Season's Greetings!

Time passes so quickly! It's almost Christmas time!



I was at Marina Bay Sands and the place looks nice with all the glass and lights!
Wishing you a very good start to the month of December!

Steel Giraffes

These are the steel giraffes at the PSA Zoo.



Do you think they look like giraffes or do they look more like dinosaurs?
It seems these species of steel animal can be found in most countries!

We so need these to work. Singapore imports almost everything!

A view over the harbour....

Few days ago, I was on leave and I thought I would try to do some touristy thing. Since I was at HarbourFront Centre, I thought maybe I would take the Cable Car.

I was surprised when the sales person asked if I was local. I said yes, and she said, oh, for locals taking the touristy attractions, you can discounts!



They recently refurbished the whole system, the cable cars are newer and bigger!




This is the HarbourFront stop which I took the ride.
It was a fun ride. You do think you are on holiday. LOL

Sometimes the Roof needs to be painted too...

For humans we need to shampoo our hair on our head.
For buildings, they need some painting over. People like me can look over their 'bald' spot. LOL




By the way, that's Seah Im Food Centre in Singapore. Lots of delicious food there!

Legal Loan, Illegal Notice?

I noticed that there's been a surge of these 'legal loans' notices popping up everywhere. I am wondering how legal can this 'legal loan' be?

Don't all money lenders needs to have a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)?
Even if they really are legal money lenders, putting up that sign on the divider on the road is illegal right?



Anyone wants to call that number to find out?

If you are mean, try calling them say at 3AM or 4AM when you can't sleep. You will be counting money instead of counting sheep.

Reflections again....

I got to see the 'advertisement' side of this property development.
Sigh... why am I so attracted to this development? I think it's the curvy building!

Got to save money dole for the downpayment?



When it's ready, I wonder how it will 'reflect'. Would be quite a sight.

I took this photo from the Royal Caribbean Cruise that was docked at HarbourFront.

Cyclist on the PIE

A friend offered to drive me home in his car today. We were on the PIE (Pan Island Expressway) and we noticed something. We saw a cyclist!



It's not that Singapore has so few cyclist that when we noticed one, we got surprised!

We were surprised because this cyclist probably is a new resident in Singapore and does not know that cyclist and pedestrians are not allowed on expressways in Singapore.



Dear cyclist in the photo, please don't be the black sheep and get on the expressway just because you want to get home quicker. There are alternative routes.

I have colleagues who cycle to and from work. They do not want people to think cyclist are irresponsible and law breakers. You get the hint.

For those who are interested in cycling, here's an interesting cycling blog in Singapore. http://cyclinginsingapore.blogspot.com/

Confusing Signs...

I noticed these two signs near Harbourfront MRT.

Now, which sign should I follow?
Should I turn left or go straight?

Both have the same distance to the train station.
But have wheel chair access.




Perhaps it's for redundancy planning. If one sign falls off, there's still instructions to get people to the train station.

Reflections

What a long name for a condominium - Reflections at Keppel Bay.

I can only reflect / dream about it. It's something that I can't afford. I can't even afford the down payment for a unit there.

It's the curves of the buildings that makes it look so attractive.
It looks nicer if you are at sea and look at the buildings.



If you own an unit there, when it's ready in the next few years, invite me over ok? ;-p

Universal Studio Singapore Annual Pass - Fun Pass

Momo and I behaved like little kids for the last few months, we were faithfully collecting spare coins to put into each of our piggy bank. When it finally reached $318 each for our piggy bank, we broke it! We carried the heavy bag of coins to Universal Studios Singapore (USS) and told the lady at the ticket counter: "Please, can we have 2 Annual Pass, the Fun Pass version."

Did we really do that? No, we just took out our iPhone launched the calculator and enter $318 divided by $72 (weekend ticket) and we saw that we just needed to visit Universal Studios 4.4 times to make it worth it. Instead of a bagful of heavy coins, we gave the counter lady a plastic card to purchase 2 plastic cards today!



We are both glad and a little dissapointed when we got the card. We are happy because we are proud owner of the Fun Pass annual pass.

Disappointed because there was no Universal Studios logo on the card! There was only a Resorts World Sentosa Singapore logo and words on the card.



The only indication that it's the Universal Studios Singapore card is at the back of the card.
I have blanked out the original Name, Barcode and Photo from the card. Why? So that you can't print this page out and enter the resort as keropokman!

The Fun Pass version does not allow us 365 days access to USS. The other thousand over dollar "Superstar Pass" version does, but we don't think we can afford it. We don't think we will be entering there everyday!


Anyone out there is a fellow Annual Pass holder? ;-)

Choose Lower Calorie Meals

Have you seen the poster below recently? The Singapore Health Promotion Board (HPB) is working with different partners to offer lower-calorie meals as part of the National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign (NHLC) 2010.

Is there a  reason they are doing it?

It's because 1 in every 10 persons in Singapore is OBESE! Obese means you are 'super overweight', or technically having BMI exceeding 25. If you notice there seems to be more plus size people around, you are right! Obesity rates in Singapore had risen from 6.9% in 2004 to 10.8% this year.

We all look for food that's appetizing and delicious to eat. If it's mediocre, why bother right? The F&B operators and HPB knows that. These partners did lots of research and taste testing before offering these lower-calorie meals.

I was skeptical that F&B folks say in the food court knows how to measure the calorie in the meals. So I asked the Health Promotion Board folks how do I know it's really less than 600 kCal? These F&B operators sends their recipe and ingredients to the HPB and HPB calculates for them.



The poster above was taken at the Kopitiam Food Court at VivoCity a few days ago. If you want to know which food courts around are joint partners in this program, you can click here.  It's not only food courts that HPB had partnered. They have also partnered many reputable restaurants in Singapore. You can see the list of restaurants here.



I had a food tasting session organised by the HPB for a few bloggers recently. Surprise, surprise! These innovative folks tweaked their recipes and the food tasted good! It's not that they skimp on ingredients. They just opted for healthier ingredients. Watch out for the post the next few days in my food blog. Imagine, a low calorie laksa actually taste good!


For Facebook addicts:
You can 'like' the HPB page and get informed of how to keep yourself healthy. They also inform their fans about the different activities they have. 'Like' http://www.facebook.com/hpbsg now!

For iPhone, Android phone addicts:
Many of us use smartphones and we download apps non stop. If you have tried to search for Apps that tells you how much calories food and drinks have, they are only application to 'western' food. I have been using CalorieCount for sometime. No Char Kuey Teow inside.

If you are looking for an App that has calories count of our local delicacies, HPB has created an app for us! HPB DietTracker is now available for free! If you are an iPhone user, click here to go to the Apple App Store. If you are using other phones, download the Java App here.

Measuring Eco Friendly Initiatives

I saw this few days ago at one of the new shopping mall in Singapore that declares it is very an Eco Friendly Mall.

At the open space outside, it has this monitor that displays that shows how much many kWh it has used from the Solar panels and cool breeze fans it has installed.



One screen shows the accumulative data since 1 Dec 2009.
The other, the day's readings.



This is not the only mall that has such readings displayed. I have seen another office complex that shows something similar too.

Recently I saw at a friend's HDB block the public lighting on the corridors. Their town councils have changed the lighting along the corridors to LED lights. It is very bright and saves energy. But the initial costs must be quite high.

How do you try to save energy usage at home or at work?

Orchard MRT

I think structures that is made out of glass are really gorgeous and catches people's attention.
Err.... Maybe only mine. Some people are oblivious to their surroundings, don't you think so? ;-p

Have you thought about it? It looks so simple, yet each piece of glass has to be specially moulded so that it can be assembled nicely to look like this. Glass is really versatile eh? Look at the curves for each piece of it.





I think this is the most interesting entrance to any MRT stations in Singapore. (It's the entrance to the Orchard MRT Station)

Do you think it looks like an octopus head?

All the cone shape trees

It's only early November and the Christmas trees are all up everywhere! I was wondering how the Christmas Tree came about and read about it in Wikipedia. It does have a long history, some that I have not heard of!

We no longer have trees in our house as we can't find a reason to link it to Christmas. What has a tree got to do with the birth of Jesus Christ?

But one reason that I just read is that Martin Luther established it to use it as a symbol of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Hmm..



About this tree, it's still in the midst of being set up. It's like snow!
I noticed it is also aligned with the other 'cone' across the road. The glass cone from Wheelock Place!

Singapore Pawn Shops

These are Singapore Pawnshops. Not the more liberal sex-related shop with similar sounding name.

Just like the other kind pxxx shops that are popular in more liberal western countries, in conservative Singapore, pawnshops are very popular. It seems to be more popular since the financial crisis hit a few years ago.

The traditional pawnshop in Singapore. This is situated in Clementi town centre.



I noticed the new 'modern' type of pawn shops are popping out everywhere.
These new shops seems to want to 'challenge' the traditional shops by opening right next to existing shops!

These modern pawnshop use celebrity for their advertisements.



If you watch the advertisements on TV, it sounds so 'wrong'! You can do a search on 'youtube maxicash' and watch them. They are telling young folks to pawn stuff so that they can get more stuff. Madness.

hey boy, that's not a real chocolate bar!

Saw this at Candylicious at Resorts World Sentosa.
This little boy must LOVE chocolates!



Candylicious is the biggest candy shop in Singapore.

Happy Deepavali

Wishing all Hindus a very Happy Deepavali!

The Deepavali Light Up at Little India, Singapore.

Clementi

It has been some time since I went to Clementi.  I realise the new HDB flats they have been building these few years are almost completed. This block has been painted and looks ready.



I also noticed these trees now look trimmed and new leaves are growing. They finally cut off the top of the trees and let new leaves grow again. These trees had lots (and I really mean LOTS) of birds on them previously.

Anyone walking there is a potential target for the birds. They dropped "presents" on people walking in the area and cars parked there. LOL

View of the Bay

It's always nice to see this. I was at the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay and took a photo of the Financial district.



On some flights to Singapore, the plane makes a big turn around before descending on Changi Airport. You can see this view too! You can recognise these buildings from the sky. Of course, it's not from this angle!

Daily Photo Theme Day: Public Transportation

I am a bit late for this month's Theme Day. The photo was taken after 1 Nov! haha..
The theme for the City Daily Photo blogger community for November is Public Transportation.



Public Transport in Singapore is always packed!  This is the Monorail that goes into the resort island of Sentosa where Universal Studios Singapore is located.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in the Daily Photo Theme Day