Useless Naming

Front page news on today's newpapers - S'pore's Terminal 3 to open on Jan 9, 2008, wah so nice right, but wait, they have come up with a new name for the airport skytrain system - People Mover System (PMS) !

Excerpt:
"The Changi Airport People Mover System (PMS) is part of the new Terminal 3 expansion project that will accommodate substantial growth in air passenger traffic at the Changi airport in the coming decades. The PMS project is scheduled for passenger service in June 2006, coincident with the opening of Terminal 3. The PMS represents a firm commitment by Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to assure that the Singapore Changi airport continues to be among the world's best airports."

What crap name is that? Ok maybe they can't call it ASS (airport skytrain system) so next option is PMS, hmm, how creative right! It's another classic smart aleck example of naming exercise. Why do they need to name the system anyway? Those who are familiar with Changi Airport will know there is a train/rail for you to commute between T1 and T2, and I think it is simply called Skytrain, quite nice what, why go and rename it and worst, call it PMS!

I can just picture these scenes at the airport information counter:

Scene 1

Tourist: May I know how can I get to T3 from T1 ?
Information counter staff: Skytrain. You can take the skytrain at lobby 1.

Scene 2

Tourist: May I know how can I get to T3 from T1 ?
Information counter staff: PMS. You can take PMS ...
Angry Tourist: Wait, what did you just say! You said I got PMS?! How rude! I want to complain!
Confused Tourist: What is PMS?
Corny Tourist: Haha PMS!

That's not all. Imagine next time u step into the train and what greets you will be something like "Ding Dong, welcome to PMS. You are in PMS right now, hope you enjoy the PMS ride." We will be the laughing stock of tourists and our overseas friends, they will probably laugh at how "creative" we are at coming out with acronyms and churning out stupid sounding ones too.

Whats with the authorities with these acronyms and lame attempts at coming out with fanciful names ? This is something which I don't understand. They have shown, in the past few years, that they have failed to be creative but yet many times bitten but still not shy. Here are some classic examples:

Marina Bay - Authorities wanted a more glamorous name for the marina bay area since it will be the site for integrated resorts and other high class developments. They hired some branding consultants, spent lots of money and in the end, they can't find a better name and eventually stick to Marina Bay.

Budget Terminal - A contest was held and the public submit the desired names they want for our new budget terminal. In the end, among the many entries, they chose "Budget Terminal" as the winning entry.

This last example simply takes the cake! Recently, I was flipping through some communities newsletter/magazine at a cafe and read that, in the government's bid to turn Singapore into a city of gardens and waters, they have come out with yet another acronym, a no brainer one someone, called ABC Waters Programme.

Excerpt of the meaning behind it:
"
This is what we aim to achieve with the ABC Waters programme. There are three broad elements in the programme.

- First, “A” for Active, so that Singaporeans can enjoy a wide range of water-based activities, from canoeing and sailing to dragon-boat racing.

- Second, ‘B’ for Beautiful, because we want to transform our waterways into beautiful streams, rivers and lakes that enhance our living environment.

- Third, ‘C’ for Clean, so that whatever we do with our water bodies, they will continue to be kept litter- and pollution-free.
"

Call me cynical, but I seriously think we can do without all these. At the end of the day, if people understand what is a budget terminal, what is a skytrain, monorail or whatever then let it be. What for go and draw snake with legs. As you can see, those attempts to beautify it simply falls flat!

This beautiful quote comes in handy again and to the authorities "If you want to do something, do it nicely else do not do it at all" :)

Anamorphic Street Art

Passed by Raffles City the other day and spotted this street art. I snapped this picture with my trusty phone. The artist, Julian Beaver was commissioned by Nokia to come out with this piece of anamorphic chalk drawing featuring mobile phones. Simple, nice but nothing compared to his other works he did elsewhere.





I googled it on the internet and found some really impressive ones. I like these two:


























The two pictures are taken from Julian Beaver's website, you can checkout more of his works at this link

Sunrise

If you go to Bali, you will probably be staying in these places, Nusa Dua on the east coast, Jimbaran, Seminyak, Kuta on the west coast or Ubud, in the center but no beach.

I woke up diligently every morning at around 6am to catch the sunrise near the hotel beach. First day no luck, very gloomy and started to rain. Second day, abit cloudy and on my check out day, my lucky star answered my prayers :)

I have never worked my camera so hard before. From the moment I stepped out of the beach front, I kept snapping away, the whole session lasted for like an hour. Alas towards last few moments when the sun started to crack out of the clouds, I run out of space on my memory card! Didnt want to waste time to go back to hotel room to get my backup memory card so have to quickly delete some of the not so nice shots took earlier.

Still got alot to learn about how to compose pictures cos took so many sunrise shots but only like a few of them and some didnt turn out as well as I have expected.

Uluwatu - Kuta - Tanat Lot

We started off the day to Pura Luhur Uluwatu, one of bali most important sea temples. The 11th century temple stands on a tiny promontory 70m above crashing waves of the Indian ocean. The scenery on top of the cliff is simply breathtaking! Look out for those mischeivous monkeys who are known to snatch specs, sunglasses, caps from tourists. At the entrance, we also overheard tour guides telling people to be wary of those monkeys in case they strike on you.

The small temple you see in the background is Uluwatu temple.















Monkey busy eating, so didnt come and bother us.





























I read from somewhere, the scenery is being compared to Australia's Great Ocean Road.




Next stop - Kuta, the surfer's beach, the prime tourist area. Nothing much to do there actually, the shops were more or less selling the same stuff, keep seeing Polo Ralph shops and you have Hard Rock cafe, Starbucks.








Tanot Lot - the most famous of the sea temples. The sanctuary temple is 15th century old and sits along the bali south coast, one of the must-see sights in Bali. Everyone usually come here to see the sunset, its a pity my other shots didnt turn out well, so only this one to show.












We rounded up the night with a seafood dinner at Jimbaran. We ordered squid, prawns and seabass. The grilled seabass was nice but the prawns and squid so-so, abit pricey though. However the nice experience of dining on the beach, acccompanied by the sound of waves brushing through the shores, more than makes up for it.

Ubud

For this trip, we hired a driver (recommended by beaulotus) to bring us around. He charges 325,000/day on a Toyota Kijang.

We decided to head up north to Ubud and take in the sights. From Nusa Nua, it takes about 1.5 hours to Ubud.








Tegallalang rice terrace fields









The drive up to Kintamani is like going up Genting, the air is cooling and you don't need the air conditioning from the car. Had lunch there and you get a great view of Mt. Batur, an active volcano &












Lake Batur

Besakih Temple. Most Balinese practice a distinct Hindu belief and to go inside the temple, you need to be appropriately dressed. Those in shorts or bermudas need to wear a sarong which you can get it at the entrance. I didn't go in so just steal a few shots from the entrance, and took some pics at the cleansing ritual of the devotees. The water is supposed to be holy and if you have committed any sins, you can supposedly "wash" them away.















On the way to Ubud center, we passed by the Monkey Forest. Need to pay entrance fees to go inside the forest somemore but as we were abit rushed for time, we just hang around outside and watch some of the monkeys in action.




Here's looking at you kid.










Ubud is like the cultural and art center of Bali. You see lots of handicrafts, paintings, wood carvings, statues along the road as you drive around the area.













It was about 5pm when we were done with Ubud. By then, we were quite tired as alot of time was spent commuting from place to place, so we headed back to a spa near Nusa Dua for a nice 2hours massage.

Off to Bali

Wifey and I went to Bali for a short weekend trip as portion of our Krisflyer miles expiring soon and the lowest miles redeemable is to KL and Bali. We have not been to Bali before, and its been awhile since we last went on to a beach resort so Bali here we come!.

Its a 4D3N free and easy trip, depart on Friday and fly back on Monday.




















View of a temple gate at Denpasar airport. You get to see such similar gate structures all over the island but this one I like, shades of brick orange against the clear blue sky.

We stayed at the Conrad Bali Resort & Spa, located at Nusa Dua, on the southern coast of the island. I booked the garden view but were upgraded to an ocean view room which overlooked the lagoon pool! The room is very spacious, comes with marble look floor tiles, marble look bathroom with separate toilet and shower.




















The fabulous 33-metre swimming pool !

Clay-Grass Tennis

When I saw this picture in today's newspapers, I thought it's touched up by photoshop but it's not! There was a exhibition match yesterday and the organisers creatively made the half grass, half clay court! Ain't it Cool!

It was a dream match as well, between my idol Roger Federer and his nemesis Rafal Nadal. Sadly, Nadal beat Roger 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (10).