On the Saturday of our Nuffies LDR, we all started off with Klang BKT! Yes.. it was worth the 45 minute drive there and even the Singaporeans agreed!

BKT in Malaysia is really different from the BKT they have in Singapore. It’s not something we can compare though, because they’re really two different things. Malaysia is more herbal suit based whereas Singapore’s is more peppery. I like both to be honest.

We ended up taking 4 tables at the BKT store and they were broken down to “healthy” tables that ordered less fatty meat and “fatty” table that intentionally went all out for the most fat meat possible.

I was at the “healthy” table but this is the unhealthy table that ate enough fat they could float in a swimming pool effortlessly.

Or was it this one.

See all so skinny! Where is the fairness!

This was the Blackberry table where everyone was busy talking about their BBs the whole time.

After brunch we headed over to 1-U.

and the guys and girls split up for the first time all trip.

The girls went for manicure and to do all the girly stuff.

+

The guys on the other hand… went for FUTSAL at 1-U Rooftop. It’s basically indoor football where you play football in a small court covered with netting so the ball never goes out.

We were inspired to play … from all the World Cup hype.

That is me kicking a ball.

Good or not? Good or not? Wahlau!

Haha ok the truth is… I was totally posing for that shot. I didn’t actually even hit the ball with my foot at all. All the guys there except 2 of us hardly play. The last time I myself played football was like 7 years ago… and before that it was like back in primary school or something. It’s only after trying to play that I realized again how hard football really is.

It’s really tiring too. For the next few days after the match we were all aching in pain from every part of our bodies. Even when I was in the gym this morning jogging on the treadmill I felt my back hurt a little. That’s how unfit I am these days! I learned that having laser tag on one day and futsal right the next day was a bit too extreme for my weak unfit self.

After futsal we all went back to shower and met up again with the girls. The plan was to go for Karaoke but seeing how all the guys were aching everywhere we made a last minute change of plan to just go to my place and chill. We bought satay, ordered Pizza and we were going to play charades or something but everyone in the end got hooked to watching Heavy Rain so we ended up doing that until the World Cup match started.

They were so hooked to the murder mystery game (Heavy Rain) that Rina who had to leave early called Yuen Yee later on to find out who the killer was. After Heavy Rain though we all decided to watch the World Cup match. It was then that we all watched Germany massacre Argentina! Hey I was supporting Germany and all but I really really didn’t expect 4-0… I mean they were playing Argentina man! Not just any weak team! I was happy but most of the Nuffies were sad. I think 70% of them there that night supported Argentina.

Throughout the whole night though was the time everybody really got to know one another. I saw a number of the Malaysian Nuffies talking to some of the Singaporean Nuffies for the first time … like not just casual talk but…. deep deeep talk. I’m sure they were exchanging boyfriend stories and all that!

The next morning we all went for our last brunch before the Singaporeans headed back to Singapore. This time we took them for Dim Sum. FRIGGING POWER LA THIS DIM SUM.

Raine here was like an eating monster there.

She ended up ordering some 4-5 helpings of Siew Mai although she later admitted to eating none of them because she was too busy eating everything else. The food was all finished by the end of the brunch though. Then right after brunch, the Malaysian Nuffies had prepared a small little surprise for them.

Sara kept it all in a shoebox.

Inside the shoebox were these little “flowers” made out of straw, ribbon and a post-it note. Each note had a name of a Nuffie on it and also a little mention about something we learned about that Nuffie on the trip.

I thought it was a nice touch. Especially since the Malaysian Nuffies had to find some time over the busy weekend to write the notes from whatever they learned about the Singaporean Nuffies that weekend.

Then came the time to say goodbye.

Both the Malaysians and Singaporean Nuffies, many of whom had just met that weekend gave each other a long goodbye hug.

It was almost as if you were watching old friends for many many years hug goodbye.

Lots of goodbye kisses went around too.

I asked the Singaporeans in the end what they loved the most about the trip.

Some of them said laser-tag, some said dim sum but most of them loved the nice casual chill-out night at my place where they really got to know each other. They all had fun that weekend and I gotta give credit to the Malaysian Nuffies for putting it all together.

The Singaporean Nuffies are already talking about an #LDR Part 2, where they would invite and host the Malaysians down in Singapore. Maybe one day we can do one for the Nuffies in Philippines and Australia too.

You guys remember the Nuffie LDR that we did last week right? Well this weekend is the weekend that the Singaporean Nuffies come down to have some fun with the Malaysian Nuffies. Some of the Nuffies couldn’t make it but we ended up with a good mix of colleagues from Nuffnang, ChurpChurp and JPB. It all started with stand-up comedy when they arrived on Thursday night. That Thursday night happened to be Timeout’s monthly stand-up comedy night at Zouk and it was something that My Hello Kitty and I made a point to go every month.

This month though, Jenhan was performing so we went to lend our support.

Jenhan was as usual… top class!

The other comedians were all great too. Rudy from Mix.fm, Rizal 1, Rizal 2 and Jeremiah! They were all really fun to watch.

Here’s some of the Singaporean Nuffies having fun

From the left: Shan, Raine and Eliza.

We had lots of drinks going around too.

and as always, booze always helped the mood!

See how happy people are after booze?

The next morning was a Friday so we went into the office as usual. Some of the Malaysian Nuffies had some work to finish up and we wanted to show the newer Singaporean Nuffies where we work.

It’s always been a long-running competition on whether KL or Singapore office is nicer. Both have game consoles, both have coffee machines, both have TVs… only difference is that the Singaporean office has tatami beds for the Nuffies there who sleep over. Really… some of the Nuffies there even end up staying in the office for a week there. Just working, playing and hanging out with the rest.

In the afternoon though we decided to close the office for an afternoon out together. We went for lunch at Sri Melaka at 1-Utama taking up some 4 tables there.

Here’s some pictures I managed to take.

Then after lunch we all walked into Bandar Utama Park next door for an afternoon of… LASER TAG!!!

Laser tag is something I just recently discovered. It’s sort of like paintball but instead you wear these sensors on you and shoot each other and you can do so from far far away with these sensor guns.

So unlike paintball, the area you can play on is a lot bigger so the game goes a lot slower than paintball sometimes. Best part though is that you don’t end up with bruises everywhere.

If you’ve been hit enough times, you “die” and your gun can’t shoot at anyone anymore. Then what happens is that you have to take the “walk of shame” back to base and wait for the rest of the remaining people to fight it out. This is Jestina and Yuen Yee taking the “walk of shame” back.

By right people who “Die” are supposed to go back to the waiting booth and just keep quiet but that didn’t happen for us of course. Everyone was so competitive people were shouting the location of everyone else. Like when the people from the other team who died saw Elise hiding unsuccessfully behind this tree they shouted

“ELISE IS HIDING BEHIND THAT SMALL TREE! SHE THINKS SHE’S DAMN SKINNY!’

I mean… normal people like Jestina here choose to hide behind pillars

but Elise the champion decided to choose that small little tree that could barely cover anything. Eventually when she realized that it was like an elephant hiding behind a coconut tree, she decided to move.

I shouted along of course and Elise later at the end of the game came to me and wagged her finger at me

“Don’t think I didn’t hear what you said Tim!!!”

I don’t have much to brag about about finding cover to be honest. I happened to choose to wear a bright red t-shirt on that day so I stood out like a flippin bullseye wherever I went and nobody what bushes I tried to hide behind.

All of us split into 4 teams… some 8 per team (I think) and we played a little competition among ourselves. My team was one man short so to fill the gap, one of the marshalls joined our team to play with us (an unfair advantage for the rest but who’s counting haha!). We ended up going into the finals against another team that had Shun Yau, David, Michelle etc etc. They were strong though. The round before they had beaten the other team without even losing one team mate. They were feeling like World Cup champions!

So we were the underdogs and they were damn action also lor! When we were discussing strategy David shouted out over to our side
“Are you guys planning how to lose?”

The time came for the final battle and we all played out our strategy. Basically it was to camp first until we kill off the few of them who we expected to rush. Then we split into two teams. One team will attack from the front and the other will go all the way behind them and take them from behind.

It worked and we won!

We  went back gloating to the other team who were all sooo overconfident before. After the little competition we played some other matches. The girls for some reason insisted that they play a Guys Vs Girls match…. we thought it wasn’t fair but they had all that girl power thing going for them so we said okay.

The guys were all damn overconfident though. When we were talking about strategy we decided
“Ah don’t need strategy lar.. just free play. We sure win wan!”

The girls though had a lot of strategy going on for them. 8 of them were playing whereas the remaining girls were just resting. But to confuse us, they arranged for the girls who were not playing to pretend to run around to distract us while the rest of the girls tried to pick us off.

Eventually the guys still won though. Hehe… I thought it would’ve been a good moral lesson if we had lost though. Teaches us for being overconfident and not preparing at all.

By the end of 3 hours of playing we were all smashed!

We left the park there and went for dinner at SS2 Square where we managed to get a table that fit us all.

The next day we would all wake up with cramps and pain all over our bodies… but it was nevertheless a great day.

Here’s a group picture we took doing the Nuffnang pose (missing a few of the Nuffies who had to leave earlier).

When My Hello Kitty and I were in New York, Carol told us that we had to go to this “Alice in Wonderland” themed cafe called “Alice’s Tea Cup”. It was on a really quiet street off a main street and was this little shop with a pink frontage. In spite of it’s colour, it was quite easy to miss. We would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for the group of people lining up outside to get in.

Alice’s Tea Cup was really quaint and small. This was all the tables it had downstairs

and I suspect there’s a function room upstairs or something. They served all sorts tea time pastries, cakes and all sorts of tea. I have never in my life seen so many types of tea before!

The pastries too were really really nice!

And the salmon sandwich that My Hello Kitty ordered (a natural choice since Kitties love fish) WAS DELICIOUS!

Halfway through our afternoon tea, My Hello Kitty suddenly commented that she wished she could open a cafe like that back home in KL. I was surprised… my dream was always that the woman I marry work in a full time job because I have chosen a really risky career path. In business, things can go well one day and turn badly another day. So I always wanted to have a wife that worked so that no matter what happens at least one person would still be contributing to the household income.

I hope that eventually though, if I earn enough money she could spend her time instead on doing social/charity work and pursuing her other interests. For some reason I always thought that she was the kind of person that would like to open a florist or something one day but now that I think about it, I was wrong. My Hello Kitty doesn’t like flowers… (she likes fish remember? haha).

Throughout her munching of the sandwich and sipping of the tea we were drinking she kept looking around her and paying attention to the details of the cafe.

Small small things like even how they decorated the stairs with this magical butterfly.

Or how they have cute little signs like this with reference to Alice in Wonderland.

Finally I suggested to her that if she really wanted to open it, I would invest in it. She was excited for a while but that excitement quickly went into fear. Fear that she’s responsible for other people’s money all of a sudden and fear or losing it. After all, whatever money we invest in it will probably be really significant for me… considering how little money I have in the first place. What was more important though was that in a rare moment I learned of a dream of hers. You know how we all work full-time jobs to earn a living… some of us love our jobs… some are ok with it and some don’t like our jobs at all. Either ways we all sometimes dream of doing something else with our lives one day.. opening a seafood restaurant, doing social work, traveling around the world…. something.

I’m lucky because my dream happens to be what I’m already doing right now.

Perhaps in a later point of my life my dream is to be in property since I’ve learned that I enjoy building things.Seeing how things grow. Lego was like my favourite toy growing up! I don’t necessarily mean huge big time property development. Even if it’s a small thing… like buying a piece of land, putting lots of effort into building a nice home on it and selling it.

The closest I got to wanting to open a cafe or restaurant is a steamboat restaurant! Haha I know I know.. my dreams damn Chinaman right?

My restaurant though will be more straight to the point… just like this one.

It’s called EAT HERE NOW! What a brilliant restaurant… really made me want to eat there right there and then. Then again I’m a sucker for advertising.

Either ways, I’ve learned that there’s a place and time for everything and the time for our dreams to come will come one day.

One day I hope My Hello Kitty can realize her dream too. I can just imagine her now in that small pink “Alice in Wonderland” cafe. She looks happy.

What is your dream ?

When I was talking to Ming a few weeks ago, something dawned on me. When we first started Nuffnang (Netccentric), the team in Malaysia and Singapore used to be really close. Since then the company has grown. The Netccentric Group we founded which now owns Nuffnang, Ripplewerkz, JPB, ChurpChurp and Nom Nom Media now employ some 60 staff in offices at KL, Singapore, Manila and Melbourne. So what we find now is that some of the Nuffies in the Malaysian offices don’t know the Nuffies in the Singapore office and vice versa.

I went into the office in the next few days and had a talk with all the 25 staff based in the KL office. I told them about how it used to be between us and how it is now. Then… after some discussions among the Nuffies, the LDR Initiative was born! The idea was that we invite the Singaporean team over for a “homestay” with us here in Malaysia next weekend. So we will have a plan to do all sorts of different things, whether it’s paintballing or a day at Sunway Lagoon and in return we will each host a Nuffie at our own homes. So we can get to know each of them better.

So here’s how we executed it. First, Sara sent an email to all the Nuffies in the KL Office.

Ming happened to be in the KL office the day that this email was sent. So Sara was going around collecting the money from us when Ming suddenly came up and asked us “What’s going on?”

Fortunately either Sara or me (can’t remember who) were quick enough to say
“Oh no lar.. just paying each other back for lunch”.

Ming just nodded and went away uninterested… fortunately… or the surprise would’ve been spoilt. And a surprise it was!

On Monday everyone in the Singapore office received a rose each with a card on them with their names.

Inside the card was all sorts of freaking cheesy quotes which go in-line with the LDR theme. Seriously, some of them are so cheesy we all went “eeeyyeeer” whenever we heard it… some of us went ahead and puked blood.

To give you an idea on what the quotes were like:

“We only part to meet again”

or

“What’s the opposite of two? Lonely me and lonely you”

We knew that the Singaporean Nuffies were going to tweet all about it when they got it so Linda sent an email out to everyone to make sure nobody would tell them that it was us… at least until the sunflower came the second day that revealed it all. Naturally when the Singaporean Nuffies got it they started to freak out.

They were wondering who the hell from the outside would know ALL their names. I mean it’s one thing to know the names of a few people here and there since sometimes we blog about them, but even the names of the people that the outside world don’t normally see.. like the Finance or Admin side.

Here’s one of the tweets.

Then they started guessing who the sender could be… and Ming actually guessed me!

I denied it all the way… after being warned by the rest of the Malaysian Nuffies that they would keel me if I leaked out the plan. When Ming asked me about it I was like “NO LAH!! I where got do these kind of things wan!”. So then he started guessing other possibilities. Like how it could be…

And they talked a bit about that with Elise replying Ming.

And Ming replying Elise

The Singapore Nuffies were so freaked out they called the florist to demand that the florist tell them who sent it. They stressed how it was “NOT FUNNY”…. all that while the rest of us on the Malaysian side were laughing away!

The next day, the Sunflower came.

Though miles may lie between us, we’re never far apart, for friendship doesn’t count the miles, its measured by the heart. Though that stands true in every detail, the wax of the candle has shadowed our glow. It has reached the peak to rekindle our romance, so hop on the bus and we’ll meet you on the weekend. Head towards the twin towers on the 2nd of June, we will write a new chapter that will make you swoon.

With all our love,
Your Malaysian Counterparts

And shortly after that we sent them an e-mail to clear it up.

They accepted our invitation and now it’s time for the planning on our side. Next weekend is going to be fun 🙂

What made me really happy was to see how the Nuffies really pulled this together and even contributed time and money to keep the closeness of the Nuffies alive! That’s the kind of people that I think we need to keep the company the way it is… and it’s the kind of people that I’m very glad that we have 🙂

See you next weekend guys!

Preface: Girls, please forgive me for the following geek entry. C’mon! You girls gotta gimme a break! I’m a guy and I grew up always wishing I had a game console to play but my parents never wanted to buy me one. So now that I have one (or two), I feel like I’m living my delayed teenage years! Yay!!! I love playing my XBOX/PS3 games, that is… whenever I get the time to. Even My Hello Kitty sometimes shakes her head and wonders how she ended up with a geek boyfriend loves games and doesn’t appreciate art.

Anyway today I shall give you a picture of my very confused looking Hello Kitty.

For the guys: So I just sat down at my computer trying to think about what to blog about. I was going to blog about something… general but there’s nothing in my mind right now except for… sad to say… a PS3 game. A DAMN GOOD ONE THOUGH! I just finished it! It’s called Heavy Rain. That has got to be one of my favourite games this year and I’ve played some damn good games at that too!

What makes this game really great though is one big change in the concept of games. We’re all used to playing games where you’re supposed to do something in order to advance in a game’s plot. So say you’re supposed to kill the bad guy but you fail to do it, then the game makes you start over again right? That’s how computer/video games have conventionally been made.

Heavy Rain though was made to be played where…. whatever you do, whatever choices you make (wrong or right), life (or in this case the game) still goes on. If you fail to do something that you were supposed to do then it’s okay, you just might have to pay for consequence of that later in the game. That’s just like life! I mean in life there very often isn’t a right or wrong choice. We make choices based on what our mind or our hearts tell us and then we move on. Only in hindsight do we sometimes think back and say “I’m glad that I didn’t do that” but the truth of course is we’ll sometimes never even know in hindsight whether what we did was right or wrong.

Heavy Rain anyway has a lot of underlying themes: Choices, Love, Regrets…. but the story is about a man who has had his son kidnapped. The kidnapper then tells the man that in order to get his son back, he has to do certain tasks to prove that he loves his son. If he doesn’t, then the son will die. There’s a lot more to the story and it’s so captivating that if it was a movie it would’ve made a DAMN GOOD movie!

It’s also the kind of game that is as fun for the audience as it is for the player. My sister was watching me play much of the game and she was really addicted to the plot. If you have a PS3, make sure you try Heavy Rain! It’s one hell of an experience. In fact, I kinda envy those people who haven’t played it yet. Such a fun experience ahead.

Here’s a trailer of the game, check it out.

Oh and just to illustrate how different actions in the game leads to different endings, there are 24 different endings. I found out about them after watching so many of them on YouTube.

I have a new toy!  It was some weeks back when Ming first told me that he had a great idea for what to buy me for my birthday. He described it as a wireless sound system that could be controlled by an iPhone or iPod touch and play the music of any computers in a Wi-Fi area.

It can also apparently play hundreds of radio stations all over the world which stream via the internet.

I didn’t think much of it. When he asked me if I would like it I just went “err…”. He looked disappointed and asked “What? You don’t like music ar?”

I thought a little deeper about it. I mean yeah I just moved into this new place and I don’t really have a sound system in the bedroom yet so I guess that would be nice… but do I need such a fancy one? I mean heck, I would’ve just settled for a speaker dock for my iPhone on my nightstand. Then I went home and started doing some research about this wireless sound system he told me was called “Sonos”. I watched some videos about it and read about what it could do and I was IMPRESSED.

Let me tell you what it can do.

I now have two of these speakers that apparently have like a woofer and all built in. One in my bedroom (along with my 1,000 year old boxy TV).

and one in my living room downstairs.

They are both connected by this hub called the “Zone Bridge”. I only have two but if you have more you can simply hook them all up to the same wireless network.

So from the Sonos iPhone App I can install on my phone, I see this in the menu.

I can browse all sorts of different radio stations from all over the world. Like here I’m looking at the radio stations in San Francisco.

I can choose the radio stations based on genre. Say if I like classical music, there are many many radio stations out there that have nothing but classical music. Say I like RnB then I can pick the RnB stations or if I like the Oldies I can pick a station that specializes in Oldies.

There are even news stations, comedy stations etc etc. Heck there even is a station dedicated to Beatles songs and play nothing but that. That’s one of Hello Kitty’s favourite. Then I can control them such that both the speakers in my Living Room and Bedroom play the same music or different music.

In this case, the speaker in the Living Room is playing “Song to Whoever” by Beautiful South and the speaker in my bedroom is playing “21 Guns” by Green Day. It also pulls off any songs from any computers that are hooked on to my Wi-Fi network and can play from that computer instantly.

The sound from the speaker too is great. A little speaker like that can go really really loud. I don’t know if the sound quality is better than a Bose or something but…. I like the flexibility it gives me to listen to whatever music I want, wherever I am at home. Best part is that I don’t need another controller just to control this. I can just do it from my phone.

All the internet radio stations too are great. It’s like you keep discovering new great songs when you listen to them.

Thank you for the great Birthday Present Ming!

While My Hello Kitty and I were in New York, one of the places we had to visit was Central Park. You hear so much about it from TV or Movies. Like in so many movies where they have aerial shots of New York, you’re very likely to see a shot of Central Park in there somewhere! It’s like this big patch of green in the middle of the concrete jungle that’s rectangular in shape.

The cool thing about New York is that It’s planned out in a way where street names can be used as coordinates. So if someone wants to tell you where he lives, he just has to say “on the corner of Madison and 31st Street” or something and you can look on the map and find that exact spot. So similarly, distance is measured by the term “blocks” which is how many grids of buildings you will have to pass in order to get to the place. One block takes maybe… 5-10 minutes or so to walk. Central Park runs for like… 51 blocks!

Central Park is really nice. You see a lot of people doing all sorts of outdoor stuff. I saw girls in bikinis sun bathing while lying on the grass. I saw people playing baseball.

I saw couples row boats.

I saw lots of people jogging or cycling.

Lots of mothers with strollers walking around the park and lots of water coolers for people like me who can’t last 5 minutes without water.

There were lots of people walking their dogs too. My Hello Kitty loves big dogs so when she saw one she couldn’t resist patting it in the head. The owner of the dog was Filipino and fortunately she didn’t have the dog ordered to ATTACK MY HELLO KITTY!

That’s one thing about New York. Everywhere you go, people like to ask where you’re from because lots of people there are from all around the world and they just happen settle down in New York. I initially thought New York had a reputation for “rude people” but I actually met some really really helpful people there. We would be walking the streets looking at a map and a passerby would just stop us and ask if we need help.

This other time we were trying to get into the subway but failing terribly because My Hello Kitty’s subway travel card didn’t seem to work. We were trying it for a long long time until a guy who was dressed like Snoop Dogg and looked like Akon came over and offered to swipe his card for us. In other words, to help us he was willing to pay the subway fare for My Hello Kitty. To make matters worse, once he swiped the card I saw the credit he had left, something like $8 left or something. So that guy probably had $10 to begin with on the card and he spent 20% of the total money he had on the card just to help a stranger. Such a nice guy. I hope good karma comes back to him.

Anyway back to Central Park. One of the things we wanted to see at Central Park was Strawberry Fields. The story behind Strawberry Fields is that decades ago, John Lennon was shot right outside his apartment which is the building behind me in this picture. That’s right, John Lennon used to stay there.

His apartment is right opposite Central Park so in 1985 on what would’ve been his 45th birthday, his Japanese wife did was create a memorial for him in Central Park named after one of his songs: Strawberry Fields (Forever).

It’s a mosaic mural where lots of John Lennon fans will come and leave their belongings here amongst the strawberries and flowers that were laid out into a peace sign.

Right in the middle of the mural was the word “Imagine”, probably after his song.

I don’t know how to explain but just being there at Strawberry Fields gave you a very… peaceful feeling. Heck if I ever have a memorial, that’s the exact kind of place I would like it to be. Not that I want to die anything soon or anything… don’t get me wrong… *touch wood touch wood* (please please let me live a long happy life!)

Here’s My Hello Kitty and I with the full shot of the memorial. A friendly New Yorker was nice enough to take this picture for us.

O

One thing about me is that I’m very very easily influenced by things around me. Like I can see an ad for Snickers and within the next 24 hours I will crave one and go buy one. My Hello Kitty calls me the dream consumer. Just advertise anywhere and you get instant ROI from people like me going out to buy your product.

In this case, the next day after Strawberry Fields we were walking on the streets of New York when we came by this fruit stall.

I saw some strawberries and I immediately bought some.

Gotta admit that those are some really good strawberries though. Sweet and juicy! I don’t know why we can’t find such good strawberries back here in Malaysia. If I could I would have so many of them! Oh well… strawberries for you John Lennon!  I shall end this entry with a tribute to John Lennon.

Here’s “Imagine” by John Lennon. Such a beautiful song! Rest in peace John Lennon! Your legend lives on!

I was in Singapore on my birthday weekend. I happened to be there on a Thursday and Friday for some meetings and so I just decided to stay the weekend since I had to fly off to Beijing from Singapore right after the weekend ended on Monday. My Hello Kitty was nice enough to fly down right after work on a Friday night to hang out with me in Singapore.

On Saturday a bunch of us went to Universal Studios.

That’s my second time there and I’ve blogged about it before so I won’t go into too much detail here but after this second time I can safely say that I have been on ALL the open rides on Universal Studios SIngapore.

Except for  some merry-go-rounds or kiddy ones. Oh and except for this Battlestar Gallactica that is still closed since the park opened.

I soo soo soo wanna try that! You know it’s one of those rides where I’m damn freaking scared to go on but I still wanna go on. I will eventually get on the ride and then realize that it was a mistake right after I have been strapped into my seat.  I like how they controlled the number of tickets they sold each day. I mean there was plenty of room to move around but the lines for the rides were already pretty long. Can’t imagine if they didn’t have a limit on that.

Here’s Yanti and Eileen lining up to collect our food vouchers. The girl on the right who’s covering her camera-shy face is Karen.

The only picture I managed to get of Karen is this accidental picture I have of her.

I happened to also take this awkward picture of My Hello Kitty. In what looks like her adjusting her holding on to her hat in fear of someone about to steal it from her. Well we had some other good pictures too.

Like this picture with Marilyn Monroe.

We felt a bit sorry for Marilyn Monroe. There were so many people lining up to take pictures with her and throughout the whole time that could go on for an hour or so, she had to keep a smile on her face. How do you do that? I smile consistently for 15 minutes and already my smile muscles hurt.

We ended our day at Universal Studios later in the evening and went for dinner at my favourite Sunset Grill where I was surprised to see Pierre and Lay See who had come down just for my Birthday :). Anyway, this place is known to have spicy chicken wings and rate them from Level 1-30. Level 2’s spicyness level is like Nandos hot peri-peri, and Level 30 is… well… pretty fucked up for your stomach and tongue. If you eat above Level 20, they’ll actually take your name and put it up on the wall.

Amos was the first one who had the balls to try Level 30. Everyone took pictures and videos and cheered him on.

This is how Amos looked after he had ONE piece of Level 30.

Yes… it wasn’t a pretty sight. Notice all the empty cans of drinks around him. That’s how much liquid he had to take to cool down that Level 30 fire.

The next guy who had the balls to do it was Stanley. He quickly shoved it into his mouth and surprisingly managed to recover rather quickly.

Stanley’s experience had a whole other story altogether. Right after dinner he went to Marina Bay Sands’ Casino to gamble with Ming and Pierre. He decided that since he just had a Level 30 chicken wing, he was going to the first roulette table he saw when he walked in, and placed S$500 on number 30!

On that very table, number 30 had just came out when they arrived but that didn’t stop him. Guess what… the wheel spun and the ball ended up landing on number 30! 5 minutes from entering the casino and just from making one bet, Stanley had turned his S$500 to S$18,000 (which is like over RM40,000). I ended up gambling at MBS too right after the clock struck midnight into my birthday. I kept telling My Hello Kitty that I was FEELING LUCKY… but she said “there’s no such thing as feeling lucky”.

True enough, I ended the night losing S$200 which was as much as I could afford to lose.

Anyway the next day which was the day of my actual birthday, I woke up and had lunch with my brother. Then it was time to send My Hello Kitty off. We dropped her off after lunch and said our Goodbyes. I wasn’t going to be able to see her for a week or so since I would be traveling to Beijing and Hong Kong before I return to KL.

Ming, James and Estee picked me up right after lunch and we went for coffee. Spent an hour at this old army barracks that they had converted into a chic place for people to have coffee and hang out. Then Ming decided it was time for him to take me go buy my birthday present. They ended up driving me to this quiet place with two run-down houses that nobody lived in anymore. Waiting right outside one of the houses was some of the MY and SG Nuffies, some friends and My Hello Kitty!

Turned out that they had organized a surprise Laser Tag session and My Hello Kitty ended up missing her flight just to attend it. Man laser tag was sooo fun. It’s sort of like paintball only that it felt a lot more realistic in the sense where there are different kinds of guns, some heavier but with longer range (good for sniping) and some light but good for spraying.

I used the gun this guy was holding. The P90.

We broke into two teams and we played different missions like protecting the VIP or just pure team deathmatch. If anything it really felt like real-life counter-strike to me..  how sometimes I would stand at the window and shoot people and hear the people on the other side shout
“SNIPER AT THE WINDOW SNIPER AT THE WINDOW!!!”

I also learned that it was almost impossible to shoot accurately and run at the same time. And that it was also difficult even just to keep aim at something and walk since you had to keep looking down to see what uneven ground you’re stepping on.

It was so much fun though! So much fun that I wanna play it again in KL if we have something like that here. Do we?

After laser-tag, I said my goodbye to My Hello Kitty and went to Ming’s place for a surprise Sukiyaki birthday dinner he had planned for me. Ming’s mum and dad were nice enough to prepare everything… I felt terrible. I thanked them as much as I could.

I didn’t have any pictures from that night on because it was then that I realized I had left my camera with My Hello Kitty and she was unknowingly bringing it back to KL. So I’m just going to have to tell you that… it was a great night. It was the first birthday I’ve celebrated in Singapore… but it felt like I was celebrating it at home.

This afternoon, My Hello Kitty and I just sat at the computer and watched videos on YouTube. We went through so many and there were two that really cracked me up.

Okay the first one is this one.

This guy basically took a video of an aunty driving a Lexus trying to reverse park her car but doing so very very slowly. I thought he was really patient about it but the things he said….. just made me laugh.

This second one is a Thai TV commercial for an optical company.

I really didn’t expect what was coming so when I saw it in the end, I laughed out loud like shit for like 10 seconds. Gotta love Thai commercials!