[Media Invite] Marina Bay Singapore Countdown 2016 - Hopeful Hearts and Endless Possibilities for our Future

In the 11th edition of Marina Bay Singapore Countdown, visitors can look forward to a wide range of exciting activities to celebrate the New Year. Come with a hopeful heart about the endless possibilities that 2016 may bring at this largest Countdown celebration in Singapore, jointly organised by Esplanade - Theatres by the Bay and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). 

I attended the media conference last Wednesday and after we were being briefed on the event highlights, we took a boat ride to view the 3D light projection show. Let me share what we can look forward to at the Marina Bay Singapore Countdown! Thanks Derrick (Seed Image) for this photo! 

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR AT THE MARINA BAY SINGAPORE COUNTDOWN 

2016

#1 Eight-Minute Spectacular Firework Display

This is the first time ever that the firework display will span the entire Marina Bay! Wow, I can already imagine how beautiful it would be. The opening of the Jubilee Bridge this year means that we now have more locations around the bay for an even better view. The firework display is also accompanied by a rousing original score composed by young music director Julian Wong. 

(Photo Courtesy of Darren Soh / Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay)

* Fun Facts of the fireworks display *

Max. height of fireworks: 200 metres 

No. of shell varieties: 45 types of effects

Special fireworks varieties and designs to look forward to this year: Scrambling sky comets and mines, multi break shells with tails

No. of shells fired: 1,966 shells, 853 comets, 722 mines, 323 candles, 89 multi-shot plates

#2 Festive Lighting of Buildings

As part of the festivities, selected buildings such as Ocean Financial Centre, OCBC Centre, Maybank Tower, One Raffles Place, and Millenia Tower will feature a synchronised themed lighting display before the countdown sequence. These buildings will be lit up in different hues of red and will take place for five minutes, on the 15-min, 30-min, 45-min mark from 7pm onwards. 

#3 3D Light Projection Show on the Facade of The Fullerton Hotel

This popular 3D projection show return this year to light up the facade of The Fullerton Hotel from 26 to 31 December, at various timings every night. Developed jointly by a Singapore-Canadian team of designers of Aims (Singapore) and Symmetrica (Canada), the projection show will depict multi aspects of who we are as a nation today. Images that will capture our identity as a nation, from shophouses to HDB flats to lush tropical landscapes. 

The light projections will be accompanied by a rousing soundtrack arrange by Symmetrica's Felipe Grytz and based on Victory, a composition by Singapore instrumental rock band, Paint the Sky Red. The band hopes that their song will serve as a soundtrack for self-reflection and contemplation.

The show schedule on New Year's Eve is at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm and 11.55pm that will culminate in a spectacular countdown sequence to midnight, followed immediately by the firework display. 

#4 Wishes for the Future

The wishing spheres with hopes and wishes pen down by the public since mid-November this year would also have some visual lighting casted on them. One minute, they are pink, the next they turned blue and the next yellow.  

* Fun Facts of the wishing spheres *

No of wishing spheres on the Bay: 20,000

Approx. no. of wishes collected: 500,000

No. of participating schools and VWOs: 121

No. of wishing stations: 21

 OTHER ACTIVITIES AROUND THE BAY

With a range of ticketed and non-ticketed events around the Bay, the evening promises something for everyone. 

These events include: 

• Esplanade's Celebrate December music programmes that will take place at the Esplanade Concourse and Outdoor Theatre. Join in the festive season with your family, friends and loved ones and indulge in free music performances, craft workshops and other fun activities. Find out more at www.esplanade.com/celebrate_december

• The Marina Waterfront Bazaar where the public can enjoy a festive shopping from as early as 3pm to 3am. There would be an indulgent array of artisan handicrafts, collectibles, fashion apparel and accessories on offer, with light refreshments available. Find out more at www.facebook.com/BazaarsINSingapore

• The Celebrate 2016 concert organised by MediaCorp at The Float @ Maina Bay to mark the end of SG50 and the beginning of a new era from 8pm to 3am. The concert will feature a local artistes as well as international superstar Adam Lambert. Find out more at toggle.sg/celebrate2016  

For more information and online contests, please visit

www.marinabaycountdown.sg 

Photo with CK while on the boat ride.

Looking forward to another good year. 2016, I welcome you with an open mind with more opportunities to better myself. Thank you, 2015, I have some setbacks and unhappiness here and there but ultimately I'm still very happy.

XOXO

[OUTING] Adventure Cove Waterpark + Dolphin Island at RWS

On the last Sunday of the year, I went to have a splashing good time at the Adventure Cove Waterpark, RWS as I've won myself one admission ticket to the Adventure Cove plus Dolphin Island from the SEAA Blue Planet Instagram Contest. Didn't have any photos inside the Adventure Cove as our phones were all locked up in the locker.

The park is fairly small and super crowded compared to the waterpark I went to at Legoland. There was already some delay of about 20 minutes at the entrance as they process my admission tickets and each ride inside takes about half an hour to 45 minutes waiting time. Oh, and I found the floor super painful to walk on barefooted. I'm not sure why.

Out of the 15 water attractions, three of them requires separate admission charges - Dolphin Island, Ray Bay and Shark Encounter.

The only attraction that we find attractive and can't be found at Legoland waterpark is the Rainbow Reef whereby one can snorkel with 20,000 friendly fish over a colourful Rainbow Reef. Waiting time is approx 1hr and 45 minute for this though. Since I have reserved my time slot to the Dolphin Island at 5pm, we decided to skip this and the rides and just went to the Adventure River or commonly known as The Lazy Pool that brings us through 14 themed zones including a lush garden, a mysterious grotto and an underwater tunnel experience where we watched stingrays swimming around. We also went to the Bluewater Bay or commonly known as The Wave Pool twice to relax.

  Just outside the Dolphin Island - 'Experience it today. Remember it forever' is their tagline. The dolphin looks so 3D here.

Inside the Dolphin Island, there's a wide range of programmes that lets you interact with the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins and learn more about them and they all comes in a different price tag. I went in alone and I was on the Dolphin Discovery program which cost S$98 if I have not won the ticket. For those who just want to go inside but do not wish to get down to the water, it would cost S$68. 

Bf found a spot at the second level and took photos and videos of me interacting with the dolphin through the grill! Thank you for the hard work and finding this nice spot. Hehe. Photo taking was not allowed inside as they have their own professional photographer to capture the special moments. Thus, all these photos and videos inside are sneakily taken.

The Dolphin Discovery program is suitable for non-swimmers with towels and wetsuits provided. Guests must be at least 4 years old to enter and Children below 110cm in height must be carried by a paying adult during the interaction.

We had an up-close interaction with the dolphin under the guidance of the dolphin trainer, Victoria. We also learn some interesting facts about the dolphins and some hand signals to communicate with them. The dolphin's skin was so smooth because it shed off their dead skin every two hours!

Kissing and playing some tricks with the dolphin all under the shallow water. Everyone in the group take turns to have individual time with the dolphin. Check out my videos interacting with the dolphin on my instagram profile @chewyjas

I enjoyed the lovely precious moment with the dolphin. If Quokka is the happiest animal on land, dolphin would be the happiest animal underwater. ^^ The aboved two closed-up photo with a leather folder cost $75. However, I felt the need to buy since these are the only closed-up photos of me with the dolphin and since my admission tickets is already complimentary.

Leaving Sentosa via the Sentosa Broadwalk to Vivo City for our dinner at JPot and I used a $50 mapletree voucher to pay part of it. Voucher won from the Innovati50n Instagram photo contest. Today is the day to use up my vouchers since the year is ending soon. Hope I will continue to be so lucky always. Thank you.

XOXO

[Review] ASUS ZenFone Selfie (ZD884KL)

Few months back, I attended the ASUS ZenFestival 2015 at Chijmes and shared on the availability of the ASUS ZenFone Selfie (ZD551KL) in Singapore. In this post, I'm going to share more about the user experience as I got a review set to try on.

Let's start with the appearance of the phone first. The ZenFone Selfie comes in three pastel shades of Aqua Blue, Pure White and Chic Pink which is just so sweet compared to the usual black covers most smartphones comes in.

Especially designed for a better human interaction, the ZenFone Selfie has an ergonomic arc design which is more comfortable to hold it in the palm. The volume-control and shutter button is found at the back of the phone, in an ideal position for our index finger to snap selfies and adjust the volume so one won't not lose its grip on the phone while taking a selfie.

As a blogger, the most important function for me is definitely the camera. True to its name, the ZenFone Selfie is one phone that is designed for people like me who simply loves taking selfies! It has a 13 megapixel front-facing camera and so many different settings to play around with, including a built-in beautification mode.

You know how frustrating it is when it comes to taking selfies/wefies with a big group of friends? The risk of somebody face being cut off is so high. So I really appreciate this fantastic function the ZenFone Selfie has - the Selfie Panorama which can take selfies up to 140 degrees from left to right. Now, nobody will be cut off in the group photos anymore!

Met up with Jane for dinner some weeks back and was showing her the cool camera function of the ZenFone Selfie.

Had so much laughter over the Beautification Mode function. Thank you Jane for being my model. Noticed how big her eyes are now? I wonder if she has set the 'big eyes' mode to the extreme scale of 10 to achieve this look. Hmm.

With the Beautification Mode on, it not only enables you to widen your eyes, but can also remove skin blemishes, lighten skin tone, sharpen your face and even add blushers on your cheeks for you! It comes in a scale of 1 - 10 depending on how extreme you wish to look. The effects of all these changes can be previewed instantly on the screen once you've set the scale except for the blushers effect which can only be seen when the photo is taken.

Turning on the Miniature mode to focus on the giant cookie! Really love this Christmas tree found at Toa Payoh with my favourite cupcakes, candies and cookie. Haha,

Let's not forget about the rear-facing camera. Just like the front camera, the back camera uses 13-megapixel resolution as well and the same 16 camera modes found on the front camera are offered on the rear camera as well to shoot the best possible images and videos. I brought the ZenFone Selfie with me to the media preview of the Marina Bay Countdown 2016 and all the photos in this post are taken with the ZenFone Selfie without any editing or filtering, 

Using the Night Mode function, not too bad for a phone quality. 

Selfie away. The camera comes with Super HDR technology, which improves light balance by 400%. There is this dual-LED Real Tone flash, which is on both front and back camera and it helps to deliver a fantastic combination of yellow and white light to produce well-lit shots that capture your real skin tone! 

Overall, I really exploring the different camera modes of the ASUS ZenFone Selfie phone to take photos. Moreover, the retailing price of S$379 (without contract) is rather budget friendly to most people. The only downside that I encounter is the processing time for the camera. It is a bit slow compared to my iPhone so I must maintain a steady hand even after the photo is taken cause it takes a few second for the photo to load into the album and I can't move my hand otherwise the photo will be blurred. Also, I'm too used to iOS that I still can't adapt to Andriod. 

Ending my post with one last photo of me in .gif format. So convenient to take .gif photos now with the ZenFone Selfie. Usually, I have to take and combine using a third party app. Really saves me a lot of time with this.

Thank you.

XOXO