Month: January 2008

There’s so many things to catch up with nowadays…from reading newspapers – Straits Times, mypaper, Today – to reading online blogs, news, email (my own email + hotmail + gmail +…)…to catching up with people on MSN, Facebook, Friendster…from watching the latest YouTube clips…to watching the latest episode of Prison Break or Heroes…to watching the latest movies in theatres. there’s too much information online for you to know and read and understand.

Too many things to do, too little time. even a whole day at home also cannot finish all of the above. can only be selective. if only time can be paused while I do my own things. haha.

Today I went to NDC to extract my wisdom tooth. somehow all my appointments were on tuesday…first was consultation at tengah’s, then one week later consultation at NDC, and today is the oral surgery.

I have 4 wisdom teeth, and plucked out 2 today on my right side. Kinda interesting, must wear their hospital patient-like gown, along with a head dress protection and shoe protections. inside, it’s as if you gonna be treated like some experiment and going to be operated by some crazy scientists waiting to exploit you. kidding lah. still it’s a pretty cold place, in both sense of the word, like any other hospital.

after waiting for a while, and the formalities of warning of possible nerve damage and other risks, I was escorted to the operating theatre. the nurse attended to me and the doctor injected anesthesia. after that the nurse cleaned my face and mouth, and then covered my body and my head and eyes with some green cloth. reason being the light is very bright. and then the operation began.

the bottom tooth was covered by gums and hence it was more difficult. the drills and vibration were a little loud and scary, they should provide ear plugs! haha. the top tooth was just a normal extraction, though some force was still required. it was a pretty fast op, ended in last than half hour.

After that, I was required to bite on a gauze for about three hours, changing one after every hour. I was at home watching prison break, and suddenly, the numbness effect of the anesthesia went off, and I felt some pain in my mouth. my friend recommended me to go to sleep, so I took the painkillers and slept for an hour.

Dinner was chicken porridge. Kinda weird to eat but still ok. now I’m sorta used to the feeling. not painful but it’s the weird feeling of the stitches in my mouth.

Yes we’ve been going driving quite regularly, partially because chris’ leaving for aust soon. Yesterday night after my standby duty, I met my friends again and we went to pasir panjang food centre for dinner (as recommended by thomas). There were a few BBQ seafood stalls open there, and we decided to order the usual stingray and kang kong, and satay from the malay stall next to it. overall, it was a pretty good dinner, similar to what you could get at chomp chomp or east coast, worth the $10+ per person.

after that we decided to explore chestnut drive. heard that there’s a bike trail there that leads to mandai. wah it’s a super rich people area…all bungalows with very interesting architecture that ranges from european to japanese style, and with high fences and big courtyards. at the end of the road near the expressway is the zhenghua park, park connector and some trails.

then we tried to find the other end of the bike trail. according to google (the beauty of surfing on 3G on a doopod pocket pc) it’s at track 15 near mandai lake road. we arrived there but was disappointed to find out that it’s part of a restricted military training area of mandai camp. quite weird. means u’d end up cycling in restricted area? the road has a gate, which was open, but there’s no fence around it.

we then drove down back to bukit batok area and when up the hill through lorong sesuai (off old jurong road)…it’s a very steep straight road which ends at the foot of two television transmitting towers. after that the road winds around and it says ‘except authorised vehicles’. the towers are pretty tall and interesting, and there’s a long flight of steps. the plaque there says it used to be a memorial site which the japanese made the allied troops construct. but sadly the memorial isn’t there anymore except for the long flight of steps. quite interesting. looking upon the map of the park, it looks pretty big and fun, shall come explore one day.

after that I drove to bukit gombak and looking for little gulin. found it opposite a condo called “gulin view”. haha quite funny. parked at the HDB opposite and we walked to the park. the rock formation looks kinda eerie at night. my friend says some ppl died swimming in the lake before. not sure true or not. i think it’d look better during day time.

——

Watched a movie and ate Earle Swensens (which had an interesting buffet salad spread) on saturday night with some of my VS/VJ friends..the usual gang. on retrospect, it’s kinda interesting. we knew each other since sec 1 as 4 of us (zhan, kc, jr and me) were in the same notorious class except for vic. u’d never knew that our friendship lasted through the same jc (except for kc) and now. too bad I didn’t have the chance to go vietnam with them.

as for the movie – Cloverfield – some people said it’s not that good. is it worth the viral marketing? I think it isn’t that bad, cos the monster was quite interesting and some parts of the movie had some horror and suspense. Although the first part was redundant and most parts of the film involved jerky camera movements causing potential dizziness, it’s still a unique form of film art for those who know how to appreciate. it’s also shows how a group of friends can cope through thick and thin together, amongst all the 9/11-like catastrophe. ending is kinda abrupt, but it’s the nature of the dv-style recording that makes it so. worth to watch, save for the shakiness and dizziness.

after the movie zhan suggested about creating a singapore version. imagine the merlion head tumbling down the streets of shenton way? lol. worth a try. an “i am legend” or “28 days” empty streets style scene is also worth a try too. maybe next time when I have my own film studio and loads of money. maybe.

After a rainy afternoon at Bedok Reservoir playing polar bear under a white tent, Jordanites went to Eighteen Chefs at Simei. Pretty nice restaurant with cheap good italian food esp if u’re a student.

After that, everyone left, nothing to do, called lu and we went to Changi Airport T3 on a sat night. wah, the basement shopping is crowded like vivocity, singaporeans flocking in the stores everywhere. there’s like so many shops that can be found in other malls in singapore…candy empire, mini toons, ya kun just to name a few. there’s even a food court and NTUC Fairprice Supermarket! right in the heart of changi. tourists dun need to go orchard to shop, just transit at airport can already. lol. the popeyes was super long queue, and we decided to take the new skytrain to T1’s popeyes where there are less people.

T3 is quite amazing with those creeping plants, skyroof and the like. but i think the viewing mall is quite a disappointment, can’t really see the planes as it’s not up close. maybe daytime would be better. but nevertheless, it was still super crowded lol. upstairs got more shopping…crystal jade…

think next time the next great stop to go if u are around expo or tampines or pasir ris area will be T3. a great place to hang out after church or something. think those CHC and FCBC people are going to enjoy it. another up and coming place to look out for is the new downtown east where there’d be another cathay cineplex branch. pretty cool.

sunday afternoon was a bouncing around afternoon. nothing to do. everyone else got something on. at night chris louis weiyi and i we went to watch american gangsters. pretty long and draggy movie but the story quite interesting. after that we went for a short drive…to rifle range road…which was long, and super dark in some areas as there was no street light! lol. we stopped for a moment, turned off the headlights, winded down the windows, and we could hear the sounds of the jungle – the crickets and the like. it was quite scary…driving through the forest…then we drove around bt timah, trying to find the entrance to the malaysian railway station there. I finally found it…it’s a small rocky track (not even a road) at a blind spot after the bushes. quite hidden. almost missed it. it says no unauthorised entry but we still stopped and looked around the abandoned station and the train tracks (think there’s a guard there in the station building which we didn’t go in) and then we quickly left.

We wanted to find a place to eat but couldn’t find anywhere near and good and thus we went home. thought that maybe should create a website of places to explore in singapore and places to eat, esp at night. idea idea…

Yesterday we went for our 4th driving exploring. after searching for some places to explore online, I decided that we could drive through rustic Seletar camp area and then through the straight notorious ‘race track’. Sure enough, there were many zhng-ed cars parked at the side, with Getz clubs, Mitsubishi clubs etc. Of course, there weren’t any cars racing (yet?).

After that we went to Upper Seletar Reservoir near Mandai Road, where the carpark was almost completely pitch dark, and just like the blog which I read, there were many scrupulous cars suspiciously covered with many newspapers on their windows. there was one which even covered its number plate lol. We climbed up the dark and spirally viewing tower and got a pretty good view of the whole reservoir, tho there wasn’t much to see beyond the trees. There were no stars either no thanks to the cloud skies.

Then we decided to go Prata House for supper at Thomson. Yes it’s my first time there, and their crispy circular plain prata is fabulous, and their mushroom cheese prata is delicious. the ice teh was very thick and good.

After supper, I drove to tuas to explore. After reaching the most western part of Singapore, the road went south, and it seemed never ending lol. It kept going southwards towards the reclaimed part of Tuas, and they sure did reclaim a lot! We saw the Tuas Incineration Plant and many other factories with huge tall ‘chimneys’. There was also a 6-lane road a la Lim Chu Kang road style which seems that it can be an emergency runway too. Interesting hmm…

We got stuck when the road ended and there was a road block with a police container guarding the entrance. wonder why they actually need police to block a construction site. After that we drove back, it was mostly empty fields, save for some factories scattered here and there. Huge container ships could be seen in a distance. We opened the windows and we smelled some stinky medicine-like smell. Probably from some factory.

We also drove past Tuas Naval Base, where there was a nice turret ‘guarding’ the entrance. Pit stop at a petrol station before proceeding to Clementi Woods Park, where there was no place to park! After which we decided to drive through NUS and then drive home.

This year’s NYE was great…invited my batch mates over to my house for a time of movies and boardgames…at 11am, the people who came were khooty, yip, pang, eugene, kmh, leslie and edwin. that’s like half of our batch! the first movie we watched was The Bridge To Terabithia, which I had watched before and wanted to ask others to watch it all along. it’s a pretty good and touching movie which we all agreed.

We ordered pelican pizza and it arrived in the middle of the first movie. my bro said it’s better than Canadian, and although the large serving seemed too little for the 8th of us, the garlic bread and chicken wings helped to make us full. not too bad.

after the meal we played one round of citadels, which lasted almost 1.5 hours. kelvin yip kindly brought the game and introduced us to it and although it was a slow game, I guess we had a good time playing it.

after that yaofeng arrived and just before edwin and leslie left, we had a grape juice toast for the new year and to ORD! it was my idea adopted from YM and I thought that it’d be a good opportunity for a toast since it’s the new year.

then we watched our second movie – zodiac – which was nice at first but got draggy and long after that. we can’t wait for it to finish kinda feeling. after which the rest left and me and yip and khooty went to chevrons for the dinner.

i was kena nominated for the dinner, and it’s supposed to be incentive. okay lah, since it’s free anyway. typical wedding chinese-style kinda food, the programme was interesting at first, with games like human jackpot by the emcee. it got boring when the magic show came, which was quite amateur and uninteresting. we were in a dilemma whether to leave early or not.

finally i decided that we should leave early at 11pm and go marina bay to catch the fireworks. I thought that can go to The Sail area where there’d be probably less people. We alighted at Tanjong Pagar, which was the wrong choice as Raffles Place is nearer. We walked, my GPS failed me, but we managed to get to central boulevard where a lot of cars are parked and many people waiting for the fireworks. there were even lorries and people sitting on top of them.

at 12midnight, the fireworks came, and they were slightly blocked by the stupid sail building. we ran towards the open field in order to get a better view. Not too bad…a back reverse kinda view as compared to viewing from the crowded esplanade. actually we should have walked to marina boulevard instead, and could have gotten a better view IN FRONT of the sail. haha.

after that we went to lau pa sat while yip waited for his friends. then khooty and i left, and i walked through the almost empty pathways (but congested roads) of raffles place and esplanade drive before catching the last 2nd train from city hall and the last 3rd train of NEL home at about 2.15am.