Thursday, November 29, 2007

Down at Lion City

Before you stab the photo and say "it's a turkey", let me just say that I did not find it in my trip to Singapore. Just along the way... Hehehe. It was the 23rd Nov. I'm just slow at updating. Haha

So yea, I went for a day trip down to Lion City (Singapore) with my dad after dropping my mum at Johor's The Zon hotel for a meeting... of sorts. From here, I shall refer to Singapore as Lion City because I can. Hah~!
Going down to Lion City from KL is about 4 hours (370++ km). You can more or less figure out how fast we were driving... hehe.
This is the famous mee rebus in Johor. Believe me, it's super delicious~! This one is the mee rebus special (mee rebus + prawns). The only landmark I can give you is the fact that the store is at the Open University in Johor. Should be good enough... The road's near Stulang Laut.
Well, coming into Lion City means you better make sure you have your passport with you and that you fill in the arrival card that is available at petrol stations and hotels.. If you're driving your car down, you'll need to have a e-pass card for your car. If you don't, you can register and get it there on the spot. It's something like our touch-n-go card... Anyway, there are plenty of cameras in Lion City so watch your speed-o-meter...
Like back here in good old M'sia, there are trees along the roadside (there are seldom any along European roads) but unlike M'sian trees, the ones here are well pruned and pretty... My attention are on weird things so shoot me...
I still don't know what these jagged line on the road suppose to mean... You don't see this often.
The Singapore skyline... for the car, which is lost, because the last time dad drove down to Singapore was many many years ago...
So from the long car trip, I still managed to capture parts of the Lion City. This one is Park Mall, adorned with Christmas decorations.
Even in the streets, you can feel that Christmas has arrived. Look, snowflakes~! Nonetheless, we managed to find the shopping complex we were looking for... which was along orchard road. We kept trying to avoid the ERP... which I'll explain why later... But seriously, there are plenty of Christmas decorations OUTSIDE the malls here in Lion City. Normally plastered on these decorations are the company that sponsored the deco.. That's my dad and Uncle Carlos in the right corner...
This was a church that we passed while in Lion City. If you realise, you won't find much churches back in M'sia... compared to the amount of mosques, that is.
Right in the far background of this photo is the ERP I was talking about. See, each time you cross the ERP, you'll be crossing into another section (let's call it section). And everytime, you cross the section, there are multiple (more than one, people) camera behind that ERP signboard to capture your car plate number.

Remember the e-pass card I mentioned earlier? What I forgot to mention was when you enter into Lion City, you'll insert the card into the system to be read. The card would hold your car plate number information... Then the system will start noting how many sections you have crossed. Thus, why we were somewhat trying to avoid the ERP (not easy when lost)
The main purpose my dad and I came down to Lion City was to see the National museum. I like museums. If you tend to breeze through exhibitions, you won't want me in your group. I tend to read most of the descriptions of the artworks...
What I was most fascinating was their first installation. The moment you walk in, you'll see this "Floor is slippery" sign. But why is it in the middle of the main hall entrance?You can see it better from the top view. The issue that they want to point out is Global warming. "The earth is gradually getting warmer and warmer and it'll eventually melt the building.. So please watch your step as the melted marble is slippery" Cool eh? Look, even the pillars' bases are melting.

The ceiling of the museum is dome-shaped with stained-glass windows on the top. "The museum had to hire two contractors in its construction of the dome. The complexity of the dome was too massive that it drove the first contractor insane..." So it was stated.
The insides of the museum was zen-like. The soothing colours, lots of windows to allow natural sunlight in... and there were escalators~! You don't get escalators in museum. I've been to quite a number of museums for me to draw that conclusions. Hehe.
This chandeliers are actually part of a kinetic art exhibition... When I took this photo, (obviously) it was not moving. The admission is free BUT you still need to purchase a card to access to most of the exhibition rooms. We didn't pay so we just saw whatever we could which was free.. Haha~!
All in all, apart for being lost (2 hours), I still got to see a good part of Lion City. They have these small lion statues around the city. It was quite fun, running around with my camera. Haha~! The christmas decorations were pretty. I'll stop here for now. Cheers~!

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