But that was not even the most exciting part of the evening. For the best part was that I was there to attend a book launch party for my friend Joyce!

The short of it: at the start of April, Joyce had her urban fantasy tale Wolf At The Door released by Lyrical Press as an e-book. It’s a tale about Chinese werewolves in Singapore– not the traditional European manwolf concept currently perfusing the market, mind you, but wolf spirits that have taken on human form as per Asian tradition (see the legend of Madam White Snake, and huli jing, etc.) Really fresh stuff, a nice UF take on tradition & cultural clashes.

To celebrate the release of her book, Joyce had readings, quizzes (with prizes!) and signings! Good times all around.

Joyce & a printout of the gorgeous book cover!

More pictures & deets of the event after the jump!

The party was hosted at The Garden Slug, which does delicious eats at affordable prices. I’ve been hankering to go for ages, but I’ve always found its location–in Eunos, halfway across the country for a Westie like me–to be a major hindrance. The cross-island trek was definitely worth it, though: the food was every bit as scrumptious as my friends (including 4sq Mayor & my former Thursday-Afternoon-Girlfriend Sook) had told me it would be.

The next time I go, I am definitely having the dessert platter all by myself because it is that amazing. Who needs proper food when you have cinnamon-stewed pears and brownie popsicles?

Oh look at all that sinful deliciousness. I have this picture as my desktop wallpaper right now. And I have a 27″ iMac. Imagine that.

It was a small, intimate gathering, with about 15 people in attendance. Joyce, armed with her iPhone, held a mini-quiz with book- and Singapore-history/culture- related questions. Prizes included signed copies of the cover, the prologue (which I won! Hurray!), chocolate, and… astronaut ice cream? Well, this was the week we celebrated 50 years of humanity in space, so I suppose it was relevant!

And is a author-graced book event without a signing session? Joyce signed printouts of the really lovely cover…. and then did a digital signing of the cover off Avariel’s iPad.

iPad signiiiiiing.

When we’d more or less finished our battle with the food (it was very good, but there was a lot of it and I’m rather afraid we over-ordered on our part), we adjoined to the next section of the cafe where Joyce read us an excerpt from the second chapter, introducing us to the world of the lang (as the wolves in her book call themselves). I liked what I read very much, and it made me pret-ty thrilled about getting my hands on the book & reading it.

She also shared some insights with us about the writing process behind her novel, and the difficulty she experienced in getting a story based in Singapore published, just based on the fact that it’s perceived as something that is not saleable. That’s something I think is extremely unfortunate, given the richness of the culture & tradition  here that’s just waiting to be mined. Especially for urban fantasy! Singapore is such a bloody mix of sharp modernity & smoky traditions, it’s basically begging to have UF written about it. Pity. This has just strengthened my resolve to write more novels & short stories based in Singapore– I believe in the Apple model of telling customers what they want.

(Also, I promise that, despite all the Apple product namedropping I’ve done in this post, I am not a shill for them! Just an… appreciator of their fine wares.)

Watch out for a review of Wolf At The Door soon– I’ll post it once I’m done reading the book, which you can purchase from Lyrical Press!

Buy Wolf At The Door: From Lyrical Press (multiple formats including pdf, epub, Kindle, html etc. Only US$4.50! Esp. now that the S$ is pretty strong against the greenback. Costs less than a meal at McDonalds’! BUY BUY BUY)
Joyce’s website: http://awolfstale.wordpress.com
The Garden Slug: http://blog.thegardenslug.com/ <– their food is seriously amazing, check them out
Full photoset on Flickr: Right here (yep I took them)

On Tuesday, thanks to a lovely invite from the folks at The Pigeonhole, I got to spend an evening appreciating classical music with some representatives from the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. It was basically a session to celebrate the relationship between the SNYO and Lanxess, a German chemicals company, as well as to raise awareness of an upcoming SNYO concert. But it was fun!

The gathering was small, intimate– about 10-15 bloggers were present, a few speakers from SNYO, and some of the talented teens who play with the orchestra. There was some discussion on music in general. There was a game of Taboo that was about classical music. I won prizes! For things like being able to identify Beethoven’s Fifth and knowing that Mozart has chocolate balls named after him (they are called Mozartkugeln, you can get them in Austria & Germany, and they are frakkin delicious.)

And then, of course, there was highlight of the evening (for me, at least!): the solo performances by the three talented young flautists who had recently returned from a study trip sponsored by Lanxess, where they spent a week training with renowned flautist Andrea Griminelli. I used to be a flautist in my teens–I even played with my sister’s school band at one point–so needless to say I greatly enjoyed the performances. My personal favorite was an improv of a piece from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which was a tune I vaguely recognized. Probably because I used to hang out with out with people who loved that sort of music when I was in school.

One of the speakers present spoke about why he liked Debussy’s work, making  a salient point about understanding history and humanity through music. He talked about how Debussy’s Paris of the late 18th century was a global cultural hub, with exposure to cultures from all over the world, and how Debussy’s music absorbed all that (“like a sponge”, he said). A zeitgeist of a sort, a time capsule. I found the sentiment simultaneously common-sensical and profound.

Darrell Ang, conductor of the SNYO and SSO, shared some personal anecdotes about the difficulties he had in pursuing music as a full-time career– he came from a humble background (as some would say) and struggled greatly to fund his studies in conservatories abroad, as Singapore did not have such facilities back then. Given how important I personally think music is to our lives, it makes me glad that kids these days have a lot more opportunity to pursue music as a career should they choose to.

Anyway, if you want to check out the SNYO concert that’s coming up, here are the deets:

LANXESS SNYO CLASSIC 2011 “A Musical Chemistry”

ETA: Whoo! Here’s a working link from the Lanxess that has more deets about the entire collaboration! http://lanxess.sg/en/lanxess-snyo-classic/2011-event/2011-event-highlights/

So. Here I am.

Did you believe me?

Because: April Fool’s!

No, of course I wouldn’t just drop out of the anthology team like that! We’ve already put in so much effort in organizing and promoting it. Submissions have already started to come in! I wouldn’t abandon my team just like that. That would be sad and unfair. Hell, I’m going through a crazy job change right now and my 4-year-old MacBook Pro just fried itself dead and that still isn’t deterring me.

So, fret not. I am still ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. And there’s a month left for submissions: don’t forget that we close for submissions on the 30th of April! Writers: get cracking on those stories! And the rest of the team: GIRD YOUR LOINS for the madness that will be MAY, JUNE, AND JULY. We will be busy, and we will most likely die a painful and lingering death, but at least we will be in it together.

(If you need a refresher: Information about Hybrid INCLUDING submission guidelines.)

ONWARD!

Here we go again.

I’ve been on a blogging hiatus of sorts– rushing to submit a novel manuscript to these guys (who will most likely get a good laugh out of it, and nothing more). On top of that, I told myself that I’d stay away from commenting on social/political issues, because that wasn’t the reason I started this blog for.

But something’s happened in the past week that I just can’t let go. So here I am, putting on my flame-retardant suit with another one of them ranty blogposts.

The scoop: Several days ago the ruling party announced candidates for the upcoming General Election. Of chief interest, apparently, was Ms Tin Pei Ling, the youngest candidate to run for Parliament since the last one (both at age 27). Naturally, this caused an uproar amongst the politically- and not-so-politically- inclined Netizens: wow! So young! Who is she? Never heard of her before.

In rolled in all the predictable responses. The first wave: comments about her looks. As a matter of fact, that is how I heard of her first– from a retweet of an online news article by a guy friend, together with a comment that we finally had an attractive female politician. (Yes, I did point out to him that his sentiment was rather missing the point of politics; he did say he was aware of it, so there’s that.) Ruh-roh, we’re not off a good start.

Then, joy: someone went through her Facebook profile and dug out a photo of her doing the infamous V-pose with a Kate Spade bag. Accusations of being frivolous & too cutesy to be taken seriously are dumped in by the bucket. One of the radical opposition sites here ran an article that questions her relationship history, her motivations for marriage, her choice of honeymoon vacation… really? Really? Oh. Really. Oh dear.

Thankfully I was not the only one who was, by this time, getting alarmed by the direction in which the discourse was going. Siew Kum Hong, in particular, put out a brilliant post urging Singaporeans to focus on policy, not personal issues. This was linked on Twitter along with a sentiment that approximated, “oh look, we can’t criticize her anymore”, because, really, that’s exactly what the post said.

And so it went, on and on ad nauseum. I still see jokes being made about Kate Spade bags on Twitter. There is the occasional critique that is based solely on policy issues, but so far every one I’ve seen comes from someone who is specifically responding to the brouhaha (and therefore the impetus for the criticism was not independently derived– in other words, I’ve yet to see someone come in fresh on the issue and directly talk about Ms. Tin’s political views, instead of other things). At this point, the loudest notes in the discourse–the biggest words floating around in its cloud, so to speak–are still directed at her as a person, and not her political stances (or lack thereof).

Of course, there is the sentiment that these attacks come from legitimate criticism of a rigged, unfair system, one in which the ruling party’s untested & unknown candidates with zero governing experience (like Ms Tin) can walk a sunny landscaped path into Parliament while opposition candidates with far more credit on their resume have to hack through fire and thorn bushes and climb over mountains to get there. That’s fine! I agree! It isn’t fair! Except that the bulk of it isn’t criticism of the system– it’s personal attacks. Not only that, it’s personal attacks of a nature exclusively directed at women: “gold-digger”, “slut”, “too sexy”… and on.

So far, none of the other male political candidates from the incumbent party have managed to generate this amount of chatter online. I’m not going to say that Ms Tin’s gender is the sole reason for all this controversy–her age and inexperience definitely play a huge role in this as well[*]. I am going to say, however, that her gender is influencing the type of criticism being aimed at her, particularly the loudest and most vicious parts of it. And I would say that I’m disappointed by it, except that I’m not. I’ve really come not to expect better of people.

And that’s sad.

[*] Notice that I’m not even touching the difference in social expectations of the capabilities of inexperienced young men versus that of inexperienced young women– watch how we worship the cult of the innovative, forward-thinking, whatever-saavy young (male) entrepreneur…

Now, here’s the part where you come in. WE WANT YOU! Or rather, we want your stories, be they scifi, fantasy, or related genres. Hybrid is accepting submissions until midnight April 30th (+8GMT), and we welcome all. SEND US YOUR STORIES!

In a nutshell, what we are looking for are short stories, 2000-6,500 words in length, sci-fi/fantasy/horror/alternate reality/related genres, themed around the anthology concept “HYBRID”, and preferably linked to something about Singapore, or life in Singapore.

Will the stories actually be published in a book?
Yes! That is our goal. We intend to have an actual real can-pick-up-and-flip-through version of the book out in time for the SWF in October this year. How we’re going to manage it, I have no idea, but I think it involves superhuman feats of endurance at some point. There will, of course, be an e-book available as well.

I’ve never written/published anything before. Can I still submit?
Absolutely! We’re not looking for big names, we’re just looking for good stories!

What are the chances my story will get submitted?
We have no freaking idea. It really depends on the number & the quality of the submissions that we get. As a guideline, we’re looking to feature between 15-20 stories in our book.

Will I get any money from it?
That depends! We intend to split the royalties from book sales equally amongst all the authors, but there’s no guarantee the book sales will even cover the costs of printing & distributing the books. You might get back enough money to buy yourself and a friend a nice dinner at a restaurant. Definitely don’t expect the anything that will help with a new iPad or e-reader. Welcome to the life of a writer!

Anyway, just to let you know, I’m the Chief Editor for this project, so if you see me losing copious amounts of hair during the months between May and July, you’ll know why. It’s because I’ll be driving myself nuts chasing my team/my writers/the printers/various other people trying to get it all together… why I do these things to myself, I don’t even know.

So! If the sound of this project interests you, head on over to the SUBMISSION RULES AND GUIDELINES page where you’ll find tons more information, as well as ideas on what we want/don’t want. If you have friends whom you think might be interested in this sort of shindig, send them a link! And of course, if you have any questions, please do send them to specfic.sg@gmail.com where one of us will try our best to answer it.

That is all. Thanks for listening!

What is the flea market about? Here’s the brief from the info pack they gave me:

“Sunday Eclectica is a permanent fortnightly series of flea markets at the Pigeonhole promoting local DIY arts and crafts and local independent fine art. Sunday Eclectica warmly welcomes seamstresses, artisans, craftsmen, jewelers, sculptors, photographers, illustrators, and artists in general.”

Sweeeeet. Sounds like the kind of place to find amazing handmade trinkets and collectibles. I like it already!

The low-down: there are 17 little stalls available to rent on the premises of The Pigeonhole.The flea market runs from 2PM to 8PM, every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month. And the rents are fairly reasonable, too, the cost of one slightly fancy dinner. If you are a craftsy/artsy sort of person (and I know there are folks who read this that are!) and you have stuff you’d like to sell, you can contact the.pigeonhole.sg@gmail.com for more information.

And of course, if you’re like me and have an interest in crafts, then the inaugural flea market on the 13th of March is THE thing to check out. Sunday Eclectica even has a tumblr– go on, follow them, you know you want to!

As for me, I don’t think I’ll be selling plushes at the market anytime soon. Aside from being really ugly, they take too much time to make. Unless I just bring two and sell them for thirty dollars each, or something. I doubt anyone would pay for that! I am, however, looking into making t-shirts. Maybe I’ll bring some t-shirts to sell further down the line!

ABOUT THE PIGEONHOLE
The Pigeonhole (52 & 53 Duxton Road) is a book cafe & dynamic arts space promoting local NGOs, music, film, fine arts and performing arts.

The Pigeonhole boasts a diverse variety of old, second-hand and rare books on topics ranging from religion to popular culture to botany to politics. Apart from an eclectic array of exciting arts programmes devoted to local independent art and music, the Pigeonhole also serves aromatic espresso, tasty gourmet sandwiches and salads and a globetrotting range of whiskies, wines, ciders and lagers. The Pigeonhole is proud and honoured to support the good work of local homegrown NGOs and non-profit organizations.

Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, or on their blog.

The backstory: a lady by the name of Grace Leong writes in to the Straits Times Today forum complaining about a risque womens’ lingerie advertisement on a public billboard. A gentleman by the name of Gary Ow writes in a clever response about lighting and photography that would be funny as a joke while having a drink with friends, intellectual gibberish on a semi-formal forum in a national newspaper. The response gets circulated around with great cheer on the Internet, notably by local blogging rockstar Mr. Brown.

I.. am not happy about this.

Click to enlarge

Alright. Let’s have a look at the two letters. The first one, by Ms Grace Leong, is riddled with issues. I will not deny that. Assuming that all women would be “too embarrassed” to look at the ad is… problematic at best, horribly horribly stereotypical at worst. And her horror that children and teens will be exposed to the same ad sounds a lot like a “think of the children, they’ll be corrupted!”-type argument (even if this point has salient truth in it–just not about OMG SEX IS DIRTY EW). But her last paragraph–even if unfortunately worded–brings up a good point: the lingerie ad objectifies women. And that is Not A Good Thing.

Mr Gary Ow’s “response”? To completely ignore whatever points she made and instead going on about lighting and focus of the photo. Of course! You’ve got me; I’ve seen the error of my ways now. It’s totally okay to objectify women because the photography is beautiful and it pleases the men who look at it. Mr Gary Ow must be patting himself heartily on the back right now, he’s so clever, mocking that silly hysterical woman’s legitimate concerns.

Thanks for underscoring exactly what Ms Grace Leong was trying to say, you brilliant man you. Her argument wasn’t even all that sound, but your response perfectly, perfectly exemplifies why this sort of advertising is problematic and has wider implications for society. Round of applause! You’ve outdone yourself.

But no. The story just doesn’t end there, does it? It’s not enough that the one of the nation’s biggest newspapers gives exposure to opinions of this level of douchbaggery. When the response letter gets circulated about Twitter (multiple times on my own timeline), not only does it get lauded as an EPIC WIN REPLY (epic win , you hear that women? The menz have spoken!), it also gets tagged with the ugly undercurrent of “good on that man for one-upping that prude“, with all the delicious implication that there must be something wrong with that woman who wrote it, because she isn’t enjoying being turned into a sexual object!

And when I start pointing out these things on Twitter, the epic game of Sexist Joke Bingo begins. “Maybe he didn’t MEAN to be offensive!” “It’s just a joke, I found it funny, why are you taking it so seriously?” “Can’t you just take it as a compliment?” With a bonus side of Oppression Olympics, and then, after realizing I wouldn’t quit about it, threats of unfollowing, “scary feminists are oppressing me”, etc.

Sigh.

I wish we could talk about male privilege in schools.** I wish we could teach kids the hard truths about how much women still suffer from being boxed into the roles that patriarchal society has prepared for them, and that even though great leaps have been made in terms of gender equality we’ve still got a long, long way to go before we get there. Even if they don’t agree with any of it, at least people will be less prone to assume that I’m attacking them personally when I point out their privilege or misogyny. It’s not just about you, really. This is everybody’s problem.

And yes–before I start getting responses that go “But I’m a woman, and I thought that letter was funny”, we did talk about that as well. And it boils down to this– whether you thought it was funny or not, it doesn’t change the fact that this is still a horribly sexist letter that was published in the most widely-circulated English-language newspaper in the country, in the forum pages which have, in the past, been shown to have enough influence to trigger changes in public policy. Just being a woman doesn’t exempt one from contributing to sexism against women, at all. I know plenty of sexist women. Some of them are even worse than the sexist men I know.

But how can a woman be sexist against women, you ask? That’s because we’ve been all brought up in this environment that still says women must be like this and men should be like that. And it gets to you. It really does. Even I am not immune to their insidious effects. Every day, starting from when we were little girls until we become middle-aged aunties and then old ladies, we get bombarded with messages that a our worth is tied to our looks, that to be beautiful and thin is the key to happiness, that the measure of our femininity is how attractive we are to the men who look at us. Hundreds and thousands of messages, from TV and movies and magazines and advertising on the side of buses.

Including scantily-clad, titillating lingerie models on billboards in very public arenas.

Think about that.

ETA: My friend Jo has written a long, thoughtful (and somewhat forceful) piece about the issue as well. Check it out: War of the Genders

**In fact I wish we could talk about all kinds of privilege in general. Straight privilege, class privilege, and (in the case of Singapore) Chinese privilege… but of course we couldn’t have that since Singapore is a meritocracy and privilege doesn’t exist at all, you just have to work hard hard and you will get to the good things in life.

I like that you are an activist. I like that you fight for the rights of the marginalized. I like what you did to repeal DADT. When I heard that your next single was going to be titled “Born This Way”, I couldn’t wait.

So yesterday, after I had calmed down from fluster of the happenings in Egypt, I had a listen to the song.

Alright. I have to say that, I liked it upon first listen. It’s got that 90s-power-pop vibe going. Not quite what I expected, but I like! And then we got to this part:

YOU’RE BLACK, WHITE, BEIGE, CHOLA DESCENT
YOU’RE LEBANESE, YOU’RE ORIENT

I had to stop the video and rewind a few times to make sure that I hadn’t heard you wrong. “Orient”, as in “Oriental”, really? I see what you’re trying to do with the song, and it’s an admirable sentiment. But I think you missed the memo that “Orient” is a dated term with colonialist connotations, and using it in conjunction to describe people is considered racist.

Then in a later verse:

I WAS BORN TO SURVIVE
NO MATTER BLACK, WHITE OR BEIGE
CHOLA OR ORIENT MADE

Sigh.

This song’s getting a paws-down from this little monster, sadly. I can’t believe that nobody on your production crew, not a single person, thought to bring this up during the entire course of writing, recording, editing & distributing the single. If it were just another regular mainstream hit I’d roll my eyes and attribute it to the entertainment industry being the entertainment industry as usual, but this is a song that specifically sets out to celebrate diversity. How could it have gone so far off the mark? Really, I AM DISAPPOINT.

Love,
A little monster

So. Valentine’s Day is nearly here, and like it always has been I am without a Valentine this year. But no biggie, because I figured it was even better to make Valentine’s Day presents for some of the ladies in the Valkyrie Knights.

As you know, I started the hobby of making fantastically ugly plush felt dolls this year. So I chanced upon the bright idea of making little plush thingies for the ladies. After a bit of research & shopping at Spotlight I settled on making little phone charms instead.

I spent the entirety of the CNY weekend working on these, variously stitching and covering my fingers with needlepricks while marathoning episodes of Merlin or watching the reruns of the SAME DAMN MOVIES EVERY YEAR at relatives’ houses.

They are, as to be expected, godawfully ugly and deformed and with stitches poking out everywhere. But I think the recipients liked them!

Viki with her Mario mushroom plush, which is apparently now a loyal companion to her Mario figure

Sarah and the plushie version of her block stray, Salem Devon Derrick the Darkfluffington, a.k.a. DiDi for short. This was actually the easiest of the plushes to make because FINALLY A SIMPLE DESIGN WITH NO ADDITIONAL STICKYBITS TO SEW ON. \o/

Lina and her plushie of Duke Orange. NOW SHE CAN LICK HIM (or a representation of him) ALL SHE WANTS! The only felt I could get was a bit too orange for my tastes, but what’s a poor ‘lil consumer to do?

For Avariel, my Lomo enabler, I thought it’d be cute to make her a plush version of the Diana Mini V-day edition. I’M NOT SURE WHY I EVEN THOUGHT IT WAS PLUSHABLE TO BE HONEST. I clearly had not considered that cutting several dozen holes into the blue felt would result in it falling apart when I started to stuff and stitch. And here I was thinking I was being so clever by not sewing tiny pieces of white felt onto a blue backing. CLEARLY NOT.

Jo and her plush Angry Bird. Yes she got a Dulan Jiao from me.

Because the picture didn’t come out quite as I intended, here’s the mugshot I took of it in the morning before I packed it up:

This was actually my favorite in terms of the design because it just worked out. I definitely want to try making plushes of the rest of the Birds and of the Stupid Pigs.

I got presents too! Look at what Sarah got me:

I HAVE NOT HAD CHOCOLATE MILK SINCE I WAS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL, OH GOSH.

BY THE WAY, I feel like I ought to mention that in the course of making these things, I realized that I could have really made them into things other than phone charms if I wanted to. They could be keychains! Brooches! Pendants! Earrings! Imagine wearing a couple of those obnoxious angry birds off your earlobes!

On second thoughts, maybe not.
(No, seriously, I CAN make earrings out of them. My mom & sis used to be into handmade jewelry making and we’ve still got all the stuff sitting around the house. I’ve got the jump rings and the metalworking pliers and everything!)

Shoot Ur Tweeple, now in its 7th edition, is a wonderful event that happens every couple of months. Organized over Twitter, it brings together an eclectic mix of professional and hobbyist photographers who wander around some interesting part of Singapore, taking shots of photo-worthy subjects, and each other (the two categories not being mutually exclusive). I went on the last one to Tanjong Pagar and enjoyed myself so much that I decided I would go on all subsequent SUTs.

The latest installment took place in–you guessed it–Sentosa! (What gave it away, the top image?) But this was no ordinary Shoot Ur Tweeple session. With the generous support of the folks running Sentosa (Twitter account: @Sentosa_Island), we got a a whole variety of treats, from a preview of the soon-to-be-opened Sentosa Boardwalk to a visit to the Merlion, plus a ride on the luge and skyride! There was so much excitement, I think, that I almost entirely forgot about taking proper photos. But here is my recounting of what happened, anyway, with a smattering of the few photos that did manage to turn out.  After the jump!

The boardwalk, slated to officially open this Saturday, links Vivocity to Sentosa via a series of covered travellators (for the lazy-to-walk, like me), as well as walkways (for those who prefer to stop and smell the roses every now and then). For those who like it scenic, and aren’t afraid of a little sunshine, there’s a whole stretch of open-air boardwalk that fronts the sea, with proper landscaping and statuary and all that.The name boaardwalk, by the way, is entirely literal– it’s made of boards, and you walk on it. We liked it!

We also bore witness, from our perch on the boardwalk, these absolutely bizarre giant mechanized crane-birds that danced to music and had wings made out of jets of water. I suppose they were rehearsing for an upcoming attraction show!

The boardwalk was still mildly under construction, preparing for its grand opening. This guy ducked into his subterranean for about half a minute, and when he reemerged he seemed a little surprised to find half a dozen lenses pointed at him, all eagerly awaiting his reappearance (“Kind of like Groundhog Day”, one of the tweeple remarked).

Our next stop was the Merlion. WE SAW THE BATTLESTAR GALACTICA RIDE BEING TESTED WHILE WE WERE UP THERE. Cue jubilation from the attendees! Please, please, please let the ride finally open soon, so that I can finally go pretend I’m frakkin some toasters.

I’ve not been to Sentosa regularly in a while, so it was nice to get a bird’s eye view of the entire island to see how much it’s changed since. All the photos I took are simply begging for the tilt-shift treatment. Begging, I tell you!

I’m also glad that this gorgeous little water-feature garden behind the Merlion is still around. It’s been my favorite thing to photograph since I was still using a film camera. I love everything– the colors! the mosaic tiles! the playful jets of water! the tentacles going everywhere! It’s like Cthulhu and Disney’s Fantasia had an exquisite lovechild and dumped it in the middle of Sentosa. Look at it! JUST LOOK AT IT.

So pretty, I like. Our next stop was a brief canopy walk through Imbiah. Plenty of interesting interactive panels (in a purely analog way) with information nuggets for budding ecologists. By the way, there is a pushcart selling amazing Hokkaido ice cream halfway up to the Imbiah lookout from the base of the Merlion, if you take the escalators up (I DID mention being lazy-to-walk). The ice-cream is only $2 a cone and it is mana from heaven on a hot day. Heaveeeeen.

Then we were off to luge our way down to the beach! Or at least, just luge our way down. For people who don’t know what lugeing is, you’re basically put into this sled-like thing with handlebars and set down a sloping, curved concrete path. Release the handles to go faster, pull the handles back to slow down or stop. Turn left and right to navigate. It’s so simple, even kids can do it. And it’s FUN– nothing quite like being low on the ground and getting the wind in your face to inject a little color into your life. Make vroom-vroom noises or yell ‘GERONIMOOO!’ as you go!

Furthermore, we passed by the place later in the day when the sun had already set, and the luge tracks had been lit with wacky changing, neon lights. I definitely want to try it again, but this time at night– seems like it would be quite a trip! (The luge closes at 9PM, so there’s plenty of sundown time to go crazy in.)

We then took one of the friendly trams down to Palawan Beach, where we headed to the Southernmost Point Of Continental Asia to take photos of the sun setting. Another of my favorite bits of Sentosa. I’m not sure why, but the sea is a lot more turquoise than I remembered it being when I was younger. It makes for better contrast!

There were all these little CRABS on the rocks below the lookout point. Dozens and dozens of them, scuttling around and feeding on the algae. Quite an unusual sight. I must admit I got far too excited about them…

By this time, we were all very tired from having been on our feet since 2 in the afternoon, so we took the skyride back to the top of Imbiah to go have dinner at the Tastes Of Singapore restaurant. The skyride was lovely–we went up, up, up, sailed meters over the tops of trees and roads, and admired the lights of the city that we could see.

The target clientele of the Tastes of Singapore restaurant are clearly tourists who’ve never had the chance to sample local fare before (it’s pretty much there in the name). The prices for the food are fairly reasonable for restaurant fare, ranging from $10 upwards to $20. Something unique (IMHO) was the lobster laksa– laksa with mussels and lobsters in, a cut above the ordinary!

I myself had chili soft shell crab, which I found to be not bad, even if it was a bit sweet for my tastes (I like my chili on the spicy and savoury side.) One thing I’ve got to say about the service at the restaurant, they were super-efficient to the point of clearing away our plates the moment we’d put down our utensils, and bringing us the bill without having been prompted!

And so there you have it, an account of a KICKASS day out that was more adventure than photography (which is all fine by me, as I love adventure almost as much as I love photography). Thanks to the brilliant, talented guys behind Cake Images LLP & Be Trigger Happy for another great SUT outing, and of course huge thanks to our sponsors & hosts at Sentosa for the experience. ADVENTURE CREW, WE ARE GOING NIGHT LUGE-ING SOME DAY, YOU HEAR ME?

The Sentosa Boardwalk officially opens this Saturday, the 29th of January, and they’ve got a whole host of activities lined up, so if you have nothing to do this Saturday, why not pop by and check it out? Did I mention that it’s FREE?

Shoot Ur Tweeple #7: The Sentosa Edition: My photoset on Flickr
For the full set of my photos (in higher resolutions, to boot!)