Flowers

Some flowers around our house in September, hope you enjoy them :)

East Coast Park

East Coast Park is located on the southeastern coast of Singapore, it has an abbreviation called ECP. It is the largest park in Singapore and it's build on reclaim land, with a man-made beach.




There are many people bringing their dogs or kids there for a walk, running, rollerblading or cycling. There is a food centre with various types of food and another seafood centre, with huge crabs, if you like crabs.



There's a water ski facilities available, many youngsters and even kids are taking up the challenge. If you can see the tiny skier in the left, sorry I wasn't intend to blog about this so I didn't take the good picture of the facilities.



We went to ECP briefly in the evening of Sept 14th, 2007, let Tristan played around with the sand for the first time, he really loves it and refuse to leave later.


He didn't like the water so we just stayed at the dry side.



You can tell he enjoyed himself so much there :)


Things to take note : if you are driving there, don't forget to put coupon as the charges starts at 8am and ends at 10pm if I remember correctly, including weekends and public holidays.

My little corner

Jenny has showed her home office today and since she's interested to see mine, I finally has the motivation to clean up and share some pictures with you here. Welcome to my little messy corner ;o)


I think I don't have to elaborate anything, you can see everything here. It's still quite messy though :




The 5x5 book rack is full of junks, I have a bad habit to keep everything, so this is what it ended up with (you may say what a waste) :




A sofa bed that I can take a short nap at tired weekend when Tristan sleeps :




This small space used to be a living room for the second floor, we partitioned it to make a home office since it was hardly used and we have not enough room to convert to an office :


We relocated Tristan's electric cradle here from downstairs when my sister-in-law visited us back in June - August and has stayed here since then. And the mess on the floor was created by Tristan.


So this is my home office, very basic and simple but comfortable work place :)

Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio (the "Old Palace") is the town hall of Florence, Italy. Its projecting crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany. It was supported with some arches where some of them can be used for dropping boiling oil or rocks to invaders.





The front part of the rectangular tower (height 94 m) was under restoration when we were there, sometime around Mar 2004.




The ceiling of "Salone dei Cinquecento" consists of 39 panels constructed and painted by Giorgio Vasari and his assistants, representing Great Episodes from the life of Cosimo I. A partial view of the large painting in the bottom right is one of the battle scene of victories by Florence over Pisa and Siena.




Most part of this palace is now a museum. Below is the picutre of the First courtyard. The Second Courtyard contains the massive pillars to sustain the Salone dei Cinquecento on second floor. And the Third Courtyard was used mainly for offices of the city.



A more detail view of the ceiling :




I missed the Victory by Michelangelo, only managed to take the photo of this sculpture, and not sure if it's the statue of "Charles V crowned by Clement VII", can anyone help ?




Palazzo Vecchio is also one of the most significant public places in Italy, next to Piazza della Signoria and Loggia dei Lanzi. (I will put out the photos we took from Piazza della Signoria in my future post)




There are many cafes where you can sit outside to admire the statues in Loggia dei Lanzi and the crowd. Oops, caught eating desert and drinking coffee, that's one of the most enjoyable thing to do in the trip ;o)

Gallery of statues

Loggia dei Lanzi, in Florence, Italy, is a building with wide arches open to the street, that has a sculpture gallery of Renaissance art.




Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus :

Wiki Says : It shows the mythical Greek hero holding his sword in his right hand and holding up triumphantly the Medusa's decapitated head in his left. Benvenuto Cellini worked almost ten years on this bronze (1545-1554).



The Rape of Polyxena, a fine diagonal sculpture by Pio Fedi from 1865 :




The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna :


Wiki : This impressive work was made from one imperfect block of white marble, the largest block ever transported to Florence. The original is now in the Galleria dell' Academia. This is the first group representing more than a single figure in European sculptural history to be conceived without a dominant viewpoint. It can be equally admired from all sides. This marble and bronze group is in the Loggia since 1583.





The less celebrated marble sculpture Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599) by Giambologna and placed here in 1841 :




Finally, I thought this is an interesting facts from Wiki :

"At the side of the Loggia, there is a Latin inscription from 1750 commemorating the change of the Florentine calendar in 1749 to bring it into line with the Roman calendar. The Florentine calendar began on 25 March instead of 1 January. Other inscription from 1893 records the Florentines who distinguished themselves during the annexation of Milan (1865), Venice (1866) and Rome (1871) to the kingdom of Italy."


I hope you enjoy the series of sculptures and do share your comment with me :)

Archery

More than a year ago - a few months before Tristan was born, I saw an archery place in the town I live, I told myself I would go there to try it out "one fine day". Yesterday was the day I finally got myself scheduled for it, unfortunately it has closed down, although I kind of expected that because it was almost always empty, I still feel disappointed because I finally managed to allocate time to do things that I like but I have no where to go for it now. I mean within half an hour's driving distance.






I got myself enrolled for a ten hourly archery class back in the States, at end of 2003. A coworker and I had been talking about going for it but no one takes the initiative to find out the detail, when we finally did it, I only managed to go for 3 classes because not long after that, I have decided to move back to Malaysia.






This is the bow that I purchased there, now sitting at home collecting dust. Until there's a new archery place open here, it'll have to continue collecting some more dust. I think I'm the only one living in such a small town that you can't find many things to do, this is the flip side, but still, I like it and would find other activity to do such as going to karaoke.

Bern

Bern is the capital of Switzerland. It's the forth most popular city in Switzerland after Zürich, Geneva and Basel. Bern was named after a bear which was killed by the city's founder Duke Berthold V, in 1191.




(For some reason, after my Grindelwald's post, I forgot about my other trips in Switzerland and moved on to Italy, I guess I was just too tired LoL)



We made a stop in this city before visiting Grindelwald.
The clock on the floor is a reflection from a clock in a shop that sells watches.




We didn't have any plan in this city, so after checked in to the hotel, we took a walk around the city before dark.



It's a very pieceful & quiet town.



Houses that built on the slope, not exactly like the one in San Francisco.



Weather is chilly, there was ice on the river.



The Münster of Berne, a cathedral that you can climb up its tower for a small fee and stand right next to the bells when they ring at noon & 6pm :



The Federal Palace of Switzerland, looks a little similar to the Victoria's Parliament Building :





Next morning, ready to leave, took a picture of the clean, quiet & empty street.



On the left is the hotel we stayed, a little old, looked clean but smell smoke.



Zytglogge, a medieval Clock Tower, which according to wiki, aided Einstein to work out his theory of relativity :



Saw a BMW 5 Series on the way to the train station, back in Mar 2004 :



Then the first time I saw the Smart for 2 :



Waiting in the train to Grindelwald, the train was excellent, clean, spacious, comfortable, fast.