Most of the pictures posted in my blog were taken using my Sony WX5, Nokia n73 and 7610 handphone.
If you have any comments pls leave on my cbox.
26 February 2011
Manulife Gala Night!
Once in a year Gala Night! Also known as awards and recognition night. This year our Gala night was held at Ritz Carlton hotel. This was my first time dressed in black tie for functions. Black tie meaning a dress code for formal evening events. I had earlier thought that everyone had to wear a black tie! Haha!
Balloons at the entrance. A lot of people took pics with them!
Interesting small bites before we enter our ballroom. Small duck meat inside this cube.
Ritz Carlton grand ballroom is really big. Think good place for wedding if you had planning for at least 50 tables haha!
Menu. Looks like a lot of dishes. Each dish was nicely cut and served each a plate. But i would say the food was not as good as i expected from this hotel. Minus marks for the bones in the fish and chicken meat too.
Our napkins and hand claps. Nowadays everywhere use hand claps and whistle, no need to clap until hands swollen.
The first dish finger food tasted ok.
Sotong, soft and tender. Not bad.
Eeek i hate fish served with bones. Many bones. Why cut the fish and left the bones?
Chicken with bones anyone?
Dessert was sweet except for the bits of seeds remained in the red dates.
One memorable moment was when this old man stood on the stage and shared with us his pride and gratification on his job. 86yr old agent from Hong Kong Manulife. Power. This is a life long career for him and it inspired me alot. To achieve my career goals and help people to achieve financial freedom.
Today i bought a Tanuki, aka GOOD LUCK Raccoon dog, from Daiso. Been thinking of buying it for quite some time, cos it looks very cute. (And hopefully brings me luck too!) I first seen it from Japanese comics like Rama1/2. I also like the Maneki Neko fortune cat. Maybe will get it later. I googled and found some insights of Taunki.
The tanuki has eight special traits that bring good fortune, possibly created to coincide to the "Hachi" symbol (meaning eight) often found on the sake bottles the statues hold.
The eight traits are: 1) a hat to be ready to protect against trouble or bad weather, 2) big eyes to perceive the environment and help make good decisions, 3) a sake bottle that represents virtue, 4) a big tail that provides steadiness and strength until success is achieved, 5) over-sized testicles that symbolize financial luck (Thats new! Never saw them earlier. Awesome!), 6) a promissory note that represents trust or confidence, 7) a big belly that symbolises bold and calm decisiveness, 8) and a friendly smile
Nine people became overnight millionaires tonight. Each winning a whopping sum of $1.28 MILLION. This is TOTO. Where the ordinary places their hope to become super rich. Not just rich, its super rich. This is not gambling, this is fate. Why not 4D? Why TOTO? Let me tell you why:
If you place $1 SMALL on 4D and luckily got the 1st price, your price is just $3000. Is it a lot? Nope. Will it makes a difference to your life? Not really.
But tonight we saw someone won top price of $1.28 MILLION with just $1 (Actually it may only be 50cent but lets assume its $1 double Ordinary). The same $1, 4D gives you $3000, TOTO gives this person $1.28 MILLION. That's 42666% difference! Does $1.2MILLION makes a difference in your life? For me definitely!
You may say 4D is only 4 numbers betting so its easier to strike. But the probability of winning is 1 in 10,000. So is it really easy to strike? Not really. As such i would only use my $1 to bet on TOTO instead for its winnings are really a hell of difference. And it makes a difference to my life!
Some people say its not possible to strike all 6 numbers TOTO if you only bet $1. Take a look below. Tonight out of the 9 winners, there is someone who uses $1 to strike. What does this proof is $1 to strike is possible. You can say its fate.
I not trying to advocate gambling here, don't get me wrong. I treat TOTO as a small investment. Yes true. The smallest denomination you can place on each season TOTO is 50 cent. Lets do the maths:
The cost of betting. The smallest bet is 50 cent for each TOTO draw. There are 2 draws per week. Therefore each week the bet cost = $1. There are 52 weeks in a year. If you consistently bet $1 weekly, the total bet cost per year is $52. Now $52 per year is it alot? $52 is probably not enough for a night of clubbing. $52 a year for 104 TOTO draws, 104 chances to strike. Just one strike is worth around few hundred thousand. Even if you faithfully follow this for 10 yrs, the total bet cost is only $520. Not even half of your monthly income.
The Returns. How long does it takes you to earn $1.28 MILLION? If you are a high income earner who earns $10K a month, then you will need 10 yrs to earn $1.28 MILLION! But if you fall into the common folks category who earns $35K a year, then you will need 36.5 years to earn $1.28 MILLION!!! If you are currently 20yrs old by then you would already be almost 57yrs old! Wow! Got money also not much health or energy to spend!
$1 a week i take it as an investment. Do take note that DO NOT place hefty bets in hopes of increasing the chances of striking TOTO. As the chances of strike is 1 in 8,145,060 i would say any additional cost of bets for narrowing the chances are really insignificant and unnecessary. Take it as a fate of luck, not gambling. :)
Woot just went to Changi Airport T2 for appointment. Long time never went there, since i never went overseas by plane for a long time too! Very quiet at this time, 9pm. Took some pictures since i'm here. Should one day go there explore, especially T3.
Finally my most anticipated 1st marathon has come! Safari Zoo run! But i wasn't very high on spirits today mainly because i haven't been exercising or training for this marathon haha. I was saying i am taking this marathon during my slacking period. No gym, swimming nor running for the past one month.
The crowd was there. Mandai road was congested with traffic going to Singapore Zoo. You can guess the huge crowd at the entrance of the zoo when we reached there. We changed into our running gear but alas the sky started to rain. Really what the hell, my 1st marathon in my life and it rained. My 8km marathon was cancelled due to the short downpour. Sucks.
Lucky the event organiser decided to allow everyone to run the 6.2km FUN RUN. So at least we all can participate abit. Due to the drizzle and wet floor, most of the people walked instead of running. They even issued us ice-cream before we started, how to run with an ice-cream?
This was a rare chance to enter Night Safari during the afternoon, most of the animals were locked away. We still see a few of them though.
The drink station in Night Safari.
Don't forget to stop to pose with pretty flowers!
Actually walking long distance was more tiring than running. After our walk we had dinner at AH MENG KOPI, Singapore Zoo. Just nice, since this run was meant to remember AH MENG. The coffee was very nice!
We went to Night Safari after dinner since we got half price promotion. As we explored on the tram, photo-taking was not possible. Lucky i took some pics during the FUN RUN.
The night show of Night Safari was nice. But the show was exactly the same as the last time i seen.
Overall it has been a fun afternoon and evening even though we didn't managed to run our 8km run. We still got the medal anyway.
Start work day! Officially! After exchanging Chinese New Year greetings and collecting red packets at office, we had our branch lunch. Long Beach seafood at Dempsey. My first time trying Long Beach too haha. I not a seafood enthusiast. Well the food was not bad, take a look.
I don't like the hassle of cracking the shells and trying hard to suck out the crab meat, that's why i seldom eat crab... But this time i ate quite a lot!
Yay Chinese New year day3, i went to River Angbao. Last few years didn't went there. I could remember it was very fun when i was there in my teenage days. Actually River Angbao is the iconic place for Chinese New Year. It was built just for Chinese New Year. Must go!
This year River Angbao was located at the floating platform, Marina. This was also my 1st time stepping my foot on the floating platform. River Angbao was packed, but still accessible to walk.
Half of the attractions was at Uncle Ringo funfair. You see skyrides, bumper cars, lunges, and game stalls. Last time you see Uncle Ringo everywhere whenever there was Pasar Malam. But now only on special occasion.
Skyride. looks like a merry-go-round, but when it spins you hear screams.
Old time favourite bumper cars. I like the signboard with Ferrari! Looks vintage.
Some other traditional game stalls.
I don't remember i got play this before. Use leg power to ride. Xiong!
This is new though. Children inside a huge balloon floating on water haha!
Carrots and rabbits at the middle of River Angbao.
Standing in the middle is the biggest God of fortune! The icon of River Angbao!
Cross the bridge to River Angbao. A lot of lanterns. Very nice.
Coins of 12 zodiac animals. The coin worth $500 wow.
This is a wishing well rabbit. There are bells attached on the rabbit. Toss your coin try to hit it.
This is interesting. The famous GuanYin temple @ Bugis! haha! Inside got picture of GuanYin.
What is this? Huge Phoenix? Looks very nice leh.
Overall River Angao was much smaller compared to older times but its still a great place to enjoy the Chinese New Year atmosphere!
How to go there: Take MRT to esplanade and walk to floating platform. River AngBao website.
