Not so Flawless Victory

Could something created just weeks before the actual competition win anything? Apparently it could. Ten "lucky" people from my school went for a Chinese drama competition this Sunday at Mines Wonderland, in conjunction with a book fair. I followed them, together with Kin Yen, for no apparent reason.

Bong reminded me to come early. Fine, I woke up at 7.30am, and was on my way to school by 8.00am, walking. Unfortunately for me, I was the second earliest. How could that be possible? The useless person coming earlier than the important ones. At least we set off as planned, without silly delays.

The trip to Mines is quite a long one, 20-30 minutes I reckon. I was in a van, together with... other people. Yes, the usual things from my "beloved friends" again.

We reached there, the van dropped us off at a roundabout some distance away from the entrance. We had to walk there.

As everyone gathered around at the entrance, they unpacked food and started eating. I was not part of the team, so I wasn't supposed to get free food, but well, looking at some of them, it's obvious they won't finish it.

The doors opened soon after, and we all went in and put our stuff there, waiting for the event to start. We messed around with stuff, like with Zi Yi's hair, to accommodate his character.

Finally, it was starting. We were told to line up, together with primary school children. Indeed, the competition had more primary participants than secondary ones, much, much more. Felt a little awkward to stand amidst little children dwarfed by our heights.

Once in there, we still had to wait for the primary teams to finish their plays, and there were a lot of them. The wait felt like forever. The team took the chance and familiarize themselves with the stage first, though.

The agonizing wait was over, it was their turn... Aside from a few mishaps, they performed marvellously. My hand was shaking holding the camera up high for twelve minutes. Yes, the video is split into two, thanks to YouTube's silly length limit.

Once everything ended, the winners were about to be announced, or were they? The announcer talked about certain irrelevant things, to drag things, so that the judges could make up their minds. She talked about the ballet part, though. Good thing, I guess. When it was time, third place wasn't us. Second place? They (and admittedly me, a little) were really nervous about it, as there were only three secondary teams. It was lifted, though, went the second place wasn't us. Marvellous!

They were called onto the stage to receive their, certificates and an oversized trophy comprised of several small ones butchered together. Li Ying and Sze Shuen even got a small interview by the announcer for their ballet performance, she really liked it.

That's not it, Zi Yi got an award, for the best male character! Aha, good sissy, I guess. There were still many more prizes though, for the primary category. After some wait, there was a finale of sorts. All the winners went up stage for an epic photo-shoot.

When it was all over, we had to make our way out of the crowded hall, filled with people attending the book fair. For a little celebration, we went to a Pizza Hut in the shopping centre. We had a whopping 13 people, of course there won't be a single table that big. We waited for enough tables to clear out before being able to fit all of us.

The food came, and there was a lot of it. Pizzas, pizzas, and more pizzas! That, and soup, bread, usual Pizza Hut (free advertisement for them) stuff. We were talking and having a good time, but the food was barely finished.

While waiting for the girls to finish being in the toilet (did you know, it statistically takes four times longer for a girl than a boy in this respect?), we did a social experiment. Aim: Humans are easily affected by signs, and as such, advertisement is actually useful, contrary to my belief. Conclusion: Most people turned to look at our sign, therefore advertising is effective.

Finished? Good, time to make the way back to where we came from. Through the crowds again. By that time, there was a light drizzle, and a traffic jam built up at the roundabout. Had to go through all that, to reach the van. We boarded at the middle of the road, but then it was jammed. On the way back, craziness ensued. Silly lots started singing and waving to nearby cars. That, and the usual things I get.

One half an hour later, we reached the school. Waited at the bus stop for a while for some reason, even though I could have just walked home straight away. At least I got to witness Wei Khai's bag getting peed on by a wild dog.

The Tip of Malaysia, and Beyond

My father decided he needs and upgrade for his little audio set, and to do that he needed to go to Johor Bahru. That means a family trip to Johor Bahru, and also Singapore since, why not? My parents had this bright idea of going there early. Fine, but I knew we would be late, and well we were. We set off at 8.30am, an hour late. We were supposed to stop at Seremban to have breakfast with my uncle, but that was scrapped. All that's had was a hasty one, still in Seremban.

Based on previous experience, the trip was expected to be at least four hours, but unfortunately that's on a bus, which are god awful slow for some reason. We arrived as early as we were supposed to in the end. I had relatives there, they kindly became guides for the three days.

We reached there at afternoon, perfectly fine to us. Lunch was at a place that's somewhat famous. Mmmm, meat.

When people are full, they tend to want to exercise a bit, as suggested by many, for health, they say. It's not good for me though, when it's shopping. I just can't seem to be able to stroll around leisurely, window shopping. There's an old mall near the hotel, not the kind of new shiny ones like 1U, but more like Sungei Wang, complete with a retro Pizza Hut logo, and then later, we went to the Jusco over there.

At night, we went to a seafood restaurant, but the best part is, it's actually on the sea! I wonder how could anyone possibly think of something like that! Yes, sarcasm. I think there are quite a few similar restaurants at Klang, too.

There's nothing much in Johor though, so we went to Singapore the next day. Drats, another day of shopping. The first three quarters of the day was basically spent in Vivocity shopping mall, the one opposite of Sentosa island. Thank god for my iPod.

Dinner was supposed to be at another popular place, but with fame, comes the enormous crowd and waiting time. So in the end, dinner was at a small restaurant in another old shopping mall. Woo, French onion soup. I ordered that, but it ran out.

Since my relatives had work the next day, we just did a simple drive through Orchard Road. More than one month to Christmas, but they already had the decorations on.

Monday, I was still at Johor, skipping school for the first time since my France trip. We visited our relatives' place that morning. Leftover roti canai? Goody.

We had lunch outside of Johor Bahru before leaving. It was at another relatively well-known restaurant, famous for its duck.

I arrived home at evening. Four days left at school, what to do?

The "Class" Party

One day during school, some bloke went and suggested, "Hey, let's have a class party! We shall invite everyone!" Indeed, it was everyone, even irrelevant people were invited. Yet due to a heavy rain and bad timing, a good number of those invited did not turn up anyway. It was raining heavily before the event. Living close to the venue in Damansara Idaman, my house was surrounded by dark clouds at all sides. It was that type of long, everlasting rain. Somehow, it managed to stop before its too late, and it went on as planned.

One thing caused by rain is traffic jam. I needed my mother to fetch me, but she needed to get home from work first. The jam meant that I only get to go after seven. The fire was being started when I got there. It was yet another barbecue. Didn't I have enough of those already? It was during that time when most of the people started arriving.

And like all other barbecues, I got to cook, supposedly anyway. I gave my camera to Sean, thinking I would be cooking. Eventually though, I slipped away and avoided that dreadful job.

After deserting my comrades, I started eating. Yes, pizza, I love pizza. Then there were chicken wings, laksa, salad, and many others that were finished before I had a chance to even taste them.

Unfortunately, eating just couldn't spend all the time away, so I... actually I didn't do anything much, just talking, I guess.

As the irrelevant people left, for some reason, the rest of us moved outside to a little hut outside of Frilla's mansion (more so than Kin Yen's). It was cool outside, nature's best.

At some point, Clive pulled out a (almost empty) bottle of whiskey. Had a taste, not the worst I tried, bearable.

Since Clive said something about not giving Frilla's mother troubles, he started washing stuff, only to be stopped because he was making everything messy. I watched for a while, then went off at eleven.

Our Day

"This is not the school's day, this is your day, this is our day." Says Mr Wong. Sure. Actually the whole thing felt pointless and boring, I was bored already two hours into it, and mind you I'm quite used to boredom.

My class was doing games only, no selling. I cycled school, because I didn't want to walk back later. I reached there at 7.30am, not too different from normal. The first 30 minutes or so was just preparing.

We opened business around 8am. I was busy being bored and lazy. Really, in the morning, I just sat down and watched, and also the occasional strolling. Nothing much to it there.

The game I'm involved in is the aptly named "Game Station" as it is a station of games alright. There are three levels to it, and the victim has to finish all three in under two minutes to get a mystery prize, determined by a draw.

Actually, from this point on until much later, it was pretty much the same thing, so I'll just dump a portion of my photos.

Then there's a photo here that is so awesome it deserves to be posted as a big-sized image (I do not think I have ever done that before, so it's a landmark).

For some reason, we started taking group photos. And yes, being predictable, you'd knew what they would do to me if you were me. I knew it, I just knew it.

Silly crowd, they just loved to play with "Snow Spray", some aerosol product which creates a snow-like foam. It has a weird chemical smell to it. Carcinogen? Perhaps. Irritating? Definitely. Those people went around spraying other people with it, including me, once, while I was eating. Damn you (the person who did that knows it)! Kin Yen had his fun with it, too.

By the time it was afternoon, the crowd had greatly reduced, the raging river reduced to a trickling stream. Worse, it was supposed to last until 4pm, yet the food, the drinks, the fun just dried up. Bad planning, no? Well, those people started doing weird thing.

The last agonising part, the cleanup. Like Prefect Camp, I cleaned the drains with my bare hands again.

And I was back home. It was 2pm. 4pm seemed so far away...

Pools, Mansions, and Party-goers

"Friday, Kin Yen's birthday party, we're hitting the pool. Let's do this."

Originally planned on Saturday, but then changed to Friday so that everyone can come. That's right, Friday's a school day, I had to hitch a ride and get to the place right after school. I got a ride from Brandon together with several others and began the way there.

We got there first, before the host. What to do? Make ourselves home, I guess. I took out my stuff, including my camera, and witnessed other people arriving.

As the other people changed into their "sexy" clothes, I was too lazy to change, I am used to staying in the uniform till the evening normally, but well the host didn't want uniforms, so I changed, eventually.

Remember how everyone got here straight from school? That means that they skipped lunch, which our kind host gladly provided. Yes, it was Domino's Pizza, so what? I love pizza. That, and Ayamas chicken. I couldn't believe how good it was.

Experts advise you to not swim for half an hour after eating, while I'll give you another advice, young people just don't care. They started warming up, a precursor of what's to come.

I changed from my casual clothes into my swimsuit, off into the water I go. From this point on, I gave my camera to Zhi San, who didn't want to get in the water, while I, had my fun and stuff.

I remembered making some randomized list for Kin Yen, turned out it was for some game. He wanted everyone to have an excuse to get wet, but then everyone is wet already? I got out of the pool and took back my camera.

In the end, it didn't work as expected, people already has an excuse to get wet, I guess. Everyone continued with their pool business. It was then when I discovered the awesomeness of buckets. They are weapons, armour, and stealth tools, all in one convenient package. Of course, being in the pool meant that the camera was with Zhi San again.

Soon the sky turned dark, it was going to rain. Of course, people didn't want to die from lightning strikes, so we got out and dried ourselves. We changed back into our clothes.

Of course, there was the birthday cake. What kind of birthday celebration is without some sort of cake? And no, the cake wasn't a lie. Some bright person suggested a new way of putting the candles.

The cake was torn apart and savagely consumed. By that time it was raining heavily. Being the person who walks home, I didn't like that one bit.

Gifts! I was being a faggot not bringing gifts, but not the others. They brought interesting stuff, those lot even managed to pull out the "Nike-shoebox-containing-newspaper-and-small-sized-gift" trick.

What's next? I re-discovered the joys of gossiping! Yes, it's fun to do, and certainly is not limited only to girls. In fact, I find that guys gossip more than girls, weird eh? Aside from gossiping, people just talked and did some other stuff to pass the time.

Like always, I left pretty late, most people had left already by the time I left. It was a fun day, glad I had it that way. Perhaps we should do something else during the terribly long year-end holidays, eh?

Burnfest!

Alright, the actual thing was last Sunday (18th of October), but I had to finish up my posts about France first, so yea, late.

So back to business, last Sunday, Ning was throwing some sort of barbecue related event, supposedly for Alliyza's birthday, but well, she didn't go, so true purpose: unknown. Good excuse to have fun, I guess. Since I did not want to go through the hassle of looking for someone's (very obscurely located) house, I just asked my parents to fetch me to Kin Yen's house, and let him do the hassling, muahahaha. Since I remember only taking photos of the mansion, not the view, so here goes.

I reached the place early, around 3pm, because we were "practising for a performance", but we didn't really want to, so we said that there was not enough time, else overenthusiastic Zhi San will force us into doing it anyway. First hour or two was playing with the turtle, watching "Meet the..." videos, stuff like that.

We started the actual barbecuing later, with a weird fire starter which was a plain charcoal plus some white stuff on it. Since those people like to take people's job, I just slacked.

With the help of Ning's father, we they got the fire burning fairly quickly. Step two of barbecuing, the burning of the food to a cancer-causing state, or as you people like to call it, cooking.

And step three: the consuming of carcinogens eating the food we burned cooked.

Ah, I remember one thing from Children's Day, back when I was, well, a child, mixing soft drinks. Well I felt like a child again (like I don't all the time) when Kin Yen mixed the weird green fluid with the weird black fluid. It created a double weird dark-green fluid.

"Oh Li Ying is coming~~~" Those people kept saying the same bloody thing to me. I get it already damn it! I'm not deaf, sheesh. She was rushing back from Cameron Highland, far away, eh? Further than rushing back from Port Dickson. It was after most people finished eating. We were doing nothing, basically.

Then Mr Wei Khai decided to do his ritual dance routine, not sure if you want to call it as "dance".

Wait, what are we supposed to do? Nothing, apparently.

Remember that this was supposed to be Alliyza? Well, seems that we were kind enough to donate some time for her. We (mostly they) made a little (actually big) card with hand prints. Yes, hand prints. They came up with silly ideas to get me, like always.

It was getting late, Ning was kind enough to make us finish all the food, or she would "not let us go back".

I was generous enough to show my ugly mug.

Later, we just did random things, and talked random stuff. Then people just went home.

I went back with Kin Yen around 11pm. His father was nice enough to fetch me straight back to home. The way is easy anyway, just behind the school. There was something about "I say can, means can!" in there, guess what it was.

France: The Ultimatum

After three hours of TGV, we arrived at the train station. There were lots of tracks, it seems messy to the untrained eye. There is no such sight in Malaysia.

The public transportation system of Paris is equally messy.

We took a rail ride and reached the hotel, another Novotel.

They were having some sort of event when we reached there.

The hotel seems old from the outside, but is okay from the inside.

The first thing you think about Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Naturally my parents decided to just take a look.

We bought some food when going back and ate in the hotel.

We did a proper visit to the Eiffel Tower the next morning. Somehow, my parents decided to walk all the way, and that would take a toll later. Over there, all the tourists were to lazy to use the stairs and would rather line up and wait for hours for the lift. Of course, we were smarter and took the stairs. It isn't as long as you'd imagine.

The next tourist attraction is the Arc de Triomphe, you know, the big arc in the city. Again, walking all the way.

Finally reached there after seemingly endless walking. It was in the middle of a round-a-bout, so we had to go through and underground tunnel to get there.

More walking, this time to the Louvre Museum, the one with the glass pyramid, as seen in countless movies including "The Da Vinci Code".



By the time we reached there, I was very tired. Nonetheless, we explored the museum, even though closing time was close.

The museum closes at around 5pm, so we headed back on the subway and ate dinner on the way.

All the walking made me really, really tired that day. Fortunately it got better the next day, which was another day of tourist attractions. First was the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

We then took the subway to the next destination.

It was a huge modern reiteration of the Arc de Triomphe, the Grande Arche, sitting right in front of the metro station.

We left the modern city to get to the highest point in Paris, a hill. There was another cathedral over there, but for some reason they do not let people to photograph the inside.

Dinner for the night was at a restaurant at the same hill.

The next day, the first destination was the Palace of Versailles, once used by the French royal family. It's located in the suburb, far from any subway. Instead, we used the RER, a pimped subway train, basically. The ride didn't take too long.

We went inside and stayed there for the whole morning.

Back to the city again, on the RER.

After that, it was just the shopping areas left to explore.

We had dinner at a restaurant a small walk away from the hotel.

The next day was the last, we were going back home. Of course we went to the airport that morning.

We boarded the plane and were on our way home. Twelve hours to go.

The twelve hours were gruelling, again it was the cramped economy seat that contributed the most.

Next order of business: exams. While my friends were reading their asses off, I was unable to do anything. Great.