I have no clue what these are, but they look good in pictures!

A shy octopus. I had to heavily edit this picture because the tank was almost pitch dark!

Tell me these pics don’t look like a scene from a sci-fi movie titled “When the angry giant spiders attack”. Why are people still eating crabs????

Caught one in a totally menacing pose:

They are Japanese giant spider crabs and damn, they were HUGE. Those fishes you see above are probably about 4-5 inches long, so you can guess how big this guy is in real life! it’s no wonder the Japanese were able to come up with things like Godzilla when they have these sort of MONSTER swimming in their ocean…

We went down to the tunnel. Many of the fish were swimming in schools.. very pretty!

ooooo dream world like! This is what I get when I take pictures with low shutter speed while getting on the travelator.

This one is probably my favorite shot of the day. I caught the shark silhouette just in time and at the right place!

Bye bye sharky…

A huge and very ancient looking fish. I wonder if it’s tasty?

Jellyfish is always fun to take pictures of… something about the way they bob up and down is very soothing.

Why is nemo black? This is my first time seeing clown fish of this color.

Ok, that’s how big those crabs are. SO SCARY AND DISGUSTING!

We walked over to the Dolphin Lagoon for a seal show. I love seals! they are so adorable…

Playing dead for the audience.. awww!

Afterwards, headed off to Vivo to cool off. we walked around for a bit before settling at this cafe called White Dog Cafe. Food was so-so but they do have a great view of Sentosa island from inside the cafe:

Shared potato wedges (yummmmy) and caesar salad. first time i’ve ever had caesar salad with poached egg on top, but i suppose it was alright.

Playing around with my camera.. did you know some places put rice in the salt shaker to prevent the salt from clumping up? I didn’t know!

My new desk at work! this is kinda a bad picture since i took it with my blackberry (and it only captured like half of my desk), but i’m loving the new office. it’s a hardwood floor loft and very cozy :)

as you can see they make me use a mac, which I have never ever touched before. it’s okay, i’m getting used to it, but i’m not seeing why apple fans think mac OS is the shit. aside of the pretty/flashy interface there’s not much that sets them apart from windows… but of course, i’ve only been on it for two days.

Go easy on me, i used the freakin Windows Movie Maker to stitch the videos together! i’m such a newb

more pictures after the cut:

excited to finally be on the boat ride to Pulau Ubin!

Bye bye mainland Singapore!

We rented our bikes for about $12 each, for the whole day. Bring insect spray as I got eaten alive by mosquitos! Thankfully Parissa brought some with her, or else I don’t know how I would last…

Mike at the fish spa

Evidently, THESE FISHES WILL EAT ANYTHING!!!

So this past friday, I met up with my friend Gavin for dinner. He’s a member at the golf club at sentosa and was playing during the day, so we met up there. Getting into the island was easy enough thanks to the monorail (which you catch at the top level of vivo city) and the free shuttles that goes around the island. When I got to the club, he gave me a quick tour and we decided to have dinner there.

I had the cheeseburger, which was yummy! And I was surprised that the prices were actually not expensive. I’m used to golf club prices being expensive, but I guess not at sentosa (even though it’s definitely one of the nicer golf clubs i’ve been to).

They didn’t like that I was wearing flip flops though… I forgot places like that must have dress codes. But I don’t regret wearing flip flops since we went to check out the beach area after.

From the golf club we walked to Tanjong beach, which didn’t seem to have much going on except for the new Tanjong Beach Club. It looked nice (reminds me of resorts in Bali) but didn’t have much going on that night despite it being a Friday night. So then we decided to take the shuttle to the other beach, Siloso, which had more night life and rows of bars / lounges along the beach.

View from Siloso beach. yes, this is a bad picture but it was pretty dark already…

He also showed me where the aquarium is. it was already closed at the moment, but i’m definitely going back to check it out! I love aquariums :) caught a few sights of super huge turtles and stingrays in the pool out front.

in goes the veggies

freshly made guacamole!!

and a whole lot of chicken, with mike’s “secret recipe” ;)

the boys hard at work, while i pranced around and took pics.

the end result. we were SO in for a big feast…

so you put the chicken, cheese, salsa, veggies, guacamole and some sour cream…. then fold the tortillas and EAT. so yummmmyyyyy and so filling. i had two of these and just about died from food coma. it was so delicious!

we couldn’t move afterwards and was basically useless for the next couple of hours as we let the food digest and couch-potato-ed while watching “The Day After Tomorrow”.

anyway, let me end this entry with a picture of pretty sunset i caught from their apartment before dinner.

Anyway, the first two days was spent inside Novotel Bangna as we were working. We literally didn’t take a single step out of the hotel and ate hotel food for each meals.

On thursday we finally had some time to go explore the city. This was taken at Siam Square, where we got massages!

Speaking of massages, I’m very fond of Thai massage. Some parts were just down right painful (but in a good way), and tickled so bad that I was silently praying for it to be over, but over all it was very good! I had my body folded in ways I didn’t know could be folded and had my back cracked in places I didn’t know could be cracked. The masseuse says I was pretty flexible compared to normal people though.

Anyway, I had three massages in the span of two days. it was lovely

Also had a very good thai dinner. I was either very hungry or it was very good.

My coworker and I extended our stay for one day, so we checked out of Bangna and headed to our hotel in the middle of city!

love the hotel! it has hardwood floor :D

Lunch at a nearby thai place:

Complimentary tuktuk ride by our hotel!

Dropped us off nearby Sukhumvit MRT station

Then we walked to Asok BTS Station, which is right across the street

… and had a brief encounter with the red shirts. There was a huge rally that weekend, but I barely noticed it. I saw a bunch of guards though.

Off to Chit Lom

Arrived at Chit Lom station

Then took the cab to Temple of Dawn

The temple had all these super steep staircases, supposed to represent the hardship we go through to achieve higher existence

Walking down was a bit scary…

Then we took a mini ferry ride across the river to a temple with a HUGE reclining Buddha Statue!

I love love love the wall decorations

After that, off to Suan Lum night market

Got dinner and explored the market a bit. I bought one of these lights in purple for 100 baht:

The next day, we were up early to go to one of Bangkok’s famous floating market.

Was stuck in a bit of a boat jam, but we made it out okay.

The lights I bought from the night market! Soooo pretty…

Anyway, I was very impressed with Bangkok. The trains were clean and easy to understand, and the city was very clean compared to.. say, Jakarta. Food was good, and people were friendly. I think I’ll be back again some day :D

When you first enter the place, they give you a card that will be scanned at each stall you order food from. then at the end when you’re done, you just go up to the cashier and pay your meals with that card. They also give you a “reserved” sign for your table so that you’re free to roam around the place and not having to worry about someone stealing your table while you’re away. easy and convenient!

The food itself to me was pretty good, however a bit pricey. I spent about SGD30 that night but that’s probably b/c aside of my omurice hamburg entree I also ordered a plate of salmon sashimi (as you can see pictured above) and a can of Asahi. yea, i ate a lot that night.

This was taken just this past Friday at a popular hang out place called Clarke Quay. They have all these sakura looking decoration, presumably for the chinese new year which is coming up on valentine’s this year. I had dinner at (yet another) Japanese place called Tampopo. I’ve actually been there before, at the Takashimaya branch.

The following pics were taken in Jakarta:

some more pics of CNY decorations..

a traditional market in Jakarta!

back to Singapore.. and back to work. *whine whine

@ Bandung. This is how they make “Serabi” which is sort of like pancake made from rice flour and a little bit of heaven

@ Puncak, which means “Summit” and yep.. you guessed it.. high up on the mountains!

@ Holland Village, with Elyse, eating one of the best beef bowl i’ve ever had in my life. Sadly I forgot the name of the restaurant.

@ Vivo City, watching Sherlock Holmes. Was just an okay movie, I feel. did they really give him a Golden Globe for that?

@ my apartment. I’ve just received the package N sent me and this is not even half of the content. It’s the orders I’ve accumulated from my online shopping addiction over maybe 6 months or so…

@ my room again! I put up wall decals and yes, look at my horrible photo stitch up job!

@ my room… yes, again. My blackberry finally got a hard shell case and it’s PURPLE!!

By the end of the day, after about 5 hours of walking around in heels my feet felt like they were going to fall off, but her wedding was perfect and she looked absolutely gorgeous. I hope to someday be able to experience this myself :)

I got super lucky with this pic.. the lightning turned out so perfect that I didn’t even need to color correct it! I tried to recapture the same pic with my sister but i just couldn’t get the same result again.. =(

The table behind me was basically full of dessert. it was madness!

SEE WHAT I MEAN?! DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?!

Gorgeous ballroom… this later became packed with the 1000 or so guest that attended the wedding. There is another room to the side that I didn’t take pictures of.

The wedding cake!

Us drooling at the dessert. we couldn’t touch it yet since the reception hasn’t begun.

I just thought this picture is freakin’ hilarious. no, there was no alcohol involved.

Something like jello shots that I had with a few of my coworkers.. they all tasted bad except for the green one, which was minty. It’s not pictured above, however.

my landlords took me out for lunch one day over the weekend. They introduced me to duck rice, which was nice. I still prefer chicken rice though =)

stopped by a korean make up shop called “Etude” at the Orchard MRT station, to purchase an eyeliner i’ve been eyeing (har har). and then while i was there I also picked up this bling silver nail polish which makes me ridiculously happy.. I feel so lady gaga wearing it.. :)

had dinner with one of my cousins who is visiting from Aussie. We went to this japanese place called Tampopo at Takashimaya. There was a line to get INTO the restaurant, so they must be quite popular? I ordered stone grilled beef curry, which was yummy! They put melted cheese and raw egg on top and I was quite surprised that the cheese actually worked so well with the japanese curry flavor :9