MEINE CORNER IN THE BLOG WORLD!

A rain just adorned our desert city, the roads are damp,the skies are slowly clearing up and suddenly the place seems fresh! As another year has gone by, here's wishing all of you have much more brighter days ahead. May 2006 bring joy, success and lotsa love into your lives!!!

Great holidays and gala time over....I feel so sick right now...everything seems odd and so strange....nothing amuses me, I listened to some favorite tunes but nothing helped....so damn dull, so horrible I feel.......just wanna feel- back to normal....Yuck! I can puke.....

Lots of sleep in the morning ,we then went to Causeway point at Woodlands,got some stuff for myself and then headed off to see the library.The library run by the NLB is an amazing place.The books borrowed could be returned at any branch and borrowing is automized.There is a huge variety and collection spread over 4 floors of the building besides a Audio and Multimedia Lounge.The place was simply Wow! The choice of your bus stop with the press of a button, charge of your fare with the tap of your travel card,Singapore’s highly advanced system could spoil you and its clean and green beliefs is what you may crave for on return--- maybe ,maybe not !

It’s Christmas and since my brother-in-law was back from his trip we spent the entire morning chatting and sharing photos.We caught up with “Chronicles of Narnia” at the Golden Village –Yishun North Point Center in the afternoon.A small movie made with impressive visual effects, it was quite a time pass. We later visited the Murugan and Mariamma temples in Yishun as well.The structures of both rather impressive with beautiful statues of specially Anjaneyah and Mariamman.It didn’t feel far away from home land at all.On the way back home we saw a lot of parties and one in the condo as well-the merriment was welcome!

The first destination for the day was Haw Par Villa.The garden made by Aw Boon Haw for his brother Aw Boon Par is worth a visit ,if you ask me.The garden is Haw's effort to communicate to the world about Chinese culture.Orginally, Burmese the family moved to Singapore where Haw's famous Tiger Balm made him a billionare.The loss of his sons and brother during Japan's invation is what led to the making of this fantasy land by balm billionare.An ideal location to take pictures where creatures are as big as or even bigger than humans,the Buddha statue, ten courts of hell , Jade house and the tomb-a colorful place this is. We then headed to Little India for exploring the shops out there and get the Indian feel.We visited the Perumal and Mariamman temples there.The Mariamman temple is about 150 years old but well maintained and expanded a beautiful place.

The lazing had been missed in the last one week and to compensate thats how day 8 precisely went on.Sleeping lots and watching random channels on TV, spent time on the PC and also watched a movie on DVD.Sauna was the afternoon treat and then spent some time on the pool side. In the evening as decide we were off to the Night Safari.Dimly lit and tropical forest appearance with about 900 nocturnal animals-this was some offer .We started off with the tram ride that gave us a brief idea of the set up-The Himalayan, African and the South East asia angles and then there was "Creatures of the Night show". Participants being the racoons, owl, wolves, otters, hyenas and a python.Soon after which there was a tribal show which was primarily their catchy music and dance,with some fire, plus display of their abilities of shooting. We then went on the forest trails which was categorised into 3-the fishing cat, giants and Leapord trail.The flying squirrel was something new and they were pre...

A week is completed in Spore and waking up was sooooooooooooo difficult with the aching shoulders and heels!We started late since it was drizzling which made the weather even more perfect to sleep longer.The target for the day was the Science center and the How Par Villa. Singapore science center located in Jurong is a treat for all the children.One of the best science centers' in the world has to offer a Water works area in front which is a water-play area that also displays the strengths and usage of water.There is an eco garden connected to the Life Science area.The center entertains the adults too with activities in the Discovery center,Aviation, World of science ,Chemistry and Physical science.Spread on 4 floors,a pure learning experience and exercise of the mind for all age groups-this place is promising! Due to rain, we were too late for the How Par Villa.will try and explore that later. We went to Leoni Hill to visit a relative, a porsche place that also has the office of t...

Singapore Zoo-a beautiful and quite a complete experience of animals and plants. The zoo lets us actually watch the animals out of cages and in their chosen areas of living. ‘Fragile forest’ was THE BEST part of the zoo.The bats, birds, monkeys of different species living together completely in harmony and butterflies adding beauty to this man-made forest-lots of fun!The Elephants of Asia show was very cute and well done with not only the work and play display by elephants but also explaining to the spectators what type of commands are given to the elephants by the mahuts. Snakes were all kept in glass boxes and there were quite a variety ,the main ones being the cobras, pythons and green snakes.There is a cat country that tell us the differences between the leopards and the cheetahs and also have the white tiger, lions and jaguars. White rinos, hippos, Gnus, Camels,Girraffes ,Oryx, Giant Tortoises, Meerkuts, Iguanas and Otters—all worth the time ,lovely to spend time just watching t...

The Jhurong Bird park-one of the highlights of Singapore and I bet any age group would love this place. No doubts, I enjoyed myself too! We got in about noon time with the help of MRT and a taxi and then purchased a Park Hopper ticket (Zoo/Night Safari/Bird park). The area beyond the entrance is a huge discovery, filled with aviaries and man-made forests. We started off with “World of Darkness” an enclosed pitch dark areas for owls and madwoman birds.Yes,mad woman birds was new to me too! Kingfishers about 4-5 species were on display in their cages, besides a huge area for the flamingos and spoon bills. Ibises-nice bright orange birds were out in the ‘wild’ while we viewed them from cages! We could go in to the crowned pigeon aviary-very pretty birds in grey. The Lory loft was a new experience where in you are sent into a loft as tall as an average building filled with colorful and friendly lories. You feed them and they respond so well, a flight of them was an amazing sight! Inside t...

Day to shop , hence went to China town in the morning and got some souvenirs .The mall that we walked into was the People's center and later on we walked down the open market which was mostly filled with clothes and footwear.It was good to look around,saw some cool handbags there too.This area is filled with the smell, may I say, of proper Chinese food. The area has a lot of pedestrian crossing which has pretty looking creepers with pink and yellow flowers adding beauty to the man-made city area also cos it was a Monday morning. Later we went to the Singapore History Museum ,it was good to walk it up from China town and since there is no heat it was not very asking museum ,contrast to my expectation, was in a modern glass building called "River side" which had other offices too area faces the Singapore river and hence the name the river we could see the Novotel and the colorful "Clarke Quay" hotels a neat bridge done there too. Well, the museum wasn't great ...

As decided we started off to Sentosa island after packing some sandwiches and juices in for the rest of the day.Sentosa was some awesome experience. "Images of Singapore" being the best visit with the highlight of what makes Singapore and the wax models of the famous Raffles and other political leaders, also display of different birth and wedding ceremonies conducted in S’pore. The country takes its name from 'Singapura' which means land of lions, as seen by the fishermen in the early days. The "sky tower" by Carlsberg company was worth it too, where we got to see Singapore from almost 130 meters above sea level-this probably being the highest view of Singapore. Cinemania was fun but I have had better experiences before. Not to forget the Underwater world was amazing with almost 2000 different fishes, 100 different crabs, the Dugong attracting a lot of attention. This fish is named Gracy because of her graceful movement. She has the face of a baby cow, body ...

The sober beginning to Saturday,with a lot of sleep, cooking and cleaning, ended up quite adventurous. To start with we experienced the rains in the afternoon. Sat back with some tea and snacks when senior Delhi cousin joined us and did quite a bit of chatting. We started off to Raffles Square, the Fullerton looking majestic with all the decorations and the lighting. Fullerton is Singapore’s only 7-star hotel which I learnt only later. The original Merlion by the Singapore River with water spouting out its mouth was some sight. To get the perfect look from the front a ferry ride would help but for the other visitors there is a platform built adjacent to the symbol of Singapore which is quite some help. Around the Merlion as we walk by the river the skyline of Singapore can be enjoyed. One of the prominent towers being Esplanade built in the shape of a durian fruit. Durian is also the national fruit of Singapore forbidden to carry in the MRTs or buses due to its pungent smell! At the E...

Yay!!!Finally in S'pore! We landed at 1308 ,about an hour's delay, at Changi Airport--very sobre compared to the hustle-bustle at the Dubai airport.Got past immigration pretty quickly and our entrance was stamped by Premlatha behind the pink counter.Soon after which I saw my sis waving as we were going to pick our suitcases from the conveyer belt.Funnily,no screening of any of luggages and soon we were in the taxi, chit chatting about the meal in the flight, the crowd, the service of the airline that loved the Oryx. In the evening we walked a short distance to the nearest SMRT(Singapore Mass Rapid Transport) metro station and got into the 1st available metro to City Hall Station.As expected the maps were very clear about the routes and unlike Europe there were just green and red lines. Noticed in Europe we also had the blue and yellow routes. Singapore seems too small for all that. Half hour's ride took us to City Hall and we entered straight into a mall that connected us ...

If you drive around Dubai, be aware that a fine of AED 150 is charged if a motorist is found not maintaining large enough breaking distance while in motion! So this time around we don't wait for any accidents to happen, you simply get the fine! This decision by the traffic department of Dubai is a result of a recent accident on Shk Zayed Road where in a seven-car pileup blocked the traffic caused by one car that rammed recklessly into the front car. Watch out,guys!

I have never before used the PCs at my Institute, here's the first post from KH! The setting of my library is space saving- simple ,compact shelves where the books are arranged as per the Modules that we undertake here, the Monitors are placed at 45 degree angle next to the CPU and it is viewed from the top through a see through table.To sum it up, just like how it done at the Internet parlors these days and there are just about 5 chairs here.By now you can be quite sure of the crowd that comes in here. I have this poster in front of me that says -"The Essence of Imagination: What we can easily see is only a small percentage of what is possible.Imagination is having the vision to see what is just below the suface; to picture that which is essential, but invisible to the eye." To link up the thought there is a picture of an Iceberg. I guess I am going to miss this place after all since we are soon shifting to another location.

I just bumped into this amazing blog site http://photo-a-day.blogsite.com which stands by its name.The owner-a professional wedding photographer, updates his site almost every day with a new photograph,the text is minimal and no wonder the responses are huge! Check this out,if you think you would enjoy!

Next week at this time , I am hopefully blogging from my sister's PC. I am so very excited to meet her after what seems ages!!!!!!!!! All the shopping, taking out suitcases to pack and choosing what stuff needs to go to laundry makes me so excited. I hardly sleep and when I do I am dreaming about her .Man, I have missed her like crazy! The only time I have been to S'pore was about 14 yrs ago, so there's lots to more to expect in terms or modern infrastructre and places to visit-specially when I have forgotten my last trip almost completely!I faintly remember Sentosa Island, but nothing besides that. Yes, there's some shopping also to do besides the outings, but mainly I am there just to spend time with her. Phew! Can't wait to get on that plane !!

For best of perfomances by Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard (yay!found his name) and Sean Bean, watch this movie. The plot is intelligent and gripping,there is suspense too. Story of a widow and her fight to save her little daughter --all in an aircraft,designed by her, to her advantage and presumptions of fellow passengers-totally impressive.Robert Schwentke certainly deserves credit. Moving away from the content, the aircraft was some sight-the bar lounge was awesome and the first class cabin too-ALTO Airlines to be precise.The initial scenes display harsh winter experienced in Germany and the Berlin Metro-nice and yellow,i wouldn't mind taking a ride alone on it. P.S: Had headed to the theatre to watch Exorcism of Emily Rose, but this movie was worth it and am hoping I didnt miss much!