.: Happy 50th Birthday, NTU! :.Today is NTU's 50th aniversary celebration and everyone was given a half day off today due to preparation of the performance.
Although i didnt make it down to watch the live performance, there's still the live webcast! But then the webcast was so darn lagged and in the end, i miss a great deal of FIR's live performance! Sob... And they never sing their love songs which i really like. Nevertheless, FIR is fantastic! If not because of so many things this week, i would have gone down to the Quad to watch. Ggrrr... and such a pity cos Stefanie Sun did not come down. haha! Right, Janice? oh.. there's also fireworks shot out from School of Biological Sciences.
( It happens to be the official opening for the school. How lucky! and my poor SCBE squeezes at one tiny corner besides them and is still building. =( ) So NDP ... wahaha...Besides the performance at the Quad, there's also an opening ceremony at the Chinese Heritage Centre and Yunnan Garden. As i watched the webcast, I realised that the "normally waterless fountain" become a pond with a few pots of plant(water plants i think...). As usual, there's the few speeches made by our principal, Dr Su Guaning and PM Lee.. in both English and Chinese. "How far we have come blah blah.. blah blah.. "
As for NTU's birthday present this year, it shall be a 10 million donation from the Lee Foundation that will go into research. NTU is 10 million bucks richer! And for doing so, NTU will rename MLT (
Main Lecture Theatre - Our largest and most comfortable LT in NTU) to
Lee Kong Chian LT. Hmmm... i guess i still prefer to call it MLT rather than LKCLT... =)
.: The Great Malaysia Seafood Adventure :.
Yeah! Finally the long-awaited trip had finally came yesterday after a good
4 months of postphoning. We have been talking about the trip for ages since the end of last semester but due to the busy 3 months of camp preparation, we only end up going to Malaysia until now. haha...
Straight after class, Jul, Lx, Sotong, Yeling, Winnie and I immediately set off to take the train to Kranji to take a bus to the Singapore Checkpoint while Weilun send Lesley back to her house to get her passport, joining us later. Besides Lx and me, the rest were unfamiliar with the clearing of the Custom, so Lx and I ocsasionally acted like "tour guides", guiding them along and constantly reminding them to stick close together and take care of their belongings. This is my first time entering JB with my friends as for the past 20 years since i was a baby, i am always entering JB with my mum to visit my maternal family and mummy has "trained me well to be a Crossing Causeway Vetran". Hehe...
Soon after that, Lesley and Weilun finally met up with us at the Malaysian Checkpoint and we headed off to JB City Square for shopping. Sigh. Didnt manage to find the Levis graphic tee i wanted over there. Among all of us, only Weilun managed to buy his clothes. It's kinda comical (ironic) to see so many gers waiting for him, the only guy, shopping for his clothes. haha. Reversal of role heh? There aint many nice clothes to buy over there for the gers. Personally, i would still prefer to buy my clothes in Sg rather than in Msia. Somehow there just dont appeal to me and i rarely buy back any clothes from Msia. The only appeal of JB for me were the cheap and good food, the DVDs and the chewing gum. wahaha...
After shopping for DVDs, some Yammi yoghurt and Lixin's Rotiboy, we set off to 大马花园 for our seafood dinner feast to satisfy our cravings and growling tummy. We ordered to about 10 of the favourite dishes..(look below for pics) ...There's
炒面, 铁板豆腐, 鸡精田鸡, 醉虾(Drunken Prawns), 豆苗, Butter Crayfish, Steamed fish, SpicyBBQ Stingray, 苏东油条, chilli "lala" ...10 c0urse Heavenly meal! wahaha... Besides, guess how much the total meal cost? Only RM330!!! That's only RM40 each person and about 18 Sin dollars. Plus there's so much food that nearly burst all our tummy. (In Singapore, It's more likely that your wallet will burst with a hole instead of your tummy.) Yummy... !!!
Just after the meal, we noticed the next table was a family drinking some purple juice which looked like
Potassium Permaganate. Purple? Such an odd colour juice.. The fruit juice auntie finally enlightened us that it was the Dragon Fruit Juice (龙珠果) and Weilun ordered one packet to try. We all took turns and tried it. Man!!! Taste.. really great! Buay tahan. Refreshing with a tinge of lemon juice but not sour like lemon juice. Perfect!
Janice, Yeling (sitting like a King with 2 concubines) and Winnie on the train
Juliana, Juan and Lixin on the train. haha..Btw, Juliana is our "superstar xinhui" look-alike. Even our prof thought she was her.
Yeling, with a very satisfying look... eating her Auntie Anne's Almond pretzels.. at JB's City Square's Secret Recipe while we all waiting for our cakes to come.
See that sizzzzling good food right in front of them? haha.. There's the 铁板豆腐, 苏东油条 with mayonise, 豆苗, BBQ stingray and the "lala". More coming up man!
From left: Lxin, Yeling, Jul, Weilun, Winnie, Janice, Juan, Lesley before diggin in.
Initially wanted to take a picture of the sizzling good food placed on our table, but suddenly Lixin sticked out her hand to grab her food.
The Butter Crayfish. It used to be a heap of crayfish piled up like a mountain. But when i took out my camera, the mountain becomes a hill.
Juliana and Weilun.. the funny pair.
Everyone cant resist taking pictures with their crayfish to show off their "object of truimph", the butter crayfish with the meat dug out from the shell. Oishii!!! =P
Juliana and Weilun with their big big piece of crayfish dug out from the shell. The crayfish.. erm.. abit the heavy to hold with the chopsticks.. can tell from Weilun's "twisted" face.
Sotong and me with our butter crayfish! Oishii!!!
Steamed fish.. fresh and tender white meat.. perfect!
The aftermath after a 10 course meal. Yummy.. *Burp*
Yeling eating the whole plate of steamed fish, wiping it clean from the head to the tail of the fish. haha...and everyone waiting for her to finish up. (that explains the fingers pointing..)
A Giant ANT is on exhibition in Zoo.
Wanna a ride on ... ANT?
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It's the elephant ride lah! =P
(Sorry. If u think it's stupid, pls put the blame on the guy who took the pic)
.: The Maths Lecturer/Tutor :.我有一个让我们有好气有好笑的讲师. 真的把大家都搞疯了.因为他, 我们已对数学感到绝望,希望自己的数学不会"打包". 他简直成了大家的恶梦!
在上课时,几乎没有人听得懂他到底在说什么.说英语时, 中国口音太重. 有时喜欢对自己说话或对空气说话, 不然就是太快. 我真是"捡不到球"(catch no ball). 不管大家如何使劲的听,还是听不明白. 日语的听力测 验都还没有那么糟糕!
昨天在上他的课时, 真是一只"苏东", 竟然用marker写在projector screen上! 他还以为是白板.简直 让我们全部都笑到倒地!我的妈啊!!! 最不能让大家容忍的是他有时很喜欢穿他青得不能再青的衣服,而且还是一件名牌! 要不然就是穿得乌漆摸黑的来上课, 真是受不了.
.: Happy 40th Birthday Singapore! :.Singapore turns 40 today (9Aug) ! The moment i step out of house this afternoon, almost everyone on the street wore red (except me.) The National day spirit is in the air..
Although i have never got any NDP tickets before, I have gone for NDP as a performer. And that was 5 years ago during my time in SC. At that time, NDP was also held at Padang since they wanted to have it to be a special NDP for year 2000, the start of a new millenium. I still remembered that fugly costumes
(with ultra long "slinky-alike" sleeve, sequined) we used to wear and the "kungfu-like" dance steps. There's also 2 huge lamps that we were supposed to carry while we danced away. It was kinda screwed up during the actual day itself cos the effect did not come out well. From the TV, the camera from the above helicopter shot a "rather distorted sun and stars" as the lamps were too dim. The costumes were too fugly that we dare not take any pictures in case we embarrassed ourselves. The make up we had was quite funny too. My cheeks were red like monkey's butts! and my hair was full of glitter gel.(got quite a bit of problem getting that glitters off.)
During the grand finale, we had to get together and form a shape of our Sunny little island, carrying red/white umbrella. After that was the firework displays right above my head. Woah. The feeling was.. marvellous. It's so beautiful up there in the dark sky. Guess thats when i totally fell in love with fireworks. Soon, it was the saying of pledge and singing of the national anthem. For the first time, i was saying the pledge loudly and properly. At that moment in time, i suddenly felt so immensed in my national pride. I feel so proud to be a Singaporean! So touched that i almost cried. I guess thats why some people wanted to go to NDP.. to feel that sense of identity as a Singaporean truly. The spirit in the air...
Reached Esplanade at about 6. But the place was already quite packed with families. Some families were even having picnic there. There's this Malay family who really brought along a trolley of food and it seems that they had their lunch and dinner there. haha! And many using the Camera tripod stand to "chope" strategic places to capture the fireworks later at 8 plus. Dad who were pointing to their kids and babies the helicopters and the fighter planes and excited kids that shouted "BooM!" whenever the cannon fired. All of us were mesmerized by the fireworks ( 2 times ). Fantastic... =) Unfortunately, the pictures that i took for the firework were kinda blotched up, end up either too exposed or blurry or capturing too much smoke instead of the light. Wahaha.. I thought the ones that i took at last year's Firework Fest was much more decent.
Below were some pictures that i took at the Esplanade..
The NS guys preparing for NDP. Poor boys.
Haha.. what colourful "fart".. cool huh..
The parachauters coming down! Hehe.. manage to get a pretty good shot of them while they slowly adjust to be dropped down at Padang.
At the Esplanade. It is super duper packed with people waiting to capture a glimpse of the planes flying and the fireworks. There's the red clown/devil? dancing onto a stand before the start of the action.
The crowd over at the Merlion. Unfortunately the bridge is closed due to the shooting of fireworks. If not, it is a good spot as well to capture the scenary..
The crowd gathering at the Esplanade and if you notice, there's a large crowd over at the Benjamin Sheares Bridge waiting to capture the action. It's a pretty good spot for capturing the fireworks since the fireworks are shot from three location and you can view all of them up there at the bridge.
The Singapore Flag flying past. Salute!
The fighter planes approaching!!!
