i'm back in singapore!
i was just saying yesterday after we disembarked from the ferry that i don't wanna get back to real life... its the same feeling after every good trip...
then yewjin pointed out that it'd only be fun if we had an unlimited supply of funds, which is kinda the feeling we had through the last 4 days... x)

so how was the trip?
it was AMAZING!
granted i had my reservations about the nitty gritty logistical issues and whatever, but it was the excitement that made it such a success...
hollerback to ron for a great holiday organization!!
but more importantly, i shouldn't have worried about the food/accommodation issues, coz there weren't any at all...
plus the company was the best, hands down!

i may be jumping ahead of myself in this post coz ppl know i've just shifted house, and my priorities might be a little misguided if i post about the trip instead of my new permanent residence first, so here:
moved on saturday, though i'd already packed and moved lots of my stuff over in the week prior... so spent my time watching ONE TREE HILL season 4, episode 6, Desperate Housewives Season 3, Episode 7 (twice!!) and SMALLVILLE season 6, episodes 5 and 6...
slept about one hour that night coz i'm ultra sensitive to new environments, so got out of bed at 4plus to look for Grey's Anatomy Season 3, Episode 7 to no avail...

5 hours later, i was at tanah merah ferry terminal, where ron, daniel and i were the uber early folk just chatting/playing PSP/listening to iPod...
wes and his sister came, followed by mervyn and his 2 huge cartons of MILK (which i drank the most of, probably 2 packets out of 12 in the 4 days), and yewjin/elendrus/xinquan/sean/joel/elden...
the ferry ride there was ok for the first half of the trip, coz yewjin/daniel/sean and i were playing bridge on the floor of the upper deck, but then i got motion sick and nearly hurled in the bathroom, but thankfully i didn't after all...
most of us were a little woozy from the choppy waters, but arrived in one piece...

the villas we rented were really good, equivalent of 4star hotel rooms, clean, white and big...
we only had 1 for the first day/night, but it was probably the most fun night coz lots of us squeezed into the largest bedroom... i was sleeping on the floor in front of the bed next to ET and xinquan, merv/yj/ron were on the bed, sean was next to the bed and joel was nearest to the door, and was accidentally stepped on...
lay around for 6 hours without sleeping coz i'm sensitive to new environments (see above), so had lots of time to think, and they hundreds of songs i heard through the day (we had MTV!!) seemed to play in my in the order i heard them... x)
unknown to me, ET couldn't sleep as well, so his stretching and whatever, which i attributed to great subconscious coordination skills, were actually just him trying to get rid of cramps while he was still awake...
the first day, we had lunch at the golf club house cafe and dinner in bintan town, where i satisfied my craving for a starbucks frapp...

with 2 hours of sleep in 48 hours, we went to play pingpong...
then it was to the beach where joel/yewjin/sean and i went walking on the sand/finding seashells/burying hermit crabs...
went to the big rocks to sit in a natural environment and played with hermit crabs before going to swim at the 2 hotel pools... they have slides!
stayed in the jacuzzi for an hour or so before heading back to the villas to shower and have dinner...
slept in the new chalet with merv/yj/kevin (who arrived earlier that day)/sean, so had lots of room and had 8 solid hours of sleep...
yj and i did our domestic part of the trip after lunch x)

pingpong again on the third day, lunch at the golf cafe, carom at the rec centre and then more beach activities - but this time they were of a different nature...
suffice to say, ET lost his new 500dollar gold specs (which i must say do wonders to highlight his brown hair) in one of the larger waves, so we spent close to 3 hours searching for it... many times he was like nvm just go back, but i think the rest of us wanted to just look that much more, and it payed off, coz just before sunset, ET chanced upon it in the sand... really a miracle...
dinner at the hotel's restaurant buffet was my fav meal of the trip, really tasty =)

started playing mahjong with xinquan/ET/sean at 1030, and didn't stop till 530am the next morning, when everyone had already gone to sleep...
we played our fastest game (20 turns in about 3 minutes), which was our last, so we could run out to the beach to see the sunrise...
returned to the villa to sleep for about 4 hours before playing more mahjong until checkout time...
went to the lunch buffet this time, which wasn't as great as the night before, then talked about pokemon (!!) till we had to leave for the ferry...
took a motion sickness pill and some photos with a large eagle before hopping on the ferry, falling asleep and arriving in singapore half an hour later...

so i rushed home to change and freshen up and hurried down to vivo to meet sam/sean/paul for the premiere of CASINO ROYALE...
though its scale was not as large as STAR WARS EP3, the glam factor was up a few notches...
there was no president nathan, but minister PMO came down...
saw hady mirza, jonathan leong and his gf, jasmine tye, (apparently paul twohill was there too, but didn't catch him), allan wu (without li lin), may and choy, cousin chua en-lai, and tonnes of axn ppl whose names i cannot remember...
the reception was uber chic coz it was made to look like a mini-casino, and we were given chips which we could use to play blackjack, roulette and whatever, and the highest winner got loads of prizes...
sam/me/sean lost our winnings at the blackjack table coz the dealer's hand was just too good...
the movie itself is one of the better ones this year, complicated, not too intense, better acting and less gadgets... the followup is sure to come soon..

sped off to holland v's crystal jade for supper (first time not paying extreme amounts for meals in 4 days, everything in bintan is so expensive) before heading to sam's place to spend the night...
just woke up at 11 to help merv arrange the class lunch/movie (STEP UP!!) for tomorrow, and now i'm leaving for home...

it's Christmas ppl, ready for the season yet?

reality can be quite the kick,
john.