Pre-Thailand trip cultural immersion with Cat

Last Tuesday after work went to the Esplanade with Cat to watch some Thai traditional dance performance by this group called the Pichet Klunchun Dance Company. It's sort of a short excerpts of the Ramakien with a translator at the side to let us know the intricacies and meaning to the movements. Frankly I think she was abit spoiling the show with her accent and kinda fake over-enthusiasm but I should credit her for trying her best.

Here's one of the character Hanuman, which is suppose to be a monkey deity and came from the Indian epic Ramayana.






Here of cos it's been "Thailand-nized" so the costume and movement is definitely different from the Indian style. This che shou fan is done while the performer is biting onto the mask to prevent it from falling off his head.

Here's the performer for Hanuman after taking of the costume and mask. The host/translator of the show allowed another audience and me hold the costume and kept emphasizing it's weight.... Erm.. actually it was not as heavy as I thought but I still pretended it was heavy just to entertain her. Was actually tempted to say "it's damn light!" when she pointed her microphone at my lips. Wonder what the audience's reaction would have been!

Here's the performer who is suppose to play the villain or the Demon. His built is kinda mesomorphic but some of his movement is abit of the feminine and made Cat laugh, esp the part where he helped one of the ladies carry her handbag.

The third performer here is a sweet looking(even though face remain emotionless throughout) lady. She acted the role of both a male and female character for this display. At first when I saw her back view, it really reminded me of Leo Ruiy@n. Minus pink garment and the really bouncy rebonded hair of cos!

Picture perfect poise in every pose... and as what marcus said before......: ~meltz~

The 3 music support in the background.





Wednesday: Went for interview at PA for the trainer permit. The PA building was rather impressive and modern but more signage should be put up... I had to circle the building before I can find the proper entrance. Lucky I was early but Dickson was rather late. There was another malay who was a judge and coach for Silat and another Indian who was looking to promote slimming yoga. It was a rather short session and more of a formality to make us come down rather than a proper interview. Got to chat with the Silat coach for a short while after that. He was rather unhappy about some issues inside the org. Finally also got the chance to meet Dickson's wife who is a PRC. She's rather quiet and dared not utter a word and shook my right hand with her left. Hmmmm.....
Victor sir also married a PRC some years back. This made me ponder abit. Is it due to the need for companionship during old age rather than love that Singaporean guys chose them for a life partner? I have no right to assume such things about Dickson and Victor but they did kept their wedding under rather hush hush conditions so what else are we to think?

Right now my stand is of cos I will rather remain single than to take that path but who knows? Situations are constantly changing. Perhaps my mindset might become similar to theirs when I reach their age? God forbids. Perhaps it's due to their sense of filial piety that they must continue the family line? Dunno.

Anyway as Singapore is flooded with PRCs assimilating into our culture, the line separating local born and imported locals will be blurred and eventually erased. Bane or boon it's entirely your take. With their ratio to pure bred S'porean girls ever increasing, one may be hard pressed to have an option to choose in the near future. It's not that I have some beef with PRCs girls but when it comes to something as serious as a lifelong soul mate, my palate is still accustomed to local cuisine.
Speaking of immigrants(which is rather a hot topic among locals nowadays), let's not forget Singapore was a place where people from all over the whole congregate for various reasons(acq of wealth being a dominant factor) since the mid 1800s. Right now all we face is but history repeating itself again.

As can be seen here: 2 lines extracted from the lyrics in one of our National songs:
"The toil of pple from a dozen lands
Strangers when we first began, now we're S'porean"

So maybe we all should stop wining? It's nothing we haven faced before! It's just pressing the reset button again!
It's just that all this process makes me feel like it's a "transit society". So much for n*tional id*ntity again.....

Back at home:
Started abit of my training for endurance based exercise. Essentially it's just running along the southern ridges. So far it's really working. The exertion really does reduce each time. It could be due to a thousand other physio/psychological reasons but at least such developments are encouraging. And encouragement is really essential in endurance sports.

It's really proven to be a very mental thing: Last week as I was jogging along Alexandra arch, I heard someone coming up behind me....... by his footsteps on the metallic trellis I can tell he was not that fast but very consistent. I decided to make it a personal challenge to run nonstop all the way up to the top of the hill without letting him overtake me(without obstructing his way). It was really an uphill battle ( literally). But in the end I managed to do it. I dunno how long it took to get to the top. Maybe 10minutes? But it felt like forever. Navigating through all the other park visitors on the narrow archway also added to the challenge too. At the end when I checked my heart rate monitor, I noticed I was running way past my maximum heart rate at 213bpm. But not for a single moment did I thought of stopping nor did I felt out of breath. I had the correct motivational thought and goal in my mind: inspired by a long distance runner and one day, I'll be able to catch up to her.

Since there's practically no hope of retrieving my lost Gshock, today I decided to go shop for another at Toa Payoh and AMK with Derrick. There's not a single model I am fully satisfied with. A watch to me is a very impt tool therefore it must be close to perfect.
After searching in close to 10 watch shops... I never bought any. There is this Timex with the E-compass that really caught my attention but without a stopwatch or a proper rubber strap( it was leather)... I cannot justify throwing my dough down for it...esp when it cost close to 300! Went home and checked through ebay.... finally narrowed down to 3 choices and pestered Heibi to help me with the selection. After telling her the pros and cons of each of the 3 selection... she asked whether I wanted to go with my head or my heart.
What a question to ask. That is seriously a question I can never find an ans for. What I am, is a paradoxical entity whose radical actions keep those around me going in circles. I live my life with actions that are of utmost practicality yet am able to make erratically weird choices just on a whim of passion. Results of such imprudence are not without it's penalties.
This time, the answer without a doubt is Head.... but not without a dash of Heart.....
Anyway tomorrow after class I shall shop around in The Bencoolen. It's suppose to be cheap & good watch haven. Bought Peilei's Baby G for her bdae present at that place a couple yrs back too.

Rants before 4th term! AKBS unveiled!

Argh! Next week term 4 starts! I'm into yr 2 of the degree course already. Time sprints when you are having fun!
Ok.. before the madness starts again let's see what I can post.

Over the week:
Went night cycling with Andy at Ubin and his "friend" Alan. In the darkness, luckily he was riding his own bike. If he was riding a rental like mine(wif f*** up brakes), there will be one baby boar with bicycle tyre tracks across the body. Tempted him over to the side of Incandescent with my old A2 Aviator. While he tempted me over to the side of solid state lighting with his LX2 Lumamax. Since now I'm tempted... for the Dec Thai trip should I buy yet another light or just try to borrow one from Andy or the D10 from Colin? Already been fined $60, paid sch fees and FIC fees this month.. not to mention the 1.4K spent on the AF 85mm f1.4D. Should I spend anymore?

2 days back (thurs) had my ass owned left/right/centre by one of the juniors in groundwork. Felt abit disappointed but actually I was very much excited and kinda happy. Why was I so happy that I lost so badly? If you know me you will know the reason! Now if only he did not injure my left elbow joint. Together with my 2 injured fingers on my left hand which was injured last week, my left arm is now practically useless for the next week or so. This old man should lower his intensity of activity.... and submit to a dreary lifestyle? Not yet!

Other than the loss of the use of my left arm, I also lost my Gshock watch. Coincidentally it was on the same day my company clock died on us. Forgot all about it after my groundwork match as it was late and gotta fall the students out fast. Sad. Really like that watch. Been with me through lots but it still looks like new. Went down the next day morning with Shipei for a futile search. Reported it to poolside security(who was damn eng by the way) and Blk 1 student service centre's lost and found. At least the counter girl who served me was damn sweet and cute! Now I know Jianyang's feeling during the "carabiner girl incident"...hahhahah...
Haiz... another $100+ down for a replacement watch....... a super early bdae present for me anyone?

Slightly overtrained myself in a bid to get rid of the ring of fat around my waistline gained during the last exam period. Kanna fever for 1 day which I got rid by drinking plenty of water and had plenty of fun overnighting in Ubin. Neither is a cure esp the latter kids. Anyway that also mean I had to postpone my blood donation to a fortnight later.

Had a request on Fri from Joyce for her NIE heritage project about Lau Pa Sat. Local heritage sites is my forte and hobby so didn't mind helping out. Tried searching around for some pics and info on LPS but ended up found more info on the Old Brunei Hostel/embassy which I blogged some pics previously HERE.
Below info are somewhat assumed from whatever limited info I have gathered. Could have been more info if you feel like paying NHB for it....
According to Nat Archive of S'pore, this place was (prob still is) unit 7A, B and C of Tanglin Hill and the property belonged to the Govt of Brunei (DUH!). In 1958, it was proposed(approved?) to convert the exiting house into a student hostel. There were also 2 other document that points to amendments to the extensions. Layout approved by SIT (S'pore Improvement Trust, predecessor of HDB).

But a more precious info was found in the form of a Brunei Times news article.
Turns out the Brunei education system was insufficient back then and students was being sent abroad since the 50s. The students stayed at Jalan Haji Salam (very near the 3rd GUARDS camp and former hawker centre with the famous cheng teng. Slurp!), some at Geylang and from 1958 onwards the Tanglin Hill hostel (which supported my assumption above.) was used but it's not until 1969 (when new extensions are added)that all Brunei students stayed there.

All excerpts from the news in italics:

"Islamic students would be studying at Madrasah Al-Junied (The present day Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah) to prepare them for entry into the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt."

Ignore me... but somehow the name Al-Azhar always reminds me of the prata place along Bukit Timah. And no, the Islamic sch is not located at Aljunied but at Victoria Lane.

"Whereas the English and Malay stream students would study at secondary schools at Tun Seri Lanang, Teluk Kurau, Sang Nila Utama, Monk's Hill, Willow, New Town Boys, Bartley, Kaki Bukit, Victoria Institution and Raffles Institution."

Hey New Town is New Town! What New Town Boys? It was never a boys sch from the day it started in '65!

"Football was played at one of the sports fields behind the hostel run by a Singapore sports agency."

I'll make another assumption that the field is the one just behind the recently face-lifted Dempsey Hill watering hole. Where it was just re-acquired and fenced recently. Frequent games of Indian cricket and football by Ang mohs are played there every weekend. Here's a couple of random shots I took recently of a cricket player bowling his shot as I passed by this field:




Yep blurry pics are what you get for shooting fast action handheld at 300mm f5.6 near to sunset on ISO 64 film! When I say fast, I really mean blazing fast! These guys are no amateurs. Their bowling speed is scary.

"In the hostel itself, badminton and sepak takraw were played regularly. Sometimes when the football fever gets too high, football was played on the badminton courts."

As in the case of all sec schs even all the way into the 90s!... but we used the basketball courts cos there was no badminton courts to use.. vice versa for the brunei students!
Here's a view of their 2 badmintons courts, now covered in dried leaves:



"Later a special badge was created and the Malay title of the hostel, Asrama Kerajaan Brunei di Singapura (AKBS) became formalised."

Finally! The meaning to the acronym AKBS in the wall scribbling (to see what was written, visit my previous post on this place).

If you were to zoom in and crop around the centre of the pic:

Yep this is the location of where the below B&W picture was taken.
Late 70s Photo taken from Brunei Times.

After 30+ yrs, there isn't much changes except the doors and windows were removed (prob when the place was abandoned) and now there are 3 tall trees in front of the building.
Hmmm... I suddenly wondered if Ah Yong (NUS Wushu) stayed there before? Then I checked his facebook and realised Brunei stopped sending students overseas on the yr he was born. Hah.

One more historical site archived!
Hopefully more will come soon!

Yet another new cam... *yawn*

Oh no kanna another parking fine yesterday.
Which brings the total for all traffic fines to $60.
Using that money I could have bought a Fujifilm Zoom Date f2.8. Or rather a second one cos....
I already gave in to temptation and blown another 59 quids on one already!
It was already on the consideration list a few months back when it began selling for such a rock bottom price.

"But you already had a LC-A!" says the scroogey side of me. Yeah but it does not have 24mm wide angle lens! But it is fully automatic! But it comes with 2 shuttle release button and a self camwhore mode! Haiz..The list of excuses is endless....
Being mostly manual, the LC-A can be a lot of fun without worrying about battery availability. But mostly manual also meant that the focus is a guesstimate at best and many fleeting photo opps was missed out.
LOMO LC-A meeting it's new rival........

Th LC-A served me well but should I sell it away now that the new cam does everything it does and better(and it's even smaller too!!!!!)? That's a hard one. We shall see.

Oh yeah, my Minolta....

Argh!! I really have too many film cams! But I def have not forgotten about my first cam: My Minolta Riva Zoom 70W, which is definitely a keeper.

As though to complement the fuji, Ilyana, Shipei and my combined order of the films from Adorama arrived yesterday!

And a big thank you to Winston who helped me repacked the entire package into a GPM envelope. Hmmm... really colourful contents!

Through the current holiday, I found that if one was just to work and not study, there's plenty of time for something else. Even with the FIC course occupying most of my weekends, I managed to:
start retraining my cardiovascular/anaerobic fitness, polish abit of my grappling/sparring skills(sorry njd juniors for all the bruises!), met up with various group of frens with lots more to come, go for my usual overnight in Ubin, shop for necessities for my upcoming Thai trip, yadda yadda blah blah etc etc yet another inexhaustible list.......


Also found that cycling is really a good way to train my cardio due to the fact that it has practically no impact on my joints unlike jogging...which is really hurting me. Last week wanted to collect my camera from Ilyana(who is working at Night Safari) and since I was free from exams... why not cycle down from my place! It was quite fun... which kinda negates the fatigue. My gastroc started cramping up on the trip back but I dun even feel tired at all! Too bad the bearings in my left pedal were spoilt when they struck the pavement as I was squeezing through traffic. More $$$ in replacing them.

Night Safari's Halloween theme has started when I went down. This yr they are doing it for the entire month of Oct. This time round all the monsters were not inside the safari but outside scaring unsuspecting visitors. It's funny how easily scared some of the female visitors are. There are also a bigger variety of monsters going around too.

No this is not one of them.... It's just one of the tourist trying out the foot fish therapy.

One of the new Halloween decor that's quite impressive. At timed intervals, it will rise to 2 storeys tall and swivel it's head and move it's claws.

Nice lighting at Night Safari.



Over at home.... my mom's been driving herself nutz trying to find the ant's hideout for a week. I finally found it by chance.... as I was reaching out for my CDs!!!
Of all places!!!
Looks like Jay Chou's popularity extended beyond the human world.
Gotta remove the nest from the insides of a couple of CDs. Killed thousands of ants, plenty of eggs and even 2 queens. Haven seen a single ant in 2 weeks now. Mission accomplished. At least for now. I can already feel them bidding their time regrouping, laying their eggs and planning their next raid on my dinner table.......


Window view on double 10th. It was a beautiful day. So much so that even attending FIC for the whole day made me happy. So much so that it undermine my effort to forget .... ... ..... Back to sq 1. Restart my effort today.

2 more pretentious pics with single source natural lighting. Kinda like them:
Edmund's guitar at his former residence.

My FM2 lazing by the window.

This coming weekend: Blood donation, meeting up Andy at Ubin, trip to Museum, celebrating Welna's bdae together with Weixin. Let's see if I can squeeze in more stuff...... cannot waste this holiday.......

Life in Color and BnW

Exams finally are over. Somehow this round of studying seems ultra protracted until I lost the will to piah for it during the final few days. Prob did badly for all 3 topics but a pass is confirmed.

Sports Nutrition: The tips the tutor gave, non came out so studied the wrong areas.

Ex Rehab: Paper too long, not enuf time. It is essentially a memorise and vomiting out answer type of paper. If David never provided us the "sample Question" tips, prob half of us would have died. Even so, most of us did not have time to do the essay question. By the time I reached that section, there's only like less than half hour left. How to design a rehab programme? Managed to draw out some stick figures but did not get to elaborate on them.

Ex Prog: supposedly the easiest of the 3. Was very tricky, which is the hallmark of Mike Newton's papers.

Finally got our student card from SMa. Was about to go off after collecting our tutorial papers back when the counter staff stopped me. "Hey you looked familiar, I think your student card is here". Sure enuf... my card was ready. It's kinda funny he "found me familiar"..... he was a new staff.. def never see me much at Springs before.... Made you wonder if the staff really was quite bored and went through our stack of student cards till he was familiar with our faces. Prob looking for chio bu in the sch......

To wrap up this sem, I would say it was the most relaxed one so far. Next one onwards and we are yr 2 students! The speed that time flies while I am studying/working is really scary. Yr 2 topics and exams wun be so easy anymore. Wonder if I'll still be able to take a dig at HD again?
Edmund's going for another yr of specialisation in Rehab at ECU when this degree is over. Tiffany prob is too. Right now I still am very undecided on my future field of specialisation. Biomechanics? Physiology? Rehab? But from what I can see, I prob will follow Edmund for that extra one more yr cos right now, the only solid employment option seems to be at C*H. Or SS*C/SM* to be exact. Hopefully there will be other options avail before I grad. While there are a string of reasons why I would and should jump at this opportunity, there are factors that will make me wanna avoid it altogether.
It's still a distance but I'm definitely en route outta the catacombs. Recent conversations have reminded me much and I definitely owe my thanks to some friends of mine. Someday I will be my true self once more. Well not really 100%, that would prob send me back in a loop again.

The long awaited holiday is here but just like last term, I'm even more packed with things than I would care to bother. I seriously should start exercising constantly again. My state of health is really disasterous. Can even feel symptoms that resembles that of myocardia infarction. Choi....

Ok time for more film test gallery. First Let's start with COLOUR!
Film: Kodak E100VS
Within the E100G line of film with characteristic of vivid and saturated colours (that's what the VS acronym is for).
Speaking in terms of positive slide films, it's line that is suppose to carry the heavy responsibility of appeasing an entire generation(or maybe can be as much 3?) that has been oogling at the beautiful retro images provided by the Kodachrome series since 74 yrs ago. Now Kodachrome has been discontinued and with film lovers the world over mourning it's loss with special tribute websites, reports on CNN and the works. Even I got curious and got on the kodachrome craze boat by hunting down and buying 3 rolls of the last batch. Damn the free market extortion-ism jacked-up prices. Damn those blood suckers on Ebay.
Seems to be a popular film with travel photographers therefore it'll definitely be with me on the trip to Thailand at yr end(can't wait!). I ain't no Steve McCurry, far from it, but hopefully out of the 36 exposures, I can at least get one special shot.

E100VS is in no way a replacement as the effect is totally different.
I notice the reds are esp glaring in the pics.....
Here are the E100VS samples........:

View of the Orchard MRT station entrance in front of Ion Orchard.
(upper) Shot from David's physio rehab office window all the way at the 20th storey of Liat Towers. Even at lens 300mm range coupled with dwindling evening light(not to mention my weak shaky holding technique), I was damn heng the len's VR still made things sharp.
(Lower) At the extreme opposite of a telephoto, shot from a wide angle lens at 15mm (around 23mm in full frame equiv).

More falconz eye view from Dav's office. Construction work is still proceeding at the roof area. Too bad the widest I had at that time was a 70mm.

Labrador park.
(Left) I like the way the 3 guys somehow unknowingly complements each other in their various poses.

Back to ION again.
(Left) The worker managed to spooked the lady in heels.
(Right) Which is the better poser?

While awaiting Dav's tutorial to start.... Took abit of Orchard street shots of the after office hour human traffic.


Managed to capture this little girl eating apple and stretching at the same time. Ok juniors at Njd now got a reference pic on stretching the gracilis(left) and the hamstring groups.

More pics while waiting for tutorial(SSC) but this time is at Kallang river.

My competitor! It dived into the water and actually caught a fish!! If zoomed in on the actual resolution image, you can see the fish held by the talons! Could not get a shot when it was diving due to the sluggish AF. Nonetheless, it was impressive watching it dive from such a great height. but i can do better......heh...

My fav raintree along depot rd.......

Very sporting of this skater to give the V sign for my shot. Thanks ya!

After all that vivid colours, take a walk through BnW....
Film: Ilford Delta 3200 (yes! ISO3200!)
Finally R*by Photos had this in stock in the 135 format after months of wait.
Since the ISO rating is so high, it's time to put it's sensitivity to the test.....
in Chinatown and Ann Siang Hill after sundown.
























Could not finish the roll at night so tested a few shots in daytime:




The Duck at the zoo watching pelicans.

Whale holding on the latest installment(at time of print) of the Hello Kitty Saboh.....

Baby likes to remind ppl that she's actually an m/o despite her looks.........heheh....