Flower Dome

Flower Dome at Gardens By the Bay was the last location we went to for our mini photowalk. The first thing that I felt when walking into the dome was the cool blowing air from the air-con, almost too cold for me I think, especially with the gloomy weather outside. The Flower Dome is the largest greenhouse in the world and is housed by another cool structure, just like the other architecture in the Gardens. We saw different kind of plants and flowers in this place, but to be honest, I'm not a flower kinda person, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of the flowers. The architecture was pretty great tho. Lots of curves, glass, and natural lights. Very interesting structure indeed.

One cool thing that I experienced during our walk in this place was seeing the raindrops falling on the glass above us, as it started raining 10 minutes after we walked in. It almost felt like I'm in the rain without having to get wet :P Such a great experience. Anyway, we ended up sitting down for a while in the dome, watching the rain, and talked for a bit. One of the thing I enjoy the most when meeting other Instagrammers is this, getting to know them outside those pictures they posted on their gallery. We talked about how they first met, their experiences with the Singapore's Instagram community, school life, work life, and a bunch of other things. It still amazes me how much I can relate to and connect with the people who I met through Instagram.

We decided to leave the and headed back to the MRT station after we finished walking around the entire Dome. It's still raining a little bit outside and none of us had a umbrella, so we ended up running back to the MRT trying not to get wet as much as possible. A memorable way to end the meet I should say ;)

ps: Thank you again to Venus & Jessica for such a warm hospitality during our two meets when I was in Singapore. You guys definitely made my Singapore trip more exciting and memorable :)

See part 1 (Supertree Grove) and part 2 (Cloud Forest) of this series if you are interested.

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Greetings from Iceland

Can't believe I've been here in Iceland for a week now. So far, the trip is no less than amazing! Everywhere we turn, a beautiful breathtaking view is waiting for us. I am truly amazed and in awe with what I've seen in this country. We still have a couple of more days left 'til the end of the trip, so I thought I give a quick update here on the blog. I'll still be posting stuff on my instagram and facebook page if anybody wants to get a sneak peek of my travel here in Iceland. Or, you can also follow along my adventure on snapchat (id: @greysuitcase).

For now, here's a shot of Noah from our visit to the famous wrecked airplane site in Iceland. It was quite a view. Will be back with more updates soon! Hope everybody is having a great (long) weekend! :)

p.s: check out @noahskim & @hannahmuhh instagram for more pics from this trip. They take amazing pictures! :)

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Early Spring in Seoul

Around this time last year, things were pretty busy with school so I didn't really have time to go see a lot of the waiting-for-spring-to-come excitements in different parts of Seoul. When the harsh winter wind is no longer slapping your face every time you step outside, four layers of clothing is no longer necessary (I know, I know, four layers is a lot. But hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive the winter around here ;P), and you can see hints of colors from the budding flowers around the city, that's when you know that winter is almost over and spring is just around the corner. Plus, everybody just seems to be in a better mood with the arrival of more sunny days and the rising temperature. Myself included :)

This year, since I don't have school anymore, I had a chance to visit a couple of places during the end of winter/early spring days here in Seoul and there were some common sights that I encountered during these visits. Some of them include people sitting down on picnic mats on parks, ahjummas & ahjussis wearing extremely bright-colored hiking outfits, and young people wearing spring clothing—even though on some days, it was still pretty darn cold for those thin spring coats in my opinion. But one thing for sure, everybody seemed to be trying to take advantage of the longer daylight to enjoy the warm weather and soaking up the sun as much as possible, while waiting patiently for spring to announces its arrival.

ps: Things have been pretty hectic these past couple of weeks with the traveling, work, family matters, and planning for upcoming trips. There are lots of stories from my Seoul trip and some exciting trips in the near future that I can't wait to share with you guys. Stay tuned! :)

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Cloud Forest

One of the best places to visit when you are in Singapore is probably this magnificent Cloud Forest at the Gardens by the Bay. After walking around outside in the 30-something degrees celsius weather (see my previous post exploring the Supertree Grove), walking into this cool-moist conservatory gave us such as nice feeling. We were immediately greeted by the mist of the world's tallest indoor waterfall as soon as we walked in. The view was amazing and it just got better from there. The whole place is like a playground for adults (and photographers I should say). Everywhere you turn, you got a new view of the forest and it's so interesting to see the steel dome as the background to the luscious green plants. You can get lots of interesting angles to shoot on around this place. I went in when the weather was sunny. Sunlight hitting the leaves and there were shadow plays everywhere. But not long after, it changed into a cloudy gloomy weather, just right in time for the mist timing that happens six times a day. The place changed into something else when it's full of mists.

Anyways, this was my first time meeting other instagrammers in Singapore and actually shoot together with them. I had a lot of fun with Venus and Jessica and was really fascinated to see how they see and frame their shots. We took our time and just wandered around the dome for a good two hours or so before moving on to our next location, which I'll share on my next post on this Singapore series. Stay tuned! :)

Wishing everybody a great week ahead!

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Supertree Grove

I've read about it, seen millions of pictures of it, heard about it from tons of different people, and I finally visited it during my last trip to Singapore. The place that looks like it came straight out of the Avatar movie, the Supertree Grove at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. I know, I know, I'm probably a little late checking this place out since it has been opened for almost 4 years now. But hey, better late than never right?

I have to say the place is super awesome! Seeing and being under those huge tree-like structures made me feel like an ant. For real. Or at least that's what I imaged how ants view us humans (only multiplied that by a hundred or something). I definitely did a lot of neck exercising & look ups when I explored this place. There is also an elevated walkway between two larger supertrees that you can walk on if you decide to check out the aerial view of the garden. If you've never been here, I definitely recommend you to come check out the place (plus they have a couple of attractions in the Gardens by the Bay, which I will be posting on separate posts). Totally worth the visit. A little tip: you might wanna go on a good weather day, or no rain day at least, because the walkway is closed during a bad weather days.

Special thanks to Venus & Jessica, two great local instagrammers who were kind enough to offered to take me around the Gardens for a little meet-up/photowalk session. You'll see them sporadically in a couple of my shots in this Singapore series ;) Go check out their amazing instagram gallery! Venus (@ohvl) & Jessica (@chanchants).

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