Miss Peacock likes to walk around Sentosa looking for her nemesis and arch-rival in love - Miss Cockpea. One day, while she was strolling along the carpark near the beach, she saw an image of her arch-rival.


Without doubt, she started to attack her rival ferociously



But all she did was just to hurt herself as she was held on by her nemesis.

See more of my Sentosa adventure here at flickr

Tagged: singapore sentosa dsc h1 peacock

Self-teaching myself some photoshopping basics to post process images with photo editors. It's always good to upgrade my basic photo editing skills so I can save some of my shots from the trash.


Top: The auto-white balance looks unbalanced compare to the manual one below. But with some editing, the colours can be made to look more natural and balanced once again.


Shaky hands? There's a smart sharpening that can improve the image. Although it is still a bit blur but guess this will be sharp enough for smaller prints (e.g. 4R)

This is so exciting

Tagged: singapore photoshop dsc h1

1.) Extended ERP - Even at night also got ERP, extra costs incurred
2.) Expensive parking - Weekday parking rates cuts the savings made
3.) Shopping Centre Hoppers - Shoppers hop from one end of Orchard to the other, cars usually don't because a) troublesome, b) incur additional costs to parking.
4.) Heavy traffic - Shopping already got so many human traffic le, still got car traffic to manage at the end, will die one.
5.) Driver breakdown - After 10 hours of continuous shopping, your legs become so sore and tired that after driving out of the carpark to the next junction, you realised your leg kena cramp. So you immediately pull your handbrake, put to neutral gear and switch on harzard lights in the middle of the junction because of driver breakdown. (okay, I made this one up but who knows it might happen to you)

Am dead tired after post christmas sales shopping.


Tagged: singapore shopping funny

Omigod! Are the editors on strike? There's no tomorrow in tomorrow.sg! I guess this is the first time they skipped a day without new articles. I tried reloading but got no tomorrow news. Die lar, where to get the juiciest local news now~~~



Then again, maybe the editors are holidaying and got other better things to do than blog like me. LOL

Tagged: singapore tomorrow.sg

Some minor complains @ the zoo trip.


The zoo ain't really camera friendly as there is no way I could hide from the glaring background seen from this pic. Just simply need the polarizing lens for such shots, but S$160 per piece seems too much an investment (plus, I will really need a electrical dry cabinet to store these stuff) This problem exists for all cameras but at least H1 got the lens to improve the situation.


Which one looks more natural? The pic on the left uses auto-white balance while the other is manual white balance. Since I get to shoot with different light settings (outdoors, indoors, low light, sunny, cloudy) on a single day, I tend to be lazy and rely on auto-white balance to do the trick but it failed badly under sunny condition. At least the manual white balance did justice to the camera.


These cute furry rodents are living in a pretty dark room behind glass walls (no flash) and they are very fast and difficult to capture. Even this better image is not quite sharp either. Changing to higher ISO levels would introduce plenty of noise. Tough luck as there seems to be no way out the mud for these situation. Either that or I've got much to learn with my H1


Comparing photos taken at the zoo by better photographers (with much better equipment too) makes me feel like this lion. Then again, I don't have the $$ and time to spend and learn photography to such levels.


Tagged: singapore zoo dsc h1

I'm no Ah-meng, bet I got a better coat of fur. Cuddly Cuddly.

Yes, another chance to test and play with my DSC H1 camera came when I went to the zoo recently. Found that a) it's damn hard to take a photo of fast moving animals especially in dim light area, b) I need a polarizing lens to filter out the glare from taking photos behind plastic/glass wall, c) Super steady shot insufficient for 12x zoom. Will blog more about that problems later. Meanwhile just enjoy the animals here.


Raining on the poor tortoise.


This fast moving furry mate is particularly tough to capture on still.


I think I'm too fair, need some tanning.


Which is bigger? My brain or my red butt?


花果山，水帘洞，齐天大圣孙悟空之故居也(仿冒品)。


Do I look pretty with make-up? All these are female elephants by the way.


Nicely dressed for dinner.


Is it me or it's just warm here?


I'm too old to be walking around the zoo, just let me take a break here


People say I look like Darryl, who's Darryl by the way?


Kua si mi kua!


Okay, you can measure my height now


I think the black ink on my back is fading, better wipe it soon or no more free food and lodging for me.

There's a 50% discount plus free tram ride (worth S$4) for elderly (>60 years old) for locals visiting the zoo when they produce their identity card, offer valid till 2 Jan 06. So bring your old folks along for a heck of a fun time @ the zoo. Word of advice: Bring umbrellas

Tagged: singapore zoo dsc h1 animals photos

Don't smoke, it's bad for ya health. But then again, it beats getting dengue fever.

Tagged: singapore no smoking

For many years, I don't like Christmas. It's a overly commercialized holiday and it also signals the very end of a year (and the end of school holidays). When I was young, I like to laze around on a comfortable chair minding my own business or find a cool spot to take a nap



I guess everybody likes to take a break just to relax, whether we are white or black or yellow with spots or stripes



Even the lion king likes to laze around



Just one more week and the cycle begins yet again.

Tagged: singapore cats

I just made a friend. One day, my cupboard snapped and broke it's leg, it could no longer stand the load on it's shoulders, so I went to look for a replacement. Very quickly, I spotted a few eligible candidates and decided to look at their resume and have an interview to see who fits best. I needed someone with a balance between class, practicality and low wage demands.

Then I saw a desk, it was elegant, refined and a perfect fit for my mistress. The devils in me told me to get it while the angels say your 10 year old desk is still functional. It wasn't long before I lost my battle with the devils, especially since I get a "discount" for the desk. So I got a desk and a cupboard.

Later, I saw a storage rack, and history repeats itself. At the end of the day, I made a friend. My friend approached me as I was checking out with my stuff and he offered me points, free drinks and a voucher. I bought so much furniture that IKEA made me a friend and even gave me vouchers for my next visit.



I never knew that shopping at IKEA could be so harzardous to one's financial health. They should put up a warning or two about the risks walking into it.

Tagged: singapore IKEA

SGD$1000, this is an estimated amount I spent on textbooks and reference books throughout my 4 years of studies in NUS plus the 1 semester I spend in NIE. Of the 25 books in my lists, I probably used a couple of them extensively to justify the cost of buying them. Another half of them might be worth keeping as display sets to confuse and impress friends the Physics way - the Differential Geometry way. The rest are most likely crappy textbooks that I hope I didn't buy yet the paper is like worth it's weight in gold.

Indeed, some textbooks (Physics of Atoms and Molecules by Bransden & Joachain) that I search in amazon.com costs more 100USD for a new one and sells for 50USD as a secondhand. Man, I could start an online business selling 2nd hand Physics textbooks to Americans and make a handsome profits if only Amazon let international sellers do their business there.

Locally, I only found edu Labs who are willing to pay like $6-$15 per book even though they will sell it at 2.4 times the price on their other website. Selling my unwanted books en mass will fetch me a grand sum of about S$80 only, that's like only 20% of my invested costs. Even cars don't depreciate that much in that time especially my books are in excellent conditions (mostly unused and unread).

So if any of you wish to adopt a book from me, (international requests entertained too), just quote me a price here too. It's that time of the year (spring cleaning) and I'm holding a garage sale here.



Numerical Analysis by Richard L.B. & J. Douglas

The Craft of Political Research by Phillips Shively

Essentials of Political Research by Alan D. Monroe

Options Futures & Other Derivatives by John C. Hull

Operations Research, An Introduction by Taha

Discovering Grammar by Anne Lobeck

English history, diversity and change by Graddol

Physics of Atoms and Molecules by B.H. Bransden & C. J. Joachain

Tagged: singapore books sales linguistics maths physics english finance

Some old treasures you can dig out from spring cleaning. Here's a classic camera of my Dad's age and still much sought after now: The Yashica Electro 35 GSN. It's great grand father was born in the 60s while this model is the last offspring of a hugely successful and popular range of Yashica Electro 35 series.





Just look at the reviews on the excellent picture quality from this now defunct company. Thinking of letting off this babe for S$200 since Dad say it's still in working order. Leave a comment if you are interested.


Tagged: singapore yashica electro 35

This is a belated post, just like the belated wishes for my sis. Brought xiaobudian to orchard road for a shopping trip armed with my dsc h1 about 2 weeks ago. Saw 2 man chasing another man inside centrepoint, think there was a robbery going on earlier. Couldn't get h1 out fast enough to capture once in a lifetime moment. crappy. xiaobudian's pose sums up the day using my h1.


"I surrender"

H1 is just not your everyday point and shot type of camera like my p3 was. Start up time is fast for h1 but taking it out is not. With p3, it was 1) pull out from pocket, 2) shoot but h1 was more like 1) pull out from bag, 2) still trying to pull out from bag, 3) fumble with lens cap and neck hood, 4) shoot.

Unless I carry my h1 on my neck 24/7, I'm stuck with taking photos of things pretty much lifeless.


Those cheesy M&Ms xmas decoration felt like they were laughing at me.

Nonetheless, I bet ya that your everyday point and shoot couldn't do this - take a photo across the shopping centre while playing peek-a-boo with xiaobudian.


"Now you see me, now you don't"

Happy 30th Birthday Sis!


Tagged: singapore dsc h1