Treading the concrete jungle

Was in Singapore last week. I guess it's about time to do a post on it. Had a great time all in all, but we actually spent most of the time shopping. hahaha. Well, it is Singapore anyway what else would we do there?

Ok. Day 1.

Went to the airport with Nick at somewhere around 2.30. Checked in. and to our surprise, we met Douglas. Found out we're both on the same flight. He was very nice to sort of be our guide there around the airport hahaha. Sat down at Coffee Bean for a drink.

Oh. and when i got back from Singapore guess what my mum told me. 'Eh that friend of yours whom u met at the airport, he mix blood wan ha? He very handsome hor' WALAU EHHHH. Thanks a lot mum hahaha.


Met up with Gloria after that.  She waited for us at Changi Airport for 6 hours.
How fun.

 After parting with Doug who was off to his bible school, Uncle Chris (Nick's Uncle, whose place we were staying at) picked us up from there. No, we didn't head straight home. Instead, we embraced the true Singaporean spirit and headed off to Tampines 1(yeah what's with the naming conventions nowadays, everything need 1 even in Singapore. Coughonejayacityoneoneborneocough), one of the newer malls in Singapore for dinner and shopping!

At some balcony thing in Tampines 1.

That's my dinner. Carl's Junior. Very good but very X as the Singaporeans would say. Expensive they mean.

That on the right is a photo from the top. Very nicely designed and decorated mall. One of my favourites i guess.  After that we went shopping. Went to Esprit and Uniqlo.  Everything quite expensive lar here. The thing is if u wanna do the currency conversion, you probably won't buy even a single item here. So just forget the conversion, shop and be merry. LOL

Day 2.

Woke up early and went for breakfast at some hawker food court near where we were saying. I guess the best foods are actually the hawker food, much like how it is in Malaysia. Had bakcho mee that morning. That's minced meat with noodles in soup. It tasted quite ok i guess. Nothing very special.

Rule of thumb when looking for food in Singapore. If there's a long queue, it's gotta be good. Btw that's a vegetarian stall. Yeah... i wonder just how good it actually is. Look at the queue. Well anyway, Singaporeans have to queue up for almost anything probably because of the dense population. Hawker stalls, restaurants, MRTs, even Bee Cheng Hiang (some local BakGua brand) and Pearl Milk tea.

After that, we hopped on the MRT and off we went. Today's destination. Sentosa Island!....which was a good 55 minutes MRT ride away from where we were.
Yeeaappp. Not a very nice 55 minutes I would say. And by the way, in the trains, nobody cares about you. Everyone's in their own world. probably on their iphone or something. 

Welcome to Sentosa! which was actually quite disappointing. Nothing much here besides the Luge. Which was some Toboggan ride thing.

Haha looking down from the Skyline. Nothing much here.
After a few hours we got bored cause everything was so darn expensive and really there wasn't much to do. So we decided to get off Sentosa and went to Vivocity which was a hugggggeeeeeee mall just not far away.
Did some shopping for bout 4 hours. Well, unlike Kuching, 2 hours in the Spring and you'll be dying of boredom. But here... whole different story. 4 hours in Vivocity and we probably still couldn't cover the entire area. After that, we headed to Bugis Street which was a few stops away. MORE SHOPPING.

 This is BUGIS! it's some street shopping...uhh street.

Once again, really really packed. Was very chaotic didn't really know how to shop. Yeah not exactly a fan of street shopping.  But i still managed to get a few bermudas here (fake wan la of course). Nick also got some funny parody t shirt. Too crowded to actually take photos here.

After that we had dinner with Wan Ting and Shu Juan! the two girls we sort of met when they joined us at D'Encounter Camp 2010! I say sort of cause actually I hardly talked to them back in Kuching. Till I met them here and realized just what wonderful people they are! Oh, there was also Derek from their youth group and Chara(who's actually from EBC lol). Had an awesome time. After dinner we went to Raffles City Mall trying to find a place to sit down and chill.  But being the indecisive people we are, we wandered around in the wilderness for forty years I meant 30 minutes haha then we realised it was kinda late so we called it a day. Here's a parting shot!

Day 3!

Today we hit the Universal Studios! This was probably one of the main things that all three of us were really looking forward to in this trip.  Once again, embracing the Singaporean spirit of KIASU-ness, we woke up early, had breakfast at some nearby coffeeshop and headed there by MRT.

Btw, Universal Studios is on Sentosa Island, yes another one hour ride. pffft. We booked our tickets the night before online. Crazy expensive. 66 SG Dollars X 2.39 = RM157.74 !! haha yes the conversion rate kills. Oh, and one thing bout Singapore. It's very hard to get lost. I mean you can find your way around easily even if you're lost. They're signboards everywhere and everything is just so efficient.  The three of us who hardly has experience in Singapore managed to get around on our own most of the time.  Not to mention my poor sense of direction that is unable to navigate myself out of my own bathroom. 

Well here we are! Everyone loves taking photos with the globe. hahaha. This is where people kill to camwhore.

Ah here we are! The first section out of the seven parts, Hollywood! So the seven sections are Hollywood, New York, Sci-Fi City, Ancient Egypt, The Lost World, Far Far Away, and Madagascar. My favourite is probably Hollywood itself even though they're no rides here at all. It's just the feel you get walking on the streets and the shops and deco around you just give a very nice touch to it. 

Look who we met! Lol actually i can't remember the name lol. And Nick is getting a little touchy ehhh. 

Bad Nick.

They're a lot of nice props and places to take photos here but there's also a lot of people.  plus the stupid camera so heavy and bulky haha super annoying. so yeahh we only managed to snap a few nice ones. If only Anders was around..... sigh...

Hello Sci-Fi City. Nothing much here cause the two supposedly scariest roller coasters located here were still under testing. boo.

 
Ancient City! Didn't take much photos here cause we were busy with the rides. hahaha. Legend of the Mummy! the most thrilling ride in the whole park at this moment.  Got out of the ride with a slight backache. LOL ahpek. How I wish i could snap photos while on the roller coaster. Must be super unglam wan.

We also queued up for a pathetic kid's ride. lol...

Ok enough of stupid egyptian statues. Moving on to... The Lost World!
Gahhh i realised I didnt take any pics at all of this section except when we went into one of the shows 'Waterworld'. zzzzz.

Yeap this is Waterworld. It's sort of like a live play with real-life stunts, pyrotechnics, realistic props and stuff.  Yeah that scaffolding on the left actually fell down half way through the show. Intentionally of course. 

And this plane came crashing into the set. Epic.

Very amazing and enjoyable show all in all, suitable for all I guess. Just watching the special effects itself is very enjoyable. Forget the story lol.

Welcome to Far Far Away! that's probably Shrek's castle or something I dunno not very familiar with the movies. I especially like how this part is decorated. The castles and everything.  Went to a 3D show here which was really really impressive. They had moving chairs and lots of silly pranks that they play at you while you're watching the 'presentation' in 3D. Won't disclose what is it in case I spoil your experience there next time. haha go check it out urself.

Ah welcome to Madagascar! Nothing much to do here mostly kid's rides. But but! luckily we caught the Penguins! ahhh my favourite characters ever. that's me hugging Private while Gloria and Nick is with Kowalski i think. Haha i hope Private isn't truely a....girl. 

So basically we spent the whole day at Universal Studios. Morning till 5 in the evening. After that we had dinner, then met up with Uncle Chris, Aunty Susan and their daughter Cynthia. Really very kind and loving people =] They brought us to the Singapore Flyer and the river cruise. Didn't take any good photos with my camera so not gonna post them here.

Day 4

Onto the fourth day. Day 4 was basically a full shopping day. hahaha.Went to one of the coolest malls in Singapore, Ion! In this mall you get to see all the super X and super atas brands like Prada, Porsche Design, Louis Vuitton and a whole bunch of other brands that we have never heard of before and cannot even pronounce. 

The way they designed the layout was. The cheapest and most low class brand is located way at the lowest basement. And as you go up each floor, it gets more high class, more expensive and you slowly get to the designer brands on top. Guess where Levi's, G2000 and Uniqlo are. WAYYY down there at Basement 4(lowest) and Basement 3. hahahaha lollll. chickkeeeeen. 

The higher floors of Ion. Very classy.

The front door of Ion. Yeah it's very artsy and stuff. It's supposed to be some architectural mall or something haha.

Group photo!

Ah so basically i got two shirts at Ion I think. One from Denizen, one from Net.

So after that we left Ion and went on shopping at Takashimaya which was another massive mall just nearby. Didn't really like it there though.  

So after a whole day's worth of shopping, we met up with Wan Ting and Shu Juan again for dinner! went to the Long House. Some local food court. I had prawn mee that night. Very good for my taste. It's pretty much like Penang Prawn Mee i guess, just milder. Less of the stinky smell. hahaha. Shu Juan is like the expert of Prawn Mee. For the two nights we went out with her, she ate prawn mee. lol. If u're ever feeling prawny, u know who to call. (WAD DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?)

Ah after that they brought us for dessert at a place called Icekimo in Thompson Street. I have no idea where that is either but anywayyys. here we had the most awesome ice-cream dessert ever created! the Super Durian Waffle! seriously. I didn't make that name up lol. I DIDN'T TAKE A PHOTO OF IT. GRRR. Ok let's hope my words do it justice.

It's two layers of waffle with a generous amount of blended D24 durian flesh(yes I thought it sounded gross too, but it tastes magnificent) in between, and then a scoop on D24 ice-cream right on top of the waffles. Amazing I tell you. Any durian lover must try this.  Ask Wan Ting, she shares the same passionate love for this ice-cream as I do. hahaha. Probably the best thing I tasted in this entire trip. Hah Gloria didn't like durians so she didn't get to try this. She has no idea what she missed out. Poor Gloria.

So anyway, after dessert we went back home. Then on the way back Nick and I got hungry again. LOL. Uncle Chris was really nice and brought us out for supper at Bedok 85, a famous local hawker place. We had a wonderful bowl of BakCho Mee which was really really good, complete with a bowl of Tang Yuan for dessert. The Tang Yuan is amazing btw, not like the lousy stuff we have here, theirs is different. lol. 

Ok, so that was three meals in one night. I better be gaining pounds for this, if not something's wrong with me.

Day 5

Ok so we realise it's almost time to go back and I still felt I haven't bought enough (actually I really didn't buy much....I think) so I was desperate to cramp in more shopping. We went to Bugis Junction, then to Raffles City in City Hall. All shopping complexes. Then after that to Ion again cause Nick wanted to change something. Went to check out the Onitsuka Tigers here and they were crazy expensive. 170 SG dollars! walau eh... Wish to get shoes - FAIL... 

Oh we also went to Esplanade. Which was some theatre complex thing. It kinda looks like two durians from the outside i think. hahaha. 

 Some art exhibition. Quite beautiful...if you like that sort of thing i guess. 

Shu Juan who became our tour guide for that day. hahaha. Sorry for dragging you around shopping for clothes LOL. Poor girl she must hate me by now. hahahaha jk she's too nice to hate anyone haha.

Later on that night we had dinner and then joined Wan Ting and Shu Juan's young adult cell group.  Had a really great time there, felt really really blessed.  Everyone was so welcoming and we felt right at home! Was really happy to be able to spend time with God in the midst of all the busy-ness and fun throughout the week. I believe we were all really looking forward to that night ever since we got there. 

hahaha look everyone's so happyyyy. 

Well after that, we went for supper together(HMMMM REMINDS ME OF EBC TOTALLY MAN).

Went for roti prataaaa.

Oops we forgot to take a group photo. haha oh well. That's Avice followed by Eunice by the way. hahaha funny bunch. Food was okay. But I enjoyed the company more than the food =]

That night we stayed out till quite late so had to take the cab back lol. Got home at 12 sth haha.

Went back at started packing. We had a lot of stuff to bring back cause we were helping Samson to bring some of his stuff back as well. Don't worry about it buddy haha =]

Day 6

Ok we went for some super last minute shopping at Tampines 1. YEAHH MAN that's the spirit. hahaha. After that we went to airport and back to Kuching. Nothing much liao I guess. Oh, I got my Urban Ears headphones too. Aweeesome.

All in all, a really amazing trip.  Met many wonderful people and it was just really nice to see life from another point of view. The Singaporean way. hahaha. Really hope to come back for another vacation some other time. Thank God for this opportunity, for the fun, for the people we met, for the safe and wonderful trip, for the good food, for the stuff we bought, for the moneyy hahaha, everything. Praise God!

Off to Singapore in a few hours time with Nick! Poor Gloria already waiting for us in Changi Airport. She must be stoning there...or she could be in some anime shop already. hahaha.

Finally our long awaited vacation trip is here.  Haven't really done much planning so guess we'll be exploring on our own with some tips from a few friends.  The food there better be as good as what the people speak of. Oh, and Universal Studios here we come. Hoping for a safe, action-packed, experience-filled trip!  God be with us all the way! See you guys in a week! Cheers

How many shining eyes do you have around you?

I have no idea how many times i've watched this. Interesting video.
Just watch it, it's for everybody, even if you don't know about music at all.
Enjoy

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come

At last! 2010 has come to it's end. Out with the old and in with the new. I know it's a little late for a new year post haha, but yeahhh here I am.

It has definitely been an exciting and great year. There has been a great deal of unexpected events and progressions, both joyful and sad, yet every one of them has made the year worthwhile and special nonetheless. No, I wouldn't have it any other way even if I could, cause I believe God has made the year play out as He wanted it for me.

Looking back at the year, God has transformed me from one stage to another, hardly with me realising it at all.  His ways are indeed mysterious. I can't even describe how He has changed me, but I'm sure God has done a great work in me. He has blessed me abundantly, so abundant to the point that I must admit I have forgotten about some of them (SORRY GOD! I didn't mean to!).

I'm just really glad how the year has turned out. Yes, they're things that didn't turn out the way I wanted them to (too many actually), but you know, that's life. God's will, not mine(I must remind myself of that more often hahahaha). I'm glad that I was able to spend the last month of the year with all the people that I love. My family, and all you EmBaCY people. You're all just too awesome. I know I haven't been very nice to my family, and you guys probably won't see this, but I love you mum dad hubert ryan! hahaha COUGH COUGH.  And to all my brothers and sisters in Christ, I cannot thank you enough and express how glad I am to have met you all. You have shown me the love of Christ,  and have inspired me onto Christ.

And what better way to end the year by being baptized in water! YES, I had my water baptism last night on the very last day of the year. I proclaim once again the death of the fleshly self, and the new light that I now walk in as a child of God, to live in the spirit. My sins have been taken by my Savior on the cross, and my old self has died with Him on the cross. And I have been resurrected as a new creation entirely. 

SIN HAS NO HOLD ON ME.

As for 2011, I'm excited about what's coming ahead. I have not the slightest idea what's gonna happen, but I just know it's gonna be great and my prayer is that God will shake this world and stir up my heart and the hearts of all the young people in this city and nation.  There's gonna be a great awakening. 

Thank You Father for all that You've done.  It has been a great year. Not one moment, not even a split second, have You left me on my own.  You have been there with me, through the calm and the storm.

Let this year be an even greater year. Take me deeper into my walk with You. Strengthen me that I may do more for You. Give me courage and wisdom as I step into a new world of experiences with You. Amen!

NO REGRETS. 


Oh.. and thought i'd share this rather interesting quote from my older brother.
-May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions- 

Cheers everyone