Happy New Year...

...and say goodbye to this blog, as we move to a new location to service you better.

Seriously, considering I'm back from the States and that this blog has more or less served its purpose, I think it'll be great to preserve this in its current status. An archive, a monument of sorts. At least one I can afford.

Happy New Year, kids. Check out the new blog here.

The Final Countdown

Not the song that's been playing in my head - although the over-usage of the music in Gob's act in Arrested Development is a topic of discussion. Overall, the past couple of days have been supper nights, with lots of random conversation and just going off-tangent on all sorts of things. My mind's perpetually wandering about life post-graduation, and it relates to my constant listening of the Avenue Q soundtrack, a musical about...life post-graduation. Hmmm.

Here's something impossibly cute from the production to leave you guys going "Awwww...." just before the year ends.


The Bad Idea Bears.

Post-NYC/USA

I know that this blog has been somewhat unupdated over the past few days or so and for that, I apologize to my loyal viewers (all 2 of you). Unsurprisingly, the first thing that you really want to do when you arrive back home after a long time away is to...bum. Admittedly, others may disagree with this point of view, wanting to catch up with people and fill their timetables with plenty of activities. To which, I have to say, others are both nowhere near as lazy as I am and others are also, well, wrong.

One of the most interesting events that befell upon yours truly was the onset of a wave of insomnia. For the first 4 nights or so after coming back home, the body refused to adapt and would only take on 4-5 hours of sleep a night, before sending the owner of the body waking up. So, if I slept at 3am, I would wake up at 8am. If I slept at 5am, I would wake up at 9am (trust me, this is NOT my usual routine at all). Thankfully, the readjustment is happening very quickly and now yours truly is clocking 8 hours of sleep, taking an hourly nap mid-day and still feeling like a lazy ass the whole day. Amen to that.

Unfortunately this entry isn't going to be very exciting. This is because my days, thus far, can be boiled down into the following:

24th - Failure at attempting to sleep. Meeting Ian for nasi lemak at Adam Road (sorry Jem, I couldn't resist) and then a simple dinner at home, before heading over to Arrif's for the annual smorgasboard (is that how you spell the word?) of food, oh glorious food. Then a chat late into the morning with him and UK couple of the year Yijia and Shouzi.

25th - Attempting to sleep. Failed again. Went out for lunch at Plaza Singapura, observing that nobody cares about X'mas and all the shops are open. Hung around with secondary school friends, playing Xbox multiplayer games at $3 an hour per console. Realised friends are morons when it comes to cameras. Attached the only working picture.


Larry, Moe & Curly. All study/studied overseas.

26th - Still attempting to sleep but to no avail. Got haircut (at long last). Paid $7 for seemingly reasonable haircut. Appreciated general cheapness of things in Singapore. Spent whole day playing World of Warcraft with Ian - watched another sucker get pulled into the vicious cycle of cyberdope.

27th - Gave up attempting to sleep - still waking up at crazy hours. Met Yumi Davis (yes that's a Japanese and American name in one), a friend of mine who studied overseas, has family here (and lived here long enough to know what laksa is - speaking of which, I need to get myself some), and is currently an entrepreneur in Costa Rica. Seriously. Ate Tian Tian Chicken Rice, a stall rated 6 chopsticks by the Makansutra (apparently, they almost never gave this rating). Disappointed by chicken rice after waiting half hour to get it. Went home and played more WoW with Ian.


This one is dedicated to Cheryl, Jem and Mun and all those who are lapping up the end of the strike as well as the onset of sunny weather for the whole of last week. Like, what the hell, man.

28th - Finally got some sleep after crashing at 12am the night before. Went out for brunch with the family, trying to find a reasonable dim sum place only to find the stupid venue near Mustafa closed at 10am. Visited "Red Star Restaurant" at Havelock Road - a traditional Chinese restaurant with a pretty decent selection and kickass char siew buns. Worth a shot if you want breakfast/brunch/lunch between 7am to 3pm. Spent rest of the day WoW-ing with Ian. Wondering if this is bad for eyes.

I really don't have more to say. I miss NYC but I'm not depressed about it. Oddly, my lasting memory of the place now happens to be Avenue Q music playing in my head. Specifically, "The Internet Is For Porn".

Memories of NYC...

I'm trying to recall what I can of NYC on my last day there. Strangely enough, the first memory I have is me pointing out to Jem, Cheryl and Mun a bunch of scientologists. How did I know they were scientologists? Thank my friends at South Park, creators of an amazing episode taking the piss out of scientologists.

Since NYC was on strike that day, my day ended up starting a tad later than I had hoped for, with lots of planning to work around the strike. That totally killed any plans of mine to go to the downtown areas. Because my day started late, I also abandoned any hopes of visiting the museums (a real pity, really). Instead, I arranged to meet up with Mun in the early to mid-afternoon before being joined by Jem and Cheryl.

Prior to heading down, yours truly decided to sample a little of the quaint places near Columbia. Near where I was staying is a place called Mondel's Chocolates. The chocolates are fantastic - I bought a small sample for myself and the other people to share and specifically, Cheryl was extremely surprised at how good the chocolates were. This shop also happens to pride itself on being Katharine Hepburn's favourite chocolate place. It's pretty unique to NYC, really. Check it out at 114th Street off Broadway if you ever pop by.

Anyway, the weather was a lil' warmer than expected, so yours truly took a walk right down to 80th Street or so, to meet up with Mun. We settled in at yet another Zagat rated venue, World Coffee (yes, as I've told Jem, everything is Zagat-rated in NYC because if it's not, it's almost for sure to be pretty shite). Much chatting and just generally going ga-ga over how amazing and amazingly expensive NYC is.

This was followed by just some walking around, checking out venues to meet, because for some strange reason, Jem and Cheryl suggested a Vietnamese restaurant. Seriously, guys, a Vietnamese restaurant in NYC?! It's a good thing we decided to go with something a lil' more interesting and found Cafe Ronda, a fantastic Argentinian restaurant that cost a bomb. Something like US$40 a head for a really full set dinner - bread with some really, really good olive oil, followed by the main courses of paella and parradilla with sangria at the sides (Mun, I'm sorry it was so strong! I had no idea!). Oh, and some varieties of dessert too. I'm amazed we ate so much but it was worth every single frickin' penny. This would be arriving in food heaven.


Meat heaven.


Rice heaven.


Dessert heaven.


Sangria makes you...happy.

The dinner session lasted a really long time, and obviously there's no need to explain why. The rest of the night was just spent walking around, talking and finally hanging out at Macdonald's, because it's the only joint open late at night near the Times Square area. We finished a pseudo-fight of sorts at the MacD's but otherwise not really much action. Jem went bonkers over Vegas, ranting and raving and saying something about how it's a place where we should organise another trip but only for guys (go figure). Myself, I went nuts over NYC, pretty much ranting and raving about Broadway, dinner and how this would be a great place to meet up in about 10 years' time. I think I might just follow up on the suggestion I made to Shell about buying up Central Park or possibly buying a yacht and placing it there. Just need to find someone ultra-rich to marry now...

We ended the night walking Mun back to her place, down Fifth Avenue (yes, ladies and gentlemen, land of the Bergdorf Goodmans and super-expensive brandnames I don't recognise) before heading to her place somewhere near 2nd Avenue. Daniel, host to Cheryl and Jem, was kind enough to pick us up and drop us back from Mun's place. What a guy.

Not that much else to say - unfortunately most of the pictures are on Mun and Jem's cameras so I can't upload more pics. Just 2 things. Firstly, the bloody union ended the strike the day I left - like, WTF, man! I need to buy the lottery. Secondly, I incurred a US$129 excess baggage charge helping to bring stuff back for Jem and friends so Jem, you owe me big-time!!!!

God, I miss NYC already...

Home is where the heat is

This one's especially for Jem. And count Esther in too, actually.

Home sweet home...

...or not. Pretty ambivalent about being home but I'm just happy that the goddamn flight has finally ended. Argh.

Goodbye America, Hello Nasi Lemak

Kinda summarises what there is back in Singapore. Because I kind of have to go get ready to leave for a flight at 8.30am (it's 3:30am, and the flight is at JFK), I'm unable to blog about a splendid evening spent with Mun, Jeremy and Cheryl. Just to note, we ate at Cafe Ronda, a semi-fancy restaurant along Columbus and between 71st and 72nd street. It's Argentinian and the food was muy rica. Yeps.

So see you guys in a coupla days. Goodbye America, hello Singaporean food!

We need to ban strikes

So I've about another day left in NYC, with Jem and Cheryl popping up tomorrow, just in time to enjoy the transit strike that's affecting everyone in Manhattan. The sentiment appears to be that most people in NY are seriously pissed off about this, since it's just next to X'mas. It's hard to tell how New York is reacting to this but amongst people I've polled, I have one leftist sentiment from the ang moh (caucasian) and pretty much nonchalance from the rest who stay in this house and aren't affected.

Consequently, today was spent in a pretty slow manner and not much really got done. For a start, the oversleeping didn't help - what was supposed to be an early morning turned into a pretty late start, thanks to both yours truly and company for the day Yao Quan. Yao Quan's just come in from Caltech, where he's doing his Master's in Engineering of some sorts and visiting the area. As previously explained, Stan now runs a homeless shelter right at his place. But I took the chance to hang out with Yao Quan and it's been quite a pleasant experience - his time spent in France has made him one helluva chilled character, really.

We started our day with a visit to Amir's, a local Lebanese joint that serves food pretty damn fast. This was particularly good for Xing, who had to rush to an exam at 4pm (tells you how late we left). We also met with Khalil, a Haitian-cum-Long Island resident, who's a friend of Xing. Unfortunately we didn't get time to talk but if you had to summarise him in 2 sentences, it would be that he's a cleanliness freak and that he's going to Japan. My very apt descriptions of people also explains why I'm still working on that first novel of mine.

The original plan for the day, after grabbing lunch at Amir's, was to get some discounted tickets to Tobias' favourite - the Blue Man Group, at Astor Place Theatre. This would be followed by dinner somewhere in the area before heading out to the Village Vanguard, one of the most famous jazz joints in the East/West Village areas. Of course, we forgot to consider the basic law of capitalism, which is that companies always exploit openings. For example, when the union goes on strike, this creates a massive opening for taxi companies to exploit, such as installing a fixed rate for certain travel distances to charge you a ridiculous amount on a PER PERSON basis. Geez.

Heading down to TKTS, we decided to abandon our original plan and catch something on Broadway, or within the immediate vicnity. We settled for Hairspray, since it was the winner of Best Musical just 2 seasons ago and seemed like the kind of production that would showcase Broadway to Yao Quan. This production is based on the film of the same name, so google it or wikipedia it if you want to find out more.



Is Hairspray any good? To be quite honest...it's really quite fantastic and feels like what you'll call a real musical. It's moulded in the sense of a classic musical in terms of having a simple plot, a colourful set and one helluva soundtrack. Amongst all the musicals I've watched thus far, this one has the least complications and subplots and focuses almost exclusively on the main story and how it develops. It's one of those productions that would be fantastic if you like the way "Grease" developed, for example - lots of energy, a simple story with a happy ending and colours from the 1950s. Spamalot has silliness, Avenue Q has heart and Hairspray has...music. So yes, it's definitely a production you should catch - the singing is amazing and you have probably the most infectious soundtrack of all the musicals thus mentioned.



Not much else to blog about - short day plus the strike is just irritating. Had a good chat with Yao Quan but way too much to discuss in any case. Probably should catch some sleep, I suppose. Damn striking unions. Not the way I wanted to end my NY trip.