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It seems that WordPress is out of the Great Firewall. I had totally given up on this site until I discovered today it’s once again accessible without going through any backdoor.
Yup. It has been more than a year and I’ve been out of the blogging community ever since stepping into this country. Feels great to be back on the road again.
I went for a short trip up to Melaka and relative visiting in Ipoh prior to me flying off. Melaka has changed a lot and yet not change since I last went about 5-6 years ago.
The riverfront has definitely improved. Gone are the sewage smell and they even have a river cruise. There’s a ferris wheel and observation tower. Rows of hawker stalls lining the streets are swatted into a food court that now stands in place. Weekend crowds have exploded – is it due to the Heritage status or the power of Little Nonya?
Bygone hawkers moved into a food court (at Mac’s)
Thankfully, what I love about Melaka have not change. It’s weekend night market at Jonker Street is still so interesting (though it can do away with less people). The chill out atmosphere at Geographical Cafe remains fantastic.
Geographical Cafe
It’s vicinity to the night market, the genre of live music played, plus the camaraderie of its musician and the one opposite at Ringo Bar taking turns to play, ensuring people keeps on the boogie. That’s my kind of chill out place.
And of course, not forgetting this lip smacking chicken rice balls. It’s so easy to overeat with its bite size. Mmm…
I predict this is going to be the latest fashion craze for 2009. I won’t be caught in it though. I’m not a fashionable person anyway.
The Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon in Sentosa have been around for so many years, and I’ve never been inside either. Not even when I was working on that little southern island, but that was because I didn’t have free entry as both are not under the Sentosa management.
I loathe paying exorbitant entry prices for such tourist attractions in our own backyard as I don’t see the value worth for Underwater World and I know won’t be entertain by dolphin shows.
Today, I finally stepped into both, all thanks to the free tickets my younger brother had gotten.
Both places met my expectations – which is both places aren’t any must go spots. For Underwater World, I guess the bar has already been set high when I visited Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa early last year. The big display tanks, the range of sea creatures and the spacious building inspire awe in any visitors.
Comparatively, Underwater World is so cramp I wonder if it violates any fire safety regulations. Then again, I guess there is no worry since breaking the tanks will put out any fire right on. The tanks itself looks like an overcrowded opium den. There is so little space for the bigger fishes to manouvre that they end up like opium addicts, just contented (or is it resigned?) to lie down and not move a fin.
Too cramped
To be fair, Underwater World is built by the sea, along a shipping route busy with ships. Compared with Churaumi Aquarium, which has an entire ocean to build out to, these restrictions could only allow a playground to be built, not a theme park.
Dolphins lagoon is just plain boring. There’re little imagination in the scripts and very minimal interactions with the audience. Even this baby girl got bored and started drooling at me instead.
Okay, so she was actually drooling at the burger I was eating.
Opps! Seems like the baby lemur sat on the teddy’s wrong spot. Maybe a little bit higher will be better.
I was bored and had nothing to do, so I started surfing for movies to watch. Then I came across this fabulous oldie on tudou – The Eagle Shooting Heroes (东成西就).
Yeah, I totally love this type of Hong Kong oldies, pure fun and entertainment. You don’t get many (or any) movies nowadays with so many big stars acting together and just having fun.
I think moviemakers nowadays forgot about how to make a fun movie and have fun doing it. It’s now all about effects, effects and more effects. Even the King of Comedy, Stephen Chow, seems to have forgotten the good old fun.
Yup, his old movies are so much more fun to watch and as my colleague said, that’s where I get my positive childhood education. Ahh…don’t you just missed scene like this:
This is a very interesting photo. Taken during the 1920s – 1940s, it is actually a black and white photo. However, prior to developing it, colours are intricately hand painted onto the negative.
Pre-requisites of the ‘craftsmen’ – steady hands, perfect eyesights and good colour sense. The human Photoshop of the early 1900s. Impressive.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed that one little fad was sending personalised greeting cards. By personalised, I mean with your own posed photo. Hmm…glad it wasn’t during my time, or else my card would have caused mass hysteria and vomiting at the post office.
Travelling on the expressway to Xi’an Fanyi University, I came across this innocuous road sign encouraging the drivers to buckle up.
Ok, fair enough. Public education with visuals. Then 200m down the road, another sign loomed and it brought a laugh to my face.
The next sign really had me cracking.
My, my. The Chinese really has humour up the road. Guess that’s one way to bring oxygen to the bored brain eh.
I got an email today requesting me to make a vote between two poster designs conveying a green message. When I opened up the attachment and read the message, I slapped my forehead so hard, my brain almost flew out from my skull.
The message?
‘From 01 Dec 2008, all colleagues, management included, are not allowed to take the elevator when going one floor up and one or two floors down.
You will be contributing to saving energy and have a healthier life!’
Health benefit, ya, probably. If no one breaks a leg going up or down the stairs.
Energy saving? I wonder how much can be saved (this rule applies up to level 5). Imagine X is taking the lift from L1 to L20 and Y just want to go from L1 to L2 at the same time.
Opps! Y can’t take the lift even though it’s on the way. It detrimental to health and the cows will probably have to fart more to power that extra stop. Now, we can’t have that right? Else those methane going to cause Earth to go bald faster.
It had been quite some years since I last step into Seletar Camp. The previous time I left the camp was when I completed my full time national service with my unit. The year after, my unit shifted to a new premise and I’ve never been back since.
This is the camp gate. When I was stationed in the camp, there will always be military police presence here and any visitors, with the exception of those with residential, country club or military decal, had to change for a pass here.
A directional signboard will greet you immediately after the gate. My unit was in the East Camp, just before 35 SCE (now blanked out since had moved away). More often than not, I’ll walk in rather than take the feeder bus, enjoying the big expense of sky I don’t usually have a good view of in the built up Singapore.
Bus service 103. This is the service that currently runs both East and West camps and Serangoon. When I was serving my national service in the camp, there was only one service (can’t recall the number) running the short route between the main gate and the East Camp. We’d always laughed that it was probably the most unprofitable route by SBSTransit. On top of only running that short route and serving mostly military personnels, there was this bus driver who sometimes give us lads a free ride in or out of the camp.
Reaching the end of the route will be another gate leading into the various units. Since I left, it seemed that 35 SCE had taken over the entire East Camp and pushed forward the gate. Gone too were the jambu trees lining part of the road leading to the inner gate. I remember that when the season comes, the jambu trees would be full of the pinkish fruits waiting to drop or be plucked. The joke was that the abundance of fruits was the result of the radiation it received from our equipments, and of course, nobody I know from my unit dared to consume them. It was different when it came to the durians inside the camp though. Almost everyone was waiting for the fruits to drop.
I’ve always like Seletar Camp, staying in a building that is not highrised, and of the old English architecture. The low skyline, tranquility, sense of freedom (relatively, given that it is a militarycamp) and history was just fantastic. The running routes to the West Camp, the black and white bungalows, and even the technique of opening the louvred wooden doors are enjoyments to me.
Walking around the camp, I see than many have moved out of Seletar camp and many will be moving out due to the plans to develop it into an aviation hub. To me, it will definitely be a big loss to see this tranquil enclave, where I’d spent more than 2 years, becoming commercialised.
Roaming Around 