CNY Day 01

All my cousins, along with my aunt and her Romanian husband!

Notes On A Scandal

This is a terribly scandalous movie.



The scandal actually starts off with art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) getting involved with a sexual relationship with her student, Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson). However, the bigger scandal is actually the schemes of Barbara Covett (Judi Dench). She notes them down in her little diary, and pastes golden stars in it as the schemes bear fruit. After another failed "friendship", she begins to plot to become Sheba's friend. She helps her keep the secret of her scandal from her family and the school, and becomes the only person left to give her support when the cat was let out of the bag.

We all love a scandal or two, but this one will have you chewing your nails off in the scene where Sheba discovers Barbara's diary. The intensity is so mind-blowing, it gave me a headache! It was much more thrilling than your average Hollywood action sequence. Watching Cate Blanchett in this is much more rewarding than that in Babel, where her portrayal throughout the movie was more or less that of a wounded woman facing death. In this, she experiences love with a minor, destructive friendship with a fellow colleague, nostalgia of her past life, frustration of bringing up a kid with Down's Syndrome and pain of betraying her husband.



If you thought Judi Dench's presence in Casino Royale was minimal but effective, be prepared to be arrested by her acting in this one. It's as if she leads a double life - a firm, experienced school teacher and that of a desperate, obsessive lesbian woman who's afraid of dying alone. She's so threatening I was trembling in my pants when she demanded that Sheba accompany her to her cat's death or she'd dish out some revenge.

Overall the movie's exploration of some very human themes push it a notch above your average Hollywood flick.

Lonelines, and the desperation that comes along with it, is something we can all relate to.

What You Make Of It

"Time is nothing
But what you make of it
Life has meaning
If only you reflect on it "



I went to Sentosa today and was dismayed at the state of the sky. Demoralising, I know. Nobody goes to Sentosa and expects it to look this cloudy. It's essential that when you're at the beach, the three main ingrediants that come into play must be present - the sun, sand and sea. Apparently one of them decided to go play hide-and-seek behind the clouds.



I decided to do a bit of phototaking since the beach looked kinda gloomy. My camera is by no means a DSLR, but I guess it did rather well with this on Macro mode. In other news, my family got a new camera as a gift. It's not as powerful as the cheapest ones on the market right now, but it's an improvement from mine! I tried to photograph the butterflies flying around, but I couldn't spot them in the photos I took! But seeing them flutter around randomly as if they were in a dance really lightened my mood.

After walking from Palawan to Siloso, I decided that I'd either chill out at Cafe del Mar or rent a bike for a ride on my regular route - to Tanjong Beach and back, followed by the Jungle Trail. I planted myself at CDM for awhile, but ran out of patience when no one offered to get me a drink. And by that time the sun, almost midway into the sky at 11AM, was scorching hot (better late than never). I went for a bike-ride instead. I was further pissed off by the crappy state of the bike. I should've been more choosy with it, and checked it thoroughly before riding off.

I grabbed a Pink Dolphin and some loose change from the 7-11 at Palawan to stash my belongings in the locker. I forgot to bring my mp3 player a long, and had to be contented with the sounds of nature instead.

Okay, it does sound like I didn't enjoy my trip much, but I guess it gave me something to do.



The jungle trail was as interesting as ever. The steep and winding trail and the sights of mainland calmed me. There was still a lot of things going through my mind, but it's hard to be totally engrossed in your troubles when you're trying to make sure the camera doesn't fall from your hands (there's no basket and I used the bottle-grasping thing after that) while you're keeping your balance on a rubbish bike!



I've had enough of being in solitude already. I'm keen to give Sentosa another go on Thursday, when there isn't so much on my mind. Is anyone game?

"Everytime I turn around the boys fighting over me
Everytime I step out the house they wanna fight over me
Is it cos I'm hot to death
And I'm so-so-so sexy
All the boys all the silly boys they wanna fight over me"

I now understand the appeal of Paris Hilton's album and why all unbiased reviewers had something nice to say about it. It's so silly and light-hearted that you can't help but laugh (along or at) when you hear it. It's the album that I'm currently listening to, although I understand that I'm a tad behind the times!

Better late than never eh?

Ouch

I feel the pain eating me up from the inside.

It's suffocating.

Funny, In The Rich Man's World

I'm surrounded by materialistic wants and even though I know life's not all about that I can't help but indulge in them. My pay's coming in today - I've waited 1.5 months for it! Today I can finally set aside money to give my parents and pay Colin for the Jolin Tsai tickets. I don't know if I'll have enough money left to spend for the rest of the month though. But I really don't care. After working relatively hard (at the very least I've to be standing to convert every minute into 10 cents) I finally get to see the hours on my time sheet become dollars in my bank account. It's all a game of numbers.

And unlike people who like to see big numbers in their bank accounts, I like to leave it with a 0 at the end of the month.

As I've tagged before on Mak's blog, "LOL - come on man, seriously. deep down, you ENJOY shopping. the fruits of ur labour... converting money to tangible stuff that you can enjoy. shiok."

I've got a lot of activities lined up in the next two weeks, guaranteed to use up at least half of what I've earned in the month. Tomorrow I'll be going to Sentosa (no, don't gasp, "Again?!") with Sidney, watching The Protege with Zhenhui and Shuming, breakfast with Ryan on Saturday, meet Mak on Thursday, TWJ's birthday on Friday and Chris' going-away party on Saturday.

I can't possibly start turning everyone down, can I? Which is why I once told someone that I've got enough on my hands, and I won't forge a friendship I can't live up to.

And I've probably already let down everyone on that list more than they deserve.

That's sidetracking a bit, but tonight, after work (9PM), I'll be meeting my army friends for a bit of retail therapy before going home. I'm blessed that they're always around.

Which actually means spending more money, and getting into the CNY spirit where everything has to be new is just a fucking great excuse to blow my pay away on things that I've always wanted but don't need.

Don't get me wrong, saving is a virtue and I've got plenty of things to save up for (not a new pair of Levi's dammit, Uni stuff!). But it's tough to slog without seeing any rewards in sight. Or so far away.

I suppose it's all about striking a balance, but I'm having a hard time finding it.

You're Being Watched

Over the past year I've been to many indoor and outdoor (especially) places that people are either too lazy to venture to, or haven't got the time to visit. Sometimes I really wonder why Singaporeans complain that there isn't anything to do in Singapore when there's plenty to discover! I've been to the Singapore Zoological Gardens, the Tree Top Walk at Macritchie, the National Library, East Coast Park...



... Singapore Botanic Gardens, the history room of The Cathay, the Airport in the dead of the night and Sentosa (which I've visited so many times, and am still in shock when anyone informs me that they haven't been there for a year or five). Yes. I'm constantly on the go and looking for new adventures on this tiny island, just to prove that you don't have to go overseas to do something exciting, or try something new.

Isn't it boring to merely laze around at home or visit mall after mall, or watch movie after movie during the weekends ?

And so on Saturday night I added another location to my list. It's been around for 10 years already and I've never been there in my life! I'm ashamed to say that I'm Singaporean, and you should be too if you haven't visited the place which won the Restroom Association (Singapore)'s Happy Toilet Award 2004!

I'm not kidding.

Amongst its various accolades, the night spot has also won the Singapore Tourism Awards' Leisure Attraction of the Year 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004.

I'm milking the suspense for all it's worth, and I love experiencing something new because blogging about it makes the 28 bucks I spend even more worth it as I get to share/spend time writing about what I see! Writing's a leisure for me too.



Anyway, Ryan and I were greeted by the flames followed by the very famous logo of two eyes peering out from the dark. The Singapore Night Safari was out to impressed the very moment we set foot in it. From the seemingly random ticket booths to the very woody, outdoor furnishings, no stone was left unturned to give the visitor the feeling that they were about to be awed by the creatures of the night.



We took a couple of photos at the entrance. A couple of Japanese girls helped us to take a photo, but it didn't turn out good at all, as cute as they were while excitedly squealing "1,2,3!" before violently pressing the button on the camera. It's an extra 8 dollars for the tram ride, which lasted about 50 minutes but more on that later. The queue for the tram was repulsively long. We were shocked that so many people visited the night safari, and even more when the queue stretched so far that we couldn't see the end! We decided to make the most of our time and instead of waiting, we started on the various trails that took us to many animals.



And this is what you usually see. The one big difference between the Night Safari and the Zoo is that the Night Safari, being the newer attraction, puts the animals right where you can see them - if you're able to spot them! There aren't too many places for the animals to hide, and even if there were, you'd be able to see them. However the low lighting makes me appreciate how the animals' camouflage works for them. Ooh, and my shitty camera doesn't have ISO at all, so I haven't got that many photos to share. 9/10 of them turned out completely black. Even when I was only a glass wall away from the tiger.



Ryan was much better than I was at spotting them. Without him, I don't think I'd have seen anything much on the trail! Haha! Despite being a tad tired as I went there from work, I was in awe of the animals that were in the exhibits - how they were so energetic despite it being late at night and lacking in light. The otters were tremendously entertaining too - they were one of the few who weren't lazing around and buzzing with activity.

If you don't see the animals in the photos, you might want to turn up the brightness of your screen.



I was within touching distance of this bat, and two others while they hung upside down, oblivious to the humans that were gasping in amazement at being so close to such an animal! I heard one foreigner exclaim that he'd never thought that he'd come face to face with a bat and not have any barrier in between them. The success of its open zoo design is something to be proud of.

The next two things that we experienced were probably the highlights of the entire trip but there were limited opportunities for photography due to the lack of light and the animals not being particularly fond of being photographed with the flash.

The Creatures of the Night show played to a full house thrice that night, and we queued for half an hour just to get seats for the last one. The show presenters were excellent entertainers, getting the audience to respond to them (which was really tough when half of the crowd consisted of Singaporeans, who aren't the warmest people, aside from the kids) and left me in awe of their stage presence. We got to witness the eating habits of various animals and my favourite one has got to be the civet. I have no idea why this animal is lesser-known compared to the others because it's just as cute and fun-loving as say, cats. The animal was crawling around its keeper (literally from shoulder to his chest to his back, round and round and round) at 120km/h, hardly bothered about the 300-or-so strong crowd who was waiting for it to sniff the Korean girl's hands to find out in where the grape was placed!

Another highly entertaining moment was when we waited, holding our breaths for 3 minutes just for the "cat" (can't remember the animal's name!) to make its 2 metre leap upwards to get a piece of meat! It circled below it for sometimes, lost interest, walked away, got coaxed by the trainer, circled the meat again and just when we all thought it was going to make a jump, it went off again. The cycle repeated itself for quite sometime, but everyone in the audience was holding on to the hope that it would show us something amazing, and everyone clapped appreciatively when we got to witness the 2 metre jump!

After the show we went for the tram ride. It's kind of heart-wrenching to spend an entire 8 bucks on it, but my mentality changed as I got to see the animals in their natural habitat. There were 8 themes and each explored various settings, such as the Himalayan Foothills, Equatorial Africa and Nepalese River Valley. The docile animals were set free to roam, and even get in the way of the tram! The other not-so-friendly animals were safely out-of-reach but still within viewing distance. As for the tapir, it preferred to be heard and not seen, squealing loudly into the soundless night as we passed by. The sight of the night was probably the Bull Elephant Chawang standing alone, munching on grass. The lighting made it look as if he was on a pedestal, with the moon behind him. The guide was fantastic, lending enthusiasm and insights to the animals as we went along. Travelling through the different terrains spiced up the entire ride - the sounds of rolling logs, cracking of suspended bridge and splashing of "river" water are still fresh in my mind.

Not only had I enjoyed myself a lot, I felt that I had also learned more about the animals.

It's truly an experience not to be missed.