Wednesday, January 28, 2009 . 6:41 PM

Yesterday, I finally got myself to go out because I was feeling SUPER BORED at home with nothing to do!! Meet up with Aliff at Teck Whye LRT Station went to orchard to walk but soon realized that it was a bad day and time. Since it was still Chinese New Year, almost ALL the shops were closed!!! So we continued walking from orchard all the way to plaza singapura when we saw a very LONG QUEUE at the ISTANA and realized that it was the ISTANA OPEN HOUSE!!! I have also always wondered how was it like beyond the huge gate of the Istana so we queued up and we waited... waited... waited AND waited some more until finally we moved into the Istana but there was security checks!

Then we continued walking and walking!! Whew what a LONG Walk and it was ALSO HOT!!!

*The golf course while we are walking!*

Then I saw PRESIDENT S R NATHAN!!! Wanted to take a picture but there were too many people wanting to take pictures with him and it was too crowded surrounding him. Sigh! What a once in a lifetime shot missed!! Ha Ha! Anyway, we continued walking and took more pictures.

*What big cannons!!*

And we continued walking and walking! Man, it was such a long journey that we almost "died"!! Ha Ha!! Then we saw the Istana building!!

*THE ISTANA!!*

So we headed towards the istana and took a picture of the fountain!! Ha Ha! Amazingly, this fountain had a strong smell of chlorine and ONIONS!! Weird right?!

*The fountain!*

After that, we approached the Istana and we had to pay $2 to tour inside of Istana!! I was so excited!! But when we went inside, the tour guides said that NO CAMERAS ARE ALLOWED!! Well, too bad I could not show you all how magnificent was the Istana building!! There was even an elevator in the istana! It was like a palace!!

Well, after touring the istana, we headed back and it was indeed another LONG JOURNEY!! Before leaving, I took a last picture of the Istana and I would say that was the best picture!!