Visit to Chek Jawa

Today, I joined the NIE Green Club for a Nature Guider training session.
I bet none of you know I have this special liking for nature.

This is my first trip to Chek Jawa even though I have been to Pulau Ubin quite a number of times.
We were early at Chek Jawa, so we rested at House 1, which is just behind the visitor center.
We were suppose to observe how the volunteers from the Naked Hermit Crab conduct their guiding.
Since there were few visitors around, the NIE gang split into 2 groups and followed different guide.
My group was following Ria.
We had a lot of fun time listening to her stories and lame jokes.
And we spotted many things along the way too.
I read from Ria's webpage that another group spotted a mud lobster.
wow!

The trip was fun and the weather was good.
We saw the tiny fiddler crabs along the shores at the seagrass lagoon.

I did not have the right lens to shoot.
Only had the 105mm VR macro with me.
Hence, not much of pictures taken.

Before we entered the gates of Chek Jawa,
We were greated by a group of macaques.


At ther inter-tidial area of the seagrass lagoon, there lay a dead mangrove tree.
It provides a good landscape shot if I had a wide-angled lens with me.


While trying to save my photos, I accidentally press the invert command and I got this.
Quite interesting.


I'm not sure if I will be committed enough to becoming a nature guide, though guiding is not done on a weekly basis.
But I'm glad that I can visit such beautiful nature places.
Just taking a walk at such places is good enough for me.

Hopefully, I can visit Chek Jawa more often.

Preserve Chek Jawa,
Pei Yan

Macro at Singapore Botanical Gardens

Today, I rented the Nikon 105/f2.8 VR macro from the camera rental centre.
Since I was collecting it at about 3pm, I decided to take a trip down to Botanical Gardens to try out the lens.

I did not know that the lens with the VR ability was huge and heavy.
Nevertheless, it was a great lens to use though I did not quite like the VR function as the VR motor keeps moving.
Perhaps I couldn't stand still that's why.

The objective of going to Botanical Gardens was to shoot insects.
I did not really find a lot of insects.
Shot a spider and a dragonfly,
also saw a damselfly and a frog at the sundial garden pond.
Then I realise that damselflies are really small.

Here are the shots from today's trip.

Red Tent Spider (Cyrtophora unicolor)

Trithemis Aurora

I really enjoyed the trip with the dragonfly as my last subject to shoot before I left the place.
It was a great trip.

Dragon-slayer,
Peiyan

AHM 10km Women's Run 2009

Today is the day, Safra Bay Run & Army Half Marathon 2009.
Woke up at 5am to prepare for the run.
Took a bottle of 500ml 100plus and a vanilla flavoured PowerBar.

Everything has been packed last night.
Slippers for after run,
Towel and change of shirt,
Brush,
Sun shade,
Water bottle,
Sennheiser headphone,
iPod Touch,
and most importantly my number tag.
The disposable champion chip was also secured on my shoe last night.

I read on sgrunners' forum that drinking a glass of salt water will prevent cramps.
So I decided to give it a try and surprisingly, today's run was almost a no cramp run.
Almost because after I crossed the finishing line, the muscles just above my left heels started to cramp.
The run started late and the crowd was huge, with so many army men.
Just as I was about to reach the starting line crowd, the run had started.
I feel that I under performed by a bit as I did not hit the "first 1km no stopping" target.
Furthermore, I began to realise that my right feet was numb after reaching near the top of Shears' Bridge.
The numbness continued till just past the foot of the Singapore Flyer and thus, I was unable to run properly during this period.
Every time I start running, the numb on my right feet got worst.

The most encouraging part of the run was at the F1 starting point area.
3 DIV (I think so, it's the DIV with the tiger one) had men with inspiration notes standing along the whole stretch of that road.
Everyone who saw it will definately agree that I was inspiring to push them on to finish the run.

Alright, enough of talking, let the pictures do the talking:
My number tag.

Number tag with finisher's medal.

Medal front.

Medal back.


Hopefully, I can still consider to join SBR & AHM 2010.
A few more run to go for the year.

With striking pink kinesiology tape,
Peiyan

NO post? *edited*

To those followers of my blog...
I'm sure that you are getting pretty up sad that there has been no updates since July 31.

Yes, the owner of this blog is very much aware of the need to update.
Unfortunately, I have been rather lazy to do so.

Don't worry, updates will be coming up soon...

Stay tunes.

Well, I've updated a few back dated post, including today's post.
happy reading them

I'm the owner,
Peiyan

National Day 2009

This year's National Day was different from previous years.
Every year, I will never fail to stay at home and watch the National Day Parade live from the comfort of my own television.
However, this year's National Day was spent on site (nearby) with Yuman, Gobi and Wancheng.
The sad part was that we were rather late in reaching Esplanade area and there was not a single good/nice/ok spot for us to sit down.
Luckily, the area where we used to performed was rather empty and so I set out the mat and we sat there.
Later we found out that I was a bad spot as we could only hear and see nothing but humans.

This was what we saw directly in front of us.

Looks like Gobi was caught by paparazzi peiyan.

The finale, which was the fireworks, were blocked by the trees in front of us.
Luckily there were those glass buildings like the new NTUC building which provided nice reflections of the fireworks.
Boy it was magic.
After the fireworks ended, the crowd disappeared.
Some people from the floating platform were dispersing via the Esplanade.
We were the only ones who are still happily sitting on the ground while everyone walked past us and took at us.
WIth the crowd walking past us continuously, I took the opportunity to take a shot of it.

Interestingly, because everyone was wearing red top and white bottom, the image turned out to look like a Singapore flag:


We waited for most of the crowd to disperse before leaving the venue.

Stand up for Singapore!
Peiyan

Sad year for Science Fac

Despite the scorching heat, everyone put up their best show.
I'm referring to this year's NUS Rag & Flag day.
For some reason, which I can't really figure out why, I decided to join in the fun and support Science Fac for this year's Rag.
Honestly speaking, I know no one there except for weidong and muslim.
And today was the first time I saw this year's float.

At 7.45am, everyone faculty and hall were busy preparing their float.
At the time when I reached, Science Fac's float was having the pre-judging.


This year, Science Fac is the first float to kick start the event.
The float is based on the story of Jack & the Beanstalk.


The first part of are all the faculty floats, then some beneficiaries' performance, then the halls of residence's float.
I truly admire the amount of effort the halls put into building their float.
It's so beautiful!
Afterall, they are fighting for a chance to showcase their float at next year's Chingay Parade.

When the results were announced, it was saddening,
This year, Science Fac was not so lucky and we did not win a single thing.
However, Science Fac did get the GOLD award for flag day and the questionable thing was that not a single word was mentioned during the whole event.
Sad.

Well, here are the results for Rag Day 2009:

RAG AND FLAG 2009 WINNERS

Chancellor's Shields
Overall Champion for Faculty Clubs: School of Business
Overall Champion for Halls of Residence: Kent Ridge Hall

NUS Presidents Shields
Best Total Collection for Faculty Clubs: School of Business
Best Total Collection for Halls of Residence: Kent Ridge Hall
Best Rag Performance for Faculty Clubs: School of Design and Environment
Best Rag Performance for Halls of Residence: King Edward VII Hall

NUSSU Challenge Shields
Best Float Design for Faculty Clubs: University Scholars Club
Best Float Design for Halls of Residence: Eusoff Hall
Best Presentation for Faculty Clubs: Medicine
Best Presentation for Halls of Residence: Eusoff Hall
Least Cost Float for Faculty Clubs: School of Computing
Least Cost Float for Halls of Residence: Raffles Hall
Best per Capita Collection for Faculty Clubs: School of Business
Best Total Coin Collection for Faculty Clubs: School of Business
Most Environment-Friendly Float for Faculty Clubs: School of Design & Environment
Most Environment-Friendly Float for Halls of Residence: King Edward VII Hall
OSA Most Creative Float Award for Halls of Residence: Eusoff Hall
OSA Most Creative Float Award for Faculty Clubs: Medicine

I'm very sure that Science Fac will make a rousing comeback next year.

Science Fac huat ah!
Peiyan

I'm a student again!

Yes.
I'm back to being a student again.
And I can enjoy all the student meals.
But I can't enjoy concession pass for travelling because I'm drawing a salary.

I am a student.
More specific, I am a student teacher.

Doing my teaching course now at NIE.
Yes... it's very far.
Every weekday, I will perform "The Great Journey to the West" and "The Great Journey to the East".

2hr rides,
Peiyan