Hello friends. Or rather hello to the three or so obsessive stalkers still left checking this space after a 6 month long posting vacation, congratulations! You are the ultimate survivor. I’m currently typing this post a gazillion miles or so above the ground in an SIA plane. Yes, you saw that correctly, an SIA plane. A plane where dreams come true and rays of hope beam around so much you expect to look left and see a bloody care bear in the next seat. A plane where the in-flight shows don’t consist of just old hong kong serial reruns and The Dark Knight, and you can actually play Pokemon Silver version for entertainment instead of repeatedly jumping a dumpy little Italian plumber onto a mushroom, who probably never did anything till then but lead a peaceful fungusy existence. Of course with all my anticipation towards enjoying an SIA flight for the first time in a decade or so, it was only natural that the entertainment system died on me around 3 min into a rather rousing episode of Ben 10 Advance Philosophy 101. So here I am with my laptop whipped upon, typing a blogpost at the start of a vacation instead of at the end of it. (Though I’ll have to admit it’s fun looking at a screen 6 times the size of everyone else’s.)
In other news, I have recently ORDed, thus leaving me free to pursue meaningless pursuits like juggling, cooking eggs, juggling eggs and egging my brother on to try juggling eggs. For anyone learning to cook scrambled eggs, I recommend using soya bean milk instead of regular milk for a less milky taste, and using the Martha Stewart method. For guys trying this, do not be surprised if you feel a sudden urge to beat the eggs by smashing them against concrete with your forehead – that’s just your body trying to restore its natural level of manhood. Kidding. Guys who can cook are sexy, everyone knows that.
Chief among the happenings of the past year though, has been the Scam Club overseas Trip to Taiwan – or as it is more affectionately known –
Scam Club goes to Taiwan!
We all gathered happily at the airport, eager to depart for our overseas taimei Taiwan adventure. After taking the requisite group shop we bounded onto the airplane where for the first time in my life I got the fabled window seat. Naturally I annoyed everyone trying to sleep by opening the window fully and gazing at the cotton candy clouds wafting below the plane. It was like I had stepped into Care Bear land. Not that I would actually know about Care Bear land and their magical rainbow bridge which got destroyed in The Care Bear Movie (1985) in one of the saddest scenes in cinematic history, but you know, I’m just guessing. Halfway through the plane ride the three girls started a game of “Poke my nose” where apparently one scored points by poking someone else’s nose. That’s all there is to the game. Seriously. So for half the plane ride (and sadly the rest of the trip), we all looked like a bunch of severely short sighted individuals trying to dig each other’s nose. Way to be national ambassadors.
The new faces of Singapore.
And the new face for the CDC. Wash your hands children.
.
Soon enough we arrived at the airport where we queued to book a bus to take us to Taizhong. Just as we were about to start queuing at the main counter though, we got enticed by a man manning a counter in the middle of nowhere promising us a bus ride with massage chairs, wide seats and a screen. Seeing as all the other tour bus counters were stacked nicely together with shiny metal railings and fancy signboards, while this one was nothing more than a wooden table situated right next to the toilet, it seemed more likely that we’d end up bound, gagged and dumped along the highway with both kidneys missing then make it to Taizhong if we took his offer.
But you know. Massage Chairs.
“Hmmm. That’s a tough one.”
.
An hour later we were vibrating happily in our massage chairs while playing Mario Karts on a modified Playstation controller, content that while we were in all likelihood shortly about to begin our existences as multiple organ donors, we had made the right choice.
Yup, those are some fine livers right there.
Happily though, nothing untoward happened and we arrived at our destination safe and sound. It was quite a fun bus ride actually; we sang songs, looked at the window and engaged in a rousing game of hearts. Mr. Y even had time during the trip to engage in quiet and reflective sketching of our posse.
Always knew you had it in you.
A triumphant run across the busy streets of Taizhong later, and we had reached our destination – The Taizhong Natural Museum of Natural Science where for the first time ever, I was going to see DINOSAUR BONES. To put it mildly, I was bleeding horse crap excited. Fellow scam club members will remember that when we first got together to plan the outing, I immediately gently raised the suggestion that we visit a natural science museum in the following manner:
Mr. Y: “So do you all have any suggestions on where to go?”
Ohcy: “Why not visit a Natural Science Museum with a Dinosaur bone exhibition? I do believe that it would be rather quaint basking in the aura of history surrounding the fossilized bones of a Chungkingosaurus Jiangbeiensis* or an Erectopus* pardon my Latin.”
Ok fine it went like this:
Mr. Y: “So do you all have any suggestions on where to go?”
Ohcy: “DINOSAURBONESDINOSAURBONESDINOSAURBONESDINOSAURBONESDINOSAU…“
*These are real dinosaur names. Seriously.
To my great horror though, upon finally entering the Fossils section of the Museum, I was confronted not with great hulking remnants of the terrible lizards, but great hulking plastic remnants of the terrible lizards. Sure there were a few small real fossils of inconsequential creatures that probably our direct ancestors, but all the huge fossils were sculpted imitations. Not that I realised this immediately of course. I spent a rather sad 15 min gazing with awe at the “footprint” of an ancient dinosaur before it struck me that rock usually isn’t this shiny and plasticy and any ditch water in that footprint would have probably evaporated sometime in the last 65 million years.
After that we fooled around the Museum making jokes of ourselves. I would go into further detail but I think the photos speak for themselves:
Oh my sleeping child.
The modern happy family.
That’s the pinnacle of evolution right there.
The absolute pinnacle
First of many mirror shots.
All hail the monkey god.
A foreshadowing of events on the morning of Day 5.
Soon after that, we hurried to catch a cool show on space in some cool circular dome like screen with a cool projector that projected multiple pin prick lights to represent stars. I use cool way too much. Once again though I was faced with a replica of one of my biggest dreams (seeing a night sky with thousands of stars), but seeing as I hadn’t expected to even get that much I was still rather excited by the whole starry bonanza.
By the end of the show it was 6pm or so, and we were faced with the prospect of either taking a bus or walking back to our hotel. Seeing as we had a map to refer to, I voted that we be adventurous and do the latter to the agreement of the others. So I stared at the map for a minute or two, pretended I knew exactly which roads we were supposed to walk down and just winged it based on my compass. One and a half hours later we were starting to regret that decision as we passed by road after junction after trafficaccidentwaitingtohappen, with no hotel in sight.
Tempers weren’t improved when we arrived at a traffic crossing only to be accosted by a speaker that went something like this:
“Shing shang fong ching chong chang GUAI LAI LAI! GUAI LAI LAI! GUAI LAI LAI! fong shong ding dang bing bing ching GUAIII LAII LAII! GUAI LAII LAII! GUAI LAAI LAAII! shing shang … ….”
“GUAI LAI LAI!!! GUAI LAI LAI!!!!!!”
Didn’t help that the traffic light seemed to have suffered a terminal stroke. And so we stood for minutes at that road crossing waiting for the light to turn green, as our sanities slowly got guailailaied into oblivion.
Eventually though, against all odds, we made it to the hotel and collapsed outside it in relief. It was a close one though – one wrong turn and we might have spent the rest of our lives wandering the dark alleyways of Taizhong living off the money we made selling Mr. Y away to a drug cartel. After sneaking up to the hotel room, presumably with the Mission Impossible music playing in all of our heads, we cam whored for a while before going down and boarding a cab where we cam whored some more. Yes we are a slutty, slutty group of cam geishas.
Just look at us.
After arriving at the night market, we proceeded to gorge ourselves on food and snacks and lots and lots of bubble tea. I shall take a moment here to state that as I took that first sip of Taiwan Bubble Tea, the experience was, for lack of a better word, Jizztastic. I was in Ecsteasy. I had a Pearlgasm. And I should probably stop.
This made it all that much sadder though when Runty sadistically split my third cup of bubble tea for the night with a round house kick, just as we were settling down for some tau huay. Holding back tears, I dashed to the nearest drain and slurped up as much of the milky goodness as I could before it dripped down into the sewers forever.
.
I wasn’t kidding.
The smile is only on the outside. Inside I’m weeping like a bitter 7 year old kid whose favourite Donatello toy got thrown out the window by his older brother. (Yes I’m talking about you.)
Sometime during the night we also took the opportunity to being the inaugural Scam Club Heart Drawing contest, because we firmly believe that if you can’t draw a cute heart you’re probably a bitter, lonely person living with a hundred musty smelling cats. Or just a typical guy.
Someone clearly has a black heart.
A few more drawings, random bites, camwhoresy moments and one more taxi ride later, we were all snug in our rooms, ready to settle down for the night
Thus ends the first day of this account.
Moar Photos!
Engaging in a night rave in a taxi club. You know those taxi clubs and their wild crazy teens.
Being stoned after our night rave. Nonexistent alcohol and upperwaist dancing does that to you. A few people clearly have too much energy though.
Sausage party. Literally.
No idea what nic’s doing in this shot.
Yum Yum! Or some other random caption cos I can’t think of what else to say here.
I’m regressing into my Takopachi state.
He’s just begging someone to lick that off.
No comment.
Entertaining ourselves outside the magical bubble tea shop.
Crossing the line from self entertainment to bizarre sadomasochism.
We are indeed a merry band or artists.
“I see you driving round town with the girl I love, and I’m like…”
Mr. Y, International Man of Mystery.
I have no idea why we were stoning outside the room. Someone remind me please.
Day 2: (TO BE CONTINUED)
Does anyone even still come here?
Leave A Comment