Park @ Punggol

Remember the Restaurants @ Punggol that I mentioned a week back? I re-visited the place in the morning. This time, I cycled there.

morning View of the @Punggol

Once you get onto the Park Connector, behind the restaurant. Travel to the north end of the park connector, you will notice a bridge that can link you the Lorong Halus Wetland (yet to be opened)

The brown-red metal bridge.

The resting desk with benches for resting after a vigorous jog or fast walk.
Notice that the desk are staying "afloat".

Take a look at the man-made lallang. I have not actually see them in the night but I believe this will glow (LED) in the night for the effect. I will check out some other time.

Make a guess what this structure for? Just decoration?

Budget Airline

I am planning to fly to Hong Kong so I survey various way of getting great value air tickets. After much reserch and price comparison, I settle down to Jetstar and book the air ticket through On-line.

The booking system is easy and friendly and is very similar to other online ticketing system for other airline other than the seat selection step that was a surprise to me. It shows me 3 type of seats. S$30 for a great legroom seat, S$18(if I am not wrong) for a upfront seat where the few rows are nearer to the front of the plane and finally S$3 for a standard seat. I am surprise, I need to pay extra S$3 for a seat. Does that mean that I can select without seat and stand throughout the flight? It should be part of the ticket pricing as who will get a air ticket without seat. I understand the extra legroom seat and upfront seat but not the standard seat...

Does anyone know?

One more, to save some more cost, once should do offline payment as I understand it will not charge the S$14 booking and service fee (a friend told me this).

New Restaurant Place @ Punggol

Next to the Un-opened SengKang-Pungol Park connector, there is a restaurant place that called by the name of @Punggol. It is located just beside the Chinese Temple along Punggol East Road. Nearest LRT is Riviera Station.



It is a nice place and currently there are 3 restaurants open (another one is currently under renovation). There are Popeyes Chicken, a Chinese Seafood restaurant and a Bristol and Bar. There just beside the park connector along the Serangoon River (if I get it correctly). Enjoy the dinner and the nice view. There are about 50 parking lots and it is current free parking. You could park along the road side of the small road as well.

Well, if you have time, make a trip there. Nice ambience and Scenery. Air is fresh too.

2011 CNY Dinner at Jumbo

Traditionally, we always will have our CNY dinner within the 15 days of CNY. This year, there is no different. Initially it was reserved at one of the quite famous local Chi Char stall, but we changed as Boon suggested to try Jumbo. This seafood restaurant chain is very famous in Singapore for it Chili Crab. Our reservation was at East Coast Seafood Centre for 2 tables of 10. We are a big family by the way.

We reached there at 6:40pm with reservation at 7pm. The place was fully packed. The 1st floor and 2nd floor was full of patrons. I would expect it packed at least 1000 people and another 200 guests waiting to be seated, ourselves included. We were given a Q number and required to wait. Many turn up without reservation but was also in the Q. Not too sure how the restaurant manage between the reservation and those without reservation but the front desk person, Kelly was controlling the Q very well.

The crowded Restaurant at about 7pm. On the left, they are many waiting to be called for their Q number.

We were a little frustrated after waiting for 1/2hrs, many other too. We were ready to switch to other Seafood restaurant around the place if our Q number was not called in the next 5 mins. Fortunately, our Q was called and we headed into the restaurant.

I am going to jump pass the ordering of food... The following pictures are the food we had for the day.

The Yusheng, Raw Fish. A must have dish during the Chinese New Year in Singapore.

The process of "Tossing the Yusheng", the higher you toss, the more health and wealth you have in this coming year.

Sweet Sour Pork. Quite a standard dish in Singapore.

Deep Fried Tiny Squid. Eldest Sis favourite.

Deep Fried Fritter with Squid meat. Many of us love this dish. This dish looks like GOLD bar. haha.

Chili crab. A must have. Taste yammy!

Deep Fried Golden Bun. Goes very well with the Chili Crab Sauce.

There are 3 other dishes that I did not take the picture. The Kai Lan vegetable, Cereal Prawn and Noodle.

Finally, the Orh Nee, Yam with Coconut milk. Traditional Teow Chew dessert.

After all these food, here come the bill at about $600 all in for 20 pax. After all the waiting, the food, the service and the price were excellent. We will visit Jumbo again but maybe at other outlet that has better ambience.

GONG XI FA CAI!

Chinese New Year - 新年

今天是2011新年除夕，买了一些有代表性的物品。


黄梨，凤梨，福建话叫"Ong Lai"就是旺来的意识。希望今年好运天天来。呵呵

菊花-大吉大利。实施顺利。

年糕-年年高升，上学的年年升级！上班的年年加薪升职！

祝大家：新年快乐！万事顺利！恭喜发财！

A trip back to Suzhou

I went for a business trip to Suzhou, a place that I had stay for 2 years and a place that I had not gone back for 1 1/2 year.

Typically, heading to Suzhou, China is rather straight forward. Take a flight from Singapore to Shanghai, then a transport from Shanghai Pudong Airport to Suzhou. In total 9 to 10hrs will be good enough for a door to door tirp.

Unfortunately, this time round, due to the Chinese New Year peak season, I was not lucky to have a direct fly. I had a transfer at Hongkong, and overall, it took 12hrs for a door to door trip. And the worst is I had only 40mins upone the place arrival to Hongkong before I board the place to Shanghai. I had to walked real fast from one end of the terminal to the other end to catch the plane. The brisk walk was like army force march. Maybe, I am old, haha.

Suzhou was cold this time of the year. Temperature range from -3C to 5C during my stay of 3 days.

I was lucky to stay in one new hotel, Intercontinetal Hotel (苏州洲际酒店) next to Times Square. Everything was new. Room was big, curtains was motorised, LCD TV with news channels, movies channels, and local channels. Good spread of TV programs cater to all travellers. Free Internet was provided. The main lobby has WiFi too. Breakfast was great too. International buffet with soup noodles, porrige, Nasi Lemak, Tim Sum. All these come with a reasonable price of about 850rmb (tax included).

The hotel.

Day view of the Times Square from the hotel

Night view of the Times Square from the hotel

Suzhou has lot of new development after I left 1.5 years back. In the SIP, many new apartment, new neighbourhood centre, new shopping area. I did not manage to visit any of these due to time constraint but hope that I could do it again next time.

Friends in Suzhou did not change much. They are still as cheerful, friendly, hardworking as I left sometimes back.

In all, it was a good short trip and I would love to head back again in near future (if opportunities arises).

A day trip to (China Town) 牛车水

Last Saturday, after fetching my son from his dance class, we headed to China to do some shopping for Chinese New Year. Bought some Bal Kwa (not the super long queue brand).

As usual, the place was decorated for chinese new year.

A shop selling all the CNY decorative stuff. Most of the items are selling at $2.8 or 4 for $10. Reasonable price.

While heading home, we walked toward Chinatown Point, a shopping complex. There had a meet the "It's A Great Great World" Cast event going on. 3 of the casts from that show was present. They are Marcus Chin, Hui Ge and I think the "slightly" oversize lady is Ying Ying.



Nothing much, just another day.

Happy New Year

yet another year has past. time flies and everyone get older by another year, technology advances, more cars, more road, more cutting of trees, more disastrous all over the world. more pay increases, more sickness, well, what else.

anyway, wishing everyone who read this blog a Happy and Great 2011. Be strong, be brave, enjoy what you have and you will be happy throughout the year.

Recent activities

My family recently went for a wedding lunch at Top of UOB. Am I right, I think the place is called Top of UOB. Food was nice and grand. View from the restaurant was great and I took 2 pictures of the Marina Bay area.




On another weekend, we went to the open field area near Anchorvale CC. This is what we saw in the sky. Many different types of kites flying. I should get one for my son during the school holiday as well. Kite flying too high so too small to view... Click on it to view a bigger picture.



Singaporean favorite hobby. Eat...
Went to an industrial park canteen for dinner. These are the dishes we had. The green was very good. Not too sure how they did it but it tasted just nice. Not too raw or too cook. The most expensive dish was the stewed pork rib on the right. It was well cooked and it melt in the mouth. The taste was above average.

Mainland Singapore Last Kampong

There have been quite some talks about the Singapore Mainland Last Kampong recently. In newspaper, in forums as well as web blogs. So, I told myself, why not take a visit to that last Kampong since it is located 10mins drive away from where I stay, it is located at Lorong Buangkok.

When I reached the place at about 3.30pm, to my surprise, on top of those cricket and insect chipping, there is another louder sound. A woman was singing the karaoke. Those 1970s mandarin song.

While walking, I can smell the hot afternoon mud smell (土香味) and the road in is a little muddy. Well, what do I expect from a kampong right. I also saw a group of middle-age artists hiding under shade of tree and doing their best to capture the last mainland kampong. Sorry, I am quicker, I use my Omnia to capture it but yours will be more meaningful. Haha...

Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing.
This is the main road leading to the little kampong of about 20 houses.

A zinc roof house with the overhead power cable leading to the house.

Tapioca planted right in front of the house.

Hibiscus and the letter box

Nice foot path with coconut tree. Really hard to find this in mainland but lot of similar footpath in Pulau Ubin.

Saturday outing

feeling bored and no way to go. remember that there is a paranakan restaurant at katong. asked if wifey was interest for paranakan food, she was quite excited. as the lantern festival is arriving soon, we brought along 2 nice RWS lantern.

Katong has quite a lot of food chains. the only problem is parking. the parking space is very limited with less than 20 parking spaces along the main road. for those without must parallel parking skill, it is tough.

Let me show you the place and the food.

Ambience is great. There have about 10 tables that can sit 4 to 8 each. Not crowded during the 6pm to 7pm on a Saturday evening.

Ayam Sioh (Braised Chicken in Soya sauce). Taste a little sour. Not wifey and mine liking.

Babi Ponteh (lean pork). Normal, nothing great!

Ngoh Hiong, Meat roll. Sightly expensive but great food.

Sambal Kangkong. This is good. Not spicy but with enough balacan.

After dinner, we headed to East Coast Park since it is nearby Katong area. Setup the RWS lantern and Keith is enjoying it.

Evening Visit to Universal Studio Singapore

My friend Wee told me about this promotion that is going at Universal Studio Singapore (USS). It is a night visit to the USS without rides at a cost of S$5.00. Well, I thought it is a good deal since my family and I are not keen in taking the rides. So, we head to the place last Saturday.

Upon reaching at about 6:15pm, the queue was about 20mins wait, it is better than I expected. We were expecting at least 45mins to 1 hour queue time. We bought our tickets.

Look at the Queue, not too long but still substantial

The ticket to the USS

At it was not time to enter the park yet (7pm is the entry time), we took some pictures with the Universal Globe.




Keith always enjoy water fountain. he would usually get wet during such play.

After some times, we entered the park. IT was actually quite crowded with many taking pictures. We walked to the pond area where the Battlestar Galactica that is still closed due to a technical issue during the testing before the park is opened.

Here is the picture of the closed Battlestar.

The kids were enjoying taking pictures with the car. Even the one in the stroller.


More pictures of them.

Some night pictures of the park



A group picture of us taken at the Madagascar

We were rather surprised that only about 1/4 of the park is opened during the evening session but with the S$5 ticket price, I do not really complain much. Further to the reasonable ticket price, it comes with up close firework at 10pm.

If you are not keen on rides, it is worthwhile making a visit to the USS evening promotion during the Friday and Saturday evening. Not too sure when will the promotion end.