Saturday was one of the busiest day so far. Had to wake up at 7:30 since I need to get to Raffles City by 9 for my photography group gathering. We were a bit worried about the weather because of the weather forecast but the weather turned out to be more stable than we thought it would be. It was mainly just walking around the city area along the Clark river and taking some shots here and there.

We saw one MediaCorp shooting for a TV series near Fullerton hotel, so we asked the artists (an actor and an actress) if we could take some photos of them.  Surprising enough, they even post nicely for us and some of us were chatting with them, doing some sort of interviews (Acting like journalists lol).

Then, we went around Merlion, taking photos of the tourists (with the tourists also). The sun was quite hazy afterward, so we decided to go for lunch and then, look around for camera lens, bags, and books.

I was supposed to meet up with some other friends for the Mooncake festival in the evening but since it was still early but also not enough time to go back home. So, we ended up going around at Vivocity, looking around and taking photos of the celebration.

Then, I met up with my other friends around 7:30, had dinner and headed out to Sentosa for the celebration. The not-so-nice thing is that as soon as we got to  Sentosa, it started raining. It was light rain but the sand became wet. We settled down inside one of those pavilions, light up the candles and lanterns , and took out the food we brought (I only brought myself :D). We've got mooncakes, green tea, watermelon, pamelo and tea. We played some group games like answering the riddles and number guessing games.

We finished up eating, and playing games around 9:30 pm, so we decided to walk around. Then, we decided to go to this pub called 'Cafe del More' (???) on the beach. I had 'Long Island Ice Tea' (taste so-so,. too much rum, too little vodka for my taste). We even played pool at the pub there. We left the pub around 11:00 since all of us were super tired, go to the shuttle bus, and then take the mrt back to my house.

I think I went to bed around 12:30. It was a real real busy day, from 7:30 to 12:30.

An old friend of mine recently came over to Singapore, so we decided to go out for a meal and to catch up with each other. I was supposed to find a nice dinning place since I am the most enthusiastic among us when it comes to food. (Surprisingly, yes). The initial  plan was to go to 'Carnivore', a meal barbecue place at Chijme but since one of the friends I was meeting is now a vegetarian, so decided to to 'Barrack House' at Dempsey Road instead.

The food there was beyond awesome. It was expensive, but definitely worth the price.

Our first order was ratatouille skinny pizza. Finally, a real skinny pizza, not some fake pizza on a thin crest. The tomato paste they used was just great, seasoned with just the right amount of spices and herbs.

Then, we have our 'Seafood Delight in Squid Ink'. The appearance was damn gross, looks like some burned-up leftover. But the taste was quite unique, with plenty of mussels. Doubt that I would order that ever again though.

I ordered 'Foie Gras with Roasted Duck''  for myself. The dish comes with splashes of berry juice over the plate, and plenty of wild berries and blue berries. It was the best foie gras ever. I first thought the serving is too little and won't be filling but turned out to be quite satisfying.

We ordered one 1-meter-long chicken sausage for the group (Even though I was the one who ate it up). It was really really good, on the spicy side but just the right amount. I am definitely ordering it again, if I ever visit next time.

For the drink, we ordered the tiffin punch with champagne, a bit of vodka and some fruit inside. There were four tiffins there and since only two of us can drink, so I got two tiffins. It's the best punch I ever tried and definitely worth 59$ price tag that comes with it.

And and and (yeah, we still haven't finished eating!!!), we ordered a fruit shortcake, molten chocolate cake with almonds and an Mexican chilli ice-cream for desserts. I think the best one is the fruit shortcake, and then the molten chocolate cake. The ice-cream was just bad taste and weird.

Oh yeah.. the bill. It was altogether 244$ for three persons!!! Haha, that's what I would call expensive. The food was great, the service is even better, so it was worth paying that price. Hope this only happens once in a few months time.

I went to a volunteer event on last Sunday, held by UNIFEM at Orchard. It was a last-minute voluntary thing, but it was a good thing I went there. Only when I got there, I found out that there will be a wedding also, at the courtyard of the UNIFEM office compound. The event was very lively, and despite the fact that it's a volunteer event.

It was a great experience actually, and I really like about the wedding. It was a low-key wedding,.. the food was cooked and prepared by the volunteers, they baked the wedding cake, and the songs were also sung by some of them. It's very different from the normal wedding because when you look at the couple, you can see the hardships they endured throughout the journey till to this point. It was also quite emotional in many ways,... even us who weren't aware of the wedding till we were there. (I had a grinning face, from ear to ear. lol)

The photos I took at the event, and the wedding weren't of good quality (as I hoped they would be better than what came out :D), but at least, I managed to capture some of those happy memories.

In case you want to look at the photo,
Event Photos
Wedding Photos

My senpai got an invite to the FHM's World Top 100 Sexist Women Award Party, and he asked me to come along with him on last Friday. (Thanks, Senpai!!). SteroLab at Pan Pacific Hotel opened up recently and the event was held there. Before we go in, I was a bit uncertain because the age limit is '25' (and I am still 22), so according to the club rules, I am still underage. But decided to try my luck anyway. This whole evening was a bit of sneaking in and blanding in, because they also don't allow the guests to bring in camera. Luckily, the security guards were too busy with the celebrities, and then, we found the official photographer group, so we tagged along with them. So, we managed to get inside alive and with full equipments :D

As usual, two free house-pours and as usual, it sucks. The party didn't really start until a bit late, so they have a magician to entertain the guests and he came to us and showed some cool magic tricks. The nice thing about this party is that they have some models to take photos with. The funny part is when the guests want to take photos, the photograhers will do the phototaking, lol, so we also had to pretend to be from that group. Until really really late toward the end of the party, I didn't realized that one of the model was awarded as FHM's 9th Sexist Woman. Haha, must be my bad eyes.

The music was great and they have two DJs in the private launge for the FHM Party, with those dry ice smoke going around, but making it really hard to take good photos. I made too many junk shots on the party. I should have taken my time to take good photos, :( but now, many of the shots were wasted.

Oh yeah, the awesome part was I got scouted by MetroWize (a Club Chain from US), because they are launching their own party soon, and they needed photographers (Haha, he obviously thought I am one of the official photographer). I told him that I am on freelance last night (Dunno why but it sounds kinda cool). He asked me to contact him if I am interested. Awesome!!

We were going to FHM's World Top 100 Sexist Women Award Party, there was some time before the party starts. So we decided to around looking what to eat for dinner at Raffles City, and decided to try a place called 'Out of the Pan'.

I have been wanting to try out due to the presentation and chic of the place every time I passed by. I ordered 'Slow Cooked Pork in Vandaloo Sauce'. It comes with some salad and they gave me very generous splash of olive oil. The dish is very similar to Pork Curry, so the flavor is a bit strong and also with oriental spices. It was a good dish but half way through it, because of that flavor, the dish was a bit unbalanced. But overall, it's a great place to dine, especially with the water fountain nearby.

Been in Singapore for more than two years, I am thinking more like a local than a visitor. By the time I first got here, I am always amazed how the locals can be excited and talk a long time about a good chicken rice they had about a few months ago. Now, I am also one of them, excitingly tell my friends how good that chicken rice near my office.

But yesterday, when I was on my way back home, I was surprised to found out that some of my old habits are still with me.

Before talking about what happened, I think I need to do some explanation. You can skip one paragraph if you don't bother reading much. If you are from Myanmar, skip two paragraphs, you already know this stuff.

My country is one of the under-developed countries in the world, especially in the infrastructure support of the population. In the recent years, there has been good developments which increase up the living standards for the families, due to the cheap (affordable-for-most-family) electronics from China. So, the electric power consumption was ten-folded within a few years. And there is not enough power stations to supply the demand, especially during the Summer months because most of the power stations are built to generate electricity from the movement of water. And the water level are always low in Summer, so the problem is really bad in Summer.

So, the bottom line is - we only get the electricity supply in alternative days. Monday, we have light. Then Tuesday, nothing. No electricity means - no TV, no battery charging to your phones, no hot water, no cold water. And the fridge will stop running, so cannot store much food, like fish. Somtimes, it is worse. 6 hours of electricity per day. So, we do our laundry, ironing, cleaning and everything within that 6 hours. And the rest of 18 hours we can't do anything that require electricity.

So, back to Singapore where I am now, or more accurately where I was yesterday.

I was on my way back to home from office, got off at Clementi MRT as usual. It is usually very bright near the MRT but yesterday, they are doing some electric maintenance works, so they turned off the light.
I was like 'Oh, we don't get electricity today?' 'Oh well,... hmm,... what's today?' and then, 'Shit, I really need to charge my phone'.
I keep walking for awhile, then,.. passed by a food court, saw the sign 'Nasi Lemak 3$' .
I was like 'huh?', and only after that i realized that I am in Singapore now and we got electricity 24/7. 

Old habits die hard, especially if it is related to some traumatizing experience.

Anybody want to buy a piece of land at Orchard Boulevard and build your own mall? Or build stadiums and factories? Now you can do that. Google and Hasbro went into a joint venture to transform google map into one big giant monopoly. You can read the details here.

I wonder what's in store for the future of this app? It is a pervasive game, and it is a lot more closer to the real-world than secondLife. You can buy your neighborhood, literally, build whatever you want and make profit. There are many companies doing business in SecondLife, so it is also possible that many small businesses could pop out for this game too.

The interesting part of such new innovative ideas, is that we won't know how it will turned out to be. Back in a few years ago, the idea about surfing internet from your TV was a very popular concept, but then some company go and turned the idea into business, nobody really care. It was a failure. Then, facebook came, and it became very popular and successful. And so is SecondLife. I can't wait to see how this game will do.

I read a CNN article about the Asian's complex to have a fair skin, and that Skin Whitening products has become one of the major selling products in Asia, especially for men. This would explain why I would also want to get a lighter skin tone, lol. Humans are like this, we want things we don't have. This is not a completely correct, but see - I know some people who have really nice fair skin (that I would die for) and they want a tan. And some other people would love to have a fair skin (I am in the queue). Sometimes I wonder if I would want to get tanned if my skin tone become lighter, except that both are unlikely hopes.

I have been wanting to do voluntary works and finally, I get  to volunteer at this secondary school called 'North Light' on last Friday. It was a special school for students with difficult backgrounds, family or financial problems, or have difficulties to learn academic subjects. So, the school environment is different, and they even have special classrooms for cooking, basic electronic engineering and many other skills to make a living. And of course, the students also look different.

The school has a really nice recreation room for the students - billiard tables, XBox, Wii and many other fun stuffs. So, I am supposed to be inside the room, play the games with the students and try to socialize with them.  Normally if I see any students, it would be around the city or shopping malls, hanging out with friends at KFC. They would mostly look happy, safe and carefree. But the students there at North Light, are in a different world. When I look into their eyes, I can see that most of them feel vulnerable, or would need care and love, or need a safe and warm environment.

It was on Friday and I can only get voluntary leave once in a very long while. I didn't do a good job as I wished I could, but I am glad that I went there. Wish I could go and do something more useful for them, like more often.