03. Visiting at my House + Marina ~Lunar New Year~
While waiting for my video to be converted, I shall blog on the third day of the Lunar New Year and fingers crossed… I hope my laptop doesn’t overheat like just now and go amok again.
Normally by Day 3, the students would have returned to school, the working adults will start their mundane orders again but this year, Day 3 is on a Saturday and that means, we get to celebrate a lot more!
This year, my friends came over to my house to celebrate the new year and I took lots of pictures. Surprisingly, this post will contain more shots than Day 1. Probably because there are more interesting shots on Day 3.
Well, enjoy~~
My bestest friends, Chua Ying Ying and Alvin came over to visit me and we took pictures with the Space Aliens! Jessica was kind enough to help us take this shot~ :)
Miss Jessica Peh, Catwoman, and me with Maomao~ Maomao looks so fat, no? :P And the table behind us is in an epic mess, as usual.
Well, to entertain my guests, we played Mahjong. Yes, you didn’t read this wrongly. WE played Mahjong.
If you know me on a personal level, you know that I have a hatred for gambling (well, it’s apparent in the previous blog entry) because I find giving away my money through luck is just plain stupid because you get nothing in return. Cheap thrills don’t satisfy me through gambling.
But for the first time the few of us played Mahjong, we played with no cash; in other words, there was no gambling. I mean, you don’t have to play with money to enjoy a game, yes? I had lots of fun playing with Alvin and Ying Ying though; because we were all new to the game and we made lots of stupid mistakes. :P
When evening fell, we headed to Sheena’s house for dinner. Normally, we rarely visit their house during Lunar New Year (I don’t know why. Rena, care to share? :P) but last year and this year, we did~ Took this picture downstairs while we were heading towards the car park and edited in Lightroom to give it a toy-camera effect.
Took pictures of Nick, Vera, Jessica and Ying Ying (Fine!! I’ll call you Raven in this post because Ying Ying is so difficult to type again and again~) while waiting for my father to drive his van down.
Did you know that it was Raven’s first time in a van in her entire life when I took this picture? According to her blog, she enjoyed the bumpy ride and I find that crazy. We never liked sitting at the back of the van because it’s hot and stuffy and sometimes dangerous because often, we get thrown from the back to the front and back again due to gravity. Raven asked for this photo to commemorate her first time at the back of a van.
Raven blinded by the camera’s flash.
Arrived at Sheena’s house shortly and we had home-cooked dinner round this table. My aunt is an excellent cook because she used to work at a store at some coffee shop and her food is delicious! In fact, it’s been awhile since I had such tasty home-cooked fares.
My favorite broccoli, mushrooms… veggies in general! The soup was good too! I didn’t have a lot of rice because I was trying to control my intake of carbos though but I ate lots of those yummy mushrooms!
Close up of the mushroom dish. This dish consists of various kinds of mushrooms dressed on top of the vegetables. And guess who’s the artist of this dish…
Bimbotic she may be but she’s damn good and patient at laying out the veggies at the base of the plate so that the wonderful mushrooms have a nest to rest in. I really applaud her patience though because for me, I will just chuck everything together. Kudos to my aunt for this marvelous dish!! I want more!!
After dinner, I went around taking pictures of random things as usual and Rena gave me this really disgusting smile. Children, this is what you look like when you smile/talk with your mouth food. Not nice and very ugly.
My aunts, grandparents and cousins watching the show where half the time, the characters are either yelling in each another’s faces, fighting or being sarcastic to each another; LOVE (爱). COME ON!! Where’s the love when the characters are fighting with each another constantly?! And the show ran for over 500 episodes and I yearn for the day it will finally end because the Hokkein song is so annoying!
How can I miss out the little dog, Qiqi? Qiqi’s so LIGHT!! Do you know that Maomao is so much heavier and to me horror, BIGGER than this dog? I would expect dogs to be beefier and larger but no~ My cat wins Qiqi in these aspects. This shows that Maomao is really becoming Garfield. Alvin was playing with Qiqi and I was trying to get a portrait of them but Qiqi kept moving.
I love this shot!! Qiqi’s so adorable!
Xander drinking tea from a packet.
Taking photos at Sheena’s house made me kicked my own butt a little because I should have gotten the external flash! The lighting in her house was horrible and extremely challenging to take photos and honestly, I was getting impatient. Good thing my models are more patient, like Alvin.
Raven’s always very busy with work and it’s a rare opportunity that she gets to come over to Sheena’s house, or even my house for that matter, to celebrate the New Year so a photo is definitely worthy. Portrait of Raven and Whela Lim.
One of the most challenging people in my family to photograph is Sheena because she is often uncooperative and she gives the weirdest faces all the time, as shown above. There’s a better photo of Raven and Sheena on facebook if you want to see but this one is definitely more blog-worthy. :P
Vera and Jessica. Even though life had separated them, they still keep in contact with each another and I find that admirable. My father likes to play Blackjack with Jessica because she gives funny reactions. Typical her.
Oh well… Gambling again…
The cards that they used. My father work with Carlsberg so he gets these merchandises all the time. In fact, the whole storeroom is filled with random Carlsberg stuff!
Yong Xiang and Laura; the love birds.
My aunt was watching the annoying show when she suddenly turned and look at me when I was taking a photo of her. Her expression is reaction then was priceless~ Tip to taking unglam photos: Strike when they don’t realize you are taking a photo of them. Best: Take the moment they go crazy that they realized you had taken an unglam moment of them.
Is this unglam or…? I think it’s very RENA. “Rena” should be an adjective.
And this is very Sheena.
Back to the gambling den which attracted more people…
And now… For the more interesting part of this blog entry; MARINA!!
After dinner at Sheena’s, Alvin, Raven and I rushed over to meet Daniel and the rest at Marina and we were horribly late. We were supposed to meet them at around dinner time but we only arrived there at almost 9pm. Rushy rushy!!
The night scene at Marina was GORGEOUS and I did not regret bringing my tripod and remote to capture these wonderful scenes.
Thank you Daniel for organizing this outing~
I love this shot of Raven because it looks so catalog! Used her as a test subject for our group shot and she looks really amazing in this photo! You should set this as your display picture, Chua Ying Ying!!
Erm… Her face here is a bit… -_-“
Ain and Yahya joined us too~ Fun-loving lot.
The people walking behind us created an interesting background for my shot with Raven and Alvin.
This is not the best group shot but we were against time and rules because this security guard came over and told us “No stands”, meaning I cannot use my tripod. Well, I ignored him and went on using the tripod because it was the only way to get a reasonable shot. Anyway, throughout the thing, I continued to use my tripod because I’m such a rule breaker~ :P
We proceeded to the floating platform and instead of smelly people wearing green, it was flooded with people visiting the beautiful displays on the floating piece of land. The mock grass was covered up with this plastic shutter-like thingie and on top of the platform is the God of Fortune; a symbol that the Chinese are money-minded people.
These colorful lanterns lit up the edges of the floating platform. Almost felt like the Lantern Festival that night.
On the floating platform were 12 huge coins, each featuring an animal from the zodiac. The horses, like myself, took a picture with our coin and I’m blurred. :( Probably because I ran into the shot and Raven snapped the picture too quickly.
The snakes~
They had this dragon/bird looking thing too. Weird design though…
This is definitely a dragon.
Even though the Youth Olympic is over, they still have things relating to this event on the platform. Probably because the Youth Olympic Park is just a stone throw away from the Floating Platform. Ain and Yahya wanted to take a photo using this backdrop.
And Yin Zhi wanted to pose like the torch bearer using a water bottle.
Red lanterns!!
Besides coins, there were oversize stamps on display as well, featuring the zodiacs again. I believe these stamps were on sale but I’m not a stamp collector so I’m not really interested.
To be honest, there weren’t much to see on the floating platform. I think it’s due to the weight limitations that they have to limit the number of exhibits. If not, everything will sink into the Singapore River and that ain’t cool. Once we were done, we returned back to the solid ground.
There was a fun fair nearby and we all went gaga~ Too bad the queue was too long and the rides look too scary so we didn’t go on any. Raven wanted to go for this spinning top ride but decided not to because the queue was way too long. Now~ For slow shutter speed fun~~
Weeeeeeee~~~ I wonder if anyone actually vomited on these rides before and what happened after that.
The lights are so pretty…
If you think the spinning carousel thingie is scary, you haven’t seen this Inverter. It spins you round and round in this capsule at great heights. Just watching it is scary enough.
The Fullerton Hotel at night. If you’re sharp enough, you can spot the Merlion in this photo too. :)
Another photo of Marina Bay Sands in the night. What is that roundish white structure in front of the MBS? Anyone knows??
While watching the rides, I took this photo of Raven who was incidentally leaning against the railings and I liked the lighting~ So, I decided to take a portrait of everyone~~
But before that, COTTON CANDY! I don’t really like cotton candy because it’s too sweet and it makes my mouth really dry but it’s fun to watch people eat it.
Alvin looks so charming in this photo!!
Yin Zhi looks good too~ I think I’ll go for another shoot at the Singapore River at night when I get the chance and when there are lesser people walking around. Though it’s challenging, it’s really fun!
Yahya in a modelish pose.
Daniel HAH~
While shooting, this old man came into the frame shamelessly and STOOD there! What the hell~ He is either blind or he is asking to be photographed so I took a picture of him anyway. Of his butt at least…
Since the old man refused to budge, I shifted my camera so Ain gets a new backdrop.
And I was forced to take this photo… -_-” NECK!! :)
After shooting, we decided to go home because it was getting really late. Raven saw this stand selling snacks and went over to get something.
And she treated me to cup corn!! My favorite!!
On the way to the MRT station, I saw this lantern emitting light and got Yin Zhi to pose for me by it, just to borrow the light. :P Light is so fun to play with at night~
We took the route via the Esplanade to City Hall station where I returned back to Sheena’s house again to meet up with the rest. On the way, I saw this piece of art lying on the steps within the Esplanade. It’s made of thread that looks like blood vessels. Actually, you have to look closely to marvel at it’s beauty because this shot just makes it look like a huge pile of red spider web.
Well, that’s the last photo of this post, and probably the second last post of this Lunar New Year edition. I can’t believe it but I have yet to edit Day 4’s photos! Normally, I would edit all the film the moment I go home but these few days, I lack of time so I’ll be working on them later.
Until then~~
I missed out this photo of Raven but here it is~~ :P Taken before we headed towards the multi-storey car park.
