Konnichiwa!

Greetings from the Land Where You Can Never Be Over Dressed.

Or no matter how over-dressed you think you are, you can never be more dolled up than the majority of its metropolitan population.

In Kyoto to be exact and I[m going to go for some Suki Yaki buffet with lots of beef later. And just last night, I went chasing Geishas around the Gion district just to get some photos with those super exotic beings.

Anyway, I cant write too much not only because the keyboards are in Hiragana and Katagana with millions of othe tiny Jap character, but also because I{m limited to 10min per usage, and the loading time for this shared computer alone takes half a day...

See Ya Suckers! I'm going to Japan

Been so sick that I couldn't even spell SICK.

Fever ran up to 40 degrees Celsius, yet I was almost frozen to death in sunny singapore, to the point that my nails turned blue.

But I'm glad the fever has somwhat subsided because tmr I'll be jetting off to Tokyo then to Hakodate, then to Toya, then to Hakodate, then to Kyoto, then to Osaka. And I'll only be back on the 19th May.

I'm dying to visit the Hachiman-gu in Kamakura, or rather the dick temple (yes Dida, a coincidence), but it's kinda out of the way. Besides, I'm not exactly planning on getting myself pregnant (with a boy or not) anytime soon.
I'd love to visit the Lavender fields in Furano, Hokkaido, but I heard it isn't exactly the season yet.
But I sure hope that I'd be able to catch the last glimpse of Sakura in Hokkaido, before they shrivel up for the rest of the year.

Was thinking of blogging along the way, but then because I'd be staying in shared accomodations with a bunch of strangers, so I'm not sure if bringing my Winnie the Pooh Lenovo is the safest thing to do. Plus I'm not sure if I'd be too dizzy from the excitement of the day that I'll be too exhausted to blog.

Maybe I will...But I haven't packed AT ALL!! My jeans is still in the laundry, my Victoria's Secret Tote bag isn't even here yet, and I can't decide if I want to bring my beige platform sandals, white heels or Victoria's Secret Flip flops, and will my toes freeze itself dry if I were to wear a pair of pretty open toed-shoe in a 19 degree Celsius environment. Yet I'd look ridiculous if I were to bring my suede boots and woollen jackets there.

Say hello to the fake Goldies

We were supposed to look like Golden statues on the runway, somewhat greek inspired.
But I thought we looked more like some cheesy auspicious-looking Asian and Pan-Asian characters created for Austin Powers.

This was the sight that greeted me when I first reached the event venue.:D:D:D

but OMG, they're only 19!!!
I.FEEL.LIKE.A.PAEDOPHILE.

I don't know what the boys were doing preening in front of the mirror in a half-naked state, but I guessed the robes weren't there when they started the body painting

And just as I was warming up to the idea of doing this show, they ushered me to a damn cold corner, wrapped me up in prickly golden garbs, and start the ritual of spraying cold, wet gold paint all over my body.

Even my hair wasn't spared.

Apparently, we were hired for some Malaysian Royalty's Birthday Event.
A very, very, very expensive birthday, I'd say

All 6 of us, hired in the capacity of models. Already not cheap
Throw in the cost of the body painters, the dressers, the event venue(St Regis being a super high-class hotel)
No expenses were spared on the expensive menu (I saw foie gras on some socialite's plate while I was strutting my stuff on the stage)
The "Gold" themed decor
The exclusive guest list with the A-list glittery socialites and well-known top plastic surgeons and media people in Singapore.
The celebrity hosts, and belgian game master, and a couple of international singers

Wah...I think I could probably buy a 3 room HDB flat in Singapore with all that money.

But for all it's opulence, the welfare for us models sucked. We were starved, frozen half to death, and then the 2-faced client tried to undermine and undepay us, by giving shitty excuses to make us stay later and claiming that we were late by 1.5 hours. That bitched faced woman from 1-Werkz Production attempted to milk us dry by making us stay 2 hours beyond the agreed time, by making us stay for the round of game with the socialites, in which we were required to hold up number cards above our heads when they score a point. Unfed at 11pm, you can bet the bunch of us could win the most sourly looking models award.

If she'd just use her big fat blain to think a bit, how on earth can we be late for 2whole hours, if we were already dressed and painted when she made her grand inspection 2 hours from reporting time. Holy as the king and Queen of Malaysia might be, gold flakes do not magically settle on our body and coat the 6 of us, in 1 second.

By 11pm, I felt so cheesed out that I half wished I didn't shave my armpits when I was raising up my cards just so that the unpruned national forest growing from under the pits will scare the shit out of the royalties.

And maybe some one should strip.
Protocol dictates that there should not be any indecent exposure towards the royalties, which will send them into a mad frenzy, and then they will have to go home to pray immediately, and maybe fast for a month.



*Location: St Regis Hotel

I am gonna party with a vengeance on Friday!

I am trying to detox my skin now: I have scrubbed it once with towel, twice with apricot scrub and now it's sitting under a 0.2cm thick layer of Queen Helene's Mint Julep Masque, detoxing.

I am in a bitchfit now.

They painted my face gold, and the yucky thing would prolly clog my pores, and then the event dragged wayyyyy past the agreed time (2 hours 24 min to be exact), and then I had to put a rain check on ALL my party plans. It's eve of public holiday and LADIES NIGHT tonight.

ROAR.

I am gonna party with a vengeance on friday! I so am.

Because the show today, I had to drop my party plans.

Bitch about the event in the next post when I get all my pictures from the gang.

Why princesses don't exist in Singapore

When I was just a little girl, my mother used to read Disney stories of princesses with beauty that could sink a thousand ships, and with gowns that were spun out of silk and gold. Even though they were lonely, all they had to do was to sing, and all the animals in the woods be summoned. Most of all they had a kind heart and they loved kids.

The little me would then go on to wonder why weren't there any princesses in Singapore...and I often wonder if I'll grow up to become one.

Well I did, at least last Sunday I did, and boy, I'd never want to be a princess again.



For starters, I was Belle from Beauty & The Beast. And apparently Cinderella is camera shy.
The princess gown that I was in is simply too bloody hot to be in. With it's billowing layers of long shiny fabric, it's more like a trigger for accident than anything else.

And lets face it, there's no such thing as "Natural Beauty".
The faerie god mother who is supposed to bless you with "Beauty" during your one month celebration in exchange for some red eggs and a lousy butter sponge cake, couldn't be bothered with making a grand entrance just for a couple of eggs.

And it might have worked if you sang your whole life. But in Singapore, we grew up doing assessment books and the only time we could sing, was during music class, and they only taught you how to sing songs about building the community and loving teachers.

So unfortunately for us, princesses in Singapore needs to rely on makeup to look princessy.

But in this kind of heat, all make up will be reduced to streaks, and all attempts to smile will be turned in to squints. (see above picture).

So no princess for us.

But before the princesses make their grand exits, they blow kisses to everyone, and here's some from them to you... Enjoy while it lasts.



oops...looks like Belle is even too stingy to be giving out her kisses.

Man talk...

This is what a man who is into you, will tell you, when you ask him to rate a girl:

Me: Am I pretty?
Him: Of course you are, the prettiest in the world.

Me: So is A pretty? (Even though A not bad looking)
Him: Nope...

Me: Okie if A is not pretty, then B ley? B is pretty right? Hot too...(B is prettier than A)
Him: Hmm not really....

Me: Then C ley? I think C is damn pretty. And damn bloody hot. (C is drop-dead gorgeous)
Him: Okie okie only la...50% pretty only. Why do you always think those who are not so pretty pretty?

Me: HUH??? C is okay only? If C is okay only then why do men check her out all the time? How come C has soo many guys chasing her?
Him: Dunno, because they haven't seen you.

Me: *ROLLS EYES 360 degrees*

Me: Okie fine, so is Zoe Tay, Fann Wong and Zhang Ziyi pretty?
Him: Not really

Me: Sarah Michelle Gellar? (He's a buffy fan)
Him: Hmm not really

Me: Fine, Fiona Xie ley? (He has/or had a crush on Fiona Xie, so he can't say no)
Him: Okie only..50% only la....

Me: Wah...that means I'm prettier than Fiona Xie la? Then why am I not as famous? Why didn't OSIM ask me to model for that Slimming Belt thinggie?
Him: ......!!!


Okie so this is my conclusion...
When a man who is into you, tells you that another girl is

A) Not pretty -> he means to say she's not bad. Kind of attractive, but perhaps not his type that dominates his fancy dreams

B) Not really pretty -> he means to say that she is pretty, with a fuckability of say 7/10.

C) Okie, only 50% hot -> he means to say that he thinks she's damn hot. With a fuckability of at least 9/10. But because if he says so, he'll loose all chances with you, and the chances of him ever mating with that particular 9/10 babe is near to zero, he'll rather say that you are prettier.

Why do I say that?

Because before I ask him about girl A, B, and C, I asked him about GIRL Z.

Not GIRL Z is not particularly attractive in my opinion.

GIRL Z probably doesn't look as disturbing as this...


But more of a plain jane...Not the kind you will pick up at clubs, nor the type that you will take a second look on the street even if she wears a short shirt. But she's not likely to be left on the shelf, unless there's something fundamentally wrong with her character or her head.


But guess what the guy said?

Me: Eh do you think GIRL Z is pretty?
Him: Eeeeeeps!!! *Gags* *Vomit...vomit vomit!!!!* (Makes the vomiting sound from his throat...Pretends to faint) Eeeeeeps!!!

Code::XtremeApps::

Seeing that I am so darn free these days (my social activity calender is packed to my eyeballs, but my mother disregards them as frivolous pursuits), I was roped into the task force to "Plan the kid brother's holiday schedule".

So much for taking a garden break. Pffft!

The brother, by the way, is now in Primary 5. He prides himself on his martial arts display having seized several medals in some inter-school competition, mixes around with obnoxious kids from his school, and is perfectly comfortable sitting in the lower percentile of this class, grades wise.

Well, he's not too dumb for a kid, I think, considering the fact that he has an opinion about almost everything, and he can never seem to stop talking/singing/reciting dumb poems about poets basking moonlight, naked in the museum. And the only aim he has right now, other than to win another martial arts medal, is to play computer games. He can beat any Chatuchak shopper when he bargains with my mother to use the computer for games, for an hour and in exchange, he'll do an hour of homework, although he pretty much never keeps to his side of the promise. Plus he has this inexplicable fascination for Google Earth, which he installed, which then miraculously displaced my MSN from the iMAC at home. I do not know why.

So being the very concerned sister that I am, I wanted to plan something for him that is enriching, but not too cheesily boring; something that will excite him, that has nothing to do with martial arts because trust me, he'll have plenty of those during his vacation. Then I came across this programme that I thought was pretty cool and I thought of sharing it with all the teachers who actually reads my blog.

***And also for another reason which I will reveal later on in the entry :D:D

Due to last year's overwhelming response for a 24-hour programming competition called Code::XtremeApps::, The Information Technology Standards Committee (ITSC) is bringing the activity back this year.

What really excites me is the introduction of a new Junior Category this year, to invite children 12 years and below (MY BROTHER!!!!) to complete a task creatively, based on a given theme using this girly-named 3D programming tool called ALICE, which makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the Web.

Gee, I never thought that I'd use the word "cool" on a programming anything, considering that when I crashed a programming lecture as a freshman in NUS, all I cared about was socializing and making snide remarks at the nearby group of nerdy PRC girls.

Okie, the cool part comes when this programme actually provides training for the kids over a period of 5 days (:D:D which means 1 week of planning down for me), to teach them how to grasp the fundamental programming concepts through the manipulation of objects in the virtual world of Alice (in somewhat of a 'drag n drop' way), thereby developing logical thinking skills useful in probelm solving, through the same set of skills that you acquire from writing a programming code.
Hey the brother might emerge being more sensible than the nonsensical self he is now. Following that, the kids are required to spend about a week or two, to create their own Alice program based on a given theme. (2 more weeks burnt on something meaningful :D:D)

And the coolest of the cool part, which was also the part that got the brother really hyped up about this entire holiday programme, is the prizes for winner groups of the Junior Category:

1st Prize: A Nintendo Wii or equivalent for each member of the group
2nd Prize: A Sony PSP bundle or equivalent for each member of the group
3rd Prize: A Nintendo DS Lite or equivalent for each member of the group.

And 10 cosolation prizes worth up to $100 for each team. (Although the brother was giving the "CHEYS!" when I got to the part about the consolation prizes).

And now, the reason why I'm bringing up this programme on my blog at the risk of sounding like a really cheesy programming saleman, is to invite all the very smart kids out there, who are under 12, with teachers/parents who read my blog, to partner my brother and beat the pants off other kiddy combos who have also set their sights on winning the Nintendo Wii.
Any kids who are under 12, be it from MOE primary schools, Singapore-based international, or are home-schooled, are welcome to form a group of 2 to 3, to sign up for this competition.

The schedule of the competition is as follows:

Team Registration
18th April 2008 - 16th May 2008;
registration forms are available for download from the ITSC website www.itsc.org.sg

Training Session on ALICE
26th May 2008 - 30th May 2008; at Nanyang Girls' High School

Deadline for submission of Team Entries
23rd June 2008

Judging Day
27th June 2008

Prize Presentation Ceremony
August 2008

My brother is not a very logical type of kid, but he's full of creativity and mad ideas, and perhaps someone somewhere can synergize with him to produce a remarkable piece of work. RIGHT? So any volunteers?

For more information, please visit http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?cid=8&id=10455. Thnk yiou.