my singapore vacation! ^__^

so, being a brat, i treated myself to a short Singapore trip a week ago.
hm... now that i think about it... 1 week ago already?! sux... why do happy times fly so fast?

anyway, eventho the trip was short, but it was very very sweet, just how i wanted it. after a few sudden changes and some extra fees, i took a late flight on sat 8th to s'pore. felt to excited that i was finally able to get out of taiwan. it's not that i dislike taiwan (well... in ways i do, still....) but i feel that i've been sofocated for a while, ever since i came back from seattle. and that was the main reason that pushed me for the trip, go get the hell outta here, and catch up with old friends, in hopes to live a bit of how my life used to be.

the real sg trip started the day after i arrived (coz it was too late to do anything on sat night), and we started the day with some very good/hearty breakfast, singapore style. mark and bren too me to maxwell's plaza, and the food they served seems more suitable for brunch/lunch than breakfast, because they were all so big and too rich for a non-morning person... heh, still that couldn't stop us from eating, we ordered these and shared

(ooops... bren's 30min-queue congee is not in the pic!) anyway, so above was the famous, must-try sg cho-queh-teo, fried carrot cake, and some X-queh (forgot the name again). all very yummy~~~ but a bit too oily for early mornings. in the back is an ice coffee and mark's hand =P

later squeezing those dishes in our tummies, the guys took me for a ride round downtown sg, a lot of buildings, but a lot of greens too! which made the city look pretty and not that crowded (considering that they have to pack millions of people in a small tiny "insignificant" island, keke). in a way, the city reminded me of vancouver, but with more trees i'd say, and of course, with people walking/driving on the other side of the road =P
bren took me around in the morning, while mark was at church, went to the fountain of wealth, window shopped in Paragon, and according to celest, that's a very "Atas" place. (hehehe~ making use of the only singlish word that i learned from the trip. )
in the afternoon, met up with celest and yl, walked some more, and shall i mention that we ate some more too??? hm... i think i'll skip the food part from now onwards... food was around the entire trip, different dishes that some i cannot remember the names now, but all very good and tasty. and imagine that i only had 1/3 of the whole sing food!!! ok, gimme a few more days next time and i'll try the other 2/3 ^^
what else on the 1st day... oh! also hang out with pearline, jomo and leo's old crush, lucinda in a coffee shop with mark. that was fun coz it kinda let you know more about how your friend used to be before you guys met
evening, mark took me around bay area, where we saw the merlion, fullerton hotel, and walked round the keys. nice nice~ really pretty. i didn't take pix coz my ran outta battery... damn it! oh well, pictures don't do justice of the real beauty of the sight of the moment anyway, and i've got all the beauty recorded in my head, just wish that it won't fade away too soon... oh~ and we had a delicious hot chocolate cake~~~ (drool...)

monday, SANTOSA! hehe, pretty tourist place. we took the cable car and went to the island where the underwater world was. that place was so much fun! it was small, but had many interesting sea creatures to take a look at, such as yummy crabs, weird little red-shinny non-shrimp no-shell dots, giant sea turtles, lazy hungry sharks...

i liked the underwater electric alleyway the most! ^^
fun fun~ (sounds as if i dun have any childhood memories...)
now this time, the cam ran OUT of memo space! #$%^@@... (note to myself: do not borrow cam from sis again)
oki, this pic was taken from the cable car, too bad cannot see much of santosa island =(
anyway, back to santosa adventure. mark and i walked around the place after the underwater world. since we got a package, the tickets included this 4D movie show that seemed quite ishy-washy... hehe, it turned out to be those simulator machines! it wasn't as bad as i thought, 2 different movie/rides that basically tried to shake you as much as they could. there was a lady sitting next to me that was so excited bout the ride, she couldn't stop laughing and screaming, even after we got out (maybe she doesn't have a childhood memory either).
and the ride made mark and i remember our winter disney/6 flags trip... aw... i want roller coasters........ i want to do that trip again.... =(
dinner was w/mark's family, where we enjoyed the famous chicken rice. YES, authentic chicken rice is GOOOOOOOD~~~~ we ordered a whole chicken and some other dishes, and we (well, basically mark and his dad) finished it all. good job guys!
at night, joined bren and his friends for a drink in this "gothem city" building's bar. the place was so decorated, too decorated for my taste. but the atmosphere was nice, and there was a band singing nice songs. bren's friends were cool too. apparently, they were drinking coz one of them got dumped, but for some reason, this guy was not drinking alcohol at all but ordered lime juice instead... @__@"
hahaha, good idea, i should do that next time.

tuesday... finally met mark's lovely sis, marie! yeah~ she's really cute, too bad never had the chance to meet her in seattle instead, else could have showed her around.
lunched with esther (haven't seen her for SO LONG!) and bren for bah-kuh-teh in the financial district. we tried very hard in persuading esther to take her aftenoon off, too bad we failed...
nevertheless, i got a nice pic of us!


more walking around downtown and places in sg. we went to this market that was selling cheap t-shirts, kinda like 五分埔 of taiwan. and both mark and i got a t-shirt each, YAY! my first and only shopping of the trip! i'm so proud of myself~
that day we had dinner round 8pm, but arranged to meet up w/celest and yl for rotti prata supper again round 11... that was kinda crazy... seriously... endless food....
oh! and leonard flew back to sg that same nite! so it was great to be able to see him in sg before i left the place. leo also joined us for supper, and we all (including celest's bf cowen) grilled the man for his late "dallas grl" and related issues of the topic. it felt like back in the times, instead that this time, we were at a hotter place, drinking milo dinosaur instead of a starbucks latte.

really enjoyed this gathering, coz really, when will there be a next time for us to meet up like this again?
yes we are sure that there will be next hang-outs, yes i'm sure we will still care bout each other very much, yes we do try to keep in touch, but... it's sad and almost inavoidable that there will be changes among us.
my guess is that the next time we all meet up, there will be at least some kid running around.
now... whose kid is that? i say it won't be mine =P
maybe it's a little Tiffany Teo Ting-Ting running around w/a cowgrl hat, since leonard is quite "in the mood" of having a kid and he's ready to be a father, muuuahahahaha~~~

anyway, good times are always short and now i'm back in real life in the office again...
time to re-start the vancouver 2010 fund (since i've drained that old fund for this trip), where we'll all see ach other again. remember guys! bring your spouses and family! i'll bring my dog =P

VERY VERY special thanks to Marky Sparky, the main host/organizer of nong's sg trip.
mark: thanx for letting me crash at ur place for so long nei... thanx to ur mom & dad too! remember, tw's welcomes u and ur family, so stop by whenever u can, k? hugz~
also special thanx to celest, yen-ling, bren for showing me around ^___^
leonard, was great to be able to see you! good luck w/ur lady~~~~!!! show us pix of ur kid later!! =P

aw~~~ i love you all~~~ i dun wanna be here now... >____<