@ pauline's wedding 20072007
went to pauline's (ex-colleague fr ntuc where i was temping yrs back) wedding @ BUKIT BATOK!! so far siah~~ asked her y so far, she said either there or yishun, which is equally far loh :P
our table
knocked off work early on fri so hung out jurong point first b4 meeting rachel n peace at bukit batok mrt. didnt know there was a west mall there, if not, go straight there liao, no need to travel ard.
the wedding banquet was @ this resturant @ the civil service club, which turned out to be quite a nice place n new. it felt resort like n had something like wild wild wet, i.e. wave pool, little "river" dat u can float ard in n stuff. the ballroom was really nice too, high ceiling with no pillars n great projection panels for slideshow also.
was more busy throughout the dinner eatting (coz hungry, it started at 8.45) n not paying too much attention to conversation amongst the other ex-colleagues who were chatting mostly abt their ex-colleagues whom i had no clue abt n half the time abt work n chim chim terms which i hv no clue n interest abt also :P
skipped dessert coz it was ard 11pm n didnt wanna miss the last train n we had to walk back to the mrt some more. luckily got seat so rot all the way back which took me an hr plus siah~~
cultural exchange part 2
before i start, tink something wrong with blogspot, can seem to post entries properly. are the rest of u having problems too?
back to my jap cultural exchange trip... really tired today even though i slept at 10pm last nite, spent 3/4 of my lunch napping today ;p must be too much sun n too much of using my brain to translate things.
back to my story... woke up at 6.30am on sunday even though i slept ard 2/3am. was scared that i would be late so went straight to orchard. there wasnt any fast food near the hotel opened at that time so settled by having hotdog outside cheers @ cineleisure, so poor thing ;p
reached lobby n found only a few of us there n by 8.30, the school admin pple allocated us to our groups n was shocked to find that there only 8 of us fr the sch n 6 groups of 5-6 japs. the worst part was i was allocated to lead my group ALONE!!! n one thing, i knew something was wrong when i tried to find out which "school" they were fr. checked internet to search for the organisation n it turned out to be some kind of business organisation, so actually thot maybe they send their children over for holidays?? h/r found it abit wierd while waiting at the lobby coz i only saw adults n there cant be so many "teachers" right? worst nightmare came through when i realised they were all working adults on a study tour.. arh~~~~
me n my group members at esplanade. (from left: 1) the serious guy of the group who did all the research abt sg 2) the crazy jap guy like those potrayed in jap dramas n kept trying to teach me wierd jap slangs 3) the quiet uncle who likes taking picz 4) the uncle-next-door type of uncle 5) president of some company who's abit scary 6) normal jap guy who's not very chatty)
my group consisted of 6 guys ranging from 30s - 50s (got 2 ok looking ones but think one of the organiser more handsome :P) previously brought groups ard b4 but all either secondary or high school kids n each time with at least 2 other pple. and it was pretty wierd coz unlike some of the groups which had ladies, mine were all guys so pretty hard to break the ice. next, their plans of the day was so different fr the kids, they wanted to go places like merlion, sentosa and chinatown n little india if we had time (which luckily, time was too short, until 3.30pm to make it back to the hotel n everyone was exhausted by then).. btw they didnt know we were fr a jap school n all of them thot i was still a full time student now *SMILES* :P
nvr understand the charm with the merlion, n to the authorities, where all the trees?? cant find any shade ard there n the weather was freaking hot!!! only 1 or 2 took pics while the rest hid in the shade of the lamp post for a smoke!!
saw the ndp floating platform
next stop, all the way back to mrt to go sentosa. brought them to vivo to catch the monorail to sentosa. so much of mrt n bus changes in one day, including at sentosa itself, that i tink they were quite confused. first stop at sentosa was beer by the beach! coz they were kinda thirsty n wanted to cool down with beer. n me pretty left out coz i was the only non alcohol drinker n they must be kinda amused that i can't drink at all. too bad my jap is not that good enough to explain how i fell into a drain after juz one bottle of hooch ;p
one thing good about bringing working adults is that they offered to pay for everything, fr the entrance tickets, my lunch and also the dinner treat. and btw, unlike my previous jap sch, tis one gives allowance of $30 to us at the end of the day!
tried the sky tower, which i won't tink i wld ever try unless i brought other guest over to visit. luckily we managed to get cheap ticks too, $10 instead of $12 coz a tour leader had bought too much for their tour groups. met my ex colleague fr SATS where i temped at after graduating. so coincidental n my group members must be wondering why i was chatting up with "strangers" but they managed to entertain themselves though.
view from the sky tower
met my ex temp colleague fr SATS at the skytower aft 5yrs
next stop, images of singapore, which was the wax museum but without the surrender chambers part which was shifted to fort siloso. now i finally know why we had to study history, so that we can make use of it to explain to tourist n our guests fr overseas! luckily, my basic singapore history knowledge was still there but had problem explaining things like wat is a sultan and the treaty signed between the temenggong n sir stamford raffles.. one funny part was there was this door which said toilet so we were all wondering was it a real toilet so i opened it, abit shocked to find a wax figure inside it but even after i said "kowaii" as in scary but the others had to open it n see n 1 or 2 of them was really shocked n actually shouted *heheheheheh*... and one more thing how should u response when the japs saw a video of the jap invasion in WW2 and ask whether u all hated japs, arh~~~
group l6 @ sentosa
guys trying out the rickshaws
everyone was pretty hungry so headed back to vivo to hv lunch at food republic. in the end, everyone ended up with things like noodles, bee hoon or mee siam, all ramen like kind of stuff in the already hot weather! n of course beer, again!! they realised that they were the only ones drinking beer n i had to explain to them we didnt have the habit of drinking at that time of the day. i only ate popiah coz had totally lost my appetite due to the heat.
headed back to the hotel totally exhausted. luckily the meeting room for the presentation was ready n we had plenty of aircon n cold water to cool down. i juz sat ard while they brain stormed. had plenty of time, ard an hour before the last group returned. each group was given 3min to present based on what they have experienced that day. my group spoke about history n how our fore fathers came over to sg n helped build our nation. luckily we ran out of time (they actually timed each group n someone actually brought those table bells to signal the time!) coz if we still had time, i had to speak ;p
my group preparing their presentation aft the trip
me together with the members at the presentation
almost regret promising to go with them for dinner after dat coz while i waited at the lobby, had a headache n was totally tired n prob look pretty horrid by then. felt pretty bad coz i couldn't suggest a place for dinner coz i'm not so into restuarants. ended up at a jap restuarant at paragon. realised jap guys didnt each much, in the end me paiseh to eat also so ate whatever they had ordered. one of them told me beer was their "gohan", i.e. their equivalent of rice. one of the more impressionable dishes was cucumber with miso sauce, a kind of cold dish. frankly speaking, it tasted really wierd coz though the cucumber was nice, the miso was so salty n tasted like those soya bean paste. managed to amuse the whole group with my expression after eatting it n later was caught trying to eat just the cucumber without sauce n they had to force me to put some miso on it. they also threatened to force me to eat sashimi after knowing i dont eat it. one commented that it wouldnt cost me much to eat sushi coz those i ate were all the cheaper kinds ;P
rest of dinner was more talking about economics, politics (btw, found that foreigners were very interested in our sm lee. previously met taiwanese tourist who asked us abt them n now, it was also one of the first things the japs asked me). one of them tried to be funny n teached me jap slangs which we dont study in mainstream classes. the serious guy had kept telling him to stop playing tricks on me. could only rememeber "maiyu", i.e. same meaning as oishii. the way the guy pronouced it was really comical. realised they were quite rowdy and loud at dinner time, the rest of the restuarant were all looking at us n they must be seriously wondering what i was doing amongst them coz i was not even the spg type or wat. one of the uncles also kept disturbing the waitress.
got to experience how particular japs were when it comes to splitting bills. read abt it in the text book but was still kinda shocked that one guy took out the calculator to divide the cost on the spot n each paid their own share. btw the bill came up to $364! most of it was the beer which each had 3-4 mugs of. luckily they didnt want to go anywhere else after dinner n we parted ard 8pm. BUT not b4 they clapped for me in front of all the pple outside the restuarant, so paiseh siah~~
overall tiring n stressful but really great experience n chance to practice my jap. quite happy that they found my jap quite ok too. looking forward to my next exchange! meanwhile, tink i got abit tour guide material, maybe can consider next career switch :P
