Our Trip to Hong Kong

This is the story of seven friends told by the seven themselves.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

I don't know who's going to post about the 2nd day in Hong Kong, so i'm just going to talk about our 3rd day. Disneyland! Such a magical place, ain't it? Well, it all started out with the 300 Hong Kong dollars we had to spend to get in. (I forgot the actual price >< but it was close to 300) When we got in, I realised it was the exact replica of the Disneyland in Anaheim, California. However, the downside of this park was that it only had 4 areas. Unlike California which had 7. (If my memory serves me right) Anyway, they were Tomorrowland, Main Street U.S.A, Fantasyland and Adventureland.

----Tomorrowland----
I'm just going to explain what happened in here according to a couple of events.

Astro Blasters:

We rode it twice as a group. The aim was to score as many points as possible by aiming this toy laser gun at targets at random places, to score points. The more points you score, the higher your rank will be. It was indeed a fun ride.

1st: Nicholas (level 7 : Galatic Warrior)
2nd: Songyuan (level 5: Space Ace)

There is quite a story behind Songyuan's level. We were near the end of the ride where Songyuan yelled out "Aaron! Look at my score! Muahahaha!" Upon approaching the sign which told you which level represented what rank. He yelled out " I'm a Space Ace!" while raising his hands. It was hilarious.

---Space Mountain---
I've been on this ride many times as a kid. I really didn't like thriller rides after what happened when I was eight years old. I don't want to talk about it. I stayed outside with Lian Kai. We were waiting for them at the gift shop when all of a sudden, Nicholas came running out. I think he shit himself. I'm not sure though. That incident was a tad confusing to me. They would take your picture every time you came towards the end of the ride, to catch everyone's reaction. I still have like 5 of those pictures from different rides. Every single one with my eyes closed shut. Anyway, the photos were pretty funny, you can view them somewhere in this blog or Nicholas' blog i think.

---Fantasyland---
No rides for us. We just stopped by the Winnie the Pooh Gift Shop so a couple of people could buy some stuff. My friends also discovered the Penny Press machine. Where it would flatten a penny and print a Disney design on it. I didn't buy any, I had a ton of it from when I was a kid but I can't seem to find any when i got home.

---Adventureland---
We ate hotdogs. They were "Magical".

---Main Street U.S.A.---
We took many different photos here. We also watched the Disneyland Parade and the Fireworks. Indeed they were wonderful but you could also see how much pollution the fireworks caused. Before the fireworks, we had dinner at a nice restaurant. There was a side door which could be opened next to I was sitting. Foam which resembled snow started falling from the rooftops of the nearby buildings. I decided to go outside to take a look so I opened the door and went outside. About 7 waiters/waiteresses started walking to our table and told me that the door was not to be opened. What a load of fucking bullshit. A door is built to be opened. Nothing more. Anyway, they might be wondering where all of their toothpicks and sugar/creamers have gone. After the fireworks, we ran to catch the train. I found it ridiculous as the running made my stomach feel very uneasy that night. When we were playing cards that night, Yi He ripped a big one. (With more emphasis on the word big) It was smelly too. The fart made me forget about my stomach which was a good thing. We continued playing cards until around 1 am when Songyuan, Eugene and Yi He went back to their room for a good night's rest. Andrew had fallen asleep so Lian Kai, Nicholas and I went back to their room to play a bit more. When it was 2am, I was sleepy so I went to bed. Before I went to bed, she called me AGAIN. She doesn't really care about her phone bill I believe. We're over each other now so I couldn't really care less. We woke up around 10 in the morning.

-Aaron
(Yes, I do think Chinese is crap. Absolute crap!)

Write about the next day or the previous day bitches.

Friday, December 08, 2006

EYE OPENER
This trip has indeed become an eye opener for me. I’ve seen crazy sides from people I usually don’t, more specifically, the white wanker. In case anyone of you out there who don’t know who WWW is, it’s Aaron Wee. Oh yes, that low profile white man (no offence, Aaron). First of all, this trip had many lingos and hidden meaning hidden within our speech. So if you’re feeling lost, fret not cos’ I’ll be there to guide you along. Redpants, tour guide, ‘Missingno’, farmhouse moaning are just some appetizers to keep you reading on. There’s still a long list that goes on till the end of times.
The jokes mainly revolved around Jason. Yes Jason, you the man. Obviously, the famous (infamous?) ones about rubber, sandwich were our hot topics. Others like the keramat one just didn’t tie in with any occasion during the trip. Unfortunately, our dear friend Eugene without fail would go into a hysterical mode upon hearing the word ‘rubber’. It’s a disease (maybe some speech spasm) he developed over the trip, subconsciously. It came to a point where Songyuan and I got so pissed in the room that we went mad. Of course the instant way to shut him up is to, you know, pin him down on the bed and start humping (with clothes on, duh).
We were greeted with a bang at the airport. You may be thinking, “Huh, what bang?.” Well, refer to Andrew’s post, Chapter Three: Hello. In addition to what Andrew has said, I too had my own views on the situation. Honestly, I wasn’t a wee bit worried when Nick insisted the coach had left without us. Instead, I thought it’d be a good experience to take the train to our hotel. Either way, we still get to our hotel, so I couldn’t care less. I’m really tired so I’ll continue some other time. More to come.

Till then, Yi He.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

hmmmmm

hi im lian kai.

WARNING: MY ENGLISH SUCKS SO DONT BLAME ME!!!


it was an unforgettable trip with my classmates.

the whole trip was like omg hot.

hk is a nice place.



now u see my english.-_- tats not all









ok so ya.

first, nicholas got his pants splashed by aaron's coffee.

tat gave nicholas a bad start though.

we slept on the plane

with stupid aaron keep on hammering our heads with pillow-_-
*BISH*

so we arrived to the polluted hk with nice beautiful "clouds"

aaron jacked himself and i shant repeat it

..
,,
..
..

we checked in

fuckin deposit of 200 sing a room.
tats stupid

restrict our money like crazy.

and it pissed me off.




hmmmmm.

den ya we had night shows that we paid.


well,
hk got nice food.




disneyland is super small..............

but fireworks are nice:D





but no nice food there-_- 20 sing dollars for 2 chicken wing T_T


hmm

tats all i should say:D

shall post next time if i got any mroe :D

let the others continue;D

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

yay now its my turn to blog...the Eugene's perspective.
Beginning with Andrew's house.. It was real late and we went there so that Andrew could take a bath and then zhao together with Song Yuan and I. During this period of time at his house, we were playing DOA and Gears of war or something like that. I totally sucked at Gears of war so Song Yuan took over me. After a series of unimportant events, we went to the airport. We were there a little early so we went to the eat some stuff at some 24 hour place which food was available. I ate mee rubus, pardon my spelling, Songyuan at mee siam and Andrew ate a muffin. After that we went to the seats in front of where we were supposed to meet the others and we tried to sleep there. After a series of unimportant events we were at the counter to check in our luggage. Andrew's perception of weight was wrong as he said my bag was heavier than Songyuan's when we were at his house. The luggage went on the thing and my bag was lighter. yay...... then we took a photo and went into the departure area. There were many Christmas decorations in it and raindeers, reindeers? yea whatever there. Aaron Wee was at the back of one doing something nasty. Then we went off to macs where Andrew and I further pestered Songyuan with our Duo singing combo of horridness. Next we went to the gate then on the plane. In the plane everyone was sleeping. The air stewardess said they do not offer poker cards on the plane. I ate and omelete for breakfast and drank pepsi. I looked at everyone sleeping and I tried my own techniques but failed. At least i managed to take a short nap, then we reach Hong Kong.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

THE GREAT ADVENTURE


written by Andrew





Introduction

This is the story about seven friends. I must admit, this was a commitment I was not ready to fully undertake for a multitude of reasons. For example, I am typing this passage you read here at the unearthly hour of 3.03 am Singapore time, the reason being that I’ve just returned from the trip you are going to read about, and am going for another one with my family in two hours, so it’s insanely hectic. Secondly, when I say ‘insanely hectic’, I do mean it because my schedule is totally packed right now; I go for my other trip and I come back, and then I spend the rest of my holidays in boot camp for my cadet inspector course. I’ll only be free for a couple of days before and after Christmas, and then it’s back to school. What a brilliant way to blow off your holidays.
Everything that happens has a cause producing the effect, and those were the causes. My greatest fear in starting on this project is that I might never finish, maybe because my schedule won’t allow it, or maybe because I’ll get lazy. Perhaps both. Either way, I’ve started. I might finish, or this will be an incomplete account, but I’ll sure try.
This is the story about seven friends, and their great adventure to the place known as Hong Kong.


The People

Before I begin to venture any further into our story, it is perhaps most important that I introduce the people involved, and perhaps provide a bit more of a background, a context. Just like the cast of a show is essential to its success, so are the characters in a story. So here we have, in no particular order of importance:

Andrew: The Author

Kind of a loser because I’m not particularly good at anything at all. However, you aren’t going to be able to criticise me because I’m the one who wrote all this. Muahaha.

Aaron: The Redpantsuit Guy

Why he’s called that you’ll read later. Has a strong affinity with his middle finger, which is rather jarring when flashed, but always funny as well.

Songyuan: The all-round jackass-but-in-a-good way

The high flyer in everything from sports to academics. Also has a really sick mind so he’ll probably corrupt the morals of those he meets when he starts his term in Hwa Chong Junior College. Lucky bastard.

Nicholas: The Translator, and The Guy Who Scored The Most For The Team.

Speaks fluent Cantonese and was our translator for much of the trip. Also fluent in his ability to ‘jack’ himself a whole ton, earning him the title of the guy who scored most for the team.

Yi He: The ‘zao xia’ King.

Has the uncanny ability to go fantastically off-pitch when talking. When I say ‘fantastically’, I mean two octaves higher or more. Never on purpose, of course, still very amusing when it happens nonetheless, which is often enough.

Eugene: The Photo Emo Kid.

Bears the same expression of non-expression in every photo we took during our trip. Enjoys a game of pool, which he is rather good at, and possibly stoning as well.

Lian Kai: The Slow Eater

The name speaks for itself. When he says he’ll eat fast, he’s really slow. When he’s slow, he’s…well, he’d still be stirring his food after ten minutes.


Our trip was filled with many priceless moments of self-embarrassment which we laughed at and made jokes of, numerous times when everyone was wowed by the view and of course, fun. We didn’t engage a tour guide or take part in any tour itinerary, choosing to take the free and easy route and discovering the place on our own. A bit of a folly, perhaps, because we didn’t maximise our trip experiencing as much as we could. “Youth is wasted on the young”, they say. I say to hell with it, let youth be wasted on the young.






Chapter One: Goodbye

It seems rather odd, to talk about the ending of an adventure before the beginning has been explained and the journey fully fleshed out, but if it’s all the same with you, I’ll do it anyway, because the epiphany of mixed feelings when we went our separate ways was so great. We’d picked up our considerably heavier luggage from the belt, considerable heavier luggage because we’d bought lots of stuff, from the belt because we travelled by plane to and from Hong Kong and Singapore. So there you have it; if you have no idea at all what I’m talking about, you now at least know that seven people from Singapore went to Hong Kong and came back with loads of stuff bought over there. If, on the other hand, you do know exactly what I’m talking about because you’re one of the seven people then you’ll be berating me for bullshitting.
Anyway, some of our parents were waiting at the arrival hall, and we decided to take one last photo before we parted. That photo was taken by Lian Kai’s father. Eugene wore the same expressionless expression as he did in every single photo, LK was squatting next to me and I was grinning like an idiot. The rest standing had their arms around one another (I think). The photo was taken, and then that was it. A quick goodbye, and then we left. Aaron and Nicholas went together in Aaron’s Dad’s car, LK went with his parents, Eugene went with Yi He and Songyuan came with me. I remember the feeling vividly, possibly because it happened only a couple of hours ago, but I suspect it’ll remain with me for a while. It was a feeling of….sadness, that it had all ended, one of emptiness, that the friends that had become closer in the three nights in Hong Kong were going their separate ways, of wistfulness, that the fun we had was over. Not that we weren’t going to see each other anymore, but still the feeling emerged.
It was made all the more palpable and intense because for a while, I was left there in the arrival hall with nobody I knew, with my friends having left. You see, Songyuan had originally not wanted to take up my offer on sending him back home since he lives near me, so he’d walked off for a bit. I’d picked up my bags and walked over to the doors when I saw him again. I asked him if he wanted a lift again and this time he said okay. So I sent him home and came back myself. At this point in time I’ve just finished packing all the stuff for my other trip to China later on half an hour ago. I wonder what the rest are doing. Reminiscing? Sleeping? Maybe looking at photos we took, I don’t know, but it’s 4am right now and I have a bit more than an hour to go before I leave, and I’m tired, so I’ll continue with this afterward.

P.S. You’d have noticed by now that this isn’t really much of a proper ‘story’. It’s half blog-post style, half novel, and half account. If you were alert you’d have noticed that that adds up to one-and-a-half, but who’s complaining. There isn’t any conventional format I’m following, and I make references to what I do at whatever point in time. Weird, eccentric or creative, you decide. I’ll take a nap.




Chapter Two: The Beginning

In the beginning, there was nothing. In the end, there were seven happy (or fairly happy at least) friends who’d gone on a hell of a trip together and were reluctant to part. So what happened? Here’s how it began.
I don’t recall exactly what happened, because I seem to exhibit a let-others-settle-it-so-no-need-to-worry-about-it-myself attitude occasionally, and the time talk for the trip began was one of those occasions. I do remember one time, though, when we were all gathered together in the classroom, the seven of us along with a couple of others who eventually backed out discussing about the possibility of going on a trip after the big O’s (O level examinations, not the other big O). I remember being mildly interested at first. The prospect of going on a trip with just friends for the first time in my life? Pretty cool. I was fairly sure my parents would allow it. So when the others asked me if I wanted to go along for the trip, I said “Yes, should be okay” but didn’t bother asking my parents first. Tsk. Teenagers these days.
Anyway I remember a week or so after that again we were in the classroom, and this time we had maps of the place we’d decided to go; Hong Kong. Nicholas, Aaron and Zhi Yi, another friend who didn’t go in the end because he was going with his family later on were discussing about the places to go and the things we’d do. At the time Hong Kong to me was nothing more than a place on the map, and it remained so during the discussion, with me squinting at an enlarged section of Kowloon on a map with tons of advertisements for things such as suit tailoring. I’d never been to Hong Kong till the trip, and most of us hadn’t, either. We had to rely on the expertise of Aaron and Nicholas to guide us on good places to go, seeing that they’d been there before and that Nicholas spoke fluent Cantonese, the main language used over there. So yadda yadda, the talking went on, a bit of stuff was settled, the rest left for later. After all, we had a couple more months to go. Besides, the O levels were coming.
Fast forward to just after the O levels. Apparently everything still wasn’t settled though our scheduled trip wasn’t too far off, and there was the possibility that the plan might come to naught, so Aaron’s dad stepped in and settled everything for us. Fantastic dad, Aaron has. What could’ve ended up being a disaster didn’t turn into one. Thank God.


P.S. This chapter was completed partly at the viewing mall at Changi Airport where I’d managed to find a power outlet for my laptop, and partly at the lobby waiting to take the damn plane which got delayed 10 hours to China. I’m dysfunctional, I know. Seriously. As of now there are a lot of irate Chinese mainlanders arguing with the airport staff. I’m totally pissed off, too.

Chapter Three: Hello

Our trip was set for the 27th of November, a Sunday. Four days and three nights, and we were to be staying at the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui at Kowloon Hotel. The hotel didn’t turn out to be fantastic, but the fact that it was so accessible did the trick for us.
We met at the airport at 6am, the flight was later on. I came with Songyuan and Eugene in a taxi – they’d come over to my house for a while after we played pool. We checked in, got on the flight and before we knew it, we were in Hong Kong. Well okay it was before I knew it and not we, because I spent the time on the plane sleeping and ignoring the incessant poking I received from the others.
Over there, Nicholas got off to a sterling start by embarrassing himself (or ‘jacking’ himself in our lingo) phenomenally by insisting that we were screwed because our guy over there, well, wasn’t there. We’d made arrangements to travel to our hotel via a coach that would ferry us along with a couple of other groups of Singaporeans, and we were supposed to meet up with a guy from a travel agency over there. We found the designated area where we were supposed to wait at, and there wasn’t anyone there save for a lone person. Nicholas was convinced that the coach had gone without us, and was ready start moping when we finally persuaded him to talk to the lone guy over at the area. He didn’t want to at first, but when he did, we realised that that lone guy was the very one we were supposed to meet up with. I just can’t put down in words how amused we were, or how funny the situation was. It just was funny, you’ll have to take my word for it. If I sound a bit pissed, I’m not, really, everyone including Nick laughed off the matter. In fact, this incident was set to be the butt of a number of jokes we shared during our trip.
We found our coach and got on. Our journey had begun.

P.S. I’m typing this chapter on my laptop over at the Holiday Inn in Wuhan, China. Currently watching Arsenal vs Tottenham live on ESPN, something I happened upon while scrolling through the channels. It’s eight degrees Celsius outside, bloody cold, but it ain’t so bad if there isn’t wind blowing.


Chapter Four: “I originally wanted to wear red pants”


Our journey on the coach was pretty much uneventful, with friendly banter all round which I didn’t participate much in because I went to sleep again. The only reason(s) why I’m going to talk about the ride on the bus is two things: Pollution and Aaron. Hey, that rhymes. Sort of, in some stupid juvenile way.
The first thing everyone noticed when we arrived at the airport wasn’t after we’d got off the aerobridge and saw how new the airport was or anything like that. Rather, the thing everyone immediately noticed could be observed from the windows of our plane when we touched down – peering out the windows, we were rather aghast at the level of air pollution in Hong Kong; I’d read about it and all, but I never thought it would really be that bad. I could only see the vague shapes of planes that were less than a kilometre away. The extent of the pollution was further evinced when we first took our first breaths of the outside air. Quite simply, it stank. On the bus to the hotel, a good forty five minutes away, visibility was so bad that on the road we were travelling along, the buildings across the river were nothing but shadowy silhouettes. In fact, the river itself was almost fully obscured by a thick fog of pollution. But in all fairness, I must add that that was the day that pollution was the worst during our trip, and apart from the bad smell of the air and pollution, Hong Kong’s a pretty nice place to be on holiday.
Perhaps the most bizarre and hilarious incident of our trip also within the first few hours of touchdown, on our coach, in fact. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to explain this succinctly enough, but here goes. Remember the guy who was supposed to meet up with us? No? Look back and read again. Anyway there was this other guy, same agency I think who followed us unto the coach. As I mentioned earlier, we weren’t the only ones on the coach; there were other groups from Singapore as well, and we were all going to different hotels. So our bus would take us to our hotel, stopping along the way to drop off the others at their hotel. It seems that the guy from the agency was taking orders for ‘wife biscuits’, a type of pastry that the other groups had wanted him to buy for them, so once he’d taken their orders he came over to ask our group if we wanted any as well, the goods to be delivered to our hotel on the third night of our stay. We took our orders, and after that as it is normal for human beings made small talk.
Before I go on into the matter itself, maybe I should do a bit of an introduction to Aaron. Not a long one, in fact just one sentence should do it to understand why he made a joke out of himself. See, he thinks Chinese is crap. Now that we’re on the same page, I’ll go on.
It occurred when the bus was at our first stop, in the basement of some large hotel in the middle of nowhere. We were talking to the guy (by ‘we’ I don’t include ‘me’, it was mostly Nicholas talking in Cantonese) and the subject of us travelling by ourselves without adults came up. Looking at the seven of us, the guy joked and asked us why there weren’t any girls. I believe his exact words were“你们为什么没有带女的?” or “Why didn’t you all bring any girls?” to which Aaron bizarrely replied with “我其实要穿红的” or “I’d originally wanted to wear red”. We were all left floundering in confusion at what he’d said until we realised that he thought the guy was asking us we were all wearing blue jeans. Apparently, he either hadn’t heard clearly or hadn’t understood, and thought the guy was asking “你们为什么都穿蓝的?”, something we found insanely funny because it was so absurd. I must apologise if I’m unable to convey the humour, but then again, this is just an account, so I’m not too hard pressed.

P.S. I’m gaining back all the weight I lost in the past by the two trips alone: the Hong Kong one and the one I’m one I’m on. Buffets for two meals everyday in China isn’t going to help my feeble attempt at losing some avoirdupois.