It’s the Chinese new year and of course no new year celebration to welcome to Lunar new year is complete without the inclusion of food! And lots of them. This year’s celebrations was held at the Queens college junior combination room. I’ve never been to Queen’s JCR before, only their halls for formals and apartments of friends in the area. Apparently it’s situated right on top of a loft proving rather good views of the River Cam via Sliver street and the adjacent University center (where the gyms are). Despite it’s rather small size, the JCR was decked out with plenty of sofas and furniture, not to mention being able to accommodate an odd 30 over people who turned up for the gathering.

It was organized by mainly the second and third years of the CuMaS association, the Cambridge Malaysian society (why can’t the Singaporean cookouts be just as awesome?), with many new faces, namely several year ones where we spent most of the evening meeting and integrating into the group.

CNY Reunion!

Foodies!

Yu Sheng!

Huge servings of variety of local Malaysian and Singaporean delicacies such as noodles, (Mee goreng style), Curry chicken, omelettes and Bak kut teh just to name afew. The huge group turnout calls for at least 6 rice-cooker pots of home cooked chicken rice and a double tossing Yusheng at the end of the dinner session. It was quite a big feat to prepare all the food for so many people as well.

The Lunar new year is just like any other day here in the UK, a typical work day buzzing with people on the streets, with school still on and lectures to attend, with the exception of Chinese restaurants and takeaways all closed. Chinese new year for me this year was a rather simple and fat-free one too, considering I was more selective on the ones I am able to go this year given my leg injury. Also with most of the awesome seniors who graduated last year not around in Cambridge to organize their trademarked annual steamboat dinner, I am happy to say that the food standards had not dropped either. This new year mass pot luck is one which still lives up to the legacy set by the seniors of last year.

Having said that, in the light of the Chinese new year, wishing you good health and a prosperous Lunar new year of the dragon ahead!

Happy New 2012! A whole new year, a whole new area of possibilities! The fireworks at London was fantastic even when viewed on the TV as broadcasted by the BBC. The sparkles lasted just over 12 minutes right after the midnight chimes of the Big Ben. It was a grand display of over 12,000 fireworks, producing 50,000 projectiles, also welcoming the year where the Olympics will be held in the city itself.

I did the London Thames countdown to welcome 2010 in my first year of college. But personally I think the crowds and effort to crawl all the way there is not really worth the hassle, unless if you intend to make the countdown an whole day affair and literally camp the best firework spots since midday by the embankment. For most of us that year, it’s just a matter of “being in town”. And of course unless if you are planning to check out the awesome new year’s day parade running through the heart of London and the still ongoing boxing day sales (or in this case now, new year day sales) attending the countdown is a no-brainer.

Anyway regardless of how you welcome the new year, 2012 will come anyway, well… eventually. So what are you new year resolutions for the brand new year?

I don’t think that is too much to ask for. 2012 is also the year of the Dragon on the Chinese lunar calendar too, which in the case for my sister is a big year for her turning 24. I remembered the time when I was 24, made me realise how old I am, haha.

Nonetheless, hello 2012!

Fireworks photo credit: REUTERS/Andrew Winning

And so it’s December and time for a much needed blog post on the happenings so far here. Guess I was just too busy with stuff and the end of the that I had not found much time to share the happenings here as of date. The sad fact is that there is actually quite a lack of things happening here, with the exception of homework and loads of end of term pile ups and deadline reports to submit (and finally done with whew).

Having said that, Christmas here in the UK is also the time where almost everybody head back home and out of college for Christmas. Everywhere here in college seems pretty much like a dead town now in comparison to the term time buzz. The kitchens and halls get progressively quieter over the days as the holidays finally hit. The streets are all quiet, bare and empty with most stores all closed until next year. This is of course in stark contrast to the situation back home, particularly most shopping districts in Asian countries, like those in Japan, Seoul and Singapore, with the streets buzzing even with extended store opening hours till midnight.

Christmas here in the UK on the contrary is one for the family- Christmas tradition holds as a get together period for all family member and relatives alike. This means getting together back at home on Christmas day enjoying a scrumptious Christmas dinner (which also means the most expensive time of the year to travel too). This is my first year where I get to spend Christmas grounded in Cambridge due to a leg injury. Which kept me pretty much grounded here in college and made me very acquainted with Taxi drivers in getting around town as well as the hospital outpatient’s department. Due to the inconvenience of travel, I didn’t get to spent at my aunt Jenny’s place, though she never fails to always delight with her wonderful roast and Christmas cheesecake. Just a pity I can’t join her family this year.

Pre-Xmas dinner!

Roast!

Desserts!

Anyway, I won’t just stop there and call it quits. Christmas is a time of feasting and celebrations. So the least to do is to have few get people together, particularly those who remained in college during the period. There was a pre-Christmas day dinner at an upmarket restaurant in town as well as a wonderful Christmas lunch and dinner with university mates at a large rented out-of-college accommodation flat courtesy of an old friend of mine. The flat was big enough to house our Christmas day party of 25 and we had Turkey! Loads of it. Well too much turkey, 2 large birds in fact to the extent where leftovers the next few days were literally Turkey days as well.

Weather-wise this is my first winter here in Cambridge without snow. It seems this year the snow decided to head home too, it’s pretty much snow-less Christmas in Cambridge. Not to mention rather warm for winter now too. Surprisingly, there are still many trees out there with their leaves on and lush green patches of autumn grass dotted everywhere around town. Temperates here range from 5 to 11 degrees here at night which is nearly autumn weather in comparison to the sub freezing temperatures of last year and the year before.

In comparison, lets take alook at the snow that was in Cambridge the years before. Surprisingly this exact panorama taken 2 years ago by yours truly was used by my college as the official college Christmas card this year. I am honored!

Snow here in Cambridge is known to come in one big flop in December just before Christmas (well at least for the last 2 years I was here) and very much sits around slushy like a sore thumb throughout January at least. Commendably, the weather here in Cambridge is as good as it can get in the UK. Cambridge is pretty much sheltered from harsh storms and snow, given it’s location in land just north of London. So if the weather is bad here, chances it might even be worst else where.

So that’s for Christmas this year now, there was lots to eat and not as bad as I thought to be, despite being grounded. And oh thanks for the Christmas cards to those who sent yours, I had to find more wall space to pin all of them up this year.

In the meantime, Cheers and have a great Happy new year ahead!

Hey hey, I am back in the United Kingdom just at the start of my third year in college. My 2nd year was fairly good given my various commitments during school term, but otherwise still mostly study study study. I guess my year 1 made me better prepared for year 2, not only in terms of the syllabus but in-sync with the pace of study which Cambridge is notorious for. On average, you cover like 3 year’s worth of poly knowledge in under 6 months here, it’s that fast. And the size of my annual lecture note binders don’t lie either!

This year too marks the final undergraduate year, with my 4th year being a Masters program. And what other better way to begin my trip back here than to queue up 2 full hours at the UK Immigration as Heathrow T3 upon my arrival (about 7pm London time) that too blessing me with the unexpected ability to miss not only one but two national express buses out of the airport in the row.It just can’t get any much better.

My time back in Singapore was short, but otherwise fruitful. It was nearly 2 months of relaxing and getting stuffed fat with home-cooked food prepared full of love. Had my annual dental checkup as well visiting my Grans quite regularly at AMK too. There were few nice food outlets I got to try this summer, namely a nice curry crab joint by the name of Mellben Seafood. Besides that, I was more or less pounding over 76,000 words on the computer day in-and-out for my trip blog posts. That includes my travel tours to the Middle East, Europe, the West and East coast of the United States.

H&M Craze in Singapore
Looking back at some of the musing when I was back in Singapore, the H&M craze was worth mentioning. Given the amount of hoo-ha the store received with shoppers even queuing up 12 hours beforehand to get into the store (and vouchers) on opening days. Humorously, sometimes I don’t understand the mentally of our fellow country men, particularly the Kiasu mentally which plagues every Singapore I see everywhere.

I do not know how my friends in the UK will think of us Singaporeans going all gaga over the launch of a clothing retailer which is almost like “This Fashion” back in the UK. No one batters an eyelid at H&M here and in Europe. I won’t be surprised if we become pretty much a laughing stock back here whenever I get to talk to my British friends about that. As a matter of fact, I personally think the less popular Uniqlo and New Look imports in Singapore tend to be more popular here, despite considering the clothing collections in Singapore not quite matching up to that at the stores in the UK.

The horror of Halloween Horrors
Then came the big news of the cancellation Night Safari Halloween horrors. It came pretty much of a shock to many after the installation of the Wildlife Reserves new chief executive. It won’t be surprising to see a new helmed CEO flexing the power of their new position by introducing drastic (and often controversial) changes to the organization. So why not start with the cancellation of the award winning Halloween horrors for starters? I bet no one expected and hilarious repercussions brought upon the Wildlife Reserves for those actions, particularly the large public outcry it caused and the stir it had with the president of Singapore, all made worse with seemingly sweeping and unjustifiable reasons for the cancellation. Inevitably, more damage was created than it was intended to avoid. Not a good start for the new Chief Executive I reckon.

Halloween is a huge event out of the shores of Singapore notably in the US and UK. It’s personally one which I look forward to every year and the idea of dressing up in unique costumes every year keeps your creative juices following, particularly if you make your own. The streets on Halloween are packed with party goers, theme parks all transformed into fright night specials with tons of special new rides and theming to go with the festivities. Halloween is undoubtedly one of the most recognized annual events internationally and usually feature the most fun parties of the year everyone looks, unlike Deepavali.

Undeniably, Deepavali is a big event in Singapore, but having that in place of Halloween is unjustifiable, unless the lack of a global focus is what the Wildlife Reserves is gunning for now. No offense, but as much as we love Deepavali here in Singapore, believe or not, the event is completely unheard off in the western world. Focusing on the more “Family theme” for Halloween just loses the essence, it’s like having the mid-autumn festival without mooncakes. But isn’t death and scares the basic making of a Halloween theme?

So do you think the lack of external exposure for our Singaporean kids leads to the fear of Halloween itself? I think so. This too, considering that death is still largely perceived to be taboo in Asian communities. We are a by-product stereotypical mindsets crafted by the expectations of society, with no leeway to think out of the box or self-exploration, fueled by the endless noisy flinging of Angry Birds on iPads and iPhones on every bus and train throughout the country.

That is my Singapore.

Tryouts were on tonight at the Hilton Singapore for a media showcase of Activision’s newest cross platform action-fantasy adventure game- Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure. As with all adventure games, gameplay involves controlling your character through a full 3D universe, with various baddies to beat and areas to explore. The game takes a different path of the Spyro franchise and somewhat into as a spin-off series into the first of the Skylanders series.

You assume the role as the portal master, being in control of 32 different characters, including our beloved and favorite fire-breathing dragon, Spyro. You choose your in-game character through placing highly-collectible action figures, (which are too, the focal point of the game) onto a portal device connected to your console, PC or handheld. It literally adds a whole dimension to choosing your character and beats having a generic character selection screen seen on most games in this genre, not to mention scoring many points with kids alike. The portal base device itself is a battery operated peripheral which comes with the game on all platforms and dependent on your setup will be recognized as an additional wireless controller or USB interface device.

Gotta collect them all!

Available on all platforms!

Demo by Activision crew

The action figures themselves appear to be rather well crafted and painted, which interfaces with the portal base via Near field communication (like RFIDs). Besides doubling up as a rather nice desk figure, it also stores all saved games, level-ups, equipment loadouts and stats of your character in the figurine itself, allowing you to deploy your character on your friend’s consoles too. Storage is non-volatile so no power is required on it to retain any data. This hardware platform is somewhat proprietary and is required by all players to access the Skylanders universe.

The game and toys were developed by Toys for Bob. With your character chosen, it sits on the portal all lit with a nice glowing effect, courtesy of RGB LEDs in the device itself. Players here can embark on a fantastical journey into an amazing world, where you can explore mysterious, mythical lands, unlocked by the unique abilities of your elemental characters themselves. Need to swim through a water course? Switch to a water element character. Need to thread fire? Select a fire elemental character instead. The seamless switching of characters allow you to choose on-the-go the right characters to solve puzzles, battle menacing outlandish creatures or employing their unique abilities to explore the far reaches of the game collecting gold, treasures or just for that 100% completion.

spy-ro a demo with my evil eye!

Wut cheat codes?

Spyro in-world

The game itself is playable in campaign and battle (PvP0 modes, with the first offering both single-player and cooperative multi-player, bringing you through this segment of the Skylanders storyline on a quest to save their world from Kaos, an evil Portal Master.

Playable characters become unlocked upon purchasing their corresponding action figures, which can be customised with an array of equipment, gear and hats, which seemed to spark an uncanny obsession of hats, which we can evidently see too in Valve’s Team Fortress 2. The role-playing aspect of the game allows you to gain experience points by defeating monsters and leveling up for upgrades. Next comes the competitive player versus player mode which is standalone and separate form the campaign. Here, you can pit your campaign characters through arena-style fight it out slug-fests, complete with cage-style jump pads, death spikes and traps. All characters in the Skylanders series are balanced, so expect all the other characters to stand a fair fighting chance even against the favorite Spyro, all to balance out the PvP gameplay.

Impressively, the game comes with a rather star studded production cast as well, with game’s character design by Tom Hester (who did Shrek) a storyline script penned by the writers of Disney-Pixar’s original Toy Story film (Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow), sound effects by Skywalker sound and a music score composed by the all popular Hans Zimmer.

Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure is published by Activision worldwide and by Square Enix in Japan. It was originally revealed to be exclusive for the Nintendo Wii and 3DS, with the support for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows announced only early this year. Is expected to be released on October 12-13rd 2011 in Asia, 14th Oct in Europe and 16th Oct in North America. The starter pack itself retails at about $70 USD for all 4 console platforms including PC and comes bundled with the portal base and 3 actions figures (Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy), with all the remaining 29 characters available by year end.

Many thanks to Activision for the presentation and happy3media for the media invite.

Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention, was held this weekend with the last day being today. As the name suggests, it’s a convention featuring an assortment of Toys, Comics and Games, Cosplayers with creepy photographers included. If I am not wrong this con is roughly into just over it’s 5th year or so, with my last con with them here being their debut year and man had they improved alot since their first.

A $10 entrance fee will get you in with unlimited re-entries via a stamp. The good thing about charging an entrance fee is that it prevents the general casual crowds from just walking in or simply just using the place as a hangout, which is a welcome in keeping the crowds down. Surprisingly it’s not as packed as I intended it to be.

Chilling with Andrew Bell

Superhero toys!

Got Saber?

Andrew Bell was the main reason I was there, considering him also being a crazy Android fanatic as I am, which is craziness in a good way I guess. Surprised was I when the STGCC first made the announcement of him being a guest of honor of the con.

A droid fan will simply can’t resist his Android toys, possibility explaining why I got one from abroad when the first series was first announced or even heard off here. On how the series started, apparently he was approached by a close friend of his who works at Mountain View (Google) who needed an artist in help with the designing a figurine series, stuff went off from there and yea you get it, just fill in the blanks from here.

Andrew is very down to earth and cool guy to hangout with, in contrast to his his rather bizarre works such as his on-going Creatures in my head series.

The place is cos-players aplenty, notable ones will include a team fortress 2 pyro and spy (you can see where this is headed too), Carmen Sandiegos, as well as a few awesome dragons by the name of Dark Lurker. There were many Anime characters as well as a balanced mix of western ones, such as star wars and marvel characters.

Italian plumbers?

A Tamiya Racetrack!

Presidential campaign poster

The entrance to the con was done at the exhibition hall 401- right at the end which is weird as everything is all squeezed there with a huge adjacent stage in hall 402, seemingly completely devoid and separate from the action. A question of inadequate utilisation? maybe. And though the spare hall might be needed by the cosplayers and events alike, it will help if the wasted space in the second hall could actually be ultilised to expand the floor areas of the exhibition area, particularly those for the artist alley- their booths there are really pathetically small, and yes though I know they are paid for in peanuts, but that’s where the crowds are.

There were cosplay competitions as well as a Tamiya one, including an impressive uber Tamiya race track to boot, built in a way that it tests almost all aspects of the car’s ability such as weight distribution, balance and power. A sight to behold itself.

In all, this is no International comic con, so don’t be expecting San Diego standards here, after all, such cons in Singapore are really a niche item here- largely affected by exposure to external influences, it is just something uniquely not Singaporean at all. Nonetheless, it’s still good to see the con going strong over the years, Though I am not exactly sure on the future direction of the con, who knows it can expand further into more variations or even specialise in one, besides branding itself now as a jack of all trades.

Ok, that’s all I have for the small con today, now to back back to those creatures stuck in my head…

Hey hey! Guess what’s keeping me busy from the blog over the past months? Travel! Yup, lots worldwide, it had been a rather fast 2nd year in uni, together with all it’s opportunities and challenges alike. What other better way to let off all the post exam stress than with planned trips travelling the globe? Travelling is awesome, especially re-visiting old places and new alike. So where had I been? well there’s Europe first in Paris in last December, followed by the US west coast in January and the east coast in this summer. Been quite caught up sorting and publishing all my trip photos online here, therefore this huge update. Musings of the free and easy traveller, feast your eyes on them!

US East Coast Trip
First off, I have my latest east coast trip up North America, I’ve segmented my places album as “global travel” now, splitting them all into regions containing all the respective galleries. So without further ado, east coast section:

New York & Brooklyn

Florida Hollywood Studios

Smithsonian Natural History Museum

My east coast trip involves travel from London to New York, checking out upper and lower Manhattan, particularly landmarks such as TimesSquare as well as the statue of liberty. Washington was up next, comprising mostly of national monuments such as the Lincoln memorial, War memorial, Washington memorial just to name afew. Visited the white-house too! The next part of the trip consist of fun at Sunny Florida with the Disney and universal themeparks followed by chillout at south beach Miami. The last part of the trip was a roadtrip to various eastern states, such as Ohio, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Sanddusky with an awesome trip to Cedar point theme park.

US West Coast Trip
This earlier west coast trip was done last Christmas, where I get to return back to San Francisco after almost 15 years. The place had changed much, but still retains much of what makes San Francisco famous for. The city has an excellent interconnect public transport network of buses and subways systems, allowing you to cover great ground affordably and with ease. It was not time before a free and easy traveller like me conquering much of the Bart and MUNI public transport system. Visited various landmarks and museums around the alley, as well as Plato alto, mountain view in silicon valley.

Golden Gate

San Fran Cable cars

San Francisco Twin Peaks

Paris Paris Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, one of the world’s leading business and cultural centres, Museums and the various boulevards. This trip was done just after my Christmas dinner and stayover at my aunts place in the UK last december. Thereafter it’s a zip across the English channel on the Eurostar high speed railway to catch sights such as the icon Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, various museums such as the Louvre and Disneyland Paris!

Louvre Paris

Eiffel Tower

Paris Disneyland

London Museums
Last but not least, good old London. I’ve more or less covered and explored all the Major museums in London, adding into the pool will be the Museum of London and one of my favourite, the V&A museum.

Back to more writing. Expect dedicated blog posts on the respective trips!

Gong xi fa cai! What other better way to welcome the year of the rabbit than a back to back Chinese new year feast for 5 consecutive days? And I thought last year’s 3 day steamboat affair was good. I guess it’s get better this year knowing where are all the parties are.

Before Chinese new year, (1st Feb) Day 1. We gathered our juniors and few invited guests to have a taste of tossing the traditional yusheng. Yes it was a mass yusheng event all right in college. Most of the yusheng ingredients were bought off local supermarkets in towns, with the exception of the sauces and crispy crackers brought in from Singapore by my junior. Surprisingly tossing the yusheng is still an exclusive Singaporean and Malaysian get-together traditional before the lunar new year- something even my Chinese and Taiwanese friends do not know or practice either. Our yusheng appetite is followed by a get together Formal in the college dining hall!

Steam boat gathering

Yusheng Day!

Cheers!

Day 2 of the celebrations, which is the actual new year’s day eve saw a reunion steamboat dinner at Pembroke college common room. Hosted by our “uncle” Justin, a follow Malaysian known for his awesome dinner parties. He never fail to surprise us again this year with the variety of food, all simmering in various rice cooker “steamboats” (we even had halal and non-halal pots). There were a 30 odd attendee and many new faces from the juniors, not to mention old friends from other colleges.

Day 3 saw myself being invited by my dorm mate John for a steamboat dinner at Emmanuel college with his bible study friends. We tossed yusheng again before settling down on food for the evening. We even had special Bakgua porkfloss buns, and I never thought I could ever have a go at these delicacies all the way form home right here in the UK.

Day 4 was my only low key day, and a much needed breather from all the massive calorie loading from the previous nights. It was Pasta night in my kitchen with my block mates, our only non-chinese day and man was the pasta good! :3

My 5th and last day of my Chinese new year celebration saw a massive gathering of friends in college for a steamboat in the J-block kitchens, which can accommodate big cookouts for 20 or more people at a go. I saw myself going for so many steamboat dinners in other colleges but of course no other better way to end it with my fellow college mates. This last one is memorable as I made the iconic Wanton for the steamboat, which was kinda like an experiment. To my surprise everyone loved it, even I can’t believe it myself! Kudos going out to my aunt and mum who taught me how to make them as a kid.

That’s all for now, I hope your Lunar new year was just as eventful. Happy Chinese New Year. Cheers!

Check out the Chinese new year 2011 photo gallery.