Maestr-OKK-bLoG

Lift of from the camp! Plane ride~

2010-10-14T22:42:00.001+08:00

Finally got my chance to get out of the camp! Although there might be chances that i would need to return, but at least its a change of environment. Who cares!!!

I tot i wouldn’t have a good shot since the guy who took the shot was a techie noob. but alas it was pretty good and with some tweak, its actually presentable. :)

Up up and away!!! So this is the camp view from the top.

This would be the wharf area where they will pick up the pipe and sent it to another place. This is just the pick up wharf… The laydown area is much bigger, but too bad its on the other side.

The river runs thru to almost infinity….

One small village near the river.

A sneak shot of the cockpit. :P

There were only four of us, so i stole another shot of the interior of the chopper. :P

This is the first time that i saw a rainbow so clearly!!!

More rainbow few minutes later!!!

The mountain views were just breath taking. :)

Its almost everlasting trees and water… No doubt the 2nd largest rainforest in the world.

Moro camp as we are touching down. More pipe stacks!

A shot of the camp in the far right.

A Chinook i think but not sure what is it for.

This is when i am leaving MORO camp at 6am… The fokker airplane out of here!!!

I can still remember the first time i took this kinda plane was when i was in Poly, flying back to singapore from Labuan with my buddy Honkiang. :) I actually was worried that the blade will come loose and slice the plane into two… lol Obvious too much movies…

This is the interior of the plane. Super small, but at least there is a stewardess that serves us coffee and cookies.

So much for the planes, it will be hotels later…

It is definately one nice hotel.

Stay tuned…

Breakfast and lunch on one of those days...

2010-10-05T06:50:00.000+08:00

One fine morning the cookhouse decided to make everybody happy by serving good food. So being the very happy me, i have to take a photo of the meal.

FYI, the rest of the time, we will have rice, @#$%^ <--- which is something i dun know, eggs (If u are lucky u get those below, else worst case hard boiled eggs), cereals (not the normal cornflakes but WEETBIX and bran stix...), UHT milk and orange cordial. Oh there is bread too, lots of them! how i wish i have my kaya with me... *sobz*

So a usual breakfast for me would be eggs (if there is any) and cereal (ha, so much that i hate to eat weetbix and bran stix, i tot it the best for vitamins and energy, furthermore i eat a tiny bit with heaps of UHT milk and quite a bit of sugar too... lol)

So this is wat we had the other day.

Fried eggs with luncheon meat like patty. Turns out its super salty so i have to make a toast to wrap the patty and eggs over. Ohh.... is so good. :)

Lunch was this Barimandi fish that they shallow fried with batter. Taste like dory but softer. I like the tatar sauce that they make, flavourful and slight scuncy due to the vegs n carrot inside. Of course, cannot do without a bit of spice. Even though this one is really salty.

Ice cream for deserts! Oh, usually there are cakes for dinner one. But most of the time, the cake are dense and chocolaty, like a brownie wannabe. lol so its best with this vanilla ice-cream. Oh that was a happy day... :)

PNG more photos to upload!

2010-10-02T17:54:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to do before i turn to bed so maybe i would post some more pictures?

This is the work space we got for ourselves. Notice the blue bag behind the blue chair, that where i hide the wireless router. Tactical huh. :)

Here is the shower as requested. :P Notice nobody is showering. lol. Anyway the glass door was initially clear so u can actually see another's naked body if u walk pass, but they have since painted it till head level. Not that shabby expect that there is not cold water and they tends to have lotsa flys and bugs and moth flying around, especially near the lights. Notice the small small black dots are actually some bugs.

This is the toilet, er... and the urinal. lol. Though the cubicle looks nice n RED. But there will be a rather big opening between the door and the side walls. and the cubicle happen to face the door... So u can actually peep out to see who is coming, and at the same time, people coming in can see u la...

The wash basin is actually pretty nice, but because not many use it ba. I thinkmost would rather use their basin in their room ba...

This is the other camp, which supposely everyone will move across when its completed.

Notice the black spots on the floor. They are actually dead flys, moths ans stuffs. I really dun know why this particular area is filled with dead bugs. People dun clear them or jus many is dead overnight? Probably attracted by the big light.

After 7 days of waiting, finally, a sign of the tug and barge coming. Even though the cargo on board is not concern to my job, but to see some "Action" finally is such a relief! I am on my way home!!! Even though its another 10-14 days more...

Tug and barge closing into the jetty.

So much for work, below are some other picture that took while around the camp. Bored la...

This boat was previously a hugh tree sia! Look at the length of the log!

One of those stupid bug/bettle that end up on my blanket!!! Irritating...

Praying Mantis! I have nvr seen a praying mantis this close before! Cool!

This was my dinner today. One of the best i had since. The roast pork was soft and er... salty... lol Roast potatos can nvr go wrong, even its not my fav. On top u will see the fried pork skin. Salty n pretty nice. Today we also had melow and pears (sour ones) :( and beef soup. All in all, i think its about the best they can make so far!

That's about all for today!

More Pics of the camp~ and others from my iPhone~

2010-09-29T15:05:00.000+08:00

The Accomodation area, the office area is where my back is facing.

The walkway to my "bunk".

The room. Opps a bit messy la, the "housekeeping" haben come in yet. lol

The table, i shift the table a bit to accomodate the power supply and the lights.

The sink in the room.

Some other pictures that was taken using my iPhone before i reach KOPI.

Crap my face look sooooo round.... T_T

The view of the harbour from my dispatch vehicle.

The mountainous PNG.

More mountains.

There is the prawn bisque that i mentioned before.

And this is the steak. :) Did i mentioned there was 5 knives for me to select? lol

The price of the steak in Kinas.

The super long name of the soup.

The name of the restuarant. At this point of timem, i was told that the Crown Plaza was not the best hotel in the area. Probably i should fine out wats the other hotel they are talking about. lol Probably even better food.

Two cannibals greeting the front entrance of the Crown Plaza...

As if a statement that if u step out of the hotel, these cannibalslook-alike will eat u up! Grrr...

Supposely to be able to see all the trees down below... Its trees and trees and trees! A massive forest man!

The airtracks is not even tarred!

Luckily touchdown side got some cement one... lol

The Dash 8S that we took to MORO Camp.

This is the outside of my room in MORO.

The double bed that i mentioned... Oh the "squeeky" one...

Aircon right above my head. Even though we are 800m high, i still keep the aircon blowing coz i couldnt sleep if i am going to be sweating away... Plus the immobility... I rather freeze n keep still. lol

The cardboard that i nvr use. The brown door is actually the shared toilet n shower. Not so bad considering that u can shower within ur room. My current one, have to walk about 100meters loh...

At least got TV, with sports channel. We were watching aussie football that night. Titan vs Roosters. My bunkmate watch until fall asleep, snoring away. He has the remote, so if i want to switch off the tv, i will have to climb down, which will cause quite a stir... So i rather continue watching, since i cant sleep. lol

Got its own basin too.

Managed to take a photo of the dinner i had the other day. This is the good food from the better camp. Imgaine the food i am having... I think i will not have chance to take a photo...

Thats about it. Hopefully i will have more photos to share the next time.

KOPI… the worst is yet to come…

2010-09-27T08:59:00.031+08:00

On arrival, i realised why the camp is much detest as the MORO camp was much cleaner as compared to this. Camp facilities were pretty much used and left over from the previous project group.

But at least i was assigned a decent room, where i am typing this away at 2145LT. This is the second night here.

On the first day (Sat), there was orientation and induction, we were walking up and down the camp site. Its not that big, but there were sure signs of wear and tear around. We didn't do much here, since we understand that the vessel was delayed as the local authorities found some life insects in the containers to be loaded to our camp. It turns out to be a big issue, cause the government is very particular about foreign insects, plants, animal breading in the country and changing the natural habitat of the country. So its more delays until Monday where we will know how long the delay is…

Food in the camp is much lower quality then up there. Meal times is strictly 0500-0600, 1200-1300 and 1800-1900. “Full stop. End of story” No tea breaks in between, no other food sold… No snacks… T_T We had to queue to enter the mess and queue to grab our food. There will always be two choices of meat each meal. but mixed vegs seems to be the staple… There is nothing much to talk about the food there… Oh, yes there is. My dinner tonight was lamb chops n rice. I was greedy as i wanted more sauce to go with the rice. Turn out… The sauce was disgusting!!! Only then i notice nobody takes the sauces… I had to try my best to swallow the food, esp the rice, else i will go hungry at night… Sad…

I did had a chance to go out of camp for a tour coz one Aussie friend that i know when i was in Batam doing the loadout was tagging along another environmental fellow out for inspection. Since i had nothing to do, i wont mind spending some time outside and catching a glimpse of the “outside world”. The client didn't want to follow, simply because in the meeting earlier, we were informed that there was a case of the local people carrying M16s and attacked a group of people carrying camp equipment to another camp. It was calculated almost 0.5 million worth of equipment were destroyed but none was injured. I guess that really scares him a bit since it quite surprising to know that the local people actually managed to get such sophisticated weapons…

Well, with that behind my head, i hopped on to the landrover out of the camp. I wouldn't want to missed my only chance out of the camp! Who knows, i might catch a glimpse of some hard to find birds like the birds of paradise. :P

In the vehicle, i managed to know that the driver is actually a local villager and offered to bring us around his village after the inspection. Yippee~ The road was long, almost 1 hour of driving, and bumpy. Imagine 1 hr of bumper cars rides with constant “bumping” not fun…

So out in the forest, we were inspecting this…

It notice the big opening, that is where the forest was tore down, to make space for the pipe laying… Impressive right? Oh, i didn't mentioned before that PNG has the second largest rainforest in the world! While driving, it trees n trees and more trees!!!

This is where the tree cutters sleep in. All local people. Now i begin to appreciate my camp…

After which we went to the nearby town to have a look.

This is the police station. Not so bad huh?

We are standing on a airstrip that was used in WWII!!!

After that we went to the jetty to have a look.

Look at the endless forest and the long rivers.

Notice that the boat is actually a “dug out” from a long log!!!

Something like this!

We went to a local shop.

This is how it look like inside. They sell almost everything!!!

More surprisingly is, the stall owner is actually Chinese!!! They are from Guangzhou and has been here for more then 10 years!!! They are so nice that they didn't want to charge me for the titbits and drinks that we wanna buy! “Tong xiang” they were saying… lol.

After dinner, i smuggled this from the mess. U all know what is it???

Call me "Swa Ku" but i nvr seen this fruit before! Mostly in photos and pictures but i nvr know they look like this. It Passion Fruit!

That pretty ends my first 4 days in PNG. Very much more to come, though they will be boring since i wont have much chance to step out of the camp… Machiam prison loh… Sigh… Some more no hardship compensation doing this job… Sad…

More to come! “I hope” *Crossfingers*

Up up and away~ (MORO Camp)

2010-09-27T08:55:00.002+08:00

Flight to MORO camp was in the afternoon and i arrived there earlier as i was worried that my luggage will have some issues, since they “preferred” to have soft case bags on the plane. Upon reaching the airport, i noticed that almost all of the passengers had soft bags. Only one other guy have this long boxy case, probably for some equipment… However, all was ok as the staff collected my luggage without questions. The next worry is the chopper flight…

This is MORO Camp from the plane.

This is the view from the plane.

Haha, the wheel. :P

The propeller plane...

This was the plane we took.

The bunk up in MORO camp.

Gloomy day that day.

Some other view of the camp.

Up in MORO Camp, (Up, because it is 1000m high up!) i was like a lost chicken in the camp, coz most people were regulars in the camp. Luckily i had this client rep with me, and that makes two lost chickens in the camp. lol

Sadly i was assigned to a two men bunk and had to sleep on the top bed. The client got his own room and bed!!! But luckily we were only to sleep there for a night. Food in this camp is pretty good. There were a good spread of chicken, fish and rice for dinner and i had a sumptuous meal before we hit the bed.

We finished chatting at about 8pm local time (LT) which is actually 6pm SG time… As we have to wake up before 5am for breakfast and meeting at 6am, we have to sleep… Meaning i have to sleep at SG Time (7pm – 3am) Zzz… 3am sounds like the time that i go to sleep loh… Nevertheless, i hopped into bed at 9pm(LT) only to find out that the bed is shaky!!! My bunkmate is watching Australian football at that time, so i tot i should try to make myself tired and at the same time wait for him to sleep before i try to sleep. So i set up my laptop on the bed,trying to play some games. True enough, after approximately 1hr, he was snoring away. So its like my turn to sleep, 1030pm LT = 830pm SG time. How to sleep?!? Furthermore i have to keep still, coz every slight movement, the bed will twitch and shake… I think i only sleep at around midnight loh… Aiyoh so tired…

Early morning, breakfast was decent, much better the Crown Plaza, simply because there are 4 type of eggs! Hard-boiled, scrambled, sunny side and Omelette. Woohoo~ I had three types of eggs that day. lol.

I remember people were saying that this camp is good and the next one is bad… So i kinda kept my expectation to the lowest for the next camp to come… KOPI Camp.

Chopper flight was alright, given that we were travelling with one of the ExxonMobil big shot. There were 7 of us out of the possible 9 seats available.

PNG Posting from Live Blogger.

2010-09-27T08:33:00.002+08:00

Lets see if this works… (Continued from last session)

Its been a really long while since i last posted, sorry folks!

Not that i have not been eating good, shooting well and having fun, but i was just too occupied with work, having fun, eating more and shooting even more!!!

So since I am pretty much bored out over here (I got to wait until Tuesday minimum to get to do some actions.) I tot i might as well write something about this place! That is provided i got some decent internet access here...

So i departed on the 23rd to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Got myself some transport to bring me around. In fact, we are only allowed to travel in our client's appointed vehicles (ExxonMobil) and almost everywhere u go, u will be monitored. I guessed its either the security is bad here or the client's security is too good... I will soon find out...

Here are some photos in my hotel.

The room is pretty much the same as anywhere else loh.

This the view from my hotel room.

Actually i have a number of photos from my iPhone. Now i jus need to find out how to transfer them out…

Got checked into the hotel at 0600hrs, oh my flight was overnight thru Manila. Ask me about Manila airport, i will tell you, dun do your transit there... Its a boring place.

So i slept till noon. lol. i didn't get much sleep on the plane. Since i am only required to travel to the next location, Moro Camp, the next day, i might as well get some sleep...

Lunch was nothing fancy since i wasn't hungry and yet i dun wanna waste the chance to order food service. So i got sometime local to try, fish...

The fish wasn't that bad, consider that it was not fishy and its meaty. But probably i was not hungry, so i had only the fish but not the vegs.

After a heavy meal, i set out to get my Malaria Survival Kit (MSK) and purchase some "Insect shield" clothing (PPE). PNG is a country where there are many cases of malaria and trust me, u wouldn't want to know how bad malaria can be, but ultimately, you can die from getting that disease... So we have to be real careful, getting repellents, "insect shield" clothing and etc.

It was pretty cool to be transported around. :) i just have to call the dispatch and the driver will be at my disposal within 5mins. Oh, i was also assigned a call sign! V248. lol Maybe should go buy 4D. Wahahaha.

Dinner was some lavish western food in the hotel, after debating over paying 69++ for seafood buffet dinner or 94++ for posh western food. The currency is in KINA which is about half SGP$. End up i decided to “punish” the client with a slightly expensive dinner. Wahaha.

I ordered the Prawn Bisque and Brandy Espresso with Lobster Biscotti, what a long name!!! I nvr notice the espresso as the soup was served in an espresso cup. It was flavourful of prawn but i missed out the brandy taste. It could be the slightly bitter after taste after each sip. I also didn't notice the “lobster”on top and all of it went into my mouth in one gulp. lol. The main was Beef Ribeye on the Bone (aged 21 days) with Cafe de Paris Butter and Saffron Mash. Just the name it self is pro right?!? It really took me quite a while to decide on this coz i was not in the deleprate intention to wack the client one. But it appears that it was the biggest portioned meat, so no choice la… lol In conclusion, the meat was brilliant! I ordered medium and it came jus what i would love steak to be. Slightly charred on the outside, and pink in the inside…. Yummy~ This could possibly be the second best steak i had! Of course,the best one i had is still Gordon's Grills and the company counts too!!! I myself is not a potato lover but this one was outstanding. Though i didn't know how saffron would taste like,but i sure know that its the world most expensive spice! (Knowledge courtesy by Josh) I caught a few strand of saffron in the potato but didn't notice the flavour, but in the whole it was great. The “semi-mash” style cooking keeps a few chunks of potatoes in it and it was tasty in general. The butter on the steak was slightly “oily” to my preference. Probably i would prefer less oil, but more herbs. But all in all, i had nothing to complain of the combination.

Breakfast in the hotel was rather simple. Although they same western restaurant was used as dining place for all club level customer, there wasn't much quality in the food. Bacon, sausages, eggs and cereals were the few i ate. Come lunch time, i was yet to be hungry, but i ordered a sandwich, since i dun want to end up hungry on the plane. Turn out, the sandwich was delivered late, and i had it packed out instead. It was Roast Beef sandwich with lotsa olives. yummy~

That kinda ends my “Good life” in PNG and off to the worst…

Family CNY highlights in Korea Part 3

2010-02-19T23:35:00.000+08:00

Time to leave Yong Pyong Ski Resort...

We had our brekkie before making our way to Seoul. This friend rice from a small stall in the hotel taste so much better then the restuarant ones!!!

Spicy kim chi noodles.... Pretty much like the Singaporean instant noodles.

Fried udon taste great too~

We had another bowl of wantan soup. I think our Singapore ones are so much better!!!

Check in to EastGate Tower Hotel. It is jus above a new shopping centre called, Cerestar, occuping the 18-20 floors. We have the family suite which has two single beds and one queen bed. The room is huge!!!

A view from the bed,

This is the dining area.

This side is the queen bed.

We had BBQ for lunch today. This is suppose to be premium beef. The marbling is nice~

We order pork too. This one is marinated. :)

This Kimchi is pretty crunchy!

We didnt have enough so we order an additional of pork belly and they came in this form!!!

They taste great after the grill!!!

They always have lotsa greens to go with the meats and the sauce is goood!

OMG! I look soooo piggy!!!

This is the Dong Dae Mum palace.

Bought some "sao bao" at the end of the day.

And some fruits!!!

I continued walking with my second sister while my mum n elder sis went back to the hotel. We chance upon this make shift eatary and went in to try.

The place is not so fantastic, but the food is nice. :)

Too tired and feeling sleeping liao.... More posts later...

Family CNY highlights in Korea Part 2

2010-02-15T22:34:00.000+08:00

Today we finally got the chance to try out skiing!!! I was soooo excited and not knowing the things to worry later...

To fall down and get up with ur ski on is SUPER HARD!!! Esp for people like me, with the big tummy. (I think the previous photos already shows right?), have an even tough task! - To overcome ur own tummy.... For the whole skiing practise, i only fall down thrice ok!!! Two times during the training as we need to learn how to get up. The last was when i first try out the high slope...

To stop, u have to open your legs in a manner to create a "A" shape with your ski. I find this trememdously tough and i almost wanna give up at some time! After lunch, when my sis wants to rest before continuing our second lesson, i didnt follow and went out to practise myself. Skiing is fun and exciting, but to slide down and climb up is so tough!!! Can u imagine my hair was dripping sweat after a few times! In a -12 degrees celcious weather!!!

In the end my hard work paid off, as i managed to understand the skill and eventually went up a much higher slope with the lift and slide down. At the end of the day, i even slide on my own! Without the instructor. I even can make turns! Wahahahaha.

Me with the equipment!

Lunch was korean chinese restuarant.... This is their sweet and sour pork. Taste nice!

I remembered i ordered beef with rice, but they gave me this...

But i still ate it. It was ok la....

Mum had this fish soup which i think its a bit fishy.

Fried rice with brown sauce... The sauce is yucky and the fried rice is so so nia...

At the end of the day, i took the lift myself!!!

Wah it is soooo cool!!!!

After the ski, we were exhausted.... We hurried to the sauna to relax ourselves.

Did i say the sauna was FULLY NAKED!?!

Actually we went to the sauna on the first night already. The promotion for hotel resident was 50%! So my sis was so excited! Went i and saw all those naked butts in the room... I felt so out of place...

So i braced myself and step into the sauna FULLY NAKED, with a towel on hand to try to cover the vital parts... lol

In the sauna, there are 5 pools and two shower areas. The temperture of the pool are 14, 37, 42, 44.... 14 degrees is a freaking cold temperature!!! I only managed to dip myself init after warming my body in the 44 degrees pool and i nvr managed more then 5mins.... Wahahaha. Conclusion, i am a warm hearted guy. :)

Tml got to travel to Seoul already. After it would be theme parks and shopping!!! Yeah! Stay tuned!

Family CNY highlights in Korea! Part 1

2010-02-14T23:49:00.002+08:00

We took Asiana Business class ok!!! Coz the eco ones are full and its a midnight filght! Pamper my mum la. (:P)

Well business class surely the setting is good loh. The leg room is super spacious!!!

Appertizer, Prawn salad.

Korea flight surely must eat korean la!!! Main is Bibimbap

Reached at 6am and its snowing!!!

This is Mt Sorak. We travelled to Mt Sorak on a 2day package. The trio is ex loh...

I felt the contrast of black n white is nice! Or is it because i am nicer!!! lol

BBQ pork for lunch!

Kimchi soup! Spicy!!!

This is taken at the top of the cable car to Mt Sorak. But as its is snowing badly, we had to detour.

I like this photo! Or is it the bear??? lol

Trying to catch snowdirectly from the sky!!!

Look at the amount of snow falling!!!

So there was this statue around.

This was dinner! It is SUPER NICE!!! I nvr love sashimi this much! The fish is chewy and fresh. Nothing in Singapore beats this! Oh, the fish is called flat fish.

Wah.... Nice hor!!!

Something for donation.

Note, my mum wrote most of it. We merely sign nia.

I like this photo~

Great view!!!

Great view with....Great guy!!! lol

Hey, its bare hands hor! Furthermore the previous one was too small, i had to make another.

FREE noodles in the temple!!!

Finally Yong Pyong!!! I am so excited!!!

The room was puny though... We had to cut cost coz the trip is sooo ex!!!

The other side.

Lunch was BBQ beef n bulgogi pork!

Wah... look at the marble~

Pork m cuttlefish bulgogi

The various side dishes...

CNY Dinner!

ICE fights!!!

OUCH!!!!

Our outdoor fridge. Now u see it.....

Now u dun!!!

This sums up my third day stay in Korea. More to come up, provided there is time....

Christmas Gifts~

2010-01-06T01:25:00.001+08:00

Well, Christmas is soon going to be over and i have already received a lot of gifts. Thanks to all who have given me the gifts, big or small. Its jus the thought that counts. 2 more days before the Christmas officially ends, will receive more? or give more? lol

It has been a RED Christmas for my as i really received so many “RED” stuffs! From the extremely RED sports gear that my sis2 gave me, to the RED poker from Annie, to the RED document organiser from xiaomei n big bear, and lastly the RED macbk cover from Josh~

First look the the very nice macbk cover from Josh

This is when it is closed. Notice the white apple logo still can lit up. :)

Bought the red keypad. wahahaha Super chio~ right?

Xiaomei n Big bear’s document organiser.

Opened.

The very nice poker card from Annie.

Didn’t took the red cloths and my sis1 shirt from Zara (Cannot wear, but my new year resolutions will make me wear them in style!) coz they are in the wardrobe already and its 0130hrs le! Got to sleep real soon. Need to write my new year resolutions some time. Coz its a big year for me!!!

Opps, one of the not so red gifts! Thanks Ron n Sean~

Istanbul Day 2

2009-12-22T00:40:00.002+08:00

I was so bored on this bloody vessel that i decided to blog all my back lot.

The problem is.... There are too many back lots!!!

Let me start with the simplest of all format, picture blog!!! lol

Here is the hotel room, very crap hor! My existing cabin is at least three times larger!

View from the other side.

This is the pathetic showers...

View of the Aya Sofya from the rooftop restaurant.

View of the Bosphorus river on the other side.

"Zi Pai" #1

"Zi Pai" #2

My breakfast for the day! Will show u more of the restaurant later!

Off to the streets! Armed with my Canon 500D and 18-55mm kit lens.

The Aya Sofya is so close, hence my first stop.

But i didnt went in, coz i m not that kinda "history" person. Furthermore need to pay! I cheapo la. lol

Jus opposite the Aya Sofra is the Blue Mosque! Its really quite beautiful. Too bad the sky is gloomy all these day, else the picture would be better!

It was pretty hard to get people who know how to operate the DSLR on the streets man. But luckily there was the american boy that did me the favor. :) Thanks~

This is that kinda shot, when the person dun know wat a DSLR is... lol

I quite like this photo. Imagine with a ultra wide angle lens, this would be better!

If i am not wrong, its the blue tiles inside that gave the name of the mosque. Right?

Sigh, another guy who dun know how to use a DSLR... lol

After the boring mosque walk, i decided to stroll the coast.

Quite a nice view of the Blue Mosque i feel.

Quite a large stray dog seen in the park. Well behaved too.

Saw this cute boy playing with the cats. Lotsa them too!!!

Picked up my 55-200 when i saw some birds. :P

Bird #2

Cat too! Meow~

Caught a couple too. What a romantic view...

Lotsa people fishing also!

Tried them and hate them #1. lol I am no bread person...

Hate 'em #2! So sour!!!

Nvr try 'em = hate 'em? lol #3

#4 Super sweet. Its their dessert, selling almost everywhere! Called Baklavari if i am not wrong.

#5 Looks like home made cheese... Not my type. lol

Nuts~ So many shops selling nuts! I bought more the 100 bucks worth back! lol I must be nuts. lol

One intersting group playing interesting instruments. Not the violin la!

Animal market!

Turkey? Maybe already in someones tummy le. lol

Some many types of buds! I wonder if they really grows to what the picture shows...

Sweet corn shop.

Please dun try them... Hate #6. Probably the most hated! lol The boiled one much better!

Seems like people here like to feed the pigeons and scare them away. lol

But this girl is quite cute. :)

Evening le, and the view is simply great!

I actually wanted them to help me take a shot, ends up, this guy tot i wanna take a photo with him...

Luckily this other lady understands me...

Pop by this shop and found that the Turkish delight look great and the other desserts are nice too. Came back to buy from them at the last day. Man, they are not cheap!

Dinner was Burger King and it was a disappointing meal...

Jus look at the dry meat and the size of it! Crap...

Ok then, late liao! I actually took 2hrs to finish this!!!

Got to go sleep. Third day to be posted tml. Hopefully...

Night all~

Offshore again... FPSO EAST FORTUNE

2009-12-18T23:22:00.000+08:00

Please note its going to be a bit boring this time, as internet connection was bad and i couldnt upload the picture as much as i would like before. However, i did reduce the size of the photos and they do look reasonable to me. :)

Hopefully i will be so bored to post my Istanbul photos too. (Do flip back to last months post to see my first day post in Istanbul!)

Second day on this job was tough… I had to leave the hotel at 0300hrs to take a transport to the domestic airport to Batam, (???) then take another plane to Matak (near South China Sea) and lastly a chopper flight to the Oilfield. The whole journey took me 7hours and my beauty sleep…

Upon reaching the FPSO, I was assigned to the Visitor’s cabin, which was one of the largest cabins I was offered throughout my offshore experiences.

Picture of the working desk taken from my bed.

Picture taken from the Sofa, I got sofa leh!!! :P

Thats the door to my cabin.

The attached bathroom was small, but attached leh!

This time round, my job was fairly simple.

*Eye Power* Wahahahaha

Something similar to my previous offshore jobs though, but this time round, I do not need to give any opinions, no need to give recommendations, no need to sign any documents as I am here as a position of a technical advisor to the Bank who is financing the company. So the only important thing is the updates on the field and to give a third party point of view on the situation. Easy right?

Well, of course easy job dun come through so easily… The price to pay, work over the Christmas holidays and stuck with lousy food for Christmas… T_T Furthermore, missing crucial gatherings to close friends and as well as missing my Godson first year birthday…

On my first night in the field, I came to know that the project is ending and all left to do was to connect the vessel and hoses and do a simple leak test! It seems too good to be true! I might just be back home for my weekend plans! Of course, nothing of that sort happen, else I will be back home by this time instead of writing this blog… T_T

The next day, work started at 0500hrs. Of course, not me la! I slept to 6am, (hey very good le leh! We had discussion till 10pm and the previous night I was on various planes and didn’t have proper sleep at all!!!) We were well underway when the hookup completed before 10am and the other surveyor and I were planning our returning trip for the next day… All appears too well as the connection of the hoses took a while but we were up and connected by night fall. So all that was left was the leak test! Somehow, I was feeling a bit uncomfortable about it; coz there wasn’t any proper document/procedures for this leak test. I hear the other surveyor saying that the planned test pressure was 3bars, which was a very small pressure! Thinking that nothing could have gone wrong as the previous week they have already tested the pipelines and its holding pressure then. The only thing that could have gone wrong will be the hoses and … it just went wrong…

We couldn’t hold pressure that night. Even to 3bars, nothing came out of this end. Crap. Furthermore, the two parties in the vessel, the owner and the charterer, was not in good communication terms and it seems to be a pushing game between them. End up, the test was aborted and an option to do it the next day was planned… *whoosh…* there goes my high hope for a good weekend…

On the third day, the weather was picking up… The sea was getting choppy and a storm was imminent. However, we did have a breakthrough early in the morning; a very bad one actually, as one of the crew sighted the hose was disconnected to the buoy! Crap, as all offshore construction vessels was demob the previous day, there was no way we can solve the problem as divers are required to do it. Furthermore with such bad weather, no one knows even with the divers, if anything could be done. Situation onboard was a bit messy, with both parties trying to push the blame on whose responsibilities it is to repair this, I was right in the middle, only to listen from both side of the stories and kept it within myself…

Well, as of now, the decision was made and 7 divers were transferred from the construction barge to the FPSO. A quick conversation with the divers, even they were uncertain that they can accomplish the job. We all have to wait till tomorrow then we can make a decision…

Oh, I did capture some pictures of the chopper that I took. I was told it was a 1985 model…. @_@

As it was arriving the helipad.

Landed.

Close up.

Oh, the crew caught some huge and weird fish that day too!

Look how happy they are!

Somehow i felt this fish looks wierd leh... I think they actually eat them! *Yucks...*

Jakarta for the first time.

2009-12-16T01:35:00.001+08:00

Got "arrowed" by boss on Monday and *Poof* i am in Jakarta ready to go into the Kakap Natuna Oilfield as a Technical Advisor for the hooking up of East Fortune.

Its actually my first time in Jakarta, first impression, Traffic jams... But the worst thing to traffic jams is - Got sent to the wrong hotel and end up have to travel back, meeting the traffic jam once again. *Double Wammy*
Luckily, the hotel is quite beautiful. Towering almost 40 storeys in the middle of the city, it looks like a 5 Star hotel with a more the 5 star service but 4 stars people around. (me la. lol)

To bad i didnt bring my cam around when i went down for my dinner. I was given a 100,000rps voucher for dining in any of the restuarant in the hotel. And i was spoilt for choice! There is a Cantonese Chinse restuarant, a Japanese, a Italian and a Asian cusine restuarant. That is not including the Cafe (usually used for breakfast) and the lounge. I think that is some hotel with so many restaurant in it right? In the end i chose the Asian Cusine because... they serve BUFFET! not only that, it is only 138,000rps! with the voucher they only charge 38,000 for a buffet. Now, i you are not sure y i am amazed, coz 38,000 = S$5.50 only... Well, for the $$$ i am paying, i am not expecting fantastic food. Fantastic the dinner was not, but i am surely well served. The service there was great. From the greetings at the restuarant front door, to the good bye at the end of the meal. I felt more comfortable then any where else.

First i went thru the starters. Jus walking up to see what was offered for the night, i was handed a plate to pick up my food. Nice~ Appertiser was nice deep fried squid in orange tangy sauce, duck confit with mango salad, drunken chicken with small salad, fancy fried fritter with corn n flour, fried taro in "wu xiang" style, greens with balsmatic vineger and french dressing. The fried squid were not rubbery which i feared, in fact, i actually got a second helping! The tangy sauce made it more tasty. The chicken and duck were good too, the duck went very well with the mango, hence, another serving. lol
Next, i walked to the mains table and was greeted by another waiter to ask if i would like to have some rice to go with the mains. Pretty nice i would say, as the food will be good to be eaten with warm rice. There were sauted cuttlefish with "xiao bai chye", stew beef with japanese curry, tofu with spinach and mushrooms, stir fry slice fish, sauted brinja (which i passed of course!), some other two dishes that i forgot. I only remember the cuttlefish coz i think they are not that nice, the stew beef was jus soft enough but the curry was a bit sweet to my liking. (Japanese style one ma...) The spinach tofu was my fav. Some more there was lotsa mushroom. *Yeah* I also walked over to the other end to see the soup noodles being served. I began to realise that u can choose your own ingredients for the soup. So i pick up beef meat balls, fish balls, beef stripe, and beef slices. and lotsa prawns. wahaha. I was giving lotsa soup for a choice. Chicken soup, tom yam, beef ... Before the waiter can carry on, i picked beef soup since i got lotsa beef stuffs inside. :) The soup turns out to be a be more spicy. Also on the salty side. I guessed there are lots of MSG too. lol

After this two rounds, i couldnt stuff my tummy with any more food already. Hence i stopped and pick up some deeserts. There are a good assortments of cakes and deeserts. As i was pretty full, i pick the coconut herbal jelly and mix fruits.

It was a wonderful dinner for me and by the time i reach my room, i was so sleepy and almost wanted to doze off...

On screen was the Asian Food Channel (AFC) and i was quickly hooked to the show, Ramsays kitchen nightmare show. Showing the famous hell's kitchen guy, and he trying to help restuarant business get better.

So much about food, how about some photos of the room!

The hotel room hase a huge shower room, with a massager option. However, i dun really like the massager mode.
The jets were strong and tiny, making my feel the itch when jetting on my flabby tummy. lol
The normal jet is better. :)

The room was fitted with a huge king size bed, with cozy king size bed (that i dun have a chance to sleep much one) and a hug tv! 42 inch at least!!! and sofa and a hug wardrobe! Machiam walk in type!!!

As i was saying, y i dun have chance to sleep much coz i have to fly in approximately 4hrs time... My next flight in at 5am and i have to leave the hotel at 3am... Anyway the client also stupid one la... I flew to Jakarta to be sent to Batam then Matak then KN oilfield... Zzz... They could have told me earlier that i can then go to Batam meet them instead...

What ever la, Think i better order more room service to make sure i dun sleep. lol

Istanbul Day 1

2009-12-01T06:23:00.042+08:00

Ok, I shall try to complete my Istanbul blogging by the time i leave the country as i am expecting lotsa things to happen when i return!

To cut everything so short, I believe a pic speaks a thousand words. :P (Not that I am lazy la...)
Futhermore, a picture with a short description = a million words!?! lol

View #1 of the terrace at the top level of my hotel.

View #2

View #3 of the Galata Tower.

View #4 of the Aya Sofya.

View #5 of the Bophorous River.

Me "Zhi Pai" outside the terrace.

The Hotel is pretty small hence explains the narrow walkway.

View of the hotel on the outside.

The hotel is pretty accessible thru the tram service. In fact, there are a number of hotels in the area which are within close proximity of the trams stops. Many of them are similarly small scale but this one was one of the tallest in the area, hence explains the great view.

Right after checking in, I didn't waste any time as I know the Grand Bazzar will be closing at 7pm. 2hrs to go, "Chiong ah!!!!"

My first food in Istanbul! Doner~

He was happy posing for me.

Look at the Tram! Jus beside the streets!

Charcoal burning for the water pipe smoking in one of the shops.

The various type of water pipes.

Nice lights sold.

Tram and mosque.

I was pretty thirsty after a long walk. Stopped at this shop and saw many people buying the orange and pomegranate juice. I am not a fan for orange and hence i choose the pomegranate. Which turns out to be a worse choice as the juice is more sour then orange juice... T_T

This is the tram station.

Look how close it is to the streets

One of the many old building with its fantastic lights.

After a very very long walk, i managed to find the famous Taksim Square.

One of the bus running in Taksim Square.

Look at the number of people around!

One of the street hawker selling chestnuts.

One of those fancy dessert shop.

Candy shop.

Turkish Delight.

I cant remember the name, but its another dessert of theirs

One very interesting meal i had there. I am no potatos lover but this looks interesting. As usually, i didnt finish the potato. lol

Pineapples in the street.

The famous tower in Istanbul. See the full moon behind?

The bophorous bridge and its shops. :)

Fishing on the bridge!

Great night sights~

More~

Fish by the road side, i almost wanna try but didnt in the end...

Collages of Azerbaijan Trip

2009-11-30T03:15:00.001+08:00

Was feeling quite bored in the hotel that day and began to put up all my working trip photos into collages.
Love this Picasa program which can easily put these collages and post them. Too bad they can only post four pictures at one time.

Photos of the work place and other Azerbaijan photos.

Something almost extinct in the world. The "Nodding Donkeys".

Night shots. Using my Fuji F100D hor~

Food food food, how can my blog be without food?

To sum it all up, Me me me!!!

Janice's Wedding~

2009-11-26T14:04:00.004+08:00

Congratulations to Janice n Sew!
&
Best Wishes to both of you all!!!
"Zhao Sheng Gui Zi"

It was a great get together with old classmates and lecturers.
Of course, a great get together can go without photos and blogging right?
Too bad big bear is not with us that night, else, i am sure there will be so much more photos in this blog!?!

To bad i didnt wanna disturb the main photographer, hence most shots are shot are long range using my 200mm Tammy. But the results are decent and to cover up the flaws... Collages are created! It makes the not so nice photos nicer and brings out a different perspective to the photos! Enjoy~

Using a 200mm lens without IS, taken at low light and cost merely S$150, i believe it is a worthy buy!
Pictures are not perfect but i am happy that i managed to capture some of my friend's happiest moment of the night. :)

The ballroom was also wonderfully lited with the stage capturing everybodies attention.

The lecturers and girls.
Melissa is so going to get it with her "Peace" gesture! lol
Dk with the, "why are you taking photos of me" look.
And my "This is the model of the night" photo. :P

Of course, we can't forget our "probably the best beer in the world", Opps... "Probably the other star in the night" photo!
Collages of little Jivan (or some may call him Asher) and gang.

I really wonder... If Jivan was the "pig leg" for the night as there are so many photos taken with him!?!
Jivan with the ASL girls.
CUTE!~

Lastly, i finally managed to catch a photo or two with the REAL star of the night.
Sorry Jivan, u can only claim second. Mmm.... Wait, second should be Sew, so u are third la! lol

Report from Istanbul Airport.

2009-11-23T15:54:00.000+08:00

First of all, i would like to wish my xiaomei a Happi Birthdae~
Hope you enjoy urself today!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After 12hrs of flight on SQ490 from SGP to Istanbul via Dubai, my back are aching quite a bit. And this sofa with this tiny desk infront of my now is not very helpful. Luckily there are free flow drinks. (Including beer, wine and spirits. Wah... Power sia) Yup i am resting in the HSBC lounge now. Only for HSBC card holders, but for credit card holders, u have to pay $50 Lira which is about S$50. I figured that it would be much cheaper since i usually charge the client breakfast and lunch at some atas restaurant. This one should be relatively cheap. Furthermore they have sofa, internet access, powerpoint and FOOD.... buffet style. Not those fantastic food, got salad n buns n stuffs, but i guessed its breakfast, they should serve lunch later. Wahahaha two meals at the price of one! Oh, did i mentioned that the drinks are free flow too? Oops...

So its going to be my second trip to Azerbaijan this time. I think i haben post my day three photos of my last trip. I will check if i can find them later. Azerbaijan i would say is not that lousy a country. The country is oil rich, hence u can find various branded goods like Hugo Boss and Gucci. Food prices are on a higher side as Singapore. A big Mac cost $3.80 manat which is as good as S$7dollars. Local food are cheaper, i tried the "Saruma" which is actually the Singapore version of kebab, but it is so much nicer. Maybe i should post pics too later. More about my previous trip later when i post the pics ba.

This time round, i am planning to stay in Istanbul for 2-4 days depending on my job in Baku. Although i already have news that there will be delays for the ETA. now its 25th Nov, which means nothing much for me to do tomorrow loh. lol. Haben plan my Istanbul trip, mayeb read up later.

More posting later, if i got the time...

DSLR in Winter

2009-11-19T23:34:00.000+08:00

I think i should post this to remind myself. :P

Cos i am planning to bring my cam our to Turkey when i am doing my job over there. Should have 2-3 days to tour the place. So was thinking of bringing out my DSLR. But since it is going to be winter, then do i need to worry? Condensation and cold battery???

Turns out, cold batt dies fast, so use warmer or keep ur cam tucked under ur windbreaker most of the time will help. Condensation will not really kill ur cam. But slight precaution is preferred by keeping ur cam in ur bag or better still in a zip loc bag while moving in and out places with different temperature.

For more info, look up this web pages:

http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=595322&highlight=cold+weather
http://blog.roving-light.com/2007/12/winter-travel-photography.html

They should be sufficient.

Will be posting more photos when i have the time....

Little Jivan walk in Vivo

2009-11-12T02:05:00.000+08:00

It so late le, i better let the pictures do the talking... Zzz...

I wonder who the cameraman is taking... Little Jivan or the clown beside him... Sigh...

Of course, when the camera man is diff... lol Better pics right??? :P

My fav pic of the day~

Sleepy look

Look like he really enjoy the ride on my shoulders. :)

He look so cute!?!

Man... Y got this pic one???

Wan to cry liao...

Cried. T_T

Ambush again @ JP

2009-11-12T01:19:00.001+08:00

Back to thsi restuarant again as the voucher i had was expiring. Not because of the voucher full that i return, but because i quite like their food too. :)

Mussels Pot, Loved their Mussel and Clams pots. U get to choose the sauce and they are always very generious with their sauce. It ends up like a soup but we really couldnt finish them. :P

I had the Mushroom pork sausage since it was on offer. I get a soup, which i dun like it, and a glass of lemon tea.

Josh dish was his favourite, the scallop pasta in fish roe sauce. This time he asked for tortilline, but i find its not fantastic at all.

Axerbaijan Day 2

2009-11-05T03:42:00.001+08:00

I was struggling to name this day one or two, as this is actually a first day of effective work done on my trip. lol Nevertheless, i am too lasy to make any changes... Furthermore, its 3.30am now. (1130 local time) Had a couple of local red wine and my head is feeling a big heavy now. Zzzz....

Well, i have to try to go on. Here goes...

Got up real late this morning, 1100am Singapore time to be exact, but 7 am in Baku. Was up eariler though. Once was at 4.30am local time as some bugger was trying to contact me thru the phone... However he hang up before the number was registered and i continued sleeping. my phone rang again at 5.45am this time it was an unknown call, which i picked up, realising it was some Citibank calls.. @#$%...

Woke up again at 7am local time, coz i was worried that i will over slept. By the time the alarm rang, i was too reluctant to wake up, but i still try to drag myself out of the bed. (I am actually pretty responsible one hor!)

Breakfast was not the usually american breakfast buffet. As the hotel was a small family owned business, the breakfast was simple too. Some coffee and cereals and some great omelette, i am well ready for work. Breakfast feels like lunch in my body... lol

Was in the yard by 9, and realised that the client was not planning to let me go back as there was no transport! Luckily i have my ipod with me to check mails and connect to the outside world if necessary.

Photos of the magnificant mosque right outside the yard.

This is Caspian Shipyard Company loh. (CSC)

Lunch was a mixture of curry n potatoes... Luckily there was two tiny pieces of chicken and the minestrone was actually pretty good. Hence, i didnt die of hunger there. lol

Dinner was good though, the client brought us to one BBQ steakhouse some where in town. Ordered a lamb chop, after highly recommended by a italian who lived in Baku for quite a while. Didnt want to break the old man's heart, (I was prepared to order the expensive steak one), i followed his recommendation and order the lamp chop. Initiall he was suggesting some fishy dishes, but luckily there ran out of fish. lol. I had lamp chops and calamari deep fried. Food where generally good. :)

Have to sleep le... Low batt.... Zzzz....

Azerbaijan Trip, Day 1

2009-11-04T02:46:00.002+08:00

After a gruesome 25 trip to Azerbaijan, i finally settles myself in the hotel. Time now is 2242hrs local time, but its 0242 Singapore time. Zzzz... Feeling very very sleepy, not because its 2am already, but that i didnt get a good sleep in the last 25hrs. Eat sleep n wake up and eat sleep watch movie. lol

Here is Istanbul Airport. My SQ flight stopped over at Dubai and i transit in Istanbul, But i dun get to get off in Dubai, neither did i see the plam beach. Coz i was seating in the centre roll. But the Istanbul airport looks decent, but definately not as fun and good as Changi loh... Sigh we will never get any chance to transit in Changi loh. T_T

Lamb chop salad i ordered for breakfast in Istanbul. That is after a Curry Chicken meal from SGP - Dubai and a omelette set from the Dubai - Istanbul trip. lol

Oh, did i say i ate a plate of pasta after three hours coz i was looking for lunch. lol

But end up no dinner la. better to sleep. lol

A collageof pictures outside the Istanbul Airport.

My hotel, is pretty decent.

Now to test the bed... Zzzz.........

Sony Aino~

2009-10-28T01:12:00.001+08:00

My long awaiting phone finally came this evening after a long shopping with sis n mum at Jurong Point.

Initially was contemplating a Sony SATIO, simply because they came in "BRIGHT RED" and i usually make silly decision, blinded by the "redness" in my eyes. However, this time, i kinda made a more sensible decision....

The SATIO is a overly sized "behemoth" out to kill!
With super huge sized screen and super duper 12 megapixels camera, there is none other phone that can match its strength at this moment. (Please dun compare it with the Pixon12, its little brother is pretty much a dud and i assume this is too. No punt intended!)

This time i let my head think a bit and end up getting this little mean machine that looks super duper cool.... (Esp with its stand!)
I think the package is much more worth it.
For $858, we got a 8.1Megapixel camera that is pretty awesome, a GPS enabled phone and a beautiful bluetooth headset with its very own stand! I told myself, i already dumped much $$$ into my camera hobby and more to be spent soon. lol and i wanted to use the cam to take most of my food shots that i use for blogging. (New lens contemplating.... lol) I jus need a decent phone that allows me to connect to facebook when required. (My current iPod can only access when there is WIFI) Preferably a good GPS for navigating, though i dun need them most of the time. (My head is already a great navigator. lol)

So here comes Aino~

Getting tired, maybe i will post more, when i got to use it more...

Hort Park 21 Sept

2009-10-27T01:01:00.002+08:00

Was at Hort Park with CC n Adeline last month to try out our new purchase. I also brought out my Tammy 55-200 to try and caught some amazing shots! (Amazing to my eyes la, though there are lotsa room for improvements!) I shall leave the talking to the photos~

Josh trying out his New Canon 450D. Shot at 200mm length. Guess he didnt like his shot. lol

CC trying to find his butterfly

Some flowers to start the day. :)

More flowers~

My first insect shot!

Oh man... Now i so wish i got a Marco lens...

Surprisingly, they still look reasonably good. :)

Insect....

White butterfly, totally blend into the background.

More butterflies.

These are a filter of more the 200 pictures. Some are jus shit...

Nice flowers...

I felt the performance of the cheap Tammy lens worthwhile with this shots showing the fine details.

The Lizard...

My fav photo! But i guess of there was a marco lens, the detail would be more!!!

I felt its pretty sharp here.

Good contrast i think.

Love the colours~

Carrot anyone?!?

Mini dragon fruit plant!

I didn't know African Violet look like this. I remembered they are popular for something... Mmm....

To round the day up, a group photo!

Beary Ramen!~

2009-10-26T23:01:00.002+08:00

Was home for dinner tonight even though mum is not at home cooking. But i suddenly had the urge of making one nice instant noodles and this was jus there!

It was one of the "many type of food" that my mum n sis bought from Hokkaido. Apparantly they bought so much that the seller gave them a huge box to bring back. lol

The package looks impressive and interesting for a Japanese instant ramen. Sis came back before i finish cooking and was telling me that the noodles is not that nice as the soup was soy sauce base, just like wat the package says. But i have already set my mind cooking and already have an idea how to cook it. She did mention to me to use spring onions to bring out the soy sauce flavour and looks more authentic. (Jus like wat was ate in Tyoko before.)

So in the noodle went and out............

Tata!

I cooked some mini saugages with the soup. I realised the trick is not to cook the noodles with the soup base! Normally we will cook the noodles and soup in one serving of water. (Maybe its jus me. *lazy* lol) But this time, i realised when cooking the noodles, the "Kee" came out and the soup become yellowish. I tot the soup would be bad with the "kee" in it, so i changed the water after cooking the noodles, and Voila!~

Turns out the noodles is springy, (jus like that type i like, but not so much on the "nua nua" side) and soup is slightly salty, heavy flavour of soysauce. The eggs was beaten and poured over the boiling soup to create something like sharkfins soup egg. :)

The end product is one delicious home made Japanese instant ramen. Oishi!!!

"Ambushed" at Jurong Point!

2009-10-26T00:34:00.002+08:00

One of my fav european restuarant has branched out to JP!!!

I always remembered the cook clams in white wine sauce i had the other time and was repeated here!

October Platter for the coming Octorber Feastival@

Clams in white wime sauce! My fav!

Been in a clammy mood these days after eating the "heng hua" restaruant.
This one is soooo nice! I actually finish the whole bowl of soup! :P

Josh wasn't that keen to buy a paella then, but i tot its is quite interesting, hence we ordered. lol

Sleepy le... gota sleep....

Astons Express at 6th Ave

2009-10-22T02:02:00.004+08:00

After a long day at Kitty's place, we settled at astons for dinner.
Was intending to grab the $59.90 Roast Beef for all one, but sadly... that one have to order one. T_T

Big bear always ready for me to "shoot" him. :)

Joshie's Beef Tenderlion cooked to medium rare. Can even see the bloody bloody meat from the side.
Eeeeeeeee..............

My Lamb Chop was supposed to be cooked to medium, but guess i had medium well that day. C

Mareen's Chicken and Sausages. Look like quite a good deal huh!

This was the place. :)

Two of my family Greatest Cook!

2009-10-22T01:36:00.002+08:00

Mum~ Almost everything she cooks are my fav! Of course sometimes she do "Pui Chui". lol

Always out to master a dish if she fancy cooking it. Will cook n cook n cook to make sure we all love it!

Of course not to forget my elder sister! Must wait till she cooks again!

Ahhhh.... I am so lucky :)

Sunrise @ Changi

2009-10-16T01:08:00.001+08:00

CC suggested this crazy idea to shoot a sunrise that day.
So the three of us crazily woke up at approx 5am to rush down to Changi to supposely find the best spot for the photoshoot.
Turns out we are not able to find the site, and missed the sunrise... So we end up with some pretty F**k up shots... (Or rather i think its more of my shots were lousy la. lol)

Nothing particular about this shot, jus tot that it is a rather peaceful picture. With better lighting, like sunrise for example..., the shot would look nicer.

Exploring the B&W setting and took this random shot. I find it pretty rustic but yet not subject. lol

Gosh... Josh almost fill up the whole picture!

The sun "risen" and some quick shot of a airplane landing.

CC looks smaller behind this walls...

Misc Food Collages using Picasa

2009-09-30T00:42:00.004+08:00

I tot this is pretty nice and interesting. So i picked a few photos and mixed them up.

Have been our favourite Dim Sum yet.

Looks nicer with this collage!

A lost set of pictures now in a collage!

The original Cat Mountain King Durian. No more ex geylang fakes liaos!

Sean must be thinking of all the food around him...

Back dated post (CF n KB Bdae)

2009-09-23T00:24:00.001+08:00

I was looking thru my photos and saw this few photos that i should have posted them.

The fire that i have started. Ok la, CC did helped a bit, jus a bit nia~! lol

Imperial Herbal Prawns that Josh made. Oh well, i add the "Imperial" word to make it sounds more tasty! lol It is tasty by nature la. :)

Our Chef for "a few minutes" I was cooking most of the time loh!

The cake~

The group photo "Uncut" Opps... think PF is going to kill me. :P

HK day 3

2009-09-17T00:38:00.000+08:00

Typhoon warning and frequent storms have dampened our touring spirits in the city. Our initial plans to take the rides in Ocean Park and tour The Peak after that had been cancelled.

Day three, after staying in the hotel for the early part of the morning, we lazily dragged ourselves to the lousy breakfast restaurant in our hotel. After which, we took a bus ride to the other part of HK island, and walked around the place. We visited one shopping mall, IFC mall, but the shops are all not opened. In the end we end up at Macdonalds for some small bites and coffee and went to the roof garden for some photo shoots.

Check out was not as swift as we mistook the US currency for SG dollars, end up we actually pay quite a bit for the hotel room. Ride up to Kowloon was a breeze thru the tunnel which was pretty long and amazing when u realized you are right below a 15m deep sea.

The Royal Plaza Hotel is quite a grand hotel, with a huge lobby although and lounge area. It looks traditionally decorated, with gold and greens with bits of crystals to reflects lights around. The room was also pretty decent. We had a family room meant for three, one double bed and a king size bed. The bed is cosy and comfy. Only problem is… There is no internet access…

After dropping of the luggage and some well deserved rest, we walked out to the shopping mall connected to the hotel, Century Plaza, a 6-storey building selling from cosmetics and lady needs to clothing and electronics. There is even a floor dedicated to baby stuffs. However, they did not sell any 3G sim card which I am desperately looking for now to get online. Online charges in the hotel is HK$40 for one hour, or HK$120 for 24hours. Which is not very convenient for me since I only use approx 1-3hrs a day. Hence I think there are better deals outside that we could use.

Shopping for the little lady was in one “ulu” building specially meant for girls. All ladies stuffs, we parted the little girl in search for some other things we, guys, like to see. However, the weather doesn’t seems to like us wandering around. With frequent down pours and short breaks, making us hide in shops that we totally are not interested to go in at all. We did hide in one Espirit store which is pretty cheap esp with the sale price. Else we went to one of the famed camera shop to find the people rather unfriendly and the price for the lens are not very cheap. In the end we end up in KFC to take shelter, having grilled chicken and waffles fries. The grilled chicken taste all right and there is even a Portuguese egg tart to go along, which is decent too. Looking for those wavy egg tarts my sis told me to find.

After 2hrs of shopping for the lady, there seems to be more smiles on her face. Though armed with only a small tote bag of goodies, she seems fairly happy for her purchases. Great!

We went on to walk the ladies market which was pretty disappointing for me. Nothing really catches my eye, I end up buying two monkey Tees for myself. HK got a nice Romance of Three Kingdom chess sets and the lady got a Little Twin Stars bedsheet.

We left Mongkok for TST looking for the other camera shop to buy the lens. Its so silly of me not to note the address of the shop before we came here hence we were looking up and down the place. We end up finding that the shop is closed, but we did had some nice desserts before we left.

Lastly we went all the way down to the Avenue of Start, one of TST famed handprints walks. But due to the typhoon previous night, there was some accident, which I think is that the neon lights of the building near to the walk was “busted” hence a section of it was closed. We had to walk one big round the shopping mall to reach the place. They didn’t even bother to redirect the traffic and we were so lost in the area.

Turn out the hand prints are not that fantastic. The occasional, “oh that’s the who who whose hand print over there” and the “oh I know him, he do that that that one”, was all we enjoyed of the handprints. However, the view was fascinating. The whole of HK island was brightly lighted with various commercial neon lights and building lights. Making the whole view a great experience. Too bad i do not have a tripod with me if not I believe the photos will be great…

I quick cab back to the hotel brought us to the lounge to enjoyed the music sang by a Philippines girl and organ played by one local chubby bald guy. My friend says he is cute~ lol.

We had quite a bit of drinks there and chatted heart fully before going back to sleep. It was one of the best sleep we had over here….

HK Trip - Day Two (Ocean Park n Typhoon. lol)

2009-09-15T15:53:00.000+08:00

Day two of the trip we set off early morning with plans to go to the Ocean Park to conquer all the rides. But all gone down to the drain as our trip there was dampen by strong winds of code 3, and further later a code 8 typhoon warning was issued and we were advised not to leave the hotel and all shops are closing due to the weather...

We first set off with a rather dissappointing breakfast at the bar. Yes, the hotel only have a bar at the first floor, but the deco was rather nice. The food selections were dissappointing, with the usual bread and cereals, there were ham but no sausages, got eggs but hard boil ones, got dumplings but they were tough... In the whole. LOUSY!

The pathetic breakfast...

The restaurant looks nice though. :)

After an unfullfilling dinner, we head off to Ocean park. The concierge told us to grab a taxi ride to the park, which will take less then 10mins. Heeding his advise, we hop onto the cab happily, looking forward to the rides in the park, and the famed pandas.

Our gang at the Ocean Park entrance

The tickets

We reach the park 10mins to 10am and was surprised that there was already long queues at the admission gates. On closer look, we realized that the park was not open yet, which means, what we saw, was what will be the number of people in the park.

We rush straight to the panda habitat once we stepped into the park. Which is also the nearest to the entrance.

Jia Jia

An An

Close up thanks to the Tamron 55-200mm lens.

It still looks decent in the morning.

After the pandas, it was already starting to drizzle. Trying to avoid the rain, we went into a ride tat appears pretty empty. Turn out, it was a express ride to the other part of the park, where all the rides are. We missed quite a bit of stuffs on this side of the park, but think that we will return, since Sophia wants to take the cable car down. Quick walk around the park, we found ourself in a cafeteria. Since we were waiting for the 1100 hrs ocean theater show. we grabbed some roast meat noodles. This time, its not tat fantastic as the meat were much lousier then the ones we ate the night before.

The show turns out to be rather spectacular. Using the 50-200mm tammy lens. i managed to take some pretty close up shots. All thanks to the bright background and it wasnt raining that heavily.

I felt this is a rather clear n sharp image. :)

At 200mm, with a bright sky, i managed to set a aperture of f6.3 and shutter of 1/250.

Finally a nice pic of the feeding.

f5.6 n 1/500 nice!

Leap for the ball!

Back flip!

Next we stopped at some games shop to play some games to win some plush toys. Turnout, we left the place with HK$150 short but 3 small toys and 1 tiny one. :P

HK was totally bochap when trying to get the balls in!

Next we went to the aquarium which house a number of marine species. However the aquarium was dark, hence we couldn't managed to grab a decent picture.

Fish!

Bigger fish!

Sea turtle

Next we went to the jelly fish aquarium. This is much smaller then the one in Japan. But the jellyfish were jus as entertaining. :)

One of my best shots in the jellyfish aquarium.

After all these, the rain began to pour and all rides was stopped as the government issued a code 3 typhoon warning across the island. Dissappointed, we left the ride side of the park and proceed back to the cable car to return back to the entrance. But the cable car wasnt the best ride back as there were many stops through out the long ride. We guessed it was because the wind was too strong and we were staying too much. Lol Imagine sitting approximately 30storey high above the seas, helplessly in a swinging cable car... Man...

Back at the first park, we visited another panda habitat and this time we saw the red panda! Looks so much like a raccoon! (Josh jus told me the "shifu" in "Kungfu Panda" was actually a red panda! lol)

Panda Close shots

The RED panda! Like raccoon hor~

This one jus eat n eat n eat... lol Maybe a Pigda

So cute hor!

Managed to catch this one with the tongue! CUTE!

Lastly, we had a small meal at the park, hoping that the typhoon warning will be lifted. But sadly, it didnt and we have to leave the place, disappointed...

Back at the hotel, we realized a typhoon was forming nearby and the government had issued a code 8 typhoon warning and heard the most shops will be closed by 8pm. Hence we are pretty stuck in the hotel...

Dinner was at a nice posh restaurant in our sister chain hotel, Cosmopolitan Hotel. Ours is Cosmos hotel. :)

Soup that we ordered. Tofu soup n Beef soup.

We ordered beef with kailan, but they serve us something else. To took two bites, thinking that its beef tender. Turns out to be some nice shell fish. lol Cost HK$128 instead of the HK$88 we ordered.

It is served with this super saltish paste. YUCKS!

This is wat it is suppose to be. The beef is like sukiyaki beef and the kailan was great!

Supposed to be some strawberry sauce pork ribs. But its is jus like normal ribs... :(

Tofu with crab roe. Not bad.

After dinner we decided to take a walk down to the convection centre to experience the storm and take some photos.

After which we walked to the victoria harbour while our lady friend returns to the hotel to rest.

The HK island side. Check out the waves height!

The Convectional Centre.

Thats all, waiting for the second day postings...

HK Trip - Day One

2009-09-14T23:14:00.000+08:00

Cam whore of my little (actually its pretty huge for his age!) godson.

2009-09-06T13:38:00.000+08:00

We out with Xiaomei n Big bear with little huge Jivan to Marina Sqaure for lunch. Jivan turnout to be the star of the day with two DSLR crazily snapping away machiam one super star in the making. lol

"Hey dun anyhow take my photo hor, must pay $$$ one hor!"

So Cute~ I wonder if he is munching his fingers or food...

"Hee~" Wat a joyful picture.

"Oh? Wat are you doing???"

"I am contestant number 29. Remember to vote for me hor!"

"Mama dun wan to give me food... I chilli :p"

"Mmmm... Its actually pretty tasty"

"Grrr... How come the taste is the same as my saliva one???"

"Finally! Real food!!!"

"Mmm... This chubby finger taste good too... Ouch! Its my own!!!"

"Hee hee hee, I wan more....."

"Give me la! Give me la! I show u cute cute face!"

"Yay~ I am so excited! My food coming!"

There are just too many of these cute photos i jus hav to post la!

lol check out the "Bo Gei"

"Give give give!"

"Mmm... Maybe i need to show another cute face to earn my reward..."

"How about this??? Give me la...."

"Yay~"

"Wat is this u are feeding me???"

"Mmm... taste good!"

"yum yum"

"Arrrgh.... I want to eat the finger too!!! Wahahaha"

"Mmmm... Taste a bit sweet, a bit.... Sour.... T_T"

~The sweet~

~The Sour~

"More more more!!!"

"T_T... This one laggi sour..."

"Finally stop eating that soury thingy le (Cherry Tomato)"

Even the mummy is happy :)

Time for REAL food!

MILK!

I tot this photo is pretty nice and classic. A mother feeding her child...

"Mmmm.... This milk taste funny, bring out the REAL milk! Wahahaha"

:P mummy dun wanna give. lol

"Daddy got big boobs but no milk! I dun wan!!!"

The finale~

Of course have to have my photo inside la!!! I am the GODFATHER leh!!!

Tamron Buddies n Joshie iphone n Dian Xiao Er revisited

2009-09-03T01:39:00.001+08:00

Got this two lens to complete my full range of 28-200.

The Tamron Buddies~

Tamron 28-105mm f4-5.6 ($100) and Tamron 55-200mm f4-5.6 ($150) caught by a canon 50mm f1.8.

My intention was to try out the ranges first before i go HK to get first hand lens.
These may not be the best of lens, but it fits the pocket for the purpose. :)

However, i felt the quality of photos from the 28-105mm is a bit wash out.
Guess i will try to let it go right after i purchase a new on in HK.

Currently targeting the Tamron 17-50mm f2,8 with VC (Out mid Sept), or the Canon 15-85mm (Jus announced).

On the other hand, Josh jus got his new iphone at Jur point.
End up we went to Pizza huts as we wanted to try their newly launch pasta.
(Apparantly better then some club street pastas...)

Joshie n his iphone

"Pep n Spice"

Not my type of pasta as it belong to the more chewy type, or rather it actually was pretty "rubbery" to me. I wonder which club street restaurant sells rubber pastas... Flavour wise, it was the better of the two we had, but still we wouldn's say it's good. Not that peppery n not that spicy. If i have to rate out of 10, i would give 5, barely passing the grade.

This was the Peppery Ribs.

If i were to rate it, i would say 5/10. The passing mark was given by the juicy n flavourful chicken ribs on top of the pasta. Everything else is disastrous! Sweet black pepper sauce kills the pasta....

Honey chicken wings

Josh was saying this is from CP. If it is so, i would say its CP standard, pretty nice but not outstanding. 6/10 for me. :)

Went to Vivo to pick up the free gifts from canon.

Stop at Dian Xiao Er for dinner, with photography of course!

Using a 50mm f1.8, i managed to take quite a nice duck drumstick. :)

"Dang Gui" Duck

Using Marco option, i find that this is the nicest dish on the table. However, the all time favorite were not as good as they have to be. The sauce was very sweet, sweeter then the others. (7/10)

Mongolia Lamb

Ordered this interesting dish of Monglia.

Lamb is not as stinky as before. 6/10

Croc Soup

Taste jus like pork! I am so surprised. (7/10)

Cannot blog anymore....

Zzzzzz..........

Night shots~

2009-08-27T03:16:00.003+08:00

Went out yesterday for some night shooting with CC n Josh.
It was my very first night shoot out with my 500D.
Hanging on to my 50mm lens, i couldnt get a good shot of the bridge that we were intending to take.

Turn out my fav pic of the day was this pretty natural photo. However, i must say the photo is quite off focus. Need to lean more about the use of the lens....

We went to the Marina Barrage today.

I am getting super sleepy hence jus appreciate the photos.

Night~

Canon 500D~

2009-08-24T01:33:00.007+08:00

Was crazy last Friday after a steamboat dinner with CC n Ade. After tempting me with all those DSLR terms and good stuffs about owning a DSLR, I actually agreed to meet him the next day morning to go Cathay Photo to buy one. However, when we were there, i wasnt very comfortable with the salesman as he was firm on the price and strict to give freebies. This actually turn me off, as i tot when i wanna spent more the 1k to buy stuffs, i would like to be served well and being one who like to bargain quite a lot, i felt helpless in front of him an feels like i was being cast aside, like someone who wasnt interested to buy one. Hence, i stepped out of the shop n left without buying.

On the other hand, CC proceed with his purchase ans return with his priced procession. I feltbad, in a way like i hav sabotaged him, when we came down together with the intention to buy two n to meet again tml to take photos, n some how or rather hides away when the real deal came...

In the fight to claim justice to my buddy, I drove down to Ms Colour at AMK to buy the identical model. Only saving myself $17 bucks, my pride and waste $$$ on the time n petrol cost.

However, i didnt have chance to meddle with my expensive gift for myself as i went off straight to Tampiness for a over the night Marjong... (which i lost $16 bucks. T_T)

Sunday morning was a day to help me mum snap up her numerous painting for her up-coming art gallery magazine. With the help of CC n Ade (Thanks alot!) We managed to finish over 200 shots of paintings n left for Little "Guilin" to test out our new cam.

Shots at Guilin was not fantastic as i didn't buy the wide angle lense. My trainer says its more cost efficient to buy the 50mm prime lense and purchase the 18-55mm lense on the net, which he did this morning, costing him $125! Hence, i am only able to take fantastic wide angle view of the "Guilin" quarry by borrowing his lense.

After some random photos in the park, I met Josh and Sean for dinner n we had Imperial Treasure at Orchard ION.

See below for some initial shots~ more to come after~
Zzzz........

My all-time fav!

This Dumplings in Chilli Oil Noodles, was soft and tasty despite the looks of a oily bowl of noodles. However, as usually, its not to Josh's liking as he prefers noodles that is more "tangy".

Nothing much in this photo of porridge. But there is TWO slices of beef, TWO pork meat balls and FOUR pig stomach. On the whole, the porridge is smooth, much to Josh's liking this time. :)

Mixed combination of Roast Duck n Soya Sauce Chicken. The skin of the duck is crisp n crunchy, however, the meat is not flavorful. The chicken taste tough to me. But they are great with the spring onion sauce.

Beef brisket is my fav after i tried one in bugis. However, they hav closed down since and i still couldn't find another comprative one...

After dinner, we went Canele.

The Choc Fondant was not warm enough and Sean was complaining that the one at "Chalk" was so much better.

The... I dun know name, dessert chosen by Josh, was the best of the night.

My Macaroon burger was super sweet. Hate that soury apricot jelly in between.

Took this before i left which i tot it was quite nice...

Early in the morning, before we walked to Little "Guilin"

With CC's wide angle lens.

I tot this one looks nice.

Josh n Sean infornt of the ION.

Me~ lol

Zzzzzzz............

Jumbo Hotpot @ Vivo City

2009-08-19T00:22:00.002+08:00

WAs actually thinking of pigging out at the "China" steamboat at Vivocity (Think its called NAN BEI CHUAN steamboat. Esp when i had worked myself up for 40mins at lunch today. Was thinking steamboat and buffet is the best way to end my day!

Before i was going up to the 3rd level, advertisement on the escalaor caught my eye. Says a new hotpot restuarant has jus opened right below page one and near the HSBC bank. Ask Josh who is with me then, (He is always with me whenever i wanna "pig" out. Who else to call, but a "pig" when u wanna "pig out"! lol.) he mentioned its a newly opened restuarant by JUMBO. I was like... huh? Jumbo open steamboat?

So being the always looking for something new guy, we walked over to take a look. We were first welcomed by the fragrant broth smell. Even before i look at the menu or the article outside, my soul was dragged into the restuarant liao.

The interior of the restuarant was classy. Nice, new sofa style seats in vibrant colours ushered ur way in. We were first greeted by one of the well placed "Buffet Condiment" Being the only "buffet" item in the restuarant then, it actually look very refine. Machiam eating at some high end hotel buffet restuarant like tat.

I choosed the "Ba Kut Tea" broth whereas josh took the superior broth. Both are chef recommendations hence i was expecting something good! Sadly only the superior broth life up to its name. It was thick and sweet, with hints of chicken and fishbone. The "Ba Kut Tea" was crazily peppery. I wouldnt mind a good peppery flavoured "Ba Kut Tea" but this is way too much. I couldnt taste the fragrance of the herb at all... Sigh...

While waiting for the food to come in, josh and i help ourself to the condiments first.

Josh and the classy table of well placed condiments.

Two of the sauce were indentified as mains, which is a superior soy sauce and the other was satay sauce. I was nvr a fan of satay sauce and to think of eating steamboat with satay sauce sounds wierd. Hence i stick to my all time fav, sesame sauce and garlic with lots spring onions. Beside these, there are fried garlic, fresh garlic, sesame, chilli, chilli sauce, garlic oil, sesame oil, chopped parsley and leek.

Here's a look at my sauce. Looks tasty hor!

Finally the food came and we had quite a good spread, order from the set meal. There were chicken slices, Aust Korobuta Pork, One huge pork ball, Assorted Seafood including scallops, prawns, fish and sotong. There were also a basket of mix mushroom and one hug glass of vegs. U can shoose to have rice, noodles or vermicillin. We choosed the Vietnam Pho noodles.

Heres the whole spread!

Assorted seafood. Wanted to take the rest but was too hungry to snap a photos of the rest liao. Tuck in!

Except for the extrememly peppery "Ba Kut Tea" soup, i really dun have anything else to complain. We even order additional marinatded beef and pork liver. Which i think its really stupid coz we are really full from the meal. The Marinated Beef taste "COCA-alike" less the baking soda flavour. (According to Josh one... I jus find that they are nice. lol The pork liver was not really to my liking. But at $2.50a plate, they werved quite a lot although some how i dun really like the texture.

I guess it is due to the fact that i am eating the "Ba Kut Tea" soup, i was craving for a dark soy sauce for my meats. The condiments served lacks a unique saltiness for the steamboat. I find the special sauce was too sweet for a steamboat and the rest of the condiments were jus sweet, sour and thick.

One the whole, i find its an enjoyable dinner. I personnally prefer the superior soup n the premium meats. Like wat the article in so.shoik.com says. they triump in their soups. Though it is actually not the important requirements in a steamboat. They also have good quality food. At that price, i think i would sure recommend my friends to it!

Chech out this article to find out more!
http://www.soshiok.com/articles/13723

Damage: ~$65/= for two, including a glass of beer.

JPOT @ Vivo City
1 HarbourFront Walk #01-53
Singapore 098585 (Lobby F)
Nearest MRT station: Harbour Front
For Reservations: (65) 6273 3536

Post post post!

2009-07-27T23:01:00.008+08:00

Ok, now that i have cleared my BKK/Pattaya trip, i better write something else... (Look them up in my previous uncompleted posts!)
---------------------------------------------
How about some decent Jap food i had at Cuppage Centre the other day.

I was recommended to this authentic Jap restaurant before by my good buddy, John, before. This time i brought my buddy, Josh to it. :)

This is the entrance, you should be able to find it at the second floor. Look out for the prominent green signboard!

The interior was a bit small, lucky there was bar seats as we didnt make any reservations. But i guess its a great seat! Can see the chef prepare the food.

This huge SINGLE whisker cat was right in front of me blocking the view of the chef... Grrr... Meow!

managed to sneak a photo when the chef is not looking. lol

The fried rice was... Er... cant remember. not fantastic ba.

The sotong was nicely grilled. The cooking process was nice when u see the sotong curl up on the grill.

The Grill pork was juicy n tasty. Simple marinate brings out the fresh flavours of the nice korobuta (Thanks Joshie~) pork.

This melt in your mouth braised pork was nice esp with its mustard. But some how its not that tasty. Maybe its jus me ba... lol

Saba fish have always been my favorite and this one is simply delicious! Love the rough texture of the fish yet this one is soft with a slight chewiness. The addition of lemon simply lifted the flavors... Yummy~

Finally, we ended the day with an addition of beef skewers and there was no regret ordering it. The soft, tangy and flavorful beef cubes cooked to perfection. Even though its not wagyu or kobe beef. Simply... NICE~

BKK one day tour

2009-07-19T18:57:00.003+08:00

Just got out of my hotel with the intention to tour Chinatown was spoilt by a heavy down pour. trapped in this MRT station, with nothing to do, I proceed to the BKK train station to see if there is anything to do...

BKK still boring alone...

2009-07-08T23:51:00.005+08:00

Well, I think its more me then that BKK is boring.

Check in to another huge hotel room again...

Heritage hotel gave me a upgrade too to its corner suite. Well i was thinking, it is because they think i am big size so need a huge bed, of is it because they wanna "takan" those single traveler and lauf at them, "Wahahaha... see u got big big room but no u have to sleep alone!!! lol"

This time the bed is queen size nia.

The small living room with LCD TV.

The mini pantry with a small sink and huge fridge.

The very nice n warm shower room.

Even got a dressing table!?!

The Hotel room lobby. Pretty classy.

View of my hotel from the BTS train station. Yes that how good the location is!

The other hotel called "I Hotel" looks nicer and bigger. It is jus opposite mine!
Target for nice trip to BKK! WITH PEOPLE!?! NOT ALONE! lol

Funny crepe i had at one of those cafe with wifi. Orange juice that taste super sour!!! over the crepe Eeekks...

Another soury mango drink with funny seeds and whipped cream. I wonder wats on my mind when i ordered these? Jealousy??? lol

Finally, some decent food from MBK. So i detoured to MBK from a failed chinatown trip. Turns out to be pretty fullfilling as i bought a number of shirts. (Now its undersized... lol)

They are jus YUMMY~

Pattaya Day 3, bye bye city of sins~

2009-07-07T22:22:00.002+08:00

Onto the last day of stay in Pattaya, I make a point to visit the best's in the city.

First I traveled to the "Health Land", with the help of the friendly Hotel Limousine Boss. He offered to drop me at the massage house, a 5 min drive away, as I chance upon him moving out of the carpark in the afternoon. This is also highly recommended by him.

Outside look of the Massage House.

The massage house looks decent on the outside. As i tried alot of times to get Vat to recommend me the "decent" and good traditional Thai Massage. Walking in, i was greeted by the receptionist warmly and was guided to rest at one of the sofas as i wait for the masseur. I notice that there wasn't much people around, but did notice a number of local people, hence i guessed it is not jus a tourist attraction - Usually substandard with lotsa advertisements and lousy skills.

Massage was done by a senior masseur in her late 40s and i was pretty happy since i felt the older they are the more experience they are. I boy i was right. :)

Initially, i was thinking this lady is just like any other masseur as she didn't use much strength. After hinting her with sign and a mix of English, Chinese language, i finally got my "strong massage" and was soon regretting it.

After a while, i start to show signs of pain as parts of my body is as hard as thousand year old stone. At one point of time, we were giggling away as i was trying not to show my pain and she realized.

On the whole, i must say its one great massage and i fuller enjoyed it. At one point of time, i actually dozed off. Coz i can't remember the other hours passed by so fast. It was 2 full hours of massage and i paid 450 baht with a 100 baht tip to the lady for exerting so much strength to loosen my tough muscles. :)

Nest up was the much awaited Tranverstie Cabaret Show, The Tiffany Shoe. It was actually quoted to be the best in the world, and i truly agreed. Vat got me a second row centre seat and i had a great view of the stage. It was a night of elaborate dressing and unbelievable "ladies". The show was done in a lip-syncing manner but the actors/actress showed much professionalism, as you could feel that they are singing even though the songs were in various languages. They have songs in English, Indian, Korean, Chinese and even Russian. Of all songs, the Korean songs were most welcomed as there were lotsa Koreans. I was amazed by the fair looks and skins of these lady boys and many a times i am trying to tell myself, maybe they got a mixture of ladies, especially the leading dancers.

The show was done in a much extravagant manner that all of them were dressed in fascinating clothings. From the traditional korean dresses to the traditional english dress with wigs, and the glamorous, sparkling night gowns. I was most intrigued by the Indian dance as the lead actress did a great "belly dance". Furthermore, she was giving me lotsa direct winks as i was sitting right in the center. (Maybe he winking tot the guy behind la. lol)

On the down side, there are a number of them i felt was not that fantastic. Some how, i felt quite sorry for them. Out to become a lady, yet they do not have the features to be one, and hence cast aside as accompanying dancers and not catching the viewers attention at one... Sigh... The good and bad of transvestite...

Check out some photos i took jus now!

The outside of the Tiffany Show.

One of the not so fantastic lady boys. But this one actually make the whole show funny. Filling in when they want to have a change in back drops. Oh did i mention they have a huge number of back drops too! Including a water sprouting centre stage!

At the end of the show, they will stand outside, allowing tourist to take photos with them, of course, at a nominal fee. :)

Oh, i forgot to add... Finally managed to stuff these KFC meals down my stomach. The most interesting of them all was the Grilled chicken burger. The chicken actually taste great but as you can see below, the addition of brocolli, yes BROCOLLI in buns!?! Is not my type of burger ba. Taste awfully raw though its soft and definately kills the flavours. The grilled wings were as good as the grilled chicken. With a hint of peppers. And the Orginal Chicken, was rather bland though tender in the center and crisp on the outside.

Thats the meal i bought. :P

The look normal yet not bad chicken.

The funny "Brocolli" grilled chicken buns...

The Grilled wings. Nice~

Pattaya Day 2

2009-07-07T22:15:00.001+08:00

Day two was actually the first day of my work. But since i missed one huge part of my job. There is nothing much for me to see and hence i was back to the hotel early. lol. Lunch was room service and i had some nice food.

Lunch was Cream of chicken soup, Pork neck salad and Boiled rice with pork.

The cream of chicken is one lousy soup, where the cream is actually conjugated and taste awful.

The Pork neck is nice but oily, but it has a slight Thai "porky" smell, which i dun like.

The Boiled rice taste salty, which means i would like it. lol.
Its like a cantonese Porridge where the soup is poured into the rice and eat together.

Spend almost more then 4hrs trying to reply mails and to organise stuffs. I finally leave the hotel at approximately 5pm. Took a photo of the view from the other side

But the sky was getting darker as i walked and a storm was imminent. True enough, rain poured within minutes and i took shelter at one small shopping center. Nothing much to do here, after two arcade games and 1 cup of coffee, i ran out of the building, thinking that the rain will not stop any time soon and its a waste of time to wait there.

Ran through the rain to another shopping center. This shopping mall was easily recognized as they house the Ripley's believe it or not show and a wax museum with almost the same name as Madame Tussaud's in the making. Nothing much to do also over here, but i did had my heaviest dinner then, a mixed charcoal grill in one of the foodcourt.

The food court was well decorated.

Looks pretty nice hor!

The charcoal mixed grill that i ordered. Slightly charred to give the charcoal flavour and the meats were great for the price. Sausages were thailand style and i should have expected it! Not that nice, and should have ordered the other one.

The mixed grill come with a variety of sauces for you. :)

After dinner, it was still drizzling outside and i took the "Song Tell" a larger version of "Tuk Tuk" in Bkk and a very convenient transport around Pattaya's busy areas. Cost me 10baht only!

Pattaya Day 1

2009-07-07T21:43:00.003+08:00

Touch down to BKK Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Sunday and was pick up by my hotel's limousine. Not the Mercs Benz type of course as my client wasn't going to pay such lavish expenses by me for such a small job. Yes am in Pattaya for a surveyor witness of loading of some expensive, yet tiny cargo.

Road trip to Pattaya was 1hrs 30mins. Luckily the driver, Mr Nutt (lol maybe he need more nuts) was friendly and was pretty fluent in English and we had a nice chat over the 2 1/2 hrs ride.

-----------------------------------------

Well, much is forgotten after an almost 2 weeks break, guess i will try to recall them back...

Well, first of all i was shock by the size of the hotel room for me! There is one huge KING size bed, and there is another smaller room with a single bed! I wonder if it is because the staff was excepting someone else to sleep over. lol. Then again, there is no need for another bed ma. keke.

But nevertheless i tried to change a room, coz my view was a old back alley of another street whereas the other side was the view of the fantastic beach!?! Too bad there wasnt any and they mentioned thats y they compensate with this huge room. Sigh... so big for wat?!? Machiam i can rooll here till there...

Huge shower room, but funny they dun have shower curtain on the bathtub, but then, there is another "rain" shower on the other side. lol

The smaller room on the other side. Dun play play hor! Its bigger then some bedroom and got a 26" LCD TV hor!

This is the view linking the main bedroom and the smaller room. Funny they only have a 29CRT TV here. Mmmm...

Behold! the KING SIZE bed. Wahahaha! I roll, i roll, i roll... Haben fall off the bed. lol

Well, beside the room... There is the ROOM SERVICE!?! lol

Well, I jus ordered one set of drum lets as appetizer, followed by Tom Yam soup and Fried rice as main course served together with a refreshing glass of watermelon juice. Ahh...~

The Tom Yam soup was EXCELLENT! I wonder y thai alway make the best tomyam soup. That is, regardless of whereever u are! Then again... They originated tomyam soup. lol
Its sour, spicy, tasty, delicious, juicy, creamy, meaty, full of seafood and YUMMY!!!
Need me to say more?!?

The chicken drum lets were a bit let down. I tot they will serve boneless type with stuffings. (Think i had too much Simply Thai in Singapore. lol)

The fried rice was.... Mmm cant remember le. Nice? i think so. lol

Jus before the day got darker, i decided to take a walk to the famous "walking street". One of my colleague was telling me how great the place is, and now i understand why... Turns out it was the most boring part of my trip in pattaya. Coz the "walking street" is actually pretty much a "wh**e street" Please pardon my explict language here but it is really true. Throughout the streets, u see bars and pub and standing outside u wil see many girls trying to lure u in. Most of the time is jus for a few drinks i would have guess, but to think that some might have "evil" tot, i better think twice before going in. lol

It was close to 6pm when i left the hotel and i managed to take a slow walk along the beach. If u look closely, there is a big "PATTAYA CITY" on the back, you can see it later when i reach there at night.

This is the various sun shade along the beach, apparantly you could lie under the shade and people will come and serve you drinks. I seems that the beers are cheap but then, what is there to do when u are alone... U can swim coz ur stuffs will be wet and there will not be another people to look after your things. But notice there is a new Holiday Inn hotel at the backdrop. Due to open end of this year. Seems that the view will be fantastic!

Finally reach the end of the walking street and this was the "PATTAYA CITY" word i was talking about before.

On the way back i saw this guy with this HUGE dog! I think if he stand on two legs, he will be taller then the master!

Well, after the long walk up and down, it took me 1hr to walk to the "walking street" ans another 1hr to walk to the end of it. I reach back my hotel almost close to midnight and hence i didnt eat and fell asleep...

Work on the next day~

Mussel Guys @ Vivocity

2009-06-27T00:20:00.004+08:00

Got lotsa food pic to blog about these days. Coz Josh and I have been "pigging" a lot these days. I think this month i had the most number of buffets, restaurants and interesting food...

One of them is the Mussel Guys at Vivocity.

I remembered I actually wanna try their restaurant before, but the number of people inside really didnt help pull me in. Though the service was pretty good. They have very patient staffs outside trying to lure customers in by introducing the promotions and food they serve.

I am not sure for what ever reasons, i actually wanna give it a try. So *Poof* in we go. For a weekday at dinner time, with only three tables occupied was not very encouraging. But they do have this 1-for-1 mussels dishes which makes it quite tempting.

Cut the talking, and we have the soup for starters since i order the set meal which is pretty worth it i feel. So the pictures to know why i say so.

The soup is cream of mushroom, nothing really fantastic here but it was no lousy soup.

First mussel that came in was this delicious half-shell mussels in creamy sauce.
The sauce was great (since i am always a fan of cream base) and the mussels were fresh! I will say this is a must try for them, but the others looks equality nice.

Since we had the cream base mussel, we tot we should order the fried ones to balance the wet-dry issues. The mussels were fried with their shells together. So u kinda need to cut them between the shell n meat. But its not a hassle if u know the correct way to cut them. :) Anyway, they were as fresh as the cream base one and i felt its a good balance. Though i say people taking the steam ones, and they look jus as good. Definately coming back to try the others...

Josh got eh squik ink pasta with huge prawns. This dish was cooked with a slightly spicy manner which i felt a simple tomota pasta would be good enough, zoa the squik ink pasta should be the main taste ingredient instead of the spices...

The most worth while dish i should say is this chicken and lamb mix grill. The lamp were nicely grilled though the inside were pinkish n slightly bloody, the tenderness is actually fine! THe chicken was also quite tasty and for that price, with coffee, soup n main, i am sure itsa steal!

In total, the damage was around 60bucks. Really worth it when u love mussels.

Coverflow-like Wii OS.

2009-06-27T00:06:00.004+08:00

Finally! I managed to get the program working for my Wii!
After much research and trial and error, the program finally works!

It is so cool to see so many games at one shot!
Till date, I can see more the 80games!

Check out the cool photos below.

For those who wanna do the same, u need to set up the "Home Brew Channel" in ur wii first. And the rest is jus a breeze~
For more info, u can check www.gbatemp.net for more information.

Cheers~

Another Bdae Prezzie~

2009-06-13T22:10:00.004+08:00

Well, this is kinda expected from Josh as he already openly told me that he will get this for my bdae present. Just that the watch was a total surprise for me.

Full set of McDonalds Coca-Cola Contour Glass set.

I had set my eyes on these the moment it was released, but i dun think that it will be much use in my house. Furthermore, I kinda set a New Year Resolution of not buying such "unnecessary" things, hence I couldn't make myself to buy it. So Joshie came to the rescue and "I'm loving it!"

Happy Bdae moi~

2009-06-12T00:04:00.003+08:00

Jus got this nice gift from mum. :)

She knows i am a "RED" fanatic and hence, when she happens to be shopping around Raffles City, she saw the shop Printemps... Those who know them will know they have lotsa stuffs in vibrate colours. And deep red happen to be one of them loh.

Therefore....

Thats the results from the shop. :)

Love the red pen actually. I was actually thinking that i would really like to have a good pen for a birthday. Somehow, I kinda like pens (that explains y i actually bought a nice and pretty expensive one for a good friend of mine), so when i was thinking of an "ideal" present for myself, i did stop at a nice, professional pen. But then seems that no body likes to give pens as gift. (Dun know why, as some times i propose buying pens as gift will not get many attention one...)

Nevertheless, i think with this very nice red pen, (roller ball one some more). I am pretty much contented with my "kinda silent" birthday wish being made. :)

Xing Wang Taiwan Cafe @ City Link Mall n Night at the Museum 2

2009-06-10T00:38:00.008+08:00

Saw this "newly" (I haben been to Marina Square and Citylink Mall for quite a while already. And as i was passing by the other day, i sat this new restaurant replacing the previous japanese pasta cafe...

The food looks interesting, the price seems fair and the deco is decent. Hence i dragged Sean to the place today to try out the food. (End up, he foots the bill. lol. Thanks!)

Turns out, the portion was really small and the food was slightly bland...

The signature Taiwanese snack would have been this crispy chicken. Although it was not that bad, but it lacks the unique "taiwanese flair" I wouldn't be able to describe to you, but a trip to taiwan might tel. :)

The tempura was another type of taiwan popular food. But i felt it was not mimicking it, but to come out with another flovour n get popular with it.

Three main course we had was the Thicken soup of pork n mushroom with rice, the Herbal Chicken Mian Xian and the Lor Ba rice. Not that fantastic but they are reasonablely price and serviced.

Josh ordered this fried large intestine but was not that nice.

The Herbal Mian Xian

The loh bao rice which was pretty bland...

Dessert which we order were less then appertising too... This Peanut smoothie i tot was a drink. Turns out, its a peanut butter n milk blend with peanut butter on top. Well, as a none peanut butter lover, i quickly stopped after a few slurp.

The ice jelly lemon was much better since the jelly itself was refreshing and sweet. The lemon was moderately sour, but not to my liking.

The menu do look very nice n interesting.

As we left the restaurant, there was a long queue in front. I tot, all these hype about new restaurants nowadays are merely gimmicks for the people to spent. So many a times, taste is jus secondary. More people wants to try new things and stay "in" the restaurant wagon....

After the meal, we went shoe shopping as mine was in quite a sad shape. I needed another pair for backup. I enjoyed shopping with Sean as he would give me rather good recommendations and i would not end up asking myself the same questions if it was another person. (You know who) lol.

In the end, from a $265 Massimo Ditto flat to a $134 Rockport to a $360 - 15% Geox, I finally settle for a $97 Everbest. I think i made a sensible decision this time. The shoe was stylish, the quality was there and the price was great! What more do you expect when u got the best of all three worlds!

Lastly we went to have some snacks and drink at "Bao Today" before catching our movie "Night at the Museum 2"

Bao Toady had some nice Siew Mai and Har gaos. They are big and "prawny" taste is good too. No complains there. Except they sells this chinese tea on the menu, they taste like a mix of Pu Er and Tie Guan Ying. And cost me $1.50! Without refill some more!

Night at the Museum was not as captivating as the previous series. Though i tried to explain to Josh about the scenes in the first installments, even though it was being showed in channel 5 on sun evening, it didnt attracted his attention. But i would still says its an enjoyable show, though maybe watching on the DVD would be sufficient.
l u the answer. :)

BK does it again!

2009-06-09T13:20:00.002+08:00

I am once again, pissed off by BK again. I tot I should give them another chance since the promo looks pretty good n the value was fair. But I was wrong...

Not only did they changed the name of the drinks. Instead of the "small, medium and large" they have the "medium, large and king" irritating right! When I look at the "value" meal, including a med drink n med fries. I was tricked to believe that I will be served a medium drink loh! Then only I realized they changed the names.

Next, the "so call" seven inched was not really that long, I estimated mine was 5-6 inch nia. (Pls... I meant the burger that i am having...) Some more, from the look on the poster, they have two patties. But actually, it's two half patties. *derz... Though this is written on the poster, " single patty" but it is jus deceving loh. Some more they used the pharse, "thick n hearty" but not for the patty, it's for their sauce....

Once again, I must say, I will not patronize them again, untill another supposely deciving advert comes out again and I have to test again.

Jing Hua @ One Fullerton

2009-06-07T22:48:00.006+08:00

We were looking for a decent Dim Sum buffet restaurant and Josh recommended this. I must say, this is one of the BEST recommendations he have ever made and we are all loving it! I must say, if anyone is craving for Dim Sum, this is going to be IT!

This Jing restaurant is actually quite a small restaurant, unless u wanna sit outside. Btw, they do have quite nice alfresco sitting outside, over looking the waterfront. Only u might get a few grains of sand flying thru, courtesy of SANDS casino... lol

Back to the restaurant, I must say again, the restaurant is great! The food is even better, especially when it was a treat from JOSH!?! Thanks joshie~

Enough of all those words, i guess a picture speaks a thousand words hor! :)

First we had the "Ko Shui Ji" its cold chicken with mala chilli on top. Then there was the fried batter prawns and jelly fish... The prawns were fresh and the batter was tasty!

Then we had the Chicken Curry noodles and Vinegar pork trotter. The noodles served was like thick bee hoon. But the curry was thick and mildly hot. As for the Vinegar pig trotter, it was not that sour but taste alright. Although i still prefer the orginal "Lor Dir Ka".

This was the last cooked food item that we had to serve ourselves. This time, the chef will chop the duck into small slices. Its is a bit too dry to my liking, as i prefer roast, instead.

We had a lot of "Har Gao" and "Siew Mai" but the service was so fast, and i didnt have time to take photos. This one is the extended version of "Har Gao" with a small slice to scallop on top. Honesty speaking, the scallop dun make much different in the taste but the looks is great! Btw, the reason y i didnt take photos is also because they were so nice n i was worried that the rest of them will steal them!

This is the fried mushroom with wasabi mayo. They have the prawn equivalent one too. The wasabi was sweet n not that chocking.

These fried dumplings and fried scallops with prawn looks very nice, but the dumplings had too thick of a skin n the fried scallops were a bit too salty. But the prawns used were fresh though. :)

"You Cham Soon Hock" was one of Ade's fav. Last time we go JB almost everytime she will order that. This time was no exception. :) There were nice although CC complained that the y fried it for too long though i find that the taste was good n the meat inside is still tender.

Next up we had the prawns. we order one initially, and was served 4. So this time we got 3 servings. And wat we got?!? Huge plate hor! The prawns were fresh and wat else is the best was to steam them!

The soup they ordered was the fish maw soup as it is also the most expensive one. lol

Next, is this tender beef slices. No comments, just juicy and moist and succulent!

Besides this, there was also the chili crab, which we all didnt like, the kang kong that was quite nice... A number of fruits and desserts and kueh.

But the last was yet to come!

This is definately the highlight of the buffet!?! Deep friend DURIAN with GOLDEN leaflet on top! Worth the $$$ and worth the taste!!!

Checking out the durian puree flowing out!

I couldnt resist, even though I was super full, I still want to eat more! Can u imagine how "paiseh" when the chef pick out the big plate of friend durian and we quickly chopped 5 of them! and some more i took two rounds! :P

Oh the whole, I think it is really craving for atas DIM SUM, we have enjoyed ourself, beside the fact that we were so uncomfortable after how full we are after the buffet... It is definately worth recommendings!

I am so sure to come back if i wanna dimsum buffet!!!

Cheers,

Happy Bdae prezziesssss~

2009-06-07T01:39:00.005+08:00

Not that i am greedy la, but who dun like a lot of presents for his birthday!?!

So way before my birthday, i have start to buy stuffs for myself. Birthday ma, so when is there another better chance to treat yourself!?!

First i got myself a bag. :) I have been actively searching for a nice document bag for me to bring to work. Previously i was using a small FX black bag (Present from Josh before) then I changed to the ASUS laptop messenger bag. It was told after a few use and i pick up the free document bag i got from starhub when i got the HTC diamond. But the handles peeled off after a short use. Hence i end up with no proper bags and using the broken ASUS bag and the FX bag. This time round, i was determined to get a bag from the Tangs sale. Walked around the Braun Buffel counter first. As i really like that brand. But i was nvr satisfied with any bags there. There were one pretty nice one, but the desire to get it was not that great as the bag was not that fantastic. I walked around and end up at Picard which had one bag which i really like. The size is right, the colour is wat i wanted and the price is great! Still... i couldn't make up my mine. Coz its not a BB bag. lol. So i stopped and walk over to BB again. This time round i happen to see another bag, asked the staff if there were another colour for the same bag, and i was surprise with a beautiful bag that i loved quite a lot! But there was a problem... It freaking expensive!?! It almost tripled the Picard bag. I really couldn't help but step away from the bag. After walking out of the shopping mall and return, I melted in front of the BB staff and got that bag. Heavy damage done but it was well worth it. Now i am pretty proud of holding that bag of mine up high and everyday to work. :)

Check out the label!!! Very ex hor!

The second present came when i was dining with Xiaomei and Big bear. We were eating at Sakae Sushi at West Coast Plaza. We had the shabu shabu buffet but this time its not on the kaitan, as the staff says its not worth the $$$ to do that. But this time round, we got the seaweed soup. Which was extremely salty!?! In the end we had to bear with it while we washed down lots of food that day. After that meal, i went to their place to see my god son, Jivan. (Yes, i still prefer to call him by his middle name. That only makes his god father unique loh! Afterall, its his name ma!)
P.s.: Big bear... i am still waiting for those wonderful photos that ur quite wonderful camera of my very wonderful godson and me. :) (Limited Vocab is like tat one) Anyway, at the end of the day, while we were busying "facebooking" xiaomei got me my second bdae prezzie.

This cute little Doremon in RED!?! lol unique!

My third prezzie was bought by my self again. Was aiming this tiny little RED mouse for a long time again as i couldnt find any excuse to discard my faulty big bulky grey mouse. This time, at Challenger, i finally took up the "courage" to buy it, with the excuse of the faulty mouse affecting my facebook bejewled score. lol. Now... I am feeling the mouse is too darn bloody small!!! Feeling a bit uncomfortable to use. Then again... "Ai Sui Bo Ai Mia" :D

"Chio" right?!? but really darn tiny loh, check out the tiny USB pod!

Lastly, i got this beautiful watch from joshie after lunch today. It was actually that watch that i tried and love the other day when we were shopping together with Sean to buy a gift for Ronnie. It was Feb then and i didnt have any excuse to splurge on a new watch. (I have approx 8 good watches now... :P) With this addition, its 9 liao! lol. I was pretty surprised as i didnt expect it coming from him. :o Nevertheless, it was a great gift. :) Loving it! (bala ba ba ba~ I'm loving it!)

Watch on my wrist, Sean says its too big... But i think its alright!

Nice hor~?

OK, shall not post too much. Got to go Gym and Dimsum Buffet lunch tml.
Need to sleep well. :)
Night~