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Vocal Coach Workshop

Tanjong Pagar community center conducted a vocal training class today and I thought I’d just dropped by.

I took the train to the Tanjang Pagar train station. It felt a little strange sitting in the train again after being on the scooter for some while. The familiar sights of people rushing to enter and grab for seats. And me falling fast asleep in the middle of the journey. In time I reached the station and it didn’t take me long to reach the community center on foot for the rest of the journey.

The tanjong pagar community center was a little different from the taman jurong community center which was nearer to my home. It seemed that the people here were more well heeled. Many of the women seemed to be rather nicely dressed for Sunday morning. I stared admiringly at a pair of pink pumps.

We were introduced to Shin Ikesue – a vocal trainer and founder of the Tokyo Mass choir. I must say that it was quite an experience, hearing such a powerful voice live.

He taught us breathing exercises and emphasis on the mouth and projection. But to be honest, it wasn’t anything new that I’ve learnt in choir before.For example the keynotes do mi re fa so fa re do, to be sung an octave higher or lower each time to train the muscles as well as the A E I O U mouthing exercises, which are pretty standard singing techniques.Nevertheless, it was still a good way to spend the weekend. 🙂

Lets make a Complaint Choir Singapore Version 😉

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2 weddings and a scooter funeral

Today must be an auspicious date for the Indians, I see many weddings going on. I even got invited by two friends.

I was supposed to meet Narima and go together with her on my scooter. It was more convenient for me as it would be easier for me to survey hotels later on my scooter.

But because of yesterday’s incident with the IU, I decided to bring it to the mechanic for a quick check. It couldnt have been damaged from the accident on tuesday. The wires must have been accidentally dismantled.

But after a check with the mechanic, the IU is actually damaged. And since the LTA offices doesnt open on saturday, I can only get a replacement on monday. I’d might as well leave the scooter in the workshop so that they can fix the dent on the side of the scooter at the same time.

Narima and I went to Junaidah’s wedding at Masjid Bencoolen. Junaidah was an ex colleague from West Spring and I saw many of my ex colleagues.

This was the first time I attended an indian-muslim style wedding. There was a dais where the couples would sit and pose while there were seats where the guests could sit to watch while the ceremony proceeded.

After the well wishes, Narima and I parted ways, and I really felt the pangs of missing my scooter. It would have taken me only 5 minutes to ride to the nearest train station, instead, I took 20 minutes to walk.

The MRT! All the memories flooding over as I stood precariously by the grip pole as humans came rushing in the cabin. How can I stand this for the next two weeks?

I brought mum and my sis to go to Hema’s wedding, which was held at night. Hers was a traditional Hindu wedding. With a priest chanting in sanskrit to bless the couple.

Mum seemed extremely keen on watching the ceremony. She went all the way in front of the stage and stood there for the entire hour or so. As she watched Hema going around the fire, exchanging garlands with her husband, and washing her parents feet.

The best of wishes to both of the happy couple 🙂 Hema and Chan, Junaidah and Anwar Ali 🙂

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Adventures in looking for suitable accommodations in Singapore

Juli accompanied me hotel hunting after work today and we went to different areas to survey for suitable accommodations. She said that it was not advisable to trust from the pictures from the brochures alone. It’s best to see it in person.

First off, we went to the Santa Grand Hotel in West Coast and though the location was far from the heartlands, it looked private and cosy. From the pictures, the rooms looked good. But unfortunately for us, there were no rooms available for viewing nor were there rooms in late December.

We then went to another hotel which was nearby. We asked for a viewing, and got to see one of their rooms. To me, the rooms were live-able but Juli didn’t liked it. I could see her point that it could be a little creepy with the bare walls and the room was rather dark.

We then went off to go to the northern side of Singapore. As I don’t frequent areas outside of West and Central Singapore so much, I wasn’t sure how to get to Serangoon on my scooter without the streetdirectory. We went around riding till my rear was sore and after the longest time, we found ourselves in the city area.

I found out that my IU didnt work just about I was to enter the gantry at the central business district area. Previously I didn’t insert my cash-card properly into the IU and I got fined. I had to swerve and quickly parked my scooter at a drop off point and wondered if I should just push the scooter back to the main road.

More and more cars arrived. They were all waiting for the time to turn to 7 pm, when the gantry stopped operating for the night. It was so funny to see how these cars queue up one by one and then zoom in just as the gantry stopped operating just to save maybe a dollar or two.

We continued on our journey and about 2 hours later, reached One Florence Close. I met Mr and Mrs Tan and their helper. They were really friendly and answered my questions.

“Can we see your rooms?”

“Aww sorry, we have guests in the room and we don’t have any to show you”

“Is your rooms suitable for a family?”

“Yes, you could even have 5 – 8 people in a room sleeping comfortably”

“What’s the oldest person that has stayed here?”

“Hmm .. We had a 70 year old couple from England”

And I saw their adorable, fluffy cats Romeo and Pepper. Gosh I could just eat them both.

The place was very home style, with visitors being able to cook in the kitchen and lounge on the sofa next to it. There is a computer we could use and a deck outside for a little al-fresco. I could see myself staying there as its very homely and inviting. The only one minor issue is that the communal toilet and showers are a tad cramped for me and Juli so I don’t think its suitable for Cart.

After we said our goodbyes to the family, we headed to our last stop, which was hotel 81 Bugis. I managed to see a standard room. The beds were clean, I liked that they used a LCD screen for their TV. But the room were so tiny and were no windows so it felt so claustrophobic.

The bathroom! It’s tiny! It’s the size of two toilet stalls. Argh!! This is almost demoralising.

I need to do more scouring.

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Where to stay in Singapore?

I’ve been scouring for a place for Cart to stay during his visit this december.

Cartcart wasn’t choosy about his accommodations, the only requirement was that the room needed to be air-conditioned and I prefer that it be affordable. The first thing that came to mind was ‘Hotel 81’ – one of the best known budget hotels in Singapore.

I’ve already reserved a room, and luckily for us, there were still some available at the time though I was pretty certain that it will be fully booked soon due to the peak season of Christmas and the new year.

Peak season! They charged extra on the holidays! On typical days they charged about $50 – $90 for a room for a day. I did my calculations and my heart skipped a beat. $950+

Woah! That’s kind of pricey. Isn’t there any alternatives? For that price, I could rent a fully furnished apartment. However, Juli said that the minimum length of time required for rental was a month. Cart would only be staying for 9 days.

Some of the nice people from the forums had some great ideas. One that I liked in particular was the ntuc chalet that costs $70 a day. Unfortunately, some of the dates during the week were already booked. It would be inconvenient to keep changing accommodations during the stay.

So it’s back to to square one. I wasn’t satisfied.

After a search on google, I discovered a page which recommended ‘service apartments’. It said that it was more economical and had a more homelier feel to it. It was like a hotel, but larger and had amenities where you could cook, wash among others.

The more I read and the more I looked, the more attracted I was to the whole deal.

Doesn’t these look gorgeous?

Living room at The Lotus at Joo Chiat.


Deluxe rooms at Metropolitan Y Apartments

And unfortunately they were all fully booked. I even went to the extent of checking each and every one of the links here to see if there were any available.

In the end, I had a reply from Valuestay which had a room for $100 dollars a night which was reasonable. But it excludes utility rates, no kitchen and you had to pay $500 upfront as deposit.

Ouch! Plus I don’t even know what the room looks like as there’s no picture of the rooms to be found in the website anywhere.

As now, we’d have to stick to the original plan. Anyway, it’s near to a lot of interesting places like the National Library, and the Esplanade. I do hope there will be some interesting events there in december! 🙂

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?

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4 weeks in a nutshell

I’ll summarise the past couple of weeks just to keep my mind off the accident. What’s done is done after all.

My last night class was on the 31st October. It was such a mixed emotion for me. Feeling excited and having a sense of achievement that after almost two years, we’ve already completed our classes but at the same time, sad because I know that I wont’ be able to come back again. The school will be closing down to make way to new residents come next year.

Mr Jeya, a caretaker for the school

Mr Muhammad, one of the guards of the school

I’ll never forget this place. Lengthy and endless bus journeys have I taken to reach there and the interaction between my classmates and teachers. It was memorable. I want keep this image in my mind for a long time.

Doodling while supposed to be studying

Studying in a restaurant of all places!

My first paper was on the 2nd November and it was then that I realised how painful it was to try to write at high speeds within a certain time frame – to write in all the ideas and answers as much as possible.

The worst bit was during the geography paper when I had to write non stop for a solid 3 hours. My hand got cramped at the end of the paper. And yet at the same time, I felt that time just passed by too quickly.

If I could choose between typing and writing, I’ll choose typing.

After that I learnt to adapt. My strategy was to use those wonderful ink gel pens with soft grips around them and wear a band aid around my writing finger to cushion it.

I’m not too sure how the results will come out. To be honest I’m not all that confident, but I’ve done what I could.

Work! work! work!

Juggling through work and studies isn’t an easy thing to do, believe me. I wish I had more time. So that I could do what I want to do. Or maybe clone myself so that I can concentrate on one thing at a time.

Like attending the Suchida method brain development skills with my mum and learning that all children from the age 0 – 6 has the brain capability to become geniuses.

Mum and me posing at the Mandarin Hotel

Yes they actually used esp cards in one of the activities to train the mind

Or going to a newly wedded friend’s house warming party.

Narima and me posing after visiting Shahida’s house

But now the exams is over, I guess I have more time do the things that I wanted to do. End of the week, with Hema’s wedding coming up and a vocal course, I am looking forward to that. :]

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My exams is over but …

Its not such a great day.

It was supposed to be my last paper today and just when the paper ends it started raining. Very VERY heavily.

Anxious to go home, I decided to ride in the rain anyways and soonafter, reached the carpark. While trying to manuever the scooter, somehow the rear wheel just slipped and I crashed down. It hurts really bad. I sprained my ankle and bruised my knees.

If it werent for the kind man who was nearby who helped me up, I think I would have been too shocked and traumatised to do anything.

I’m going to cry now.

My scooter has a huge dent in it and a lot of deep scratches.

It could have been worse. But I’m just really extremely extremely upset right now.

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On hiatus

I’ll be having my examinations soon. In liew of that, Marina’s bloggariffic will be on hiatus till probably end of November.

For the moment, please feel free to visit my wonderful friends bloggariffic 🙂

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Raya Ramblings

There were a whole sea of people at the mosque when my family and I went to there for Hari Raya mass prayers in the morning.

I wanted to take the lines of cars parked by the entire stretch of roads, to and forth as well as the mountain of footwear outside of the mosque but I really didnt have the time with everyone rushing and squeezing in.

It got to the extent of the majority of us having to prostrate in an extremely cramped fashion.


Listening to the preaching after mass prayers

—

My dad has a very large family. He has 12 siblings. For several years so far, every raya, a relative will host the clan meetup according to their age-rank. My dad was the eldest, so we played host some years back. This year is my aunts’ turn. She’s the youngest in the family.


Me, mum and sis all have the same noses!

Hari Raya is a day for forgiveness and past misdeeds are forgotten. It can be a rather emotional moment for family members.

I could hear the conversations from around.

“I planned alot of things with mum in law for this coming raya but its just not fated to be … we should treasure the people while they are still around”

“Lets just hope that we dont end up meeting only once a year”

—

There were loads of lovely food to be eaten, including my raya favourites, Ayam Masak Merah (Chicken in savory chilli) and Ketupat! (Rice dumplings wrapped in coconut leaves)

I got to meet up with a few of my relatives.

Like this really adorable boy! He’s the son of another aunt. He’s so small and so cute I just wanted to eat him up.

And this is another relative which I find amazingly romantic after all these years. From the start when they courted till many many years after, they still have a most loving relationship. I’ve never seen them being ill tempered with each other before.

People like these are quite a rarity.

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Selamat Hari Raya!

I’m such a sap. My eyes were wet after watching the petronas advertisment.

We’re almost at the end of the fasting month, and on this raya eve, I’d like to wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya!

Maaf Zahir Batin 🙂

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A Hindu Temple at Jurong East

I was riding to work today and stopped by the road to take some shots of the school building.

The school building was next to the hindu temple. I pass by this temple almost everyday and yet this was the first time that I ever saw it up close.

It was rather magnificent in its golden glory. And I paused to see each statue decorating the façade. The caretaker was right next to me.

me : Hi! Can I take a picture?

caretaker : Hallo! You want to take a picture? Take the entry, its nice.

me : Thank you!

caretaker : This area where you are at, is the common hall, this is where we do functions and mass prayers.

me : Oh! Can I go in? I’m not Hindu though.

caretaker : Sure! Our temple is open to any races any religion and any beliefs. You should have come here last month. We had a fire walking ceremony.

There are so many beautiful and interesting things around us. But in this mad rush, Sometimes we miss them on our rush to our destination. We’re going so fast that we hardly have the time to appreciate them.

Maybe its time to slow down.