Monday, September 20, 2010

Place I have been - Crave Singapore 2010 - Sizzling Kelong

As part of a series of event organise for some of the F1 delegates and those related to the event, Chef Tan Yong Hua from Pearl River Restaurant was invited to cooke up a buffet style feast for over 20 delegates, event organisers from SPOC and the rest of us from the Kelong.

The preparation started at 2pm and delegates started arriving from 4pm. Chef Tan and his assistant - a first year student Benson(I hope I get his name right!) from ITE started preparing from 5pm till about 6pm.

I am not a fine dining person. I am a Kopitiam (coffee shop) and make sure my coffee and tea stay within 80cents (lower end of price for Kopitiam to foreign visitors reading this blog) kind of person. In my first up close experience with a world famous chef (people who watch TV will know he is one of the Chef in 《名厨出走记》), I discover Chef Tan is as humble as approachable as friendly as anyone can be. I feel comfortable talking to him...relaxing even. I hope that we can have more opportunity working together next time.

The delegates are put to task in fishing for the ingredients for chef Tan to cook from the Kelong fish farm. Chef Tan exercise his professional judgement in selecting the correct size Groupa, delegates have to re-fish if the fishes being netted failed to pass his stringent requirement!

Apart from sashimi, grill fish, prawns, mussels, Rose Mary (Kelong owner) also provide rice, mee goreng, bee hoon to ensure that the buffet will be a great success!

During the event, representative from the Fourth Estate also explain how wine can compliment seafood to make it taste better! Example, white wine can bring out the taste of sweetness in Seafood. I am not an expert in this area so if there are any opinions about this, feel free to write in the comments.

This write-up will be categorised under Places I have been.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Educational Tour :- Radio Station Tour

Radio is and will continue to be an important part of our lives. They deliver time sensitive information such as traffic condition, sports news update to war declaration. They also deliver 24/7 entertainment such as musics, talk show and focus group discussion. The World without radio will be a totally different world indeed. So everyone need to visit and learn how the radio stations are operated!

Recently, together with a group of students from Rosyth School with the help of DJs from Mediacorp 938Live - Eugene Loh and Melanie Oliveiro we are given a thorough but fun walkthrough on the inner workings of the radio station.

First, we are received by a smiling Admin, Ms Zhuo before being given a detailed programme and introduction of the DJs and product of 938Live in one of their meeting rooms. This event was hosted by Eugene Loh and Melanie Oliveiro.

Next, we are brought to Traffic watch control room. Do you know that there are over 200 cameras placed on top of street lamps which monitor your every move? The cameras have zoom capability that can see the type of shirt you are wearing and enough to see the brand of bag you are holding. I was amazed when we are shown the live view of pedestrian walking along Orchard Road - From one end to the other.

After Traffic watch and a healthy respect of the fact that nothing is private in Singapore, we visited the radio studio or county. We visited 938Live studio where we saw Daniel Martin working in the studio. By chance we also saw Chen Ai Wei, Ivy from 933 Y.E.S who was nice enough to provide hints to some of the questions that the students need to answer.

After visiting the studios, we were also given a tour of the radio station reporters office. There from interviewing Ewan Mah, we learnt about the work that went into preparing the scripts for the radio DJs and their quite crazy working hours; some started work at 4am!

At the end of the tour, the students are given opportunities to do their own live recording for take-away. Students with the highest number of correct answers are presented their prizes and all participants are given a goodies bag.

All in all, it is a must go place for students or curious adults. Thank you MediaCorp for making our stay so enjoyable!

This tour will be classified as part of Educational Tour.

If you need transportation services to visit this place, please refer to our product listing page.

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Places I have been - Singapore City Tour Pass

31st August 2010 marked the official launch of the Singapore City Pass, which saw its soft launch in early August. I had the honour of being one of the invited guests to witness this historical moment for City Tours. This hassle-free and user friendly SmartTapTag is about the size of my thumb, which really is not big. Its price ranges, after a discount of up to 45%, between S$20 to S$50, depending on the package/places that the visitors select.




At the moment, it has 8 places of interest and 2 F&B partners and a 6-sectioned pamphlet guide. Though it is small in size, it bears quite a lot of information such as bus rides via FunVee Hopper Open Top City Tour Bus (eye-catching orange open-top bus), admission to places of interest, food or beverages vouchers, gift vouchers etc.


Once the visitors reach their destination, using it is as easy as tapping it at the gate or ticket booth, pretty much like using the e-z link card. Thus, this small bundle of joy is not just convenient to use, but also save money while enjoying the fun. Purchasing it can be a click online via their website (http://www.singaporecitypass.com/index.html), a phone call away or you can drop by their retail outlets either at Esplanade or Singapore Flyer.



We end our trip at the Dolphin Lagoon and have a wonderful time there...and of cos the nice refreshment helps!
 
 
I think moving forward, it will be great if the pass allow priority access (after all we have paid for the entrance fee ) instead of queuing up again to get the tickets like the others non-pass holders.