Chio says "What's the big problem? Laugh it through to the next day!"

Twitterfied!

2009-06-14T01:57:00.002+08:00

As of now Twitter is linked to

This blog (see left)
My other blog
Facebook

And I tweet through Firefox.
Now the only online haunts not Twitterfied will be MSN and GChat.... for now.

I Wish I Could Go Back To College

2008-11-17T00:27:00.004+08:00

I'm supposed to close this blog soon.. but I'm not till I update all my Grad Trip articles. Uhm.. really I still am.

Avenue Q was great. This song struck me the most:

I wish I could go back to college
Life was so simple back then

What would I give
To go back and live
In a dorm with a meal plan again

I wish I could go back to college
In college you know
Who you are
You sit in the quad
And think oh my god
I am totally gonna go far

How do I go back to college
I don't know who I am anymore

I wanna go back
To my room
And find a message
In dry-erase pen on the door

I wish I could just drop a class
Or get into a play
Or change my major
Or fuck my T.A
I need an academic adivisor
To point the way

We could be
Sitting in the computer lab
Four a.m before the final
Paper is due
Cursing the world
That I didn't start sooner
And seeing the rest of the class there too

I wish I could go back to college

How do I go back to college?

Ahhhhh.

I wish I had taken more pictures.

But If I were to go back to college
Think what a loser I'd be-
I'd walk through the quad
And think
Oh my god
These kids are so much younger than me

Hear the only 30s of the song I could find on imeem...
I Wish I Could Go Back to College - Original Broadway Cast

NO MORE 4% FIXED DEPOSITS FOR ALL MY FRIENDS!!

2008-09-30T01:02:00.002+08:00

I was just randomly talking to one of the MafBrothers, who randomly commented amidst the conversation..
"u can use tt entire sum of cash u have put into 20yrs fixed D of 4% returns u still earn"
knowing very well the profession I'm in.

I almost fainted.

Please all my dear friends, save yourself the injustice of locking your money in 4% FIXED DEPOSITS (If you ever come to make this decision)

Come to me, I will offer you something so much better.

I own land in Georgia!!

2008-09-24T02:00:00.002+08:00

After 2 months of working my ass off here.. I'm finally splurging on my own investment!

This is significant/historic/worth blogging in ways because

I wrote my very first cheque!
This is my very first investment!
This is the best project the company has ever come up with and I'm part of it!

I'm very poor now (contrary to what I always tell my clients to always reserve comfortable funds for liquidity purposes) haha.

But I know I'll be expected a windfall in 2 years time!

Lalalalaaaa....

Intra-Block and Inter-Blog

2008-08-01T03:58:00.003+08:00

Went back for Intra-Block just now and introduced myself as the 'New Block D RF'. Haha.. Assoc Prof Clement Chio. Teaching SOC.

The whole block was playing along with me. To think there was this guy that was waving his hands wildly when I asked "Who here is from SOC? Looks like I'll be seeing you quite often then."

Haha!

Well.. It was more to soak back in the block fun again.. But dunno if it made me miss hall more. Seeing everyone do the superman cheer while I can't join in because I'm just out of the group makes me soooo envious.

I know I have to move on.. but well.. sometimes I really wish I could stay in hall even when working.

Talking about work. Yes I've officially started work. And because of this I'm jumping ship to another totally anonymous blog soon. This blog will soon be closed.. but not until I do proper posts for Berlin and Salzburg. =)

MSN me if you want to know my new blog address. Don't worry, most likely I'll tell you.
But if you happen to be my boss, colleagues, client, girl I'm trying to chase, enemy, love rival, relatives older than my generation.. forget it. I won't reveal anything other than http:// and .com

Haha. Ok then.. See you there!

Doors Shut

2008-07-26T09:21:00.003+08:00

All these weeks I've been living on hope.. even if it hung by the thread. Hope is really worth living for.. to know that something may possibly turn out right at the end of the long arduous wait.

All these weeks there has always been at least a door open. May a door close on me but there's another door left ajar.. though it many not be embracing wide open.

Just yesterday when the door that could possibly lead to the brightest path through my career closed on me, I found myself trapped. Suffocated. All the doors now are shut.. there is none open at this present moment.. except for this little backdoor which I'm highly reluctant to crawl through.

It's such a confidence deflator. It's so demoralizing that I can cry.

And the prospect of doing sales all my life irks me. To force out small talk with people with the ultimate aim of making them potential clients.. to 'go the extra mile' in service standards enslaving myself to clients.. to dive into social events full of strangers in order to solicit contacts.. to live by the mantra of 'The day you stop prospecting is the day you are considered unemployed" isn't exactly my idea of a fulfilling career.. no matter what the income may be like.

But then, it's not like I got any better choice right?

Telephone Fiasco

2008-07-25T02:58:00.004+08:00

Just spent the last 2 hours or so filling up my posts on Santorini and Athens.. together with photos.. so now it's left with Berlin.. Salzburg.. and including photos in all my previous posts and my Europe Grad Trip Travelogue is done. Well.. at least there's something for me to read and refer to many many years to come.

Boy I really miss Europe. Greece especially. How I wish I can go there again.. after securing myself a job.. that is..

So today was another fiasco to grab myself an interview. Again (related to the stupid interviewer that bangsehed me) here are the sequence of events that followed.

22nd July, Wednesday.. I was on course at night when I received a call at around 8pm. Didn't answer because well, I was on course.. and at this time only irritating insurance agents call to disturb me.

Turns out that this cute girl from XXX company left a voice message asking me to call her back.

23rd July, Thursday.. Woke up earlier at 9am to call cute girl. She wasn't at her office yet

Called again at 10.30am..

"Hey Clement! This is a bad time to call me. I'm very busy right now. Tell you what, I'll give you a call after lunch ok?"

Well.. she only called at 4pm! Which was exactly the time I was figuring out what the hell happened to the people from *** company. I missed the call.. but called back to reschedule the call to 5pm.

I decided to take the initiative to call back at 5pm. She was on the line.

6pm.. No answer.

This morning.. 10am.. No answer

11am.. Was told that she's not answering because she's busy on 'the other line'.

And subsequently I called every hour until 3pm.. after which I called every half an hour. Nope, it's either she's not picking up my calls or she 'on the other line'.

Managed to get her email from her colleagues.. who by now should have known there's this persistant guy trying to contact her.

Now I hope she replies my email.

Tomorrow is revelation day. Chances are bleak since 2 weeks have passed with no news at all.
Still, I'm crossing my fingers.

Interview Fiasco

2008-07-24T02:32:00.008+08:00

In turbulent times when job opportunities are scarce and interview opportunities (especially with big renowned companies) are a gem.. having a cockup I had today is really exasperating. Here are the sequence of events that led up...

17th July, Thursday.. I received a call from this certain *** company:

@#$: Hi Clement. I'm calling from ***. Can you please reply the email stating if you'd be interested in the interview?
Me: Sorry, I'm on Reservist right now and have no chance to check my emails. When is the interview?
@#$: It's on the 23rd July.
Me: Ok. I am interested in the interview. But I can only reply the email on Friday afternoon. Would that be ok?
@#$: So I'll slot you for the interview then. Please reply to the email.
Me: I will do so on Friday. Who am I speaking to?
@#$: @#$. It's in the email.
Me: All right. Thank you so much.

18th July, Friday.. I went home, checked email, replied.. and see the sequence of emails the followed...

23rd July, Thursday.. Since there was no reply from them.. I decided to show up anyway. Arrived at 4pm at the hotel without a clue who to look for and where was the venue. No one in the hotel lobby knew about any interview that was happening at the hotel. Strange eh? Considering that there should be interviews between 8am and 4pm that day already.

Whipped out my handphone and called that Malaysian number. No answer.

Sent out an sms..

"Dear Sirs, My name is Clement Chio and I'm here for my *** interview slot at 4.20pm. I'm waiting at the lobby of --- already and would like to know who I should contact? Thank you."

Only to receive a call 5 mins later..

%^&: Oh Clement! I'm so sorry! Did I make an appointment with you?
Me: Yes. At 4.20pm.
%^&: I'm so sorry. I've checked out already. I'm on my way back to KL now. Are you at the hotel lobby already?
Me: Yes. I am.
%^&: Oh no. I'm on the way to the airport. Tell you what, I have your resume right....
Me: Can you at least do a phone interview?
%^&: Ok. I'll call you again then. Bye.

Well that was it. Super pissed and dunnowhattosay.. Wasted my time researching about the company and preparing for the interview and travelling all the way to the silly place. I found myself with suddenly 2 hours of free time with no where to vent my exasperation.

So going for ICT did slash one of my interview chances this time eh? That's the consequence of non-Singaporean HR.. totally unsympathetic to National Service requirements. And how ironic rite? Bugging me to reply their email when they don't reply theirs to explain the conflicting instructions. I should have just spent the overseas call and confirmed the interview slot with them. ARGH!!

Big, renowned MNC. Reputation in my eyes destroyed by lousy HR.

I'll update again if she really does bother to call me tomorrow.

Back from the Green

2008-07-22T01:57:00.002+08:00

There are a lot of things I wanna say about the second week of ICT but at this moment I can't seem to ground all those floating thoughts or either that I can't pen them down onto a public blog like this. So in short...

I didn't get to practice my S2 stuff once again.. due to stunts being in BHQ.. Being Enemy OIC with a lousy rover that kept breaking down sucks... Not getting myself involved enough in Scout trainings is regretful.. Too busy to fulfill promises to them fills me with remorse.. Making up for it with pizza and beer is pocket-burning.. Though getting to know them in the process is delightful.. Standing up for my guys is righteous.. Being recognised for training efforts is a confidence jab.. Getting closer with the whole bunch of officers make the whole 2 weeks well worth it...

So much for a whole lot of random stuff.. to me this whole ICT has been a mess. Can't decide who to blame.. I already kaopehed my share during the debrief.. it's another year more before new stunts by this battalion unfolds....

As for now.. I'm back to this cruel world where job offers are not knocking on my door. Going for training in the night as a possible career route. Breaking away from Hall is cruel.. but it's something I must do.

This means it's going to be a sad, lonely path ahead of me.

Remedy Week

2008-07-14T00:49:00.002+08:00

Would want to blog earlier/more but was bogged down by this stupid runny nose. It's strange how come every time I go home after a period of staying outside I get the flu bug. That was one of the reasons I dread going home during my hall days...

In-Camp has been really slack this week.. probably as compared the the 1st ICT because this time the training program is spread out over 2 weeks while the last time i was all jam packed into 1. Probably also because the Int Trainer is not around and because of CO's various stunts I'm sitting more into a Bn HQ training-and-coordinating role rather than a planning-for-exercise role.

Though I'm kinda glad the way things have evolved so far.. Most important of which I got more interaction with my Scouts.. managed to work out a balance between setting a high standard of training for NSMen as well as the pegging carrots that come with it. No, I'm not siao-on army. I'm working towards protecting my own ass come 7th Year ICT ATEC.

The best part about ICT is probably getting together with old friends again.. may it be with the branch or with the officer bunch. While the last ICT sleeping late every night was because of gruelling CO conferences (which achieved nothing).. this time we sleep late every night too but all in the name of talking cock outside/inside our bunks till late at night. Boy the things we talk about.. from civilian life to our experiences in different phases of 42. This past one week in camp has probably been a refreshing remedy to the past few weeks of post-all-my-friends-start-working-already loneliness and boredom.

I'm currently crossing fingers for the interview which i just went on Friday. It's seriously a super-uber-fantastic job position and I think the interview went well. In fact, as well as the interview with the other company that I thought I had scored big time. But in the end they only recalled the first-class people for the second round. Damn sian. So this time I'll just keep grounded and not getting my hopes high to prevent the possibily of having my hopes dashed and throats slashed once again.

For now, I'm hitting the sacks in preparation for another wayang show tomorrow morning - Convocation/Commencement. As many say, it's a ceremony more for my parents than for myself. Why? Well.. just say that my close friends are all not going to be there tomorrow morning.

Another agenda for tomorrow is to do a market study of how many poor Chem Engine souls are still unemployed. I have my own sets of grieviences and explanations for this current phenomena.. but I shall reserve them to myself till the setting up of my private blog.

Yes, I'd be jumping ship soon. Figured out that once I step into the vicious working world maintaining a low internet footprint would be wise. Keep you guys posted.

I'm actually looking forward to go back to Sungei Gedong.
Haha.

In-Camp Again

2008-07-07T02:04:00.003+08:00

In a few hours time I'd be embarking on 2 weeks of In-Camp Training. Unlike the previous one which I was actually looking forward to it.. I'm rather apprehensive about this one because..

I'm so unprepared for this one.. So much for wanting to revise my Int stuff beforehand and yadayada. The fact that I'd have only half by guys around this time puts a little stress.. And I dunno whether it's a blessing or not that I actually have a Dy this time.. while it's cool I have an officer under me.. it puts more stress for me to know my stuff also. Just hopes it all works out well.
There's outfield. Yucks.
It's all happening at the wrong time.. I'm still jobless and am still hoping for calls and I DON'T WANT TO MISS THEM BECAUSE OF ICT. Knowing that the reception in Map Planning Room is actually like shit.. I'm really very scared about missing opportunities.
I'm still in my self-degeneration semi-depression mode because my career prospects are bleak and uncertain.. unlike most of my working friends out there.

Sigh. Maybe meeting up with old friends and actually keeping myself occupied will help.

Good night world.

Beserk

2008-07-04T02:38:00.002+08:00

It's Friday already. No calls. What happened to the "We will contact you within the next two weeks" and the "They will probably call you next week"?

One more day before my hopes are dashed into dust.

I spent the whole day at home today. Alone. I edited grad trip videos.. I finally drilled my whiteboard into the wall.. I cleaned up my room.. I put up photos on the wall.

The only thing I didn't do was to open my mouth and talk.
There was no one to talk to.

I W A N T A J O B.. before I go crazy.

Well at least I got something to do tomorrow.. and 2 weeks of ICT following...

deeBlockers Grad Trip Dance

2008-07-03T01:50:00.002+08:00

Finally got the mood to edit this one.. the highlight of all the places that we went too.. could have taken more.. but towards the end everyone was like less enthu and damn paiseh about doing this silly actions in front of everybody.. so we only took like one in every city haha..

But I think it's still cool to watch. Enjoy

How often do you get a negative amount on your bank balance?

2008-06-27T03:35:00.003+08:00

When I couldn't use NETS to pay for the rental of my Commencement Gown just now, I thought I should check my bank account. True, I'm unemployed right now, but I'm certainly not penniless.. until I saw...

What happened was when I was in Greece, their credit card machine cocked up and hence didn't charge our payment. Since the debt was subsequently erased off my ledger balance, I assumed that they will never charge me again and didn't prepare my bank account for this deduction.

Well, it's time to hound people for money before the DBS comes knocking on my door... haha.

Mamma Mia!!

2008-06-27T02:41:00.002+08:00

OMG don't blame me if I get excited over this release because

It was a FANTASTIC feel-good musical I watched in London!! Definitely the most memorable one (after We Will Rock You).. and it's cool to see familiarities in the musical translated to the Big Screen
ABBA Songs are SENSATIONAL!!
The movie was filmed in GREECE!! The blue sea, the white buildings, the breathtaking scenery.. whoaaaaa....

This is the best 'adaption' of the actual musical yet.. screw the skewed screen.

Don't know when they will ever screen this in Singapore.
Kid, if you are going to watch this in UK bring a video cam in.

Woes

2008-06-19T02:35:00.003+08:00

As much as I should complete my travelogues about Santorini, Berlin, Salzburg soon.. I can't seem to get my ass to do it. There seem to be so many important things to do.

I've rearranged my room for better fengshui (I hope), recovered and repaired my Europe videos and photos, sorted them, getting my laptop & hard disk in order,went out consecutively 4 days for lunch and working on my job hunt. Job hunting is a pain in the ass. Shooting out resumes with totally no reply is terribly demoralising. 6 weeks ago I shot out 1 round or resumes with totally no reply. Now I'm doing the same sequence again. And it doesn't help that there are no good offers in the newspaper ads.

So the questions still comes.. is what I want out of a job more important or is money (or to put it fancifully.. financial freedom) more important?

If only I can walk up to HR managers and shuff my resume in their face to demand an interview on the spot. An interview - that's all I need. But I'm not even getting it.

As for the travelogue, I'll get to it. Ernest is right.. the more I put it off.. the more the distant the experience acccounting will be.

Athens Revisited

2008-06-09T02:36:00.002+08:00

This is going to be a short post because all we did today was chiong all the Athens attractions. From the Zeus Temple..
..to the Panathenaic..
..to the Agora..
..to the Hephaisteion..
..to the Keramikos.. actually only Gabe and I went in because by then everyone was tired already and just wanted to nuaah... haha
..to Socrates Prison.. again only Gabe and I went.. to our horrible dismay it has NOTHING TO DO WITH SOCRATES AT ALL!! KNS.. waste our time..
..to catching our flight to our last destination - Berlin

Santorini to Athens

2008-06-08T06:48:00.005+08:00

This is probably the most expensive post ever because I'm paying 2 Euros for half an hour of internet. But I can't wait anymore because the longer I wait.. the less I can describe how wonderful Greece is. I'll see how much I can type in this half an hour...

Back in Athens from Santorini now.. Today has been quite a disappointing day. Basically there are 3 beaches in this Greek island.. the Red, White and Black Beach. Having a ferry to catch at 3pm.. and that the buses don't run to the red and white beaches as often.. we decided to nuah only at the more famous Black beach.

Black beach, well, has black sand. Black volcanic sand which we all kopped some back. Haha. So if you received nicely decorated bottles with black stuff inside, yes, they are all DIY presents. But hey.. it's authentic Greek Santorini Kamari Beach Black Sand.

We didn't suntan under the sun chairs and the umbrellas for long before this guy came and demanded 6 euros from us for using their 'facilities'. Hmph.. I would pay if I were there the whole day but he didn't give us any discount for just another 1.5 hours of nuahhing at the beach using 'their facilities'. Fine. We left back to our hostel. I dunno about the rest.. but I was highly sianned that we did not get to enjoy the beach. After all.. the Greek beaches are famous........

At least we got to see a topless sunbather..

Headed back to the hostel.. swam in their pool.. before we took the 6 hour ferry back to Athens.

Totally boring 6 hours.....

Now I'm back in this hostel.. where they split us up into 5 and 1.. So I decided to be the lone ranger and sleep alone in another dorm. Which wah lao eh.. was damn smelly and hot when I went in! It was like saturated sweat smell and the windows were not open!! In the dark I only could make out half naked ang moh guys sleeping on the bed. Yes, so now I'm making myself comfortable in the mezzanine level just above the reception and spending the night there.. alone.. but well.. definitely no smell and much cooler.

Heard a bunch of Singlish speaking people checking in just now. Didn't have a chance to talk to them. Hope to see them tomorrow. Hehe. It's always nice to hear the accent overseas. =)

Santorini

2008-06-07T00:58:00.007+08:00

The 7am ferry meant sacrifices.. sacrificing sleep (especially after a late night talk cock session on Filapipos Hill) and sacrificing breakfast (which was included in our hostel price). But well, this is travelling.

It was a bloody 7 hour ferry ride.. and when we got on the ferry all of us just concussed. Seriously.. We only had a table to ourselves and we all just slapped on the table like dead rabbits for a good 3 hours at least.. while the rest of the world whirred past us.. people sunbathing on the decks.. groups playing cards.. kids running around.. all we wanted was to enjoy our well deserved sleeeeep.

The ferry was kinda cool though.. like your typical cruise ship just that everything isn't exhorbitantly charged.. oh except the wireless internet.. 9 Euros for an hour! Crazy madness.

3pm and we docked at our destination - SANTORINI!!

Guess what was the first thing that greeted us?
The sea!
Duh..
THE BLUUUEEE SEA!!!!

Goodness I've never seen water this BLUE before. We were exclaiming like kiddish swakooks like we never saw water before.Hustling amongst all the locals holding placards advertising for their hostels.. I tried my luck asking one of them how to get to the one that we had already booked online - Manos Villa. And to my surprise he enthusiastically pointed me to this guy standing behind holding a card showing well 'Manos Villa'.

They actually provide FREE FERRY SERVICE to the hostel! OMG!

What was even more wet was that because we booked last minute (the day before) he didn't expect us to be there and he didn't cater for a bigger van. So he actually

MADE ANOTHER TRIP BACK TO FETCH US!

Wow.. We were like how grateful! So while waiting we snapped photos.. while figuring out what to do on the island. For a moment renting vans and scooters sounded too interesting to be true.

The most memorable part about Santorini (apart from the sunset the beaches the fantastic weather the food the price the view the hot springs the volcano the view the fastastic view the superb view and the people) was probably the owner of the hostel itself. THEY WERE SOOOO NICE! Gave us a welcome glass of red wine each.. talked to us oh so earnestly about the hostel and Santorini and where to go and which tours to take and was just so so nice! I was like touched to tears can? So touched we even wanted to stay one more day in Santorini...

Well.. the day wasn't spent doing much.. just splashing around in the pool in the hostel.. then went to the town of Fira for dinner.. which once again.. the waiter displayed splended Greek hospitality that we were once again so touched we just had to take photo with him.

Boy I love Greece!!

The next day we embarked on the tour we paid for.. it's a one-day-round-Santorini-bao-kah-liao thing. The usual climb the highest point take panoramic photos.. history of Santorini stuff in the earlier part of the day. Intersting thing about the buildings here is that they are all painted WHITE.. with BLUE domed shape roofs! Cute huh?

The whole of the afternoon was spent on the boat cruising around the islands.. First we went to this dormant volcano which yeah.. once again.. we climbed our lives out to the peak of each crater.. hoping to see molten lava bubbling in front of us but no. Of course the view was fantastic as usual. =)

Next was the highlight of the boat trip.. HOT SPRINGS!! But..

Wah lao the swim to the "hot springs" was a killer lor.. Everyone plunged into the icy cold water and swam biathlon style towards the springs. It was really a mad swim that drained the energy out of me. Heng I got biathlon experience otherwise swimming in the open sea wil just drown me.

And the so called hot springs was like LUKEWARM water lor. Biangz! Risk our lives to swim there for that 20+deg water? The Budapest ones were so much hotter. But of course.. there was real mud this time la.. haha quite fun to play. At least for me. The rest weren't really impressed with having mud slapped on them.

The death swim back was really a killer. Allan and I were struggling to keep Yiling alive as we paddled against the current to the beckoning ferry. Lucky the rescue boat came and rescued everyone to safety.

SHAAAGGGGGGGGG!!!!!

The next highlight was probably chopping seats for the Sunset-of-the-lifetime at Oia. Allan and I went scouting around the tip of Oia for the best place to watch the perfect sunset. Oh well.. I suppose we did find the perfect spots and let Allan Photography do all the talking....

For records sake.. the we spent the night walking around Fira.. where there was supposed to have a whole lot of nightlife. Well.. nothing much.

GREECE ROCKS!!!

2008-06-06T07:34:00.002+08:00

The airport was wonderful! Dunno if it was a budget airport or not.. but for a budget plane landing there.. we didn't have to alight at the airport parking lot (aka the tunnel thing Changi Airport has which brings us straight into the building), the luggage collecting system was quick and efficient, there was DRINKING WATER! And there was cheap 24 hour access to the city.
The people here are EXTREMELY FRIENDLY! OMG for like FIVE times in just 2 days strangers on the streets will just direct us to where we want to go ON THEIR OWN ACCORD. We just have to look lost with a map and someone will come to us and say "Hi where do you want to go? Can I help you?" No questions asked and no other demands after that. Whoa. Can we ever get that in Singapore?
The souvenirs are nicer and more reasonably priced.
The gyros here are so much nicer than those we have ever eaten. And so much cheaper! I gyros probably cost about less than 2 Euros while previously we would have forked out 6 euros.

Athens

2008-06-06T07:02:00.003+08:00

Touched down at 2am in the morning.. was supposed to spend the night at the airport assuming that there would be no decent traffic to the city centre.. but hey! There was an airport bus! So we took it hoping that we could at least spend the night in the hostel lounge...

When we arrived the receptionist was surprised to see us (obviously since we didn't book for that night) and told us to take a rest at the mezzanine level.. which is some makeshift level between the first and the second.. where all the sofas are.

Ah! Then he tells us that since we didn't book the night we he'd have to charge us for staying at the mezzanine level for.. 10 euros per person!! Whoa!! Stunning!!! I mean like it was only another few hours more to daylight and we have to pay for sleeping on their couches?? Ok, to give it to him.. he looked damn sorry about having to charge us but he said that he couldn't explain to his boss for letting strangers stay overnight blah blah blah... He's probably some temp worker trying to keep his job la.

We didn't stay la of course. He recommended some 24 hours restaurant to us which we stayed for pizza. And recommended this place called 'The Rock' near the Acropolis which we could gave a great view of the city.

And boy was it FANTASTICALLY SUPERB VIEW!!! When I finally climbed up I gasped out a WTF (the actual words) and the view was truly BREATHTAKING!!! Whoa.. great recommendation by that guy man... and the best part of it was that the view was FREE! Wow.. Stood up there.. took photos.. enjoyed the breeze.. watched the sun rise up from beneath the mountains.. and I just fell asleep on the rocks... Shiok. Enjoy life. Sweet.

7am and the wind was getting stronger and colder.. though the sun climbed higher up into the sky. We decided to head down to the Acropolis and be the first ones to enter.. and beat the tourists to the photo-taking sites. Haha.

Photos after photos after photos.. the lack of sleep the night before took the toll on us and we went back to the hostel.

Ah, we were greeted by a different person now. She allowed us to have breakfast even if we weren't staying the night before.. but we were too full (from the pizza) to have any. While the rest collapsed in the dining area/mezzanine.. Gabe and I was talking to this Singaporean guy who had already been in Greece for 11 days! And he was enthusiastically showing us photos of his expeditions to the different Greek islands... which were like.. wow. There and then, Gabe and I decided that 5 days in Athens was way an overkill.. and decided to make plans for a trip to another island in this country.

The options were narrowed down to

Santorini - A beautiful volcanic island with great beaches and a supposedly stunning sunset
(Forgotthename) - Temples on the built on peaks on hills. Exotic and interestingly nice
Mykonos - Party place with great nightlife and well.. nude beaches

Santorini won by popular vote. And it was a mad rush of cancelling our hostel in Athens, booking a hostel in Santorini, booking ferry tickets to Santorini, checking in (FINALLY) into our hostel.. and sleeeeeeeeeeeppppp.

Did I mention that this hostel is damn anal about only being able to check in at 1.30pm? Well, we would very much like to check in EARLIER but we couldn't.

The night was spending walking around the little part of Athens called Plaka.. sort of their answer to their Old Town.. but well.. not very much la. Then we climbed up this hill call Fila(forgotname) which gave us yet another great view of the city and the Acropolis this time.. which glowed magically in the night sky. We missed the sunset this time.. but the night scene was equally beautiful. Photo taking.. then we stayed on the hill top talking cock till late. Great time spent there.

"10 years time, let's meet back here.. on this very hilltop."

I love Greece. Let's really meet back here 10 years down the road. =)

Warsaw

2008-06-03T07:23:00.003+08:00

I tihnk this is probably the most screwed up day of the whole Europe trip so far. Angsty moods for some for a start.. and everything that happened seemed to make things worse.

We walked a hell a lot. Warsaw is not small like Krakow or Wroclaw.. and for the fact that our hostel is far away from many of the attractions.. like the Old Town and the Palace. The palace was well.. mediocre and not worth visiting I think. And the Old Town Square was small and well.. yeah. That's all. The only cool thing about the Square was this statue of a mermaid in the centre which has water gushing out from below. Kids were frolicking around in the water. Cool. Yeah.. I took off my sandles and had a play in the water too...

Ironically.. after walking so far to the attractions place.. there was no cheap good food there. Finally settled for this place recommended by some travel booklet that quoted reasonable prices for Polish Food. Well.. it turned out to be reasonable only by atas standards. Yiling was exceptionally pissed. She paid S$12 for a piece of chicken so small it couldn't last her an hours walk away from the restaurant. And the beetroot soup she paid S$6 for tasted like.. well.. Salty and sweet ribena. Seriously the most not-worth-it meal we ever had so far.

There was this so called 'Best Museum in Poland' i.e. the Warsaw Uprising Museum which we had planned to visit only tomorrow because we planned to buy the Day Travel Pass (it's rather far away) since we have to take a bus to the airport tomorrow anyway. Ah! And we found out at 3.30pm that the Museum is closed on Tuesdays! TMD. So we rushed down to the Museum which was.. a good 30-45 mins WALK away.

Decided to take a bus. Buying the bus tickets was a hassle as we had walk to 3 different newspaper stands before we could get our tickets. Finding out which bus leads to the Museum was another mystery we had to crack. And here's the event that spoilt the day..

We got on to this particular bus which according to the route should bring us to near the museum.. pointed out the Museum on the map to the bus driver to ask if he would be travelling there and he shook his head. Only me and kp was on the bus then. Kp was sure that the bus travelled the road near the museum. So I pointed to the whole stretch of road and asked if the bus travelled there.. the kanninah bus driver uttered a whole lot of Polish to me

AND HE CLOSED THE BUS DOORS ON ALLAN WHO WAS STANDING ON THE STEPS!!!

PIECE OF SHIT!!

Ok.. so we made the decision to take the risk and board the bus.. since we bought the tickets anyway.. so immediately after Allan boarded the bus fully..

THE FUCKER SLAMMED THE DOORS SHUT!!
Leaving Gabe, Weijian and Yiling outside the doors and drove off.

WTF!

We were so pissed we got off at the next stop, linked up with the rest, and walked all the way to the Museum.

I still didn't think I was wrong in any way to ask the bus driver for confirmation even though I know he probably wouldn't understand English.

We arrived at the museum at 5pm. The museum closed at 6. Lucky it costs only 2zlt for students. The layout of the museum was strange also. We were supposed to travel from the first level to the THIRD level then end off at the second. The signs were unclearly marked except for the Instructions at the side of the main entrance which most of us clearly missed in our haste to enter the Museum. Yes.. I got seriously confused doing the first.. then second.. then third level.

Oh well.. given more time.. it would have been a good museum.

I screwed up at dinner too. Too ambitious to cook 3 packets of spagetthi at once in a big pit and inadequate stirring resulted in burnt pasta. Sianz. I was damn sian. And remember.. no butter in Pasta.

I treasure certain friendships and certainly won't let a lousy day like this screw it up.

Wroclaw to Warsaw

2008-06-02T07:08:00.002+08:00

Lemme see.. kinda short day in Wroclaw on the second day.. kinda coz there's nothing much left to do..

Woke up with a bit of stomachache + laosai.. could have been anything.. The dubious tap water I drank? The strange tasting free bread with cheese given free with the caramel beer? The next 2 cans of beer that I drank when back in hostel which was having a little party? The shot of Polish (damn spicy) Vodka which I downed with a drunk Southern English guy? Or a concoction of all these rubbish. Took carbon tablets and the symptoms didn't knock again till night time.

Went gnome hunting again. Found a map which pinpointed locations of MORE gnomes! Haha. In the morning with Kayping.. who wanted to go to the University anyway to look at their halls.. as in MPSH type of halls. Well.. yeah they were really decorated. Dunno spend so much money decorate for what? Crazy. I couldn't find the gnome at the university though. Damn sian. Even the university pple didn't know where it was. So had to give it up.

Found a few more before heading back to the hostel to cook maggie mee for lunch.

After lunch I detoured from the rest of the group who were on the way to the train station to look for my last 2 gnomes dotted on the map.. of which I couldn only find one. Sianz. If I didn't ahve a train to catch I would definitely have hunted down the last creature down.

The train to Warsaw was much more high class than the one we took to Wroclaw. But our enjoyment was short-lived (as we didn't reserve our seats).. and was chased away by those who did. While the rest ended up seating on the normal seats (not cabins like we were used to.. but seats like you know.. SBS bus type of seats).. Weijian and I stood in the middle of 2 carriages.. Ok for me coz I was playing this golf game on my hp..

Same Nathan's Villa Hostel in Warsaw (and Wroclaw) but the standard was way lower. Had a room that was far away from the reception and and no wireless in the room! So sad.. well.. but the interesting and coincidental thing was...

We are staying in Block D (in the hostel, yes)!

Wroclaw

2008-06-01T08:14:00.003+08:00

Just so happened that the Old Town Square in Wroclaw (pronounced as VroSlaV) is hosting this mega event that has uber huge stage effects and lotsa little stalls and street performances and continuous booming music for the whole 2 days that we are here. The old town square is the biggest I have ever seen so far and the surrounding buildings are the nicest so far and hence brings to the conclusion that

WROCLAW ROCKS BIG TIME!!

Ok to be fair.. maybe without the event it would probably be like Krakow.. the buskers performance are about the same (good) standard but well.. comparing just the Old Town Squares.. Wroclaw's is better.

We kinda cleared Wroclaw in one day.. went to see churches and museums as usual.. Saturday was National Museum free entrance day so we just went in (usually we would just miss it w/o even thinking haha..) Went to this panorama museum thing which had this super huge panoramic painting of some Battle of Polish and Russian Armies in the 17th century and it was EPIC. It was like standing in the middle of the battlefield. Thanks to the superb audio guide which brought us through part by part of the painting.. the whole experience was like watching a movie unfold all around you.. short of the soldiers actually moving.

The interesting part of this little city of Wroclaw is that there are little (and I mean little.. about 30cm in height) gnomes hiding around the city. There are 15 of them actually and they could be just about anywhere.. sitting on benches.. climbing on lampposts.. sitting by flower beds and it was sort of a toursits' challange to find them. If you want to know, you can click here to find out why the gnomes were there in the first place (more than just tourist gimmicks).

I was super enthusiastic about searching for all the gnomes but the rest of them wanted to nuahh at some coffee place. So ok lor.. I went gnome hunting all by myself!

Thanks to the travel guide which pointed out where the gnomes were.. I didn't have to turn the whole city upside down to search for these little creatures. Getting to the streets pointed out by the guide was easy.. ohohoho.. searching for these little assholes when i got there weren't easy at all. The hardest to find was this gnome hiding by the river side washing his boots!! I really had a hard time finding him that little slime. Oh well.. wait till photos come out ba!

Dinner was this Polish dinner thing at some restaurant that had happy hour. It was HALF PRICE and they charged for food by the KILOGRAM!! Whoa I had super uber a lot of food for like 11pzt (about S$7!!) Rocks my socks.

The best ending to the night was trying this Caramel Beer self-brewed by one of the local pubs. Whoa seriously the best thing I ever had. Sweet beer! Smells good, tastes good and oh so smoooooth. Wonderful stuff. Definitely going there again tomorrow. Haha.

Krakow to Wroclaw

2008-05-31T08:03:00.003+08:00

Our last day in Krakow was a chiong to finish all the rest of the stuff we didn't see. Jewish Quarter.. Riverside.. caught the fire breathing dragon again.. actually it was only Gabe, WJ, Yiling and I doing the walk. Allan and KP decided the give the rest of Krakow a miss and chill in the shopping nearby shopping centre near our hostel.

We met up coincidentally there when both groups (coincidentally again) decided to cook instant noodles for lunch.

Lunch.. then we headed to the train station for our 4 hour train ride to Wroclaw.

WAH LAO EH THE TRAIN WAS LIKE HOW CROWDED!! Usually we would have THREE whole cabins to ourselves this time we had only 2 cabins and we had to share with other people some more. Worse still, the train didn't have AIRCONDITIONING and we had to open the windows to let the cool air in. Open windows = glaring sunlight = HOT.

It was a terrible 4 hours being unable to sleep comfyly.
Must I remind myself that I have no entertainment on my stupid iPod?

RARRHHH!! When will luck change for the better?

On a side note.. since Krakow, xiuying has left for Singapore while Zibin and Meiqiang went for their little honeymoon in Western Europe.. leaving Susan Tan Yiling alone with the rest of the guys for the next TWELVE DAYS.

Hence, naturally, a song has to come out of it.
Since 3 days have passed.. here's the song so far... Sung to the tune of Twelve Days of Christmas:

On the 1st day of Europe with fourhandsomeblockDguys...
I cook dinner for everybody

On the 2nd day of Europe with fourhandsomeblockDguys...
Queue 4 hours for nothing and
I cook dinner for everybody

On the 3rd day of Europe with fourhandsomeblockDguys...
Train ride very squeeze
Queue 4 hours for nothing and
I cook dinner for everybody

More to come. =)

Zakopane

2008-05-30T23:59:00.002+08:00

It was a choice between going to the Salt Mines (where we can see sculptures and buildings carved our of salt) or going to Zakopane (where we can take this cable car up the Tatra Mountains and have one foot stepped on Poland while the other in Slovakia). Weighing the costs.. we finally chose to scale the Tatra Mountains.

Dillydallying.. we set off at 11am.. took a 2 hour bus ride to Zakopane.. then transferred a 15 minute bus ride to this place where the cable car was..

AND THERE WAS A FREAKISHINGLY LONG QUEUE.

WHAT'S WORSE.. HORDES OF KIDS WERE LIKE CUTTING OUR QUEUE LIKE CRAZY.

So we spent the rest of the time in the queue deciding whether we should continue waiting or not.. as there seemed to be only 4 cable cars per hour.. (ridiculously for a tourist attraction) and we met a trio of Taiwanese/HKers staying in the same hostel as us that left coz they queued for 3 hours and decided to give up.

Periodically there were announcements in Polish but we simply bohiew. Until the person behind us told us that it was announced that there were only 95 tickets left.

KNN. WTH. How can like that? Cable car operator need to go home and make babies with his wife also dun need to limit the number of tickets wad!

Still.. we stayed in the queue.. calculated our odds of being able to hengheng get onto the cable car.. counted the number of people in front of us.. talked to the teacher in charge of the Polish kids in front of us to have a sensing of whether they would have any possibility of leaving in the event of not enough tickets... while the people queuing behind us trickled away.

Soon we were last in the queue.

People in front of us started streaming away too. Some of the teachers brought their kids away too.. in search for better entertainment options. Soon there were only 45 tickets left.. with about 60 people in front of us.

I met an Australian guy who I talked cocked with over breakfast that morning.. (he was staying in the same hostel as well). He had been queuing for FOUR HOURS and he was almost in the front of the queue. Hoped that he could buy tickets for us.. but well.. slim chance la. Inethical and I also not say very shou with him haha.

And guess what? That Australian guy was the swayest of all. When it was his turn the tickets were SOLD OUT!
SUPER SIAN!!

Which means we couldn't go up also. TMD. So much for scaling a mountain bordering Poland and Slovakia.
Grrr..

We spent the rest of the time wondering around Zakopane. Looking at houses of this certain 'Zakopane Style'. Nothing seriously impressive I guess. And then we headed back to Krakow.

2 hours on the bus was terrible w/o my music on my iPod.
Still super pissed with my luck.

All Gone

2008-05-30T07:58:00.003+08:00

First of all, I'm super FUCKING pissed right now about my iPod.. and the camera connector.. or whatever caused that motherfucking device to fail.

Yes, that bloody FUCKER machine crashed this morning. For narbei cheebye what reason.. went into a restart loop. Went online and tried all sorts of things from getting it into disk mode to diagnostic mode to letting the fucking battery dry out and it didn't work. Puts me in a super pissed mode the whole day.

Went back and tried to use iTunes to restore the iPod.. and using the hostel's iTunes on their computer.. EVERY BLOODY THING IS IN POLISH!! Great.. I made very sure I scanned through all the warning messages that there was no 'Format' in them before I restored the iPod.

And yes, I restored the iPod.

WITH EVERY MOTHER FUCKING DATA DELETED!
ALL MY MUSIC, ALL MY VIDEOS
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
ALL MY PHOTOS AND VIDEOS I EVER SAVED IN THAT STUPID DEVICE!!!

Sure, I have all my music and videos back in my laptop at home. I probably will be able to live with no music and entertainment on long train rides for the next 2 weeks..

BUT ALL OUR VIDEOS ON THIS TRIP ARE GONE!! ALL THE VIDEOS THAT I PAINSTAKINGLY TOOK.. ALL THE SILLY MOMENTS THAT I CAPTURED ON CAMERA. ALL GONE.

I should have not meddled with the iPod and waited till I went back to Singapore and try to recover the data using Linux or something.

I'm going to sleep and cry my hearts out.

I'm so sorry to everyone on the trip for the loss of our videos. :'(

Krakow

2008-05-29T05:25:00.003+08:00

Did I say I loved Vienna just a few days ago?

Well.. sounds frivolous but..
I LOVE KRAKOW!!!

Just roaming around in the small Old Town Square made me feel superbly good. The whole square is bustling with activity. Unlike Prague Old Town Square which is bustling with activity from TOURISTS.. Krakow's full of locals (at least no visible signs of organised Tour Groups) buzzing around the marketplace. The architecture around the square's not strikingly attention grabbing but sits nicely around watching peacefully at it's inhabitants. And the atmosphere's filled with not only salivating aromas of grilled meat from the stalls in the square, but an enchanting medley of peddlers selling their wares as well as ultra pro buskers performing their art to their small audience around them. Seriosly the buskers are damn good.. from soprano singers crooning with a harp to accordian quartets.. they all sound great. What's cool is every hour, there will be a trumpeter playing his bugle from the top of this particular St. Mary's Basilica.. supposedly as a tribute to a famous 13th century trumpeter who was shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before the Mongol attack on the city. I'm a big fan of live music. So this hourly gig beats the Prague's Astronomical Clock hands down.

Gosh I could spend a whole day there. Just to soak up the atmosphere.

Well.. the earlier visit to the Wawel Castle was kinda a laugh-cry event. Good that it's not too far away from our hostel.. just about a 10 mins walk.. bad coz the English tours to a certain Private Apartment attractions were sold out.. Good that we could choose which parts of the castle we want to visit.. and hence not pay so much.. bad coz those attractions that we visited were quite crap.. the only good attraction that I liked was thie Dragon's Inn.. an underground tavern.. and it's really underground.. imagine drinking in dug caves.. cool rite? What's even cooler was there was a fire-breathing stone dragon at the exit of the Dragon's Inn. Wow.

Dinner was self-cooked. Fried pasta with eggs and luncheon meat and it was delicious. Though we spent a lof of time cooking (in batches) because of the small size of cooking utensils. Still, it was fun.

So yeah.. I love this place. 2 more days here. Looks like it has so much more to offer. =)

Auschwitz

2008-05-28T06:49:00.002+08:00

Was my turn to PMS today.. maybe for many small reasons.. but I don't even know why.. just have the shitty feeling. So I decided to walk around Auschwitz alone while the rest of them took the group tour.

Auschwitz is a huge chilling graveyard.. the biggest Concentration Camp operated by the Nazis where millions of Jews were persecuted and killed. Touring the place myself is no joke.. as some of the rooms, though already made into an exhibition area, are cold and dark and.. creepy. It was a pity I didn't have time to visit the other Auschwitz-Birkenau site where the main huge Camp was.. coz I was spending too much time at the other museum site.. but seeing photos taken by Allan were chilling enough.

Wanted to have good Polish food today to send Xiuying off as she would be returning to Singapore tomorrow =(. The restaurant recommended refused to let us in as they claimed they were 'fully booked'. We ended up eating American Food instead. Good food. Good beer. Nice waitresses with lushous, huge....

Let's just say it's the Polish version of Hooters.
No wonder the guys were all so happy. Haha.

The Infamous Prague-Krakow Train Ride

2008-05-27T19:57:00.006+08:00

Background Information:
It was an overnight train from 9.30pm to 6.30am in the morning. We booked comfortable sleeping crouchettes so that we can have a good night's rest on the train. Only to hear later the many stories about this train ride. Of which..

Thieves will go into our cabin and start stealing our stuff.
If we lock our doors, thieves will use a pole and fish stuff out of the window
They will use sleeping gas to knock us out before barging into our rooms and feast on our valuables.

Scared, terrified and hungry for action, the guys came up with an Ops Plan to battle the probable invaders:

EX MAYTHEFLEASOFATHOUSANDCAMELSINFESTYOURPUBICHAIR
GRAD TRIPPERS OPS ORDERS

SITUATION. REDLAND Petty Thieves being numbskulls are eyeing on Peace-Loving BLUELAND's valuables and territory.

ENEMY

GENERAL. 01 x Platoon of Thieves

SPECIFIC. 01 x Section of Thieves armed with Poles, Lock Pickers and Sleeping Gas

OWN FORCES

INTENTION OF HHQ. To ensure integrety of all valuables placed in CABIN4

MISSION
GRAD TRIPPERS ARE TASKED TO SECURE AND DEFEND CABIN4 FROM 262130 TO 270630.

TASK OF ADJACENT FORCES. Taiwanese Ah Mah and Ah Gongs in neighbouring cabins will be bait for the numbskullic thieves.

GROUPING AND TASKS
GROUP
OWN FORCES
TASK
1
Zibin, Weijian, Meiqiang
Defend CABIN4 from 262130 to 270030
2
Chio, Kayping, Yiling
Defend CABIN4 from 270030 to 270330
3
Allan, Gabriel, Xiuying
Defend CABIN4 from 270330 to 270630

PHASES AND TIMINGS
262130 - 270030: Group 1 to defend CABIN4. Group 2 and 3 on Stand II in CABIN3 and CABIN5 respectively.
270030 - 270330: Group 2 to defend CABIN4. Group 1 and 3 on Stand II in CABIN3 and CABIN5 respectively.
270330 - 270630: Group 3 to defend CABIN4. Group 1 and 2 on Stand II in CABIN3 and CABIN5 respectively.

COMMAND AND SIGNAL
Shouting (DABIAN! DABIAN!) to be the main forms of communications.

Yes, we even had a mini sand model exercise at the restaurant during lunch. Too bad we didn't video the CAOS process down.

When we finally got to our respective cabins, they turned out to be fortresses. Double-locking systems, the metal latch thing, key holes to look out of the door.. the windows could only open like 20 degrees. There was seriously NO WAY anyone or anything could penetrate the cabins unless they could apparate or something.

Still, we carried on with the Ops Orders.. since we already planned for it. Better be safe than be sorry.

And there were seriously NO THIEVES AT ALL! I was seriously hoping that they could come so I could whack them or something. During my shift.. everytime the train stopped, we would turn off the lights in the cabin and peep out of the window to see if the petty thieves would be looting from our fellow Taiwanese neighbours. But NO.. no one in sight at all. I even contemplated waving a $10 note outside to lure them here.. but.. oh well.

So much for the big scare on the Infamous Prague-Krakow Train Ride.
While we could have gotton a good nights sleep all 9 hours.. I think the planning process was rather exciting.

At least everyone arrived Krakow safe and sound.

Prague Part 2

2008-05-27T16:07:00.004+08:00

Prague has officially become from the Most Beautiful City in Europe to the Most Overrated City in Europe. I still like the Charles Bridge Riverside scene and the atmosphere in the Old Town Square but that seems to be about it. Exploring the city more these 2 days didn't offer me anything more.. What a disappointment.

Went up the Prague Castle for the 2nd time. Well, the castle isn't a castle like those you see in Disney Cartoons. Prague Castle is something like Beijing's Forbidden City. A little walkable Castle-Village with different buildings inside. The last time we were pressed for time and paid to go into a few of the Chapels and Museums only. Seriously, by now, I totally have no impression of what I saw last year.. shrouded amidst all the many churches and museums I've seen in the whole of Europe so far. So I decided to take not pay for any of the entrance fees into the any of the chapels/museums within the castle and just walk the castle grounds with the rest of the group. And everyone just decided not to pay for anything too. Cool. We just strolled by the buildings in the castle grounds and tag along any tour group we could understand to listen to their explanations of the various buildings. Most of the time was just spent nuahhing and photo taking. Yes, the rational is simple:
Take Photo = 'Been Here, Done That'

The second half of the day was the much needed split once again. While the rest of the group headed off to eat Chinese Food at some Chinese restaurant, KP and I decided to go down the save money route and have microwavable pizzas from the the supermarket for lunch. The pizza SUCKS MEGABIG TIME. Oh well.. but we pay for what we get.. and we got super full (and sick of pizzas).

Then we headed down to the more Southern areas of Prague in search for Beer Breweries recommended by the Tourist Information Centre. And the more interesting thing is we ventured into the non-Touristy area of Prague. It was so amazing to see the streets of Prague EMPTY. NO ONE IN SIGHT. ZILCH. NO TOURISTS. That was the real Czech. The Real Prague.

Which looked like Budapest.

Night time the guys went down to a nearby pub to sample the famous Czech Beer Pilsner Urquell. Tasted way much bitter than what I tried the previous time. Again everyone was disappointed by the beer. To think I told them that Pilsner from the tap is really very nice. Sigh.

The next day out of utter boredom we visited Vyšehrad, the last remaining of Prague's Historical Reserve we hadn't visited.. and it's way down South. It's just an ancient Castle (again) where Czech kings from long long ago used to reside in. And yes, you might have guessed, that we were utterly bored by the visit.

Our much anticipated atas lunch was a disappointment too. The servings were small even though it was cheap(er) than what we could find in the touristy part of the city. We weren't full at all. Sigh.

Yiling, Xiuying and I headed down to this Mozart memorial place as a last ditch attempt to 'not waste our trip to Prague' while the rest of the group headed back to hostel to nuah. Again, need to pay to enter. So we ended up talking cock and taking photos.

To summarise, this return trip to Prague was plagued with disappointments. My impression of Prague would have remained way much better if I didn't come back this time. That again.. I would have misled more people into coming to this uber touristy haven. As a comparison..

Prague is 'cheap' when I converted to Pounds the last time I came. Now, converting everything to Singapore Dollars, Prague is a bloody moneysucking city.
3 days in Summer (where the sun rises at 6am and sets at 9pm) is way an overkill to visit this city.. which has only Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, Castle and Jewish Quarter to offer. The last time I came was in autumn-winter when the sun set as early at 5pm. No wonder I said 2 days wasn't enough.
Summer is way more touristy than in Winter.
The other Czech beers like Kozel taste much better than the widely publicized Pilsner Urquell.

And one more thing,
watch 'Lovers in Prague' before coming here.

Prague

2008-05-25T06:57:00.002+08:00

Check back previous posts later for Salzburg posts.. I decide to whine about today first..

It's back to Prague again for me.. for the rest of the group.. they had high hopes about so called Europe's Most Beautiful City. But it was disheartening to see that we met with disappointments after disappointments...

First of all.. the train to Prague cocked up. Yeah. It was supposed to be one straight train to the city but somehow halfway we had to get off.. get on a bus (which at that time we didn't know where it'd bring us to or how long the journey would take).. and then board a train again which was delayed for 40 minutes. The whole journey was a fiasco. The train conditions were terrible. Bad start.

Second.. the hostel was a disappointment. Ok to me it was a normal standard hostel.. but to the rest of the group that was pampered with good hostels all the way till now.. squeezing in a 9 man bunk with shared toilets and showers seemed to be a terrible inconvenience. And breakfast was disappointing too. Sigh.

Brought them to the Old Town Square first.. which well.. no one seemed terribly impressed. The Astronomical Clock was a disappointment to the rest too.. as probably they expected much more from the Clock that would prance into life every hour. Probably not as lively as everyone expected it to be. Not that early in the morning as well.

We did the usual stuff by walking around.. Brought them to the New Town and the usual photo spot of the St Wenceslas statue and the National Museum. Again no one seemed interested in photo taking the statue nor the Museum.. which probably was because we were still dulan with the burger guy that gave us attitude just barely an hour before.

Heading down to the river banks.. they were already lamenting that Prague was not as pretty as they had expected. Yeah.. I guessed as much.. When I was in Budapest I thought the Danube River banks were much nicer than Prague's. Before heading to Petrin Hill I finally stumbled onto the Dancing House which Matt showed me on a photo before. Nothing fantastic. To me and, of course, to the rest of the group.

Petrin Hill was another great disappointment. It was the only part of Prague which I haven't been there myself the previous trip.. and was expecting a panoramic view after scaling the top of the hill. After a 26Kc funicular ride up the hill with superb views on the way up, we ended up on the top of the hill SURROUNDED BY TREES! The only way to get the intended view was to climb up the Observation Tower which we had to pay for. Mind you, the keyword is 'climb'. No lift no elevator. And climbing is definitely not high on our list of activities.

Hence we went downhill in search of a better view, without trees.. and found what we wanted at the funicular intermediate station. Didn't stay long though.. as our ticket only allowed us 75 minutes on the hill. Damn stupid.

Went to chill at this coffee/ice cream place and ordered frappucino.. which turned out to be merely milkshake for me. Tamade. Slept while the rest played cards.

We had an early dinner at some Chinese restaurant.. expensive, yes. And again I am eating Chinese food in Europe. But what to do?

Walking along the river banks with the late afternoon sun gleaming behind the castles made me regain my affection for this little city. Budapest may look nicer on the whole but Prague does have it's quant charms. Never mind what the rest feel.. I still think this place is worth this second visit.

Charles Bridge was thronged with tourists. Much more than the previous time. Maybe because it's Summer now. Tourists made it irritating for phototaking. In fact, Prague is FULL of tourists.. even more than Czech citizens themselves I feel. Which made everything so expensive. Yes, that was another disappointment for everyone. To think I still told them previously that Prague is a cheap place. I probably forgot that I was still converting to Pounds rather than Singapore Dollars the last time I came. Either that or the global inflation phenomenon riding on the Summer tourist season drove prices to ridiculously high levels.

Point is.. I feel kinda bad that everyone is not having an as good a time as they expected to have in this city.. after all I was here before and should be able to be a good 'host'. There are 2 more days here and I hope the castle tomorrow can save Prague from further condemnation from the group. Otherwise.. oh well.. I'll just feel suckier.

What's worse.. I left my bottle of soap in the communal shower last night and it's probably cleared away. Tamade gotta spend money buying soap.

Sigh.

Vienna Day 3

2008-05-21T08:41:00.000+08:00

I'm now sitting at the back of the Viennese Opera House blogging about day 3 of Vienna. Cos I'm sibeh dulan now. Why? Cos I'm giving up this very fun House of Music museum for this opera which would probably be in german (with english subtitles though) and I'd be standing for THREE HOURS
PLUS
There are people who came earlier and actually CHOPPED SEATS using pamphlets, scarfs and whatever shit they can use! So kanasai rite? To think in such a high class opera house people actually exhibit this 'low class' shenton-way-use-tissue-paper-and-chop method. Though we would have probably done the same thing if we were early.. The most dulan thing is
WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THIS POLICY BEFOREHAND.
PLUS
The usher who is an old man is damn bad attitude la. He could just be stern la. But he just got on my nerves when he kept telling me to put my jacket at the counter when i wanted to use it to 'chop seats'. Wait, what seats? They were standing places..

=opera starts=

WAHLANEH!! WHAT SUCKY OPERA!! Ok, maybe i totally don't appreciate it.. Or maybe i was comparing it to the many musicals that i have watched.. But in this show
1. The storyline was terrible. They built up the plot to such a developable potential classic only to throw it off with a cheesy ending. Argh!
2. The songs were horrible. Ok, was it the style of opera? To have forgettable melodies? Oh well, can't comment much on that.
3. The sets were elaborate but there was no scene change at all! Such a fance state-of-the-art opera house and no scene change was factored for the whole opera? Again i'm comparing with musicals here. Even the lousiest musical i've been to (Evita) had a few scene changes. Bah.
4. Standing throughout the whole show irritated me more.

Damnit. Lucky only €2.

Actually the whole day was quite screwed up. For me at least. Today was 'Museum Day', where the group split up to visit our various museum of interests. The girls went to the Sisi Museum, which was the Empress Museum, and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Gabe and Weijian went to this highland thing but the sucky weather shrouded their otherwise panoramic view. The soccer museum they went to made up for that i guess. Allan kayping and I went to the Museum Quarters to stroll around and hung round the Lomography shop looking at cool stuff before Allan went to his Science History Museum while kp and I went to the market to walk walk. The most interesting sight was probably seeing pigeons nibbling on an unattended kebab machine! Yikes!! We would have gone on to this 1516 Brewery Place but we had to rush off to meet the rest at 3 at Cafe Central, some atas cafe where Mozart and other big shots once had coffee there too. Big deal rite?

I guess it was the rain that screwed up the day. It was raining throughout the day. We were cold and wet. The cafe was good as the coffee was nice and there was free wireless! The House of Music that we went to later on was good too. It was fantastic in fact.. But.. We couldn't stay there for long because we had to buy tickets for the stupid OPERA. Argh. You know the rest of the story.

Damn moody now. I think it's my turn to pms soon. I hope i don't affect anyone. It better not rain in Salzburg and ruin my TheHillsAreAliveee expectations.

Vienna Day 2

2008-05-20T08:31:00.000+08:00

We awoke to showers in the city which turned it into a giant freezer. I swear it was so cold we could do the blow-mist-out-of-our breath thing.

We visited the Summer Palace in the morning and i was sure this time that if the Austrian King were to visit his neighbour SLovak king, he would burst out in laughter. The Palace grounds were beautiful! Both the inside and outside. Hard to describe in words. Wait for photos ba. But maybe even photos won't justify it's grandeur and beauty.

Met up with zhiqian there. Where we took lotsa paparazzi shots of the him and his old flame (Sarah Kueh Xiuying). Haha fun.

6 of us (all except gabe, weijian and zibin) went to this museum which we thought would be fun and interesting as described by Lonely Planet. Turns out to be an ART MUSEUM which we exited the museum after 15 minutes!! What a waste of the €4.50 entrance fee. Kanasai.

We headed down to the theme park after that though. It wasn't exactly disneyland type of theme park, quite old school, but we had a good round of bumper cars! Almost paid for the old school carosel with REAL HORSES!! Oh luckily I was sensible enough to figure out spending S$5 on horses running in small circles was a waste of money.

Dinner today was super uber fantastic! It was a place recommended by Zhiqian's Austrian friend. It's an interesting place with an interesting menu. Mq ordered a 2m long sausage! As for the guys, we shared this meal which consisted of Weiner Schnitzers (vienesse cutlets.. We had turkey cutlets.. Yum), pork chops, chicken wings, fries served in a huge sword. Yes, in all babaric sense all the meat was pierced through a sword which we had to rip them off before eating them. And the turkey Schnitzers were wow, superb. Even now as i'm drafting this post can even smell it. Droolz...

Spent a grand total of €52 today! Whoa!! Must start cutting my expenditure already man.

Vienna Day 1

2008-05-19T08:11:00.000+08:00

I LOVE VIENNA!!!  It's like the London and Dublin of Austria.. So energectic and lively.. Yet it's unique charm still lies in the roman architecture sprouting all over the old town. It's really a very welcome difference after weeks of the rest of old slow europe.. Lovely!!!

Lucky for us last night there was this anti-AIDS event held at the city hall so gabe, kp and I took a loooong walk into toe city to join in the fun. We were there just in time only to catch the sponsor's segment. And guess who were the sponsors? Some sexual lingerie company. Haha. So we just watched models strutt around in clothes covering only, you know, what is to be covered. Ha. Ironic hor? Aids event with dirty lingerie show. Hmm.

Since it was a sunday morning today we woke up like damn early to watch the famous Vienna Boys Choir sing at the chapel in the palace. Some guidebook told us we had to start queuing for standing tickets as early as 8 when the mass will only start at 9. And so we did, dutifully, start queuing up at 8. Standing in the queue for 1 whole hour before the doors were open to the standing audience. And guess what? WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE BOYS SINGING THE ENTIRE MASS. Yes, it was a Christian Mass and to make matters worse it wasn't in English! So can you imgaine all of us non-Christians, standing for yet ANOTHER HOUR in the chapel, feeling tired and cheated because we didn't get to SEE the boys singing. For all we know the melodious voices coming from the roof could be from a cd!

What pissed us more was when we exited the chapel after the mass, we saw people crowding around a TV outside the chapel watching the Viennese Boys Choir singing! Yes, they saw the boys singing while we didn't. Tamade, we could have woken up later and watched the live video too! Rarrh.

Feeling tired and cheated we headed down to this Cafe Demel place to try the so-called 'world famous' cake SacheTorté. Had their orange liquor coffee at a ridiculous €7.80 and the verdict was
- the coffee not nice
- the cake was normal
Waste money.

The St. Steven's church that we visited after that was one of the nicest churches that i visited. I must say even nicer than, say, Notre Dam in Paris. Nice gothic designs. Cheered me up a little.

The otherwise fantastic weather was ruined by the dark clouds that set in in the afternoon. We spent a few hours in front of the Parliament building playing cards before we were chased away by a policeman. Haha. What unlucky weather. The fountain in front of the parliament was interestingly pretty. But the photos were, well, in gloomy weather.

The night was spent watching some opera that cost us €20. We thought we were cheated when this 'opera' venue turned out to be a little room the size of a classroom. But the contents of the performance were as promised by the guy who sold us the tickets. Songs by Mozart and Strauss, some soprano and tenor singing, and some ballet. Definitely not top notch performance, but certainly not low class anybody-also-can-do-it type show either.
Conclusion: Only €20 worth. No more. No less.

Another notable fact about today was the first time tensions arose within the group. Well, things should get better soon.

Bratislava

2008-05-17T22:22:00.002+08:00

After a good nights sleep at this fantastic hostel with nice big beds and comfy mattresses/comforters/pillows/friendly staff/cool furniture.. we headed out to explore the little city of Bratislava.

This is a neither here nor there town.. it's neither too full of history nor too modernised. The streets are filled with grafitti but the people are more friendly then menacing. There seems to be a lot of things to do and yet it seems that we can do all these in a day.. It would be ideal if we could stay here for another day.. but oh well.. we had to miss that flight.. !@*&^&*$!!

Started off at the Bratislava Castle. Damn ugly. I was even joking that if the Kings of Europe visited each other they would all laugh at the Slovak king for having such a lousily built castle. Haha. Oh well.. but the magnificent view kinda made up for it. Uhmm.. still.. we've had our fare dose of panoramic views the past few days already.

Had lunch at this traditional Slovakian restaurant which Lonely Planet recommended. So the famous Slovak 'dumplings' that all tourists had to try turned out to be just like the Chinese wat kueh. And it's supposed to be a delicacy. Wait till they come Singapore. Will bring them to wet market and buy tonnes for them. Haha.

We walked around the Old Town after that and I fell alseep on the bench while the rest went on to visit some museums. Waking up to find everyone gone.. Kayping and I ventured into this street recommended by the Hostel receptionist in search of this certain Slovak Pub which she recommended. Cool place. In fact it's a student's pub.. with special discount for students and even give a free soup for students who got an A for examinations. Haha.. Cute rite? Of course we saw their Slovakian delicacy - dumplings - which was described as 'meat dumplings'. Tempted to try to see if we were conned by the previous restaurant.. but didn't dare to. Haha.. scully they give us another plate of wat kuehs... kanasai. Waste money. In the end.. tried their beer cocktails - Beer + Coke. Student price of course. Taste like... oh well.. don't try it. Haha.

Now waiting for the girls to come back from their museum adventures. Apparantly it's a special day in Bratislava today and they could go visit all the museums in here for 40 kronos instead of the usual 20 kronos for each museum. Girls just like to go for bargains eh? Yeap.. when they come back we'd be catching our train to Vienna..

In the meantime.. I still pray and hope that some potential employers call me to make some appointments. It's been so damn long already! I'm starting to get worried. Sigh.. sigh.. sigh... sian......

Szentendre

2008-05-17T06:10:00.001+08:00

Having had enough of Budapest.. we headed down to the sleepy town of Szentendre off the Danube River Bend for a half a day out of town. Took a cruise down the Danube River.. which could otherwise have been superbly boring (not to mention that we didn't have time for breakfast before the cruise and were excruciatingly hungry) if not for a hoarde of 9 year old kids coming to entertain us.. Or maybe it was US entertaining them instead.. It was really like a group of chickens talking to a group of ducks.. we didn't understand an ounce of Hungarian while they couldn't make out anything we were trying to tell them in English. It soon degraded to drawing pictures on pieces of paper and teaching each other what those were in our respective languages. 'Cultural Exchange' or so we called it. But come on! They were all kids! And all so so adorable.. Kayping had a field time signing his autograph on their hands like some superstar.. While the rest of us just enjoyed being surrounded by pure innocence and enthusiasm after so so long...

There was really nothing to do at Szentendre actually.. had lunch there.. walked around using a highly inaccurate map taken from the tourist centre and in the end Allan, Kayping, Gabe and I just sat down at a coffee house to chill. 'Chilling' has become a very promising activity to be proposed these days.. albeit it being antonymous with sightseeing and making the best out of the visit to any city.. But.. I guess tired feed and weary physiques need pampering once in a while...

We headed back to our hostel ridiculously early.. because the rest wanted to clear their Hungarian Forints buying souvenirs at the market.. and of course there was the paranoia that something was going to happen to our train so we decided to go to the train station more than an hour earlier..

So while the rest of the world was shopping I finally watched The Sound of Music at the hostel.. Why? Because we were going to Salzburg next week and I wouldn't want to go to the famous Sound of Music place with absolutely no knowledge of the film at all! Didn't manage to finish watching the show.. but the songs are oh so stuck in my head hahaa..

The hilllllss are alivveee... with the Sound of Muuuusicc...

I can't wait to go there.. Green grass hilly mountains are a fantastic change from buildings, buildings and more buildings.... and history history and more history..

Hey but this is Europe.. why am I complaining? Haha.

Now in a hostel in Bratislava. We will only be here for a day and hence reluctant to draw any of their currency.. so we didn't buy our tram tickets from the rail station to the hostel.. so we just *whispers* took a free ride. Yeah. The hostel is a damn cool place. I totally love it. Good music in the reception.. Funky people around.. Nice big beds.. Nice showers.. toilets.. view.. SUPERB!!

Too bad we are only staying for 1 night. Bah.

Ok going to sleep now. Hectic day ahead.

Budapest

2008-05-16T08:50:00.002+08:00

Well.. today was a much better day. More relaxing.. somehow I felt lighter and happier.. maybe because I had a good sleep the night before. Or maybe it was beer. Haha. The only irritating thing was that my heels are starting to crack.. the dry weather and lousy sandals I guess.. muscles starting to ache from too much walking.. which just means that I'm losing weight! Yay!

(That is if all my ice creams, burgers and other random snacks don't set in too quickly)

Guys woke up to cook breakfast today.. Fried yesterday's macaroni with eggs and ham till slightly chao tar (Gabe and Allan's invention) and it tasted like char tao kuay. Haha. But still not filling lah.. the girls had to cook their own instant noodles after that.

Talking about that.. it's interesting how come girls (like Yiling) can eat that much. For her small size. Again talking about that.. this trip had been an amazing discovery about Susan Tan Yiling for all of us. Let me share.. do you know that....

She has a monsterous appetite. She probably gets hungry faster than any of the guys in the group
She is only a few steps away from being a Caroline.
She is a Grade 5 Ballet Dancer.
She is a Grade 8 Pianist.
She got sing in front of the her whole school before.

Close your jaws. We were as surprised as you are now.

Back to the trip.. we began by visiting the Parliament House.. but what interest me more were the colourful flowers outside the building rather than the building itself.. Wa lao eh.. this is like the first time I see so many colours naturally blooming in front of my eyes! Damn pretty sia.. wait till the photos come out...

Next stop we went to this place called the House of Terror.. the building was formerly used by the Nazis and subsequently by the Communist Party of Hungary when they were in power.. and thousands of people died within the building. Now it's a museum, but it's still an eerie place to be in thinking that so many lives were lost there. Museum-wise.. it's a fantastic exhibition.. with creative layouts and aesthetic decorations. One big drawback though -
Every Damn Thing Was In Hungarian
We didn't understand the videos.. the audio snippets.. the articles on the wall.. luckily at every exhibition room where was an A4-sized writeup in English we could read about the corresponding history behind the exhibits. And so the whole trip through the museum we just walked and glanced around while collecting these pieces of paper as 'lecture notes' reading them diligently like we were damn siao on about history like that. Some of the writeups were FOUR PAGES LONG ok?? Mai siao siao eh..

We were quite lost after the House of Terror.. cos there wasn't really anything particularly interesting to do. Headed down to this little island called Margret Island floating in the Danube River between Buda and Pest. Thought it would be this little Pulau Ubin like place for more nature stuff for a change but it turned out to be nothing interesting after all. Surprisingly the whole island was filled with KIDS!! It probably was a school holiday or something. If I had more energy I would have checked out what all the kids there were up to or why they all came to this island. But we were quite shagged out.. so we left the island after a while.

Spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at some pub before we headed down to our very atas dinner.

Yes, we made it a policy to have an atas meal at every city.. to pamper ourselves and to taste local fare. Headed down to this restaurant called Menza simply cos it was highly recommended by all the guidebooks that we had. The food was simply amazing! Especially Weijian's Roasted Duck in Mango Sauce.. wah siah.. crispy skin.. succulent meat.. tantalizing sauce.. heavenly.

Regretfully most of the food we ordered weren't authentic Hungarian food (as we realised only halfway through the meal).. So we topped me meal up with authentic Hungarian dessert! Can't rememebr what i was already but.. tasted interestingly nice. And filling. Rocks.

The night was spent strolling along the Danube River banks looking at the historical buildings of Buda illuminating in its majestic glory. Nice cool breezes accompanied by excellent scenery I must say.. a fantastic way to soak up the atmosphere of the final night in Budapest.

Damn shagged when i returned to the hostel. Plonked on my bed and slept for like 2 hours. Now I've washed up.. packed.. blogged.. and the receptionist isn't even around for me to pay for our laundry! To think I hoped he would appear earlier so that I can borrow the Sound of Music DVD to watch through the night. I'm going to Salzburg in 4 days time and I haven't watched the show.. So Disappointing!!

Oh well.. For now let's see what Youtube has to offer while I wait for the AWOL bum to appear.

Budapest - Buda

2008-05-15T08:01:00.004+08:00

The day started out strange today due to a small mistake that I made.. somehow i felt its after effects continuously probing me throughout the day. Maybe I'm to sensitive.. or maybe I'm too tired. I should stop all these late night blogging. Ok. This shall be a fast one.

I can't believe I'm blogging about our cheaponehnehness but yes, we hitched on a free guided tour when we went to the Jewish Great Synagogue.. MQ, Zibin and Xiuying paid for the guided tour while the rest of us just blatantly tagged along behind while the guide was talking. Haha.. what cheats we were. But to be fair.. I wasn't really listening also. Just caught the gist of everything and somehow can't keep my eyelids open when she came to the boring historical parts of the talk. NUS trains us well to sleep during lectures.. even on holiday.

In an attempt to utilize our transport pass fully, we took a tram/bus right to Castle Hill where we had a good top view of Budapest. And what do we do there? Photowhore! The place is actually quite big.. as we spent the entire morning there.

For the 2nd day consecutively, the rain did not spare us.. forcing us to head for shelter/lunch at a chinese restaurant. And this was when I broke the 2nd of my food principles in Europe:

~~No eating MNC fast foods (Macs, KFC, Burger King)~~
Ate my first Macs 2 days ago after the rest of the guys dabaoed it back as our dinner...
~~No eating Chinese food since I can cook for myself for so much cheaper.~~ I just had my first Chinese meal in 2 days.

Oh well. boh bian lah.. How to be a spoilsport and eat something else? To be fair the servings were really huge. Uncle Vincent and his merry men should never come set up a shop in Budapest. They will be stoned by the locals for being terribly giamkoo in their serving portions.

The next on-top-of-the-world place that we went was Gellért Hill.. where the birds eye view of Budapest itself was amazingly superb! It was a long terrible climb up.. and I guess everyone was tired.. and we didn't do the jump shots and video amidst the fantastic scenery. Sigh. What a waste.

Well, we met Hongjun in the evening and he brought us to this place for nice cheap palacintas! Palacinta is actually simply Crepe.. much smaller though.. . They tasted really good and sounded cheap initially but after serious converion.. didn't turn out to be that cheap after all. Still, had to take a photo.

Ok damn sleepy now.. In fact my eyes were drooping as i type this post. Must be the beer at the pub just now.. Going to sleep now.. Hope tomorrow will be a better day.

Budapest - Pest

2008-05-14T06:03:00.004+08:00

Budapest consists of the town Buda on the west of the Danube river and Pest on the East. So today.. we explored the bigger of the 2 - Pest.

Zibin and Weijian led the way today.. refreshing change coz these 2 history students have their history-student-photographic memory and can recite the guide book's description of the places at will.. Hence my videologue of our travel escapades have a more pro emcee now.. thanks to them!

It was kinda a slow pace of travel today.. maybe because we didn't had the buffet spread we had the past few days to keep us going.. maybe we kept on stopping for food along the way.. or maybe we were still recovering from the fiasco earlier.. but still.. oh well..

Our first stop of our walking tour was the National Museum.. which we well.. just stood outside to take photos. Yes.. Europe's all about Museums and Churches none of which I'm particularly interested in.. Glad that we all shared common interest.. and photos outside the Museum were all so enough for us.. oh actually.. they were more than just ordinary photos.. (and videos) You guys will know soon. Haha.

We spent quiet a lot of time at the Market though.. it was not only a wet market where fruits and foodstuffs were sold but the top level was full of cool stuff like Eastern European toys and handicraft.. as well as the touristy catches like postcards and magnets. It was like a er.. Hungarian Mustafa Centre. Haha ok no, not that extreme.

Along the way we went to some University of Economics and pretended to be students there (who ironically can't speak a shit of Hungarian haha). Got myself a fried turkey sandwich cheap. And got ourselves a lot of freebies such as chocolate bars with rum (which seriously tasted like bananas *yucks* no wonder they were free la!) and pregnancy test kits. Yes, pregnancy test kits were given out free in Budapest universities. Makes you wonder what they do in their free time..

Well, as if we had not enough of shopping we headed down to a shopping street next where all the common franchises mushroomed along both sides of the street. As with every shopping trip so far..

We will always stop to look at postcards
We will always eat ice cream
Xiuying never fails to check out her favourite H&M store.

And then a strange thing happened.. there was a recommended atas restaurant serving good apple strudels.. so we went in.. found prices quite exhorbitant.. and some of us just walked out feeling paiseh for not ordering anything. Remember in Switzerland we got chased out by one restaurant after another for ordering nothing but cheeze fondue. But this turned out to be the start for another uneasy event later.. I guess...

An interesting event was that we happily stumbled into this church with its fantastic church orchestra doing its practice. Thinking that it was the Last Parish Church, some church that at some point in its history was converted into a mosque then back into a church again, we sat down happily enjoying the sweet sounds of the orcheestra while Allan as usual goes around snapping away.

Only to realise after quite some time that we were in the wrong Last Parish Church. Hahahahaa! Quite hilarious. We eventually went to the correct one.. which was much grander and mroe colourful.. but I thought I still liked the fake one better. At least got nice music. Haha.

As much as I would like to avoid going into too many churches if I can.. the St Stevens Church's greatest draw was probably the observation tower haha.. which we could.. guess what? Photowhore!!

We did more jumpshots and videos at this bridge.. forgot what it's name is called.. will update again tomorrow. Ha.

Then the dark clouds started looming.. literally... and this was when we had our first small scale disagreement within the group.. over dinner. Like.. I kinda expected this sooner or later.. but we still have yet to find a good way to resolve such issues. It's such a big group and there's bound to be different opinions throughout the trip.. more tackily so when is comes to how we spend our money.. So.. till now we all know that we have to solve this somehow.. but just don't know how/when. Or simply.. How do we throw the topic onto the table?

Heroes Square was our last stop before we split up to the bath-goers and the non-bath goers (which consist of only Weijian and Xiuying because they want to spend their own lovey dovey. Ha joking.) Heroes Square is just another but open place with lotsa statues to take photos with. Of course each statue has its own meaning and significance.. but er.. I'll read about them later. Haha.

And so we ended our day with the recommended Hungarian thermal baths.. While it was fun splashing around the hot water and playing like little kids in the pool for 2 hours.. it was quite sian to find out after coming out that...
WE WERE ONLY LIKE UTILIZING 10% OF THE ENTIRE BATH AREA!
We missed the mud baths.. the carbonic acid baths.. medicinal baths and whatever nonsense hidden in the rooms which we didn't explore.
Damn super duper sian. Makes us wanna go back for the baths again.

Oh well.. seems like we did a lot today right? But we could have done more. We missed going to the Torture Museum.. the spy museum probably sounded interesting.. the UNESCO Heritage walk was missed as well. This just means that some other day.. we would have to clear these places.

For tomorrow.. Buda!!

Cologne

2008-05-13T07:57:00.003+08:00

I'm in Budapest now.. using their ultra slow computers to blog... it's free anyway.. so i shan't complain.

It's 2am now and I just woke up.. why? Because I slept oh so early the night before.. in fact.. the afternoon before. The day before had been disasterous. Making the stupidest of all mistakes in any European travel.. we complacently went to the wrong airport in Frankfurt to catch our plane to Budapest.. only to realise that the next airport was 1 hour 45 minutes away!

And hence we tried to change our booking to another country/another later flight using the internet terminals there.. which sucked our Euros like it never tasted the coins for centuries (ever since the last group of idiots went through the same plight as us eons ago).. Turns out that we couldn't change our flight that flies out of the country on the same day itself through the internet. Worse still, due to the lousy cookie system and the layout of the website, we accidentally spent 2000+ euros in all (from my card) to change our flight to the exact one the next day!!

I had to call DBS immediately to block the card to deauthorise the transaction. WTF.

Since the bloodymoneysucking internet couldn't serve us well enough, we decided to call the airline company to change the booking through the phone. And yes, seems like all the machines in Frankfurt airport are Eurothirsty animals. The phone leeched our Euros like nobody's business as well. Worse still, their telephone operators dont speak ENGLISH!! WTH!! It took us to call a few different telephone operators to find one who could speak English. BUT STILL, we couldn't call the airline company because it was a service number aka the 1900- numbers we have back in Singapore. KNNB.

Hence we headed off to the airport to speak with the budget airline people at their booth directly.
12 euros to head to that wretched airport which we should have been.
During the journey there.. i could almost hear the jets of the plane that we missed booming pass the take off strip.
Damn stupid mistake. I really blame myself a lot for making this mistake. It's not like I don't know of the probabilty of 2 airports in a city. It's not like I've never heard of such incidents before. And I'm supposedly the more experienced Europe traveller.
Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn.

Things started to turn our a little better once we headed to that airport. We managed to change our flight to the same one the next day for only 75 Euros. And the extra one day we have in Germany, we went to Cologne. (18 Euros to and fro)

To me Cologne wasn't too bad.. just that it was a bit rowdy over there that day because their Cologne soccer team managed to kick themselves into the German league or something. Trust me, it was so exaggerating to see the whole town celebrating but they actually were donned in red and white. I must say like 90% of them were. Those who weren't were either oblivious to the soccer fraternity or tourists like us. Throughout the whole day the streets were filled with people singing victory songs at the top of their voices.. waving flags of their Cologne team.. doing crazy things.. and of course.. the places with the greatest intensity of these victorious sentiments were the pubs were these people watched the match with beers in their hands.

We spend most of our time at the Chocolate Museum.. Why is there a chocolate museum at Cologne? I don't know. But i was cool to see how the chocolate is processed.. though I've seen almost the same thing at the Cadbury factory before.. but oh well. Chocolate brings out the kids in us. Haha. Bought chocolate liquor. Interesting right? It's superbly nice. Bug me for it when i get back.

The Rhine river is nice and beautiful. Enjoyed a nice walk down the river.

There's this huge catherdral in Cologne which is super grand and super gothic. Too bad we couldn't go inside coz it was closed by the time we are done with the Chocolate museum. That didnt stop us from taking more jump shots and stupid videos there. Anyway.. since all of us aren't Christians, we woudlnt' have missed much anyway.

By nightfall, the streets were getting rowdy and dangerous. People were drunk and getting themselves injured. The howling and singing still kept ringing on the streets. We were tired, wary and just wanted to get back to the airport. We spent the last few hours in Cologne in trusty ol Macdonalds while we waited for our bus to pick us up back to the airport.. where we spent the night there.. yes, sleeping in the floor.. all lokkokked and shagged out.

And here we finally are, in Budapest. The whole day was spent virtually doing nothing. What a waste. Seriously.

But I think everyone got the rest we needed from this fiasco.

30 more days.
MAKE IT COUNT!!

Heidelberg

2008-05-12T09:08:00.003+08:00

3 days in Frankfurt is definitely an overkill. Luckily we managed to find a cheap rail ticket to this old town of Heidelberg where Chongwee highly recommended us to go.

We checked out the Frankfurt Flea market in the morning. Had to coz they only have flea markets every saturday. By 9am the riverside was bustling with traders trying to sell away their old stuff. Quite interesting. But we couldn't stay for long.. coz we had a train to catch.

And we were almost late for our train so we had to runnnnn!! Haha. Exciting.

Heidelberg is a small university town.. but it's like 5 times more touristy than Frankfurt. Went up the old castle where we had a nice view of the city.. and the Nectar River that spans the city. This view came at a price though.. it was a death defying 30deg slope climb up to the hilltop where the castle resided. The cobbled stones made it worse. But it was worth it.

The castle was just like any castle lor. Some of it was in ruins alraedy coz according to Lonely Planet it was remnants from bombings from WWI.

Had lunch on the grass (yes, frolicking in the grass) before we took a few more videos and jump shots and descended the castle grounds.

The sun was super scorching but the winds were super cool we couldn't resist not walking. Haha. So the guys did our guy thing by sitting in this outdoor cafe drinking German beer while the girls did their girl thing by going around shopping for touristy gifts. This is called Enjoying-Life-To-The-Max.

Walking down the main streets of Heidelberg tired us out even more.. so we skipped the Philosophers Walk, had dinner at some Fast Food outlet serving fish (that cost the same price as the 1st nights dinner) and headed back to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt

2008-05-10T08:37:00.002+08:00

3 days in Frankfurt is definitely an overkill. Frankfurt is the Shenton Way of Germany. Financial hub. Business district. Touristy-nilch.

Day 1
After touching down and smooth passage through the customs, we found our hostel all too easily and was greeted with fantastic first impression of our hostel. Techinically, it was a Hotel. Private rooms, private toilets, buffet continental breakfast.. even a TV in each of our rooms. Sweet.
The first day was spent walking around aimlessly in Frankfurt. We visited this old town called Rohmer.. probably the only tinge of history left in this commercial place. After which we went to this Botanic gardens called the Palmengarten which was closed. So we spent the afternoon walking around the adjacent park beside it.. which was nothing much. Just that European grass is so lushous and green and juicy and oh so delicious. I coined the term 'frolicking in the grass' which would come to be used much in the trip. Haha.

We hollanded in the park. Took long before we found a way out.. took a metro to beside the Main River. And had dinner on a boat. Sounds atas? Well, actually the food didn't cost much. But the ambience was good. The weather was fantastic. And guess what? The sun sets at 9.30pm! That's like a whole lot of sunlight!!
I love summer. (that's without the capital S you assholes)

Day 2
Probably the best 3 Euros I have spent so far was on going up the observation tower on the Main Building in Frankfurt where we could see a birds eye view of the whole city 200m above it. We spent the whole morning there. Whole morning! Can ya believe it? And what did we do? Snapping picture.. jumping shots.. random shots.. zi pai shots.. stupid videos. Celebrating the Singaporean camera culture.
Weijian and Meiqiang joined us in the afternoon. The afternoon was spent strolling along the main shopping areas of Frankfurt. Ok, they weren't really like shopping areas coz the things there are not worth buying at all. So expensive and not nice. Haha. It was only until we reached the Zeil when we suddenly saw like more of the Frankfurt population than we ever saw in the last 24 hours. Like the whole Frankfurt was there!

Zeil is like the Orchard road of Frankfurt.. like Regent Street of London or Diagon Alley in.. London? Haha. The street was filled with buskers, children.. Oh yes children. Did I mention that I never saw like a single kid/baby until Zeil? I wonder where they were all hiding previously. The girls broke off to do their girly shopping while the guys just walked around. Had more bratwurst aka Gernan Sausage and ice cream while we waited for the girls to be done with their H&M.
It was atas dinner night. Every city we will try to have an Atas Dinner night.. where we just splurge on authentic local fare. Adolf Wagner is a place highly recommended by Lonely Planet and our hotel reception. So there we were where I had the best Pork Knuckles yet. Yum yum. Fatty and Crispy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside. The potatoes were interesting too. And it wasn't terribly expensive. Compared to dinner the night before.. it only costs a little more.. but the food was so so much better.

We were approached by 2 Bachelor party groups during dinner. Germans have special way of celebrating the night before marriage. They go out and saboh the would-be groom. One of them asked us to give him money to snip off a piece of his pants. Another one got 1 euro from us to bite a piece of gummy candy safety pinned to his shirt. Xiuying didn't bite it off. She just removed the pin. Kayping ate the candy. Haha.
The table beside us taught us how to toast in German. In return we taught them how to Yam Seng. And they had so much fun! Yes, cultural exchange rocks.

No photos sorry. Check back again later. I'll decorate the posts with pictures once we get the chance to upload them.

FINALLY OFFICIALLY UNEMPLOYED

2008-05-06T04:02:00.003+08:00

So this is it... finished my last paper of my life. I thought I'd be super duper happy but it just feels like any other last paper of the semester.

I guess the difference is that in the past what lay ahead of the submitting the final examination paper is a few months of slackness while this time.. what looms ahead is a shroudy cloud of dunno-what-is-going-to-happen-next.

Whatever it is.. let all my worries set in again after I come back from my long awaited Grad Trip!!

A few customary posts.. in chronological order..

Block Comm Treat

From Block Comm 04...

Finally yeah Francis Yeo Boon Leong.. he finally treated us after much bugging. I was in Block Comm in Year 1 and now Year 4 already then he treat!! But it was great that everyone turned up. Too bad we couldn't get to Arts House Timbre.. still.. As Matt said.. the agenda is the people not the food.. =)

Year4Fun Last Supper

From Year4Fun Last...

2nd day into reading week and what do silly boliao Year4s do? Organise farewell supper for ourselves. $10 and we get to indulge in a whole spread of Uncle Vincent food! (supper standard, not dinner)

Actually it's a great batch.. It's amazing how so many of us are still staying in hall after 4 freaking years.. Still miss those post-SWOC year 2/year 3 days when we are much closer to each other.. do crazy things.. even play Maple.. haha. Now Year 4 already everyone just hides in their rooms/blocks with their boyfriends and girlfriends and FYP.. strange how friendships work eh? I guess we all have to go on leading our own lives now.. what a sad though. Though now we all aren't superdupersuckcockbuddykickass friends.. i sure do feel closer to them than say.. Chem Engine people.

It's just the hall spirit I guess.

Food Hotel Asia

From Food and Hote...

So Kayping's mom got us into this Food Hotel Asia exhibition which showcases a hell lost of food! It's actually not a food exhibition but an exhibition for kitchen equipment and hoteliers to trade and network.. but of course how can kitchen equipment be sold without chefs to demo on the equipment?

Which leads to gluttony free-loaders like us poor students to scavenge on the free food.. haha.

Mayday Concert
Ever since Chye recommended Mayday to us years ago.. say.. during Army? I never really became a die hard fan.. not until I realise I only can sing their songs during karaoke.. not only till I discovered my music preference to incline towards soft rock/rock pop like Queen and Nickelback.. that I started to realise that deep down inside.. I'm already a rooted Mayday fan.

And hence when the opportunity came I jumped to their concert!

From 五月天《回到地球表面》演唱会

Fantastic stage effects.. lighting.. and the 360 stage thing was rather cool as well. Though in the beginning they sang their older songs which we had to kek high but I swear towards the end their hits saved the day. I was literally tearing when they sang 温柔（还你自由版）with all the bright lights shining and all.. the last time I teared was during We Will Rock You the Musical's We Are the Champions in London.

Seriously, listen to it. Blast your speakers out...

The crazy fans.. Mayday Rocks!

From 五月天《回到地球表面》演唱会

Though I liked their previous concert album better.. the money paid for the seats were worth it. Definitely definitely going to the next one!!

In the meantime.. addicted to this playlist.. haha

All right then.. less than 2 days before I hit off to Changi airport and land myself in the other part of the world again!

How exciting!!

Job Woes

2008-04-22T19:30:00.002+08:00

Ever since I posted my resume on JobsDB and on Monster I've received 3 calls and ALL from insurance companies.

I've been rejected by the company I thought would be the best place for me to work in.. even though I thought I aced the interview. You know? Like the walk out of the interview room feeling that I had the interviewer all impressed type of feeling? Still they don't want me.. after such a long delay of no news.

I'm going for another employment opportunity tomorrow but I'm only considered for a position that wasn't my first choice. A bit disappointed, but still, it's a good organisation.

Results still matter after all.

*SIGH*

Sian

2008-04-21T17:06:00.001+08:00

Last bout of examinations already and I'm still tortured with a closed book memory intensive paper. Why can't they utilize my brain in better ways?

Emo Nemo

2008-04-18T04:39:00.005+08:00

It been some time since I wanted to post all these.. but just lazy..

We just elected our new Block Head and Vice Block Head.. the 4th time I'm going through this process.. and probably the last. It's interesting how nothing has really changed the past few years.. the way the discussions go through.. the way people's votes are swayed.. the way the final 2 are chosen.. and today we choose the 2 that will join the long list of Block D Block heads that I have ever known...
Melvin Pao.. Tshen.. Jianfa.. Francis.. Me.. Xuanjie.. Kaiwen.. Lionel..
and Vice-Blockheads..
Weiliang.. Shenjau.. Matt.. Jingwen.. Cailin.. Caroline.. Justin...

Good luck to the new two!

Attended the last lecture and last tutorial of my life 2 days ago. Tong Yen Wah rocks.. he actually treated us PIZZAS just before lessons ended.. and it's not the usual Canadian 2-for-1 pizza cheaponehnehpok students like us will order.. it was PIZZA HUT!! *slurps*

Check out the pizzas!!

Last Lecture!!

So here ends my university life.. 10 more days and I will be taking my last first exam paper and 8 days later I'd be taking my last academic examination paper of my life. Here goes 18 years of education.. back in 1990 when I was Primay One.. to 2008 now a full fledged University graduate. Still, I lament that I had to end it in such a lousy way in NUS.

I found this on a friend's blog which applies to me terribly aptly...

"That pretty much sums up my life at the current state. This is ‘the’ defining moment of my life. I’ll graduate into the real world, and into debt. I’ll be officially jobless in 2 weeks time. I’m single, and luckless in the love department. My total net worth is the $500 I have in my account."

Maybe I have less in my account.

Chih Wen just showed me this speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford Commencement in 2005. At first I was reluctant watching it.. knowing that it would be 14 minutes long and probably wouldn't be interested enough to watch the full thing. But I was wrong. For what Steve Jobs spoke about probed my very thoughts exactly.. and I almost stood up and gave him a standing ovation in front of the computer screen. I think all graduating students should listen to this speech.. and ask ourselves what we really want in life

That again, I'm quite sure I'm not ready to meet with failure in life just yet. What I want to do and seriously love to do.. I know won't bring me far.

Stepping into the adult world is something I truly dread. Soon I'd be slogging out with my colleagues.. pressured by my parents to find a girlfriend.. thinking of how to make more money.. balancing and maintaining past and new friendships.. lamenting my loss of freedom and the utmost carefreeness I have now.

For now, I just hope to get the job that I want.
Why hasn't anybody called me yet?
Please call me before I head off for my grad trip. I don't want to lose out just because I'm off enjoying myself in Europe while all my peers are happily snapping away jobs that I could potentially land myself into instead...

The video above is our batch's Seniors Farewell Video. I really wanted to make a good video to leave behind something that our batch will be remembered by.. I wanted to break the music video tradition and start a new trend.. but somehow it didn't turn out too well. I guess I should have had more control in the overall directing and scriptwriting to make the video more cohesive.. or I guess I should have stuck with a music video instead.

That again.. yeah.. if the Block D song had come out earlier than the video brainstorming.. shooting the music video for the song would have been so much more worth remembering.

Yeap.. the above is the Block D song that I fully composed.. lyrics by Shyuan.. Jingwen.. and one or 2 lines by myself. At first I wasn't fully confident of my song writing skills.. but I was so happy that everyone liked it! Actually I was also impressed with myself for arranging the song.. with noteworthy composer then with Garageband on the Mac.. then finally adding the guitar parts by Jingwen and the singing parts with Audacity.

Now I'm trying to break away from the piano-woodwind-brass instruments and experiment with other instrument combinations.. and new chord progressions.. and then find another reason to write my next song =)

So again I ask myself what did I get out of Block D? I can't deny I had a lot of fun these few years.. made a lot of friends.. did a lot of crazy things.. but all these will just become distant memories soon.

Just like many things in life.. You know that you will lose it in time to come.. you know that you can't go on with life clasping onto what you treasure now.

You know you have to let go.

But I'll treasure what I have in this last 18 days.
Eighteen short days.

2008-04-04T05:49:00.002+08:00

i woke up at 5 am after 2 terrible report-writing nights and this video made me cry

It's been 4 long years.
Seniors farewell has never made seniors so emo.

I'll blog about the song and the video soon.

2008-03-13T01:54:00.002+08:00

chionging brings you to this dimension where you feel you can let all your feelings out.. but the sober part of you still restraining yourself.. which is why I'm thankful I'm still 10% sober.

But once i'm back to the real world the recovery is torturous.. both physically and psychologically.

Yes, I'm going through that stage now.

Never
chiong
again.

Monster Weekend

2008-02-20T03:05:00.003+08:00

The weekend was made more monstrous by my falling sick on Wednesday after 2 consecutive days of swimming + jogging + lack of sleep + donating blood.. Sometimes I ask why I fall sick so often this academic year.. but i should be asking myself why am I not resting enough?

That again.. I should be sleeping now but I need to blog down this monster weekend before I lose memory of it...

Friday 15th Feb 2008 - Chingay Preview
While the rest of the dancers had the day off (excuse letters) I suppose that doesn't spare me from project meetings. So with tissue stuck in my nose I had to rush back to hall at 4pm to get ready for Chingay Preview.

Maybe it was just the preview.. maybe it was because of the location of Chingay this year.. maybe because of the participating floats that we were sandwiched in between.. somehow the atmosphere of Chingay didn't feel as exhilarating as the one I participated in (and so strongly vowed to take part in again) 2 years ago. But yeah.. Friday just passed without the pomp and pizazz I had expected. Probably because I was still sniffing through a wet nose.

Saturday 16th Feb 2008 - Chingay
Woke up feeling slightly better than the day before.. still don't feel at my peak but at least the tap in my nose had clogged up into chesty phlegms choked amidst my windpipes.

One of the best things about being a Static Performer on the float is that I don't have to meet the rest of the dancers at 11am to begin make up (other than the drastically less number of practices and the exposure on top of the float haha). So I finally made up my mind to go down to SISTIC to get my 五月天-回到地球表面演唱会 concert tickets..

Why not online? Because some smart ass said that we probably can get better seats if we go to the ticketing outlet as at least I can choose my seats.

So I headed my way down to IMM, hoping to settle the tickets in 2 hours so that I can rush back to hall to catch an hour more of sleep. Whoa lao dunno is i sway or what after travelling all the way there that idiot had to tell me that the system was down! KNN!!

Lucky got free shuttle bus to the 'nearest SISTIC outlet' at Jurong Point.

And yes, turns out the smart ass was right. I got front view seats! Woots!!
Darn expensive though. But yea.. Mayday Concert is really worth this amount I suppose. The concert better not disappoint as this is the first time I'm actually watching a Pop concert. (All other performances I've ever been to have been musicals. Wa so atas haha).

Yes, mad rush again back to hall, change, makeup and all hyped up for
CHINGAY 2008 - Parade of Dreams

Here are some photos of camwhoring before the parade actually started. Hey! That's what Chingay is all about!!
And here are the supporters that came. More came though.. just that I only managed to catch photos with Sean, JS, SK, Tricia, Shihong, JK, Abhi...
And of course.. the photos taken from the top of the float.
I guess pictures speak a thousand words. For more photos click here:

Chingay 2008 - The Cinderella

All in all, Chingay 2008 still did not disappoint. The atmosphere was pumped high and everyone had a lot of fun. The audience was as usual spectacular and not to mention the decorations were breathtaking. While Chingay@Padang ended off rather abruptly at the end of the parade circuit where the buses just fetched us back to hall.. Chingay@Orchard ended at River Hongbao where we could continue camwhoring and enjoy ourselves even further before we shagged ourselves out contentedly. That's the only slight regret about this year's Chingay.

Still, I would love to participate in Chingays to come. But.. oh well. All good things must come to and end.

Just like The Cinderella. What a great closure to an awesome float. =)

Sunday 17th Feb 2008 - NUS Biathlon
So the night before I was still running a temperature of 37.1ºC and contemplating even whether to take part in the Biathlon or not. After all, I paid a bloody $25 for this stupid event and trained for it. That again, my life isn't worth $25 and a stupid T-shirt.

Thanks to Ivan for helping my buy my breakfast and Red Bull while I quickly went to bed after Chingay.. praying hard that I would recover by the time I woke up.

And i woke up with a temperature of 36.5ºC. Still not in the best of conditions.. but oh heck it! Off to ECP I go!!

Compared to Biathlon 2 years ago..
SWIMMING AT EAST COAST PARK IS DAMN SHACK!!
While in Sentosa I just had to swim to and fro (one against the current and one aided by the current).. swimming in a bloody triangle in East Coast was like a neverending battle against the waves for two-thirds of the battle. Doesn't help that my swimming cap came off halfway through the swim and I had to hold it in my hands. But yea.. still completed the bloody swim.

The run was less shag though. Maybe because we waited like damn long for Yaohui to come out of the sea... though in the end Gabe and I pushed off first. The distanced felt a little longer than in Sentosa but the pace was nice so the Biathlon was completed smoothly. =)

Photos!
Met Pingyong and Pinghong just before the start of the swim. Interestingly I registered in between them. Interestingly Pinghong and I had the same pair of running shoes we displayed nicely in the square allocated to us in the transition area. Interestingly both of us prepared Red Bull as well haha. Even more interestingly Shengwei, Yaohui, Gabe, Pinghong, Me and Pingyong had consecutive race numbers.. i.e. we registered after each other without any prior arrangement at all! Haha.

Don't ask me why I look fat in all the photos.
(Yes I'm still fat. Narbei)

For more photos click here

NUS Biathlon 2008

Sunday 17th Feb 2008 - Chingay Heartland Chinatown
With weary muscles i dragged myself back to hall to prepare for the 2nd event of the day. Tried to sleep in the afternoon but I just couldn't knock myself out. Too hot? Or my body's too energized? I just laid in bed though.. coz I just didn't feel like doing anything at all.

It was more of Chinatown's CNY celebrations than Chingay Heatland itself. The heartland part was only on the last half an hour of the night while most of the time was spent watching the CNY performances put up by the various invited performing groups.

Again, we had to camwhore when we had the opportunity to..
Photos taken on the float and of the Chinatown decorationsThe most memorable part of the night was that it was my first time seeing firecrackers blasting before my very eyes. Loud, smoky but it was so filled with the CNY festive mood! Firecrackers popping on the top of the building created beautiful red confetti that snowed down the streets of Chinatown that was so so picturesque as well.

And of course.. the best part about any celebrations is Fireworks up close. =)

For more photos, click here

Chingay Heartland Chinatown

Now I'm just trying to get my studies back on track.. Do my part for projects.. study what I'm required to study.. FYP Poster.. and of course.. FIND A JOB which I've been delaying for very long now.

But all these are distracted by a so-very-important activity which I rather be doing..
PLANNING FOR GRAD TRIP!!
Haha.. Check this out - My Air Ticket and Rail Pass!
Well well.. till dunno when till my next update..
Love you all deep deep!
=)

Avatar Withdrawal

2008-02-03T01:30:00.000+08:00

I think I'm suffering too much withdrawal symptoms of not watching this show..

What Avatar: The Last Airbender Character are you? Your Result: You are Aang your a very hyperactive, and moody person. Which, isn't a bad thing because you solve every problem with a smile, but your caring and emotion can't be used everywhere, and it is up to you to use it as you can. Yet, your still a kid (more than likely) and you want to enjoy life as it is, not how it will be in the next 5 years, or how it would have been 100 years ago.
you are toph
you are Sokka
you are Iroh
You are Katara
you are Suko
You are the Cabbage merchant
you are Azula
What Avatar: The Last Airbender Character are you? Take More Quizzes

Though I thought I was more of Toph and Sokka..

It's a great show.. though just a cartoon. Here's the first 2 episodes...

Come on!
SCREEN THE NEXT EPISODE NICKELODEON!!!
The whole world's waiting...

Grad Trip Madness

2008-02-01T03:01:00.000+08:00

Just paid the deposit for all of us.
Eastern Europe.. HERE WE COME!!

From Ashes to Asha.. Asha to Astonishing

2008-01-27T12:04:00.000+08:00

It's like watching your baby transform into a fine young adult

2008-01-23T04:00:00.000+08:00

Just downloaded Picasa.. trying out the blogger and collage functions..
So here are some photos from my birthday.. Why so few? Coz the rest are heavily censored. Haha!

2008-01-20T03:28:00.001+08:00

This is kinda interesting.. I'm blogging using Microsoft Word 2007.

Haha.

One Quarter of a Century

2008-01-17T04:19:00.000+08:00

Feeling emo.

Just celebrated my last birthday in hall. No surprises.. but at least it was peaceful. Haha yah interestingly compared to my last 2 birthdays in hall this was the most (thankfully) peaceful one already. Thank you everyone for the celebration! Photos up soon.

25 year old is very old. I'm in my mid-twenties. I'm CAT Y for IPPT.
And what have i accomplished?
How prepared am I to move on in my next phase of life from here on?

A lot of thoughts running through my mind right now. Sporadic random thoughts. About desires and disappointments.. about friendship and love.. about expectations and responsibilities..

If only we don't grow up.

JB!

2008-01-10T03:28:00.000+08:00

At 10am my mother woke me from my slumber to ask me if I want to go JB today coz my father had a meeting there.. so the whole family's tagging along.

Wa.. how timely. Save my trip to Sheng Shiong heh heh heh.

So i started my shopping spree! Bought shirts! Shirts! T-Shirts! T-Shirts! Wa damn cheap la.. RM$19.90 for a t-shirt leh and the designs are rather decent.. I don't think you can get a t-shirt for less than $10 in Singapore lor.. unless those lok-kok-throw-into-washing-machine-will-shrink-throw-into-dryer-will-deform kind which can get in pasar malam... yah. So... NO MORE WEARING OF SHEARES HALL/NUS T-SHIRTS THIS SEMESTER!! (unless i wanna support IHG)

Finally bought a nice leather wallet to replace my lok-kok secondary-school cloth ripcurl wallet which all my guys in army laugh at me for having. Yay.

And of course I started whacking all my GROCERIES!!! Wa I think i bought enough to last me the entire semester! Thinking that stuff there are so damn cheap (since convert from RM mah) Throw things in trolley never see price one. Until I came back to hall and Chihwen started comparing prices and realised that actually some things Sheng Shiong cheaper. Sian.

Oh well.. Talk so much but no photos hor? Other pple's blog got so many photos my blog always no photos. Too bad. My bad for leaving my camera in the stupid cab. Sob sob. CURSE THAT GREEDYPIG WHO DIDN'T BOTHER TO RETURN MY CAMERA TO ME!!

Going Tekong tomorrow. Brother enlisting. So interesting going there as a 'family' now.
Haha.

2008-01-09T04:24:00.000+08:00

to be high and be restrained at the same time is torturous

2007 and Beyond

2008-01-07T02:44:00.000+08:00

Really overcame a lot of intertia before coming back to blogger to start posting again. This blog is like totally abandoned already.. except to those who suscribe to it using some reader or something.. otherwise.. it's more for my own keepsake..

Yes.. so I just had to write something about 2007.. after all.. a year had passed. Last year I was counting down at the London Eye how exciting. This year I spent it in Block D lounge with a bunch of lazy asses. Mental note to myself to plan my own mega uber exciting countdown with the kids next time since my older friends have worn out of the squeezing stage.

So.. to summarize 2007...

IA experience. Bad company culture. Lousy work. Terrible location. Good friends. Too bad we rarely keep in contact anymore.
Rag. Both a memorable and regretful experience. Memorable: Chancellors Shield and Friends. Regretful: I couldn't give my all and didn't make the best of friends.
Reconfirm the fact that I suck at chasing girls.
Bought my camera. Lost my camera. Canon Ixus 850IS.
My first ICT as S2. I love my current Int Branch. Think we will have a great 10 years together.
Perhaps the best decision I ever made in 2007 was to stay in Block D Level 6. The guy-bonding experience is really immensely comforting. An experience accelerated by halting my cheehonging forays into other levels.. an experience compounded by studying together for exams and doing traditional stupid Block D things together. I was still lamenting about after so man years in hall who are the true friends that I think I will still keep in contact with after graduating. It takes a lot of effort, time and sincerity to maintain friendships.. and amongst all the groups of friends that will come-and-go past me in life, I would really hope to cling onto 2 groups: MafBrothers and Block D Guys.
After 24++ years it was interesting to meet a guy who thinks exactly the same way as I do. We are still different people, but when the similarities stand out, it amuses both of us. Haha.

And in 2008? Well.. here are what I'm going to do.. they are not resolutions.. for once I term them 'Resolutions' I most probably won't follow them haha.

Study hard enough to upgrade my honours.
Find a decent job. First I must really figure out what I want in life. Wasting the first few years to 'find out' or to 'make a fortune' is really quite a hefty price to pay.
Plan my grad trip
Start letting go of Block D and let the juniors take over.
Lose weight. (Ok every year i make this ~~resolution~~ statement but.. oh well)
Find girlfriend (That again.. I suck at that.. so oh well)

As i say every year..
HAPPY NEW YEAR PULL YOUR EAR!

Chio's Daemon

2007-12-13T07:03:00.000+08:00

Interestingly I like my daemon a lot!
Give me a daemon like him pleeeasseee..

Sianded twice

2007-11-22T00:18:00.000+08:00

Never really talked about it all this while... until the run just now.

Sigh.. but it's really sian.
Maybe amplified by the negative mugging atmosphere.

What to do?

Chionging for discussion room Day 2

2007-11-20T08:45:00.001+08:00

Woke up late = No discussion room. Sianzz.. :(

Chionging for central library

2007-11-19T08:38:00.001+08:00

Wa lao it was like more than 30 people outside the central library in the morning and when the floodgates opened you should see the bloody mad rush to level 6! Yea but ivan and i did it :) happy mugging.

Blogging on my phone

2007-11-18T16:49:00.001+08:00

In business studying now. Damn central library for closing so early. Ha. Just downloaded this application on my mobile so checking it out now. :) ok back to mugging.

Found this in the draft... so just publish it lor

2007-11-17T23:54:00.000+08:00

Welcome back! Once again it's a huge long hiatus since I last blogged. Yea ask you can tell blogging has become quite a dumb activity for me.. like why the hell would I want to tell the world what's happening to my life right? Though kaypohs like you may want to know haha. The only reason why I should continue to blog is that I can recollect some memories online when I grow old. Yes.. and it's kinda therapeutic reading back past entries.. =)

8 more days to the exams.. years ago I would be frantically preparing for the exams 2 weeks ago.. but now.. it seems like I've barely started. Blame it on all the projects piling up.. and of course all the time wasted talking to people.. either I walk into people's room to talk or people just pop by mine to chit chat.. It's a rather enjoyable activity.. but each time it just sucks up hours and hours of my time. So yeah.. from now till end of exams.. it's strictly no-wondering-into-pple's-room.

But to a certain extent the examinable topics are less heavy compared to previous years.. so it's not too bad.. (i hope).

Boys love toys. I've been eyeing this one for a few months now. With good ratings all over the net and after waiting so long for Starhub restock this model.. here's my latest gadget in my arsenal

Trust me the functions are way more than what's in the video. And till now I'm still liking it.. though it's still a slightly laggy symbian based phone it still serves me rather fine. I just hope that I can take care of this baby well for the next 2 years at least.. and it doesn't end up like most of my other gadgets *cross fingers*. Yes, not that I wish to, but I've been labelled the destroyer.

Though the iPhone kicks ass more. Pray 2 years later it comes with a whopping mega disk space as well as office support. Then I can replace both my iPod and my phone. =)

Reaching for the Highest

2007-10-26T07:31:00.000+08:00

When we first entered this Hall.. all of us MAFBrothers.. we wanted to 'join the underdogs'.

After Good Luck Concert today.. I realised how much I've seen the hall grow over these 4 years. From my year1 loss in Esentya.. to shield sweeping in MidwayFair.. to Chancellors Shield in The Cinderella. Now I've witnessed how the cultural groups improved.. Dance was awesome.. Band was sensational. Now just waiting for IHG to see this orange institution to prove its worth.

Even within Block D.. we came from just a 'warm and friendly, pretty and hamsome' Block to a truely siao on and fun exciting Block D qieing all other Blocks flat.. It feels great being in now what seems to be the most prominent Block in hall.

I may not have a significant part to play in all these changes. But it's wonderful to be in the path of reaching for the highest.. rather than entering at the peak enjoying the fruits of predecessors' labour.

It's like watching a child grow up.

Do I still have a chance?

Self-Containment

2007-10-05T13:35:00.000+08:00

Keiko said I should revive my blog.. so here I go..

The drive for blogging has waned down a lot every since coming back from SEP.. No time? No point? Maybe a little of both. Blogs are such weird tools. On one hand you know the whole world will be reading in time to come (being one of the most searchable blogs out there) while on the other there are some feelings you can't pen down for self-preservation's sake.

Which means that I can only tell you guys that I'm down.. crashing.. the inside of me wants to scream to let it all out.. but I can't tell you why.

Just like I still have to maintain happy and smily to the world.. go for long runs to destress.. and mask everything with a flu attack (which came timely). I guess I don't want people to be concerned about me. Because I may not be able to reciprocate the same amount of concern.

Though through the process of rag I failed to conceal the fact that I'm actually quite an emo person. (other than those few who know that I actually cried during BMT POP haha.. though not for OCS Comms Parade). I broke down watching MidwayFair Rag Video before talking to the international kids.. I broke down AGAIN watching the same video 1 week before rag.. I cried when the float stopped construction at 10pm.. I teared when we did an extremely successful (almost glitch-free) performance to the Padang crowd.. and of course I bawled my heart out when we clinched shields after shields. Now watching Rag videos again I still feel overwhelmed with emotions.. even reading Val's latest article on Shout almost welled tears in my eyes.

Point is, I can get all emo about what's affecting me. But I won't tell.. not at least till I'm comfortable to face up to reality and talk about it.

For now, let me focus on the really important things in the final year of NUS life - FYP, Studies, Projects, Real Friends.

The last one is real hard though. I wonder how many friends I'll lose contact with once I step out of this very self-contained institution called NUS.. or the even more self-contained Sheares Hall?

Time will tell.

:"(

2007-10-03T09:21:00.000+08:00

How unanonymous this blog is. I just need an avenue to do this

SEP Blues again..

2007-09-07T03:51:00.000+08:00

About this time last year.. I should be on my 1st day in Sweden already.

The 'Step Out' SEP fair at the Central Forum in NUS started the insane desire to go for another round of SEP. Seeing all the photos of others taken during their exchange programmes made me wonder why I didn't submit MY photos too! The feeling of longing is so intense that I could just hop onto the next plane bound for UK.

Which was why when Sarah smsed for a last minute gathering to celebrate Asha's bday.. I just agreed without thinking. After all, I haven't seen the Leeds Peeps for so long.. and most of them would be flying back next week already.

First of all.. most of them upon seeing me congratulated me about the Rag's victory. Quite sweet that they actually noted. =) Talking about Leeds.. Driving from Leodis to Parkinsons Building.. Morrisons.. Briggate.. Freshers Week.. Socials.. Partying.. SIGHHHHHHHHH... PLEASE TAKE ME ON THE NEXT TRIP BACK TO LEEDS!!

Real regret I couldn't spend more time with Manhon since he got back.. for one thing was work and rag in the beginning few weeks and for another it's actually quite gay to 'date' just 1 other guy out. Haha! Aiyah.. but after all we were damn close neighbours for those few months.. oh well..

But he made up for his idioticness by sending me back to hall after the meet. Sarah tagged along.. brought her to see Caroline and witnessed the wrath of 2 bimbos greeting each other and the conversations they can churn out. Then the 3 of us just went to the rooftop and talked under the stars and the light sea breeze. Quite shiok. Till Sarah's sis called and they had to leave.

Sigh. The next time I'll see them would probably be a year later.
What will all of us be like then?

I'm so glad I still have A Postcard to Home to read and reminiscence those good old days.

Relationships are so hard to fathom.

For those who are still reading...

2007-08-24T03:53:00.000+08:00

It was not only recently when Fangxi told me she found my blog that I realised that Hey I Actually Still Have A Blog...

Haven't been updating since i ended my IA.. had been a full time Ragger since. Full-time-Ragger = No-Day-No-Night-Slog-Till-You-Drop-To-Finish-The-Bloody-Float. Come to think of it.. it's really amazing how I managed to pull that whole period of being Vice-Chair of Sheares Rag without even my parents knowing about it. This whole rag experience has been fulfilling.. yet somehow with blemishes of dissatisfactions. It's really hard to put down in words.. But I'm sure I'll remember this experience for life. After all, it is a FANTASTIC ending to my Sheares Hall career:

CHANCELLORS SHIELD
BEST FLOAT DESIGN
BEST FLOAT PRESENTATION

So what now? Year 4 already. I'm strongly resisting my backside itchiness to take up any important positions in hall. After all I assuredly rejected the biggest one just a few months back. And it's interesting to see how things have turned out since. It also irks me to see what some people are doing up in the political circle of hall. There are so many little sheep around. How many actually can step out and see the bigger picture?

I want the hall to do well. I'll help whatever I can, however I can, but as a normal Shearite. Leave me out of all the other nonsense.

Which brings be to the rubbish Pageant thing. Can you believe it? CLEMENT CHIO is the pageant representative of Block D. I thought it was a whole lame bloody joke at first but when it was "confirmed" no amount of whining I did to Ivan, Xuanjie or Kenneth could shake it off. KNNNBCB. I mean I'm used to making a fool of myself in public and this competition definitely entails this factor but the very fact that it is coined a 'Pageant' means that the contestants need to look good which I certainly am confident that I'm no where near pageant material. So yes, I'm being saboed to be a clown. So until the whole saga is over I have to get used to that fact that I'll be ridiculed constantly to be unfittingly in a beauty contest. And I bloody hell NOT win, otherwise I'll be stuck with the ridicule for another year. Yes, for the Block, I take this shit up.

Talking about the Block brings IBG which is running hot and furiously now. Block D still remained pretty and handsome as always though we maintained our 2nd in Basketball, this time more convincingly than last year. Being an ex-Blockhead means I have to show face at all IBG events, or should I? I should, I need to show support to the newly stepped up Block heads and Block comm; but I want my own time.. I desperately need to focus on studies and my FYP. I hope being a final year student gives me the passport to do so.

Final year students.. Year 4 students.. actually there's much talk among us on this topic already.
We're actually quite an amazing batch. So old, so much presence, so siao on, so bonded. I'm so glad to be in this batch.

Yet precisely after 4 years in hall making so many friends and acquaintances I start to wonder how many of them I will be really close to? How many will I keep in contact with after I leave this place? Other than MAFBrothers all my other groups of friends have been social circles that whizz pass my life. That's why I was sad to leave Leeds, because I was sure then that the Leeds Peeps will be one of these social circles. True enough, I'm really too tied down to keep in contact with any of them. It's just my personality - I don't open up to people; and I don't delve to understand people. And the retribution - I don't make real good friends.

For the same reason, plus the fact that I really don't know how to make girls happy, is why my love life after so long is a completely empty vessel. I've like given up.. though it's hard to forget some people. I've missed so many boats already. And this current boat of kids are really too young that I don't take them seriously. Makes me feel like a pedophile if i ever have designs on any of them at all. So I take my bow out of the hunting zone, and just be a contended bystander on the safari.

OMG.. i didn't mean for this post to be so long and emo. But after not blogging for so long I guess stuff just rattles off. Thanks for surviving till here. Thanks for dropping by this page at all. I don't know when I'll ever blog again. I really want to be a good student. Tomorrow is FYP day. I MUST DO MY FYP!

Snapped

2007-07-06T03:16:00.000+08:00

Work, Rag, Walk back home late at night, Sleep for less than 3 hours.. *repeat*

This week stretched me further.. as float construction rams up I try as much as possible to stay as late as I can..

Monday: Rag Main Comm bonding. Went home 5am.
Tuesday: Typed minutes till 4am.
Wednesday: Down with flu.
Today: Woke up with fever. 38.9deg.
Tomorrow: See doctor to take MC.

1 more week of work. Finally I can be full-time ragger and not stretch myself crazily like this anymore.

Anyway.. here are photos of Tioman.

Our vehicle

2007-06-19T02:35:00.000+08:00

Post ICT

2007-06-18T23:52:00.000+08:00

What so dreadful about ICT?

I don't know how to describe my this 1st ICT experience.. for one thing it wasn't that shiong for me coz I ended up doing my tan jiak map planning.. working on layers of talc and lousy paint markers while constantly digging my memory from 3 years ago what's the difference between enemy poss, conduct of battle and enemy course of action.. as well as how to rattle off effects of terrain statements like a pro in front of my "int-trained" CO...

For one thing I'm terribly glad I have a wonderful REDCON1 S2 Branch.. though slacking keeps on hanging by the mouths but when it's time to deliver it's truely REDCON1 standard. Sigh.. on the hind side it puts tremendous pressure on me sia to live up to James Boey's standard.. sometimes I really feel i should have just gone through ATEC with them.. or at least be given an uninterrupted chance to go through a good BP. Quote Ron "以前跟人家讲我们是S2 Branch 人家会想起James Boey 我们就会up." Now that I have taken over the reins in this NS unit I should work hard to fill up these big shoes MAJ James dug.. cannot let this bunch of guys down. More preparation before the next ICT I suppose..

Stange enough I'm feeling a sense of loss now that I'm back in the civilian world. Can't figure out if it's coz I miss the communal feeling of in-camp (like in hall) or I miss the carefree officer lifestyle or I'm just siao on army. I'm already looking forward to the next ICT.. Wallaby doesn't sound like a bad idea to me after all (only that the rest of my branch will not be going up with me) and the craziest thought that ever ran through my head was that I want to go through RCC. *slaps myself*

1st day of work back in Brady is ultimate slack.. I spent the whole day writing my report.. supervisors don't disturb me.. hopefully tomorrow too.. let this be a peaceful last 1 month of attachment now that the NTU students have ORDed. I'm sooo envious of them.

FYP Balloting has started and I haven't really looked through all the projects. Rag is gearing into full force and I can't be there to bond with the rest of them. It really sucks to be missing out while the rest of the gang is starting to become the best of friends. I have friends that are already starting to get married and I don't have the time for girls haha. Ok but that's still the least of my concernsssssssssss.

I'm suddenly like momentarily lost.
Someone kick me.

I should just sign on.
Argh someone kick me again.

I'm going to dump by SBO Fieldpack back into my cupboard and get on with life.
Period.

Opening a time capsule..

2007-06-11T03:23:00.004+08:00

Wow this blog has been left stagnant for quite some time eh? Wonder who still reads this now. Well.. my life has been boring lately - Work.. Rag.. Walkhomefromhall.. Sleep.. Work.. Rag...... with occasional meet ups with friends like Evelyn.. Weekend jobs at Exxonmobil roadshows.. Block movie outings (mostly impromptu) and theres nothing emotional to rant these days either.

Just packed for ICT tomorrow. Yes.. 1 week for Low Key ICT for me and because of that I had to dig out from the depths of my cupboard the treasures that I stowed away 3 years ago. And it's an amazing experience.. like opening a time capsule..

I actually ironed and STARCHED this uniform 3 years ago. Wonder how does 3-year old starch smell like? Nothing. Lucky i still can fit into it.. otherwise wad a waste of my efforts then..

My infantry and armour berets have been faithfully resting under my mattress to be 'conditioned'. Though it's not as if my mattress at home is always occupied, it should have absorbed the essence of that a beret-under-the-mattress should look like haha

My duffel bag which I'm so going to change to the new rolling one.
Yes another reason is that mine's smeared with Tan Kok Lin's name..

I actualled packed my field pack before stowing it away 3 years ago!

My field pack items! But imagine using 3 year old toilet paper, toothbrush and toothpaste and soap I sian already...

Took me to remember what this was... SOP BOX!

My SBO. And a waterbottle is still missing. But no SOC still ah.

Clothes which I will never in my life wear again - Grey Army T-Shirts and Singlets.

Strange combination of stuff kept together - insoles, gutters, epulettes, jungle hat.

Heat packs that I bought for Wallaby 2002!

Check out the expiry date haha. Couldn't even bring them to UK even if i wanted to.

Outfield Gloves.

My most dreaded piece of equipment

My Sword Bag

I bothered to do this before ORDing haha.

And in it is what it contains. Stuff that will save my life this Friday.

Off to Sungei Gedong!

Waiting for Supper

2007-05-10T19:03:00.000+08:00

Long time no post.. oh well.. i'm just slacking in the lab now waiting to 9pm to come.. before meeting deeBlockers in Bedok 85 for supper.. Yeah.. since I have to wait anyway.. why not do some OT 'work' and claim OT pay? Haha..

Just got some call from some telemarketing advertising guy saying i won some $100+ spa voucher.. and some $500+ hotel stay in china.. for dunno wad reason.. have to go down to collect at Delphi Orchard tomorrow.. Dunno worth the effort or not.. haha dun even know if it's a scam.. oh well.. but.. cool ah?

Ok la slack in lab long enough
going to Tampines Mall and walk walk haha

Ramblings

2007-05-04T02:57:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling week and faint now coz I didn't eat dinner and just gymmed. Time to sleep.

I ate laksa for lunch and my fat percentage jumped from 17.5% to 18.9%!

Heroes Episode 20 is a fantastic episode. Everything makes sense now. You can't change the past/future after all. Can't wait to see what happens.
(I want Peter Petrelli's powers!!!)

BBQ, possible batch outing, possible Spiderman tomorrow. Excited!

I screwed up by remembering the sacred birthday wrongly. *slap myself ten thousand times*

I'm really going to fainnnn......

Spiderman Woes

2007-05-03T02:27:00.000+08:00

Just a short post before bed..

It's so hard to get people to watch a stupid show like this.
Once again I'm lamenting about work again. Next week onwards all you students will have all the time in the world to watch this show even during the day time. While I am confined to the nights before I can hit the cinemas.

Should have just accepted Shiqi's invitation and watched with JS, Ky, Tat.. and Block C.
Now I may have to download the show to watch in front of my silly little laptop.

One thing so like about my horoscope
"It might be nice if you and all your friends were moving at the same pace. But today an unusual occurrence will make it quite obvious that you aren't in sync. The good news is, just because you're all moving at different speeds doesn't mean that you can't find ways to click. Conflicts in your schedules will inspire you to try harder to find ways to spend time together -- and make you appreciate one another all the more."

But to be rejected subtlety again.. and again.. and again again again again again... *sigh*

Overcoming Inertia

2007-04-30T00:50:00.000+08:00

Everytime i feel like blogging the moment i log into blogger i don't feel like blogging anymore

Facebook
Joined facebook like 3 days ago.. but now I'm bored of it already.. though it provided me with like 2 days of entertainment. It's just an sensationalised form of Friendster.. but essentially everything you can do on Facebook you can jolly well do on MSN.. if MSN is already not inter-personal enough. Facebook is just another wall where people hide behind to interact with one another.. another excuse for people to talk to one another.. when an actual excuse for a proper real-life meetup can't be found.

I'm still trying to figure out what else it has to offer. After all, so many people are plugged onto it.

Working
Hooked myself onto a weekend job.. and guess how it all started...

JS: Eh 有 job lobang 要不要做d？Every Saturday for 8 weekends $7 an hour at Bugis Junction 卖 mousepad. No target so can slack 不要做东西也可以.
Me: Sounds good. Ok.

And later I got the job.. it turned out to be

At Junction 8!
Every weekend i.e. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY!
Getting people to sign up for EssoMobil Smiles Driver Rewards Card
Quota of 30 a day if not deduct pay!
Standing the whole day very shiong!

So typical of Junsheng ah?

Working every Saturday and Sunday is crazy for me now that i'm already working every WEEKDAY. So I'll take 1 weekend while he takes the other. It's good money.. after all.. it's paying me double of what my present attachment job pays me per day.

BradyBlog
http://bradyready.blogspot.com
Set up this blog so that we fellow colleagues can rant about our lousy supervisor who is such a kancheong spider who usually leaves us alone but really becomes super kancheong whenever HIS boss asks him about our results. And he's the say-one-thing-but-later-claim-another-thing type of person.. totally no credibility.. you know that type of person that will come up with excuses to fend his argument but you know it's really the 'excuses' that are thought of on the spot? Yah that type of person

Well of course we also test the system.. haha come to work late.. extended lunch.. going home on the dot.. WTH.. this is attachment! Pay us more and give us better benefits and we will slog for you. People management again. I swear if i ever become a boss I will be a good one.

Bored
It's MayDay and I'm stuck at home. Life sucks. No one to go out with. No good shows on TV to watch. I just wasted my holiday.

Music

2007-04-24T03:46:00.000+08:00

Just packed my iPod with many many many new songs today.. Jason Mraz, John Mayor and Unexpected rocks.. The Best of Queen is coming in next..

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours

Anyway I'm feeling very pekchek with myself now. I'm such a scaredycat nopriorities opportunitylosing failure. Things are just deteriorating...

Work.. Family.. Exercise.. Hall.. Sleep.. RantRantRant...

2007-04-21T06:50:00.000+08:00

Have been following this routine the past week.. Home after work so my parents don't complain they don't see me at all.. then after they go to sleep I meet kaiyuan for alternate days of gym and run.. then walk around Block D to find pple to jeesiao or cheehong (doesn't really help that it's exam time now.. but i'm still amazed that some people just don't study).. which leaves me only about 2-3 hours sleep each night.

Quite a shack lifestyle.. but so far it's the best way to balance all the factors in my life. Oh.. but i'm sure the equation will change when Rag starts.. and change more in July when bloody FYP starts.

And no, I'm gymming with Kaiyuan not to beef up into a bullfrog but to lose weight.. haha and of course to aim for my $400 for IPPT!

An interesting parallel is happening at work these few days: A fellow IA student from a neighbouring company has a soft spot for my colleague.. and is making small subtle moves at her. We have lunch together everyday.. but she's not rejecting.. neither she is reciprocating.. as her firm stand as an answer to our constant teasings back at our own workplace is that it's impossible between them.
Observe, ask and learn. Girls are weird creatures.

I've been away from UK for 89 days already.. and it's spring now. Everyone's blogs are praising the glorious weather there.. Sarah's said it's like walking around in an outdoor air-con shopping centre.. *envious* while Singapore here is just getting hotter and wetter =(

I can rant more but I'll just stop here.

Backdated

2007-04-14T02:11:00.000+08:00

I'll just update this thing that i've saved in draft for so long just procrastinating to blog..

Block Head Elections
Once again.. another batch of Block Head and Vice Block Head is elected.. there are a lot of good candidates in this batch (unlike previous years) just that there isn't that ONE that's 100% clear for the job. Each has his/her traits and vulnerabilities and some just simply don't want to step up. Oh well.. but the elections was concluded happily.. and just proves how old I am.. I have a grand-successor already! Whoa lao eh...

Room
Initially the plan was to pack Level 8 with Masters List old fogeys Gabe, JW and me... as there were exactly 3 vacancies left. Well... not that I resent staying in level 8 for another year, but it's really too dead for me. So much for the breathtaking sea view and the extreme privacy.. but my last year in hall should be much of a bang and pizazz and lotsa fun since I'm not stressed out by any comms or hall commitments. So when the game plan changed by Alex sticking to his room and leaving 2 vacant rooms on level 8, I stepped down to my preferred level 6 short wing.. though now my neighbours are 2 year 2s which I am totally not familiar with. Aye my only hope is Kayping can get his room and at least someone I can talk cock with.

That is, if I manage to convince my parents to let me stay 1 final year...

FYP
My FYP starts on 1st July while my IA only ends on 13th July. Did I mention that in July Rag is going 12pm-12am working hours 6 days a week?

I'm so going to die.

Events Update

2007-04-12T00:55:00.000+08:00

My MSN is going crazy.. for the moment I go online it sucks up my CPU usage like crazy.. I just hate it when i don't know what the hell the programs on my laptop are doing behind my back.. can't stand it when they use my precious slow laptop resources to update themselves or load pictures or wad crap..

Anyway.. just for the update.. Last Sat was ELECO.. sadly only Zibin, Sky, Kaifeng (YES KAIFENG) and me could go back.. MAFBrothers decided to bang seh ELECO to celebrate Yaohui's bday in a game of bowling as long planned earlier while the ECACO gang somehow all couldn't make it.. But I felt obliged to go la.. it was my brother's last council event and the only one I would be going since I was in UK during his MAF and O1...

Yes, the Kang Kaifeng we haven't met in EONS.. now based in London.. back in Singapore for a business trip enjoying himself in the best hotels here.. and still the prosperous wealthy businessman look he dons haha.. (wa i suddenly look so thin hor?)
Block D Concert was fun! Think it was the best concert in the past 3 years. Kudos to siao-on year ones this year. The whole idea of preforming-to-ourselves-and-self-entertaining is good as we are not obliged to live up to any hall expectations and just have fun in our own little world. =)

Nothing else I wanna say le.
Life is getting suckier by the day.

Wala Wala

2007-04-06T22:20:00.000+08:00

Seems like there's not much motivation to blog nowadays.. lotsa things come to my mind but just reluctant to put it down here.

Anyway.. went out with colleagues to chill out at Wala Wala on eve of Good Friday.

Work sucks.

2007-04-03T00:38:00.000+08:00

Work is starting to take it's toll on my social life.. esp when I have so little time after work and have to juggle between home and hall (starting to feel bad that I'm not spending much time at home in the first place).

It's hard to explain. Aiyah.
Work Sucks.

I'm a communication sucker. Need booze.

2007-04-02T02:07:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to blog about recently.. the usual going back to hall stuff blah blah blah.. Met up with Evelyn quite some time ago.. and now that Yanru's back from NYC for 3 weeks yeah 3 of us met up too (but no photos haha)

Going down to Esplanade for coffee and I caught the whole Phantom fever again. Gosh I really feel like watching Phantom again.. considering that the last time I watched was 10 years ago in Primary 6 when they last came to Singapore. Now I'm twice the age I was and it's now performing in the bigger better Esplanade (probably bigger and better than Her Majesty's Theatre in London) and guess what's the better deal? Student price tickets are only $50 and the seats are just between the $145 and $120 seats!

The only problem is to go with the right person. Hehe.

Oh well.. here are long overdue DnD photos. Enjoy

What I did while on MC today

2007-03-27T00:28:00.000+08:00

Given the meagre wage of $600 I am being paid.. taking MC today had the opportunity cost of a mere $26.. but I managed to

Go YIH see doctor get medicine and get MC
Go Vivocity and attempt to get my new Islander card
Go Queensway and alter the super long jeans I bought from Primarks (UK)
Go OCBC bank and activate my age old bank account as well as apply for Internet Banking
Go Swimming
Go for SCRC Meeting

And still had time to go home early to watch TV.

Gosh i wish I wasn't working.

argh

2007-03-22T01:02:00.000+08:00

ineedtosettleragstuffineedtosettleblockproblemsineedtohelphalloutineedtoteachmybrotherchemistrycozhegottestthenextdayineedtoworktomorrowineedtogobackhalllater!!!
ARRRGGGHHH

Learning

2007-03-20T01:55:00.000+08:00

Thought that being a block head before no comm problem would be too hard for me to handle.. until I got stumbled on just now..

Turns out that I had always been working with ordinary comm members.. or block mates.. and it took 1 year of practice to hone my skills to persuade/nag/irritate people to join events.

But now I realise that I can't put all these into use.. coz now I have to get subcomm i/cs to do the persuading/nagging/irritating.. and I must accept the fact that not everyone is comfortable with being as 不要脸 as me. Bypassing and going directly to the subcommmembers would be the last thing I want to do coz it gives me more problems to handle and I lose 1 good i/c.

I'm no longer dealing with workers, I dealing with leaders. A whole new set of skills to hone.
Tactfulness, empathy, guidance and a keen sense of observance.

I'm learning. I'm learning.

Listen

2007-03-14T01:54:00.000+08:00

A long absence from here actually means that a lot of things have actually happened.. no time to blog.. and of course I'm actually finishing up the IA report I have to submit by the end of the week.. (but for now I must find out how to combine few pages of PDF files together)

Meeting People
Interestingly in the past 2 days while on the way to work I bumped into familiar unexpected faces.. Dashed into the MRT just before the doors closed on me on Monday only to hear Jeanette calling me. Ah always good to have an accompanying partner during a long boring journey from Harbourfront to Eunos. Not to mention the little adventure we had 'saving' a girl which really fainted at our feet in the crowded train.

Well, today I bumped into Wu Beidi at Harbourfront Bus Station. Haha.. the legendary Wu Beidi whose name was alongside honourary Sheares Hall Alumni like S.R. Nathan during those days when Sheares Hall was still in Wikipedia. Haha. Talked for a while and surprisingly she tried to persuade me to take up something that some others were also trying to get me to take up.. like how would she have known the situation now? Oh well.. Nice to see her again.. after all she was one of my 偶像s like Jianfa and Hazel that made me want to be Block Head. =)

So wonder who will I meet tomorrow?

Movie
Almost like a movie marathon I caught 2 movies in the past 2 days. Watched 300 with my colleagues on Monday. Superb show if you just want to watch lotsa action, CGI graphics and appreciate art of warfare. Though I think why my female colleagues loved the show was because there were a total of 1800pecs in the show.

Dreamgirls today. Yea a bit late for the show but I thought it was brilliant. Songs were nice, Beyonce was damn gorgeous and Jennifer Hudson was just overwhelmingly good though at times I think she was screaming too hard into the song. I'm now hooked onto the song Listen by Beyonce. Damn I could buy the whole soundtrack!

I still want to watch Iwo Jima. Who's game?

Heng Monday, Suay Tuesday
Monday was surprisingly peppered with nibbets of hengness.

I was prepared to be late for work (again) as I didn't leave home on time but my father just happened to be leaving for work too so I got a ride to Harbourfront..
Of course, meeting Jeanette on the train..
Supervisor being arrowed too many things to have time to bark at us to do work.. ended up slacking haha..
Had no money in my bank account and still able to book tickets for 300 using debit card..
Got a call from Bargaincity.com saying I got my Canon Ixus 850IS for $639 and two 2GB SD cards instead of the revised price of $649 and one 1GB SD card and one 2GB SD card just because I called them on Sunday..
Tat's deadline extended last minute.. haha

Today was slightly more sway.. though still not too bad..

Bus to Harbourfront was excruciatingly slow.. think like 3 buses overtook mine
Too engrossed watching House on my iPod I just missed a train that came and left right before my eyes at Outram Park
Poured cats and dogs when I reached Somerset MRT and arrived drenched at Somerset MRT
My movie kaki was earlier than me
My debit card bounced when trying to pay for the movie ticket though my pay was cashed in today
Wallet dropped out of my pocket to in-between the 2 seats under the armrest and took a hell lot of time to dig it out after the show.

Hope tomorrow's Mr Luck's turn to visit again.

Sheares Production - Communicating Doors
Probably not as good as last year's SP but it was certainly a great effort in creating an enjoyable night. Kudos to the entire SP team! Can totally feel their sense of elation and relief at the curtain call.. where finally all their hard work paid off. Ah.. reminds me of those wonderful 黄城 days.

Yea.. and probably never had supper at Fong Seng in the longest time ever.. though I didn't eat haa.

IT Fair
Wanted to buy my Canon Ixus 850IS there but was sold out. The idiot salesman gave me attitude problem when I tried to bargain for a discount by comparing their prices with the obviously more enticing bargaincity.com . So in the end Kayping and I left empty handed. Kayping will still saying before the fair that IT Fair should charge an entrance fee that is refundable upon purchase of anything at all at the fair.. to prevent people from window shopping and just chalking up the crowds.. ironically.. we became crowd-chalkers too haha.

NUS Open House
Backside itchy.. so went back to help Open House. Technically it's the Sheares Booth at Open House. Well done to ERC this year.. with the idea of helium balloons and pamphlets of Sheares Hall. =) Can't help but talking to blur freshies-to-be about staying in hall and SECC and everything.. haha I have a whole database of what to rattle off in my head.. 2 years worth of them in fact!

I realise I always my posts with Ok la going to sleep already but this is precisely what's going to happen now. Haha. Damn Fox and NBC for not showing Prison Break and Heroes this week.. Just watched a sad episode of House on the way back from Cinema just now.. guess I'm in for more House the next few days..

I usually don't take notice of lyrics when I listen to a nice song.. but this song's metaphorically nice.. (and Beyonce's still damn stunning)

Listen to the song here in my heart
a melody I start but can't complete

Listen to the sound from deep within
Its only beginning to find release

Ohh the time has come for my dreams to be heard
They will not be pushed aside and turned......

开年宴

2007-03-07T02:27:00.000+08:00

Interestingly, after much postponement, my company's RnD department decided to have it's so-called 开年宴. So 10 of us squeezed in our boss's 7-seater all the way to Parkway Parade for lunch. Quite a feat considering that we only eat in the same 3 places for lunch everyday. With a Muslim and a Vegan on the team the choices for lunch place narrowed down to this Indonesian restaurant.. despite the girls repeated obvious hints to eat at Sakae Sushi or Fish n Co instead. Haha but ah.. as we figured out.. these places not our boss's generation la.. anyway they are the ones that cough out the cash.

Not much cash anyway la.. quite unbefitting of a "宴".. food was neither fantastic nor filling.. but as I said it was the whole idea of eating "out". Haha and of course for that occasion the girls dolled themselves up (usually they don't make up and wear specs) hoho. Thought we could waste time outside.. but haiyah.. still stuck to the lunch timings rather faithfully.. aiyah.

That's yesterday's news.

Today was back to being perfectly normal (and boring). And so will be tomorrow.
They better give me my paycheck soon!

Spending Time

2007-03-05T03:08:00.000+08:00

This weekend seems to be the best so far that I have started work.. well.. as long as there are activities to keep me occupied and I don't spend it slacking at home..

Movie Marathon on Friday.. and so thankfully I made up my mind to go for it. Jiooed Kayping to watch the 1st show.. Zoolander which is a kick-ass-dumb show. Real dumb.. probably as brainless as 凡间新仙人 the Mediacorp 牛郎织女 show but it was a good laugh. Can't help but the stupid gek seh look by Zoolander is exactly the type that kaiyuan will give haha..

Second show was Tokyo Drift which was good as well.. though it was a typical show with a typical storyline.

Went back to block for a walk after that.. jiooed pple for The Prestige. I must say The Prestige is a great show.. good in a sense that it's those type of messy-jump-all-over-the-place-confusing-at-first show that makes sense at the very end.. and as Tat put it.. what's cool is that "the guy that we thought was the bad guy all along turned out to be the good guy and the guy that we thought was the victim all along turned out to be the bad guy". And of course.. the debate about the idea of cloning and "killing off" the spare lasted till the next day...

I didn't want to watch the Exorcism of Emily Rose as I had watched it before and have no reason to scare myself again (oh coincidentally, it's 3am now as i type this post.. shudders). But Tat wanted to watch it so I just watched with him lor. Haha but I fell asleep after the exorcism scene.. might as well. So I wasn't too freaked out in the end.

Wanted to miss the final show a miss but the first few scenes of Sex is Zero (a Korean R(A) show) stopped Tat and I in our tracks. So we stood at the back of the MPSH watching the show until some sex scene where we decided to sit down and continue the show. hahaha. It was a real hilarious watch. Not to mention the korean babes were pretty (and topless) too. Everyone should go watch the show. Stress reliever.

Went home, took a wink for about 1 hour.. before rushing out again for MAFBrothers Reunion Lunch.

Lunch was great.. almost everyone turned up.. as according to Yaohui.. 3 wives replaced the 3 what were overseas in France, US and JB. Never had such a good attendance in a long while. No one brought camera and we only took a photo on Shiqi's camera which I hope to get hold of soon.

Went to Velocity which is a crappy atas-Queensway place for a walk before heading home for a loooooooooooooooooooooong sleep.

Yeap.. that's pretty much what happened over the weekend.. Today was a boring day at home.. downloaded House.. settled Rag stuff.. and started on my IA report due in 2 weeks. Next week will be better I guess.. with SP and Open House.. at least I know if I'm bored I can pop down to Hall/MPSH and be free tour guide. =)

Aye.. talking about that.. I can't help feeling that hard as I try.. there's the feeling of detatchment I get whenever I go for hall stuff.. I stand in the corridor amongst the crowd in the long wing and can't engage in any conversation.. I linger around a random group during supper and also cannot contribute to the chat..

Someone teach me conversational skills.

I have so many friends but now so little time for everyone. Without the convenience of hall stay, maybe it's time to reevaluate who are the real friends I want to spend time with.

2007-03-01T02:06:00.000+08:00

Tuesdays are my favourite days coz I get to watch Prison Break and Heroes.
All other days I get glued to the TV after work.. with the stupidest show I've ever watched in my life being the Channel 8 牛郎织女 show.. oh but it's really stupidly funny.

Finally going back to Hall tomorrow for Rag supper =)

Pre Monday Blues

2007-02-26T02:46:00.000+08:00

Time really flies.. after a looooooooooooooooong CNY break.. going to start work in 5 hours time. Sianz.

Just had a short meeting with my Rag Marketing Comm. Hmm.. yah my whole weekend that's the only 1 hour I stepped out of my house.

Met up with Rachel for lunch on Thurs.. boy she looks different. Haven't seen her for loooooong time. 3 chem engineers.. 2 working.. aye wad am I going to do when I graduate?

Watched Chingay on Friday.. sitting on the sidelines this time.. kept on thinking about last year when I was part of Chingay itself.. so bloody fun can? Please go and read about it here (put your mouse over and click here).
I WANNA WIN RAG I WANNA WIN RAG I WANNA WIN RAG
I WANNA DO CHINGAY NEXT YEAR I WANNA DO CHINGAY NEXT YEAR
I WANNA DO CHINGAY EVERY YEAR I WANNA DO CHINGAY EVERY YEAR

Ok la. Ranting over.
Going to sleep liao.
Bye.

Madness

2007-02-22T03:18:00.000+08:00

We were supposed to go to Tat's house to 拜年 when until I left home with 2 oranges in a bag then KY called me to tell me

Jeff will be late
Bong's working
Yaohui has social work project
Weijie has medical checkup
Junsheng nuahhing in bed

So it's only me, KY and later on Jeff and most probably not Junsheng. Haha.. wad a joke. Called off the whole 拜年 thing and KY and I wandered around the 4 corners of Queensway instead.. later on met up with Jeff in Harbourfront and "walked in straight lines" then ended up facing Sentosa talking cock till sun set. Oh yah, and Jeffry ate the 2 oranges. *pengz*

Welcome to the world of MAF Brothers.
Till now can't believe what happened today actually happened. Hahaha.

At least I did a productive thing today.. went to run. Haha. Very long never run already.. but had to do justice to wanted to run the thiswhich I just bought. ASICS TN711 GEL DS TRAINER XII 0189!!! Well it's time I bought it.. my old DS Trainer which ran me through countless IPPTs, ARRs, morning and night runs and a biathalon was giving way after 4 faithful years and I sure do hope this pair lasts as long. =)

Another record-breaking thing I did.. I gained 1kg in 2 days. Whoa lao the power chinese new year goodies can do to me. Means more running and less eating the next few months (er.. yah I know i've been saying this for eons before this hahahahaa)

Ok.. I'm going to watch Prison Break episode 17 fresh on dailymotion. Just cheonged 2 episodes of Heroes when I decided to give Prison Break a chance.. so well......

A Postcard to Home - Closed

2007-02-21T12:38:00.000+08:00

Ok.. finally I've finished backdating all my posts! For everyone's (including my own's) convenience I've linked all my travel exploits as below.. from the very first visit in Stockholm to my final city in Prague. Enjoy!

6th September

Stockholm

11th September

Norway

31st October

Halloween Party

2nd November

Dublin

5th November

Scotland

6th November

Carlisle

11th November

Nottingham

23rd November

London

28th November

Belgium

1st December

Amsterdam and Liverpool

9th December

London Again

18th December

Zurich

20th December

Interlaken

21st December

Geneva and Lausanne

22nd December

Florence

23rd December

Pisa

24th December

Rome

28th December

Paris

19th January

Prague

Well.. that pretty much sums up my SEP experience.. other than the studying part of course. This blog captures my wonderful memories made in those 4 months.. all of which I will never forget for life.

Till we meet again, Europe.
Ciao.

First Post in the Year of the Pig

2007-02-20T02:41:00.000+08:00

Just back from welcoming back Weijie from the airport. Happy to see him again. Can't believe he went through so much just after seeing him in Europe. Oh well.. Everything's back to normal now. Rest well bro. =)

Whou.. disappeared for more than a week eh? The past week has been quite crazy.. Think for 3 out of the 5 working nights I fell asleep at night without even knowing.. too tired.. just konked out once I got home..

Though I accomplished quite a lot of what I want to do the past week.. sent out CNY cards.. bought present for YJ (though I haven't given her yet) and blogged about Prague trip.. Only left with the Norway trip not accounted for.. to complete my travel blog. That, probably I'll do sometime this week.. since I have a 1 week forced leave by my dear company.

Work's getting more shiong now.. though all my colleagues still rock. Supervisors are getting cranky but all are problems are solved by simply just bitching our problems away. Haha. Come next week life will be more shiong.. as we will be assigned individual projects to work on.. so oh well.. see how lor.

CNY
CNY this year seemed more boring than normal. Most of the time spent watching TV and munching on goodies while my parents do all the socialising.. All I do is occasionally mutter "NUS" "Year 3" and "yes" or "no" to possible questions that can ever be directed at me. The most exciting event would probably be going to Angie's house at CNY eve for gambling with Kenny, Abhi, Veron, Charmaine and Yiyu. Though all the money I won was given to the cab driver to get me home. Haha.

Rag
The most significant thing that happened was our 7.5 hour Rag Main Committee Meeting on Friday. SEVEN and the half HOURS!! 9pm to 4.30am!! Could have gone longer if everyone weren't so brain-drained to think of ideas by then. But it was a rather fruitful meeting.. trashed out certain issues.. set directions.. presented timeline... can't say a lot here knowing how secretive the nature of Rag is.. but yeah.. This is really a wonderful Comm to work with.

So yes.. the night before I also arrived home at 5am after working out the timeline with Tat.. causing me to take a cab to work the next day.. Oh.. the amount of sleep I forsaken for Rag.. and the amount of sleep in future I'd be forsaking come May. We'd better bloody win.

Skin
Specially to Chye.. the photo on the left isn't exactly a photo. Thought you might have guessed it would be a collage. Means you didn't notice there were 2 clementchios there.
Representative photos/logo of MAFBrothers, SWOC Councillors, Leeds friends and deeBlockers. The greatest friends I've ever made =)

And my brother got look like Hiro Nakamura meh??

Ok, I'm back to watching Heroes now. Haha.. totally addicted!
To those who want to get addicted too... http://www.peekvid.com/feature/tv/526/Heroes.html

Happy New Year of the Pig!

How How How?

2007-02-12T01:42:00.000+08:00

SPRING CLEANING! Wa.. spring cleaning is hard work man.. ok it's not exactly cleaning but more of like painting.. scraping moss off the tiles in the porch.. drilling holes into walls to install stuff.. blah blah blah.. the real cleaning will start next week when my mother took a whole week of leave just to tackle.. Yep.. that's just how crazy it gets just to bring my house to "guest-ready" state. Have been living in hall the past 2 years so forgot that it's such hard work every Chinese New Year...

Hwachong CNY is this Friday morning.. should I take leave just to go back Hwachong for CNY? I only have 3 days leave and I'd be having the whole week of CNY off already so is it worth it taking another day off to go back Hwachong? Really want to go back coz haven't been going back for all the major events this year already.. like O1 and MAF.. furthermore it's my brother's 2nd last event in council.... how how how?

The latest talk-of-the-town is... RESERVIST! Haha... suddenly I'm talking to all my past NS buddies that are on my MSN list but just never talk to all these while.. generally kaopehing and quite a few are on their way of worming their way into a deferrment. Champions! I have no reason to defer so I lanlan must go.. which I don't mind la.. at least can see friends =)

I'm officially broke.. only have $20 in my bank account which I'm going to withdraw tomorrow for lunch survival. Lent $700 to a friend who stupidly borrowed money from ah long for god knows what reason. Like $700 will help right? But too bad.. I got no money to help him with more already. And when I mean no money.. I don't mean I have a reserve account stashed away somewhere like I used to last time. That reserve account has been cancelled by the bank! Coz there hasn't been money inside for a looong looong time.

Still owe Jingwen for last sem's hall stay.. still owe Kayping and Gabe for Walawala drinks.. still owe Bong for drinks last week. Hope the money Weijie just transferred to me for the Europe trip is enough to tide over New Year.

Earning peanuts every month with compulsary expenditure such as transport and food.. how to spend my money becomes a tricky situation. There are so many things I want to do and buy but I don't have enough money! I wanna buy a new pair of Asics shoes ($150-$200) to replace the one I've been wearing since my army days.. I wanna buy a new camera ($600-$700) at the next PC fair to replace my old Canon Ixus 40 which screen mysteriously cracked during We Will Rock You musical... and I want to carry on with my secret upgrading ($1500-$2000) which is so secret I can't type down here and only a few friends know.

NO MONEY!!!
How How How How How?

Wala Wala

2007-02-11T04:18:00.000+08:00

Today I watched the 1st 3 episodes of Season One of Heroes. Was expecting an exciting X-Men type of series but turned out to me more harrowing than I thought.

Went to WalaWala for a chill with Gabe and Kayping. WalaWala is a great place to chill.. the band Unexpected provided solid entertainment. I love live music.. I really wouldn't mind hanging out at WalaWala every weekend coz it's really stress-relieving.. Furthermore it's near my place.

Though I still can't get used to S$15 pints of beer which used to cost me only £1+ (S$3)

Wa Lao Eh!

2007-02-10T00:26:00.000+08:00

At 2120 hours.. I received an SMS from an unknown number..

(Fm: MINDEF) You have a National Service Call-Up Notification. For more details, go to www.ns.sg or call 6444 7636. For assistance, call 1800-eNSNSNS(3676767).

Wa.. didn't expect it to come so abruptly. At least it should come via a snail mail or something more formal right? Well.. just went to the website to check.. and Voila!

THE ENLISTMENT ACT, Cap 93.
ORDER TO REPORT FOR SERVICE UNDER SECTION 14
OF THE ENLISTMENT ACT, Cap 93.

You LTA CHIO WEI HAN, CLEMENT are required under
Section 14 of the Enlistment Act, Cap 93 to report for service at 0730 hrs on 11/06/2007
at Sungei Gedong Camp for the purpose
of Annual ICT (490SAR 1st LK ICT) Your service will be up to 15/06/2007 2359 hrs.

Hd NSSC
for Proper Autority

Was sian diao at first.. a bit excited that my1st ICT is finally here.. a bit relieved that I'm in 490 SAR where all my friends are.. a bit apprehensive coz I forgot all my Int stuff.. and a bit comforting coz I'd be getting some money out of this haha.. after all I get paid better in NS than now. Which also means IPPT is coming... start to really train lo!

Was talking to Zuther abt NN and SJO.. and he told me what I did when I was dead drunk the night before leaving Leeds. Apparantly I very obviously gave NN's crush for SJO away by very obviously asking him who he likes and then asking him again after asking SJO out of the room. Wah biangz.. I can't remember I did that at all! So paiseh la..

Moral of the story is: don't get me drunk.

Just settled my weekend plans.. in a very last minute stunt originating from a sudden urge to go Wala Wala I just jiooed the Block to go Walawala tomorrow evening. Haha.. might just end up to be me Kayping and Gabe but oh well.. need to chill out man.. can't just stay at home the whole saturday. Probably before that going to buy a pair of Asics shoes to replace the old torn ones that I've been happily running with every since my army days..

And guess where I'd be spending my Valentines Day?
Block D Rooftop - Block Supper.
Haha sian. But.. cheap (free for me) and good =)

Ok la.. I just spent the whole night loading the stupid Heroes Episode 1 video on ouou.com only to hang on me when it finished loading. Damn stupid Chinese servers.

It's snowing in Leeds now.. Well.. it snowed the very day I arrived in Singapore.. meaning that I didn't get to see snow my whole 4 months there.. So everytime I see my Widget reflecting 'Snow' in Leeds I have the tinge of regret and disappointment.. and some jealousy seeing all the MSN nicks announcing to the whole wide world how beautiful snow is...
But now I've grappled the fact that I'd never get to see snow in the next manymany years to come.. except on TV or in pictures.. and to imagine what it'll be like falling on your face and melting once it touches the warmth of the body...
Now I feel happy for all my friends who are experiencing this magical moment in that part of the world I still miss so much.

As for now.. I'm going to maximise my weekends by sleeping as little as I can! Going to dig food now. Ciao!

Another week has passed...

2007-02-09T02:35:00.000+08:00

.. and I'm getting the hang of things at my job.. both on IA and in hall. Time passes faster with more tasks to do during IA now and my fellow IA colleagues are really a fun bunch to be with. Bosses are fine and workload is just right... so I guess the only prick is the waking up early and the going back late..

Another 5 more months to the end of IA.. seems like it's as 'long' as my whole SEP. I know that it'll be over soon.. but it's still a long way to go. I don't want to count down to the end of IA because it means it'll be the start of scary scary Year 4 of Chem Engine where I'll have to go back to NUS and face FINAL YEAR PROJECT and PROCESS LAB II.. both of which sucks big time.

The rag machine has started.. just came back from hall collecting cans from all the blocks.. took the chance to unofficially meet up with the rest of the main comm members. Good bunch of people to work with. Can't wait for the FULL comm meeting where I'll get to meet all the raggers at one shot. Feels weird that I'm vice-chairing such a huge 50+man comm (and growing for sure) when I'm not even staying hall and I'm on attachment. But ever since the last defeat.. through my whole bout overseas.. even as I type.. the burning desire to sweep all the shields back is raging within me.. and that I'd be working together with Tat and Kaiyuan gives more motivation to carry on. It's a huge commitment.. and a scary one. At the back of my mind I know of weak links which could jeopardize the whole process.. I have heard warnings that friendships could be at stake.. and I definitely do not want to screw up.

The tinge of fear among confidence makes it a scary paradox.

Oh well.. but one good thing for sure is that I've started exercising! Haha. Wa lau I put back 1.5 kg of the 3 kg that I shed on the other end of the globe within 3 weeks! This is madness. So I'm on the jogging routine and gym-if-they-jio-and-yaohui-goes mentality and I hope it keeps up! Sense ICT coming up so I better get that Gold for IPPT! Haha =)

But I feel my body slowly wearing off.. my shoulder joints crack a lot and have an irritating pain while my knees are still aching even after 4 months of not running. My teeth hurts only when I'm eating sticky sweet stuff. Time to see a doctor/dentist.. when I have the time.

Just watched Prison Break... I just can't stand watching weekly episodes. Sometimes I just feel like piling up all the episodes and just watch them in 1 shot when they whole season ends. But I can't wait haha. Though now the cliffhangers are less intense than those in Season 1.. it's still.. irritating.

I've been watching House 2 everyday though.. 1 episode on the way to work and 1 episode on the way home.. on my fantastic little iPod. Makes my journey to and from work less undesirable. At this rate I'm going to finish watching the season next week! Hmm.. anyone has other dramas to share?

Sleeping now. Have been late twice this week (but luckily boss doesn't really care haa) but I don't hope to be late tomorrow...

I really don't know how to spend this weekend. No plans as yet. Sad.

Oh.. and yes.. Valentines Day is coming. Maybe the first V-day in years I'd be spending at home. Anyone game for a date?

GROUP	OWN FORCES	TASK
1	Zibin, Weijian, Meiqiang	Defend CABIN4 from 262130 to 270030
2	Chio, Kayping, Yiling	Defend CABIN4 from 270030 to 270330
3	Allan, Gabriel, Xiuying	Defend CABIN4 from 270330 to 270630