I'm crazily extravagent

I had been studying in NUS for the past few days to catch up with my lagging school work.

Helped Liyuan transport a bed from his aunty's house to his house in the afternoon today and had lessons in ntu until 5.30 pm. Went to Expo for the Natas Travel fair with Edwin, Gs and Jimmy in the evening. The admission fee was $3 but i come out with more than $3 worth of brochures and travelogues. I was grabbing any country's brochures that are worth visiting (i didn't grab Brunei and Botswana travelogues for obvious reasons though). Came out of the exhibition hall with an additional of at least 3 kg load.

We then headed to Changi Airport for our late dinner and went to Edwin's house to confirm our bookings for our Hong Kong and Macau trip in Dec. I'll be going on the 20th Dec to 26th Dec to both places. We purchased one-way ticket to Macau and one-way ticket from Hong Kong to Singapore. Will be staying for 5 days in a hostel as Hong Kong hotels are really expensive.

Fixed cost= ~$530 per pax inclusive of all accomodation and air tickets. Should be around $600 if all transportation costs are taken into consideration. Should have booked the air tickets earlier as they increased the price slightly today. I'm officially a travel addict.

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Outing & Movie

Went out with my sec sch friends for a ktv session on Sunday and spent time catching up with each other over lunch and dinner.

Watched The Banquet with Derrick, Edwin and Clarence at lido tonight.
The Banquet is an ancient China period piece loosely based on Hamlet with the conspiracies, the scheming plots and the eventual tragedy. There are even more add-ons with the martial arts, the stunningly lavish sets and the great cast.

The story is about an Emperor who was assassinated by his brother to upsurp his throne and the Crown Prince had to fend for his life with his uncle unleashing imperial guards to silence him. There is also a love triangle between the Empress, the Minister's daughter and the Crown Prince.

With Ta Dun and Yuen Wo Ping on tow (plus the cast comprising Zhang Ziyi, Daniel Wu, Zhou Xun and Ge You), this movie aspires to be the next Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero. The cinematography is fantastic, the fight choreography superb and the score is suitably majestic. The storytelling is engaging although the sequence of events unfolding are slightly exaggerated. Nevertheless, it is a great effort from mainland director Feng Xiaogang who joins the league of Lee Ang and Zhang Yimou. ****

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Fort Canning

Finally the 1 week break is here.......

I met up with my jc friends at Suntec after their dinner at Sizzler and we ran out of suggestions of where to go next.

We ended up exploring Fort Canning Park since our vehicles were parked near there.

Group Photo at Fort Canning

I took lots of photos and there were the familiar "spiritual orbs" popping out in some of the random shots i took. Took a number of these historical guides photos.

We walked around the peak of Fort Canning and left for home after the tour.

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Busy

I've been busy with tests and tutorials lately. 1 more week to the semester break!

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Movie

Went to watch The Host with Edwin, Jimmy and Clarence at PS at night. It is a Korean film about a gigantic mutated tadpole that suddenly came ashore and devouring people. Sounds stupid? It certainly doesn't look stupid onscreen as the special effects are very good and the manic it creates is intense and scary. Gang-du's daughter, Hyun-seo, was captured by the monster and brought to its lair. The government then became busy quarantining people and running tests on people who had a close brush with the monster for fear of a virus outbreak. Calls for rescue of Hyun-seo were unheeded and her family began on a search and rescue mission.

The movie is not really a monster film as it focuses on the political issues and the family ties. There is quite strong anti-US sentiment from the movie which pinpoints the root of the problem from a US army base in South Korea dumping chemicals into a river and the inept handling of the aftermath of the monster attack. Scary is the monster but more scary is how people never listen and continue to err. Emotional at times, occasionally funny, and realistic with a strong political statement, The Host is highly relevent in present times and it is quite an engaging and yet offbeat movie. ***1/2

Had supper at the 24 hours Kopitiam afterwards and we saw many sunflowers and other flowers planted along Bras Basah Rd and Stamford Rd for the IMF's delegates.

A lot of sunflowers planted outside SMU

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Funny Clips 4

Scare

Dog Sounds

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Comex

Went to Comex at Singapore Expo today and was stuck in a traffic jam along Upper Changi Rd East and Expo Drive for almost 1 hour. There were so much traffic that the traffic police blocked the main entrance of the carpark, opening only one side entrance (to avoild jamming the adjacent road also). The journey from my house to Expo took a whopping 1 hour 30 minutes, the same or even shorter if i had took public transport. Didn't expect so many people to be at Expo. Some impatient people had parked their vehicles along Expo Drive (with double yellow lines and zig zag lines) and i saw the traffic police in action, putting white fine receipts on their windscreen. There were around 40 vehicles parked along the 2 sides of the road.

After being stuck in a traffic jam for so long, being stuck in a human jam was not to be condoned so i squeezed my way through the crowd, zipping around in the crowded venue. When i found out that the Samsung ML-1610 was sold out at the Samsung booth, i was devastated. I've gone all the way from west to east to buy the printer and i was determined to buy one. I considered Brother HL-2040 monochrome laser printer with better specifications but it was almost 2 times more expensive.

I got myself a 1 GB SD card and a card reader for $32 and helped Ks get a 512 thumb drive for $23. After speaking to the Samsung booth personnel again, i found out that Bell Systems booth was selling Samsung printers as well and i quickly headed over. To my relief, there was still stock available and i got myself a monochrome laser printer for $99. Mission accomplished.

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Settler's Cafe

Thursday is my slackest day coz i got only 1 lecture in the morning. Went for K-Student with Ks at Cineleisure and i practised the song which i'll be performing tomorrow quite a few times. Quite nervous about my song presentation during my elective tomorrow as it's only my 2nd public performance and it's graded!

After the ktv session, i met up with my jc friends at Holland Village Settler's Cafe for games and food. There wasn't much people there initially but more and more people came and the seats were all filled. (Thursday is Ladies Night)

We played the grabbing totem game, blockus, sequences, gold mining game and the crapping game in the 4 hours we spent there. There are fewer games that we can play, with so many people around but we still had an enjoyable time there.

JC Group Photo

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