Sashimi

Gosh i'm kinda hungry now but am currently sitting glumly on the 858 and thinking of the scrumptous meal we had a ikoi two sunday's ago. Ikoi at the Miramar Hotel is quite well known among us foodies in Singapore. It's an inexpensive japanese buffet ala carte and it offers a selection of sashimi, tempura and various other types of japanese cuisine that are popular in Singapore. It's perhaps not the best quality but for if i remember correctly the price tag is only sgd33 (need to check). That's a really good price for the quality and variety that they offer. It's lots better that horrid Sakura buffet and also better than Kushinbo which is also better than horrid Sakura. :-) One of my friends who moved to the States with her husband was back for a visit. So a bunch of us when to ikoi to celebrate her birthday and most importantly, stuff our faces. :-) k. That's it from me, if i talk anymore about food, i might just faint. :-) ja atode.

Hey you...

Hey hey sunsetrose... as promised... just for you... :-) erica and i are cheering for you. :-)

Eastern Europe - a tease

Okay, I know I said I wanted to complete the mobile blog section of my E.Eur trip but unfortunately, I got caught up with a ton of things and work hasn't really let up either.

I begin new Japanese classes this week =) and I'm also back to playing games on my NDS again. This time it is Professor Layton who's been sucking up my sleep time on the bus to work. =) Final Fantasy Tactics A2 also got released this week, so I think that may begin to consume some of my time. Although, I may not get it and get hooked on Apollo Justice (thank you again for the gift S) or Touch Detective 2 1/2 which I have but haven't had time to play. And apart from all that and trying to have a life, I'm back to watching TVB again... arrrrggghhh... need fewer obsessions. =)

Anyway, here is a photo from the top of the Astronomical Clock in Prague, Czech Republic. It's one of those panoramic shots which were stitched together in Photoshop CS3. I've several more and would like to put them on the blog too when I get a chance.

This little tease is for those of you who have been bugging me about those photos. =)

enjoy

Southern Ridges - panorama

Recently I bought a new DSLR. Yes, another camera to my collection. =) This time I picked up the Olympus E-510. It's the Great Singapore Sale right now and the camera came at a very good price. The camera, including 2 kit lens, cost me SGD1098 (or there abouts) which is a really good deal and it is one of the biggest reasons why I bought it. There are other reasons, of course, but I won't go into them now.

I took this camera to test and to try and familiarize myself with it during my recent trip to the Southern Ridges Park Connector. I'm still horribly unfamiliar with all the functions and will definitely have to take it out more often.

Anyway, last year, because of work, I plunked down a fair bit of money to buy the Adobe CS3 Production Suite and one of the pieces of software that come with the bundle is Adobe Photoshop CS3. I've only really used it for relatively simple stuff and only just discovered this really cool feature. Photoshop CS3 has a fantastic photo stitching function. It's the best I've ever used to date. Very quick, rather accurate and quite, quite seamless.

I didn't shoot too many images for the expressed purpose of making panoramas as I was too busy trying to figure out the camera but I did shoot a series of shots to try and capture the view of Singapore from Mount Faber Loop, just before you get to the entry into Henderson Wave.

Hope you like the view. =)

Lower Seletar Reservoir

It's yet another lovely day to be out and about on the bicycle. This time my mum and I took a ride to the Lower Seletar Reservoir which is on the outskirts of Yishun New Town. The reservoir runs parallel to the very busy Yishun Ave 1 and at it's farthest corner, opposite the end where the Orchid Country Club is, is the very busy intersection of Yishun Ave 1 and Lentor Ave. It's not exactly the kind of place you'll expect to find next to such busy streets, but there it lies, small but pretty and surprisingly serene. I've not come here for a while now and hence, miss it somewhat. Will have to come here again, with a better camera and some eats so that we can kick back a little and enjoy what God has created in this world. :-)

Back to earth...

After our long walk through the Malang Trail, Henderson Wave, Forest Trail to the Anderson Arch, we returned to one of my favourite shopping malls in Singapore, Vivocity. After the walk, we had lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, Shin Kushiya. We originally intended to watch a movie, The Happenings, but there was a lot of kids at the theatre so we decided to do some shoppin and have coffee then return home to rest. :-) i really enjoyed the walk. Will definitely return to complete it.

Up among the trees...

Today i took a day off work to spend some time with my parents. We planned to check out the new pathways the National Parks has constructed through Mount Faber all the way to the West Coast. This is a shot of the Canopy Walk. Not the best but will do for now. Will put up more when i get a chance. :-)

Yum Sheng

I'm at the Screening Room right now. Two of my colleagues have quit and today is their last day. So we're here for some drinks and food. The tabemono here is oiishi, the biru is good, the company is fun. Will miss my two colleagues though. :-(

This is for you sunsetrose...

Yesterday i went to the changi village hawker centre with two of my colleagues and had ayam penyak (sp?) for lunch. I love this indonesian dish of deep fried chicken hammered flat by a mallet and served with a plate of rice, a side of cucumbers and lots of spicy chilli. There is more than one stall selling this dish at the hawker centre. The one we go to is the more popular one with small fake stuffed roosters hanging around it's signboard giving it a bit of a haitian voodoo feel. I love the chilli that this stall makes, it's spicy and has lots of kick but yet doesn't bit or numb your mouth and isn't too salty or oily. We come visit this stall often enough and i've never thought of taking a photo of my meal till yesterday. And that's cuz of you dear sunsetrose, you like my posts on food so much, it wouldn't do not to snap one just for you. :-)

If music be the food of love...

... play on. I didn't realise that the annual Singapore Arts Festival was back again. Well, i take that back, actually i think in the back of my mind, i had some vague inkling that it was back. Usually, i find most of the events too highbrow for me and after a few years of thinking i should go see something, i pretty much don't bother anymore. What i really do like though, is that in the later years of the festival, they have been trying to promote art by bringing it to the masses by organising free events in public places. Tonight, while out with a friend, we were unexpectedly treated to "art on the move" by two young violinists, alan choo and cao qi, i think. We were going to dinner when we decided to postpone dining to get a dose of culture and it was a very good decision. Both my friend and i enjoy classical music and we both like the violin. The violinists also sounded good to our layman ears and as singaporeans, we appreciated the fact that it was free. :-) maybe next time instead of two violinists, we'll get a full orchestra. :-)

hao tian qi

The weather this morning was fantastic for swimming. Not too cold and not too hot. So i was really glad that i managed to drag myself out of bed to attempt my usual 40 laps. Unfortunately, i only managed 34 as the strain of yesterday's long bike ride and light weight training insisted that i take it easy today. Before i headed out to work today, i took advantage of my good mood :-) to pay some bills. Wow, my latest phone bill isn't pretty. Due to my mobile blogging of my entire trip to E. Europe, my phone bill also took "the great leap forward". But still, i do not regret doing it and will continue to do it in the future. While not free, mobile blogging allowed me to keep a proper record of my trip to beijing, bintan and now E. Europe. It also pleased me that my parents and friends were able to at least experience my trips and the daily events in my life in some small way. Right, it's almost time to get off the bus. Later. :-)

Xiao Hong Lou

One of the things i really really really love is crab. And one of our favourite places to show our partiality to this shelled creature is at the Little Red House at the East Coast Seafood centre. In the past 1 1/2 years since i discovered that i was not alone in my obsession with this snappish crawler, so several of my colleagues and I have formed a support group. At the height of our need, we would troop down to the Little Red House for our monthly support sessions of drunken prawns, black pepper crabs, singapore chilli crab and the gui fei crab. Last week, during a somewhat tiring week at work, the need to fulfil this urge for that soft sweet white succulent flesh began to take hold again and i was glad that the Little Red House existed. So ten of us proceeded to gorge on two huge bowls of drunken prawns and 6 huge sri lanken crabs. And now, all is well with the world again. Now i don't know if the Little Red House makes the best crabs in Singapore but thursday's food was simply divine and i'm thankful God did not make me a vegetarian. :-) have a good sunday guys. :-)

Back to work again...

So it's back to work again... As you can see from my sad attempt at self-portraiture that i'm still clinging somewhat hopelessly to my 15 day adventure in Eastern Europe. :-) I was busy moving the stored photos on my creative zen w to my hard drive over the weekend. Am not done with sorting them out yet. So far i've only managed to get to day 5 and i've yet to really look at them properly. I do know now why the colour temperature on the raws on the canon turned out so cold. It was a white balance issuse like i suspected. Chris, i'm so going to kill you. :-) she turned on a white balance feature i practically never use on the camera and i could not figure out how to turn it off till i came back and read my manual. Good thing these are raws so i don't think changing the colour temperature to the more accurate one would be too much problem. I'm a little stunned by the number of photos i shot. But E.Europe has many cities with centuries of history and many beautiful buildings, how can one not shoot more? :-) given time, i hope to finish up the account of the last few days of the trip and then write an overview. For now though, it's about time to hop off the bus... Have fun at work guys. :-)