New Toy

This afternoon, went to Chinatown during lunch time. Purpose was to exchange currency for our trip next week and also to see if I can get a new camera. Was unable to make up my mind whether to buy new one or not for the past few days.

Swiss Franc rate went up since yesterday. Few smaller money changers did not have stock. After comparing 2 stalls, we decided to go ahead with the one that gave us exchange rate 1.384. Initially was 1.385 and was glad that there was a bit of "discount" (even small also felt happy). There was a lady who wanted to buy a small amount of Swiss Franc but was told they sold out! All was taken by us. I think they still have but just did not want to sell more for the day. Wanted to keep long position so that they can sell at higher rate if tomorrow's rate went up again. :)

Went to the shop that 小珠 bought her camera last year. They were having promotion and after checking the prices for a few recommended Panasonic camera, I decided to buy the model similar to 小珠's. Just that it did not have GPS. It was about $80 cheaper than the model she had. Since I am fine without GPS, I decided on TZ8. It costs $385 and with spare battery, total is $429. Was happy with the price as I am "aiming" for this one since it has 12x optical zoom.



Therefore, my house now has 3 different sizes camera. Small, Medium and Large. All from family of Panasonic. I can use the new camera next week. Yippy!!!

Just heard latest news of Japan being hit with another strong quake near Miyagi Prefecture. Measured magnitude at 7.4 hit at 11.30pm local time (10.30pm sin time). So sad that this added stress to current bad situation at that area. Pray hard for the safety of the people staying at that area. Believe this will not be as bad as the previous one but it is still bad to hit at same area. People will be panicked when they recalled the last quake that caused the big tsunami.

Guilty Day

This afternoon, we went for customer lunch at Taste Paradise. Wow... the food was very good and wow... the price even better. $3700 for 18pax!!! I think only can go during business lunch. Too expensive liao.

One of our new colleague left company today. It is difficult for her to continue here hence will be better for her to find another job. In fact, she told me she had prepared herself and went for interview. There is an offer which she is still considering. No wonder she did not feel so sad when she was packing her stuff. As sales person, she had to leave within the few hours.

No movie tonight hence went for dinner at Coffee Club @ HarbourFront. The 2 dishes we ordered were very nice. We enjoyed the food.




Took photos using lomo effect. Nice ???

Sky Wu Mini Concert

Received sms from 小珠 asking if I will be free during this evening to attend Sky Wu mini concert at St James Power Station this evening. I had no program today except the need to change a new sim card for my dad's phone line hence decided to go since I had never been to St James Power Station before. As one of her sister could not make it, there was an additional ticket. Therefore I asked my mum to join since she never been to a concert before.

We arranged to meet at around 7pm. As it was my first time there, I did not know which entrance to go hence waited somewhere near the bridge for 小珠 and her family. The concert venue was Dragonfly pub and started at 8pm but we had to queue to go in from 7pm onwards. Ours were complimentary tickets from radio 100.3 hence there wasn't seats allocated. Managed to get a rather good location and stood there for 1 1/2 hrs until it ended. Took a few of Sky Wu photos with my new Nikon camera. Zoomed using optical zoom only and I could take a clear view of Sky Wu. Not bad seah...

His live singing is real good. No wonder he can still sustain for so many years. His fans ranged from young to not so young (like me). Ha ha...

Saturday Outing Part 3

We started at the junction at Wheelock Place and moved slowly towards Tangs, Paragon, Ngee Ann City, The Heeren and finally at Plaza Singapore. We stopped at each locations for some time to take the photographs. In total we used up about 2 1/2 hours. We started at 7pm and ended at 9.30pm before we headed home.

This year Light ups are not too bad. However, it was a bit difficult to take photographs. They were either blocked by trees, wires or lighting too dim to capture those nice spots. I even had the urge to take the nice view at the pedestrian crossing but cannot.... Traffic police there uh.

We were lucky that weather was good tonight. Not raining. Otherwise will spoil our photographing trip. When I reached home, I got to know from my sister that it was raining at the East area of Singapore. Phew... lucky uh. Singapore is small and yet can have such drastic different weather in different parts of the island. :)

Kite Festival 2009

Woke up late again this morning. Thought of waking up at 10am but in the end, woke up at 11.45am. I had a shock when I first saw the alarm clock showing 1pm but luckily it was a false alarm. That alarm clock is faulty. Otherwise, I will be late...

I met up with 小珠 at Clementi Mrt station at 2.45pm. The Kite Festival 2009 event provided free shuttle bus from the station to the venue. We took the bus at around 3pm and reached there with excitement when we saw so many kites flying up the sky. The weather was good (but hot) and glad that we could take photographs there.

We walked around and took some photographs before the event started at 3.30pm. There were big kites, small kites, medium kites, cartoon kites, cute cute kites and mini kites... Wow wow... this event really drawn a lot of kites lover.

We saw a queue that led to free goodies pack. Initially, we thought the queue was not that long so we just followed the line. But, we soon realised that we had actually jumped queue when there was a break in the line. No choice, we had to pretend we were ignocent and just continued. The bag came with a paper fan, a bottle of mineral water and a small picnic mat. Not bad seah.

Continued our photo takings and the heat was really making us sweating like nobody business. We took a rest at a shelter and enjoyed the breeze from the sea. We heard there were free kites to give away so I asked 小珠 to accompany me to get it. Queued twice for the kites because... I got a white colour kite initially and wanted to have the orange colour one. So... we re-queued. So auntie today. Ha ha...

We had Mcdonald meals for our dinner at Bukit Batok and I reached home with some tiredness due to the afternoon heat. However, did enjoy the outing. :)

A day at home working

Was on leave today but still doing my office work. My colleague who supposed to cover me had taken medical leave. In order not to affect work, I decided to handle myself while at home. In any case, my the other 2 colleagues will be busy and will not be able to cover mine 1oo% which means I need to clear balance stuff tomorrow. Better complete nicely before going back to office tomorrow as I need to prepare myself to cover my colleague who will be taking a day off.

Due to that, I stayed at home to clear my emails without going out. Initially thought of going out to nearby shopping mall to relax myself but... no choice lah.

Just tried to create a blur background photo with photoshop. Last week, I cannot figure out how to do it. Tried again today and I managed to get it. Great! It is still not perfect yet. Shall try few more to get better results. :)

Chestnut cake from Almond Cafe at Ginza, Japan

BBQ

Today I left office early at around 6.45pm (actually not that early lah) and took MRT to Tanah Merah station. From there, I took a cab to Safra country club for the BBQ. When I reached, I thought I am the last one and food are ready but surprisingly, my sister and friend were just starting the fire. I have no experience on starting fire so I just helped on miscellaneous things.

Halfway through, raindrops started to come down. Oh dear... hope not heavy rain. Otherwise we have to stop the BBQ. Luckily, just a shortwhile of raindrops coming down and we managed to continue with the BBQ. So sinful, I ate until so full. Just came back from the chalet and had to wash my hair as they are so oily.

I went to 小珠 blog and learn the latest tutorial on colour isolation. So amazing that there are so many ways to edit our photo. Photoshop program is so powerful. Below is my trial copy.

Before


After

Mid week

Wow Wow It's mid week liao. Happy Happy...

Today is rather peaceful and glad that I can leave office at around 7.50pm. We had a mini party at around 6.30pm where everyone started to look for food. Perhaps after the peak hours from 4.30 to 6.30pm, many of us felt so tired and hungry. Luckily we have some cookies from Hong Kong which one of our customer gave to us during their visit.

Tomorrow I have to leave office early and hopefully by 6pm. I am going for a barberque at Safra Tanah Merah. My sister and her friend booked a chalet from Tue to Thu. However, I cannot take leaves so cannot stay at the chalet. Will just join the barberque. If I leave at 6pm, I will only arrive there around 7.30pm. Just nice for the food. Hee hee...

Got some tips from 小珠 on how to do better in my photo editing to create lomo effect. I realised I had followed the wrong instruction when I went throught the online tutorial yesterday. I have done some double editing and missed out some steps too. Blurred liao. Tried today on one of the photo. Rather pleased with it although this is just some simple editing. More to learn. :)

Before


After

New Interest

It seems that now I am getting more and more interested in taking nice photographs. When the picture turns out nice, I am real happy.

I am starting to learn more on lomography and hope that it will help to enhance those photos I have taken. Still on learning stage and seems there are a lot more to learn before I can get the best result.

Tried another photo today. Not the effect I want. It's ok... learn slowly... :)

Before



After

My First Lomo Effect Photo

I just learnt from 小珠 on how to create a lomo effect photo. As I am doing it at home, not really know how to do it best. Just try my luck to see if I can create a different effect photo from my existing photo taken from digital camera. Will try to learn more so that I can do better in future.

Below is the before and after effect. Pass???