London Town (25th-31st March 2014)

Inspired by Paul McCartney and Wings' 1978 album of the same name.

The Sequel to "The Beauty of the Danube", is a collection of stories coming from the only other Al­pha++ Global City other than NYC.

London, UK, the bridge between Europe and America, a global hub that Singapore also is. The similarities between London and Singapore are uncanny. You might even suspect that Singapore is a mini-London sometimes. The hustle and bustle, the congestion, the crowded Tube (Singapore's MRT-equivalent) and even the people. Somehow, returning to London just a month after stopping over reminds me of home.

Then, there's Brighton, a wonderful place to go on a day-trip from London. Relaxing by the seaside along the pebble beach, enjoying the warmth of the sun with the cool sea breeze, that's a proper vacation!

Of course, there was Singapore Day on the 29th, which already has a separate album on its own. It always is nice to bump into old friends.

This week-long trip was made possible all thanks to my best buddy, Hu Ching!

So here is the story of London and the one day in Brighton!

M&M's "Abbey Road". M&M's World in London is perhaps the most ridiculous place with M&M's ever. Anything and almost everything you can think of that can be related with M&Ms is there!

Red-faced because of the sheer amount of M&Ms!

The Neoclassical St Martin-in-the-Fields Anglican Church

Can you spot the Big Ben in the distance from Trafalgar Square?

At Trafalgar Square just outside the National Gallery.  Paintings tell a lot of stories. Just too many stories to be told inside here.

"My mummy says I'm a Miracle..."

Matilda the Musical at Cambridge Theatre! Indescribably brilliant Musical! Well worth freezing in the cold early in the morning and getting each ticket for £5!

Brighton Clock Tower! Wait... 20km/h? You need a speed limit sign for that?

Mummy, why aren't the seagulls coming to me? Am I that scary?

The Royal Pavilion (Brighton Pavilion): built with a  Indo-Saracenic style. Reminds you of the Taj Mahal or the other 19th Century buildings in India eh?

The first "gate" into Brighton Pier while the seagulls fly by.

The Brighton Wheel of Excellence! It's funny that it was built in a "conservation area". Not much sense in that.

Seagull: I'm the king of the world! Ha! Oops, daydreaming again!

FISH & CHIPS!!! Hardly had any chance to bite into seafood since leaving Singapore so this tasted more than amazing!

The iconic Brighton Pier

It's only while on vacation that you can relax on the pebble beach of Brighton while seagulls fly by!

Going solo for the day and starting off at the incredibly huge British Museum.

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, the central area of the British Museum.

These days, you tell time with an app in your smartphone... You needed weights and a sophisticated mechanism for that here!

"Artist's impression"

Bumped into Youngkwang Park here and he got a really good shot for me here.

Crimea...Ukraine...Russia...

This is how big the Big Ben is!

"Big Ben, Small Ben"

The London Eye. Just one of the many things that remind me of Singapore. Thank you Singapore Flyer, hope you'll settle your financial difficulties soon.

Big Ben: Maybe I'm not that big. But I'm still bigger than you, lamp post. Ha!

Speaks for itself, I presume. Incredible variety of food found here from Asian to Caribbean to Indonesian to Italian...... the list really just goes on and on. It was really really tough to choose what to eat... Finally made the decision to get some Caribbean, which was relatively cheap by London standards. 

A trip down Memory... I mean, Brick Lane!

Doesn't this remind you of Shredder?

So what does the Fox say?

Way too cool...

The Icons of London, done with a paintbrush

Containers converted into a mini-shopping area.

Petticoat Lane Market with stuff that's incredulously cheap!

War...

Tower of London. When the nearby bridge was built and opened on 30th June 1894, it took its name from here, hence the Tower Bridge.

Boris Johnson's office looks like a quarter of a Kinder Joy egg... And that's the Shard, the tallest building in the whole of the European Union. It's co-owned by its developers, Sellar Property and Qatar and was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Guess he was under no obligation to design it in the shape of a piano.

Where all the rich people keep their boats...

The Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge, which is an unappealing boring old bridge nearby)

The closest I got to mimicking Paul McCartney and Wings' London Town 1978 album cover. 

With a Queen's Guard outside the Tower of London. They're no ordinary guards, they're beefeaters!

The Monument commemorating the Great Fire of London of 1666. The monument's height is the distance from this point to the bakery where the fire started.

St Paul's Cathedral, the 2nd largest Cathedral in UK. It's also here where Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 80th Birthday and the Diamond Jubilee.

Spring is coming into London too :) Or at least I thought so back then...

The West front of St Paul's.

Who can forget the iconic red telephone booth in London? (Posterized)

London, thanks for being all so lovely again. Thanks for reminding me of home, whether it's the people the sights or the food. I'll be back in just over a couple of weeks and then for a couple more times after. Meanwhile, please send my best wishes back home through the telephone lines.

The Beauty of the Danube (7th-10th March 2014)

Let's get started then :)

Every photo tells a story and every album is a collection of them. This is a collection of stories in the city known as the beauty of the Danube.

Bratislava, Slovakia, 1 of 16 cities that the Danube River passes through. Along with Vienna, they are the 2 closest capitals in Europe (Rome and Vatican City does not count!)

Realized that looking through photos (almost) a month after visiting the places they were taken helps you appreciate it even more. This was as "spontaneous" a trip as anyone could find. The 3 of us just decided and that was it!

Considering the fact that Slovakia has Ukraine as its neighbour, it was probably good that I didn't tell my parents exactly where it was located on the world map, just in case they might over-react.

Arriving late into the night at a very run-down Bratislava train station brought our expectations to a whole new low. Wary that we might get robbed (or some other bad thing), we hopped onto a scam-mode cab, checked in at the hostel to rest for the night... And so it began, the collection of short stories of Bratislava from 7th to 9th March 2014!

 

Obama and Putin cannot agree on the Crimean issue. Obama gestures towards his Russian counterpart, blaming him for invasion. But Putin, clearly isn't interested.

Portrayed by my friends, Jason Lee and Alan Teo.

The Hrad Bratislava sits atop an isolated rocky hill of the Little Carpathians, "overseeing" the rest of the city.

It's amazing how much slower the pace of life in Europe is compared to back in Singapore. As a Slovakian chats on her phone, there are no signs of stress or worries, even the statue has taken a break in the cold weather.

The Old Town Hall of Bratislava is now the oldest museum here, the Bratislava City Museum.

 

The statue was meant as a joke, and so was Jason's foot.

The old Slovak National Theatre has a modern theatre building built along the Dunabe but still retains the opera and ballet ensembles as residents.

As the cold wind blows, the Slovak flag dances along with it.

The Blue Church (Church of St. Elizabeth) is not easy to find on foot, which is why people often don't see it. Apparently, it has the most accurate clock in the city.

Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave (Comenius University in Bratislava): Most renowned as the building behind “The Bare-chested Man in Front of the Occupiers Tank” in the photo by Ladislav Bielik

Hrad Bratislava and St Martin's Cathedral lighted up by spotlights from a distance and seen from atop the "UFO" on Most SNP (Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising)

The River Danube and the night lights that surround it.

Resisting the strong winds that were threatening to blow me off the UFO to get a shot with the Hrad Bratislava in the distance

The gothic St. Martin's Cathedral, a Slovak national national cultural monument, has been affected by the modern day traffic closeby and requires restoration and preservation to maintain it.

The Most SNP (Bridge of Slovak National Uprising) along with its UFO is to date the only bridge that belongs to the World Federation of Great Towers

UFO ready for take off?

View from under the bridge with the Bratislava coat of arms

Enjoying lunch with Alan and Jason, which was yet another Slovak "stuffing". As Alan loves to say, "Worth it!"

The Franciscan Church has an adjacent chapel Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist which is considered one of the most significant works of Gothic architecture in Slovakia

Slow but still ahead of you, tram!

Posterized Hrad Bratislava bathing in the evening sun

It's like the knights are always on guard

The Bratislavský Hrad hosted the press conference during the Slovakia Summit (between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin) in 2005. It's been 9 years, and as seen in the earlier photo, America and Russia aren't on talking terms.

On much higher ground than earlier in the day with a much clearer view of the Danube

St Elizabeth of Hungary with the Bratislava Castle as the background. She took a vow of poverty and devoted her life to caring for poor and the sick after her husband died.

From a Distance, you look like my friend, even though we are at War

A little bit of sunshine is way better than freezing yourself off on a metal seat at the bus stop

Still awaiting the arrival of Spring...

Silhouette of a portion of the ruins of Devin Castle

Trust me, one day I'll be famous!

I can Go the Distance!

Looks small from up here but that's the Maiden Tower above the confluence of Danube and Morava rivers

Amongst the ruins of the Devin Castle

 Amongst the ruins of the Devin Castle (Jason's shot)

The Velvet Divorce (Dissolution of Czechoslovakia) taking effect from 1 January 1993.

Devin Castle's ruins after being blown-up during the napoleonic wars in 1809

Much to be seen, much to be explored, much to be missed. Bratislava was most definitely better than I'd expected. There's so much more here that hasn't been seen yet but there should be another chance. Incredibly thankful to be blessed with travel companions like Alan and Jason. I thank God for you guys always watching my back!

Time for a Revamp!

Der Grazer Uhrtum

Fiddled around with Google+ a little and ended up messing up with the Blogger photos and thus the sketches as well. Hoping to restore them once I gain access to my archived sketches again.

It's time for me to revamp this blog to include both my Travel and Food diary, instead of just the Galaxy Note sketches. Decided to incorporate the my Facebook European Storybook Project I started when I went to Bratislava, Slovakia instead of Austria because I did't manage to write the early stories properly. Maybe someday, I'll write it out properly.

The magic number I discovered for a storybook album was 17 and I've been keeping close to that ever since. If an album exceeded 17 photos, it usually meant that there were a lot of people shots. But in terms of story-telling, 17 was the magic number. The first 2 albums, in Bratislava and London, were "trial-run" albums, where I picked a lot more photos. It's only after Easter that the albums became more focused and refined, having found the magic number.

Everything needs a beginning though, and it all started from Graz, hence the photo featured here is of Der Grazer Uhrtum.

My Beloved Island

Singapura (Completed on the Galaxy Note 3)

It's been a long time since I last did a sketch on the Note 3, almost half a year, actually. I did do one for Chinese New Year, but I was too busy preparing to head to Europe that I never got down to posting it. Did this specially for National Day back in August when I was in transit in Singapore.

I say "in transit" because I had already decided then that the next half of the year would be spent away from the little red dot as well. Can't quite figure when I made that decision to prolong my absence but I think it was just about a month into my time in Austria.

I had reasoned with myself that I wanted to gain some work experience away from Singapore. But I had other reasons, which were no doubt legitimate, of course. First of which was that I knew coming home to my senior year immediately would hit me real hard, especially after spending a good 7 months away. Secondly, I needed time away from home to think about some very important things.

I miss Europe so much because of the overwhelming feeling of being free, away from constraint and choosing to "not give a damn" whenever I wanted to. This just doesn't happen at home and I truly miss that of Europe. Most of all, I miss my dear friends, my brothers and sisters in Europe.

The difficult question I posed to myself was this, "will I ever be willing to put everything in Singapore down and move for good?" I'd obviously have to finish my senior year, but while I knew most of me said yes, deep down, the Singaporean in me would not find it so easy.

Lots of things mentioned in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-heffernan-/the-limits-of-ideology-le_b_5895760.html hits dead on, for me at least. My Singapore has changed. It is no longer the Singapore I grew up in. The Merlion has been replaced by the Marina Bay Sands surfboard as our symbol. (Which is also the reason why I did this sketch) My friends tell me about the "infinity pool" instead of the vomitting weird-looking lion. 

The Singapore today is different from before. BUT, it has changed... for the better. Cynics can go on all day but I believe that my Singapore has made progress, although there is still a long way to go. Things are better, but they're still not good enough. Sounds familiar, thank Mr Obama for that.

I miss Singapore because it's my home. I don't have to worry that the supermarkets are closed on Sundays, because a lot of them are now open 24/7. I don't have to worry that I have nothing to eat because a hawker centre is only a 10 minute walk away. Although I have to worry if the tram MRT breaks down every once in a while, most things run pretty smoothly at home.

I miss my family. Home in Singapore is only home with them. Well yes, you could say my European family took good care of me while I was there but my home is Singapore. Family is what's waiting for me back home, where I can finally sing "I'll be Home for Christmas" and actually mean it. And family will also be the reason why I'll move in future.

Whatever lies ahead, I know one thing for certain: Singapore is my beloved island nation and I sure am damn proud to tell people I'm Singaporean!