Uniquely Sinapore,revisited 2005
Almost exactly 1 year,a year after i left singapore,a place where i've had some good times there!Even though it was onyl a short stay, this trip is one that i porbably won't forget for a while, for what was bad and what was good.I must say I've learnt quite a new few things even though I know the place pretty decently well.
So,let me start off with some of my worst decisions that i made in my entire life!!trust me, it was pretty dumb, stupid but probbably that's who i am. Well, on the friday embarking down on the trip, my first stop was JB. my mom wanted me to find auntie Mei Ling first as it would be even darker and later when i reached Singapore. My other option was taking a midnight train down and reaching there in the morning(which should have done!!)so, on that fateful friday, i bought a ticket, who's bus company i did not know...(MISTAKE 1) This was so as other companies had their times later. So, when i boarded the bus, i gave auntie Mei Ling a call to confirm with her about her picking me up later that night. To my horror, she FORGOT( i did confirm with her the week before:P) but i guess it's normal as people do forget stuff. However, if i knew this would happen i would have taken up option 2!!! but I've bought my tix d so wat to do.. so she asked her friend to pick me up.( very pai seh leh!!)
Now,s here the biggest mistake of my trip, being sleepy and hungry and the need to go to toilet!! And i assume to much anyway. So the bus was off down to JB, departing at 6.30 pm?3 hours later, we reached Yong Peng...I needed to pee then and i haven't eaten anything since 12??was damn hungry then..so i went down!!! to my horror,my horror!!! the BUSS was just dropping people off!!!SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i did ask the driver whether we were having a break and i thought he did say 'yes' but...................*dieded* so i'm left in yongpeng..around 200 km from JB..without one of my luggages. Luckily, i brought my knapsack down with me( my passport, mp3 player, cam, etc was inside!) But my chargers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Those were in my other bag....bleh...later, i'm going to tell you how much it costs... so how did i get fromYong Peng to JB?by CAB... guess how much it costs...???! 4000 YEN?? around there.. convert yourself.. and firgure it out..It's hard to talk about all this sad stuff.... argh.,.. makes me kinda angry and sad all over again...From this moment on it's going to be HAPPY HAPPY STUFF!!my happiest moments were in sing itself
So it's sat morning and i'm in sing! i've met up with aunt loretta, where i'm bunking in with.Her two sons are by far the most contrasting siblings i met. One's an engineer and one deals in finance and investment? 1 drinks wine while the other whisky.1 likes classical while the other more to heavy metal. etc and etc.. I met up with her in city hall mrt and had lunch at raffles place.Then I had to go shopping for clothes!! (Everything from shirts to underwears!)i did buy an East India pants for only 20Sg dollars..quite worth it. After that I went to Golden Mile Complex to get my bus ticket back.This TIME, i'm getting a trustworthy company:P Then then. when back to her place to have a rest and a BATH!!so time flies a while.. and his youngest son invites me to go with him to his office. By the way he works for GIC.. a gov related company which actually wields more investment power than Temasek ...scary.. The office was COOL!!! half the building was theirs.. 50+ stories in all.. the got a damn good pool table to play around and the gym is huge!!! Some more, drinks were free and snacks too!(he did say though having all this perks meant a lower paycheck..)After that... it's off to hunting down for my chargers.. and the obvious palce to go was Sim Lin Sq.! First stop was to get my cam charger.. being the easiet.. the shop sold it to me for 90Sg.. retail price. Could have been cheaper but i wasn't in the mood to bargain anymore...Next off was for my LG handpohone and my Creative mp3 player.. LG is a hard model to find so i wasnt surprised when i couldnt find any... but creative man..(it's a sg brand) .. they don't sell any accessories in the whole bloody complex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! one salesman suggested i go to their hq all the way in JURONG but it's closed and won't be open until..TUESDAY! tough luck...That was around the evening d but i've yet to meet any of my friends.. WHY? cause they were all having COLLEGE DAY....so..the appointment was at about 6. I decided to drop by at the hostel, Oldham Hall(OH) and it was wierd going back in as a visitor...i finally met Ivan, Eric,Victor,Jason after a bloody year, while jonas and ben i see more often. Therest were having some AB camp walk kinda thingy...sucks eh?? Ben decided we go down orchard to play DOTA!!!haha.. so we did but guess wad.. the place was so packed that waiting time was probbably an hour!!Jonas, Eric and I had later plans to watch the FA cup final clash between Manchester United and Arsenal. It was at our usual place,Chjimes!Nice place for watching football.they brought a couple of juniors down too and one of them is an Arsenal fan too!(Last yr, i was the only one..VS the rest.. now atleast got a companion:P)match was only so so..Man U should have ended it when they had the chance but life's just unfair ain't it?Penalties were as exiting as ever and Lehman made a supoerb save!I had a great time without any alcohol involved(chjimes is a pub by the way). It was around 1 am when i reached back and after a hot shower i sat down to drink a lil water.I then had a good chat with aun't Loretta's older son, Alan. How old I'm not sure but he's an electrical engineering working as a lecturer at Notts Uni branch in Sing.He must be the most interesting guy i've met this trip down( someone whom i don't know). 1st thing he said was offering me a beer!It seemed pretty hard to turn him down so i had to have one. A choice between Asahi or Carlsberg, Having tried Carlsberg before, I decided to go for Asahi. It was smooth and was quite nice.(it costs 4 bucks a can.. what do you expect?)He then started taking out his bottle of cognac, was it? Can't really remember myself. He called that cheap whisky and invited me later for one too!!I was really curious how strong it was so i gellfully accepted.Damn, it was strong and this guy was just drinking it down like water. It was really nice with coke though. The coke covered all the stiffness while the whisky added this smoothness to it.really complements each other well. We had a long good chat for 3 hours?? Pretty long time for a guy chat eh? well, apparently his ex-girlfriend was a japanese and he's spent a couple of years there. That was enough content to last the night. What he said was like what other people say about japan. I must learn how to drink. Friends there are shallow?It's expensive and etc,etc...He even asked me to learn how to smoke, as a social advantage!He doesn't smoke by the way but according to him, this is an easy way to find friends:P Well, rest assured, I'll never smoke, hopefully. Drinking i can accept though.We talked mainly along this line and despite the age diference,I could ask him anything. Maybe it was his 'anything goes' attitude. This was a very direct guy and he'll say what he feels usually.It was all fun chatting up this late and at 4, Quill was showing! I was so tempted to watch but... considering i had onyl 2 hours of sleep the night before... I'd better turn to bed before i faint the following day!
A bit too long for one paragraph eh?So, I woke up at 8.30? I had to go back to hostel at around 10 am.It's around an hours ride away:P Up to then, what was I going to do I still wasn't that sure. all i know I was supposed to have breakfast then go shopping!Apparently the rest were still sleeping, so it was only di and I and Irene!! I forgot to even contact her. didn't even thought of doing so but it was ncie to see her again! We went to orchard and i bought my hp charger.. This time it was 70 sing!I'm going to tell you later on how i'll regret buying this charger. Anyways, it was afternoon already!U know what did means?STAR WARS!! hehe, ben bought tix for me at shaw. There were another bunch watching at the same time but at cathay. Kinda wierd right? Two gangs at different places.So, what did i think of it?It was as expected, it did reach a certain level.The beginning was a bit dull in it's fight scenes though. The fight betwwen Count Dooku and Obi Wann and Anakin was really bad..really bad. Acting was also before par, Natalie Portman and Hayden notably to blame.The one good actor was probably the Emperor himself. He showed how an evil and twisted guy should be like.Overall, the movie was not perfect but enjoyable. The plot at certain times even seemed forced on.by the way, the cineplex at Shaw was huge! Bigger than any i've seen in Malaysia here.After the movie, it was off to esplanade!! AJC's Rhapsody 2. The only thing i wanted to look out for was actually villia! (p.s: Eric,if you are reading this I don't like her:P Don't start a new rumour in OH.We're just good friends.)Rhapsody 2 is by the way a concert by my ex jc's band and chinese orchestra. They were both up to standard but the band did better this time than the last. Less notable flaws.CO was incredible except for that 20 min piece!!Don't you think that's too long??Note that at this time we've yet to eat anything since lunch and are dying of hunger now:P We wanted to go burger king but we ended up in McDs.Supposed to be at Raffles Place but got lost and ended up in Clark Quay.( So technically, we didn;t get lost) That was the end of day 2( at this point, i'm getting lazier and lazier to write:P)
Day 3 was a bit of a rush. My initial plan was just to spend it with Vilia but Di insisted on going breakfast.So after rescheduling, i've decided to meet vilia at 7 and the rest at 9. Alan called me crazy for going out so early in the morning and he probably was right.I couldnt make it back in time if i were to catch my bus at 12 so i brought everything along with me. Alan was the only awake then and he sent me off. His last piece of advice was probably disturbing to me.'Friends are there to be made use of but you must make sure that you're used too.'He went on to say that having a few friends is just enough. He's probably right. yet, I still think of all my friends as friends and.... Argh, don't know how to explain it.Maybe in another edition.So it was of to Bishan to met Vilia( For those who don't know her, she's my indon classmate and probably the only one i still keep in contact with besides the scholars) Jon called it a breakfast date but don't you think a date at 7am at McD's abit wierd???Nothing else was open at that time:PSo we just practically chatted and talked about our lives and so on.She's still the same as whe I left. Before we parted, we wanted to take a pic together but there wasn't a suitable place! Summore it didn't seem like anyone would help us take a pic, so we ended up using her hp to take one.Damn, i want that photo!It was kinda sad parting again and I dont think i'll see her for a while to come or maybe never.......Anyways, after to OH again! Breakfast for real this time and Jon had the idea of eating tim sum! He said that this shop in paragon(orchard) was really really good and he didn't disappoint.(Price didn't as well) 10 dumplings costs us 9 sing excluding tax and service charges n bla bla bla.i had 3 dumplings for around 10 sing and later pork noodles! It was really good , γγΎγ!! the dunplings has 8 different layers and it was so delicate! Maybe it justified the price.....Now , here was a surprise for me..The bought a cake for me!!My birthday was the day after but they actually remembered:P Something I didn't expect actually.They bought a Mrs Field Brownie Cake. Was really sweet but damn good and filling.A nice conclusion to my trip eh? Would have been nice if it just ended there though.
After that, there isn;'t much to tell anymore. We parted and i left back for Malaysia except... remeember i said i regretted buying my handphone charger? Well, the moment i entered Malaysia, I realized my handphone was working properly!!Can't recieve any signals but apparent while roaming, i'm able too.Weird eh? If i knew this would happen, I would have bought a new phone right there n then in sing. After conversion, I could save almost 50 ringgit than if i bought one here. I'm trying to fix the phone now but if it costs too much,might as well get a new one eh?That night, it was off to Usui Sensei's place as it was her birthday!If i can add a link here, i'll be sure to add the pics, Anyways that's about it.I've l;earnt quite a bit from this trip and hopefully i wont be a dumbass to repeat what i've done.:P pics here http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeCOGjlu4ctWK2
