Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The N.E.X.T Challenge 08: How Much Is Integrity Worth?

26th July 2008, Saturday

Well I'll get to the integrity part after describing the whole experience.

7pm: We took Albert/Huimin's car to Tampines North CC, where we were supposed to gather and set off. We checked in our stuff, and brought all the necessary stuff with us. The rest, including our wallets, handphones, extra T-shirts, were all sealed into trash bags and deposited with the people in charge. As I was the appointed team leader, I had to go inside the briefing room for a short briefing by Hyder, the VP of The NEXT Challenge (TNC). I saw Iskandar, also my JC classmate, walking around and discovered that he is also one of the committee members. Still as cheeky-looking as ever LOL. After the briefing, we waited for the invited guest of honour, Tampines MP Ong Kian Min to flag off and start the race.

9pm: It's like 300+ people scrambling out of the CC. Team MKG managed to make their way to the MRT and be one of the first few teams to just manage to catch the train that heads off to Boon Lay. Woo! I thought we had a very good start. Our first clue led us to Raffles Place MRT, the Chevron. I met an SCE friend, Haiquan, on the train. And I chatted with him and found that his company was looking for people. Therefore I got him to SMS me his email for me to send me resume to. LOL. Can even get a job lobang without a phone on me. So we reached Raffles MRT station and saw that our first task was none other than Sudoku! My favourite wahaha! The Sentinels (TNC personnel) used the tiles on the floor to mark out a Sudoku puzzle for us to solve. We went straight to figure out the solutions. Only Peiyi didn't do it cos she doesn't know how to play Sudoku. I copied the puzzle onto my notebook and started solving. But after solving the first round of 1 to 5, I realized that I copied the puzzle wrongly! Parallax error! Diao... so I recopied the puzzle and restarted. Time wasted. But then I managed to finish much faster than most people and therefore we got our clue to our next destination.

2nd CP: Singapore Indoor Stadium: Stadium Waterfront. That's what we thought. Therefore we took the MRT again and reached Kallang MRT station. We kept hearing the announcement by SMRT staff to remind all passengers not to run around the MRT station LOL. TNC committee sure kena complain lah. Anyway we wanted to take bus from Kallang MRT station to our destination, but it seems like the bus might take too long. Therefore we decided to walk there instead. Along the way we had other teams trying to overtake us. And anyway we didn't really run, whereas most of the other teams walked very fast. Sure lose lah haha. Once we reached the bridge that leads to the old Cozy Bay, which is now closed, we were given the task to cut out a Chinese character "里" from a coloured paper. Albert took up the responsibility and quickly snipped out that character to enable us to get our next clue.

3rd CP: Esplanade? We tried to take a bus from Kallang Stadium to Esplanade. However we waited for almost 20 minutes before we got the bus we wanted. Damn. So we reached the Esplanade, the area just beneath Nicole Highway. We were told that we were at the wrong station. Diao!? It was revealed that there had been some cock-up in the clues given to us. Therefore from that point onwards we had already lost. Lost the advantage. Lost time. Lost the race in fact. WTF?!? We were told to go to our next clue instead. Win liao loh.

The real 3rd CP: Ok so what else could we do? We then took a bus from the Esplanade to The Cathay. True enough we got the correct place. There were TNC participants and TNC staff at one corner, right next to the ticketing area. So we were given the task to blow those bubble thingy and make a human figure with the bubbles. It's been years since we played with such things. And it seems that the brand they use is very sticky! We could hardly blow nice bubbles with them. Somehow we managed to complete the bubble man and so we were given the clue to the next destination. We were also told that we only need to get a chop onto our Passport from the Sentinels, without having to complete the task at that checkpoint. Perhaps it was the bonus given to us for making us go to the Esplanade, which is actually wrong!

4th CP: Our next clue should be around Fort Canning Hill, which was either the ROM or some other place in it. While making our way there, the Singapore Art Museum was lit up with very beautiful lightings. Super chio graphics shone onto the whole of the building. And there were plenty of people all around the building taking pictures. Cool man. So we continued our ascent and after searching high and low on Fort Canning Hill, we made it to the next checkpoint. It was the gate right on top of the hill. We got the chop from the Sentinel in charge, without having to go through the task. The task was to cut out a piece of paper so that the whole team can go through the piece of cut-up paper. Phew! So we hurried to our next clue. It was the Esplanade! This time it's definitely correct. So we made our way back to the Esplanade by walking all the way past Timbre, which we heard some live band performing as usual.

5th CP: Esplanade. So we were back to the Esplanade checkpoint. We had to do three different tasks. Spin a top for more than 5 seconds. Skip a rope for 20 rounds. Kick a chateh (is that how u spell it?) for more than 10 times! Siying completed the rope-skipping easily. Albert made the top spin more than 5 seconds. And I tried kicking the chateh. It's been years since I played chateh. The last time was in the army, when I played with platoon-mates all the time, in army boots. Looks like this time, using the SAF track shoes to kick wasn't as easy as I thought. I even took out my shoes and tried kicking with only my socks on. Even worse! Finally I made the 10th kick in the last minute of our given 10 minutes. Phew! So we got our next clue. We walked all the way to our next destination!
6th CP: Masjid Sultan Mosque. This mosque was somewhere near Lavendar MRT station. We walked all the way from the Esplanade to the mosque, after making some unnecessary turns. The next task was a puzzle. None of us could solve it, but Albert eventually managed to solve it, AFTER our time of 10 minutes was up! ZZzz... What a waste! Therefore we had to serve a penalty of 15 mins and therefore we sat there resting our tired legs. The muscles right at the back of the knees of my legs had already started feeling sore after the 2nd CP! WTH! Haven't been exercising lately wahahha! I was practically walking with pain every step of the way since the 2nd CP! Jialat siah. Now all my muscles still ache. So next up, we went to the last CP: Mustafa.
7th CP: Mustafa Shopping Centre. Here we are again. Another puzzle. This time it's a question: What goes round the world but stays in a corner? Diao. Got us stuck, and therefore another 15 mins penalty. The answer is stamp! DiaozZz... That was the last CP. Therefore we made our way to the first Relak Corner. We still had plenty of time left, therefore I tried to confirm with the Sentinel at Mustafa whether the time we reach RC1 affects the positioning in any way. He said confidently that it doesn't matter at all, but in actual fact it really DOES! Therefore we took our time and slowly walked to take the NR7 to Kallang MRT station, which in fact we should have rushed back asap. We waited more than 20 mins for NR7 to arrive. There were other teams on the bus too. So we got back to Kallang MRT station and made our way to PA.
Relak Corner 1: We reached PA and reported at 4am. Had just about 2 hours of rest/sleep before we need to assemble and set off for Day 2. We were in position 38 out of a total of about 66 teams. KNS. Must have been the cock-up earlier on. Otherwise I'm sure we'll be in the top 30 at least. What's more, we didn't use any of the $30 we had on us, neither did we use any of the 3 x 2 sets of help cards to complete the first phase of the race. And best of all, we walked most of the journey, instead of running. If we did all those, we may even be in top 10. But too bad, we lost any chance of winning top 3 anyway, since we were so disadvantaged right at CP1. We figured that it was the mistake by the Sentinels at CP1, by giving us the wrong clue and thus the wrong destination, which led to us being disadvantaged right at the beginning.

Anyway everyone slept all over the PA main building like refugees. We found a spot outside the building, but on the tiled floor area. I couldn't really sleep but just somehow rested my tired legs. At 5:30am, the team leaders had to gather for a short briefing by Hyder. We were divided into positions 1-20, 21-40, 40+. 1-20 Had a headstart and left at 5:45am. 21-40 could only set off at 6am. There were some groups from the 21-40 and 40+ group that actually went to PA twice, and therefore they were given a bonus "upgrade". Therefore they also were able to leave at 5:45am. I found it super unfair for my team to not have been upgraded and therefore confronted Hyder to clarify on the unfairness. Somehow the reason he gave me wasn't satisfactory. I went to him a second time to demand an explanation for the unfairness and still he gave me an unsatisfactory explanation. I still wasn't satisfied and therefore confronted the other official who was wearing black polo T-shirt. I think I shouldn't pester Hyder anymore cos I think he must be feeling a bit sianz since I'm his friend but there's nothing he could do to help me. I argued with the black polo guy and STILL couldn't get any satisfactory answer from him. He persuaded me to just carry on with the race instead of wasting time talking with him. Yeah the 21-40 groups had already left but I was still arguing with him LOL. Damn what a disorganized race. There wasn't much reason for us to chiong anyway, I thought. Too unfair for my team already. So I went back to Team MKG at 6+am and so we set off for Day 2.

1st CP: Kent Ridge Park. The clue was pretty obvious, because all you need to do is to pick out all the capital letters from the few sentences. They spelled Kent Ridge Park. However Peiyi thought that the place was at NACLI, the PA place for training leadership and stuff. We walked to Kallang MRT station and took the train all the way to Outram and changed to NEL to get to HarbourFront MRT station. There we took a bus to the place where Peyyong, Peiyi and I once got down to get to KRP. From there we walked quite a long way to NACLI. Somehow another group followed us, only to be fooled by us. We were at the wrong place! Then we continued down the road and climbed up the almost 45 degrees slope. Took us quite a while to reach the top. Albert was so fit that he could pull Huimin up and still were faster than the other 3 of us. Wahaha! Once we reached the checkpoint, we were split into two groups. One group had to make a poodle out of a balloon. The other group had to search for another checkpoint to get a tattoo done and then come back. Therefore Albert and Huimin went to get the tattoo. Luckily Peiyi had some experience in balloon art, and therefore made a super nice dog almost immediately. We got our next clue, which we thought was at the place I took many pictures with some statues. When we reached there, we realized it was wrong! The gate to the place was locked! Therefore we thought again and finally concluded it was Labrador Park! And so there we went...
2nd CP: Reached Labrador Park at 840hrs. We had to take a bus after walking quite a distance from the wrong "checkpoint" to the area outside Labrador Park. There was a row of hawker stalls selling very nice food. We then grabbed a taxi to take us all the way into Labrador Park, cos we figured that the journey was freaking long. Went spent our first $3.20 on that cab. So we went in and completed the task there, which was rather easy. It was to switch the places of three cups on the left and three cups on the right, with only a square in between them. You can only move one cup forward or jump over another, but not backwards. Took us less than 5 minutes to complete the task. So we were told that we only have half an hour to reach the next Relak Corner, which was in Pasir Ris! The clue given was "93, Pasir Ris Drive 3". We figured that it should be the Elias CC. Best! Half an hour how to get to Pasir Ris!? Therefore we decided to just take it easy and just walk all the way out to take the fastest bus to the nearest MRT station. Peiyi met someone familiar at the bus-stop lol. Then we took the bus that brought us to Raffles MRT station and from there we took the train all the way to Pasir Ris MRT station. Then we grabbed a taxi from White Sands' taxi stand to take us to RC2.

Relak Corner 2: We reached RC2 in the nick of time, cos if any later than 10:15am, we would have been discontinued from the race. We still had to get a penalty of 15 minutes for reaching after 9:15am. The moment we reached the CC, we saw other teams already setting off. What's worse is that we can only move off after resting at RC2 for 45 mins. Hyder and Iskandar were there and therefore I took the chance to take a 98S18 mini class photo with them lol.
1st CP: We got our next clue at 10:49am and decided it should be a chapel in Changi. However there was another place which we thought could also be the answer. Therefore we decided to use one of those Bingo! cards to determine the actual answer. We haven't used any of those help cards at all lol. Therefore I approached Hyder and gave him the Bingo! card. So he gave us the answer, which was what we had thought. Therefore we set off and grabbed a cab. The taxi-driver happened to have just drove some of the other teams to other places. In fact, we got to know that he just took a team to the final checkpoint at Kovan. They finished at 9+! WTH!? We thought that it was highly impossible. Oh well... Anyway we reached the Changi Chapel and had to complete a task. However we were told we could use a card to avoid the task, which was to take off all our shoes and socks and fill up some buckets with water and pass them around blah blah blah. Didn't actually know what the game was about, but we used the Bingo! card to skip the whole task. Woohoo! Then we went to the next clue at Bedok Reservoir in another cab.

2nd CP: Bedok Reservoir. We touched down right outside the condo outside the reservoir. I was the last to get off the cab and was asked by Siying whether I took the change. Huh? What change? I didn't know I was the one supposed to get the change at all. Best thing is, the driver drove off without returning us the $4 of change!!! WTF!!??! ~!#!#@$@#^%#%& Bloody hell freaking axxhole taxi-driver. So dishonest! Left me scolding the shit out of him for the rest of the race lol. We dashed to the area full of people. At the point, we were split into two groups again. This time two people had to kayak around a floating buoy and back. The other three had to get to Damai Primary School and get the motto. Therefore Albert and I did the kayaking. It was the first time I kayaked, some more at the very reservoir I drink water from. It was rather simple and not dangerous at all. We had life-vests on anyway. However water got into my pants and made everything wet wet wet. ZZZzzz... After less than 5 mins of kayaking, we went back and dried ourselves. The three girls finally came back after about 10 mins. They did pretty well already, because we thought they would walk all the way lol. Thus we completed our task and were given the clue to the next checkpoint. The Sentinel at the checkpoint gave us very big hints and thus we headed off to Pasir Ris again, at Pasir Ris Park.

3rd CP: Pasir Ris Park. We took bus 5 right outside Bedok Reservoir, but got off one stop later to change to bus 65 instead because taking 5 would be slower. So we headed for Tampines MRT station and took the train to PR. There we walked over to PRP and found the checkpoint with plenty of Sentinels. Task: Take pictures of all 4 shelters inside the mangrove swamp and also of one crab, within 15 minutes. So Albert and I ran as fast as we could and took the pictures. My legs felt like many hammers hammering away on my muscles already! But I think I didn't run as fast as when I was doing IPPT 2.4km run! Albert was so fit that he ran all the way and didn't really pant as much as me. OMG he's strong and I'm super weak! Wahahah! Thus we completed ALL the checkpoints for the whole race. And so we made our way to the bus-stop that will bring us to the final destination.
Last CP: Kovan Interchange? Dunno what name lah. But I was so exhausted that all I know is we'll finish all this within the next two hours or so. We took bus 53 and got off half an hour later. What?!? Still need to walk!? Everytime we rested, the next moment when we get up again, our legs feel like glue had hardened inside our legs, and any attempt to straighten our legs will mean excruciating pain. OUCH! Still, we made our way to Kovan interchange and finish up the final task. Blow a balloon each and sit on it until it bursts! Luckily Sharon wasn't with the team, otherwise we no need to finish the race liao wahhaha!

Finally!!! We sounded the gong to finish up the 18-hour long overnight race. OMG this must be the craziest+siong-est thing I did in my life. Even round island cycling wouldn't compare with this thing. We're glad we finished the whole race without cheating. All throughout the race, we thought of how we could actually cheat. But integrity first! Ya so now we talk about integrity. Integrity 可以吃的 meh? The winning team were like so big-sized and can hardly squeeze into a cab. Neither did they look like they could run even a short distance. Ok maybe they could, but however we calculated, it still is quite impossible for them to finish the race at 10:18am!! Oh well... maybe next year we will form another Dream Team to grab the $3000. This time we know how to play and how to cheat, I mean, make use of everything to our advantage. Hehehe...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Monday Blue Blacks

Blue blacks? Ya got quite a few on my legs due to the NEXT Challenge held over the weekend. Can hardly move around without aching my leg muscles. Luckily my hands are still in working condition and therefore could still do some typing. However my back, and every muscle from the waist down seem to be over-strained from the strenuous 18-hour long mental and physical group challenge called The N.E.X.T Challenge 08. Holy crap. Never felt so tired mentally and physically before. Even 24km route march was more relaxing. Anyway this post will not mention much about the challenge, cos a new post will give a full account of the whole experience.

25th July 2008, Friday

DotA time! It's been like at least three months I think, since I played DotA with the DotA gang at H.I.G.H. We had the usual players. And as usual Jump owned us like mad. Then we had breakfast at Feifei as usual. Reached home at 7am. Die liao loh, slept for only 4 hours before I had to wake up to go for cousin Vivian's house-warming at Punggol. Not enough sleep how to go for the NEXT Challenge? Wahahha!

26th July 2o08, Saturday

Went to Vivian's new home at Sengkang Punggol. Woah her unit is actually right next to Melvin's (her husband's) brother's unit! So nice sia. Two families of brothers on the same block same floor. Vivian's old friend's unit is also somewhere on the same block but different floor. Melvin's sister-in-law's cousin's unit is ALSO in the same block! OMG!

Anyway Vivian's house is very nicely decorated. We can even see the Singapore Flyer from her windows. The unit is fully ventilated cos there is absolutely nothing within a few kilometres from her windows. It was so windy that when we sat in the living room, it felt as if there was a huge fan blowing above our heads.

There was one study/computer/toy room whereby all of Vivian's stuffed toy collection was piled up into a corner. LOL. Vivian's little ones Reina and Xavier climbed into a small playhouse full of coloured balls. So cute! Even cousin Wilson climbed into it wahaha!

So we had the catered lunch of the usual stuff, sat around and watched TV. And we chatted until about 3+ before we went home. Started preparing my stuff for the NEXT Challenge, and even tried to take a short nap before moving off to meet MKG people at Tampines MRT. GOGOGO!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Time To Update

Nothing much happened these days. So here are the updates for the past one week or so.

19th July 2008, Saturday

Went for the briefing for the N.E.X.T Challenge 2008 at Tampines West CC with Siying. And guess who I saw? Hyder, my JC classmate. He's working at PA as an internal auditor and joined the CC's floorball team. Somehow he ended up as the VP of this N.E.X.T Challenge committee. Cool man. The briefing was done by Hyder himself. Nice presentation. Looks like it'll be great fun this coming weekend.

Then Siying and I went to look for Peiyi at her workplace at Kallang. We became part-time volunteer workers by packing biscuits into packs of 300g each. Luckily I brought my PSP to play songs while we packed those biscuits. Then Peyyong also arrived, but there was nothing left for him to do. There was a piece of mirror in the store which I tried the fingernail method of testing whether the mirror was a see-through from the other side. Somehow I reversed the logic and thought that the mirror was a normal mirror. Then Peiyi revealed that it IS actually a see-through mirror. Therefore here's the REAL method: Put your fingernail on the mirror. If it touches its image, then the mirror is a SEE-THROUGH. If there's a distance between your nails, then it's a normal mirror.

We lazed around until 7+ cos Peiyi was still busy. In the end we contacted Yaokun to meet us at HarbourFront. We did meet him there, but our final decision was to have laksa steamboat at a restaurant we saw when we last went for Henderson Wave exploration. So we took Yaokun's brand new "xiao hong" to the restaurant and had a brand new experience. Actually the laksa steamboat wasn't anything spectacular. The laksa gravy was also, hmm, normal.


It was ala carte. The food items to be thrown into the steamboat included all those normal items. Fishball, crabsticks, etc... So after the hearty meal, we decided to continue with our plan of walking through Henderson Waves, at night.

It just rained before we started the walk, therefore the air was cool and refreshing. But then again, we just had a very full meal of laksa steamboat, so it was quite a chore to walk up and down the slopes. We covered the whole stretch of Henderson Waves, reached Alexandra Arch and then all the way back.

The camera caught me in the midst of teleporting away.

Took several shots along the way. No tripod, so had to make do with whatever railings I could find to stabilize my shots.

Then we kena the unexpected. It was just past 12 midnight, and the lights along Henderson Waves started closing section by section. Diao... So we were left making our way out of Henderson Waves in the dark. Luckily the moonlight was bright that night. It lit the whole of the path. Kinda eerie but there were five of us walking together so it was pretty ok. So we made our way out of Henderson Waves and back into the park and back to Xiao Hong. Next up, durians at Geylang!

Actually it was the first time I stopped at Geylang just for durians. The guys bought a D24 durian I think, which cost right about $24. Awesome! We wanted to go for tau huay but it was already closed, therefore we made our way home instead. Damn!

12th July 2008, Saturday

赤壁 (Red Cliff) totally rocks! It's really one of the blockbusters you've gotta watch this year! John Woo was the director of this movie. And also featuring the star-studded cast of Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Lin Chi-Ling, Vicky Zhao Wei etc. The 2.5hrs show didn't even reach the actual battle of Red Cliff itself, but it sure built up a great atmostphere and a good prelude to the actual battle, which is part two of this 2-part blockbuster, to be shown next year. Can't wait for it. I met with the usual people, Yaokun, Peyyong, Peiyi and Siying at Century Square's cinema for the show.

Met Malau and his gf at Tampines Mall's Mac. He said he also went to watch Red Cliff, with Doong and Kiat. Then I also met Keng Yew, my ex-ST colleague. He seems to be very happy at his new workplace as a wealth management consultant, or was it a research analyst or something. In any case, it's definitely better than where we were eh?

Monday, July 21, 2008

I Saw The Sign

Song 12...

Song No. 12: All That She Wants
Artiste: Ace of Base

Album: Happy Nation/The Sign
Released: 1992

Fun Facts: Another one of those songs I heard back in primary school days. It was one of the most popular tunes to be heard everywhere. This song is also Ace of Base's first single, which almost made it to the top of the US charts, but eventually only made it to number 2. The beat and background music reminds us of the 90's kind of classic sound. Simple yet catchy.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

台湾之旅第一天

已经拖了那么久,我终于开始写我的台湾之旅的一切过程。Hehehe. 其实应该叫“"台北之旅”,因为整个旅游都是在台北市,but never mind!


台北之旅第一天:6月17日, 星期二, 美食日(其实每天都是美食日,hahaha!)


一到达台北机场,我们(Me, Kah Wai, Wing Kin, Kah Wai's two cousins)便程搭旅行社安排的minivan到酒店,叫做"福君海悦大饭店" or "Fortune Haiyatt Hotel"。它的地点是在台北市中心的"台北车站/Taipei Main Station"(MRT Station)附近。我们的房间是812和813。我们男生在812号,而且有三张床。房间看起来还不错。有趣的是,从睡房可以直接由一片半透明的墙看到浴室里冲凉的人的影子。还好不是完全透明。Hahaha! 我们一摆好行李便冲向MRT去了。

我们先是由一个象是CityLink的"台北地下街"走到台北车站。我们并没有逛地下街的商店,因为真的是琳琅满目,什么都有卖。到了台北车站,看到的是类似新加坡的City Hall MRT Station的画面。都是一样人潮汹涌。我们便到一个悠游卡(EasyCard)售卡机购买价值NT$500的悠游卡(就象EazyLink Card一样)。买了卡,我们便搭捷运(台北人把MRT称为捷运)到我们的第一站:西门盯

一踏出地铁站,给我的感觉有点象跟我上一次从日本的Shibuya Station走出来的感觉非常相似。看到周围都是五颜六色的billboard和大厦。我们先到附近的西门红楼去看看。其实是个小剧院,也没什么好看。我们在它的大厅绕了一圈就出来了。然后我们沿着西门盯那条街走着,感觉也是跟走在Shibuya的感觉一样。都是两排的商店,卖的都是一些美食和最流行的服装。第一个任务就是寻找我们的MUST EAT LIST的阿宗面线。哇!一提到阿宗面线我就垂涎三尺了。味道真的是一极棒!真的难以形容。总之就是到了台北西门盯的话,是个非吃不可的小吃。小碗40元(~S$2)。大碗55元(~S$3)。我们的策略是不要第一个美食就把肚子给填饱。一定要留一些位来品尝其它的小吃。所以我们三个大男人便分享了一碗大碗的面线。Kah Wai的两个female cousins也share了大碗的面线。

接着,我们就分了两组人各走各的路。我和Kah Wai和Wing Kin就随便走走,也随便式了其它的小吃。走累了便去了一间奶茶店。我们到了二楼歇了好一阵子。我叫了一杯strawberry smoothie。OMG!没想到是那么大一杯。

接着,Kah Wai的cousins也上来喝水和休息。歇完后,我们在夜间的西门盯再绕一些,然后就搭MRT到我们的下一站:士林夜市


我们搭到剑潭站便下车了。然后走不到五分钟就到达士林夜市。哇!真的不得了。那里更是人山人海。而且当天只不过是周日。我这里就长话短说。我吃的东西有:香炸臭豆腐(NT$45 for 12粒)、胡椒饼(NT$45)、豪大大鸡排(NT$50)、豆奶豆花爽(NT$45)。当然不是我一个人吃完这些东西啦。填饱肚子后,我们就搭MRT回到台北车站,然后走路回酒店。

其实在MRT上摆了很多海报叫人们要让位给老幼妇残。很多都非常搞笑。在途中我们经过很多24小时营业的minimart。就象我们这里有7-11和Cheers。那里有至少四五种这样的minimart。在7-11的玻璃窗上看到一张有趣的招聘海报。

Friday, July 11, 2008

Seven Eleven

And so here comes Song Number Eleven on this Seven Eleven day.

Song No. 11: Love, Me
Artiste: Collin Raye

Album: All I Can Be
Released: 1991

Fun Facts: Nothing much fun to mention about this song. But this song is a popular choice to be played at funerals. I didn't realize that the title itself is "Love, Me" with a comma, and not "Love Me". It actually means the signing off of the letter that the grandmother in the song is writing, and not what I always thought that the line was telling someone to "love me". Why would anyone sign off a letter using "me"? Hmm... The whole chorus is singing about the contents of a letter that the grandmother wrote to the grandfather in the song. Very meaningful lyrics.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Rewind Rewind

Slacking from work and also slacking from posting. Wahaha~!

9th July 2008, Wednesday

Went to meet up our old FDS guys at HarbourFront. It's been years since I met Yipeng and Jarvis. Ronnie, Zhangjing and me met up with them and together the five of us went to Dragon Gate Restaurant. It's also been years since I've been there to have buffet. Think it must be the first time I went there for dinner buffet, because the previous visits were buffet lunch, which is dim sum buffet. The dinner buffet consists of lots of Chinese dishes, including famous dishes like shark's fin soup, chilli crab, pepper crab, 麦片虾, etc. It came to about $28 per person. Quite ok a price for the dishes I guess. So we chatted over everything, about ICT, RT, army days etc. Wasn't meant to be a large FDS outing. So perhaps next time we can include more people.

After dinner, no plans whatsoever, therefore we ended up choosing any movie which was available at that time. Therefore we decided on "The Strangers", a not so famous movie starring the so famous Liv Tyler. It was a disastrous decision eventually. The movie was sh*tty. Quite a few scares here and there, but not much on the plot. A very low budget film with even fewer actors in it. Lesson learnt. Never ANYHOW decide on a movie even if it's the only movie available. Must check out the ratings at least. Oh well anyway it was just a meeting with the old pals so it's still an ok outing. Movie part can be excluded lol.

4th July 2008, Friday

It's one of those outings which are extraordinary. Not just the usual meeting up for dinner or movie, cos the MKGians have done that million times. Sharon actually met up to play board games with her other friends on several outings. So this time we went to the airport @ T2 for a board games outing. This time Huimin joined us finally. She hasn't been free to join us for a long time. Then there was the usual Peyyong and me, as well as Sharon and Yaokun. I was introduced to this card game called Citadels. Looks kinda boring but it's actually a great strategy game, my favourite genre of games. The gameplay and the cards were pretty similar to Magic cards. Many different types of cards with different abilities. Cool game! And so we played from 9+ to almost 1am. In between or rather during the whole session, the gluttons kept munching on goodies bought from the Starbucks outlet which we were playing at, as well as from Burger King, which was just next door. We managed to occupy a large table just big enough for the 5 of us. And also I brought the Taiwan souvenirs to distribute to them. Huimin also brought her Hong Kong souvenirs to distribute to us. It seems like everytime we will get souvenirs from all over the world almost everytime we meet up. LOL! Another fun MKG outing.

28th June 2008, Saturday

Another wedding invitation. This time it's my Hall 4 Blk 22's very own couple's wedding. It's the start of a new phase in life for Jialiang and Xiuhui. Both of them are considered my seniors. The wedding is held at Grand Plaza Park Hotel. This must be the 3rd or 4th time I went to a friend's wedding dinner. \$_$/ More to come... Anyway the crowd there are pretty much the older folks from the generation when I was a Year 1 and Year 2 in Hall 4. The people from my block are also mostly my batch or older. The only person from my batch who attended the wedding dinner is Don. Woah Don is getting rounder everytime I meet him LOL. Really 发福 sia. Guess he'll be next from our block to get married. There were the older guys like Zhiwei, Mingliang, even Chin Neng Kon. Philip of blk 23 from my batch was even the MC for the night, together with Bevelyn. I even saw Chye Heng! The catnrice dude is a colleague of Jialiang. Every girl on her wedding night is really the most beautiful one around. They must be really blessed to have found each other.

So the dinner ended and Don offered to give me a ride home, but somehow Yumin was just next to us and offered to give me a ride home instead since she stayed in Bedok. Haven't really talked to Yumin much but I guess it should be good to chat a bit during the ride home. We've been blockmates for quite a while but hardly ever talk. It seems that she's working in Hitachi, the place where Mummy is also working at. But being an engineering student, she's working in a non-engineering related job. And the pay is a measly $2.Xk. However she's driving her very own new car. Forgot which model but I think it's a Hyundai. But she shares the cost of the car with her mother. Best is that she lives in Bedok and works in Hitachi, just a few stops of bus ride away! So she doesn't even drive to work. I must get a job so near also!


Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Song No. 10: Right Here Waiting
Artiste: Richard Marx

Album: Repeat Offender
Released: 1989

Fun Facts: The moment the name Richard Marx is mentioned, the one song that comes to my mine would definitely be Right Here Waiting. It is also his best-selling single, going platinum on October 16, 1989. Also one of the most prolific love ballads to fill the airwaves ever so often. Never knew the song was soooo old. I was only in primary 2 when this song was released. If I remember correctly, this song was even used by my secondary school class for Talentime or something.