yes, it's all a part of the fishing adventure..

and so we went fishing. we had to make the best out of the money we splurged on the rods the day before.

sunand asked what the difference was between a good rod and bad, honestly, i dont quite know. what i do know, however, is that we befriended Bernard, this passionate fishing enthusiast who showed us alm0ost everything a young starting fisherman-to-be should know about. i think we spent over 2hours in the shop. with him helping us pick out the essentials. the good from the bad. he even got us beginner pre-tied hooks and stuff. and a 'tie your own knots' book. and he doesn't even own that shop! he was just some regular customer, boss' friend or something. sweet.

so we headed out. we tried our best to take a bus/train there. afterall, its all a part of the fishing adventure ;) i took a train to sengkang (after a load of researching on bus routes) and met ben. and we kinda got lost. ben got annoyed. so we ended up with mr. comfort cabby again. well, at least half of my journey wasnt. so thats ok i guess.

we got to changi village, had lunch, went around hunting for fish shops, bought what we needed and off we went to the jetty, or so we thought. changi aint fun for fishing! we had to stand off the coast on the beach and cast as far as we could. boring. so we packed up, and headed to safra (changi).

maybe it was because we prayed over lunch. asking God for an excellent day. i have to give Him the honour, really. coz the day was simply amazing. the weather was excellent. nice and sunny, yet windy. i got my tan. and we went to the huge canal where grace and i drifted into the last time we went windsurfing! haha. that was funny. brought back crazy memories of our windsurfing days. then we caught oNE fish. it was hilarious. coz ben was mumbling about how we caught our first fish with our 12bucks rod. so the $12 rod still reigned. yes, in supriority over our 100dollar rods. darn it.

i cant wait to put up the pictures!


us getting started.


would have been funny if i actually caught that. tiny tootsie. its like an ikan billi's friend or something. haha.



we missed a couple of fishes here and there. had to kill our live bait. felt really bad though. and there! it was perfect! his dad drove past us! like how random is that. he apparently plays golf at safra. hardly actually. and very rarely does he ever come down to safra changi. coolios! so yay, our dinner and ride home has been settled. lovely.

we ventured out to the water breaker. casting was difficult. reeling back was worse. the winds were much stronger, and the rocks were in the way. we had to cut twice to get ourselves lose from the rocks. but..just as we were about to pack up and leave, ben's rod flew! he had to scramble after it and hold on tight. and reeeeeeellllll!!! they spent a good 10mins fighting. amazingly tough fish, or so we thought. it was so heavy and impossible that ben thought he had caught himself onto the rocks again. he climbed down, and yanked while i tried reeling as much as i could. and suddenly, poof! there we have it. our juicy succulent 4kg (i think) stingray. ahh.. sweet reward it was.

crazily excited, we quickly packed up and headed into safra to get ourselves washed up and ready for dinner. sigh.. it was perfect. and im sure because GOd planned it so. :)

el natura lista

YAY! gracies back! and look what she bought me! my shoes! my shoes my shoes my shoes! my lovely lady shoes, check it out! haha!



yay! just take a look at the soleeeee.... it has a frog...and my lizarddd!! i loveeee.... hahaha!!

Campus Scene Investigation

what a day! i love today! quick update so i can get out of mozzie infested computer table. i had my orientation today. absolutely boring, but its one of the musts do to any new institution. thats the perfect time and place to meet new people. at least the people were fun. more on that later.

orientation ended at 6pm. sleeping at 4am didnt help coz ben was too hyper and chatty the night before. met him after for some fishy rod shopping but we got distracted by superman preview! so we quickly bought tickets at shaw, had yucky phad thai and went straight in. excellent graphics though the plot was pretty much predictable. you cant expect superman to lose. he never does. not even ultraman loses. or power rangers. what more sUPERman.

show was 3hours. my ass almost gave me a second crack. wouldnt have been pretty. since we were at secluded shaw towers. it was an opportunity to seee strange couples gathering in the oh-so-empty theatre as well. young lovers, old couples and even gay ones. managed to catch a 57 home. pleasant surprise though since we had no intention of bus-ing home at 1230am. and the bus came right as we got out. so that was pretty neat. got home, and realised mom actually had the car parked downstairs at the basement. PERFECT timing to steal the car. hehee. we were too broke to get ben back in a cab anyway, so we took the car, quickly drove him back. yay. funny how i was freaking out even though i had it playing in my head for more than a year ever since i could drive! finally some gloria guts are showing. hah!

made MAID in China Indonesia

darn it.

i cant believe she's leaving tmr, first flight out of singapore back home to get married. urgh. not that i liked her very much to begin with, but nooo...i dont think i can do very well without you. yes, even if you tried to poison me with nail polish smelling pizza. urgh.

my maids going back to indonesia. a month break or something. to get married, or so i heard. my mom had a whole schedule planned out on who to do what. my mom's immediate reaction to her leaving was that we would all have to take care of our own junk and grime. dishes and food. and what nots. fair enough. she claims that we cannot live without a maid. well, until she went on saying,"i think we should eat out every night." now who's the one who can't live without a maid. not very wise of you mom.

pop went on saying that we should take turns to cook. i said, those who cant cook, should wash double. (whilst intentionally shooting deadly eye glares at my cousin and dad) it was really funny. mom even mentioned and drafted out a detailed solution to what would happen if henry ends up cooking instant noodles everytime its his turn. haha. this is gonna be interesting!

i think i will need a little SOS shopping done to survive the upcoming month. like 31 disposable undies. stock up on microwaveable dinners. instant noodles. new clothes. hmm.. i even bought an extra pack of wet and dry magic cleans! and i even checked to make sure i had enough for 30 days. haha! i sure do have everything figured out. so dont blame me if you see me in crumpled dodgy clothes for the next month. im sure you'll understand.

my animals will suffer along with their pathetic owner im sure. sorry folks, life is tough. time to learn some, now.

Baybeats 2006

www.baybeats.com.sg

ooh, i cant wait. i remember kevin going gaga about it last year. hope he'll finally be free this time around to go with me. yay! baybeats! the moshing, the body heat and slime. haha. i cant wait!

SIM orientation

i cant wait for school to start.

no..

that sounded too dreadful.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START! yes! that sounds more like it! haha...well....yeah right........

i had a short orientation today. well, it was more of shoving a stack of notes in your face, screening a RMIT video to make you think you're there, and refreshments after. the lecturers are pretty cool though, and my course mates all seem somewhat familiar. it was either they were being friendly, with all that excessive smiling and greeting and what nots, or that i actually do know them and would have to dig up some in my memory bank to fit face to name. quite a number of ngee ann kiddos. and of course, even though it wasnt intentional, i made friends! haha. i was in a,"leave me alone" mode yesterday. didnt wanna talk, didnt wanna smile and be friendly. i dont know. it kinda stuck on ever since i left birmingham. like approachable friendly gloria has vanished. it was weird. but im getting quite used to being like that. haha. anyhow..

i was at the orientation alone. didnt seemed like i needed or wanted company. met kevin's sandy there. even she had to come up first to say hello as compared to the usual glor approaching first.

i befriended catherine, irene and carol. a really strange mix of people. but we will get along. we have to. or i have to rather. i'd need group mates soon. haha. darn, i better start getting the old gloria back.

keep on swimming..

so yay, i finally went for a swim. after having to drag kio and rene down to safra's pool for a longly awaited dip. not that i really needed to drag them, they're always pretty much up to anything spontaneous i throw at them. including random eyebrow plucking in the midst of having coffee at breko. i swear they're probably the only 2 who can take my nonsense. christine aint included. she's on a different league altogether. haha.

i can barely swim. i did 58secs for a lap of freestyle. who does that?? not that i've ever swam competitively, but still. i wanna crash jia's swimming classes to get professionally trained up. and perhaps pick up good coaching skills from that dude too. wanna get back to teaching swimming. i dont know. im broke. europes singtel bill and summon for parking on yellow line came in. stupid. thats almost 400buckeroos. i need to get some fast cash, quick. i need a job that pays as well as christine's walk and play. haha. 750bucks, girlie, time for some sharing and loving yes? ;)

we promised to make it an every tuesday affair. i hope it'll last at least a month. haha. i'll put this on a trial period first. lets see whether we even do continue next week. haha.

we walked down to bukitmerah central for some giant portions of hongkong st.'s famous XO fish soup and stuff. it wasnt that fantastic. typical foodie store nature to drop in standard after its opening peak. darn. the portions made up for it however. we'll learn, yes girls? that it isnt physically possible for 3 girls to finish up 2 medium portions of fish horfan and noodles, and a small sambal kangkong and ha cheong kai. i would have counted it as 4 girls, if it wasnt for kio who had already a half filled stomach before we even started swimming. i swear she has 4 stomachs. haha. amazing. it must have something to do with her speed of eating and her loud munching. hehehe...

will learn, will master the art of gorging. hah!

scratch and sniff

"mom, i think you need a new car door."

 

"what? why?"

 

"coz it looks a little funny to me. i think it lacks a little bit of paint. if its too expensive, i guess we could even out the other side. it might look better."

 

"gloria ngoi........dont tell me you did it again."

 

"what!? i just said you needed a new car door, and maybe a new gate..hehehe"

 

hehe. i still think its funny. so i guess we scratched the car..again. WE. as in my brother and i. not that it was intended, the other car was in the way, and so was the gate. you cant entirely blame me can you. and there was the other driver, my brother. i should take a picture. haha.

 

i dont know why im so tickled by it. and what more, not care less about it. maybe i take it for granted that my parents would be fine with it. but its their car afterall. i should at least attempt to look a tad more remorseful. i dont think anyone can get used to scratching their parents car can they. ben's amazed at how im laughing it off. not like you should be surprised. you always propagate about gloria's sucky driving. ah..darn it. whatever. ive done worse. let me laugh.

100 movie titles search

haha, and i thought i was addicted to the virgin ad game. its aload more fun since i know a lot more movie titles as compared to band names. yay! and yes, we stayed up till 6am to do this. and we only managed half!

Virgin Ad Game - find 74 bands

heh. when i first saw this on christine's desktop's wall paper, i was instantaneously hooked. i think we spent at least an hour or two on this figuring it out. its virgin ad's 'find74bandnames' game. apparently huge a couple of years back. its still fun nevertheless. now heres a start..smashing pumpkins.

seriously jetlagged

somebody save me... i wanna die... put a bullet in my headddddddddddd.....

familiar lyrics? i think that came from the wedding singer. well, whatever inspired it, is obviously killing me. i need my sleep! not that i have to even try to keep awake, but i really need to get my days and nights in order. its 8am, im still awake. urgh. thats day 2 of jetlagging. i need to fight this war. i need my soldiers. i need my caffine mates.

urgh.

shall go for a swim.. we'll see what happens.

look who's the BULLy now?

thought this was hilarious, especially after witnessing a bull fight myself. you go bull!

water vapour's heavy afterall

ugh! the weather in singapore is dreadful!

so i'm finally back. its been a little crazy though. like when i was at Charles De Gaulle airport in paris, with ten million bags in hand, it felt as if i was going on a holiday all over again. the being in the airport bit, the baggages, the flight to catch, you know. kinda does stuff to your head.

i had a 23 hour flight that awaited me. technically 14, but if you include time differences and stuff, it works out to that. pretty scary, but the 400channels of pure entertainment and laughter kept me going. or so i thought.

the 400 channels didnt appear. what i was left with were 4 movie channels instead and a ton of other arabic shows. darn.

caught eight below on the plane. i love that show. very predictable, but it made me cry! cant stand watching animals dying and sorts. sigh.

left at 2150hrs paris time, got to dubai at 0630hrs dubai time. i bought sheeshas! and dubai's airport is clearly overated. i would still prefer changi anytime over dubai's. finally toucheddown at 2030hrs in singapore. what a ride.

i almost hyperventilated at the airport when i actually stepped out into the open air. its so freaking humid. and ben said it was actually supposedly a cold night. ugh. i could almost feel the vapour in the air weigh me down. it was horrifying i swear...

my body clock's screwed. i got really hungry at 1am. we had to go for supper. thats 7pm paris time. and finally went to bed at 8am this morinng. thats 2am paris. woke at 7pm, 1pm paris. haha. i dont know how long this will go on for.. hehehe...

Bar One

clubbing at bar one on friday night was a little better than expected. i never really liked partying without knowing the majority of people. with that said, i only knew jane. i know its part of getting to know people, but i wasnt really up to it. wasnt ready to be all friendly so i pretty much kept quiet for most of the time. could have done better. anyhow,

it was good! drinks were cheap, too sweet for me however. alco-pops were what they were called. still didnt like it.

im still amazed at how humans, whichever part of the world they live in/come from, they're still pretty much the same. i know, its all a part of human nature. but it just proves that one creator came up with all that doesn tit. hmm.. anyway..

thats craig, prim, me, cant remember who and jane

jane, craig and i!

glor, jane, kieren (he's so adorable!) and the funny haired girl

"PEEJAY! i drank too much!"

there :)

Cadbury World II

haha. i just realised how my other post was titled cadbury world with absolutely nothing mentioned. mr. cadbury comes from birmingham. so they've got the huge cadbury family here and the factory and stuff. which we were supposed to check out today, but got lazy and tickets were out. would go gaga over chocolate land. but i guess willie wonka would have to suffice for now.

Cadbury World

so i just woke up. 2pm.

 

should have done more with my time in birmingham. but i guess thats part of really living out uni after exams life. the guys have already heading down to the pub for early drinks since 11am. i bet they're already getting pissed. english binge drinking is quite bad i believe. hope tonight will be good. and that i'd be ok. we stocked up on alco-pops last night at Tescos to pre-drink for tonights party. haha. i still need to be up at 7am tmr morning to head down to campus for our stonhenge roadtrip.

 

i think im a drunkphoic. as in, i wouldnt dare getting pissed. dont think feeling ill after aton of drinks sound very tempting to me. especially the puking bit that comes along. i'd freak if i had to puke. would probably break out in cold sweat. haha. jane was saying how size has to do with your tolerance to alcohol. im thankful i aint small! hah!

 

i think i went a little mad at Tescos last night. its their huge suburban supermart. haha. bought like a ton of things to make up for the lack of shopping ive done on this trip. its funny however, like i keep thinking that its cheap coz food stuff are mostly under 5quid. so psychologically id think its cheap. argh. valuation of money really gets to my head. i cant do this. at least im better than jane who uses her fingers to count time diffreneces. haha! jane! im sorry! haha. i needed someone to make myself look better!

 

so i bought a ton of coffee, english tea and chocolates. haha. im such a sucker for packaging. like if a thing is packaged good, no matter how it tastes, id probably get it. haha. and i like how Tesco has grades for different stuff. like they grade the top end stuff as finest, then theyve got normal, organic and value. interesing.

 

anyhow, should shower and head out! tonight better be good!

coz i'm laking it..

i just got back from lazing out on campus today. was fun. theyve got this nice 'park' type thing spanned out inbetween campus and residence. complete with a lake and all. pretty. and it was nice and sunny too. and there was wind so you dont get too hot. it was good. laid there on the grass listening to jack johnson while jane was getting amused at the guys playing soccer, no, football, and getting the ball into the lake half the time. funny. skinny brits cant kick. like this guy who kicked a rugby ball which went sailing all the way over the other end which almost hit our heads. prim started grumbling. mutter mutter..and the guy was like, it was even that bad. like yeah right. keep your lousy kicks to a 4walled padded asylum room dude. ass.

everyone was out today. nice. i like the life here. you practically can survive in just the student village alone. like everything you possibly need is within reach. good place to hang and have great conversations. i love... i honestly should do this on my own soon. live out the university life in some foreign land. i have been doing a fair bit of thinking on this trip. i should get the next couple of years planned out somehow.

i cant believe jane got sunburnt through her shirt on her tummy. funny. how would she survive our harsh merciless sun back home.

i know i need more time here. i feel like i dont really need to be back as yet. especially when jane and i talked till 7ish this morning. brought up a couple of issues, which was good. sigh. i cant believe im going back next week. its a little too quick for me. i could stay out much longer. its an experience. a good one that not many backpackers get to experience. i wouldnt even consider myself a backpacker. only probably the time spent in spain and perhaps amsterdam. other then that, its more visitation than anything else.

ive had 3 willie wonka bars since i got here. i think ive been eating my share of food for the loads i missed out the entire trip. haha. like my dinners here at the cafeteria are mostly carbs. like potatoes, cheese, meat, you know. the works. yum. :)

and of course, the random bbqs that people throw at the spur of the moment type thing. haha. sweet.

well, gotta wake jane. we've got a club to tackle tonight! ;)

residence

so im up, finally. its 3ish. suns actually pretty hot, so not much of a need for a thick jacket.

 

i still havent heard from ben. hope he's doing good. i still cant believe he's enlisting in 3 days :( and i wont be there. even though i know he understands, i still feel bad about it. theres more i could have done than that. like the surprise army survival kit i wanted to get together for him. darn procrastination. its a devil inside me i cannot rid.

 

hopefully we'd get things done today. especially supermarche-ing. im starving. we need some stock up in the fridge. not that im preparing for war, but to fill my stomach, its pretty much somewhat close to that.

 

met her flatmates. interesting people. feel like lazing the day away. urgh!

 

and we couldnt get tickets for cadbury world! darn! thats alright. will make do with stonehendge.

 

England - London, Birmingham

its 7degrees outside. i cant imagine how cold i would have been if gracie hadnt insisted on the thick snow boarding jacket.

today was one helluva day. i think ive learnt quite a fair bit. i should have. well, i better have.

i woke up at 7 today. yes, u heard me right, 7am. and i was LATE! my train was at 807am. i take approx. 30mins to get to Gare Du Nord, the train station, and i have barely started to pack.

i can actually visualise serene and kio shaking their heads at me. i mean, i had intended to! just didnt pack, completely. if you know what i mean.

took a quick shower, gracie actually packed me food! how sweet. and off i went. gracie and jan came along to make sure i was ok.

725am, boarded train at Porte d'Orleans.

745am. realised i didnt have my passport. like oh crap man! dug out pockets, bags, shoes, underwear, whatever! i couldnt find my passport! and i had to check in 30mins before 807. this wasnt good. jan jumped off the train and headed home to help search. all i did in the train was to panic. i had cheap eurostar tickets. thats almost an oxymoron. eurostar doesnt usually come cheap, but i mananged to get 32quid tickets. i couldnt just waste it like that could i!

jan called and said the passports still missing. urgh!

805am, reached station. check in counter closed. went straight up to the ticketing lady and she very kindly changed my youth INFLEXIBLE ticket to an open day pass ticket. that means i could board whenever i wanted. cool stufF!

got back and ransacked the entire house. jan woke daph up and the 4 of us dug hard. it was good, coz it meant part clearing up the house too. ugh.

937am. finally. passport was in my bag all along. how stupid.. i quickly chucked it in my bible and said it was wedged between the bible behind the couch. instead of an orchestra of sighs of relief, gracie childed me saying thats what i get when i leave my bible behind. haha. kinda true i suppose.

repacked and set straight out again. back to Gare Du Nord, this time, to catch the 1143am train.
i actually got to the station late again. 5mins before the check in counter closed. and the lady wouldnt let me in. not until i got my new ticket validated. urgh! ran to the counter, the queue was ridiculously long, but this canadian guy, i presumed he was on the the same train as me, went straight up to the front of the queue and explained/asked whether he could cut. as for me, i obviously conveniently tagged along, pretending to know the guy. hehehe.

missed the check in one again. ridiculous.

i was getting good at missing trains. anyhow,

managed to get on the next one. it got delayed. and yaders. ended up in london and now im in birmingham. urgh. its too long to churn out.

~tmr.