Weekend road trip to KL
Spending a weekend for a holiday is quite taxing.
Advantage: you don’t have to burn too much of your annual holiday.
Disadvantage: you have to be prepared to have your energy sapped from your bones.
Last weekend, I went to KL with my salsa friends from Xenbar. We left on Friday night, and I returned on Monday morning, just in time for natural products lecture at 10am. We booked the Grassland luxury coach, which cost $77, compared to $20 if you buy a no-frills coach and board it from Malaysia. The extra $$ went to the blanket they provided, a bottle of mineral bottle, a piece of cake, and a private television screen. Not to mention there was ample space for the legs. My toes couldn’t even touch the seat in front when I stretch it and point my toes. Having such a novel gadget on board, everyone threw sleep out of the window. From the last seat, I could see people turning into movies like Fantastic Four and Harry Potter. It was a surprise to see that the Harry potter movie that they had on board was the last movie edition: Goblet of Fire. However, being so tired from continuous nights of practice and performance on Friday itself, I immediately fell asleep on the bus, although I did try (in vain) to watch a movie after we were woken up at a pit stop.
I cannot help but stop this account of the trip, to tell you about what we saw at the toilets. At the toilet in Golden Mile complex, we saw a lady squatting over a drainage hole to pee, even though there were many empty, squatting cubicles. It was very traumatizing, more so when we saw the lady again when we were leaving the toilet, slowly preening herself in the mirror.
It was 5pm when we arrived in KL. We got off the bus at Berjaya plaza, opposite Times Square and tried/discussed how to navigate from there to capitol hotel. It took awhile because the map we had was very vague and there were no road signs in sight to indicate which direction is where and also because most of us just woke up from our sleep.
In the end we just followed Justin, walked blindly, and actually found the hotel lobby, which was very small and inconspicuous. After we deposited our bags at the concierge of the hotel (there were no empty rooms suitable for us to check into yet because we wanted 4 rooms on the same floor), we walked out into the night to look for any shops or restaurants which were open. We found an expensive Chinese restaurant which sold coke at RM$4 and porridge at RM$13. Having no choice and lots of money in our pockets, we sat down and depended on those of us who could speak Cantonese to order our breakfast.
The porridge we ordered was very tasty, and made us feel that we spent our money’s worth. Justin told Sam that this was the porridge he should cook. It led to the question, did the porridge contain MSG, a taste enhancer. Most of us felt that it did, because the porridge tasted good and we soon became thirsty that we had to order a drink. However Wai Huang said it didn’t because he was hypersensitive to MSG and it made his muscles tighten. The porridge, however, didn’t do so. We then say at the restaurant to talk till 8pm. The conversation was interjected by Justin’s demands for Ivy to tell us our itinerary. That totally stressed Ivy out because it was a free and easy trip and there was no itinerary,
I was sitting beside Justin and being so close to him I spotted a strand of white hair and pimples on his head! Then yanqing reached over to touch his hair, then she concluded, “I give you permission to shave again, now your head not poky anymore!”
We got back to the hotel at 8am to see if they had any rooms. Unfortunately they didn’t so we sat at the lobby and started dosing off. After a while, we shifted to the chairs at the café for better sitting positions. Justin couldn’t sit still, after a while he started garnering the few of us who were awake to go for another breakfast, this time it was wanton noodle breakfast. Terence, Wai Huang, Joyce and me stayed and slept. At about 10am, when the hotel promised us at least 2 rooms, everyone came back, with bubble gum. Thus we started a bubble-blowing competition. We took quite a few tries before we could get a picture of all 4 bubbles taken.
Before the clock stroke 1, we managed to troop down to Federal hotel’s swimming pool to do a bit of tanning. Unfortunately there was more cloud cover that desired, and most of us ended up “half done” or half tanned, only the back was exposed to strong enough sun. Not giving up, we returned the next day and was rewarded with very strong sun. Instead of originally spending 30mins lying on one side, we only took 10mins. Joyce and I were happy to be slightly tanned, unlike Sam and Ivy, who tanned till their faces burned. Not forgetting to take photos, we posed for a few memorable ones, and we caught Kyo’s 6-pac-to-be-8 on photo. DJ Kyo, candidate for the Xenbar’s version of 300.
The rest of the day was quite uneventful as we went shopping at Sungei Wang while the guys entertained themselves. Each of us got valuable buys which we couldn’t get in Singapore. The biggest take-home was the second day, when we chanced upon a factory outlet shop while walking aimlessly from shopping centre to shopping centre. We each other a pair of denim shorts, all prepared to dress as sailors for the May/June performance. The shorts were selling at RM$24 and buy 1 free 1. So that works out to less than S$6.
The whole objective of the trip was actually to get a feel of KL’s salsa scene. And we did. At first we went to Salsa Havana, but it was empty on Saturdays. Next we went to Little Havana. It was D place. All 11 of us trooped into the semi-detached bungalow. I bet the locals were all thinking: who are they? We soon showed them that we were here to dance salsa. All our ladies could do that pretty well. Soon, we took over the dance floor. After all, we were only here for 1 night. It was very enjoyable, the place was crowded, just enough to provide a party yet not too crowded for accidents and feet-stepping to occur. I enjoyed myself there. I actually caught this guy, Jason who could do very nice afro-cuban shines, in action. However the lighting was tricky and I figured that the memory of it would serve better than a dark recording.
After the dancing, which ended at 2am, we were invited to join the locals at a prata stall nearby. It was very much like what we do in Singapore, after social dancing at Union Square. There, I got the chance to talk to a lady by the name of Xiao San. I asked them about which school they were learning from, who are her instructors, whether they danced with anyone, or only among their own classmates. She also asked about Singapore and I told her that Xenbar is a bar, restaurant, club and dance school all rolled into one. As members of Xenbar, we get to customize it and make it our own, like sleeping over during practices and playing mahjong to chill. She said she loves the concept of Xenbar, and would definitely check it out when she comes over. To end the night, we took group pictures with the locals, and exchanged emails. At that point, I felt that my sole aim of coming to KL was fulfilled and I returned to the hotel utterly exhausted. I slept while feeling the aches and pain from my feet creeping up my body.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
9.30am
In the middle of my 8am lecture, I suddenly remembered that I wanted to do my journal for human relations today. frantically I started looking for paper. None of my cliché has rough paper! Luckily Wey ling, a classmate has, otherwise I would have to procrastinate my work again, and it is not good because I would be away in Kuala Lumpur for the weekend and there’ll be no time for work. To make thigns worse, my Independent study module final paper will be due next week, on top of the human relations assignment.
I have been wanting to fulfill my role as a conscientious student and do my journal before the last week. Unfortunately, I lack a bit of self-discipline.
Dosage form design lecture is getting very unbearable after 1 hour and I’ve been counting down the minutes ever sine 9.05 and it 9.40 now. The good news is, Yay, the lecturer has decided to take a break. A sign of relief could be heard from half of the lecture theatre, the half which is occupied.
Now I have to go look for a toilet where people hardly visit so I can do my make-up for my salsa performance later. I am very excited about it because it’s the first time Nigel and I are doing it for the public. In previous performances, we just did a common choreography, taught to us by Yanqing. This one is different because it was choreographed mostly by Nigel, with some input from me. It tells a story of a couple dating. Nigel is quite satisfied with his current choreography and I hope our practice over the past 2 days have paid off. I just pray that his knee is okay (so he can do a toe touch and jump over me) and the flooring will not have too much effect on us.
11.25pm
Am leaving Yusoff Ishak House to go to Science, where the performance is. Hope I am not too late, but I don’t see any bus in sight either. I did my make-up at the nice and new toilets in the University Hall, and my friends accompanied me there and also walked with me to YIH. They gave me advice on where to paste my crystals, and what products to buy. For example, michelle suggested that I buy the sparkle powder that comes with a brush dispenser from Body Shop since I was going to use it very often. I was at a lost of which eye shadow colour to use. The last time I wore this same purple outfit, using purple and pink hues did not look god together as there was too much on the same colour. Aiwen suggested that I use brown as opposed to michelle’s suggestion on black because I was very fair and the performance was a day performance. I agreed as well, because I did not want to look too over-done, and besides, I did not have black eye shadow, they are expensive and sold-out most of the time. Despite aiwen’s suggestion that I put only silver crystals, I still included green ones as I thought they added a fresh look to brown, and green is kind of complimentary to brown, although it has nothing to do with my outfit. I just like green. I have a green bag, and a green umbrella, and recently, I have been contemplating buying a new pair of lime green dancing shoes. My other shoes have become worn-out. I had put on fake eyelashes, but on the walk to YIH I found that it was placed too far to the side, and was irritating my eye. So when we reached YIH, we went to the toilet behind the career centre, which very few people frequent, to re-apply it. I didn’t eat much for “lunch”, just ordered 2 kuihs to prevent any hunger prangs from bothering me, but at the same time, I didn’t want to allow my stomach and tummy to show when I’m put in the spotlight. Bus is coming, my handphone is ringing, must be Nigel calling me.
4.05pm
Phew! It’s all over. I got to class slightly late but still before the lecture began. I decided to drop by Science foyer again to give the bubble tea another try. I wanted to have a cup of bubble tea earlier, after all it’s free and it was being given out as lucky draw prizes. But because we performed during the bazaar, they gave us one cup each. I love bubble tea because of the chewy pearls. Luckily, I got the last cup of tea. What luck! Otherwise I would feel quite disappointed. Pity the lucky draw contestants later, no more bubble tea, many other prizes have also run out of stock as the lucky draw is so popular. You just need to log in with your matriculation card number and pin.
I didn’t eat lunch earlier, so I felt that the bubble tea would be my reward for fasting. I didn’t eat after my performance as well as I didn’t feel hungry after the “work-out”. It didn’t help that I concussed for 1 hour the moment I reached my room. When you sleep, you don’t feel hungry. After waking up, bathing and preliminary packing for KL, I did feel hungry. So I grabbed some biscuits while leaving my PGP room. Was running late because I just remembered I had to send out the link of the new survey to my group mates so that we can source for more minority population representatives.
I switched on my laptop and it automatically signed me into MSN. Then I sort of got “delayed” there because a fellow performer of ACTFA, Wai Huang, asked me, how was the performance. He performed for the same event yesterday and filled me in with the details of the mistakes and accidents that happened. So I figured that I had to return the favour and inform him as well.
Basically, the Master of Ceremony, James, came late today and we did the performance after an anxious-sounding introduction from Kelly, one of the student organizers. Unfortunately, it didn’t draw any crowds and people didn’t even know that we’re started performing. After we finished performing, I was drenched in my own sweat! So my friends, who were very supportive to come and cheer for me, brought me to a nearby empty lecture theatre to cool down. It was such a relief!
Later at 12.45, James finally arrived. His continuous flow of lame jokes and promotion announcements was in the air. We did social dancing to 2 salsa songs, both salsa remixes of Chinese songs. I figured that if we played songs which the crowd identified with, they would be more interested in Salsa and not thinking of it as a segregated music genre, all by itself, which is what most salsa dancers think. The Chinese songs were so addictive that the MC started talking in Chinese while introducing us between the songs. Having the MC and the correct music really helped draw crowds, so much so, we decided to do our performance once again, to garner more interest.
I was quite happy to see so many familiar faces, like one of my salsa class students, school and dance mates, Jiwei and Rozanna. Fiona, my junior college best friend, also came down, as well as many other pharmacy juniors. After the warm-up and sweat-down of social dancing, Nigel and I were more prepared. On top of that, we received words of wisdom from the Grand-teacher himself, Justin, in whispers just before we got on the make-shift platform. He told me to be more confident and “if you wobble, tell yourself that there is no reason that you should be losing balance.” These words really helped because after doing a turn and a head toss, which usually threw me off balance, I didn’t wobble so much.
Our second performance was better, except that I kept having difficulty catching the music for the solo component. It didn’t help that Nigel always wear our mistakes on his face. Because of the sweating, our hands slipped when we were doing the Slide-through and I couldn’t get up from it, though luckily I didn’t fall flat on the floor. That would have been very embarrassing because I could see the worried faces of the audience when our hands slipped. Fortunately, we recovered fast enough before the next set of moves.
My friends made my day when they told me the performance was great. Fellow dancers told me it was nice too, they enjoyed the choreography. That was topped by a pharmacy junior who also dances Salsa; she told me that I’ve improved a lot since she saw the same item in December.
In the middle of my 8am lecture, I suddenly remembered that I wanted to do my journal for human relations today. frantically I started looking for paper. None of my cliché has rough paper! Luckily Wey ling, a classmate has, otherwise I would have to procrastinate my work again, and it is not good because I would be away in Kuala Lumpur for the weekend and there’ll be no time for work. To make thigns worse, my Independent study module final paper will be due next week, on top of the human relations assignment.
I have been wanting to fulfill my role as a conscientious student and do my journal before the last week. Unfortunately, I lack a bit of self-discipline.
Dosage form design lecture is getting very unbearable after 1 hour and I’ve been counting down the minutes ever sine 9.05 and it 9.40 now. The good news is, Yay, the lecturer has decided to take a break. A sign of relief could be heard from half of the lecture theatre, the half which is occupied.
Now I have to go look for a toilet where people hardly visit so I can do my make-up for my salsa performance later. I am very excited about it because it’s the first time Nigel and I are doing it for the public. In previous performances, we just did a common choreography, taught to us by Yanqing. This one is different because it was choreographed mostly by Nigel, with some input from me. It tells a story of a couple dating. Nigel is quite satisfied with his current choreography and I hope our practice over the past 2 days have paid off. I just pray that his knee is okay (so he can do a toe touch and jump over me) and the flooring will not have too much effect on us.
11.25pm
Am leaving Yusoff Ishak House to go to Science, where the performance is. Hope I am not too late, but I don’t see any bus in sight either. I did my make-up at the nice and new toilets in the University Hall, and my friends accompanied me there and also walked with me to YIH. They gave me advice on where to paste my crystals, and what products to buy. For example, michelle suggested that I buy the sparkle powder that comes with a brush dispenser from Body Shop since I was going to use it very often. I was at a lost of which eye shadow colour to use. The last time I wore this same purple outfit, using purple and pink hues did not look god together as there was too much on the same colour. Aiwen suggested that I use brown as opposed to michelle’s suggestion on black because I was very fair and the performance was a day performance. I agreed as well, because I did not want to look too over-done, and besides, I did not have black eye shadow, they are expensive and sold-out most of the time. Despite aiwen’s suggestion that I put only silver crystals, I still included green ones as I thought they added a fresh look to brown, and green is kind of complimentary to brown, although it has nothing to do with my outfit. I just like green. I have a green bag, and a green umbrella, and recently, I have been contemplating buying a new pair of lime green dancing shoes. My other shoes have become worn-out. I had put on fake eyelashes, but on the walk to YIH I found that it was placed too far to the side, and was irritating my eye. So when we reached YIH, we went to the toilet behind the career centre, which very few people frequent, to re-apply it. I didn’t eat much for “lunch”, just ordered 2 kuihs to prevent any hunger prangs from bothering me, but at the same time, I didn’t want to allow my stomach and tummy to show when I’m put in the spotlight. Bus is coming, my handphone is ringing, must be Nigel calling me.
4.05pm
Phew! It’s all over. I got to class slightly late but still before the lecture began. I decided to drop by Science foyer again to give the bubble tea another try. I wanted to have a cup of bubble tea earlier, after all it’s free and it was being given out as lucky draw prizes. But because we performed during the bazaar, they gave us one cup each. I love bubble tea because of the chewy pearls. Luckily, I got the last cup of tea. What luck! Otherwise I would feel quite disappointed. Pity the lucky draw contestants later, no more bubble tea, many other prizes have also run out of stock as the lucky draw is so popular. You just need to log in with your matriculation card number and pin.
I didn’t eat lunch earlier, so I felt that the bubble tea would be my reward for fasting. I didn’t eat after my performance as well as I didn’t feel hungry after the “work-out”. It didn’t help that I concussed for 1 hour the moment I reached my room. When you sleep, you don’t feel hungry. After waking up, bathing and preliminary packing for KL, I did feel hungry. So I grabbed some biscuits while leaving my PGP room. Was running late because I just remembered I had to send out the link of the new survey to my group mates so that we can source for more minority population representatives.
I switched on my laptop and it automatically signed me into MSN. Then I sort of got “delayed” there because a fellow performer of ACTFA, Wai Huang, asked me, how was the performance. He performed for the same event yesterday and filled me in with the details of the mistakes and accidents that happened. So I figured that I had to return the favour and inform him as well.
Basically, the Master of Ceremony, James, came late today and we did the performance after an anxious-sounding introduction from Kelly, one of the student organizers. Unfortunately, it didn’t draw any crowds and people didn’t even know that we’re started performing. After we finished performing, I was drenched in my own sweat! So my friends, who were very supportive to come and cheer for me, brought me to a nearby empty lecture theatre to cool down. It was such a relief!
Later at 12.45, James finally arrived. His continuous flow of lame jokes and promotion announcements was in the air. We did social dancing to 2 salsa songs, both salsa remixes of Chinese songs. I figured that if we played songs which the crowd identified with, they would be more interested in Salsa and not thinking of it as a segregated music genre, all by itself, which is what most salsa dancers think. The Chinese songs were so addictive that the MC started talking in Chinese while introducing us between the songs. Having the MC and the correct music really helped draw crowds, so much so, we decided to do our performance once again, to garner more interest.
I was quite happy to see so many familiar faces, like one of my salsa class students, school and dance mates, Jiwei and Rozanna. Fiona, my junior college best friend, also came down, as well as many other pharmacy juniors. After the warm-up and sweat-down of social dancing, Nigel and I were more prepared. On top of that, we received words of wisdom from the Grand-teacher himself, Justin, in whispers just before we got on the make-shift platform. He told me to be more confident and “if you wobble, tell yourself that there is no reason that you should be losing balance.” These words really helped because after doing a turn and a head toss, which usually threw me off balance, I didn’t wobble so much.
Our second performance was better, except that I kept having difficulty catching the music for the solo component. It didn’t help that Nigel always wear our mistakes on his face. Because of the sweating, our hands slipped when we were doing the Slide-through and I couldn’t get up from it, though luckily I didn’t fall flat on the floor. That would have been very embarrassing because I could see the worried faces of the audience when our hands slipped. Fortunately, we recovered fast enough before the next set of moves.
My friends made my day when they told me the performance was great. Fellow dancers told me it was nice too, they enjoyed the choreography. That was topped by a pharmacy junior who also dances Salsa; she told me that I’ve improved a lot since she saw the same item in December.
Monday, March 19, 2007
this is how chocolate feels to a female student of my mom's
i think she asked her students to fill up my survey, in an attempt to help me increase numbers. very interesting, i have a survey which claims to consume 10 red bulls, 8 bars of chocolate, and 20 cokes, plus instant tea and green tea etc in a day....is it possible to eat so much in a day?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Went to Marrkesh, forgot what's the name of the place, but it's one those places that allows you to smoke shisha and it has very pretty and exotic lights and layout. it's at clarke quay!! the chairs on the outside are low rocking chairs, then inside you can choose to sit in a "booth" (can sit 2 on each side, with lots of cushions) or on the swing... or on sofas which are partitioned by organza material...and it plays an interesting mix of music, from clubbing to more indian pop songs like Addictive by Rakim... and interesting cocktails. i'll give the place 5 upon 5, absolutely delightful. (the smoking didn't disturb me...it was fruity and mostly inhaled to the lungs of the smokers)
Saturday, March 10, 2007
I think this kind of make up is quite unique, and if you use "gentle" colours, might be suitable for work, and rather hassle free...it's done by the gel eye liner which is gentle on your eyes and has a smooth finish.On the topic of makeup, i found out that shiseido has this very good liquid eyeliner called "Fine eyeliner" at $50, refills at $20. this is the conclusion after comparing maybelline, loreal, revlon and one more brand, forgot already...
and thos who like 2 in 1 stuff and looking for non-black pencil eyeliners, the shiseido eyeliner pencil duo is quite good. it resist tears, sweat and oil, draws smoothly, has a pearl brillance.
disclaimer: was at OG, and apparently the best product brand there is shiseido lah...
Is this blend of green and purple cold or what? And it's all due to sheseido's new line of eye shadow called hydro powder eye shadow. it's very smooth and has a shiny/metallic finish and only needs a dab. it's $38...oh, and apparently shiseido teaches you to do this makeup. if you are too lazy to find/read it, can ask me. keke...picked up one or 2 good tips about makeup.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Oh no, i just passed my pharmacotherapy test. 13/25 when the rest of my class did well. it's the one where i had to do a performance the night right before the test. very bad....
must hit the books hard after i finish my caffeine paper..*so scared*
the only comforting tot is that i can acutally score well if i study. i got 19/20 for another test.
must hit the books hard after i finish my caffeine paper..*so scared*
the only comforting tot is that i can acutally score well if i study. i got 19/20 for another test.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
