Bintan!

Yay~ We finally had our long awaited holiday! Back from Bintan, a wondeful island with beautiful beaches. We booked a package from GR travel worth $130++ per person which included accomadation, complimentary breakfast, return ferry tickets and land transfer.

Stayed at Mayang Sari Resort, one of the 5 hotels/resorts owned by Nirwana Resorts, a sub-group of Sembcorp. We got a sea-view one and it was really a indeed sea-view! Alright, pictures speak a thousand words, check out the picture...


Sea view from the chalet!!!


View from the restaurant for breakfast.


Another view from the restaurant


Went to Pasar Oleh Oleh for lunch. The trip there cost $6 two way bus trip. Yes, it's expensive! Considering the bus comes every half an hour and it was only a 15 mins journey to the place from our resort. So there we reached the place. Lunched at this place "Hello Hello" (refer to the picture below) The food prices are Singapore's food court range. Horfun, Kway teow, Fried Rice, etc are priced at $3-4. There's another restaurant at the place, charging about the same price range. The shops there are basically selling souveniors, T-shirts, Batik, local made toys, paintings, etc. Nothing much interesting there, so unless you want cheaper food, that's the place you can give it a miss. But both of us got lucky over there and I will tell you why later on...


Pasar Oleh Oleh!


Cafe Helo Helo @ Pasar Oleh Oleh


Then we headed back to hit the Beach of Mayang Sari. Changed to our beach wear and applied sunscreen to our already burned skin (resulted from the trip to Pasar Oleh Oleh), we only tanned for half an hour before going into the sea and rode the tremendous waves due to the Northeast Monsoon current. Oh speaking about that, the ferry journey there was bumpy due to the NE monsoon also! Lots AngMohs puke as a result of that and I almost too, after smelling the papaya like smell of the AngMohs' puke in front of our seats.

Dinner time. Took an internal shuttle bus (free) from the resort to Kelong restaurant. Basically at Bintan, it's restaurants everywhere, that's why it's called an resort island! So ya the food there is bloooooody expensive. All typical restaurants prices and they are either in US dollars or Singapore dollars. So there we were at the Kelong. Checked the menu and prices were slightly more than the "Zi Cha" in Singapore. However the sea food there should be really fresh as it is a Kelong and you can literally see the fishes in captive swimming around in the sea. Fish per 100 gram is priced at around S$5-9 with a minimum of 400 gram for a fish. The other dishes are all set at minimum serving for 1-3 persons, which is quite a huge amount. We ordered a bowl of soup, mini squid and a plate of HongKong Noodles and it cost us near S$50, included the 10% govt tax and 10% service charge. The food was yummy but just a bit too much on the high side we felt.


The expensive Food we had at the Kelong Restaurant


Took a few pictures and spent the rest of the night exploring the other resort of Nirwana group. We turned in quite early, not surprisingly as both of us haven't been sleeping much and well over the past one month in Singapore. So we got our deserved rest.

Woke up for the complimentary breakfast the next day. It's the typical international buffet kind, by the way, Mayang Sari is rated 3 stars so the standard is pretty acceptable. We saw the chalets of Mana Mana, another resort owned by Nirwana and it's pretty like the small huts that you see in Sentosa, slightly bigger I guess. Don't know about the interior though. But those are rated 2 stars and I have a feeling it's shag.

So we spent the rest of the monrning sun basking again and picking all sorts of seashells and hermit crabs! Check out the pictures! Too bad you can't see how lively the crabs were in those pictures :D The beach was lovely, slightly dirty but definitely cleaner than those we have in Sentosa!


Sea Shells? No! It's Hermit crabs!


Hermit crabs in bottle :)


Bintan was truly a holiday destination for couple who simply just want to relax and relax and relax, Zuobo and Zuobo and Zuobo, Suntan after suntan after suntan... And unless you are prepared to spend money on food, please prepare some cup noodles if you are on a budget trip there.

Oh ya, as for the lucky component of this trip. We got a free 3D2N stay at one of the Laguna Resorts. For those who don't know what the hell this resort is, it's a 5 stars rated resort with beautiful faiclities and rooms that you can only dream of. We chose the one in Phuket as we are planning a trip to Bangkok again this summer holiday, anyone interested can join us there but the Phuket stay will only be between jL and me.

It's a worthwhile trip. We've gained so much from it :)

I Love Bintan~ the beach that is.

Rest of the pictures can be found at my photolog.

Memories of A Red Autumn

Yeah~ Finally Hall Production is over. I am really proud to be part of a successful musical, my friend of 10 years cum producer, yishu and the best performer, my gF jL!

I've been staring at the excel sheet for the past one month or so, trying to sort out the ever changing tickets order. My neighbour Yannick was still thinking I was playing some sort of game! I think I've almost spent 25 hours a day doing ticketing. Just when I thought I have settled one case, another problem arose. Not to mention I've smsed almost a thousand (rough estimate) this month! Many would have thought that I would feel a sense of achievement after all these are done and over now, but sadly I don't. Maybe to me, these are such trivial stuffs that not many people would pay attention to, especially so when you compare the hardwork of the casts and the stage crew/engineers. The stage crew had slogged the whole of holiday, building the sets, with a majority of the crew being females. But the quality didn't drop, in fact it was one of the best sets being built and was well received by many audience who were watched the musical.

The casts? There's the chinese proverb of "1 mins on stage is equivalent to 10 years of hardwork off state" I could testify to that. jL was busy since holiday and since the start of the semester, she hadn't been able to have her sleep until 3-4 am almost everyday. As such, she has lost all her leisure time and whatever sort of holidays that we could have together. However, I really think it's a worthwhile experience for her. Having seen her enjoyed so much of the musical and performed really well, with so many people praising her for her acting, singing and dance. Not to forget there were many calling her to be the main lead next year. I am so proud of her! If only I could act that well and perform together with her...

So now all these are over...we are going BINTAN! Yes, our belated holiday together. It was sort planned long ago but only got the deal just yesterday. Ya nothing surprising, considering Bintan is just another Singapore, as what the module "Changing Landscape of Singapore" mentioned.
I am so gonna make full use of this trip and spend quality time together with her!

I am proud of you jL! Let's us both enjoy this trip together :)

The reply...pui~

It is not difficult to spot last minute answer changes on the exam scripts. Don't worry. We have worked out many strategies. But we cannot announce publicly how we will handle the discrepancy. We are also working out a fool proof method of collecting answer scripts that is suitable for students of such mentality.

like got any help!?!?!

Complain Letter!

KNN...

Dear Prof,

I am saddened by the distinct unfairness in the ME2101 mid-term test conducted on 17 February 2006. I am puzzled by the need for students to queue up and submit their scripts. As a result, many students were still writing and more were observed to be comparing answers with their friends and changing it. I am aware that you have gone around catching those who did not obey the rules but there were still quite a huge number of students uncaught. To me, this is no longer a fair test as it involves not only the knowledge and application of the students but also their integrity, which is grossly missing here. I hope there will be some form of actions and compensation done to those who obey the rules. I understand your difficulty, but being a 50% test, I wish there was a better way of conducting the test.

Lastly, thanks for making the first part of the module interesting and easy to understand.

Regards
Yeow Chong

Haapy Valentines' !

Ok I don't have much time here. 30 % test on Wed and another 50 % on Fri.

I am just glad that jL is with me all along. Thanks for all the support Baby, I Love you not for today but Everyday!

Happy Valentines' Day!

Handball

And so we lost the finals to RH. I will be lying if I say I am not upset over the defeat but we didn't deserve to win. Maybe the seniors understand this and thus not many have mentioned about it since then, unlike the girls finals. Throughout the tournament this year, we hadn't been playing well as a team. Yes, we are a team with good individual techniques. Player to player, we are one of the best in NUS but team play wise, I think we are one of the worst, maybe just better than KE7. Maybe it's not right to reveal certain things here but heck, it's MY blog. Our team spirit hasn't been the best. Other than one commonness in wanting to win the GOLD, the team wasn't really bonded. It's seperated into first team, second team and the rest... Throughout the whole two months of trianing sessions, it's only the first team that was playing regularly together and still the teamwork was lacking. I am for the idea of first team training together more often, but when things are not going right, do we stil stick to the smae 7 or should we mix and match some player in? As a result, we have two separate teams, a team who is capable of attacking because of their own individual technique and confidence and another team who is equally capable but lack the confidence to prove it for whatever reasons in them.

Complacency? There was no training since the start of the tournament right till the week just before our finals match. It's that confidence? arrogance? or simply complacency? These questions got to be answered by whoever captain the team next year. It's not the time to blame this year's efforts.

Support? Talk about strong KR handball tradition. Where was the training and guidiance from the alumni? Forgive me if I am wrong here. But I think other than the captain not being proactive in contacting the alumni, maybe the alumni themselves can make the effort to come down or do whatever to give us guidiance? Of course having said that, I am not talking about you, tootall, you have been on of the most dedicated senior I have seen.

Fear? From the start, we have been saying RH is good at this and that, why are we worrying about others when we should be learning from their strong points and try to achieve them? Why are we trying faciful tactics when we can't even do a simple penetrating waves?

I cried. Yes again. But it's for very different reason this year. Unlike last year which I cried because I felt for the triple Hs, I cried this year simply because we didn't fulfill our full potential. For all the great technique our players shown on court, there's no teamplay to prove our worth as a Champion. And RH surely deserved to be the king for this year. They played simple pentrative waves and kept their composure and played the "dirty" professional way. Something we should learn if we were to win games without getting silly fouls and sent offs.

I have learned a great deal this year. I have received some encouraging comments. I have got one of the best support in my baby. I have got great training partner and neighbour. I have got the best seniors to help me. BUT do I have the mental to go through all these all over again?

On a sidenote, it's quite disgusting yet funny to see how some oranges chose to be wrapped up in leaves during the finals. Is there no sense of pride?

Derby Win

So there it is, we won the second leg. A good win despite not playing to our fullest potential. I thought it was a match of enough entertainment for a derby match. Enough of penalties and two minutes. I personally got one for ... HAHA~ Shall not elaborate on that as I sort of admit it's one of the most foolish acts I have ever done, even the shouting at Eeyang during first year's IBG was better than this. Anyway, many stuffs have been said by the oranges on their forum. Yes I happened to check into their forum out of curiosity, and guess what, this elmo guy, I suspect is this Vincent guy, commented "We finsihed the game realli strong today, and every Shearite left proud i tink. I am happy tat im from Sheares. IF i were from KR. i'd be ashamed of myself seeing their players behave like tat. Credit to everyone who din react except me. '' I think we wouldn't react if they play clean in the first place? Having said that, handball is a physical game and so you can't say who is right or wrong. The winners set the rules - right wilson? Just to add on this elmo(if he's the right person I guessed) kept throwing the ball away when by right he should have just left it on the ground when a turnover was committed. Anyhow, I don't think he care or ever learn.

To end it off, I think it's one of my worst games in KR, reacted to situations and didn't gel with the "second" team. Got enquired to join the Fed team for training, to go or not? IT's an opportunity but ...