There’s a slew of SG50 dining promotions at Resort World Sentosa. I had a go at Starz and am happy with the selection, the pictures speak for themselves.
Nice lamps from the ceiling
Salad as starters 🙂
Main courses
Fruits and desserts
SG50 decoration cake.. Happy 50th Birthday Singapore!
And just before I left, saw the sculpture outside Hard Rock Hotel.
Taken with Sony Alpha a5100 with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar T E 16-70mm f/4 ZA OSS lens
I recently ‘upgraded’ my personal faber licence to a family one. I actually waited for my to expire before getting a family one for $120. It is very worth it (just compare this to the single trip tickets) and my kids love the ride very much. There is now two lines, the Mount Faber line (connects Mount Faber to Imbiah Lookout) and Sentosa line (Merlion to Siloso Beach).
View from the traditional Mount Faber line.
West Coast Highway- The road I took everyday to drive my kids to their childcare before I head for work… finally, they get to take the cable car again (and many times more) after asking for so long.
Software stitched for the panoramic view of Harbourfront and Sentosa, with Pulau Brani Container Terminal in the background. Obviously the stitch was imperfect but I’m just too lazy to do it manually.
Hard Rock Hotel
View from the Sentosa Line
Siloso Beach
Enjoying the sunset on the way back to Imbiah Lookout
And the sunset on the way back to Harbourfront
Taken with Sony Alpha a5100 with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar T E 16-70mm f/4 ZA OSS lens
I already had a individual membership for Faber Licence and able to take unlimited cable car rides myself. Since its expiring soon and my kids keep asking the cable car ride, I might as well get the family membership. I went to Sentosa’s cable car station but was told I can only get it done at either Harbourfront or Mount Faber. Thus I just took another ride to enjoy the scenery.
I happen to come across the Jewel Card and decided to get one. For just $39, I get unlimited cable car rides which cost $26 per adult!
Thus I went down to do a quick recee around noon. Parking at beach car park is free between 12pm to 2pm. And the jewel card allows on car to enter sentosa free. Thus, if I’m going to Mount Faber, this is much cheaper compared to valet parking on the hill.
The ‘journey’ began with a ride from Imbiah lookout. Just show the jewel card and I’m through. The best thing about going during lunch is there is no crowd and I get to enjoy the entire capsule to myself.
The atmosphere is pretty clear today and hence I get to enjoy a great birds eye view of the Sentosa and Harbourfront area.
It only took a few minutes to reach Jewel box, Mount Faber.
And there’s a nice restaurant that presumably only opens in the evening.
I had a quick look and head back to Sentosa.
Cityview from Mount Faber
Birds eye view of the Keppel Bay area.
Hence within 1 Â hour, I ‘earned’ back the worth of the Jewel Card with 2 rides on the cable car.
My kids love to play with the sand. And any parents with young children will know how to hate these fine grains. Among so many venues to play with sand, my favorite is still Palawan beach at Sentosa because it is the easiest for dirt containment and control. The washing point is nearby, the beach is not crowded, the 7-11 convenient store is around the corner and there is plenty of shade (provided we reach early). Hence armed with the Sentosa Islander card, Palawan beach has been one of our frequent family outing destination.
I’ll always bring some imaging device with me, be it Smartphone, compact cam or my DSLR, depending on the weather. Today, the weather was very good for photography (but definitely too hot to be enjoyable) and thus I brought my DSLR with me.
Sunny day make pictures nice but also tends to blow the highlights. I’ll prefer to compress the dynamic range using some tone-mapping but do take care not to make it too fake. Nonetheless, if I had never been to sentosa, I’ll have thought it really is a tropical paradise. Never believe in postcards.
This is my fourth trip to the S.E.A Aquarium and I can see I’m really making good use of my annual pass. So far, I had been relying on the fastest lens in my arsenal, the Zuiko 50mm F/2.0 lens. The lens is sharp and bright, but focusing on my old E-620 is way too slow to keep up with moving underwater creatures in the dim lightning of the aquarium. After trying for this fourth time, I almost gave up taking anything that moves.
Fortunately, there are still some lazy creatures around like these gigantic lobsters.
I forgotten to check what the following creature is but it seems ‘stuck’ in between the stones and hence made  a good target for me.
The following prawn was trying to move, but the speed it swam seems to equal some current in the water that it appeared stationary, though its feet were working very hard.
As for fishes, most can’t stop swimming and getting a sharp shot was next to impossible with my gear. However, there were still a few that swam around, but do stop once in a while to pose for me.
Back to S.E.A. Aquarium again. The first two trips was meant as a recce to find out what are available and where they are located. This time, I’m back to focus on the jelly fishes. I’m aware of the poor lighting, so this time, I brought my fast lens with me, the 50mm F/2.0 macro lens.
Before heading to see the jelly fishes, I decided to have some fun with my fisheye lens, probably my favorite now.
Shipwreck at the Strait of Karimata & Java Sea zone
Now back to the jelly fishes. I always like watching jelly fishes swimming around the water. They never failed to mesmerize me.
Jelly fishes at the Ocean Journey zone
After trying for a quite sometime. I continue to find shooting jelly fish (or any moving creatures at SEA Aquarium) a big challenge. The poor lighting limits the shutter speed and getting a sharp focus very very difficult. In the end, I had to do manual focus for one location and wait for a jelly fish to swim to that location to get a good shot. Thus even if I can get a well focused shot, the composition sucks.
After having enough shots at jelly fishes ( I can still see swimming jelly fishes even if I close my eyes), I head for the exit. Taking a few shots here and there but none came out well enough for my liking. One that turns out satisfactory, just satisfactory (far from being called a keeper in photographer’s jargon) was the shot of a Lionfish.
Lionfish at South China Sea zone
And one shot of the sharks right at the exit turn out ok, though the clipped fin ruined the composition. I’ll concentrate on these one day.
Sharks at the Shark Seas Zone
Went down to S.E.A Aquarium again. This time my primary aim was to do a overview video to introduce the Aquarium. Hence I only took with me my compact camera, Sony HX9V.
The following video is a compilation of a series of short clips I took with HX9V, put together with Windows Movie Maker and free background music from http://www.jewelbeat.com.
Tipped off by my friend that the S.E.A Aquarium was very nice and well worth the $88 annual pass for multiple visits, I went ahead and got one. I took an afternoon leave to run some personal errands and when I was finally free at about 4pm, I rushed down to S.E.A Aquarium, got my annual pass and went in for a quick 1/2 hour ‘preview’, before I rushed off to pick up my kids from the childcare.
The first thing that struck me was the similar looking glass ‘tunnel’ I saw at Underwater World. But what came after that was a welcoming difference.
There were many huge tanks with many fishes.
But after a while, I began to realised that there were many similar looking tanks and similar looking fishes. Sure, there are many many fishes… but many similar looking kind, if not the same (S.E.A. Aquarium claimed that there are 800 species of marine animals). I expected to see many exotic creatures but was quite disappointed.
As for photography, the curvy tanks and the strong lightings made distortions and reflections big challenges for photographers. Getting sharp, detailed shots of the fishes was really really difficult. Maybe that explained why there were relatively so few uploads of pictures taken at S.E.A. Aquarium to Flickr.
In conclusion, if there would not be regular updates to the species of creatures in S.E.A. Aquarium, I will definitely not renew my annual pass when it expires. With so many huge tanks, I had expected to see rare, exotic creatures of the deep as well as huge fishes. Perhaps the tanks were too big. Even the sharks look like little fishes in them.
Look my family to Sentosa again, 2nd time in 2 weeks. Originally intended to go Marina Barrage to fly kite but the surprising hot weather in the morning (good for photography though) made us changed our mind. Thanks to the Sentosa Islander pass, Sentosa is a good backup plan anytime 🙂
Sentosa has been around for so long that (other than new attractions like RWS) almost every angle has been taken. Hence I decided to play around with some HDR post processing again. I still prefer more ‘natural’ but vibrant HDR as compared to other-worldly-surreal HDR.
If only the Merlion can rotate constantly… will prefer it to look to the right
On the way back to the Central Beach Station from Imbiah Lookout. Again, if the Merlion can turn to face me, it’ll look much better 🙂
I wonder how to get on board this truck… it is a very different form of ‘transport’ option available.
Singapore Through My Eyes 