Had to spend Monday night in Amoy Quee Camp (HQ NCC) for Camp FEAST. Take 6 men sleeping in a bunk -- what are the odds that one of them would be a snorer and torture everyone? Pretty high, it seems. Except that this wasn't just any normal, polite, purring kind of snoring. This kind actually jars your senses, and made me so disturbed that I spent most of the night in a half-asleep/ half-awake stupor. Imagine the sound that is made when you finish the remains of a packet drink using a straw? Amplify that 10 times, NOT a pretty sound.

Rant of the day:

Looking at some students, it seems such a torture for them to spend time in school. The effect is two-fold, they make life torturous for themselves in school, and they also make life torturous for their teachers in school.
Why all this pain? Why keep these tortured souls in school when they would much rather be doing something else and spare both student and teacher the agony? Why, why, why.... Enter anal-retentive Mr Ministry Spokesman, who recites: "The people of $ingapore are the gahmen's most precious resource. It's the gahmen's intention to have every child complete at least 10 years of compulsory education.".

Ok, at least I got that out of my system. Let's see how I spent last Saturday. Met Jinwen, Mindy and 2 other guys in town for Rolex-shopping. Unfortunately, I was NOT one of the guys hunting for a Rolex. After much deliberation and price comparison, Jinwen and one of the guys finally bought the no-date Submariner, while the other guy took the GMT Master II with black-red bezel. Not bad, 3 Rolexes from one shop (Dickson Watch at Centrepoint) in a day! Jinwen is mighty pleased with his purchase, time now to get the James Bond NATO strap.



Why the no-date Sub? It's cos the price difference between that and the date Sub with its cyclops magnifying lens is astronomical and ridiculous. Demand for Rolex has pushed prices way up high. Well, the no-date Sub looks great too, with the symmetrical layout of its dial. If only I had gotten the Submariner 5 years ago, darn it.

And now, one last pic (to make up for that clown pic from a post below). Was at Parco Bugis before I met Jinwen at City Hall, and look who I came across manning a store at The Edge -- ex-student Christine.

As promised, here's my short report on KL.

What can I say, KL is a city that is as modern (if not more) as $ingapore. The pedestrian crossings at major intersections have LEDs that count down too, and what more, their green man is a moving graphic.

Explored the city using the monorail, which seems to be every bit as efficient as our MRT.

Caught Lemony Snickett's A Series Of Unfortunate Events at the Golden Screens cinema in Berjaya Times Square. Golden Screens seems to be a clone of Golden Village, and I won't be surprised if they are under one umbrella. The cinema looked spanking new, yet the ticket price is only 8 ringgit, yes, 8 ringgit.

Berjaya Times Square is this huge building that makes our Ngee Ann City look like a community centre by comparison. It has an indoor theme park, with a roller coaster ride in the shopping centre itself; the tracks even have a loop!

My meals in KL, just for the record:
Mon: lunch - KFC at Pudu Raya plus McDonald's fries and milkshake at KLCC; dinner - Hainanese chicken rice in Chinatown.
Tues: breakfast - provided at hotel (lots of hashbrowns); lunch - curry chicken with beryani rice at Bintang area plus waffle with ice-cream plus Italian ice-cream cone at Times Square; dinner - Chinese crispy noodles at Bintang area.
Wed: breakfast - provided at hotel (lots of hashbrowns) plus 2 fluffy and chewy roti canai, 2 excellent cups of kopi and 1 nice cup of teh at one of those dark and dingy stalls within the open-air marketplace near hotel. In all, the dingy stall meal cost only 3.40 ringgit-- amazing. The makcik at the stall seemed to be delighted to see me downing cup after cup of her brew; lunch - wanton mee at Chinatown plus KFC (4 Original pieces & wedges) at Pudu Raya to 'load up' for the long coach-ride home.

Some pics to share:

A shot inside the Kuala Lumpur Civic Centre to give you an idea how big the malls in KL are.



Our Isetan is blue, theirs is green:


Standing at this busy intersection, you could be forgiven for thinking that you are in Tokyo or New York. The Bintang area is as cosmopolitan as our Orchard Rd.


Flags outside Times Square, signalling that F1 season in Sepang is approaching.


The gigantic towers of Times Square.


On par with our MRT, the KL Monorail.



A shot of the accommodation (Grand Seasons Hotel).


The view from the hotel room (29th floor).


Those red lanterns could only mean one thing-- Chinatown.


My wanton mee lunch on the last day. The malaysian style has lots of black sauce. Yummy.

A shot of the new Vacheron Constantin Overseas Chronograph taken at Cortina in Millenia Walk. This watch was recently launched in Croatia. The price tag? Only S$25,000. Nice watch hor?

Returned from KL on Wednesday night. Brief report and pics coming right up.
Since the pics of Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's 'IT' (refer to post below) have been so 'well-received', here's another one to brighten up your day:

Have time, will blog:

Tis the beginning of the 1 week March holidays. I'm sure Dorine must have counted down to this day. And I'm doing time in school right now cos of NCC camp. Winnie Tan is in school too for St John's camp and I saw her without her make-up on.
Have been trying my darnest to finish this thick compilation of Stephen King's short stories, presented by Stephen King. In the preface, he claims these stories are NOT taken from the bottom of the heap of discarded short stories he had written over the years, just to rake in $$$. Rather, these stories are prime, first-hand material. So that means I'm getting value for placing my faded National Library card (I still use that same old laminated library card which was issued to me when I was in Primary School; it has my Hanyu Pinyin name on it as well) on that machine that goes 'ding' when I place a tagged book on it. What can I say... Stephen King is a master-storyteller with quite a sick imagination, although I must still say he tends to overwrite at times.

That reminds me, I saw the DVD of 'IT' at Best Denki in Century Square, going for only $19.90. If you are too young to know, 'IT' is a thick thick novel by Stephen King (the guy actually prefers writing novels to shorts which comes as no surprise since he likes to overwrite so much) which was made into a movie starring Tim Curry. If you don't know your Hollywood stars, Tim Curry was the guy whom Lucy Liu did a massage on, using her feet, in Charlie's Angels.
I caught 'IT' when it was telecast on TV a long time ago, and I thought it was a creepier kind of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'. And the bogeyman in 'IT' was played by Tim Curry who was dressed as a clown with full make-up, incongruous perhaps, except that this clown had a neat set of yellowish sharp teeth that was revealed whenever he laughed manically. Yes, Tim Curry has such a good villain face. No need for a CGI-generated Chucky!




That brings me to shopping. I used to scoff at my dad whenever we go to shopping centres cos he would inadvertently gravitate towards the DVD section and be stuck there. Now, I tend to gravitate too... maybe this is what happens when you have your own DVD player. But I'm no spendthrift. So far, the movie DVDs I have bought cost less than S$20 each. This means that I usually buy movie DVDs only if they are on sale, unless I really have no choice, e.g. for a film like Battle Royale which will probably have to be ordered from overseas. Luckily enough, I've seen quite a few on sale here which I have always wanted to own-- these are not-so-new movies which I think are worth having on DVD.

My movie DVD collection (really quite modest, unlike my watch straps):
Poltergeist
Clash Of The Titans (bought together with Poltergeist-- 2 for $30)
The Last Emperor (on sale at HMV for $9.90!)
UZUMAKI (on sale at HMV for $6.95! A really cool DVD)

Yup, that's all.
Unfortunately, music DVDs cost much more and are rarely on sale. I have one of Bjork (her first MTV Unplugged featuring an unknown then Talvin Singh) and two of Manic Street Preachers (their music video complilation, and their historic concert in Cuba).

On the subject of shopping, I also bought a pair of Emporio Armani shades on impulse last weekend at the Sunglass Hut in Millenia Walk (after which I bought The Last Emperor DVD from HMV at Citylink). The shades have gradated lenses and I liked the retro design; they came in blue, black, red, green-- I chose green. The feedback from others? I look positively lascivious in them... oh well.
After HMV, I headed to Cortina at Raffles City to get the bracelet of my Seamaster removed, so that I could put on the NATO strap which I ordered from Timefactors, what else but the James Bond version. If it looked good on the Submariner, it will look good on the black on black Seamaster! According to the site: its 'colours are actually the genuine regimental colours of the General Service Corps'. For a nice review and pics of the Seamaster on that NATO strap, check out hacmac's site.
Oh, since I have emailed Omega, the actual A4-sized COSC certificate for my Seamaster has arrived from Switzerland, in a handsome Omega file with complimentary Omega postcards. Now, that is service for you.

Mental note to myself: to get students to record 'incongruous', 'inadvertently' and 'lascivious' in their vocabulary log-books when school reopens.

Kuala Lumpur, here I come! May she be crime-free!

In the darkness, I knocked over a drinking glass at the coffee table, and it fell to the floor in smithereens at 6.33am this morning. What a way to start the day.
Still mourning the passing of the glass, cos it was bought and painstakingly lugged from Phuket. Now there are 5 instead of 6 glasses.
Hope I can find one like it in S'pore :(