ambellic thoughts

A Walk around MBS

Jimmy Lucas — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:59:40 +0000

Been a long time since I walk and shoot around town. We wanted to visit the garden at Marina Bay, and started walking from MBS, only to find out that it is not operational ready yet.

1 more week

Jimmy Lucas — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:20:37 +0000

8 more days and we will be on the plane to Rome. Kind of having mix feelings. 5 months ago I was busying planning for this trip. Poured in hours after hours of research, till a point that I can remember the maps in my mind. Now that it is drawing near, the excitement is dying down. It is like – Oh we are flying over, okay loh. I guess I am jaded by too many hours of planning without having seen the real stuffs. This will probably change and shoot up the sky when we set foot physically. The 1^st stop is Rome, a busy and overwhelming place to some. Here we go!

When the night has come……..

Jimmy Lucas — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:57:17 +0000

Was playing game at home. Took a break, went over to my kitchen for a drink. Saw MBS blasting lights. Went back to my room, grabbed my cam. Shot. Eventually no MBS lights, but got a strange moo moo…….

Final cut for our Honeymoon

Jimmy Lucas — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:15:33 +0000

The entire itinerary has been crafted out, with just bits and pieces of “places of consideration”, such as popping by Germany border when we are in Strasbourg. Finally after so much planning, we managed to sink down on the major costings. Accommodations are all reserved through online booking (www.booking.com), Rail Pass purchased, Air Tickets purchased.

The rest of the costings such as the entry fee to places of interests, museums etc are rather predictable. What is left as ??? are mainly the food costings. Food in these countries are rather expensive as compare to Singapore. It is impossible to have a proper sit down meal that cost like SGD4 with a drink. So everything on food is bumped up in tandem. Currently our daily food budget are around EUR80 ~ EUR100 per day, and these are based on low – slightly below average dinning places. Total cost of this trip probably will set us back around SGD11,000 (excluding air tickets, as we redeemed it using miles and paid only for taxes & surcharges. Saved SGD4,700 on these tickets. If they are purchased, the total cost for the trip will rise to SGD16,000).

Of course it cost less to travel with a tour package, but they probably packed all these places within 15 days. Which is rather meaningless for a honeymoon (when you might reach a place planning to just stop by, but is marvel by the scene and decided to stay for another hour) as tours has strict timings on each venue. Thus although the price for this trip is rather high for us, we are looking forward to Europe – for the first time!

A forgotten part of our home

Jimmy Lucas — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:56:04 +0000

Our shoe cabinet that sit just next to the main door. This is a corner in our home that was forgotten. Only to be once again noticed when we were dusting it for CNY (although we pass by and glance it everyday). This is how we can take things as routine till it no longer has impact until we stopped to rethink.

2012 Resolution

Jimmy Lucas — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:13:05 +0000

It has been a long time since I did one of this. Well, it might be good to keep me focus for a while.

1) Get my JLPT1 (and JLPT2 if possible)

2) Get my Advance Scuba licence

3) Get a pet dog. Most probably a King Charles.

It is really nice to rekindle a lost Love

Jimmy Lucas — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:03:18 +0000

I started my Jap lesson last Saturday. My first encounter with Jap language was in year 2000, when I took it as an extra curriculum during my polytechnic days. It was only a Basic course and I didn’t even attempt JLPT at all. Looking back, it has been more than 10 years! Time do flies really. In 2000 era, Jap swept Singapore like a storm. Movies & dramas, fashion wears, hair styles, was a fever for teenagers all the way to the aunties who chase after TV programs, and with music being one of the least influential. Many in those era would remember famous Japanese celebrities like Diva Ayumi Hamasaki, to hunkly Beach Boy Takashi Sorimachi, and not forgotten Sweetie Kyoko Fukada. Today, if you mention these names you probably get a confused look from the now teenagers, and a “oh you are so outdated” look from those in my age band. However I am sure many who were in that Jap craze would smile while recollecting those days where we went crazy over them.

While the wind has blown towards the Korean craze in Singapore, I was and am never really impressed by Koreans. Well, to be fare, it was not that I never gave them a chance. Back in 2000 while I was listening to Japanese pop songs and R&B, I did give Korean songs a try. I remember there was a cute 3 or 4 girl band but I forgotten what their names anyway. Hah! Today, Korean has more dominant in Singapore, but I still feel that they never reached the Japanese standards (disclaimer to prevent getting into any trouble - this remarks is purely based on my personal preferences and opinions). Not their food, not their fashion style, not their songs, not their TV dramas, and definitely not their celebrities (to me, they are just awful……aweeeee!). Probably the only thing better is their horror movies. Their TV dramas still sucks. From cry-baby romantic sad storylines to par-standard idols drama love stories. I guess I better stop undermining the Koreans here.

Anyway, this thread focus is never them. Rather it is about the Japanese that I am still passionate in. I decided to retake my Jap language, starting from Basic once again. However this time round, I am determined to go all the way to JLPT1, with the goal of being able to speak like a native when I visit Japan. So for now,

ジミさん、がんばてね！

2nd cut for our Honeymoon

Jimmy Lucas — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:52:48 +0000

Italy has so much things to do and see that we spent almost 1 week reading up blogs and travel guides, so as to pin down our itinerary. Switzerland was planned in just 1 day while France is still on the way. We even considered extending to longer trip and going into Belgium or Germany, but eventually tweaked the itinerary abit and now the next cut looks like this.

9 days in Italy – Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice
8 days in Switzerland – Lucerne, Interlaken, Bern
8 days in France – Colmar, Strasbourg, Paris

We are pretty excited to be going to the REAL Colmar in France, because our visit to Malaysia’s Colmar Tropical was a great disappointment.

Our long overdue Honeymoon

Jimmy Lucas — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:01:11 +0000

We were legally married through ROM in 2008, although we only held our customary marriage banquet in 2011. Therefore, officially it has been 3 years of marriage life, and thus our honeymoon is rather overdue. It started with wanting Europe, then it skipped to Japan, and eventually went back to Europe. Amber and I are in the midst of planning for this trip to happen in April 2012. For 22 days we shall tour Italy, Switzerland, France.

The 1st cut itinerary would be
8 days in Italy – Rome, Florence, Venice
9 days in Switzerland – Lucerne, Interlaken, Bern
5 days in France – Paris

The last stop in France seems overkill to be saddle in a single spot for 5 days. I believe it will probably change when we firm up the itinerary further. For now, I am pretty happy to spread out the days in this manner. Rather than feeling “rush” like our 2009 Taiwan very rigid planned trip, I prefer a slow and flexible one for Honeymoon.

2011 Taiwan Day 1 – Taipei

Jimmy Lucas — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:11:19 +0000

This is our 3^rd consecutive year to Taipei. Only difference is this a family trip, with my parents, mother-in-law and sis-in-law. Amber and I love the many things of Taiwan but would love to be having a holiday at another country other than this. It just happened that our parents desire to visit Taiwan, and we ended up there again.

In 2010, we went to Taipei with 2 huge luggages (I hate travelling heavy), so this time round I decided to go light with my equipments. Bought along 35mm and 50mm, that’s all. Not even my external flash unit. As 5D II does not have in-built flash, I was prepared to forgo any photo that requires that.

As usual, we had the itinerary planned out and arrived at 桃園國際機場 at around 3pm. We chartered a 9-seater for NT1200 to ferry the 6 of us with 4 luggages (If this is your first time heading to Taiwan, do reserve a pickup in advance. Those stations at the airport charges much more, such as NT1500 for just a normal 5-seater cab).

We check into Puri Hotel in 西門丁, 台北市萬華區成都路27巷6號. It is around NT2260 per room per night for the normal bedroom. This hotel is newly furnished but the rooms are very small and squeezy. We were searching online and saw their photos, which looks nice and cozy, thus we booked it. So we were shocked to realise that there wasn’t even space to lay out our luggage properly. Nevertheless the hotel is very clean, and with such a good location, we can’t really complain.

After chunking down our luggages, we hit the 西門丁 prime area. This place is flooded with young people, mainly in their teens to 20s. My dad was a bit uneasy with the crowd as he is someone who hardly be seen in our Orchard road.

We had lunch, some snacks from the road stalls, and went back to the 三兄妹 for 雪花冰. They do celebrate Halloween in Taipei, and we came across this shop that does makeover. When the street lights got up, we headed to 士林夜市, one of our favourite night markets. As the ladies look out for clothing, I was once again only interested in food. The one item that I will never miss out when in Taipei, is none other than the 豪大大鸡排.