Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Never underestimate local ballers

Published on September 29, 2009 in Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

As the title suggests, it seems that local basketball players have a lot more talent than we have somehow stereotyped them to be (or it could be just me). Thanks to Nic and Daphne for arranging this, Len and I popped over to the Indoor Stadium last Wednesday to catch game two of the Singapore Challenge Series where the new locally dominated Singapore Slingers pit themselves against the ever so powerful Smart Gilas Pilipinas.

Unfortunately this time round, our local boys were unable to take the game home edging out by just three points with a 67-70 game final score. But having said that, I will never see local basketball players in the same light again. I guess I’m used to seeing so many defence breaking drives and tough jumpers from foreign imports after catching a great number of Slingers matches over the years. This time round, I find myself in an awkward yet pleasantly surprised position witnessing our local boys fighting and grinding for every ball possession the entire time. Adding to that, these guys can really play and I can see some team dynamics amongst them. Can I say the local ballers have come a long way? We’ll soon see…

Having been stuck at work over the weekend and a number of weeks before that due to the oh so successful FORMULA ONE race, I didn’t really have the time to edit the photos let alone blog about it. Now that race weekend is over and I have just a little more time on my hands, I guess its already kinda late given that game three is tomorrow. So with that, allow me to be a little lazy this time round and swing you over to Len’s and Daphne Maia’s site for more info about the game. Before I present to you the game photos, I must give a thumbs up to the Smart Gilas Pilipinas team for giving the Singapore Slingers a run for their money. The crowd was awesome producing a wonderful game atmosphere although they were cheering for the away team… ;)

Now we go the writing out of the way, here are some action shots caught during the game. Media passes rocks I tell you… :P .

Smart Gilas Pilipinas


Left and right: Dunks galore


Left: Fighting to the rim | Right: A contested ankle breaking drive


Left: Nice block | Right: Nice two hander…


Left: Tough offence | Right: Big defence

Before I start showing off the Slingers photos, I must apologise for not naming the team members under Smart Gilas Pilipinas, hence no attribution to you efforts in the photo. I didn’t do my homework early. Sorry guys. I promise I will be good next time.. :)

Singapore Slingers


Left: Jeffers with a rim shaker | Right: Wei Jian splits the defence


Left: Philippine sensation Al Vegara with one of his acrobatic moves | Right: Desmond tries to cut into the paint


Left: Brother of Darren ‘The Doctor’ Ng, Marcus Ng goes under the rim | right: Brown powers in


Left: Wei Jian takes a short jumper | Right: Steven flicks to the rim

The Singapore Slingers will meet Ginebra tomorrow in a much anticipated match after their last meet up. I’m pretty sure they are still sore about the 100-68 loss and are not  only aiming at redemption, but shaming our local team. So come and support your local team (yes this time its local) and get your tickets at Sistic. We need all the help we can get… :)

More photos of the game with dunks and moves in my Flickr album here and here.

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Nothing Else Comes Close

Published on September 27, 2009 in Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

In under an hour’s time, Singapore’s second FORMULA ONE race will flag off with Lewis Hamilton taking pole position. Earlier on Friday, we took some foreign media to Swissotel The Stamford’s Helipad on the 73rd floor and dinner on the 69th with a nice view of the street circuit from the top to the awe of many. There were a number of auto media who have covered such races for decades and told me that they have never seen anything like this ever in their life. I replied them with the tagline that race organiser Singapore GP used for this year – “Nothing Else Comes Close“. Needless to say, they agreed with a smile… ;)

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Hello D90

Published on September 24, 2009 in Usual Ramblings. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

After about a year of procrastination and contemplation, I have finally gotten my butt off and bought myself a new DSLR, the Nikon D90 kit and a battery grip. Just a simple entry level camera for my normal photography needs. Sure I would love to pick up a nice full frame such as a D700, but in all honesty I don’t think I need one. I’m not exactly a professional..ahem ahem :P .

My trusty ‘ol D70 is extremely outdated although it has served me well for the past six or so years. As photography technology catches up, I figured its best I do a little brush up myself. I guess I’m just going to clean it up a little and perhaps send it for some servicing before passing them over to Lyn (my boo) who expressed interest in trying out a DSLR.

With more photography sessions such as the Singapore Slingers games and the coming Formula One race (if I can get my hands on a ticket), I foresee more photo opportunities in the future. Till then, stay tuned for more photos.

The D90 with battery grip

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Bacardi mojito + roast pork belly = one happy couple

Published on September 21, 2009 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 7 Comments Tags: , , .

After a good ten days at Bangalore for a business trip, Lyn (my boo) is rather sick of Indian food and have been gorging down on nothing but Chinese and some western dishes upon her return. With today being a ‘carried forward holiday’, we didn’t really feel like eating out yesterday evening and decided to fire up the oven for a nice little homemade dinner. Lyn roasted a nice pork belly and baked some potatoes and pumpkin. As always, being a fantastic cook she is, dinner was amazing.

As for me, I wanted to chip in a little more after taking on the roles of useless sous-chef de cuisine, table setter, bus boy and cleaner for a few years now. I decided to further multitask by being a bartender. With that, I went online to check out the recipe for Bacardi mojito, a cocktail which we have always wanted to try at home. This is one alcoholic beverage we knew we have all the ingredients for, especially mint which is planted right outside our home. And to top it off, preparing the drink is a real breeze. I know I sound like a broken record when I say I don’t usually link videos to my blog, but I really wanted to show you how easy it can be:

Needless to say I left the bartender flair out for fear of breaking something or someone. With a lack of tools for making mojitos such as a muddler and a cocktail shaker, I had to improvise using a pestle and an airtight cookie jar we usually use to store our homemade yogurt. The result wasn’t that bad to be honest. It tasted pretty similar to what the folks at the bar serve – another ‘cook-at-home victory’ for us if I may add. And yes…I contributed more to dinner this time.. ;)


Left: Extremely crispy pork skin | Right: Roast pork belly


Left: Potatoes and pumpkin | Right: Our Bacardi mojito..we had two.. ;)

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Old skool sweet cakes

Published on September 20, 2009 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 6 Comments

Lyn (my boo) and I popped over to the Shunfu Market this morning for a little breakfast and marketing. While she was choosing the right vegetables for tonight’s cookout, I chance upon a stall opposite that I never knew existed selling traditional cakes and biscuits. Slightly overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia, I picked up a traditional sweet cake that I have never tasted for a long time.

I have absolutely no idea what it is called, but I recognised the packaging and knew it was something sweet. Although Lyn said it was too sweet for her, I initially begged to differ but it turned out she was right. I had a hard time trying to finish one small little piece of cake, guess it has to do with age yah? ;)

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Slingers field squad with more players

Published on September 14, 2009 in Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

A belated entry here but I still feel that I should still write about the Singapore Slingers announcing six more players to the team, especially after attempting to speculate who will be donning the red and yellow jersey for the 09/10 campaign. For the local squad, I guess I got the five players on the money with Desmond Oh Wei Jie and Lim Wai Sian coming in full time, and Wong Wei Long, Michael Wong Soon Yuh (welcome back Michael) and Steven Khoo Kian Huat on a part time basis due to work commitments. They will join the other two local players signed earlier in August, Hong Wei Jian and Pathman Matialakan.

Apart from Philippine sensation Al Vergara committing to one more season, the other imports include Kyle Jeffers, Michael LeBlanc (USA). Len has more info about the two latter players as well as two clips on Michael LeBlanc here. No news about three-point threat Darren ‘The Doctor’ Ng and bad boy Eric Sandrin though. I am still crossing my fingers in hopes that the Slingers will save the best for last by announcing the signing of these two key players. Until then, I can just only hope.

They will meet Philippine Basketball Association’s (PBA) Coca Cola this Friday at the Indoor Stadium, 8pm, the first of four matches against very strong Philippine teams under the Singapore Challenge Series. Following that, they will face off with more teams from around the region as the inaugural ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) tips off in October. Ticketing information is available here and corporate tickets here.

Goooooo Slingers!!

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Langkawi Day 2 (Part 1) – Sunny’ish adventure

Published on September 13, 2009 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: .

After a rainy and somewhat enjoyable misadventure during our first day at Langkawi, Lyn (my boo) and I woke up to sunny clear blue skies and a really lush greenery outside our room. The start of day two seemed to have given us hope for outdoor activities, something we were looking forward to…all of yesterday.. ;)


Left: Right: Blue skies taken from my fogged up camera lens | Right: Our rooms…not flooded


Left and right: Green green green everywhere

Before embarking on our adventure, we popped over to our resort’s cafe for breakfast. As the folks from TripAdvisor have earlier warned, breakfast is not so fantastic there, so we braced ourselves. They were right though, the only buffet style food options offered were bread, jam, cereal and not so cold milk. However, you can order as many eggs as you want, but we stuck to just two. Substandard breakfast aside, what took our breathe away was the proximity of the cafe to the beach – right beside. It was pretty nice.


Left: Our cafe | Right: The eggs and sausages


Left: My must-haves for breakfast overseas – coco puffs and coffee | Right: Bread..loads of bread


The beach..nice..

Getting a tad bit adventurous, Lyn suggested we rent a car so we could make our way to Kuah where a fish-for-your-own-lunch await. Initially skeptical about car rentals here and the fact that we are not exactly a couple who can find their way around, I wasn’t too keen on it. But after making some calculations on how much we could have saved and adding another milestone to our adventure abroad (I have never driven anywhere else apart from Singapore before), we rented a nice blue slightly rusty manual Proton Saavy for about RM80 looking forward to driving on dry roads. Oh, by the way did I mention that the speedometer does not work?


Left: The car… | Right: …the clear dry road…


…and the busted up speedometer

With a half tank of gas (we had to fill that up) and a not so detailed map on our hands, we headed to the Langkawi Fish Farm at Kuah in anticipation of catching ourselves some lunch (pun intended). After some travel hiccups, we arrived at the farm only to find out that we have to take a really long walk up to a kelong to catch ourselves a fish and then back to the restaurant where they will weigh and cook our lunch. The walk was so long that it went from sunny, to rainy (we had to pull our ponchos and umbrellas out) and back to sunny again. Really…true story.

For a person who has never fished before in his life (except for prawning), I must admit that fishing there was a breeze. Nevermind that I was doing it in a controlled environment where fishes are trapped and waiting to be hooked, the bait was huge and compelling (even to me), and that I was assisted all the way. The fact that I managed to pick one in four tries shows how easy it is. With that, the staff there placed our snapper (yes, we caught a snapper) in a bucket and I swaggered my way back to the restaurant.


Left: The restaurant front | Right: That long walk


Left: The kelong | Right: The bait


Left: A closer look at the bait | Right: My attempt at catching lunch


Left: Our lunch |Right: After swaggering I started walking back

Upon reaching the restaurant, the wait staff weighed our snapper and began grilling them. We ordered a nice plate of sambal kang kong for greens. Not exactly a healthy option but hey..we are on a vacation. Food is really good though, not because that were really really hungry but perhaps that we caught it.. :)


Left: 950 grams | Right: Other selection


Left: Our snapper | Right: Sambal Kang Kong

With half a day gone, we departed Langkawi Fish Farm looking forward to what the Jewel of Kedah have for us. Part 2 coming up soon… :)

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Maggie!!

Published on September 12, 2009 in Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: .

After a week or so of pulling my hair out trying to figure out what the heck happened to my blog or server, I managed to get it up with the help from the folks behind my hosting, the Wordpress support page and of course KP who helped me test it out at another location.  I honestly hope this will not happen again… ~crosses fingers~

Speaking of KP, here are two photos Lyn (my boo) and I took from a menu at some kopitiam-restaurant beside Bar Bar Black Sheep at Cherry Avenue. Think some of our friends may find them amusing… ;)


Left and right: Its all about the “Maggie”… ;)

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I’m not the only one going crazy

Published on September 11, 2009 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

With the floodgates of workload heading my direction a few months back leaving me wondering if I will ever have my life and sanity back again, one would thought that I would be opening my office’s window and head south pretty soon. Yes, work has been pretty tough for a while now and I’m about to go bonkers soon…serious. But enough whining for me. It seems that my blog too is feeling the heat (whatever it is) and started going a little crazy on me.

Just yesterday night, I discovered that two articles I wrote earlier on my Langkawi trip with Lyn (my boo) and I here and here have somehow disappeared from the face of my blog. I frantically searched high and low for it trawling through the deepest and darkest pages of my admin panel but was left disappointed. This meant that I would have to write my accounts all over again. So with that, I wrote an new entry on my fate with a promise to write again, sucked it up and braced myself in the face of repeating something I took so much time to craft. I shut my Macbook and went to bed (no not crying).

Just this evening, I fired up my Macbook again hoping to start my first of two recounts, or at least a simple draft to get things going. After logging into my blog admin’s panel, I saw my two lost entries published and sitting pretty at the top of my main page. If you think this is weird, the new entry I wrote last night on my missing entries went..well..missing. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the heck happened and as long as it has nothing to do with the 7th month (the server is located in Singapore you see), I’m really cool with that.

Moving on I am crossing my fingers that nothing out the ordinary will happen to my blog again. Well of course unless it publishes the winning Toto numbers for the next draw, that I can accept… ;) . I guess its Day 2 of Langkawi coming soon.. :)

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Langkawi Day 1 (Part 2) – Making the best out of an opened floodgate

Published on September 9, 2009 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Being the ever so positive couple we are, Lyn (my boo) and I decided to make the most out of our not-so-dry Langkawi Day 1 episode. Given that the outdoors is not exactly an option and that our room is about to be flooded, we figured that indoor activity should be the order of the day. Going through a list of our favourite indoor activities, we narrowed down to two things we both enjoy – food and massage. With that, we headed to the nearby Sun Cafe at Sun Mall to stay dry (pun intended) and to grab some chow.


Left: The little Sun Mall | Right: The dry Sun Cafe

We both started off with non-alcoholic (let’s save that for the night) beverages followed by a main of chicken rendang for her and chicken lasagna for me.  To further help ease our hunger pangs, we shared a nice big plate of supreme pizza. Food in Langkawi during our entire trip in our opinion is generally decent and at times leaving us wanting more. That sure does say a lot for dining there since we are somewhat critical about food, well, mostly Lyn… ;)


Left: Fruit juice for me | Right: Coke for her


Left: Chicken lasagna | Right: Chicken Nasi Rendang


Left: Pizza!! | Right: Heavy’ish rain

After a really fulfilling lunch, we made our wet journey back to the resort to check out the scene before deciding on our next activity. As we have earlier feared, the rain continued to pour not flooding the resort front but our rooms as well. Thankfully, we weren’t that badly affected as it was just a puddle inside compared to the outside. And yes we were farsighted enough to have earlier placed our belongings on higher ground. Of course we were much more fortunate than the other guests with their rooms completely flooded at shin level.


Left: Still flooded | Right: A scary sight, water invading our room


Left: In the bed room | Right: A little worse in the bathroom

Not wanting to stay in our rooms, we immediately booked an appointment at one of Langkawi’s best (meaning expensive) massage, Nithi Ayurvedic Massage. According to their website, “Ayurveda is the oldest system of Medicine in the world and traces its root to ancient India (1500 B.C). It is an age-old healing system that uses diet, exercise, herbs and body therapies to help meet life’s demands and embrace life’s opportunities. Located in Langkawi, Nithi Ayurvedic Massage offers both relaxing and healing Ayurvedic treatments. We practice healing through ritual and music, aromatic essential oils, herbs and teas – all part that makes your stay a truly authentic Ayurvedic experience.”

Touted by many as one of their best massage experiences by a great number of tourists and locals (I think) at TripAdvisor, we figured that it would be a shame if we didn’t at least give it a go. The photos don’t really do justice to the spa, but here is just a little glimpse.


Left: Our beds | Right: They used a lot of very warm (not hot) oil


Left: I think these are spares | Right: The bathroom, really nice and rustic

Leaving the spa just before sun set, we headed to our initial first choice for accommodation (but was fully booked), Beach Garden Resort for dinner. Also have earlier read of their wonderful yet simple dining options, we ordered up a set of grilled seafood platter and Antipasto for our main and banana pancakes for dessert. Needless to say, beer was our beverage that night. Service was amazing although there are just two staff waiting on about a good six or so tables indoors, they were receptive, friendly and quick.


Left: Beer, can’t go without beer | Right: Seafood platter..it was really good


Left: Antipasto | Right: Banana pancake with ice cream

After dinner, the restaurant continued their pampering by arranging a car to send us back to our resort. The water has receded and the rain stopped when we arrived. Making our way back to our slightly damped room, we crossed our fingers for a sunny day tomorrow. Day two coming right up… ;)


Slightly dry

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