Singapore tales

Alrite this is the 1st part of my 2wk story. Its going to be about my times in Singapore starting from February 11-12,20-21,24-26.

Feb 11-12

Upon arrival in Singapore after checking into the Holiday Inn Orchard (highly recommended), went for shopping around Orchard Rd.
1st stop, Tangs. Nothing much to buy here as barang yg dijual disini tak sesuai. However, the Harajuku stuffs seemed pretty attractive but the price is also very nice!
Next stop, ION Orchard, Singapore's most stunning mall. Here I went to Uniqlo, a Japanese brand that is quite cheap but its goods quality is not bad yo! Less than $10 for a T-shirt when its on sale, isn't that cheap? Wonder when Uniqlo will open in Miri or even in Brunei, as the company is aiming for a fast retailing growth? In ION Orchard, 1 interesting thing about it is the escalator with LED ads thanks to the creativity of OOH Media. Not forgetting, the Food Opera in ION Orchard which have heartland famous stalls branches.
Then, went to Isetan Wisma Atria just beside ION Orchard. Goods here are kinda high class so even not suitable for me.
A further walk down brings us to Ngee Ann City Takashimaya. Here instead of finding clothes, I went to Kinokuniya Bookstore which is dubbed as the largest in Asia.
Then across the streets shopped nearby at Centrepoint & OG. Here the goods are priced just right for 'ordinary' people like you & me (teenagers, middle-classed people).
After all these shopping, went for some some sightseeing at Chinatown(Niu Zhe Zui). There were so many people buying things for CNY eg people queing for bak kwa, buying sweets, etc. A walk around Trengganu Street would bring you to 500 stalls offering various goodies. There were a lot of special offers as it was the last day of CNY night market sale & for tourists cheap bargain for souvenirs eg keychains 12 for $10=less than $1 for each. There was also a rehearsal of the CNY eve programme by Mediacorp artists. After some time in Chinatown, its time to 'balik hotel', using MRT, very efficient & cheap mode of transportation. As said by some local social news site such as STOMP, I saw some PDA (public display of affection) between couples in the MRT station during my few trips using MRT. Cant they wait till in a much 'private' area where they can do more than PDA, LOL!
The morning of Feb 12, I went for my 'morning jog' around Orchard Rd, not really just to grab some free newspapers from the nearest MRT station, Somerset which is inside 313@Somerset, another new mall on Orchard Rd. For your info, Singapore have 2 free English newspapers wait make it 3. They were TODAY(published by Mediacorp & a strong competitor to The Straits Times), mypaper (a bilingual newspaper published by SPH). Last but not least, tabla! also published by SPH but with more Indian community oriented stories. After breakfast, went for watch-shopping at Centrepoint as my watch already putus . In addition, there was also a Casio trade-in offer so I traded-in my old putus watch for a new G-shock oh yeah, finally got myself a G-shock at only $78 (UP $140). Not a bad deal huh as my old watch costs around NTD$700 (B$20+). It was bought in Taiwan last 2 yr. In addition, to the cheap trade-in deal, I also got a free gift from the Centrepoint, a nice notebook.

Feb 20-21

After arriving from JB & check-in at the same hotel (Holiday Inn Orchard), went for shopping at 313@Somerset. While my mum goes to check out the many brands there, I went to check out the epicentre which sells Apple products such as iPod,Mac,etc. So, I played around with the iPods, iPhone on display. Then, went to Centrepoint again. I bought an Esprit short pant for $46+ (UP $89+) not a bad deal huh. 

After dinner, went to watch River Hongbao 2010 at The Float@Marina Bay. The location was transformed into a fairyland of lantern displays & decorations with the huge God of Fortune & 12 Chinese Zodiac animals. Also present as the guest of honour that nite was Singapore's Minister of Community, Youth & Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan. In the festival location, there was also a Uncle Ringo Funfair with lots of rides (gotta pay of course). 

Nearby River Hongbao location, Chingay was held(F1 Pit Building) . It was dubbed as Asia's grandest street & floats parade. I saw a tree which was dubbed the largest dream catcher tree in Singapore. After watching River Hongbao went bk to the hotel via MRT as taxis were difficult to hail as too many people were also waiting for taxi after the events had ended. 

The next day before boarding the cruise Superstar Virgo went to HarbourFront Centre for some lunch. The building was joined to the Singapore Cruise Centre. I had lunch at Banquet, Singapore's only halal food court chain.

Feb24-26

After 4-day of freestyle cruising as Star Cruises had dubbed their cruise vacations, finally arrived at HarbourFront Centre at 7pm Feb 24. Star Cruises was so nice to let each of its guests to keep their access card as a souvenir. Yahoo! 

After morning walk(paper collection) on Feb 25, went to Sentosa. 1st boarded the MRT to HarbourFront station then had breakfast at Food Republic Vivo City before boarding the Sentosa Express monorail to Sentosa. 1st, let me talk a bit about Vivo City. It was previously Singapore World Trade Centre which was redeveloped by Mapletree as a one stop location for live,work & play. It is also Singapore's largest mall if Im not wrong. Bk to Sentosa, the 1st stop of the monorail is Waterfront station which is the location of Singapore's 1st Integrated Resort, Resorts World Sentosa which is a S$6.59 billion project which comprises of casino, 4 hotels namely Hotel Micheal, Festive Hotel, Crockford Tower by invitation only & Singapore's 1st Hard Rock Hotel, Universal Studios Singapore & soon to be completed Marine Park & more.This IR as Singaporeans called it is opened in phases with the 4 hotels as well as Festive Walk luxury shopping opened 1st on January 20th 8.18am followed by the casino & sneak preview of Universal Studios Singapore on 1st day of CNY & Valentine's day February 14 12.18pm & soon Universal Studios Singapore on March 18 8.28am. This IR is the brainchild of Malaysia's owned Genting which had recently rebranded its Genting City of Entertainment as Resorts World Genting. It aims to create exciting  land based IRs around Asia which now includes RWS, RW Genting & lastly Resorts World Manila. Nothing much to talk about RWS for now except 1 very interesting news piece that I had read from The New Paper, foreign workers get into the casino just to get free beverages! Very amusing isnt it? However, casino patrons arent happy about it!
 Friday, 26th its time to say good bye to Singapore as its time to say 'selamat kembali' to Brunei. The return flight wasnt smooth as the plane encounters several turbulence around Sarawak.