Life as a Part-Time Tourist
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Whoa ho; what a week! I have been exploring Singapore like never before...
Cheryl, Nikki, Kalyn and I brought the Chinese students to Ministry of Sound on Wednesday. And yup, this is the first time I partied so hard. The last time I was in Zouk as an organizing committee member for KEVII Hall bash. The teachers decided to tag along and we thought our mood would be somehow affected but nope, they left after a short while (the music might have been too loud for them). The retro night music was fantastic and we had fun on the dance floor. Well, not that we were super-good dancers though. Music was so loud that all of us were deaf after leaving the place. And darn, I was waiting for Bananarama's Love in the First Degree and the DJ played it when we were at the exit :(
Fri... Chery, Nikki and I bought about 20 of them to the City Hall area. The group was split into two: Cheryl and Nikki bought some to shop at Raffles City while I bought the rest to Bugis Village and Bugis Junction. The gals, as usual, were incredible shoppers. The group met up and went to Glutton Square for supper... The exciting finale was when I bought the group to take bus 51. The taxi queue was super long at DXO and most of them were on call. It was super frustrating to see so many taxis and yet we couldn't take any. I was not that familiar with 51's bus route and took a wrong turn near City Hall. In the end, I had to call my sis to ask for bus directions. The time was 1215 and the last bus had left Hougang terminal at 2330. My sis reassured me that we could catch the last bus and true enough, as I jogged towards the bus-stop and turned my head to glimpse at my back, a bus 51 accelerated from a stop at the traffic light and headed towards me. I just ran for the bus... Super heng, got the last bus...
Sat... Sentosa. I carried the almost 3kg photographic equipment with me for the whole day. Many of them thought I was crazy to lug all the stuff around Sentosa. Well, lugging equipment is part of the fun too :P And if you can see the above picture, that's how I looked on Sat in Sentosa. Touristy enough? The Sentosa excursion is quite a photographic tutorial for me. My aim was to learn how to take souvenir-holiday portrait and how to balance the snap-shot nature of souvenir portrait and certain classic portrait requirements. Lunch was super crappy and I was embarrassed as a Singaporean host. The mini-steam boat dinner was way, way, way-better.
If you have read the Sunday Times, you would have known that the musical fountain is going to be torn down to make way for the IR. I think this was the highlight of the day. I had a super nebulous memory of watching the musical fountain show and this was something new for me.
Just a quick tip: on the flash when you're outdoor. I flashed almost 100% of my outdoor pictures. The key is to balance the ambient light and the artificial flash (tuning down the flash power is impossible with most compact cameras though). The above picture would have been impossible without the flash. The face would have been dark and the background nicely exposed without the flash. Well, I don't want to be too technical here... If you need more information, please google for "fill-flash" or we could have a fire-side chat.
posted byWilliam at 10:46 PM
woah..never seen u wear such bright color before..wear some of such clothes more often la..dun always wear the dark blue shirt to sch..haha =p