+ Window | Dawn Star

Suddenly I woke up from my sleep.

The alarm clock showed 6:29am. 1 minute before it sounded. I was subconsciously awaiting to wake up. Did not remember if I had a dream before I woke up, but it was dawn.

Looked-over. My wife was still in slumber land beside me. As I was laying still trying to get my bearings, the cool breeze lifted the drapes up and exposed my view to the dawning sky.

A very bright star caught my eye. The only star out. Too big and too bright to be a star...

A closer look at the sultry sky revealed there were other stars, but far more faint than this particular one.

Without my pair of glasses the other stars were kind of hard to spot.

Not this one! No it did not move, so it was not an aeroplane or UFO... don't I wish.

It was too bright to miss. It was too outstanding to let it pass, it was waiting for me to take a picture of it.

So, I got up, grabbed my camera and took several pictures of it.

I have seen it many a times in the night skies during my journey home from working late at night. Outings with my family during the weekends, but never this bright, this big.

I believe it was the International Space Station. I read in NASA's website that it and 15 other countries worked together to construct the station for micro-gravity experiment as a first step to future manned space exploration.

It is just beautiful even if it man-made.

The Almighty made it all possible for humans to achieve technological breakthroughs and produce a "star" at night for simple-minded people like me to wonder and admire the determinations and their achievements.

+ Window | Sleeping Satellite

It is one of those days where I have nothing to blog about. Nothing interesting happened that worth reporting.

So sifting through my photos, I stumble upon my recent photos of the full moon a week ago. It was only about 10:20pm in mid February 2006.

The moon was such a show-off that it hypnotised me to take photos of itself. It looks so mysterious yet so intriguing. Brightening up the whole island, a satellite from the Almighty to behold.

Photos after photos I tried my best to capture it with fine details. I wanted to capture its craters and crevasses as I can see it with my own eyes, but unfortunately my lack of photography technique was much more to be desired, was a let-down even for me.

It only showed a giant bulb in the photos instead. Sigh.

Nonetheless, the whole sky lit up and the streets brighter. I noticed this when I got off the bus from work. Looked up at the sky and there it was. Beautiful.

A sight you will not forget before you close your eyes to rest. Our sleeping satellite.

+ Vicinity | Tampines FireStation

Tampines Fire Station taken from inside a moving cab

This is good news for the residents. Tampines now has a new Fire Station just a stone's throw away from where I live.

At first look, it is more like a modern factory or office space, until you read the prominant sign on the building - HQ 2nd CD Division Tampines Fire Station.

Anyway the bright red drill-tower behind the building is a dead giveaway. Now I can see the fire trucks are all parked inside and ready for action.

I am personally proud of the effort of our government to improve our state of living a notch higher with careful spending of our tax dollars.

Not an expert on buildings or ever went into it before, but I can see foresight, the readiness and the efficiency thought and build into it. To serve and protect the public and its properties.

It is comforting that such emergency services are available minutes away, but hopefully we never need to use it.

Will take the opportunity to attend its official opening anytime soon. It will be great to see the insides and take a glimpse of the Civil Defense life is like and the modern technology it is equipped with with a big building like this one.

I think the present operations is going to move to this building from the old Teluk Kurau Camp at Lorong J. Incidently, I noticed the present operations of HQ 2nd Division is at Teluk Kurau Lorong J as we were going to the beach along Still Road.

Seeing that building brought back memories as the building was formerly my Primary School for a few months when I was Primary 1, before my Mom moved me to Jalan Daud Primary School at Eunos which was much nearer to my then village home.

Below are photos of the different types of CD vehicles in operations here in Singapore - from safety and fire prevention education to disaster control.

These pictures are especially for Ry from Just Me and My Midnight Thots who is interested in EM in Singapore.

Civil Defense Rescue Vehicles







Civil Defense Fire Vehicles