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| So I got bored in Sing after a few days and so my brother and I booked a trip to Bangkok for the weekend. Here's a quick run of the highlights:
Muay Thai - When we got to the hotel, we dropped our stuff off and headed right back out to catch a Muay Thai fight at Lumphini stadium. At first, the hotel wanted to sell us tickets for 2000 baht each (1cdn = 30 baht) and we wouldn't buy it since we thought "the hotel must obviously be making margin on this". We thought that we would buy tickets when we got there. So, we tried to get a taxi to get us there but it was tough since none of the drivers wanted to turn on their meters (remember, it's a third world country) Finally, we settled on getting their on a tuk tuk, which is the equivalent of a three wheeler driven by some dude. Well, I heard alot about how dangerous and scary the tuk tuk is but after riding on it, I think that its something overblown by white people. I wasn't hanging on to dear life or anything, in fact, i felt like i was driving down highway 401. big friggin deal.
During the entire trip, our Laotian tuk tuk driver kept trying to scam us for tickets for the fight as well, saying that he can get it to us for 2700 baht EACH. Quite the ambitious cat. When he realized that we wouldn't bite, he stopped feeding the tourist animals.
So, we finally got there and got ringside seats for...2000 baht each. To this day, we still don't know why the hotel won't sell tickets without margin. Oh well.
So we sat there and watched these thai fighters come out and pretty much kick the crap out of each other. These guys are pretty fast and scary. I hope i never get caught with any of the fighter's girlfriends. I'd rather face Sagat.
The fights were really exciting as these guys didn't pull any punches back (literally) The best fight of the night was actually between two kids that had to be nine years old. Since at that age, you still haven't learned the concept of conserving energy and strategy, these kids proceeded to pummel the crap out of each other at the initial bell to the end. Finally, the darker kid won since he realized that his looks weren't going for him.
The whole night had 15 matches at 5 rounds each. We were pretty much there for 3-4 hours sitting at "ringside" which was probably aka: Sucker country since all the tourists were seated there. Don't get me wrong, they were good seats and we didn't have to mix with the locals (who had standing room only and were more concerned with betting than watching) We didn't stay for the entire thing as we got tired. We stayed until the main event, which was like the 9th match. The champion retained his belt and we got to take a picture with him after his match:
After that, we took a walk around and had food at a hawker stand. We then went to the nightmarket and realized that they sold the most random crap in the world. To go with this theme of randomness, we went and got a foot massage just because. Just because.
Temple town
The next day, we got up early and went to the Golden Palace as part of a tour group. We walked around these temples that were pretty cool and gold. I was looking for Sagat or M Bison, but unfortunately, I think they're dead. Here's my brother with our tour guide Lea. Boy, do i have stories about her...
Aching Good Time
So you know the saying "When in Rome..."? Well, in Thailand, the saying is "When in Thailand, get a massage as much as you can" - Thailand is the modern day equivalent of Paradise since Thailand is the land of pleasures- the food is cheap and good, the spas and massages are cheap and the girls are good looking. It's the ultimate destination for every heterosexual male with disposable income (even if you don't have disposable income, mortgage your house!) So, keeping with the theme of massages, we went to Wat Po after our tour to get a massage. Wat Po is a temple where they study the art of the massage. I heard a lot of people talk about how good it is so we had to try it. It was also ridiculously cheap - I believe that we got a one hour full body thai massage for the equivalent of $8 Cdn. Good God. Two can't even dine for $8! over here!
Was the massage good?
OMG. It felt so good - its the type of good you feel from pain. I had trouble walking after that massage.
I think that place should be a national treasure and be a monopoly space beside Boardwalk and Park Place. To hell with Community Chest.
Sneaky Lea
So, I spoke about our tourguide earlier - Lea...so throughout the morning trip, we'd chat and I kept badgering her about things to do and places to see. Lea's a clever cookie because she likes to drop ideas in my head. She started dropping hints about "Sexy shows" and "Pretty girls" so predictably, I started badgering her about that. We kinda got thrown off track and we left the subject but coming back to the hotel, I saw her sitting in our lobby again booking tours so I went back and started badgering her about wanting to watch a "sexy show".
Come on, you only live once.
So, at first she was telling me where to go and how expensive it was, and I kept asking for more info. Finally, she looks around and when no one was watching, she says "My company charges 1000 baht for it, but if you come with me, I'll do it for 700 baht" At first, I thought that she was going to do the Sexy Show herself, (Which I had no problems with) then I realized that she meant she had her own sideline operation of running side tours. So, I agreed and paid her. She started writing a receipt for it but instead of the "Sexy show", she wrote a receipt for a "Tiger show"...yeah..."Tiger show"
So she tells me to come down the lobby at around 7 pm and the driver was going to pick us up and handle everything. "Just show up and he'll know you" she said. He'll take you to the "Tiger Show".
I love tigers.
So when 7 pm came around, we headed down to the lobby and waited. 2 mins after, this mainland guy shows up with the worst puberty moustache ever. He comes up to us and says "Tiger show?"
Yep.
So we start walking to the van and as we did, I started getting worried whether we really were going to a tiger show since we kept repeating it so much. That would be funny - if "Sexy show" = "Tiger show". All you saw were a roomful of horny guys watching tigers jump through hoops. So, we finally reach the van and he opens the van door and inside, there were these two cantonese girls sitting in the van. They were a bit dressed up so I found that a bit weird. My brother whispers to my ear in Tagalog that these girls might be hookers and we should be careful. Maybe "Tiger show" = "Sexy Show" = "Bangbus Asia 2008"
The fact that the driver was a mainlander with a bad moustache didn't help.
So, throughout the ride, we were worried whether we were gonna get robbed and killed on the side of a street by a tiger or something to that extent. Throughout the whole trip, the girls in front of us were silent as well as they probably thought we were gonna rape them or something. Finally, dirty mainland guy starts speaking to them in mandarin and they respond in mandarin. Then he speaks to us in chinese and we respond in chinese. When the girls heard our english, they were relieved to find out we were tourists as well.
So we pull in to this non descript building - at the back and we get off. We get led into a room where we get drink coupons then we go inside a main room which is a strip club with the red lights and the seedy smell. I guess one thing universal is the strip club. No matter where you go, strip clubs are set up exactly alike. You could have told me that I was in Fairbanks and I wouldn't doubt it. Sadly, I felt somewhat at home.
So the place was jammed with tourists - in fact, it was tourists from all shapes and form. You had the most random mix of people there: scores of Korean guys with their girlfriends, mainland guys, british guys, Aussies, Indian guys and their grandmother! , a group of six british grandmothers, a father and his daughter...total randomness. It's amazing how a sex show can bring so many people together....
On with the show
So finally, the show starts and these girls get on stage and start doing the things you hear about but never believe:
here are some examples:
1) Opening a bottle in a creative manner with one's tiger
2) Inserting ping pong balls into one's tiger then dropping them back into a cup
3) Pulling razor blades out one's tiger (like 20 blades attached with string)
4) Blowing out your birthday cake in a creative manner
5) Shooting out balloons with darts in a creative manner
6) Pulling random stuff out of one's tiger
And the worst act goes to...when this guy who looked like he didn't enjoy his day job came out and basically had sex with a fat stripper in front of us. Nothing special. Just going through the motions. He looked like an 80's pornstar and he hated his life. I called him "Street Meat'. Oh well, everyone's got a hustle.
Bad Association
I didn't mind the sexy show but one thing tha totally messed me up was the music they played as the strippers did their thing : they'd play the most screwed up songs - like love songs from the 80's. One time, when this girl was doing something illegal to another girl, they were playing a song with the chorus "I've been to Paradise, but I've never been to Nice".
WTF
As well, from now on, I will always remember that nice girl opening that soda pop bottle with her tiger everytime they play "Get Low" by Flo Rider.
Finally, when one girl proceeded to pull out meters and meters of string out her special part, they played "Gimme More" by Britney, which I felt was kind of appropriate.
After that, we were all sexy showed out and so we went to sleep.
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| Alright, so originally, I had planned on keeping the memories of my trip to Singapore via photographs but I seem to be taking ass-quality photos during this entire trip so I figured that I better write something instead to back it up. Let me give you a rundown of my trip so far:
My adventure started at Pearson Int'l at 9:30 am. I've previously expressed my intense hatred for the airplane but given the alternatives (being on a boat and risking scurvy and homosexual pirates) I have no clue but to take a plane. In this case, flying to Asia took a good...14 hours.
WTF
Yeah, 14 hours and that's only to Hong Kong.
Well, the flight wasn't that bad given that Air Canada has found ways to keep their passengers busy (in addition to being rude to us) Now, everyone has a tv in front of them - I must have watched four movies just to pass the time (I slept the other half). Finally, after a long long long trek, I only got to Hong Kong.
Having a short three hour stop at Hong Kong, I decided to make the best out of the situation in the airport by visiting the two mandatory places every tourist must go in HK: Giordano and Cafe de Coral - The two bastions of HK greatness. So I bought a shirt in Giordano and I bought food from Cafe de Coral. I would like to say that the good people at Cafe de Coral work like ROBOTS. They are the epitome of perfect operations as they can easily blow by a line of 30 people with crazy efficiency. What's even crazier is that the cashiers can switch three languages at the same time: mandarin, cantonese and english. Nuts. Try that with our McDonald's staff.
So after waiting it out for a while in HK, I finally put on my blue suede shoes and boarded a plane to Sinagpore.
I got to Singapore at like 9 pm on a friday night and my brother was there to meet me. The first thing we did was hop on a cab to take me to my residence. We had to queue for a cab. Oh yeah, if there's one thing you do in Singapore, you queue for everything. Coming in second to shopping, Queuing is the national sport of Singapore. Remember, if the system breaks down, we break down.
Since my brother is doing his exchange in Nanyang Technology University, he scored me a student dorm for the ridiculous rate of $28 Cdn per night. I'm essentially a student, but not really a student. To make things even better, they gave me a room for the "Dorm Counsellor" - which has two floors and its own airconditioner.
Gangster.
Here's a pic of that:
So after unpacking, we headed over to the local mall to eat some food. In Singapore, eating is good and cheap.
 
Food In Singapore
Food is ridiculously cheap.
Breakfast will set you back abou $2 cdn.
We went to Clarke's Quay, which is a big tourist spot and we had lunch by the river for about $15 cdn per person. One thing about the food is that its portioned just right - which means its not a lot. Then again, this is probably healthier than the US, which gives you as much food as possible hence making you fat. For me however, I wasn't used to this small sized portions which meant I found myself eating 8 times a day.
Breakfast, post breakfast. Lunch, post lunch. Afternoon snack, Pre dinner, dinner, late snack.
So after a while, I got this theme of eating in my head. I got so into it that I decided to eat parts of Singapore:
The Weather In Singapore
It is friggin hot in this place. Hot and humid - I have not stopped sweating since I got here but then again, my skin is great now. Earlier, I wore a jersey to walk around then I realized that no one wears basketball jerseys here for some reason. Fearing it was illegal, I stopped.
No.
So this is Southeast Asia for you - which is why everyone here is scrawny and tanned. Speaking of the people...lets talk about GIRLS!
Girls in Singapore
You have to understand that I live in the boonies of Singapore - I'm literally at the end of a subway line and then I have to take a bus to campus which is the equivalent of York University being at Keele and Steeles. So I'm dealing with the locals here. Initially, I had the misconcption that the talent in Sing is seriuosly lacking but after going to more touristy and business centre areas, i realized that I was just at a bad place. I guess the girls in Singapore are a lot like HK - a lot of 6/7s once in a while, you get an 8. No 9s or 10s. What does help though is that since its really hot here, all the girls wear really short shorts and since they're all in shape, they like to show off the legs which i have no problem with.
As for clubbing, the second night out, we went to the tourist area for clubbing - typical of Asia, the venues pretty much consist of white guys hitting on Asian girls or vice versa. That was kind of a turn off. What was good though was that all the clubs were located in one area and there was no cover so we could club hop a lot. Finally, at 4 am, we went for some street stall snacks which was bad ass.
Tonight, we're going clubbing where the locals go - ill tell you how that goes.
Friends are Hard to Find
So, I was looking forward to making some friends in Singapore since I'm a lonely tourist. Its kinda hard to make conversation with people here for the following reasons:
1) People are always on the go somewhere
2) Its kinda random to talk to people on the bus
3) I can't understand their Singlish
Singlish is the language they speak here, which is a mix of Malay, Hokkien and English. For example, they like to say the word "Sabo" (which means Sabotage). I don't really know how many times you can incorporate the word into everyday sentences but let's give it a try:
Me: Whoa, that girl is looking my way!
Singlish guy: Watch out, I think that guy is trying to sabo you!
Me: What's that song by the Beastie Boys?
Singlish guy: Sabo?
I did make friends with the most unlikely person though last night:
A young Bangladeshi shipyard worker
I was on the subway going back to my residence in oblivion so I was sitting on the subway reading this singlish dictionary book I picked up from the museum. Well, this young guy sits down beside me and starts reading with me- like literally he turned his head and was reading my book. I looked at him and smiled, because I'm a friendly guy. He asked me if I was Singaporean and I said no, I was from Canada. Pretty much we started chatting and it turns out that this guy works at the shipyards everyday from 8 am to 5 pm doing manual labor. He got paid 16 Sing/day (1 Sing = .75 Cdn) and he was saving up his money to go to business school. He was telling me how hard he has to work and the foreman always catches him sleeping and stuff. I felt bad that while I was talking to him, I had $100 Cdn worth of G2000 shirts I just bought earlier and this guy is saving money left right and centre to go to school. Oh well.
Finally, here are some random pictures of my trip so far:
  
From Left to Right : Big friggin Sea Turtle at Underwater World (Santosa Island). The Lion spitting at me (that should be a fine). Me sitting on a throne they used in Thai villages to declare the fertility of the woman= fertile woman = fertile soil (Asian Museum of Civilization)
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| So i don't know if i told you guys but I'm in a phase right now where I've regressed back to my past and pick on people younger than me ie: I hit on younger girls. How young? like 21...You know what they say about Undergrads: the older i get, they stay the same.
I've told you my reasons before as to why I don't want to play with girls my age. One thing I can't get over talking to these young girls though is how their brain works. Its been so long since I was 21 that I've forgotten how my mind works - I don't know whether to play the mature card or the immature card. Do i play the immature card because that's what they want? Or do i play the mature card because that's what all the 21 yr old boys aren't?
You know how Chinese people go nuts when they see a white person speak chinese (because we all think white people are incapable of speaking any other language other than english)? I go nuts when a 21 yr old girl says anything mildly witty to me. I'm like "Holy shit! Where did you come from? You actually formed a complete sentence!" Then i think they're "mature" for their age.
Look at her go!
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| I ran into my friend the other day and had a conversation with him about relationships. He had just recently broken up with his girlfriend of three years. So I asked him how he was holding up - he told me that they were still deeply involved in each other's life: they still talk to each other, go out for dinner and so forth. This raised a lot of red flags and I told him to cut her off and drop her like a bad habit.
Then again, i started thinking that I did the same thing when I broke up with my ex. I guess its a feeling of familiarity. It's like when HK got handed back to China, you need to transition: like slowly change your rules and rename yourself after a respiratory illness. I guess it was easy for me to tell him what to do since I'm not the one in the relationship. To me, I broke it down to him in a simple way:
"If you're no longer a member of a fitness club, you are no longer allowed to use the equipment"
The second you decided to stop paying fees and go somewhere else, you are not entitled to the same benefits of other paying members. Which means: no phone calls, no dinner and no free towels. Of course, you can enquire about rejoining the club, but that's how far it goes.
Also, I think its funny how everytime people break up, they make solemn pacts to "stay friends forever" which is never the case - you don't want to hang around someone that reminds you of your personal failure. It's like Chris Webber hanging around a bunch of people that always made the "timeout" gesture. If i were Chris Webber, I would never call timeout again in my life. I'd wait for an official's time out all the time.
I'll write more about this stuff after I finish some work.
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| Now that school's wrapping up - I've been concentrating on more important things like: who should I date? If they say that the "idle mind is the devil's playground" then my mind would be the equivalent to Satan's Wonderland. Keeping with the theme of universally evil...I'd like to tell you about a girl I'm talking to.
She's 19.
Uhhhhh. teenager.
She was born in 1988 - the year I immigrated.
Pretty much, when I was sitting on a plane in my immigrant clothes, her umbilical cord was cut.
For the record, I don't go out of my way to talk to teenagers - I saw her in school. She could have easily been 21-22. I talked to her because I thought she was cute. With asian girls, its always hard to tell as well.
Pretty much, I got her on facebook - did the msn thing. I found out that we shared common interests like basketball and 90's hip hop and r n b. How can you NOT love a girl like that?
Alas, what was accepted perhaps in Victorian times is no longer accepted now. I feel like a deviant telling people. I wanted to take her to a club the other day when I realized that the club was 21+. Uh.
Little things like that.
What killed it...
three things made me realize how bad this was:
1) I couldn't even recall thinking what I was up to when I was 19. Then i realized that my cousin right now is 19. I still treat him like a baby.
2) I picked her up one time from rez and I drove her home. The entire time, she was holding a gold fish she bought at the mall and was telling me how concerned she was that her mom would get mad. Oh my god.
3) When I saw her, she was in the stage of heavy make up and her perfume smelled like bubble gum. that's when I realized that I had limits.
Goddamn you porn for screwing with my mind! The girls you claim to display on your videos AREN'T really 19!!
Psychoanalysis
Since I like to perform psychoanalysis of myself, I started thinking deeply as to why I was open to pursuing girls that never got to watch the original "Transformers". Here are some of my theories:
1) Regression - Referring to several psychologists, I think I've always held the past as an idealized time in my life. As a result, I constantly try to recreate or replay my past. Better yet, i think that I had several regrets in my past and this is my attempt to fix them. For example, during my teenage days, I never got to go out with the asian girl who wore heavy make up and wore all black (which was the uniform of the day). Perhaps, this is my way of trying to wrong the past (like those people who go on Jenny Jones to yell at their highschool bullies)
2) Holding on for dear life - Since I went back to school, I've always felt like time stopped for me in terms of "growing up" - like i was absolved of all responsibilities and maturity (hence my tendency to party every weekend which I never got to do in my undergrad). Seeing how I'm almost graduating now, I find this as my "last hurrah" to go and do unacceptable things in the real world (like messing with 19 yr olds)
3) Nothing for you - As well, since I'm a broke ass student, I feel I have nothing to offer girls my age (aside from unbelievably good fellatio). Girls my age now have careers and look for guys who have careers. I'm back to square one. At this point, the smart thing to do is look for girls in other age brackets who want you for "who you are" ie. 19 year old girls.
4) I hate girls my age - as Eddie Murphy says: "What have you done for me lately?"
Pick your poison
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