really cool ability. when we put ikan bilis overhanging a plank just above them, they were shoot a jet of water to make it fall down, then eat it. quite cool :D

yea thats us watching them shoot jets of water lol


random porcupine decoration



hmm didnt take photo of the very cool jellyfish lolz.

came back and went to take some photos at the temple there. then went back and at bbq for dinner :D

the chicken was very hot and juicy :D. and the otah's freaking spicy /o\

then we went to buy some of these

heheheh

went to the open space towards the end of the whole line of kelongs. to set of many explosions haha. dint dare to light them up at first, cos they seem freakin dangerous lolz. but after that it was really thrilling to light the fuse haha. and run hastily back to safety /o\. its thrilling :D. and u dont get to do this in singapore lolz.

i took ALOT of photos here, so i'll only show a few of the nicer ones. ISO was bumped up to max so quality not so good la heheh.

those that are stationary and exploded on the floor


my dad lighting the fuse of those that shoot towards the sky :D


explosions (some of the nicer ones)



lol my aunt quickly running away after lighting fuse XD


they were those that hover close to the ground too. and they are darn scary and unpredictable lolz.



setting up the 天灯



this one got a whole burned through the side though, cos the wind was too strong /o\. two others were torn too :o. manage to set up one though :D



yay


it flew really close to the house roof's at first /o\. but it managed to keep floating up. so nice haha.

also took pics of some of the more expensive fireworks that other ppl set off

this is ours


this is theirs (and probably 10 times bigger)




well it was pretty fun anyway :D

29/7 saturday
woke up to sea breeze :D. whenever i sleep overseas i feel quite uncomfortable in the morning, but the breeze here is awesome and refreshing :D. it was pretty cold though lol. the tide was low again so can see all the crabs and the mudskippers again :D. dslr quality this time (not phone cameras).

hiding as we splashed cups of water onto it :P


mudskipper


dead fish :o


went to play some pillowfight and also some card games with the boy. of course i got bored after awhile, but u know when ur parents or ur aunts get bored of playing with you they somehow just seem patronize u, and then u dont feel like playing with them alr. see i know how it feels like /o\. so yea i kinda tried to entertain him even though i was so tired >.<

after that went of to some open space to set off some of the remaining mini fireworks from yesterday. there were those that spun on the spot and threw sparks, and there was one with wings that just glows and flies upwards. brought grandparents and the boy to watch, cos they werent with us yesterday.

the boy was very scared to light it up at first lolz. he kept asking me to hold his hand to help him light it. after that he got addicted heheh, but he keep running away after he lighted it up lolz. after that we tried lighting two or three or even four of those at the time by twining their fuses together. so cool :D. but for some reason no one brought camera to take. 真可惜 lol. went to piggyback the boy home for some reason. and supposedly galloping like some horse lololz. so fun :D.

rest of the day was mainly spent shopping for stuff to buy back. i only bought one pack of that muruku snack jm always buys lol haha. then we set off back to singapore. i slept like quite abit also, so i ended up doing nothing for the whole weekend haha.

but it was kinda shiok. mid-term break :D. plus i felt much better cos for some reason i wasn't really feeling myself during that week. so yea i felt much happier after coming back. ok la thats all for this post liao. bye~~

it felt better to stop thinking so much and just move on and let things sort out by itself