Becoming a tour guide for a friend for the weekend.

A friend of mine came over to visit Singapore. Here comes my role again to be a free-of-charge tour guide to bring my friend to explore as many main sights as possible over the weekend. Fortunately, I do not need to drag my office work to the weekend this round (been doing so for the past weekends of this month…I manage to finish the work for the week right before 2am on Friday’s night/ literally Saturday’s morning).

I first brought my friend to Chinatown for lunch yesterday and then visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple which is located in the same area. It is arguably the most famous Chinese temple in Singapore. Besides than the ground level that has the main prayer hall, the temple also has upper floors of galleries opened for public access.

We then went over to Orchard, the most bustling shopping street in the country. We explored the ION Orchard mall and Wisma Atria mall (and had dinner at the latter). Halloween is not even over and Christmas decorations are already starting to appear along the street. Christmas is still almost two months away!

As evening arrives, we made our way to Marina Bay Sands to watch the daily light and water show at the promenade. I have watched it countless times and hoping that it will be replaced with a new one though. After that, we walked over the mall, passing through the iconic hotel towers and reached another not-to-be-missed attraction for tourist in Singapore; the Gardens by the Bay. We were there for another show (this one is light and sound show) happening also daily at the Supertree Groove. We ended the day back at Chinatown and had dessert as supper.

I still have a bit of time left today with my friend before he leaves later in the afternoon. I brought him to visit the top floor deck (50th storey) of The Pinnacle@Duxton for spectacular views of the city, Besides than being an award-winning architectural masterpiece, the complex is also the world’s tallest public residential buildings. I have been up here before few years ago and the views never get old. The admission fee is still priced at affordable SGD$6 per pax. It’s also a very beautiful clear day today (very sunny too) and hence I could see all the way to Indonesia from up there on one side.

After that, we went to Plaza Singapura mall for lunch and a brief window shopping before saying goodbye to my friend. My role as tour guide officially comes to an end. Haha…I’m enjoying it. October 2023 has been a really exciting and eventful month; I was so heavily occupied with work and at the same time got to enjoy the weekends going to different places. Overall, it just feels so overwhelming.

Sleepy Sunday morning at Bird Paradise @ Mandai.

What an eventful weekend! In less than 4 hours after I reached home at around 3am today (from my visit to the Halloween Horror Nights 11 at Universal Studios Singapore last evening), I head out again. Definitely not getting enough sleep. By the way, you can check out my review/first-time experience of the Halloween event at USS in my previous post below.

Where was I heading out on this early Sunday morning when all I need was a much needed sleep after the night I just had? I went to visit the Bird Paradise at Mandai Wildlife Reserve with a friend. My kind landlord gave me a pair of admission tickets to a community event in the bird park today (which grant access to the park subsequently). It’s free and so why not? Haha. (Normal admission price is SGD$48 for an adult!).

We entered the park at around 8.30am and went straight to the Sky Amphitheatre to watch a special bird presentation along with the community event ceremony which is also attended by Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Lawrence Wong. The bird show was okay but nothing extraordinary (except for a part where a parrot sings ‘Happy Birthday’ song!). After that, we explored all the different sections of the bird park (Crimson Wetlands, Wings of Asia, Australian Outback, Amazonian Jewels, Heart of Africa, Lory Loft, Mysterious Papua, Winged Sanctuary, Songs of the Forest and Penguin Cove).

The park is quite huge but we manage to walk through the entire park in less than 3 hours. That’s mainly due to us not being keen birdwatchers and that I am still feeling exhausted from the USS trip just a couple of hours ago. It was also very hot this morning (many places in the park are not sheltered). The indoor air-conditioned spaces between zones do provide a bit of relief though.

This bird park is only opened early this year after it is being relocated from its former location at Jurong (previously called Jurong Bird Park and I visited that before too). Since it is quite a recent thing in town, I’m surprised by the lack of visitors to the park on a beautiful Sunday’s morning (crowds are a very common sight in Singapore). To be honest, I myself also find the park just mediocre except for the Penguin Cove. That’s the only zone where me and my friend were most interested in (how you can not from those adorable little penguins!).

I saw more fire extinguishers than birds along the walkways in the park. Haha…it’s true! The park is also famous for the frequent electric shock visitors would have after touching the railings or steel surfaces in the park (this got on the news last time). I encountered it a couple of times myself today. That’s definitely not a pleasant experience for visitors.

Anyway, we left the park at around noon and had lunch there before heading back to our respective home. I immediately took a shower and went for a 2-hour nap for a quick recharge before uploading my photos of the weekend into my social medias and updating my blog right now. What a weekend! Looking forward to a good sleep later tonight and my flu to go away (caught flu for few days already).

Had a blast last night at USS for the Halloween Horror Nights 11.

I have visited Universal Studios Singapore at least twice for its amusement rides and shows. The theme park is also popular for an annual Halloween event (called Halloween Horror Nights) where visitors will be able to visit haunted houses and play some of the rides till past midnight. The event entered into its 11th edition this year and it’s a tick off my list finally after visited it last night with my friends.

This year’s Halloween Horror Nights 11 features 5 haunted houses, 3 scare zones and 2 live shows. It costs us SGD$89 per pax for admission on weekend’s night. We entered the park at around 7pm and we were shocked by the massive amount of people already congregating at the main plaza right after the entrance. All were waiting for the kickstart of the event with a live stage show (Judgement Day ‘Scaremony’) at 7.30pm.

After the show (which I can hardly see because we are so far away), we went to queue for our first haunted house of the evening; ‘DIYU: Descent into Hell’. The queue was crazily long and we waited for over one and a half hour until our turn. Getting through the haunted house only took us about 5 minutes. However, it was still fun (can’t remember how long since I last visited a haunted house attraction). Without wasting time, we then immediately went to ‘The Weeknd: After Hours Til Dawn Nightmare’ haunted house and then to the ‘Rebirth of the Matriarch’ haunted house.

At first we thought we could only at most visit three haunted houses due to the long queues for each of them. However, the organizer was allowing more people to enter the houses to clear off the queues quickly (but reduces the scare factor as more visitors are cramped inside the houses). We already knew after able to see from the front group which part ahead where scare actors would jump out for the scares due to that. Anyway, at least this decision allows us to cover all the haunted houses and we did!

Due to that, the waiting time for the rest of the haunted houses were much shorter (‘Grimm Encounters’ and the highly popular ‘Netflix’s All Of Us Are Dead’). The latter house is based on the famous Netflix zombie series of the same name. My most favourite haunted house out of the five would be the ‘Rebirth of the Matriach’. I have to commend on the amount of effort by the scare actors and also for the sets in all the five houses.

We also passed through all the 3 outdoor scare zones too (The Hacker, The Cursed Kiramam and Dead Man’s Wharf) and ended the evening with ‘The Hacker: Game Over’ live show. We left the theme park at around 2am. What a night! I didn’t have time to play on any of the evening rides available but at least I was able to visit all the Halloween attractions for the 7 hours we had in the park. Mission accomplished!

We walked back to Vivocity to take cab and I only reached home a little after 3am in the morning. It was really fun and an exciting first-time experience to the Halloween Horror Nights at USS for me. The haunted houses were cool (although I find them too well lit inside…but I guess that is to prevent any accident/injury). The only complaint would be the excessive number of people present and the huge amount of time wasted just for queueing.

Anyway, this is my blog’s 2500th post!

Spent the rest of my Sunday after work at Hort Park and Kent Ridge Park.

I finally made my work submission in the afternoon just now, two days later than the supposed deadline. I’ve got just half of the day to enjoy for the rest of my weekend unfortunately. I was looking for a place to catch a fresh air and be able to get surrounded by green. It looks like it is my favourite thing to do now during the weekend; walking around parks. I’m getting to that stage of life now. Haha…

And then I found not one, but two parks; Hort Park and Kent Ridge Park. They are connected to each other and are part of the Southern Ridges which covers 10 km of green spaces (connecting 5 parks in total) on the south-west of Singapore. Previously I have already visited three of them; Telok Blangah Hill Park, Mount Faber Park, and Labrador Nature Reserve (just last week).

Hence, I’m here today to accomplish the mission; complete the visit of the entire Southern Ridges. I first went to the Hort Park. Before exploring the park, I caught a glimpse of The Interlace nearby, a residential complex that is famous for its award-winning design. Back to the park; the park is filled with themed garden plots, glass greenhouses, playground and event venues. Quite a lot of areas in this park are under maintenance and I find that the themed garden plots are too tiny and lackluster though. There is also much lesser visitors on this park compared to the other more popular parks in this area. I saw a lot of squirrels here but they ran off quickly as they are afraid of people.

Next I moved on to explore the adjacent Kent Ridge Park. This park is surrounded with dense vegetation (forest) and sees even much lesser visitors. It must be quite scary to walk in this park after sunset. One main highlight of the park is its canopy walk that offers you views high above the park overlooking to the north. On the opposite side of the park (which is mostly above a hill), you get to see the Pasir Panjang coast.

Things would be looking much more exciting next week as I would be going to the Universal Studios Singapore next weekend to join the Halloween event (Halloween Horror Nights 11) with my friends. Looking forward to that!

Spending the weekend finishing up on work, series and movies.

Urghh…got to work for this weekend again. Everything is just so fast paced and we just couldn’t catch up to the deadlines every single week. The reality of working in architecture kicks in hard again. The project is complex and so intense, and yet not sign of pay raise since long ago and not even a single word of praise for the amount of work and effort placed on this particular large project. Halloween hasn’t even arrives but the nightmares are already here and will likely continue all the way till next year.

Hence, I couldn’t go anywhere yesterday besides than heading back to office for work. That wasn’t enough as I have to sort out some final touches today (work remotely at home) before making a submission of which the deadline is supposed to be on the past Friday. After that is done, I’m heading out to take a break, perhaps somewhere in a park or something.

Although I’m quite occupied with work for this weekend, but I do find time to watch a movie and complete a TVB series that has ended last Friday’s evening. The TVB series is titled ‘Let Me Take Your Pulse’ and starred Sisley Choi, Matthew Ho, Ricco Ng, Erica Chan, Danny Hung, Kayan Yau, etc. This 25-episode drama revolves on a group of young doctors trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) going through the struggles with their close bond with one another.

The theme is very refreshing. I have never seen a TVB series that revolves on TCM practitioners until this one. The stories also gave us meaningful messages and better understanding on TCM. The cast (which is mostly of junior actors and actresses) are doing well.

Matthew Ho is a bit disappointing though on his first male lead role here especially on his emotional scenes (he seems to be not able to immerse himself in crying scenes and obvious sign of his performance setback there). Sisley Choi is good as she should be (as she has been crowned best actress before). Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Let Me Take Your Pulse’ 8.0. High rating not because the series is exciting, but because it’s refreshing, conveyed positive messages and had set up a good platform for all the junior cast.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

Loitering around Labrador Park and Keppel Bay for the weekend.

How’s your weekend? This weekend is shorter for me as I ended up spending half of my Saturday to rush for a work submission that was supposed to be completed on Friday. Then, I would have another submission on this coming Friday (works just keep getting more and more).

Anyway, I spent most of yesterday just at home; doing work and watching some movies and dramas (and also the latest episode of The Amazing Race Season 35). I originally planned to go out to cycle in the evening but cancelled it as the weather was very foggy yesterday. Haze returns and the air reached particularly unhealthy level yesterday. This is how the combination of Sun + haze looked like yesterday (view from my room):

The weather is getting so much better today surprisingly. I went out to loiter around Labrador Park and Keppel Bay this afternoon. It’s my first time visiting Labrador Park (or formally called as Labrador Nature Reserve). It is a seaside forest park that also houses some remnants of what used to be a British military battlement such as machine gun post and artillery pieces.

After a brief time exploring the park (nothing much of interest to see here unless you are very keen on learning bits of history of Singapore), I continued the walk to the Keppel Bay area via the Bukit Chermin Boardwalk. I have been here before two years ago. There are so much more to see along this area with picturesque views of the sea, Sentosa Island, luxurious yachts and residences along the bay. The curved towers of the Reflections at Keppel Bay residences are really a gorgeous sight here.

That’s all for this shorter weekend that leads me to another busy week at work. I already miss the time when I can leave office a little after 6pm. I can’t recall when was the last time I did that.

Belated 15th anniversary to my blog!

If it was not for the reminder notification from WordPress, I would have really forgotten that it was my blog’s 15th anniversary 3 days ago (on 28th September). Happy 15th anniversary to my blog! What a milestone!

15 years later, I am still here actively updating my blog (or online journal as I would like to personally call it). I do really have to praise my dedication in blogging after all the years. I guess it is really my long-term hobby to jot down and share things that are of my interest. And years later, this journal would be the place I can recall most of the great memories I had or the major events the world see in the past through all the countless pictures and write-up I have posted. That would be pretty awesome.

In conjunction with the anniversary, here’s a quick report card for my blog which has started since 28th September 2008. As of today, my blog has received close to 3.9 million views, over 1.3 million visitors and accumulated over 440 subscribers. I have written close to 2500 posts and for this year alone, I have written up to 48 000 words. There will be only up for these figures as I continue to observe my blog’s 16th, 20th anniversary and so on in the future.

By the way, it’s already October and we have entered into the last quarter of the year. I ended September 2023 with not only a new iPhone 15 Pro but also a new AirPods Pro (2nd generation) to use. It originally costs SGD363 but I had a 100 dollars discount voucher from a friend. Hence, I got it at only SGD263 (that’s about RM900; still expensive but feel better with this reduced price for the wireless headphone). Extra damage to my wallet last month. Haha….

Before ending the post, I would like to extend a belated Mid-Autumn Festival greeting to my family, friends and my blog readers that are Chinese as well. I treated myself a box of very delicious durian snow-skin mooncakes on top of few other mooncakes given by my office and friends. This is the only period I can indulge on mooncakes which I quite like (especially the durian flavoured ones, traditional lotus paste with yolk or even jelly mooncakes).