random picture taken inside the taxi

Finished up more tasks at work to finally wrap up our current project, and so I wasn’t able to take a ‘blogging break’ at work Anyways, a few days has elapsed since I came back from my trip to Singapore, but the memories are still fresh in my mind. It was wonderful, having to meet some of the SG bloggers, on top of discovering “connections” or how small the world is (further reinforcing the ‘six degrees separation’ theory), though bringing home the 7kg worth of omiyages I bought for my family (to give to 6 families, as well as my officemates) was exasperating. Almost 3/5 of my pocket money was spent on those omiyages ;__;

Anyways, I shall give a lengthy narrative of what has transpired throughout my 4-day stay in Singapore. So beware, this is gonna be really tl;dr. I decided to chop this post into two because it turned really really long.

Day 1

This is what I’d like to call the ‘Day of Serendipity’, briefly depicted in the above figure.

Way back when me and my friend Hazel planned this Singapore trip (like months back), she already told me that we’d be crashing into her ex-officemate Kat’s place. I was like, wow, free lodging, w00t! And at the back of my mind, hoped that I would get along well with her as well as the other apartment-mates. The ones ‘connected’ at this point are me and Hazel, then Hazel and Kat.

Now in our little office, I have a friend/officemate/team-mate by the name of Harmony whose boyfriend Roel went to Singapore last year to work and save up for their future. She sorely misses the guy of course, so I became their ‘love pigeon’ of some sort, delivering gifts to and from the couple separated by distance. On my first day in Singapore, I was supposed to meet the boyfriend, who also happens to be my ex-officemate and a close friend I had in the office (to whom I’ll forever be grateful for humbling me with his brutal frankness).

We arrived in the airport and Kat went to fetch us, then I told her that I’m gonna be meeting someone, to give this certain guy his girlfriend’s precious gift. It was not until after our little grocery shopping sidetrip that we discovered that the guy I’m supposed to meet, is actually her colleague in Singapore and also her close buddy! It’s all thanks to this one little question of “Where are you working?”, and the rest was history. Amazing connections. Imagine the shock of my ex-officemate Roel’s when he found out that I was staying at his colleague’s house

We had a fun-filled reunion session, ate lunch in Kat’s house as her housemate Cathy cooked spaghetti for us (yum~!). We spent a few more hours chatting, reminiscing the old times, and talking about how life in Singapore generally is. Then, Hazel and I decided to go visit the Singapore Zoo. Roel accompanied us in our trip, but only up until the last bus we were supposed to ride. He treated each of us to an Ezlink card, which lasted us till almost the last day of our trip (hurray for generous friends! XD).

We arrived at the Singapore Zoo, but it was almost 6, so we just decided to go to the Night Safari. We were about to buy the tickets when two girls approached us and offered us their complimentary tickets (they got it as freebies from some card or something), which they can no longer use since they have to head home and the Night Safari doesn’t open till 7pm. Astonished by the sudden blessing from the heavens, we received the tickets with all gratefulness for their generosity (and for picking us among other ‘strangers’ of course). Was it fate that brought us such a blessing, or did they see through our trustworthy character, or was it our pheromones at work? Hmm~

With that free entrance ticket, we saved up 22SGD each and only paid 10SGD for the tram ride. And thankfully enough we only paid $10, otherwise I would not have found the whole Night Safari experience to be worth all the bucks, especially considering that I can’t even take any decent photo or video of the creatures!!! I also accidentally turned the flash on when I was taking the pic of the lion, and got scolded by the tour guide, shame on me. Good thing the lion didn’t get scared off or I would’ve been the sacrifice. And the lions would be rejoicing because they’ll have bunny meat to eat. Nooo!!

So after that, we headed home, and managed to do so by ourselves. Hurray for us brave souls! We had an all-girls chit-chat later in the evening, and discovered even greater connections, that is, Kat and I hailed from the same province, the same hometown. She also studied college in the same school as one of my brothers. We also have a few common acquaintances, as some of my schoolmates turns out to be her close buddies / childhood friends. Then this one other name she mentioned rang a bell to my ears because I recognize it as the name of my pre-school classmate (whose mom is an acquaintance of my mom), and well, it turns out to be her cousin! Then later on (after our trip), I called up my mom and discovered that Kat’s mom is actually my mom’s classmate in high school! Imagine that o.O

Day 2

It’s the great blogger meetup day!

We slept reallyyy late on our first day, but still we had to wake up early to go to church at 9:30am. The mass ended at around 11am, and I was with Hazel, Kat and Roel, but due to some mishaps (and also a hunger strike, which forced us to grab a bite at Moss Burger), we weren’t able to leave towards our destination that is Orchard Station till it was almost 12 orz. I was supposed to meet jinyamato, tj, Impz, Hynavian and Soshi at 12 noon, so obviously I was running sooo late! I told jin that we’ll be like 30 mins late, so yeah, hurray for Filipino [late] time! X__x;

We took the taxi instead of the MRT so we can get to the Orchard station as soon as possible, and Roel paid for our taxi fare (he was also the one who paid for our Moss burger orders *touched*). So anyways, Hynavian was the first one I saw around our meeting area, and I felt so sorry for making her wait half an hour or more!! T__T She was so sweet to have given me and Hazel really cute gifts too, when all I gave was a measly pack of dried mangoes ;___; Then Soshi called to tell us that she can no longer make it due to an emergency… I just hope nothing bad happened >_<

Anyways, we had to search around a bit before finally coming across jin, tj and Impz, as they apparently got hungry and grabbed some snacks too (and it’s all our fault! x__X). My friend Hazel still had to meet up with her cousin in the Orchard station so I went ahead of them, so that I can also spend time with the Singaporean anime enthusiasts without alienating any of them with the blogging and anime talk ^^;

We went to Takashimaya, and for our first ever destination — why of course, Kinokuniya! Way before the trip I already psyched myself that I’m not going to be tempted by the mangas and other books there, and would only buy the Hakushaku to Yousei novel volume 2 as much as possible. And I’m glad I was able to stick to that. The greatest reason as to why I didn’t get tempted to buy many stuffs despite the whole pile of loot awaiting me is because of the expensive prices, even with the 10% off (thanks to Hynavian for lending me her discount card).

As I’ve calculated, the prices of the stuff being sold are almost the same as what I pay when I order them from HMV (with the shipping). I can even get them at a much cheaper rate if I order from Amazon JP and have my officemates in Japan bring it for me when they come back. So yeah, I actually didn’t lose my mind when I stumbled upon all the mangas (unlike when I was in Kinokuniya Japan x__x)! Otherwise, I would’ve grabbed the Code Geass artbook and probably the Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side stuff there. It probably would’ve been a completely different story if I got to KKnM, especially if I get to see cute little figurines. It’s one of the major reasons why I told tj and jin that I prefer not to go to KKnM. You would not want to see me go FANGURL MODE, or more like, I’d rather not let them see my fangirl self unleashed.

spicy bowl of ramen, yum~

So anyways, after that we had our lunch in Jade Garden, where each of us ordered a bowl of ramen, on top of other Chinese cuisine our local Singaporean friends recommended us. The foods were really scrumptious (yes I just had to use that word ), and despite having been exposed to Chinese foods quite often, I still found all the dishes to be refreshingly unique. Though, I felt really ashamed of being Chinese because I can barely understand what tj and Impz were saying when they talked to the waitress in Mandarin (I was only able to grasp a teeny tiny bit of 冷水 >_>). I should really work on my Chinese. I’m proud of my Japanese skills even if it’s not really that l33t and all, but being a pure Chinese who can’t speak or read Chinese makes me a shame to my clan x__x;

That, and the fact that I can’t even use chopsticks to get my food makes me much much more ashamed orz. Curse you, stupid plastic chopsticks! I can handle the wooden disposable chopsticks just fine! T__T Good thing I was able to finish off the bowl of spicy ramen I ate (drinking barely 1/4 of my water!), to at least regain my lost pride or something

We had a fun little chit-chat while having our lunch, a mix of geek talk, anime talk (where we had to explain some terminologies to my non-otaku friends, words like ‘loli’, ‘yaoi’, ‘yuri’… >_>;; Good thing no one mentioned ‘moe’, or else it would’ve been really hard to explain lol ), and general SG life talk. It was all cool, except for the part where I was called a closet yaoi fangirl due to my excitement for Kuroshitsuji T__T; Well Impz actually said he couldn’t sense the BL-ness, but I guess the fact that Impz said it makes it not credible x__x;

People enjoying themselves inside a ‘hamster’s ball’, outside of Suntec

We parted ways not long after that, since most of them were pretty busy as well. Hynavian was the only one who stayed with us throughout the day, it was really sweet of her ;___; She became our tour guide, as she also said in her post about what has transpired that day

sexy shiny car~

It was cool seeing all the sexy cars and motorbikes in the Motorshow, and both Hynavian and I were surprised that the model inside one of the cars is actually alive!! Too bad my camera already went dead by that time, so I wasn’t able to take much pictures =/ I don’t really have much to say about the Motorshow anyways, not like my geek friend who even did the honor of explaining why waxing your car is dangerous, on behalf of the representative / advocate in one of the booths lol.

We also got a glimpse of the F1 race from Suntec (where Motorshow 2008 was held), and I just listen to my friends talk about F1 since I’m a n00b myself. I never knew about the existence of Kimi Raikkonen until that day

Later that day, Roel bid us goodbye coz he still had to watch the F1 race on TV, and despite still feeling full from the feast we had during lunch, Hynavian and I decided to buy some ice cream desserts, モンブラン (Mont Blanc) and this nutty ice cream on a hard-to-eat basket-shaped chocolate-coated waffle. I decided to be thick-skinned and ate the crispy waffle to the last bite (with a little help from my friends), whilst people pass us by wondering just what the heck I was eating haha.

A few minutes later and we found ourselves in Chinatown, and had a feast (like literally) in a nearby hawker. The evidence is in Hynavian’s post. And well, since the girls I was with seemed to be on a diet, I turned out to be the last woman standing, or rather sitting, eating the stuff. I ate as much Laksa and dumplings as I can, but alas, it was too much for my poor tummy. The Laksa is yummy~ Makes you feel the fusion of spice and the coconut curry soup in every bite~! *insert Cooking Master Boy scene here*

After that, Hazel and I bought ice cream for dessert from one of the street vendors, on wafer because they ran out of bread The ice cream was yummy, but eating it was very very messy. I was spilling ice cream everywhere! I used up quite a lot of tissues in the process too. After a few more rounds of chit-chat, it was finally time to part ways and head home. And of course, I was still stuffed as ever T__T I really think I have to check how much weight I gained throughout the Singapore trip >_>;

and, it was not until later that day that I realized that I forgot something really important… I should’ve called Seleria’s sister who’s currently studying in Singapore so she could’ve spent time with us! I would’ve introduced her to the bloggers too, considering that Impz and tj are acquainted with Seleria too. Bah oh well, till next time.

To be continued… tomorrow. Have to sleep first!

Similar Posts:

• The Serendipitous Singapore Trip Diary Part 2
• Cooking Up a Summer 2008 Anime Diet (with a bit of fasting)
• Countdown to Christmas #5: A Look Back at the Bunny’s Japan Trip
• Trapped in the Hamster’s Den!
• Missing Japan: O Glorious Foods

Popularity: 1% [?]