The day the parakeet decided to escape

These photos belong to my best friend, Diana and she is so nice to allowed me to put in my blog. Her son took these photos when he found a stray birdie in his study room. I think the photos make an interesting story to tell.

I think birds like to be free in the sky.

So this little parakeet (hope I am right about the species) decided to escape from its owner. Well done, birdie.

I guess birdie decided to check Diana's son's homework.

Here's looking at the photographer and posing for him.

Now to check Diana's son's calender for his daily activities listed there...hehehe

Thanks Diana for the photos, I enjoyed them very much.

QUIZ NO. 2

This is a 33 metre Buddha Statue in Dongwasha Temple in Daegu,South Korea. It was raining that day and the whole place was so cold and misty. It made the whole atmosphere quite eerie. The buddha looked like it was crying because of the rainfall. I was so cold while trying to take a snapshot of the buddha and my hands felt so icy cold.

I have a little quiz for you folks. Look at the round circle on the buddha. Can you guess what that object under the buddha's left hand is? (Click on the photo to enlarge.) The quiz was asked by the korean tour guide for us to guess but none of us got it correct. So I now set this quiz to my fellow bloggers and see who can guess it right. Sorry no prize for the correct answer, this is just for fun.

This is an enlarged version. Try to guess what that round thing under the left hand is.

ANSWER will be revealed on sunday. Have fun.

Anderson Bridge

Day view of Anderson Bridge

Night View of Anderson Bridge taken from another direction.

Anderson bridge was opened in 1910. It was named after Sir John Anderson, the governor of the Straits Settlement from 1904-1911.

It comprises three steel arches with supporting steel ribs extending across them, two rusticate archways and a fluted pier at each end.

Anderson bridge is a typical 3-hinged arch bridge. The arches use a curved structure which provides a high resistance to bending force.

Today, Anderson Bridge continues to serve as a carriageway for the many vehicles travelling between Connaught Drive and Shenton Way(Source: http://www1.moe.edu.sg/learn@/singaporerivertrail/sec/G041_Dunman_Sec/bridges.htm)

Cavenagh Bridge

This bridge built in 1869 was originally known as the Edinburgh Bridge to commemorate the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh.

The bridge was renamed in honour of Colonel Cavenagh, the last India-appointed Governor of Singapore. It was originally planed as a drawbridge. However, it was found upon completion to be suitable only as a fixed structure. It is now a pedestrain bridge.

It used to be accessible to people, rickshaws and ox carts but it was overloaded with the flourishing trade of Singapore and now the bridge is only accessible to pedestrians.

Space Korea 2008

I saw the happiness in the faces of the Korean when this astronaut mascot appeared in the shopping street. I too gave this astronaut a congratulation hug. Well done Korean. May the next space astronaut come from Singapore.

Back from Holiday

Hi all, Sorry for taking a long rest from blogging. I took a vacation to South Korea for a holiday and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the cold weather. I thought it was already springtime in Korea but the weather seems to be winter. At times it dropped to 2 degrees celsius during the day and night it was freezing cold. Good thing I had my winter jacket and some warm clothings. I hope to sort out the holiday photos and post them in my travel blog and food blog. I might be slow in posting photos in this blog, so please visit my other blogs for the holiday photos.

Taking A Long Rest From Blogging

Thanks to all who visited my blog and leaving so many nice comments. It is ok if you dont visit daily and I dont visit daily too. I guess most of us are too busy with careers, family, school, etc

I will be taking a long rest from blogging. Please visit again in April for more photos. See you all and wish everyone have a nice time blogging. :)

Kucinta Sculpture

I did not take a good photo(not the perfect angle) of these cat sculptures cause it started to rain and I was trying to protect my camera, so this is the only photo of the cats. There are about 15 such cat sculptures along Singapore River, sadly some are stolen.

These cats are known as the Singapura Cat or Kucinta. To know how the name come about or the origins of the cat you need to read this story.

The River Merchants

These sculptures are done by by Dr Aw Tee Hong.

The sitting sculpture is one of Singapore's earliest merchants, Mr Alexander Laurie Johnston, interacting with the local merchants.

The sculpture of these coolies(workers) loading goods onto a bullock cart, a common sight during the earlier days of Singapore.

Behind this sculpture is the Maybank which is sponsoring these sculptures. The Maybank Tower site is the original site of Mr Johnston's godown - Alexander Laurie Johnston & Co.

A common sight of teachers bringing students out on a live history lesson. A lesson out of the classroom. I think it is great.

Note: There are about 30 sculptures along the Singapore River, I hope to find them all but some are quite small and the river is quite long.

First Generation Sculpture

The above photo of the sculpture is titled "First Generation".

The sculpture was done by Chong Fah Cheong

The bronze sculpture shows five boys jumping into the river for a swim just like the people who stay near the river did in the past.

Bank Promotion

The mannequins on the scaffoldings are part of a bank's promotion. The bank is promoting its commercial international centre. That was why the mannequins were dressed in international costumes.

At first glance, I thought there were workers doing some painting or renovation near the bank...lol.

Scary Cloud

The weather seems to be changing everyday. Been raining heavily end of last year and we finally see nice weather in February and now it is raining heavily again.

This scary dark cloud was taken last week at around 7 pm. It was going to rain but the sky looked so gloomy and dark and scary and when it finally rain it was scary with the sound of the strong wind especially so when I stay in a highrise apartment.

Plane partially hidden in sky

Recently, we had this air show in Singapore in the east of Singapore. So there were many planes flying above us.

I managed to snap and zoom on this huge plane flying above me.
I did not realised I captured this photoshot of the plane hidden partially in my photo till I looked through the photos in my computer. I think it is cute. The front part of the plane was hidden in the clouds.

Final Posting on Cocktail Stirrers

This will be my final posting on my hobby, collection of cocktail stirrers. I dont collect them anymore, they are collected during my teenage time.

This stirrer is from New Zealand, I cant remember who gave me this. I like the design of it.

These are from Mandarin Hotel. It looked like a mandarin hat worn by an ancient scholar.

I liked this stirrer from West End Club Disco at Goodwood Hotel. I remembered after the disco, we went for supper above the disco and we had sumptous taiwanese porridge. Nice fond memories. My ex-disco friends, if you are reading this, do you still remember?

That's all folks, on my collection of cocktail stirrers, hope you all find them interesting and enjoyable.

Cocktail stirrers from Disco and Lounges

All these cocktail stirrers are collected from discos and lounges in Singapore and majority of the discos are no longer around. Xanudu in Shangri La Hotel, Black Velvet in Sheraton Hotel and West End Club (i think in Goodwood Hotel) were my favourite discos, the atmosphere and music were good. I guess cybergames were not invented during that time, so we all end up in discos on a Saturday night...lol.

I no longer remember many of the other discos' names....lol

Closer look at the Neptune Theatre's Cocktail Stirrer.

It has the image of the Sea King, Neptune.

Cocktail stirrers from other discos.

The above stirrers are all look alike except the prints on them but they belonged to different discos. I guess they have the same supplier.

Cocktail Stirrers Part 3 (Airlines)

All these cocktail stirrers are more than 20 years old and they are my treasures. I have no heart to throw them away even though some looked old.

I guess most of you know the logo of the above. Yes, they are from Singapore Airlines.

The above are from Japan Airlines (JAL)

All these stirrers are from different airlines and the one from Pan Am looked like a baseball bat. And I think Pan Am is no longer around.

Hope you enjoy these cocktail stirrers from different airlines.

More coming up......

Cocktail Stirrers Part 2

These cocktail stirrers are from overseas hotels. Some of them are easily recognized by their logos, especially the one from Tokyo and HongKong.

The one from Tokyo has an arch logo and the one from Hongkong has a chinese junk logo.

More tomorrow.........

Cocktail Stirrers Part 1

This is one of my unique hobby, collecting cocktail stirrers. It so happened when I was a teenager where disco was the craze back then and the drinks come with all these beautiful stirrers. My friends and I started collecting them and no we dont have to pay for them cause the drinks were paid by the guys...hehehe.

But seems like I am the only one still keeping these fond memories, my friends had discarded them all.

The above cocktail stirrers are my favourite. They were given to me by a friend. On the left has a shape of a kris and on the right is a wayang kulit.

The above are collected during my trip to Bangkok in 1983. Love the beautiful designs on the stirrers.

Closer look at the stirrers. On the left is an image of a traditional dancer and on the right is a four face elephant. (Elephant is the National Symbol of Thailand. Elephants in Thailand have always been a symbol of both power and peace.)

There were be more articles on my collection of cocktail stirrers in my future posts.

Paper Cutting Crafts

This is one of my favourite stall. I loved to watch them cutting those red papers. They are very skillfull and the crafts are lovely.

One of the favourite place for the teenagers to hang out

There is this huge atrium at the underground pass linking from citylink to esplanade theatre. This is the place where most teenagers would gather. The below photos are taken during a weekday night but come saturday night, it would be very crowded with teenagers doing their things.

Some would practise their skateboarding skills.

And there are some who practise their hip hop dance, and some just sit around and chat and looking at the people who looked at them.

Arts Exhibition at the Esplanade - Part 3

And they called this arts. Sorry, I do not know much about art but sometimes art can be funny. You can put a chair in an empty room and that is art too....lol. I guess arts is to make us think and imagine whatever we want about the piece of work.

Singapore wins bid to host 2010 YOG

Yayyyyy, Congratulations to Singapore for winning the bid to host the first Youth Olympics Games in 2010.

I was watching with joy with my family live on TV. The following photos are taken from television. For more information, click here .

Art Exhibition at Esplanade - Part 2

More Arts exhibition at the Esplanade. They are quite interesting. Some with same pictures but different expressions.

Art Exhibition at Esplanade

As I was walking towards the Esplanade MRT station, I was attracted by some of these arts display at the esplanade.

This window displayed the laughing gas. It reminded us to slow down and stop and to remember to laugh.

Did we really forgotten to laugh? Life in Singapore is so fast. In a recent research , Singapore was found to be the world's fastest walkers.

Hahaha, even our broadband and our computers have the fastest speed in downloading other websites. I need to slow down so that my blog visitors have time to catch up....hehehe.

I apologised to my blog visitors who had trouble downloading my website, I now have adjusted my blog so that there are lesser posts on the main page so that you can load faster to view my blog. So sorry.

Please slow me down and stop and remind me to laugh...hahaha

This machine make the laughing sound in the window display. And no there is no laughing gas in there.

Roads closed for Chingay Procession

If you find it strange for the empty streets and the barricade, it was because I took these photos on the eve of Chingay Procession. Sorry I wasn't at the chingay procession so there wont be any photos of the procession. You can see them in this link .

Empty streets, road closing soon.

On a normal day, the city hall will be empty of all these barricades, scaffoldings, tents, etc.