The Flavour of Life

If life can be interpreted into different flavours, how would it taste like?

As for myself, that would be the same question that I would probably be spending my entire life searching for a perfect answer to it, but till today, I think that life would be similar to a cup of tea. It can be either sweet or bitter or even tasteless. On top of the taste, the smell coming out of a cup of tea can either be a strong aroma or a strong refreshing fragrance or even odourless. With the number of types of Tea Leaves in this world, tea tasting can be a never ending journey that one can take.

Today I am going to introduce a Chinese Tea House that I am a regular. Introducing ...

Tea Chapter I was working at this place a few years back. When I was working at Tea Chapter, everyday was a completely different experience. You get to meet different groups of people everyday. On top of that, the atmosphere of the place was both quiet and relaxing. It wasn't an easy task looking for places like this in the busy part of Singapore.

	Have a break, Let's have some Tea... :P
Besides for the huge variety of Chinese Tea that you can try, you can also go for the snacks like fragrance cookies, Tea Eggs, simple Dim Sum... etc.

The following would be the type of seats that you can get in Tea Chapter.

Japanese Style You will be crossing your legs for a very period of time. But no extra charges if you decided to choose this kind of seats.

Korean Style
Very limited seats, but you can put your legs into the hole underneath
the table. There are additional charges for these seats, but this isn't
something that you can experience everyday.

	Chinese Style Something that you can get in at traditional Chinese restaurant. Oh by the way, Queen Elizabeth II had paid a visit to Tea Chapter in 1989. The picture on the left was taken during her visit to Tea Chapter.

	Some photos taken in Tea Chapter

	Besides for the Chinese Tea House that was located on the 2nd and 3rd floor, they also have a retail shop selling all sorts of Chinese Tea Accessories and Chinese Tea Leaves.

Do pop by Tea Chapter if you want to get away from the busy Singaporean lifestyle.

* Click here for the website of Tea Chapter.

It's the same period of the year to share the spirit of ...

Xmas. :D Today I'm going to show you some photos that I have taken along the streets of Orchard Road. And this isn't the normal Orchard Road. It's a Orchard Road with a touch of Christmas.

Swiss Cottage can be found inside OC (Orchard Central)

Pink Carpet to Xmas can be found outside OC

Big Christmas Wreath outside 313 Somerset

Decorative lights outside Manderin Gallery... reminds me of White Lotus Society(白莲教) :P

Christmas Tree outside Paragon

Decorations outside Takashimaya

The following would be one of the biggest highlights of Orchard Road and that would be....

	one of the biggest Indoor Christmas Tree of Singapore. :) Although the gigantic tree have been placed within Takashimaya throughout the year, it never fail to amaze me during the Christmas period.

Decorative lights surrounding CK Tang

	Orchard Road Illumination This reminds me... I want to see the Illumination event in Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto.

Christmas Tree at the Heart of Orchard Road Next to ION Orchard

On top of all these decorations, some of the shopping are currently
holding a series of Christmas celebration events starting from a
few weeks ago all the way till Christmas day itself.

Please click on the URL below to find out more about individual
shopping malls along Orchard Road.

Click here for the website of '313 Somerset'.
Click here for the website of 'Cineleisure'.
Click here for the website of 'CK Tang'.
Click here for the website of 'ION Orchard'.
Click here for the website of 'Orchard Central'.
Click here for the website of 'Paragon'.
Click here for the website of 'Takashimaya'.
Click here for the website of 'TripleOne Somerset'.
Click here for the website of 'The Cathay'.

On top of the shopping malls listed in the above, there
were also some other shopping malls like Forum, Centrepoint,
Plaza Singapura... etc that were holding some Christmas events too.

A horrible/terrible Greek Movie

I had seen numerous movies based on Greek Myth in the past. But the recent one was simply too disappointing. Besides for the ugly plot that the movie has, the effects of the film were pretty dull too. I hope that movie makers should realise that these Greek-based movies doesn't need super fantastic effects. What they really need would be a good story. Seriously thinking, I don't mind watching another adaptation of a Greek Myth like 'Jason and the Argonauts' or 'Hercules'. In fact, this reminds me of the days watching 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys' on TV like 10 years ago. :D

Image taken from Cathay Cineplexes Website.

Movie: ...?

* Click here to find more about the movie Immortals.

Will you be the Apple of my Eye?

Probably this is one of the most low budget mandarin film over the past few years. The story of the movie mostly revolve around the high school life of a group of teenagers. Although the plot of the movie was pretty simple, but part of the movie was pretty hilarious. So if you don't have any difficulty in understanding Mandarin, I would highly recommend you to give this movie a go and enjoy laughing. :D

Image taken from Cathay Cineplexes Website.

Movie: Probably a movie based on Greek Myth

* Click here to find more about the movie
  'You are the Apple of my Eye'(那些年，我們一起追的女孩.). (In mandarin only.)

Recommended place for singing Japanese Karaoke

There are tons of places for you to sing Karaoke in Singapore. And the famous one's would include places like 'K Box' and 'Party World'. However, if you want to sing Japanese Songs, you will release that those places have limited number of Japanese Songs. Worst of all, those Japanese songs outdated. Therefore, I am going to recommend to you a Karaoke place where you can find tons of new Japanese Songs.

The above would be a photo of the exterior of the Karaoke place.

The name of this Karaoke place would be 'Cash Studio'.

The above would be photos of one of the Karaoke room of the place. They are using a Karaoke System known as 'Dam' at this place. In fact, when I went there for a Karaoke session a few days ago, I managed to find a lot of new Japanese Songs to sing over there. For example: Namie Amuro 'Tempest', Ken Hirai 'Itoshiki Hibi Yo', EXILE 'Tegami', Keisuke Kuwata 'Early In The Morning'... etc. They also have a large collection of anime songs over there too.

Actually, dispite of all the new songs available over there, I still love 3 songs sang
by Momoe Yamaguchi. The title of the 3 songs are 'Ii Hi Tabi Tachi', 'Aki Sakura (Cosmos)' and 'Sayonara No Mukou Gawa'.
Note: If you decided to visit 'Cash Studio' for a round of Karaoke Session, I would highly recommend you to visit the website of 'Club Dam' and start looking for the request numbers of the songs that you wanted to sing beforehand.

* Click here for the website of 'Cash Studio'.
^ Click here for the website of 'Club Dam'. (In Japanese Only)

Words by Nekyouto

Although I am not devoted to my religion, but I believe in 'Retribution'. The following would be some scenarios that has strongly reflected that 'Retribution' really exist in this world.

• Just look around the world that we live in today. The occurrence of a strange phenomena tend to increase over the past few years. For example: Snow started to fall in US starting from last week, Sakura flowers started blooming in the city of Tokyo,Japan a few weeks ago, etc. These phenomena were probably caused by the global warming effect. And who had created the problem of global warming? That would be us, humans, living and biting off every single part of this world. Although it's too late for us to stop global warming, we can at least try to reduce the speed of global warming from deteriorating. The following would be some of my suggestions.
  • Stop relying on Air Condition too much
  • Take Public Transport as frequent as possible and try not to own a Car
  • Try not to take too many plastic bags, and even if you take 1, try to recycle or reuse it
  Mark my words, if we don't try to do our part now, the weather around the world would be changing drastically.
• I'm pretty sure that every being on this planet has its own 'safe boundaries'. Take note, the meaning of the words 'safe boundaries' here is equivalent to a person's acceptance limits. If someone step beyond your 'safe boundaries', you will tend to fight back. For example, in Hokkaido,Japan bears started to appear in main cities. The main reason behind their appearances would probably be due to the fact that their natural habitat have been destroyed by us, humans. I admit that I wasn't a great student when it comes to the subject of History. But if you have been reading about the history around the world, most of the dynasty tend to fall due to the fact that they have cross the 'safe boundaries' of the people of the country. Most of the dynasty tend to fall because of their cruelty acts and incapability of fulfilling what the people really need.
• Retribution also plays an important role in our daily life. For example: not taking good care of your personal belongings would cause it to spoilt easily, walking too fast without taking a closer look at your surrounding or where you are going, food wasting, etc.

I'm not trying to change the way you are thinking, but I hope that you should try to remember that 'Retribution' do exist in this world.

* Click here to find out more about the snowstorms happening to the US now.
^ Click here to find out more about Sakura Blooming in October 2011.
~ Click here to find out more about Sakura Blooming in October 2011.
** Click here to find out more about bears attacks in Japan.

Walkaholic

one of the words that describe me the most. To a certain extent I think that, I have been walking too much. :P Some even gives me nickname as I have been walking too fast... =='''

Image taken from Wikipedia.

Hey, but walking is a good form of exercising. :D
According to Health Promotion Board of Singapore, by making frequent walks,
it can help you to lower your blood pressure and blood cholesterol.
It can also burn calories and manage your weight, while relieving yourself
from stress and anxiety.

Most importantly.... its free.
Probably because of the amount of issues that the local transportation have,
or probably because I am not financially rich, I will try to do some walking
whenever I'm free. I remember the days whenever I have insufficient amount in
the transportation fare card, I will do crazy walks like from Dover MRT all
the way to Tiong Bahru MRT. Or probably interesting routes like from the
old site where Republic Polytechnic was to Bugis MRT station or late night
trails stating from Somerset MRT to Tiong Bahru MRT. The sights that
you are getting from these walking trails never fail to amaze me. :D

So what are you waiting for, Let's do some walking now. :D

* Click here to access the article by Health Promotion Board on the topic of Walking.