Sentosa’s Underwater World

Bradley Farless13 Comments

My wife and I last went to Sentosa in September of last year.  We showed up in the late afternoon so we didn’t get to do much, but we had a great time and planned to go back.

Today, we finally got that opportunity.

Our main objective for the trip was Underwater World.  The first time we went there I was really interested in it, but we ran out of time.  Later, I saw photos from someone else’s trip and got even more excited to go.  So, we headed straight for it.  The line to get tickets was rather long, but it only took about 20 minutes to get through.  Afterwards we took a short break to get something to drink before heading into the Underwater World area.

In the entrance to Underwater World there are a lot of tanks built into the walls where you can view some of the smaller fish.  There’s also a petting tank and a “feed the manta ray” tank.  That one was pretty interesting.  The rays in it were so used to being fed by people that if you stood near the tank they would come over to you and half flop out of the water expecting you to drop food.

After you pass into the main exhibit area the tanks for the fish get larger.  One of the more interesting tanks had Japanese Giant Spider Crabs in it.  Full grown, their front claws can be 6 feet across or more!

Just past the crabs is an area with a lot of jellyfish that are neat to look at.  One of the tanks, with the jellyfish shown in red in the picture above, rotates the ambient lighting in the water and as the lighting changes the color of the jellyfish changes.

One you go through this area you can head into the underwater tunnel.  The underwater tunnel is a long tunnel with a plexiglass dome so that you can see the fish all around you and above you.  There is a travelator along the left side and a regular floor along the right side, so you can either ride through and look around or jump off to snap a few pictures.  While riding through this area we saw a lot of large and small fish.  We also saw some divers in the tank feeding the fish.  You can see some shots of the fish in the tunnel-tank below.

(We calld this guy the “Nom Nom Nom Ray” because he was constantly munching on something and grinning at us!)

Kipling Bags

Bradley Farless14 Comments

While my wife and I were out today, we had to pass through Vivocity Mall. The monorail going to Sentosa Island departs from there. Since we were there anyway, we decided to stop by the Kipling store to have a look at the bags. My wife has been talking about wanting a new Kipling bag for almost a year. The last one she had was ruined when battery acid got on it.

So, we took a look inside, and, thankfully, almost everything was on sale. It’s the Great Singapore Sale right now! So, she found a bag she liked and while she was posing in the mirror I went ahead and browsed around a bit myself. I saw the one on the right and liked it and decided I should get one as well.

In the end, my wife wound up paying for both of the bags, as a gift, since I was covering the costs of our outing to Sentosa.

If you’re not familiar with Kipling, they’re a really good brand. Also, each bag comes with a monkey attached to it, like you can see in the photo. Each monkey has a tag on it with a name. My wife’s bag, on the left, has a monkey named Lorena (scary right?). My bag has a monkey named Clotilde on it. Sounds like some sort of heavily muscled Norse woman to me.

Regardless, the bags are nice. They’re made of a good quality and should last us for quite a few years. I want more!

Night Sky Scenes by Spray Paint

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Tonight while my wife and I were by the Tampines MRT station I saw this sign and since I have a blog on Blogspot I stopped to check it out.

I spoke to him briefly and he said he had recently returned from a trip to New Zealand and was getting back into painting.  He does his artwork in public to gain free publicity.  He makes paintings using stencils, frisbees, spray paint and a few other odds and ends.  I saw him use a sponge brush and a little scraper looking tool that I don’t know the name of.

The guy’s stuff is pretty good.  I like the designs he chooses to make.  In a way each one is unique, since it’s done by hand.  When I visited his site though, I saw that he makes more than one copy of each and sells it, so if you buy from him your copy won’t be the only one in circulation.  That’s kind of a buzz kill.  Part of the thrill of buying a piece of art is knowing that you have something that’s one of a kind.  On the other hand, the prices are fairly reasonable considering they’re each done by hand.

If you’re interested, here’s a handy link to his site: NightSkyPaintings.

Also, you can watch the video embedded below to watch him create one of his pieces.  It’s not the whole process obviously, but you get to see him lay out the basic parts of the painting and then start on the detail work.  It’s really quite interesting to watch how he does it and the piece he was working on is very nice too.

Remembering the Times, When I First Heard of Michael Jackson

Bradley Farless5 Comments

I’m not sure what happened to Michael Jackson as he aged, but what he became is nothing like what he was.  For the past few years the only thing people had to talk about when it came to Michael were comments about his child-abuse problem and the fact that he has undergone such an enormous amount of cosmetic surgery. In fact, I remember a few years ago there was a joke that his nose fell off.

It’s true that he really sank low before he died, but the first time I saw Michael Jackson I thought it was the best thing ever.  I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time and living on Hahn Air Force Base in Germany.  In Germany we only had one television channel (in English) and every day at I think it was 2:50 PM, there would be a few short Warner Brothers cartoons and then from 3:00 to 3:30 there would be one long cartoon.  My brother and I would rush home from school to make sure we caught those cartoons because there weren’t any others to be had.  On trips to the US to visit family we would record Saturday morning cartoons to bring back with us, or our grandmother would record them and send them to us.

Well, one day, instead of the usual short cartoons there were two music videos.  I don’t remember what the first one was, Thriller maybe, but the second one was Remember the Time.  It’s the first music video I clearly remember seeing.  I was fascinated.  The music was great.  The dancing was great.  The costumes were great!  My brother and I sat there, fascinated, half fearful that for some reason our parents would tell us to stop watching it, but they didn’t.  We went to church every Sunday and lived a pretty sheltered life on an Air Force Base in a foreign country, so something about the video seemed a little dangerous.  I loved the whole thing and when it was over I was disappointed.  Somehow the cartoons that day weren’t all that entertaining.

Michael Jackson was my first exposure to mainstream American music and I loved it.  I also wonder if that video has anything to do with my interest in history?  If you’re not familiar with it, the video had an Egyptian theme.  It’s a shame that a man that was able to influence so many people around the world through his music is dead, but I get the feeling that he brought it on himself, so I can’t really feel too badly about it.  Regardless, R.I.P. Michael.  I hope you’re in a better place… and if you are… don’t chase the cherubs!

New MRT Feature in Singapore

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I’ve talked a lot about how great the trains are in Singapore, and they’re just getting better.  Singapore uses a mix of older and newer trains, but who can blame them?  Their trains can’t be cheap, so it’s only common sense that they’d use them until it’s no longer feasible to repair them.

On the newer trains that I’ve seen, there’s a new feature that they’re implementing.  It’s an electronic (sort of) display that shows what station the train is currently at.  It will also show you what side of the train you’ll have to exit from.  That’s what the two orange/yellow boxes on the right side are for.

This is a great added feature for convenience.  There are verbal announcements over the intercom telling passengers what the next station is, but sometimes it’s too loud in the train to understand what’s being said.  Or, you might be listening to headphones or reading or talking to your friend and miss it.  This is a good, permanent reminder of where you’re at so you don’t miss your stop.

Moleskine Notebooks

Bradley Farless5 Comments

The first time I’d ever heard of a moleskine notebook was when I was reading a blog about a woman’s trip to Vietnam. She had taken a lot of notes in a moleskine and had scanned and embedded them as a slideshow into a blog post. I thought it was a really interesting idea, and a great way to record thoughts about a trip you take when you might not have a laptop handy. For example, if you’re on a hike through the hills you might not have time to whip out your laptop and jot down a few things. Despite the proliferation of digital media, there are still a lot of times when old fashioned notebooks are just the most practical and sensible thing to use.

Moleskines are appealing because they have an interesting name and an interesting history. I know it’s silly to feel more prestigious just based on an item you might have, but moleskines are just that sort of thing. They even advertise it and market it that way. The cover wrapper (seen in green and orange on the ones in the photo) say: “The legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, Chatwin.” I suppose it’s something like how Apple promotes their products.

When you break open the plastic and flip it open, the first thing you’ll probably notice is a leaflet inside that details the history of moleskine notebooks. Apparently they fell out of production for a while, but some authors ordered a bulk of them because they were sad to see them go. Later, another manufacturer, in Milan I believe, picked up the production and they’re marketed world-wide again.

Typically I wouldn’t fall for something like that, but I really enjoy writing, and writing is all about frame of mind. If you’re in the right frame of mind, you’ll write well. If not, what you produce is at best bland. So, having something that’s touted as a notebook used by famous figures is just the thing to set the mood, and it also pushes you to only write things in it that are meaningful.

So, yesterday, my wife and I bought each other one each, as gifts. The one I got for my wife is an “Info Book” style Moleskine, with tabbed, labeled sections. She’s a fanatic for organizers and loved it. I got the plain, ruled paper moleskine. That’s appropriate for what I want to do with it, which is record thoughts that I have that I can later use for blog articles. I’m sure everyone has had a great thought or idea, only to realize later when they sit down they can’t quite grasp it again. This is my solution.

We picked the pocket sized versions because that makes for easy portability. It’ll slip easily into a bag or pocket. The quality is really nice. Each one is hand made, and comes with a defect-free guarantee that’s easy to cash in on. If you find a defect, all you have to do is take a digital image and e-mail it to a provided address. They’ll ship you a new notebook right away. Quality and service are important to this company.

So, if you’re looking for a quality notebook that you can shelf and cherish later on, this might be something you’ll want to look into. Just keep in mind that they’re a bit pricey since they’re premium items.

OrganiCafeXperience & Teadot

Bradley Farless4 Comments

Yesterday was my wife and I’s 1st anniversary.  It was sort of a shame that she had to work, but we still tried to make the most of the evening by having a nice dinner.  We went to the bottom floor of Century Square Mall to OrganiCafeXperience.  She didn’t really know where we were going.  She loves the place, but it’s a bit pricey so we don’t go often and haven’t been there in about 7 months or so.  I think she assumed I wanted to get something from the pet store down there, but then I just stopped and shuffled her into the waiting area to be seated.  She had a great smile on her face!

I’m sure you can tell from the name of the place, but OrganiCafeXperience is an organic foods restaurant.  Like I said before, it’s a bit pricey but the food is very much worth it.  After eating at this place, I wonder if all food would taste as good if it were grown naturally, without chemicals.  Most organic foods I’ve eaten do have a cleaner, richer taste to them, but anything organic comes with a premium cost, so it’s more of a treat than a norm for us, and for our families.

We sat down and took some time to browse through the menu. We decided to start with an appetizer, the Wild Mushroom Soup, along with garlic bread, which you can see I couldn’t wait to take a bite out of. The soup is very creamy and has small and large pieces of button and shitake mushrooms in it. The taste is really rich and I could see myself making a lunch out of just one big bowl of it. The garlic bread was icing on the cake. It was crispy and moist at the same time and was made with real butter and chopped garlic. I don’t know how they do it. I always had to cheat and use some garlic powder to get my garlic bread to taste anywhere near as good as this was. Our bowls of soup didn’t last long! We devoured them!

After that, it was time to move on to the main courses.  I chose a beef tenderloin dish and my wife chose a dish with lamb.  The beef tenderloin dish was delicious.  The two pieces of meat came on a bed of noodles with a brown sauce and was topped by two grilled tomatoes and a fluff of alfalfa.  One thing I love about the food here, and that’s maybe common with organic food, is that I could taste all of the different ingredients.  The alfalfa was crisp and vibrant.  The beef tasted great.  The broccoli was crunchy and fresh.  Even the noodles had their own distinct, enjoyable taste.  Plus, there were bits of ham mixed in with the pasta that added to the flavor.  I cleaned my plate.  Best of all, the portion was just the right size.  Even after clearing my plate entirely, I felt full but not stuffed.  I tried some of my wife’s lamb, but she was enjoying it so much that I didn’t take much.  In exchange I offered her some of the beef from my plate.  She said it was delicious.

The downsides to this restaurant is that the location isn’t that great.  The restaurant is separated into two areas.  There’s the preparation area and the storefront which is situated in a storefront along the wall.  Then there’s the seating area which is a separate, sectioned off area along the escalator that leads down into the lower level.  It’s not great ambiance, but the food makes up for it.  Also, the drinks are nothing to get excited about.  We actually didn’t order any drinks this time, because the first time we ate there they weren’t only unimpressive, but rather bad.

So, after dinner, we moved on to Teadot in Tampines 1 mall to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere of a cafe and sip on… ya, some tea!  I had a Royal Earl Grey Tea Latte, and my wife had a drink called Iced Dragon’s Brew.  It was made with oolong tea and some citrus I think.  I’ll have to go over the menu again.  I fully intend to go back.  It’s one of my favorite hang-outs for beating the heat.

We sat at Teadot for about 40 minutes, sipping our tea and using the free wi-fi.  Then we wandered around and did a little window shopping.  It wasn’t long before 10 PM came around and the mall was closing up, so we headed home.

Our 1st anniversary evening was nothing extravagant, but it was tasty, and we had fun!  We’ll be following up on our celebrations this weekend at Sentosa Island, where we plan on riding the luge and checking out Underwater World.  Expect photos!

Roman Gladiator Cosplay on Orchard Road

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Just some random cosplay I saw down on Orchard Road (Singapore).  It’s an advertisement for a gaming establishment that I assume does LAN gaming.  I haven’t visited the gaming houses for network or online games in Singapore, and probably won’t.  I prefer gaming on my own laptop, or on my XBOX 360.

McCafe: I’m Not Lovin’ It

Bradley Farless2 Comments

A few weeks ago, a guy I communicate with regularly on Twitter asked me if I’d been to McCafe and tried the coffee there.  He’s not much of a coffee drinker but I think I was complaining about Starbucks prices and he mentioned it as an option.  I’d never really considered going to McDonald’s or their McCafe for ‘premium’ coffee before.  I mean, how great could a latte or cappuccino from McDonald’s be?

He was telling me that a lot of his friends go there instead of Starbucks because the prices are cheaper.  I happened to be in the mall at the time (using Twitter on my phone) so I stopped by the McCafe there to have a look for myself.  I wasn’t impressed.

I’m not sure if this is another case of Singapore overpricing anything that even hints at being a luxury item, or if it’s simply a matter of currency conversion and the fact that this is an imported item.  Either way, the prices didn’t seem too much different from what I could find at a Starbucks here, so I kept going.

Yesterday I decided I might as well give it a shot.  I wanted something cold and coffee-like, and I happened to be by this same McCafe in White Sands Shopping Mall in Pasir Ris, so I walked up to the counter and ordered their “double chocolate frappe”.  Ok, so that’s not exactly a coffee drink, but it should still have some coffee in it.

The presentation was nice.  It certainly looked good:

So, it was time for the real test.  The taste test.  I took a sip through the straw and… fail.  It was watery tasting.  Even if it had a low coffee content it should have still tasted … thick… since it’s a frappe, but what I tasted most was crushed ice.  There were a few pieces of chocolate shavings in the bottom of the cup that were nice, but overall the drink was unsatisfying.  I couldn’t even taste coffee in it.  Is there any coffee in it?  I’m pretty sure that chocolate frappes from Starbucks have espresso in them.  Maybe I set my standards too high.  I was hoping for something like this McCafe in Italy.  Nonetheless, that’s the last time I’ll be going to McCafe for fancy coffee drinks.  I’ll stick with Coffee Bean or Starbucks when I get that urge.  Still, though, the best coffee I’ve had so far from a restaurant is the plain old Kopi O from the hawkers.

I’ll have to try to get out more and find some real premium coffee shops.

Counterfeit Goods in Singapore

Bradley Farless2 Comments

Prior to just a few weeks ago, I had no idea there was a counterfeit goods market in Singapore at all.  During my trip to Kuala Lumpur I saw plenty of counterfeit goods that looked great.  When I used to think of counterfeit, or “bootleg” items, I always thought of cheap quality, or of something that didn’t look quite right.  The things we saw in Kuala Lumpur were near matches though.  You wouldn’t be able to tell they were fake at all.  The same could be said of most of the counterfeit items I saw in the Philippines.

Shortly after returning from Kuala Lumpur I stumbled across an article on a blog that was talking about how large the counterfeit goods market is in Singapore.  I can’t remember the link for it anymore, though I did find another site called “Havocscope: Global Illicit Markets Indexes” that had the value of the counterfeit market in Singapore pegged at $136.2 million dollars.  Who knew?

According to the article I’d originally read, the Singapore government does its best to keep counterfeit items out of stores that are in the downtown, touristy areas.  It stated that most counterfeit items are found in the outlying areas.

Now, I’m not entirely sure that what this guy is selling is counterfeit, but the slim, plastic packaging wrapping those DVDs looks very familiar.  I’ve seen a lot of counterfeit DVD stalls in Kuala Lumpur and especially in the Philippines.  I wasn’t really surprised that he had them, or that he was selling them.  What shocked me was that this guy was selling them by the Citibank at Tampines MRT station, along a crowded area where people transferring from the bus to the train pass through.  That seems a little dangerous for him.

What do you think?