Category: Photos

RSAF 40-Year Anniversary Open House

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I went to the RSAF Open House today. The second one I’ve been to, since a long time ago… I think that was like 20 years ago when the Hawker Hunter and A-4S Super Skyhawks are still in service and the F-16 was the brand new state-of-the-art new addition.

I went with Chillycraps and he was a little upset everyone was late ranging from 10 – 20 mins. The queue for the free shuttle bus service was damned long and somewhere in between Chillycraps asked me why I did not express unhappiness with the RSAF wasting costly fuel for the Open House while I make noise about the NDP. And frankly, I am not really sure why and I simply told Chillycraps that’s simply because I am an axxhole and I personally thing it wouldn’t be right to me to complain about something I wanted to see.

Anyway, we reached around 1130hrs, after a long wait for the bus @ Eunos MRT. And by the time we cleared security checks, the air show is long since over and the next one is scheduled at 1700. * sigh *

To further dampen our spirits, there was a short downpour which kept us hiding under the wing of the KC-135 for 10 ~ 15 minutes. With nothing much further to see – which is no fault of the Air Force, as they have put up quite a big display of stuff – we just took photos of whatever interests us of the war machines on display and left around 1320pm… to yet another long wait for a bus back to Hougang Interchange this time (because the queue was shorter).

Below is a slideshow of the few pictures I have taken…

Hong Kong: Ocean Park 11.08.08

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It was a rainy day on Monday 11.08.08 in Hong Kong, and the rain here is really ‘long winded’… it basically went on and on for the whole day. I was sort of kicking myself for choosing the day to visit, and I can’t not go because I will be flying off on the 12.08.08. Despite that, there was surprisingly a lot of people in Ocean Park – many of them Chinese nationals and I must say Chinese tourists must have brought in a lot of foreign income for Hong Kong.

Personally speaking, I don’t see that many people neither in the Singapore Zoological nor the Jurong Bird Park when I was there. In fact, when I visited the Bird Park some time ago, it was also raining and there wasn’t a lot of people. And what do I think of it? With hotels mostly concentrated in the CBD area, where the shopping centres are located, getting to these locations is a pain. No one would really make their way to these places except for those on package tours, considering that it takes more than an hour to get to any of these places by MRT or bus. For me to go to Ocean Park from my hotel in Mongkok took me about 1 hour, that’s including fumbling my way to the wrong MTR station, wasting time to find out where is the bus stop and what bus to take, and missing my stop which required me to walk an extra 10 minutes in the rain.

Ocean Park seems part zoo, part theme park to me. There are roller coasters, hot air balloon, a cable car ride and a lot of carnival like stuff. Then there are pandas on display, Chinese Sturgeons in a really miniature version of Sentosa’s underwater world, a large 3 level aquarium with many sharks, sting rays and deep sea fishes, and a special room dedicated to all sort of jelly fishes all rolled into one. I think if not for the proximity of Macau, the HK SAR government gahmen should just put up a casino in it too just like what ours did with Sentosa.

My personal suggestion is… don’t go on a rainy day, because it drives everyone in doors and you can’t stand long holding up a camera to take photos without someone bumping into you and spoiling your shot, and don’t go alone, because you need someone to hold your stuff when you go try the roller coasters and stuff.

I reached there around 1pm and I was only 50% done with the place when I had to leave at 6:15pm to rush back to Central Hong Kong to meet a friend for dinner. I would say it’s a place worth going if you are going in a group for a day of fun in the sun.

Hong Kong Island Proper – 10.08.08

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The thing about a free and easy trip is that you sometimes end up wasting a lot of time sleeping in the hotel room. Today I woke around 10am because a fire has broken out some where nearby. I can’t see it, but I could hear the sirens going on and off and past my room Apparently, it’s a fire so bad that several firemen were killed..

Anyway, the view outside my room is actually quite hideous, if you can even call that a view. You can see from the first photo and it looked exactly like the kind of place show in the movie 老港正传… and it shows a city in decay. Anyway, after lazing in the room and analyzing where I wanted to go, I finally decided to go to Wan Chai and to the Peak.

This trip was made based on the recommendation of my best friend’s dear wife, who is a Hong Konger herself, but I made some modifications myself. Took the MTR down to Wan Chai MRT and walked to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre first instead of taking the MTR down to Tsim Sha Tsui and take the ferry across.

After taking some photos at the place, I made my way back to Johnston Road and took the Tram to the Legislative Council and take a short walk up the Tram Terminus (to the Peak) past St. John Cathedral.

It was a great trip as it was quite cooling up at the Peak, and the view is… well, you have to see on your own. It’s definitely a place you should not miss when you visit Hong Kong, provided you have not visited it before. My personal recommendation is to reach the Terminus around 6pm as there might be a long queue at the Terminus so by the time you reach the top the sun is about to set.

After which, pick up a good position and wait to darkness to fall. Then you can start snapping away. I am quite sure you can’t find any such great vantage point anywhere else in Hong Kong, and by the way, is there any place in Singapore we can take photos like these?

Ngong Ping 360 – LanTau Island

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On the recommendation of my Hong Kong office colleague, Sam, I took the MTR to Tung Chung [东涌] to visit Ngong Ping 360 [昂坪 360] – a cable car ride that will give us sort of a bird’s eye view of much of Lantan Island [大屿山] on the way up to the largest outdoor Bronze Buddha Statue in the world.

I’ll not waste my time writing too much about the trip, and will let the pictures do the talking. Let me just say I am so unfit that being stubborn and trying to walk all the way up 268 steps to the Buddha Statue without stopping almost killed me and I ‘fainted’ at the foot of the Buddha Statue when I made it up there.

By the time I got back I met Lyna, who is currently on Business trip to our Hong Kong office for a month, for dinner and some drinks at Lan Kwai Fong [兰桂坊]. I am sorry I didn’t take too much pictures of the place as I was having quite a bad headache then.

But being the ‘jiu gui’ [酒鬼 – Alcoholic], I felt a lot better after a few drinks.

Hong Kong 08.08.08

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Arrived at Hong Kong International Airport at around 2:10pm today. The walk from the terminal back to the arrival hall is quite long – in fact I even had to take a short train ride to get there.

This is my first time to Hong Kong and I messed up when I make my way to the hotel in the Kowloon area. I should have listened to chillycraps by taking the MTR to Tsingyi [青衣] but I ‘geh kiang’ [假厉害 – act smart] took the train to Kowloon [九龙] instead. End up I have to take a roundabout route back to Lai King [荔景] so I can make my way to the MTR station nearest to my hotel – Prince Edward [太子].

I have to say Hong Kong’s MTR appears more efficient and convenient than Singapore’s, but that’s maybe because Hong Kong has a subway system longer than we do. The trains are quite new and clean too and they definitely come more often during peak hours.

Since it’s a free and easy trip, I basically just wandered around town with the camera to take pictures and did not really go to the tourist attractions. But definitely I’ll look into visiting some of the tourist attractions in the next few days.

Here are some of the pictures I have taken after having dinner with my Sam, my colleague in the HK office. I wandered for about 3 hours around both Causeway Bay [铜锣湾] and a small part of Mongkok [旺角]… and surprisingly, even though I was wondering aimlessly after getting off the Mongkok MTR station, I end up wandering right back to my hotel when I thought I was lost. I must say I did make an effort not to make 4 right turns and headed off in a particular direction. So I guess my sense of direction isn’t so bad after all, and having the road names in Chinese is great help.

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