Weekend Theatre Marathon

In the weekend I was among the lucky ones who managed to catch two fantastic theatre plays at Esplanade. The Royal Shakespeare Company came to Singapore with two super cool productions: Kind Lear by the good old Shakespeare and Seagull by Chekhov and we were inspired enough to buy tickets months in advance to catch it.

As expected, the whole show was solid and outstanding. You come out from a show like this saying wow, these guys really know theatre. Obviously it was the best show I have seen in Esplanade in the past two years I was here in Singapore. Here are some reasons why I thought it was outstanding:

- Very natural and world class acting, very nice pronunciation and accent
- Great set, costumes and good effects
- The whole show was flowing naturally like a river and it felt very very real. Even the set changes were very well done, smooth and innovative.
- The actors truly lived the characters and the expressions and feelings they have expressed were very real.
- It felt like not being in the theatre but watching the events live when they happened in those old times, or felt like being in the room with the people when the action happened (being in the first row for the second show helped as well )
- Simple yet complex shows
- Just felt so good seeing these two shows. After the show I left with a strange feeling that I could not explain, but which just moved something inside me that made me feel in a way that I can’t explain though.

The only downside of it was that the King Lear was a bit tough to understand in terms of old English language and accent. But I guess that’s a good reason to watch it again next time and catch all the dialogues that I have missed this time.

It was very refreshing to see these shows and realised that I really miss going to good theatre. I used to go quite often while I was a student, but since then haven’t seen much. Of course Singapore might not be the place for the kind of performances I appreciate.

Pleasant Surprise

I haven’t been travelling for a while because I screwed my knee and could not do my dive trip. So I am really looking forward to go to Cambodia in the first week of august, I need to get out from Singapore. Of course any trip comes with some pain for getting the visa. But not for Cambodia!!!

I was firstly shocked when I found out that you can apply for the visa online, upload your picture there and pay with credit card. My shock was even bigger when I got my visa approval in 1 hour and 8 minutes from the time I have submitted. I just print the e-visa out and I show up at the border in Cambodia. It’s amazing, makes life so simple. Of course the simplest would be if no visa would be required!!! All the countries having a visa policy, but want to make good money from tourism should follow this example!!! Either to cancel visas (like Malaysia, Singapore) or have an easy system which does not require one page of your passport each time you enter the country.

Really looking forward to my trip. A poor country which has e-visa can be nothing else but great :):):)

Weekend Movie Marathon

A very painful knee ligament sprain put me down for two weeks or so and need to rest my knee, stay at home and keep my knee under ice while eating some wicked medicine that makes me sleepy. Had to cancel my dive trip and felt like doing nothing in the weekend because the pain made me very inpatient, so I was not in the mood to read or work or do anything. “What to do, What to do?” was my question (in Singlish) so I decided to rent lots of movies. And that was my whole weekend, watching DVDs, one after the other. Don’t ask me the names of all movies that I have seen, but most of them are comedies and made the weekend to pass very fast luckily.

I watched some serious movies as well, mostly the ones I missed watching in the cinema and I have to highlight 3 that I have really liked: The Last King of Scotland, Letters from Iwo Jima and A Good Year. I know the last one is not really matching the first too, but I got into romantic mood, I dream of having a castle like that and a vineyard, so it had kind of everything I desire :):):)

I realized that there are so many good movies that are passing by and don’t have time to watch them, so I should go more often to cinema or get some movie watching evenings sometimes. It turned out to be a good weekend at the end of the day even though it was not diving. Now I am back to my reading while staying at home. So I end this post and go back to my exciting book :):):)

Wicked Dive Trip

Last weekend I did a wicked dive trip to Tioman Island in Malaysia. I haven’t been there for a while, so I just couldn’t wait longer and went there with a bunch of crazy guys from the company.

Nice rainbow in the morning while we were going for our first dive:

We left Friday evening and it was very nice to stay on the top deck of the boat and look at the stars, just listen how the boat hits the calm sea and the waves. It was very relaxing.

Asian Style picture underwater:

Saturday we had 3 dives and Sunday we had 2 dives. As usual, all dives are cool and lots of nice corals and fish to see. Did not manage to see shark this time, but met a chilling turtle under a rock and played with some Nemo fish, visited some ship wrecks and enjoyed the millions of wonders of the oceans and coral reefs. It is a different universe and happy to be able to explore.

I like this funky picture. I was diving at aroun 25-30 m at a shipwreck when this fish was swimming around and looking at me and me looking at it for a while. So wicked:)

Chilling on the boat after dive and trying some wicked sunglasses:
Making fun of the Titanic and pozing for cheesy photos. We had lots of fun on the surface as well!What was special about this dive trip is that I was the leader of the last dive. Which meant that I had to do all the underwater navigation (which is not that easy as it seems for the first time because there is not much of reference), set the pace, make sure that everybody is following and we have a safe dive. Of course a dive master was covering my ass, but I guess I did well, as we surfaced right at the location we had to surface and we managed to see some sting ray as well.

I am leading the dive here:) Follow the leader:)
I am looking forward to my next dive trip where I will probably lead some more dives and become a dive master or master diver probably next year if I will have enough experience and time to get the certificate, hehehe.

Just a nice picture with the dive boat:

Addicted

I have to admit I have an addiction. I am addicted to Lychee. No, Lychee is not a girl if that’s what you were thinking about (that’s another story, yah?), but one of the fruits I discovered in Asia. Now is Lychee season, so I can fully satisfy my addiction.

It is sweet and delicious and juicy and soooo damn good:). Can’t stop eating lots and lots of it. If you want to seduce me or earn some brownie points, then bring me some more Lychee. Like 5 kg would be a good start….. Yeah…. I am off now to get some more lychee…. Yamm … yamm….