A little after work trip led us to China Town on the day before Vesak Day, the most holy time in the Buddhist calendar. The exact date of Vesak, informally “Buddha’s Birthday,” is in the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar (typically May), coinciding with the first full moon of that month. May 2007 has two full moon days, the 1st and the 31st. Some countries (including Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Malaysia) celebrate Vesak on the 1st, while others (Thailand, Singapore) celebrate the holiday on the 31st.
My photo luck kind of left me that evening (everything was blury), so I gave the camera to Aurélie. She managed to take some good shots…
I took Aurélie -my new intern collegue from EuroCham- to little India for an awesome feast at my favorite Indian restaurant. It was a good thing to be off of work and see something different than Orchard Road. Since this time it was Saturday instead of Sunday the streets were a lot less crowded than when I was in little India the first time. Nevertheless I liked that place very much. Aurélie wanted to see how people really live their life in Singapore, so we took some small backroads. And although it smelled differently, looked darker and poorer than the bright, illuminated main streets, it felt even more authentic. And although I didn’t take the shot of the fat rat crossing the street in front of us, I was able to somewhat capture the mood of that place…
From little India we took a cab to get to China town. To our big surprise china town seemed to be deserted. Not a soul was in the streets anymore, no shops were open (well, besides seven/eleven). We walked around quite a bit to see whether we just missed the big party somewhere. And although it seems like there was indeed no party, we found a neat little side road going up a tiny hill, with nice houses and cool little bars in them. Once again I couldn’t help myself and had to push the button on my EOS. We realized that it had been a long day after all and tried our best to get a cab on Saturday night. It only took us 45 minutes…
My roomies (Morgane, Rouben, Michelle and her buddy Alvin) wanted to explore the indonesian island of Bintan so I grabed my swimtrunks and my camera and joined them for a little adventure. Already a little short on time when we got in the bus we were pretty late when we got out of the cab at East Coast harbour. But it ended up not mattering anyway because it turned out that there were no more seats on the return ferries. So a change of plans was needed and we got ourselves some tickets (S$ 32 plus US$10 for the visa for Indonesia) for Bintan’s neighbouring island Batam.
Arriving in Batam we took a bus to the Batam Beach Resort, a nice but pretty deserted hotel with a nice beach and loads of cool and cheap Tiger beer. So we did what had to be done: we chilled, relaxed, fooled around and got sunburned. I took around 300 pictures of which most turned to be overexposed. I really need to work on my skills, dude. But some of them turned out alright and I invite you to check them out…
Published on
May 5, 2007 in
blog.
Der 5. Mai 2007. Heute schliesst die “big crowd” meiner Freunde ihr Bachelor-Studium an der Universität St.Gallen ab. Cheerio! Nur all zu gerne wäre ich heute bei euch und mit dabei! Ich gratuliere allen von ganzem Herzen und sage “thank you, Konstanz!” Ich wünsche euch allen eine schöne Feier und ein tolles Fest! Geniesst es, ihr habt es euch verdient! Respect!
Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision.
- Muhammed Ali
