Gattaca

Stella and I caught Gattaca today. Despite having watched it two or three times already, it was still a great show. Revolutionary for its time, the show presents a glimpse into a dystopic future where the human genome project has been completed, leading to a whole host of implications on ethics, social issues, and crime.

June

Man, it’s hard coming up with blogpost titles. I meant to write a little bit about what’s going on, so here it is :

Been painting quite a bit lately. Things are turning out fine, and I’ll post pictures once they are done. Most of the minis are in the ‘halfway phase’ so they’re not ready to see the light just yet. Bought some flow extender from Art Friend yesterday, and tried it out on one of the models. The effect was good, and would be a great addition to my painting repertoire.

Finally got down to arranging for a CoC game. Gonna be a 3, or maybe 2 person game, but it’ll be fun nonetheless. I’ve been telling Stella how I hope for her to experience more gaming during the holidays, so here is the chance for that.

Working a bit on the thesis too, but things are slow. Hopefully I’ll have more things to write about soon. Will keep working on it.

And finally, our steak lunch today! Nothing beats hanging out, having a nice warm steak, and just watching a movie. Now that’s what I call a great day.

Homely pics

Stella suggested that I should put up some homely posts since I’ve not done that for a while, so here it is. Maybe I’ll start by talking about my dogs since the things that I do at home in recent days aren’t very interesting anyway.

So just some pics that I took of the dogs while watching TV with my mom yesterday. Pardon my sleeping dad’s legs.

Diesel has this knack of resting his head on any soft surface and looking at you. Noon time is often nap time for the two animals in my house.
Jessie – lounging on the mattress as usual. :
Exams are almost over, and Vietnam awaits. Let’s hope everything goes to plan and the Swine Flu won’t reach Vietnam. We’re going to reach our aim of completing indo-China soon and I’m glad. Better save more money to travel in future.

hk day 2

Woke up to the cold air of the city. Took a couple of pictures of the view from Panda Hotel. Really beautiful. Here begins day 2 of our HK journeys.

Happy new year

tired but happy to have spent the eve (and the new year) with the girlfriend gaming. It was a wonderful experience and we all had tons of fun.

Cycling at Pasir Ris

One of the things that Stella and I have always wanted to do in our free time was to go cycling together. Due to our busy schedules, it was hard to head out to ECP for a little cycling session. So the chance finally came and we took her sister out as well. I’m glad that I still remember how to cycle. I remember those times where I tried to be ambitious and cycled with JC mates on the Changi Highway and somehow ended with a punctured bike tire and a crash with a friend’s bike that sent me flying into the pavement. Damn.

Our ‘white’ sandy beach. Ahem.


Found this pretty interesting place at Downtown East, called Fresh Bulgogi. The student meal was seriously cheap, for 8 bucks. I think the way to go is really staying as a student nowadays. That’s the only way you actually get good deals in Singapore without actually having to scrimp that much. Sure glad I will still be holding a student pass for the next 2 years. heh.

Korea Day 1-2 (warning : pic heavy post)

So Stella and my journey to Korea begins here – at around 8pm in Changi Airport’s terminal one. We’ve just finished our exams the day before and after a flurry of packing and stuffing in last minute stuff, we were off to the airport.

Us on the plane to Incheon International airport:

Damn the airplane food was good. We had the ‘korean traditional’ dish which turned out to be bibimbap. Rice with vegetables and kimchi, mixed together with a traditional pepper hot sauce and sesame oil. Great stuff, and does the job of filling my hunger nicely, although it kinda gave Stella the gastric. Must have been the spicy pepper sauce that they provided.

Once we’ve touched down and collected our luggage, it was breakfast time, and we had some time to ourselves. We promptly headed to a croissant place for some simple pastries to start the day.

It’s interesting that they have this high tech-ed thingy which buzzes when your order is ready. Sure beats having the stupid flag thing that we have over here. Eh…something wrong with teh engrish though. you can deserve it :

So here begins the real journey – a 3-4 hour drive to Gyeongju. What you are going to read from henceforth is my own impressions of South Korea, and is by no means representative of what the South is really like.

Incheon has vast spaces of land covered by marshes, rivers and rice fields.

At the same time, South Korea can be said to be a pure capitalist country. It almost seems like everything there were built and owned by large corporations like Hyundai and Samsung for example, and these included the apartments. As you can see from the picture, even the blocks have company logos emblazoned on them. As the demand for housing is really high (the guide explained that the size of Incheon was approximately that of Singapore, but the population size almost 2 times), housing is really expensive – the kind of houses one sees below can fetch up to 1million sgd.

Us on the bus:

Had a toilet stop on the way and we got to do a bit of snack shopping while stretching our legs a little. Taking a 4 hour busride after a 7 hr plane ride isn’t funny at all.


Korean food courts. I don’t know what they were selling.

Korean health drinks. Another interesting observation – they are really into the whole health thing : it’s reflected from their diet, to the kinds of products that are sold in the supermarkets. They even have ginseng tonics and vitamin infused products. It’s almost obsessive.

But man, that ginseng tonic was GOOD. Perked us right up immediately and quenches your thirst at the same time. This would spin off our little quest to look for the tonics again later on in the tour.
Lunch time! Lots and lots of kimchi. Not only the usual cabbage ones that you get here in Singapore, but other things from beans to chillies and even fish. I bet everything can be preserved in some way or another. This was going to be another staple at every dish we were going to have throughout Korea. However each restaurant has its own kind of house kimchi, and some better than others even.

Stella eating from the hotpot. Pretty delicious.

First destination : Cheomseongdae. This is the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. It was used to document the stars and is one of the structures left standing despite centuries of war which has left the country with almost all its cultural structures destroyed or stolen by its captors.
A roadside store
tombs of kings and royals. No one knows whose burial mounds those belong to, and there hasn’t been any attempts to excavate them as of yet.

Next stop : Bulguksa Temple

The four guardian deities guarding the temple from evil spirits.

Here’s a view of 1500 year old stairs which survived the fires when the Japanese razed the temple. It’s now regarded as a world cultural asset by UNESCO. The rest of the temple were rebuilt about 150 years back, so its relatively newer than the stone steps.

Two pagodas within the temple premises – the Dabotap and the Three Storied Stone Pagoda :


A broken qilin. One of four stone statues that was left behind by the Japanese when they tried taking them out of the temple and it broke. The other three are now missing (probably somewhere in Japan).

Stella amongst the vast space of the temple grounds :

Bomun lake – pretty nice with a man made water wheel.


The Wind Tunnel – a defunct train tunnel that is now used for the storage and manufacturing of persimmon wine as it maintains a constant temperature of 15 degrees all year round.


I think we had a bit too much wine – felt a bit woozy after that, but it was a good feeling nonetheless. Here’s Stella with her first glass. I found the wine a bit too sour for my liking though, so I decided to stop after the second glass.

More street stalls – I love taking pictures of street stalls as they give me some idea of the kind of lifestyle that the locals have. They seem to be full of meaning of the culture there.

Dinner – Korean BBQ. A popular food choice for families and businessmen alike. It’s somewhat similar to the BBQs that we have over here, except that you take the meat and place it on a lettuce leaf, add some sauce and kimchi, fold it, and munch on it. Even better if you have it with some beer.

After dinner, it was finally back to the hotel for the group. Although we were dead tired, we just felt that we had to have some night time activities, so we headed out to the nearby mart, bought some candy and other eatables for the bus rides, and then headed to the hotel bar for a drink. It seems like Koreans don’t like to use ice. I don’t remember being served ice throughout my time there. Well all the better, because that means that I get more booze for my buck :

And that’s all for the first day. Phew! back to the room for a bath and then we just collapsed into bed.

On the line

Since the hols are coming, here are some of the stuff that Stella and I (okay maybe it’s mainly my idea) would like to watch.

TV Series:

Grey’s Anatomy (all 3 seasons)

Everybody Hates Chris (season 2)

Some CSI

Movies :

Black Snake Moan

The Manchurian Candidate

Man on Fire

Across the Universe

Horton

Anime :

Bleach

Fullmetal Alchemist

Hikaru no Go

Ghost in the Shell (2 seasons)