Regent Hotel - in the day and at night

Ok. This was also quite a while back. My bad!

A few days before I left for Melbourne, I had dinner in Regent Hotel (to celebrate mum's professor's birthday). Posh restaurant, lots of photo opportunities, but the best photo opportunites are, of course, illustrated in the pictures I've posted. It was pretty interesting to see how the inside of the Regent changes at night - from beautiful glowing yellow, to a dark and more romantic, atmospheric colour.

I also noticed that the interior of the Regent was quite similar to Pan Pacific Hotel. Here's a picture of the interior of the Pan Pacific for comparison:

Now...moving on to the Regent. Because I went at around 6pm or so, I got to see how the Regent looked when the sky was still bright, and when the sky was dark.

When the sky was bright (around 6pm or so).....

The walkways were lined with lights, framed by glass, and of course, were long. And when I first went up, there were 2 children playing around that area. So here they are, standing at the intersection of 2 walkways. I also love how the glass reflects the light, making it seem really abstract.

Glass chandelier in the lift lobby. It looks pretty daunting...imagine how much glass was used to make this magnificent thingy...

The lobby was pretty fanciful though. And somehow it reminded me (again!) of Pan Pacific!

And the interior of the Regent. Well - here's one difference. In the Pan Pacific, all the lifts were lined to one side, parallel to each other. While in the Regent, all the lifts were right in the middle, supported by a giant pillar right in the middle of the building, with walkways extending from all 4 corners.

But here's the similarity between the Regent and the Pan Pacific. The rooms and their respective corridors were all visible to us. The rooms are actually built around this massive foyer - whoever looks down from the open corridors can see what's below. And of course, the ceiling is transparent. This is similar to what the Pan Pacific offers.

Oh yes, the lights lining the walkways.

And another view of the floors housing the guest rooms. Every now and then a guest would be on the walkway, and would take the lift down. And I was pretty fascinated by the bubble lifts - they're actually really fun to ride!

The main area where I mostly stayed around - which housed the restaurant, the foyer (of course), the cafe, and a grand piano (which would be shown later).

So yeah, we had our hunger satisfactions and by the time we finished, it was dark outside.

And the Regent took on a darker side. Same architecture, same intensity of lighting, but the natural light from the ceiling can really cause drastic changes like this!

Symmetry - gosh I really had to standby and wait for the right moment, just for the 2 lifts to be exactly level!

Someone taking the lift upwards - presumably to the guest rooms.

The same walkway which I took 4 photos back. Minus the lift, and with a similar angle.

Spiral staircase - in case the lifts do not work, or in case we feel like taking the stairs instead.

Oh yes, and here's the main entrance. Posh and beautiful!

And the ground floor, where the grand piano was. To be honest, I was so tempted to play on it. But unfortunately, this is a high-class hotel, and I'd probably be kicked out if I did play on it.

Trying to get an overhead shot of the entire building...quite successful, actually :)

And before I left, I took various shots of the famous fountain outside the Regent. Deliberately slowed the shutter speed even further, and switched to manual mode to make the water seem like lines.

And by then, the alcohol was starting to take its toll on us, so we had to leave.

Ok, we're nearly done with the places I went to in Singapore, I guess. Maybe one or 2 more places before I can officially call it a day and switch back to Melbourne mode? I'll dig out my photo collection and check it out. Till then, adios!

Sentosa Flower Show Part 2

I'm contemplating putting a part 3 for the Sentosa Flower Show thingy that I'm doing now - but I'm not sure if I should. Oh yes, and WARNING: There's going to be LOTS of flower pictures in this post, so if you have hay fever like I do, don't forget your nose sprays! :)

Oh, and the hay fever part was true - I ended up sneezing like crazy after going to the flower show (I went to Sentosa twice and the Boardwalk once - so that's a total of 3 trips to the Flower Show itself).

Anyways let's get cracking, shall we?

Went to the beach before going for the flower show, and since it was Valentines' Day, I decided to draw something like this - just for fun. :)

Oh, and side note: The flower show was supposed to end on 13th Feb (it's written on the sign above!), but the flowers were still there, so I sneaked in and had an awesome time taking lots of pictures! They got rid of the sign eventually though.

Different varieties of carrots just along the path.

This was taken at the famous Merlion statue. Had to walk past the Merlion in order to get to the main Flower Show area. I was actually inspired by a similar picture by one of my friends, and decided to replicate it in my own way. Well, sort of.

Rabbit made (almost entirely) of flowers. It's maintained really well - the flowers are replaced and watered regularly.

And the flowers growing around the pool where the massive flower rabbit was located.

There were also a number of rabbit sculptures like this one, all around the area. There were rabbit family sculptures, rabbits posing etc....and of course, this one here!

Some orchids and other "random" flowers growing around the stairs.

Ah, and one of the features of the Flower Show - hanging wishes on sculptures! Some of them were pretty innocent and some were pleasant to look at.

Moving on to macro shots of bigger flowers....

And yes, even more flowers. I went to the Flower Show in 2009 and they had similar flowers, except that these were growing near the beach.

And not too far away, a family relaxing in the shade. Surprisingly there weren't many people on that day - possibly because it was a weekday (Monday) and because the show officially ended a day ago. But yeah, it's really pleasant to see families enjoying themselves...

And one of my final photography spots before heading back to the Mainland.

They had these multi-coloured, gorgeous flowers planted all around, and they were growing in really, really large quantities! So here we go...there were white, orange, pink, red and yellow ones.

One last shot of the carrot trees before heading back to the Mainland. I miss these now! :(

Anyways I'm still not sure if I'll put part 3 up, but yeah, this probably concludes the visit to the Sentosa Flower Show on Valentines' Day! :)

Sentosa Flower Show Part 1

I miss these adorable "carrots" that marked the entrance of the Sentosa Flower Show 2011. Can't believe they took the carrot decorations down after the Flower Show! They should have left it for us to admire. But oh well...

Ok, this is epic fail indeed. I was browsing through my entries, and realised that I haven't put up any pictures of the Sentosa Flower Show! And the Flower Show wasn't even one of the last events I went to - the Orchid Garden Show was even later then the Flower Show. Best part - I put my Melbourne pictures up before these pictures, even though these were definitely taken before I left for Melbourne. :P

Anyways, enough of the epic fail....sorry about that though!

So...this post focuses more on the Sentosa Boardwalk and the miscellaneous stuff which I took while enjoying the Flower Show. I don't want you guys to get hay fever... :P

So here's the Sentosa Boardwalk...newly constructed, just in time for the Flower Show.

I did 2 trips up and down the Boardwalk, so my pictures are arranged as such.

Start of the Boardwalk (Sentosa side): Children playing at the fountains in Resorts World Sentosa. About 3 or 4 of them were present when I went over, and they seemed to be really fascinated by it.

This was when the fountain was off. The girl must have been thinking, "Hmmmm, what will come out of this hole?!"

Same girl, with her brother (or friend). I love this pic loads! The girl's pointing to the fountain, and the boy's covering his face, as if he's embarrassed that his undies are shown to the public!

Ok, the real reason why he covered his face was because the fountain spurted right into his eye. Poor chap. He was pretty much ok though.

Walking bach (I mean back!) to Mainland Singapore on the Boardwalk...

Spotted flowers lining the stairs on the Boardwalk, so I had to stop and take pictures. :) Somehow I'm conditioned to stop and take pictures of flowers whenever I see them.

And here's the sheltered area of the Boardwalk.

Being a "damn lazy kid", I decided to take the Sentosa Express (monorail) back to Sentosa. And here's Vivocity from the monorail. The windows acted like a blue filter...somehow...

The monorail took me all the way to the beach, so I decided to hang around there for awhile. Although it isn't 100% natural, I still love the beach!

Barnacles on the rocks. It was low tide when I went though, so I didn't get to see them feed...oh well...

And a couple just chilling out and burying each other's feet in the sand.

Dessert - Haagen Dazs' Ice Cream! I love Haagen Dazs' Ice Cream heaps - sad thing is that I can't find any in Melbourne. Gelati in Melbourne's gorgeous though - I guess that can be a good substitution for my Haagen Dazs' cravings.

Resorts World Sentosa, through a spherical mirror.

This fountain's known as the Lake of Dreams. It's pretty big, actually, and is a really popular attraction amongst visitors. Here's just one part of it :P

Universal Studios Singapore is strategically located in Resorts World, but the cost was a tad too much for me to bear that day. So I just had to take pictures from outside.

Australia! On the famous Universal Studios rotating globe.

And advertisements EVERYWHERE.......

Yes, more flowers along the way. These were taken along the coast. I got a really good view of Vivocity from there.

Last but not least, I finally went up close to the famous waterfall that marked the entrance to Resorts World! I just happened to spot these flowers too - pretty amazing than all 3 of them are of different colours! And all of them are growing at pretty much the same rate!

Going up close to the famous (man-made) waterfall. Yay for slow shutter speeds! :D

Ok I guess that's half of the Sentosa Flower Show segment! The other half will be put up soon! :)

Once again, sorry for the epic fail...!!!!