Alert: Blog down for next 2 weeks!

Woohoo! The long-awaited trip is finally here! To Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Monteray Bay, Yosemite, San Fran and beyond!

It’s been a long time since I watched the news or even read the newspaper. When I was in Singapore, I would still catch the repeat telecast of the Channel 8 news even though I was already very tired after working OT. Further, I would at least flip through The Straits Times before I went to bed. It used to be my way of relaxing before I slept.

After I come to the U.S., I had not been watching or reading the news. The first time I watched the news here a few months back, I was appalled. I decided for my own well-being, I should stop watching it.

Today, after being ignorant for such a long time, I watched the news again. And to my dismay, this was what I saw:

“One black man stabbed a bus driver after they argued about whether the black guy paid the bus fare. A 15 year old boy was murdered by a 15 year old girl. A man was released after 6 years in prison for an alleged rape. When he was arrested, he was only 16. This man was finally acquitted of rape after the DNA test taken then was found to be inaccurate. This young man lost his childhood while the real rapist is still at large.”

With such daily doses of murder, rape and misfortunes, why would I still want to keep myself abreast of the latest happenings? Watching the news would only make me petrified and depressed especially these are real incidents that happen everyday around me.

In Singapore, if there is a murder case, it will be on the news for weeks. Everyone would be discussing about it. It will be the chitchat topic during lunch with colleagues. But over here, it is usually reported today and forgotten tomorrow. No one really talks about it. There are just too much such occurrences that they don’t matter no more.

Come to think of it, I have never heard my colleagues discuss about such issues. I only hear them chat about basketball, baseball and American football among other stuffs.

Giam Kana @ work again

Eating lunch at the park shops (a food court near office) can easily set me back by US$6 and mind you, no drinks included. And you even have to give tips to eat Chinese food. It is really expensive eating out in the U.S. When I was back in Singapore, a meal would at most cost S$4 (with tou hua some more) and for S$7, you can even have tepanyaki, Japanese or Korean food at the food court.

Furthermore, working in the Tanjong Pagar area, I could save a lot of money on food. The food at the hawker center is so cheap with a plate of nasi lemak, consisting of rice, huge chicken drumstick, sunny-side-up, fish, ikan bilis and peanuts and loads of sambal chili, costing only a mere S$2.

I could still remember when I first started working, with my miserable pay and huge student loan to repay, in order to save money, whenever my colleagues asked where we should go for lunch, I would always say, “No need to ask me. I am sure to say market. I don’t want to spend more than $2 on my meal.” Yes, I have been giam kana even before I came to the U.S.!

Why would I want to spend so much on food by going to the food court instead of the hawker center when the food at the former taste better than those from the latter. What’s more, a lot of the food comes from award winning stalls with many of them boasting certificates from “Makan Sutra", “Yummy King” and “Cheng Ren Zai Zi”.

But now that I come to the U.S. even if I want to spend that S$6 - S$7, I can’t get anything decent. It would always be pizzas, fast food, Mexican or Americanized Chinese food. Not only are they expensive, they are extremely unhealthy too especially the Chinese food which is always so salty.

Neo had been telling me how much he had saved by bringing home-cooked food for lunch. He would usually cook at night after he comes back from working OT and brings the food to his client’s place the next day. Not only did he save money, the food is much healthier too.

So for the first time today, I brought home-cooked food to work. Nope, I did not specially cook it so that I could bring it for lunch. It was after much urging from Neo that I decided that I should bring the leftover from yesterday dinner to work.

What’s on the leftover menu? Rice with sambal kangkong. Though simple, it is simply delicious! (trying to praise myself indirectly.) I am really glad I “tabao” instead of throwing them away. So much so that it triggered me to write this blog entry. After I come back from the California trip, I am going to make sure I cook extra during dinner so that I can bring the extras to work the next day. This will definitely help my wallet to recover from the trip. Giam kana at work again…

GYM

2 months after I stopped going gym, (actually I haven’t really got started before I gave myself the excuse that I needed to study hard for my exams) I decided to go to gym again on Monday. I had been telling myself to build up my stamina before the Grand Canyon trip to ensure that I will be fit for the long and tedious trek. But now that we are so close to the trip, I still haven’t made any improvement yet.

I told Tim to make sure he joins me just in case I chao geng again. Well, you must be thinking, “Gym only mah, what’s there to write about?” Here’s an account of what happened:

1800: Reached home, started cooking.
1900: Finished cooking, started eating.
1925: Finished eating, started washing dishes.
1945: Finished washing dishes, we started talking

Tim said, “How about we take a nap first before going to the gym. Anyway, we cant go to the gym straight away. We need time to digest our food first. Let’s sleep till 9pm?”

I replied, “A nap sounds good, I am sleepy too. But we don’t need to sleep for so long. Let’s wake up at 830pm instead.”

Tim then said, "Ok lor, but seriously we can't exercise so fast after eating. We need to wait a little longer."

Both of us then slept….I woke up at exactly 830pm when the alarm went off. Tim continued to sleep. So I thought I would just let him sleep till 9o’clock instead. Just so happened that there was an interesting show on BBC America, (They should have a Channel 8 America here too. I miss Mandarin drama serials!) so I thought I would finish watching it before going to the gym.

2130: Show finished. Since Tim was still sleeping and I felt so motivated to go to the gym for the first time in months, I decided to go ahead without him.

At the gym…

2135: Started to do some stretching.
2140: Went up onto the treadmill.
2143: I am out!

Yes, I only lasted 3 short minutes! And it was not because I wanted to give up. I had difficulty breathing. It was definitely not because I wanted to chao geng again! (cos the first time I went to the gym with Tim and Wen, they said I kept chao genging by giving the excuse that my shoes laces kept becoming loose)

This time round, it was different. I felt that I was almost going to get a cardiac arrest if I did not stop immediately.

So I came down. Took several deep breaths and rested. While I was resting, Tim came down. Seeing that even he was making the effort to exercise, I was determined to continue with my work out.

2155: Started on the step machine
2201: I am out again!

Well, I felt I couldn’t continue anymore so I had to stop. My face turned green. I rested. After around 15 minutes, Tim said he wanted to head back home. By then, I thought I was feeling better. I started walking. I felt nauseous.

Tim had to open the mailbox. I waited for him along the corridor. I couldn’t stand properly without leaning against the wall. He seemed to take forever to get the letters. (actually I think he only took less than a minute).

We went up the elevator. And the walk back home seemed to take forever too. Our apartment is the 2nd last apartment along the corridor.

Tim opened the door. I looked at him and said I wanted to puke. The next moment, all my dinner was out. Shouldn’t have bothered to cook and eat. Wasted my time and effort. I should have listened to Tim that we should rest longer before going to gym. But how would I know that almost 2 hours after dinner, the food would still not be fully digested? Oh well…

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Moral of the story: Next time anyone asks me to go gym, I will just say I just had dinner, cannot run. It’s not that I want to chao geng. But I have had an experience of puking after gym due to indigestion. So Tim, don’t say I always give lotsa excuses for not going to the gym ya? This reason is definitely valid! Yeah!

Shen San Antonio AGAIN?!!

Nay, we are not going to San Antonio again any time soon nor am I going to write about our San Antonio trip. So much has already been told by Tim and Neo (check out “Houston Egg”) about our long weekend. Let me talked about what I found out about those who went for the trip instead:

Zing
Never knew she is such a shopaholic. She looks like one who will scrimp and save. How wrong I was! As Tim mentioned, Zing and Neo shopped from 11am till the shops closed at 9pm and Zing still complained that she did not have enough time to shop. She maintained that she only managed to cover the Tanger outlets which occupy a smaller area compared to the Prime outlets that are just across the street. She still had a lot of things she wanted to buy but did not get a chance to.

And to prove that she is a shopaholic indeed, check out her latest blog entry. She just went shopping again today!

Neo
He always claims that he doesn’t really like shopping. But guess what? He bought 4 pairs of shoes at one go and spent more than US$400 just on that shopping trip in San Marcos. Neo is giam kana? I don’t think so.

Celia
She is the scaredy cat of the group. She accompanied us to the Six Flags Fiesta Texas and I really literally meant that she just accompanied us. She refused to take any of the more thrilling rides and absolutely no “Superman” or “Rattler” for her. She just patiently waited for us to go from one roller coaster to another under the blazing hot sun until she got a headache. Can you imagine that we stayed in the theme park for 12 hours and all she took was just 2 rides? One of them was the same kind of ride that we had in the now defunct Haw Par Villa and the other was a miao miao ride where we sat in a moving cart and pretended to be ghost busters shooting at the supposed “ghosts”. Oh I almost forgot, she also took the train ride that toured around the theme park which the rest of us took it as a chance to rest before we go for more exciting rides.

In addition, while the rest always “chao geng” by not even going to the gym, Celia blew us off by “chao genging” even when it comes to having fun. Although she can last 2 hours in the gym with at least an hour on the treadmill, she was the first to give up when we were having fun in Schlitterbahn. Even though the rest of us were very tired after going for the rides for the umpteenth time, we refused to stop. We wanted to make full use of every cent that we paid. Call us giam kana but we were really enjoying ourselves and wished that the park would not close so early.

Now, who is the one that lacks stamina?

Marvin
Well, this is the 2nd time I have been to a theme park with Marvin. The first time we were at a theme park, we went without Tim and Celia. Furthermore, we were not even in Singapore. We were in Genting then. Hmmm… I wonder why? Can’t talk more about him just in case someone gets jealous. Shh….

Timothy
What do I still not know about this little monkey? Well, I didn’t realize that he is such a sucker for theme park. He stipulated that we must leave our motel by 9 am every morning so that we can be one of the first to arrive at the theme parks. And every morning, he would be the first to wake up. When we couldn’t leave at 9 am sharp on the first morning, the usually patient Tim became so “mang zhang” (cantonese for frustrated). Bet if he had the car to himself, he would have just driven off by himself.

Also, not only did he manage to get us to buy the season pass for Six Flags so that we can go to all the Six Flags Theme Park around, he got us a 3-day pass for Universal Studio as well. I know the 3-day pass is actually cheaper than the normal pass due to some promotion, but that is beside the point. The fact that he wants to go to Six Flags and Universal Studio for at least 3 WHOLE days while we are in LA (FYI, we are going to be in LA for only 4 days.) shows that he hasn’t really grown up, has he?

Well, these are just some things that I learned about my friends whom I see EVERYDAY during the trip. There is always something new to be discovered everyday…So Carpe Diem!

Sad-Men 3 and Da Lousy Vinci Code

Haiz… had my customary movie marathon over the weekend (it’s getting to be a fortnightly thing now) and I must say, I was really REALLY disappointed with the 2 shows which I was looking forward so much to.


X-Men 3

I wasn’t a big fan of the X-Men comics but after watching X Men in 1998, I considered myself an X-Men movie fan as I think that the movie really showed how smart and witty a Superhero Movie can be and I think it was really down to the brilliant directing and storytelling by Bryan Singer (of The Usual Suspects fame).

Now when X-Men 2: X-Men United came out a couple of years after that, I must say that I was worried about it living up to expectations as it is a publicly known fact that 98% of all sequels absolutely suck. However, it turned out to be even better than expected and with the lengthy screen time and a great plot to boot, it is to me, the BEST Superhero Movie even till now. Again, Bryan Singer was at the helm and he sure as hell delivered!

This brings me now to X-Men 3. Now, after Singer left the crew to do Superman Returns, I was really happy because I knew then and there that Superman would be the next big thing (we’ll find out on 30th June eh John?). However, I also knew that with Singer out of X-Men 3 (whammy), and with Brett Ratner (of Rush Hour fame) directing (DOUBLE whammy), this supposed last film of the Trilogy would struggle to reach the high standards the past 2 movies have set.



I’ve already set my standards low, I’ve already accepted it would be nowhere near as cool or as smart as X-Men 1 and 2…. But I totally, TOTALLY didn’t expect it to be as sucky as it turned out to be!! From the sub-par plot (all about a cure?), the less-than-dramatic deaths (I won’t spoil it for you guys), the lame one-liners and the short screen time (only cartoons run for 87 minutes dudes), I really felt like tearing my hair out at many moments in the film!

I wanted the series to end on a high so to watch this crap in the cinema was… well… as disappointing as breaking your leg before a World Cup (sorry Cisse). Ah the less said the better… let’s look to Superman from Singer…please bring it on!!


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The Da Vinci Code

Ok the hype over the movie has been totally insane and I am thinking the Studio heads must’ve been gleefully rubbing their hands over all the free publicity that came out of all the religious groups that are against it, and Dan Brown himself who is making loads of dough just going on interviews rebutting them.

If you ask me, I must say that the book was really good as a thriller and I really enjoyed it. It’s true that as a Catholic, there were a few ideals put in the book that were totally against my religion but looking at it at a fictional point of view (which I do with all movies I watch and books I read), it didn’t really affect me much and I’m also quite surprised by the furore that the book has caused.

After watching the movie though, I must say that the problem has solved itself. People who watch TDVC and have never read the book before will find themselves SO lost and SO confused at the end of the 2 and a half hours so they will probably not have an idea what the entire fuss was all about!!



By trying to squeeze the many details of the book (and if you’ve read it, you’ll know just how much details are in it) into a comparatively tiny 150 minutes, the movie just seems so lost in itself midway through the show and never seems to find its way back. Now as I’ve read the book, I could keep up with what was going on although it was still a bit of a struggle here and there… and so I can imagine how bad it must’ve been for those who haven’t read it. In all fairness though, most of the important scenes and lines were in the film (some of the dialogue come STRAIGHT from the book!) but as a movie, it tried to convey too much info in too little time… and that’s not good for your average popcorn-munching movie-goer.

I believe The Da Vinci Commotion will be on a downhill spiral after this… and DON’T even get me started about Tom Hanks’ hair….


The plus point to come out of my movie marathon though, was this nice little cartoon called Over The Hedge. Wasn’t really too keen on it but after watching it, I literally came out of the cinema smiling like a little kid, fully recovered from the previous 2 stinkers. With a simple plot which had good bits of dialogue here and there criticizing our never-ending material needs, witty jokes to go with the laugh-out-loud slapstick humour and fun characters who were totally original, I must say that it’s one of the biggest movie surprises for me so far!



Do catch it if you wanna have a good laugh, or if you wanna get Da Vinci out of your system… haha! (that's IF you have time in between all those World Cup matches... hehe)

Fugging SUAY!

That's the only way I can describe Mr Djibril Cisse of Liverpool, who has spent the past few months talking his way into a move to L'Olympique Marseille.

First in October of 2004, THIS happens to him:


"This is a lesson to stop you guys from playing stoopid childish tripping games..."


And then, yesterday, just 2 days before the World Cup, when he was just about to confirm his place in the starting lineup with Titi Henry, THIS happens:


"Argh. I seriously felt like I never wanted to play football again after seeing this."

All I can say is..... SHIT HAPPENS. But everyone knows that of course... what everyone doesn’t know, is that SHIT of leg-breaking proportions only seems to happen to him only. Although I really loathe and despise him, I do hope he can get through this injury (which I heard is only gonna keep him out for 4 months) and finish off his career with Liverpool. Woohoo!

Shen San Antonio!!

Yay! Our first long weekend in the US!! Ok maybe our first OFFICIAL public holiday weekend but anyhow, it was great to take a long break from Friday to Monday and NOT have to think about work shit! Our destination for the weekend was San Antonio, where there were lots of fun stuff to do!

We didn’t really feel much about Memorial Day, which was kinda bad because it was a day to commemorate American soldiers who gave their lives for the country…. But then again you’ll be amazed how many Americans themselves were going all out to enjoy the holidays… Tubing, Theme Parks, shopping, gambling, etc…..

I have to say in all honesty though… that this weekend was the absolute BEST time that we’ve had in the US so far! I mean, we did so much in a space of 4 days that I can’t really believe it even now! Here’s a lowdown on what we did though….


Day 1: Tubing

The first time I told Yee Chung about Tubing, he had no friggin’ idea what I was talking about. I then told him it meant people sitting over-inflated car tires and then floating our way down a river. Sorta like this:


"Dayong Sampan anyone?"


Yup it was nice and simple… all of us paid a princely sum of $15 to sit in these tires and even brought a cooler with ice-cold Coke, water, sandwiches and ham to last us through the day. The water was literally ICE-COLD too and it was a shocking feeling to suddenly freeze your butt when we first sat in our tubes….. the trip brought us down the nice, scenic and serene Guadelupe River and all in all it only took us about just over 3 hours to finish the whole thing.

It was really nice and relaxing to just sit and enjoy the peaceful surroundings and also ride some of the mini rapids along the way (nothing like the rapids in Taiwan and NZ though). However, the sun was scorching hot and a lot of us suffered burns… I’m still peeling now by the way!


Day 2: Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Now for those of you who didn’t know, I am quite the roller-coaster junkie… although I’ve not been on one ever since my mum’s company stopped sponsoring us for overseas trips! Hahah…. Anyway, Six Flags is a popular US theme park which has the latest thrill rides and can be found all around the States. The one we went to was called Six Flags Fiesta, which had its share of fast and dizzy coasters and even a fireworks show at the end!

Some of the rides we tried included:

The Superman Krypton Coaster – The best coaster we tried. Ridiculously fast, ultra-modern, floorless and lots and lots of insane turns. Sat in the front TWICE!
Tim’s Puke Rating: 2/5

"Found a video of the damn Superman ride. That's obviously NOT Wen, Sharon and Me..."


The Poltergeist – It looked like a miao miao coaster… until we saw the group of us speed off from 0-60mph in like 3 seconds. The pace never lets up and it never stops turning till the end.
Puke Rating: 3/5

Boomerang – A simple coaster, which does a butterfly turn and then a loop…. And then doing the same thing again backwards. You can’t imagine how bad I felt after that.
Puke Rating: 4/5

The Rattler – The 2nd fastest coaster in the park…. And one of the fastest wooden coasters (most old coaster tracks were made of wood) around. Absolutely gigantic but the rattling because of the unstable wood tracks almost rattled us to death. Argh.
Puke Rating: 4/5



"Spot the missing genius. And click on the pic to link to my photos!"

We were there from the moment it opened (10am) till it closed (10pm) and we pretty much wasted ourselves on the activities there… although it included a lot of waiting time because of the long queues for rides. However, I really enjoyed all of them (despite feeling really pukish at a point) and I am looking forward to my trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles, which is supposed to be 3 times as insane!!

Day 3: Schlitterbahn

Yes, I know the name sounds like SHIT but I must say, this water theme park is anything BUT! Just imagine… a water theme park with 4 portions, 2 on a West section and 2 on an East section… now, each of these 4 portions is about the size of the old Fantasy Island from Sentosa (if you can recall…). And from the West to East sections and vice versa, you can’t walk but instead, have to take a 5-minute shuttle bus. Now THAT’s how big this damn theme park is!


"Wasted couples at Schlitterbahn. Click to check out the official webby!"

We first saw a tv show a few months ago stating that this theme park was the World’s Best Water Theme park and truly, it lived up to its word! With ridiculously insane rides (we queued up for over an hour for the Master Blaster despite coming to the park before it opened), wave pools that finally have REAL waves and surfing sections whereby there was a perpetual wave for you to surf on (as long as you can of course... I only lasted a grand total of 2 secs before being blasted away…), and much much more. This was an amazing experience for all of us and I’m really looking forward to going to one of these theme parks again… seems like there’s one nearby at Galveston Island.

The summer is really getting hotter and hotter now and going to Schlitterbahn is hands-down my BEST way of spending a summer day! Now I know how suggy Fantasy Island really was!! No wonder it closed….

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On the last day, we did a little bit of shopping at San Marcos again… Sharon and I weren’t really too keen so we were outta there after a couple of hours. I have no idea how Yiren and Tzeying managed to last till 9pm man…..

As you can see… it was a really packed long weekend. There’s not too many holidays around here so we really have to make full use of ‘em…. You guys in Singapore please don’t take all your holidays and long weekends for granted alright? Peace man… will update you on my upcoming California Trip… woohoo!