Your Singapore - HDB

For non singaporeans (such as mr TJ), HDB may sounds foreign.  HDB stands for Housing Development Board, a statutory board of the Singapore Government.  They are well known for building flats, whereby Singaporean can purchase at a subsidized rate.  (of course, they have a lot of terms and conditions)
The price of a HDB flat is always in the spotlight, especially in Singapore where land is scarce.

I thought i would take some sunset view from my flat, a very heartland flavour of a true blue Singaporean. 

Another Sunrise

I went to take any take another sunrise today, since I could not sleep well these few days due to some mind boggling unresolved issues.  Since I could not sleep, and needed to be in town for a 8am meeting, I thought I would go & catch the sun.

Alas, another unsuccessful attempt.  The sun was blocked by the clouds again.  Reached Esplande at 615am, wanted to check out the new Helix Bridge.  The bridge looks kind of plain in the morning, and the Maybank building wasn't lighted up today.  Though i could not see the sun, it was a nice outing.  It was very nice, quiet and peaceful in Esplande, a few joggers - Yes, a few joggers at 630am!  (and they are mainly caucasians).  The sun was finally above the clouds at 730am, but it was too glaring to look directly at.  I will try again next time :-)  I am sure one day i will catch beautiful sunrise.

Exploring Bukit Brown Cemetery

Joined Jackie and the boys for a shoot at the rather undiscovered Bukit Brown Cemetery, which is near Lornie Road and Adam Road.  I have never ever been to a cemetery in Singapore before, and when I googled the place, this seems like a popular place for the Singapore Paranormal Investigators (SPI), and they typically do a night tour!  Hmm..may not seems like a good idea to explore a cemetery at night, to take photo!??!

The cemetery is smaller than I thought.  And it also seems quite busy for a Sat morning, quite a number of cars drove in.  The interesting thing is all the people that I saw at the cemetery to pay respect to their ancestors are old folks.  Where are the youngsters?

There was some "drama" with 3 uncles who were paying respect at one of the tombs.  One of the guys had his monopod and his camera shooting at the same direction of these uncles.  So the uncles were very upset, thought we were taking their photo and they started to shouto to us in some hokkien which I could not understand.   They were about 200m away, so we tried to gesture to them that we were not taking their photo, but a bird on the tree behind them!  Anyway they still shouted at us at some hokkien which we don't understand, so to avoid trouble, we decided to quickly move away, and also "scolded" the guy who took the bird photo.

I did not take a lot of pictures, as not sure if it is respectful to take pictures of tomb.  Here are some of the photo that I took:

Sunrise and Food Photography Practice Session

This is my second attempt to take sunrise photo this year.  I tried once in late Jan this year, at Punggol Beach.  However, it wasn't successful as the clouds blocked the sun, so i only saw the sun when it was quite high up in the sky.

I attempted it again today.  Set my alarm clock to 520am, so that I can washed up and get ready to wait for the taxi at 6am with the fellow CS shooters.  We reached the Esplande at 620am, and there was already a few of them there, and I happened to bump into D who i met at Botainic Garden.

The organiser was very nice to give some tips on how to take sunrise photo..However, one of the tips freaked me out a little.  He told me to do a mirror lock, which i had never tried before.  I did it, set up my tripod, looked at the watch, 635am, nice blur sky.. When i shot and tried to preview my photo on the camera, i saw nothing.  I tried a few times, still nothing!!  So i thought my camera Tom (By the way, I called my camera Tom) died on me!  After which, I realised it was the setting...so when i disabled that, everything went back to normal..phew.  But by the time i was ready, it was 650am..oh no..running out of time..

Sunrise was again disappointing.  The sky was cloudy and I couldn't see the sun.  It was behind the flyer.  And because of the hiccups, it shortened my magical moments.  I think i have to go back again.

Right after the sunrise shot, i went to McDonald to have my breakfast before heading to my food photography practice session.  I love Mcdonald, they give you a sense of home when you are overseas, and they are 24 hours! 

The teacher is JY.  He taught me how to use different lightings for the food, gave some tips for food photography, and also how to display the food.  On top of that, I got the chance to try the 100mm F2.8 L IS USM.  This was a mistake, because it just sold me into it.  In total, I tried 3 cameras and 2 lens today, Tom, my 450D, 7D and a 5DII.  I love the sound of the 5DII (Me and my shallow preference! haha!) and the grid on the 7D.  Canon, did you hear me? :-)
Beside the 100mm, I also tried a tilt lens. It was quite difficult to use..not sure how to tilt! haha

These are the photos from the sunrise in Punggol Beach:

Surprisely there were fishermen, at 630am.  Seems like they were there whole night..

Sky is getting brighter..Can you tell the difference?

The only bus in.

Photos from today's sunrise. 

Incomplete Marina Bay Sands..I think it will look gorgeous when it is completed. 

This was using 2 flashes.  At first we were using 3 flashes, and probably too much light as we have the daylight coming in from the windows.

This is taken using the 100mm F2.8 L IS USM.  I am falling in love with the lens, obessed taking a lot of close up of the strawberry.

Trying different angles.

Guess what is this? :-)

Da-Da..is a cake! Haha

McDonald Big Breakfast

 It was a very fruitful session.  Look forward to the next session by JY :-)

Changes in church

I went for my networking meeting today, only to receive a shocking news, on the reorg of the church.  To cut long story, Senior Pastor is going to reorg the church such that there will be mixed cells (Now cells are homogenous), and under his immediate LN network (Now called team), it will have to be lead my married couples.  Because of that, there are some single pastors, or pastor whose spouse are not serving at the same level are being "demoted", and SP "promote" a few spouse of the Pastor, to be at the immediate LN team.

Because my pastor is one of those who is affected, I am asked to the meeting.  This really shocked me.  Suddenly a pastor who i respected and love a lot is no longer in leadership, only to be replaced by someone less competent.  Of course one can always argue that God can use anyone, and in the Bible, He did use people who are seen not as competent.  Understand, i totally understand.  But i just cannot accept the fact that some joker will be at the same leadership position, who was once filled by someone that I respect so much. 

This is bad.  I thought following Jesus should be the simplest thing.  One God, one Bible.  Why did it become so complicated?

Flash Outing

I had a good session on trying out how to use the flash.  Thanks to Michael, Alvin & Sky, I learned something new about using flash. 

Some sample photos:

Using a yellow background

White background:

This photo was using 3 flashed, 2 580II flash, one on my camera body, one of the left, and 1 430II on the right.

White background.  Different effect.

I focused on his body

Can you see that now I focused on his face?

Buffet 2 - Oscar @ Conrad

Buffet again!!!  This was my second buffet in consecutive 2 weeks, don't ask me how i maintain my weight!
I went to Oscar with high expectation, with the price tag of $58+++ per pax, I would expect it to be much better than Ellenborough cafe.

The buffet started with some drama.  I asked 2 waitress if I could take photo of the buffet, and I only started when I received their permission.  However, when I was happily taking my photo, another waitress came to stop me, told me no photographs allowed.  Disappointed, I took some food and went back to my table, since no one can stop me there.  I did not give up, and this time, I decided that I needed authority.  So I looked the manager, and I saw this man in another uniform, and figured that he was the manager, Ahmet.  He was very nice, and said that he would check for me, and indeed, he brought me good news, and I was happily snapping again.

Few things made Oscar better than Ellenborough cafe.
1.  Food quality and presentation. 
For a start, the presentation of the food was unique.  And there were more freshly prepared food.  For eg.  For their sahsimi, you can choose the fish that you want.  There were salmon, sword fish, tuna etc. 
Their oysters were the better quality one from France, not your usual oysters.  And they opened it for you on the spot.  In the dessert section, they had freshly prepared waffle and crepe and 6 different flavours of ice cream, you can choose either cone or cup, and varipus toppings, from chocolate chips to gummy bears! In the salad section, you can different dressings and olive oil, though i am not a big fan of salad.  And there were also 8 different cheese to choose from, such as Tomme De Savoie, Gouda, Le Brie, Etorki, and Emmental.

2.  It was also less crowded, enough people to sustain the business, but not overly crowded like Ellenborough, and most inportantly, no one starred at me! Haahaa

3.  Oscar had a friendly and helpful manager, Ahmet!

The only missing thing in Durian Pengat!

Overall:  8.5/10
Oscar's Café & Terrace
2 Temasek Boulevard

Lobby Level Conrad Centennial
Tel: +65 6432 7481