NiVleK

The flight was at 2140hrs. A six hours plus flight, probably the longest flight I have been in so far. The furthest I went was Shekou, China on a business trip and I think that is just 3 hours plus.

We reached quite early, before 8pm for our dinner and then to meet up with the tour leader Ken to confirm the boading pass and the full itinerary of the tour. The tour sequence has been changed. We are supposed to go to Jeju Island first and then back to Seoul. Now, the Jeju island trip is changed to the last 2 days which confused the itinerary quite a little. Not sure if this is better but the tour leader and tour guide kept emphasizing that this arrangement will be for the better.

This is my first taste of the Korean food for the next 8 days. A dish called 비빔밥, (Bi Bim Bap), a popular Korean dish or affectionally called "beggar rice" by some of the Koreans. It was said to be part of the Royal Court Dish and in the present, the ingredients are varied according to the current tastes of the nation. I did manage to get to taste the more correct Bi Bim Bap later in my trip.

So with all the ingredients you are supposed to mix everything together including the rice which will give you something like this...

Doesn't look very appetizing ya...but it is still quite okay.

Here we are at 인천국제공항, Seoul, Incheon airport arriving from OZ752 @ 0630hrs in the morning. The temperature was supposed to be around -1 deg. Woohooo! My first time in such a cold country. We were introduced to the local tour guide, Novel Hsu, a local Korean who speaks good Mandarin. We were told to get some breakfast in the airport and will depart to our first destination in about one hour time.

We picked the most common food that is being sold everywhere.

Macdonald's breakfast! And it is almost identical to the ones they serve back in Singapore. One complain though...the coffee taste yucky. Ewww. And I did have any coffee at all during the whole eight days in Korea. Probably too frightened off from the first experience.

The first place we went. A beauty shop linked to "Face Shop" teaching us the essentials in applying chemicals etc to our face. (skin care course) The guy on the extreme right is our tour leader Ken. Pretty quiet and nice guy like me! There is a total of eight steps to be done if I remember correctly. If we have to do this everyday, I think I will waste one more hour daily for this. A price to pay for beauty. Nonetheless, we went ahead with the demo and did this.

Tada! Ginseng face mask. Hahahaha. Quite a fun experience though but on the hindsight, the time could have been spent better elsewhere.

Rating: 2.5 / 5 for this place.

To be cont'd...more to come for Day 1.

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Well, what better to test on than my lovely handsome schnauzer Truffle. EP-1 features a 720P movie recording mode and here's 25 second demo of it.

Point to note:

• Video not very bright - was indoors...obviously....
• I muted the sound except for the last part where I said "YEAH". Too much background noise. Focusing mechanism of the camera could be heard working.
• The video was not properly focused at Truffle for some part of it. One possibility could be that the C-AF (Continuous Auto Focus) is not fast enough to catch up with the jumping dog. The other would just be placing the fault on me since I was holding the treat in one hand, the camera on the other AND ensuring that my fingers are not too low to get bitten. Truffle always makes it a point not to bite me, he knows the consequences but I had to play safe with the hungry dog.
• I should do any test outside a bright environment
• I shoot this in IS-1 mode. Auto IS? Not sure. Got to read the manual.
• Posterous do not put up the HD version. Click on the video and there is actually a HD Version of it since I shoot and uploaded at 720p.

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Click here to download:

Korean Eng_Pg 7_merged.pdf (3408 KB)

Today was quite a happy day for myself and my wife. We were searching around tour agencies for a package that really suit us, both in location and in timing. SA Tour's package was the shortlisted agency with a package for Korea 8 Days and its on the 24th Dec! That means that I need not take so much vacation leave! But, our moods were dampened when the rep told her over the phone that it is fully booked.

Not convinced, we went down to SA Tours itself and checked if it was true. Yes! The date is still available! Of course we booked it immediately. I am really looking forward to the trip! We will be celebrating Christmas on the plane, not that we celebrate much anyway. lol

I have not been to countries during the winter season and I have not ever seen snow. This is really exciting. Thermal wear, winter wear, many things I need to buy....also got to find out how to protect my electronic equipments in winter? Condensation? Hmmmm.....

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Just uploaded more photos to Flickr and thought of sharing some of my handsome Truffle photos.

Messy Truffle.

Sleeping Soundly....

A little messy...

Handsome Boy. Just taken yesterday.

After uploading my dog set, I just realised that there is a cap on the number of photos that I will be able to trace back in Flickr. And I thought I could use Flickr for free lifetime if I can manage to ration my uploads to 100MB per month. At maximum of 200 recent photos that I can only view in Flickr, I should probably think of upgrading to a Pro account at US$24.95. Or is there a better photohosting site? Hmmm, time to do some research.

Thankfully, I should not be that afraid that my Mac data will be lost since I have a 2TB Time Capsule waiting to be delivered tomorrow. ^_^

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Just filmed this when I went home for dinner at my parents place. Truffle finally went for grooming already!! So decided to take some photos and video of him in action. After I came home and switch on my Mac, I realised that I have yet to choose the iMovie app. So I went already and snip of some parts of the video I took using Canon IXUS 100IS at 720P and so here it is.

Watch out at the last part. Thinks he know that I call him stupid and then he came over to get the treats from the other side instead. Hahaha.

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We celebrated our first wedding anniversary and also Hazel's birthday at Tavern Restaurant http://www.tavern.com.sg/. It was a very nice romantic place with a very country styling. Hazel was quite pleased when she first entered the place. That made me quite happy that she like the ambience. Food was not bad too. We had half a dozen of escargots + pan friend goose liver and 2 Australian Wagyu beef steak. The pan fried goose liver was nice. Much better than the one we had at illido@Sentosa and a bigger piece! The wagyu was not bad too. Presentation of selection was interesting. The waiter brought out the whole chunk of beef for us to make the selection and we choose how big we want each slice of the beef to be. It is too bad that they do not have tenderloin for selection. I chose medium for my doneness and she took medium well. Medium was quite nicely done, not too cooked and not too bloody. Delicious! The whole meal cost a bit though, hovering slightly above $300 but I think it was worth it for a nice and satisfying dinner compared to the $500 dinner I had at Illido. Phew.

Some photos to drool at. :D

                       

Click here to download:

Archive.zip (1084 KB)

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8th of August is a special day for me and also for my wife.

1. Its her birthday!!!
2. Its our wedding anniversary!!!
3. Its the date that I joined my present company!!!
4. Plus, it is just one day before Singapore's National Day!

Sentosa was one of them. To be more specific, I mean new attractions of Sentosa. Eg: Sky Ride and Luge. That was my primary objective. To be honest, the images of Singapore didnt really come to my mind. It did come to the picture when researching on Sentosa's website and realising that it was free entry to Singaporeans and PR on the 8th of August 2009 as a way of celebrating National Day. So, why not?

Anyway, we didnt make it in time for the Skyride and Luge...the bed was too comfortable to sleep in, plus I have been up early to make a card for her and wait for DHL to send in the printer, in case he puts a NOT AT HOME notice again.

The images of Singapore looks much more revamped and upgraded since the last time I was there. I was probably there the last time during my secondary school days? Cannot really remember though... But it was impressive. I did recall some of the old exhibits, especially the signing of the treatry, etc.

Just some of the pictures below ^_^

                           

Click here to download:

Archive.zip (1098 KB)

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Got a present today from my wife. A Burberry black label wallet (from japan). It has been quite some time since I carried such wallet with denim type of material. For as long as I remember, I have been using leather wallets ever since starting my work. Actually, we were discussing on which wallet to get and eventually decided to get this instead of the black-red trimming wallet. The retro look of the wallet design is growing on me. I have only one worry...kia la sum.

   

Click here to download:

Present_from_my_wife.zip (277 KB)

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Just came back from some minor shopping. Finally managed to get some tonics (bird best, hashima) from Eu Yan Sang for wifey.

Sent from my iPhone 3GS

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