Sembawang/woodlands PCN

Cycled at a new area over the weekend. Sembawang/woodlands, which is basically located at the north of Singapore. It was so much north, that I was at the causeway which connects Singapore to Malaysia. Can't say I like this route as there are just too many traffic lights in this PCN (park connector). After finishing this PCN, I continued to east coast park as it was just not satisfying enough of a ride. In total overed 33km of cycled distance for the day.

'Woodlands waterfront'.  You can see the causeway joining Singapore and Malaysia from here.

luvmilo.com (v 2.0)

When I started this web page in September 2014, I had a simple idea of recording moments in my life and sharing some of my photos here. There were only 2 tabs, 'Landscapes' and 'Blog' and for the first time in my life, I started blogging.

Today, more than 2 years and 8 months later, the contents in 'luvmilo' has grown a lot and I am upgrading to a new logo for the website.

Previous logo 'LUVMILO photography' September 2014 - May 2017

Cycling weekend

Been a long while since I have the full weekend to myself with nothing planned out in advance. I always had something scheduled or planned to do in the weekend, so this weekend seems strangly relaxing. Decided to go on a cycling workout and cycled 35km. It was tiring, but satisfying and incredibly enjoyable. It was a cloudy day and the view along east coast PCN is beautiful. Had lunch at Satay by the Bay and dinner at Changi ferry terminal. Will definitely be doing this again.

Satay, another popular local food in Singapore. 'Pork belly' at Satay by the bay is really nice! 

New category 'My Youtube' and new Shanghai Travel Journal !!!

Been sitting on this for awhile and finally completed adding a new 'My Youtube' category and my 2nd travel journal, which is my trip to Shanghai in March. Do check it out!

My Youtube

Travel Blog

In the navy

Was cleaning my room and found these very nostalgic caps. Like all Singaporean men, I need to serve the national service after graduating from high school/before entering the university. I was selected to join the Singapore navy in 1998 and at that time, national services was 2.5 years; it has since reduced to 2 years in recent years. Everyone of the 'seaman' onboard a warship wears a cap. And the wordings on the cap signifies the name of the ship which you belongs to or mission which you are taking part in. The below photo shows the ship which I had been attached to and mission which I had participated in. I had kept these for close to 20 years now, and all the ships I was onboard had all been decommissioned. But this does brings back lots of memories throughout my 2.5 years of navy life.

First e-scooter

Bought my first e-scooter, 'Mijia' from xiaomi. I was really sceptical about this. Exercising has always been a priority of mine and this would further deter me from exercising. On top of this, there is the safety concern and I'm not sure I can get used to handle it. Over the past weekend, tried it, tested afew times, and bought it immediately. It is really fun to ride.  I can definitely see myself going for more adventure rides from now on.

My brommie with 'mijia' 

My night snack during my first ride on my e-scooter. 'Roti prata' - a popular Malay food in Singapore. In the photo is a 'double egg prata' on the left and 'butter prata'  on the right, together with my childhood favorite drink 'bundung'

May the 4th be with u

This year, it's been a big surprise for all Star Wars fans in Singapore as one of our famous tourist attraction 'Gardens by the Bay', gets a new make over for the Star Wars weekend. I had never spend much time at the 'Gardens by the Bay'. Seeing this for the first time, it's actually quite impressive imo. Definitely recommend anyone to visit the place. This is also the first time I shot so much of drone footage that I can make into a YouTube movie. Pretty happy with the results actually, considering it's my first drone movie. 

First upgrade in 2017

It's been a busy but fulfilling past week. In addition to the new projects at my daily job, I spent 3 full days going for training. 'Certified Scrum Master'. Trainer was very good and the course was much better than what I had expected. This weekend will be a slightly longer one as Monday is a public holiday in Singapore. Picked up the PlayStation VR to award myself once in awhile. I'm not really big on gaming, nor do I spend much time on it. But the VR experience on PlayStation does look promising.

1st MRI experience

It's about 11pm now and I'm chilling alone with a nice cup of hot honey lime drink in 'East Coast Park', a seaside area in Singapore. 2 months of acupuncture on my kneel and it's still not fully recovered. Today is my appointment date made 2 months ago for my MRI and it's time to get some western side opinion on my situation. Was told photography is strictly prohibited in the MRI room, so no photos here. Experience was a pleasant one, just need to keep still for 15 mins and I didn't feel a thing.

Storage nightmare

Below is me chilling on a beautiful afternoon of a long weekend in Singapore.

I want to talk about my 'little' storage problem. It's always too 'little' and never sufficient. As a photography hobbist for so many years, I've constantly been evolving my storage solution. Now that I'm taking lots of videos, many of which are 4K, this problem has escalated to a different level. Currently, I have 1x 1TB, 1x 2TB and 1x 3TB portable hard disks. I am a subscriber of premium Dropbox which allows me to store slightly more than 1TB. My MBP has 1TB of SSD storage space. All of these are more than 90% full. I am dedicating tonight, the final night to a beautiful long weekend, to attempt to sort out this mess and hopefully find a solution.

2 new travel vlog

Been awhile since my last post. Been on a short 4 days trip to Shanghai, posted 2 new travel vlogs, trying my best recovering from my kneel injury, and working on the 1sec project everyday. 

I'll like to talk about the vlog creation for abit. Like many 'youtubers' , I started small, excited and iMovie. I'm still excited now and after my 4th YouTube video, I've been exploring Final Cut Pro. After creating my 5th video using FCP. I find the comparison info online doesn't do justice to how FCP is better. Ability to edited video on external storage, huge selection of effects/fonts/transitions, multi-later stacking of timeline, able to shift texts anywhere on the scenes, etc. I'm currently on evaluation version of FCP and assuming I continue my enthusiasm on youtubing, FCP will be my next investment.

1 sec project

Saw this interesting initiative at kickstarter 5 years ago. Recording 1 sec of your life everyday. I've tried this for 1 week now and really like this. The 1 sec is short enough not to make the video 'daIry' not boring. It is instead very interesting as it is made up of totally different scene every single sec and yet it does not give out too much confidential details to other views who watch it. I will compile and upload the video at the end of the year!

Reorganizing my collections

It's a beautiful Saturday and after a really busy week at work (received 4 new projects this week) , it's finally my own personal time. I've never like transforming the toys, especially as the toys nowadays is really complex to transform. I'm a collector and enjoys admiring them on the shelves.

Traditional Chinese Acupuncture

Been injured for 3 months and totally no sign of recovery. Time to put in place some desperate measures. Can't wait to start running again.

Michelin star minced pork noodle

Was with a couple of friends to try the famous, Hill street "Tai Hwa" pork noodle a couple of days ago. Ever since they are awarded one Michelin star last year, huge crowd of people been pouring in to try it. Location is in a hawker center below a normal HDB flat (address below). Went on a Thursday night and took about 15 mins of queuing time.

Price of noodle starts from S$5, which is above your regular noodles in the hawker center. We ordered the S$5 ones and portion was decent. By default, the noodles comes with a lot of vinegar and if you are not a vinegar lover, I suggest you tell the chief to exclude it. Ingredients were generous. Texture of noodle was nice. The soup had a prawn taste. Personally, I think it's nice but can't tell too much difference from other minced noodle stall. Worth a try if you have the time to queue, if not it's probably ok for a miss.

Address: Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodles 大华猪肉粿条面

466 Crawford Lane, Tai Hwa Eating House #01-12 Singapore 190465 (Lavender MRT)

(Behind Immigration and Checkpoint Authority Building)

Singapore Rubik's cube competition 2017

Helped out a friend over the past weekend in the Rubik's cube competition event. It's held in the university which I graduated from, so going back there again brings back lots of memories. My friend is the sponsor of the competition (check out 'Cubewerkz', he sells a very comprehensive collection of puzzles). I'm helping out mainly as photographer and videographer. Very well organized event by the students of NUS Mathematics society. A fun event and I've enjoyed a lot shooting this one. Pretty happy with the result of my video.

Fly more, I will

Ordered this close to 4 months ago. There were some drama when I ordered this but when it finally arrived today, I was really happy. Heard so many good things about this and I can't wait to test fly this. This will add a new dimension to my videography/photography.

Branded Chinese red packet

Chinese New Year is around the corner. Was digging out my stocks of red packets and noticed I had this Prada red packets which I received from my Prada wallet purchased a few years back. 

Hokkaido, Tokyo travel video

One of the big project I set out for myself in year 2016 was to shoot a travel video. I've been taking photos for about 8 years now and this was the first time attempting a video. Using everything under my arsenal, I shot this video using my iPhone 7 plus, GoPro Hero 4 and Nikon D7000. Well, ended up about 70% of the videos were shot using iPhone. It's been 1 month since I posted my humble little video on YouTube and it just passed 400 views. Nothing to shout about, but I'm pretty happy and proud of my first attempt.

Happy 2017

2016 had been quite an eventful year for me. It's 2017 now and as usually, time to start planning for resolutions. But before that, a quick summarize of my 2016 year.

Goals archived 

- Finally quit my job for the last 7 years. Pretty happy with my new job and I probably can say that I have more or less gotten used to the environment before the end of 2016

- Had been looking for awhile and finally got accepted into a permanent volunteering position. I became a Grassroot leader for C2E. 

- Travelled a fair bit and created my first travel video

Goals set but not archived

- Reducing my weight to 83kg. Not reached but gotten really close to this target

- Wanted to set up my own company/business. Planned a lot, researched most of what I needed. But did not happen. 

 2017

So, in 2017, I've come up with a whole list resolutions. The list is expected to be a 'work-in-progress' and will be modified according to shift in priorities.

- Continue the plan to set up my business

- Pass at least one IT professional certification.

- Excel in my current new job

- Reducing my weight to 80kg

- Deciding my next step in photo/videography

(above list was created on 8 Jan 2017 and last updated on 8 Jan 2017)