Tis The Season For ...

Persimmons!!!

These Sharon's one are so sweet! Yummy~!

Hmm...Lunar New Year is arriving soon too~!

Photosophize's "Advertising Campaign" at Suntec - Song and Laser Dedication System

Well, I spent a little fortune to "advertise" my blog at Suntec Fountain... See video below!

Impressive isn't it? Even better - it's actually free*!!!

How to do it?

Right outside this restaurant that sell Sharks Fin soup, there is this huge metalic dedication station.

As seen in the photo below, the system is named "Song and Laser Dedications". There are two touch screen monitors. One only has to fill in a simple questionaire about themselves and they can then dedicate a song with a special message to someone.

The questionaires are general questions like age group, purpose of visiting suntec and if it is the first time you are visiting Suntec etc.

The touch screen alignment is a little bit off, thus it is a bit difficult to type in your message fast. Nevertheless, I managed to key in my message.

After you hit "send" message, remember to rush off to the fountain area and wait to see your message displayed using laser. See above, it is where people wait to tour round the fountain. The system will then displayed all other messages that they received together. Each of them will be shown twice.

Remember to get your video camera ready and capture that magical moment!


This is what others will see. An interesting display of lasers that flickers and changes according to the tempo of music. The water spray will also differs from one display to another.


Actually, there are a lot of things that you can do with the Song and Laser dedications system. Lovers can declare their vows, interests etc to one another publicly (in fact, that is what my friend did... envy), make a wedding proposal, or if you are in area celebrating friend/family's birthday, one can dedicate a happy birthday message to birthday girl or boy. Well, I do not have anyone to make any declarations then (sad), thus can only pathetically publicise my blog using the system.


Come to think of it, I sort of spoilt market to use such a romantic tool for my blog... Then again, you can't deny that I am creative!


Wait, before you rushing off to Suntec fountain to make dedications. The Song and Laser dedication system is only available on Weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and Public Holidays. I did not manage to catch the start time, but the laser will end at about 10 pm. So, if you are planning a surprise, recee first to avoid disappointment!


Lastly, Thank You Suntec City for the fun and magical experience!!! Do continue to provide the service until I can make dedications to someone, will you?

*The laser effect is free. Video shooting and post-production services are not included. I edited the footages and added background music myself. :)

Omg! There is really a Lao Zha Bor blog...

For those who have watch the movie "Just follow Law", you would remember Fann's mother. She is a funny character in that show who went to take up computer courses to upgrade herself. Then her famous line was that she owned a blog "laozhabor.blogspot.com"... I always thought it is a bogus site, made up to deliever the punch line.

Then I just discovered recently that there is indeed a LaoZhaBor.blogspot.com. The Aunty really blog leh!!! In English and Chinese somemore! I wonder if she wrote those entries herself. Nevertheless after the shock, I think her blog is quite entertaining.

*Drop jaw...

http://laozhabor.blogspot.com/

The things that makes us a Singaporean, are the things that I love best!

Happened to hear this song titled “Things so Singaporean” from a blog. The tune is catchy and the lyric is very local and humouredly written. One of my favourite line says "The things that makes us a Singaporean, are the things that I love best! ".

Never mind that some of the things mentioned like chomp seats in hawker center are not “gracious”, but you cannot deny that it is a creative solution to a simple problem. I kinda of like the song and can even sing a few lines of it already. In my opinion, I have not heard such a National Day-ish Song that is so easy to sing since “We are Singapore”.

Don't get me wrong. I mean Kit’s songs are nice, but how many of us can sing it in tune? (I can, but I don't know about the rest of us...)

Enjoy!

Vivo American Pizza & Panini (KL Plaza)

It was a rainy afternoon when we reached KL. We had to cancel our original plan to go Pertaling Street and tackle the nearest shopping centre first which is KL plaza.

All of us were starving as we had only taken light breakfast, thus the first priority was to fix our stomach first. It so happened that someone passed us a pamphlet on Vivo, thus we almost immediately decided on that restaurant. Actually, there isn't much choice at KL plaza for food, I thought...


Actually I have heard of them before as they have an branches in JB as well, but I have never tried it.

First Impression

The restaurant looked very spacious and tastefully decorated. I think they were newly opened as I have not seen them the other time. As aptly as the name puts it, Vivo actually specialised in Pizza and Pasta, but they highlighted that they were American-influenced. However, a look of their menu revealed that some of their dishes are actually Asian-fusion food, not really that American. Then, they also put Panini (folded pizza) in their signboard which is uniquely Itallian. A bit of identity crisis if you asked me.

Ok enough say, let's move on to their food.

Three of us decided to order a few items for sharing. For appetitiser, we ordered Fried Calamari and Onion Rings (see above). It was a pretty common starter. Nothing impressive. In fact, the calamari was a bit rubbery, thus it is a bit disappointing.

Next, we ordered the Spicy Garlic Spaghetti, which is supposed to be their restaurant's chef recommendation dish. Pardon the photo as we almost immediately dived in once it was served. We were too hungry and I forgot to take a photo first. The taste is actually not bad and I like the fact that the chef was pretty generous with their prawns. The sauce was rather garlicky like it was named, savoury appetitising and rather oriental-based. My friend actually termed it as very zi char-ish. Looking good…

Next came our pizza - BBQ chicken pizza which was very good! The outer crust was crispy, but still has tender bread-like inner crust. Those who like pizza hut’s crust will love this as well. They were generous with toppings ingredients and I like that the chef only drenched enough sauce on the pizza instead of drowning it with too much and makes the pizza salty. The chicken ham as you can see was in huge pieces and there are enough cheese to string as you bite into it.Yum!

I especially love their BBQ sauce which is savoury-sweet with just enough tang to give an intense flavour for the whole pizza.

However, the ultimate was their dessert - Hot From Oven Chocolate Lava Cake accompanied with Ice-Cold Vanila Ice Cream! Just a note, this dessert will take 15 mins to prepare, thus do let the waiter know early when you want it.

Lava cake is similar to chocolate fondant cake, but the outer crust is crispier like cookies. I personally love this version more compared to Bakerzin as it wasn't as too sweet and the chocolate was heavenly. See how the sauce oozes out from the cake as we cut through... The 15 minutes wait definately worth your time. Do not missed this out.

Verdict:

Food was generally good (except calamari). The dessert - Lava cake was the best. I strongly recommend people to try it!

Disappointed:

KL plaza's service staff also needed more training. We were left waiting for the food for a little too long. Not that we are typical Singaporeans who like to complain about everything, but average waiting time per dish was like 15 to 20 minutes. We almost have to rush every one of our dishes. The lady boss was nice enough to apologise about the long waiting time. I mean a restaurant has to serve more customers in order to earn more money, thus food waiting time as to be shorten.

Responsibilities of a Citizen Reporter and Blogger

Recently, there have been a lot of news about “ungracious” Singaporeans refusing to give up their seats for pregnant women or elderly folks. All these stories are “raised” by normal people like you and I (thus the term citizen) and comes attached with a photo taken using handphone camera , accompanied by an one-sided eye-witness account from the “reporter”.

Actually, when reading these “news” have you all given a thought on how accurate the news are? Frankly, I have not thought of this until recently my brother told me about the plight of his schoolmate.

He told me that one of his female schoolmate’s photo was taken in the MRT and got posted on STOMP. The “reporter” told STOMP that she was reading her notes earlier on her seat then “pretended” to doze off when a pregnant woman boarded the train. Righteously, the “reporter” immediately took picture of the student and reported her ungraciousness to STOMP. Well, people like us would just take the account as it is, but my brother told me the other side of the story.

He and other schoolmates were pretty shocked to see her photo on STOMP and that she was even accused of doing such a mean thing. To people who knew her, she is a quiet and good natured girl and most encouraging, none of them believed she would do something like that. In my brother exact words, he said “she gong gong (hokkien word for blur blur) one, she could not have done such thing. very poor thing … There are people cursing her that she would have no seats too when she is pregnant too…”

Then, it hit me. Seriously, I would believe that the “reporter” surfaced the news out of good intention, but have he misjudged this incident?

People like us, armed with handphone camera who are net savvy and might have blogged, have we also been too haste in judgement that we might have reported an incident wrongly? I mean we might not realised at the point in time that what we see might not the whole truth and unlike professional journalist, we might not have check back with the person and give them a chance to explain their behaviour as well. In a way, this incident make me conscious about the things we blogged and set me thinking how much one should believe with news like that.

Maybe we have not realised that, but citizen reporters and bloggers alike, our writing might affect someone in a serious way. We have to be responsible with that as well. Before we posted anything that might affect others, we should have think twice and observe carefully whether it is as what we have seen. Also, we might want to think in other parties’ shoes on how they can take it if the matter was publicised openly especially in STOMP where a lot of Singaporeans would read it. I mean it is public humiliation after all and not everyone can take this kind of stress. If the person would have been slightly weak-minded and (touchwood) committed suicide, how would you felt if you are the one writing about it? Guilty, very very guilty definitely.

Perhaps, instead of reporting ugly sights and ungracious acts publicly, why not tell the person off straight in the face when you encounter it. At least one gets to hear the explanation off the horse’s mouth. Of course, this might not apply to every situations as there are people who have done something on purpose with malicious intention.

Well, now it appears that blogging and citizen journalism is not a simple task isn't it?

Hmmm...

See Shrimp Running on a Treadmill !!!

See video below - Anything is possible in the name of science! A Scientist wanted to know how shrimp would behave when they are infected with disease, thus invented and built a treadmill to measure activity of an exercising shrimp! For full explaination on the Science experiment, click here.

It is amazing to see a treadmill so small. Also, it is funny to see shrimp "running" in order to keep up with the treadmill. By the way, the video has started a cult followers in YouTube, dubbing it with various background music. If it was me, I would probably dubbed it with Madonna's "Don't Tell Me". Hee Hee. What about you?

Other sights of Kuala Lumpur

More photos on KL street sights.

This photo was taken opposite Petaling Street. This old looking shopping centre called Kota Raya. There used to be a plus sized clothing store inside, but I could not find it when I was there the last time...

An old fashion coffee shop near our Hotel. Singapore used to have a lot of such coffee shops, but many of them have since sold their business or renovated. A pity they wasn't preserved for younger generation to see where people used to eat in the past. Mosaic floorings, wooden staircase, wood chairs with special cravings and marble tables are all unique features of old coffee shops.

As written in Petaling Street entry, local people has no qualms of eating along the streets even when the stall looked dirty. Those local people which I referred to do not exactly looked like poor people but common looking people like office workers and students. Some of us are so pampered that we refused to eat at places without air-con let alone mention street side stalls with poor hygene. It is at such places and instances that you start to appreciate Singapore more.

I noticed a huge number of tourists in KL came from the Middle-East. In fact, their number was so influencial that KL hotels charges peak rates during Middle-East month long summer hoildays in July. In case you are wondering what these people are hawking at, they are in fact watching ...

Yes, the huge crowd was actually looking at this middle-east man singing middle east tune. I failed to understand what was so interesting about this performence then. Is he a great star? I mean he really just stand there and sing only ...

Night Scene of Bukit Bintang - Brightly lited and lined with advertisement billboards.

Night scene from another angle.

I hope the government officials are doing something to ease the Bukit Bintang's traffic. It is probably the first place in the world that has traffic jams at 12 am still. Hmm...perhaps ERP would help?


Ok, Bukit Bintang not only jammed at 12 mid-night. It also remained jam at noon time on a weekday. *Shake head... So, be reminded that during these time, walking might be the faster than taking a cab.