Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Singapore... Interesting...
*kneel down* Apologies, fellow passengers. I left for singapore right after cvs exam, and returned sunday, so i had no access to any online connection until today. Raj told me that singapore is like a wi-fi heaven, and I tell you, who the hell brings a laptop on a shopping trip?!
Ok, things to do on this trip...
First things first... *jump about, do somersaults, cartwheels, tear lecture notes up!!*
It's a hap, hap, happy day!!!
We're all so free today -
Or not! There is this stupid lab thingy which was a complete waste of time!! The only retribution is that i get to update this blog and later to play Risk with Raj, YK and Sheena.
I came late for the lab session, so was put together with Jenny and Renuka's group. And cos it's like so early in the damn morning, my mental faculties ain't working. Looking at the first picture - the keratin pearl, i was like "Can't remember no keratin pearl. The only pearl i know is in oysters and jewellery." This is super stupid, forcing us to recognise things that are so damn abnormal to us.
The funniest picture i think is this:
Describe it. My first glance showed a dead mutated baby with two heads, short arms and no legs. My second thought was this is how a guy's testis looks like when we pulled the whole thing out. Hmm... wonder what it is? Anyone want to venture a guess?
Oh, as you guys know, i just came back from Singapore, and to my horror, i realise that Singapore is not as bad as i tot it was! I mean the infrastructure is way way better back there. Actually, it's unjustified to say it like this as Singapore is way way smaller than malaysia, and a way way newer country, thus the careful planning of the city. But it is still cool.
Actually my blog today would be on the trip, so it would be kinda long and boring. So you guys are free to hop off the plane before we take off. But if you guys are free, sure, tag along. Don say i din warn ya.
Pros of Singapore: Infrastructure rocks. It is so high tech.
You guys noticed the tolls on the road? I did not, as they are so invisible. They are just like signboards, you pass under them and bang, S$2.50 charged. I first encounter this in the taxi. All was fine until the additional charge of S$2.50. I went "What the freaking hell?!" as i was supposed to pay the fare first. "What 2.50?" My friend who did her ALevels in Singapore blushed when the taxi-driver frowned at me. "I'll explain later," was her reply. Then i found out. Isn't it cool? Say bye bye to cash, to stopping for the tolls, for lining up. So much better than the stupid smart tags we have.
The public transports are superb. But then, Singapore is small, so no comparison. Their MRT as well trafficed, the network excellent. Not like M'sia where KTM don't even reach PJ and to get to PJ i had to take a KTM to KL sentral (1hr and rm3.60) and then take putra lrt to Taman Bahagia(40 min and rm2.70). And the bus system of M'sia, MWAHAHAHAHA!!!What BUS?! The busstops at Sing lists down the bus numbers to where and from where. M'sia? Hmm... don remember seeing anything. But have to give credit to M'sia bus drivers too. They are fast and furious. And they write down in illegible handwriting on cardboards where they are going. The MRT stations, air-conned and the elevators are working! M'sia stations have elevators, but not working at all. They are for show. Why those that reminds me of somewhere...
The people on the road. In Sing, pedesterians rules the road. Unlike m'sia where the moment your leg leaves the curb and touches the tar road, a speeding car will horn and zoom pass. Wahlaueh!!! The car actually stops for the bywalkers, and in my amazement, i actually waved at them. You know the royalty wave, like how Princess Diana used to wave before she died. Then this stunt evolved to shaking my ass at the cars that stopped, which finally became literally dancing on the street. There is the piroutte, and the shake your bon bon style... I was full fledge crazy girl that few days. My friends were too embarassed to admit that they know me, hahahaha!!!
Now the Cons of Singapore.
Wahsai!!! The food damn suck!!! So freaking expensive and damn shitty to eat man. You guys know the wantan mee? They ask "You want chilli sause?" You answer, "No." They give you tomato sause. Damn funny right? Sibeh pai chea man. And a freaking S$3 for such a bloody small bowl no larger than my two hands cupped to form a bowl. My friend Cass introduced a friend to us, and we asked her to show us Singapore delicacies. She said "Any fast food restaurant." Wahlaueh!!!
I know many of you would say that the other con of singapore is the singaporean's kiasuness. I can't comment much about it as i din get to meet much singaporeans. The only singaporeans i meet are the shopkeepers, which were ok, since we were the customers. There was one memorable shop, we went in to buy shoes, bargained for a cheaper price and the shop lady went "You think this market meh? Bargain until like that." I wonder who is the kiasu one here...
Now we have settled the pros and cons of singapore, i'll show you guys where we went and what we did. We left KL sentral at 10.30, on the express train (express my foot! It took us 9 hrs to get to Singapore). My girl friends all brought paper bags by dozens. (It's the Singapore Grand Sale.) Even my best friend had another luggage back squeezed into her medium size carry-on. Me? I brought only my school bag and a small carry-on. The best is CheeSiang which only brought a small backpack. I took the high bunk, Cass took the low (sing to I take the highroad). We damn bising lor. There was this kid which laughs like a demon, so scary and irritating. Reminds me of a happy tree friend fiend. *shiver*. The train toilets are small and quiant and small. Did i mention small? And when you shit, the shit falls onto the tracks. Interesting... Now i see why there are signs that states "DO NOT USE THE TOILETS WHEN THE TRAIN IS AT STOP AT STATIONS." I wonder what happen if we have diarrhea. Eww...
We walked thru the whole train, gosh the snorts and snores of the passengers. My guy friends brought chicken rice and we ate them in the canteen. The food at the canteen are so expensive. RM2.20 for a cup of hot milo. And when we cross the border, it became S$2.20. Cut-throats!!! We finally got back to bed, preparing for a long day of shopping the next day. (Not ME! My friends!! I don't go shopping!!)
At Woodland, we had to unboard, taking our luggages along as the singapore immigration ppl had to come in with dogs and sniff out drugs. The dogs do the sniffing, not the people. And we had to scan our luggages. Damn tight security, which i cant say for the malaysian immigration. The malaysian immigration is a laugh!! Will tell you tat later.
We arrived at the hotel via taxi, as mentioned above. The hotel is Hotel Penisula-Excelsior which is quite cool and in the centre of sing city. The room is S$88, which is bout RM44 per person as we shared the room. The swimming pool is cool. The side is glass and we can see ppl swimming around, like fishes in the aquarium. And the glass side faces the lobby. It's pretty cool, until you see a fat girl adjusting her swimming suit, you know, remove the wedgie from between the ass.
The bottom picture, notice the blue background? That is the swimming pool.
But we couldn't check in, so we left the luggages with the concierge. (We can't do tat in M'sia. The ppl will bitch about it.) We decided to go to TJC (Temasek Junior College) to get Cass's certs. So we had our first experience in crossing Singapore Roads. I waved at the cars, like how Princess D would do. Damn fun. Then we walked to City Hall MRT Station which is one block away. If you have seen me, you'll think that i'm from some jungle village or sth. Then to buy the tickets for the MRT, like super suaku onli. All looking over Cass's shoulders, seeing her buy the tickets. And after that to try it ourselves. Damn funny. And then in the MRT, we were like, "Whoa, look at that condominium. Wow, look at that house." Super super suaku!
We had lunch wen we reached Bedok, then take bus, also acting like never sit bus before. But we reached TJC without any harm.
TJC is one of the coolest school i've been too. I mean, this school has its own rock-climbing wall and flying fox!! My secondary school don even have a padang!! My college got buildings only. My university is an ex-supermarket. We went in, first thing we saw was the rock-climbing wall, and i was like "Wahsai!!" Then i saw the field and race-tracks, I went "Wahlaueh!" Then Cass told us that they had to run that track 6 times izzit? for their PE exam, i went "Holy shit!" To see the MAP of TJC, click on MAP. It's so big, and yet they say that Raffles is bigger and stuff. Can't imagine man. It's only a blardy JUNIOR COLLEGE!!! Not a University.
After we finally got to check in, we went to Orchard Road. Welcome to shopping heaven. The girls went one way to shop, the guys and I went the other way to look around. We headed for Takashimaya Shopping Centre, which was huge and stretched halfway of Orchard Road. I went shopping for one of the 2 things i had to buy, Sigg bottles. And i bought 2.
It looks nice, and it caused me S$24.70 per bottle. That's about RM53. They sell the bottles in midvalley for RM80. But the funniest thing is that my friends bought a total of 20 bottles from Hang Ten for S$5 per bottle. But it doesn't have the Sigg brand, its Hang Ten brand. Damn... feel cheated a bit lor.
And finally the last thing i had to buy, COMICS!!! And the only place that sells them is Popular of Orchard MRT station. After that, my shopping is done. But i still followed my friends around, to buy shoes and cameras. They bought Nike for S$60. Damn cheap lor. And the camera, Chung Ee bought it for S$630, a Panasonic Lumix FX5 which came with 2 free SD card of 64MB each, a tripod, a cleaning set and casing.
Compare the Lumix FX5 to a normal CD.
Lumix FX5 Features:
4-megapixel CCD for images up to 2304 x 1728 pixels
Image stabilized Leica 3x zoom lens (35-105mm on a 35mm camera)
Macro focus as close as 3.9 inches in wide angle
1.5-inch TFT color monitor with 114,000 pixels
Mega Burst, 3.3fps to 3 frames Fine/5 frames Standard
Auto Exposure Bracketing, 3 frames
QuickTime Movie mode, 30/10fps w/sound, length limited by available memory
Record 5-sec audio with still image or add up to 10-sec audio memo later
Real-time exposure histogram display
Automatic shutter speeds from 1/2000 to 8 seconds
Adjustable ISO speed: Auto / 50 / 100 / 200 / 400
Built-in flash with auto, fill, slow synchro and red-eye reduction modes
Intelligent Multiple and Spot exposure metering
Color saturation and color effect settings
TTL Auto White Balance, 4 presets and custom set
Secure Digital/MMC memory card slot, 16MB SD card included
Plug-n-Play USB connectivity with PC/Windows
USB PictBridge/Direct-Print compatible
The Leica lens is the best lens available now on the market, and with the image stabilizer, it means that even with shaking hands, the pictures are steady. Pretty cool, no? We actually went around the whole shopping complex (the whole complex is for electronic only) looking at the Canon Ixus, but when we came to this shop, the salesgirl went into salepitch and convinced us to get the FX5. The selling price for this FX5 was if i am not mistaken S$699 or S$799. But since the salesgirl and us were Malaysians... she added many other good things in.
Why am I regretting not getting the camera? Hmm...
And shopping with guys are actually funner than shopping with girls as they have no qualms in visiting explicit shops and reading explicit books. Isn't tat good? And i realise how innocent my guy friends are. Hehehe... Seriously innocent. And being with guys are funner as they shop for things that i like ie games, comics, electronics... you know, not clothes, clothes, did I mention clothes? And they are so funny. Girls just walk on and on and on and on... while guys... let's just say things happens. Like wen we took the MRT to reach the centre to buy the camera, we actually planned to take the MRT back to City Hall again. But it started raining when we came out, so the guys decided to flag a cab instead of walking five blocks to the station. So we were like waving our hands up and down, but no taxi stopped. Until one taxi finally slowed down for us and I looked up and went, "Hey, isn't that the MRT station?!" We had walked to the MRT station without knowing it.
Then coming back to M'sia. Must go thru immigration before boarding the train. M'sian Immigration is a joke! We would be taxed for excessive buying, so my girl friends sat at the lobby of the hotel and started tearing up the tags. New shoes were worn, old shoes placed into the shoe boxes, it was hilarious! And remember the 20 metal bottles, it was like cling cling, clang clang all over the place. Damn funny.
And then at the immigration centre, wahlaueh, damn freaking funny lor. Their ppl that check luggages are only 2 men and if you are unlucky, they dig into your luggage. One friend was unlucky once to have the man pulling out her inner garments. But not everyone kena, so you can imagine how slack the security is. Malaysia... sigh...
After boarding the train, it was home bound, back to KL. Well, it's been fun while it lasted, just having fellowship with my friends that i tot had disappeared. My only regret is not being able to see more of singapore. We went for walks, yes... but not much. Forgot to visit the rated X theatre which was just behind our hotel. Damn wasted man. Saw the Esplanade tho.
You tell me what it looks like. Most Singaporeans and Malaysians call it the Durian. I call it the waste of Singaporean Gov money and bras with spikes. Some singaporeans call it spiky bra. What do you think?
Oh damn, was supposed to go for lab at 2.45pm. Now's it's almost 4.00. Ahh!!! Screw it la!! It's much funner driving this plane. Oh yeah, i've upgraded the bus to a plane. But i better sign off. This post is already super duper long. And the poll is still not complete yet. Need 1 more person. ONE to Break the TIE!!
So there, I will now be leaving the plane with this quote:
I want to be a cat in my next life,
so I have an excuse for licking my butt in public!
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