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Proud to be a child of God, a faithful son (I hope lol) a trying to be hardworking student, a part-time worker, a nerf/milsim enthusiast, a crafting and music lover and an awesome friend. to you :) Hope you have an enjoyable time reading about my life, as much as I have fun living it! |
Minimalist
I am a university student who loves chocolate! Coffee is my best buddy when it comes to taking on my finals. I have a tendency to want to try and do so many different things at once and as a result, I've found my hobbies to be as such!
Nerfing is one of them, but aside from that, I also love arts and craft. I have my own startup, Thumbforlego at: where I sell my works!
I love to do all sorts of crafting, so you will see me uploading posts of my leathercrafts, thumbdrives, replica guns, nerf gun modifications and gundam models! I'm fortunate enough to be blessed by really supportive parents and given the chance to explore many, many parts of the world and try out a plethora of activities. This is also how I discovered my love for film photography, videography and piano.
The film photo above is unedited! My family loves cold countries xD. We managed to catch the northern lights twice!
I've also gotten the chance to experience many of nature's wonders
And my most freezing experience to date: riding a husky ski sled into the sunset (It was -38 to -40 degrees celsius and the huskies were pretty fast.)
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Why 36000feetabove? This is the altitude that commercial planes cruise at and I have always loved the view up in the sky, being amongst the sea of clouds. :) Personally, my favourite favourite food has got to be airplane buns! Does anyone else feel the same way?! With a slice of butter and looking out of the window, I have yet to find an experience that can beat that.
After tomorrow, before today
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Sunday, February 23, 2014
hahaha sorry guys for not blogging for so long, so long = missed last weekend. well that's because my life has been pretty hectic, that as my army chapter comes to a close, its time to open a new chapter pretty soon, but before i jump to the university chapter, im gonna work first! work for fun, work to kill time, work because i need MONEY. getting pretty broke :( not good. i've been really busy trying to plan and fit everything into schedule, especially with all the job offers bombardments! Ya know, its kinda ironic when you life gets really busy, hence you need a planner, but yet, it's so hectic you cant find the time to get a planner. good thing is that i've FINALLY gotten my planner, and for those wondering why not use my handphone's calendar (even though i link my gmail calendar with mah phone) well thats because... its so hard to use your phone's calendar and coordinate! I've even used my online calendar and find it VERY troublesome. :/ still prefer pen and paper. (y) that rules.
ANYWAY, well the time has come, for me to say ORD LOHHHHHH i'm really glad that my army life is now over, as i now have more time to do whatever i want! :D (might as well dont say anything) well i took photo of myself, wearing the number four for the one last time :> sigh have to wear the beret for this xD
well from Dragon Coy in BMT, to 30SCE (didnt have a good experience with this unit. It's just bad.) and then over to Signal institute to be trained as a signaller, before getting posted to 3DA. :) Oh look at that baggy uniform zzzzzz. Really thankful that i've actually experienced a really well rounded NS life, in terms or hardship 30SCE lolol and really enjoyable NS life, 3DA xD Really thankful that when i went over to the Air Force, commanders there are A LOT more lenient and we get lotsa welfare! Really friendly and supportive unit, despite all of the arrows flying from office to office HAHA ah all those memorable arrows through emails :P
Before i continue to blabber on,
30SCE=Singapore Combat Engineers
3DA=Defence Artillery
okay i am seriously getting distracted from wingsuit flying videos :3 definitely on my bucket list! :P though i think it will always remain there and never come to past LOL. Whatever.
Damn i think i would definitely need to learn base jumping first. Sheeesh.
Come'on wingsuit flying just seems so COOL right!!!
My NS life has been a really interesting 2 years for me, some people find National Service a drag, some people enjoy it. I enjoyed mine and i certainly hope that my friends would do so too. :) IMO, its the attitude that counts and of course, play smart. :) That was my attitude when i entered 30SCE and didnt see why i should be contributing. Make the most out of your situation and play smart lah. I mean like if you're being ill treated and all, obviously dont proclaim that you know how to do this and that because you'll just get more arrows at ya. Am really glad that when i went over to 3DA, things were really more merit-based over there. When you do well or do lotsa work, you get recognised and all, and the commanders there are really kind! :) so in a way, i felt compelled to work hard and give in effort :) Overall, i would say that i would have learnt and experienced a lot during 3DA, 30SCE was good because it gave me something to compare, it was a really good benchmark to use! Other than that....well my bunk mates were nice! That's about it. Nothing else is good. Really hate that unit. then again, personal opinion. Standards are low, processes seem illogical and you get scolded for no reason and the "bonding" between the men is always thought to be built through hardship. Unlike in 3DA whereby when we go outfield, we simply support one another and help each other to prepare, especially when there's a lot of equipment to handle. My experience with 30SCE wasn't pleasant at all, although some of the sergeants there were really kind. From what i gather, 30SCE in summary. it's a "Everyone makes everyone's life hard" environment. Which either i dont appreciate, or i dont understand. Pretty sure it's the latter.
I found myself really thankful when i got posted over to Signals and then to 3DA, but i guess it's only when you experience hardship do you truly comprehend the joy of being in a much more liberal unit. Going through audit period, we call it office outfield, because you pretty much camp in the office and iron things out....erm not fun. but an experience. lolol well overall for my NS life, i lost about 20+kg of weight and i intend to keep it that way! by keeping fit xD hopefully lose even more weight :) no matter how, not needing to book in on sunday nights feel so awesome! the thought of you being able to just tkae your time and blog, not having to worry about any time limit or whatsoever, it feels good :) which is also why i keep running over to youtube and nerf stuffs. fyi i am into my second out of typing this blog post. which just goes to show how ridiculously distracted i am. There goes my plans to paint any nerf guns tonight~
wowow seriously the new nerf blasters just look too cool....time to start saving up! *Scoots off to nerf land~
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Today, for a small part of a big mission of clearing up and "updating" my house, i begin my preparations to increase the wifi coverage in my house, from only second floor, to first floor too. As well as since mum upgraded our optic fibre speeds to over 300mbps, i got to test out the new speeds and make sure the cables and modems can support! Also, I intend to take the mio box (router) out of the network, and introduce a new modem.Currently, my house has... one Singtel white mio box router, (which sucks) i have one black one version lying somewhere around... one Linksys E2500 modem that supports over 300mbps one huawei optical fibre modem and a thousand and one assortment of cables. i have cat4, cat5e wlan cables, old telephone landline cables. the power cables can get really annoying at times. especially when the heavy plug falls off or something. FYI, the video that i took is the current config that i have done in the past, and then the process of 'upgrading'. The final one ain't ready yet! This is the start! the huawei optical fibre modem, which is housed snugly inside my storeroom! What happens is that the connection is on first floor, and due to the limitation of the length of optical fibre, i got to keep the modem close, so i hung it behind the door. INSANE length of wlan cable.i think it was 35m? Checked all the cables in the house to ensure they enable higher data transmission speeds! :) my house is pretty dark, so sorry for the bad lighting! Some may ask, like hey ming yang, why not buy and extremely long optical fibre and line it like what you did with the wlan cable all the up? ? well two reasons, #1. It's EXTREMELY expensive to buy excessively long optical fibres. #2. They are very very fragile so i am not going to take the risk. Remember the coil of extra length of wlan cable that i have? Having too long of a distance actually slows down the data speeds due to it having to travel a longer distance, but it's cut at the right length so that i wouldn't need to install a networking switch to boost the speeds again :) Also, it is always good to work with slacks, as contingency, and also just in case someone magically trips over the wire, which shouldn't be happening if you wire it properly. I soon try and figure, playing around with the connections to eliminate the router. Because having it is like having an extra "traffic light junction". And everybody knows that when they are rushing for time, they would rather speed on a highway (or freeway) instead of having lots of junctions! Same concept, i want my data FAST and NOW. In the next video, you begin to see my main intention, of installing a second modem to the home network. it was a total pain trying to do the rewiring which is hidden at the back of the table, because of the sheer amount of cables that we once had, as well as the massive mess that was standing in the way between me and the cable. boooooo! Well at least FINALLY, after clearing out the mess on the table and around it, so that i can access the cables and give em a good clean up, i'm finally on the way to successfully linking the new modem into the network! So tomorrow, i can install the modem downstairs, so that we can have wifi coverage on the first and second floors of the house! Also, the wifi would have LIGHTNING speeds too! Wohooooo~! No such thing as buffering for videos, no such thing as waiting for a page to load, everything becomes instant!! Sounds kinda extreme to have a home network that goes over 300mbps but it's needed given that my family uses the internet and all over often and excessively, depending heavily on speeds! The modem splits up to four of our computers, fully utilising all the ports that it has to offer xD CORRECTION, wLAN PORT, not CABLE. my cable is perfectly fine xD sheeesh seriously it sucks having to connect only via wifi to the modem for now, one day i gotta visit Sim Lim Square and send my desktop in for checking :( from what i gathered, its a hardware problem with the port, so gonna get it changed! (y) But now, as i install a new modem tomorrow, we're gonna have FOUR more ports that support over 300mbps!! which will probably never be used! :D seriously at the rate this is going, I can set up LAN gaming shop in my house man... :P Configured the new Asus RT-N56U modem into the ip address, MAC codes and all done already, tested connecting my phone via wifi to it, cabled it to my bro's lappy, everything's OK! After having a troublesome problem of the router not recognising my user and password xD nearly died HAHA but it's alright now! just left with tomorrow to install it, clear up some excess cables tomorrow and tadaaaaa~! who know when i'm gonna update #procrastinator Sunday, February 09, 2014
ANNOYING PIMPLE ON MAH NOSEokay let's get on with this blog post shall we? :) So finally!! The airshow that everyone's been talking about! (everyone = everyone - air force peeps, i dont know why xD ) This year's airshow somehow felt a lot smaller than the previous years, which were held at paya lebar air baseeeee but the airshow was still amazing!! especially with those uber cool looking planes :D makes me feel like spray painting one xD i mean like how cool would it be if you could buy a scrap airplane body, deco it and put it in your garden! :D as i looked through the videos that i took, realised there's like only 1 video of the Singapore black knights that seems good enough to be posted xD i'm still pretty amateurish with my camera's video settings, and the focus zzzz it alwauys goes off. but anyway! The airshow is really really good! :)) especially the black eagles from Korea!!! Apparently, they are the best acrobatics team for last year, and they're really good! :D Actually, the reason why my blog is named 36000feetabove is because of the altitude that planes fly at. At 36000 feet, that is where you see the sea of clouds below as you look out of your plane window. :) I've always loved the view at that altitude, especially when you have a crimson sky of red clouds, and an awesome bun, with a slab of butter inside, airplane style :P i call it the airplane bun :P somehow, i totally LOVE those kinda buns hahahaha ahhhhh retarded me xD But yeap yeap i love airplanes, i love the feeling when one becomes so carefree and simply sits there and takes in what the scenery has to offer at 36000 feet above. :) That, is actually how i got my blog url. Let's get back to Singapore Airshow 2014 shall we~! LINKS GALORE TIME. just to make the life of those not-so-plane enthusiasts have a much easier time to read through this blog post, :) all the aircraft names are surely going to confuse somebody! BOOMZ first confusion. This is an upgraded heron apparently. not ours! Moving on, most of the aircrafts that singapore use are featured in this airshow! well the ones that couldnt make it for the airshow include the C130 and the KC135. Of course the phantom plane wasnt there xD Cool thing is that both of the UAVs, the Heron and Hermes were there. Well when i go outfield, we tend to work pretty closely with the UAVs xD All the helicopters were there... like the apache, (which has an enormously long tail), the chinook and the Super Puma, the seahawk was there too! hehe by far, i find the seahawk the most cool looking 8) okay i have photos of the apache, chinook and super puma, so dont panic!! :) Chinook Super Puma I've always loved planes since young, and i still remember always buying all sorts of plane magazines, Always wanting all kinds of different airplane models when i was a kid! I would then neatly file the magazines and put them in a protective cover, reading them whenever i'm in the car. :) You know how cars have those back seat pockets? yeap i use em to put 2 airplane mags when i was younger, while my bro's side would be empty! yes i ALWAYS sit on the left side of the car back seat xD. I also remember randomly throwing helicopters out of the window at my grandma's place when i was still young in a crib, thinking that they could fly. Poor grandma would always walk from the 6th floor all the way down anfd back up, only to see me throw it out of the window again, as though it was a second sortie! and the process repeats. Every time the helicopter is in my hands, it soon finds its way out of the window. :) Wow i can totally imagine grandma doing a vertical marathon man :/ darn i'm evil. Not to mention, she's never scolded me before and i only have a recollection of her smiling and going out of house to pick up that helicopter from the first floor! But still, thank you grandma for always going back down to pick up that helicopter toy of mine!! i still have that very toy in my house, it's a die cast Cobra helicopter with desert camo on it :) That company who made that toy should deserve a medal man.... Amazingly, i managed to find the toy being sold on ebay! :D Yes my love for airplanes and how such a heavy load stays mid air for prolonged periods still continue to wow me :) Which is also why i wanted to be a pilot! :D well our planes cant fly with a peace of mind if they dont have Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) people protecting the skies isnt it?! So that's what i am in, 3DA! It stands for Defence Artillery. Pretty different from the usual Artillery that people would think about hence friends also mistake what i actually do for national service :P Here is a photo showcasuing the various GBAD platforms that we have! with the middle one being PSTAR, the radar team that does give us air pictures too! These are all the different missles that the RSAF uses to shoot down air-nemies HUE HUE HUE all of them having different ways to control, and different ranges that they engage their target :) The photo below is the very vehicle that i have been hiding in during various outfields! It's a really really noisy vehicle, but fun when you take it as a joyride :D like when we had family day! ACTUALLY, the Singapore Airshow too was the family day for the whole RSAF! funny thing is we had our unit anniversary on the day before :) Every thing stacks together pretty sweetly to guarantee ourselves a long weekend! In fact, i am only returning to camp on THURSDAY. which means i'm booking in on wednesday night!! how awesome is that :D SO this is the plan, thursday shall be a "i have no idea what's going on, let's just sleep thursday" then friday is WOOT valentines day!! but for me it's gonna be foreveralone day!! :D Well the vehicle has a mounted RBS-70 set on it as you can see, and at the bottom, you can see me sitting on the dismounted set! HAHA having been exposed to this equipment for so long, i've learnt how to set up and use a little bit of this equipment! though i am signal-trained, which means i communicate more with Hermes the UAV (wow now hermes sounds like some kids show mascot or something) and with the other firing units! One firing unit = 1xV200. :) oops i forgot to mention, the vehicle above is called the v200! Looks real hardy but the interior is EXTREMELY CRAMPED especially when you have everything mounted inside! if i have to wear y iLBV, or the vest that you usually see the army people wear, its nearly impossible to squeeze out of that vehicle. :/ Well these are the fellow comrades who have accompanied me on this NS journey of mine!! Even though some of us are drivers, some of us are operators, some as signallers, it is also because of our different vocations that keep us working together, helping one another whenever a need arises :) that makes outfield even more fun, because you have different people operating different equipment! Here, you have the F15 SG, a variant with upgraded blah blah blah for singapore's needs! Its HUGEEE as compared to its F16 counterpart. Here's another photo for comparison sake, look at those massive thrusters behind!!!! absolute boss :P Ah but i sill prefer the F16, due to its design :) i mean like since i've never flown in any of these 2 planes, other than playing around with the simulator, i cant really comment much can i! but the f16 looks wayyyy cooler xD though it's payload seems considerably a lot smaller than the F15 C130, Hercules plane. They had a US version here too! lemme find that photo.. there it isssssss An air force personnel looks on as a kid has a go at the f16 flight simulator. THey have quite a number of simulators here, dont know if we can try this xD though i must say it looks SO COOL :D as you can see on the screen, its like as though he is examining an entire aircraft, down to the little teeny bits inside I have this weird idea :P how about, you take this simulation set and wear it to bed :P then you can play with it while lying down on bed!! though it will be kinda weird on why someone would want to fix aircrafts while lying down in bed. A new wa y to count sheep to fall asleep i guess? :> Also, i so happen bumped into Sam!! HAHA he is one of the friends i met during my Finland trip, Singapore is sure such a small island isnt it! That's why i love going on group tours, because you get to mix around with others too! hehe he happened to be working part time there :) shuks he's taller than me! Remember i told ya about the Korean pilots? well the US too did bring some of their stuff over too, like the Osprey which is a Vertical Take Off Landing (VTOL) plane, a C17 Globemaster and a C130 hercules that i showed earlier! :D i was SHOCKED when i saw the C17 alright! its so hugeeeee! i've always wanted to see a C17 and a C5 Galaxy. So half of my wish has already been fufilled!! :'D i've always wanted to see the B2 Spirit bomber too! :P although i know that's probably NEVER gonna touch Singaporean soil... A mustang??? O.o oh well~! This is the Osprey, heard it's getting increasingly popular with US marines! *shrugs shoulders* and my favourite C17 Globamasterrrrrr :DDDD WELL OF COURSE I WOULD KEEP THE BEST TO THE LAST (just like how i do so with my food unless bro is there then everything changes) the F35, the stealth joint strike fighter. This is the very aircraft that can hover on the spot like as though it's a helicopter! :D thus its able to do VTOLs too! WOW SERIOUSLY i've never had a blog post with this much links alright!! I want a new pianoooooo :((( Haha alrighty alrighty now let me bring you to the airshow part! the BEST part of the whole airshow, other than the awesome f35 :D i have two photos here as appetisers for ya, while let me go prepare the main dishes alright! I have a four course meal prepared for ya, do enjoy it alright! Tips and props goes to my wonderful, trusty Canon SX40HS which has served me so well in extreme conditions, and this time, serving me well with its whopping 35x optical zoom lens :3 TIPS FOR ALL WHO ARE GOING TO THE AIRSHOW: please...PLEASE bring some massive sunglasses and massive zoom lenses. they come in VERY handy. if you have those massive zoom lenses, you can even consider hiding under shelter while letting your zoom lens and steady hands take over the job, though i'm pretty sure it wouldnt go well xD (why suggest it in the first place wowowow) i had quite some bit of fiddling with my hands with my 35x zoom, because of the speed of the aircrafts, as well as the glaring sunlight. It's really hard to keep track of the aircrafts while recording! In fact, sometimes i just trust that the planes are in the frames and i just move the camera accordingly, while watching the show :P worked out better than expected xD go full screen peeps :) make sure HD is on too! you have to set the settings all the time from what i gather, my YT refuses to stay on 1080p. :(( Here are some of the acrobatic performances, if you're GOING for the UPCOMING airshow NEXT WEEK, please do NOT watch the videos!! Instead, just enjoy the airshow when you're there, be early! :) Also, please do stay on and watch the other performances like the black eagles performing, after our black knights do so! The sequence is: 1. Black Knights, 2. USAF 3. Black Eagles (Korea) That's all folks!! Well it's been quite a long time since i've done a post that doesnt have snow in it! :P Monday, February 03, 2014
So.... I looked at the photos and was wondering whether i would split the blog post into two! because its the first day of ice hotel. Well FINALLY FINALLY, mum's bucket list, the ICE. HOTEL. Funny thing is that i told mum about it!! but when i found out the price that we had to pay (Including the whole holiday) it was shocking alright! but after looking back at all the fun times i had during this trip, i do feel happy and sad! happy that the memories are good, sad that "those were the good times" i mean when you come back to Singapore, then that's when your everyday life hits back at ya, all the work, timings, fretting over future studies. There's so many things to worry about!! But Chinese New Year is into the third day! xD Frankly speaking, i had no idea CNY was coming THIS soon alright! i thought i still had a long while more to go, life seems pretty mysterious/messy now as i see it as a transitioning period. Though nothing is really transitioning. I'm weird!
Yes yes, i've been grossly sick for the past weeks! Am still sick *sigh* with very bad flu! i guess it's the lack of sleep...which doesnt make much sense judging by the amount of sleep i get in camp :P Frankly speaking i've been very very busy with my nerf gun modifications, due to all of those crop-ups that you get from time to time. This time its pretty major ones....major because i dont know what's wrong, which is pretty annoying and pissing! but oh well~~ here's a sneak peak of a blaster i am doing! plus i still got to get started on Jerome Jr's rampage...plus i'm supposed to do one for myself!
Hmmm just a preview! i'm really hoping that i can get this one done and move on to others but.....
OKAY BACK TO THE SNOW
So after a really boring night of watching movies, we had 2 chinese nationals who are studying at finland, to fetch us over to sweden! apparently they are four hours behind finland.... was it?! LOL i dont remember! whateverrrrrrr
BOOMZ this is the morder of sweden and finland! you know what's surprising? there is absolutely no one guarding it, so you can simply go back and forth! pretty simple. It's just snow snow snow everywhere~
Oops i nearly forgot, here is the mini van that we got! its pretty comfy, with wifi inside! so i could actually surf the net while the van just cruised along the snow. Though i took this time to catch 9999999999 winks, it's good to keep yourself healthy with sufficient sleep so that you can enjoy your holiday when it's the time to! I took this photo, extremely blur i know, to show you how's the sky like in the afternoon! the clock on my phone was following their time, not Singapore's time. We had a pit stop at a cafe which was filled with IKEA furniture, moreover IKEA is from Sweden! too bad we didnt visit their outlets there, i think mum should have a photo of it... You can see how nicely done up the place is! and you really have a very christmas-y feel in there, partly because the decorations are pretty simple and traditional, should have taken more photos inside xD thought i did. Ah but even the toilet is very nicely decorated! it really shows the amount of effort they are willing to put in, although there's absolutely no one inside! What was surprising is that after ordering some cooking and sorts of snack, she actually offered us her handmade cookies! so hospitable huh!! and she gave us more than what we ordered. I guess that's the difference between them and us. We instead, are so calculative and tend to be pretty defensive/selfish. HEHEHEHE shuks i so love this photo!!! Because of the pink clouds and the colour resolution seems just right! :D moreover this is the exact contrast of how it was when i was there! pretty homey dont ya think so?? :D :D
I'M STILL IN AWE OF THIS PHOTO hahahah ahhhhhh so proud of myself! xD xD
Let's plunge right into the ice hotel!! It's split into two parts, one is the warm rooms, the other is the cold rooms. The first night was a cold one, then the second night is the warm one! mum planned it that way and i felt that it is a good way, just in case you feel that the ice hotel is too cold for ya, you wouldn't be dying during the second night! It's actually quite cold alrighttttt.
These are the warm rooms! It's really spacious inside :> you'll get to see the interior in my next blog post for sure! because that's when we moved to the warm room. This is the entrance to the ice hotel! Past this wall on the right, you have the reception area :) EH BRO, WHATcha looking at huh! OkAY and this is the cold room reception area! The ice block you see in front, is supposed to be as transparent as the block on top of it. That's the original ice block! however, on the night before, -40 degrees celcius, whereas when we reached, it was -20. So.... due to the drastic change in temperature, the ice actually became frosted! This is the interesting part, Ice hotel ice is actually supposed to be totally transparent! like the one you see. This is due to the oxygen-hydrogen composition in the river water which makes it special when it freezes. This is unlike our ice cubes, that have a whitish layer above or at times, the entire ice cube becomes frosted! So that's how it's supposed to be like, everything transparent! We soon checked in our luggage and all, there was some free time so we could roam around. Also, the people were kind enough to give us an introduction of the place! Even if there's only two of you, they will still give an introcution for ya! This place actually became our home fot the night, until it was time to sleep! But i dont think i will blog till that far for now.... if not, the blog post is going to be pretty elongated. We soon got our pass, we have to put this on throughout, especially in the night because they need to identify that you are someone sleeping there for the night, because during the day, they allow visitors into every room to explore. That is because not all the rooms are the same! Moreover, it's hard to get a room in the ice hotel, so you actually have to book quite far in advance! Mum booked an arts suite for bro and I, and a normal cold room for herself and dad. Pricings... i think it was a thousand plus Sing dollars per night for the arts suite, so just one night is good enough. i forgot the actual pricing.... will find out from mum when she's somewhere around. Ah but the rooms are very nice, though the price isnt as nice! Every arts suite is different, while the other cold rooms are identical. Wonder how it's like to sculpt an entire room of ice O.o You can read up about the ICE HOTEL here on their official website. Online reviews have loads of people saying to simply visit there, because after all you can see all the cold rooms, but after having stayed there, i think it's really an experience that you won't want to miss. Plus if you're going all the way there already, might as well! Lemme show ya around the reception area of the ice hotel! the cold portion has all these fully equipped bathing facilities for you, they have EVERYTHING. Well that's because you cant bathe in your own cold room! (obviouslyyyy) Guess which side is male, which side is female! The reeptionist is really helpful and pretty! xD The storage rooms for the arts suites, along with an unimpressed bro. That's his usual expression anyway~! As you can tell by the number of rooms that they have, that there are A LOT of arts suites. Also, every room has a mirror, a bench for two and a power plug with coat hanagrs and all, more than enough! And mind you this is only for storing your luggage okay! You can easily store a brother or two. Also, i used the room pretty often to charge my phones and all! And these are the storage areas for the normal cold rooms... As you can tell, it's not as impressive as the arts suite. A lot smaller, cant store a brother or two inside. A stark comparison from the arts suite storage places aye? From the reception room, you can walk from this side door to enter the ice hotel, as you can tell, the ice is all frosted! imagine how it would look like if it was clear :P how cool~ that means i should make a second trip there!! This is what greeted us right after that door, its a mini bar with only alcoholic drinks, filled up in their very own special ice hotel cup! it looks like an ice cube, with a shot glass shape in the middle.... pity i didnt take a photo of it~ Well.....they are actually not done building it yet! Which explains those tapes all around, even two of the expensive rooms arent done yet, and those rooms are more expensive than the arts suite O.o Scary huhhhh. The rooms even have sliding doors but that's all i saw alright. Its amazing how this hotel is totally built from scratch every year, with all the electiricty stuff running all around, it sure is amazing huh!! This is one of the many walkways that you will see, and at the sides are all of the cold rooms! we first explored the normal cold rooms before the suites. As you can see, there is no door, but they give you curtains! There is a timing to sleep, whereby that timing onwards will mean that no stranger can walk into your room, which is... i think 7.30pm? something like that. I forgot. All i remember is that they have an indoor tour which starts at 5pm, by their really friendly peeps! AND THEIR JACKETS ARE SOOOOO NICE. they look like silver in colour robin hoods ^^ Here are the pics of the cold room.. Along with the new smoke alarms that was required by law.... fyi last year, the ice hotel was nearly forced to shut down if they couldn't implement this law. Although frankly speaking what's gonna catch fire here? Let's move on to the arts suite shall we! :D This is how the arts suite walkway looks like, something different from the normal cold rooms because they have the names of the designers engraved unto them! i have a photo of it, no worries (y) This is the room that we initially got, though mum didnt like it because it looked scary. I liked the room! but not mum and bro so by the grace of God, someone cancelled their reservation so there was a spare room to swop with! :D HEHE photos of the rooms later on in another post kay!! HERE ARE THE PHOTOS OF THE ARTS SUITES Works are still on going, with all the sculptors busy carving their way through ice with ultra sharp chisels. trust me they are ULTRA sharp. I later learnt that these chisels are sharpened over a few steps, with the last one being the same as sharpening a samurai blade. Yeap they adopt the same sharpening techniques. I was seriously wondering if the contents inside the fire extinguisher is actually frozen! I mean like hard to say rightttt :P More works being done to the ice bar and ice church! yea you heard it, ice CHURCH. lets gets married people!!!! :D :D The ice bar is supposed to be pretty huge, but they aren't done yet! apparently we were a week early. sadly. Above is a shot of the entrance to the ice hotel! Mind you we only went in for about an hour tops and boomz SO DARK. In case you're wondering, those are reindeer skins on the door and horns as the handles. lets call it a reindeer door kay? now i want a reindeer door!! >:)) That's the bed, ice, followed by ANOTHER layer of ice, then that mattress on top, which get's kinda damp-y when you step on it with your socks and a reindeer skin. You're given a sleeping bag anyway! Hehe after that i started playing around with shutter speed xD playful mood kicked in~! Soon, night descended and we went to seek refuge in the reception area! at times, i wonder where everybody went. Like surely there are more people! The reception area was slightly packed in the night :) This is the reception area....which soon became more crowded than this! every chair was taken, EVERY MAN FOR HIS OWN CHAIR Here, you see bro and i playing cards! 2 person dai dee. and you see bro trying to sweet talk a plastic cup. JKJK. hmmm once again, the receptionists are EXTREMELY helpful, when we requested for hot water, they bothered to suit up and go to the main building to fetch hot water for us! and they did it TWICE, with a smile okay!! The service was really really good, they always ensure that you are properly taken care of and in the best of moods! They are as polite and well mannered as the japanese, just that they don't bow. That's all, which isn't a big deal. I was really touched by their service standards, bravo bravo!! At the reception area, you have people watching sitcoms on their ipads, or listening to music, or reading books, or like us playing cards! it was a really really pleasant experience with a lively ambience in the area! One of the most memorable places out of the entire trip of mine i would say :) a MUST GO TO place indeed!! You see people piling up the wall sockets, you have a really warm fireplace (not that teeny fire in my photo, that is fake btw) really comfy place to be in! and everyone really treats that place like its their home. That's what i like about it! you can walk around in socks, etc etc. nobody cares. OH YES i forgot to mention! you know when the receptionist "suits up" (trying not to think of iron man but yea) in this kind of extreme cold weather, one does not simply put on a jacket and walk out the door okay. All the layers that they have to put on as well as the boots and all, its really a hassle, but they bother to! and they continuously offered to refill for us if need be :) here are the photos before we tucked ourselves to sleep!! They gave us a change of boots to theirs instead, so that during the next morning, we wouldnt wake up with FREEZING boots because we have to remove them when we sleep! theres a tutorial and all on the layers we put on before going to bed. boots is an optional thing, BETTER TAKE IT. because during the next morning when we woke up, my boots were chillingly cold thanks to the -5 degrees inside! its really like sleeping in a freezer. seriously. Especially when you're having activities for the next day, please go get their boots instead, keep yours warmly locked up in your locker! I wore my earmuffs to sleep for that extra comfy warmness, it got REALLY cold in the night as i tried to fall asleep!! its a wonder that bro fell asleep by the time i reached my room xD that's how long i took. but anyway, he woke up half way during the night and continued his sleep in the reception area because it was too cold. LOL same thing for dad. Bloop! my face sinks into the sleeping bag! i stored my camera bag along with my camera into the sleeping bag, phone i left it to charge in the storage rooms provided :) well in this kind of weather, you wouldnt know when your phone will konk out on ya so charge it to maaaaaximum! HMMMM soon, i used the blue blanket that they provided to cover my mouth. Reason being when i sleep, i breathe through my mouth instead of nose. So in order to make it not dry up so fast, cover cover! oh oh i nearly forgot the robin hood looking jackey did i!! SILVER ROBIN HOOD THATS ALL FOR THE FIRST DAY HOOOOO LONG POST YEEEEEEEAARRRRHHHH photos. as usual. |

