Chinatown lights up

Last night was the Mid-Autumn Festival street light-up and marked the official opening of the Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival 2009. The street lights are mix of flowers, butterflies, lanterns. The festivities will be month-long which will end on October 18, 2009.

What a superb occasion to baptize my new gadget. Since its my first time and have no time to study the features, I rely mostly on the camera's scene modes. I hope i labeled the pictures below correctly as I kept constantly rotating the mode dial.

The show is about to begin. This was captured using dusk/dawn mode.

This shot using high key

Before the lights on, using blossom mode I guess :)

Lights switched on. Captured using food mode

This one I think is night landscape mode

This one using high key. The Higantes :)

The after-show

One of the floats

After that I took the opportunity to walk around Chinatown to captured new and old buildings. The pictures can be found in iBen on the loose

Finally, the wait is over

I am speechless, pardon my excitement :)

COMEX 2009

I went to SUNTEC last Saturday for the COMEX 2009, the IT and Consumer Technology Exhibition. Actually it is more like a tiangge of electronic products :). I was aiming for an Olympus PEN E-P1. I read a lot about how good the product is. And I was ready to spend my hard earned money and even convinced myself it's going to be a worth investment. I went straight to the Olympus booth and got hold of the camera. The moment I saw and touched it my excitement turned into disappointment. It looked nice and beautiful in pictures but in actual it is different. So i ended up not buying it. Besides a friend advises me to consider Nikon instead, being a satisfied owner himself.

I still have to decide on what Nikon model do I have to buy. At their booth I got the chance to try few models and I was hooked to Nikon D5000. I hoped before F1 Singapore Grand Prix I finally have my own DLSR.

I posted the pictures on tumbler since blogger has tantrums again.

Working overseas

This was taken from the forum section of The Straits Times.

An afternoon spent in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

I spent my tuesday off in Johor Bahru, Malaysia with no particular reason. My place is just a stone throw away from the causeway which link Singapore to southern gateway of Malaysia. Traveling time to Johor is shorter than say going to Orchard Road. As what I mentioned here, I just want to escape and maybe to break the monotonous life I have been in weeks. True enough the feeling of traveling to another country is quite ahh say overwhelming heheh. Though no flying involved, in fact I just took a regular bus and travelled two bus stop and then I was there already at the border gate, but the fact that you have to pass immigration and present the passport really have a different feeling.

Traversing the Causeway

It was raining that day so I spent most of the afternoon inside the City Square mall located adjacent to the Malaysian Customs building. I opted for late lunch inside the mall as combing the streets for local food is just not possible.

After that I explore the mall. There is nothing much choices actually. I was looking forward for some cheap but nice shirts. As the rain stopped I got some time to check the streets.

Some interesting buildings

Sultan Ibrahim building- the state government house

Rows of stalls selling jasmine flowers for Hindu worshippers

Indian temple

City streets

After that I went back inside the mall, have my haircut, buy a new headset, phone case and few shirts plus my month toiletries to take advantage of the 100 singapore dollars = 242 malaysian ringgits.

Definitely this will become a habit :)

Upgrading to Snow Leopard

So everybody is upgrading to snow leopard except me, though not for now. The day snow leopard made available,it takes only two days to clear all the stocks at the apple stores here in Singapore. When I inquired when will the next stock be available, I was told I have to wait for three weeks and I have to endure long queue to get one. And also I have to leave from work.

So I left with only one option, to buy it online. The price is the same and no delivery charge. Since my mac is relatively new, I just have to purchase the upgrade version which amount to 48 sing dollars.

photo credit : apple

Comes Monday, as Apple is saying, I expect my mac to be refined and:

- have a new look, new features for Exposé and Stacks.

- faster to wake up and shut down.

- automatic updates for printer drivers, I can just plug my mac to a printer available at hand and leopard will download the latest driver from the internet and viola I can print effortlessly.

- a faster, more powerful Safari.- more reliable disk eject.

- more reliable, higher-resolution iChat.

and more...

Now i'm drooling.. can't wait.

In cloud zero

Things are still not getting back to normal, my life that is. Even my life in the cyberspace is in vagabond and mac is not of help too, he seems want the snow leopard and it frustrates me. I am being forced to give in. It takes ages to browse and open the pages. Pussy he no longer want.

I need an escape. So I am off to another place just across the causeway, now.