well well well.

it has been too long, my friends. too long since i've flexed those literary fingers of mine. in fact, those said literary fingers might not even be any more gifted with language than the commonplace digit.

but i digress.

i'm here today for the noble reason of....insomnia :(

i seem to be plagued by it since resolving to avoid caffeine at all costs over the uni break. and now that a new semester has begun, the need for coffee finds me again, and the effects of a cuppa are potent indeed.

so much for enjoying my morning cup of fresh brew as i sauntered to campus. thus i pay the price.

on the bright side with greener grass and a silver lining to the cloud above, i'm back to doing a blog entry! in like a gazillion years.

so i shall start with general sweeping comments like, life has been A-okay the past few years, uni's going good, getting a bit busy. the usual things you would say to an acquaintance you've encountered in a shopping mall, whom you've last spoken to a year ago and have never really known much about, except that he's kinda like a nice guy, quite good on the guitar, studies engineering or something like that.

going into a bit more detail, it's now my 2nd semester as a 2nd year vet student. phew. it's been nearly 3 years since i've come to melbourne! and i feel like i've been through and learnt so much. about myself, about how big the world is, about other people, about my friends, about my family, about cheem-sounding jargon like olecranon and cholangiocarcinoma.

and before this post ends up filtering towards the path of "what is life all about", i shall politely divert my mental train to a different track.

like...

i'll be going to bendigo this weekend! it's the highlight of my week big YAY. and the reason for that is chunpeng's over at bendigo hospital for a 10-week rotation now. it being the weekend, he's not working and we've decided that it'd be fun for me to go up to bendigo for a weekend trip. bendigo's a 2-hour drive away from the city, or a 2-hour train ride. by the bye, i think singapore's the only country in the world where going from Point A to Point B is an absolute given to be faster by car than public transport. futile comments aside, yes, the train journey takes the same time as a car ride. for reasons beyond the comprehension of the meagre minds of men.

ANYWAYS. (i feel the aforesaid mental train racing headlong into a brick wall on the tracks) (don't ask me why there would be a brick wall appearing on train tracks)(some crazy organisation of atoms and molecules into a latticework randomly, eventually pooling their miniscule brains together and deciding something hard, red and approximately rectangular in shape would be the most delightful thing to be)

again, the mental diversion. so yes, up to bendigo i go for the first time ever. it's apparently a big, small town. like one of the bigger of the small towns around melbourne. which still ends up, in any case, to be a town. which is not a city. so if you get the gist, it's gonna be quite an interesting change from city life here in melbourne.

well, that's it for now. till then.

well well, today was a rather interesting day.

started off kinda....."Bloody hell i just wanna get a few more hours of sleep dammit", but eventually responsibility and committment poured a bucketful of cold ice water over my sleep-misted face and i rolled out of bed. fortunately i got out on the correct side, and felt pretty good after washing up.

met jianliang for lunch at shaw tower for dim sum, which was a colourful event. he was still same old same old, had quite a laugh. esp at the incessant monologues he held while he was driving and the numerous comments and noises he emitted. he is clearly a forerunner in, if ever there was one, singapore's biggest motormouth. of course i mean this in a good way (i would never badmouth anyone honestly!) and he was highly entertaining.

then it was bugis street with meifen. the minute i stepped out of the cool air-conditioned bugis junction into the sticky, humid, stagnant air outside, i had to channel all my willpower into blocking the nerve signals frantically sparking their way to my leg muscles, to fight down the urge to turn around and head back into the building. or jump into a hole broken through the ice in antarctica in the middle of its harshest and coldest winter. that would probably just suffice in dousing the momentary fire i was set on.

in simpler terms, it was damn bloody hot and my perspiration couldn't bloody evaporate because the air itself was bloody saturated with water vapour from god knows where, and i honestly just wanted to bloody run into a fridge and hide for a few hours.

but duty calls, and meifen wanted to buy a bag from bugis street. the dutiful friend in me pricked, no, stabbed my conscience with a letter-opener and bade me to carry on with what i came here for. that is, to go to bugis street and accompany mf as she looked for a suitable purchase, you fool.

aiya anyways, we walked around a bit and i was starting to get accustomed to the temperature, that is to say, the temperature one would encounter in a diamond-lined furnace fitfully burning away in the deepest pits of hell. the fans that shopkeepers benevolently placed in their shops helped quite a bit also.

i went there with the intention to disappoint shopkeepers all round, not even allowing them the shortest glance of my wallet by stuffing it into the furthest reaches of my bag.

and when i left bugis street eventually, i was $40 lighter and 4 items heavier. blooooooody hell. i think i'm a retail addict. it's practically compulsive shopping, walk walk walk, see see see, ooh i like, buy buy buy. i need psychiatric help, i tell you. i think i get more exercise from reaching into my bag and opening my wallet to hand over dollar notes than i do from walking around the shopping malls.

yikes. anyways, headed over to the library and wanted to get more Pratchett. but unfortunately it wasn't to be, because i called brendan and somehow it occured to me that i must take a bus over to ridley straight away so that he could fetch me back from there. so off i went, in search of an elusive bus-stop ouside something called the smu school of accountancy, "aided" by verbal instructions from brendan. with the accusing punctuation marks because with his ever-so instructive instructions, i made a circuitous route to the bus-stop, hopped onto bus 111, and endured a torturous route which circled and looped like the most agonised and demented serpent you could ever imagine, before finally heading in a general direction of my intended destination. i swear the bus passed by the same tree (distinguished by a sort of hangy-down, droopy type of look) three times and the lady in front of me looked positively green with nausea from all that spinning. after much anguished (and of course, inaudible) curses at bus companies all over the world, i finally reached ridley. and met derrick coming out (he went to the gym).

then, with the full expectation of swinging open the front door to find brendan all ready with the car keys out to go home, he was, gasp..... absent. not a single particle of brendan to be found. after a quick call, it appeared he was upstairs in the study, not ready to go home yet la, i thought i told you the earliest i could leave was 5.30pm, now only 5pm, but that's the earliest la, when we leave can also be the latest, so you go find something to do, watch tv or read something la, when i'm ready then i call you. click.

suppressing violent thoughts (ok i exaggerate), i hunted down a magazine and proceeded to devour it for close to three-quarters of an hour. even made a coffee with chocolate milk, was stumbled upon by auntie carol, auntie doris and uncle tommie, went to do a #2 somemore. (yes, it is extremely unsociable behaviour to post private and sensitive information about certain, ahem, processes that a person partakes in on a daily routine [possibly less frequently] but nevertheless it served the purpose of showing exactly how long the period of time i was made to wait was)

finally the King and Queen of Singapore arrived in their regal splendour, and bade their base and subservient subjects follow, for they were now ready to depart. follow i did and we reached home. shower, dinner etc etc. minor details.

then at 8pm i went up to change and get ready for the 9.30pm GV Grand Gold-Class harry potter movie. yup you got that right. GOLD-CLASS. anyways, i was done by 8.30pm, went to enquire as to whether His and Her Royal Highnesses were ready to leave for our appointment to meet my cousins at 9pm at great world city. the fine oakwood door to their resplendent bedchamber swung open to reveal, His Imperial Majesty had just awoken from his royal slumber and would be hastening to get ready to leave in the monarchial carriage as quick as he can. when he finally came down it was already 9.07pm exactly (the memory was so clearly etched in my mind) and we drove out in a jiffy. only for His Venerable Supremeness to discover that the carriage was low on horsepower. ie. oh shit, we need to drop by caltex to go pump petrol. comments swallowed, i waited in the car. then when we left the station, it was oh, in the general region of... 22 bloody minutes past 9 freaking oh-clock. brendan drove like all of hell's demons were clambering atop the roof of the car and i think we must have lifted 10 inches off the ground when we went over a bump on the road. also i ruminate that we caused 3 different pedestrians to hastily leap into the nearby bushes to avoid our car, and 2 fellow drivers to scribble down furiously our license plate number as use for incriminating evidence.

anyways, we reached by 9.35pm and hastened to the theatre. where everyone was waiting, for I had their tickets. all in all, gold-class wasn't that nice also la. reclining chair, big and comfy. blanket given. a small table in front. a few service staff came in before the movie started to take orders for f&b and left without a trace later. screen size and audio/video quality were all the same.

aaaaand of course, the movie itself. yaaawn. totally different from the events in the book, possibly the only things retained in the movie version were albus dumbledore's half-moon spectacles and snape's oiliness. again i exaggerate. but anyways, i have learnt not to expect too much from any movie version of any book. there were of course some gripping scenes in the movie. and the odd confusing moments where i thought i was watching the lord of the rings, when dumbledore and potter were in the cave and the inferi swarmed, which incidentally all looked like gollum. and dumbledore conjured the flames, which incidentally looked like gandalf battling the whatchamacallit.... yes, the balrog.

anyways, director had a lot of balls to add some of the things he did in the movie. of course he must have had full blessings from rowling but still, what he added really changed the storyline significantly. like the random fatherly concerns that dumbledore had for potter (him and hermione spending a lot of time, him needing a shave or whatever), the miscellaneous shots of malfoy testing out the disappearing cabinet or cupboard or whatever. and what he omitted changed it gigantically also. no fleur, not rufus scrimgeour, no tonks-lupin screentime etc etc.

aiya a lot of things la. but i suppose the director didn't want to simply repeat everything in the book word for word. it'd be like watching the book on a screen, he must've thought. well i for one would have liked that thank you very much, but it appears arty people need their queer little 'artistic impression', 'poetic license', 'my perspective versus your perspective' moments. wanted to leave his mark yada yada. not just mindless copying etc etc. probably wanted to stamp "RICHARD YATES" clearly across the screen for everyone to see the whole time.

anyways, post cut short by unforeseen circumstances (ie. bedtime). will possibly resume in near future.

till then.

well well well. another seat-gripping account of the numerous exciting things that happened this week.

hit the gym on sunday before dinner. had a fantastic italian, i should say 'meal' but really, the amount of food i consumed sufficiently constituted 3 full meals.

monday went with melho to get ingredients to make her lamb kebabs, and surprise surprise bumped into siqian at bukit timah plaza. shows how small singapore is. after the rebound, we hit the aisles at ntuc and decided to bake brownies for her bbq too. after the flurry of domestic activity, mel and sq left for home and i headed out for dinner with the cousins at holland v. dessert at cold rock was sorely disappointing. all of us heard recommendations from friends to check the place out (no worries, benedict!) but i think the hype purely stemmed from the gimmick of teppanyaki ice cream. the ice cream they used tasted like the cheapo $1 for a 1L tub type of ntuc ice cream, and the toppings (1 type for $1) was too damn expensive and too damn small a portion! grr. this is a sweet-toothed dessert-fanatic speaking here! honestly! $1 for a meagre teaspoonful of nutella mixed on a (potentially) unhygienic slab with an over-priced cupful of (what was) cheap ice cream can get on your nerves.

but the company was good, and the holland v atmosphere was soothing on a weekday late night. think it's one of the best places to go to at such a time. no cars, no crowd. it's getting hard to find such places in our beloved furiously-"upgrading" singapore.

tuesday (ie. today, for those slow on the uptake) woke up at 6pm! i amaze myself at times, and apparently others as well. my mom nearly went into shock when she arrived home from work only to find out i woke up only a half-hour ago. and gloria and yiting had to ask several times ("a.m. or p.m.??" "wait, 6p.m.?!" "what time?!) before they could fully grasp the situation. and the funniest thing was that i was pretty sure when i got out of bed that the clock said 4pm. so i went downstairs, thinking that that's not too bad, still have a few hours of daylight to muck around before having to go over to glo's house. so i was reading the papers, and then mom came home. and still i (unwittingly) thought, wow she's back early from work today. imagine the trauma i experienced when the next time i walked into the kitchen i saw that the time was 6.45pm! i felt like rip van winkle. (did i get that right? it's an uncommon name.) anyways, went to ridley. had a BEEEG dinner trailed closely after by azabu sabo ice cream (NO green tea!) and or-ni. then played monopoly deal with glo yt yiling and jiawei, which was a hoot. (no it wasn't a nocturnal bird, although some of our cards were flying through the air at times, pillows even)

then a rather unhappy event happened, which is an Unmentionable, and cannot hitherto be written down here. but anyway because of that i was stoning quite a bit midway through monopoly deal.

and that's that. now it's time to squeeze in a few hours worth of harry potter before i catch it at the GV GOLD CLASS theatre (muahahahha) on thurs (muahahahhaa). i hope there's a free flow of champagne, or at least seats with inbuilt massage capabilities. maybe a bed? we'll see. it'd be dumb if i fell asleep during the movie though.

till then.

again i have in my mind a raving post that positively dies wanting to be heard by people (the audacious exhibitionist!) and yearns to be recorded for all with eyes to see.

hence i am subjugated by the thoughts floating in the vast expanse that is my mind, and will throw myself prostrate at their feet, following any commands made to the utmost.

geez, that last paragraph was a bit heavy.

anyways, i LOOOOOOOOVE the drums on the Killer's Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine! so inspiring and stirring. just makes me feel like running to the nearest music store and purchasing a drum kit in the hopes that i can miraculously imitate such a brilliant drumming performance without prior training whatsoever.

sooo, in the general light of things, i've just finished my first semester of vet science. the course that i have been dreaming of entering since i was in sec 3. and though dramatic effect bades me to say something jaw-dropping like "and then i discovered, with complete horror yet slashed with a tinge of resignation, that this was not the career path i wish to pursue in future", the truth is that i really love it! to the ultimate degree, i daresay with a resolute sort of finality. even though i slept in lectures, skipped some even, left studying till the eleventh hour, this is exactly where i want to be, except probably without the self-hatred for not being hardworking enough. but one thing i realised is that i do not want to be mediocre at all in this course. this was my greatest wish when deciding on my career path, that i could work with animals, and i sure as hell do know now that i do not want to be a washed-up average student with washed-up average grades and nothing at all to prove.

so i hereby set a goal of studying hard next semester. of course i will make allowances for skipping classes i feel will not benefit me (and detractors will argue that i could keep giving myself more and more allowance until in the end, history will repeat itself) (but i argue that firstly, there is noone reading this right now so who are the said detractors? besides, i make this vow to myself only, and in breaking it, nobody would know, much less care) but in the vague, nebulous view of affairs, i will work harder and play less than in the 1st sem! and i will strive to get better results! i for one hate losing, and the competitive streak in me would like to express its view that everyone else can go (being very polite here) fly kite while it starts to kick some behinds.

grand resolution thus made, i shall move on now.

today.

today was a sunday.

today was my second sunday back in singapore from melb for my winter break, went to orchard with benedict, walked around (even in the rain), ate and drank, chillaxed, lamented the lack of activities available in singapore for an exciting day out.

err day before was saturday.

day before was my first saturday yada yada yada, had a family bbq! met up with the cousins except yiting, who had (swine) flu (cos she's such a pig). feels good to be around them all again. aeryn and aeriel are growing up so fast, aeriel speaks quite a bit already and can even say Atlas' name (well, more like spit the sounds out into an ear-splitting shriek that sounds more or less something like 'Atlas'). and aeryn is well on her way to becoming singapore's most illustrious lawyer in the near future at the rate she's going. what a precocious child.

and before the day before today was friday.

which was spent with some of the GLC, minus ahmeng and hongyi who are living it up in china. we had lunch and plenty of fun at taka, and conquered far east plaza after that.

so that is the story of my life (well, at least the past few days of it). tmr's for driving and tuesday as well. then i'll be trying to get fit as well at the gym as much as i can. then comes the GLC stayover from wed to fri and hopefully a meal with the cousins over the weekend. this is as far as myopic ol' me can plan, and i shall take whatever fate and destiny decide to lob at me with gungho and a tenacious spirit of adventure.

but for now, what i plan to do in the immediate future is to hit the washroom (OKAAAY unnecessary details) and pop into bed.

after an insanely long hiatus from the weird and wonderful world of blogger, i have decided to stage my comeback.


ok, not really. i am just taking a SHORT break from studies, and decided to brush the dust off this page and bring it down from the attic (or up from the basement).


anyways, past few months of 2009 have been play play play play play play play play, SHIT exams are here, study study study. and now i'm in swot vac (our study week) and 5 days from my first veterinary science exam paper. wow. even though the course is rigorous, and the competition is high, it still amazes me when i take a step back and go, "I'm actually studying to be a vet!" and just a short while ago, i was still in nappies running rounds in the playground pissing off my parents. thus is the miraculous nature of hindsight and reminiscence.

i thought it would be nice to log my dreams of the future. of course, dreams are just dreams, many may not get fulfilled, some may even be forgotten. cut the crap about you having to be the one to make your dreams, in the real world, hopes get dashed all the time, and people rarely have the perseverance to see their way through to their ultimate goals in life.

then again, for the benefit of my future worldly-wise and jaded self, here's where i hope to be down the long and winding road.

i want to work with wildlife.
i do NOT want to spend forever in a vet clinic in singapore, pushing papers and seeing cats and dogs, and dogs and cats. and the occasional rabbit.
i want wolves, cheetahs, polar bears, owls, lemurs, giraffes, elephants, pandas, and every other beautiful creature of nature out there. i want to put my veterinary skills to good use, but at the same time, devote time to conserving wild animal populations and studying wild creatures.

i want to live in a european country. i want to speak the language, sample the cuisine, rub shoulders with locals and explore the lands. i want to experience the liberating feeling that the world is bigger than the confines of my home country, extending far beyond the barriers formed by the skyscrapers and high-rise apartments of singapore.


and believe it or not, those are the only major goals i have planned. clearly, i need to spend more deep, reflective time with self and get to know me better. also, i need to think further ahead and plan in advance. then again, it's sometimes better to have lesser expectations to prevent any crippling disappointments. okay, i admit that's a tad pessimistic, but ah well.

and hence i make my departure, away i go to my crisp stacks of notes and glaring desklamp for the night. i bid you well.

yesterday night in melbourne at nearly 11pm, there was a reported tremor felt by residents across melbourne. the tremor measured 4.6 on the richter scale, with its epicentre located 90km southeast of melbourne.

i was happily preparing to go out of my room to a friend's new building apartment to watch slumdog millionaire (fantastic show), and when i opened the door several of my neighbours were standing in the corridor while a few more were poking their heads out their doors. a tutor was also standing there, and they were all slightly panicked, saying that they felt the ground shake. our floor tutor also hurried across from his room after feeling it. suffice to say that i was clueless about this, maybe i have my head in the clouds and feet off the ground half the time that i missed the shocking tremor felt by everyone on my floor, and nearly everyone in IH.

but anyways, this incident somehow reminds me of how precarious the world that we live on is. everything we've built up over the years, skyscrapers, shopping malls, business districts, houses and homes, or on a personal level, lives, careers and relationships, could so easily be destroyed so many ways by the forces of nature. one day you could be rushing off to work, or making breakfast, or doing a number 2 in the washroom and the next instant a major earthquake, flood or bushfire wipes out your entire life as you know it, causing irreparable damage to your world. and again this in turn reminds me of how insignificant we all are.

do the natural phenomena CARE whether you've spent nearly all your life savings on that house which just collapsed in the earthquake? do they care that your loved ones mean the world to you if they ever perish in a tsunami? do they even bother to step back and reflect one moment that the crops which produce the food you survive on were razed in a wildly spreading bushfire?

we should not, for even one instance, forget that we lead fragile lives in a volatile world, and that living for one more day is a lucky roll of a dice in an all-encompassing game.

i have recently joined the legions of adoring fans, the multitude of ardent admirers, the throngs of reveling readers of the marvelous Terry Pratchett.

here's a walking and talking repository of razor wit, who has bowled me full over with his insanely funny Discworld novels. honestly, you haven't caught me on one of his books yet, if not you would be throwing worried glances in my direction as the hysterics overcome me, possibly checking me in to a mental health institution if i was in a particularly good mood to begin with.

he phrases the most mundane of sentences in a brilliant way, more like that of a corkscrew or even a lunatic scribbling mess that a woowoo (i.e. mental patient) produces with some floor and a chalk. out of the totally berserk clauses and paragraphs, he chucks guffaw-inducing imagery and metaphors at you like a knife-thrower with a grudge.

then comes the thorough and amazing detailing and plumping up of the imaginary territory of Discworld, held up by Great A'Tuin the Great Sky Turtle, what more can i say? Discworld and its various quirks are mapped out intricately in the novels, and pervading many of them are the issues dealt with in any civilisation, modern or prehistoric.

he comes up with the most wacky characters and plots, and in many novels the lives of the many characters overlap. reading a book about the witches can bring you to a scene involving Commander Vimes or the Librarian of the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork, who incidentally happens to be an orang-utan.

so heed the call to laugh your brain cells to death, and read the phenomena that is Discworld.

sometimes you leave a person alone for just a second, and the next time you turn back he or she is a totally different personality. i, not particularly investing my belief in all that jazz about being in constant motion in life and how one should adapt flexibly to changes in the grand scheme of things, absolutely detest such occurences. one day you could hang out and chat easily with the person, and the next you feel awkward just approaching the person, not knowing what to say, how to act. even making eye contact feels as painful as running a marathon with a sprained ankle and a torn knee ligament.

and worse is seeing them make new friends, friends that they have so much fun with when you aren't there. seeing the many photos on facebook of their escapades and outings certainly leaves me feeling more than a little sore. why couldn't the person call me out instead? he/she would have been the first person to invite me on any outing, any shopping trip, any dinner or lunch, any movie, and yet now the person barely even corresponds with me. no messages or emails, random house calls.

puzzling is that inertia still counts a tad, the ex-friend remembers your birthday, writes messages in the same style as before, lots of 'love's and 'miss-you's that are only a formality, only a hollow spectre of what was. this only serves to instil a creeping doubt, whether the person really does wish for your company, when honestly, it's a far shot.

don't you really hate life's little quirks sometimes? some days you feel that all you ever encounter is loneliness, disappointment and the chill of longing that sucks you into a gloomy mood. as much as it sounds like a corny pop song or a particularly gruesome poem, that's how it really is, isn't it?

well in cases like these there's only the option of sucking it in and sticking it out, as is with most other situations in life. nothing's fair in this world innit? unless you count the unanimous unfair treatment everyone gets, which makes us all equally miserable and singly disparaging.

so all i can do is find other pastures to graze, other fights to pick. if only i could say that this stems from my unwavering determination in life, my supreme strength of mind and will to survive. in truth it probably comes from the ugly shrivelled part of my mind where hope dares not to tread. this is resignation, the knowledge that things have changed irrevocably with the person and can never be salvaged again, a complete lack of belief that anything will get better, that steers me in another direction.

ah well, so life's a b*tch? sure looks like it.

some funny stuff i found at a website that i can't rmb the url of! eep.

something occured to me a few weeks back. it was something i've read before last year, heard many times before on the telly, and finally something that was mentioned in a recent movie.

now before you get your hopes up about what astounding nugget of information i am about to produce here, i should probably say that many people would have thought about this certain, SOMETHING, that i'm being unneccesarily mysterious about before in their lives.

i am speaking about the peculiar, ingenious, most extraordinary phenomenon of a predator ensnaring its prey by means of bewitching it and practically hypnotising it into an enrapturing entrancement. the prey in this case almost loses all its senses, only feeling the unshakeable desire to stare into its predator's eyes (where applicable) and if possible, arrange itself neatly on a dinner platter with roasted veggies to be presented to the widening mouth of the aforementioned ravenous creature. of course this isn't a laughing matter, as the consequences are terrifying. this form of dazzling one's prey, such that it is near to throwing itself prostrate at your feet begging you to kill it, is truly fearsome.

i first heard this on Animal Planet (of course). on screen was a rabbit directly facing a snake, not a big one or terribly frightening one, just a normal old rabbit-gobbling snake. and the narrator mentioned something about the rabbit being "bewitched" by the snake's eyes, and how it was mesmerised into paralysis, simply standing there watching the future cause of its untimely end without a single twitch. a bit of an easy meal i would think for the serpent, kinda like fast food except that burgers and fries don't stare at you from behind the counter.

and then i came across this.... i don't know what to call it, phenomenon? method?....i shall settle with "thingamajig".... in Twilight. edward cullen (aka Predator) tells bella (aka Prey) that he is the perfect predator and that everything about him draws her in. his eyes, his voice, his looks, his smell even. everything about him makes her want to be near him, and then it would just be a simple matter of choosing where to take a bite out of. and best of all, she would so dearly love for him to do so, even at the expense of her life.

?!?!?!??!?!

does this not scare you!??!?!?!

does it not make you fear everything that attracts you now!??!?!

what if, at the end of every dangling carrot, there is a yawning black mouth with hideously sharp teeth and tremendously bad breath waiting to swallow you??!?!

that, by the way, was a metaphor.

should we not be afraid of predators hypnotising our minds and making us blithely turn off our innate alarm sensors or worse, WANT to be eaten/taken advantage of/robbed/injured/mugged/etc etc??!?!?

what if people perfected this thingamajig (or even this CRAFT) and used it for ends that i can't even think of!??!?!

i fear to take even a single step down this path of imagination. in fact, i might even pause and hesitate, before doing an about-turn and retracing my steps.

it's insane!!!!!! there could be millions of conspiracy theories if you consider it. well maybe not, i don't know, i was just trying to add to the overall sense of panic and chaos.

ah what the hell, i shall leave this now to steam in the juices of my imagination and ponder upon this matter further.

i must admit that i am a person with a rather critical eye, i rarely see any people, male or female, that i find good-looking or beautiful. so at the times that i DO think someone approaching perfection in outward appearances, i find it a big enough event to post on the ol' blog.

so who is this extraordinary being i speak of, the one so well-endowed in the looks department?

he is none other than........ RAFAEL NADAL.

i've already established that he is my current fave tennis player, ever since he appeared many seasons ago and overthrew federer in one of the early matches of his inspiring career.

and i've probably already mentioned in passing that i found his looks exotic and attractive.

but when i watched his match against murray in abu dhabi (unfortunately he lost to that clown), i was once again bowled over by his near-perfection. his is a rare blend of fine features AND great body, extremely totally overwhelmingly hard to find in the modern world or any world at any point in history in fact.

with the fear of sounding tremendously superficial and overly indulgent, i shall include a description of nadal, which does not capture the extent of his great looks at all.

nadal has wavy tousled locks, very dashingly held back with that warrior headband of his. and he has fantastically deep-set eyes, squinty but not too much so, which gives him that Clint Eastwood charisma. it goes with his image as the Spanish conquistador, dangerous, lethal and fierce. then we move down to that subtle trace of a stubble around his chin, perfect in its near-absence because noone likes a scruffy looking fella or a santa claus lookalike with scraps of dinner entrapped in a full-grown bush underneath. and of course there's the body, artistically sculpted almost. killingly proportionate, with long legs but not so that he looks like a newborn giraffe. most guys have long torsos unfortunately, but nadal's is an amazing proportion that only few other guys like Rain and Jerry Yan have. nadal also has the right muscle bulk, which is truly hard to find. many guys are either too scrawny or overdo the gym training and protein shake-drinking. his bulk is even nicer than cristiano ronaldo's, who's just a tiny bit too lean. nadal has AMAZING biceps plus triceps, and sinewy forearms and lower legs. and on the few occasions he lifts up his shirt to wipe away the sweat off his forehead, everyone in the tennis-watching arena holds their breath when they catch sight of the abs of course. well actually the last time i saw his abs they weren't great six packs but still very defined so i shall conclude, in my absolutely biased perspective, that he has since then trained hard and improved his abdominal muscles. he has the perfect broadness of shoulder, not too broad like a swimmer's, which can taper drastically to a tiny waist that gives a literally "V" torso that's a bit repulsive (namely Phelps). nadal's neck muscles are defined too, and his thighs, from the look of his fitted berms/capris, look suitably slim and proportioned for his calves and hips. and he has a great skin colour, tanned which matches his red indian looks perfectly, unlike some tanned westerners who look burnt. and from a particular image of him walking back to the base line from the net, i could tell with my eleventh sense that he has great back muscles too, an area most people forget to work on when in the gym. and to add to the overall effect, there's his predatory glares and glances, insanely extreme grip on the racket that gives him a aesthetically superior swing, athletic efficient effortless movements on court that make him look super duper strong and fit, and an iron strength of mind that has turned the tide in many a set that he was down.

Day 3 - Dec 9

daddy's birthday! brought along a cute birthday card i bought from singapore, planned to deliver it later at night. woke up early for a day of coaching to Las Vegas. pretty uneventful, but the ride was spruced up with great scenery, fields, coniferous forests, lotsa rocks, the Mojave desert, the Rocky Mountains. if only i could see such scenery every day. i assure you i'll never tire of it. we then arrived in the City That Never Sleeps, home of the endless rows of jackpot machines which bankrupts and gamblers alike affectionately name: the One-Armed Bandits. it is honestly the best example of a city that looks the best at night than at any other time of day, everywhere you turn are bright lights that NEVER stop glimmering or blinking their messages and names at you. people all over the streets even late at night, fancy limousines down the roads, driving adverts of services of rather dubious natures, loud music blaring and drunks dancing by the streets, big screen tvs advertising the numerous shows in the hotels. The Strip in vegas at its best. The Strip is that length of road in downtown vegas where the major hotels and restaurants and clubs are located, where the who's who cluster and where money talks. and might i mention that every few steps a male takes as he wanders down the street, he is confronted with numerous lackeys who shove cards of women in varied stages of undress at him. all highly amusing. what qualifies as illegal pornographic material in certain countries is at the same time thrust at passers-by on neat little cards as they take a walk down streets in other countries. what a quaint little world.

and thus we arrived at Vegas, checked into The Mirage, which i have to say, given the number of stars and its location in the one area with the greatest reputation of having the most beautifully designed hotels in the world, has an absolutely lamentable floor layout. we, after being dropped off at the front door, had to drag our bags past concierge, through the entire maze of the casino, which is absolutely gargantuan in magnitude, past numerous restaurants and inbuilt pubs, before finally arriving, arms throbbing and out of breath, at the elevators. where on earth is the sense in that?! mind-boggling. for all the big bucks rolling in, at least have the sense to hire a better contractor!

after we finally stumbled into our rooms, we took a brief rest before going for dinner. chinese restaurant again, which incidentally served water that we could actually TASTE. and it didn't taste of anything pleasant unfortunately, reminded me of warm radioactive sewage sludge. (see previous note of commenting on things tasting like other less common substances) and then back again to the hotel for a breather, before we were whisked off to watch Jubilee, a topless show, at the Ballys hotel. now when you mention Topless Show, usually the least of your expectations would be "BORING" or "yawn" or "dull". unfortunately, while it is not often where things live up to expectation, you wouldn't imagine that they could so drastically fall short of expectations as to even fall far BELOW the lowest of them. all that singing and dancing (well, not even dancing for it was more of simple walking and kicking legs and fancy show-standard arm waving), even with the bare tops of ladies, failed to keep most of the audience awake. i tried hard to stay awake, but succumbed near the middle and then again at the end. even the male audience was hard put to keep their attention from wandering and their eyelids from closing. what a drag. my cousins and i had a little joke about how we should have watched Chippendales instead. haha. so back to the hotel it was, threading through the crowd and the big screens showing snippets of shows that truly couldn't be any more boring than the one we just escaped from.

Day 4 - Dec 10

woke up to the window view of Vegas, baby! but we were feeling less pumped up owing to the fact that we overslept, and were roused by my aunt, informing us of the time, which happened to be when our coach was supposed to leave. with all my relatives already at the coach waiting, me fio and glo were running about the room pulling on clothes and hastily washing up. in record time (20 mins), we were in the lobby where some of them were standing and solemnly ushered to the coach. OOPS. later we learnt a big argument erupted between May, the tour manager, and brendan (my bro). may wanted the 3 of us to take a cab to the factory outlet, our itinerary for the day, and brendan replied asking Couldn't she just wait for 15 mins more? we weren't rushing to keep up an appointment anyway, since we were just shopping for the day. turned out to be quite a full-scale battle, the skirmishes of which we would get a hint of in the coming days. anyway, it was off to the factory outlet Premier or something like that. we spent a blissful day flinging dollars, as we tore up the place in search of bargains, not that they were hard to find. the deals there are AMAZING, managed to buy loads of clothes and more. original plans to conquer the area together with my cousins were abandoned due to respective shopping speeds, so in the end we were all separated, bumping into each other occasionally as we hunted down deals in the many foraging areas. going solo is probably the most productive, and so far my favourite, way of shopping. shopping with fiona is quite good too, she's super fast in sizing up the shop, although our tastes sometimes differ and also at times she's yanking at the reins of the shopping cart way before i'm prepared to leave the store.

at night we watched Mystere by Cirque Du Soleil at the Treasure Island hotel. which blew us all away. before the show started we were all already riveted on the antics of some old dude in a suit, laughing as he led blithely ignorant audience members to the wrong seats, pushing past seated people instead of using the aisles, then feigning impatience and finally flinging the tickets away in mock frustration. then the show started, every inch of the stage begged for our attention as perfomers filled it, even the upper balconies had eye-catching dancers and gymnasts and musical outfits. what a blast. the costumes were great, stunts were thrilling, music was captivating, occasional acts were hilarious. my favourite performer was a bird-like character in red, he was superbly graceful and strong and just plain eye-gluing. what a show. i swear to catch any Cirque Du Soleil shows i ever come across in future.

Day 4 - Dec 10

the next day was Grand Canyon day. we took several draggy coach rides, finally arriving at the place. and my oh my, what a sight to behold. makes you rethink the significance of your puny little existence indeed. and here, there's a lack of things to write about, for all you need is a personal view of the natural wonder to understand its sheer magnitude and beauty completely. and naturally, my vocabulary is much too limited for fully expressing the feelings any sentient being will feel when confronted with the sight of the Canyon. anyway, we headed up to Guano Point (yes, guano refers to bat crap), downed lunch, enjoyed more sights. we also got to the Skywalk, which sounded and looked tremendously exciting in the brochures, but turned out to be a short glass-floored U-path jutting out from a cliff of sorts. the view through the glass floor didn't afford us the privilege of looking right through to the very bottom of the canyon from the top, we could only see till about halfway because of the rocks jutting out. DOTS to the max. no cameras allowed but we took some nice shots with the in-house photographer. oh it was interesting that some areas of the canyon were totally unrestricted, you could walk right up to the edge and peer over at your worst nightmare, a 5000 feet drop towards the conversion into a bloody pulp. being the wimp that i was, i only managed to creep slowly, arms outstretched to impart balance, to a spot an inch away from the edge and leaning ever so slightly to peep at the endless stretch of rock below me. then it was a dreary ride back again to civilisation.

night was reserved for a visit to the famed Bellagio. where we had a FABULOUS buffet dinner at The Buffet (how creative). jaw-dropping variety of food, desserts were superb, service good as usual, all for less than US$30. half the price of The Line, just below it in terms of cost of ingredients used, but WAY better in terms of selection and even interior design. score!

Day 5 - Dec 11

we made our way to the airport, discovered that we had overweight luggages and had to pay, flew to Vancouver, then drove to Whistler, a little town up in the snowy mountains. had a fancy steakhouse dinner in the hotel, which took days between courses and had me napping intermittently. other than that the food was good. we had a good view of the heated pool and jacuzzi tub from our room window, perfect for checking out, i mean, casually observing their users. before dinner we rented our ski/snowboard equip, and might i add that ALL, i repeat ALL, service staff in the Whistler area are young and good-looking. really! everyone at the ski shop was up there on the outward appearance ladder. and most shops i went to later also proved similar. well of course you couldn't avoid the odd elderly cashier, or once in a while the less becoming assistants, but generally the employees in the service industry were HOT. heard that many young Brits and Aussies go there to work and board/ski at the same time, the former in order for the latter.

and here's a short description of the area near Crystal Lodge, our ski resort. to the right from the mezzanine entrance/exit were several shops, mostly selling ski/board equipment and outfits, and then the Blackcomb and Whistler mountain gondolas. to the left, a short walk to the Village Square, in which nestled in its cosy corner was an Armchair Books store. a right turn across a bridge led you to Starbucks (the legendary outlet where the Gohs and Chuas first saw real falling snow many years ago), a cinema, a Guess outlet (very random). further on was a supermarket, Mongolie (a Mongolian grill), italian restaurant, and a japanese restaurant.

Day 6 - Dec 12

ski day number one. cold as hell, although hell isn't rumoured to be cold. but still. clunked out, severely underdressed as we later learnt, to the Whistler gondola. fingers were already turning numb and painful while we waited for the tickets to be bought. clash number dunno-how-many: Mistake number 1: 2-day passes to the gondola were bought instead of 1-day passes, even though there was no discount for the 2-day ones. Mistake number 2: sight-seeing passes, which were cheaper than ski passes, were not bought for the adults who just wanted to go up the mountain for fun. why? Reason 1: tour guide did not buy tickets, but asked my cousin to. Reason 2: tour guide did not check ahead. Side detail 1: tour guide asked my cousin, all decked out in heavy boots that were hard to walk in, to buy the tickets because tour guide was afraid of cold weather and quickly rushed back to hotel room. and hence the explosion began. or maybe it was already snowballing. later, tour guide was overheard loudly telling tour-sponsor that the excess spent on buying the wrong tickets, "Take from my pay lah!". immediate comment from eavesdropping brother: "Sure, cut from your pay lah".

up the looooong gondola ride, with uncomfortably high seats, we reached a lodge near the top of Whistler. filed out. quickly sought shelter and warmth in the lodge. separated from the boarders. mustered the courage to exit building, and met our doom on Upper Whiskey Trail. i later figured one would need pints of whiskey to brave the long steep slope down to the end of the trail. well, at least for someone like me. the length of the trail was much too long, everyone said that it was the type of slope that one should pack a bottle of fluid and some crackers into a backpack and hit the john before starting. the slopes were also VERY steep, not steep enough to fling you off a cliff at the slightest mistake, but certainly steep enough such that i didn't dare to go down straight, but had to cut across the slope the whole way to avoid mowing down any unfortunate being in my way. the whole journey i was on the edge of my nerves, what a trip. the ski trail at Zermatt was infinitely better.

thawed a bit at a little cabin at the end of the trail, then set off for the Lower Whiskey Trail, before catching the gondola back up again. had lunch then it was back down to the heaters in the room. phew. it took us the better part of 4 hours i estimate, to complete the entire trail. what a nightmare.

dinner comprised several of us heading off in search of food in Whistler, with a bit of shopping here and there. tried an italian restaurant which was too crowded, eventually we settled for japanese. then we attacked a supermarket and headed back, squishing the icy slush beneath our shoes on the streets back.

Day 8 - Dec 14

skiing day 2. me and glo were absolutely dreading it. woke up late, all the while taking our time in getting dressed, delaying our doom as much as possible. the guys were getting impatient, apparently they loved the slopes. finally when we've pushed the limits as much as we could, we had to leave for the gondola ride. freezing again. -20 deg Celsius. at least it was sunnier this time. me and glo split from gigi and irwin, the boarders headed down first. 2 skiiers 1 boarder dropped out after the first day, citing various reasons, fever was one, exhaustion and lost hope among others. glo felt nauseous, so we sat at the lodge, thinking to go down after lunch. that never came. we had lunch, stoned there the whole time. brendan joined us for lunch and stoned with us after that. i was feeling immensely bored and restless, wanted to just heck it and ski down but it was too late and noone wanted to go down the slope a second time. derrick and kenny skipped lunch and went down the Ego Bowl slope 6 times i think. finally we were all assembled at the lodge in the mid-afternoon, and after a short delay owing to a missing boarder, we headed down. i was feeling thoroughly miserable, wanted to head to the gym to relieve the pent-up energy but there wasn't time. SHIT. that was probably the worst day of the trip. felt so useless bumming around up there. photo shoot at the gondola ticket station, then off for dinner. which was crap. Old Spaghetti Factory it was called, food sucked big time, service was slow. all in all a disastrous dinner. before dinner me glo yt fio bought tickets to Twilight at the cinema, and visited the Rocks and Gems shop on the way back. interesting stuff they sold. among them being dinosaur bones, trilobite fossils, and many other ancient fossils, rocks, stones, gems, shiny bits here and there. are dinosaur bones common?!?! or ancient fossils?!?! they were selling small bits for like less than twenty bucks!

after dinner we half-ran to the cinema, cos it was so cold. 4 of us plus brendan derrick gigi irwin went. movie was so-so, a bit boring, derrick was asleep the whole movie, book was definitely better. everyone came out interested in the series though, which possibly meant the movie caught their interest. glo was drooling over how mesmerising robert pattinson was, i still think gaspard ulliel would be way better as edward. oh well.

Day 9 - Dec 15

drive to vancouver. then we carried on with the drive to the hotel, the Hyatt Regency. vancouver was filled with asians, hong-kongers to be exact. it's like melbourne, half the population on the streets were yellow-skinned. i prefer california and vegas to vancouver. no point going overseas for vacation and looking around seeing asian faces as though you were back home. vancouver also seems more slow-moving and less interesting than america, less busy less glamorous.

arrived to much bustling in the lobby, turns out they were hosting some secondary school competition for gingerbread house making. people were walking around judging the entries, some were pretty impressive.

the room was fab, big, posh, luxurious. wall-to-wall ceiling-to-floor window occupied one wall, wide- and flat-screen attached to another, there was even a desk with a real cool desk lamp, ultra sleek. alarm clock had an iPod nano docking station, well actually most of the hotels we stayed in had that. anyway we had a while to walk through the attached shopping centre, think it was the Royal Plaza. nothing much, mostly unheard of brands that still managed to be quite expensive. made our way to the food court in the basement for lunch, a really good pannini, and then headed for Robson St, supposedly Vancouver's equivalent of Orchard Rd. but they were diff in that Robson St had stores by a narrow, 4 lane road, while orchard road has shopping malls by the side of a much wider road. we went souvenir shopping, cos the clothes and stuff didn't seem worth it after all the american factory outlets. dinner was at a chinese restaurant in the shopping centre next to our hotel, menu selected by ah song. not bad, a lot of veggies though.

Day 10 - Dec 16

breakfast was on the 34th floor, great view of the city below! then we took a city tour, nothing much. went to Stanley Park, where totem poles resided. funny event: the small lake in front of the totem poles was frozen over, and uncle tommie ventured down and put a foot out on the ice. larry came over, and stepped onto the ice. local canada-raised hk tour guide panicked, asking them to quickly get back up because it wasn't safe. then larry, being the usual rebellious kid he was, did a hilarious shuffle across the ice and back, before clambering back up. we all had a good laugh. he's so cute. (i know i've said this millions of times) then we droe to some exhibition centre, and chinatown or something, can't really remember, along the way was an aviary on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, and there was the Lion Gate Bridge which crosses the English Bay. photo ops done, we headed for lunch at some sorta market where most stalls sold meats, cheeses, pastries etc. my lunch was Indian, quite good. then we were off to oakridge shopping centre, 4 of us spent all our time at the bookstore cos we were pretty much done with any kind of shopping. factory outlets take their toll on everyone, they successfully crush the urge to whip out wallets or enter fitting rooms. oh, i also hate trying clothes when i have to shed so many layers in the cramped fitting room in winter countries. yucks. and you get static charge build-up from the rubbing of the cloth and your hair just sticks to your face, major eew. so anyway we spent eons at the bookstore but ventured further to a supermarket. borrowed fio's iTouch when we found out there was wireless at the supermarket's inbuilt Starbucks to check my results. she checked hers too. both of us did well. then it was meeting time, and we drove to dinner. chinese again. seafood this time, quite good. menu again by ah song.

Day 11 - Dec 17

breakfast at the 34th floor again, our own little private function room. thought it looked misty outside, only to discover that it was snowing! cool. snowing heavily too! we could see the flakes being buffeted by the winds in all directions, busy little white specks making their way here and there. what a sight. and way up high too. we contemplated going out in such heavy snowfall, but i forced the other 3 to go in the end. we headed to robson st again for some late souvenir pick-ups by fio and glo. the snow was spattering on our faces and built up quickly on our clothing. how exciting. then we headed to Icing by Claire's before going over to Sears in Pacific Centre. Sears is kinda like the typical departmental store, so we headed out to the main shopping centre. got lunch, a nice souvlaki pita wrap. yummy. bumped into auntie lena and others, then brendan and derrick joined us. we then attacked H & M, but it was nowhere as cheap as those in europe. i was also too lazy to hit the fitting rooms, so anything i found interesting i tried my best to ignore. had a little rest. getting tired of shopping by now. think the only other shop we hit in the centre was Stitches, where we bought the most stuff for the day. they were all so cheap. that pretty much drained all our shopping energy.

then we headed back again, snowfall had slowed to the occasional random laggy snowflake floating down from the sky. but the ground was still delightfully soft with fresh snow. trouble was getting the snow off your shoes before it melted and soaked them to the seams. dinner was steamboat at the the same chinese restaurant from our first night in vancouver. good stuff. the snowy beef, fancy name probably for thin beef strips, was the star. seafood tofu was good. chicken a bit fatty. mussels good. veggies not bad. mushrooms were great, as always. ate till i was bursting. what a last dinner to have.

then it was back to serious repackaging of luggages to prevent any overweight ones, even filled a bag daddy bought earlier in the day with the spoils of the trip.

Day 12 - Dec 18

left for the airport bright and early. breaths were held as we loaded each piece of luggage onto the belt, one was overweight by 3 kg and another underweight by the same amount, which prompted a collective release of breath. no charges after all. daddy brendan and derrick hit burger king while me and mommy strolled aimlessly around. nice aquarium in the airport, lotsa corals though the fishes behaved weirdly. they were all suspended facing the left, didn't move much other than to keep in the same spot. wonder what that was all about. thus we stepped onto the plane that would bring us back to reality, and humidity. flight back was pretty much filled with movies and tv shows. the lead actor in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging was really good-looking, which was helped by a brit accent definitely. many would agree. stopped over at Incheon airport. nothing much there, hurried to the gate. then straight to singapore and home nearly midnight.

side note: america's mtv channel rocks. the shows were interesting in true mtv style. notable shows: parental control, heterosexual participant. vicki and ricki were interesting too, can't rmb the long title of the series exactly, smt about a double shot at love. about a pair of female bisexual twins who had to choose from a bunch of male AND female contestants fighting for their attention. WHAT THE?!?! other than that, music on mtv was good too, Kanye's Love Lockdown (current fave), Beyonce's If I Were A Boy (great music vid!), Nickelback's Gotta Be Somebody (current fave number 2), Jonas Brothers' Lovebug (a cute song), Pink, Katy Perry's Hot N Cold (grows on you), Pokerface by Lady Gaga (grows on you too, although only one line of the song is nice). although there was an abundance of britney spears too with Circus and Womaniser. Paramour's song for twilight also got quite a bit of airtime. note again: canada's tv channels suck, no mtv! argh, how dull.

interesting (in my view) facts:

learnt to pack light.

learnt that fio draws really well, but can't do humans or animals, only buildings.

discovered the many likeable features of the iTouch.

this trip was very own-time-own-target, didn't really see much of yt, spent most of the time with fio and glo.

camwhored to the extreme one night in vegas. had so many laughs in the process. and fio edited the photos really well.

i sincerely hope the december holiday tradition continues nt year and for many years to come.

Merry Christmas!

LA, LV, Whistler and Vancouver from 7/12/08 to 19/12/08.

Day 1 - Dec 7

we left for King's Dr early in the morning, the cab came earlier than expected, noone was halfway awake yet, let alone ready to hop into the waiting cab outside. hopes for a nice breakfast absolutely dashed, we made our way to fio's place. then hauled the luggages down the slope to yt's, good morning exercise. should do that more often, clears the mind of the previous night's fog pretty well.
then we discovered we were the absloute first, thanks to the eager cabbie. so we had a sit around, then the rest drifted in. and might i add that Zac is sooooper doooper cute. anyways, went to the airport blah blah. spent an ungodly length of time in a cramped seat, with only a short span of time at narita to work the ol kickers. then back to numb behinds and static in the hair that never fails to gross me out and piss me off simultaneously. yucks. and here i shall add again that SIA is on the decline, stewardesses with bad service attitudes, the krisworld entertainment system not working too well, the WORST air turbulence i've experienced in my entire life. i honestly thought at some point the plane would crash, no kidding. the first sign of air turbulence, a heart-rising dip that evoked yelps and shrieks from the japanese girls who got on at narita, made my stomach clench. bleargh. this was followed by possibly an hour-long rolling of the aircraft from left to right, with several dips interspersed between. everyone was ordered to sit down the whole time, no visits to the toilet and so i figured we were all condemned to eternal damnation without relief. (okay, i lifted that last one from rowan atkinson) but the rocking from left to right thankfully resembled that of a humongous cradle, albeit one being maneouvered by a slightly overzealous caretaker, and i managed to slip into a blissful sleep. which was abruptly ended by relieved, or soon to be, passengers rushing down the aisles when the seatbelt sign was turned off. i must mention that the whole flight i only had intermitten naps, and thanks to lousy krisflyer entertainment systems, i wasn't at all entertained by the backdated and uninteresting movies they had to offer. so when i stepped off the tarmac (or rather off the carpeted floors of the 747), it was with as much irritation as a starving grizzly watching his meal being snatched up by a seemingly innocuous and clueless woodsman stumbling upon his catch of the day. but things started looking good for me as the first activity of the itinerary was a direct bus ride to lunch in anaheim, then straight to the hotel with nothing else planned till dinnertime. i should add in here that we had landed in the LA airport. so lunch it was, a chinese buffet affair. as chinese lunches in the states go, i wasn't extremely pleased to find what was staring up my plate at me after i was done making the finest selections. but it was all there was to consume and nothing else could have been done. another thing to note was the large sizes of everything there, in relation to F&B. the cups came in humongo sizes, enough to last a man 3 days' at least in the Mojave Desert. and that's not counting the amount of ice in the cup. then me glo fio yt slipped out of the restaurant and headed to the row of shops near the restaurant. we were in some kinda large mall of sorts, where everything was spread out into diff buildings surrounding a carpark, much like a huge factory outlet. interesting concept. there was a farmer's market or smt, pet shop, clothes shops, bank, clinic, dvd rental etc. then it was time to get back into the coach and arrive at the ultimate destination for the day, the hotel room, or rather, the bed in the hotel room.

i should probably clarify that being 16 hours behind singaporean time earned us so many hours to allow us this many activities while it was still the 7th of dec.

the hotel, Embassy Suites Resort Anaheim was a spanking dig, complete with an automated lion on top of a manmade cliff jutting out by a waterfall in the centre of the building. and the hotel rooms were found only on the sides of the entire building, such that there was a complete hollow throughout its centre, and you can step out of your room, look down the railing, and swoon if you were afraid of heights. the hotel room, incidentally, was awesome. big. classy. posh. soft bed linen and towels. yum. and it had a single cup coffee maker, which i soon discovered could be found in every hotel i went to in this trip. with several hours to spare, i looked forward to taking a well-deserved nap. until mom called, with scoop that there was Target just out of the hotel and down the road. sigh. the nap could wait. i asked fio and glo to ask their parents also, and off we were, trudging out in the cool evening air and slowly fading light. Target had interesting stuff, some on sale for cheap, others not as much. bought some stuff, looked around. then we had to rush back for dinner. which i forgot to mention was supposed to be exciting stuff. we had it arranged to drive to Buena Park's Medieval Times, a themed-dining-cum-performance joint where they split you into teams and each team had a knight to support. you cheered for your knight, jeered the evil Green Knight, and ate like you were a lord or lady in the royal castle. that is, with your hands. yup, with only your bare hands, you drank soup in what looked like a stone bowl of sorts with a handle, tore the chicken thigh apart and stuffed half a roast potato down your throat, and then handled the steaming hot apple pie with the raw tips of your fingers. the medieval feel was somewhat lessened by the options of drinks served: Pepsi or beer. but the waiting staff were dressed for their parts, scooping soup with ladles from buckets. fio or glo even told me that her waiter called the chicken thigh "Dragon Meat" and the roast potato half "Dragon Toenails".

anyway, we all got stuck into rooting for the Black and White knight. and the night's activities dragged on. there was much jousting and swordplay, pyrotechnics and horsemanship. the horses were cool, and the swordplay rather interesting. but the boredom of the entire put-on got to us and many were asleep or close to it nearing the end of the draggy performance. finally it ended and we hurried out before the crowd got up their sore behinds. the restaurant design was cool and all, they made it look like a stadium with staggered seats around a sandy pit where the performance unfolded, but everything was SO tremendously draggy i swear and by the time the apple pie came, everyone was hoping the evil Green Knight would just stick a sword in the other knights and get it over with.

and so we reached the hotel, knocked out on the bed and showered, can't remember in which order for it was all so tiring. i ended up asleep on the pull-out sofa bed while glo and fio knocked out on the chairs around the table. apparently when you were dead tired it didn't matter how good the quality of your sleep was, just which item of furniture caught your attention first. hence that first night all of us neglected the soft comfy covers of the 2 single beds we pushed together earlier.

Day 2 - Dec 8
woke up bright and early, feeling really good. the holiday mood was really lifeting my spirits, until i made the discovery that american hotel breakfasts aren't nearly half as nice as those in european hotels. sure the ambience was good with the lion roaring and all every hour i think, and the greenery all around. but breakfast was only scrambled eggs, sausages and toast, as i eyed the deep-fried crispy bacon with disdain and didn't feel up for cereal that morning. the few pieces of pastry i grabbed in haste proved a mistake as they were sweet enough to possibly induce involuntary gagging, or even hyperglycaemia if even such a condition exists. the queue for the omelette with fillings of your choice was abominable and out of the question. and like the extra large portions, i was learning that breakfast wasn't going to be very exciting affairs for the next few days of my life. but then it was off to Disneyland and the California Adventure Park. which was but a short drive away. Disneyland was up first, since it opened earlier. so we walked in, and headed directly for the big rides.

no beginner to theme parks after all these years, we knew which rides to head for even without the map. so me glo fio yt derrick gigi and irwin struck a direct path towards Space Mountain. and i must make it known, out of pure honesty, that i wasn't looking forward to the theme parks. i turned into a real wimp at rides a while back when youthful ignorance and the enjoy-first-wonder-later mentality flowered into cautious adolescent i-would-like-to-preserve-my-life-not-lose-it-in-a-freak-accident mindset, until about a couple of years or so ago, when i suddenly dug deep and found the courage to hop onto a Space Mountain ride. the ride turned out to be exhilarating and i've been back at rides ever since. but anyway, we conquered space mountain. i was scared as hell, but there were no heart-abandoning drops in the ride, only violent jerks from side to side. of course i wasn't complaining. although i was surprised. the last Space Mountain ride i took had a corkscrew in it. i think it was in Paris? can't really recall. then the next stop on the battle plan was Matterhorn. again, shaky and bumpy as hell but the dreaded butt-clenching drop was missing. finally, Indiana Jones. i had heard talk about this ride, reviews that it was fantastic drifted to my ears a while back. but with the 2 previous rides under my belt, i felt confident. so off we went. i admit that in Space Mountain, all i could see was black. that wasn't because the ride was dimly lit. well it was actually, for everything was dark except for the space-y glittering lights that were supposed to make you dizzy and feel like you were in outer space. it was mostly because my eyes were clamped shut tightly. and in Matterhorn, my eyes inched open several times during the ride, enough to catch sight of the tracks in front of me, and the people wandering around the park below me off to the left, before they inevitably slammed shut again. but in Indiana Jones, i must say that my eyes were open the full duration of the ride. and i was impressed by the effects of the ride. the lighting, figures, projections etc. and even when the tracks in front of me snuck off downwards into darkness i didn't shut my eyes into unseeing in the face of the incoming plunge, which by the way, never materialised. this was when i realised i had found my MOJO. the MOJO for adrenalin-pumping action. thus it was that i was pumped up by the ride, but nonetheless still wary of the purportedly BIG rides that Cali Adventure Park offered.

it was still morning when we crossed over to Cali Adventure Park right opposite Disneyland. we wasted no time in seeking out THE ride of the park. California Screamin'. on the map the thing looked a monstrous creation of some sadistic engineer. it occupied a huge portion of the paper, with parts of the ride looking to be designed perfectly to scare the living shit out of any sane mortal. but first, we were all ushered by our tour guide to a simulator ride, which showed the sights of Cali very realistically by means of a tremendous screen like the one in the imax. there was even the smell of oranges pervading the air when the screen showed a stunning view of the orange fields of cali, which is a large part of cali agriculture or smt like that. the experience was amazing. very realistic. i loved it. and i loved it all the more knowing what was coming next. THE ride of the day. i trudged onward with my enthusiastic cousins. somehow the instinct for self-preservation was not equally shared among humans, some like to feel the rush of air at speeds that would normally make a grown man quail with thoughts of imminent death. hurtling downwards at mind-bending speeds was just not what humans were born to do. why put ourselves to so much heart-stopping fear and stomach-writhing turns and drops? it puzzles me to no end, but each time i step out from a ride i feel like a tremendous weight was lifted off my shoulders, and as if a dizzyingly large airy bubble was lifting upwards through me and all i can do is laugh uncontrollably and talk loudly to the others about how great the ride was. and so i stepped onto California Screamin', a mega monster of a ride, lifting high up in the air many stories higher than anything else i've seen, with a drop that seemed designed to leave the vital organs of its riders back up at the crest of the plunge while the empty shells of those foolish enough to enter the ride plummeted towards the ground at speeds that would tear off their hair and nothing else if they were lucky. the entrance of the ride was strategically placed right below the tracks where the carts met the dip after the mind-scrambling first dive. the screaming from the riders above made us slightly nervous. on the other hand, the americans didn't seem too bothered. perhaps being locals, they've been on this ride more than enough times to wear their survival instincts thin. perhaps they were just scared to move or talk in case they'd simply start blubbering and faint away. i'd imagine it was the former. there was a prudent suggestion by brendan that we hit the washrooms first. this was the one ride that had the potential to unlock our bowels or gut at a strategic plummet. then with everything cleared, we stepped into the misty depths of doom. the queue was short, and in a New York minute, we were seated on the carts, bolted down tightly with shoulder bars, and rolled slowly round the bend out into the open. we lingered for a while, where several people stood at the railings next to the tracks. i averted my eyes, knowing they'd be smirking at the cries of despair, and looks of absolute trauma, of all the occupants in the cart the next instant. a puff of smoke, and we were shot off at a HUUUGE speed forward. and i mean HUGE. i've never sat on a ride that went at this speed i tell you. amazing. some feat of engineering, some moment of inspiration by an engineer and you get this. looking back i think this first shot forward was one of the best parts of the ride, and i mean seriously scream-worthy. then we climbed up, it seemed, towards the highest point of Mt Olympus before the crest of the first and biggest rise came. and it was all downhill after that. we all screamed, no doubt some even wept. there were several amazing swerves, i could imagine calculating centripetal forces there. and then came the corkscrew. beautiful. more plunges. more turns. and finally we pulled in. and the only feeling i had of this frightening experience was that of euphoria. and then we were all out, shouting for a second time on the ride. but there was more to conquer, more battles to win. so we headed to the next attraction. a several storey downward fall. eep. i did a double take, told them this one was outta my league, i liked rollercoasters, but direct no-holds-barred falls at acceleration g was not my thing. but then we observed the ride carefully. and turns out it looked okay because the real drop wasn't too high, it fell about 3/4 of the way, rose up a bit, fell a bit more, and repeated once more before sinking to the ground in surrender. seems pretty ok, we all assessed. brendan yt and derrick were disappointed, they wished for smt more exhilarating. i was just happy to keep my intestines for another day. so on we hopped, the queue was non-existent. (note to self: yellow nike teeshirt!!) anyway, we strapped in, all the time with me thinking how stupid i was. i should have jumped ship at the last moment to join fio at the bottom. too late to chicken out. so up we went. and again here was a ride which had smt to boast about other than the throat-constricting drop. the speed at which we shot upwards to the top was the highlight of the ride i think. it was probably scarier than the fall that was soon to come. oh and before that, i was getting scared as hell waiting for the ride to start as we were all sitting there. and there was this girl in the queue staring at me, smirking her face off. all i could do was ignore her and clench my eyes shut, gripping tightly to the only armour protecting me from a freak accident, my shoulder bars. i wish to the high heavens that girl pissed her pants on the ride later. they also had some plastic screen shielding you entirely in front, and we theoretised that this was to funnel all bodily fluid ejections downward instead of allowing them to take their natural course outwards and all over the passers-by below. another theory emerged that it was to prevent various innocent winged creatures such as birds or insects from mistakenly flying into passengers, thinking they had a luxurious meal in store for them, or worse, thinking that this was the perfect spot to eject their bodily fluids. just an interesting aside.

and so we alighted with shaky looks but nonetheless the vigour was apparent in all our eyes. perhaps it's the euphoria of survival, of feeling so very much alive that makes these hairy rides such a hit.

and then it was lunch, a sordid affair fit for one of Jamie Oliver's fits. Jamie's Theme Park Lunches. what a hit that would be. our meal consisted of clumped spaghetti strands, i take the menu's word that those really WERE spaghetti strands, with unhealthily-red looking tomato sauce poured on top. this was, as the menu proclaimed, Spaghetti Marinara. where the Marinara in Spaghetti Marinara came from i had not a clue. neither, i think, did the cook. there was also a slice of pizza, huge, as expected. it also managed to be oily and dry at the same time, an unimaginable feat i expect. and tasted like dog food, not that i've ever tasted that before. it's weird when i say something tastes like another object or substance that noone in their sane mind would ever stick into their mouths. like how i say olives taste like car tyres. or when blood tastes like rusty metal. or when frozen mashed potatoes taste like cardboard. it just feels like how these would taste like, not that i've ever tried before. some weird sixth sense probably, a hidden talent as a Michelin-starred chef. lunch was over thankfully, and we hit a small ride, some cutesy swinging round a huge orange trip. which was actually scarier than expected since all that separated the flimsy metal frame of a chair that held me and an imminent horrible death was a slender metal bar strung across my lap. the chair was only help by two wires, and flipping the seat upside down or just enough to tip its occupant out was startlingly easy. hence we were swung round and round, me being fixed immobile, not daring to move an inch as the thought of falling out and perishing in a giant orange flashed back and forth in my mind. not a way to go clearly. just imagine the parting words on the headstone. finally we emerged into the sunlight, which was somewhat clouded by the greying sky. rain was imminent it seemed but not before we headed to our next stop, the Tower of Terror. after lots of debating about what the ride entailed, we made our way through the queue and were ushered into a spooky room. daddy and mommy were with us, so were auntie khim kiang and ah seng uncle. i was warning mommy of the ride, there were sudden drops and everything, could she handle it? somehow she managed her way in anyway. then we were shown some whacked story of a family disappearing from the lift of some Hollywood hotel and entering the Twilight zone where they were never seen again. and we about to enter the very same lift and trace their footsteps. so we were ushered again into an area, seated side by side, all facing the lift door. then it began. at first we all thought it should be ok, after all, the only safety precaution we had was a single belt across the lap. no shoulder bars, nothing. this ride wouldn't be at all scary. and then we were all elevated, with much noise and ado. then we were shook, the lift doors open to reveal ghostly figures of the family that disappeared, and we were unceremoniously dropped several metres downwards, screaming loudly. then the elevator proceeded to go up and down, at freaky speeds. then at one point the doors opened to show us the entire park, and cameras took snapshots before we plummeted downwards and up again and down again in complete darkness. at one point i didn't know whether we were falling or going up, then i realised it probably was the former because my heart seemed to have escaped out through my mouth, and not my butt. then it ended. i gripped the handlebars by my sides so tightly that i realised later it was the only thing that prevented me from being lifted upwards completely from the seat during the plunges, which happened to yt and some of the others. everyone was laughing at the parents, their expressions in the photos. and then everyone laughed at daddy cos he was telling everyone how his bag flew up during one of the drops, and luckily he had held onto it if not it would have flown up and met his or another unfortunate individual's head seconds later as gravity caught up with it. so ended the rides for the day. we stopped over for photos outside with the Tower of Terror as the backdrop, with us doing stupid shots and all. there was also this cool backdrop which was painted to look like the street carried on all the way down when it was actually just a painting. then there weren't any big rides left, and we were wondering what the hell to do since we were supposed to meet well after dinner for the coach to drop us back at the hotel. we caught up with some others as we stopped to watch a high school musical 3 performance. the male dancers were SUPER ... effeminate. erm. no more comments there. then we found out an advanced party was leaving early for the hotel. so we joined up. the numbers were so big in the end that the coach was hired to make an early drop, before coming back again at the previously appointed time. we killed time waiting for the coach by making our way back to Disneyland and watching the extremely boring parade. we've never bothered to watch the parade since the first time we stepped into a Disneyland park, and that day i fully understood the reasons why. yawning my head off, tired from the day's delights and stress, i was hard pressed to keep myself from spreading out on the floor and taking a nap. back into grizzly mode, and so was almost everyone else, we sat in disinterested silence while the more enduring of us took photos of the colourful floats and smiley characters. then the coach came and all energy was rekindled as we headed back. next came the problem of finding dinner, for we were left to our own devices that day, which meant we had to hunt food on our own. we settled for a trip to Target, then grabbing some grub on the way back. so it was that we went to Outback for dinner. had the lamb rack, which would be delightful to the locals but wasn't as lamb-y tasting as i wanted it to be. coupled with the fact that we neglected to include how the meals here were catered to the solid hearty appetites of big Westerners, dinner was an unhappy affair, especially for the gut.

all in all, the theme parks were still same old same old. with expensive souvenirs, only a few rides that could hold our interest and dreary food that seemed to come straight from the freezer, missing the preheating process somewhat and definitely absent when it was time to inject flavour and nutrition. but i noticed something, that Disneyland, especially, really was a fantasy land. it was amazingly detailed in creating a world so dream-like and fantastical as to attract so many people throughout the years with the promise of escaping reality. every single point of architecture was not left out in identifying with the theme. at indiana jones, i remeber how every single thing corresponded to the theme of the wild west, and that of hidden tombs and what not. the railings were all wooden posts and ropes, not metal to be seen. lighting was by means of flickering lamps hung by ropes winding across the ceiling. the floors, walls and ceilings were all rock and sand and dust, even realistic props like spiderwebs, abandoned carts, skeletons and insects were seen everywhere you looked. it was amazing how detailed the designers were. walking out some bridge somewhere in the place i saw the small stone statues of an owl and another creature i can't recall, sitting on stone pillars which people don't even shoot second glances at. every insignificant or small item i looked at was still perfectly in sync with the theme of its placement. stunning. it only hit me how fantastic Walt Disney was in creating this dream. and how fantastic the people behind the various parks were, except maybe for the ones in certain countries which we have all heard nasty rumours, such as long queues and poor service, about.

back to the hotel again, barely made it to the sofa-bed, slept for a while before showering and nestling into the sofa-bed again. woke up in the night and scooted over to real bed which i found fio and glo in. it seemed we adjusted to the time zone perfectly well.

to be continued when my wrists stopped aching....