I'm (finally) back in Singapore!!

Flight was pretty uneventful, apart from a number of turbulences and some annoying children (one was sitting behind me!) who couldn't stop whining and crying. I did manage to sleep for 4 hours though - which is a big bonus, considering that I usually cannot sleep during flights, especially overnight flights.

The minute I reached home, I started practicing piano, and the day after I landed, I went down to Orchard Road with Helios the dSLR. The Christmas decorations were already up, and I really love the decorations in front of Ion Orchard! You'll find out soon enough.

Anyway, I'll be splitting my Christmas deco pictures into 2 posts, so here's part 1:

Christmas decorations outside Marriott Hotel - opposite Ion Orchard.

And sculptures outside Ion Orchard. I don't really go to Ion Orchard, but whenever I stand outside the shopping centre, I'm just amazed by its architecture, its creativity, and everything around it.

And these are the Christmas decorations for the year! Musical instruments made from Christmas lights...

Amidst the glassy facade of Ion Orchard...

And here are the musical instruments in detail:

French horn:

Cello - I think there were 2 cellos, or the other one might have been a contrabass (double bass).

Harp - I noticed many people loved posing next to the French horn and the harp.

Saxophone - I think this is either a tenor or a baritone saxophone.

This looks like a bassoon or something, and is one of my favourite sculptures.

Massive trumpet. Or some other brass instrument? I ain't too familiar...

And of course - a snare drum! I reckon this is my favourite sculpture. It's just so amazing! And there are drum sticks too!

There was also a massive Christmas tree, not too far from the musical instruments. And the decorations were also musically-themed! My favourite Christmas tree - ever!

Looking up from the inside of the Christmas tree. Decorations included silver disco balls, silver snowflakes in the shape of music signs, and of course, purple Christmas lights!

The Christmas tree from outside. I didn't really notice that the snowflakes were made up of musical signs, until I looked closer. And of course, the star on the top of the Christmas tree is made up of treble clefs!

Details of the wonderful decorations:

Disco balls amongst the musical snowflakes:

A snowflake made up of demisemiquavers:

Semiquavers and treble clefs:

Closeup shot of the semiquavers:

Treble clefs:

More demisemiquavers:

I headed to Takashimaya shortly after, and took more shots of the massive Christmas tree in the foyer.

And of course - Christmas decorations outside the Coffee Club, on the 3rd floor. I love the red, spotty mushrooms!

Last but not least, a Christmas tree made of beautiful, cuddly teddy bears in the departmental store.

And that concludes part 1 of my Christmas decorations collection!

Before I start, here's a picture of some flowers growing on our corianders. We managed to harvest most of our veggies from the kitchen garden - and we'll be planting many more varieties soon. :)

And here's part 3 - the final part of our Lakes Entrance Road Trip!

I stopped at the part where we went to the beach in the previous post. And now, I'll be continuing from there, right till the end of our epic weekend.

We had dinner at Pinocchio's Inn Restaurant - a pretty quaint Italian restaurant along the Esplanade (the main street in the town), and this is what Steph and I ordered:

1. Garlic bread

2. Spaghetti bolognaise (that's mine - shown in the first picture below)

3. Gnocchi carbonara

4. Meat Lovers Pizza (that's Steph's - shown in the second picture below)

It wasn't costly, but it was definitely delicious!

We then walked to the footbridge just as the sun was setting too.

This was taken with the wide-angle lens...

And this more dramatic one was taken with the telephoto lens, at maximum zoom. It kinda looks like a ball of fire here.

It actually happened really fast - the sun was dipping down the horizon, and finally it disappeared behind the clouds. All these took less than 5 minutes.

We then headed back to the hotel before it turned completely dark, and the next day, we headed off to the seashell museum - which was just next to our hotel. I really love the museum - they've gorgeous gifts, a massive collection of marine animals and seashells (of course), and the stuff there are simply affordable!

One of the smaller sharks in the aquarium.

A collection of sea urchins - of different shapes and sizes.

Shelf after shelf of seashells.....

They even had a collection of fluorescent minerals!

More sea urchins, with some starfish and brittle stars - these are known as echinoderms.

And then we headed out of Lakes Entrance by lunchtime, and stopped by a scenic lookout:

View of the beach - this was not the beach we went to though.

And of course, a view of Lakes Entrance - from the same lookout.

Our stopover this time was at Sale, a town near Lakes Entrance. And this is the port within Sale - pretty tranquil and rather gorgeous.

And back to Warragul we went, before I took the train back to Melbourne. It was really sad to leave Lakes Entrance and Warragul, but oh well, good things do come to an end.

Right, and that finally concludes our Lakes Entrance adventure! Thanks so much for viewing and do stay tuned!

On a side note, I'M GOING BACK TO SINGAPORE TOMORROW!!!

And here's part 2 of our Lakes Entrance road trip.

During our drive up to Lakes Entrance, we stopped by Stratford for a short break. And that was where I found the small purple fruits, mentioned in the previous post.

Lolly store in Stratford. Unfortunately it was closed, but we managed to pop by one of the cafes for a drink, before exploring the town a tiny bit. The town isn't very big, but the surroundings were very pleasant.

And bach (oops, I mean back!) on the road again! By then it was about 5pm, and the moon was rising. The road wasn't very winding either - it was actually rather quiet on the freeway, and the drive up to Lakes Entrance was pretty much smooth and uninterrupted. We passed through Bairnsdale, which was quite near Lakes Entrance too. And when we started entering Lakes Entrance, we could actually see the beach from the freeway. It was just gorgeous!

Had a pub meal at a nearby cafe, shortly after we checked in:

Chocolate truffles - I had the brown one (black forest flavoured) while Steph had the white one.

Yummy garlic bread. Steph and I simply adore garlic bread, and we ate it twice throughout our trip.

Steph's pizza - it was really, really big, and came with French fries.

And of course, my pumpkin and cream pasta. It was really tasty.

And back to the motel we went. The next day, we explored the town even more, and on our way to mini-golf, we bought some bouncy balls:

Mini-golf was equally fun. We got a hole in one each, and the obstacles got progressively challenging as we went on. The one below was a slightly easier obstacle...

While this one here was rather difficult. There was even an obstacle with a carousel which spun continuously - rather slowly of course.

Fish and chips for lunch - by the seaside. We were swarmed by some seagulls, and had to sacrifice some of our chips to keep them away. But to no avail.

And we finally hit the beach! This is the bridge leading up to a long stretch of land, and the beach is just behind this stretch of land.

We hired a paddle boat and paddled around for about half an hour...

And then we went to the beach! It was very, very windy but pleasant. White sands, blue water, large waves...Steph and I actually went to have a dip in the sea, and I ended up getting extremely soaked - just by the waves. The waves were so much stronger than the ones I experienced in Singapore.

And that concludes part 2, I guess!!!! Part 3 would be mostly about the seashell museum we went to, plus some other stuff I didn't cover in this entry.

See you soon!