Singapore (3): Sept 2009 - May 2010

Places to Visit

If you ask me where do i missing the most in Singapore, i would say, my previous work place. I quite like the working environment, my bosses, my colleagues but i did complain about my job getting routine and lack of challenges. After i haven't been really working much for more than 2 years, i miss the CMM, the caliper, doing FAI, doing MSA, doing audit reports... Not to mention that, i knew by the end of the month, there will be increment in my bank account summary. :) When i read the forwarded email saying: 'If you are complaining about your job, then that is a good sign! Because you have a job and income!' I feel this to be very true and there is a feeling of gratitute that i never had towards my old employer. I wish the company doing well, so that it can continue to provide for all my former colleagues.



People taking train passing between Yio Chu Kang and Khatib always see this park, The Bottle Tree. It is a private park opens to the public for fishing and event. There are 2 restaurant and a bar within the compound.




In 1921, the building of Phor Kark See Monastery started as the first traditional Chinese forest monastery in Singapore, by Venerable Zhuan Dao.
Since Phor Kark See Monastery is situated at Kong Meng San ("Bright Hill"), it came to be known as Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery.
Venerable Hong Choon with great perseverance, he progressively developed and expanded the monastery with his followers into the largest and most majestic place of practice in Singapore.
I was the volunteer temple guide in one of the year of wesak day celebration.



Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum in Chinatown. They used to provide free meals, but eventually stopped due to the widespread economic recession.



Singapore Zoo. This is a polar bear living in the tropical country. The pool and place to confine it is without air-con. Poor him.
Singapore Zoo followed the modern trend of displaying animals in naturalistic, 'open' exhibits, i.e. with hidden barriers, behind moats and shrubbery etc.



Nick named, the 'durian', by the local, Esplnade - The Theatre on the Bay, is Singapore major performing arts centre.
Also in picture, The Singapore Flyer ,is currently the tallest Ferris wheel in the world. It offers broad views of the city centre and beyond to about 45 km, including the Indonesian islands of Batam and Bintan, as well as Johor, Malaysia.



The Merlion is an imaginary creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, used as a mascot of Singapore.
The completion of the Esplanade Bridge, in 1997, blocked the views of the Merlion from the Marina Bay waterfront. By then, the original Merlion location was also no longer the entrance of Singapore River. So, in 2002, the statue and its cub were relocated 120 metres to the current Merlion Park that fronts Marina Bay where it stands on a newly-reclaimed promontory in front of The Fullerton Hotel.



Raffles Place was located on the south bank of the Singapore River. Near by is the pubs, bars and restaurants infected Boat Quay and Clarke Quay.
This is the central business district dominated by the skyscrapers with the flagship banks.

Singapore (2): Sept 2009 - May 2010

The Greens in the City

I was a nature guide at Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin. At that time, the nature walk at Chek Jawa was still not really under the coordination of National Park. Volunteers like me were trained by the nature lover, Ria Tan. The amount of time that she put into propagating and helping to conserve the limited wild areas (mostly shores) in Singapore, had made her a personal legend to me. She was the one who coordinated with the visitors, guides, van drivers and managed all the other logistic, such as check the tide table. I always enjoy dinner of the guides at the coffe shop in Changi Village after the guiding. The guides would gossiping about the behaviour/attitudes of the visitors, about the discovery of the day and others. Eventually, N Park took over the 'job' at Chek Jawa. Chek Jawa is in the development blue print of Singapore. It is to be reclaimed and developed in the later time. I did not manage to visit to Chek Jawa for this time. I hope next time, i could do so.



I did not know there is this Sembawang Beach, not too far from where we stayed. The beach was a bit dirty when we were there, quite many rubbish and the water won't made you feel like to swim. May be because it was near to the shipyard. There were people harvesting mussels, family camping and picnic too. Johor Bahru is just right in front.



After my 1 month confinement, we went for a walk with our new born at Sungai Buluh Wetland.



There were quite a few monitor lizards sun bathing. I remember when i was young, there was a guy nick named 'eleven fingers', who was always catching monitor lizard to sell the meat.



MacRitchie Reservoir is Singapore's oldest reservoir. There are boardwalks skirting the edge of the scenic MacRitchie Reservoir and walking trails through the forest. The board walk is pram friendly until certain area. There is a TreeTop Walk offers visitors a panoramic view of the surrounding lush rainforest.



The Singapore Botanic Gardens is the only botanic garden in the world that opens from 5 a.m. to 12 midnight every single day of the year, and does not charge an admission fee, except for the National Orchid Garden. The Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage on Symphony Lake occasionally has free concerts on weekends. This is definitely a family friendly place. In the evening or morning, you can see people jogging, playing Qi Gong or walk their pets.

Singapore (1): Sept 2009 - May 2010

I called this place 'home' too

Singapore is my second home or my home after i finished my university in Penang. I am the permanent resident and i enjoy some of the privileges from this status. But yet, when somebody asked me, am i a 'local'? I never ever said i am. I always said, nope, I am a Malaysian. However, i knew this city better than Johor Bahru or Kuala Lumpur. This is the city or place except for the hometown where i grown up that i stayed for more than 5 years. I would like to call this place home and said i am a 'local', but i think i am still having the 'Singaporean' and 'Malaysian' identity issue. i think, a 'local' is someone who grown up there and holding the citizenship. But, how come i feel more 'home' and 'local' in Singapore than in any other part of Malaysia, other than my hometown?

FESTIVAL TIME



It was Deepavali in October 2010. Streets at Little India were decorated.
The meaning of Deepavali is ‘Rows of Light’.
Little India is my favorite tourist area in Singapore.
May be because it is a bit like Georgetown in Penang.



Decoration at Orchard Road during Xmas.
When i was a child, i think the decorations are more grand.



Decoration inside the shopping centre, Ang Mo Kio Hub.
I think these looked better than those i saw at Orchard Road.



Decoration of Chinese New Year at streets in Chinatown.
My favorite part of Chinatown is around Ann Xiang Hill.
It has some cozy cafes and the whole atmosphere is more tranquil and less touristic.

Semakau Island, Singapore: 29 Sept 07

This is a nice sunny day, a good weather for nature walk at the shore. This is my first intertidal nature walk after my 5 months holiday and i am really looking forward. i was assigned to be a hunter seeker for the day. Initally, i am rather reluctant as i think i am not a good "things spotter" and i think it could be stressful to find things that the visiotrs wanted to see. But in the end, i ended up enjoying the task as i could take MY OWN SWEET TIME to take pictures of the animals and this is a privilege that i would never have as a guide (a guide could take picture but not on your own sweet time. :). As i always said, i grown up by the sea and there is no place i feel more home than the sea. The sun, the salty and fishy smell of the shore and the breeze were the big welcome to me. The rich and colorful lives of the shore is too temptating to keep me in door. So never asked me why am i this tan again!



This was the first time for me to go to Marina South Pier. I took the train until Marina Bay and transfered to bus 402 to get there. The bus is not frequent, so i think it is good for me to take a picture of the bus timetable for future used.



i like building. This new Marina South Pier building is beautiful. It even has a lawn at the third floor, overlooking the sea.



The sea is blueist and quite clear.



Telescopium, big snail normally find in mangroves. i found them when i was looking for horse shoe crab (They are abundant and just lying there!). It normally coats with a layer of mud but in fact it has beautiful brightly colored shell.



This tiny whelk has an anemone on its shell. It looks so cute and delicate! (So please consider to stop eating snails! :)



Sand collar. It is the egg mass of a kind of snail called Moon Snail. The eggs are laid in mucus that combines with sand and hardens.



Thorny sea cucumber. The sea cucumber breathes through its backside. :)



Moon crab. I found this crab and i shouted to Luan Keng, "i found a cute crab but i couldn't remember its name!" Then while waiting for Luan Keng to come, instead of trying to catch it, i was just standing there and trying to recall its name. It ended up this burrower burrowed into and sand and we had to dig it out beneath the sand.



i thought these two slugs were nudibranchs but they are flat worms. Flat worms are much flatter than nudibranch and they tend to move faster. The most significant different should be, flat worms don't have flowery-like external gills on their back.



Green sunflower mushroom coral. It is a kind of hard coral which unattached to the substrate and able to move about on the reef.



This is my second favorite of the day except for the moon crab, a blue spotted sting ray. Luan Keng and me played a little trick to catch it and we had fun!
Remember how that famous crocodile man died? The venomous spine is at the base of the tail.



The visitors. We had 'good' visitors for the day. How we (or may be me) defined "good visitors":
1.) They are interested with the shore and the stories of marine lives. At least they don't scream and said "it is so gross!" when the guide show them the CUTE and BEAUTIFUL slug!
2.) They stay in the group and don't try to explore the aras themselves hence stepping and cause the death of more corals and other animals.
3.) They never complaint that it is so muddy and so hot. (What can you expect when you come to the shore?)



The beautiful sunset. Especially in this metropolitan Singapore, sometimes we spend so much time trying to get more money and we forgot what has been provided by our mother nature. You don't have to change the nature to make it more beautiful ...



The nearby petro-chemical plant, Bukom Island. Those chimneys look like christmas trees at night time.

The trip ended at around 7.30pm and of course we saw far more creatures than what i put here. Unfortunately, i am not a good photograher, so i would prefer to put only a few better phographs. Other animals that we saw: Seahorse, gymnodoris nudbranch, octopus, egg mass of octopus/squid, sandfish sea cucumber, stonefish sea cucumber, hairy crab, knobby star, common sea star, fan worm ...

Bangalore-Chennai-Singapore: 24Aug07

End of my Holiday...

Good bye, India. i woke up in the morning feeling excited. i am going back to the modern, clean and real world today!

i took my breakfast and then called Mathieu. We didn't talk very long, as i thought the phone call will cost me a few hundred rupee and i need to keep some rupee for my subsequent transportation fees. However in the end, the call was merely 60 Rs, well, i think this is quite dirt cheap.

i did my final shopping to use up all my rupee. By noon, i took the auto rickshaw to the train station, boarded my train and arrived at Chennai 7 hours later at 9pm.

Obviously the auto-riskshaw drive knew that the tourist will have extra rupee to give away, so they were eager to take me to the airport. The fare was supposed to be 165 Rs, but i gave him 200 Rs to finish off my rupee. Unfortunately, the flight got a delay for more than one hour and i was hungry but i have no rupee to buy food. :) (They don't take US dollar, not to mention Singapore dollar.)

i would say that, it got one last "Incredible India" experience. i now reaslised that my arrival to India 3 months ago was at the basic domestic airport as the flight got a transit at Trichy. So i am pretty much surprised with this modern, clean and air-conditioned international airport. However this modern airport immigration needs more than 2 hours for immigration clearance! I think every depature tourists will remember the bureaucracy and inefficiency.

i am very happy to finally leave here. i don't see how myself will come back in the near future. May be, one day, i will go back to India again, but i would definitely don't want to come back to India alone. The country has much to offer, but dealing with the people here is just too much for me.

O Reeva, India! May be we will 'see' again!



My train from Bangalore to Chennai.
I don't like Chennai, so i don't want to stay a night there. That is why i purposely took the flight at 2am, so that i can leave Bangalore in the noon and get to Chennai airport as soon as i arrived at Chennai Central Railway Station at night.



Meter of long queue waiting for immigration clearance.
A young Indian lady trying to cut my queue and i politely asked her: "Madam, are you cutting my queue?" She then 'gracefully' go behind of me and cut the queue of the Indian man. The Indian man is normally kind of 'gentleman' to let lady first. :)

Singapore, 15 Apr 07

Chijmes is one of my favorite places in Singapore.
It used to be a school but it now houses bars and restaurants.
(Must be quite sad to the previous students though.)
It has a beautiful yard and very good dinning ambient, but is expensive.



I always like this kind of colonial time buildings.
You can find many in Penang but in Singapore, many of these buildings have been renovated and converted into some kind of expensive shop or bar or restaurant.



This is the shrine hall of an Amernenian Church.
There is a cementry in the church compound. It took some pictures but somehow accidentally deleted them when i cleared my memory card.
I like those statues in the cementry. They gave the grave yard a kind of very peaceful and holy ambient.



One of the buildings of Singapore Management University.
It is proudly situated in the city area and if i am not mistaken, all school buildings are connected underground.



Clarke Quay is looking very nice after the renovation.
This fountain looks a bit like the one at Parco Bugis Juction.
Again, i like those old buildings.



One of the bar.
Some bar serve a kind of smoke. It has a mouth and a long tube.
I don't know what exactly it is called, but i saw the similar kind of smoking apparatus at some bars near Raffles Place too.
i am not a smoker, so this thing is not an attraction to me.
But somehow, i think public sharing the mouth of the tube is very very dirty and unhygient.



The roof changes from one color to the other.
When we passed by Boat Quay later, we could easily noticed that, the business here is very much affected by all attractions at the Clarke Quay now.
When you walk pass each bar or restaurant, the waitress/waiter will somehow ask whether you want to take a drink or eat something.

Getting India Visa

i went to the Indian High Commission, Singapore, in the morning of Thursday (15 May).
http://www.embassyofindia.com/
It is located behind of Takashimaya, Orchard Road, in between of Orchard Road and Somerset train station.
For doing visa, they open only two hours from 9.15am - 11.30am
i got there at 9am and there was already a long queue.
By 9.15am sharp, the gate was opened and the queue slowly moved in.
Most of the people are Indian Citizen doing their citizen documentation stuff.
For tourist visa application, we need to take a queue number. The machine is at the right side beside of the main entrance into the office. One officer will be there to ask you to take the number for visa.
i got the number 047 and i was expected a long wait then.
Surprisingly, it was fast. By 9.40pm, i was done and left!
The lady at the counter asked me to come back again on next Wednesday (21 May) 10am, so it is 5 working days.
She said, on the day, i just go directly to Counter 5 and there is no need to queue up.
i need to bring a photocopy of my identity card by then.
You will received a SGD 20 payment receipt.

What to bring:
1. Original passport - will be returned to you
2. Processing fees of SGD 20, cash only (around USD 13)
3. Orginal Singapore Permenent Resident Identity Card (SPRIC)/ Original Workpermit (WP)/ Original Employment Pass (EP)
(They don't do visa for non-Singaporean who are not staying in Singapore)
4. 2 recent passport size photos
5. Visa application form (can download from the embassy website) For non-Singaporean, the officer will ask you to fill in another piece of form. Basically just some more personal details such as address, phone number... As for the Visa application form, thanks to online Lonely Planet. i did it as people's advise. Just put the name and address of the guest houses/hotels as my referees in India.

On 21 May, i went to Counter 5 and submitted my document and pay a SGD 80 visa fees. The officer said i shall come back in the afternoon of today between 4.15pm-5.15pm
This is done in less than 10 minutes.

What to bring:
1. Original passport - they will keep it and you collect it in the afternoon
2. Photocopy of your SPRIC/WP/EP - this is their copy
3. Your payment receipt of that SGD 20 - they checked and will return it to you.
4. Visa application fees - SGD 80 for six months tourist multiple entry visa, cash only (around USD 52). You will receive a receipt for this.

So, in the afternoon, at around 4.15pm, i went to the high commission for the third time!
i took the queue number from the same machine at the right side of office entrance.
i got number 216 and they were serving number 178 when i sat down.
In less than ten minutes time, my number was called.
i gave the officer my SGD 80 receipt, she returned to me my passport with the visa sticker now occupied a page.
The visa is valid from today (21 March) until 21 September 2007. Exactly six months.
So if you plan to stay in India for exactly six months, then make sure that you don't apply your visa too early.

In conclusion, the visa application is easy and fast.
But going there for 3 times was kind of troublesome to me.
With my visa on hand, i really looking forward to my trip now!



The national icon of India, the capital of Asoka Pillar.
The dome of Karnataka state government building.