A legacy of our colonial heritage, the railroad tracks have always been a familiar sight for me growing up. Both my primary school and junior college (before it moved) were located just beside the tracks along Holland Road.

While letting the pinhole camera do it’s thing (cloudy day = long exposure), I took a couple of shots with my digital camera (talk about contrast between the old and new). I could have walked a little further to the small Bukit Timah station but dinner was waiting at home. Typical of my luck, I heard a familiar rumble as I started walking home. The evening KTM train roared past just as I turned to look over my shoulder…

Maybe next time, Old Dame.

Small photo set here.

I photowalked a little in the area, stumbling upon the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (official site), a Roman Catholic church built in 1870 along Waterloo Street. The church, which serves the primarily the Chinese Catholic community, has been gazetted a national monument.

Small photo set can be found here.

Chinatown has alot to offer for photography enthusiasts and we saw many fellow camera-totting photographers on the streets. I didn’t cover as much ground as I hoped but that just means I will have more to shoot the next time I visit Chinatown.

Full Flick set here.

Before heading out, I did a little research to locate the good photo spots in Chinatown and mapped them in Google Maps with some additional information. I’m putting it online for my own reference and for anyone who may be interested. Check it out here.

I’m sure this sounds a wee bit ridiculous but this is from the perspective from an old skool Zooomr v2 user looking at Flickr for the first time. Flickr is obviously THE photosharing site for alot of people for long time and has lots of time to refine their features. Zooomr, on the other hand, is really the new kid on the block who’s a little wet behind the ears but tries to make up for it with buckets of enthusiasm (and very little sleep).

What I Really Like in Flickr

1. Search is great. Zooomr’s search is currently limited only to tags, maxes out at 5000 results, and to be honest, really really basic. I also prefer Flick’s search result display. Flickr Clusters, showing photos from commonly grouped tags, are very useful.
2. Sets work perfectly. Although not quite as “smart” as Zooomr’s, I can’t say I’m dreadfully disappointed. Zooomr’s SmartSets have been really a hit-and-miss for me. I like Flickr’s Collections too; being able to group your sets into Collections. I can see this working well for organised freaks people.
3. Tags are flawless. You can replace tags, delete tags across your entire collection very easily. I hate that the tag cloud in my profile page in Zooomr shows all photos instead of just my photos with that tag.
4. Photo management. Flickr scores a knockout when trying to work with batches of photos. The ease at which you can edit multiple photo attributes, put them into sets, etc, is awesome. Fantastic user experience.
5. EXIF information is more complete. Hi ISO, I missed seeing you in Zooomr and it’s nice to know that 0.003 sec is really 1/400. EXIF info is also retained in the high-res download from Flickr.
6. Navigation is intuitive. I like the fact that Flickr retains the context of your navigation path, i.e. when you’re in a set, the previous/next links points to the previous/next photos within the set. Zooomr previous/next links always points to the previous/next photos within the main user photo stream. A real pain to navigate through sets this way.
7. A gadzillion groups. Groups are not available in Zooomr v2 but are slated to show up in v3.

What I Really Like in Zooomr

1. Geotagging with Google Maps. Too bad Flickr is Yahoo property so I don’t see any hope of ever using Google Maps in Flickr. Google Maps kick Yahoo Maps butt big time for now.
2. Localisations. I’ve only used Zooomr in English and so it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference for me, but knowing that Zooomr takes cares of that warms my geeky mushy heart. I’m not sure what to make of Yahoo’s intentions to launch a Chinese version of Flickr just yet. Hmm.

There are of course dozens more feature differences between David and Goliath Flickr and Zooomr but these are just some of the ones that jumped out at me. I like Zooomr, really I do. Look at how much I written about it. But is Zooomr still Flickr on Steroids? Not v2 for sure, but maybe Mark 3… when it arrives. I’m going to explore more of Flickr while waiting for Mark 3 to get out the door. Can’t wait.

[Edit]: Had to fix the post title, which explains the weird post slug. I meant Flitting, not Flirting. Doh.

More information can be found on Rebekka’s Flickr post. I feel terrible for the photographer. This really really sucks.

Spread the word. Digg it here.

EXIF viewing/editing in Mark III?

Marketplace Tagging

A few interesting points to note:

• New Logo Colours
• Site is now predominantly white
• Upload link is now directly accessible, next to the ZMail link
• Thumbnail navigation finally gets backward and forward links
• More language options: “Arabic”?
• New disclaimer: “User-posted content, unless otherwise implied, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.” – WOW, great for the commons but what would the users think?
• InfoTags for MarketPlace?
• Tags are now Labels?
• Zipline
• Groups

Looking good! But when will it all be released?

I have always loved craft and I tip my hat to the amazing people who must have spent countless hours building the detailed scaled-down models. I had a great time at the gallery and recommend everyone to pop by at least once to check it out. Admission is free to the gallery at the URA Centre (45 Maxwell Road) and it is opened from 9am to 5pm, Mondays to Saturdays.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

You can find 斗天宫庙 (Dou Tian Gong Temple) near the junction of Jalan Bahar and Jurong West Avenue 4.

斗天宫庙

Check out the rest of the photos here.

The restaurant serves a small complimentary serving of appetisers while you wait for your orders. The appetisers are always interesting and the chef makes an effort to come up with new ones. I’ve been served the same appetiser twice only a handful of times in all of my visits.

The set meals are good value for money and the large set (the name of which escapes me) can be shared between two if you have small appetites; add one of the sushi sets or some à la carte sushi to your order if you are feeling hungry. I also enjoy the seasonal menu items that the restaurant promotes every now and then. It’s a wonderful way to be introduced to the various types of sashimi, knowing that you’re consuming seafood at it’s seasonal peak.

The cooked foods on the menu, on the other hand, while not bad, are average. On the rare occasion when I don’t feel like having sushi, I order the Buri Daikon which is great when paired simply with a bowl of rice.

The restaurant was featured in the papers early last year, and for a few months the place was filled to capacity every night. There was a long wait for tables if you didn’t have a reservation and service standards slipped a little. Thankfully things have settled down now, but it’s still advisable to call ahead during the weekends.

The restaurant offers a loyalty card to customers and every $20 spent gets you a single stamp. If memory serves me right (I misplaced my last card), 25 stamps earns you a $50 voucher.

[Update 2007.03.12] Thanks to a tip from Keropokman that Ginza Plaza is closed for renovations, it looks like Sakuraya has moved out from the address below. According to the announcement on their website, they are moving to Anchorpoint but no word yet on the new address or whether renovations for the new restaurant have been completed.

[Update 2007.03.13] I called up the restaurant and managed to get their new address which is updated below. It looks like that they are back in business.

Sakuraya Sashimi House
154 West Coast Road
#01-04/05 Ginza Plaza
Singapore 127371
Tel: 68720216, 67748216 / Fax: 67748423
370 Alexandra Road
#01-32 Anchorpoint
Tel: 68720216

[Anchorpoint]

Sakuraya Fish Mart
3 South Buona Vista Road #02-01/02
The Village Centre Singapore 118136
Tel 67736973, 68725350 / Fax 67731254

80 Marine Parade Road #B1-83D
Parkway Parade (S) 449269
Tel 63454714 / Fax 63465924

Sakuraya also does home delivery which is great for home parties.