The Pod and The Plaza

Photo credit: jugalbandi

Where can you find a pod in Singapore? How about a pizza plaza?
Both can be found in our National Library.

On Saturday I attended Mad About Singapore Legendary Tales held at The Pod in National Library Building. The Pod at level 16 is restricted access, its exclusive lift located inside a room at one end of the lobby (away from the main lift service) reminds me of the lift service to the restaurants on top of Swissôtel The Stamford. The view from top is great, but you can also experience this great scenery from other unrestricted levels like the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library.

From Singapore VR:

The Pod on level 16 is an enclosed space for library programmes and corporate functions. Strategically edged on the sea-facing side of the building, it offers a breathtaking panoramic view of the cityscape, overlooking the Marina Bay, Central Business District and Orchard Road.

Immerse in interactive virtual reality tour of The Pod (day and night).

At The Plaza was held the Asia Humanitarian Forum, "a public educational platform to promote both humanitarian and environmental causes to the masses".

Asia Humanitarian Forum at The Plaza

Left: Mayflower Secondary School booth by their Youth Environmental Guardians (YEGs). Collaborating with Cicada Tree Eco-Place, they put up eco-living and Chek Jawa photo exhibitions (info).

Right: I think those are recycling machines by Coca-Cola. How do they work?

SQEV1 electric car on display

The colourful electric car on display caught my attention. SQEV1 stands for Singapore Quest for Electric Vehicle Phase 1. Th car is a highly modified version of Corbin Sparrow and Myers Motors NmG-1 (NmG = No More Gas). In Phase 2 (complete 2014), the objective is to mass produce 10,000 of them at a low price.

What's interesting about this car is that it is considered a motorcycle in some countries but registered here as a car. LTA considers the vehicle a car as at 700kg, it exceeded the maximum weight for a motorcycle (400kg). As a result, the vehicle is the only three-wheel and single-seater car registered in Singapore.

For me, the highlight of the forum was this second shot by Ernest Goh.

Altered Land, a photo-documentary on Aceh, by Ernest Goh

What Ernest said about Altered Land:

"Altered Land is a photo-documentary on Aceh, Indonesia after it was devastated by the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. I flew into Aceh days after the disaster together with NGO Mercy Relief. But having worked in a news organization I knew Aceh's tragedy would soon fall out of the news cycle as fast as it fell in, depriving it of the world's attention it really needs. As a result, I decided to allow the photo project to evolve together with Aceh's long road to recovery, which eventually became a 4-year documentary. A feature of this documentary was the precise planning and detail that went into searching for the exact same spots of devastation and photographing them again 4 years on in 2008, highlighting the obvious changes."