Ahem!

The topic this morning on Mix FM’s Ping Pong was "games you played as a child". It made me recall the many games I played when I was young. Here are some:

 

Primary School:

Catching. This is one of the earliest and most common game of all. There are many versions. The most creative one is where there is one ‘catcher’ and the ‘catcher’ will try to catch the others, the ‘catchees’ in a defined area of play. Once the ‘catcher’ manages to touch one of the ‘catchees’, she must then stand still. If one of the other free-moving ‘catchees’ manages to rescue the still one by touching her, then she is free to run about again. If the ‘catcher’ manages to ’still’ all of the catchees, then the game is over and can be started all over again by choosing a new catcher. ‘Catchers’ are usually chosen by having all the players put out a foot each to form a circle, then someone chanting "whose shoe is a dirty shoe, please go home and wash your shoe and come back to school on monday!", tapping a foot on every syllable (the one landed with the last syllable becomes The One; or, is striked out, and the remaining one becomes The One). Sometimes, instead of "whose shoe is a dirty shoe", we’d use (while swinging our hands left and right in a fanning motion) "lat-ta-li-lat-ta-li-tam-plung!" and everyone place a hand out, either palms up or down, and the odd one out is either striked out, or be The One. If all were striked out except 2, then The One is determined by "jus" (rock, scissors, paper, or rock, water and bird). Another version of catching, far more confusing, is where the role of the ‘catcher’ is transferred immediately and unceremoniously upon someone being caught. When the group playing is considerably large (> 6 or 7 people), at any time, and everyone’s running around like mad, it’s hard to tell who is the ‘catcher’!

5 stones. This is a game which I preferred, and excelled, because I don’t run very fast, and don’t last very long running. We used small, square beanbags filled not with beans but rice or sand. The main action is to toss a beanbag into the air, pick another up from the floor, then catch the tossed beanbag as it falls. There are also many versions of the game. The simplest would be to throw all 5 beanbags to the floor, pick one to be tossed, then collect all others one by one through the tossing-and-picking process. Once all are collected, the player ‘weighs’ by holding all 5 beanbags on her palm, toss them up lightly, turn her palm downwards and let as many land on the back of her hand as possible. Then, toss them again and catch as many as possible by turning the palm upwards. The number of beanbags caught in the ‘weighing’ determine a player’s scores. If a player can catch tossed beanbags palms downwards (grabbing them from the top as they fall) then each beanbag caught is worth 2 points! More sophisticated versions come with 7 or 10 stages, where in each stage, different ’stunts’ have to be performed. I remember one was picking the beanbags (stage 1) 1-by-1, (stage 2) 2-by-2, followed by (stage 3) 1 then 3, (stage 4) all 4. Then there is this where the player takes 2 in her hand, tosses one up and exchanges the other with another on the floor. I quite regret that I can’t remember them all. Of course, if a player fails to catch a falling beanbag, or touches more than 1 beanbag on the floor while picking one up, or happen to toss a beanbag so close to herself that her hand comes in contact with her body when catching it (called ‘carry baby’), she commits a foul, and has to pass the turn to the next player.

Champion / Galah Panjang. Different groups of kids call this differently. Basically, there are two teams, one which will attempt to traverse the game area from front to back and back to the front again, the other team to block them. The ‘blocking’ team members stand a few meters apart, forming ‘levels’ that the other team’s members have to overcome. If in the process of getting past a level, a player gets touched by the blocker, the team loses and then the two teams will exchange roles for the next round. Because this game requires even number of players, if there is an odd number of people wanting to play, someone (the odd one out) will become what we call a ‘lelong’, which is a free-moving entity in the game, and does not belong to either team. The ‘lelong’ can then help or disturb the players as she wishes. I remember it was quite fun being the ‘lelong’, really.

Getah. This is like playing skipping, but in a group, using a long elastic rope made of rubber-bands strung together. Two persons will hold the rubber rope at the two ends while the rest jump over it. The levels are ankle-, knee-, hip-, waist-, and neck-high. For heights at the hip and below, the player cannot touch the rope while jumping over it, whereas for the rest, the player can touch the rope. For the neck-high level, most people (myself included, definitely) cannot make it, but I had a friend who will cartwheel herself over. No one can beat her at this game!

Buaya. This is a self-invented game of me and my group of friends when we were < 10 yrs old. Our school at that time stood on top of a hill and had many gentle slopes covered with soft, green grass around it. We’d choose a slope with level ground above and below, and the above level would be ‘land’ and the level below the ‘river’. Some players will be ‘people’ while others are ‘buaya’ (crocodiles) in the river. The ‘crocs’ will attempt to pull the ‘people’ down to the ‘river’ and remaining people on ‘land’ have to try to rescue their species-mate while at the same time try not to be pulled in by the ‘crocs’. The game is a massive tug-of-war with lots of rolling down the slope.

AEIOU. We’d choose a flight of stairs outdoors with many steps, and everyone will begin at the bottom step. One person (The One) will stand at the top of the stairs backfacing the others. The game begins by The One calling out a letter of the alphabet, and the rest climbing the stairs a number of steps equal to the number of that letter in their names. After a fixed number of letters (5, I think), all the players will run up the stairs towards The One, until one of them touches her. Then, everyone wil turn back and run down the stairs as fast as possible before The One turns back and calls them to stop. Then, everyone must stand still, and The One will try to guess who was the one who touched her. This game is somewhat hazardous, as it involves so much of running up and down the stairs, but during my time, the adults pretty much didn’t bother about what we children did at school

Teng-teng. This game has a proper name, but I don’t know it. We’d draw, using a piece of chalk, squares of different sizes on the floor - a square, followed by twin square, and another square etc. Each player takes a small stone and begin at the first square, then we take turns at hopping with a foot in each square (land on one foot if it’s a single square, and two feet if it’s a twin square). Once a person got from one end to the other end and back, she will pick up her stone and throw it to the next square. No one can step on any squares with stones in it, so if there are stones in consecutive squares, one needs to make a big leap to the subsequent available square.

Role Play. When I was 8, I spent my afternoons after school at my friend’s place, where I would have my lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon playing with her until my mother came back from her school. Once, we role-played scenes from the then-famous Hong Kong drama series "Shang Hai Tan" and one of us be the mob Boss and the other the Sidekick. At that time, my friend was like 6 or 8 inches taller than me (perhaps she still is!) so naturally she became the Boss, and I the Sidekick. Then her uncle, wanting to have a little fun teasing us, commented that such a small Sidekick would not be able to protect the Boss in the event of a fight. My dominant friend then put me in the role of Boss and became the Sidekick herself. Her uncle then commented again that it is not right for the Boss to be smaller than the Sidekick, because Boss should be the biggest. So we switched roles again, and then again and again because of her uncle’s comments. Gosh, weren’t we stupid or what! (On a sidenote, that uncle of hers was a real child-teaser, though not in a bad way - once, when we expressed interest in doing Lion Dance, he actually took a big and heavy wooden dining chair and gave it to me to hold upright above my head, because "that’s how heavy the Lion head is"!) When my sister and I were very young, we’d role-play scenes from "Journey to the West". Since there are just two of us, we could only take on the two most significant characters, the monk "Tang San Zhang" and the first disciple, monkey-god "Sun Wu Kong". We had to keep switching roles because the ‘monk’ got to drape on a blanket (as the monk’s robe) and each wanted the blanket (don’t know what’s so attractive about wearing a blanket!). With our cousins (mostly girls) at our father’s hometown, we’d role-play "Ms Hong Kong" beauty pageant. We loved this game because we got to "decorate" ourselves with towels, small blankets and the likes. One of us would be the ‘emcee’ and the ‘participants’ would have ‘cat-walk’ sessions, questions-and-answers, and even talent category. It was crazy. Once, my cousins and I recorded on tape a ‘radio show’ where we had talk-shows, call-in contests, news (where my incredibly imaginative cousin actually ‘reported’ an accident between a motorbike and an airplane!) and yes, even commercials (we sang "Minum Milo anda jadi sihat dan kuat!").

 

Secondary school:

Bingo. Each draw a 5×5 table and put at random, numbers bewteen 1 - 25, inclusive, in each box in the table. Then, each player calls out a number [1-25] and everyone playing will shade that number in their own tables. The first person to get 5 shades boxes in a row wins!

No Name Game. Of course this game has a name - I just simply can’t remember it. Each player prepares a table with several columns each labeled with a different category of nouns such as ‘country’, ‘colour’, ‘fruits’ etc. At each round, a person (all players take turn at this) suggests a letter of the alphabet, and everyone needs to write a noun beginning with that letter under each category in the columns. After that, players with unique nouns get 20 points per word, and if more than 1 wrote the same word, each get 10 points.

Killer. OK, this game is really cool. We’d pool several 20 sen coins of different years and select a particular year each round as the ‘killer’, say year 1990. Then each player picks a coin out of the pool and the person who got the coin with ‘1990′ on it becomes the ‘killer’. No one can speak during the game and no one will know who the ‘killer’ is until she begins to ‘kill’, which she does by blinking her eyes twice when in eye-contact with another player. A player after being ‘killed’ must remain silent and not give away the identity of the ‘killer’. Only a still ‘alive’ player can identify and expose the killer, through observation. A good ‘killer’ must then ‘kill’ all the other players before anyone discovers her identity.

 

I can’t think of anymore right now. Friends, if you do remember more, please leave a note and remind us all

Most of my friends are aware that I recently changed job. Many had taken pains to ask me how I found the new place, what my work is like, and how I like it. Thank you, friends -  I feel extremely grateful for the concern. Perhaps because my prevous position was my first, and I stuck to it for so many years, that my current state is like that of an overgrown baby out of its cradle for the first time. However, I’m glad to say that I am fine so far.

My manager is nice, doesn’t scold (so far…) and is currently sort of too busy to overwork me. In the past week, I got to know a few people, discovered how small this world really is, saw a lengcai at a forum, and had a free lunch. All in all, it is not bad at all, though I miss all my former colleagues, my faculty and the food -  especially yee mian, pan mian, and chao fan from 6-finger aunty, and all the other places: xia mian, vegetarian shop, penang deli, Shell foodcourt etc. Sigh.

I am still adapting to the new situation, and perhaps in another month or so, I shall be able to announce that I am happily settled in. Perhaps!

This is going to be the post with the most photos that you will see here…

"in case of emergency, run up a hill and hug a coconut tree!"

Last Sunday, neil flew to Phuket with angie and meemee for a 4-day, all-girls vacation. Other than enjoying total relaxation and having lots of fun, we also made it a point to snag handsome men. I even jokingly told angie that minimum quota is 3 men each! (which, by the way, angie fulfilled 2/3, and meemee fulfilled the whole quota!)

The first lasting impression that we got of Phuket was the horrendous driving style of the drivers. We booked a taxi (650 baht) to take us from the airport to our hotel, and the taxi driver had us traumatised throughout the 40-minute long journey. He sped up to 120km/hr on narrow trunk roads, tailed other cars closely while moving at 100km/hr and weaved through the traffic as if he was a nimble bike! A little way off the airport, he made a sudden stop at what seemed a tour agency office. Alarmed, angie asked "What’s the problem?" but the driver got down and hurried away without a word (I don’t think he spoke any English at all, and probably didn’t realised a question was directed to him). As we sat, wondering, in the car, a nice Thai lady came and explained to us that the driver had to sign a log or something, and it will be quick. True enough, less than a minute later, he was back in the car, and we were back speeding recklessly down the road.  At a T-junction where the traffic light was red at our direction, he made a sharp turn to the left, (which, coincidentally leads to Tesco, and we thoought - wow, he was bringing us to shop at Tesco?) and then a U-turn about 5 meters later, back to the junction, and on our way again. He skipped 2 traffic lights this way, and ran right through a third.

traumatised looks

We didn’t know if we were required to tip the driver upon reaching our destination, but decided against it, for being scared out of our wits.

We stayed at Sugar Palm Resort Hotel. It was a very nice one, about 5 minutes’ walk from Kata beach. We checked in at the reception, got our welcoming drinks, and before we knew it, had our bags "taken" by 2 men, porters, I presume. We wanted so much to carry our own bags, so as to not need to tip them, but unfortunately, we didn’t know how to get our bag back from them. Anyhow, we got to our room, tipped the porters 50 baht (~RM5) and settled in.

our room looked over the swimming pool

Our plan for the evening was to take a tuk-tuk to Patong, explore the area and have a nice, sunset dinner there. However, the moment we walked out of the hotel, we could hardly remember who we were or where we’re supposed to be heading, for all the colorful things for sale, everywhere!

we managed to bargain the price of a bikini from 1200 baht to 400 baht here, but didn’t buy it… heheh

We had to walk up a small road to the main road for tuk-tuk, and all along the small road were stalls with swimwear, souvenirs, sundresses etc - we had to remind each other, admist our own distraction, to remember that we had to get to Patong before it got too dark! Tuk-tuk was 400 baht from Kata to Patong, and the ride about 30 minutes. It had two rows of small bench-like seats facing each other, long, permanently-open windows on each side, and a doorway without a door at the rear. The ride was windy and noisy but it was fun.

view from inside the tuk-tuk

Patong was bright, crowded in parts, noisy and messy. We walked up and down the Bangla road several times, looking at the stalls, shops and restaurants. Most of the restaurants were classy and served western food, probably due to the immense number of kwailo tourists there. Whenever we walked past roadside shops and stalls, we’d hear "wo ai ni" (in mandarin, meaning I love you), "ni hen mei" (you are very pretty) or "where you come from" and "you very pretty" from the male merchants. Thai men sure are friendly - especially when they want to sell you something. (girls, remember - "I like the middle one!" and "I like the small one!")

Bargaining was really fun. We’d start by pointing to something and saying "how much?" (we couldn’t speak in too perfect English there - they wouldn’t understand - so we got the message through in as little words as possible). They would either verbally communicate the price, or pick up a calculator and punch out the numbers to show us. Then, we’d scrunch up our faces, shake our heads and say "no, no. expensive!" or "discount!". Sometimes, they would lower the price about 50 - 100 baht after that, or they would hand us the calculator, saying "how much you give me?", where then, we would offer a price about 30% of the one they first mentioned. meemee managed to get her first bikini at 350 baht, from excellent bargaining skills.

Deciding what to have to dinner was a bit hard since there were so many choices, but none too appealing. We finally settled for a little place called the "The Islander Restaurant & Pub". (Unfortunately, the sun was already set) We ordered grilled pork chop with mushroom sauce, seabass in white wine sauce and deep-fried scampi prawns. The pork was too salty and overdone, the fish ok, and the prawns nice but not filling. It was altogether not such a nice dinner, but we enjoyed ourselves all the same.

miss phuket, made from left-over dinner

Everywhere in Patong were people carrying flash cards with details of cabaret shows, and they would shove these cards into the faces of anyone walking by. In the pubs, there were scantily-dressed girls dancing on tables and counters, with men sitting all around, ogling at them.

ladies or converted gentlemen?

time for (window) shopping!

A bit more walking took us to Jungceylon, a new shopping mall in the area. We went into it and took a look around. We didn’t make any purchases, but managed to see some interesting stuff.

oh no!

All the walking, talking, laughing and photo-taking made us tired and thirsty, so we stopped at an exotic-looking bar by the roadside. This was where angie was first scared by a crawling cockroach - she screamed loud enough to cause a nearby kwailo to turn and stare at us, causing my friends to mutter "mei kin guo leng lui ar?!" (never seen a pretty girl before?) Some cocktails, several dropped pineapple slices and a wink at the bartender later, we were on our way back to our hotel, by means of a tuk-tuk.

we took only 1 cocktail each, and turned into boiled lobsters

We had, on arrival, booked a day trip to the Phi Phi Islands (1600 baht per person), and the pick-up was to be at 8am, the next morning. We rose early (7am, Phuket time - considered early la, though not early enough to catch the sunrise) and had buffet breakfast at the hotel. After having our fill, we tapau-ed 3 slices of bread for the fish we will see on our trip (yeah, it was my idea - typically Chinese, heheh) The pick-up van came around 8.30am, much to our indignation, and took us, together with a few kwailo couples (one of the men rather handsome!) on a long ride to the pier. There, we rented swimming fins for 100 baht each, and waited for the speedboat to come.

While waiting, my two worthy friends spotted a group of very good-looking Asian men, probably Koreans, also waiting by the beach. They were delighted - only to be crushed moments later when they discovered that the group was wearing a tour sticker of a different color from ours! angie and meemee were contemplating walking over and asking to take photos with them when our boat came. There was still time - they were still arguing - "let’s go!"; "don’t want la"; "come la"; "really meh?!" - and then it was too late and we were on our boat.

We travelled by the speedboat across the sea for about 40 minutes to reach this beautiful beach which name I simply didn’t catch (or if I did, couldn’t remember). We were given about half an hour to frolic and swim. From there, we moved on to two different snorkelling spots.

beautiful beach, clear water, majestic rocks

pointing-somewhere-pose

The boat rides from one place to another were long and we spent much time standing on the seats, letting the wind do as much damage to our hair as possible. Since conversation by normal volume is impossible, we shouted at each other whenever we wanted to say something. The snorkelling was fun, but a bit boring after a while. The corals and fish visible were rather similar at both spots and though the swimming fins enabled us to swim faster, the combination of the life jacket and them made us rather clumsy in the water. It was also almost impossible to walk with wearing the fins, and definitely impossible to climb up the boat with them. Therefore, everyone had to take their fins off before climbing up the metal rungs at the rear of the boat. Once, as I was getting out of the water, and taking the fin off my right foot, a kwailo (the rather handsome one from our tour!) behind me reached out and helped take the other one off my left foot - which had my friends laughing and teasing, saying something about "just like Cinderella!" (Ahem - Prince Charming put the slipper on Cinderella - not took it off!) Anyway, it’s too bad he came with a partner… hahah!

"a lot of fish down here!" (thinking of my seafood lunch!)

We stopped for a short while at a beach called Monkey Beach, where monkeys were all over the place, taking food from tourists (the tour guide gave us bananas to give to the monkeys). The kwailos seemed very smitten, but we couldn’t wait to get away from the hairy primates (it’s not like we’ve never seen monkeys before - Bukit Melawati and Batu Caves got even more la!)

Lunch was included and we had it on an island. The place was ok, but the food was far from great. In fact, the "seafood tom yam soup" tasted like it was cooked with water scooped directly out of the Andaman Sea.

After lunch, there was some sightseeing on boat - we saw some lovely islets of rocks, rising high and vertical from the waters. Later, the boat brought us to a superbly lovely and crowded beach (crowded by people and fishes!) where we would spend the next hour and half.

this cave has a name, though I seriously can’t recall it

It was around 2pm, and very extremely hot on the beach. Many people were sitting in the shallow waters, in whatever little shadows the big rocks could afford ("udang di sebalik batu"!). We rented two deck chairs and an umbrella for ~200 baht, so we’d have somewhere to hide from the sun, and a place to put our things.

umbrellas, chairs and kwailos all in a row!

We went into the water, about waist-deep, carrying bread (the ones we tapau-ed from breakfast) with us. It was very exciting, having so many fishes swimming all around us, nibbling the small pieces of bread we let drop. meemee and neil enjoyed themselves a lot; angie however, weren’t too pleased with the fishes, because, in addition to the bread, they nibbled her too. She suffered at least 3 fish bites to her thighs and butt. (meemee said that maybe angie looked like bread! )

After the bread were gone, we waded farther - until we were chest-deep in the water, and all of a sudden, meemee screamed (really, really loudly), and jumped towards neil and angie. neil, being an easily-scared fella, thought something had attacked meemee, jumped as well, and landed on some sharp rocks, which resulted in her screaming, and jumping again, and landing on successive sharp rocks, and more screaming… (it was freaky a chain-reaction) By the time angie came to warn us that our screaming had caused every single person on the beach to stare at us, meemee had already screamed herself hoarse. And the "thing" that touched her in the first place? Her own bikini string!

The waves were at times, rather strong, and there were many rocks on the sand in the water, sometimes visible, sometimes not. Many of them were sharp. At one point, angie was relaxing on one of our rented deck chairs on the beach, and suddenly, neil brought a bleeding meemee towards her - a strong wave had flung her towards some sharp rocks and she had a small cut on her foot (it was bleeding quite hard, nevertheless) We washed the wound, stopped the bleeding, and applied a plaster. Then, while meemee rested on the beach, we went back to the water.

When we returned to the beach, we saw this really handsome, charming, young kwailo sitting on the sand, just in front of our chairs and umbrella. angie and I straightaway decided to "target" him (heheh) I sent angie to meemee and told them to pose - pretended to take a photo of them, but we really wanted a photo of the handsome fella actually.

forget the background… look at that handsome fella!

We then gathered under our umbrella, admiring the man from behind and joking about approaching him, when a handsome friend of his turned up. I was making a joke about asking them if they had a "third friend" (since there were 3 of us! hahah) when another man joined them! There were then, 3 of them. The two who joined the one sunbathing had just returned from a swim and were talking  about what they saw. We heard the word "shark" several times, and angie, perhaps being determined to achieve her "quota", jumped on the opportunity to strike up a conversation. "You saw sharks?" And then they were talking, and then we were taking photographs - and the next thing I knew, I was asking for their email addresses to "send you guys the photos" @@ (Mad as we seemed, I’m really glad we got to know them - they were such nice and interesting people!)

After half an hour’s speedboat ride, we arrived at the pier, and after another long ride on the van, we reached our hotel.

samsung-tv-turned-fish-tank!

We took dinner at Mali Restaurant, which was right next to our hotel. One of the dishes we ordered was pineapple fried rice (Thai style la…). It came in a hollowed pineapple, with several herbs and meat floss in heaps on the plate. To eat it, we poured the rice out of the pineapple, and mixed it with the other ingredients "lou sang" style. meemee managed to take a video of us doing that, and throughout, auspicious phrases in Cantonese were audible: "pou pou gou sing" (rising higher with every step), "gong hei, gong hei" (congratulations), "duo duo leng cai" (a lot of handsome men), "ka guo yao chin yan" (marry a rich man), "ka ge yan fai dit yao chin" (the one I marry get rich quickly)… (ini 3 orang memang siao!)

pineapple fried rice in its original form

Day 3 - we would be going on a trip to Phang Nga Bay (James Bond Island) and the pick-up would be at 10am. After breakfast (from which we again, tapau-ed some slices of bread), we had some time to spare, so we walked to Kata beach and frolicked for about half an hour, taking silly photos.

one of the silly photos I meant

Phang Nga Bay excursion began with a 1.5hr van ride to the pier where we boarded a long-tailed boat out to the sea for sight-seeing. The waters were not deep, and there were mangrove swamps all around.

I half-expected to see crocodiles swimming around - but no, I didn’t

The long-tailed boat was like a big sampan with roof, and a noisy motor at the end, with its rotor extended a couple of meters behind the boat on a long pole. It was slower than the speedboat we took on the previous day, and much less comfortable. One kwailo (old one, not handsome), despite having been warned not to put our hands into the water, dropped his hand over the side of the moving boat, and caused water to be splashed into the boat - mainly onto the people sitting on the two rows behind him i.e. us. We took of a photo of ourselves with angry expressions on our faces (but it is too ugly to be posted here…)

long-tailed boat experience

The long-tailed boat ride took us directly to a place called Koh Hong, where there were many rock formations and caves rising directly our of the waters. We first boarded a large boat, and then went onto individual canoes with a "professional" rower for exploration of the rocks and caves. Each canoe normally took 2 passengers, but we 3 decided to take one together, and it was ok.

rocks and caves

The exploration on canoe was extremely grand. We went under rock arches, saw countless types of formations and patterns and even bought coconuts from a peddler on a boat (20 baht each, ~RM2 - cheaper than Bagan Lalang coconuts!). There were so many canoes at the time that we tourists even had fun photographing each other! We even managed to exchange greetings with a nice couple on an adjacent canoe: "Where you come from?"; "Malaysia - where you come from?"; "Japan"; "Ooo! (angie) konichiwa!"; "Oh! Hahah…"

I shall take a photo of you taking a photo of me taking a photo of you… @@

The canoes took turned going into a tiny lagoon enclosed by mountainous rocks, with a small "beach" area of rough pebbles for photo shoots. It was here that a nice Japanese lady (named yuko-san, which we found out later) whom we spoke to earlier approached us - "Can my friend take photo with you?" Did she mean her handsome Japanese man-friends? Yes, it would be a pleasure!

We took some photos with her 3 male companions, and took some photos with herself too. Then, we were on our way. Passing underneath a rocky arch, we found our canoe parallel to the canoe carrying yuko-san and her male companion. Jokingly, we told our rowers "Faster!" and yuko-san, being such a bubbly, cheerful sport, said, pointing to themselves "Japanese team" and pointing to us "Malaysian team!" and that was it! "Faster, faster!" and when that wasn’t enough, angie and neil dipped their bare hands into the water on both sides on the canoe and started paddling like mad (meemee must’ve been, for a moment, embarassed to be our friend!) Needless to say, the "Malaysian (damn kiasu) team" overtook the "Japanese team".

most of the time, we took photos of ourselves this way

canoe rower said "look - jellyfish"; angie said "yum yum!"

Following the canoeing, we took the boat to James Bond Island, so named because a long time ago, a James Bond movie, The Man With The Golden Gun, was partly filmed there. In the boat, we had the "honour" of sitting next to the youngest and handsomest Japanese guy from the group of four we got acquainted with during the canoeing. I took a photo of angie and him, which turned out so wonderful that she now owes me teh tarik, roti canai and ayam tandoori!

On the island, we spent so much time bargaining at the souvenir stalls for pearl and shell necklaces that we almost missed the actual "James Bond" island - a vertical tower of solid rock, rising from the sea. We took a few hurried photos and then rushed back to the waiting boat. While waiting to get on the boat, meemee pulled me back to the souvenir stall so I could get a shell necklace to match the one she and angie had bought earlier. This caused us to be so late that we had to sit at the front-most row in the boat - the only one left (to angie’s great disappointment, as she noticed the Japanese group actually waited for us while we were making our last-minute purchase - and failing, sat at the end of the boat, which were full by the time we got there - alas!)

James Bond Island

We went to a Muslim fishing village - Panyee Village - for lunch. (The tour guide, upon getting us settled at a table, announced "We meet here for boat 1.40pm. Please be on time!" I can’t help feeling that the last part of her speech was directed to us - we were the last to board the boat for the previous two stops!) The food was not worth mentioning, but at our table were an American couple who love Penang food, and a Malaysian Indian couple from Puchong who understood perfectly our own Malaysian English language. So all in all, lunch was great.

After eating, we went to a market place behind the restaurant. There were many stalls overflowing with souvenirs, merchants and tourists. Quite a few of the merchants were carrying gibbons as one would toddlers - some of the gibbons were even wearing diapers! Tourists can have photos taken of themselves carrying the gibbons for 50 baht. We spent some time bargaining for some souvenirs but didn’t buy any since we couldn’t get them for the price we wanted.

We were not late to the boat this time - thank goodness! The boat took us back to the pier, and from there, we took the van to a temple called the Monkey Cave. It was actually a Buddhist temple built in a large cave, with some monkeys living outside. These monkeys were lucky we didn’t give our breads to any fish this time - they got all of the bread we had with us.

Monkey Cave Temple

There was nothing much to explore in the caves. There was a huge statue of sleeping Buddha and a monk in front of it, performing blessing rituals. The inner parts of the caves were more interesting. The walls and ceilings were curious rock formations and it was very dark - lit only by a few yellow spotlights. We took some photos, bumped into the Japanese man whose photo with angie I took, took a couple more with him and (back to our fail-proof strategy) exchanged emails with him for "sending photos"

inside Monkey Cave Temple

We left the temple a little while after the Japanese guy did, and as we were heading towards our van (his companions and him took a different van) he ran up to angie and gave her a piece of paper, obviously torn from a notebook, with his email address written "properly", as the one he wrote previously was too "messily scribbled". In addition to his email, he drew a caricature of himself and labeled it "nice Japanese boy".

she was on cloud nine when she got it - and I bet she is still on cloud nine now!

On the ride back to the hotel, we had another traumatic moment when our driver ran the red light at a junction, and another car nearly rammed into us from the right. There were some swerving and screeching and it was over in about 2 seconds, and everyone was fine, but the kwailo couple sitting at the right side where the collision almost happened were visibly shaken. The driver and our guide, on the other hand, were perfectly indifferent - they just laughed it off. Perhaps these close calls happen all the time!

That night, we took a taxi to Karon marketplace and spent about an hour shopping for souvenirs. After that, instead of having dinner at a restaurant, we settled for roadside food - which was really tasty - except for the sotong, which tasted ok, but was tough like rubber!

day 3 dinner!

The following morning was our last in Phuket, and we spent a lovely 3 hours right after breakfast pampering ourselves with full-body spa at the hotel. We had steam / sauna, foot bath & herbal tea, body scrubs, massages, facial and some embrassing moments I’d rather not elaborate. It was an extremely grand way to end a great vacation.

We booked a taxi (700 baht) to take us to the airport. The over-friendly driver, who took a liking to meemee, told us his name was "Bullet" and he was 28yrs old and he has an "eek" (which means gf in Thai) and bought us each a string of jasmine to hang around our necks. He was rather a typical Phuket driver too - when we started on the road, we asked him how long it would take to get to the airport. He said "1 hour" then added "how long you want? 40 minutes? 30 minutes?" and we were like "oh no - 1 hour is fine!" (The jasmine he bought for us he actually did by getting out of the car while stopped at a traffic light!)

At a curved road going downhill, we could see a fanstastic view of Chalong Bay, a very beautiful beach area, and we saw many people crowded at a spot. "Accident!" our driver said, and immediately slowed down, arched his neck towards the window to look. I was thinking how Thai drivers were the same as Malaysian drivers (slowing down to look at accidents) when this guy actually pulled over by the side. Muttering "I go see - maybe my friend!" he shoved the automatic gear into "parking" and rushed out of the car. He didn’t even pull the hand-brakes!

meemee, looking at the accident site, suddenly cried out that there’s a kwailo who looks like Brad Pitt walking there - I immediately took out my camera for a photo, but only managed to get his back

When he finally came back, "Bullet" told us that it was a lorry - not his friend - and the driver was alive and on the way to hospital, and no one else was hurt. Good to know, we thought.

Instead of taking us directly to the airport, we stopped by Naiyang Beach, which was close to the airport, to "make photos" (in the words of our new friend) There, it was pretty obvious that he was only interested in taking photos with meemee, and I didn’t even have the chance to ask him to take a photo for the 3 of us in front of his car - he was too busy asking me to take a photo of him and meemee and angie! Really beh tahan him!

and he called himself "handsome driver"! (I shrunk the image on purpose - in case anyone got too shocked looking at it)

When we finally left the beach, we went on our way. When we reached the junction into the airport, he didn’t turn in - instead he went straight on, muttering something about "make photo" somewhere else, saying there was enough time. By then I was a bit worried and anxious about his over-friendliness, and expressed my concerns to my too-attractive mates in our own tongue. angie then discreetly asked "Bullet" if there was indeed enough time. Perhaps he caught the look on my face, or the tone in angie’s voice - he took a u-turn shortly afterwards, and after making a brief stop to buy sugarcane drink by the roadside (we belanja him la - since he bought us flowers), we went straight on to the airport. I can’t say I’m not relieved to be out of his car, though he was, afterall, a nice driver (and meemee’s final conquest!)

At the airport, we did some last minute souvenir-shopping (mainly to rid ourselves of extra bahts) and then, upon boarding the plane, our vacation was officially over!

I took an amazing 10hrs - including choosing photos, arranging my thoughts and words, friendster-, internet- and computer-problems-related delays, dinner and toilet breaks and editing - to complete this post. If you’ve enjoyed reading it, then it was all worth it.

I had such a good time - thank you, girls - I love you both!

sunset and silhouttes (neil’s masterpiece from Phuket)

(from Joke-of-the-Day)

Q:
Why did the chicken cross the road?

A’s:

Pat Buchanan: To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

Machiavelli: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The ends of crossing the road justify whatever motive there was.

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

The Bible: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Fox Mulder: It was a government conspiracy.

Freud: The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically predisposed to cross roads.

Richard M. Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

Oliver Stone: The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" but rather, "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn’t anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Dirk Gently (Holistic Detective): I’m not exactly sure why, but right now I’ve got a horse in my bathroom.

Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.

M.C.Escher: That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time

George Orwell: Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.

Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

Plato: For the greater good.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Saddam Hussein #2: It is the Mother of all Chickens.

Joseph Stalin: I don’t care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelet.

Dr. Seuss: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes the chicken crossed the road, but why he crossed, I’ve not been told!

O.J.: It didn’t. I was playing golf with it at the time.

What is your A?

The good thing about making a movie based on a classic with many female characters is that there is no need to create and stuff in extra characters so that there can be at least 1 pretty bimbo on the set (like in King Solomon’s Mines, a male-dominated story…) Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has got to be a movie maker’s dream come true - many pretty young ladies, and handsome gentlemen. I have, in the past, read this book several times (you may have long noticed the title listed on the right column…) so when I saw the DVD for the movie - Pride and Prejudice (2005) I was eager to watch it. Recently, I re-read some parts of the book, and then, got the DVD out and watched it again. I remember being mildly disappointed when I first watched it, but this time (having my memory of the book refreshed), I am downright exasperated!

First of all, the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet is extremely poorly portrayed by Keira Knightley. Elizabeth is supposed to be smart and sensible, not cheeky; light-hearted and likes to laugh, not a constantly giggling air-headed girl; strong-willed but not a total stubborn ox! And although Mrs Bennet is a lot of times silly and ridiculous, Elizabeth is never rude to her, unlike how it is in the movie. I cannot think of any English word that more appropriately describe Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth than very menyampah and totally 38. Sigh.

As if having a substandard Lizzy is not enough, the portrayal of Mr Darcy by (let me copy and paste his name from imdb -) Matthew Macfadyen is equally, if not more, disappointing. I quote from the novel, where Mr Darcy is first introduced:

"… but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased …"

Mr Darcy is most of the time proud, arrogant, full of himself, and very charming in the novel, but Mr (wait, I need to copy & paste his name again…) Macfadyen’s Darcy, besides being far from handsome, is withdrawn, doleful and miserable, with a hurt look permanently etched in his eyes. How pitiful - you’d feel like offering him tissues. He cannot be more un-Darcy-like than that. Sigh, sigh.

As for the other characters: Jane Bennet is not beautiful enough; Mr Bingley’s warm and friendly disposition is replaced by nervousness and brainlessness; Mr Bennet does not seem half as sensible as he is supposed to be; and the other Bennet girls hardly has any attention from the camera-man.

The worst thing however, is how undeveloped the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy is. When I saw Darcy proposing to Elizabeth, it gave me the incredulous feeling of - what?! since when were you attracted to her, since when did you fall in love with her? (or could it be I was so convinced that nobody could love that ‘Lizzy’?) In the book, the uniting of Darcy and Elizabeth is eagerly, almost desperately anticipated - but in the movie, you’d never see it coming, if you hadn’t already read the book, or know the story (or read this post). Sigh, sigh, sigh.

The characters that are more appropriately represented: Mrs Bennet (sole objective in life is to see her daughters married), Mr Collins (boring and silly, but managed to be funny while being), Lady Catherine de Bourgh (haughty, high-and-mighty face - really good!), Kitty and Lydia Bennet (extremely silly, vain), Mr Wickham (very handsome and impressive, but bad, young man).

There - another beautiful classic butchered by movie makers. Sien.

Excerpt from *click*:

Now scientists create a sheep that’s 15% human
By CLAUDIA JOSEPH

Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep’s foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep’s foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

"We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,’ said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow.

"We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don’t just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails."

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available.

Scientists at King’s College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government’s fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all."

My friend, the polar bear, asked me if I thought it ethical to do such things. Well, I suppose it really doesn’t matter what I think - there will be lots of people and groups of people who will fight for or against these researches, and each will have valid argument points. I won’t even bother giving my opinion because there is no point in saying things that are probably already said, and will be said again many times. Then, he said he believed that we will be having teenage mutant ninja sheep soon. And I was thinking - mermaids, perhaps?

"No handphones should ring during class" Wait, did I say "ring"? I must rephrase…

I always make this announcement on the first and second lectures (yes, I repeat myself at least once, for the benefit of those who skip the first lecture). I realised my error, when once, within half an hour after my announcement, a guy’s phone went "hahahahah". It managed to stop me in mid-sentence. OK, technically, he didn’t break my rule, because my rule was that phones were not allowed to ring - I didn’t mention anything about whether they were allowed to "laugh".

Hmmm… I would have to evolve to match the modern phones that can make all sorts of tones, wouldn’t I?

There then, for the many following semesters, I rephrased my announcement to "No handphones should ring or laugh or sing during class" That had worked all right for some time.

This semester, during a lab session, someone’s phone burst out shouting "I want to f*ck you", and the unashamed owner actually allowed the phone to be vulgar several times before taking the call. The class seemed to enjoy the "fun", but I (maybe being too old) failed to see anything funny. And just today, during lab session (again!), while the students were being tortured by an exercise which they had to complete and submit by the end of the class, someone’s phone actually chanted a couple of verses of Buddhist scripture - the kind you’d hear in temples or at ppl’s funerals… I don’t know which. (Gosh… the exercise was that tough?)

So there - time to rephrase again: "No handphones should ring or laugh or sing or curse or chant, during class"

Can you believe that blogging is now a coursework component for a certain subject in a certain prestigious local university? I know this poor fella has no interest nor inclination to blog (blogging simply couldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea…) but well, do visit and read his posts - they’re compulsory anyway

Btw, I hated Engineer and Society… we had this dumbo lecturer who made us do a stupid 40~50-page assignment and reject each group’s printed drafts (must print for him to "inspect" before submission) like 4 -5 times before finally accepting them. Crazy freak!

Excerpt from The Star today:

Survey: KL Courtesy level has risen

THE nation’s capital has redeemed itself in terms of courtesy level after a shocking readers’ poll last year by Reader’s Digest which labelled Kuala Lumpur as the third rudest city in the world, Kosmo! reported. 

The latest survey conducted by Canadian-based international rating agency Aneki.com found that Kuala Lumpur was the 33rd most polite city in the world. 

New York topped the list, followed closely by Zurich and Toronto. The first of its kind, the study involved 35 cities and was done in collaboration with the United Nations and the US Central Intelligence Agency.   

However, the capitals of several Malaysia neighbours fared better.   

Manila stood at 22nd place while Bangkok was placed 25th, followed by Jakarta, Indonesia (27th) and Singapore (31st). Kuala Lumpur, however, beat Bucharest and Mumbai.

Ranked 33rd most polite out of 35 surveyed == 3rd rudest la! (which, in fact, means this recent survey only confirmed the credibility of Reader’s Digest’s poll last year…) And they are sooo proud still!

*pengsan*

"Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn."

Please don’t say you’ve never heard of the above. Please don’t say it doesn’t even ring a bell! It is such a classic that I am shocked, aghast, utterly incredulous, when I found out that nobody in my class remotely know it. And have they heard of Scarlett O’Hara? Nope. Rhett Butler? Definitely not.

Some weeks ago, someone in my class asked me what the Fibonacci Sequence is all about. I wouldn’t raise half a brow at that question, if the famous Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was never published (or if it hadn’t been half as a hit as it is…). But given all the hype following the book and the movie, and the mention of the said sequence in them, I just had to be speechless for 15 seconds. And upon questioning, I found out only 1 person in the whole class had actually read the book.

"I can resist anything but temptation" (If you’ve never heard of the first one, lagi you wouldn’t have heard of this…)

Boys and girls, read more, ok?