Most of the pictures posted in my blog were taken using my Sony WX5, Nokia n73 and 7610 handphone.
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31 July 2010
1st time Singapore Flyer
Today i tried the Singapore Flyer, at a discounted price $10 only. Nice. Haha. The flight took 30mins for a full rotation. In my opinion, 30mins was abit slow, there was no surprise scenery as expected. I could see Indonesia, but that's only like vague silhouettes. I can see a clear view of Marina Baysand, Marina Barrage, F1 track... thats about all the best scenery. I was expecting to see if i can see whats at the top Skypark of Marina Bay Sands hotel, but sorry nope, we aren't high enough.
Some pictures of the scenery:
Fully air-conditioned capsule. The seats are really for show. Who would seat down to view?
The capsule on top of us.
View of F1 track.
Marina Bay Sands. We aren't high enough to sneak a peek at the SkyPark. Zzz.
This is the developing area behind Marina Bay Sands hotel, also just beside Marina Barrage. Now this is at least something interesting to see. Whats the half dome structure going to be? And i think i saw a man-made lake in the middle.
How to get there: Take MRT to Promenade Station. Exit outside Millenia Walk. Look far and spot the world largest ferry wheel. Then walk towards the direction, roughly 15mins.
Yay today i went to Universal Studios Singapore, Sentosa, again. This time free, company's convention. :) Manulife celebrates 30th anniversary in Singapore and reward all staffs to enjoy a day at USS. You may had already noticed Manulife's adverts on buses, MRT or newspapers, especially SUNDAY TIMES.
The last time i went USS i already took a lot of photos, so today i going to share about the rides experience. If you want to view photos, click here.
SPOILER: My reviews might spoil your surprises if you never try the rides before.
The Mummy's Revenge. This was the best ride today, minus the longish snake and ladder queue to get to the rollercoaster. The ride was thrilling, you go forward fast up and down, even backwards! The real fire adds to the experience, you can feel the heat from the fire burning. I like the pitch darkness inside, i felt more thrilling when i slide down. Reminds me of the dark tube @ Wild Wild Wet! But i felt the ride was too short, around 3mins. I tried this ride twice haha.
Shrek 4D Whats 4D? The movie is the same as the normal 3D cinema movies but the new thing is the chair. That's right, the chair you are sitting on makes the movie 4D! The chair will rock according to the movie's tempo. You feel the chair rocking when Shrek rides on a horse, or when Shrek fell off the cliff. Secondly, the chair splits water on your face! Surprise! I was like WTF when DONKEY sneeze and i felt real water splash onto my face!!! I got splashed 3 to 4 times in total. What a wet movie. Thirdly, the chair shoots gas! When the dragon breathe, or when flying, the gas will shoots out from your chair to give you the effect. So these three special effects from the chair makes the movie 4D. Its fun!
Dragon Rollercoaster. This is like any normal rollercoaster with nice scenery below. Who would actually look directly below anyway? People normally look far away for scenery. The con of this ride is definitely the duration. The whole ride took only like 2min?! Wow queue so long for a 2mins ride.
Monster Freak Show. This is a rock musical stage performance where the performers dressed like Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf. But the 30mins performance can gets boring towards the later part. They used effects of fireworks though. Nice but the smell from the fireworks can be disturbing.
In my opinion i feel that it was nearly impossible to try all the rides in one day. When i went for Jurassic Park at 5pm, the rides were already closed for the day. So i only managed to try the above rides, 4 total. Today was drizzling, not much crowd. Imagine if you were to go on a busy weekend the queue for rides will be even longer. The main attraction ride, Battlestar Galactica rollercoaster, is still closed! Wow! After so long still closed?! One good improvement is that there are free coaches to USS now. You don't have to pay to take public transport to USS.
I upgraded my peanut butter. Today i 1st time bought 100% all natural peanut butter by ADAMS. This is totally all peanuts and nothing else, no salt, no sugar, no hydrogenated vegtable oil, no trans fat. Totally no preservatives except real peanuts inside! Read the ingredients! I was taking SKIPPY peanut butter chunky earlier on until now. I read that a lot of body builders are taking 100% natural peanut butter, so i gave it a try.
First look at it scares me, i can see a layer of oil on the top. But its the natural oil form by the peanuts, so i'm more assured. (Theres a disclaimer on the sticker regarding this too.) To start eating, you have to use a spoon and stir to mix the oil with the peanuts. My first scoop; the taste was totally different from SKIPPY, ADAMS was totally real peanuts's taste! Not very used to this taste. Will try a few more days see if i will get addicted to ADAMS like the people on body building forum.
To store this kind of natural peanut butter, you have to place it upsize down. Yes upsize down. This is to allow the oil to makes its way down to the bottom of the jar so that when you want to eat you won't see a think layer of oil on top. This will save the mixing process and also prevent the peanut from drying.
Wow next week i'm going back to army reservist already. I don't even want to think about it. The feeling is like going to confinement where there are nothing to enjoy nor look forward to. No laptops, no good food, no movies, no gym, no good old hangout buddies. Totally pure meditation. What can i do inside this one whole month of confinement? Eat, Sleep, Jungle. Sleeping in bunk is the best privilege i could think of. And i have to stay inside camp, so that means no blogging. :S
Show u guys what i do in army. I am a driver. Before u say "Waa shiok relax!", sorry i am not a driver who drives those relax civilian cars. My vocation is an armored vehicle driver. I drive an M113. Some information i found on the net, not i divulge one: Basically my job as an M113 driver is to carry the troopers around from destination to destination. Sometimes i fight with my big gun too, on top of my car. You can say i "chiong" also, just that i do not need to use my legs. But i tried driving non stop for 2 days, want to know how it feels?!
Pictures i found on the net:
Inside no air-con. Its sauna! No leather seats also!
But my car can go on land and even go on water! Yes i can cross rivers.
Today i watched Inception. Before this movie was shown i think little of it, until i heard a lot of people praising it saying it was very good, best movie of 2010 bla bla bla. So i went to watch with high expectation. My review: Inception was good, the concept of the story was very new and smart. Meaning if you are not good in your brain, you might get confused and doesn't understand the movie at all.
The talk on the town is obviously the ending. Is Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) still dreaming or is he back to reality? I googled, there's already a heated debate on the ending. Some say he's still dreaming, some say he got out. I say there's more than meets the eye. Read on.
My analysis:
1) Cobb said earlier if you die in the dream, you will be in limbo as a result of the strong seductive. He died twice in the dream. First time was when the car fell into the sea. Everyone swam out, who could save him? Second time is the last time with him at old Satio, if he used the gun to suicide, he would died a second time. So if he die twice, he definitely would not be able to get back to reality. Not to mention nobody is there to give them a "kick" to wake up.
2) If you go to IMDB, you can see that for each of Cobb's children, there are two children actors at two different ages. If Cobb was still dreaming, why would his children aged? So the ending is reality. A lot of people thought the children are the same, but now it is confirmed, they are different actors and they aged in the ending.
My theory 1 and 2 contradicts each other. So whats my conclusion? My conclusion is: The whole movie was a dream, only the last part is reality! That right, only the ending where he reunites with his father and kids are real! Cobb is actually the real "SUBJECT" that his team plants the inception into his mind, to wake him up from his endless dreams. Hence he was able to wake up and got back to his family.
Heres proofs of why i think the whole story is all dream: 1) At the later part, Cobb said to his wife that he did kept his promise to grow old with her. Theres a flashback screen of them old aged on the bridge and them lying on the railway track to suicide. Would that be possible if Cobb saying was real? Was he insane?
2) Remember the scene when the rich man son, Robert Fischer, woke up in the plane? If all that happened was real, wouldn't he be astonished by Cobb and the guys? I mean all of them just appeared in his dreams! Won't he feel stunned?
3) Satio is rich enough to buy the whole Airline, can't he just hire a hitman to kill his rival company' heir Robert Fischer? Why go all the trouble and risk his own life? Who would believe a call from Satio can clear off Cobb's records anyway?
4) How can Cobb enter his father's dream to ask him for help? The movie did not show them sedate his father to sleep. Anyway his father was in the United States, Cobb is banish from United States remember? His father is definitely in United States staying with Cobb's children.
So i say the whole story is all Cobb's dream. Maybe he wants to stay in the dream because of his wife. But the team, include Satio, puts an inception in his mind so that Cobb can wake up, which he did.
Tonight me and Chris 1st time tried Cardio Kickboxing. This is totally different from the Kickboxing that we tried two weeks ago. Cardio Kickboxing is very similar to California Fitness's body combat, in the form of dancing punching and kicking. But Cardio Kickboxing focus tactics more on kickboxing, whereas Body Combat comprises movement from various martial arts like Karate, kickboxing, Tai Chi and Tae Kwondo. Our trainer was very good at his training, full of energy and stamina despite of his age. I was breathless at times, because the movements were very fast pace, especially the part where we had to do skipping for 10mins! God knows how many donkey years i haven't touch skipping! Did i mentioned that me and Chris were the only guys in the class? Haha! There were around 10+ females, and we are the only 2 guys. But some of them were quite fit, they looked serious enough as if they wanted to kick some ass later. Be prepared to do alot of squat, fast punching and kicking and jumping jack. Man the squats was another killer workout.
The video below was very similar to our training, so you can have a feel of what i had earlier. On the whole, i enjoyed this Cardio Kickboxing to the last Kickboxing.
If you are interested for a single session, you can try out at: Dance Arts Singapore FUNAN Digitallife Mall 109 North Bridge Rd #05-39 $15 for single session (1hour) Tel: 63382124 / 63387031
Woot my favourite online trainer, Scooby, came up with a good video that relates to the commercial products that promises you 6 packs after using them. Like what he said, these products will not give you 6 packs, i second that! No commercial machines or products can give you 6 packs if your training or nutrition sucks! (Unless you are skinny by nature). If you think you can rely on commercial products or machine and get 6 packs, then why do bodybuilders go to gym or do cardio exercises? Once a while i got friends telling me they wanted to try out the latest tummy shaping commercial products in the market, my reply to that is still the same: Waste of money and time! You want remove the excess fats on your tummy? Want 6 packs? Start by getting your nutrition right now! Stop eating junk that give you bad fats for a start.
Hi guys, today i try something new again. Kite flying haha. Well not really 1st time flying, but the last time i flew a kite was in my Primary School days haha. I can't remember how was the kite flying experience already. Before my kite flying expedition today, i did some research online; where to buy kites, where to fly kites. I bought a real small and cheap kite at Suntec toysRus $3 only. Suntec Carrefour also got sell kites, nicer and bigger design. And i chose Marina Barrage because i never went there before. The last time me and Crispy tried cycling there but never succeed.
Today was a raining day, not a good windy day for our kite flying. But we still proceeded on with our plan. Once we reached Marina Barrage, we saw a lot of people flying kites! Its like this place is built for people to fly kites!
The high walls of Marina Barrage were very unique, like made up of many loose rocks.
We had our picnic before we started our kite flying. I took the chance to took some pictures too.
Nice view of Kallang River, despite the rain making the river looked yellowish.
Finally we started our kite flying! Prata fixing up our kite. Kite got a name: "BOOM!". Fierce!
We made our way to the GREEN ROOF to fly. There were a lot of people flying kite up there despite the drizzle. A lot of pros. There kites flew real high man! Then we started flying our kite. One time, two times, three times. Flight fail! We are unable to fly our kite! Zzz. Even after we modified twice, the kite was unable to fly up high. Zzz.
Dis-hearted, we decided to explore the Marina Bridge. This bridge is a dam that acts as a tidal barrier and separates the seawater from freshwater. We wondered when will the gates be open for the water to flush out to the sea. Now i got the answer : When it rains heavily during low tide, the barrage’s crest gates will be lowered to release excess water from the reservoir into the sea. If heavy rain occurs during high tide, the crest gates remain closed and giant pumps are activated to drain excess water out to the sea.
Very nice scenery of the Singapore Flyer and Marina Bay Sands on the bridge!
Kite flying was fun, despite the rain and despite our kite never actually flies haha! Never mind, next time buy a better and bigger kite easier to fly. :) I went to ask some strangers for advice, they said our kite was too small and light hence harder to fly. To fly kite, one person must hold the kite 100m away. When the person threw up the kite, the other person controlling the string must tension. Sound easy. Next time try. ;)
P/S: I see pictures from Marina Barrage website saying it offers water activities like kayaking, dragonboating and sailing throughout the day. But i see there doesn't seems to have rental available.
How to get there: Take free shuttle bus / Bus 400 from Bus Stop A near Marina Bay MRT. (Exit Marina Bay MRT and turn left to bus stop).
Operation Hours: All day. Can go there at night to see stars.
Five more minutes to 1 am midnight, i'm off to bed after writing this post. I always sleep at 1am, i'm one of the earliest to sleep in my MSN list of friends. Actually 1am is not consider very early, ideally 11pm is the best. :) But i agreed that it is really hard to be able to sleep at 11pm.
Why sleep early? The night is still young?! Of course there are reasons why you and i should sleep early and leave the not-so-urgent stuffs to tomorrow. Stuffs like watching DVDs, reading magazines, playing computer games... All these are best leave for the next day. It is better to sleep early and wake up early with high spirits to do all these, than doing these in the middle of the night.
Here's why: 1) Reading through the night stress out your eyes, especially if your eyes are already tired after a long day, and worse if your room lightning is dim. 2) During sleep, our body organs get rest and de-tox. Staying awake makes our organs stress out, leading to weak body system. Ever wonder why some people got panda eyes? Looks dry and tired in the day?
The third reason you probably would be interested if you are conscious of your weight. SLEEPING LATE WILL MAKES YOU FAT.
Hear that? Sleeping late will makes you fat, and lose muscle. Sleeping late will cause your hormone to release sugar into the bloodsteam for energy. Insulin then spikes up to store this sugar into fats, since you didn't used up the energy. (Unless you workout in 2am?!). And if you sleep late frequently, you will mess up your insulin resistance and high chances you will get Type 2 diabetes. Read up for more info regarding insulin and diabetes here. As for muscle, muscle grows during our sleep. If you don't sleep, they don't grow. Losing muscle means lower Basic Metabolism Rate, which means lower efficiency to burn calories. And thus not good for fat loss. Simple as said.
Type 2 diabetes: The pancreas secretes insulin, but the body is partially or completely unable to use the insulin. This is sometimes referred to as insulin resistance. The body tries to overcome this resistance by secreting more and more insulin. People with insulin resistance develop type 2 diabetes when they do not continue to secrete enough insulin to cope with the higher demands.
Guess what is one common worry i heard in gym? Guys saying they don't want to over train to look super big like Arnold. Girls scared to use more weights to tone their body as they don't want to look muscular!
This and this!?
First of all, this is really a worry too much. Haha. Trust me, if you are just a normal regular gym-goer, you will NEVER attain that kind of body. Sidetrack abit, you may have seen some real good looking power-puff guys on the streets, nice and big looking in clothing, but do they have the definition as the bodybuilders above? Hell no. For your info, Olympia bodybuilders are mostly double the size with incredible definition. And they do not eat the normal supplements/meals like our normal regular gym-goer.
Ok back to topic. Why do i say this is a needless worry? I will provide some reasons:
1) How big you want is mainly depends on your diet, not the weights. Surely you can control your diet. When you think you have achieve the size you want, stop eating to bulk. Eat to maintain or cut. (Bulk means gain weight, cut means lose weight for definition.)
2) You can control the definition you want! Yes correct! Definition is not an overnight training. No such thing as sudden too ripped over a weekend training. When you feel that your body is well define enough to your own liking, do maintenance training, don't keep on adding heavier weights. In any case, if you skip training for a few months, you will lose some definition. So no worry.
3) You can control how muscular you want! (For ladies :D) It is just like definition, do not worry that after a workout, the next day u wake up with bulging biceps! Its impossible! Haha. Muscle grows gradually, not drastically. Its is already very hard for guys to gain big muscle with all their protein meals. Muscle feeds on protein to grow. Ladies are basically low on testosterone and low protein diet therefore should not worry about gaining big muscle.
To sum up, bodybuilding is a long term commitment, real bodybuilder took many long years to get their hardcore body, with strict disciplined diet. Normal guys like us shouldn't fear getting their size. Fat and big more likely hehe. And who says girls with muscle not nice? They are in fact even more beautiful!
Anyone interested to learn some water sports? I am very interested! Want to get out of your boring perpetual monotonous movie-shopping weekends? Get out of your box now! Ok here's some new water courses that i was thinking of learning: Kayaking, Wind Surfing, Sailing and Powerboating. Before you say "Waa!", these courses are actually affordable and short duration. So you don't really need to invest a lot of money and time, the courses ranges from 1day to 3days to get a basic license. Very fast right?
I got these information from Water Venture. Basically before signing up any course, it is best to apply or upgrade to Passion-Water Venture Membership card. To enjoy the membership rates of cos. Membership cost $30. All courses must be booked one week in advance. Prices stated below are offered at member's rate.
My top consideration is Wind Surfing. Why Wind Surfing? I find the course fee afforable and the rental of the Wind Surf board is very cheap. The course is only a day course. Basic Course: 1 day $60 Rental @ East Coast Park : 2 hours $20 (Strange why don't have full day rental)
Actually Sailing seems more challenging! The course is more expensive though but there's full day rental for an affordable $30! Cheaper than Wind Surfing. After you have completed the course, the rental rates are really attractive. I would pay for 1 full day rental. Basic Pico Course: 3 days $280 Rental @ Pasir Ris: 2 hours $20 / 1 day $30
Powerboating is a far fetch dream! I always see those action movies good guys catching bad guys in a Powerboat, speed away! Can you imagine yourself one day driving a boat?! Awesome! I wonder how much to rent a boat. Powered Pleasure Crafting Driving License Training Course: 3 days $250 Rental @ Changi: No idea (Website never state.)
At last, Kayaking! The cheapest and most easy to learn. Actually if you are kayaking in reservoirs, you DO NOT need any certificate to rent. That means you do not need to attend any courses. But if you want to kayak at Kallang River, then you will need a basic 1 STAR cert. I might just try out kayak at Bedok Reservoir first, if i find it enjoyable then i go take the 1 STAR course. So that next time i can just kayak at Kallang River, which is just a stone's away from my house! Kayaking is the most accessible water sports here, many places available for rent. 1 STAR Personal Skill Award: 2 days $45 Rental @ Bedok Res, Kallang, Pasir Ris, Changi, Jurong Lake, Lower Seletar Res, Sembawang: 2 hours $7 / 1 day $12 (Cheap!!!)
The first on the list i will try is Kayaking. The next i'm still thinking, will start learning on Sept, after my reservice.
Hotline Kallang water Venture: 62966683 Paddle @ Bedok Reservoir: 97101697
Anyone heard the National Day 2010 theme song? I just goggled and found it, haven't seen it on TV yet. Nice? Like not really my cup of tea. I think i still prefer Stefanie Sun and Kit Chan's version. Haha. Kit Chan's HOME is classic! Best of all versions till date. Stefanie's version very memorable to me because i was at the parade, i even helped to pack the National Day goodie bag haha. Got this wonderful chance from Army, i think Prata was the Guards of Honor that parade. Some other versions that i like are Evelyn Tan and Tanya Chua's.
Song for Singapore by Corrinne May (National Day Parade 2010 Theme Song)
Let us enjoy again the best classic National Day theme song once more. :)
家 by Kit Chan (National Day Parade 1998 Theme Song) She was the first artist to sing the theme song for National Day Parade.
心连心 by Evelyn Tan and Dreamz FM (National Day Parade 1999 Theme Song)
Where i belong by Tanya Chua (National Day Parade 2001 Theme Song)
一起走到 by Stefanie Sun (National Day Parade 2002 Theme Song)
I got my first declined case today. To-date i have many smooth cases, helping friends to secure their responsibilities with a peace of mind. And today i got my first declined case, and that person who was rejected by insurance was my mom. Can you imagine how i felt when i told the news to my mom? That even though she has the money to buy insurance, no insurance companies are willing to accept her?
My mom does have insurance policies, she already bought long before i started my job, but when she was admitted to hospital last year for two surgeries, she was unable to claim any from insurance. Why? This is because whole life policy and savings policy does not cover hospitalisation bills. (At this point if you got no clue why is this so, then i suggest you better go check with your agent.) In fact, Hospital plans are the cheapest plans compared to whole life and savings plans. So why did my mom only bought life and savings plans? If her agent could convince my mom to afford them, surely she could afford a basic Hospital plan, which is pay using CPF MEDISAVE once a year only. Ask her agent who service her. Not doing a good job here definitely. Even though Hospital plan is cheap and commission very little to agents, but it is really an agent's responsibility to look out for the client's needs first, before selling products based on their commission.
P/S: One should get insurance when he/she is still healthy. There is no best timing, or wait for best timing to buy insurance, as you will never know the unpredictable.
Tonight i 1st time try kick boxing. Right after Joe1's Dragonboat invitation, i got kick boxing invitation from Chris, great! I'm always open for new challenges. Everything also must try. For the fun of it! :)
Tonight was just a trial session, free introduction to kick boxing at Orchard. Glad to have Joe0 and Joe1 sporty enough to join the fun too! Haha. The session was brief and fun, we started with some walk a jog round-about warm up, follow by learning the basics. We learnt the movement and executing basic moves like jab, thrust and side kicks. Actually i felt that kick boxing is quite similar to unarmed combat that i learnt in the Army, just that you wear gloves in kick boxing (Hence its call boxing). The trainer never make us shout when we execute punches and kicks though. Maybe trial he not so particular? It was a really enjoyable experience, too bad i got no chance to take pictures.
Well, look at some kick boxing videos. We learnt the jab, thrust and side kick. No uppercut.
Woot today i tried two sports that i never play before. Dragon boat and Archery. Thanks for Joe1 invitation from NEE SOON EAST CC, i got the opportunity to finally try dragon boat. I always wanted to try water sports, but no chances haha. Its only cost $7 to participate. This leisure dragon boating was held at water venture Kallang, just beside Kallang River. Actually i took quite a long time to find the location because i thought it was at Singapore Dragon Boat Association, and it was totally on the opposite of the river! Lucky there is a Merdeka Bridge for me to cross over haha.
Find the underpass opposide Kallang MRT to walk over to Kallang River.
You have to go underneath the flyover. Some residents staying there.
Yes this is Kallang River. You can see Dragon Boats and water skiing. But this is the opposite bank of Water Venture, so i crossed over using the Merdeka Bridge. zzz.
Finally i reached Water Venture Kallang!
The session was fun. We had some ice-breaking blow wind blow games follow by training by the Dragon Boat Trainer. Tell you a joke, because i lost my way just now, i was the last to reach Water Venture, the person in charge thought i was the Dragon Boat Trainer! Haha! The instruction for beginner Dragon Boating was quite simple. How to hold the paddle. How to put on buoyancy vest. Proper form to forward paddle. And some simple commands.
Very soon we started our 2hours 30mins leisure Dragon Boating. My boat got 9 rowers and one trainer, the coaxer. We practiced rowing using different tempo of strokes. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes deep and push hard. Most importantly we learnt the importance of synchronization. If we do not synchronise well, the boat will be drifting like a caterpillar. To be frank, it was quite stressful on my arms and waist after rowing for some time. We rowed closed to Singapore Flyer. We had a mini competition, my boat came in 2nd! But there were only 2 boats competing haha! I had a nice suntan and got myself fully wet. Fun!
I had my 1st try on Archery this evening at DM Archery, Suntec. $15 for half hour, unlimited shots. The beginner guide is very simple! Abit like rifle range. Took me some time to find my own zeroing. You know if you aim the arrow head directly at the bull's eye, you won't get it! The arrow will land somewhere else. Then you have to ownself adjust your aiming direction so that the arrow will land on the bull's eye. That's right, if you just keep aiming directly at the bull's eye, you will always land elsewhere. Remember!
Holding hands straighten, shoulder facing the target board. Pull back elbow high, until fingers come to below eye.
Couple team!
When you used up your arrows, you have to ownself go over to the target board to pluck them back. But remember to wait until nobody is shooting then you can cross over to collect back the arrows. Safety first.
How to get there: Suntec City Tower 3, #03-040. Opposite Eng Wah Cinema. Mondays to Sundays: 12.30pm - 9.00pm
