BBQ @ Sembawang Park

Photography @ Merlion Park

(Merlion - 10 Sep 2010, 6.38 am)

(Merlion - 10 Sep 2010, 6.33 am)

(Merlion - 10 Sep 2010, 6.31 am)

Car Accident

As usual, I drove along Jalan Boon Lay towards AYE to work this morning at 8.25am.  About 20m from the junction between Jalan Boon Lay & Boon Lay Way, a motorist from lane 3 suddenly filtered to my lane at lane 2 without checking his blind spot.  I stepped on the brake slightly harder than normal to slow down the car to avoid hitting him.  The next thing I knew was I heard a loud noise.  I knew immediately that the car behind me must have banged to my car.  I went down to check and noticed that there was a small dent at the lower left hand corner of the bumper.  A few seconds later, a young lady in her 20s, came out from her car too.  Before I could question her, she said to me softly that I should not jam my blake.  I got a little angry and told her off that had I not slowed down, I would have knocked down the motorist.  She inspected her car and pointed to me that her left hand corner of her front bumper was also damaged.  Knowing that she is at fault, she said that since both our cars are only slightly damaged and that she was late for work, could I not pursued the matter.  I reluctantly agreed and she said thank you.  I did not take down her particulars or her car plate number.  When she droved passed my car, my wife quickly took down her car plate no. as SJM3340 just to play safe.

When I told my friend about this accident, he advised me that even though I agreed not to pursed the matter, it is best to report the incident to my insurance company as a record which I did at Toyota Centre located at 2 Pandan Crescent.  This is because we would never know what the other party would do.  She may report to her insurance company and twisted the accident to her advantage and claim against me.

In future, I would make it a point to take down at least the particulars and the car plate number of the other driver.

SAFRA Half Marathon Run 2010 - 12 Sep 2010

This will be my 7th competitive run. After resting for almost 2 months since the 25km passion run in May, it is time to start training again.

I shall set a higher target this year i.e. to go below 2hr 5 min. My previous timings were:

2008 - 2 hr, 8 min
2009 - 2 hr, 18 min

Hope that I am not over estimating myself.

Afternote: Yes! I had over estimated myself.  My net timing was 2h:10m:10s.

During Trip to Tangkak (4 Jul 10)

I joined 9 friends from Nature Photography Society on a durian trip in Tangkak.  Tangkak is about 180km from Tuas Checkpoint (about 2hrs drive).  Our meeting point was at the first petrol kiosk, Malaysia side of the Second Link at 7.30 am.  We drove to the nearby kulairaya town to have our breakfast.  The tau sa pau and big ba pau were very nice.

While taking a break at a toilet point, we spotted a bird nesting. SC & Yixiong got excited and took out their heavy gears to shoot.  Allan & Tony also joined in the fun later on.  What was supposed to be a 5 minutes break became one hour of shooting.

Tony, the organiser, had arranged 2 places at Tangkak to eat durian.  One of which was at a small village house near a roadside.  The owner is a friendly malay lady who prepared many varieties of durian such as D2, D3, D4, D24, D101, Kim Hong, etc.  After tasted all, I got confused and now I could not remember which was which.  I could only remember D2 which was more "sticky" and I like this the best.

We did not eat alot (about 8 pieces on average) as we knew that the durian plantation that we would visiting was only about 10 mins drive from here.  We ate more than 10 durians which cost us just $90 ringgit!  It was about 11 am when we finally reached the durian plantation.

Tony had pre-ordered $820 ringgit worth of durians here!  Most of the varieties were similar to those that we tasted earlier except that it had "Maosanwang" which I liked alot.  I wanted to order 5kg of D2 & Maosanwang but there was no stock.  According to the owner, there wasn't many durians this season when compared with previous years. 

We took a casual walk around the plantation and the owner told us that we can eat whatever fruits that  can find there.  Beside durian trees, there were many rambutan trees but only a few bear fruit.  We plucked some but they were not very sweet.   Other fruit trees found include jackfruit, custard apple, etc.

FIFA World Cup 2010 (South Africa)

The world's biggest football show finally commences today. I am not a football fan but started watching it since 1986 when Maradona almost single-handledly won the World Cup for Argentina.

For the past 20 over years, I always hope either Brazil or England to win. I like Brazil because they are the only team that plays attractive football consistently. I like England because I am familar with most of the players and each year they have someone that I like in the team such as Gary lineker, Paul Gasoline, Michael Owen, etc. However, I am not in favour of both teams this year. Under coach Dunga, Brazil has become more conversative and their style of playing is more of a defensive now. Yes, they have Kaka & Robinho but I have never considered them in the same class of Ronaldo or Romario. The biggest joke was that Dunga left out Ronaldinho, someone who could turn a match in their favour. I am not impressed by England Team too, beside Rooney, Frank Lampard, & Steven Gerard, the rest are just mediocre players.

So which team do you think should win? My guess is:

1st - Argentina (because of Messi, I like him too)

2nd - Holland (they play attacking football)

3rd - Spain

4th - Brazil

How about you?

Family Outing - Kukup (29/30 May 2010)

Last weekend, my family (18 of us) spent a 2 day 1 night outing to Kukup. Only my niece Melissa & nephew Shawn could not make it for this gathering.

Kukup is a century old small fishing village built entirely on stilts on the sea surrounded by water. It is located about 40km southwest of Johor Bahru. For a reasonable $75 per person, it included a 2-way land transport from Singapore to Kukup, a night stay, 2 seafood lunches, 1 high tea, 1 seafood BBQ dinner, 1 breakfast and free usage of the facilities such as DVD karaoke set, majong set, cards, caram, etc.

Our meeting point was at my mother’s house on 29 May at 9am. The driver came punctually but there was some delay as my sister, Irene, had a hard fall. Luckily, it was not that serious. She just needed some cleaning up and changed to a clean clothing. After custom clearance at causeway checkpoint, it took us another 1.5 hr to reach Kukup Town. It was almost 12 pm and we had seafood lunch there.

From here, we needed to walk more than 10 mins to reach the house that we rented. It was almost at the extreme end but we liked it as it meant lesser disruption due to fewer people passing by the house. The house is huge and fully air-conditioned. There are 3 bedrooms, each could accommodate 10 people. There are 3 toilets, a kitchen and a spacious service balcony where it can be used for BBQ, dinner area and fishing there.

After we had settled down, my sisters (Cyndi & Janice) gathered all of us to play some games.

The game of stepping balloons was fun but also the most aggressive and tiring one. All of us were really exhaused and we took a break. High tea was a simple greenbean with sweet potato soup, pandan cake & prawn crackers.

At about 5pm, we took a short boat trip to a nearby fishing farm where they showed us the various fishes that they have. Nothing really interesting here and we left when the next boat came at about 20 mins later.

Thereafter, we went to the town area for a short evening stroll and shopping. By then, the sky started to turn cloudy. Although it did not rain, my wish of shooting nice sunset was not fulfilled. Dinner was BBQ seafood. The Otah & chicken wings were particularly yummy! At about 8.30 pm, what surprised us was that, from our service balcony where we had our dinner, we saw a beautiful golden moon rising from the west. I quickly setup my camera to take some shots.

After dinner, my brother-in-law, Allan enjoyed his favourite hobby - fishing, some played majong, the ladies sang karaoke, the kids tried out fire crackers while the rest watched Ironman II, a pirated DVD I bought from the town at $5 ringget. Most of us slept after mid-night. I set my alarm clock at 6.45 am tomorrow hoping to catch the sunrise.

Luckily, I did not oversleep as the sunrise was quite lovely. Allan woke up early too and he joined me to appreciate the cool and beautiful morning. Breakfast was just nasi lemak, fried beehoon, some kuehs with black coffee. Not fantastic but good enough to fill our stomach.