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THE ISLAND| | And so the much planned weekend to The Island (a.k.a. Singapore) finally arrives. The ill effects of the previous two days had passed and I could look forward (hopefully) to this weekend trip. One hectic weekend trip.
A rather uneventful and long journey takes us from KL all the way down south. Three leaves from KL while picking up another from Seremban to complete the fellowship. The only interesting thing to happen was the half-fallen lamp post over at the causeway which seemed to have caused a jam. Yawn. We are Malaysian. What have we not seen in terms of road accidents ? This may have caused a delayed ETA over there, where we find ourselves stepping on Singapore soil only about 4pm, an hour off from our schedule arrival time. Once again, truly Malaysian.
The Tanjung Pagar train station looks just the same as it was close to a decade ago when I took my trip down here by train. And history repeats itself once we get out of the station and are immediately deemed lost. So putting aside any efforts to conceal ourselves from looking like Malaysian tourist, we pull out the map. It helps, and takes us to the 'nearest' LRT, I mean, MRT station. I forget I am in Singapore. We always knew an MRT station is safe refuge meaning we would be able to get to our destination no matter how. But then once we stepped out of the Bugis station, we are once again greeted with the familiar sight of unfamiliar location. Here comes the map to the rescue again. We probably stuck out like Malaysian sore thumbs by now.
We arrive at The Inncrowd Hostel, a cheap funky little place with lingering gwai-los around smack in the middle of Little India. A little verification with our passports and more payments later, we are official guests at The Inncrowd for the next 2 nights. With their tag line being "Any cheaper and we'd be sluts", you can be pretty sure of a fun time here. Unisex bathrooms are fun. Gwai-los lazing in their bunk beds. Free 30 minutes of Internet access. Foosball table. Free breakfast. Cool. And did I mention the many gwai-los hanging around ? Must be the booze they have there.
I think Yuin-Y realised our sense of lost and decided to call for local assistance. Well, not quite local actually. One Penangite friend by the name of Vinly, who studies here in Singapore. We should count our blessings still. After a little round of getting-to-know-you, we head out to meet another not-so-local called Francis. We must look really lost to require twice the assistance. But God bless their truly Malaysian soul for being there, as can be seen later.
First order of the day - food. Truly Malaysian. They bring us to this fish sort of place. Uh oh. Flashbacks of Manhattan Fish Market starts coming back. I do not feel so good again. So I decide to go vegetarian with the salad to mark my first meal in Singapore. That, or I was not willing to pay for Singapore priced food just yet. Nearby happens to be Clarke Quay, the place where I had hoped to check out collector shops once again like my last trip down. But my hopes are dashed as Clarke Quay has become this uptown clubbing and dinning locale. Guess I could not be geeky tonight. Still, we check out the flashy lightings and tons of gwai-los dinning on expensive cuisine. We stroll along the river side of Clarke Quay and Boat Quay, admiring the beautiful night scenery, the warm lights peeking our from behind trees which overlooked the river. The only thing was that we were not in love nor dating. Along the way Vinly make up some insults about these Singaporeans every 5 minutes or so, which had me concerned that some local might just come up and do a stab-and-run on poor Vinly. Thankfully that never happened, but it did not stop me from being 1 foot away from Vinly just in case some stray bullet might hit me. You can never be too careful, I always say.
And once again, the need for food prevails again. But not my need for food though. The gang decides to drop into McD to check out what these Singaporeans have different from us. This little thing called Fan-tastic rice burgers catches Joseph's and Jia Wern's attention. And so they start to sink their teeth into this tasty meal. It was probably the biggest mistake of their lives. The grimaces, the agony, the torment. I almost had pity for them if I was not laughing my head off at their sufferings. Sadist. Still, the human resolve is much to be admired, as by sheer will power Jia Wern takes the last bite of it. Or did he ? I cannot recall the details as I was still laughing.
After the nightmarish experience, we head out to the Singapore Amphitheatre. The night crowd was pretty large, with a make shift rock show going on on the outside and people hustling to and out of the centre. I wondered what would happen if I should just scream hysterically in the midst of the Singaporean crowd "Oh my gawd, I stepped on a chewing gum!". Over at the centre we decide to split up while the three dumb guys take a quick stroll around the place, only to find our attentions being caught by a movie collectible shop. My geekiness rears its ugly head once again. Star Wars posters, figures. LOTR merchandise. Awesome.
We duck back into another place for some drinks. Though I do not know if this place could be considered a drinking place. It is called something like Max Brener's, who I am now convinced is an evil genius bent on tormenting humankind. This place serves chocolate. Not your average dairy chocolate from Nestle or Hersey Kisses, but the strange classy sort. Italian thick chocolate, suckao, orchid flavoured chocolate. Suckao just looked like sucking weed to me. Orchid flavoured one just made me think twice about smelling orchids ever again. But the killing blow comes in the form of the Italian think chocolate. Sounds delicious ? Wrong. Three sips of this in a hug mug ( a mug ! not even a little cup ) later and I was reconsidering whether I still felt the same way towards chocolate anymore. The gang tried to help, but I suppose one can only take so much of thick chocolate. Like I said, this Max Brener must be evil to the bone.
Enough chocolate. So we head back and call it a night. Night itself was interesting enough while we could keep our eyes opened. Gwail-los boozing outside, playing foosball and just lazying around downstairs. Unisex toilets were 'interesting' with our not-so-conservative friends just strolling in and out of the place in their boxers. Tiredness gets the better of me so I had no time to get all shallow hormone charge male.
Day 2. Being the oh-so-holy Christians that we are, we scheduled our morning to attend church service at this church called New Creation Church at Suntec City. Our tour guides meet us at the front as they patiently tapped their feet while they waited for us sleepy heads to get out of the place. We meet a new friend, the purely Chinese Ricky. Probably out to give us another new experience, we board the bus to Suntec City. Vinly goes on about how we need to get there early because these Singaporeans queue up for seats at the service. Sure, big urban church, we got those back home too, nothing new. But then we get there and managed to get in, complete with stamp mark on your hands like you were heading into the club. Talk about God is in the house and getting down with it. Was Pink right when she sang God is a DJ ? Lo and behold, places were already booked with items on them. Bibles. Pamphlets. Water bottles. This just reminds me of primary days where we booked seats for friends. Like they say, if you cannot beat them, join them. We book our places with our items too. We then head out for the first item of day 2 which is once again - food. We try out nasi lemak here and its pretty nice and filling. We need nasi lemaks for breakfast anyway. Truly Malaysian.
And being truly Malaysian, we enter the service just on time. This Pastor Prince, complete with dyed hair, seems to packed a compact little message, it was like hearing a number of sermons in the past all rolled up into one captivating sermon. I did try to pay attention, but these dim lights just was not helping and I was 'admiring the ceiling' a number of times. Jia Wern just could not take his eyes of the ceiling and could be seen meditating upon the sermon which his eyes closed. So spiritual. After service is over, we nearly get a heart-attack. Holy God Almighty. Francis and Vinly was not kidding when they said people queued for this place. The crowd awaiting for the next service was even more then GSC 1 Utama's Wednesday night opening for King Kong. Culture shocked indeed. Joseph seemed almost convinced that Christ is coming today itself.
Next up - food again. Vinly goes on and on about these xiao long baos (or directly translated to be little dragon dumplings?) at this Chinese restaurant. They were nice, but I felt it was the same thing I had tasted over at 1 Utama some months back. And then we are off to the City Hall MRT station to make our way to Jurong East which takes us to the bus terminal for us to get to the Science Centre. Then along the way I meet fellow church member Joseph Yap (not Wong) and his family there. Small world.
Alright so this is what we came here for. The Art of Star Wars Exhibition. I planned months for this. Took leave for this. Spent my credit card to get us accommodations here. And here we finally are. We are so worked up that the outside display of toys seems to have got us for a near half hour. And we have not even started on the exhibition yet. Thankfully, we still managed to tear ourselves away from the toys and finally step into the exhibition.
A galore of all things Star Wars. The massive (and most expensive) exhibit, the Imperial Star Destroyer. Just look at the details on that model. And look over there - Ralph McQuarrie concept art ! Were those the real thing ? I took a very close look to verify. They were indeed. Original concept art that Ralph McQuarrie had painted with his bare hands. This is like an ancient artifact in the Star Wars history. Could not believe I was looking upon it. Ralph McQuarrie, you are still to me the Father of Star Wars Concept Art. I salute you. Without you there would be no Star Wars and Lucas would only have another Flash Gordon movie. God bless your creative soul.
And there were also life-sized models of Boba Fett, Artoo, Threepio, Chewbacca and of course, Darth Vader. A number of costumed could be seen as well, like the Imperial Guard, Count Dooku, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme. If only they had the post Geonosis arena Padme white jumpsuit. And based on them costumes and props, like Palpatine's prison chair, Natalie Portman and Ian McDiarmid must be pretty short people. Hollywood celebrity are not as large as they seem. Maybe they were right when they said the camera adds 20 inches.
More models, concept arts and replicas. So many items so little time. Then there was also the makeshift Foley studio where they got the visitors to try and be a part of the Battle of Endor scene. Visitors get to make the sounds of leaves rustling, foot stomping, metal grinded and stormtroopers being whacked silly. Aw, why did not they call for somebody to make the Ewok battle cries ? We all know I would have jumped at the opportunity without hesitation. Yee-cha-wa-wa. Elsewhere Jia Wern gets friendly with the macha tour guide and exchange some not-so family-oriented jokes in the midst of the tour.
By the time we had enough, I think we had spent almost 3 hours in there. We are suppose to get our money's worth anyway. Previous plans to visit Sentosa Island were know drenched in soaking rain, so we decided to take an evening stroll down Orchard Road, the shopping haven of Singapore. For me it was not a shopping haven, but rather a haven of 'another sort'. Ouch, my freaking eyes hurt everywhere I go.
Once again, food. This time Turkish Kebab. Filling it was, nevertheless. After that which we decide to go off venturing on our own, we stumble into Far East Plaza (I think), and find myself choking to death in the thick atmosphere of tasteless eastern urban fashion. So very la-la. Save me. Then Jia Wern longs for the Takashimaya Shopping Complex so we obliged. By this time I could not longer feel my legs. After some brisk walks around the place, time for some food recharge once again.
After a while we had enough of commercialism and capitalism, and decide to head back to the hostel. But then Little India seems alive with activity and we get curious. Hundreds of my Indian black brothers scour the streets of Little India. It is the Ponggol Festival, no wonder. All this new sights gets Joseph excited and accidentally lets loose a flash off the camera, which suddenly draws a dozen cautious stares from our Indian friends. And despite feeling like my legs were about to drop off, we feel adventurous and head to further surrounding areas. Not that there was much to be seen at midnight, so we finally head back to the hostel.
We planned a good night's rest, but back in the hostel proved to be quite eventful. First, Joseph and I tried out the foosball table. After a while into the game, a hot chick and her friend puts us up for a foosball game. Could we say no ? So we play. And get a trashing. They were Brazilian, which probably could explain the flare in a football game. Wait, Brazilian hot chick ? Sweet. But we were not interesting enough for them so they took off after a short chat. Elsewhere, Jia Wern being oh-so-MMU, is online at the PCs.
Later, this Middle Eastern guy drops by at the couch and chats us up. From Dubai he is, and goes on 'enlightening' us about his wonderful city and its ever abundance of good tasty beef, beef and more beef, all built from that black treasure known as oil. And he was not ashamed to admit. He sounds pretty well off, with his business dealings travelling. He even has a soft spot for our local Petaling Street and the treasures of different kind that we have. Do not call them 'pirated' goods, call them like our Dubai friend calls it, 'duplicates'. Truly Malaysian. Enough chat, we really go to bed this time.
Rise and shine, its the last day in Singapore. With a train to catch at 1pm, we wanted to make the best of the morning. Catch a very familiar Malaysian-like breakfast of roti canai, then we head to Bugis Junction to get our last dose of collector ism at a comic/collectibles shop. Jia Wern and I just soak in the whole fan boy-geek atmosphere. Alright, we had our fill and rush over to Sim Lim Square. Think of a Singapore version of Low Yat. Except more expensive. We were hoping ot leech some free game brochure, but time was against us. Grab a McD's ( no more fantastic this time), head back to the hostel, get our bags, hop into a taxi and get to the train station. Board the train and we are off home. So long Singapore. Until the next time you host something that we cannot get in Malaysia.
| | | Posted 1/16/2006 9:47 PM - 19 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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