A diary of my life, my travels to various places and my many interests.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
告诉我
My favorite singer, Cheer Chen came to Singapore for a concert on the 4th April. This time, I got the 7th row tickets! It was a really fun night and the concert this time was much better than her last concert at Max Pavilion. The venue is better, the sound is better and I got better tickets!
Take a listen, this song will stick in your head for at least a day or two! Even the dance moves are pretty cute! I like the way they pronounce ‘you’ as ‘chew’… so cute!
"Who am I? You sure you want to know? (I'm not spiderman)" The Broke Egg has got himself into an award winning photo! So, there’s actually an Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association which is also actually a division within the Wedding Photojournalist Association. Anyway, the award winning photo was taken when all of us were busy doing our toast to the bridegroom Ah Boon. It was a whole lot of fun! The link is here
Hopefully the link stay alive for a while longer and everyone gets a chance to verify this historic moment! In case there is anyone who wants to know the photographers, their website is here
The past few weeks has been rather busy… I went into shift work and had to adjust to an entirely different sleeping pattern. In fact, today is my off day and I’m still wide awake at 4am in the morning. Now I can’t really sleep at night but I can’t stay awake in the day!
During this time too, I’ve been glued to my laptop watching the Japanese drama “Densha Otoko” (translated as "Train Man"). This show is based on a true story of a 23-year-old otaku (Japanese geek) who intervened when a drunk man was harassing several women on a train. The otaku eventually got to know one of the women and started to date her out. The big problem is: he has absolutely zero experience with women! He started posting his experience on an online forum and got a lot of dating advice and eventually even managed to win the girl’s heart!
Initially though, I didn’t quite like the protagonist. He seemed weak and can’t even finish a proper sentence without stuttering. The girl (acted by Misako Ito) was so pretty and graceful and way out of his league. I think anyone of us by instinct would have thought that she deserves someone better. However, I did get touched by his sincerity for the girl and actually hoped that they really get together as the show goes on! This show really reminded me of myself when I was still young and clueless. The show captured the feeling of the uncertainty… the helpless feeling of having a mega crush on someone… wanting to know what she thinks of you… the internal struggle to call or not call her… planning how to ask her out on a date… planning what to do on that date! It really reminded me of my first date! Of course, I didn’t get the girl that time and maybe that’s why I wanted to see the protagonist win that girl’s heart! Wait… I even posted on online forums before too!
Also, the show is set in Tokyo and I’ve been to most of the places in the drama! The fun part is that I was at Akihabara, Tokyo before I've even seen this show! Okay, Akihabara is really the paradise of otakus… and I have to admit I do have quite a bit of otaku in me! Being in the Tokyo before actually made the show all the more believable and personal to me. Now I’ll have to deal with the withdrawal syndrome of finishing a such an addictive tv show! (and make myself sleep now that it’s 5am)
"Sekai wa sore wo ai to yobundaze" by Sambomaster [Densha Otoko ED Version]
"Twilight" by Electric Light Orchestra [Densha Otoko Opening Song
Sic Bo is sick... (KL/Genting 20th Dec - 22th Dec)
I went on a road trip with de, dan and zj to Kuala Lumpur and Genting Highlands over the last weekend. This is second time I’ve driven my car to KL in two months!
The drive up was pretty nice. In fact, I actually quite like driving long distances! Maybe it’s because it gives me a sense of space… like the world is so big… it’s a bit lame but I really do feel this way!
At KL, we pretty much did the same things I did a month ago… which is shopping at Sungei Wong, then singing KTV at Green Box at Sungei Wong. We stayed at the Swiss Garden Hotel this time, which is one notch higher class than the Alpha Genesis Hotel I stayed last month. Both rooms were quite ok for a one night's stay but de and I got upgraded to a deluxe twin room at Swiss Garden and there’s free internet in the deluxe rooms! The breakfast is definitely much better than Alpha Genesis. I guess all in all, both hotels are quite a fair value for what you pay for.
The more interesting part of the trip is when we drove up to Genting Highlands on Sunday. Genting Highlands is only about an hour’s drive away from KL and is the place to be if you like casinos! (Nowhere close to the glitter of Las Vegas but hey… this is the only one land casino in Southeast Asia)
After learning a lot from my master’s program at NUS, I decided to put to test, the fairness of the game of Sic Bo (Big – Small). The odds given by wizard of odds (see www.wizardofodds.com) are 48.11% chance for Big, and similar for Small. The remaining % is for triples (Chinese call it ‘Leopard’). After sitting down for 100 games on the big dice machine (the only big dice Sic Bo machine), I recorded 48 Bigs, 48 Smalls and 4 Triples. Uncanny but the odds are really quite accurate!
Unfortunately, this statistics experiment didn’t make me any richer and I ended down a couple of hundreds. It seems like our yearly pilgrimage (we last went in October 2007!) always end in a defeat. But this year was fun… thanks to the Fire and Ice slot machine! De’s lurk-behind-the-losing-aunties strategy worked so well for me that I managed to claw back half of what I lost at Sic Bo! I even got an ‘Ice’ jackpot (which is really small anyway… we really want the ‘Fire’ with 5 digits payout!)
Overall the trip was great fun! Good travel buddies always makes good trips… so now we want to go Bintan next!
Here’s a pretty nice song by Van Fan 范逸臣, 国境之南. This song is from the Taiwanese movie Cape No. 7, 海角七号. I think the lyrics is quite beautifully written and I can actually visualize the song… a quiet starry night on a beach… with the waves gently rolling onto the sands… the sea breeze softly blowing on my hair… and missing someone…
