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Monday, April 30, 2007

Went out for lunch at serangoon with colleagues. Full and heavy.

After work had dinner with sis at sakae sushi, suntec. Extremely full. Feel like puking now. At least it will make me feel better.

Going for a run and swim tomorrow. Just hope I am not too lazy.

Should I take mc on wed?

I'm feeling tired.

Mentally and physically.

|Melvin Ng| 10:38 pm|

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Met up with nb at city hall at 12.30pm and collected our opera's tickets at esplanade.

Had nasi lemak for lunch at Qiji in Marina Square, before entering the theatre.

Phantom of the Opera. It was 2.5 hours long, and most part of the time I felt like dozing off. Somehow it isn't a great musical afterall. I only enjoyed the starting part in which the chandelier got hoisted in an auction scene. Grand.

Circle 3 - on the 3rd level; quite high up but still visible. Can't imagine what will happen to me if I fall over.

20 years old, 154 cm, ? kg? Anyone keen?

Durian

Throughout the show I focused more on the band conducter below the stage. Though I could only see her back, wearing black singlet, I could speculate the ang moh lady would be pretty. Indeed she was as she turned around to thank the audience for a split second as the show ended at 4.30pm. She was so suave!

We walked around marina square where I bought 6 pairs of monthly contact lenses.

Later I met up with sis and jeckson at century square. Took taxi to downtown east for biao mei's 21st birthday party. Okok lah, not too bored. For months I've ate the most tonight. And that piece of creammmmmmy chocolate cake made me felt so guilty.

Jeckson, sis and I

Granny and I

Birthday girl - to my left (that is to your right)

Biao jie lent me her many operas' albums. Got Les Miserables, Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera to keep me company for tomorrow - i.e. sunday.

"Night time sharpens, hightens each sensation..."

Anyway I got a new pair of shoes from zara ytd at vivocity - a birthday present from ckw. Arigato gozaimasu.

Labels: Phantom of the Opera

|Melvin Ng| 11:34 pm|

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Had dim sum lunch with vic at redhill. The second dim sum I had in a week. Then watched fracture at great world city. Fucking show was two hours and thirty minutes long. I couldn't wait to get out of the theatre. Drove around the west for rounding before getting back to the east. Somehow it reminded me of poly days. But the good days seemed like so long ago.

Returned home and I got myself changed for orchard. Met up with kw and had dinner at a japanese restaurant in taka basement. My choice of smoked salmon set was by far one of the best I've made. Continued on my hunt for a pair of shoes, stumbled upon Dr. Martens at meridien shopping centre. So I guess I shall discard my idea of an adidas' pair.

Bought a polo-tee from espirit in plaza singapura, and waited for mum to go home.

Headache now.

So soon it's gonna be sunday.

Labels: Weekends

|Melvin Ng| 11:14 pm|

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Went kayaking earlier this afternoon with kw.

Thereafter had a super scorching hot sun tan.

Went to Marina Square for lunch at Subway, before starting to hunt for a pair of shoes. From Suntec City to Takashimaya, Wisma Atria, Heeren and Parco Bugis Junction.

Eyed on a pair of Adidas shoes at Bugis. It'll soon gonna be my pair of birthday present, lest I change my mind at the last minute.

Reached home at 10 plus.

Turning in soon.

Labels: Kayaking

|Melvin Ng| 12:20 am|

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Just returned home and saw a marketing flyer by Pizza Hut. The first look at the photo - a dining setting - turned me off.

The models wore formal attire, yet the description wrotes "Step into our warm and inviting restaurants... relaxing atmosphere, contemporary setting..." LOL. It's utter contradicting. Can formal be relaxing you tell me???

I think MacDonald's advertising efforts are one of the most commendable thus far.

Tomorrow is friday! Yet I am still grumbling. Because it's another long working day before weekends strike. And the thought of having to put through strenuous physical exercise dampens my mood. No choice but to go with it. If not I'll have a big tummy like an old ah pek.

Going for dinner with jv at sakae sushi at city hall area tomorrow after work, and buy some trousers perhaps.

Sayonara.

Labels: Marketing

|Melvin Ng| 7:39 pm|

Saturday, April 07, 2007

It was G.E.T. night out yesterday. But incomplete because 'shrewd ching' wasn't there. The meeting time was supposedly six in the evening, but only sh and I, the gung-ho ones, turned up first. So we idled. You see me, I see you. Lol. Wc could still soak in the pool at five plus!

When wc arrived, we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant at citylink mall. Doesn't taste good. I still prefer sakae sushi anytime.

Initially my also not coming, but after wc's persuasion with his horny voice, my couldn't resist coming even though she's ill.

But anyway, we brought my to see doctor at The Clinic! No it's not the real clinic, but a club called "Clinic @ The Cannery." Initially I thought it would be even a better therapy than seeing a real doctor. Somehow we got disappointed entering The Clinic; the dance floor was so small and the whole place looked empty to me. Thanks to my brilliant suggestion to patronise it, all due to the captivating website that turned out to be a marketing gimmick. To think we paid twenty five bucks per person as cover charge. For this price, I could easily get an MC at my neighbourhood clinic instead, and saved on having to work for one more day.

We returned to Ministry of Sound again. Earlier we were there at nine plus. It was free entry.

We bought two jugs of Long Island Tea. All five of us (my, nb, sh, wc and I) played five-ten. It was so freaking fun! When I lost the game and supposed to forfeit by drinking that disgusting 'tea' (initially I really thought it was a real tea), I cheated by faking as if I was really drinking when I wasn't. LOL!

When we ran out of alcohol, we continued playing. This time 'slapping.'

Stupid bahnu kept losing and kept drinking like a fish, even when we were at The Clinic.

So while everybody managed to remain clear-headed, she was drunk like a morbid drinker; danced like a wild horse on the platform; knocking onto others and lying everywhere as she puked. Simply an icon of clarke quay overnight.

.(Picture has been withdrawn from public display under duress w.e.f. 09 April 2007).

She's increasingly drunk at the time the photo was taken

.(Picture has been withdrawn from public display under duress w.e.f. 09 April 2007).

Totally drunk, in front of taxi stand

Labels: Clarke Quay

|Melvin Ng| 3:18 pm|

Sunday, April 01, 2007

April's fool day!!

A quarter of the year has gone by. I hope it will go by even faster.

Went sentosa yesterday with kw. Tried out the new monorail from vivocity direct to sentosa's beach station. Then joined a long queue to buy tickets for the new musical fountain - Songs of the Sea, at six bucks each. It's very nice! Even got fireworks towards the end of the show. The kelongs used as backdrops right on the sea were so breathtaking...

Had dinner at banquet in vivocity. Ate my favourite teriyaki chicken rice from the japanese stall.

Reached home and hopped onto brian's car for supper at simpang bedok. Had roti pratas and starfruit juice before returning home at 2am.

Looking forward to good friday. Btw I'm going Hainan Island, dubbed as Hawaii of the East, on 7 July for 4 nights. Am so gonna stay at the Sheraton resort with oceanview room and oversized bathtub. Shall start saving now!

Labels: Songs of the Sea

|Melvin Ng| 7:30 pm|

[Sat 24 March 2007 - Ho Chi Minh City]

Ho Chi Minh City, I'm in love with it! Its smell, noisy streets and taste... all so nicely blended to make up a city as it moves gradually away from a third world status.

A warm and dense air greeted us as we emerged from Tan Son Nhat International Airport. 20 minutes' taxi ride took us to Pham Ngu Lao Street - full of backpackers, where we called home to Que Huong Liberty 3 Hotel for the next 3 nights. Jv and I had our first attempt crossing the notorious road of Pham Ngu Lao to the other side of the road where our hotel was located. Thanks to the bellhop who spotted us from opposite, and came to our assistance.

The chaotic traffic conditions are perhaps the first culture shock that any tourists to Ho Chi Minh City will experience. But the trick to crossing the roads with countless bikes and cars from all directions is to 'continue walking in a slow pace WITHOUT EVER turning back.' The traffic will divert itself away from you, mysteriously.

Stylo woman on scooter

Still early for check-in, we walked a short distance to Sinh Cafe to book tours for the next 2 days - Cu Chi Tunnel and Mekong Delta.

One could feel the pulse of the city at Cholon - Chinatown of Ho Chi Minh City. Bought some Vina banana chips at Binh Tay Market, which also sells outdated fashions, dried food stuff and sundries. Here I tried Vietnam's famous Banh Cang Cua - or pork noodle soup.

Outside Binh Tay Market, Cholon

Banh Canh Cua

We returned to the hotel for check-in, and unfortunately, got a low-floor on the 4th level. So as we retired each night on the hotel bed, it was as though we were sleeping alongside the noisy streets. I couldn't have fallen asleep without my 'zopiclone' (or sleeping pills).

Without further delay, we got ourselves to the Reunification Palace. 30 April 1975 saw Communist tanks from North Vietnam smasing through it gates as Ho Chi Minh (president of North Vietnam) took over the south, henceforth renaming Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City. At the basement was a tunnel and radio station used during war time.

View of Reunification Palace from entrance

Banquet Room - North Vietnamese seat on the left, South Vietnamese on the right

Total figures of soldiers from different areas

From the palace, our handy city map guided us to the War Remnants Museum. Housed in a former United States administration building, this is one of the most popular and sobering museums in the city. Photographs depicting the injured and dead at the hands of the French and American forces are both haunting and sickening.

War remnants

Victims of war

Thorxo abdermine pagus

Belongings of a dead woman

Suspected Viet Cong being rounded up aboard helicopter by U.S. Marines for interrogation

The massacre at Huong Dien

"A little girl who had been set afire by napalm
ran in pain and terror along with other children.
Her arms were swung out
to relieve the pain of her burned flesh.
She was sent to the
Centre for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Her name, it was reported,
is Phan Thi Kim Phuc.
She is 9 years old.
A half dozen children came running out.
A girl held a small boy by the hand.
The oldest among them was
a boy of about twelve
in a white shirt and dark shorts.
He pleaded 'Help my sister!'"

(Extracted from The Girl in the Picture written by Denise Chong)

The photo was a Pulitzer Prize award winner.

Our visit to the History Museum was a fruitless one, as we doesn't seem to comprehend the exhibits which dated back to even the prehistoric era. The last dynasty that ruled Vietnam was the Nguyen Dynasty. That's all I know.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed a Water Puppet Show at the theatre situated within the museum (at separate charge). Fighting and footballing dragons and dogs as well as life-like people puppets are brought to life with grace, precision and power on the surface of the water. Simply a traditional Vietnamese art form.

We commenced our actual walking tour to the following:-

Somehow this tree reminded me of my trip to Angkor

1. U.S. Consulate - formerly the U.S. Embassy where the most dramatic scenes of the final days of the war played out as Marine guards tried to keep thousands of desperate South Vietnamese from mobbing the helicopters evacuating personnel from the roof-top.

U.S. Consulate - no photographs allowed but I hid behind a tree out of view from the security officer

2. Diamond Plaza - selling high-end goods; Mont Blanc is one of them. It was a quick stop for us as we simply have no pennies to purchase them.

Old set amidst the new

Entrance to Diamond Plaza

3. General Post Office - the oldest post office in Vietnam, with a large portrait of Ho Chi Minh hung in the centre. Telephone booths here are air-conditioned, so sitting in them are a good escape from the city heat.

4. Notre Dame Cathedral - just across the General Post Office, this cathedral was designed by Gustav Eiffel, the same man who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was built between October 1877 and April 1880 at a cost of 2.5 million French francs.

5. Dong Khoi Street - with numerous elegant boutiques selling the finest Vietnamese skills, pottery and other crafts. Hard as it may be to believe today, North Vietnamese tanks rolled down this very street on April 20 1975 and soon after, most of the stores were shuttered as the new nation plunged into a decade-long economic slump.

Ho Chi Minh Museum

We popped by at Lemongrass Restaurant (recommended by Frommer's travel guide) along Nguyen Thiep Street, having our first Vietnamese spring rolls dipped in fish sauce, salad with pork/prawns, seafood fried rice, sauteed chicken with cashew nuts and morning glory.

We continued our walk to Nguyen Hue Boulevard (another shopping street) before stumbling upon the People's Committee Building. The exquisite former Hotel de Villle built for the French bureaucrats of Indochina in 1901 houses a statue of Ho Chi Minh, remarkably known as "Uncle Ho."

People's Committee Building, with 'Uncle Ho' guarding the entrance

We parambulated along Le Loi Street, ending up at Ben Thanh Market. Clothes, shoe and fabric dominate the front, before giving over to kitchenware, cooked food and fresh vegetables. I bought 1kg of Trung Nguyen coffeebeans for around S$35.00. Vietnam is known for its Vietnamese coffee!

Ben Thanh Market at night

After figuring for quite some time the direction to our hotel, we finally reached the doorstep of the hotel. I was so reluctant to rely on taxis, even though they were cheap. I enjoyed walking alot, and got increasingly exhilarated crossing the formidable traffic.

Labels: First Taste of Vietnam

|Melvin Ng| 3:00 pm|