Bintan Day 2 (Bintan Holiday 23.06.2010 - 25.06.2010)

Its been a very long time ever since I've updated about my Bintan holiday details with dearie since my Bintan Day 1 post. I could still recall my "Day 1" holiday was posted somewhere in early July. Despite that I am currently not working (and had so much free time) yet I was still so busy. Indeed, the whole one month was precious moments spent with dearie (he purposely took 1-week leave to accompany me) and we were both sooooo obsessed with catching plushies (ufo-catching).

Well anyway, I would like to continue and blog about Bintan Day 2 & 3 as they were really lovely memories I've had spent.

**********

Yay!! Day 2 wasn't as bad as much expected. After Day 1's heavy downpours, we had predicted the next day as much similar as it was compared to Day 1's... After all, the climate had changed and apparently Day 1 had been a day of mostly indoor activities...

Fortunately, the weather was just fine - sunny and breezy with shades of gleaming sunlight...Since our holiday booking included some activities (different activities such as horse-riding/elephant riding/archery/banana-boat etc etc.); we decided to head ourselves to the Leisure Center after we had our breakfast... It would be a waste if we were to slack indoors...

A 5-minute walk away from the hotel lobby, Nirwana's Leisure Center is packed with lots of fun-filled activities... There is a trampoline for children (at the left), air-rifle shooting (at the right), resting area (center), horse riding (further right), elephant park (further left), bicycle and scooter rental (further center), beach (furthest end).

We decided to explore around the area before we decide on the activities... Anyway, my initial reaction was to "HEAD TOWARDS THE HORSES!!!" Well, I could actually hear them neighing in the distance, and I got so pumped-up because the very last time I had actually seen a horse was during my primary school days whereby teachers brought us for school excursions (and erhem - ages since I've been to the zoo and I had never seen a horse since...)

We took some pictures.

(they even had a horse carriage)

(is this supposed to be a stallion?!)

(this chap kept moving 

and 

I was so afraid that it might just turned over and chew my finger off...

so I kept my distance...)

(managed to get a little closer! with the trainer around)

*****

Anyway it was kinda HOT and HUMID and neither dearie and I were quite interested in horse-riding (for 1 round) since we both preferred more ACTION-PACKED activities and eventually we chose ARCHERY and AIR-RIFLE!!! ^^ As much of you might have guessed, these activities were both my first tries... We undergo some briefing and demonstrations from their instructors and off to our tries...

I was simply mesmerized with Legolas (from the Lord of The Rings) but nevertheless, (trust me), ARCHERY IS DEFINITELY NOT AS EASY AS IT SEEMED!!!!! Despite that we had only around 30 arrows, our hands ached really hell lotss!!!

(Yay! Managed to grab some Bull's Eyes and finally ZERO arrows!)
=D

We never took any pictures while shooting the air-rifles because the stupid rifles are too heavy! I wonder how much heavier an actual rifle really is!!

To all snipers out there... CLAPS!! --> I salute you all!!

As we were walking back towards the hotel lobby, dearie suddenly grew excited when he saw the "Flying Fox"... (=.=") and as you all knew that I had phobia of vertical heights, I was dragged along with him. Flashbacks of the time when I rode Sunway's roller coaster (it was really memorable because it was the first time i rode one and i cried like hell) flashed into my head once more... Haiz, I grabbed much of courage and decided not to disappoint dearie since he kinda "psychoed" me and was soooooo enthusiastic about it...

(a faint cheeky smile but inside praying NOT to cry again)

(I'm still halfway through...

dearie was already at its peak and I tell you 

- the steps are fucking tall and difficult to climb lor!

Worst Part - the steps and decks are "see-through)

(finally at the TOP! i'm FEAR-stricken as written on my face 

- my fists were tightly-clenched around the railings and they never left once I reached the TOP!)

This was a picture of where I was standing. Can you see "me" in the middle? Imagine they are actually building another higher version of the "Flying-Fox" right at the top!!! Wtf! This picture was actually taken by dearie since he had already "flown" and my camera was kept with him... Honestly at that point of time,

I CHICKENED OUT!!!!

The instructor kept cheering me on and tried to calm me down, but I really felt faint and didn't want to continue anymore... I am seriously NOT the daring kind and well, this was my worst phobia..

Nonetheless, there was this thought in my head...

"DIE DIE LAH... JUST JUMP"

and "strangely",

I did.

(all happened so fast and i never had time to comprehend)
but this time,

NO TEARS!!!

*APPLAUSE*

It was so fun I actually intended to try a second time, but we never did because it was kinda "ex". We headed back to the hotel lobby to make scooter rental to roam around the rest of the areas of the resort. The amazing part of Nirwana Gardens was that they actually had a mini zoo in their resorts itself!!! - From snakes, crocodiles, terrapins, parrots, vultures, fishes etc...

(their terrapins unlike sg, they are BIG!)

(our first time seeing a vulture?! 

- dearie was so happy he saw one - 

just grabbed my cam and snapped)

(parrot or cockatoo? i couldn't remember...)

The electronic scooters were really convenient since the resorts' area was really huge... further down away from the zoo were the "kampong-styled stand-alone nirwana chalets... Apart from the fucking FAR distance, it is very quiet and peaceful and they even had spray fountains...

(stylo?)

Further down away from the hotel, zoo and kampong-styled resorts was the waster sports center and beach (for water sports). Anyway, I hated this fucking beach cuz' there were really a hell lot of sand-flies and i was bitten tragically! Furthermore, the beach seemed much dirtier and cumulonimbus clouds were seen forming in the distance - a slight drizzle started..

Much added to the sand-flies, we had already traveled for 1-hour and our scooter rental was up. Despite the slight drizzle, we continued to explore the beach (but this time round, it was the beach outside the hotel area). I strongly agreed that this beach is much more cleaner lor... We picked seashells, saw a hermit crab *kawaii!!!*, went for a swim in the pool, slacked at poolside cafe before we headed back to shower and also to hide from the rain.

(ps: please do NOT swim when you see lightning!!!)

See?!

(dearie looking for seashells...)

(Titled: Corals and Shells

-dearie's artwork-

we kept some of the seashells...)

(lovely sea...)

(small but mighty!)

(back to the ocean little one~)

Evening at Bintan was quite different from Singapore since their time is delayed by an hour. Therefore, 7pm skies are really dark! We saw advertisement of the "RIN" restaurant - a japanese restaurant by the seaside and we checked it out. Well, I had never been to a seaside restaurant in Singapore once and it was really a great opportunity!

(pardon my cam's nightshot - could not see the background)

(

(my favourite - chawanmushi)

(beef tempura)

(grilled gindara aka codfish)

(grilled salmon)

And dinner was spiced up with the dishes plus two bowls of garlic fried rice....

Mmmmm.... 

DELICIOUS!!!

Our moods are also dampened quite a bit as we headed back to our hotel room because we would be heading back to Singapore the very next evening... ;( 

Dinner ended around 11:00 (sg time) and along the way we headed back to our room, we managed to take a glimpse of 2 sleepy iguanas - (adopted and breed by Nirwana)

(Yawns.. watching them sleep made us sleepy..)

Despicable Me is definitely "despicably" AWESOME!

If you love animations, 

you might be interested in this...

By the creators of Ice Age,
Despicable Me is another of the best animations which I've watched so far,
and the funniest furthest!

Packed fully with laughter, this movie is a definite one of the MUST-SEE movies in 2010!!

What actually thrilled me further was that the cool 3D impact definitely made it more villainous!

Awww.... "Gru" (voiced by Steve Carrell) wasn't exactly as villainous as he seemed to be, and he was really really sweet!! (erhem.. i won't comment much about the storyline this time round because seriously,

THIS SHOW IS WORTHWHILE WATCHING!!!

Anyway, not only the movie itself is packed with fun-filled laughter, a surf from the net and visit to their movie website is packed with cool activities too...

Here's a little peek...

click here for the movie website...

and the coolest thing is:

"Would you like to dominate a minion?" 
(that would be referring to the cute alien-like creature in the movie)

YESS!!! ~They have it too!

click here for the minion domination

Well, they actually called it minion dominion and all you have to do (if you've got a microphone) or either if you do NOT have one, simply type your commands into the textbox and watch the cute little creatures interpretate your actions!
That's simple!
=)

Here's a glimpse of the cute minions.. (^^)

C'mon, don't be shy,

try it out yourself !!

Having doubts?!

Last but not least, here's the cool hilarious preview:



P/S:
Actually I had planned to watch this movie with my dear friends, but unfortunately before they fixed the date, dearie had booked the tickets online; and we were counting down on the same day to view this movie before I had actually checked facebook and realised they had planned and confirmed on watching this too.. =(
Psss... but nevertheless,
I DO NOT MIND WATCHING THIS A SECOND TIME!!
*screams*

Brand New Look... and KAIJI

i tried to conquer Blogger's new template designing tool and finally conquered it!!! Perhaps you all might thought that "wow... this girl is mad - had so much time to indulge in such time-consuming "self-figuring" activity but honestly, i wasn't satisfied the other time though it really took me almost 2 days to figure out how to edit the template "donated" by a kind soul online (its really kind of them to share the html codes), but anyway, it turned out to be FUCKING MESSY! and honestly it wasn't the fault of the person who did the design, it was just that i'm plain too stupid for the codes. 

And this time round, i decided to take a gamble and try spending a couple of hours to determine whether i'm able to figure out the "simple edition" of blogger's template tool.. and.. and... yay!! i made it!!! Seriously i do not think that this template is perfect, but i felt much better after doing it because...

1) i put SUPER-MUCH effort in figuring out the codes (its not that i did not put enough effort in past attempts; but i really took a hell-lot of concentration to focus on the bloody stuff.

2) i choreographed my own layout for the widgets and tools =P ---> meaning i designed it!!! *claps...*

3) i really loved the colors (whether its the background/text/whatever)...

Yup... 

Talking back to gamble....

i've finally watched  

KAIJI

Based on the manga (comic) series by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, KAIJI is starred by Tatsuya Fujiwara (whom previously acted as the villian "Light" in Death Note) and basically the other actors/actress are the previous cast in Death Note too!

Despite that I was quite excited to watch the show because i had missed its launch in the theaters,

i could only describe it as

IT SUCKED!

It might've been that probably i wasn't one who is too keen in gambling, but i felt that the plot, story, characters, scenes were out of place. Besides, those portions of story which could be generated further to allow the viewers to understand "why" and "how" this and that were shortened and those which supposedly SHOULD be shortened are FREAKING LONG!

and, 

(there's more)

i was totally untouched by any emotional parts and neither was i overwhelmed nor excited on those parts which supposed to grasp my attention. Was it my fault/problem or their acting was too lousy?!

Anyway, this would be up to personal opinions i guess and neither do i wish to comment this so much because eitherway, i've watched it and i would anticipate it no longer...

**********

- My Current Anticipation -

*GOEMON*

Predators

Despite the critics stating how poor the storyline of Predators seemed... Nonetheless, I thought differently. Though it had been dearie's idea to watch the movie, I have much enjoyed the movie as well. 

Unlike the 1987's Predator, this movie had another plot - whereby assasins of various countries were kidnapped and brought to the "game"; hunted by the Predators and as usual... the strongest whom will survive...

Be prepared to indulge in a world of blood and gore!! Since I am not a science-fiction fan, I would recommend this to all others not-so-science-fic fans out there, as there are not much into details of science-fic and I'm sure most of you will enjoy the suspense throughout a show... =)

Bintan Day 1 (Bintan Holiday 23.06.2010 - 25.06.2010)

"We are going to Bintan; I have already reserved tickets for it..." 

I was surprised but really excited when dearie first told me about the details that he had reserved tickets for our Bintan Trip. Initially we had planned for a relaxing getaway but failed (I could still remember how fucking expensive and hectic trip it had been - well I will post a backdated post on it later when I have time..), and how upset we were with our busy lives... Therefore, when we tried to research and plan our Bintan getaway, we gave up initially because the short trip seemed to be kind of expensive and unreasonable if we are going to save up for our upcoming Taiwan trip...

It was really a pleasant surprise for dearie to actually decide to continue our initial plans to Bintan despite some other ideas of going to Langkawi, Redang Islands etc etc... Dearie's colleague recommended HolidaysBagus and we eventually chose the Nirwana Resorts - since they catered all sorts of sea sports and other activities... Even the night before our actual departure, Dearie was actually nice enough to wait for me to pack my belongings and picked me up from home before setting off to stay over at his house overnight since it was nearer to the ferry terminal!

On the actual day of the trip itself, Dearie's dad offered to drive us to Singapore Cruise Center (located at Tanah Merah). We reached around noon; to check in our stuff and collect our tickets. We were quite early then - around 2 hours ahead of our departure time...

We loitered abit around SCC (Singapore Cruise Center) and even filled up our visitor's cards (to Bintan) before we proceeded to check in... The weather wasn't quite friendly to us and it even a heavy downpour started even before we boarded our ferry... Since we were really early - approximately 1/2 an hour early before we could even board the ferry, we camwhored a little while waiting for the ferry to even arrive at the jetty... It was really a different experience from the usual air trips, and we both were really enthusiastic despite the storm dampening our spirits...

Unlike the usual boarding passes for flights, I feel that the ferry boarding passes are damn cute!! 

And the fucking part which dampened our spirits even further was that.....

OUR TRIP GOT DELAYED!!!

Even after we had boarded the ferry, due to some unforeseen immigration details, our ferry got delayed for almost 45 minutes! Whadafuck right?! The sea was really choppy due to the heavy downpour and the ferry was swaying from side to side (erk... the thought of it now make me seasick! bleah!) No doubt that it rained heavily, we chose the window seats.. (pss..pss...I got to know from dearie that it was his first time boarding a ferry...) so I let him have the priority of the "window seat"!! (claps claps...) Yesss... as all might have predicted, to calm my seasickness,

we camwhored camwhored and camwhored!!

Stormy Seas...

Ferry ride to Bintan took approximately 1 hour to reach from Singapore... No doubt that it was pouring so heavily when we set off, Poseidon finally calmed down a little and the churned storm cooled down to a light drizzle (with quite big raindrops =.="). Nevertheless, we were really happy to have reached our destination, and to all who have worries of wasting too much of precious time, Bintan is actually 1 hour backward of Singapore - for example if Singapore is 4:00pm, Bintan would have been 3:00pm then... 

Upon exiting the arrival gates, there will be "tour guides" from various resorts awaiting for guests' arrival... And you will be lead to the various resorts' buses which will drive you to your designated hotels/resorts. Alternatively, a choice of hitching a private taxi will also be available...

We boarded the Nirwana Resorts coach, expected of "continually-wasted time", we waited for other passengers to board - for the coach to fill up before it departs to our destination... We were quite surprised by how much crowd there was then...

The usual culture for the arrived guests was that the resorts' entertainers would perform a short musical/dance to welcome the guests followed by a glass of refreshment.. Haiz, I did not manage to grab any pictures of that because dearie and I were actually the last persons to get off the coach and the performance ended abruptly after we actually reached the hotel lobby... =(

Honestly the check-in session was also quite dissatisfying due to the super long queue and slow attendance... 

*ROARZ!*

It was crap but upon arriving at our room's comfort, 

it manged to ease away our frustrations a little. 

We had chosen a deluxe room (garden faced) since all the sea-view rooms have been occupied left with suites... nevertheless, the view was comforting, and I felt that the room was not so bad...

It was still drizzling though and we took a little rest while watching "Red Cliff" on their provided channels... The movie was airing halfway through and after the movie ended, we went down for a little stroll despite the "quite big" drizzle... 

Though it was drizzling and the skies were grey, Bintan really have an awesome view!! 

How I wished that Singapore do have that too!!

We strolled quite abit around the beaches and explored our way around the resorts... Our tummies rumbled quite badly since it was almost SG 5:30pm.. Their staffs and catered services were really nice. 

Despite we were quite drenched, we could still dine in their cafes. 

(just imagine we were back in Singapore then... erhem!)

a view from our table..

We ordered a cheesecake (I had thought that it was a tiramisu) but anyway, it was really creamy... Dearie ordered rice with sea-bass while I had crunchy lamb! Mmmmm... the sound of the dish's name made me drooled...

Here's a peek from their transparent kitchen and a glimpse of their chef..

dearie's rice with sea-bass..

a

We were busy taking down memorable pictures despite our empty stomachs!! And I did dearie the honor of taking his picture with my camera adjusted to a sunset mode..
and another of him wolfing down his rice!

=D

 a close-up of dearie's sea-bass rice

Luckily for me, my crunchy lamb looked promising as in the short description of the menu...
Mmmm...

With a zest of peaches (dried), sprinkled with grounded peanuts, the roasted lamb spelled
~DELICIOUS!~
Added with boiled butter vegetables and mashed potatoes,
the sauce and everything was totally divine!
There was no strong smell of the lamb at all...
and I,
really really enjoyed it!!

As we made our way back to our room, we also noticed something which was very cute!

Life-sized chess and Spongebob snakes and ladders game! Apparently, there are timings whereby you can actually play the games itself... The chess really reminded me of Harry Potter whereby there was one movie where he actually played the life-size chess...

***


Life in Bintan is really relaxing; especially after the sun sets down... Literally it is soothing, calming and very breezy... Since we've got free bowling games, we decided to make our way to the Leisure Center and catch some bowling fun before we actually retire for the night...
On our way out to the Leisure Center (approximately 5-min walk from the hotel), we noticed that the view from the koi pond in front of the lobby was quite mesmerizing...

Too bad its such a waste since my camera's night mode sucks!

I supposed when you heard bowling, you might think that
eeeksss...
the alley must be something like the Queenstown Bowl in the olden days..very old and lousy...

Dearie aiming a shot for the pins...

and 
"STRIKE"!!

and he even secretly took a picture of me... (=.=")

The best part of bowling in Bintan was ...
They even had a cocktail bar in their bowling alley!!
=)

All you need to do to enjoy was to order your favourite cocktail/mocktail
and there you go...

Last but not least,
we took a memorable picture before we left...