My Itchy Fingers

The paper just reported that the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort (IR) have finished the construction of all its 55 floors. Itchyfingers have been trying to record its progress whenever we have the time if we were in the vicinity, and knowing that this would be the last stage before they put up the sky park, we thought we better come and take some photos.

Report on The Straits Times, 27 July 09

This was taken in March…

Within a period of three months, the three hotel towers have more than
doubled in height! Very fast hor?

Before we even reach the Merlion Park, we already saw these…

We were wondering what these gold ingots (元宝) were doing there?

Then we realised they must be part of the National Day Parade performance! Itchyfingers had unintentionally coincided our visit with one of the National Day rehearsal! Yeah! Since we have not not been lucky to get any tickets to the preview or the actual day celebration, being able to catch a sneak preview should be quite fun too! So we decided to wait for the time to come. :p

While waiting, we spotted a White-bellied Fish Eagle riding the thermal, soaring around the IR and the Singapore Flyers. Then it dived into the water to pick up his meal! Unfortunately, we did not have our binoculars with us. It was very far, so even if we had our big lens, we would not be able to take a decent photo of it. But being Itchyfingers, I just had to take a photo for the kick of it…hahah…:D

The eagle circling around…

People on the Flyer should be able to get a pretty decent view of the
majestic eagle…er…unless they dismissed it as a super big crow… :O

With a long lens, this is what you might be able to capture against a clear
blue sky if it is soaring nearer..the biggest raptor found in Singapore

Finally, action started! These boats with the huge inflated balloon ingots, er, or should they be origami boats…, started to steer towards the floating platform where the actual parade will be held. As we could not hear clearly what was happening over there, we didn’t really know why these boats kept moving to and fro without any formation or purposes…hahah…but it was a nice contrast against the blue sky.

I wanna sing the children song, 小白船 (little white boats)…hahah…you
could tell it was a very hot afternoon…

It was a long wait before we saw tiny red dots descending from the sky…

It’s the Red Lion Parachute Display!

All landed gracefully and safely!

The sun setting slowly, leaving its glow on the IR

Reflection on the water…

It was another long wait before we finally spotted the Chinook and Apache helicopters in the distance taking their respective position, getting ready.

The Chinook making its appearance…

Then came closer..and closer….

Our position was good as the Chinook came very close! Er, too close in fact! We were happily taking photos when it came so low and close to the people around the park that water started to splash all over under the forceful blades of the helicopter! Wow! It felt like raining! Couldn’t record any pictures cos we were busy keeping them away from the water!

Then came the Apache!

Our small cameras could only manage shots like these…so small…

Another highlight we were waiting for was the huge flag flyover. But it came directly from behind us, and then over our heads, which meant that we couldn’t see the full display of the flag!

There goes the flag! Arrrrgh!

We left after this as the rest of the performance would be too far for us to see from our position. Hopefully we can find some other time to catch the rehearsal again..this time, with bigger lens!