2008-09-24
A weekend that I will miss
Last weekend was awesome. I had the rare chance to spend 2 days with a couple of Japanese people, 池田遼平 ("Ryohei") and 正敏原 ("Masa") and got to:
a) Practice my conversational skills in a foreign language
b) See Singapore through foreign eyes
c) Have fun.
On Saturday, we spent a whole day at Sentosa. They asked if I was hungry when we were at the station and I answered "no", and we proceeded to Sentosa Island. Upon reaching the island, I realised that they were asking me that question because they themselves were hungry and were too polite to have said so. We spent an hour or so looking for a place to have a meal and ended up having subway. Turns out the Japanese people like Meatball Marinara. I also discovered how much Japanese students like to smoke, and that they can eat phenomenally quickly.
We headed down to the Luge right after the meal (a go kart ride down a hill), and Ryohei beat us all in a race by a wide margin. I expected to puke after having such a heavy meal and going for such an intense ride, but thankfully that did not happen. The ride downhill brought us to the beach area and we settled for some beer, which was incidentally the first time I drank any alcohol at daytime. The beach we were at incidentally had almost no Asians whatsoever and we spent our time enjoying the panorama of western girls.
Ryohei (left) and Masa (Right). Masa looks surprisingly like the Yakuza guy by the same name in Seto no Hanayome.
Cheers!
After the beer and some swimming (For Ryohei only. Masa and I forgot to bring our swimwear and resigned ourselves to merely dipping our feet in the water.), we went to the "4D Magic" attraction.
Ryohei commented that we looked like characters from some futuristic anime.
I must say that the attraction was pretty good, even though the price was really steep ($16 for a ten minute show). The 3D effects were really well done and I caught sight of some ladies putting their hands in front of them when 3D bees were flying towards us. The 3D effect was enhanced by the use of wind to simulate windy scenes (such as when the ship was moving), little gusts of wind around your legs to simulate little critters running around on the floor and brushing against your legs, and splashes of water in your face where appropriate. I thought that it wasn't all that realistic, but it was pretty novel and fun, though I think people going for the 2nd time would have gotten quite sick of it.
Cutting away the filler time where we wandered aimlessly around Sentosa, we decided to stop at the Butterfly Park next because Ryohei was interested in it. I shall cut any long narrative of the experience and throw in a bunch of pictures instead:
Parrot and me = BFF.
Ryohei and his little lover who pissed on him. thankfully it wasn't sitting on his head at that time.
甲狩りじゃ！
We went back on the cable car after that and had dinner at harbor front, feeling exhausted and hungry. I sure hope that they liked Sentosa.
Parting view of Sentosa. I did not notice how grand the construction works looked until they went "すげえ！すげえな！"
On Sunday, I went down to Waseda Senior Highschool for their yearly school festival. This year's theme was "Run So High". Don't ask me what its supposed to mean, Engrish has never been my forte. Also, I have no idea how "星蘭祭" translates to "Run So High". I went with a couple of friends from school, but spent quite some time looking forRyohei and Masa so that I could gt rid of the bulky NUS laptop bag that Ryohei wanted, which was impeding my enjoyment of the event. I felt guilty after passing on the bag to him as he had his luggage with him. Anyway, pictures again:
Wagashi set. It was delicious, and the waitresses at the "cafe" were cute.
Event was crowded as hell. Most of the games were fun, but queueing up just to play something for a few seconds really irked me.
Calligraphy room. Don't ask me what this picture is for.
After the School Festival, I went home and slept off some of the exhaustion and headed down for Karaoke@Cashstudios with the two Japanese friends and another friend of mine. Turns out that Japanese guys frequent karaoke like 2-3 times a week when they were in highschool. Ryohei could sing like a pop star and had a strong voice, while Masa could reach impossibly high notes and could sing chinese songs better than I could. Fun session.
Thats about it. We finished the Karoke session and had dinner at Food Republic, where I was shocked at the $7 I had to pay for a plate of char siew + roast duck rice. I was also surprised at how much Ryohei and Masa loved Century Egg, being their first time and all. I wanted to have a good laugh by letting them try it but turned out I was the only one there who did not like Century Egg.
After dinner, Ryohei suggested getting a drink. We went to a nearby 7-11 and bought 4 large cans of Tiger beer, and settled at a Haagen Daz to drink, but was chased out by the stall owner who told us it was illegal. So we adjourned to the stairway infront of Forum and drank to our hearts content. My wimpy friend didn't drink.
The delinquents@Orchard Road.
Poor Ryohei had to spend the night at Changi Airport from 12-5am. I was hoping that he didn't fall asleep and miss his flight.
a) Practice my conversational skills in a foreign language
b) See Singapore through foreign eyes
c) Have fun.
On Saturday, we spent a whole day at Sentosa. They asked if I was hungry when we were at the station and I answered "no", and we proceeded to Sentosa Island. Upon reaching the island, I realised that they were asking me that question because they themselves were hungry and were too polite to have said so. We spent an hour or so looking for a place to have a meal and ended up having subway. Turns out the Japanese people like Meatball Marinara. I also discovered how much Japanese students like to smoke, and that they can eat phenomenally quickly.
We headed down to the Luge right after the meal (a go kart ride down a hill), and Ryohei beat us all in a race by a wide margin. I expected to puke after having such a heavy meal and going for such an intense ride, but thankfully that did not happen. The ride downhill brought us to the beach area and we settled for some beer, which was incidentally the first time I drank any alcohol at daytime. The beach we were at incidentally had almost no Asians whatsoever and we spent our time enjoying the panorama of western girls.
Ryohei (left) and Masa (Right). Masa looks surprisingly like the Yakuza guy by the same name in Seto no Hanayome.
Cheers!
After the beer and some swimming (For Ryohei only. Masa and I forgot to bring our swimwear and resigned ourselves to merely dipping our feet in the water.), we went to the "4D Magic" attraction.
Ryohei commented that we looked like characters from some futuristic anime.
I must say that the attraction was pretty good, even though the price was really steep ($16 for a ten minute show). The 3D effects were really well done and I caught sight of some ladies putting their hands in front of them when 3D bees were flying towards us. The 3D effect was enhanced by the use of wind to simulate windy scenes (such as when the ship was moving), little gusts of wind around your legs to simulate little critters running around on the floor and brushing against your legs, and splashes of water in your face where appropriate. I thought that it wasn't all that realistic, but it was pretty novel and fun, though I think people going for the 2nd time would have gotten quite sick of it.
Cutting away the filler time where we wandered aimlessly around Sentosa, we decided to stop at the Butterfly Park next because Ryohei was interested in it. I shall cut any long narrative of the experience and throw in a bunch of pictures instead:
Parrot and me = BFF.
Ryohei and his little lover who pissed on him. thankfully it wasn't sitting on his head at that time.
甲狩りじゃ！
We went back on the cable car after that and had dinner at harbor front, feeling exhausted and hungry. I sure hope that they liked Sentosa.
Parting view of Sentosa. I did not notice how grand the construction works looked until they went "すげえ！すげえな！"
On Sunday, I went down to Waseda Senior Highschool for their yearly school festival. This year's theme was "Run So High". Don't ask me what its supposed to mean, Engrish has never been my forte. Also, I have no idea how "星蘭祭" translates to "Run So High". I went with a couple of friends from school, but spent quite some time looking forRyohei and Masa so that I could gt rid of the bulky NUS laptop bag that Ryohei wanted, which was impeding my enjoyment of the event. I felt guilty after passing on the bag to him as he had his luggage with him. Anyway, pictures again:
Wagashi set. It was delicious, and the waitresses at the "cafe" were cute.
Event was crowded as hell. Most of the games were fun, but queueing up just to play something for a few seconds really irked me.
Calligraphy room. Don't ask me what this picture is for.
After the School Festival, I went home and slept off some of the exhaustion and headed down for Karaoke@Cashstudios with the two Japanese friends and another friend of mine. Turns out that Japanese guys frequent karaoke like 2-3 times a week when they were in highschool. Ryohei could sing like a pop star and had a strong voice, while Masa could reach impossibly high notes and could sing chinese songs better than I could. Fun session.
Thats about it. We finished the Karoke session and had dinner at Food Republic, where I was shocked at the $7 I had to pay for a plate of char siew + roast duck rice. I was also surprised at how much Ryohei and Masa loved Century Egg, being their first time and all. I wanted to have a good laugh by letting them try it but turned out I was the only one there who did not like Century Egg.
After dinner, Ryohei suggested getting a drink. We went to a nearby 7-11 and bought 4 large cans of Tiger beer, and settled at a Haagen Daz to drink, but was chased out by the stall owner who told us it was illegal. So we adjourned to the stairway infront of Forum and drank to our hearts content. My wimpy friend didn't drink.
The delinquents@Orchard Road.
Poor Ryohei had to spend the night at Changi Airport from 12-5am. I was hoping that he didn't fall asleep and miss his flight.
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