Kite Festival 2011

I'm not much for kites and neither is Michi, but man does this site make for some pretty awesome photos!

Alright, I'll admit the only reason I considered re-attending the Kite Festival this year was because I'd missed out on obtaining the goodie bags the year before.

FREEBIES!!!

And a redemption stamp to ward off the greedy folk. I'm not kidding when I say I've seen people walk away with ten bags hanging off each arm.

Presented by Act 3 International, the NTUC Income Kite Festival Singapore 2011 was held at The Promontory at Marina Bay on 3rd and 4th September. Having been here the previous year I can safely say that the event was pretty much exactly the same this year as it was the year before, although not any less spectacular. Buskers were just one such attraction of the event:

The kites were, of course, the main attraction of the entire festival, and we were lucky to witness NTUC's own orange kite take to the skies. It was humongous!

It needed two people to hold it up!

Lifting off...

And up into the sky!

The tail was seriously long

...REALLY long

Flying a kite wasn't as easy as it looked... either that or I just really suck at flying them. Each goodie bag had a little orange NTUC kite, and getting that little 4" by 3" into the air was harder than I'd thought.

My best achievement: 6 feet off the pavement for 3 seconds

What I should have done instead

We didn't participate too much in this event (hence the complete lack of actual blog material in this post), but it was definitely worth the trip out to enjoy the beautiful breeze and to admire the picturesque scenery. If you're an avid kite flyer or enthusiast or just someone looking for a good place to get good photos, mark this event down in your calendar when it comes around next year.

Send Yourself to the Singapore Philatelic Museum!

August is a very special month in Singapore, with Singapore's National Day celebrated on the 9th. August 2011 is even more unique, with Hari Raya Puasa coming next Tuesday (30 Aug) and the Presidential Elections today (more on that later, Pris is actually out at her polling station right now and she'll be making a post about that).

Through the month of August, in celebration of National Day, all Singaporean citizens and PRs have free admission to the majority of  museums in the country. Even better, on national holidays ALL people in Singapore are granted free admission. Pris and I have been taking advantage of this and while we haven't had much time to post about our experiences yet we have definitely been keeping ourselves busy.

Today, since I've finally got a few hours free (in between the Natas Travel Fair this morning and trip to Borders at Parkway Parade for special deals since the Wheelock Place Borders closed unexpectedly tonight) I can make the first of our museum posts- actually about the first museum we visited- Singapore Philatelic Museum.

For those who aren't in the field or involved in the area at all, philately is the study of stamps and postal history in general, and the Singapore Philatelic Museum focuses on stamps and the like produced in the Southeast Asian region, especially Singapore, as you can imagine.

Neither Pris nor I are very interested in stamps and whatnot and expected we'd likely breeze through the museum in an hour or less, but were pleasantly surprised that it was actually one of our favorites. No doubt learning the history of stamps and mailboxes can be boring, but with lots of exhibits and interactive things it made the trip much more fun. ...Actually, we were pretty childish through our visit and took advantage of their "stamp press" machines meant for the kids, where you can collect cute ink stamps on paper.

(this one was our favorite!)

There are plenty of exhibits and rooms to browse through, including a kid's room for drawing and cute stamp hopscotches on the ground, but we mostly just enjoyed the colors and look of old stamps and mailboxes.

While it's not the sort of museum I can see us stopping in to check out for each new exhibit, it's definitely worth at least one stop in if you have a bit of free time. Another benefit is that it's within short walking distance to the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum and the Peranakan Museum (yes, we also made stops at all of those!) so if you're looking for an interesting way to spend the day you can take quite a few hours between those.

There are a few other upcoming events if you haven't had a chance to visit yet. There will be free admission to all on Hari Raya Puasa (30 Aug), Deepavali (26 Oct) and a Stamp Fair held 11 Sept. Admission on days other than National Holidays is $5 for adults and $4 for children, and the museum is open 1-7pm Mondays and 9am-7pm Tuesdays-Sundays. You can easily reach by foot from City Hall MRT, Clark Quay MRT or Bras Basah MRT.

If you absolutely can't find the time to make it down but would like the see what they've got, you can take the virtual tour instead!

( but you can't see the old mailboxes unless you go in person!)

HSBC TreeTop Walk

Opened in 2004, the HSBC TreeTop Walk is a very cool, but very exhausting way to spend a free afternoon. Considering you'll be hiking anywhere between about 5 and 15 km (about 3.1 to 9.3 miles for my American friends who cannot convert metric... on which to note I used google to convert because I'm still far below average in recognizing metric equivalents too) you should come prepared with good shoes, snacks, and someone else, because hiking that long alone would be boring as heck.

Just a note before we start to give everyone an idea of perhaps why Pris and I found this trek so exhausting, aside from the fact that we're both willing to admit we're horribly out of shape- we're idiots. We knew beforehand how long we would be hiking, we knew it would be difficult, and yet we chose to take the hike in flip flops. Do not do this.  Seriously, this isn't a nice little hike in the woods. This is a difficult, often up hill path made of rocks of all sizes in various holds. Some will slip out under your feet, you will have to climb over many large, strangely placed red bricks in the path now and again, and it is not at all paved. For the sake of your feet please let us learn the lesson for you and wear the appropriate footwear.

The hours run from 9-5 on weekdays and 8:30-5 on weekends, so do make sure you get a head start, as they will not let anyone on past the 5pm mark. Two other things to keep an eye on: the size of your group (only 30 are allowed on the walk at any time, so if you are making a large group tour it may take a few minutes waiting to get on) and the weather (...please don't even attempt to get on a swaying bridge 25m in the air in a storm). It is definitely worth it to head out as early as possible, however, as the midday sun is a killer.

You can find a bit more information, including trails and whatnot, right here.

We headed out somewhat early, about 9am, but since we live pretty far we didn't really get started until around 10:30 or so. From the Marymount MRT it's about a 1.5km walk to the entrance of the trail, but pretty easy to find. Just follow the MRT map to St Theresa's Home and the start is right there. For those who will be driving or who want to make the trip with kids, you can shave about 5km off the total hike by heading straight to the Venus Drive entrance and starting there. They say in all the guides that it will take about 3-5 hours for the hike from start to finish, but in our experience it will be much closer to 3 unless you spend a long while eating lunch at the ranger station. We stopped for plenty of pics and our own lunch and still managed to finish right around the 3 hour mark, despite taking the longest route and keeping a steady, but not terribly fast, pace.

The TreeTop walk is located on a long path in the MacRitchie Reservoir, linking the two highest points within the area. It is about 250m long and 25m high, literally in the highest trees. It is also worth noting the actual suspension bridge is a one way route, so if you are terrified of heights you will literally not be able to turn around and change your mind once you start- the only option is to continue to the end. This isn't as bad as it sounds, both Pris and I were pretty wary about the height before we got there and neither of us flourish high in the air, but the walls of the bridge are high and it feels secure. Aside from a bit of swaying in the breeze there was nothing to make us nervous, and even that was totally welcome after about an hour and a half of up-hill hiking in 90-something degree weather (sorry, about 33c to my metric buddies, but you probably know how hot it is here anyway). 

The path is clearly marked, but also very busy. As a nature trail, you'll be sharing the first 5km with other joggers and hikers not looking to go to the walk, and sometimes it's a tight squeeze. The path is somewhat narrow and isn't paved, so watch your step and try to stick to one side so others can easily pass. The path out was nice, but as it was a lot of uphill walking also tired us out pretty quickly.

After 5km you'll come to a split in the path. This is where the path from Venus Drive merges and most hikers do not continue if they aren't looking specifically to get to the TreeTop walk, so after this things aren't nearly so crowded. To be honest, there isn't much to say about the hike itself as it's mostly the same thing, long winding roads surrounded on all sides by trees. Fortunately, nearly the whole walk is shaded so that helps take a lot of the edge off the heat.

A short while later you'll pass by the ranger station, where almost everyone will be stopping before or after the walk to relax a few minutes. There are bathrooms and free flow water, as well as blessed chairs, so take advantage before heading to the walk itself, as it's totally uphill from there (you're going into the trees, it's a tiring portion!). After what feels like forever, but what the signs tell you was only .3km (lies), you'll finally reach the suspension bridge.

The good news is not a terrible amount of people are willing to hike so far into the woods, so it was reasonably free and without too many others around. As I mentioned before, the bridge is sturdy enough to not cause worry, but it is a little frightening being so high up, especially if you don't love heights.

Enjoy the views and take your time! As far as things go, the TreeTop walk wasn't as suspenseful and exciting as we'd imagined, as most of the trees are actually right at your height and not hugely tall. It was definitely interesting and worth the trip out since we're not exactly crunched for time in which to see things in Singapore, but if taking half a day or so out of your trip would leave a gap in which other activities couldn't be done we'd both give this one a pass. To be honest, our favorite part of the trip wasn't the walk at all- it was:

MONKEYS!!!!

Pris still gets a kick out of my excitement at seeing wild monkeys, but this time even she was pretty pumped. We didn't see any monkeys the whole way out and thought we were going to miss them altogether, despite the signs everywhere reminding us not to feed them. Fortunately, about 1.5km from the exit we were absolutely ambushed. What started as one monkey climbing close to us (and actually scaring me farther away) turned into about two dozen a few steps down the road. These were mostly cute little guys, but obviously looking for and expecting some food. They lined all sides of the road and overhead and even got right in the path!

Many were actually close enough to reach out and touch. It was pretty funny too, watching all the foreigners stopping for pictures and to watch them and all the locals who take the path frequently zooming right around them without a second glance. Definitely the best part of this trip though.

Hair for Hope 2011 - Shaving for a Cause

I'd heard of people shaving their heads to show support for cancer patients before, and though I'd played with the idea for a little while I'd never actually given it any serious thought. It wasn't until a friend of mine (let's call her W for now) mentioned that she was planning to sign up for the event, but didn't want to do it alone, that I decided this was probably the perfect excuse chance I was waiting for.

Now into its 9th consecutive year, Hair for Hope is "the only head-shaving event in Singapore that serves to raise funds and awareness of childhood cancer. Every shaven head represents an understanding by an individual of the ordeals that a child with cancer is subjected to." Participants can either register via their website, or attend the event as a walk-in shavee, which was what W and I did.

It was surprisingly but amazingly crowded, considering the goal of the event! The displays on the stage are live counters and show exactly how many male and female participants were and are being shaved.

Michi and I made our way down earlier even though W was only supposed to meet us at 1pm, and it was lucky we did. The walk-in shavee queue was limited to 300 slots, and there were at least already 200 people in the walk-in shavee queue by the time we arrived only an hour after the event had officially begun!

It went from this...

... to this in about twenty minutes.

The queue didn't actually start moving until 2pm though, and W had joined us by then, along with her mother (who had also decided that impromptu shaving sounded fun). It took a while, slowly drawing closer to the main event taking place on the stage, but it was finally time to get bald.

Exhibit A: Before shaving

And after! I was given the HfH shirt during the sign-up process.

It wasn't too bad of an experience for me since I'm not a very appearance-conscious person myself, but I can't imagine how W or her mom felt (I've known W for about five years now, and she is very vain!) going under the razor. I'd like to think it's the courage of people like them, and all the other shavees at the event, especially female shavees, who really underscore the HfH message to people with cancer that it's okay to be bald.

The event is open today (Sunday, 24 July) as well, from 11am to 7pm at Vivocity (Harbourfont MRT station), if anyone reading this is interested in signing up. I think I'm definitely going to add this to my list of yearly events to attend and participate in. Plus, I'll be saving on shampoo and haircut costs!    

Going in to work on Monday with my head shaved is going to be awesome

edit 09 Aug: We have a few additional pictures from the event including our friend W and her mother who also shaved!

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

Despite Michelle having worked in Chinatown, Singapore for nearly a year now, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum is only the second of many tourist sites there that we have visited (the first being the Sri Mariamman Temple which we covered back in April). You can guess by its name that the main attraction is of course the Tooth itself; unfortunately we didn't get to see it on our visit as (1) while the temple is open from 7:00am to 7:00pm daily, the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic Chamber that houses it is only open from 9:00am to 6:00pm daily, and we got there at 6:30pm (2) photo-taking of the Tooth is forbidden, so we wouldn't get any images of it anyway. Nevertheless the temple itself, inside and out, is a sight to behold and is worth making the trip downtown. (Plus, it's free!)

The interior of the temple is huge and wondrously decorated. It doesn't show up too well in this picture, but there's a gorgeous display stage of a couple Buddhist gods/goddesses with a lovely canvas backdrop in the background!

Founded in 2002 by Venerable Shi Fa Zao, the temple is dedicated to the Maitreya Buddha, which means "The Compassionate One" and is also called "The Future Buddha". As a place of worship, incense is readily available at the entrance for those who want to make an offering, and temple robes are provided should you be "inappropriately dressed" - sleeveless, low-back tops, mini-skirts/shorts and strangely, hats, are not permitted within the site. The temple is five stories high including the rooftop, and even has a couple of basement levels for visitors to park their cars in.  Large, intricately carved and decorated statues of gods and goddesses are located in almost every corner of every room, and nearly every wall is lined from floor to ceiling with hundreds upon hundreds of miniature deities.

They're watching you. Every single one of them.

Seeing as we only had thirty minutes to explore the entirety of the temple before it closed, we pretty much breezed past most of the exhibits of deities after fully admiring the main hall, heading up to the rooftop where the Vairocana Buddha Prayer Wheel and the Pagoda of 1,000 Buddhas resided. The sight that greets you directly after exiting the lift is something right out of a meditation guidebook:

The Orchid Garden on the rooftop is very, very well maintained and absolutely beautiful, the greenery framing the Vairocana Buddha Prayer Wheel in the center. Someone had spun it recently when we reached the top, making it sound loudly every few seconds.

The rim of the Wheel is "embossed with Vairocana Mantra, [and] every turn of the wheel represents a single recital of the scripture and mantra."

We didn't need to look far to find the 1,000 Buddhas either, it was the same pagoda that housed the Wheel! (And I thought the hundreds of deity statues on the first floor was impressive!) These Buddha statues are about two inches in height and covered every inch of the walls, extending all the way to the walls outside the Wheel; they even have little numbers on them telling you exactly which number Buddha you are looking at!

ALL OF THEM. WATCHING YOU.

Unfortunately, as it was already 7:00pm by then, we had to leave shortly after visiting the rooftop, although we managed to squeeze in one more visit to the Museum part of the Temple before the guards chased us out (well, to be more accurate we got lost trying to exit the temple and wound up there. It was really more of a souvenir shop though, so we still left right after either way). There's really only so much we could cover in half an hour, but I'd definitely like to come back again some time in the future to fully enjoy the various floors of exhibits and of course, catch a glimpse of that famous Tooth myself.

More information and images of the Temple can be found here. Say hi to this guy for me if you go!

4th of July with the American Association of Singapore

(you know you're at an American gathering when there are metal detectors at the door)

Alright, I know I'm an entire week and a half late, since AAS held their annual 4th of July gathering on the 2nd of July. But hey, at least I'm determined to be thourough with our event coverage, even if not timely. To be honest, I caught a cold soon after the event, rapidly followed by Pris, so we've both been miserable and unwilling to expend the extra energy on blogging. This is my second time ill in two months now, not to mention that wonderful two month trip with pneumonia at the beginning of the year, so hopefully that'll be it for the year.

In any case, onto the fun stuff: along with thousands of other proud Americans and those who just wanted to watch fireworks, Pris and I traveled out to the Terror Club in Sembawang for the yearly Independence Day Celebrations for the second time. I'll let everyone stop here to snicker at the name of the venue for celebrating American independence. Entrance is free and, even better, they provide free shuttles too and from Sembawang MRT.

We attended last year to Ben and Jerry's ice cream displays, awesome corndogs, real sno cones without beans and corn on top (looking at you, ice kachang), and the only fireworks I'd seen outside of National Day. Unfortunately, it was also during a storm, and 75% of the venue was unusable due to mud, though we still returned home dirty and disgusting even trying to walk on the wooden planks.

This year we enjoyed much better weather, though much of the same good times. AAS kept several live bands playing throughout the event, which actually went from 4-10pm, even though we were lazy and only arrived about 7pm to make sure we'd get a spot to watch fireworks. The bands themselves were much the same as last year, very country and very good for background noise. I don't think there was ever a big crowd gathered at the stage to listen, but it was good to have some more local tunes playing through the hours.

We agreed the crowd seemed a bit bigger this year, though that could be due to better weather bringing everyone out. Either way, the long lines meant we had to forgo the free popcorn and cotton candy handouts, though we did grab a Snicker's ice cream bar that was probably my favorite part of the entire year. And oh yeah, the corn dogs were still just as amazing.

(to a homesick american this is like crunching into rainbows covered in sunshine draped in happiness)

There were a bunch of stalls set up for people to walk around and check out, from the local American school to a Navy booth, medical resources and pretty much anything you could think an expat might need. Most didn't apply to us so we didn't have to spend too much time looking around, but they were handing out free tote bags at one of the stalls!

More than anything, it's just a welcome relief to be surrounded by your own countrymen now and again in celebration, and the spirit was definitely high. Everyone had a good time chowing down food from Fat Boy's Burgers (they look amazing!), Fridays and the like, although Ben and Jerry's was sorely missed. Oh yeah, and drinking enough to put out a fire. Just the the 4th of July celebrations back home!

We did get a decent place to watch fireworks too, but unfortunately they were a little lacking this year. Last year seemed pretty short itself, maybe a 5-6 minute display, but this year couldn't have topped 3 minutes. Ah well, you can expect much in the way of fireworks in Singapore.

(they look a lot better if you just put a bunch of them together!)

Overall we did have a good time, both this year and last, and we'd be happy to recommend anyone come join in next year!