Dragon deco spotted at Chinatown.
No photography hype for this Lunar New Year.
Despite the much intoxication of CNY songs, I still don’t feel the vibe for this occasion.
Too old to be fascinated by holidays?

On a side note, why is a dragon always seen with a “ball”?
I never really ponder about it until now, and when I thought of looking up for info, Wikipedia is still in ‘black-out’ mode for protest against SOPA & PIPA ;(

So much for dragon ball, how about ‘flower ball’
Since I didn’t get to practice my ‘annual itchy hands’ on Taka X’mas tree last year, I might as well apply it on a CNY flower ball!
Lol.

Before I end, there’s an image of another huge dragon deco in Chinatown.
It looks like an giant earthworm ready to devour the cars on the road. Haha.

Our dining destination – Yomenya Goemon @ 313 Somerset.

While waiting for Teck & Sandy’s arrival, we hid our face with the menu.
Kidding. There was so many choices of pasta, we were totally in a lost on what to order.

I looked so old in the above image ;<

And Sandy’s here

Our food arrived

Hermann’s ‘half half’ set pasta, which meant that he had 2 kinds of pasta in a set.

I decided to go vegetarian.
I regret my choice because my pasta was ‘soaked’ with extra virgin oil.
Super greasy  >.<
Should have opted for the soup pasta.

Sandy’s looked appetizing. Hmm…

Jeral ignored her seafood allergy & went ahead with her calm-munch.

After the proposal episode, we proceeded to 111 Somerset, Black Cafe (oh, all the weird names the malls have).
AND THIS LADY IS GETTING MARRIED NEXT SATURDAY!
UBER FAST!
They totally ignored Sandy’s request not to get hitched so soon as her pocket’s totally burnt. Now Shumei’s even more burnt.

The funny thing was that I got Jeral a RING for Christmas, while she had got one prior to our gift exchange. LOL.

My gift was a Rudolph.

Let’s try clipping on my ear… (NOTE: Teck’s goofy expression XD)

FAIL XD

Sec School Bevy.

Our presents.
(NOTE: Teck’s gift was actually on the table, what he was holding was just an empty wrapper.)

One last shot before we left for the day.
See how wide Jeral’s grin was.

Still can’t digest the rush of events.
Proposal>>>Christmas>>>New Year>>>WEDDING>>> CNY!
A wedding to attend, then CNY! I still haven’t done with spring cleaning.
OMG!

I was suppose to go to Japan, it would be an awesome year to remember, but the earth rocked, swept waves that killed hundreds of thousands, accompanying with nuclear crisis in the country that I so longed to go. My long awaited trip, marred by the devastating event.

But this has been a star-filled year.
I had been to 3 live concerts, stumbled upon a famous UK boyband.
I never knew about the hype of live shows, but it was awesome and best one yet would be Taylor Swift’s Live performance

I learn to scream like a teeny & yes, it was crazy.

I have got myself a new compact camera earlier in the year & my very own musical instrument recently.
My most expensive purchases this year, but they both have awesome performance.

Oh look who was sitting next to me?

Chilling out in a pub with good live music was something that I got to experience this year. German beer was good, but I still can’t take much alcohol.

Sneaked into the highest residence in town during June.
It seemed to be of no difference with those hotels out there, but the view from the ‘sky garden’ there feels suicidal.

1st dinning experience at Dempsey Hill was superb, but a pocket-burning one.
Culina’s food was indeed good, but maybe no beef for me next time.

Awesome birthday treats in August

And yep, I never expect to witness a marriage proposal.
It’s pretty thrilling, even for a bystander like myself.
Hahaha

Dear eleven… you didn’t turn out to be like what I hope to be.
But of what ya imprint still remain some where in my mind, vividly.

Ending off with the last image taken of the year…

THE TIP OF MY LEFT RING FINGER IS OFFICIALLY FLATTEN.
I wonder if anyone else faces such kind of situation?

Happy 2012.

Met up with Jeral & Sandy for a dinner last night, together with Teck & Jeral’s bf, Herman.

It all began when Herman excused himself to the washroom right after our meal.
Teck & I decided to go too and when we were both already done, there was still no sign of Herman.
Teck suggested that he might be into some BIG BUSINESS in the gents since it was taking him so long.

Just then, Herman called Jeral to locate us & appeared in a slow pace (he broke his foot couple of months ago) with his hands behind his back. He revealed a bouquet of white tulips to his girlfriend, which I initially thought was just a simple gesture for Christmas. It then came to me that there’s something more to it & seeing the ring he was holding underneath the bouquet further confirms my assumption.

I (unconsciously) let out a small scream in excitement.

Jeral: “Where have you been to? (Upon sighting of the flowers) What are you doing?”

Herman: “What am I doing? I’m going to propose to you!”
And he knelt, in public, asking for hand in marriage.

Herman was obviously nervous.
Jeraldine was too thrilled, too embarrassed, too stunned, too happy, too touched. Her expression was priceless.

Oh my gosh, the rest of us were running red with the surprise & excitement.
Before I knew it, there was a cameramen behind us.
Darn, got into the video footage. Removed myself out of the scene immediately.
Getting back into my senses, I decided to take part in capturing the moment.

The only one decent still image I managed to shoot.

That unanticipated proposal, overwrites the rest of the night.
It took quite sometime for Jeral to digest what had happened, while we recapped the moment & told Herman that he ought to have reveal his plan to us so that we could have hold Jeral to wait at a more ideal area instead of outside the toilet.
Hahaha.

Had seen several marriage proposals on TV, but nothing beats witnessing your own friend’s. Congrats gal.

Spotted a Christmas Tree decorated with little people yesterday.

They just looked so cute altogether.
It seems as if they are little fairies residing on the tree, playing dress up.

Hello, officer

Hanging out on the tree.

Aye, aye, captain.

Good thinking on using Playmobil figures for the deco.
Merry Christmas

I’m entering a winter wonderland via a wardrobe…
Okay, that’s irrelevant.
Saw the above exhibit from the Chronicles of Narnia at Marina Bay Sands Shoppe.

My main destination, the Arts & Science Museum for Titanic Artifact Exhibition.

It’s been almost a century since the huge ship sank on it’s maiden voyage.
Photography was prohibited, but managed to steal a few shot ;p

The model of the ship is longer than my bed.

Here’s where they say, “You jump, I jump.”

So, this is how the hallway of the 1st class passengers’ berth looked like.

And then, I appeared.

1st class berth

Comfy bed, table, and even resting couch.
And the cost for the 1st class boarding pass, about $15k today’s money. OMG.

The difference in the 3rd class berth…very huge.

Various currencies found in the shipwreck.

And porcelain.

Remake of the grand stairway on the ship.

Mirrors were installed to create an illusion of the never-ending promenade of the 1st class’.

Didn’t manage to snap much thereafter.
The exhibit was rather a disappointment.
Was expecting treasuries and other more exquisite artifacts on display.
But what was shown were mostly torn clothing & wallet that looked like rug, rusted rivets & parts of the ship. After all, they had been soaked in sea water for such a long time. To study the items in detail under low light condition, was rather straining to the eye. The only stuffs that seemed to be in more decent condition were porcelains, glasses & bottles.

End of exhibit, glad to be in a normal lighting area.

Proceeded to Cartier Time Art exhibit.

No image. Because the security was rather tight, quite difficult to take snap shots secretly. The time pieces were pretty, but the lighting for the display were incredibly bright, kill the overall ambience.

Before leaving the museum, a picture with the spinning ‘Christmas Tree’ done by students of Lasalle. Reminds me of an automated fly swatter.

Oh look, a glowing reindeer.

Hyper-ventilated at the sight of this silver-sparkly Daisy Rock Guitar.
It looks wayyyyy awesome in life than those images I saw online.
It’s small, light-weight with narrow neck, pretty ideal piece to get for people with short fingers like myself.

But the downside: the back of the body was made with composite material.
Though the sound produced was sharp & clear, it sounds somewhat ‘fake’ to me, i.e: not as acoustic-sounding as those guitar with wooden bodies.

Secondly, it’s a girl’s guitar… reckon I’m too old for such fanciful instrument
The coating over the sparkles on the guitar might turn yellow over time & the price of this guitar here seemed to be a lot more expensive than getting it from the States.

Ditched the intended purchase.
No sparkly guitar.

Was out in the street on saturday night when we noticed a bunch of youngsters looking towards the sky. Out of curiosity, we looked too, to realise the moon was in an odd shape. Recalling the previous night was a full moon, I shrieked “eclipse! eclipse!” (Geesh… hadn’t been keeping up with the news lately.)

My attempt to capture the almost shadowed moon using my compact cam was a total, blah. I wonder how the image turns out to be like for those equipped with EOS.

Watching the eclipse progression was a neck-straining affair.
Didn’t stay long enough to view the total eclipse – had to catch a bus home.

Before I could go on to brag “it’s the same old Christmas Tree outside ION“, I realized that there’s a balcony installed towards the peak of the tree. Apparently, one could climb up the tree from within to ‘enjoy’ the ‘view’ from the balcony. I hadn’t had the chance to explore as the access timing was over by when I got there.

Like this shot, but the balcony seemed destroy the overall feel of the picture

Was told by the staff that there’s a 50 minutes dining time limit, which left me in a daze for at least a minute because it was my first visit & I had no idea what was going on.
Then I began to worry if there’s sufficient eating time as BS was late for the meal! D:
Thankfully he turned up not long after.

There ain’t any menu for you to look at, except for the gigantic ones on the wall.
Whatever they serve are on the conveyor belt & everything cost $1.50 per plate (before service charge & GST) .

Images of my gluttons:

1 WHOLE SCALLOP!

Tako sushi…

Cream/custard (?) filled mochi.

Ebi~~

Mango pudding…

The best sushi that I had eaten = Grilled Salmon Sushi (glutton, therefore no image).
The sushi there are pretty decent – it’s even better than Sakae Sushi’s.
Limited variety though, got dizzy/bored staring at the rotating sushi…
Left with a super bloated stomach after 8 plates of sushi/deserts.

Loitering around Marina Square after the meal, when something caught BS’s attention…

A Mickey Mouse glove…

My friend of a decade and two years, laughing out loud.
Had no idea what was on his mind that set him laughing, and he couldn’t keep still for a proper picture…

Finally…

Okay, now I know.

Minnie Mouse in town.
The image always turns out to be the best when thy had the face well covered up…

Cafe session @ Starbucks nearby…

Starbucks blueberry muffin was surprisingly good…

but this year festive drink was a disappointment.
My cranberry mocha was awfully SWEET, despite my request to make it blander.
Still prefer last year’s dark cherry coffee.

Self taken image of us, using my cup as a stand!
LOL.