During February 2010, my elder brother, requested for my help as photography assistant for one of his photo-shoot and as I was available, I went ahead to join in the fun. This particular photoshoot for taking part in the Harper’s BAZAAR and ION Photography Awards 2010. This competition calls for a fusion of fashion, art and architecture. The criteria for the shoot is that the location will be at ION Orchard (outside or inside).
We reached pretty early around 7.30am to come for preparations as well as to conduct the shoot before any shopping crowd comes along. Well, there was another 2 teams shooting at the same day too!
Following are the team involved in the photo-shoot.
Styling: Winnie Loo Hair & Makeup: Sha Shamsi Photography Assistant:Ronald Tan Model: Nataliya Zapolina / Mannequin
So what do you think of the photos? I thought they look great but unfortunately, we didn’t win anything in the contest. Even though, it still it was good fun and a fruitful experience!
Several months ago, I was fortunate to be contacted by the editor of an in-flight magazine who is putting together an article on Sapporo and was asking whether I am keen to lease my photos that was taken in Sapporo during my Japan Trip in 2009.
After some clarifications (type, resolution, credits, etc) on how the images will be used, I sent over a total of 43MB worth of high-resolution photos for their selection. The package consists photos of Hokkaido Shrine, Sapporo Clock Tower and Sapporo Beer Garden.
Sometime later, I was glad to be informed that my Hokkaido Shrine photo (above) was used in the Sapporo feature in the December 2010 – January 2011 issue of Aspire, Hong Kong Airlines’ in-flight magazine. A soft copy of the magazine was also sent to me! Please see below. 🙂
This short trip to Batam was made on 10th Sept 2010 (during the long weekend of Hari Raya Puasa), together with the same gang of friends that went to Malaysia (See “A Day in Kuala Lumpur 2” and “A Day in Malacca“). Our package at Harris Resort Batam is as below. It’s slightly more expensive than usual due to the holiday peak period.
It Is Good Deal @ Harris Funky Room (Old Wing Room)
Adult twin sharing: $127.00 per person
Child without bed: $36.00
Infant: $18.00
Package price includes:
– 2 way ferry tickets
– 2 way land transfers
– 2 nights stay with daily breakfasts
– FREE one time lunch or dinner for paying adults and children.
– FREE one time 30mins bicycle ride for two per room per stay.
– FREE one game of bowling for two per room per stay
– FREE access to sauna, cold plunge pool at H Spa & fitness.
– FREE access to Wi-Fi internet within hotel premises.
– FREE one time two-way shuttle services to Nagoya Hill for all paxs.
*Depart hotel 1100hrs & 1400hrs (Batam Time)
*Depart Nagoya Hill timing 1430hrs & 1730hrs (Batam Time)
*FCFS basis, guests MUST register at bell counter soonest or at least 02hrs before departing time.
Package excludes:
– Singapore terminal tax $20.00 per person pay at Harbourfront Centre
– Batam terminal tax $7.00 per person pay at Waterfront City Batam Terminal
The ferry ride was rather fast and we reached Waterfront City Batam Terminal in less than an hour but getting through the immigration took some time due to the bulk of travelers. Above shows a shop selling variety of products, just as you walk out of the immigration. We bought tons of food, snacks, beer, etc here!
Land transfer from Harris Resort Batam. It was only a few minutes drive from the ferry terminal.
We were given twin rooms despite requesting for double bed rooms during our reservation. I think those who took the first ferry out from Singapore manage to get the limited double bed rooms as there were lots of travelers checking in. We checked-in to our rooms and then took a walk around Harris Resort Batam (mostly pool area). Then, we went to the restaurant to have a small bite as we missed lunch and it almost nearing dinner time (4pm).
The pizza looks great but we didn’t eat it as the portion is rather big and we were going to have dinner pretty soon. Our dinner will be using the “FREE one time lunch or dinner for paying adults and children” which is included in the package. The free dinner was …. 🙁
Harris Resort Batam – Old Wing (we are staying here).
Harris Resort Batam – This is the new wing and it will cost a tad more than the old wing. We had a sneak peek at one of the rooms (during housekeeping) on the ground floor and it seems smaller than the old wing rooms.
We went to the bowling centre to play the “FREE one game of bowling for two per room per stay” in our package. You have to rent the bowling shoes but it doesn’t comes with any socks!
Nice swimming pool at Harris Resort Batam.
If you are early, you can grab one of these sheltered seats. How nice it would be to relax here (with beers)!
Lobby area of Harris Resort Batam. The lifts that we used daily! Hehe…
Beach area near Harris Resort Batam.
Small yacht berthing at nearby dock near Harris Resort Batam.
We took the free one-time return shuttle services from Harris Resort to Nagoya Hill for shopping. We had made the reservation for the shuttle service one day earlier.
We wanted to try the original Ayam Penyet Ria but it was closed. By the way, there is a Ayam Penyet Ria in Lucky Plaza (Singapore)!
Food street at Nagoya Hill. Lots of food for you to choose!
77 Es Teler – We tried one of the desserts which is very much like Ice Kacang. There is also a Es Teler in Singapore too! It’s at Far East Plaza Singapore.
Our bedroom at Harris Resort Batam, we wasn’t able to get the double bed room so we improvised on our own. Haha!
The rest of the area in our bedroom at Harris Resort Batam.
Bathroom at Harris Resort Batam. It’s clean but the hot water is pretty inconsistent, sometimes it’s hot and most of the time it’s cold! Wahaha!
The sun is setting soon. Taken at a seafood restaurant near to the Waterfront City Batam Terminal.
Dinner at a kelong-style seafood restaurant near to the Waterfront City Batam Terminal. I can’t seem to remember the name…
Fried chicken and Sambal Kang Kong.
Chilli crabs.
Hot Plate Tofu.
Black pepper crabs.
Daily breakfast at Harris Resort Batam was rather lacking but not entirely not consumable.
A pet monkey at a restaurant beside Harris Resort Batam.
The restaurant beside Harris Resort Batam, where we had our lunch, before leaving for our ferry back to Singapore. We had actually requested for early ferry departure in the morning but it was already full so have to settle for the afternoon one.
Fried Chicken Rice Special.
One of the ferry at Waterfront City Batam Terminal where we were waiting to board our ferry back to Singapore. The trip went by without a lot of photo taking as there wasn’t really much to shoot! Also, we didn’t venture far away from Harris Resort Batam to engage in other activities as we were traveling with children. It’s really a “getaway”! Haha!
Passed by Esplanade and happened to see “i Light Marina Bay” ( 照亮滨海湾), – Asia’s First Sustainable Light Art Festival, which is held from 15th October to 7th November 2010 from 7.30pm onwards to midnight. The entry is free and there are 26 light artworks along 3.5km of Marina Bay. I only checked out a few and the above is exhibit 13 – Jellight by Pascal Petitjean & Aamer Taher (Singapore).
Exhibit 12 – Animal Tree by Pitupong Chaowakul (Thailand). If you look closely, the lamp actually consists of orange teddy bears!
Night scene of Esplanade Bridge with the skyscrapers in the background.
Exhibit 11 – Touch. Do Not Please The Work Of Art by Michael Lee (Singapore) & Cornelia Erdmann (Hong Kong). Strong lights are shone frequently at the glow-in-the-dark text.
This will be what you can see after the lights are off – Touch. Do Not Please The Work Of Art.
From the Esplanade Bridge, scene of Esplanade and surrounding buildings.
Exhibit 9 – Flora Magica by Studio KYbra (Australia & Germany).
Exhibit 7 – The Whirlpool by Martin Klaasen, Shane Richardson and Pascal Petitjean (Singapore & Australia).
Exhibit 8 – The Living! Project by Sun Yu Li, Allan Lim, Kenny Eng (Singapore). One of my personal favorites!
Look closely – it’s made from Starbucks used plastic cups!
And also used mineral water bottles, which is made into fan-like shape and it spins when the wind blows!
Exhibit 6 – C/Ɔ by Angela Chong (Singapore). I love this!
It’s actually a functional seating area made from acrylic!
The seat changes colors too! Nice!
Exhibit 5 – Singapora-Flora by Warren Langley (Australia).
I didn’t finish visiting the whole of the light artworks at Marina Bay, think I only went through a few. For those interested, you may want to visit “i Light Marina Bay” webby to find out the suggested walk routes. If you can take some time to leisurely walk 3.5 km around Marina Bay, you will be able to complete the 26 light artworks. It’s getting late and I going home! 😛
Continuing from “A Day in Kuala Lumpur 2“, we decided to check out from the hotel early (immediately after breakfast) so that we can visit Malacca on our way back to Singapore. We spotted Philea Resort and Spa when we exited the expressway and went in to have a look. 🙂
Philea Resort and Spa, seems like a quiet place to rest and relax.
Close-up view of the accommodation at Philea Resort and Spa. Think the ambiance at night will be great!
Swimming pool at Philea Resort and Spa. There wasn’t much guests around when we were there, think they might have checked out…
Then after our lunch, we took a short stroll to the nearby “Tan Kim Hock Product Centre” to buy Dodol durian.
Other then Dodol durian, there are also many snacks and food products for sale. Some of them are really nostalgic – products that we used to have in Singapore!
Old historical scene of Malacca.
Passing by a Chinese temple.
YSL (Yue Sang Loong) selling Chinese raw medicine.
Old style coffee shop – we still have something similar back home in Singapore but it’s getting less and hard to find. Maybe I should go take photos and blog about it before it’s gone…
Provision shop at Malacca.
Antique wares at Malacca.
Heard that this is the famous Chicken Rice stall at Jonker Walk…but we already had our fill. Hehe! Next time!
Spotted San Shu Gong (三叔公) so we went in to buy food products. Heard there is one San Shu Gong at Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3 too!
Interior of San Shu Gong – there was a lot of people inside buying stuffs and it was pretty hot as the air-conditioning is not working. This photo shows the quiet corner as I didn’t want to jostle with the shoppers. Haha!
We couldn’t stand the stuffiness so we quickly bought our stuffs and left. There is a Lao Qian Ice Cafe near the entrance of San Shu Gong.
Walking down Jonker Street in search of famous Chendol to eat.
I didn’t have a gook look but think the stall is probably selling Ding Ding Candy…
Passing by a stall that sells ice cream shaped like an egg.
Hokkien Huay Kuan at Malacca.
Grilled cuttlefish – you can smell it from a distance away… 😛
Interior of Jonker Dessert 88 and it’s actually a cafe museum. Love the old nostalgic setting!
In the shelves, there are many exhibits such as old currency notes, pots, artifacts, etc but I think majority of the patrons are concentrating on the food only!
Ice Kacang from Jonker Dessert 88. My friend had this!
After the dessert, we went back to our car and continue our journey home to Singapore. We met with a massive jam at Johor Bahru (all the Singapore cars are going back!) and the vehicles were practically not moving at all. Then, we decided to break away from the jam to go for dinner first and hope that the traffic jam have eased. We were thinking too positively – the jam was worse after our dinner! We then decided to try going back by Tuas Checkpoint instead of Woodlands Checkpoint and to our surprise, there wasn’t any jam at all and it was so smooth. Lesson learned, next time just whack straight back from Tuas Checkpoint if we go to Malaysia during long weekends in Singapore, I think traffic will not be as bad as Johor Bahru even there is a jam! But crap happens too and you can be never too sure!
Hiya, this is a long overdue blog post! The Kuala Lumpur trip was made during the long weekend of 7th to 9th August 2010 where Singapore was celebrating it’s National Day and it’s a holiday on 9th August 2010. We (a group of 6 adults and 2 children) took the opportunity to go for a last-minute short trip and the hotels was almost full (well, they did jack up the prices though!). It was a self-drive journey and there was jams along the way (especially at immigration) as many Singaporeans also had the same idea of relaxing out of Singapore! Anyway, the photo above show my lunch (Fish Ball Kway Teow Soup) at Yong Peng Rest Stop.
By the time we reached our hotel (The Gardens Hotel) at Mid Valley, it was already around 6pm. There was a queue at the front desk and we got our rooms separated on different floors even though we have made requests.
The Gardens Hotel – Nice room with comfortable-looking bed.
The Gardens Hotel – Large desk area for those who are going to do work or surf internet.
The Gardens Hotel – Vanity area.
The Gardens Hotel – the bathroom comes with a selection between using the normal shower head or the rain shower function. You can also take a soak in the bath tub too!
The Gardens Hotel – Separated dry toilet for you to take a dump without getting your feet wet! 😛
The Gardens Hotel – View from our room.
The Gardens Hotel – Comes with a mini-fridge and complimentary tea/coffee/drinking water.
The Gardens Hotel – Outside of the hotel where you can valet park your vehicle. For hotel guests, it is much more economical to valet then to park on your own.
The Gardens Hotel – Sofas at the lobby area where we always use as a meeting place. 🙂
Open area in front of Suria KLCC. We didn’t hang around for long as it’s really warm outside!
We went back indoors and then to Olio Dome Café to take a break from our tired legs.
My drink at Olio Dome Café, think it was Passion Fruit Berries or something like that… hehe!
Wanted to have Bak Kut Teh but it was not open yet so we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant at the corner of Jalan Alor. My partner having chicken noodles.
The outside of the restaurant. Think most people might be familiar with this location.
After our meal, my friend decided that we should have durians for dessert and went to buy a couple of them. We brought them into the restaurant to eat after seeking the staff’s approval. Damn, these durians are good!
Next, we went to Pavilion Mall to walk around. Basically, this trip is more of hanging around and shopping rather than like my usual of exploring the less-traveled areas. It’s good for a change but not too often as I do get bored at shopping centers! Haha!
The next morning, we will be leaving Kuala Lumpur and back to Singapore, but before so, we will stop by Malacca for a couple of hours to buy food stuffs and eat Cendol! 🙂
Dancouga – Super Beast Machine God. A close-up of hand to show the level of details.
Dancouga – Super Beast Machine God. Frontal view.
Goldy and Dark Knight, both World Cosplay Summit Tokyo representatives will be coming to Singapore on the days of 11th, 12th, 18th,19th September 2010 to conduct cosplay workshops (free)!
The theme for cosplaying on the 12th and 19th September is cosplaying characters from mecha series . Non-mecha series cosplayers are also welcome!
Mr Goldy, wearing the costume of Gurren Lagann.
Other programmes – Cosplay Workshops, Cosplay Performances by Goldy and Dark Knight (World Cosplay Summit Tokyo Representatives), Anime Performances, etc.
Today is our last day in Bali so after breakfast, we went to take a dip in the swimming pool as there wasn’t much time to go anywhere else and also we need to check-out latest by 12.30pm. I swam around for about 2 hours (until 11am) and then went back to room to take shower and pack up our stuffs.
Our room at Kuta Beach Club – while waiting for my partner to use the bathroom, I had a bit of time so took some more photos of the room. Haha!
Photo of the bathroom at Kuta Beach Club (which my my partner was complaining about). For the rest of the room photos, you may also refer to “A Day in Bali 1“.
View from the private balcony in front of our room. There is also a clothes rack provided for you to hang out to dry your towels, board shorts, swimming gear, etc.
Still had a bit of time before check-out so I relaxed at the private balcony…with my remaining Bintang beer
After checking-out and leaving out luggage at Kuta Beach Club, we went out to have lunch at KFC. I wanted to try the A&W at Matahari but my friend, who have tried it previously during the trip said it wasn’t nice…
The air-conditioned lower floor was packed so we went up to the 2nd floor, which is non air-conditioned. It was pretty warm as it’s 1pm in the day!
Next, we took a taxi to Cozy Spa at Sunset Road Blok A/3 (North Simpang Siur), tel (0361) 766762. I have called to make a booking a few days ago for 4 person for 3 hours from 2pm to 5pm as our flight back to Singapore is at 10.20pm. It was planned so that we can have a relaxing massage and yet spend the time away. Please do call and make reservations as it’s very popular!
Cozy Spa – Best Regular Spa Award.
Our selection:
Foot Reflexology Aromatherapy (1.5 hours)
Cozy Body Sensation Massage (1.5 hours)
I can’t remember the actual prices but it was around Rp 200,000 for each person for the above selection. Both the above are good but the Foot Reflexology Aromatherapy is outstanding and I highly recommended it!
Front counter at Cozy Spa. Cozy Spa is a non-fanciful regular spa which offers very reasonable prices for their spa packages.
Cozy Spa – Waiting area / drinks counter. Wait here for your name to be called and then will be led to room by the masseuse. For the body massage, you can specify whether you like you masseuse to be male or female. As for the foot reflexology, I understand that it’s all male.
After the 3hrs of theraphy at Cozy Spa, we took a taxi back to Kuta Beach. Our favorite place! Haha!
Almost sunset time at Kuta Beach…and then I spotted a white streak in the sky…was that a shooting star?
Went to Hard Rock Hotel Bali to walk around again…
Swimming pool at Hard Rock Hotel Bali. Seems fabulous!
Entrance of Hard Rock Hotel Bali. The signage here is very popular for photo taking!
At Hard Rock Hotel Bali- guitar used by “The Rolling Stones”
Dinner time! My friend suggested to go to the nearby Hard Rock Cafe Bali.
We were led to the 2nd floor of Hard Rock Cafe Bali. There was already some dinners around already.
Hard Rock Cafe Bali – Caesar Salad.
Hard Rock Cafe Bali – Grilled Marinated Chicken Breast Rp 119, 000.
After our dinner at Hard Rock Cafe Bali, we took a slow stroll back to Kuta Beach Club to retrieve our luggage and then took a taxi to Ngurah Rai International Airport.
Entrance of Ngurah Rai International Airport.
We checked-in at Ngurah Rai International Airport and then walk around the shops. A starting incident happened is that we wasn’t aware that we had to pay Rp 150,000 per pax as departure tax at Ngurah Rai International Airport as we thought all the taxes was already inclusive in the air tickets. It wasn’t mentioned that we had to pay in the air tickets itinerary too. We’re lucky that we still have some rupiah left…
Anyway, we had a fabulous 5 days in Bali and even before leaving, we were already thinking of visiting Bali again! Goodbye Bali, visit you again soon!
Usual routine of having breakfast at Kuta Beach Club but today we started the day a bit later as we only have snorkeling planned at 10am. The rest of the day will be pretty OTOT (own-time-own-target) so we are going to take things slowly…
One of the interesting decorations at Kuta Beach Club.
Waiting for the driver to come and fetch us for snorkeling at Nusa Dua. He’s late so I took the opportunity to take some day photos of Kuta Beach Club.
Entrance of Kuta Beach Club. We waited for around 10mins before the driver arrived.
Journey to Nusa Dua area didn’t take very long and we were brought to a water sports provider along Nusa Dua beach. Checked our snorkeling equipments and off to sea!
Testing in open sea on the way to snorkeling with LX3 inside the DiCAPac WP-610 Waterproof Case. Click on link “DiCAPac WP610 Waterproof Underwater Case for LX3” to read the review of the case.
Photos of fishes taken during snorkeling. It’s pretty difficult to take a good photo as the fishes are swimming around to eat the bread thrown by tourists. Yes, I wasn’t the only group there at the snorkeling site, there was around 6 to 7 boats crowding around.
Yeah, there was a few scuba divers as well too! The snorkeling took around 1 hour and we took a rest before leaving Nusa Beach.
While going up the vehicle to send us back to hotel, I spotted a lonely make-shift food stall…
Back to hotel and then we wander out again – Passing by Ramayana Hotel and Spa (as always), it looks good and location (next to Kuta Beach Club) is great too!
Rows of shops opposite our hotel (Kuta Beach Club). Our area is really convenient and there is also a 24hr convenience store next to Ramayana Hotel and Spa.
For lunch, we had a quick bite at McDonald’s at Kuta. It was lunch time and it was pretty crowded, mostly with tourists.
A very nice-looking restaurant. It look even more magnificent during the night!
With nothing much on the itinerary, we headed off to Kuta Beach to take a stroll. It’s a beach holiday after all 🙂
Kuta Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Bali.
As usual, it’s a very nice weather at Kuta Beach. It’s warm so we sat down to have some Bintang beer (Rp 20,000 each) as well as to chat with some of the locals.
Taken from our seat (with shelter from large umbrella). The surfboards are used for those who are taking any surfing lessons.
After lazing around Kuta Beach for more than 2 hours and guzzling down 5 bottles of Bintang, it’s time to move on. We went in to Mecure Kuta Bali to have a look. My, this is a nice hotel too!
Entrance of Mecure Kuta Bali.
A nice looking restaurant with swimming pool within.
Strolling around to sight-see…
More of walking around. 🙂
Passing by a restaurant/bar which had a poster – “We serve bloody cold beer”.
Passing-by the 2002 Kuta bombing memorial that was built on the site of the destroyed Paddy’s Pub on Legian Street.
Sky Garden Lounge – heard rave reviews about this place and the 3 storeys offers different lounge experience.
Ordering an Italian ice-cream to cool down from the hot weather.
Passing by a shop selling Bali kites. Kite flying seems to be a popular and traditional form of entertainment/sport for Balineses.
Paddy’s Club, believed to be the re-opened Paddy’s Pub.
Uluwatu – Hand made Balinese Lace. We didn’t go in but I remembered reading that they offer high quality lace.
Dinner time! We went around Kuta (Poppies) to look for a place to dine, after comparing a few, we settled for Un’s Restaurant!
Un’s Restaurant – Complimentary frozen margarita. This rocks!
Un’s Restaurant – Superb setting and ambiance! We were given seats outdoor.
Un’s Restaurant – We were given complimentary chicken nugget before our main course. Completely surprised by this!
Un’s Restaurant – Mango juice Rp 12,000. My partner had Banana juice Rp 12, 000.
Un’s Restaurant – It started to drizzle slightly and we were moved indoors. It was a good move as towards the end, the rain was pouring down fiercely!
Un’s Restaurant – Red snapper fillet Rp 89,000. Fantastic!
Un’s Restaurant – Rendang Beef Rp 55,000. The total for the dinner came up to Rp 241,362 (inclusive of 6% service and 10% tax). The meal at Un’s Restaurant was one of the best I had in Bali and I highly recommended that you dine here too!
The rain have started to cease and we hurriedly made our way back to hotel to meet up with our friends to try to finish up the Absolut Berri Vodka. We also did some swimming in the night and it’s cold! Tomorrow will be our last day in Bali and time seems to pass by so fast when you are having fun. Nevertheless, we still look forward to spend another fulfilling day in Bali!
Sunset at Tanah Lot. Still lots of people around capturing
the moments!
Walking out to the carpark from Tanah Lot and passing by the
many retail shops. We left before the large crowd at Tanah Lot left but was still caught in the massive jam. It’s probably due to
the the after-effect of the previous jam as well as the peak hour. It took us around 1.5 hours to reach back to Kuta Beach Club (our hotel) and after-which, we thank Ketut for his good service for the 2 days. We decided to
split up with our friends to have some romantic time on our own (they also need so!). 😛
For dinner, we took a taxi from Kuta Center to Warung Sobat at Jl Batu Belig No. 11A kerobokan Kuta.
