Singapore River Festival

19th June 2009 ~ There was a happening at Singapore River called the Singapore River Festival organized by the Singapore Tourism Board which hyped the festival as the Largest Sundown Party by the River.

Singapore River Festival @ Singapore River


By day, there wasn't much noticeable changes by the river, except for some promotion banners & a big advertising balloon looming over the river. Nothing much happened, peaceful & calm.

Singapore River near Clarke Quay


As evening approached, the scene changes, the river banks lit up in festive lights & it seemed the river's mood changes too. Lively, cheerful, noisy & rowdy.

Lights by the river

Lights on the water


And where there are lights, there is Hengbok! LOL! xD

Happiness Party!


Actually, I was invited by my blogger friend, Nathalie who is a member of Nuffnang. The founders of Nuffnang promote their organization as Asia’s first and leading blog advertising community. At this occasion, they had organized an Exclusive Singapore River Festival Experience. All free of charge, so of course I went. xD
Friday evening came along & I went to attend the so-called not-to-be-miss experience. First on the list is the registration with Nuffnang at the Central Promenade.

Group pic with other happy bloggers


After which, we were on to experience the River Festival. Some of the event's highlights included Flight of Fantasy, an unforgettable performance of aerial acrobatic above Read Bridge. I had a binocular with me, a real bino, not the paper & plastic lens ones given out free by one of the organizers. xD
However, my small point & shoot camera is not up to the task of capturing the actions above the bridge as I was too far away.

Riverside Aerial Acrobatic


Next, we watched a wayang. A wayang is a Chinese open-air road side show or theatre, a sort of a play or opera mostly in Chinese dialects. This particular one was a dance musical in English. Oh... what do you expect? It's for the tourists! If it were in ching ching chong chong, even me wouldn't be able to understand it & I believe most of those young bloggers around me wouldn't either! xD

English Wayang


After the wayang, we boarded a river boat for a cruise down Singapore River. I must admit this is the first time I ever took such a cruise. Well... same as the wayang, it's mostly for the tourist anyway, but I was kinda like sexcited over it. A humid evening & a cruise is just the thing to cool me down. =P
It was a nice cruise too, looking at the sights of the river banks which I had never seen from that angle before. At the bow of the boat was a pair of Indian musicians in tradition costumes playing soothing Indian music & me being a notorious cam hog, couldn't resisted taking a pic with them. xD

Indian Musicians


Onboard were full of Nuffnang's bloggers enjoying themselves too, hah-ing & wow-ing at nearly everything as we sailed past the sights, behaving like tourists, me included. Haha... & taking tons of pics for their blog. I bet they blog better & much more often than me. xD

Blogger Onboard

Blogger Tourists! xD

Hamster Tourist =P


After the cruise, the last item of the evening event was the Ultimate Pajamas Party @ The Arena. As pajamas were attire compulsory for entry which include 2 free drinks per person, we went to change into sleep wears, looking rather silly. We collected quite a numbers of disbelieving stares as we walked out into the crowded night. LOL! xD

Silly Pajamas Us! =P


Inside The Arena, at section put aside for us bloggers, Nath & me grabbed a table & proceeded to drown our embarrassment in drinks. My embarrassment actually cos Nath was the shameless one who had wore her pajama the whole entire day even before the event started. I quickly took off my sleeping rode once inside. LOL! xD

Cheers!


There was a band belting it out onstage & the girls were in lingerie in keeping with the theme.

Singing Lingerie


At first, we were sober, inactive. Then a whole lot of us went down to the dance floor & the action started. My soulmate, in a genuine yukata with a headband written with the word 大日本(Dai Nippon) is one of the craziest around even though he cut an imposing figure which really made him looked like a Japanese traditionalist tourist out for a good time. People came up to him, shook his hand, asking him if he's a Japanese. One spoke to him in Japanese even, which fortunately, he can speak a little. xD
No, he does not want his pic display here & I've no pic of the dancing coz the camera is with us. =P

Pajamas Party


Later on, a friend of Nath joined us. A sweet & cute girl by the nick of Jam. She is dressed in a female version of yukata which suited her very well.

Jam & Us

Stripping Jam of her shyness =P


The night partied on...

Pajamas Crowd @ The Arena

Salute!


I believe the most popular person of that night is a very popular Malaysian blogger by the name of Kenny Sia. He is also very well-known locally & he came down to join us at the bash. A very sporting, cheerful & fun-loving guy who daringly put on a shocking PINK lingerie... OMG! No wonder he's popular! LOL!

Shocking Pink Kenny! =P


Shocking it was till we molested & squeezed his boobs! LOL! xD

Shocked Kenny! =P


It was a wonderful memorable evening for me. Enjoyed it temendously. In closing, I would like to thank Nath for the invitation & Nuffnang for organizing such a great event. And also thanks to Kenny for letting us have our wicked ways with him. LOL! Hope to see you guys again! =)

The Gathering@Asia

7th June 2009 ~ Was invited to an event, The Gathering@Asia, organized by a friend who had just opened a new shop at Central. It's a shop dealing mostly with anime cosplaying merchandises, costumes, props & such. If you are into cosplaying or wanna make it a hobby, I recommend you to go take a look at his shop: Cos'tasia, #02-05, Central.

Event Posters


So on Sunday, I went down to Central to show support. It was a smallish event with a mixture of Jpop, hair-styling demo, video gaming & a game characters cos-play competition organized by VGL.

Event Stage & audience


There are some booths there too. One of those that interest me is display of miniature figures sculpted by students of Egg Story Digital Arts School. If you fantasized yourself as an anime, fantasy or sci-fi character, but can't do it in real, sign up for their course & soon you will be conquering the universe! Make your dreams come true, only in 3D animation or miniature models, of course! xD

Sexy Warrior Girls!


Another display that piqued my curiosity is a booth which had a table display of miniature trees. No, not Bonsai, but handcrafted, painted mini trees made from metal wires, plastic, clay or dried foliage. They are mainly used in architectural model building, but also can be used for making a diorama for your dolls or mini figurines. According to my soulmate who had done these sort of things in hobby & commercially, those cute little trees are very well made. The man behind those artistic mini trees called himself 'Tree Wizard'. If you need miniature trees, here's your man ~ Contact: 9474 3005.

Mini trees which won't die on you. xD


While I was browsing the booths, there is a duo from a rock band known as Helven storming away on their electric guitars.

Rock & Roll from white plastic chairs. xD


After the band exited, come on the hair-styling demo which is more gear towards anime cos-playing hairdos.

Hairy Plays


Next in line for the limelight is the game character cos-play competition. I managed to have a pic taken with a participant. In my opinion, she's the best among the contestants... just my opinion, of course. xD

Elven Princess


The stage is set, the cameras are rolling & the judges are ready...

Contest Judges


Drum rolls... presenting some of the contestants... erm, I dunno what the characters were, so please pardon me... xD

'Cloud' on stage

EyeBall-ing the MCs. xD


I left the event before the closing, but before that, I managed to grabbed a pic with the 2 gorgeous MCs whom I knew from a previous event, also held at the same venue.

Beauties of the show, Calista, me & Reiko.


And also 2 pretty showgirls whom I recommended to the event organizers. One of them is my friend's sister & the other, her ex-classmate. Don't they look cute in their anime costumes? xD

ShowGirls Peggy, Michelle & me.

My Sister is Sick!

2nd June, 2009 ~ For the past numbers of days, I have this sadness in me.
My Thai sister, Namtip has Trichinosis, a parasitic disease.

Info about Trichinosis

Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment of Trichinosis

According to the doctors, the disease had infected Namtip's brain & may attack her central nervous system. If left uncheck, it will lead to her death.
It will be a very slow & long term treatment needing lots of money.
Poor Namtip had recently experienced a very traumatizing time, starting off with troubles as mentioned here.
She is currently holding 2 jobs to make ends meet & to pay off her remaining debt. And now, this disease struck! =(
Adding to all those, her computer had broke down, rendering her unable to communicate with her oversea friends unless she spend much of her hard-earned money in Internet shops/cafes. She is also a Flickr member(her pro account was given by another Flickr member) where she met wonderful people.
I'm trying all I can to help, but my own situation isn't that good. How I wish that I strike the lottery and can help her completely solve all her woes once and for all!

Namtip is going to be furious with me for doing this, but I will bear it as it's preferable to her dying slowly. She has pride, asking me not to mention this publicly.
Before this happened, in her earlier crisis, she had received some money from Friends to solve her problems. That had shamed her for being so helpless.
She does not want to appear like a scam. According to her, she knew that many of her country girls do, always coming up with excuses or made-up sad stories to ask for money.
However this is for real. Sometimes in life, it's unavoidable that disaster does happen & there's no simple way of avoiding it.
It's in time of crisis when you can really tell who are your real great friends & who are just hang-ons. As her close friend & blood sister, I will do whatever I deem right regardless of consequences.
If this post is seen as begging & shameful, so be it. But I do really care for another human being. I can't save all of those who are worthy of saving, but I can try help a few with my limited resources and I deem Namtip is worthy of saving. If I can't save even one, then am I worthy of being a human? So I refused to stay silent, to watch my sister suffer. Regrets & remorse is useless when it's too late.

I repeat: To have great friends, you have to be a great friends to others first!
So, my friends, I also implore you to do the same if your are a great friend.
If you are in a position to, please, I beg you, help Namtip.
For once in your life, help somebody. Help Namtip. Any amount will do, even if it's a dollar. I will be sincerely grateful & Namtip will be too.

Is there someone who can donate & ship a computer to her?
A netbook, a very small basic net-surfing mini laptop will also do.

Namtip's blog: Namtip's Life

For donation @ Namtip's site: Click on 'Donate' button. PayPal needed.
(Site is sponsored & done up by one of Namtip's very good friend)

Reach Out For Love


Many thanks for reading this message.
If you have any doubt or question regarding this subject, please contact me.