Beach Scene Investigation - Sentosa Island, Singapore

You must have noticed that my blog is in some kind of delayed time zone. Yes, only now am I recapping my life last month..

Rather unplanned for, but somehow landed myself at Sentosa Island, Singapore for a little short trip. It was fully paid for and organized by Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks, Asia. But nothing really comes free as we worked hard on the 2nd Day for the bus fare and the 5-star hotel stay.


Rasa Sentosa Resort

I never re-visited Sentosa since I was a kid and I must say it was quite fun. The well-planned, well-organized structure of everything Singapore is apparent here in this little island. We started with some sight-seeing on the first day we arrived after checking into the Rasa Sentosa Resort. Cellie became our unofficial tour guide yet again with her prepared research and advance trip planning. For that I am grateful as I was completely zoned out when arrived, haven’t comprehended what I was doing there and how I managed to pack for the trip due to some really hectic work schedule recently.

We started off at the Underwater World right outside the hotel entrance at Siloso Point. Managed to catch the turtles feeding time outside the oceanarium.




Turtles feeding

The Underwater World is home to more than 2,500 fishes from 250 different species. The S$19.90 ticket started with the Touch Pool for some touchy feely experience with starfish and stingrays.



The highlight attraction is the ocean depths view via a moving travellator that moves through a tunnel. Sharks, stingrays, eels and schools of fish glide past around.


The tunnel


The view through the moving travellator


Er.. what are they doing in the oceanarium..

Included in the ticket admission is a visit to the Dolphin Lagoon at Palawan Beach, all the way at the other end of the island. The pink dolphins, the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins, ‘entertained’ us with their performance and get fed for their hard work.


Dolphin Lagoon at Pahlawan Beach


Pink dolphins doing tricks..


Loved the double-decker bus with open rooftop! Great view along the way..

Next, like some kids, we went for the Luge & Skyride. Claimed to be the first ever in Southeast Asia, the luge is part go-cart, part-toboggan and it’s a gravity ride controls with steering and the braking system. Looked scary at first but it was fun-filled when we got a hang of it. GothNol claimed to finished the race in front of me.. how could that be? Such an unaccountable reporting.


The Luge

After all the downhill excitement from the Luge, we have to take the Skyride back up to where we started. Lovely lovely view!


The Skyride


View from the skyride

I usually would have sat back and enjoyed the view, but this time, I couldn’t. For I was busy taking pictures of this adorably frightened ItcL all the way to the top.


Look at him! Priceless expression :)

And then we realized why both the guys wanted to sit in between us girls. They both have the same syndromes having to endure the ‘adventurous’ ride.


Come on GothNol, just admit it..

We took the Sentosa Express out to VivoCity, Singapore’s largest retail mall, hoping to squeeze in some shopping and to grab some dinner.


VivoCity


Cellie, leading in strategizing where to eat..

The few identified restaurants were all packed! You would have thought all Singaporeans made a pact to eat out at this same hour as the queue to almost every single restaurant was just unbelievable. Our growling stomach couldn’t hold that long. We ended up at Pocket Full Of Posies, this little café cum florist with so-so service, but food was not bad.


Yum.. I'm hungry looking at food now

We shopped till the shops were closed and took our own sweet time walking back to the Sentosa Express train station.


even had time to play in the kids' wading pool

By the end of 1st day, I was so tired that I knock-out immediately upon hitting the bed.. dreading the challenges lined up for us on Day 2.

The next morning after breakfast, we were hanging around the resort taking pictures and trying to relax before the challenge commenced in the afternoon.


Chilling out


Posing for photos outdoor.. this was before


GothNol & Michiyo decided to do a rain dance


thus it started pouring!!


Not deterred, we continued photo posing indoor instead

The Challenge :



Beach Scene Investigation? What?! Me? Do I look like I can figure out clues and find a murderer? Haha..

But that was the challenge. Participants were given clues and a detailed race briefing before the flag-off. The clues lead to checkpoints all around the island and there were a total of 14 to be reached and to complete tasks given at each. Ya, a bit like Amazing Race. We were divided into 4 in a team.


in BSI T-shirts, taken before the briefing - reminds me of activities back in school days


Clues given and one of the task card

Together with my team, we started from the nearest to the hotel checkpoint but seeing how crowded with other teams it was, decided not to wait and headed straight to the furthest checkpoint of all and worked backwards. So glad we did that as most teams didn’t manage to reach the beach bar KM8 at Tanjong Beach. We spent a bit of time here doing a sudoku, colouring a fairy and hitting some cans with marble balls and lastic.

But we gave ourselves a fright by the time we completed the Dragon Trail (a nature walk) of which we ran up and down the whole trail for missing checkpoints, when overheard the marshal over the walkie-talkie saying that there was only one team left who has not entered the Dragon Trail. What?! Meaning we were second last out of the 25 teams?? We found the Dragon Trail not extremely taxing physically, but we were lost when having to name the Animax programmes! :)

Coming out from the Dragon Trail matrix of 8 checkpoints completed, we still had 3 uncompleted task by then, 2 of which were inside the resort that we skipped earlier. We decided to go ahead to the checkpoint at Merlion (this wasn’t because we figured out where the marble was from, but we pestered the Marshal to give us further clue!).


The Merlion

We were lucky to find the foreign coin at Merlion at no time and rushed back to the hotel. Copied that stupidly long AfterWorld essay and then were told we didn’t do it correctly and had to re-write! OMG! We were supposed to ‘duplicate’ exactly line for line, and not just re-writing it.

The last checkpoint was by far the easiest. Having to identify the finger print on the murder weapon as per clue given. We completed all the 14 checkpoints by 6.30pm! The cut off time for the game for all teams to return to starting point. And guess what?! We won! We won!! Er.. only the 4th place. Still!? It was great! Not many teams completed all the tasks within the given time frame. Not that I want to be sexist here, but we were also an all girls team! (the top 3 winning teams have at least 1 guy in their respective teams) :P

We gathered back for a beachside dinner. Dinner theme was Sexy Miami Experience, with the raciest beach wear (no, it was very mild).


Dinner by the beach


Group photo of past and current OMDians

After dinner, we proceeded to continue the party at Café del Mar, alongside Siloso Beach, a short walking distance from the hotel.


Café del Mar

Beautiful ambient, the music coupled with the sound of waves, the place is equipped with beds and cabanas, as well as jacuzzi!



However, the drinks suck big time! All the different drinks that we ordered individually failed everyone's taste bud miserably.

Early the next morning, we bid Rasa Sentosa Resort farewell and headed back to KL.


The resort - day and night view

Though short, it has really been an unexpected fun and enjoyable trip.

Craving for Fries!

(image source) too cute to resist

Sweet treats or Salty fries? What's your weakness?

Truly a City of Entertainment

Last month, I (again) went up to the City of Entertainment on a whim. What did I do? I stalked cute little angels.


Cute rite?


Look at her.. awww..

Adorable because they are other people’s kids.

And 2 weeks later, I made another impromptu trip up to the resort. This time in the name of Jazz Festival appreciation.


Where passion meets fusion at the International Jazz Festival

We were late and hardly an hour later, walked out of the hall to hunt for food.

Ended up at Bakery after dinner to enjoy a cup of highly recommended hot chocolate and foregoing the Jazz Festival all together (by then, we realized our guys could perform the sound fusion on par with international standard..).




Before & after - Eating chocolates with milk? or Chocolat au Lait (the hot choc is not especially yummy but it was fun to melt the chocolates)

I’m not a big fan of Genting Highlands. It is over-crowded, me and gambling don’t go well and the theme parks are nothing to shout about. The weather maybe, but then again I’m terribly afraid of cold. But I like breaking the monotonous of my life in KL.. it’s like a little side trip.

And then, I came across this couple’s engagement photos by Zach Chin Photography. Would you have thought these were taken in Genting?






Photos credit goes to Zach, and to Chiew Ling & Wai Choon – congratulations (more photos here)

Yes, it’s my wedding-planning mode kicking in again. Bride-to-be is in a frantic midst of looking for a photographer. Photography skill aside (didn’t say it’s not important, but it has to come without saying), I like a photographer who could spot uncanny places for photo shoot.

My question is – do you think it’s weird to be in wedding gown running around town taking pictures? Will you pretend you do not know me and promise never to call out for me if you do bump into me doing so? But if I do decide to do so, I’m more than likely to have to do it on my own as fiancé has cast-off public places for the pre-wedding shoot.

Halong Bay, Vietnam – The Land of Scams?

It has been more than a month since we were back from Vietnam and finally, I’m writing the long-awaited Halong Bay piece. Why bother? Since I’m sure all of you who know us would have heard of the horror story by now. But this one is for my own record.

Many believe that if you haven’t visited Halong Bay, you haven’t really visited Vietnam. And so, Halong Bay was thus, a highlight of our trip. Halong Bay is a World Heritage site. A huge bay, with 2,000 limestone formations, scattered with wooden junk boats, offers breathtaking scenery.


It truly was quite awesome

We booked an overnight tour to Halong Bay through the hotel for USD53 per person. The tour was operated by Minh Sinh Travels. Departed from Hanoi at 8.30 in the morning and it took 4 hours to reach Halong City.

I think all tour minibuses stop at the claimed outlet shop selling products for war handicapped children on the way there and back. Can’t help but wonder how much profits would reach them.


The humanitarian center

When we reached Halong jetty, we had to wait around for quite a long time for our tour guide to settle some ‘problems’ (the infamous word we kept hearing within that 2 days) with our fellow traveller’s passports. And we surrendered our passports then, to be returned at end of tour.


I love the clashing colours of our t-shirts! No, we didn’t plan it

We amused ourselves looking at these 2 Canadian guys, urging mmkk to go for one of them. Obviously having them next to us, we started talking in Bahasa with a mixture of Cantonese, only to be greeted “Apa khabar?” by one of them. Opps!! Found out that he was working in Indonesia and picked up the language along the way and he’s currently based in Hong Kong. Double OPPS!! He won’t happen to know Cantonese too?! Luckily for us, no, he has not been able to learn that yet.


Lunch on board

Lunch was served when we boarded the boat, “Dream Vovage” (nice name, eh?). Food was quite crappy and we then noticed the other tables were served prawns. When ours didn’t arrive, we asked the staff only to be told rudely, “no prawns”. Oh well, did we pay lesser than the others? We soon found out there were a vast disparity of how much each of us paid (No, ours wasn’t the cheapest). But were we given the choice of packages upon sign-up? No.


Dream Vovage (that turned nightmarish)

The boat cruised along the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.





We then stopped at one of the many islands and went caving at Hang Sung Sot Cave.



There were proper walkways and coloured spotlights illuminating the limestone formations.


They all looked alike after a while


View from top before leaving the cave

The whole trip turned into a nightmare around this time when the tour guide, River (he claimed his Vietnamese name means river), told us they had some ‘problems’ and 2 of the rooms in the junk were ‘broken’ (like how?). He begged for our understanding and offered to find us another junk to spend the night. It was a scam to start off with when the operator has overbooked on the capacity of what the boat can offer.


Yup, that’s him..

The next activity was kayaking for those who gamed. Yes, needless to say I chickened. Anyway, my poor travel buddies had to change clothes in the store room since we didn’t get to use our rooms.



The girls paddled around the islands and later told me it was the best highlight of the Halong trip.




While the others kayak, I took endless sunset photos

Back to our horrible circumstances, we were left wondering why it had to be us and not the other travellers in the junk with us. River even had the cheek to ask us to sleep in the captain’s room, which was out in the open!


The captain’s cabin

We argued and insisted that we get our rooms, but in the meantime also wary that we were out at sea with our passports in their hands. In the end, they anchored right next to another boat and told us we could sleep in the rooms there provided we had to be quiet! You wouldn’t believe the excuses given – there were old people in the junk, they have illness and needed medication and absolute silent etc. We pretty much guessed that we were not supposed to be seen in that boat. Therefore, we were not to make noise and were only allowed to retire to those rooms after 11pm! It was totally outrageous!!

Dinner was pretty much spoilt with each of us fuming over the situation. When we were finally climbing over to the other junk, we felt like some illegal immigrants. And when we talked to each other in the room, the wooden wall was knocked at to warn us not to make noise. We were treated like prisoners!


Sunrise at Halong Bay

The next morning, around 7am, our rooms were knocked at again, this time asking us to get the hell back to our boat. We gladly did so. After breakfast, it was free and easy till we disembarked back at Halong City for lunch.

Halong Bay is cluttered with junks. Competition has driven operators to cut corners and cheat. Could we have avoided that? I still think it was very much depending on luck. We have heard and read about Halong Bay scams all over the net, but there were friends who returned from the trip having a great time. So personally, I put it down as bad luck and an experience to remember.

When asked, 3 out of 5 of us actually thought it was such a trip from hell that they rather be at work at that very moment, going through all the deadlines and stress that come attached with the job. Are they kidding me?? Apparently not. I, however, firmly believe that we have control in making the best out of the hellish scenario by having a good time on our own.


Some silly posing at the upper deck


Striking a yoga pose


The making of a perfect yoga pose..

Having said all that, Halong Bay is a far cry from Hanoi of motorbikes, street stalls and constant noise.



Before reaching Halong City, we sat at the front of the junk savouring the tranquility and the beauty of the surrounding. Sitting there, I hoped that I would remember the moment and the sight for the rest of my life..