Hello everyone! I have joined the Ubud Flash fiction contest! It ends 24 September!

http://flashfiction.ubudwritersfestival.com/2010/08/a-million-years/

Click that! And give me a thumbs up! Only one person per click! If you’re on the same internet as your friend/family or something and they have voted, then you can’t click. SO PLEASE DO IT AT SOME OTHER LOCATION, AARGH.

That is all. Help spread the message!

The usual crew hit the Alive Gallery at Downtown East! This gallery exhibition of sorts ends on 3rd October so you still have time to go if you want to from when I post this episode.

Tickets are $17 for adults, $13 for students and $13 for NTUC members. Heck, there’s a family package at just $54 for 2 adults and 2 children. Or you can try your luck and win some tickets by having a picture of you as the Mona Lisa and posting it up at the Alive Gallery’s facebook! Naturally even if we bought our tickets, we took our pictures there. No. I’m not putting it up here. Heh.

Alright! It was a Saturday then so the place only opened at 12pm. We arrived early to beat the rush or the influx of people later on.

What is the Alive Gallery you might ask, well there’s around 49 pieces of artwork from various styles and era but hold on! Some of them can talk to you or are in 3d! Oh yes, remember there’s no photo taking in this exhibition except for 2 spots. The 2 spots however are very awesome.

Also, you don’t really need to take photos of the artwork. You can pretty much find them online anyway to see where the originals are etc. Just that the difference is that these artwork can move. Considering this was all from Korea though, the English dubbing might not fit their lips.

HO HO HO! This is one of the spots! You can see the actual painting of how it is on the right but there you have to walk into the painting to get to the next bit of the exhibition! In the meantime, the first part of the gallery was about Egypt and how they painted things then after which you moved to Greece or Rome and onwards. You get to wear 3d glasses at one spot and listen to Michelangelo talking to another.

Especially at that spot… Try talking to Michelangelo. It’s funner then. I figured the dialogue was intuitive in which when he would say something complicated, you would ask him what the term is and he’d answer back! Heh.

That one’s a Van Gogh art piece. Meanwhile, for Mona Lisa, you’re able to ask her six questions which you can read off on a sign near her. Speak loudly or else she won’t hear you. Ask any other questions and she’ll actually give you the hand! You know, like talk to the hand? Actually, doing that was pretty fun.

Anywho, we moved onwards and also filled a quiz form to put in a box there to win a night or two stay at the chalet aft Downtown East. So ok! It’s pretty educational and all that. Go there if you like to learn about paintings and artwork.

And here we go! The next bit in the story. To see the previous parts, look on the left! I put a new category just for this story here since I know it’ll be quite long.

Ashes to Ashes

Part 2

By Seriously Sarah/ sarah coldheart

The sun streamed through the glass windows of a cozy bedroom decked in cream and light blue. There, in the middle of the heavy set wooden bed lay a dark blue fleecy lump. An elderly goblin female poked it with a metal ladle.

“Mistress Ashlinn, get up. It is mid day,” she said.

With a groan, the redhead peeked out of her seclusion. She glared at the goblin that was clad in a simple brown dress with an apron tied around her waist and a muffin hat covering her dark green hair.

“Nessie, leave me be. I’m in mourning,” mumbled Ashlinn before retreated once more beneath the covers.

The goblin gave a hard smack at the lump that was Ashlinn with the ladle.

“Ow! What did you do that for?” cried the girl.

Ashlinn had tossed off her blanket and rubbed at her head, glaring at Nessie.

“Stop sulking! ‘Tis yer own fault ye refused the kind sir. No matter that, it’s been a week so ye best get off and get ready!” ordered the goblin.

“I don’t want to. Life has no meaning anymore,” groaned Ashlinn and flopped face first onto one of her pillows.

Nessie fixed a glare on the girl for a moment before she took a good grip on her left ear with her gnarly fingers and pulled at it.

“Ow! Ow! Let go! I’m getting off! I’m getting!” cried the girl as she got off the bed.

“Good! That’s what ye get when ye don’t get a move on it! Greta will pack yer bags while ye clean up. Yer bath is ready in the water room,” said Nessie as she made for the exit.

“Wait, why are you here anyway?” asked Ashlinn confusedly.

“To get ye moving!” said Nessie frustratingly.

“But why you? Aren’t you supposed to be in the kitchens?” asked Ashlinn as she got out a little bag of toiletries from her bed stand.

“Yes but no one else could get ye up because they were bein’ gentle wit’ ye and going ‘Aww poor wee lass, I’ll wake her up later’! Now hurry up! I’ll be sending Greta to yer room once she’s done helpin’ the Lady. The travel coaches be arrivin’ in an hour or so,” she said as she waddled out of the room.

Ashlinn promptly grabbed a bathrobe from her wardrobe and walked down the corridor, passing her step sisters’ individual rooms. There was a flurry of activity as they ordered the goblin help they had to pack their clothes and items. She paused in front of Ruby’s open door as the younger dark haired girl sat on an overstuffed luggage bag while, Aggy, one of the smaller goblins tried to latch it shut.

“Ash! You’re awake! And you look bloody horrid!” shrieked Ruby.

The younger girl bounced off the bag, causing the contents to explode around the room and onto Aggy. Ruby tilted her head to look back and shrugged.

“We’ll try it again Aggers. Now Ash! You’re finally up, are you ok? Are you fine? Do you feel ill? Talk to me dear sister,” she said in a rush and hugged the taller girl.

“I’m fine? What are we packing for?” asked Ashlinn.

Ruby gasped dramatically and took Ashlinn’s hand to pull her towards the next room where Crystal was surrounded by her bags. All eight of them packed up except one that was being closed shut by her own goblin help.

“Sis, Ash doesn’t know why we’re packing,” cried Ruby.

Ashlinn looked from Ruby who was clinging at her hand towards Crystal. Even though the two girls were twins, it was easy to tell one from the other. Crystal had a more serious and calmer exterior compared to Ruby who could be distracted with any shiny object.

“We are packing because you said no to the duke and now we are being banished forever,” said Crystal seriously.

“What?” exclaimed Ashlinn.

“Just joking. No, we have been invited to the capital for the winter festival,” continued Crystal in the same tone.

The winter festival. It was an annual event held for two weeks before the end of the year. Ashlinn remembered that her step mother went to the capital yearly with her father. They were usually invited by the various trading families that lived there. As it was usually more about strengthening business ties with one another, the three girls had a choice to follow their parents to the capital or stay at home.

“But I don’t like to travel and prefer to keep house,” stated Ashlinn.

“And keeping house meant waiting for his grace Kai to call on you when we’re all away in the capital. Well, he is not going to call on you this year with his quest and if he did return, he’ll know where to find you,” said Crystal.

“Which is precisely why you’re coming with us! We know you’re just going to mope about on your own with just the servants for company,” said Ruby.

Crystal raised an eyebrow at Ashlinn, looking at her up and down and sniffed. She pointed stared at the bathrobe that was slung on the redhead’s shoulder and the toiletry bag in her hand.

“We’ll be leaving soon. You do not want to be leaving in the coach wearing your nightgown. Ruby, let go of her hand. Off you go Ashlinn,” ordered Crystal.

The flightier of the twin huffed as she let go of Ashlinn’s hand to return to her own packing. With a nod, the redhead backed out of Crystal’s room as she finished up with packing and called out for more servants to carry her bags.

As Ashlinn stepped into the water room, she hung her bathrobe onto the hooks near the door and placed her bag of toiletries on the shelf near the pine tub that was sunk into the floor. The bath had been ready as Nessie had said and undressed herself before sinking into the lavender scented water of the tub.

The water filled to just below her shoulders as she sat there stretching her legs out. With a satisfied sigh, she relaxed and leaned her head backwards.

“I’m leaving for a few weeks. Are you coming?” she asked aloud.

The little window grating near the roof of the water room let in the sunlight to provide illumination. Even if there wasn’t any, the walls were inlaid with glow stones that shimmered in the dark.

Ashlinn sighed and sat up facing forward. A dark shadowy being sat crossed legged on the edge of the tub and smiled at her.

“Of course.”

Considering this episode is supposed to be a laid back activity of craft work, we stumbled upon some science for kids exhibition at the National Library. Yeah, we’re doing craftwork and got hit by science.

It wasn’t that large but there was a section that you could use 3d glasses. ANYWAY, off we went to the third level. That’s where the drama center is but we aren’t going to that section. It’s a quiet spot where you can sit around since the cafe’s there and random seats.

Meanwhile, for this episode we decided to share craftwork with each other and show how things are done! Generally! Not like we can remember the heck the steps to do each type of craftwork, you’ll see.

Yep, Jo’s doing a 3d puzzle, she did it pretty quickly too.

I presented on how to loom knit! It’s freaking easy and you get a hook to use too.

Avariel did regular knitting with needles with funky yarn!

While Mintea showed how to crochet! As I said, one of the most laid back episodes ever. Also, since it was the library we could borrow books whenever or if we ever wanted to.

This is the completed puzzle of Jo’s. It’s a treasure box! Meanwhile after an hour or so of knitting/crocheting the rest of us got tired. Yeah, whatever, we’re not marathon knitter/crocheters ok? THUS, we packed up and hit Spotlight just to check out yarn.

It still suited the theme of the day, see!

We even got crazy looking yarn! IT IS SO PADDLE POP RAINBOW! Mintea got the neon green/blueish version of it instead!

Thus, we did a challenge. Sorta. Eventually we should each make a hat with our various styles.

In the end though, I think we might forget the challenge so hah! That’s it for this episode. We could have gone to knitting circles or whatnot but naaah, it’s always fun to do it informally instead of checking out groups especially when we’re not that serious in our knitting/crocheting!

We’ll make our things… eventually.

And next week’s episode will be arty!

Remember that picture from my episode on Free Comic Book Day? Yeah well, I did say that pic was a bit photoshoped to make it look better but it didn’t really need that much photoshop in the first place anyway.

So let’s show you how to be as faceless or how to make a faceless mask like how Renee Montoya is as The Question!

Here’s a reference of my outfit for that day anyway. The artwork’s by Philip Tan and it’s from the Book of Revelations/Blood. I kinda borrowed the compilation book so I managed to see it in there anywho. Considering it’s the most casual outfit I did ever, it freaked a lot of people out due to the facelessness.

FIRSTLY, a note! You can also check the tutorial on how to make a faceless mask here by Jessica Smith. Her post enabled me to make my own so yes, let’s start on how I did it. You can try find at your own craft places but I pretty got my stuff from Art Friend here.

Things to get:

• 18 gauge wire
• Cheese cloth (Art Friend had it out of stock so I bought mine online, now they stock tons of it! Sheesh.)
• Dylon’s fabric paint! Red, yellow, black, white. (Make sure it’s in a small glass bottle and the new formula, not the old. 1 bottle each should work)
• Brush/spoon/some stirrer
• Pail/bucket/large bowl
• Newspaper or whatever scrap material to dry your cheese cloth
• Muslin or whatever “flexible” soft cloth large enough to cover your face
• Marker
• Pins
• Super glue
• Scissors

Let’s begin!

As you can see, the wire part is the easiest thing to do for this whole mask. I didn’t use the 32 gauge wire as stated in Jessica’s tutorial since I just twirled the ends together. If you note the wire there, the top part of the head is separated from the jaw part. Use enough wire so you can have the ends meet together and twirl it together (with pliers if you don’t have strong fingers) till they’re together!

Pretty much you just smoosh/bend the wire to conform to your forehead and to the part where your jaw ends. With the extra bit there, you should be able to wear the wire like a pair of spectacles.

The next part, take your cheese cloth out from its package. Fold it a few times until you can’t see the “holes” in it and that the length of the cloth should be able to cover your face with some extra inches left over. You just need that amount so cut it from the rest. At the moment, I still have some cheese cloth left over to make another mask if I wanted to.

Ok, this is where the bucket or pail or whatever comes in. Make sure you have good lighting in your room or wherever you’re doing this. According to your skintone, mix the paint: red, yellow, black and white. Well, I’m Asian so that’s the colour I needed. Just add more red or less yellow if you’re not and increase the tone by using black or lighten it with white fabric paint.

Warning: Carefully add black paint by drops and stir the whole paint mixture in the bucket or pail before adding more.

Add water as needed, I managed to get to my skin tone after at least half an hour of mixing and checking. Dump your cut cheesecloth in the bucket and make sure the whole thing is covered with it. The new Dylon fabric paints does NOT harden your cloth when you dry it.

ALSO, make sure that when you add the cheese cloth, it looks correct to your skin tone for it depends on what colour your cheese cloth is. Adjust when necessary.

Then lay it out to dry! Or hang it to dry. I chose to just lay it down.

The next part is fitting it all in together. This picture is taken at night and kinda dark. You can note it looks like I’m already faceless! I didn’t photoshop this picture by the way so that’s the effect you’ll get and oh yes. You CAN see through it. The beauty of cheese cloth.

Right, remember the muslin or spare soft cloth? You might need help, just get someone to draw on your face WITH the spare cloth on it with a marker. It should outline your forehead towards your jaw. With that, cut out the piece with a few centimeters extra.

When your cheese cloth is dry, fold it up in the layers until you can’t see the holes from afar. You should be able to see through the cloth against your face though. With that folded, time to lay your spare piece on top and cut it out! Yes. Your cheesecloth might be in cut layers, that’s why you have pins, make sure they’re all together.

Alright, the difficult part. Don’t rush as you attach the cloth to the wire frame with the help of your pins and glue. You can pin the cloth to the wireframe, the extra bit from where you marked your face is to be folded down and super glued. Make sure you don’t stick your fingers together or something when you do this. trim when needed when all is done!

Also remember to do some test shots to just check!

Considering this was freaking daylight with immense sunlight, it still looked good from afar. It’s much better with less lighting up close. Oh yes, for this one I rushed so it looks a bit off in some pictures.

The hat and wig pretty much covered and also helped to keep the mask in place. I can talk easily and see things pretty clearly too. I might be making a better version with more adjustments to the colouring and size next time but still, for a first rushed faceless mask I did just for Free Comic Book Day, it was pretty fun!

Ah the Singapore zoo. We went there just the weekend before National Day and a very hot and sunny weekend it was.

No. I’m not exactly sure but uh, they’re tree mascots. Very fantasy-ish in a spirits of the rain forest sense. The cast for this episode is the main crew for the Adventure crew! Raven came a bit later since she had training. In fact, in this episode you might see them in the various pictures. Try to spot them if you can!

And thus we bought our tickets! We didn’t go for the packaged ticket that had the tram and boat ticket rides included. You get a free dollar voucher to one of their restaurants or something and a map of the zoo including a schedule of feeding times and shows happening there.

Looking at the weather, I was glad I was wearing sunscreen but I was more than sure that wasn’t enough so I purchased a hat from the zoo’s store! I AM SO GLAD I bought it! It was freaking sunny and it was worth it having a hat like that. Also, we managed to pull away from buying soft toys there. There’s lot of cute fuzzy stuff and snakes. I like the fuzzy toy snakes.

The first few animals you see as you enter would be the parrots and some tiny monkeys in their special houses near the entrance. The last time I went to the zoo was years ago and now, wow. The place looks awesome. I forget that Singapore’s zoo is one of the best in the world with numerous awards too.

You first start through a tree top boardwalk thing. If you look over the railing, you’ll be able to see some animals swinging about or if you don’t, too bad! It’s ok though since you’ll see more of them later in their own zoo habitats.

Most of us usually went to the zoo during school excursions or thought it was a tourist thing to do. Well for one thing, woah it is very fun visiting the zoo! Sure, you’ll smell the animals before you get to see them but it’s a fun day to be had if you get to see the shows or participate in the feeding times!

What was fun to see besides the animals were the descriptions on them! They were in various languages including braille! Ok, the last one was on the babirusa aka a type of wild boar and not a tapir. I didn’t take the braille version of the tapir’s description but I’m sure it’s there somewhere.

We didn’t get on the boats. Heck, we took one day and we didn’t really do everything at the zoo! You can go through the exhibits and all within a day but if you want to do everything would need a few trips since there’s elephant shows, feeding times and photo opportunities with animals and whatnot. We just did the “land” bits and next year there’ll be more exhibits opening since the pandas will arrive!

As you can see, my hat is very useful that day.

We got to see lots of zones at the zoo. You can actually buy a ticket for the tram, the zookeeper or guides usually talk about the various sights around there when you ride it.

It’s kinda amazing that some animals have free reign in their own zones. The orang utans are free ranging so they’ll really be above you in the trees. You can spot the zookeepers along the pathway either picking up stray branches or carrying some fruits to feed them at times.

Yes.

Orang utans above you.

Randomly, I don’t know if orang utans poo on the ground or while they’re on trees, hmm. Oh yes, as we walked along a lake of sorts we spotted the Ah Meng memorial statue too.

And then we went to Cat Country. HUGE KITTIES. I like lynxes. They have pretty pointy tipped ears. Like elves but furrier and clawier so not like elves at all. The white tigers are at their own enclosures instead of being with the rest of the huge kitties since apparently they’re special or something. Everyone was crowding at the white tiger enclosures anywho.

As you go around the enclosures, you’ll notice that the architecture and themes of the various places where the animals came from is pretty picturisque! There’s no barred gates around, just really well designed open air enclosures. Except for the glass for bits where you want to get “up close” to the animals of course.

The Australian Outback lets you touch young kangaroos! Well, if they bother hopping towards you anyway. The zookeeper is there to keep an eye on the safety of the animals and I guess the children too. You’re not supposed to touch their heads since they don’t like that. That’s what the zookeeper said anyway so you can touch their bodies! There’s a nearby sink for you to wash your hands with soap there too. For any petting areas, there are convenient washing points to be used.

OH YEAH, we fed the giraffes! For $5 you get the stuff from the zookeeper there and then you feed them the carrots. They drooled a bit on Mintea. HURRR. The official zoo photographer is there too. You can buy your photographs at the zoo shop near the entrance. We bought ours because it looked really good! You can only pay via cash or credit card. No NETS for the photograph sets.

The coolest part of the zoo. The polar bear enclosure. They were hanging out in the back instead of swimming because they have a hidden air conditioned lair there and it was a really hot day.

On a different point of temperature scale, there’s an orchid garden too. Make sure you bring loads of water. There are stalls selling drinks and ice cream but eh, you know how prices are at places like these. Oooh yeah, we went for the elephant show! That was fun, if you want to be chilled out, sit at the front because they’re gonna splash you with water! Ho ho.

Meanwhile, considering this was before the Ramadhan fasting month, we pitstop at KFC at the Kids zone. Prepare to wait a while before you can buy your food since there’s a long queue. Considering this was a weekend, naturally it is busy. However since it is now the fasting month perhaps it’ll be quieter? I don’t know.

Anyway, there’s a carousel, pony petting/feeding sessions and a water playground! Lots of kids running around. Make sure you really have sunscreen on. It was as if you could feel the burn of the sun.

BUT WHAT IS THIS? Hidden in the “old” part of Kids zone is a flying fox! Naturally we took tons of pictures as we swung on them.

We took the Dino Walk and followed the trailed to see what was in store. Yeah, I’m so using such cliche “adventure” discovery lines right now. So yes, there are dinosaurs at the zoo.

THE TRAIL IS SO FUN. There are hidden adventury obstacle things if you wanted to play on them. This one is especially fun. You get your team and stand on it and pull yourselves across the mini lake. It is not deep but I doubt you want to get wet legs or fall in it. Do it, do iiiiit if you’re in the Kids zone, through the Dino walk and deep into the bushes to find this!

As we exited the zoo, we looked up to see the little poster banners. Heh, Mio and Okto eh? Well, the animals in the zoo are adopted by various brands. For example, the white tigers are adopted by Tiger beer. No prizes on who adopted the parrots Mio and Okto.

Hello everyone! Remember Happiness at the End of the World? If you don’t, it’s the science fiction anthology we came out with next year. This time we’re opening submissions for steampunk short stories!

Here’s the short details:

Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy (an imprint of Two Trees) and The Happy Smiley Writers Group are calling for submissions for the second in their sci-fi short story anthology series. Following on the success of their first anthology, Happiness at the end of the World, Happy Smiley and Friends are going Steampunk.

Steampunk Short Story Guidelines:
1) Theme is science fiction steampunk with a happy ending.
2) Word length between 2000 and a firm 6000 words.
3) Deadline for submissions is 31st October.
4) Open to any age, any nationality but must be resident in Singapore. (Singaporeans studying overseas are eligible.)
5) Mail submissions to steampunk@twotrees.com.sg
6) For more details go to http://twotrees.com.sg/steampunk.html

Right. Check out the website link and make sure you conform to the style guide! It’s for us to edit things easier if your story gets accepted into the anthology. Not sure what steampunk is? Well, go wiki it or check out steampunk fashion sites. Or you know, read some steampunk stories! I like Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series.

Oh yes, people have been asking does it have to be set in Singapore? No. What you do have to have is a non-depressive or happy ending!

Obviously it has to be a steampunk short story too since that’s the anthology name.

Anywho, go forth and check out the main details!

Hello everyone! Today is Singapore’s National Day! So instead, I shall leave you with our episode at the istana! Yes! Where the president works! The istana holds days for open houses and the day before National Day is one of them! You can usually check their website to see the dates for when you can visit them. So yes, this time we went to the istana open house!

It’s free for Singaporeans and permanent residents. Tourists and foreigners will have to pay $1 to get in. Oh yes, to get free entry you need to show your identity card if you’re SGian or PR. It was fast enough for us since we went during lunch time. The security check was really fast since we just put our bags on the trays and went through the metal detector. Don’t bring too much unnecessary stuff since woah, when you get into the istana area, you’ll find it a very large piece of land. It would be a very tiring walk if you were lugging a lot of things.

For one thing, once you step in the grounds, you’ll realize that it is freaking huge! The istana is nowhere close to the gates! Prepare to walk a lot from here. It is said from one of our adventurers who knows someone working there, to get to the main building, the person would be driven on a golf buggy! That was certainly sensible and there were a few parked around near the gate building and also some being used by the police to go around that day.

Yep. Golf buggies are the way to go around here. In any case, bring lots of water too. There were families picnicking and school children on an excursion there.

The first thing we did was to disturb the swans. Well, not really. They’re at the pond with a very good cordoned off from the public with just a bit of a rope railing thing. You don’t want people to fall into the pond anyway. It is said that sometimes the swans will go a wandering around. Also, there is a huge tortoise somewhere but we don’t know where it is. That tortoise is also said to wander quite a bit and the staff has to carry it back to the pond somehow.

Imagine the security police surrounding said tortoise and going all “Freeze tortoise! You’re in a restricted area! Go back to your pond!” or something. Le amusement. It IS a huge pond by the way and there’s also a lake. To be specific, 2 ponds and 1 lake.

The grass and architecture of the place was pretty pretty. Very colonial style anyway. The best way was to go up, UP!

And diagonally really. We went up and walked under the shady path and then walked into the sun to check out the art pieces made by students from 43 schools while the art installation itself is by NUS. At least that’s what it says in the pamphlet!

There were activities you could do that day too! Children were going around trying to get their kites that they made up in the air. It was mostly us moving away from their running around with a trailing kite on the ground though. Still, they did have fun.

There’s a stage set up where performances were to be had or you could just sit there to rest in the shade. There’s a lot of playgrounds set up too along with a stall selling ice cream. We’ll get to the activities later, we still wanted to go reach to the main building aka the istana! You can see it behind the canon there.

Alright, we passed by Victoria pond. We didn’t want to go down because it is a long way down and we were at the junction where we’d either go straight to the istana or go down to see the Queen’s statue. Fun fact, this statue was originally inside the istana, at the presidential hall until it was moved to the pond.

Almost to the istana! The greenery and flowers are so pretty there.

But hold on! If you want to go inside it, you’ll have to pay $2! The ticket proceeds go to charity anyway so it’s all good. Also, no photography allowed inside. However, if you were researching for a story or whatever, the interior is so very nice to check out. Also, we love the air conditioning. The architecture is a mix of old and new. They didn’t mess with the colonial structure of the building even though electrical lights and whatnot were installed. Oh right, why do we love the air conditioning? They’re actually set in large wooden cabinets that look like tables but have shutters on top. This was much better than an air conditioning machine installed in the wall or something.

Also, we stuck around the cabinets to cool our faces. Haaa.

You get to walk around the first level of the istana and go ooh at the various artwork. It’s not that many places but it is just the experience to say you’ve been there! Some police or members of the force are around wearing their ceremonial version of their uniforms. I don’t know what “number” uniform it is but it’s the fancy ones with the gold braids along the shoulders with proper pants or skirts indeed.

Since we aren’t allowed to take pictures inside, have the exterior instead! Also, if you haven’t guessed or figured it out, istana means palace. The president works here and oh the all red flag with our crescent moon and five stars? It’s the presidential standard where it will be up there while he works and will be lowered down when he leaves the istana. We didn’t get to see the president that day although he does come out to meet people but the day before was the Youth Olympic Games torch passing through thing and then the next day from this open house would be National Day (aka the day of this post). I’d think the president would be busy then.

Alright, off to the other side where the fountain is! I like it how there’s chandeliers on top of the tent structure’s. So posh.

And onwards we went towards the activities area! If you won’t go to the museums, the museums will come to you!

Ok. The zoo isn’t a museum but woah. The whole village is like flashback city! We’ve gone to their main buildings in our episodes! Ok. You haven’t seen it yet but we went to the zoo the week before this post. You’ll read that in the next episode, probably. Oh and there’s another pony there too. It’s probably pettable if you asked the zookeeper there.

Ok. The library isn’t a museum either but they’re usually at events nowadays with related books or DVDs etc! You can borrow stuff there and win items.

This was also where you could get the kites and other things to make. I’m sure I could make the snake easily. This was by the Peranakan or Asian Civilizations Museum. One of them anyway since both were there so in any case, they’re all together for this village.

Remember the pamphlet I got earlier? On the front was a coupon to get freebies! Yay! I heart museums! I do! It’s free entry today and you can check the various days you can get into the main museums in Singapore for free. Usually we just check online on their calendars to see.

Before you leave the istana grounds, you can buy a souvenir or two. There were cups and things which I didn’t really take a good look at. All of the monies go to the community chest/charity though anyway.

Off we go! Back out or rather to Plaza Singapura to eat. By the time we walked through the grounds, we really needed a cool drink and food since we didn’t have lunch.

Goodbye to being up close to the istana gates! Unless you get invited in, work there or go to another open house. Also, amusing is that we do have guards at the guard posts. People were taking pictures next to them since they can’t move or aren’t allowed to anyway. Oh le sad, on open houses they get their pictures taken by random people who pose next to them. Hahahah.

Happy 45th birthday Singapore. The winning artwork for National Day 2010 on Google on this day is up! Heh, I voted for that design too.

As for those who don’t know what’s the Song for Singapore, that’s this year’s theme song. My favourite though is Home by Kit Chan from 2004.

Ps. By the time we got out of Plaza Singapura, the line to get into the istana was FROM Plaza Singapura. Well, the walkway there towards the istana anyway. Yay for us not getting when the crowd was entering.

Hello everyone! This is an updated review of online book stores compared to back then when I wrote Open Trolley is my alternate universe Amazon! If you read the comments there, things got a bit heated up from the various stores telling me that they’ve got offers and whatnot and other people’s experiences with them. (The comments ARE very informative by the way.)

Now you need to know one thing from that era of me using Open Trolley, Acma Mall didn’t give free shipping to Singapore. That post was in August 2009 and then they had the free shipping later. That includes the existence of Book Depository to us Singaporeans even if the about page says it had been founded in 2004. It was just then, no one here really used BD to tell us it isn’t dodgy and all that.

I would like to quote George Stevens who had used all three before I get on with my review. This is one comment that’s very useful from that older post:

OK- tried all 3 of the stores above- here’s the results- all orders were for books shown as “in-stock”-

OpenTrolley- order placed January 6th, available for pickup January 15th- 7 working days. Paid $0.50 to pick them up at Plaza Singapura.

Acma Mall- order placed January 10th, delivered January 26th to my house- 12 working days. 40% off of best sellers and free shipping made this the best price, but the longest delivery.

Book Depository- order placed January 17th, delivered January 26th to my house. Overall good prices and best delivery time (6 working days), even though they are not local. Will probably continue to use them in the future.

I think both of the “local” bookstores are just a website who then order in bulk from overseas, thus the long lead times.

Right. So there you go. It’s pretty much the same timeline for me too. I’ve ordered from OT, AM and lately BD.

I ordered on the 12th July and got it on the 21st July which is pretty typical of a shipping time from the UK to here. Or at least whenever I bought items online, it usually comes around 10 days if it’s not in Singapore. What did I get?

Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C Hines! I got a little bookmark too! Let’s do a little packaging comparison with the 3 stores.

Packaging

Open Trolley – You can either pick it up from the Toy Outpost or get it delivered to you. If you’re picking it up, bring your own bag or else you’ll be carrying your book(s) just like that. If you get it delivered, they send it to you in a box! So pretty protected and all that. However, I ordered a somewhat large book so it wasn’t stuffed into my postbox but instead the postman came up to deliver the parcel and all that.

Acma Mall – Deliveries only. Ditto on box. It’s more like a specialized book carton or something since it’s wrapped to the size of your book. Fits in your mailbox so a pleasant surprise (if you don’t count the days) when you open it up and see it there.

Book Depository – You can see above. A padded envelope! It was well protected and fit in my box. Pro point? You can play with squishy bubble wrap of the padded envelope once you’re done tearing it up in an attempt to get your book as fast as possible out of it.

All three companies don’t have dodgy packaging techniques so your books will be in pretty good condition when you get them.

NOW, let’s get on with the pricing!

Why did I use BD this time? Well, firstly you’ve got to know I had checked the book out once I learned it was uh out. My first step would be to check Kinokuniya’s book web catalogue. They didn’t have it yet even if they have the first few books in the series. No point in checking out Popular and Borders doesn’t have an online book search which is stupid really. If Kino didn’t have it yet (and they can be slow to stock some titles), it’s off to the online stores instead!

Amazon and Borders are out in my list because of their shipping costs so whatever. This post is for my favourite online stores instead. Open Trolley, Acma Mall and Book Depository.

Pricing (in SGD for Red Hood’s Revenge)

Acma Mall – $12.32 with free shipping. At the time of this post, they’ve got a new deal where you’ll get your book within 7 working days.

Book Depository – $11.38 with free shipping.

Open Trolley – $12.91, shipping = $4.98 (per order, not book) or book costs $11.62 if using DBS/POSB card or for non users of those banks, you’d get that cheaper price if you buy at least 2 books. Free “shipping” if you pick up at Toy Outpost instead.

The Verdict

You can see BD won this time.

However, I don’t stick to each particular store every time because it depends on the books. Acma Mall has popular titles but for some obscure ones, Open Trolley has it and Book Depository too.

The best time to go to Open Trolley is when they have sales going on where it sometimes can be 20% discount or more depending on the months. THEN you get your friends and go insane on the books. Get shipping if you’re feeling lazy since it’s just per order and not per book. It’s like the price of 2 long bus trips anyway.

Also when I mean their range of books is large, it is really large. For those obscure titles and comics, you can find it here mostly. If you can’t find a book you want, email them and they can try hunt it down for you, it’s in their services.

Meanwhile, Acma Mall has their own discounts too where you get codes from some book councils places and it’s faster than the brick and mortar stores here with new releases. The downside is their search engine on their website. Sometimes you get errors so you’ll just have refresh or key in a different key word like the author name instead of the book title.

They’re on twitter too and come out with promotions now and then. Quick to response to customer feedback etc so you don’t need to freak out if something happens to your package or something and need to email them etc. Oh and they sell more than just books too.

Book Depository is woah on the range and the price. Just remember that it’s from the UK and while the shipping time is around 10 days or so for us at the minimum, there might be delays due to unexpected volcanoes/strikes/bad weather/etc. Things do happen after all. I’m having a lack to say here because it pretty much an ideal store too! They don’t have promos from what I see though since they’re already providing free shipping and cheap book rates.

For each of the stores, it’s best to just see when you’re buying the book.

Also, this is a new Book SG price comparison site by Brian Ellison. You might like to have it a go if you don’t want to do that much work of comparing yourself. It’s new at the moment of this post so it might have a lack of data for now.

So any more online book stores you’ve tried out besides these three that I’ve used?

This event happens yearly and usually in July or in the mid year. Jo, Avariel and me registered for The New Paper Big Walk after one of the adventure episodes. It’s $10 anyway and you get a coupon for a goodie bag to be picked up on the day of the Big Walk and a t-shirt when you registered, we picked blue instead of red. The whole distance to be covered is 5 kilometers and the last time I did this was back in secondary school.

I was the first of the three of us to arrive at The Flyer. That’s the starting point of the walk and I got there around 6 plus in the morning? I got my goodie bag and stood around and waited for the rest. Took pictures but they’re mainly blur due to the lack of light anyway.

As I wandered around, I saw some chillies and onions near some trees.

Heh, this means that the organizing team is pretty experienced in holding events and had been doing this for quite a while. You see, at times on very major events you might see it hidden around somewhere. It’s not really hidden but it’s placed in a discreet place so people won’t trip or that it’ll be picked up by cleaners straight away or something.

It’s a traditional superstition where you point the chillies usually stuck on a satay stick then poked into the ground along with some onions so that you’d threaten the sky not to rain or else it’ll be poked/fed with it. I’m sure the sky got the point with that amount of chillies even without being stuck on satay sticks. Those are after all chilli padi.

Dawn approaches, everyone is queueing up to get their goodie bags and hanging around.

The start off time was 7.30am so everyone was just sitting around and eating the breakfast foods or reading the newspaper from their goodie bags.

Avariel reached before Jo who was stuck somewhere in the queue. Meanwhile, I got to see some costumes. One of the competitions there was a “Be Green” costume competition where you had to make an outfit out of recycled materials and a Spot Me contest where the event’s photographers will take your photo and you’ll see if you made it into the papers the next day!

And so we waited for Jo.

And she finally got out of the queue with her goodie bag and off we went! See, even if the starting time was 7.30am, you can just leisurely walk through the route. At least until 12 noon when it all ends and the traffic opens for vehicles once more.

Avariel’s and Jo’s Pokewalker respectively. You can walk your Pokemon to level up and since they’re somewhat like pedometers, might as well bring them along yeah? So this is the starting number of steps. We’ll see how many steps we have at the end of the walk.

Off we went!

No, you didn’t have to stop when you saw the red light. Meanwhile, there were banners at each point saying 1 km to the end point etc etc. They had phone numbers on some of them where you can message them to win prizes.

As we saw those banners though we were going, “Uh, is it that fast that we’re walking?” for 5km in theory should be far right?

It wasn’t far at all! It wasn’t far to us anyway because apparently we walked more on a typical episode of SDS because we usually got lost? This was really a short walk to us! I remembered the first time I did the Big Walk with Miz Divine and we were trudging to the end point tiredly. This time, Jo and Avariel were just going, “That’s it?”. Including the revelation of us probably walking more than 5km when we were out every time.

Oh yes. The end count for the Pokewalkers. So we took around 5 thousand steps.

At the end point was a Big Carnival @ Marina Bay! I don’t know. It’s like lots of events are using @ for at to look cooler or perhaps to save space on their posters or something.

Lots of activities happening and oh, I did get spotted by the photographers when we crossed the finish line so hah.

Lots of tents with activities. We got a balloon from the Nikon tent for Raven since we were going to meet her after the walk. The one teaching about rangoli, apparently the lady is a record holder for being a single artist doing the largest rangoli art!

The crowd from afar and you can see the misters doing their thing. If you were in that area, you’d feel cool and wet from the moisture.

The popular stall there was an Old Chang Kee truck! It would have been so good if the Milo truck was there to compliment it. Also, you could take pictures with the sailboat and windsurfing board there or play some games.

Anywho, here’s the goodie bag. For some reason I didn’t get the mini Rexona deodorant rollon in my bag but eh, I got an orange. Orange not related to deodorant, obviously. Lots of yummy goodies and an umbrella too! It was a really heavy goodie bag though so there we go!

We finished The Big Walk! It was a thing to do and hurray, it can be struck out of the list now.