Happy days

Since last week, its been so fruitful everyday. Waking up at 12 noon or 1 pm, going around different hawker centres eating very nice food, spending quality time at home, its all just so nice! Ahhh seriously this has got to be one of the nicest breaks I've had in a long time.

Anyway, went to Aquarama on sunday with Tingfeng, hmm, not too bad, but felt it could have been better. The joy of seeing nice tank setups is something words can't really describe. There were a number of competitions in different categories.

1) Betta competitions







Hahaha, seeing all these bettas brought back fond memories in secondary school days. During one of the public speaking sessions, I brought my betta and talked about wanting to become a betta trainer, much akin to a pokemon trainer, which was like the ultimate craze then. And guys in class would rear them and we try have fish fights. Hahaha.



2) Planted tank competition. This was seriously quite boring, not many entries, and I really wonder how they judge the tanks. I mean some tanks were nicer than the others, but got nothing. The more mediocre ones were those getting top 3 prizes in that category.



For instance, the tank above, in my opinion, is much nicer than the 1st prize tank, as seen below, but it got no prize! Beauty in the eye of the beholder, or in this case the judges...





This tank is nice too, with the whole lot of cardinal tetras (one of my favourite tropical fish). Somehow, the water parameters are not quite right, since the fishes were clustering in one corner of the tank.



3) Discus Competition.

Discus are one of the long lasting fish hobbyist attractions, unlike short-lived crazes like the Luohan. So much so that there's still many people entering their discuses for competition. However, these fishes never really interest me. I see them more like their tasty dinner top counterparts, the nice, expensive pomfrets that's one of my favourite fish dish. Still, it didn't harm much to take a closer look at some with real nice patterns.









4) Goldfish compy.

Oh yes, the goldfishes that I find all too familiar. My dad's a goldfish fanatic, and I've pretty much grown accustomed to seeing these at home. However, some of these in competition are really beautiful.

The overall goldfish champion was this multi-coloured ranchu. Hmmm, this particular breed looks nicer when viewed from the top, instead of through the glass like in this pic.



I personally like orandas (or lionheads) alot. Saw a significant number entered for the particular oranda compy as well.



The champion.

Some other worthy contenders.











The black ones you see above are cute! Haha, I think they will grow blind sooner or later, when the tissue on their head grow to the extent of covering their eyes completely. Hahah.

Oh yes and another very cute lionhead.





The face of this fish really looks like its taken out from some comic book character. Ahh cute!

Another fish worth a mention is the black butterfly. Or telescopic eye, due to its puffed out eyes. Chinese Fengshui has it that in a tank of preferably 9 fishes, there ought to be a black one, to keep everything in balance, and this particular breed of goldfish proves to be very popular about goldfish enthusiasts.




5) Marine tank competition.

In what I thought was the highlight of all competitions, the marine tank one proved to be most interesting. All the tanks in my opinion deserve a prize of some sort. Not only is a marine tank hard to set up, its also very hard to maintain and ensure your corals or marinelife won't die on you.









The 3rd prize tank, great sense of depth and the large amount of corals presented nicely.





And if I remembered correctly, 1st prize tank as below. Hmm, nice but somehow there were what I felt were equally good ones.




Yes, that's about the key competitions in this year's Aquarama, of course there were also other competitions like guppies, cichids and others, but those fishes were rather less significant I felt. It was a nice experience enjoying the beauty of different forms of aquatic life, and it has made me feel like redoing my fish tank! The mind's willing but the body's weak. =/ Hopefully I'll be diligent enough to restart my fish tank. Heh.

On other notes, its been really fun eating around, so far in my Hawker Centre Food Trails, covered 2 hawker centres, Changi Village and Chomp Chomp. Quite rewarding, and its still considered quite healthy on the wallet, though not on the body, which brings me to the point that I should get to more exercises other than Wii-sports. =//

Ahh, I look forward to more happy days ahead. Its only 1st of June! 3 more weeks!