First,
there will be a lot to read.
1) I went to China and the States the front part of the holiday, just came back on wednesday.
well, for US, most of the time was mostly spent at Las Vegas.
As for China, it was my first time there and it was with a tour group, also a first time for me.
well, lets talk about China first (:
China
2) I touched down at Shanghai, so the tour is mostly at that area ( but we also sat on coaches and travel to other parts of china, around Shanghai, which names i am not sure of )...
I am not sure but... is going to Shanghai a good choice if you want to leave China with a good impression? ( considering it is the first time i am there )
Is Beijing a better choice?
yeah.. because the first thing i noticed was the grayness of the area.
unbeatable air pollution.......
but after a few days, you get the hang of things.
the places we visited were interesting... in good ways, but also not so good ways.
There was one "attraction", along with two events that stood out for me.
3) This "attraction" was a jade shop/museum.
They show you old jade stuff, then there's a shop after the tour where you can buy stuff.
it should be the case that more time is spent on the tour, and less on the buying stuff right?
in this case, only about a quarter of the time was spent on the tour while the other three quarters were spent on the latter.
this isn't really a complaint as the interesting part of this "attraction" falls under the buying of stuff part.
in my tour there was a malay family.
father, mother and two sons.
back to the story, the mother of the family and my mother were looking at these jade rings.
they were bargaining.
the price that was given to us was 1700 china dollars ( ren ming bi )
my mother didn't really talk much, it was the malay mother and her husband who did most of the bargaining.
them being malay, and the sales person being chinese....
this was when the interesting part of this part of the tour began.
to make things better, the malay man is quite a joker.
even when the chinese sales person was speaking quite decent english and making hand gestures, he chose to pretend to not understand.
taking an example from actual reality...
after quite some time, the price was bargained to about 1000 china dollars.
1700 to 1000, a seemingly, very good bargain? but the story doesn't end here...
at this point ( 1000 china dollars ), the salespeople were quite stubborn and didn't lower the price any lower.
so instead of bargaining price wise, "we" wanted a buy one free one deal.
"we" were aiming for getting the ring at 400 china dollars each.
so the salespeople countered by saying:
" you buy three ( did a 3 fingers hand gesture ) rings, we give you special price of three thousand ( did a 3 fingers hand gesture ) "
the malay man chose to interpret as:
" ( looks at 3 fingers hand gesture of salesperson ) ( chose to ignore her english and the second half of her sentence ) (did a 3 fingers hand gesture) ( looks at his own 3 fingers hand gesture ) Buy one ring at $1000, free three rings? DEAL "
the poor salespeople...
after 10 minutes, neither refuse to budge and "we" eventually gave up.
AND THEN..
after a while, *walk here and there, look at other stuff, etc etc*
i met with the malay mother again and I noticed she had the ring around her finger.
she then told me she bought it at 400 china dollars and asked if my mother still wanted to buy one.
afterwhich, she explained to me that while she was in the TOILET, the salesperson/people went to look for her and told her she can buy it at 400.
From 1700 to 400 china dollars....
and to clinch a "deal" in the toilet.
hahahaha
while bargaining, the sales person said the ring was made of white gold, with the highest quality of jade on it and it being surrounded by little diamonds...
and at 400 china dollars?
liars ):
4) the first of other 2 events:
we were on a coach, on a highway, going to some other place from Shanghai.
the local tour guide was telling us...
because shanghai air is very polluted, and the air temperature is low, and the air temperature difference between morning and night is big,
fogs arise easily.
and when they do, and when it gets too serious, the highway closes ( unusable )
and so, very coincidentally... it happened that that day was a foggy day! (:
we were on the high way and about 20 metres in front of a highway exit when we met with the "jam".
the "jam" meaning all the cars in front stop, as they cant progress forward, and are just waiting to reverse and exit through a highway exit.
a highway exit, such as ours, that we, fortunately, happened to be near to.
after much rude honking and aggresive reverse driving, we got out through the exit.
and not once, do you notice a road sign to tell drivers behind to take not the highway is closed.
i guess the chinese in china love to see their fellow chinese get stuck in a useless "jam".
...very much like me...
after 20minutes...
we came to another halt.
this time its for good...
about 2 hours long.
so what did i do?
play cards with fellow tour people
nothing really interesting happened while playing.
Mostly played BigTwo/DaiDi with a recently married couple and a couple that have been married for 10 years.
well, not sure about other people...
but when playing cards,
i play differently among different groups of people.
to me, the joy/thrill/etc from playing cards come from the people more than winning the games.
for example, letting people teach you, then suddenly winning a lot of games due to "luck" and feeding off those people's reactions or,
just playing to make sure someone doesn't win and getting happiness from there.
Those are more fun than playing to win.
right?
but i do realise that if i play to win while not having any good cards,
and when it becomes very necessary to do risky moves, like breaking up pairs and fives or plainly, just hoping someone will not get suspicious and trump your card...
its usually better to play with guys.
For example, at one four person game in the coach.
I had the chance to play 2 single cards, last of which was an ace, thus leaving me with 11 cards.
i didn't have any twos.
However, i have a low value fullhouse and a jack four-of-a-kind.
hence if i win this round, i win it.
everybody passed... and all i had to do was wait for this last guy to pass, to win.
by the way, this guy is one half of the recently married couple.
he looks all set to pass...
however, his girlfriend ( wife actually but i like the word girlfriend more ), who was by his side, was looking at me suspiciously.
i looked blankly back at her.
she then started to advise her partner to play a two.
fortunately, he already had a plan for his "two" and was very reluctant to listen to his girlfriend.
after a while, he said "pass".
and i won the game,
and his girlfriend was saying " i told you so ",
and i smiled.
this string of events happen if things go my way,
but,
they usually don't.
or at least,
less often with females.
and because of this incident,
that is, the jam and the chance to play cards with fellow tour members for 2 hours ( the rest that i have mentioned above were mostly irrelevant )
we have little parties in different tour people's room for the nights in china.
which is why, i am very grateful for china for that "jam" and this is also the reason why the "jam" incident stood out for me.
because honestly, the shows in china hotels are f.o.c.
full of chinese/crap
not one bit of entertainment at night.
5) The second event.
I was on the plane back from Shanghai and there was a group of China tourists on board the plane as well.
They are really noisy,
they throw stuff to each other from one aisle to the other,
they eat really fast,
they eat everything ( plane food ),
they eat a lot ( plane food + brought in extra ),
they never sleep and,
they are never embarrassed.
States
7) When the plane touched down, i was sick for seven days.
which was close to half the time i spent there..
quite wasted.
i was mostly at Las Vegas,and also went around there to the Grand Canyon.
I also went to anaheim's disneyland.
8) I went to disneyland on a weekday.
despite that, it was really crowded because its thanksgiving weekend.
additionally, i was still sick on that day.
in fact, that day was when i had the highest temperature.
during lunch time, my father was buying stuff to eat.
like i said, it was really crowded, and proper seats were all taken up.
instead, i was seating on concrete bricks, you know... those that "borders" the plants and soil.
so was like 8 other people, and the "concrete bricks border" isn't really long.. about 10 metres.
there was a group of girls seating at one corner.
one of their friend, who had just bought her food, came over to find a place to seat.
if i remembered correctly, i made space for her and that was how the group noticed me.
how did i notice them noticing me?
well, after a while, and without meaning to, i overheard one of the girls saying "he looks really down."
...it should be because he is sick.
9)
on a side note, there were 2 things i noticed very prominently about the girls there,
1) everytime i hear a group of girls talking, its almost always about relationships.
like "she shouldn't have...", "they are cute together..." etc etc
2) girls there love to put makeup, know how to put makeup and put makeup at a very young age.
and i think their makeup makes them look more attractive, i.e. actually work.
a "must" among them is the eyeliner/shadow/"modifier", which i quite like.
there's also a No. 3), but it isn't really about girls specifically, so i will come to that later.
but anyway, after that incident, i took my temperature.
it was exactly 39 degrees.
the temperature for the days before that day was 37.8, 37.9 37.7... around 38 degrees.
thankfully, this temperature of 39 degrees was the highest the fever ever got to.
all in all, i finished 2 strips of panadol ( 3/4 per day, for seven days ).
10) on that day when i was in disneyland, i saw this girl that i quite like.
she has straight long hair, her hair was folded twice at one side of her head.
i have no idea how to properly describe her looks but i like it.
she was the only person i saw with her name printed on her shirt, C. Woodson.
it should be her name anyway.
and very coincidentally, i met with her ( and her big family ) three times at three different rides at three different times of the day.
i think its quite impressive? because the place is big and queues are really long and the place is like i said and will say again, really crowded.
**** After spending a whole day there, i only sat for 7 attractions, one time for each.
but there are tricks and cheats that i saw people taking advantage of to
1) either seat again or
2) cut the queue.
you can ask me for them if you plan to go there and really really really want to make the most use of your time and seat in as many rides as possible and as many times as possible
**** However, there was this once time when i met a young and hot couple 3 different times, in 3 different theme parks, on 3 different days.
sounds unbelievable but its true...
till now, i can still remember them ( faintly though ), sunglass dude and blonde with heels.
the country was either hong kong or australia, not sure... somewhere with 3 theme parks, and i think both countries have 3 theme parks ( at least ).
btw, it seems suspicious that i am using the number "3" so many times... but it is really the case ._.
i like her, but if i choose to like people based on looks alone, there are quite a bit of females there that i liked that day.
not that that is a bad thing...
the one thing that made her stood out for me though,
was that i know her name. haha
i am not sure if i can speak for her, but i think, THINK she likes me too.
she noticed me and there were like... signs.
BUT as things are, she lives in the states, while i live here.
aww so, it doesn't really matter.
but there's where her name come in handy, C.Woodson.
because, you can find everybody on facebook right?
11) on the whole, disneyland's rides there are not the thrilling scary type, for now anyway.
and even though i was sick, i enjoyed the people i met there.
there was this helpful and resourceful lady who was using an iPhone app to find out the waiting times for various rides,
a family who consists of an asian mother, american man and five little girls who was out together with their aunt ( the girls are really cute and there is one i really like whom i think will grow up to be really hot and smart ),
group of friends who were talking about relationships ( no surprise ), one of their friends being pregnant and who mistook me as someone they know ( there was a hot girl in here too, in her early twenties i think ) and
a really funny yet...melancholic comment a man made to a roadsweeper ( in view of the weather conditions there then ) as we are leaving the place.
there are more, but sadly, these are just about the few that stood out and that i can still remember.
i would love to talk more about them too, but loving to "something" doesn't really mean actually doing it.
12)
oh and 3) was that there were different groups of teenagers who were wearing pullovers with their school name.
what caught my attention though was that all of the pullovers share a common word "ASB" ( i hoped i remember this correctly )
i went back and checked.
http://www.answers.com/topic/asb-abbreviation-2
it should be either the "alternative spring break" or "associate student body" definition.
its quite cool because this either means that students can choose to have well... an alternative spring break and choose where to go,
or that they have student bodies that organize outings that are very likely to be paid by their schools.
13) As for Las Vegas...
there really isn't anything in particular that i wan to say..
its a really nice place and there's loads to do there.
most, if not all hotels there are very nice, inside and outside.
i only said most because, despite my time spent there, i didn't really manage to go to every hotel.
some hotels also have really nice 15min/30min/60min interval of free shows.
considering my age now, i didn't really have the chance to do something terribly sinful.
i only walked around, went to hotels, watched the shows i was talking about ^, went to little attractions ( wax museum and the rollercoaster stood out ) and watched a performance.
the performance i watched was "Ka"
i wanted to watch Penn and Teller..
but the hotel that was having it ( Rio Hotel ) was too far away..
and considering that shows start at 9.30 and end much later, it would be not too wise to go somewhere so far away.
in the end, i watched "Ka" at MGM Grand.
its a show by cirque du solei ( << not sure about the spelling ) it was eye-opening, in the wtf-why-are-they-doing-this way.
but there were really funny and cute moments. i liked the part with the "hand shadows" the most ><
partly because it was my first time seeing it ( as in professionally )
oh yes, while i was watching the show.
i met with two gals.
i was watching the show by myself anyway.
as in sitting to the right of me is a middle-aged couple ( that aren't my parents ) and to the right, the two gals i am going to talk about briefly.
so.. i am really by myself.
that's perhaps why they decided to talk to me..
i mean, do you talk to strangers of the opposite sex with their parents nearby?
anyway, they are both from miami.
they are friends.
one is in a blue dress and red dress.
the red dress girl is here with her mum, and the blue dress girl accompanied her here ( there )
and coincidentally, the blue dress girl is going to visit Singapore next year during summer.
very very cool.
but at the end of the day, we didn't exchange names.
as in, they don't know my name, nor did i know theirs.
i didn't offer to tell them mine, and its standard guys have to tell their names first to make girls comfortable about giving away their names??
but i was still slightly sick that day, so maybe talking less would be good for them.
14) oh, and you don't get stuff to boil water with in ANY hotels in vegas.
i was told it was because if you want drinkable water ( excluding tap water ), you to leave your hotel room and go buy them in a convenience store.
and when you leave your hotel to buy water, you see the tempting slot machines and poker card tables.
in this way, they earn $
15) i also watched a competitive poker game during one of the nights there ( on tv )
its true you know, smart people do play poker for a living.
there was this guy ( i forgot the name ) who finished in 2nd place in this competition.
the commentator was saying he had an ivy league education but decided to play poker professionally instead.
and he is damn lucky.
some guy was dealt a double ace, and slowly raised the pot till it he put "all in".
this ivy league guy didn't really have any good cards, but the two cards he had was in the club suit.
he thought the double ace guy was bluffing and also went "all in".
but in the end, the ivy league guy managed to win because 3 of the 5 cards on the table turned out to be clubs.
this happened while there were four guys left ( the fourth guy was knocked out )
ironically, when it was down to two guys ( ivy league guy and another guy ), the guy he lost to won because he had a double ace hand.
but it isn't that bad a career choice if you are good in it.
he won 1.9 million USD if I am not wrong ( for being 2nd )
the first guy won over 3 million and a gold bracelet.
16) i watched a repeat telecast of the finals of "The Amazing Race" when i came back Singapore.
it was in vegas!
and i was still at vegas on that actual day that they were carrying out the amazing race.
..but i didn't see them.
17) at my time on holiday, while i was queuing up for food.
a guy played "kids" on his phone.
damn, i love that song.
i first heard it while playing fifa 06 demo for xbox 360,
the one which you play as either Brazil or England against the other.
when i last saw the video on youtube for the song, the count was at 7 million,
now its at about 23 million.
also, i like the girl in the video, she's hot.
she looks hot with the face paint to me. ( her face shape... and eyes )
at that time, the comments for the video also happened to be about her and they mentioned there was a link of her picture at the author's video comments section.
i followed the link, and she looked even hotter there.
but many people don't really know about it ( the song ).
but i like it that way.
i like minorities more than majorities.
when too many people like something, i just have this urge not to like it.
and i don't like to copy/ follow people.
i like independent and original thinking.
i like the lesser known and the path less taken.
18) after i came back, i checked my mail.
i read those regarding psls.
and i was quite impressed by what they did.
there was this whole list of activities that were planned out ( quite detailed ), what was to be included in the package and especially for the "package" part, the extremely cheap price that they managed to get the items for.
the test runs were also quite enjoyable.
well, i am not sure what i did now but i knew it was not that bad...
what i do remember though was the fright night part of the camp.
i remembered because i felt guilty.
i felt guilty because i realised i shouldn't have been an ass and messed with the psls "stories"
afterall, they spent time creating them and it isn't really nice...
funny though, how strange things did indeed happen while it was my turn to test the fright night.
there was this station where my group was supposed to find a total of 3 stars in a scary toilet setting.
you are supposed to do the task one by one, with each person only allowed to take one star each.
in the end, our group found 4 stars.
the stationmasters seemed confused as they only remembered putting a total of 3 stars only.
hoho
so far, there has been only one instance that i felt a little afraid on this kind of "fright nights"
its walking on the corridor of the bio lab with the corridor lights turned off.
but this "afraid" i felt was for different reasons and not due to the haunted foetus story..
rather it was because the place is completely dark.
its so dark i can't see the path in front of me, with only an exit sign at the end of the corridor guiding me.
and so, i felt afraid because i was scared that i would just knock into a wall or trip over something, have a concussion and die.
something, like that.
19) however, it isn't so good to be so "ballsy",
for in movies, like the final destination franchise, being "ballsy" still means you die,
but in f.d., they all die anyway.
or like in paranormal activities, the guy was killed in the end.
i liked that show...
i felt very satisfied after watching it.
i liked the guy character a lot as well.
everytime there is supposed to be a scary part,
he will happen to be cursing and swearing.
and when these 3 factors come together in the scary scenes:
1) girl screaming
2) guy cursing
3) scary setting/music/etc
instead of feeling scared like the people should?,
i just... feel like laughing ):
eh, one to his/her own, i guess different people just have different reactions.
**** the scariest scary movie i have seen though, is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2006)
watched it while on a previous holiday.
quite...nice ^^
20) i don't know why people find there's a need to argue if leaders are born or made.
for arguments that go with the "made" side.
that is, leaders are nurtured and are not just born to be leaders.
but the fact is, leaders are born.
leaders are born into surroundings, surroundings which then groom them to be leaders.
leaders are born with the ability to process their life experiences properly and teach themselves well with them.
and leaders aren't made, because assuming that there's a style of teaching that has groomed one to be a leader, and assuming that leaders are made, then everybody who have been "taught" similarly would be a leader.
this isn't valid using your common-sensical instincts nor is it in reality.
i once thought that everybody thinks like me, but i have grown to understand that it isn't really the case.
for good and for bad.
to me, the one thing that leaders are more than the rest of the people is that they are more able in influencing others.
21) resorts sentosa
i went for a concert at resorts world sentosa.
complimentary tickets.
nothing much to say...
... but the parking lot for the casino that will be coming up?
damn nice.
the pillars are very symmetrical like ( like neatly planted trees )
largely noticed it due to the fact that the carpark was mostly empty ( relatively, cause there were at least 200 cars parked. in other words, the parking lot is huge ).
this is something new i found out i like ^^
other than that, the thing i liked most about the concert was that the workers/ushers/organizers clapped non-stop as i left the place >.>
honestly though, i think the universal studios? ( it looks more like disneyland now that they have built a castle thing ) park that's supposed to be built will turn out great.
22) Christmas and X'mas means the same thing right?
Hence, Christ and X can be used interchangeably if you want to mean the same thing ( i.e. Chirstmas )
hence, xxx really means ChristChristChrist....in "Christmas terms"
and vice-versa, ChristChristChrist, if you use this word, really means xxx... in "Christmas terms"
lame, but useful, because i am filling space and lengthening this post even more.
somehwere above, i mentioned i went disneyland.
the day i went disneyland though, there was no fireworks ( weather problem )
instead they played Christmas songs, and there was a very nice Christmas feel to the place.. quite magical.
23) People do understand that people change right?
definitely, i will.
and anyway, i don't like things the same.
something being "same", no matter what, no matter how, will become boring after a certain period of time.
i understand it as..
people, no matter when, will have some kind of expectations.
if they achieve these expectations, they don't stop there, because nobody is truly satisfied with what they have.
instead they have new expectations.
and so they aim differently now, instead of aiming North, they may be going West.
or Case 2), they don't meet their expectations.
as a result, they lower their expectations or very simply, concentrate on something else.
this still means they change their expectations.
instead of going North, they are going North-East, or somewhere much more different, South.
24) i am a routine guy.
i like routines, very very much.
i like to create and follow them.
i like to do things over and over again, and in a particular order.
i feel comfortable doing things according to routine.
little things always occur that keep me interested to continue my routines.
what is frustrating though, is something idiotic to pop up and just break this routine.
but its no excuse if you are lazy to start the routine again.
this year, i want something badly, and have thought of a new routine.
and this year would also be all about myself.
i want to shut out everything out.
i think i do best if i don't have anyone observing and expecting something of me.
i dislike that feeling of knowing that.
i will start next week, after this psl camp.
my brain is quite good at repeating sleeping patterns.
the friday after i came back from holiday, i had this really bad food poisoning thing.
i had fever for 2 days and a really bad stomach for another 2 days.
i.e., i have to wake up in the middle of the night ( twice ) cause i just feel like shitting all of a sudden -.-
the week after i recovered, i continued to wake up twice every night ( for no reason ), until i went for the psl dry run thing.
and yesterday ( 3/1/10 ), i didn't turn in very late, but i couldn't sleep properly.
the last i checked the clock for the time, it showed 2.30.
and i had to go to school by 6.30 today ( 4/1/10 ) .
so i am majorly fucked up now.
however, there's a cure: school camps
because i can never really sleep properly in camps, i come back dead tired, and all i have to do is choose the correct time to sleep...
and hopefully, the sleeping pattern stays.
25) this post was really long right?
its supposed to be longer, but its weird how when you click the "save to draft" button, sometimes, the button doesn't really do as it says.
yeah, this was supposed to be more....
and though it says it is posted on the 14/12,
i really finished it on 4/01/10.
and unless i am wrong, 14/12 is a sunday and i actually planned to write and complete this on the friday 2 days before that day.
however, i procrastinated 2 days to sunday.
and another 3 weeks/ ayear before finally posting this.
the silver lining though is that if i did finish this post on that day, this post would be much shorter as the "inspiration" for some of the posted stuff here came in that 3 weeks procrastination time span.
i felt that i have to properly close this blog, which is why i did this post.
not so nice to leave things hanging..
even though that habit is not rare with me, but i am looking forward to changing that.
even so, i would prefer to delete the blog after posting this last post,
however, i think its possible i can just put a permission thing to this blog, thereby not allowing anyone to read this blog other than me ( if i even want to read what i typed in the first place )
afterall, its important to keep memories right?
but so far, i haven't read any thing i have written before just to refresh my memory.
do you people who blog do that?
not only that, i am quite sure my purpose of blogging is different.
to me, my "blog", its really "just anyhow saying what i feel like".
its not really a diary thing,
nor is it a comments things where it is expected of anyone to comment.
which is why i don't bother seeing my previous posts, nor check the text box thing after a while ( is the textbox thing still there? )
it is just something you are supposed to read, and think about ( if you can find anything to think about ) and then forget ( or choose to remember ).
hope this explains loads.
Happy New Year.
dang, i miss red and blue dress girl and C.Woodson
:O
