Gundam Wisdom

I just finished watching Gundam Seed Destiny Episode 17, another brilliant episode showing this show is far superior to its predecessor as well as being one of the best anime on the air right now. Anyways, here's the speech from the end, I liked it so much I copied it down:

Athrun: You said you lost your family on Onogoro Island in ORB, right?
Shin: I said they were killed…by the Athha family's arrogance.
Athrun: If that’s the way you want to think of it, that's fine. But, is that why you've come to think how you do? Saying to yourself: “If only I had power back then…” “If only I'd gotten ahold of power…”
Shin: How can you say that to me?
Athrun: Everyone who has cried over being powerless thinks that way, I think. But, from the moment you take that power into your hand, you'll become the person who will make others cry. Don't you ever forget that.
We’ll be going out on the battlefield again soon. Should you forget at that time, losing yourself to your own selfish reasoning and sense of justice, you'll become a destroyer, using your power recklessly against others.
You’re not like that, right?

Arthrun Zala to Shin Asuka, Gundam Seed Destiny ep.17

The view to the Northeast from out hotel balcony in Singapore, room 5668, as in, Floor 56 (of 70), room 68. (Although I'd say there were really only 20 rooms on the floor that I could tell.) When we were driving in from the airport I noticed that most of the tall buildings in Singapore are painted white, which gave me a clue as to the normal colour of the sky. The weather in Singapore is incredibly gentle, 3 days in the Sun in 30+ degrees temperatures and Rob (who burns bright red in 20 minutes of Ontario Summer sun) didn't even turn a darker shade of pink, only my face got a little redder.  

The view to the Northwest from our hotel Balcony. In the far distance we could even see Maylasia when the weather was clear. 

A traditional old style Singapore streetfront near our hotel. You'll notice the bright colours; in fact all the "old" buildings we saw in Singapore had shiny bright new coats of paint on their VERY well kept exteriors. Between the gentle weather and the government upkeep the whole city feels more like a theme-park than a real city. It's like being on a hollywood set they made yesterday because everything is clean and nothing shows any wear. (Unless you look really hard.) It's kind've creepy, really. I shutter to think how many Singaporeans are just employed in keeping the city clean and well maintained. 

This is the "Shaw Tower", and if you look reeeealy carefully you can see the Shaw Brothers logo at the very top. The Shaw Brothers were the makers of most of the Hong Kong Kung-Fu flicks of the 1960's, 70's and early 80's and were a group of rich Hong Kong businessmen. They seem to own a couple big buildings in Singapore.

The business tower skyline. On the right you can see what I referred to as the the "Cut-Off CN Tower", which is their cenetaph war memorial to Singapore's WWII experiences. 

"The Durian" Singapore's giant bug-eyed art gallery and art exhibition hall. 

The habourfront park near the Art Gallery is filled with these giant black statues of naked fat people in a vareity of poses (including having sex). I'm told there is also a gallery of the artist's paintings of fat people someplace in this area as well, but managed to miss them. Not on my list of regrets.

This is the front of a Duckboat, an amphibious tour craft use to tour the habourfront. (As opposed to the docks, which are on the other side of downtown.)  

The only picture from the Night Safari that Connie and I went to the first night in Singapore. It's basically a zoo filled with nocternal animals which are lured into certain viewing areas by regular feedings so the tourists can see them. Some of the animals are really amazing, I saw a deer the size of a guinea pig, and a guinea pig (Capybara) the size of a small deer! This is the only picture because the animals are scared by flash photography, so none is allowed inside the park.

Monday we went to Sentosa Island, a popular tourist spot and the former military base because it controls the only entry point to the harbour from sea. Unfortunately the guns were facing seaward when the Japanese attacked from shore, which didn't help Singapore much, and it fell into Japanese hands for about 3.5 years of WWII. 

Singapore is one of the world's busiest ports, and a huge part of the harbourfront is dedicated to shipping. Those cranes are gigantic, and there must be over a hundred thousand cargo containers scattered about the island. 

The Habourfront center, and the road is a long way down...(This picture was taken once Connie calmed Rob down and convinced him they weren't about to plunge to their deaths.) 

The Peeeeeeaaace Booooaaattt, promising fun and adventure for everyone. In this case doing it by being a floating casino that travels between Singapore and some distant port and bringing people together through the common cause of gambling. 

Riding our way to the relay post. When we reached the post the car suddenly stopped and a voice came on telling us to be calm and that "service would resume soon". Not something you want to hear while hanging several hundred meters in the air. Service did resume after about 3 or 4 minutes, I suspect some tourist hit a panick button somewhere on the system because their kid got their foot stuck in the door. 

Sentosa island has an ancient style Chinese village on it that is run-down (one of the only run-down things in Singapore) and where tourists aren't allowed from what I can tell. 

Sentosa is surrounded by "double beaches" on the sideside which you can see in the background, the shore beaches are protected by crescent shaped islands which also have their own beaches. You can also see the Sentosa Merlion and the Sentosa Art Gallery in the picture. 

Robyn and Connie having just left the Sentosa Cinemania Ride-Show, one of those 3-d theatres where the audience sits in cars and gets thrown around. In this case the rides were the points of view of a toy slot-race and a toy rollercoaster. Very creative but also very jarring.  

Robyn and Conne in the middle of the flower garden with the Sentosa Merlion in the background. The symbol of Singapore, there are at least two Merlions, one here and one at the city harbourfront. 

In the flower garden was this ugly dragon statue, so of course I had to take a picture of it!  

One of the rarest animals in the world, the Pink Dolphin is born gunmetal gray but slowly turns light gray and then pink as it gets older. There are only a handful of them in the world, and this park has the only ones in captivity. (Having them doing tricks for their dinner, of course...) 

The entrance to what Connie's mother referred to as "probably the world's cleanest Chinatown" when she saw the pictures, and she's right. At least some of these are the decorations for the giant Chinese New Year party the week before waiting to be taken down. 

An old-style street in what is perhaps the world's cleanest Chinatown. You will notice the lack of cars on the road, in Singapore I'm told that there are two types of license plates: ones that let you drive downtown, and ones that limit you to outside of it.  

Clark Quay may not look like much in this picture, but it's a major landmark on the riverfront. It's basically a collection of restaurants on the riverside, one of several such places. All of them catering to tourists and quite romantic at night. 

Connie and I next went to Ju Rong Bird Park (Aviary) where they have hundreds of different types of birds from around the world, such as these colourful parrots. 

A close up of another pair of lovebirds. ^_^