On Board the Titanic

IT was almost like a dream come true when I saw the Grand Staircase at the Titanic exhibition.

Majestically beautiful

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition located at the Marina Bay Sands Art Science Museum runs from 29th October 2012 until 28th April 2012. Ning and I went on the first day itself and I remember I was very excited throughout the whole day. Never been so happy!

Gallery entrance

We bought a combo ticket together with the Cartier Time Art gallery entrance. And another addition of SGD5 for a short movie - Ghost of the Abyss by the same award winning director of Titanic, James Cameron.

Inside the Art Science Museum

Ticket reception

Before entering the Titanic Artifact exhibition, we were each given a 'boarding pass' with name of a selected passenger who boarded the ship in 1912. And Captain Smith was there to greet the visitors and kind enough to offer a photo session with everyone one of us.

A ticket to ride

with Captain Edward Smith

For the first part of the exhibition, stories on how this legendary ship was designed and constructed are being  told. The artifacts recovered from the seabed being displayed in glass boxes. Artifacts such as shirts, utensils, steel bars, basins and even chair are some of the items being displayed. Some of them are rusted and worn out but quite a number of them still looked new like they'd never been used before.

Inside the gallery, some parts of the ship were remade and created to give visitors a feel what was like being on board the Titanic. Here are some shots which I managed to take. (photo taking are actually prohibited inside oopss..)

First class corridor. Looks classy enough!

The promenade deck. I like how they use the mirror to give a longer illusion of the area.

2nd class cabin. Shaky cuz the ship was moving haha. *joking*

A mini 'iceberg' for you to put and hands on and feel the freezing point

The Boiler Room (again the same mirror effect is used)

List of passengers sorted according to class type and survived/dead. Notice the dead list on the 3rd class passenger and crew

Guests leaving some feedback and thoughts at the end of the gallery

It took us about two hour to complete to exhibition. I almost forgotten to mention that the background music fitted perfectly for the gallery. Wonderful but tragic at the same time.

At the grand staircase

I enjoyed it so much that I went for the second time three months after when my parents came visiting Singapore. Just felt like I should bring them to see this. And my mum liked it as well. A 100th anniversary to Titanic!

A scale model of Titanic displayed at The Shoppes Marina Bay Sands

The Social Network

I didn't know they were so many stories and conflicts behind the creation of Facebook until I watched 'The Social Network' last night. How it started from a Harvard University student network to a worldwide social network with 500 million active users today. In the show they probably speak a lot of computer language which I do not understand a single thing but nonetheless it is a great movie! Not to mention that Mark Zurkerberg (portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg) is a genius.

After watching the movie I sorta googled and read some of the information about the Facebook company and its co-founders. Hey, guess what? One of its office is in Selangor, Malaysia!!

So are you obsessed with Facebook?

The Southern Intergrated Terminal

LAST week I grabbed the opportunity to take the express bus back to Johor from the newly opened bus terminal at Bandar Tasik Selatan, named Southern Intergrated Terminal or Terminal Bersepadu Selatan It was not fully occupied as most of the bus companies were still 'hanging around' at the Bukit Jalil temporary terminal.

This new terminal consists of 5 level and the main lobby area is located on the third. From the papers, it is said that this building will be officially opened coming Feb 1st, together with the newly revamped bus terminal in Puduraya. This explain the emptiness of the terminal when I visited there.

As a transportation building, one of the most important element is the connectivity with other train and LRT lines. This terminal is connected to the KTM, LRT (Sri Petaling line) and ERL (KLIA Transit) via a pedestrian bridge. However a not very satisfying part is the lack of facilities to the disabled people on the LRT station.

Retouching Old Photos

SOMETIMES when you flipped through old photo albums of your parents or even grandparents you'll see some photos which look like this:

Sepia or black and white

Last night one of my cousin sister sent me a photo of her paternal grandfather, who passed away very early when he was still a young man. Only having this monochrome photo of him, she wants me to add some 'colours' to it. I thought it was quite impossible to do it as we normally photoshop our pictures from colour to black and white (B&W) but not vice versa.

That was, until I found a handy shareware which enable us to do that. This program called Recolored has very simple tools for us to add colours to old B&W photos. Fascinating!

And very easy to use

After a some trial and saving, this is the results I've got:

The glasses were later added in Photoshop

Lately I've been hearing a lot of death news. It all started with Alviss Kong, a heartbreak guy who committed suicide after his girlfriend left him. Followerd by another girl who jumped from KL Pavilion. Not long later, Sheng Yuan uncle also passed away after a road accident, which shocked all of us uni mates. And last night I heard from dad that one of our relative is not have much time left as well. *update: this morning the ambulance came and sent her to the hospital. Well, she's 98 now. This is life.

My First Apple Product

I got myself an iPod Nano (third generation) during the Mac+iPod fair in City Square JB two days ago. There will be only 50 units sold per day at a price of RM299 until the fair ends. Seeing it at such a comparably low price (usual price at RM450+), I could not miss the chance of getting one. Moreover, I have always wish to own an iPod since long time ago.

Jentera

I reached CS around 9.45 in the morning and to my surprise there wasn't any queue at all. I thought that lots of people would be queuing up for this kind of promotion. So I must be either early on that day, or not many know about the promotion yet. Or it could be that the iPod Touch is everybody's favourite now and nobody is keen on getting a nano.

The package come just like that. Like a cassatte.

But anyway I got what I wanted! =) There is only one colour for a 4GB capacity - silver. I am not a song freak therefore 4GB is quite sufficient for me already. Right now there is about 600+ songs in my iPod and it still left about 35-40% of empty space. I have yet to put in any videos because it requires an MP4 format so I need to first find a video converter. Any recommendation?

Music, videos, photos, and some games in it

However there is one thing about iPod. Since it is an Apple product, I have to download and install iTunes in order to transfer my songs from the PC to the player. You cannot just drag and drop like any other MP3 players. iTunes will help to organise each of every song into specific albums before synchronize them all together. Therefore I am now still in the midst of exploring it.

Look how slimmm it is

To prevent the iPod from being scratched I bought a casing to put on it. The normal price of a casing would be RM50+ but it is only RM10 during the fair. I quickly grabbed two of them. One silicon (soft) and another cystal case (hard). There are many colours to choose from.

Apple has always come out with cool navigation features to impress people and for this iPod, I like its click wheel ALOT. By sliding my finger across the wheel I can navigate through the menu and to control the volumn. Haha. I always love to syok sendiri with that.

That is not my wallpaper ok

To those who are interested, I've found a link which to show how the click wheel works in iPod.

So I guess it is time to say bye-bye to my old 512MB MP4 player I bought three years ago, which cost about the same price as this iPod.

Like what they always say: '久的不去,新的不来'

Maple New Year

SO David, Ning, Bibiana and I were celebrating Chinese New Year in the Maple world.

We met up in Henesys before meeting up with a guy called Yuan Bao Fo.

And we went to a hidden place to play fire crackers.

Of course, a lion dance that could not be missed. Tok dong chiang~

And suddenly somebody turned into a cow and two I-can't-see-their-faces-giants.

Again, Happy Moo Year to all! =)

Happy 牛 Year

THANKS to Sing Ning, I've been addicted to Maple Story lately. Hit, hit, hit and level up. That's what I do almost everyday. =) 

My sis used to play Maple Story last time (still playing I guess) and I always like to mock at her when she played that game. Haha. Look at me now! Nevertheless, I'm still a noob. So it'll take some time before I get familiar with the game.

I am in my grandma's house in Malacca now waiting for CNY to arrive. This holiday I won't be back to KL as it is quite troublesome for me to travel north and south again. Furthermore all the family members and relatives will be gather at Malacca during this festive season. And yesterday my cousin and I went to Muar to get a wireless router modem so that everybody can online in the house when they come back, which means..

I can play Maple everyday! XD

Mr Hong is the store keeper. Gong xi fa cai!

A Kung Fu Day Out

Update: A sequal to this show is already in progress. Can't wait for it.

MAYBE I haven’t watch Kung Fu film for some time. Or maybe I seldom watch Hong Kong film in the cinema. But I must say that this movie Ip Man (pronounced as 'Yip Mun' and not I.P. Man, Iron Man etc) is really good. I give it a two thumbs up!!

The best martial art movie I ever seen

I was watching it with Nicholas in MidValley a while ago and it totally blew me off. The Wing Chun style kung fu somehow did put us Chinese in a proud stand. Even the Japanese karate can’t beat it. I was also impressed by the fast paced move of every action. Totally awesome!

One of the fight scene

After the show ended, I could see that people were very satisfied on the movie, with all the expressions and comments. The kick, the punch and the flips were all being well-choreographed (by Sammo Hung). Suddenly I can feel the spirit of being a Chinese.

Nicholas and I was discussing whether this movie will be shown in Japan. Cuz it showed some irritated sides of the Japanese during the occupation time. I am not standing on any side, just saying that the Japanese era did give us especially the elder generations a big impact. Even until now people still can forget and forgive of what had happened.

One thing that the movie didn’t disappoint me was, Ip Man didn’t die in the hand of the Japanese. He stood and fight for what the people and the country deserves. On the other hand, he seems like a good and calm person as well as a loving husband and dad.

Ip Man (叶问) and one of his student, Bruce Lee in real life

Ip Man (potrayed by Donnie Yen) on the set

Okay, I shall not reveal too much about it.

Also, if you remember the GTO Japanese drama during our Form 3 time, there is a guy who you might find familiar in the show. =)

Conclusion, it is very worth for the RM12 ticket we paid.

20.12 is

Watched the movie 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' with mum and cousin last night. Mum seldom step into the cinema but yesterday was a different case. Earlier, she saw the movie trailer on TV and thought that an invasion was REALLY happening at somewhere before sis told her that it was just a movie trailer. Therefore she thought it was gonna be a nice movie.

For me, the story was just alright. Mum even felt asleep during part the show. I like the digital effect though. This movie is actually a remake of the 1951 science-fiction film.

What got surprise me during the show is this guy (Robert Knepper):

You might recognize him as T-Bag from the series Prison Break

He is a Colonel of the army forces of the United States in the movie. Such a contradiction from his role in Prison Break. Then, I searched more about him on the net and look what I found:

This is HIM (right) in one of the Star Trek episode many years ago

Haha. Doesn't have the villian look yet.

Anyway, I just got back from my cuti-cuti Malaysia trip two days ago. There are quite some photos. I've posted some of them in my facebook and IF I have the time I'll blog about it. Too lazy do things lately. =p

Wai Luen will be coming in a short while and we'll be going to a friend's sister wedding in a church. I have attended a funeral in a church but this will be my first time for a wedding function.

So I guess I'll better go get ready. That's all for now.

Wait, two more pictures which I've done.

Happy weekend!