(Lol, I wrote this post three months ago but just never posted it. Found it while clearing my blog archives and decided I might as well upload it now. For all the people who only visit this site once every 3 months, pretend this message doesn’t exist.)
Hello one and all. As a safeguard against my debilitating memory, I have decided to do a quarterly log of anything especially memorable that might have happened over those 3 months. One might argue I suppose, that it’s the most memorable events that least need safeguarding against memory loss, but I assure you from my recollections from kindergarden that that only applies to the memories in which you make a total ass of yourself. Like a certain chinese new year fashion faux pas that I hope not too many of you know about.
Anyway, speaking of chinese new year, I guess that’s a good place to start. This year’s CNY was a rather refreshing experience, seeing as I spent half of it in camp. Spent a rather sad night in camp while the rest of my family enjoyed their reunion dinner, one apparently so divinely sumptuous that my brother couldn’t help but wax eloquent about it in an unnecessarily loud voice over the next few days. Didn’t help that hy shamelessly showed me a picture of the most beautiful pig I’ve ever seen in my life. Well, most beautiful roasted pig carcass to be precise. Luckily enough, I managed to get out for the first day of CNY visiting.
14 MAR 10 – CNY DAY1
The first day of CNY was pretty much standard routine. Just the usual whirlwind of visiting, ang pows and chatting with my younger cousins, one of who took a rather sadistic delight in announcing repeatedly that I look like a 15 year old boy. Ge should empathise with this. Rather frustratingly I have to concede that my cousin is only one out of the many people who have made similar comments. Deluded fools, all of them. I’m not young or boyish! I’m just well preserved. Or something.
But that wasn’t the end of the mocking. You would think that as someone standing at the precipice of adulthood, I was treated with a modicum of awe and respect by my younger relatives during CNY, but no, the world doesn’t work that way. As my relatives had just finished their traditional bout of mahjong, I ursurped their table to, well, play around with the mahjong tiles. Any fool walking pass should have noticed my steady hands and keen look of concentration, and applauded the dignified manner in which I arranged the tiles on the table into smiley faces. But no, just as I was putting the finishing touches on smiley face number three ” : D “, this young whippersnapper, who couldn’t have been more than 7 years old, walked past me, stopped, turned his head to me slowly and said the following with more derision than I have ever heard since the last time I tried to tell px a lame joke.
“A Dot. Dot. Dot.”
And then with his piece said, he nonchalantly turned his head back, stepped over the shattered pieces of my pride, and walked back to his mother.
(In my defence, I was playing with the tiles to amuse one of my baby cousins. Though of course looking back now I suppose the baby’s delighted squeals of laughter were merely cruel, mocking snorts of derision. Children grow up too fast these days.)
Oh, and I met my art junior Justin while visiting. It really is a small world.
15 MAR 10 – CNY DAY 2
I stoically contributed to the defence of our precious homeland.
16 MAR 10 – CNY DAY 3
Got out of camp early in the morning and rushed home to bath so I could meet royce, soph and gang to go adventist. Alas fatigue overtook me and I accidentally fell asleep after tucking myself deep into bed. Ok fine, maybe not accidentally. In any case, I woke up a few hours later feeling less in danger of walking into a wall, and trooped off to find royce and soph for lunch and a day of fun.
We met at some Japanese sushi restaurant near Novena and were delighted to learn from their menu that they offered a lunch time sushi buffet. Being cautious people, me and royce proceeded to question the pretty receptionist girl on the lunchtime buffet.
RY: “Does the buffet include everything in the menu?”
PRG: “Yes sir, except the red plates and the items from the special order section”
Me: “Including free flow drinks?”
PRG: “No sir, drinks still have to be ordered.”
RY: “How long is the buffet valid till?”
PRG: “It’s valid from 2 to 3 pm, so you have to start ordering within that timing.”
This continued for quite some time as we continued to bombard her with question after question. Sophia on the other hand merely stood by the side tapping her leg impatiently. Eventually, faced with both a dearth of questions and what sounded like a tap dance concert emanating from sophia’s right foot, we decided to just stroll in and enjoy our buffet. At which point of course, the pretty receptionist girl finally finds it appropriate to say-
PRG: “Oh, but there is no sushi buffet today. Because it’s a public holiday.”
You would think that such statement should have been mentioned at the very beginning. After some discussion though, we (sans sophia) concurred that the girl simply just wanted to chat with us two debonair young men. Yes, self delusion does make the world a happier place. Ignoring a very pointed glare from sophia, we walked in anyway after deciding we didn’t want to waste any more time finding a new eating spot.
After lunch, we walked to United Square to buy games for RY’s wii, more specifically “Raving Rabbits”, but couldn’t find the game in any of the shops there. Friend sophia’s eyelids had drooped the moment we trooped into the first video game shop, thus we decided to spare her further agony and cab* to my fav game shop at AMK hub where I was sure we would find the game. True enough, both royce and me walked out of that game shop with our hands full – royce gleefully hugging his two new “Raving Rabbit” games and wii controllers while I dragged sophia’s snoring carcass out of the store.
*Of note – the cab we took had a bumper sticker that said “CatchCheatingSpouses.com”. Interesting side job. Though I guess taxi drivers make excellent private eyes. Skips the whole running into a cab and shouting “follow that car!” bit I guess.
Cabbed to royce’s house after that to begin our Raving Rabbit extravaganza. Nothing much to note here, except that spending copious amounts of time playing 02jam does come in useful now and then, especially if you consider winning a round of a game called “Raving Rabbit”s one of the highlights if your week. Sad, but true. Oh, and sophia became a Goober halfway through the game. You’d have to play it to understand.
Following this I tried my hand at another one of royce’s wii games – “No More Heroes 2”, which was considerably more memorable. Game play basically involved controlling an assassin and making him run around splitting people into pieces with a beam sword as copious amounts of blood spurted out of them. Oh, and he has a hot chick as his mentor or something. Wanton violence, hot chicks and laser swords – what every hot blooded male wants in a video game. And in everything else too I suppose. Sophia on the other hand, looked like she was about to disown me for playing the game and royce for owning it. Eager to defend his game, royce snatched the controller from me. “Wait wait let met show you something!” he said, as he proceeded to make the game character pin down an enemy using grappling moves.
RY: “See! I’m a peace loving man. Not violent at all.”
At which point the character proceeded to frenziedly stab his beam sword into the enemy till it exploded in an orgy of blood and pixelated guts.
” …….”
Me: “Right.”
Soph: “Nice one Mr. Gupta.”
Soon enough though, royce had to leave for his army outing, so me and sophia decided to go to the nearby East Coast Park to cycle/blade. Royce’s mum gave us a lift there, and we scurried down to the rental shop to rent our stuff. Sadly enough after blading for only 10 mins my knee and ankles started to ache a little. Another 10 mins later and they were formally registering a protest with my brain, so I decided to swap my skates for a bicycle. Sigh, I’m turning into an old man. An old man who gets mocked by 7 year old kids at any rate. Clearly my 15-year-old-boy looks are only skin deep.
Despite much pleading, the guy at the rental shop refused to swap my blades for a bike, and insisted that I do a separate rental even though I offered to pay the full higher price of the skate rentals for the bicycle. Or at least he refused to swap them for me. He immediately acquiesced the moment sophia asked him, the lecherous pervert. Sophia of course seemed delighted with her successful use of sex appeal.
*smiles and poses like geisha*
“See, being a 美女 (beautiful girl) makes all the difference. Hee.”
Now that we were both equipped with bicycles, we proceeded to leisurely cycle along the coast, singing songs and chatting along the way. After cycling for around 15 minutes, it occurred to me just how much I must have annoyed the bike rental uncle by asking to swap my skates for a bike. By the look and feel of it, he had saddled me with a bicycle that had probably taken the Japanese through the jungles of Malaya during World War 2. The pedals were difficult to push and occasionally the gears would give way completely, leaving me completely unable to accelerate. This wasn’t so bad when the bike was still moving – either I managed to fiddle with the gears till they worked properly again or I slowed to a natural stop. It was when it happened while I was trying to take off from standstill that it really pissed me off. Numerous folks walking along East Coast that night were treated to the sight of an idiot huffing and puffing on his bike and peddling furiously while he, and his completely stationary bike, slowly toppled over. It was like riding on an exercise bike, except exercise bikes don’t usually hurl you to the ground after 5 seconds of peddling. Oh well, at least it gave me extra exercise.
Soon, and painfully, enough, we reached the epic spot where 2 years ago a certain friend of ours fell and ripped a hole in his pants while roller blading. We stoically stood there for a moment, holding a minute of silence for all the poor souls who saw a side of him they probably never wished to see, before continuing on our journey westwards.
By the time we had cycled to one end of ECP and back, royce had finished his army outing and had come back to rejoin us. Passing by a rather scenic spot by the beach, we decided to stop and cam whore there for a while. After setting up my tripod and camera, I was all ready to start the self timer on my camera when I saw royce squatting at one side fiddling with his ipod and speakers.
Me: “Kha kin (hurry up) lar! The sun is about to set liao!!”
RY: “Wait wait, let me play a fitting emo song on my ipod first. Hmm…”
Me: “Who bloody cares what song is playing! No one’s going to hear it when they look at the picture?!”
*ignores me and continues fiddling with his ipod*
I can’t remember exactly what it was but he must have found an appropriate song soon after because we managed to take quite a few shots before it got too dark.
Here’s one of the pictures:
Here’s another:
After taking the photos though, we sat down by the beach and chilled for a short while. Sophia complained bitterly about her butt feeling full of sand, but neither royce nor I was tempted to go and help her brush it off. Nice try soph. Soon enough though, it got dark and royce had to go back home for dinner, leaving me and sophia to continue on our cycling adventure. Remember chatting about a lot of random things, though I can only remember a few of them now. Most memorable of these would be our conversation on the “evil dark thoughts” we’ve both had. I offered up one of my considerably more contemptible contemplations, fully expecting her to be outraged by it. Instead, what I got was this-
“Yeah yeah. Please, like that’s really one of your darker thoughts. I bet you have ones a lot worse lor..”
“…. Yeah yeah. I think about raping every girl I see.”
“Yeah right.”
“…You asked me for a dark thought what.”
“Huh????!! Really?? You really think that?? Oh my god…”
“What! How can you even ask that. Obviously not ri-”
“You think about raping every guy you see??”
“-ight. Wait. Guy??? GUY!?!?????”
I can assure you now that as a straight guy, if there is one thing more discouraging than having someone believe you want to rape every girl you see, it’s having someone believe you want to rape every guy you see. Bad enough that she could even believe for a second that I thought the former. But every guy?? Come on ah soh, that’s just a cheap shot.
The hours flew by as we chatted about life, love and my apparent moral depravity and soon it was time for us to return our bikes. As we entered a long downhill stretch, I decided to give my aching knees a stretch and stood up on the bike pedals. Sensing a prime opportunity, the winds of misfortune blew and I slipped off the pedals, landing straight on the frame of the bike where it Really Hurts. Instead of stopping though, the bike continued shooting downhill, as the pain drove all thoughts of using the brakes from my mind. I instinctively attempted using my feet to stop the bike but that just cui-ed my ankles even more than they already were and I immediately stopped. Because I’m bored and too sleepy to be embarrassed about it, here’s a free illustration:
So if any of you readers out there had been strolling along East Coast Park that night and were wondering just what on earth the screaming apparition that went shooting past you was, wonder no more – it was me. After a long and tortuous ride, the bike finally slowed down to a stop in some bushes, and I hobbled off it and collapsed in agony onto a patch of grass. Sophia as usual was entirely unsympathetic.
“Hahahahaha. Now I know why guys prefer to roller blade.”
After my lower regions had recovered (may I never have to say that again) we continued on our way, stopping by Bedok Jetty to take pictures. Relishing the opportunity to play with my tripod, I entertained myself by forcing sophia to take random “ghost shots” that basically involved us running away like idiots after the flash.
Time and bike rental surcharge fees wait for no man though, and we rushed off from the jetty when we realised we only had 20 min left to reach the rental shop. We raced along the coast, littering the air with chatter, songs and occasional swearing as my bike gave way again. Finally we reached the bike rental shop and returned sophia’s bike and my deathcycle. Went on to Burger King for a hearty meal before sending soph to Eunos MRT. Along the way I took out my camera so we could look at prom night photos, and had fun commenting on everyone’s outfits for the one night I actually felt dressed up enough to do so. Parted ways with soph at MRT and journeyed to city hall where I took a brief detour to say hi to jo and friends, a.k.a The Phoenix Gang. Hung around them for a while and found out from an iphone app that I would make a horrible survivor if the world were to end tomorrow. Sigh, so much for 10 years of scouting.
Alas all good days have to come to an end, and I parted ways with them before taking a very convoluted route home that involved going from marina square to esplanade to dhoby ghaut to serangoon mrt to marymount mrt to braddell mrt before finally surmounting Mount Braddell. As for why I took such a confusing route, that’s a long story for another day.
17 MAR 10 – CNY DAY4
I stoically contributed to the defence of our precious homeland. Again.
Ok that’s all folks. Can’t wait for our epic 3 day scam club chalet on the 19th. Scam clubbers, see you then!
Tata.
And that was the end of the post. As for an update of the three months after that, or even the scam club chalet, maybe I’ll do that in June. I must say though that life has been rather exciting these last few weeks, though not exactly in a good way. Well, exciting at parts anyway, most of it has been rather prosaic. The sad thing about having a lot of weekdays off but weekends in is that no one is free on a weekday. The guys are all in army and the girls are all studying in uni, so I normally either bum around at home or go to the art room and try to be a helpful gnome. By now I’m probably seen by my art juniors as the no life senior who comes back way too often.
Oh well, I’m sleepy. Off to bed.
For the second time, tata.
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