[[*---Branched Over Me---*]]

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Konrad in Singapore

woohoo..... its day 8 of cny.... time flies.... something that we've been looking forward to has fast passed.... its gonna be another near 360 days wait for the festival again...

anyway, am gonna have a long post.... with lotsa pix!

first up, my CNY 2006..... nothing pretty special, lotsa meet-ups.... visited relatives, relatives visited my family, ate, ate and ate.....

on day 3, went to visit wendy, anni and dawn's houses.... haha... guess what? we totally indulge ourselves in a very girly session of manicure and mahjong.... so we had our personal manicurist to do our nails for us at anni's house using her brother's girlfriend's nail polish (man, i wonder if she ever realise that the quantity of her nail polish got reduced by half....heehee....)

got this shade of polish in crimson red....woo.....totally demure! ermmmm the paint job here looks a little blotched, but it looks real good and smooth after some cleanup and top coat...

the manicure session din stop after leaving anni's place. went on to complete wendy's french manicure at dawn's place....

looks professional huh.....

then its time for steamboat at LJ's house, something we've always done for the past 4 years. after that its max's house... man, this guy lives in the biggest house i've ever been to.... something like 8 rooms and 7 toilets? lucky sz, might be able to fulfil some kinda tai-tai dream one day..... haha...

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Konrad in Singapore!

Konrad is this polish colleague of my US housemate and travelmate, ai lin. so he fulfilled his promise and came singapore to visit his dear ex-colleagues.... i'm not personally close to him, but he came to our apartment a couple of times before when we held dinner parties. as she needed help, i volunteered to take him out for 3 days when she's busy....

so for the past 3 days, here's where we went to and what we did.....

day 1: kwan im tong (goddess of mercy temple). prob the most popular chinese temple for the locals and tourists...

then the indian temple beside kwan im tong....

sim lim square to look at digicams

Little India

A mosque in Little India, maybe its for the Indian Muslim?

Mustafa Shopping Centre for more digicams and instant curry mixes....

saw a lion dance....

then off to the national library to look at......books.... yah right.

beautiful C.H.I.J.M.E.S.

caught the movie, fun with dick and jane, with courtesy tix from gi.....then went for dinner at this foodcourt in Marina Square. Man, if u haven been there, chk out the outdoor dining area. it offers one of the best scenery of singapore, at foodcourt prices... (blur pix, but the point is, the beautiful skyline of the CBD area....

and as if the scenery is not beautiful enough, the fireworks of CNY celebration sure add sparkles to our dining pleasure....

Day 2: Chinatown

Sri Mariammam Temple - singapore's oldest hindu temple in chinatown

A nice contrast of an old, traditional monument against the modern skyscrapers...

Outside, the Hindu temple, we hopped onto a rickshaw. its my first rickshaw ride ever! (haha, K is wearing a CP tee....)

hah! think i look good with pink paint on my face.....yeah....

the rickshaw uncle dropped us off at maxwell market where we had some nice dessert for the freaking hot day..... sea coconut beancurd jelly and chendol! yum yum....

off to city hall, padang area

St. Andrews Cathedrale. the first anglican church here founded by the founder of Singapore, Raffles.

then went to the singapore river area where we saw the white statue of raffles. nice contrast of the old buildings and the skyscrapers....

The Fullerton Hotel

Victoria Concert Hall and the black statue of Raffles (dun ask me why there're two versions of the similar statues, i dunno the answer)

River Hong Bao - A CNY celebration where we met the giant god of fortune...

Day 3:

Haw Par Villa. the last time i came to this place was like definitely more than 10 years back. back then, u still had to pay admission fees but now, its free entrance. felt that its a great place to show him something he'll not see in poland, some really ancient chinese legends, myths and characters.

this place is worth the trip as we saw a lot of interesting stuff like the mythical 10 courts of hell (10, not 18). it was an eye-opener for him though he did think that some of the punishments in hell were a little ridiculous.... i kinda got in touch with this place more and will sure recommend this place to other foreign friends...

but the sad thing is that since the park have very limited revenue, very little effort goes to the maintenance of the park and i was a little disappointed that they have 'demolished' the symbolic tiger monument that contained the 10 courts of hell (actually they din demolish, but they painted some ugly grey paint over the tiger and now it resemble a massive huge grey boulder....). there used to be a boat ride that will take u through the display through the tiger's mouth but now you gotta walk through it. the good side of this change is that u can now go closer and take a clearer look of the displays and take your time doing so....

after HPV, we proceeded to Sentosa!!!

there's this flower display going on there...... nice pictures and animal figures were made with fresh flowers...

then we headed off to the beautiful beautiful beach for a quick soak. K likes it alot. it is now around minus 10 degrees celsius in poland and he feels fortunate to be able to bask under the sun here on a tropical beach. he makes me feel lucky that i'm leaving in singapore where i can go to the beach almost every other day for the good weather and proximity. sunny summer days suitable for the beach in poland is limited and short and the nearest beach to the place he stay is hundreds of km away...

went to the southern-most point of the Asia Continent...

dolphin lagoon - went to see the rare pink dolphins! so adorable u wanna go up to them and stroke and kiss them. i think their skin feels rubbery. i think. dolphins are really smart animals. the show lasted no longer than 30 mins while we basked under the blazing sun...

wah, seems like the things we did were quite nice..... if only i was with that future special someone...... tsk tsk...

images of singapore for some singaporean culture-related stuff....

Underwater world - got to feel some slimey stingrays and starfish and incidentally saw some exciting 'shark bites shark' action.

chk out this exhibit from the artic ocean - sea angel.... this is one really cute creature u gotta sea.... its very tiny and seems to have wings on its sides like angel. illuminating orange body and swims blindly (they're blind) by flapping their 'wings' they're actually a kind of species belonging to the snail and slug familybut they're really damn cute...

(Pix courtesy of www.secretan.com)

our day in sentosa ended with the magical fountain show...

then we rushed off to merlion park to catch the fireworks for the third time in a row

on sat, konrad ended his 8-day trip to singapore. went to see him off at the airport and off he went for the 20 hr flight back to poland via amsterdam. might see him again or might not. most prob will...haha.... according to the girls, he said that i was a good tour-guide *a-hemmmmm* and he enjoyed our sightseeing and everything..... guess if i remain unemployed, i can apply to be one hahaha.....

bye!

[[ Hit by a fallen branch ]]*|10:56 pm|

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