Just like what I’ve expected, university life, once kicking in action, never ever wants to give you a break. Suddently that dreadful 24 hours just whizzes past you without you even battering an eyelid – time flies just way too quickly for you to hang on to the best moments of it. Desperately trying to strike a harmonious balance between upholding the lucid dream of a sweet, problem-free and rather laidback university life and pushing myself to accept the truth that the real world is the exact opposite instead, I simply ran out of time to blog. Wow, that’s definitely a mouthful *pffft!*
This post will be the amalgamation of everything I can think of… that’s why it’s called mixing the unlikely!
Happy belated birthday, Bregitt!
Happy belated birthday, Bregitt! - In the photo: Huilin and Bregitt.
Monday was Bregitt’s birthday :) the best present she’s got is her new LG phone! Lucky her! Anyway, the photo above was taken during our night walk around Singapore River. Thank you Bregitt for being such a great friend :D like how the way she treat others made me think there’s still a lot of love in the world! Awww!
School of Art, Design and Media
It’s that weird building that doesn’t fit into the surrounding architectural style of the university – modernistic, futuristic, environmentally-friendly (note the green roof!), brutalistic interior, glossy facade and minimalistic layout. It’s the School of Art, Design and Media (people call it ADM but sometimes we do refer it by the name SADAM). A few weeks ago my roomie, an ADM student, and I went to his school’s library to borrow some books on architecture and interior design – I read them for leisure :razz: in fact, I always dreamed to be an architect!
Oh and with such a great camera (I love my Sony Alpha!) and a new laptop with 3GB RAM, I never did hesitate trying out super-sized panoramas! What you see below is a horizontal panorama stitched from three photos using Autostitch – it’s the best panorama stitcher so far, and most importantly, it’s FREE! Don’t you just love the glass facade and the green eco-roof? To view the whole panorama, scroll horizontally to the right ;)
The management discourages us from climbing the rolling green roof but who on earth could resist the feel of soft grass brushing against your bare foot? Or the feel of grass brushing your back as you gaze at the stars. Of course it’s a popular spot for love birds, but I’m not going to evaluate on that.
Due to the amount of content, the rest is tucked under the Read More tag! Here’s what you can look forward to after the jump:
- Chinatown Outing – We went to Chinatown for the buffet and visited a famous temple!
- Holland Village! – Chongx and I went to Holland Village on Sunday to meet up with his secondary school friend. Guess what we had for lunch? :D mmmhmm!
Chinatown Outing
About three weeks ago we organised an outing to Chinatown to savour the famous dimsum buffet at Yum Cha Restaurant! During off-peak hours they charge a uniform price for everything you can eat. What a bargain! We even went to great lengths to ensure that we’re making a credit transaction (instead of a debit one) – some of us took the liberty to starve ourselves in the morning. LOL!
Yum Cha Restaurant @ Chinatown - the place where we had our dimsum buffet!
Sadly I didn’t manage to take nice photos during the eating part because everyone was just too busy eating :razz: after the buffet, we headed off to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple for a visit. Click on the Before and After images to display the final image in the lightbox at a higher resolution.
Before and After – the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple: Taken from a corner of the street around the template, I’ve already used the circular polariser filter. But in order to add that dramatic poster-like super-saturated blue sky effect, photoshopping the sky is needed! I just selected the portion of the sky, choose a bright hue of blue, paint it over and changed blending mode to Color Burn.
Before and After – Royal at Chinatown: When Chongx saw me working on this photo he thought the photo was taken at Shanghai, China :D wow, I’m honoured! Tweaking this photo proved to be a little more challenging because the facade needs to be artificially lighted up to create the dramatic evening lighting effect. I just chose a dark brown and Color Dodged it over the walls. Handy!
Isn’t it interesting to see how Photoshop can improve the visual appeal of a photo so tremendously? All thanks to the new Quick Selection Tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3, selecting the blue sky no longer needs that frustrating tweaking of the magic wand options. All hail CS3!
Last, but not least: Holland Village!
Last Sunday went to do tutorials with Chongxian and he’s nice enough to invite me to meet his secondary school friend, Grace, who happens to be working in Singapore too! They settled for Holland Village as the meeting point, which I personally feel is the best decision ever – because I’ve never been there before (despite living in Singapore for the past 6 years, shame shame!) and Holland Village is famous for its katong laksa and coconut milk rice (known as nasi lemak locally).
Chongx and I went to Holland Village!
We went there searching in vain for a clean toilet at first. How comical! We walked up and down the street, passing by that big fat obvious Holland Village Shopping Centre which is right under our noses! And here are a few of the random photos I’ve taken over there ;)
And then we settled for this Katong Laksa cafe which is opposite a row of electronic shops. Here’s a photo of the shop, just in case you want to look it up at Holland Village next time!
Our hearts got won over by the fragrant coconut milk rice!
I’m pleasantly surprised by the huge variety of side dishes you can pick for your rice! Wooots!
A wide selection of side dishes waiting for us.
I settled for seafood coconut milk rice. Mmmph, so far it’s one of the BEST nasi lemak I’ve tried in Singapore!
My seafood coconut milk rice! Yummylicious!
When we were about to leave, we were stranded in the shop by the heavy torrential rain so we ended up hogging the table up to THREE hours, talking and talking non-stop! We finally decided to make a move when the rain showed no sign of abating… and to only be drenched in more rain along the way! My sweet tooth suddenly decided to kick up a big fuss among the mess so we had to make a detour to the nearest Starbucks to get my sugar-addiction fixed… with the divine caramel flavoured ice-blended frappuccino!
If you’re still reading…
Thank you! :mrgreen: Thanks for trying to be awake throughout the whole story telling thing. I shall break up my posts in the future. Well it all depends on whether I have time or not, but I’ll try!
hik hik. I saw the moon on this photo : Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Btw, your editing was nice. I love them!
Hmm. Yups. Me too, having a very hectic semester, compared to previous one. I got several jobs to be done, plus revise my units as I have weekly test. OMG. I’m so tired!
Woah, you have really great observation! I purposely included the shot with the moon without mentioning it in the post… and I’ll see who’s the first to notice it. And it’s you!
I hope you’ll be able to survive this semester! All the best and good luck!
The ADM seems cooool. We will never get these kind of buildings over here for at least a decade. Even that, I’m not whether it’ll be here or not.
And I see new additions for your dslr. hehe. cool photos.
jasons last blog post..Skipping
Are you sure? Maybe when there’s enough people studying arts and there’s a demand for it, there’ll be specialised art schools for your country in the future :) fret not!
The new additions for my dSLR… do you mean the circular polarizer? That’s the only recent addition I had for my photography kit heh! I’m still saving up for more!
[...] photos in photoshop. Usually, I just play around with the curves. I wish I could edit pictures like Teddy. Damn, he’s so good at it. Anyways, enjoy my humble [...]
Aw man… you got me at the food section… it looks soooo good!!! I hope I will run across great food like that when I get to go on my Asia trip next year.
Yum yum…
The before and after shots are beautiful! ^_^
Destinys last blog post..New Theme: A Purple Autumn
Asia will be a heaven for foodies like you – so don’t ever worry not finding good food in Asia :) you can always ask the locals for recommended stalls or dining places because they usually know more than everyone do – sometimes including the tourist handbook!
oo you never fail to have such wonderful pictures and that lawn on top of the roof. That’s something else. Never seen anything like that before. And you’re making me crave more asian food lah! Especially now in my er, condition .. “pats tummy” :)
lettis last blog post..First Prenatal Visit and a Date Change
Hey Letti, nice to see you around! Thanks for your compliments *bows* the lawn on the roof is actually a new trend in environmental design, since the grass will help to regulate the internal temperature of a building and thus help to save cost on electricity. And as for the Asian food… you can buy Chinese over there! It wouldn’t be as nice as what we have over here but hey, it least it’s something :D teehee!
why you go put the ulgy picture of me!!
gah! gay!
Chongxs last blog post..Power of Facebook!
No you never look bad in any photos… and that’s your line! You proclaimed that your dimples will make you sexy. Ah, whatever :roll: and if I’m gay, it’s your fault!
Make me feel hungry.
asxs last blog post..Kiub Rubik! . Mudah jika ada cara.
Hey seems like you’re having a lot of fun and I’m glad to hear that :) Just like my brother, he also say that he has a lot of activities going on. Hope you’re enjoying all of ‘em! And congratz for getting new lappy and camera, haha :)
Yep I am! But I’m having fun while I should be busy… *weak smile* heheh! Anyway, I hope your brother is also enjoying every single bit of his university life! Thanks for your wishes! And I heard that your prelims have just started! Good luck and all the best ;)
SADAM has a really nice building. Should be considered a green building right? environmentally friendly. And your alpha200 did a good job for u in taking nice pictures.
Yea in fact it’s a building designed to be green from groundup – from the tinted glasses to regular sunlight and the sky lawns which double as the roof ;) thanks for your compliments!
nice ar the grass curves around the building! hehe
razifmustaphas last blog post..Kembali Ke Paras Normal
Yea I was enthralled when I first saw the building on my first trip to my university. I was like, OMG this is going to be the best place for a photoshoot! :razz:
the building with the grass on the roof top is so awesome! i have one roof top in my college that is filled with grass too but it’s just a small square-ish building where they dump all the rubbish so i guess it won’t be a lovely spot for lovebirds ahaha.
The assorted dishes pic makes my stomach growlss *yummy* :razz:
Melissas last blog post..How to Win RM10000??
Oh mans! They treat the sky garden as some rubbish dump?! To hell, those irresponsible dickheads. Usually the lawn is crowded with lovebirds only at night and during Valentine’s Day I guess :P heh!
Anyway I hope you’ve eaten!
hehe. i tried this chrome! it was fabulous! but, my ajax performance was a bit down, as i tried it on my Virtual Machine. No version for Mac yet. :( and, you should try it too teddY!
anyhoo, I updated the WP Grins plugin, and it is fully compatible with WP 2.6, have a try!
abdusfauzis last blog post..WP Grins – Lite II
“Buddha Tooth Relic Temple”??? 这虾米东东啊~~ 治牙痛的佛寺么？KIKIKI~~啊，胡言乱语，佛陀原谅我~~
Hey Teddy! How’s uni life going? You seem to be having such an active life- going to parties and such. Your pictures are always so clear and detailed- I love the ones of the food. It looks so yummy!
[...] for that special moment. I was returning from Chongx’s room when I decided to drop by ADM for a quick photoshoot. With the blazing sun right above me, I have the perfect lighting for fast [...]