My World Tuesday- Happy New Year 2011

First post for the new year. Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and may 2012 be a better year.

Just back from short trip to Guangzhou, China. It was so much better and safer than I first expected. The last time I visited Guangzhou was in 1986 (antique story already hahaha), so much changes and I will tell my Guangzhou travel story in my travel blog once I loaded my photos. If you are interested you can read about it and how to go about in Guangzhou.

Was about to check in for my flight to Guangzhou last week but was attracted by this huge Merlion Topiary in Changi Airport Terminal 3. I think the Merlion Topiary will be there till after Chinese New Year 2012.


Inside the transit area/departure area, there are more decorations.


Did not visit the butterfly garden in Terminal 3 cause I was taking the morning flight, the butterfly garden was in darkness, I guess butterflies need their beauty sleep too.

For photos on other parts of the world, please visit Our World Tuesday Meme. Thanks to the team of Our World for giving us the opportunity to share my world with the rest of the world.

Posting on Travel Blog

I am back from Penang and will be blogging from my travel blog. This blog is resting for a while. Please head to my travel blog for latest update about me. :) http://alicetravelstory.blogspot.com/

Pink Saturday - Special Post for Pink Saturday's 2nd Birthday

This is a very special post for Pink Saturday on the occasion of its 2nd Birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PINK SATURDAY.

I just came back from Ho Chi Minh City and I thought I wont get to tell you all the story that I am going to share.

The coach that we were on caught some electrical cables that were low lying. I saw one part of the cables already exposed with the wires showing out (photo of exposed wires taken from inside the bus). It was scary, had the driver been impatient and drove off, the cable will snap and the exposed wires will hit the bus and we would get electrocuted.

Our tour leader who forever been taking good care of us make sure all of us are out of the bus and guide us to the rest stop and let the driver and his assistant handle the whole situation.

Cables caught in the ventilator on top of the bus.

I did not buy much in Vietnam, just some keychains and a couple of tee shirts, spend most of my money on food and beverages and just enjoy the sights....lol. I think in my group, hubby and me bought the least...hahaha.

It could be.... I just visited Cambodia six months ago, I find everything in Vietnam is about the same as Cambodia. Also because been travelling so often, I become so lazy to hunt and bargain for the best price and also house run out of space to keep more stuff.

I am more interested in taking more photos and looking at the beautiful architectural buildings, places of attractions, etc.

I think I enjoy most in Vietnam is the water puppet. More about my Vietnam trip will be in my travel blog.

A short video of the water puppet.

I hope I have enough pink in today's post for Pink Saturday.

For more pinky participants, please visit Beverly of How Sweet The Sound.

Going on a vacation

Blogging have to stop for a while.

I am preparing for a short trip to HCM City.

Hope for good weather there so that I could take lots of photos. :)

I am back to Bloggerland

I am slowly coming back to bloggerland. Will be slow in returning visits to your blog (so sorry).

Guess where did I just visited? I was above cloud and no, the answer is not heaven...lol.

My favourite flowers and colour - Lavender

These are lavender flowers that I took in a lavender farm in Melbourne few years ago. My favourite colour is purple so you can see how delighted I was when I saw these purple lavender flowers. I did not know that lavender comes in other colours too till Mable from flowers in Singapore posted a special post just for me. She knew I like lavender flowers. :) Thanks Mable. If you are interested in flowers, do pop over to her blog to see those beautiful flowers.

I never knew they have lavender tea too...lol. But I dislike the tea, tasted funny. I bought some lavender cream from the farm (sorry no photos), they are so good to the skin. :)

And if that is not all, my sister bought this special pillow from Japan (not cheap), in it are dried lavender flowers. Yayy, I love you sis. The pillow serves as an aromatherapy pillow and each time I lied on it, I smell like lavender flowers too...lol.

I will tried to post more purple items next time when I run out of photos to post...lol

Skywatch

Took this photo in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. It showed the monorail with the KL tower in the background.

Hubby and me was lost for a while in Chow Kit Place but from far we saw the monorail track, so we walked towards the track and managed to find a monorail station and realised we were one station away from Chow Kit Station where we first alighted and where we wanted to headed for...lol.

For more of my travel photos in Kuala Lumput, you could view them in my travel blog.

For other sky watchers, you can go to Skywatch blog.

Malaysia - Twin Tower

I am back from my Kuala Lumpur's trip. This is the twin tower in Kuala Lumpur, West Malaysia, it used to be the highest building in the world.

Will blog more about my trip in my travel blog.

Resting and will be away

I will be resting and not blog for the rest of week. Going away for a while...

Skywatch-birdnest

This photo of bird nest was taken during my South Korea's trip earlier this year.
Can you spot the bird that made the nest?

For other sky watchers, you can go to Skywatch blog.

NATAS Travel Fair 2008 - Part 2 (Final) and Olympics Mascots

Today my post will be on the Olympics Mascot for tomorrow Olympics in Beijing, China.

A friend who just returned from a holiday in Beijing, China, gave me this momentos with the olympic mascots. I am so crazy over these cute mascots. You can view the huge mascots in Bank of China Singapore in my earlier post.

Engravings behind the momentos that showed the olympics logo.

More olympics mascots at the NATAS FAIR.

Saw these cute mascots at the travel.

These mascots were arranged by ASA Travel Holidays to mingle with the crowds as they organised many China Tours.

My husband was laughing so hard at me for running after these mascots just to take a photo of them..lol

NATAS TRAVEL FAIR 2008 Part 1

Last Saturday, I was at Singapore Expo for the NATAS Travel Fair. I was collecting some travel guides and brochures. We need to pay an admission fee of $3 for adults. The fair was over a three day period and saw a record of 65,000 people visiting the fair. The travel companies make a few millions during this 3 days. Singaporean love to travel.

Look at the crowd queuing to enter. But the queue was fast moving. I was lucky when I was there at 1.30 pm on Saturday, the queue was much shorter but later in the afternoon, the queue was so much longer.

Inside the exhibition hall it was so huge that it was not very cramp or stuffy. The air conditioning was cooling enough to handle the huge crowd.

Lots of good bargains and discounts at the exhibition for travels to many countries. And all these come with freebies.

For more photos on the fair, you could view them at my travel blog.

A trip to Mount Faber (Final part)-View from the park

Tourists from China are having a good time taking photos from this little park on the beautiful view from here.

This is the huge cruise ship which had just left the cruise centre at Harbour Front. The cruise centre will be relocated to a newer and bigger cruise centre at Marina South in a few years time.

Good view of the housing apartments where majority of Singaporeans own their own apartments. Our Housing Development Board just won 2008 United Nations Public Service Award. The United Nations (UN) has conferred the 2008 United Nations Public Service Award for "Improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the Public Service" to HDB for its Home Ownership Programme. Source: from here

We are a very tiny country so our houses are built upwards.

A trip to Mount Faber (Part 4-Park)

Still on top of Mount Faber. And at this little park, we could learn about the directions from where we were standing, where our neighbouring countries were.

There are more but I was so tired so I only managed to snap these few countries directions.

A trip to Mount Faber-Part 4 (Park)

Still at the top of Mount Faber. Just about 10 minutes walk from the Mount Faber Cable Car Station, there was a small park that was so lovely. It was much cooler over here with huge trees which gives us shade from the hot sun.

This is the Singapore Icon - the Merlion on top of Mount Faber. There are about four Merlions as far as I know in Singapore. The others are the famous Merlion and its baby at Fullerton and the huge Merlion on Sentosa.

Plenty of flowers and greenery as we walked to this little park.

Vanda Miss Joaquim - our Singapore flower

Bee at work

Look out for more photos at this park which would be of interest to you.

A trip up Mount Faber - Part 2 (City View)

Looking from the other side of Mount Faber, I could now see the city view instead of the sea view.

These are the housing apartments of the heartlanders of Telok Blangah, they are at least 30 years of age but the apartments in here are worth more than in some other estates because of their location. The apartments over here have a backing of Mount Faber and a sea view (good fengshui). In Feng Shui, a backing of a mountain/hill meant protection and water meant wealth.

Looking further away, we could see the skyline of the city. It looked cramp but in between these buildings there are plenty of greenery otherwise we wont be called a garden city. :)

More photos of Mount Faber coming up in later post.

A trip up Mount Faber - Part 1(Sea View)

Mount Faber is not a mountain but rather is a hill measuring only 105 metres in height. It is a place where you could dine or just relax or take a stroll. Sorry there wont be any shopping malls up there. One can have a panaromic view of Singapore up above Mount Faber.
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(The above photo had the view of the busy shipping port.)

There are many ways of going up Mount Faber. One way is driving up or taking a cab. A cheaper way is to take the public bus no. 409 at Harbour Front Bus Terminal for only $1 (one way trip). However the bus is only available during weekend. Or you could take the cable car from Harbour Front to Mount Faber and if you bought the return trip ticket, you could use it to go to Sentosa too or vice versa. For more information on the cable car, you could visit website. It is wiser to buy the return trip ticket instead of a one way ticket (it is just a difference of $1).

(The above photo shows the Harbour Front Cable Car Station, the cruise centre and Sentosa. The cruise centre will be relocated to Marina South in later years. Lots of construction on Sentosa.)

Another way is taking the stairs (opposite harbour front) to climb up to Mount Faber but it could be tiring. The latest trend was taking the bus 409 to Mount Faber and then walk down the hill via Henderson Waves Bridge (Singapore highest pedestrian bridge). You can see the photo of the beautiful bridge in here.

(The above photo shows some condominium and further away you might be able to see Indonesia on a fine day.)

More information and photos of Mount Faber could be seen in their official website.

I have more photos of Mount Faber in later post.

Sky watch-Cable Cars To Mount Faber

Yes, Yes, I am so much better now. Thanks to all my fellow bloggers for your concern and well wishes. So come with me today for a top of the world feeling at Mount Faber. :) Mount Faber is not a mountain despite the "mount". It is only a hill about 105 metres in high. Singapore is generally a very flat piece of land and no mountains except for some hills.

This is the cable car station at Harbour Front. You could take the cable car to Sentosa or to Mount Faber.

A closer look at the cable cars from where I was standing.

This is the Mount Faber station where the cable car is heading.

I am standing at the top of Mount Faber, which had a very good bird eye view of south of Singapore and Sentosa. I will post more photos of Mount Faber in later post.

Thanks to Tom for hosting Sky Watch. For other sky watchers, you can go to Tom's website.