So I just came back from Hong Kong three days ago. It was a trip I went with my family because it had been a long time since we travelled and we failed to book a chalet for Christmas.

Day 1 - Arrival


After watching some Hong Kong shows, I'm sure everyone knows how the country looks like, but for some reason, I was expecting something like Taiwan. So, when reality set in and we arrived at a place that looked kind of similar to Singapore, except without the trees, I was kind of disappointed.

The next few days proved my disappointment unfounded because it's a very nice-to-look-at place with attractive people who care about how they dress. It kind of made me want to dress better too.

Day 2 - Lantau Island


In the morning, my sister and I headed over to a cafe because she wanted to taste their beans and stuff. With the family, we then spent the first half of the day queuing up for the cable car towards Lantau Island. I feel like there is way too much queuing involved in this trip, but the cable car ride was fine, except that I was having some sort of allergy and couldn't stop sneezing.

When on top, we did the touristy stuffs - visiting the big Buddha statue, taking lots of pictures of it, and walking around. My parents and grandma were tired, so they just sat somewhere while my siblings and I walked on what we thought was the Wisdom Path. We took a lot of pretentious photos while we were at it.



The rest of the day was just a walk back to the cable car, more queuing, dinner, and some shopping with my siblings.

Day 3 - Shopping Day


There really isn't much to talk about this day. Basically, we shopped as we could and visited the Temple Street Night Market, which was majorly disappointing. It was the same as Singapore's temporary night markets.

Day 4 - Ocean Park


Ocean Park was nice. There wasn't a super long queue and theme parks are generally nice places. We spent half the day on the calmer stuff like the aquarium, panda enclosure, and otter show. For the next half of the day, which ended up being only three measly hours, my siblings and I tried the theme park rides. We only managed to sit on three - one was chill(ish), one was super fast and fun and not scary, and one was super scary.

Day 5 - Miscellaneous Day
We wanted to spend this day in Shen Zhen, but my mum was worried that we wouldn't be able to haggle and the shops would exploit our money, so we didn't. Instead, we kind of walked around Tsim Sha Tsui instead. It was a lot of window shopping.

As it was Hong Kong and we hadn't had full dim sum meals yet, we headed to One Dim Sum at Prince Edward. It was nice dim sum. We returned to the apartment early to let my grandma rest up before finishing our trip with Victoria Peak, which was simply a place to view the skyscrapers from on top of a mountain.


The queue was the worst, so were the tourists from a certain country who cut 80% of the queue, push, barge, separate people, and get annoyed when we barge and cut back the portion where they cut us. Tourists from this country seem to really love embarrassing themselves.

Day 6 - Homeward Day
Simply put, we returned to Singapore.

Labels: family, overseas, things that happened

So lonely and deep in contemplation
So, more than a month ago, I went to Queenstown, New Zealand alone because I wanted to experience solo travel and New Zealand is such a beautiful place. I talked about the trip itself in one of my previous post, hence this is part 2. In this post, I'm going to reflect and talk about lessons from this trip.

Let's start off with what I've learned about solo travelling:

Google Map is my best friend (sorry, real humans)
Without Google Map, I would be lost in both the direction sense and the "what do I do next" sense. I didn't want to spend the entire of the trip doing touristy stuff. I wanted to explore and take long walks and experience normal things like going for a swim and going to the library, just in a different environment. Generally, I want to behave both like a tourist and like a local, although the latter is more of a superficial thing.

The point is, Google Map tells me everything, from what there is in my surroundings to how to get there to what is around where I want to go to how long to get there. I depended on it so much. Without it, I would probably spend most of my time in Queenstown Central and I would probably take more foolproof options of taking the bus rather than taking a walk.

But then there's always the fear: What if Google Map is gone? What if I lose my phone or run out of battery or, for some reason, the internet no longer works? I guess the bad thing is that it's easy to depend too much on Google Map. Sometimes, we have to depend on our own brains.

It's lonely, but I had to embrace it
Before I went for the trip, I was so sure that I could handle it. It was going to be so fun and I would be too busy doing things to care that I'm alone. Obviously, I was wrong. The moment I reach Sydney airport for the transfer flight, I already begun questioning myself and missing having people I know around me. But I also realise that it's freaking New Zealand and instead of wasting it feeling horrible, I should just go out there and do things that I came to do.

So, it helps, a lot, to have very clear goals. I wanted to take lots of photographs, experience emotional growth, function more independently, experience spiritual growth, explore a lot, go to non-touristy places, do some touristy stuff, and have lots of fun. Every day, I planned what to do the next few days and then I took my time in everything. Sometimes, it felt like I was just finding ways to waste time, but in finding ways to waste time, I managed to discover certain things and places as well as just soak in the atmosphere.

Me being me, there was hardly a time when I didn't feel lost, confused, paranoid, worried, etc. The loneliness and lack of assurance made me think of my friends. When I walked pass a busker playing some OST, I would think to myself: CX would love that. When I looked at the typical kind of shirt that I would wear, I remember Matin telling me "it's so you." Sometimes when I didn't know what else to do, I would ask myself, "What would ___ do?" But most of the time, my answer would be "but that's not me. I'm not gonna do that."

At the other end of the spectrum, it allows me to actualise who I am. There were times when I would actually ask myself, "What would Shaw do?"

I spent way too much money distracting myself
This is actually my biggest regret during the trip. I was unprepared, so I spent too much money on irrelevant things so that I could spend time. The Underwater Observatory was a waste of money; the taxi tour, though wonderful, was a tad bit expensive; and deciding to spend $50 watching a Maori Performance hadn't been in my plan until I realised that the only alternative was to sit on a chair and wait one hour for Stargazing (which got cancelled due to clouds). Had I been more prepared, I could spend a little less, somehow. My favourite part of the trip - the trekking in Ben Lomond - was free. Perhaps I should've also done less touristy stuff and spent more time on exploring. This leads to the next point.

I regretted staying in one place
Queenstown is amazing. The scenery is wow-worthy, but you know what's so tragic about it all? I got used to it. I got bored of it. Had I did a little more research and expected to be bored, I would've planned to go the Christchurch. I totally had the time. But staying in a single accommodation the entire trip and the fact that the airport is in Queenstown made a side trip to Christchurch impractical. If I could redo it, I would plan it properly.

I guess I didn't expect to be bored because I was too used to Singapore. If I had to spend a week exploring Singapore, I could. The thing was that Queenstown is different in the sense that there were much less settlements. There were no skyscrapers, no big shopping malls, and no random recreational stuff. It was a very touristy place, except there weren't much to shop. Christchurch, from the looks of it, is more suitable for shopping and it seems bigger as well. It's a different kind of beautiful from Queenstown.

It will probably help, next time I solo travel, to be on the move. It was a bit hard in the South Island of New Zealand because it is mostly mountains, farms, houses, and all that. Perhaps I'll pick a more urban kind of environment for a different kind of experience next time. I thought Matin's planning for our Taiwan trip was perfect - the first part was spent in a mountain (I forgot its name), the second was spent in a touristy farm, and the last part was in Taipei.

Travelling is not fun alone, but it's still awesome
When I say travelling alone isn't fun, it might be off-putting and some people might disagree. But I mean it. Still, it's the kind of thing I will keep wanting to do again. I'm thinking of maybe India or London next, but we'll see.

The reason why I'll still travel solo is because it's a wonderful experience; wonderful doesn't have to be fun. Wonderful can mean eye-opening, satisfying, enriching, masochistically pleasing, and so much more. Fun is just not part of the equation for me when I think of solo travelling. I will no longer expect it to be.

I'll recommend journaling
Imagine having a journal keeping track of all the places you've been, what you did, what you observed, what you learned, and what you feel everyday. Imagine one day flipping back and reading it all again. It's my thing. I enjoyed scribbling down everything I could think of and remember every night, especially smaller or private moments I would not share in my blog or in social media. In a way, it also eases the loneliness because when you have no one in your immediate surroundings to share your experience with, writing about it is a good substitute.

Also, I used my journal to attempt to keep track of my spendings, refocus myself, and remind myself why I was there. On the day when I arrived, I just wanted to lie on the bed and regret coming, but then I started journaling and remembering about all the things I was so looking forward to. Yeah, journaling is really good.

Okay... That long chunk above is the first part of the post. Here comes the second, which is about general life lessons:

Every country is different
When I arrived at New Zealand, I couldn't believe how close the mountains looked as the plane tried to land. They weren't close, though. They were just really big. But it came as a surprise (it shouldn't have) that the place I was going was 95% mountains. The environment was mostly untouched, the water was clean, there were so many things that they could use for tourism and farming and all that.

Obviously, other countries are different.

I feel relief and happy arriving in Singapore's Changi Airport and hearing the captain announce, "The building is very big, so it will take a while to get to the transfer flight." It made me chuckle a little inside.

Then there are other countries like the neighbouring Malaysia, which was filled with forests in contrast with New Zealand's mountains. There was Australia - the view of Sydney when the plane took off was another kind of beauty, in the form of endless suburbs.

It made me ponder how each country managed to define themselves and make themselves interesting. Some countries are blessed with mountains, some with forests, some with strategic location, and so on. Some didn't have to do much manual work while some had to spend years and billions building; some could afford to while some couldn't.

I managed to arrive at these questions: Should we embrace what we are or should we build more upon it? What are the consequences of building more, and what are the consequences of not building more? How do we utilise what we are?

Bringing this into the context of our small little existence, it kind of becomes the question of changing ourselves to become better people versus nurturing what we really are. There is this discomforting thought: What if we're born without advantage?

I always believe in being nice to the people who "aren't good enough".

Everything can be taken for granted
New Zealand was so beautiful, but after five days, I just went like, "Let me see some buildings already!" It leads to the conclusion that when we're bored of something, we're probably taking it for granted. That doesn't mean we can instantly switch our mindsets and suddenly become appreciative again. A person with great deal of control over his mind can do that, but not everyone.

Instead, sometimes it's good to have variety to spice things up. Back in Taiwan, we had nature, then half nature, then full urban experience. Similarly, we can't just experience one thing the whole time in our life. We can't just spend all our time with one person or watching TV. Things need to switch around for us to not take them for granted.

I'll not make solo travelling that huge a part of my life. This way, I'll cherish each experience, like how I still cherished Taiwan till now, or Melbourne, or Japan, and so on. They're all different experiences and I hope they stay different. Still, I can't wait for the next time I travel.

Labels: overseas, reflection, solidarity

A trip to a beautiful place alone
I just came back from my solo trip to Queenstown, New Zealand, two days ago, and I'm pretty excited to share my experience here. Actually, I'm pretty excited to blog when I have a topic most of the time, although I realise that I haven't done my mandatory ORD post yet.

Let's begin by a confession that I regret only going to Queenstown for the entire duration of six days, because it got boring. A quick Google about Christchurch, which is I think a seven hours train ride away, fuels that regret because it looks like such a nice place as well. But what's done is done. I've made a lot of mistakes during (and before) this trip, but I guess that's just a part of solo travelling.

I'll leave the reflections to another post. For now, let's just talk about the trip itself. It's going to be a really long post, so I decided to use a Facebook photo album to complement the blog entry in places where I skip.

Day 1 - Arrival Day
Starting on a positive note, after arriving at Sydney International Airport (where I waited four hours to transit to another plane to get to Queenstown), I got to watch the sun rise from the beautiful windows, half-asleep. It must have party been the super long flights, but by the time I reached Queenstown Airport, I was worn out and wished that I was with company - anyone would do.

I'm glad that the taxi driver I met was really friendly. He chose routes that let me see nice sceneries (and possibly costed more) so I'm glad that he offered a taxi tour because that tour gave me the most exposure to Queenstown as a whole.

After arriving at my accommodation in the evening, rested a while before spending the next few hours getting acquainted with the surroundings, realising that there's no one else at all who was alone, and doubting myself and the idea of a solo trip.

Day 2 - Exploration Day
This is one of my favourite days. I scheduled air balloon on this day but it got cancelled because of wind. Instead, I slept in and then went exploring for real for the first part of the day.

For the second part of the day, Brent, the taxi driver, came and gave me the taxi tour as planned. He is a pretty sincere guy who tried to ensure that I got the most out of the tour as possible. Knowing that I've never touched snow before, he brought me up to Coronet Peak, where there's still snow, to let me touch it (although I kind of expected it to just feel like ice). He also brought me to a number of other places.


The Shotover River
^ This is where there was a really fun tourist attraction where a group sits on a boat and the driver speeds up and down the river.


Arrow Town (I should've taken a pretentious photo here)
^ This is a nice, quaint town that was a lot more peaceful than Queenstown central. Apparently, there is a movie theatre here whose environment was more of a couch setting rather than the typical movie seating.

The photo at the top of this post is Windy Peak, where you get to see the entire Lake Wakatipu, which spans along and, I would say, defines Queenstown. Unfortunately, the picture hardly shows anything because everything was so micro.

By the time the tour ended, I've learned quite a bit about Queenstown geography, lifestyle, history, and its tourist culture.

Day 3 - Animal Day


These sheeps are the main attraction of Walter Peak Farm
Started the day on the steamboat, which brought us to the Walter Peak Farm to watch a sheep sheering demonstration, have breakfast, and feed animals. Although shepherd dogs and wild ducks are not farm animals, I like them the most.

For the second part of the day, I did a lot of window shopping and then took a walk in Queenstown Garden. I've got to say, Frisbee is a really big thing there.

My favourite part of the day was having this very popular burger called Ferg Burger by the shore. A duck wanted to eat my burger and kept pestering me. Then, a man came and played fetch with his dog in the cold water, and it was really impressive. The dog was smart enough to gauge whether it should enter the water or not when the owner threw the stick too far.

Day 4 - Mountain Day
This is the highlight of the trip - taking an unprepared trek in the Ben Lomond Track. It was really nice because I was surrounded by so many mountains, all alone and so high up. I just kept walking and never stopped being impressed and the weather was perfect and I could tell myself, "This is why I came to New Zealand."


The early parts of the trek
I didn't really want to get down but the weather app said that it was going to rain (it didn't in the end) and I didn't want to be stuck up there, freezing and alone. So, I had to. En route down, I had a genius idea to meditate in the middle of the mountain. Knowing that it was about to rain, I kept it short and I will say it wasn't a stupid decision. It kind of opened my heart up, if you care.

I guess the other good thing of the day was watching a Maori performance. Maori is the tribe that used to live in New Zealand, until the government bought the land over from them.

Day 5 - Balloon Day


Rising into the air in an air balloon
To be honest, I had mixed feelings about finally taking an air balloon, which I was so looking forward to. Maybe it's the cost of the flight or maybe it's the fact that I overhyped myself, I felt empty throughout the flight. It was not particularly exciting or peaceful (though it would've been more more peaceful had two particular tourists not kept squeezing about trying to take photos and sending videos to their friends). Though the view was spectacular, I went more of like "nice" than "OMG" inside.

This leads me to believe that by this time, I was starting to take Queenstown sceneries for granted. I'll talk about that next time.

I had a lot of things planned to fill up the rest of the day so that I would not get too bored; as I had mentioned, I shouldn't have spent the whole trip in Queenstown.

They say good and bad things come in clusters - in this case, disappointments. Apart from the air balloon, the "underwater observatory" was a joke and I didn't get to see any kiwi for real in the Kiwi Bird Park.

But let me just defend the bird park because I just went at the wrong time. There are kiwi feedings, but I couldn't get myself to be patient enough to wait so long just to feed some kiwis. The bird park by itself was quite impressive, especially their conservation show. It was educational and entertaining and I'll recommend it to whoever visits Queenstown, especially if you're alone.

Day 6 - Walking Day
This being the last day, I was honestly pretty worn out and missed home and friends and family. Still, I was looking forward to this day because I planned to get out of the central area. So, I took a bus to Remarkable Town Park Center, where the internet told me I could find "cheap shopping". Turns out, "cheap shopping" means "cheap grocery shopping". The place was nice, though. Actually, being away from the main touristy area after so long was nice.

For some reason, when planning the trip, I had wanted to go swimming. So, I did.

After that, it was just a loooooooong walk back to Queenstown central, then my accommodation.

Day 7 - Homeward Day
I sat in the plane the whole day.


Just a picture of ducks to end off, because I like ducks
You can click here to have a look at the Facebook photo album... if you want... Please? :(

Labels: overseas, solidarity, things that happened

Walking along a water village on our last day
It feels a little disorienting to be back in Singapore after our 20-day "mission" in Brunei. I would call it Exercise Laying (on the Bed), but that's used before in one of our previous outfields. So, I shall call this Exercise Maggi, because a lot of my memory of these 20 days involve cooking instant maggi noodles outfield.

By right, Brunei was meant for the other three companies as well as my company's recce and pioneer guys, but because they needed us to role-play as the enemies, plus it won't be very nice if everyone came but mortar and signals, we went as well. As a result, there wasn't much we were required to do. Most of our time was spent in the bunk, reading, talking, watching movies, etc. I've watched more movies and read more in these twenty days than in the past two months.

There were three main things that we participated in, though.

Navigation Exercise
Our navigation exercise was a highly toned down version as compared to the other companies. We just had to find a minimum of one checkpoint in the forest, habour for a night, and we were done. So, we started habouring at 10am when the actual habouring time was meant to be 5pm. For the first time out of many subsequent ones in Brunei, we dedicated a lot of time to doing up our shelter, collecting logs, building a fire, and cooking maggi. It was nice at night, after a rain (it rained every evening), when we sat by the fire and just talked.

Opposition Force
The finale of the entire Brunei "mission" was a long march, followed by two fights. Mortar got deployed at the final objective as enemies. Generally, it was a lot of waiting, maggi, fire, climbing up and down a hill in the middle of the sector I was in charge of, and some fighting. Certain points of the whole process were quite entertaining, but I think I'm not supposed to talk about it.

Rest and Relaxation
For the first portion of R&R, we went to a water village to eat kueh and use the toilet. Immediately after that, we were brought to the only shopping mall in Brunei, creatively named 'The Mall'. Most of the mortar people wanted to play lan, but I didn't want to, so a minority of us decided to watch a movie called 'Lights Out'. We spent the rest of the time walking around, exploring, playing with some explosive kids' toy thing, and playing at the arcade. Although we were given eight tedious hours to spend the time at a relatively boring place, I thought it was quite nicely spent time.

We reached Singapore at around 2am, but had to wait till 4am to get our duffel bags back because the airport sent them to the wrong terminal. That's more or less how the whole Brunei trip went for us.

Labels: NS, overseas, things that happened

Me, Michael, Kent, Gabriel, Clement, Jaryl, Lai
As usual, I'm still suffering from post-anything blues, something I realise I always experience (eg. post-Taiwan, post-production, post-decent-weekend-in-a-while). This time, I'm missing Krabi, where I recently went with my army friends, and our adventures there. Let's just begin recapping those five days in Krabi.

Day 1
Let me begin by saying that this is the most spontaneous overseas trip I've been to - no tours booked beforehand, no plans, no idea of what we're going to do besides some vague feel-like-doings, and no idea how. The only things we've booked were the plane tickets and the accommodation.

The driver bringing us from the airport to the villa got lost but refused to let us know, so he pretended to stop by his agency for a toilet break when he was really there to ask for directions.

The villa is amazing. It has a pool, big beds, and the best housekeeping service ever. Part of that is thanks to Michael's natural charisma and his ability to accidentally flirt with Thai ladies, which happens a lot in the trip.

For the first night, we headed to Aonang Beach (the only place nearby / a touristy shopping street) to walk around, have dinner, book a tour, and go to some bars for drinks and girls - some of their primary goal. It's unsurprisingly my first time drinking in the company of women whose job scopes are mostly to flirt with customers. The night didn't last too long because it was day one and we had an early morning the next day.

Day 2


Us with the tour guide, Mr Cho, whom I'll talk more about "It's about the heart," - look at how many fucks Jaryl gives
The awesome housekeepers of the villa made breakfast for us before most of us even woke up. After that, a tut tut arrived to fetch us from our doorstep to the start point of the tour, all part of the package.

Our tour guide, Mr Cho, is a reggae man, full of energy, spice, passion, fun and nonsense. To sum the tour up, a speed boat brought us around to look at different bays, beaches, caves, and stuff. We got to dive head in into the bay for swimming, hang around in a beach with really violent waves, snorkel in another, and had free cookhouse-esque lunch. Made friends with some of the other tourists in the process.

When the tour ended, the tourists were all dispatched based on their accommodations. We and a family were the last and we all had to wait really long, so they got really pissed and provoked a fight with Mr Cho. It was quite entertaining because nobody was taking them seriously and Mr Cho wasn't even in charge of the transport; he just happened to be there.

Our tut tut never came so Mr Cho's friend drove us back in a lorry just when it was starting to pour icy needle-like rain. The journey back was painful; we were cowering and shivering, so we decided to play games of scissor-paper-stone and the losers would have to take off their shirt first, and when he loses again, he has to stand and embrace the rain. It was a ride filled with screams and sadistic laughter.

The moment we got back to the villa, we jumped into the warm pool and refused to get out and open the door, because we remember not having turned the air-con off. So, we just kind of skinny-dipped a while, until we decided to play another scissor-paper-stone of death to determine the tribute who would open the door and turn the air-con off, but the housekeepers came and save us just in time. Still, some of us refused to leave the warm comfort of the pool.

Look at those seafood
That was the dinner prepared for us. Needless to say, it was really great. I shall leave the details of the rest of the night out.

Day 3
The previous night was long. Under the influence of alcoholic courage, I said some stuff that I would've regretted not saying, but I had to face the aftermath, which turned out to be okay. Anyway, the day started late because everyone was tired. By the time I woke up, the breakfast was gone, along with electricity because the whole of Aonang got cut off.

We booked a car and two bikes and went on a journey to find the Western Union because Jaryl ran out of money already. To his defense, we all severely underestimated our spendings, because "how much money can you spend on a beach," right?

It was entertaining being a passenger in a car driven by Kent and navigated by Gabriel, because Gabriel's navigation sucked and Kent was all about safety. Imagine how he felt watching Michael on his bike - speeding, going crazy on his own, and making senseless maneuvers.

But we arrived at Krabi Town - our destination - in one piece.

Krabi Town
Did some exploring, had a meal, and went for a full-body Thai massage that felt good at first but meh when it was done. I'm not complaining though, because it wasn't very expensive.

That night, we headed out and I decided that it would be waste not to be a pillion, and yup, it would've been a waste not to be a pillion. Also, I made a yolo decision to have trust in Michael's biking despite what we saw earlier in the day :')

I decided to skip the drinking for the night, a decision I regretted.

Day 4
Everyone was mostly dead except Gabriel and me because Gabriel came back early the previous night and I didn't go at all. We went for a kayaking tour through some mangroves. It was nice to watch the surroundings. As expected, Gabriel and Lai's boat was filled with funny angst. We dubbed it the 笨船。It means 'stupid boat'.

Kayaking was a half-day activity, so we returned to the villa right after. For the rest of the day, we mostly chilled and slept and woke up again in the evening to get to Krabi Town again for the night market.

There was a fire dance show, some other shows, a lot of food, souvenir shops, etc. I just kind of soaked in the mood and enjoyed the last touristy things we do while it lasted.


The night market
Even later that night, we returned to the bar we went in day one and apparently day three and drank and watched Clement get drunk and stuff and by the time we returned, it was two hours before we had to wake up again.

Day 5


I really like this picture
Basically, we returned to Singapore.

I miss this trip. It's here that I got myself to do things I never would've done had I not met these people as well as things I've always intended to do but never did. Now I'm just looking forward to my solo ORD trip but hoping that it won't be too lonely.

Labels: overseas, places, things that happened

Maybe it's just a momentary feeling, but I think that the past week's trip to Taiwan had been one of the highlights of my life. There were lots of highs and a little bit of lows, that's why it's a highlight! See what I did there?

As usual, I'm just going to write about things that happened day by day, but this time I'm just going to include things that I find memorable.

Day 0 - Checking In
Everyone was really tired by the time we had to meet to check in our luggages and such. It was quite entertaining, actually, when Stefanie repeated "just go!" louder and louder in order to shoo us away, and when Joey suddenly freaked out because she "lost her luggage" (it was actually already checked in).

Day 1 - Winding up the Mountain
Fast forward to about 10 hours later, we were in our tour guide, Kevin's, car, and he was driving us up Alishan. It was really pretty and breathtaking, looking at everything above and looking at everything from above. Mj and Cx were totally judging me on over-commenting on everything I see though. According to Mj, I "say the most random things at the most random times." :(

And before I know it, I start getting motion sick due to the winding roads plus a lack of sleep.

Had our first dinner at Taiwan, which is some lunchbox meal consisting of lots of vegetarian food and overly sweet vegetarian fish. None of us could finish our food. We ended up getting all sorts of stuff from 7-eleven to fill our stomachs for the night.

Our Minsu (aka homestay) was pretty awesome. Besides the fact that it was filled with many fake drawers that were actually not drawers, everything was awesome. We just squeezed together in two king-sized beds and watched Sharknado.


Highlight of the day: Played with a Shiba Inu.

Labels: overseas, things that happened

Sigh. I know this is a horrible tone to set this entry up in, but then, sigh. I feel so sad. This is because our Melbourne trip, which had been a blast, ended. And my internship started - not that it's a bad thing. I just miss everyone so, so much. Not just the Melbourne people (whom I miss dearly), but also all the DTVM people. I kind of miss my laptop too, because I just sent it for repair and I'll probably only get it back next Monday or something.

So, let me just talk about the trip as a whole. I shall recall it day by day.

Day 1 - The Afternoon Nap Day
Arrived in Melbourne pretty early in the morning, so our hotel wasn't ready for us to live in yet. While waiting for our rooms, we just went to look around the area. Searched for Optus to get their Sim card so that we could call one another and use the internet (and instagram all sorts of stuffs). The process was painful, but we finally managed to get our card :D

In the midst of it, we somehow explored Target Centre and found this:


A gumball machine
Which was pretty cool. Also tried out their pie, which was pretty fine. And then we headed to 'The Big W' (some supermarket) to shop for groceries. Got ourselves banana, lots of tea, and apple juice. By this time, the hotel was ready, so we headed back to the hotel to take an afternoon nap. I roomed with Alex. When we woke up, it was already time for our briefing at 8pm.

After the briefing, Alex, Cx, Elijah and I went to eat at the hotel's restaurant. Their desserts were awesome. A pity I didn't get dessert; I got a meal instead. I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags.

Day 2 - UniMelb (or Mel-U, according to Elijah) Day
Took the tram...


The trams
and then stepped in the University of Melbourne for the first time ever.


Part of the university
I need to explain how cool their school is. Imagine a less creepy version of Hogwarts. That's how it seems like to me. They're like castles. I stupidly did not take any clear photo of their castle-like buildings :(

Attended lectures like 'Short Fiction Writing - Styles' and marketing. The first one was okay (some of my classmates found it awesome because they caught stuffs that I didn't) and the second one... Let's just say even the lecturer was bored.

Had a writing tour, in which we toured around Melbourne on foot and engaged in intense writing exercises as we walked. For example, halfway through walking, the tour guide would point to a bicycle and tell us to write anything about it. The tour was really cool. We got into an empty cinema although we did not watch a movie.


We were supposed to write something out of this
When the writing tour ended, we went to get Asian food even though we're Asians in Australia. Had Golden Gaytime (I shan't elaborate on that). And then, like the previous night, I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags. (By the way, I just used a gimmicky sort of repetition in my writing style, something I learned in the short fiction writing - styles lecture.)

Day 3 - Everything Got Cancelled Day
I don't remember much about this day, except for the fact that most of our lectures got cancelled, I fell sick because I didn't have a scarf (and Jezebel lent hers to me as a result), and we headed to this awesome shop called 'Minotaur' where I bought a Lost magazine compilation, a The Walking Dead magazine, and a Dr Horrible guidebook. Fanboying. At some point, everybody in the tour group went and loved Minotaur, or at least it seems to me that way.

At this point, Joanne and Cheryl (two of our juniors) joined our clique thingy and we began hanging out quite a bit.

I think that on this day, we also went to see some art exhibit.

That night, Jezebel and I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags.

Day 4 - I forgot what happened on this day
All I remembered about this day was that we laid on the grass (or maybe it's some other day) and I went to fix some annoying issues that happened to my Sim card. As for the lectures, it was very techy and new media related. I liked one of them, which was about photography and new media technologies, even though Jezebel counted the number of times the lecturer said 'um' or 'yup' and the count exceeded 200(?).

Visited the State Library, which was freaking cool.


Dome-shaped
(this photo doesn't do the coolness of the place justice. At all. It was badly taken)
I think that that night, Zhao-Yi, Yvette, Annzy, Mj, Hazel, Cx, and I went to Lygon Street to have a really nice dinner. I ate some Aglio Olio-like dish. Orgasmic.

After we returned to the hotel, Jezebel, Elijah, Cx, Hira, Joanne, Cheryl and I went over to King and Colin's room to watch Kickass, which was pretty kickass.

Day 5 - Writing Day
A lot of creative writing on this day. Had a workshop and a masterclass. For an activity, paired with Hazel to write about this random red coat girl whom we observed discreetly. Caught a fat bird bullying smaller birds in the process.

Some of my coursemates shared their writings. They write so well - how come I never took notice?

Anyway, we also went to this old book store and which had really old books. Bought a 'psychology of internet' book. What's new?


This is how the store looks like


Another view
That night, Jezebel, Elijah, Cx, Hira, Joanne, Cheryl and I went over to King and Colin's room to watch Kickass 2, which was pretty kickass too. And then, we played Ouya (some competitive tetris game and some alien game) and we also played cards and drank tea and "gambled" over tea bags.

Day 6 - Sad Day
At this point, my Sim card and some other stuffs made me so angry that I became sad. The day was also pretty boring, except for the part in which Yvette, Zhao-Yi, Annzy, and I went to explore the outskirts of the school and saw a nice cemetery which we didn't take photo of. Went into some super nice museum with nice paintings and the following:


1. Pillow room in which...


you can draw on the walls


2. Glass ceiling room in which...


you can get closer to the ceiling if you explore the place


3. This, which is made up of bowls and water and currents. Whenever any bowls hit, they make a nice, chyme-like sound.
Which, I guess, along with my friends, kind of cheered me up.

Went to buy books in some mall after that. I bought 4 more books in this super cheap book store - every book costed <$5, at least those I bought. Jez got this super funny news headlines gone wrong book. Colin, King, Cx, and I decided to share money to buy it for Ms Gamar so that she can show to our juniors. Costed only $4. And somehow, this night was the birth of this thing called #shawtweetz -.- Shan't elaborate.

Night: Played Colin's Ouya - some platformer with super annoying music - and watched Se7en with Joanne, Cheryl, Cx and Elijah, and ate cup noodles and Shreya visited us and Hira and Colin went to buy Mc Donalds. Okay, at this point, it just seems weird because I'm pretty sure these stuffs happen over two nights. My memory's not that good.

Day 7 - Free Day
Basically, this day was a lot of shopping. Went to Victorian Market, which was basically an Australian version of pasa malam. Alex went missing (as like Elijah on day 3 or something) and returned. Bought Kingdom Hearts. Bought even more stuffs at Minotaur. Bought two more books at a book store (quiz: How many books did I buy in total?). Also visited this super cool moving pictures gallery which had sensation-related gadgets, history of games, TV, and internet, and really interesting stuffs.

Shopped alone for a while, and then rejoined them and rushed back for a debriefing session. Did a little musical-of-our-life on the way, in which we sang instead of talked. Caught this super talented violist street performer (there were lots of street performers), and then returned to the hotel for debrief.

In which we did the OLP thing. Sat in a circle and talked about our experience.

Immediately after the debriefing session, Colin, King, Joanne, Jezebel, Cheryl, Elijah, Cx, Hira, and I immediately and literally ran to some vietnamese food place before it close, and we made it in time. And managed to accidentally pangseh Colin in the process.

Decided not to sleep that night, and have a Lord of The Rings marathon instead. Bought chips, more Golden Gaytimes, drinks, and lots of stuffs over to Colin and King's room. We failed. Most of the girls got bored halfway through the first movie and returned to their rooms. The rest of us tolerated the rest of the movie before heading back to sleep.

Day 8 - Last Day
Sigh. Had our chow mein (actually cao mian), which we talked about since day 2, I think. Had frozen yoghurt. Laid on the library area grass.


Outside of State Library (try and spot us)
Took lots of photos.

And then we had to head back to Singapore D:

The plane ride back was pretty beautiful. Australia's night lights, sunset - which came after the night lights because we traveled back in time (Australia is 2 hours ahead of Singapore) - , and then Singapore's night light. Watched Pocahontas again and got reminded why it was one of my favourite movies. Watched Dora The Explorer and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Rewatched some TV as well and mentally survived my way back to Singapore.

And I guess that's it. It had been really great, and I feel sad. Yeah. The end.

--Oh, by the way, I do know that I've got my timings messed up. Like some things that happen in day 3 may end up in day 2 here because I don't have such a good memory, but that's not that important... Right?

More photos here.

Labels: dtvm, overseas, things that happened

My OLP team! (as if you can tell who's in it) - Me, Elijah, Hira, Rebecca, Heidi, Avelin, CX (left to right)
Just came back from Penang yesterday night, but received some really sad news today. 15 minutes after our plane departed from Penang, a freak thunderstorm hit Penang and 2 people died in Georgetown - our filming location. I really don't know who they are but I really hope the super friendly people we met there are alright. And I'm super grateful that the whole DTVM cohort is alright. My father said he did feel that something bad would happen, that's why he prayed really hard for me. I'm so thankful. I'm also thankful for Ms Mary and the Christians for praying for the trip beforehand too. It was pretty close.

On a brighter note, On-location production had been awweessssooommmmmme! I have so much to blog about because so much happened. If you don't really want to know, then maybe just at least read the next paragraph? :(

So I made friends with many people from class 01 and some jetty people, ate quite a lot of good food, had fun filming (I've always loved filming), and bought quite a lot of coffee packets home! :D

Departure + Settling In
So, we met up in the airport and headed to the plane. After a long while, we were ascending and flying in the air. Sat next to Joey Liew and Geradine. Slept in the plane, and then finally reached our destination, Penang, after about an hour. Went to our hostel, Ryokan, by bus. The head of the hostel is called Mr Luffy! He's a nice guy.

So, I'm the room I/C for room 202 and my roommates were Wai Meng, Joey Liew, and Alex. We're the quiet room. Really. Managed to know Joey Liew a little better, but I didn't get to talk much to Alex.

For the first night, Stella + the lecturers brought us out for a walk in the vicinity. It was pretty cool seeing shophouses here and there. There was also this cute parking pole which I have no idea how it works. And telephone booths which do not exist in Singapore. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

And since it was the first night, I headed to CX, Elijah, Pascal, and Zi Wei's room to play Binding of Isaac. It's some pretty screwed up game based on the Bible and it consists of floating stomachs that can shoot blood, a main character that uses tears or pee to fight, random poops everywhere, and so on. It can be quite cute at times.

Anyway, went to sleep after that and got all energised for day 2.

Location Recce
Headed to Georgetown to scout for our story. To me, the worst part of documentary making is pre-production - the stage where we have to search for an interesting person/place/topic. The rest of the parts are pretty fun actually. Learned about the Clan Jetties (a place in Georgetown). It's made up of 6 or 7 jetties (can't remember), each with a different surname. There's Chew Jetty, Tan Jetty, Lim Jetty, and so on. Then there's a 'mixed surname jetty' where all the miscellaneous go. Learned a lot about its history while interviewing people.

Which I shall not elaborate because it's highly likely to bore you.

Didn't manage to get a profile before lunchtime because we were:
1) Slacking off, sitting at narrow bridges and taking photos like the one you see above.
2) Shooting mockumentaries about kingfishers with Elijah's narration: "This is a Kingfisher. It is found in Penang. Thus, it is called, the Penang Kingfisher."
3) Satisfied with the idea of shooting a poetic documentary about the rubbish in the jetties. It was my idea, so Elijah calls me the poetic garbage.

Lunch was alright. Some coffee place called 'My Arte'. The server was pretty and super friendly, and as a result Elijah had a crush on her.

Continued our recce after lunch, but it was raining really heavily. Squeezed in umbrellas and protected the camera like a baby. And tried to interview fishermen and traders who were obviously put off by the rain. Got rejected coldly as a result. Eventually, we decided to just do a documentary about the Chew Jetty.

The warm thing was, we did talk to this guy before lunch, so he invited us into his house when he saw us caught in the rain. And he also let us to an interview with him. He's called Mr Chew because he live in the Chew Jetty. Serious. The jetties are splitted according to surnames.

Production - Day 1
The first day of production was really slack. The interview with Mr Chew lasted for 45 minutes, which is super long. Actually spent the rest of the time slacking even more :P Got ourselves popsicles which Hira demanded for the whole morning. And attempted to make an epic mealtime of it.

We were sitting beside of the water when this friendly woman invited us into her house. Chatted with them and learned that she was the niece of Mr Chew whom we interviewed. Small jetty. Actually, according to her, 60% of Chew Jetty people are family-related. Uncles, aunties, father, mother, cousins, etc. The culture there is really cool.

And this woman (Ms Chew) has a nice balcony thing facing the water. It has a rocking chair and is super relaxing and comfortable. So, we went there and did some vlog, which I guess I shall edit soon.

Ms Chew told us to not be such obedient students and introduced us to super good food. *Sigh* I wish she and Mr Chew and the other people are all safe.

Got ourselves chendol. Hira was a brave, reckless road-crosser. Penang style - cross the road whether a car is coming or not. The chendol stall was full of bees, and everyone there is acting like there's nothing :O

So that's production day 1! Not much of a production day, but we needed to recharge our energy :D
Not really, actually.

And then at night, we had to rush out our script. It was a tiring day, so I went to sleep early.

Production - Day 2
The final day of production already. Elijah got himself a horrible injury on the head by knocking it on his locker. So, for the first hour or so, he was seeing the doctor and our group had to film without him. Fortunately, he joined us after that. Day 2 was a lot of filming, and also a lot of lepaking at Mr Chew's house + the nice narrow bridge where we took the photo above. Dipped our feet into the dirty water which consists of urine and pollution and stuffs. It was super relaxing.

Also got ourselves popsicles and chendol again (Hira, CX, and I are the pigs who keep eating). This time, also bought goreng pisang.

We were pretty manipulative people. Firstly, we knew that some people in other jetties were unfriendly, so we purposely approached them with the camera rolling and asked for an interview. What we wanted was a shot of us getting rejected to show that they are unfriendly, and it went according to plan! :/ Secondly, we placed a camera in a house facing outwards. People who walked pass all looked into the camera in the house. This shot was supposed to be about people looking into the house.

And then there was this funny moment when we stood outside this unfriendly woman's house to record the ambience sound emitting from her house (some traditional chinese music). She shooed us away from standing on her house's "boundaries", so we stood directly outside and pointed the mic at her. The camera was facing away, and her whole face was like "da fuck?"

The night was pretty emotional because it was our last night in Penang, plus Stella was going on about the fact that this would be our last 2-3 months together. So, the lecturers, being the sweet people that they are, made us do a confession video where we just talk about our DTVM experience to the camera.

Some of the things everyone said was funny. Natasya actually told a hilarious story about how Wai Meng and Yvette fell off a cliff while trying to take good shots. And Yvette added on by saying that her groupmate asked "Is the boom-mic okay?" instead of "Are you okay?"

What I wanted to say
I wanted to say a lot of things, but my whole mind just went blank with 40+ pairs of eyes staring at me. So, I just said the first 3 things that came to my mind. Here's what I really wanted to say:

My OLP group is awesome. There is Heidi, the cool producer with the sunglasses and an aura. There is  Rebecca, the cool camerawoman who looks like a professional National Geography photographer. There is Hira, the one who is fun to make fun of. Then there are CX, Avelin, and Elijah - people I feel comfortable with from my class. They do work, and they know how to have fun. It was great.

As for the whole DTVM, there were a lot of painful times, honest. But there were a lot of great memories. Filming, discussing stuffs, watching one another panic before a major pitch, creating a haunted house together, torturing our main characters together, preparing for skits, celebrating, eating, playing catching on Marina Barrage, Christmas celebration, going for LEAP camp, and so on. I built memories with most of my classmates.

Then there were class dramas which were fun to watch (I'm glad I didn't say this).

I've learned a lot about doing work. First thing is that I cannot do everything on my own. In secondary school, Ms Aljunied told me that I need to trust my friends. That was in sec 2. I only learned how to do that in year 3. Last year, I would be that control freak who manipulate and demand stuffs from the director and editor of my group (I was the cameraman). Now, I've learned to chill and mind my own business. To an extent.

Second thing is that working is not just doing work, but it is also having fun in the process. Which probably is the wrong thing to learn, but I don't want to unlearn it. It's all about liking what I do, I hope.

And even though it had not been a super smooth ride in DTVM, I'll miss many people. Kind of. But it's not like graduation means goodbye. Graduation =/= goodbye actually. Unless you want it to be.

And that's that.

The Night
Wanted to stay up the whole night, but due to misunderstandings (as usual), I thought that people would be busy doing other stuffs (which I shall elaborate on soon), thus I went to sleep instead.

So after the emotional talking-to-the-camera moments, we were told to write little notes of memories to one another. The lecturers would tie them in an envelope and hand them to us before our internship. This is the "other stuffs" that I thought the others was doing. I finished relatively quickly and was pretty surprised to see them still writing, because I thought I would be the most luo shuo (talkative) one.

The night was freaking cold and somehow the controller didn't work, so I slept outside the room for awhile, and then decided to grit my teeth and bear with it back in the room.

Last Day
The morning was fine. Had a walking tour around Georgetown area. Went to museums and stuffs. Then, had a food trail. Went to eat super nice guo tiao, laksa (which I didn't eat), chendol, and indian food! Everyone was so excited about teh tarik. And my group was making fun of how neat Avelin was.

Also tried out some coffee samples and spent 50 ringgit on them. Plus a dou sa bing.

Caught our plane and headed home. The descend was really nice. Sunset, sea of clouds, plunging into the clouds, and the whole view of Singapore lights.

And now, I kind of miss Penang and the people, and my groupmates, and stuffs. Once again, I really hope the people I know are safe.

And I feel blessed.

Labels: dtvm, overseas, production, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened

Okay, it's been pretty long since I do a recount kind of post. 2 weeks is considered long because when there is school I do it every week. In fact, the last time I blogged was last year! #lamelastyearjokes #hashtagoutsideoftwitter #spamhashtags

I've been pretty much a no-lifer in the holidays, especially the last week. But let's just talk about the few times that I had some sort of life.

Christmas Night
Like most of the mehmehs, my family doesn't celebrate Christmas. So, Wai Min, Guang Yi, Joshua, and I met up to shop a little. Wei Jian joined us soon and then we headed to Ru Wen's mum's stall to have zi car again. It's been pretty long ever since the last time we went there. The usual drills of eating her food, chatting, and then desserts. Just minus the helping her fold boxes part.

Shopping Alone
For the most part, this doesn't deserve a mention, but I must mention it anyway because this was actually the first time I shopped alone. Decided that it was about time to do stuff alone and not depend on friends to bring me out of my rotting mode. But, it ended up killing very little time because I ended up shopping too quickly, since it was pretty boring. Shopkeepers like to talk to lone customers, I guess.

School Project
Headed to school last Friday to meet Zhao Yi and Mei Jun to do our web publishing assignment. Honestly, I like this group because it's a productive one that is not intense and boring. Did the mockup and document and chatted for a while. Time passed quite quickly and we headed home soon.

Weekends
I don't know why, but the amount of time I spend with Guang Yi is directly proportionate to the time I spend with Jt. Once again, I spent Saturday with Guang Yi and Sunday with Jt. On Saturday, accompanied him to cut his hair and walked around Junction 8. Wanted to watch either Les Miserables or Chinese Zodiac, but no one else was free. On Sunday, met up with Jt to have her super late lunch (at 4.30pm), shop a little, and have dinner. Caught up a while, but then I had to go because the next day demanded that I wake up super early.

New Year's Eve
Best day of the holiday for me, especially since the holiday had been pretty much wasted on a spiritual level. Went to Johor Bahru with Guang Yi and Wai Min. The mehmehs were all suppose to go together, but people backed out one by one and only us three remained. I'm glad we were stubborn enough to go anyway despite warnings that there would be a jam and stuff.

Met Guang Yi and Wai Min at 6am+ because we were expecting a great jam if we were to be later. Turned out that the jam was for the road towards Singapore, not the one towards JB. So, we reached super early. Decided to have breakfast, but because they were really hungry, we did not care about where to eat and ended up in KFC o.o As this was the first time we came to Johor Bahru ever since we could remember, we were shocked to see the price to be super cheap, almost half of Singapore's price. But the portion was also almost half of Singapore's portion. Wai Min went to ask this shopkeeper where CitySquare was, and she totally gave us that "What are you going there so early for??" look :S

Decided anyway to head to KSL first. Got a rather friendly taxi driver who was randomly talking to us about stuffs, like how there was a dish that cost $100+ in KL. He's quite funny.


Entrance to the mall
Got spoilt for choice once we reached, because all the restaurants there were so cheap. They looked nice too. Wai Min was already planning what to eat. Shopped a lot because their stuffs were cheap and they had things Singapore did not have. I'm quite glad that the cutting there is smaller than Singapore so shopping was so much easier for me. I wear M instead of S there.


Couple cover (Luffy & Nami from One Piece)
Malaysia seems to be a really big fan of One Piece because it's full of One Piece stuff and One Piece phone covers. I found the one above particularly nice.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch, so we headed to the Tea Garden to have our food.


It was fine food. We planned to eat quickly and then rush to the cinema to catch Les Miserables, but we ended up finishing late. So, we quickly rushed to get Shi Lin before heading in for the movie.


It was a musical, but what I must say is the three of us were pretty bored. I heard that it was great, but I guess it's just not our type.

Shopped more before having our dinner at Season, which was actually Swensens.


Delicious fries that I could not eat
And then we headed back to City Square to shop, but the stuffs there were mostly similar to Singapore. Not cheap too. So, we tried to cross the custom (keyword: tried). Unfortunately, we somehow ended up on the side we were suppose to enter Malaysia from. When we asked lots of people, got laughed at by security guards, and finally found the way, we felt so stupid o.o

There was a jam on our way back, but we reached Singapore in time. Headed home awhile, then met up with the rest of the mehmehs in Bradell station to celebrate New Year. Guang Yi's house. Eyes were so tired, going to shut. Anyway, mahjonged and Ru Wen and Wai Min taught us how to play it with money. The rest played with cards. Soon later, Wei Jian's girlfriend and Ru Wen's sister came too.

Half-watched Channel 8's new year celebration and laughed like mad at Mediacorp actors/actresses' attempts to cover songs and such. Then it was 12am and we could see a bit of the fireworks from Guang Yi's house.

Continued our mahjong. As it was late, people started going home one by one. Joshua, Zi Xing, and I decided to stay over at his house. They played ps3 while I slept because I was so tired. Managed to catch the first train in zombie and half-asleep mode to return home too.

And with this, it's happy new year! :D

Labels: mehmeh, overseas, things that happened