28th January 2008

This is preposterous. Ridiculous. Obscene. Inconsiderate. Rubbish!!

Singaporeans, in general, are getting on my nerves. Where's the heart? The consideration? The love? The morals? The values?

Most importantly, WHERE IS THE DARN QUEUE???

I was having dinner with my parents after the doctor's appointment. Lovely dinner =) Anyway, halfway through it, i offered to get drinks for everyone. Simple orders really. A hot tea, and one milo peng.

So i walked happily to the drinks counter and stood in line. An old lady stood behind me. Suddenly, the line became a triangle, then a circle, then simply a mass of people. I of course, was somehow pushed to the outer rim of the mass. Huh. How on earth was i going to order like that? So i stuck my hands out as if i had durians under my armpits, and began pushing as politely as possible (okay so pushing isn't very polite, but rather i MOVED in between little spaces) through the mass of people to the counter.

I shouted out my orders "AUNTIE! TEI YI BEI! HAI YOU MILO-PENG!!!" Wah next thing i knew, one shove and i was right back where i DIDN'T belong. At the outer rim of the masses yet again. Hmm the old lady was still there as well. Next thing i knew, an Indian man squeezed past the old lady and yelled, "Tiger beer! Two more bottles!" He paid and left.

I was like "What the...???" EXCUSE ME? Do you have eyes? This is a QUEUE? As distorted the shape of the queue was, it's still a queue! Just because you ordered earlier on, doesn't give you the priority to get first hand service. If you want to purchase more drinks, join the QUEUE man!! You know? Q.U.E.U.E.?

Finally, the masses disappeared and only the old lady and i were left. Obviously, the drinks auntie neglected my order, so i reordered. I was pretty pissed and grumpy by then. Wah then goodness knows what happened, some guy came behind the old lady, and said,"Milo peng, kopi-o, pepsi light, hai yo green tea".

AND THE AUNTIE IMMEDIATELY PREPARED THE DRINKS FOR HIM AND GAVE HIM THE MILO THEY HAD INITIALLY MADE FOR ME!

Whoa what nonsense is this? He paid then left with his drinks. The lady then stared at me expectantly, probably waiting for me to order my drinks. By then i was spluttering in indignant and anger. "splutter splutter, MILO-PENG, splutter, teh, splutter snort. OKAY?? splutter"

Then i got my drinks.

WAHH i was mad as hell. The next person who cut my queue or the old lady's, i would have made sure he/she will never reproduce again. Seriously. Was controlling myself already. I then literally HOPPED with rage back to the dinner table. Of course, 20 minutes had passed by then. SNORT.

19th January 2008

*ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh coughs coughs*

-pants-

Right. This flu/cough bug of mine is very annoying. It's been a more than a month already. I've had it since the exams, it's so frustrating. A few others have caught it as well. Drink lots of water everyone. This bug doesn't seem to be going away for a while. Try not to catch it!!

Anyway, school has started again, and my blog looks... stuck. I guess it's because i've been to the library and have got myself wound into the nose-in-the-book habit again, and have no liking for the Internet at the moment. The only reason i'm posting this is so my mum's and my face do not come up and stare hauntingly at me everytime i click on my website.

Classes have been... well... erm... Okay. I confess. Majority seem... sleepable. Haha. It's the voices of the lecturers i think. Whatever the case, i have quite a few American lecturers this semester, including one from Ireland!! (psst. WESTLIFE! hahaha) Eileen said she's lost in her facilitator's blue eyes (she's also from Ireland), yet mine is way too strict and fierce for me to stare into her eyes. I'm scared. I rather stare at my notes. Ah well.

Rightho. A new goal for this semester. Alright, the same old goal. Do as well as possible, praise the Lord for whatever i get. Amen.

Turkey Photos

Alright here are the photos!!





Yep, romantic. Just mum and dad.



Me and mum at the foot of the oldest oak tree in Turkey!



Beautiful view...



hahaha i couldn't resist. Turkish puppies!!



Now take a good look at this. This is soo pretty! It's actual cave houses, just like those you see in Flintstones!! hahaha People REALLY used to live there, all the way til 1958 or something like that.



Ahhh another interesting thing. "Turkish Naturel Organic Viagra Market". Hahahaha! Of course, mum and me HAD to go take a look. Dad was too shy, said he didn't need it anyway. *cheeky grin* Anyway, CHEY! They were selling nuts!! Turkish nuts! Now now, i mean the real nuts. Don't be cheeky there. Good thing we went to take a look, cause the nuts ARE GOOD. They had samples there. The viagra thing was probably a marketing gimmick or something. Dad was suspicious, said maybe the nuts were coated with viagra. -.- Well zzz to him! hahaha



If you look closely, i'm about to cry soon from the cold. Dad was a little slow in taking pictures, so our smiles weren't really smiles, but frozen ones from the cold. Our noses were red and dripping.



See? My arms are stuck in my jacket! This is a hot spring or something. No sorry, my bad. It's a mountain top where the water flows down, and apparently, the water is "hot" (they said it's hot but it's warm), so we were allowed to stick our feet in a bit. Didn't help in warming us up though.



There, a clearer picture!



Ahhh the folks are posing



And uhh so am i...



Haha oops, couldn't resist again! A turkish cat!! haha



The ruins of a roman empire...



The panaromic view from the top...



And that's the FAKE trojan horse. The real one's in erm... can't remember. The guide was speaking too fast and my brain was frozen. There's dad and me peeking out from the second level, and some anonymous fella fro the top level. If you look closely, i've wrapped my scarf around my entire head, Istanbul style. Way too cold up there. The wind... ugh.. BBRRRR

Yep that's about it! =) GO VISIT TURKEY!

Turkey Trip (23rd December 2007 - 1st January 2008)

HELLOOOO i am BACK! From my Turkey trip! Yeah yeah funny place to go, but ah well. Somewhere exotic, and EXOTIC IT WAS!

Piece of advice for exotic goers: Bring maggie mee, thick clothing, loads of toilet/tissue paper, a travel pillow (one of those you can put around your neck and sleep on), a teaspoon/medicinal spoon for doh --> medicine, and perhaps a bed.

Okay i'm joking about the bed but seriously.

Right about the trip, thank goodness the scenery made up for everything, cause all else was... BAD! Really chilly weather, odd food, not-supposed-to-be-budget-but-really-is-budget hotels, funny service, equally funny water... you name it! Okay i'm sorry, i'm not criticing Turkey. It's a great place really. Very historically and culturally memorable, but to live there and eat there, WHOA, had i been there for more than 10 days, i think i wouldn't have made it out alive. As it is, i already fell sick. Just the normal stuff --> cough, flu, fever. But the sore throat is ONE OF A KIND. The worse one i've ever got in my entire life. My entire throat was like.. ooo ahhh gahhh *cough* I know how it started. The weather was very dry and cold, and i was shivering like mad, obviously due to the LACK OF CLOTHES.

This i blame the MOTHER. Haha nah not really, but really. Nah, but it IS her. I said, "Mummy, better bring more clothes, especially since i'm a sum po kia (skinny, scared of cold, kid)." Mum replied,"No la! Don't need! Short sleeves and one jacket can already. It's ONLY going to be slightly above 10 degrees."

HAH! SLIGHTLY ABOVE 10 DEGREES MY COLD BUTT!! It went down to negative 3 degrees! *shiver shiver* So yeah, the weather made my throat very uncomfortable. And the Turkish food is extremely unhealthy! It's all fried! Chicken kebabs, fried fish, potato strips etc. Alright they're very nice, BUT still bad for the throat. And their soup plus salads! They're either too bland, or too sweet -.- Did i mention Turkish people have a VERY sweet tooth? Yep, try the Turkish delights.

Oh yeah, talking about Turkish delights, sorry guys, i only brought back a few, and everyone has to share, cause guess what? RIGHHT! I ran out of money there. Everything's SOOO expensive! And the currency Lira, is almost 1-1 with the US dollar! Whoa the standard of living there is extremely high and pricey! So ah, my family didn't spend much. We didn't even buy anything for ourselves. All we got were souvenirs for friends and family, then we ran out. The toilets there are costly as well. And because my throat was so dry, we had to get a cup of tea (which is considered the cheapest possible thing there in Turkey at every pit stop. Come the last 3 days, all of us suffered, cause we couldn't even buy water (water there is very dirty, so we have to buy bottles), considering how painful our dehydrated throats were already. On the shopping day, everyone bought loads of stuff, and the KOH family was the only one who sat at Macs and stared at each other since we had no money to purchase anything. -.- Zzzzz

Moving on to the hotels. They were all 4 star hotels, but totally lousy. As what one family said, "They are 4 star budget hotels la!" The water is rusty. RUSTY! As in the bathing water that is. The shower heads are all cracked, and it's so... arghh! Even if there was hot water, which there WASN'T, all you wanna do is jump into the shower, sprinkle water on yourself, who cares about soaping and scrubbing, and jump out. Which was erm, precisely what i did. BUT i bathed properly when i got back to Singapore ALRIGHT? Stop giving me that look. I know you are!!

Number 2: The heaters in the hotel rooms were not working as well, so well, you know how cold it gets in the nights. So yeahhh, BRRRR??

Number 3: The last hotel we went to, was called "Cartoon Hotel". And honestly, cartoon by name, cartoon by nature. Why? CAUSE THE BEDS COLLAPSE WHILE YOU ARE ON THEM! Yep! I was sleeping on it, and suddenly i found myself sliding down and at the foot of the bed. So i exchanged beds with my dad, and almost immediately, the poor dazed guy found himself plonked on the floor. I gave him back the bed and slept with my mum instead. Tight squeeze but ahh, so warm. =)

Number 4: ROAARRR the service AHHHH slap slap! The service is so bad. My mum was so piqued! It seemed that for the very reason that we are Asians, we were not treated as well as the Caucasians, so the waiters constantly cleared our plates very quickly without asking, even when it was obviously obviously even to the dumb that we were not done yet. And by the way, teaspoons are almost non-existent in Turkey. We could hardly find one to borrow when we needed one to take our medicine with. Even when we did, communication was such a hurdle that most often that not, we estimated a teaspoon and poured medicine from the bottle into our mouths. Yes don't try that at home children. You might get drugged. We didn't have stirrers either, so we used the ends of our toothbrush to stir our tea and milo. Yeah yeah yeah. -__-

BUT HEY! The scenery was BEAUTIFUL! Word are not enough to describe i. There is so much HISTORY in Turkey! In both the Asian and European continents! OOooo And of course, we learnt a lot about it in our UGC courses. The Hellenistic ages, the nomads, Alexander the Great, Troy, the Turks, the battles... So mach CULTURE and STORIES and ooo... AHHH

All i can say is, you HAVE to visit Turkey at least ONCE in your life. It's a life experience. Really. But once is enough. Really as well. =D I'll post a few pictures up the next time alright? A little tired now. All that medication is making me real drowsy. I walked straight into the balcony door earlier on, thinking that it was open. -.- Mum laughed til her face ached. Grumble. -.-

Night everyone! =)

ps: i'll show you turkish dogs and cats as well okay? Funny eh, how Turkey is 99.9 percent Muslim, yet the Muslims there take in dogs and care for them as well! Different cultures i guess. But the animals there are so tame and adorable! Hee!! =) happy