After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Category: singapore

  • Gemalto Team Building 2009

    The team building was held last Friday, and as it took working day, to not taking part would be considered as leave. Yet since it’s a chance to get paid for playing games, why not?

    So I got off from home around 8 in the morning to the office to join people taking the company bus to Singapore Botanic Garden (SBG). I wore red shirt as ordered by the organizer, to divide us in team of different colors. Since the bus left at 9, I spent some time inside office to set up my auto-reply, filled up my bottle, and printed a map of SBG. 9 o’clock, I went down to take the bus.

    We arrived at SBG about half an hour later, and gathered near the “Joy” sculpture. Couldn’t stand with the nature call, I looked for nearby restroom. Unfortunately, to go to the nearest I needed to walk about 200m. When I came back from the restroom, everyone has already grouped in colors, including my team. And as joined the latest, the team easily appointed me as the team leader. Well, okay.

    After marking the attendances, we started the ice-breaking game, where we had to order ourselves according to our names alphabetically without talking at all. It was easy, and we talked anyway. The second round is to sort alphabetically too, but this time to sort based on manager’s last name in reversed order. We failed to do that, but oh well, it was not counted in the overall score.

    Then the first real game was the three-legged hand ball. We played in pairs, where one of our leg will be tied to our partner. I was the goal keeper and the rest of players need to pass me the ball instead of shooting towards the enemy’s line. Unfortunately we lose this game at the early stage. Hmm, not good for a beginning, but there’s still more games.

    The second game was to build the tallest tower out of one edition of local newspaper. Building tower out of paper? Seems impossible, but we managed to erect +/- 3m tall tower that could stand on it’s own! The committee asked us to move the tower so all towers stand next to each other for easier measurement. But I didn’t want to risk destroying our tower, so I (and other leaders) tried to argue to not do it. Finally, they agreed to measure them on the spot, and we secured the 2nd place on this game. Good!

    Next is, lunch: the moment we’ve waiting for! We’ve all got halal food, where some people had preferred to take vegetarian meal. The meal was quite good for me: having 3 meats and 1 veggie, it must be at least $4 in hawker center. But some of my Indian friend said the vegetarian food was not that nice. Well of course, they gave Chinese vegetarian food to them (you know, the one with the “fake” meat).

    After lunch, the committee wanted us to play amazing-race like game. We needed to run to three posts and played a game in each post. God knows running after meal is unhealthy, so He made one committee carelessly made 11 copies of race map, lack one from the 12 teams playing. So we had to wait about half an hour before the game can start.

    The first post for our team was to blow a balloon to a size of a soccer ball, tie it with a +/- 15cm string, and let all 15 team members grab (or, touch) the string. We managed to do it swiftly and quickly ran to the second post. At second post, two teams were already there and unfortunately we had to wait at least one of them to finish. We had to guess two out of three zoomed-in photos in this post. One was a power plug, and the other one was a paper binder. The third one, we don’t know. So we ran again to the last post, where we were asked to solve a jigsaw puzzle. We did it quickly too, and ran to the base camp to finish the race. And yeah, we managed to get the second place again!

    Next game was charade down the line, a variant of charades where were lined up of 8 people, all facing forward. The committee would give a secret profession name to the last person in the line, that person taps the next person’s shoulder and start acting the profession without saying a word. The acting continues to the front-most person. After the front-most person knows the profession, he should run back to the committee to answer the profession in question. We didn’t do well in this game, and the result placed us in the 3rd rank overall.

    Then the last game, longest line! This game is exactly the same as last year’s one, to make the longest line out of everything you have in your body. And that includes your shoelaces, belt, shirt, everything. One person even put some of his bills to make the line. We didn’t know who had the longest line, but even with the last game our team was still in the 3rd position.

    The prize awarding ceremony summed up the whole event. The prize for our team was a transformer-style reading light. You press the button, the small block will transform (open) to a turned on light with a clipper to clip in a book. Know what? The exact same prizes were also given for other teams. It’s not about the prize, it’s about the fun!

  • Singapore Botanic Gardens

    Due to its huge size, it may be difficult to find out how to go there. At least that what happened to me and delayed me from visiting this beautiful park. The official website provides me only the bus numbers without departing and alighting points, as well as recommended starting point to walk. However, I finally decided to go there anyway. Oh, by the way, it’s easiest to go there from the entrance near Gleneagles Hospital (take bus 105 towards the east from Commonwealth MRT, about 5 bus stops away).

    So I went there with my friend Handy around lunch time. We didn’t have lunch before, since we were planning to take it in “Taman Serasi Food Center”, whereas according to local map is just next to Botanic Gardens’ main gate. Unfortunately when we reached there, we couldn’t find one. All we saw around were private houses. So we had to walked a bit to nearby Tanglin Mall and had our lunch there.

    After lunch, we came back to the gate to start the journey. Looking at the map, it’s half impossible to explore all spots in the garden. Therefore, we just walked along the west side of the park, towards the north, passing three big lakes as our checkpoints.

    The first one is the Swan Lake, where… well, swans, live there. Seeing this lake and the swans made me remember the Tchaikovsky’s (did I spell it right?) “Swan Lake” symphony. It surprised me how the swans move very smoothly on the water. And apparently it surprised my friend, too. Initially we saw them from distance and he thought they were robots (you know, it’s Singapore…). But after examining them closely, I realized that they in fact don’t swim rushy like us human being. They just “row” with their feet once in a while and let their streamlined body flows swiftly.

    Next stop was the Ginger Garden. I don’t know what it has to do with ginger, but there was a beautiful-man-made-mini-waterfall. So, why not take some pictures? You can see myself behind a waterfall. Thanks to Handy he could take my picture when I was inside the cave (Now he’s a bit handy on this occasion). Nearby was the Orchid garden, but to enter I need to pay some fee. Not interested.

    We walked again and got into the second lake: Symphony Lake. Part of the lake is meant to be used as a performance stage, but most likely for calm, classic ones. Water is separating the stage and the audience area, so I can’t imagine this stage to be used by pop/rock bands (where the performers usually jumps to the crowd, it’s too far here).

    Next interesting spot is the Evolution garden. Well, not really that interesting. It’s a man made one, explaining how how living creatures evolved. Maybe for kids, yes.

    Walking again, I felt “back to Singapore” again. In the distance I saw cranes and tall buildings, and at the left of the pathway I took is the construction of the new Circle Line MRT Station. There was a sign attached, promising the benefits of new new station to be ready on 2010, blah blah blah.

    Then there were the Eco Lake inside Eco Garden, translated to Malay “Taman Eko”; in which if translated back from Bahasa (Indonesian) to English becomes “Eko’s Garden” whereas “Eko” is a common name for Indonesians. Not so much thing to see, only some turtles I can took picture of.

    We were tired already, so we had to find a way out. From inside we could see the Bukit Timah Road. But alas, it was closed with fences and a small sign told us we do can’t get to the road through here. So we had to turn around and quit through Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, in which we were not very interested to see because, uh, it’s for children. The exit gate led us to NUS Bukit Timah campus, and consequently Bukit Timah Road. From here you can take bus N° 186 to go to the nearest MRT, Queenstown. And that conclude our journey.

    But a bit of tip: don’t go to northern side, it’s not really worth it.

    Singapore Botanic Gardens has two entrances, but the easiest is to locate the Gleneagles Hospital at N° 4 Napier Road, Singapore 258498.

    More pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/BotanicGarden

  • One North Park

    There are two ways to go back home from my office. One is to take bus N°198. It usually takes about 30 minutes to go home, including the time required to cross the street, waiting the bus, and walk a bit. The other is to walk all the way. It by average takes 30 minutes as well if I take shortcuts (that includes crossing the KTM railway). Normally would walk home only if I can go back early.

    But this day was different. I needed to finish something at the office until 7.30 PM, and I’ve skipped several exercise sessions for past few days. So I decided to walk home to replace my sessions. I grab a dinner first at Fusionopolis, then stayed a bit there to let my tummy calm down first. Afterward, I started walking home with about the same route – in the dark.

    Was walking in the dark, I was a bit “lost” in a sense that I didn’t take the shortest route I usually take. But it led me to a new park I’ve never seen before (at night – in fact I’ve seen it during the day, but I didn’t know it’s a national park). I arrived at One North Park. Not sure which part is the Biopolis, and which is One North Park, but somewhere there is an amusement object where you can clap your hands between two big dishes and hear your clap echoing. Other than that, there’s not much you can see there. Especially at night, where the pathway is not lit by garden lamps.

    For girls, it is not recommended to walk alone. Boys, just be careful of homosexuals.

    The park itself is not very big, so I passed it after only 5 minutes. Then it comes to the KTM shortcut. But this time I wouldn’t dare to cross it. It’s even darker than One North Park, and there is no pathway, only railway and grass. You wouldn’t know what you will step into. Moreover, there’s a small abandoned house nearby, a perfect supplement for Singapore Ghost Story (I should upload the photo someday..)

    One North Park is located next to Biopolis area, near Buona Vista MRT.

  • The Other Side of Sentosa

    Since I’ve become Sentosa Islander, I regularly visited that beautiful island in weekly basis. But this time was different.

    I left home around 4 PM, planning to do some evening run in the beach. Arrived at Harbourfront Bus Interchange few minutes later, I immediately chose and took the bus with “Sentosa” sign on it. There was a small text “To Sentosa Cove, for residents only” but since the bus was full of ordinary people and the guy let me in, I got in without second thinking.

    I realized I really took the wrong bus when the bus turned left in a junction where it usually turned right. I passed a golf course, and a several very big satellite dishes, just as in NASA movies. Then I arrived at the terminal: an elite residential area.

    I wanted to go back to Palawan beach, but taking the bus route was too far, the bus only went back to Harbourfront, and there were no other bus stops heading to Palawan in between. Then I decided to try walking the other route: the east side. In my pocket map, it were all sands, meaning undeveloped area. But the local wall map said there is a road leading to Tanjong beach.

    I needed to take the Cove Dr (it’s a street name). To make sure, I asked a security guard of a residential complex, whether I can take this Cove Dr road to Tanjong beach. He was a bit hesitated, then asked permission to ask his boss. He called his boss, then reply me with “Yes, my boss say for walk can lah, but not for car and it’s veeery far. You can take the other way to go there” (he pointed the normal way).

    “No problem, I’d like to try. But it goes to Tanjong beach?”, I replied.

    “Yes can of course, but veeery far!”

    “It’s okay”. And I walked despite his hesitation. Along the way I watched many halfway done resort, and private landed houses. Sometime I saw people riding bicycle in this quiet area. After 20 minutes walking (it’s not very far anyway, at least only one “e”), I can already see Tanjong beach. But alas, the access to there was fenced; may be this what he meant about “cars can’t pass”. Then I started to look for small pathway. Indeed, there is one way aside, through small jungle. Nearby was small amenities for construction workers (toilets, etc). But again, it was closed. Probably if there were people, they would let me pass. But since nobody there and the closure was difficult to open without breaking the structure, I decided to go back and take the normal way.

    Well, then I go back again to the bus terminal, taking the normal way back. Before exiting, I took some pictures. Included were some construction site by Lippo group, and the big dishes I mentioned before.

    My pictures tell more: http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/TheOtherSideOfSentosa

  • Science Centre

    To maintain my IQ above the MNI (Minimum for Not Idiot) level, once in a while I need to visit geek-er place than the usual ones. Then, here I was in the Singapore Science Centre.
    I called most of my friends to accompany me going there, but only three were dare enough to come: Rika, Nico, and Andres. So we started at around 2PM, buying the combo ticket of the Science Centre itself and the IMAX theatre of around $13 something. For the IMAX movie, we chose “The Alps” which plays at 3PM, so we have one hour to visit the Science Centre (SC) first, watch the movie, and go back to wander around in SC.
    Most of the first one hour we spent at the optical illusion section, in which we could see many, err, optical illusions. Some illusions are nice, but the others makes my head a bit dizzy (focusing too much at certain exhibit). Then we spent few minutes in electrical and nanotech section
    Then we headed to the theater. Unlike regular theater in which you see 16:9 rectangle as the screen, in IMAX you see the inside of a sphere as the screen. That to say the screen is half portion of sphere. With this arrangement, you can feel yourself “inside” the movie, because as you see other directions you see the environment as well. The movie was about the Eiger mountain which part of the Alps, somewhere in Europe. My friend recommended this movie rather than the other one, and for me it was good enough. It is sponsored by Holcim (not important leh).
    After watching, Rika had a quick lunch and we continued again to the SC. Then we visited sections about energy, global warming, sounds, lego, etc. In fact there was more to see but around 5PM, there was an announcement saying the SC will be closed at 6. So we rushed to more important sections and took some glances only. We were still there to look around until few minutes after six, in which some uncle came to kick us out (politely of course). Finish.

    Even you think the story is not so important, I hope you get the morale: [1] come there earlier (it opens at 10AM), and [2] take the IMAX movie that plays after 6PM (there is one at 7PM).

    Singapore Science Centre is located at N° 15 Science Centre Road, Singapore 609081.

  • In Search for Pascal (Kent Ridge Park)

    Prologue
    This Christmas, should be a healthy holiday. I didn’t have any plans nor appointment in the morning, so I tried to use the NUS facilities that I just got by holding a student card. Therefore I prepared from home bringing one additional shirt and swimming equipments.
    When I reached there, I entered gym and start excercising for half an hour. Then after, I tried to use the swimming pool. It’s good. After finished, I thought, why not continue trekking for a complete “triathlon”? I was thinking of HSBC Treetop in MacRitchie Reservoir. But before, I need to get some info in the library.
    In the midway, I found a “Kent Ridge Park map” sign. I took a look, and found an interesting thing in a map: There’s a spot inside the park named “The Pascal”, hmm.. interesting.. Then, off we go to Kent Ridge Park!

    Kent Ridge Park Trail
    There are two ways to go to Kent Ridge Park. One is through the walking path by the Science Park Dr. The other one is running path, by the South Buona Vista Rd. I took the running path, even though I didn’t run. Differences? In Science Park you see buildings, whereas through South Buona Vista you can see trees on your surroundings*.
    After 15 mins walk, I reached the Kent Ridge Park entrance, with a, um, I don’t know. Is it a missile launcher, or a tank? Nevermind. So I start walking, following a path that leads me to “The Pascal”
    After few minutes walking, I found a small lake. In the map there are two lakes inside this park, and the lake I found should be the small one, although it is still quite big for me. So I stopped and took some pictures of the peaceful lake. I was tempted to take my own picture, but there was nobody there. So I tricked it by setting my camera on timer and put it on a dust bin. A bit hard and dirty though, but result is okay (see pic above).
    Then I continued my journey. Unfortunately there were not pretty much signs or maps ahead, so I just followed the directions recorded in my mind. Eventually I’ve got out of the park and reached the Science Park. Hmm, where is that “Pascal” condo. Nope, it was just me. I just thought with the good name as “Pascal”, it should be a condo or good housing.
    But I can’t see nothing but office buildings. I looked around for few minutes there was no sign of Pascal. Then I thought of going home instead. I waited at a nearby bus stop, near the Mendel block. There was a guy there sitting. I thought he was waiting for the bus as well, but even before I asked him, he already said “The bus stop to MRT is across the street; I’m just sitting here”. Then I walked across the street to the bus stop. In the bus stop I read the route, and there was another bus stop named “Aft Pasteur”. Hmm.., suspicious.. I recall again there is “The Pasteur” building near The Pascal. Then I changed my mind. It was so close! So I searched again. But it was not easier thouugh, I even has to come back to the same guy sitting at the bus stop and ask where is the place.
    But after few efforts, I finally found “The Pascal” building. It was not a beautiful building though, nor a condo. But it was good enough as an achievement. It was an office building. Turned out the buildings here are named from famous scientists name. Pascal was in one block with Pasteur, Mendell, and Maxwell. I wanted to take picture in front of the building, but there were some people working there and I felt bad to disturb them. But anyway, I’ve met my goal. Yay!

    Pictures from Kent Ridge Park in: http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/KentRidgeParkDec2008

    * Bonus of Indonesian traditional song lyric:
    Up! Up! To The Peak of The Mountain
    Up, up, to the peak of the mountain,
    High, it’s very high!
    Left or right I only see..
    a lot of pine trees (rep 2x)

  • Khansama Tandoori Village

    This is one good Indian Restaurant I found in Singapore. Well, if you don’t like Indian food/style, don’t go here because (at least for me) the food tastes very authentic and the ambience is very India-nish. While waiting for your meal (or eating it), you can watch the Indian dances or listen the music from the TV and sound system provided. Near the dining area, there are some statues of Indian people. Hmm.. not sure if it’s a representation of folklore or something.

    Price is around $20 for lunch, depending on the order. Good thing is the restaurant serves my favorite dish “Gulap Jamoon” though it’s a bit expensive.
    Khansama Tandoori Village is located at N° 87 Science Park Drive, #02-21 The Science Hub, Science Park 1, Singapore 118260.

  • Clementi Sports Hall

    This government-subsidized sport center provides many facilities such as badminton courts, pingpong tables, and even gym.

    Gym may not as good as California Fitness nor Fitness First, but has enough equipment for people to build muscles or merely aerobic excercises. The best thing is the price. On weekdays it’s only $2.5 per entry, compared to at least $100 / month for the frachise ones.
    Badminton court is good enough, but I don’t know exactly the rental fee (usually I just join the group from my office).
    Pingpong tables seem good enough, but I’ve never tried.
    Clementi Sports Hall is located at N° 518 Clementi Avenue 3, Singapore 129907.

  • East Coast Park

    To be honest, I don’t really like beaches in Singapore. As you see towards the sea, all you see is tankers (and water). A little exception for East Coast Park, because it has many plenty attractions here.
    Many people come for jogging, watersport, cycling, and,.. rollerblading. Given its location that is not easily reachable, only people with private car ofter come here. By public transport, you need to take MRT to Bedok, then take bus #401 to go there. Remember that bus #401 only operates on weekends and holidays, with shorter operating hours (you can see the SBS website for more info).
    Last time I went here for playing the rollerblade. My friend kindly took me there by her car, made it faster and easier than public transport. The rental fee was (oops, I forgot.. somewhere between $10-$20 per two hours — we cannot rent one hour only). As other parks in Singapore, this park also provide BBQ pits.
    Yet with all the facilities, I still don’t recommend this park if you are a “backpacker-style”. The difficulties to go there is not really satisfied with the attractions. Just go to your nearest park, or visit Batam!

  • KBRI Singapura (Indonesia Embassy in Singapore)

    The Indonesia Embassy in Singapore is located amidst the executive landed-house complex in Chatsworth Rd, just near the shopping heaven Orchard Rd. There is no direct bus stopping in front of the Embassy building. You need to walk around 500 meters from the bus stop (you can take bus #111 from Queenstown MRT).

    The office opens at normal working hours, observing both Singapore and Indonesian public holidays. One interesting thing is during the 2008 Vesak Day, it differs by one day between Singapore and Indonesia. Therefore, the Embassy closed for two days. How lucky.
    For foreigners, there is usual visa services, and for Indonesian they can also process immigration matters such as passport extension or address change.
    Yearly, the Embassy closed at least twice for the Indonesia’s Independence Day. The formal ceremony falls right on the 17th of August, and the next week would be the “party” for Indonesian workers working in Singapore. The second one is called “Pesta Rakyat” or (people’s party), inviting all Indonesians to come in. When I said “all”, means really a lot. Last time it was reported 9,000 Indonesians, mostly works as housemaid visited the Embassy for party. During the party, there will be an ID check. Only Indonesians can come in.
    KBRI Singapura is located at N° 7 Chatsworth Rd, Singapore 249761, Republic of Singapore.