DarkRay's VirtualTourist Home Page

Finally! After more than 3 years, I decided to update my homepage. I guess I had just been simply too lazy to do so, but truth be told, I was quite happy with my previous one. Either that, or I simply suffer from some sort of procrastination denial syndrome.

Before I move on to other mundane things about my life and travels, let me talk about ice-cream, because it answers the most popular question I had received - Are all the ice-cream shown above mine?

Sadly, not all were mine, but about 25% of them were. One of my pal's sister used to work for Unilever Singapore (distributor of Ben & Jerry here) and one of the staff perks were that they were able to purchase each tub at less than half the retail price!

US' Ben & Jerry is actually my second favourite brand of ice-cream, but it is a good close second. My favourite brand is Australia's Gelare and I simply cannot get enough of their Dutch Chocolate Overload. It is a perfect blend of dutch chocolate and cream that is not only airlessly creamy, but is super smooth, has a very rich and intense chocolate flavour, and is not too sweet. While I do like my desserts, I hate overly-sweet items - they taste awful and contains way too much empty calories.

This is the reason why although many people like Hagan Daaz, I absolutely hate anything from this brand - it's either too sweet (most of their ice-cream flavours), or too sour (most of their sorbets).

Singaporeans simply loved to talk about food and I am no exception. While I am at this, you may have noticed that my travel motto is about chocolates. I am crazy about chocolates as well, but only good quality dark chocolates that have at least 70% cocoa content in them. Anything that does not list cocoa mass as the first ingredient is junk to me. Chocolates should just be about a good blend of cocoa, smooth cocoa butter, some sugar to enhance the taste, just enough milk solids to bind the ingredients, and ideally, with a hint of natural vanilla to unify the complex flavours.

The next most popular question I had been getting is that why am I using so many shirtless pictures as my member's photo lately. My answer sounds a little egoistical and narcissistic, but I am proud of it - Not of my body, but what I had achieved.

All my life, I had been the kid who is not really obese or fat, but is somewhat overweight. It is also a fact of life that our metabolism falls as we age and so some adjustments are always needed. In early 2006, I decided that I wanted to live a healthier lifestyle. I researched, designed and started my own weight loss regimen that included exercising (most important!), monitoring of my dietary intake, and taking nutritional supplements (nothing unnatural like artificial fat burners, but things like Flaxseed Oil and Vitamin B Complex to provide metabolism support).

A year later, I am happy that I had shaved off more than 20% of my body weight, is way leaner, more toned (hopefully, hee) and feels healthier than I had ever been. I did all this while retaining my love for food and not depriving myself of anything I like to eat. In my opinion, good quality food (like premium ice-cream and fine chocolates) do not make one fat. It is always the cheap and inferior stuff that are full of calories loaded fluff. Also, reduced fat items (which are often way too loaded with sugars to compensate for the lack of taste) are one of the worst marketing gimmicks ever!

One of the things I like to do most in Singapore if I have a good bit of spare time on my hand is to go to the parks, or any place where there is abundant greenary. Of course, farms do not count :-P . I like places such as Chek Jawa, Seletar Reservoir, and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

Taking a walk in the parks in the evening have a completely different feeling to it. Everything's just seem more calm and surreal.

This is a photo of Marina City Park, but it will be closed sometime in 2007 for a major revamp.

If you have any questions as to the few places I had been to, do feel free to drop me an email. I will generally try to get around to answering it, but that is provided if I have the time to do so. Do note that I will not answer any question that wants me to plan an itinerary - do your own research - it is definitely well worth it as it makes your trip all the more memorable, and VT is a great place to start.

I am also generally much more active in the forums, as answering a question in the forum may help others interested in a similar subject as well.

But do not always count on an answer because sometimes my schedule does not permit my indulgence in the VT community. Also, while I love making new friends, I will not reply to non-travel emails if the VT account used to send the email was created only recently or has no entries whatsoever. I think it is fairgame, since quite a bit of information about me has been put up on my pages and I do not know anything about the other person.

Strange requests like asking for a large photo of me (For what? To throw darts at?) will also obviously be ignored.

I will try to get around to put up more content. Although I do not travel all that often, I have definitely been to more places than what my pages suggest. I just need to find the time and energy to put them up. ;-)

Sometimes, I do not bring my camera on certain trips and for these trips, I will not put up a page, as I think writing travelogues and tips with just words without supporting photos is boring.

BTW, I love reading comments, especially nice ones *duh*! So, please feel free to leave me one. :-)

Cheers,
DarkRay