Remember the last time we went prawning? Yeah, the time [...]]]>
Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

Remember the last time we went prawning? Yeah, the time everyone caught a prawn except me. Well, we decided that wouldn’t do, so off Avariel, Sarah and I went to change things!

Well no, not really. But my goal was to catch a prawn to make things right.

This time we went to a different place: East Coast Prawning, which is at East Coast Park and considerably smaller than Bottle Tree. It’s more of a chill place rather than a family funtime place, but their rates are lower and they’re less crowded.

Prawning involves a lot of waiting.

The procedure is the same, really: pay for your time, get a rod and some bait, then sit down and hope the prawns are hungry.

She even brought a book to keep her busy

And much to my delight, they were! Within about an hour I caught my very first prawn!

YAY PRAWN

It was a really big prawn, too. It ended up being the biggest prawn of our lot. Still makes me grin thinking about it. :D

And then, I caught another one!

Me: 1, Prawns: 0! Ha!

The universe provides, ha. One for the first prawning outing, a second for this. I consider the prawns and I even, now.

It wasn’t just me though. Sarah caught a prawn too!

Sarah and her prawn

Then Avariel did! The universe provided for all of us that day, prawning-wise.

Prawns for all!

Bwahaha. Oddly enough, we were the only ones around the pond to catch anything during the two hours we were there. There were other folks there too, but I didn’t see them catch anything. Maybe a bit of that legendary Sarah luck rubbed off on us.

Then came the actual act of cooking the prawns. That… didn’t go so well.

Unlike Bottle Tree, they didn’t have an electric grill; at East Coast it’s all old-school, and by old-school I mean charcoal, fire starters, and matches.

This fire lasted all of ten minutes.

We suck so much at lighting a fire, it’s not funny. We had to ask the prawning folks to help us, ha.

On the way to nom-ability

Maybe not the most evenly cooked, but we got there eventually.

So yes. I consider this a major success for me, because I caught two prawns in two outings :D

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

Way back when, by which I mean last year, the Adventure [...]]]>

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

Way back when, by which I mean last year, the Adventure Crew and I headed to Bukit Timah Hill for a guided nature tour and to climb to the top of the hill. Remember that? Think of that as jungle hike lite.

The hike was organised via Twitter, so it was an early Saturday that I met with @hai_ren, @deafknee, @wilfredphua, @irukafishy, and of course my friends Seriously Sarah and Avariel. Our guides, such as it was, were @hai_ren, @deafknee and @wilfredphua.

The Nature Society was also hiking, but they started much further down the railway line. And to think that ours is considered the easier route.

There is an old school railway line that runs through Singapore, leading from Malaysia – trains still operate between a terminal in Tanjong Pajar (downtown area) and Malaysia, carrying goods and people both ways. The reason why the route winds through most of Singapore, including a lot of prime land, is because it was built sometime in the 1910s-1920s. The Malayan Railway is due to be decommissioned in July 2011; the station is moving, so the current railway line will either be abandoned or developed. No one is sure what’s going to happen to the existing railway tracks now, and the Nature Society of Singapore is proposing to name the area ‘The Green Corridor‘ and keep it as a nature-y place.

We started off at Clementi, near Sunset Way. It started out quite okay; mostly bramble and a bit of lalang. I have the scratches on my arms to prove that there was lalang. (I can’t find an English name for it, but lalang is a kind of tall grass that can really cut people.)

We went from this:

to going into an all-out jungle. As in, literally jungle – there was a small trail, but otherwise it was jungle that hadn’t been touched for at least twenty years. We eventually made our way to the site of the old(er) railway line; most likely an older route that was abandoned after they laid newer tracks. There were the to parallel metal tracks on the ground, and in various places the wood had also survived.

This was an all-out hike. We really needed a parang, but none of us had one, alas. We had to climb over and under trees; keep moving through mudpits or we’d get stuck; watch out for random drops in the ground; and deal with bramble, including one patch where Avariel got stuck and had to be un-tangled.

I don’t have very many pictures from the hike, because I couldn’t concentrate on hiking and photography at the same time. The photos here are a mix of digital and analogue, because I took my Diana Mini camera out on a proper adventure. Check out @hai_ren, @deafknee and Sarah’s blog for many more photos of the naturey stuff we saw during the hike.

About halfway through our trek, an hour or so after we’d started off, we came to an abandoned railway tunnel. Right above it, we could hear a road with cars. It’s rather eerie: that you can be a few meters below civilisation, but they would never know you’re there. The tunnel was full of mud, and the only dry land was in the last third of the 60-70m long tunnel.

Avariel and @hai_ren at the entrance of the tunnel. Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com

I was right behind Sarah when she took this photo. About ten seconds after this snap, I fell into a mudpit. When I tried to pull myself out, something on a branch poked me in the hard; it was so painful I thought it’d punctured skin. That was… super not fun.

The mud was so deep it came up over my ankles, and the secret to going thorugh the tunnel was: just keep moving. Because if you didn’t, you would get stuck and lose your shoe. On the upside, I was already so muddy and wet that I went “to hell with it! ONWARD!” when we had to cross the tunnel. First time in my life I’ve ever led a group and been happy to do it, hah.

On the other side of the tunnel, we met a large group of adults. But… well. They were, let us say of the older persuasion, and mostly unprepared for an all-out trek. But they were adults, so they should have been alright. We warned them of the muddy tunnels, but we were all wondering how they’d gotten so far and if they would have to turn back.

There was a bit of a traffic jam because the trail is narrow, so while I was trying to pass some of them, I fell into a mini swamp. Sigh. Worse still, the water had a suspicious sheen to it, and it made my arm very itchy for quite a long time after that.

40 minutes of trekking later, we came into a valley. That was totally unexpected. It was open and grassy. There was even a little river (actually a storm pipe) and many, many dragonflies.

Emerging into the valley. Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com

And just beyond the valley…

Railway timber. Also, this photo makes me feel like a Pokemon character. Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com

And just beyond that…

Railway!

MUCH CELEBRATION WAS HAD.

The railway, leading away from Bt Timah

(Though you see us taking photos on the track, we were careful: we went as a group so we would be able to spot a train if it was coming. So don’t be stupid and stay safe!)

About two hundred meters down the tracks, we came across this quiet control room filled with levers. It smelled old, and there was a map above the levers dated to 1968.

Mysterious levers

Just beyond that was the railway station, which had this lovely sign for us to camwhore at.

I was so happy I wanted to hug the sign. Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com

There’s actually a seated waiting area; we’re not sure whether it’s in use, but we took the opportunity to rest there. And compared shoes, ha.

L-R: Avariel, me, Sarah. Several pairs of shoes were retired after the hike

I was so happy I kept saying hello to people. Cyclist doing a bit of off-road next to the railway? Hello! Random hiker? Hello! Stationmaster? Hello!

Avariel's special edition Diana Mini matches the skyyyy

From the station, it’s a short walk to the main road and civilisation – the main road, of course, being Bukit Timah Road. Right next door is a giant McDonalds, so that was our end point, but yay!

Happy, exhausted hikers! L-R: Avariel, Sarah, @irukafishy, @wilfredphua, @hai_ren, @deafknee

It took us about 1.5 hours to reach the railway track. I think we covered about 2km, but it’s some of the hardest 2km I’ve ever covered. It was incredibly exhausting, but I was so proud of myself afterwards. True, I had to bathe twice afterwards, and I have a strange insect bite welt that hasn’t gone away almost a week after the hike, and I was muddy past my knees, but. I kept pace with the rest of the group, was covered in nature, fell into a mudpit and a swamp, and climbed dead trees that were soft and squishy to the touch! Me, a city girl through and through! I don’t think words can really express how hard that hike was, but I was so pleased with myself.

The railway bridge above Bukit Timah Road

The Malayan Railway is quite long; I know there are tracks going through Clementi, Bukit Timah, Choa Chu Kang and other parts of Singapore. It makes a lovely photo opportunity, but you must always be careful because trains are still running. I probably won’t hiking like that in the near future, but I do believe The Green Corridor folks will be conducting more walks and/or hikes in the future. Go with them! They are more familiar with the railway, and I know our guides were fairly experienced hikers.

The railway station moves in July 2011. Until then, the track is open and the trains are running, so there’s still time for you to take photos and suchlike. Personally I’m quite glad we went, though the hike was kind of unexpected and difficult.

But I’m part of the Adventure Crew, so I have a reputation to live up to. So chin up, knees down, and onward to more adventures we go!

Choo choo.

The Singapore Coin and Notes Museum was celebrating its first [...]]]>
Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

The Singapore Coin and Notes Museum was celebrating its first birthday. They have a regular coin-making workshop that’s open to the public, and as part of the birthday celebrations there was an offer on the workshop. I didn’t even know we had a Coin and Notes Museum, so off the Adventure Crew went to Chinatown!

The Museum is tucked away in Chinatown, right in front of the Chinatown MRT station. It’s quite hidden; I actually walked past it and had to double back before I found it. The Museum is in a old shophouse; the first floor is a coffeeshop, so you need to head up to get to the Museum proper!

There’s usually an entrance fee; something like $10 for an adult. But since it was their birthday, we got in free – we only paid for the workshop. Included was a guided tour of the Museum, so that was awesome fun!The Museum itself is quite narrow, but there are three floors to it. We went to the top floor, and out into the little balcony to the workshop area.

Coin making equipment

The coins we were making weren’t actual metal coins. They were plaster molds, which is about halfway through the actual minting process.

Anyway, our equipment was a rubber mould (the white square on the table), water, plaster powder, painting stuff and a towel. We all had to wear masks because of the plaster powder; that stuff is nasty if you inhale it by accident.

All prepped for coin making!

So you mix the plaster powder with water and work out all the bubbles so your dried coin won’t have holes. Then you pour it into the rubber mold. Since we had to wait for it to set, we went on a guided tour of the museum wearing our plastic aprons (because it was easier to leave them on, heh).

The history of money is really interesting. There were examples of pre-money currency, and all sorts of coins and notes from Singapore’s past. We saw Singapore banana notes from World War II, produced during the Japanese Occupation. They were called banana notes because they had banana trees printed on them.

British colonial bill

Big rock placed outside houses to indicate wealth

Along the way, we also got special decorative coins! They start out as blanks, then we put them in the machine and it does all the heavy pressing. Mostly you hear lots of whirring and then your coin comes out from the slot.

Souvenir coin

There were also displays of other uses of coins and notes. Like how at Malay weddings they would fold notes into corsages to show who the ‘staff’ are. I understand that’s no longer the case, since I guess it can get really expensive. Old coins were also used in ‘swords’ that are used in Chinese exorcisms and the like.

Chinese coin sword and Malay wedding corsage with $5 note

There were also commerative coins, like this one that can split up into various pieces. The individual pieces have coinage value, but their value as a collectible outweighs that so yeah, you wouldn’t use it to buy a newspaper.

Splittable commerative coin

There were also commerative coins that look really nice, but also have a bonus surprise – they glow in the dark!

Rabbit coin and F1 coin

And at the end of the tour, we headed back to the workshop area to find our coins. The plaster was mostly dry, and then we could take them out to paint. I thought mine was dry enough, but when I gently popped it out, my coin promptly broke into four pieces. Not just cracked, but broke.

Ah, well. My luck is like that.

I painted my different sections different colors, since it broke into rough quarters. I know it’s garish, but I like my coin :D

Cosfest is the annual mid-year cosplay event. It’s been running for [...]]]>
Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

Cosfest is the annual mid-year cosplay event. It’s been running for 10 years now, but it was my first time there. This is going to be mostly a picture post, since there’s not much to say about cosplay when there are awesome pictures to look at!

Cosfest IX was held at Downtown East’s marquee area, and it’s run by the Singapore Cosplay Club. It’s a really grassroots-type of event, with a lot of the vendors being indie little fanshops. It’s very much anime and manga-focused.

Scribble wall, with lots of Pokemon

Sarah as a Team Rocket member, with a Totodile in tow

Chillin'

Free Yaoi Kisses! Hee.

Who you gonna call?!

My personal favorite: Luke Triton and Remi Altava from the 'Professor Layton' series!

Cosplay is not just standing poses

Team Rocket menacing the Pokemon referee

Pokemon group shot - besides Team Rocket grunt, referee and Pokemon Trainer, the rest are Pokemon gijinka

There were also quite a few gijinka – broadly speaking, gijinka is anthropomorphising non-human things. So there can be iPhone gijinka, Pokemon gijinka, things like that.

Rattata gijinka even had cute matching shoes

K-On

More Pokemon cosplay! Look at the Pokeball takoyaki. POKEBALL TAKOYAKI.

You’ve probably seen this intro at the start of every Tally Ho piece:

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you [...]]]>

You’ve probably seen this intro at the start of every Tally Ho piece:

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

I can hear you wondering: Who are the Adventure Crew? Fear not, dear reader, for I have the answers!

Sarah Coldheart, Adventurer Extraordinaire

Essentially the leader of our motley crew, she has considerable powers in computeryness, as well as the perchant for finding all sorts of interesting things and knowing interesting people.

She has many identities and faces, and sometimes she doesn’t even have a face – and that’s because she’s a superhero by night. Her gentle alter-ego is quirky and chic lit-loving; but her other identity of Seriously Sarah has her wielding the Ukeleles of Justice in a never-ending quest for adventure and fun.

Avariel, Ship and Photography Devotee

She once ventured into the wilds of the Amazon in a ship that was an exact 1:4000 scale replica of the Queen Elizabeth 2 — yes, she went through the world’s largest rainforest in only a scaled down cruise ship. She took a photo of a chupacabra with her very last shot on her very last roll of film, on her trusty LOMO LC-A+ camera… and lived to tell the tale.

Avariel spent four years in the Australia Beyond — not our lovely continent of koalas and kangaroos, but a strange and wild Australia filled with cryptozoologic specimens most of us have never even heard of. Now she travels through our world and the World Beyond to seek out others like the chupacabra, on her trusty 1:4000 scale replica of the Queen Elizabeth 2, dedicating her life to amassing a reliable photographic record of them.

She masquerades her travels in the World Beyond as normal holidays on her blog – but if you look hard enough, you might be able to see a Yeti lurking in the background…

Joelyn Alexandra, [------------ classified ------------]

Joelyn is [------------ classified ------------], where she [------------ classified ------------]. Rumor has it that she was responsible for [------------ classified ------------].

She likes [------------ classified ------------] and [------------ classified ------------]. Her range of skills include [------------ classified ------------]. The most famous story about her exploits is the one about [------------ classified ------------]; she was [------------ classified ------------] and [------------ classified ------------], whereupon [------------ classified ------------] and [------------ classified ------------]. Then she (or they; there is some debate about whether one person can do so much alone) [------------ classified ------------].

You can find her at [------------ classified ------------] and her home on the Internet.

Mintea, She of SCIENCE

She knows the most scary power of them all – that of SCIENCE, which confounds, confuses, and frightens many. Do not underestimate her petite frame and kind eyes. She knows more science than you and I can never hope to know, wielding its many mysterious powers in thick rubber gloves and safety goggles.

She uses the mysterious power of SCIENCE for the good, which we should thank our lucky stars for because the power of SCIENCE is not to be taken lightly. Her only weakness is caffeine, but fear not! She is learning how to use the Ukeleles of Justice as well, and her razor-sharp wit keeps most caffeine tempters (the dastardly devils!) at bay when the need arises.

Raven Silvers (me!), Geek Girl Ordinaire

And then there’s me, Raven Silvers, general laggart and gaming geek girl. I can’t tell you much about me, since I lost most of my memory when my arch-enemy (the name of who I can’t remember) hit me in the head with a Heat-Seeking Playpen Ball of Forgetfulness.

Don’t despair! One day I will remember who my arch-enemy is, and why they robbed me of my identity, and I shall regain my full superpowers. Until then, I spend most of my time travelling; my favorite places include Toad Town, Hyrule, Italy, Goldenrod City and Ankh-Morpork.

Also, I like cats and Mudkips.

This is Pokemon… FOREVER!

By which I mean we [...]]]>

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

This is Pokemon… FOREVER!

By which I mean we went to Singapore’s very own Pokemon National Championships! It’s not a well-known fact, but we do actually have real-life Pokemon Gyms here in Singapore. Except the only Pokemon you’ll see there are either the video game ones or the trading card ones.

In fact, we have four Pokemon Gyms in Dhoby Ghaut, The Cathay, Ngee Soon South CC, and Jurong East. (We go to the one at The Cathay when we have time.) Mostly they handle trading card game (TGC) matches, since that’s much more popular here, but they also have a video game section.

Anyway. We headed down to Milennia Walk on a nice Saturday afternoon to take part in the Pokemon National Championships. The winners of the TCG Championships would head to Hawaii to compete in the Pokemon World Championships. The winner of the video game Championships would earn nifty prizes.

Annoyed Typhlosion is annoyed.

So there was lots of people, mostly to sign up for the TCG side. But there were lots of people who were there for the video games. We all had to choose our teams of up to 6 Pokemon, with several rules in mind. For example, you couldn’t have more than one Legendary Pokemon in your team, and there were a few banned Pokemon who aren’t allowed to compete in competition play.

My Pokemon team

This is so you can’t switch out your Pokemon for something crazy overpowered. Levels weren’t an issue, because the game had all Pokemon leveled up or down to Level 50. The damage that their moves caused were scaled accordingly.

I had one Legendary (that would be Lugia), because I was playing SoulSilver. Also, yes, I have a Gyrados I named Fisch.

You won by earning stamps! Two stamps if you win your match, one if you lose. Whoever reaches 32 stamps wins and becomes one of Singapore’s very own Elite 4.

FIGHT!

Anyway, we got into line. We were probably the oldest folks in the line, seeing as most of the video game competitors were kids. There was a bit of a delay, but that was mostly because the staff there were vastly overwhelmed. They hadn’t expected so many people for the video games, I guess.

But anyway! Our first matches were: Sarah vs Joelyn, Avariel vs some random boy, and me vs Mintea. I won, after an extremely close match :p

After you’re done, you have to go back in line. But there were so many people, with several of them being long, drawn-out but extremely entertaining matches. In the end, we ended up waiting 2.5 hours for our next match.

But, during that time, we got to see Pikachu and Misty!

Pikachu and Misty, and mini-Pikachu

The awesome thing was that, to play, you stood in a real-life Pokemon match area. It was really nifty, but there were some issues with connectivity. Basically, play is like this: you have your copy of Pokemon HeartGold or SoulSilver in your DS, which can hook up to the Wii they had there. We were using Pokemon Battle Revolution as the ‘middleman’ software.

I want to be the very best

But yes. After our second match, we called it a day, because it was an extremely long wait and we were all very tired. But still! Super fun, even though there were quite young children around. :D

The Adventure Crew asked ourselves: We can has picnic? [...]]]>
Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

The Adventure Crew asked ourselves: We can has picnic? And we answered: Yes we can!

And so it was that we resolved to go to Marina Barrage to have a lovely little picnic. Except the weather was very wet. But because we’re the Adventure Crew, we decided to take a gamble with the weather anyway!

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming... (Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com)

And we won! It was probably the first day in the week that it hadn’t rained when we headed down to Marina Barrage :D

We would’ve walked to the Barrage in our joy, but there’s a lot of construction going on so there’s no way to actually walk from the Marina Bay mrt station to the Barrage. So we had to take a big loop around to find a very weirdly-placed bus-stop.

There are two buses; one is a shuttle, the other is a normal bus. I’m not sure which is which, but I think we took the normal bus there and the shuttle back.

At any rate, it’s about 15 minutes from station to Barrage. Once you walk into the Barrage itself, you get treated to some lovely views:

Inside the first floor of the Barrage, with the second level visible and Marina Bay Sands in the background

And because it was such a clear day, we could see quite far out. That was really rather nice (:

Some background on the Barrage: it was opened in 2008, and serves as the most glorified dam I’ve ever seen (not that that’s a bad thing). It’s a reservoir and a floodgate at the same time, as well as a sort of public park. Sort of.

We took advantage of the park-ness of it, and found a spot in the shade to unpacked our picnic stuff!

Drink, sushi, curry puffs, bagels, cookies, and potato salad

We ended up with a lot more food than we’d expected, heh! But s’okay. I had cornflakes in my potato salad, which I find incredibly weird, but it tasted good.

After we ate, we went up to the second level and attempted to fly our kites. My cheapo $3 plastic kite broke in about two minutes ): I fixed it, then it broke again, and I gave up on it.

Mintea’s kite kept breaking too, so after a while, we went downstairs to buy a kite for ourselves. I bought a proper cloth kite and string from the shop ($14). A bit expensive, but it’s a pretty sturdy kite.

They have lots of kites in varying sizes. I bought the smallest one, and it was pretty big!

Woohoo!

Because the Barrage isn’t surrounded by tall buildings, you get some amazing wind up there. But a note to all kiters: bring lots and lots of sunblock, a pair of shades, and a hat. I ended up horribly sunburnt on one arm ): Not enough to be all peely and icky, but enough to hurt.

The weather was a bit too good, and we didn’t stay up there for too long because it was just too hot. To cool down, we went into the gallery. It was quite dark inside, so I don’t have a lot of pictures.

Section talking about the Singapore River

The whole gallery is dedicated to Singapore’s attempts at building a sustainable urban country, so it’s all about the environment. Some of the exhibits were really very interesting, and they talked about things like the 80s cleanup of the Singapore River. (Before my time, but I’ve heard stories of how horrifyingly dirty it used to be.)

Inside the gallery

Entry to the gallery is free, and it’s a really interesting way to learn about the environment and the government’s efforts in maintaining it.

My favorite part was towards the end, where they have a fully working scale module of the Marina Barrage itself. There are demonstrations on how it works every half an hour or so I think, and we were just in time to catch it.

A bird's eye view of the complex (top), with the floodgates (bottom)

Basically, the Marina Barrage works as such:

1. The gates are closed by default, forming a reservoir on one side.
2. When it rains, water levels in the reservoir rise. If they keep rising, various areas will flood.
3. Once they reach a certain level, the floodgates open. Water rushes out into the sea, evening out the water level in the reservoir.
4. Various areas stay unflooded!

Excess water also gets pumped out through the pump side, but that’s in extreme cases.

It was really cool to watch, and it’s easy to understand. We all went “ooooh” when it started to ‘rain’, heh.

The gallery is very large, so do take your time to explore it!

And as we headed out, I had to take a photo with Water Wally, the PUB’s water mascot!

Water Wally! :D

The Royal Selangor showroom-shop at Clarke Quay hides a [...]]]>
Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

The Royal Selangor showroom-shop at Clarke Quay hides a very cool secret: the School of Hard Knocks, a little pewter workshop that anyone can sign up for. They’re open for walk-ins, but it’s best if you call or email ahead if you have a big group just in case. It was the Adventure Crew with Arrch, who was going back to Australia that night!

It’s $30 per head, but I was awesome enough to find a little discount booklet for everyone so we all got $2 off. :D

Basically it’s a short workshop on how pewter is shaped. They give you a flat disc of pewter, and it’s your job to shape it into a little bowl using traditional techniques.

Tools of the trade: a mallet, a hammer, disc of pewter, and letter stencil things

You can’t see it in the picture, but there’s also a wooden block. It’s shaped in a bowl on each end so you have something to knock your disc into. There’s an instructor who’ll teach you how to do things, and help you out if you’re in a jam – which, typically of me, I ended up in. But more later!

So we had to tie on some really strangely-designed aprons, and then he taught us how knock the bowls using the right side of the mallet. There’s a rounded side and a flat side, and you’re supposed to use the rounded side.

But first! You can ‘write’ whatever you want in your bowl while it’s still flat. Most of us wrote our names and/or URLs. I included the date, because it’s fun that way!

The instructor walked us through it; first you shape it into a bowl, then you deepen the inside curve, and attempt to knock out all the uneven bumps. It’s harder than I can describe, mostly because I kept nearly knocking my fingers instead. X_x

Oh, and a sampling of how noisy it gets when you’re shaping the bowl:

SoHK

The workshop timing is anytime you want. Ideally, you should be done with all the hard knocking and shaping in 30 to 45 minutes. We did it for about 45 minutes and my hard was killing me after that, because you do need a considerable amount of fun.

The instructor will help you out if you're having trouble

I attempted to give my bowl a flat bottom so it wouldn’t roll around like crazy, but I got a bit overenthusiastic. Which meant I needed a lot of help because my plate was beginning to look more like an ashtray at one point. (Sarah called it “interesting”. Polite lies.) I am not very good with heavy equipment, no.

And once you’re done knocking the heck out of it, you have to wash it! This is to give it a nice shine, and you use your typical household rough scrubbing sponges. They leave nice lines on the pewter too, so if you keep doing it evenly, you get a nice shine with very pretty polish lines.

The finished product!

And then you’re done! As a gift besides your bowl, you get to keep the apron, and you get a nice little cert and complimentary Chinese-style coin. It’s a pretty nifty gift to remember the School of Hard Knocks by.

Royal Selangor gift bag

Since the workshop is at the shop, you can buy other professionally-made pewter items too. Like pewter fruit! Though I’m not sure why you would want one.

After that, a late Turkish lunch near Bugis:

I have no idea what it is, but I liked it

After lunch, Arrch went back to get his luggage to prepare for his flight. Meanwhile, we ran off to a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) art show somewhere in the area!

And we got lost. As usual.

To be fair, it was impossible to find the space. We had to ask for directions, and turns out it’s super nondescript on the second floor. Kinda freaky though, because it felt so isolated.

Found it!

As the name suggests, it was all H2G2-themed. It was really quite interesting to see what they did with the space, which wasn’t very large.

Mock babelfish

How cheery!

Sad Marvin is sad. ):

And my favorite exhibit:

Wise words to live by

But for a better coverage of what it’s all about, check out the Toysrevil post on it! They were at the opening and everything.

As we were leaving, the people there were nice enough to give us a free issue of KULT magazine! It’s like an art-y type mag, and the issue was all about anti-Aids themes, so some of the art was really quite cool.

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

I like seafood. Or, rather, I like [...]]]>

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

I like seafood. Or, rather, I like eating seafood. And, as they say, the taste of victory is sweet – and what’s sweeter than really fresh prawns?

So it was on a drizzly Saturday afternoon that I met several members of the Adventure Crew — Mintea, Avariel and Sarah — to head to Bottle Tree Park for prawning!

Because, you see, when you go out and catch fish, it’s called fishing. When you go out to catch prawns, it’s called prawning. The logic, it hurts my brain!

We were heading to Bottle Tree Park, which is a rather large activity park of sorts. It’s at Yishun, but it’s only a 10-minute walk from Khatib mrt station.

The only experienced prawner among our little motley crew was Avariel, whose sister had taught her how to prawn. I believe she usually goes to Pasir Ris, so it was her first time there too.

It’s quite large; its front is dominated by the main fishing pond. You can also do the couple swan paddle-boat thing too! But it was rainy that day, plus the main fishing pond was closed for a corporate event.

Swan paddle boats (Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com)

The prawning ponds are easy to find if you keep left and head towards the Japanese restaurant. There are two prawning ponds: one is for normal prawning, and the other is for children. The children’s pond is for ‘longkang fishing’ (longkang = drain), where they use nets to catch small fish like guppies.

Main prawning pond

Prawning is $14.50/hour at the main pond, rod and bait included. You head to the counter and pay for your hour, collect your bait and rod, and then find a spot by the pond to settle down.

Amusing sign above the counter - if you read Chinese, you'll get it. Otherwise it's hard to explain

We’re not sure what the bait is, but we think it’s fish insides. They’re raw and kind of slimy though, which may be enough to put people off. But not the brave and somewhat ick-resistant (except for insects of the crawling, wriggly and flying persuasion) Adventure Crew!

So what you do is you take a piece of chopped bait and poke your prawning hook through it, pick a patch of water, and throw your hook in. There’s this floating thing that will, er, float. And then you settle down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

This is why they charge you by the hour. Most of the prawning expedition was spent waiting for a prawn to take the bait.

When you feel a tug on your rod and your floater thing bobs up and down, that means a prawn has decided your bait looks yummy!

Then comes the tricky part. You’re supposed to kind of flick your rod upwards to get the hook into the prawn, but that doesn’t always work. And then you kind of wave your rod madly to get the end back to you (there is no winder, like in a fishing rod) while fighting the prawn.

And the prawn will fight. During our hour there, we saw some rather impressive rod-bending action. Mintea actually got one heck of a fighter, but it got away ):

Once you get the prawn up onto land, they have this very long blue-black pincer. It looks a bit like a black-blue twig, but I’m told that they can cause injury. So you have to remove the pincher by stepping on it and pulling the prawn away from said pincer. We had to get Avariel to do it, since she had boots on and was the only one who knew how to de-pincer the prawns.

First to catch a prawn was Sarah.

And then, very soon after that, Avariel caught a prawn.

Mintea caught the third. She nearly caught another one, but it got away; to be fair, it was a very large prawn with two pincers.

And I… didn’t catch any. ):

MEANWHILE, a group of Chinese tourists on the other side of the pond were catching prawns willy-nilly! They caught at least five or six while we were there. Clearly, prawns do not like me. ):

Prawns in the net

What do you do with the prawns you’ve caught? You cook them! (Evil laughter completely optional.)

So after our hour was up, we took our de-pincered prawns to the small grill they had there. The bait man — who kept talking to us in Chinese, despite our collective lack of understanding — helped us poke satay sticks into the prawns. And then onto the grill they went.

Half-cooked prawns on the grill

It’s a bit creepy to see your prawns twitching on the heat; they are, after all, still alive. All I can say is that they died before they were cooked through, which was a bit of a relief. I generally like my food to be unconscious when it’s being cooked, but I don’t think you can knock out prawns.

Here are our happy prawners!

I basically sulked at the side for my lack of prawns, but you can eat the prawns there and then. These are probably the freshest prawns any of us have eaten; the brains are a bright, yolk yellow, which I’ve never seen before. And I bet they (the prawns, not necessarily the brains) were sweet.

Prawn gills

After that we walked around the grounds for a bit, exploring some of the interesting items on the lawn – there is the eponymous bottle tree, as well as a fake giant ribcage.

Mucking about at the ribcage

The famed bottle tree

As mentioned before, Bottle Tree Park has got other activities too. They actually have a zipline and a paintball park.

The zipline was closed, and looked semi-abandoned, but I’m told it can’t compare to Megazip.

We headed to the paintball park next. Red Dynasty Paintball Park is a bit hard to find, but basically go back to the entrance and, instead of walking away from the small access road, follow the road all the way up the slight slope.

If you see this on the road, you're on the right track.

Red Dynasty Paintball Park

Red Dynasty Paintball Park has a few courses, including a shooting gallery. We didn’t have the minimum six people to have a match, so the shooting range it was! It’s $10 for 30 paintballs.

The staff there briefed us on the masks, how to use a paintball gun, and safety. The paintballs travel at something like 90 meters a second; while it won’t kill you, you can lose an eye. And then it’s fun and games without depth perception.

But seriously, it can be dangerous stuff. But listen to their warnings and don’t be an idiot, and you’ll be fine.

I wear glasses, but the Halo-esque paintball mask goes over the entire face and glasses. It isn’t too uncomfortable, even with glasses on, but it does fog up very quickly.

I was the second to put on the mask. By the time we were led into the shooting gallery some thirty seconds later, I couldn’t actually see anything but big colored shapes.

Which is a bit of a pity, because I was basically shooting blind.

See how fogged up the visors are? (Photo courtesy SeriouslySarah.com)

The paintball guns use canisters of compressed air so there wasn’t much recoil. The guns are a bit heavy, though you can adjust your stance to compensate.

It was over very quickly, alas. Within about ten minutes all of us had exhausted our ammo.

It’s fun though! Especially if you get the chance to shoot at other people, heh. As we left, we saw a group of guys duking it out at one of their courses. That particular course is big enough to move about with and take cover, but not big enough that you feel like a sniper waiting for your target to come into view.

Although, with the way the mask fogs up, you might never see your target.

At any rate, by then it was noon! So off to lunch we went. It’s a short bus ride to Yishun Interchange, where Northpoint mall is.

Because we lead such interesting lives, the minute we walked in we saw interesting stilt-walkers who looked right out of Carnevale. They waved hello, and we waved back – professional courtesy, as it were.

Stilt-walker

And then to lunch proper. I got my revenge for my lack of caught prawns by eating the famous, delicious, nom-worthy flaming prawns at Manhattan Fish Market. Bwahahaha.

So yes, it was a very seafoody day. Not that I’m complaining! I like seafood, I like prawns, and I really really like Manhattan Fish Market – and, most of all, I love hanging out with the Adventure Crew.

Om nom nom nom.

Tally-Ho is a semi-regular column of my adventures with the Adventure Crew (and sometimes other people). We figured that Singapore can’t be all that boring, and are determined to show other folks how fun Singapore can be… if you know where to look.

This is where I was today: