Shinjuku

ermz.. ok.. back home from Tokyo now..

this is gonna be a boring posting.. i didnt do much in Tokyo to talk abt..

such a disappointment when i got back coz i found out that my niece is in Johore.. and i had been waiting the whole week to come back to see her... so now i have to make my way there within these few days..

the weather was horribly cold for the past few days in Tokyo.. on the first night that we arrived, it dropped to -2 degrees.. and had to bear with that weather coz we needed to go for dinner..

after dinner, 8 of us slacked in Sabrina, the Chief Stewardess' room.. playing Uno..

went back at abt 4am, and i managed to get an Internet connection by tapping into an unsecured wireless router, while watching a heavy snowfall outside.. itz nice, and beautiful.. as long as u are not out there suffering the cold..

woke up at abt 11am, to go out for lunch with the crew.. and we headed down to Shinjuku Station..

location info.. Shinjuku is like the downtown of Tokyo.. but unlike Downtown Los Angeles, this place is extremely safe..

had Unagi at a quite a reasonably priced place.. 620 Yen for a bowl of unagi with rice and miso soup.. abt 9 to 10 dollars..

and for those who still dunno.. Unagi is a river Eel.. itz really nice.. so for those who go eeeeeewww... try it.. u might like it..



Me, with Sabrina and Jasmine, at the Unagi stall in Shinjuku..

after lunch, me and Hashim split with the rest of the crew as they wanted to go down to Ueno, while we wanted to just hangout in town..



this is one of my fav alleys in Shinjuku.. got a lot of nice things to buy here..



Me, in the middle of Shinjuku..

walked around a lil bit.. and checked out the prices of musical instruments and i'm now in love with Roland electronic drumset..

true.. it doesnt sound as good as a conventional drumkit.. and doesnt have the resonance of wood shells.. and the cymbals are not as sensitive to effects as real metallic cymbals.. but therez so many options built in and u can tune it to different genre settings within seconds.. and with a headphone, u wont get cops coming down to ur house coz of noise pollution..

i had that before.. when my drumkit was installed in my room at my previous place.. had warnings from the cops several times before i finally stopped practicing at home..

after abt 45 mins of electronic drumming, and stares and unhappy glares from the sales staff, we headed to the 100 Yen shop..

met up with the rest of the crew there and we headed down to Mr Doughnut for coffee.. and doughnuts..

really.. the doughnuts are much better than anywhere else in the world.. so much better that the American police officers would wish that they are Japanese..

headed back to the hotel to slack around after that.. and at abt 10pm, went for dinner at the same beef bowl place with Hashim as i did the previous day..



the road outside the beef bowl stall.. look at the snow that melted at the side of the road..

i dunno why therez a fire engine there.. and a police car.. didnt bother to check out.. unlike Singaporeans, ppl here ignore such incidents..

most of the time, an expressway congestion will remain even after the vehicles involved had been moved to the side of the road.. coz we Singaporeans like to drive pass slowly and go.. waaaaaa.. jialattttt... sure got mati one..

after dinner, went back to the hotel, and chilled out in another Chief Stewardess', Anne, room.. with Milton, Zulkifly, Iris, Ivy and Sabrina..



Sunrise, view outside my room..

and now i'm home..

was chatting on the net just now when i got back with a girl who didnt realise that i am a cabin crew.. so, since she was going for an interview with Gulf Air as a crew, she was telling me all her perception of cabin crew, views from a lot of ppl that she claimed to know how the real cabin crew lifestyle is..

my advice, my dear friends.. if u wanna know abt cabin crew lifestyle, ask a cabin crew.. dont listen to rumours and exaggerated stories..

i just placed a counter here at the end of my blog.. for whatever reasons i dunno.. when i got back.. i was like.. wahh.. got ppl read my blog ah? 36 hits in 24 hours? then how come no one tag ah? just lin-passerby je.. thanx lin-passerby.. u are now my true friend.. all the rest just claimed to be..

36 hits je dah nak kecoh.. itz 36 times refreshed.. but considering my initial thoughts of abt 5 per day from my close friends, 36 is abt 7 times more mah..

or maybe my 5 friends each refreshed my blog 7 times..

Pirates will be having our 2nd Annual Picnic.. yey..

on Saturday, at East Coast..

No skanking allowed.

The Road To Hollywood

Welcome to Hollywood.. where dreams come true.. everybody has dreams.. what's yours?

for those who had watched Pretty Woman, u should know where that line comes from..

anyway.. i'm in Los Angeles now.. came in from Narita several days ago..

didnt do much in Narita coz i had only a day to spend there.. so i slept thru, especially coz i was sick the night before and couldnt have much rest.. so i was in my bed the entire night, reading my book (currently, Deception Point - Dan Brown), and just resting..

the weather in Narita is getting better too.. abt 8 degrees now.. they had a severe snowstorm a couple of weeks back where flights were delayed, some for 10 to 12 hours..

location info..

for those who doesnt know.. Narita is the closest city with an airport to Tokyo, in a Prefecture, or District, called Shiba.. so when u need to fly to Tokyo, u actually land in Narita instead..

perfect weather for the past few days here in Los Angeles.. really fantastic.. abt 15 to 18 degrees with sunny skies..



there's a lot of beautiful cars here in Hollywood.. Mustangs and Ferraris and Hummers..

this is a 2005 Ford Mustang, 4.5L with a V6 engine.. parked in front of the hotel..

had breakfast with the crew here at the hotel.. anyway, most of the American hotels will give u free breakfast with ur stay.. Bed & Breakfast.. even the smallest of hotels..

after breakfast, we slacked around at the crew lounge before we head down to Hollywood at abt noon..



The Road To Hollywood.. with some shadows in between..

and here's an introduction to locations again.. Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles.. doesnt mean that if u are in Hollywood, u see film crew and stars all around.. ppl live and work and school in Hollywood.. itz just like going to Tampines or Jurong.. the filming of movies are normally done in the studios which is located inside the Hollywood district.. and hundreds of movie stars live around here.. so yeah.. itz like the classy part of town..

I love the United States.. had always loved it.. the freedom, the independence, and the casual ways of the Americans..

just that therez too many homeless, beggars, robbers, killers and rapists.. and somehow.. u get the sense that these ppl lurks at every street corners..

and they do..

and i have something to say abt it at the end of this blog..

ok.. so.. at noon, left the hotel with Jasmine, Jolene and Angeline to head down to Hollywood.. took a train down to Hollywood/Highlands and Angie got freaked out by a guy pestering her for some change.. i didnt notice it though coz i was facing the other way talking to Jasmine thru the journey and Jolene fell asleep..

we walked a lil around Kodak Theatre and sat down for coffee after checking out some of the stores there..



the Kodak Theatre.. itz a nice place to hangout and shop and have a cup of coffee here..



the Hollywood sign...

therez a pub and comedy club at the Kodak Theatre.. called Wayan Brother's comedy club..

no prize for guessing who'll be there performing..

after coffee, met up with my Leading Steward, Hashim, who just got back from his sister's place, abt 2 hours away from Downtown Los Angeles.. so the five of us walked along Hollywood a lil bit to look at the Walk Of Fame, and at the Gruman's Chinese Theatre..

ok.. for those who remember the song Stole by Kelly Rowland.. there's a part that says Mann's Chinese Theatre show.. thatz the place.. itz where some of the stars are invited to put their palm or footprints with their signatures..



Mann's Chinese Theatre from across the street..



Nicolas Cage prints..



Eddie Murphy..



and Star Wars.. R2D2, C3P0 and Darth Vader..

and this was done in 1997.. way before the prequels.. the ORIGINAL Star Wars..


Mickey Mouse star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame..



and the long forgotten Harlem Globetrotters..

had a baby beef ribs lunch at a restaurant along Hollywood Boulevard, and the initial plan was to go down to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive after the meal, but coz we didnt have much time left and we would have to change buses along the way, we decided to skip that and take an easier route to Universal City, which is just one train station away..

and locations again.. Beverly Hills is a place where a lot of stars live in.. and there are some nice boutiques and malls there.. and Rodeo Drive is where u get all the high class shopping done..

other places to do stargazing would be at Bel-Air or Melrose.. there are tours that can bring u to Homes of the Stars if u wish to.. abt 50 stars i think.. including Britney Spears and all..

so, considering itz quite late, we didnt actually plan to enter the Universal Studios.. coz it was abt 5pm then, and so we decided to walk around the Universal Citywalk.. where u can sit down for drinks, or a lot of other cafes and pubs, or shop around at the boutiques there..



entrance to the road leading to Universal City..



Bad boys bad boys.. whacha gonna do when they come for you?

Martin Lawrence Gallery..



Me at the Universal Studios globe..



Hard Rock Cafe.. i took this pic coz of the cute girl thatz was walking pass us.. therez quiet an overpopulation of cute girls in Los Angeles.. but nothing that could compare to our Asian chics.. and most Americans are three times the size of the normal Us. lot's of those ppl too here in Los Angeles.. must be all the hamburgers in the diet..



a 3D hulk at the cinema entrance..



me and Hashim..

ok.. left Universal City at abt 7.30pm, and headed back to the hotel at Downtown Los Angeles..

on the way back.. in the train... the girls were asleep on the seats after a tiring day.. and me and Hashim were seated across the aisle.. there were these two stoned punks who came in and started looking at ppl in the train cabin.. one moved away to the next cabin, and the other sat down across from the girls.. observing them and their stuffs while they were asleep.. it was too obvious that he was planning to do somethings, so i stood up and woke the girls up and started to talk to the girls in Malay, with whatever that they could understand to tell them to start protecting their stuffs from being snatched.. and Hashim talked to them across the aisle, just to make him realise that if he would have attempted anything, we could overpower him and i think the two of us would probably beat the daylight out of him..

we alighted at Pershing Square, which is our stop near to the hotel, and the idiot followed us.. but we had to move to the other exit to avoid an ugly confrontation, which was a mistake.. coz we ended up alighting at the exit facing Toy District..

another location info.. Toy District is a place in Downtown Los Angeles where therez an overpopulation of homeless ppl.. and we would have to pass through a rough Mexican neighbourhood to get back.. and with all that criterias, chances of anyone of us surviving a night there without gunshot wounds are quite slim.. so we headed back to the train station and walked towards the other exit and back to the hotel..

and to think of it.. this guy, in his early 20s, though stoned, looked quite proper.. and i think if he sober up and have a holiday in Singapore, a lot of our girls here would go goo-goo-gaga over him.. ang moh mah..

but back in his own hometown.. heh.. good luck to my SPG friends..

and here i am.. woke up just to blog this up before i forget what happened coz i wont be getting an internet connection tmrw as i'll be leaving for Tokyo in an hour from now..

i still love Los Angeles.. one of my favourite places in the world.. just stay away from ghettos and if u wanna live here.. get a car..

Welcome to Hollywood.. make your dreams come true.. What's YOUR dream?

Where's My Snare?

where's my snare? i can't hear my snare..

ok.. i lost my snare.. dammit.. after the gig..

after the Substation gig, Umi lost her Trumpet.

after the Fort Canning Gig, Yazid lost his Guitar.

now.. i had just lost my snare.. but it gives me a good reason now to buy a new one though..

SKAFEST 06 - Planet Paradigm.

yey... the finality of it.. we had been waiting for this gig since we gave our confirmation.. for reasons that i will mention later..

anyway.. we were not prepared for the gig at all coz of time clashes.. Hamdy is in camp most of the time and he had been busy in his jungle training, and me with my flights.. and itz almost impossible to get a time to practice..

we were supposed to play some new songs at this gig.. but we didnt get to practice any till the day of the gig itself.. and had an hour of jamming session which ended up having us scrapping the new songs..

Hamdy came straight from camp.. with 2 hours of sleep within the past few days?

i didnt drive today though..

arrived at the gig at abt 5pm..

something happened on the way to Planet Paradigm though.. after Meand Iqa went over to Chong Pang for me to withdraw some cash at the nearest ATM machine.. while waiting for a cab, a woman of abt 40+ or 50 approached us and asked whether were we waiting for a taxi..

ME: yeah.. but ermz.. itz ok if u want to go ahead coz i had already called a cab..

so she had a small talk with us, asking where we were going and all..

so when the cab arrived and we wanted to board, she went straight to the door, just like as if she's among us... heh..

so i was like .... err... suddenly she's my Newfound Friend? she didnt seem to have dressed up for a gig though..

Me: sorry? i thought u were waiting for a taxi..

Auntie: yes.. where are u going?

Me: i'm going to Orchard..

Auntie: ok.. i go wherever u go then i go on my way from there..

ermz.. ok..

i dont really mind her lar.. but...

she said it in a straight face.. no paiseyness no nothing..

some ppl can just be so thick...

i dont think i can bring myself to do that.. obviously, she had planned to freeload all along.. and judging from how she reacted, i think she do that all the time..

hmm.. thatz not really a bad thing u know.. if u wanna go somewhere.. just look around for ppl taking taxis and if it cuts ur journey by half, go ahead and freeload.. then u can hitch another ride with another person, and so on, till u get to ur destination.. in comfort, fast and free..

just have to be thick.. thatz all..

Singapore, in fact, is a safe country.. u wont end up being dead and cut up into small pieces and being placed in a sports bag and dumped in Orchard Road anyway..

Anyway.. we (the band, not including of the Freeloading Woman) slacked outside Paradigm while waiting for everyone to arrive.. especially Shida coz she finish work at 5.. met Sheqeen and Farah..



Me and Shida the Manicurist outside Paradigm..


DoS was playing when we entered.. and they really had gotten so much better after the Toa Payoh gig.. and followed by Sally's.. which is a good band marred by fucked up sound system.. the Vox had problems with the mike and in the middle of a song, the keyboard sounds fluctuated.. what the fuck.. the soundman should be shot xia.. it went up so high that it got irritating then he brought it down and up again..

gosh..

and sadly.. just a few hours ago, i found out that Sally's Rejex is disbanding.. which is a really bad news coz the band had became really tight in the way they played.. so itz the end of another good band..

Pirates will be approaching itz 2nd yr in july.. yey...

so we are officially an 18 months old band.. heh..




Din and Shida with.. AJID SACHOK!!!!!!

yey.. now i know how to place the word SACHOK.

we played right after Sally's.. and after some chants and swearing from the skinheads, we started playing..



now.. THAT'S FUNNY..



Shida the Manicurist and Umi the Feminine Girl.



have you heard? have you heard?
have you heard the latest news?



that Rudy skipped his wedding for a gig..



Private Hamdy with his rifle.



Pirate Queen and Pirate Horny..



Me



ah.. our very own dancers..



Adam Skank King..

it was an ok set.. considering that we made a lot of mistakes but not noticed by many, or not commented by those who wanted to be polite abt it..

ok ok.. *I* made those mistakes..

Din looked so blur thru the set..

we ended up playing songs that we didnt plan to play..

and not playing those that we wanted to play..

what happened xia..

lol..

doesnt matter.. i had fun anyway..

we dedicated a song to Beep and Usman..

but actually.. Usman's song was supposed to be different.. just that we ended up not playing that song, so we couldnt dedicate it to him.. so we did while we played a song for Beep..

these two guys had been with us thru thick and thin.. really did.. from the beginning of the Pirates..

and with all our hearts, we thank you..

saw Timon skinhead, and his gf, Mas the Mohawk Girl.. heh.. saw Huda, Farhana, and Aishy and Ana, my butch friend..

after our set, watched Comic Strip (and i still blame them for me having the Grease song stuck to my head thru the whole day while i work) then went off and had dinner at Long John's Silver (where pirates eat?? wahahahha..), and that pissed Umi and Fiza coz they were at the gig when we left for our makan..

that REALLY pissed Umi off..

ermz.. sorry Umi..

kau tetap dihatiku.. tiap detik dan waktu..

heh..

ok.. anyway.. went back to the gig to watch Full Pledge Munkees and Peas and Oats..

so.. now.. therez another cabin crew in the Ska scene.. heh.. introducing.. Bee the Singing Stewardess from Peas and Oats..

not bad ah her voice.. so now i can tell those ppl at SIA Performing Arts abt her..

we left at abt 11pm.. took a cab, and back to my house..

thatz it for the SkaFest..

ok.. now.. the reason why we were waiting for the gig is coz..

this is gonna be our last gig.

we have to take a break coz we dont have time to go picnic.

itz just for the next few months, that is.. we'll be back with a revamped Mistaken Pirates.. same lineup, same Ska sounds.. and still 2nd Wave..

just with that lil bit of difference..

so.. no more gigs for now..

now.. where's my snare?

Sheeps, Cows and Kiwis..

ok.. i saw none of them..

but i just came back from the land of the Kiwis.. and where the population of sheeps exceeded 30 million..

Auckland, New Zealand..

itz really a nice place.. but i think Singaporeans will have a problem adjusting to the life here..

itz seems to be much more deserted than Australia.. even Perth, which i consider to be boring to the max..

i spent most of the two days in Auckland sleeping.

went out in the evening with my Leading Stewardess, Azarina, and two other crew, Ruiying and Rachel..

had dinner at the food court instead of joining the rest of the crew for their Chinese New Year dinner.. coz firstly.. Rina wanted to eat halal food.. and secondly.. therez no point going and spend a lot of money on some stuffs that u dont really enjoy..



the makan stall which i had my dinner for 2 days in a row.. there are a few other halal stalls here at this food court..

i can get cheaper and nicer Chinese food at other places.. not that this one was bad.. but it doesnt justify my taste..

had coffee at Starbucks with Rina for a while and thatz it.. went back afterwards and slept.

went out the next evening, just with Rina, and had dinner at the same place.. and this time, we decided to walked a lil bit more..

but itz like 7pm here and EVERYWHERE IS CLOSED.

so we just walked around..



at the junction of Wolfe Street and Customs Street..



Junction of Customs Street and Queens Street.. which is one of the main shopping street here..

but not at 7pm.

look at the Sky Tower in the background, covered by the cloud..



Burger King is called Burger King. not Hungry Jacks here..

and look at the mesh crossing.. the one where u can walk diagonally across the junction like at Lau Pa Sat.. itz everywhere here..

after walking around, we sat down at Starbucks again..

therea a public toilet right in front of Starbucks..



outside, on the streets... out of nowhere..

and this was taken at 9pm. see how bright it is in summer?

so we headed down to the supermarket, Foodtown, which opens 24 hours, and went back to the hotel after that.



thatz the Sky Tower taken at night.

thatz it.

nothing much abt Auckland.. i had driven across Christchurch, which is another part of New Zealand.. and walked around Auckland city centre before.. so this is just one of those trips where i just need to slack..

if u love nature, come down to NZ.

u can drive for hours and hours and hours and see beautiful landscapes.. and therez a lot of things that u can do here too..

farmstays, white water rafting, bungee jumping, paragliding, parachuting..

one of my passengers mentioned that he spent NZ$67 to do parachuting!

now.. if thatz not cheap, i dont know what is..

so.. NZ is really a nice nature place.. just that u have to have a lot of time here in order to do stuffs..

and the ppl here are nice too.. i find them very polite and not rowdy.. unlike some other places in the region.. if u know what i mean..

got back yesterday.. in the evening.. and headed to my cousin's place to fetch Nafisa and my mom back.. and thatz it.. spent the entire time on MSN..

after sending my mom home, headed down to Esplanade to meet the Pirates.. they were watching a gig by a band, of which i found out later to be Indonesian, called Mocca..

it was a nice band.. but the music wasnt the kind that i like.. had dinner at the Makansutra place at Esplanade.. the one that i mentioned got sucky stingray and fucked up rude Ah Beng selling the stingray..



i tried to take a pic of him, but couldnt, so i got a snap of the stall.. so if u guys decide to makan there, think twice..

we had mee goreng and mutton chop.. which wasnt nice at all.. and the bill was?

TEN FREAKING DOLLARS.

Mee Goreng cost $4
Mutton Chop cost $6

i seriously didnt wanna blog abt this initially coz the ppl were nice, but the price and amount of food didnt tally.. and to top it all off, it sucks..

so, Makansutra is only for the tourists..

slacked with Din, Nas and her sister, Suaidah, and her two friends.. Umi came and left.. and Nas left soon after..

we chilled with Yazid then, with his 3 friends on the other side of the stage.. and basically thatz it.. went home afterwards.

and.. tmrw is SkaFest 06.

lots of new ska bands playing.. not much of the heavyweights..

which is interesting to see..

i love the idea of new ska bands around.. it keeps the scene alive.. but at least therez bands like Comic Strip, Cesspit, Sally's, Full Pledged Munkees, and Peas And Oats to balance things up..

if itz all newbies then tak mulia kan..

we'll be jamming at 1pm first.. coz we want to try out some new songs tmrw.. Nas won be able to make it coz she has to attend to some stuffs, and Shida is working till 5.

our slot is set at 7.20pm, which sounds much better than the other timeslot that we were given initially.. at 3pm..

so it was either it was changed or we would back out from the gig. we wont be able to play anyway without Shida.

and so the timeslot was changed. yey.

Mistaken Pirates is not a band. Itz a family.

Tuk Tuk

ah... i'm not in the mood to whine..

maybe the world had just gone perfect and everyone in it are perfect so therez nothing to complain abt..

so itz just backtracking time..

i came back from Bombay on Friday.. again.. India.. as how it is as i had mentioned in my previous posting about Amritsar..

dont get me wrong btw.. i love India as i love all the other countries that i had been to.. but itz definitely not for the faint hearted..

i'm an Indian anyway.. for those who doesnt know yet.. i'm a Pakistani.. dad's Paki, and my mom's Indian..

and for those whoz confused why i sometimes say i'm Paki, sometimes i say that i'm an Indian..

Pakistanis are classified as Indians. therez no actual Pakistani race, coz Pakistan used to be a state of India.. just that since the breakaway, Pakistanis worldwide had tried to set up a separate entity to call ourselves Pakistanis.

anyway, India is a country full of culture and history.. and therez like what? 3000 dialect groups?

and before u start getting some ideas and start getting stereotypical... i was reminded on my trip to Amritsar and the conversation i had with my travel guide..

he's a student.. doing his Masters.. and in his free time, he becomes a part time tour guide.. and for the fact that he said that he will never wanna live anywhere else except for India tells that itz not a bad place after all..

and my Indian colleagues.. they try to go back there as much as they can.. and those who quit flying, goes back to India to live..

i think it takes more than familiarity to love a certain place.. itz not that they wanna be there coz they are used to it..

if u spend 2000 yrz in hell and finally released coz u can then qualify to go to heaven.. would u remain coz of sentimental reasons? coz most of the ppl in hell are already ur friends for the past 2000 yrz?

i'm sure u'll pack ur suitcase in a snap and head down on the next train to the Pearly Gates..

but they do love India, no matter what the perceptions are from the rest of the world.. so it must be a good place to live in somehow..

anyway, arrived in Bombay in the morning on Thursday.. and i slept for a while and woke up at 3pm coz i wanted to go out shopping..

one of the many reasons why i love the company i'm working for.. they put us up in very very nice hotels..

so.. here's my room..



and the lobby from the floor i'm staying at..



but sad to say.. in India.. the rich are extremely rich.. and the poor.. are really really really heartbreakingly poor..

therez no way u can walk out on the streets without getting swarmed by beggar children..

maybe there are in the suburbs.. just that we dont go there.. but itz really sad looking at how bad the state of the children is..

all along the highway, u can see squatters and beggars.. along the street.. children playing in the dirt... i have a pic of it below..

and the contrast to the beautiful hotel.. is just outside my window..



taken from my room's window..

at abt 5, headed down with another crew, Lynette, to a place called Linking Road.. where therez a shopping mall called Shopper's Stop..



ok.. itz not a good pic coz i took it in a rush to avoid the kids from seeing my camera.. but here's a group of beggar children playing with dirt on the street..

and stupidly.. i forgot to switch off the flash.. and when the kids noticed that, they ran after us and started begging..

sad.. but itz never a good idea to entertain the beggars.. till u are ready to leave the place.. coz if u give money to one, a hundred will swarm u within 3 seconds..

we took a Tuk Tuk from the hotel, and when we arrived there.. we didnt have small change for the driver.. so he suggested that he'll come back to fetch us after we are done.. so the time was set to 2 hours later.. which would be 7.. so we thought.. ok lar.. better than having to take another Tuk Tuk and having to explain to some non English speaking driver, itz better for him to come back for us..



here's Mr Tuk Tuk Driver from the back..

the place is impressive.. i'd say that this mall is comparable to Paragon Shopping Centre.. i didnt take any pics of it coz my camera was left in my bag which was placed in some security pigeon hole outside, just like how it is in Mustafa Centre..



therez a food court with LOTS of good stalls, got Subway, got Nandos Chicken, and itz extremely extremely extremely clean.. much cleaner than most of our foodcourts anyway..

had a late lunch/early dinner at Pizza Hut.. and still.. i love the Cheese Garlic Bread.. nice nice..

walked around the mall after the meal, but didnt get anything coz itz mostly boutiques like Gucci and stuffs like that.. so we went back to the Tuk Tuk abt an hour earlier..

our friend, Mr Tuk Tuk Driver was still there having a conversation with some other drivers.. so we told him we wanted to go to the market street at Linking Rd.. to which he didnt understand.. and he brought us allllll the way down to the other side of town.. which apparently was closer to our hotel.. to a place called Irla Society Road..

when we arrived, the fare was like almost 500 rupees!

THATZ LIKE TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS!

dammit..

it was just 140 rupees when we arrived at Shopper's Stop.. so the idiot actually let the meter run and he didnt leave the place.. so we were supposed to pay him for the time he was there..

idiot.

paid up coz i didnt want to get into an argument.. i should have just tried hard to get a change and take a different Tuk Tuk to wherever that i wanted to go next rather than having him waiting for us outside..



anyway, Irla Society Road wasnt that big.. but good enough coz therez whatever that we wanted there..

first we stop at a stand-up roadside tea stall and had our masala tea.. therez like abt 8 ppl manning the stall though the only customers were the two of us.. therez the father, the son and the 2 daughters and their own children..

ermz.. they must have been bored staying at home so they all helped out standing outside the stall swatting away the flies..

anyway.. had a small talk with them.. the Father, was a very nice and friendly old man.. somewhere ard 60 yrz old.. he spoke to us in Tamil.. and translated by his son to English..

Indians would always know that i am an Indian. the Malays somehow think that i am a Malay.

i officially declare once and for all that i am an Indian. i am not a Malay and i paid full for my school fees.

but i dont speak Tamil. i speak Malay. heh..

so.. he recognised me immediately as being an Indian.. and said that i look like someone who would have come out of Assam.. which is a province in India.. which wasnt right anyway.. i'm a Pakistani gawddammit!

after we finished our tea, we went thru the stretch of street.. where there were shops at both sides of the road..

i managed to get a pair of Kurta for my mom.. a nice orange one.. and a typical tradionally Indian designed blouse for my sister in law.. which, when i got back, the Kurta fits Sis more than my mom so we decided that it should go to her instead and i could get another one for my mom next month..

walked around till abt 10pm, where Lynette got some of her own stuffs.. wanted to get something for Nafisa.. but it was too expensive.. a child's set of clothes would cost abt $80.. in which i think the price had been set like that coz we were tourists.. so i decided that itz cheaper for me to get her a pair in Serangoon..

took another Tuk Tuk back to the hotel and it cost us just 50 rupees..

damn u Mr Tuk Tuk Cheater..



and no.. this is not the culprit.. just another Tuk Tuk.. from the outside..

see.. a $20 ride on this beautifully decorated limousine..

thatz it abt Bombay..

had a jamming session with the band yesterday... yeyyyyy...

after so long...

damn..

i miss the band.. and i miss the drumkit.. and i miss the noise.. and i was getting paranoid abt having a gig and not having enough practice..

we jammed once or twice after the Sept Skafest at Fort Canning.. and once after the Toa Payoh gig.. which was yesterday.. and we have another gig this weekend..

but the session turned out to be alright.. just that we were playing the same songs over and over and over again..

so this Saturday will be another jamming session where we would be playing some other new songs.. just before the gig..

anyway.. we met up way before the jamming session..

my dear friends..

if i say that we are meeting up at 3, be there at 4..

Ika learnt that the hard way.. she came wayyyyyyy too early at the actual time.. 3pm.. while the rest of us arrived an hour later..

hang ard a lil bit before we headed down to the studio at LKS..

ok.. on IRC now.. and therez a girl named Ika.. and somehow she's called Fish..

so Nur Atiqah.. from now on.. u are Pirate Fish.

my nephew, Farhan, a 14 yr old Mod.. *snickers*.. came down for the jamming session with his Mod schoolmates.. since he is interested in drumming and somehow managed to practice properly and got into a proper 4/4 timing, i'll be guiding him to be a drummer..

and be cool..

just like the uncle..

*ahem*

oh.. i borrowed the *snicker* thingie from the Fish on irc now too..

thingie.. somehow that makes me sound like a dork..

anyway... did a Bangkok turnaround just now.. and went home to sleep afterwards.. met Alwi and chilled at Simpang Bedok for a while..

Sis left for Sydney yesterday.. so Nafisa is at my cousin's place abt 5 mins away.. she almost got bumped off from her flight coz it was full.. so after much tablebanging and unsatisfaction.. they upgraded her to Business Class..

wow..

Mom left for Jakarta this morning.. and will be back on Wed..

i'm heading down to Auckland tmrw..

that leaves my dad alone in Singapore..

New Zealand.. where the population of cows and sheeps are more than human..

baa..