Random Photo Snapshots Over The Week, CHIJ St Nichola's Carnival 2008, Swimming Session With The Changed Man

Random Photo Snapshots Over The Week:
It was raining so heavily in the earlier part of the week that some of the places where I was at had a thin firm of rainwater that refused to be drained away. Seizing the opportunity to take a near-crystalline layer of water reflecting the urban block of flats, I snapped this in the middle of a rainstorm.

What is prawn noodle at one of its best? Sims Vista was the place where I tasted more than just prawns and noodles, because this stall used the traditional ingredients, with pieces of pork, lard, vegetables, bean sprouts, spring onions and fish cake. Mouth-watering delicious for me.

A nice, idyllic shot of some white herons resting under some large shady trees in an undisclosed location in Singapore. I saw something white flying at the corner of my eye and realized it was a group of herons. Although this picture is not National Geographic quality, it sort of gives me peace to know that there are still such sights of calm nature around in urbanized Singapore.

One of my student showed me the latest technological craze during their examinations - an invisible pen. I have heard of such things during my time but I have never actually used or seen one before until that day. This pen comes with an ultra-violet light to deciper the invisible handwriting and I told my student - play with this at home if you must, but never use it during examinations because he would be living a lie with his academic progress.

After one of my lessons, I found myself at AMK Hub Mos Burger for dinner. Whilst waiting for my food to arrive, I noticed the very nice mosiac design on the wall of the smoking area of the restaurant. I took my camera-phone and took a picture leaning against the wall.

A random shot of a lone clock tower in an undisclosed part of Singapore whilst I was waiting for my lesson to start. Since I arrived earlier, I decided to explore the neighbourhood abit and found this clock tower with an intriguing design against an evening sky.

CHIJ St Nichola's Carnival 2008:

I have on hand with me a number of carnival tickets to the abovementioned carnival so I asked my student, Meiqin, who is studying there to be my tour guide because it is after all still a girls' school and I would feel awkward walking around without a guide from the school. It turned out I had even more company as Meiqin introduced me to her schoolmates later on.

Arriving at around 11am after I had just finished my morning gym routine, I was greeting by loud cheering and students hawkering their wares. I thought to myself, "Wow, this must be the largest school carnival that I have ever attended!" Meiqin later on told me there were more than one hundred stalls and I was wowed yet again.

I took as many photos as I could but it was not as many as I expected because I had to swerve to avoid incoming throngs of people and I was busy taking in the sights and sounds. In any case, I managed the following for the entertainment of my blog's readers.

This is the Greek-styled amphitheatre forum area which Meiqin had brought me to to find her group of friends whom I was supposed to join as a group to tour the carnival. Why not? I suppose a group will mean more enthusiasm and fun together and I don't mind making new friends at all. The forum looks empty but take a look at the rest of the photos and you would realize the carnival was jam-packed with people from all walks of life - students, teachers, parents, siblings, residents, students from other schools and members of the public like me.

This is taken just after I was introduced to the girls - Catherine, Beryl and Jane. I believed it was Catherine who asked Meiqin if I was a tutor from mainland China. Hahaha. Do I look so international? I have people thinking I was Japanese, Malay, Mauri and now China-Chinese? Hahaha. Anywa, all the three girls looked nice and friendly enough and we headed out as a group into another major section of the carnival - the basketball court area.

This photo shows the basketball ball court area of the school where stalls lined up selling food and games and the people sweltering in the heat, trying to decide what to buy from the huge variety of items available for sale. There were also frequent group cheers from the girls to advertise their stalls and I had to cover my ears to prevent myself from being deafened by their high-pitch shrieks after the cheerings! Jane looked rather flustered by the heat and we had to encourage her to get some water before she started dehydrating. I suppose Jane must be struggling against the burning afternoon heat and the chaotic chatter of the crowd there. =P

This was one of the many game booths at the carnival. We stopped at this booth because Catherine wanted one of those soft toys as a prize and pestered Meiqin to try her luck and throwing coins accurately to land on those paper patterns. However, the surface of those patterns were very slippery and most of the coins simply glided back, refusing to stop neatly on the patterns. We did not win anything but just before I left the carnival, I did overheard that Catherine and Beryl decided to go back to try and win that soft toy again. Haha...dedicated soft-toy collectors eh?

This was a shooting station from guns.com.sg and almost the entire group went to try our luck at shooting. The station uses a magnum-lookalike pellet handpistol and we each paid 5 dollars for a 10-pellet magazine cartridge. All of us did well, especially Beryl, who though look soft-spoken, was a fairly accurate markswoman, with shots that were grouped so closely that it tore the target sheet which we were allowed to bring back as souvenirs. I was very impressed.

For myself, I did land all the 10 shots on the target board but had only one bulls-eye because my hand was shaking quite badly from the post-exertion from my morning gym session earlier in the day. I was half-laughing to myself when I saw the sights of my pistol could not align properly because of the shaking Hahaha. Note to self - no gym before any range or shooting anymore.

I finally got myself a drink after walking for nearly an hour under the blazing afternoon sun. It cost only a dollar and it tasted like carbonated apple juice. Whatever the flavour was, it did quenched my parched throat and with renewed energy, I joined Catherine, Beryl and Meiqin on an interesting theme ride which swirled people inside a huge circular cage-like machine. For 10 dollars, it was a worthwhile ride, experiencing the G-force and watching all the others scream their hearts out. Sadly, I could not take a photo of that ride because I had to empty my pockets lest something flew out and spin into the watching crowd.

This is from the school canteen and my oh my, it was so crowded that our group was practically rubbing shoulders with so many peope there, jostling to buy food and grabbing the limited benches around those food stalls. I took this shot also because it emphasized both the creativity of stall names and the practicality of simple signs.

A snapshot of the megabooth called Jumbo Sales in what I believed to be their school hall. It was enormous and there were so many interesting things to browse through. However, I had very little time left so I could only take a cursory look without really buying anything. I don't like to buy things when I am in a hurry.

I was trying to take another snapshot of the Jumbo Sales megabooth when Catherine jumped into the shot and put up a very amusing victory-handsign. Hahaha. She was a very jovial and enthusiastic girl, even cheering along during one of their stadium rally for a school cheer. Jane was the girl in red behind whilst Beryl was the girl in a grey sweater with her back facing the camera.

A second attempt to capture Catherine whilst she does her jumping victory-handsign but the jovial girl jumped really fast and I missed it again. Haha.. serves me right for using a below-average phone-camera but oh well, at least it was fun playing with the girl.

One of the very cute-looking inflatable game stations at a carpark area to entertain the very young visitors of the carnival. I had never been up on such inflatables before because during my childhood years, there weren't such things in carnivals at all. Sadly, I am too old for it now so I can only relegate the fun by imagining it through a photograph of it.

A final shot of one of the many theme park rides within the carnival before I go. This ride was favoured by the young students of the school, screaming away as their parents took photos of them. Unfortunately, I had to choose a side-angle shot because the students' skirts were flying around and it's not nice to take those "over-exposed" shots.

All in all, I was most impressed with CHIJ St Nicholas' Carnival 2008. A event well-organized and I thoroughly enjoyed my two-hour stay there.

Swimming Session With The Changed Man:

Erm, nope, there are no pictures of us swimming in an undisclosed swimming complex but here's what I have for dinner after a really tiring swim - sliced fish soup with rice. Yummy for the hungry stomach.

I am exhausted from the swim now and I still have to work tomorrow so that's all folks. Have a good weekend!