Flash project test 1

Aha! After hours of fiddling and figuring, finally my first test project is up.

:x and after posting here I realise the size is wrong so now its off centre.. will try again!

under my umbrella

Sneaked this pic after dinner. It was raining slightly and me folks were sharing an umbrella. *so sweet*

Purple Sky

Somehow it seems that when I go out for the purpose of shooting the sunset, it just won't work. And this is what I get just randomly looking outta the window before dinner.

four kilometres per hour

Drove onto AYE at the Jurong Town Hall exit on Thursday evening and was greeted with a line of cars all stationary and neverending. I thought, 'just the usual peak hour traffic'.

After some time, I realised it was not the usual jam when the sign said accident at clementi, lane 1 and 2. But hmm.. which part of clementi? I didn't exit at Clementi Ave 6 thinking its already in Clementi and can't be far. But boy was I wrong..

After 40min in the car, I finally reached the Clementi Stadium area, and still obstinately thought against leaving the jam since the accident site should be near. I took another 25min to get to NUS, where I saw the accident vehical facing against the traffic and a line of cars stopped on the road shoulder, only 1 lane was passable.

The surprising thing about this (1 hour 5min to pass the accident site) was that I was hardly impatient. Being kiam siap environmentally conscious, I switched off the air con and wound the windows down slightly. For the last part of the jam, I switched off the radio and decided to call a friend to chat while waiting.

I thought to myself, some people are stuck in an accident, they may be hurt, I'm just wasting some time, no matter. But I do wish the radio's traffic update was more informative. All that was said throughout the hour I was stuck was 'Heavy traffic along AYE', now that sounded more like the usual peak hour jam. It was more like 'Massive jam on AYE and traffic is at a standstill from NUS tailback beyond Jurong Town Hall Road exit'. Whoa, I can almost write traffic updates now. :X

80s rewind

I was having dinner at my mom's and for some strange reason suddenly thought of a theme song from a cartoon I watched when I was a kid.

Came home, googled and youtubed and its so fun looking at the cartoons from so looooong ago!!

See if you recognise any of these.. (ok, I meant to get the pictures but cant really sit here all night, needa yank meself outta bed early, so juz the names 1st HAHAHA) Good thing about youtube is all the 'related' videos! So many cartoons from the same era that I'd forgotten!

It all started with me going "Denver, the last dinosaur! He's my friend and a whole lot more!"
So here goes.. (Decided to 'categorise' them)

Denver the last dinosaur

Centurions

Ghostbusters

Transformers

X-men

Dennis the Menace (People in suits/People)

Duck tales
Count Duckula
Darkwing Duck (Ducks!)

Care Bears
Gummi Bears
Yogi Bear
Sharkey and George
The Raccoons
Mighty Mouse
The Chipmunks
Chip and Dale
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Looney Tunes
Tiny Toons (Bears and other animals)

Wuzzles
Smurfs
The Snorks
Animaniacs (Imaginary creatures)

And this is not the end of the list of course.. but I realise I watch a lot of Ducks and other animals cartoons HAHAHAH.. not a fan of watching people in cartoons.. Guess for me, the idea of cartoons is to see things that aren't so realistic. Like.. bears talking HAHAHA.. I'd just watch non-cartoons if I wanted to see people walking around, or like I do now, watch movies with great visual effects =)

Ok, looks like I spent an hour watching youtube videos of cartoons. Enough for the night! =P

Ice cream maker

One month into my perceived 'leg-shaking-at-home', I have busied myself with much activities. One of which was getting more acquainted with my kitchen..

I've been looking for an ice-cream maker for awhile and it was finally in stock yesterday! Will be trotting out soon to welcome the ICM into my home. I've been looking up ice cream recipes and can't wait to try them out!

Surfing for ice cream recipes brought me to this site and I recognised his book cover! Was browsing through a copy in the bookstore and tempted to get the book. But I wasn't sure I'd be getting my ICM for sure then (had not managed to track it down) hence it was left on the shelf. So glad I found this website that's chockful of info on ice-cream making, amongst other things. Boy, I do envy this man, he cooks well, and dang he takes nice pictures too!
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/

Also getting ideas from..
http://allrecipes.com/
http://homecooking.about.com/
and of course, mom is just a phone call away! ♥ ♥ ♥

Heh, here's what I whipped up last week.

It was high time for some simple chinese cooking, in place of the steaks, lamb chops and pasta. Speaking of which I finally got down to cooking cream of mushroom and not just pouring it outta a can and heating it. Managed a less starchy variant from the very creamy mushroom soups of the campbell kind which wasn't all too bad for starters.

Will update on the ice-cream making and my other antics when I'm back!

Rain on my parade

We were walking along Namba walk again, this daily trot to get to the JR station was becoming very familiar. This time, it was to find the tourist information centre (which had moved). After being misled by several signs, we finally found the place and got our 1-day Osaka Unlimited Pass (2000yen).

The pass included entry to several places. First stop was to the Osaka Bay Area, where we were planning to visit the WTC Cosmo Tower Observatory, board the Santa Maria Cruise and visit the aquarium.

View from WTC Cosmo Tower. Wasn't too fantastic as the clouds were gaining in and there was a gloom about the skyline.

We had a very yummy katsu don and were all set to board the cruise when it started pouring.

Ended up shopping around in the stores till almost late afternoon while waiting for the rain to subside when we decided it probably wouldn't.

So off we went to Osaka Castle, which fortunately had extended opening hours for the cherry blossoms festival.

So we got pictures of Osaka-jo in the night and strolled in the drizzle amidst the lit cherry blossoms. Gloomy but there was a strange sort of niceness about strolling in the rain under an umbrella..

Not too much strolling though, the garden was closed at 8pm and the uncle was trying to tell us it was time to go back heh. Off we went for dinner!

Having been suitably fed, we made our way to the last stop of the day, the floating garden observatory. Unfortunately, the view was far from expected though the place had a nice ambience.

And I got my favorite escalator photos. =P

Back at the foot of the tower.

It was a rainy day, causing us to miss the Santa Maria Cruise and the Tonbori River Cruise. No matter, gives me an excuse to be back doesn't it? ;)

Album here.

Messengers of God

We set off to Nara on the Rapid Express train. The tourist information at the train station in Nara was excellent! We got a map and started on the recommended route.

Deers were regarded as "messengers of god" here. Here's a picture of a deer who still looks dignified and possibly a true messenger from above.

But the strange thing about these messengers is that they are going at leaflets, COLOURED pamphlets and any kind of paper!

All these despite being fed by the many happy tourists with small stacks of biscuits for deers at 150 yen per (small) stack! I was seriously suspicious that the biscuits were made of recycled paper. Hahaha..

I was left alone for awhile and was wondering what to do (would have sat down on the park benches to just enjoy the park, but either the benches had bird poo, or there were deer poo around the benches, so i gave up) and was thinking about fish-eye lens and suddenly decided to harass the deers with my 10mm wide angle. Started out trying to look through the viewfinder but realised it was hard to get close enough while keeping my eye at the viewfinder. I then decided to just shove my cam up the faces of the puzzled and curious deers who decided to sniff my lenses to see if they could find any paper trace HAHA..

Another stop for Nara was the Todaiji. House to the largest statue of the Great Buddha, this structure was the largest wooden building in the world.

Nara is a relaxing place for a leisurely stroll and great for children too!

See the happy faces!

We headed to Yasuka Shrine just two train stops away before returning to Nara for Sushi dinner, a fine way to end the day!

Click here for the full album.

Why I Teach

Lost my voice in the last weekend of Feb, rendered completely speechless for 3 days and started coughing after that. Its been 2 weeks now.. and my student showed up with this..

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Oh So Sweet.

Kids just have a way of being spontaneous and touching your hearts in the most innocently sincere ways. Though they may not always be the 'ideal' student, or as respectful students as us in the old days (yeah, age Has indeed caught up huh..), what remains unchanged is their innocence, or most of it anyway. Thanks for showing you care. Appreciation is not necessary, but a luxury and it certainly brings a warm feeling to the heart! =)

28 on 28

Loooong overdue posts coming up.

Its been an eventful first quarter of 2009. It is nice to know that throughout life's ups and downs, family and friends will always stay constantly beside us.

Counting my blessings first before I rant! hahaha..

Tada! Here are my blessings! Me wonderful Friends and Family! Love You!