It was a small bunch of us that went down to Central for the fabulous ramen noodles at Marutama. I believe its the best ramen in town. Then while qx went home to watch 'Friends', the rest of us had a walk down to the Esplanade. We had a good time taking photos of the night.

The next Monday morning I woke up in the early afternoon and joined C and her gang at the Tanjong beach. It was a pretty good day of play and the weather didn't ruin the rest of the day. There is the surf and sweat to look forward to with some of them.

Came Tuesday, the 29th of December, two days before the new year, I made my way to school. The FAL closed on me so I was left at the reading room, unable to print my things. I continue to map out the factory outlets from the google maps in anticipation of the then upcoming Hong Kong trip. At around seven in the evening I made my way down to the hall's volleyball court. T'was the slight drizzle, and a bit of tension when the guys didn't show up punctually. Towards the end I could not really play like how I wanted to (or how I used to). It was frustrating. I blamed it on playing on an empty stomach but I wonder if its something more of an excuse.

I took a quick shower, picked a couple of people up, before driving down to Walt's place where it was another night of poker. I think nights like these are gonna be here to stay. We checked our grades for the semester online. Not too shabby, and I'm pretty close from my target cgpa. To get there, that would be my new years resolution. After the last couple of rounds of poker, we headed down for supper before going over to the airport where we saw Chris off. The early morning drive was smooth. I reached school back at 7 in the morning where jn and I had good old eggs and toast for breakfast.

On the 31st December, New Years Eve, relatives came over to my place. It was a belated Christmas dinner. Gab and his sis, together with my brother and I found ourselves in a bedroom playing poker. At around ten at night, I went over Joce's place where the gess gang was. Friends for a decade. We had a couple of drinks, played cards, and then it was a long tiresome struggle for Sj to go off. My brother came to pick me up at around 8. That was my new years eve.

I stayed home on new years day, to pack for the trip to Hong Kong. I didn't get much sleep that night and then on the 2nd Dec, six in the morning, we flew off. The sun was rising as we took off. The itinerary went something like:

Day one: Night Markets, Victory Peak - The fog was pretty bad we could hardly see the buildings. The weather was chilling. We went on a random spree.

Day two: Disneyland - It was really the best of experiences, especially when tinkerbell flew by... even if its just the 3d goggles.

Day three: Shenzhen - The Lowu Commercial Building was an eye opener; the vendors and fake watches... Deeper in, to dong men was more pleasant to walk around. I crossed the immigrations back to hk empty handed though. Back in hk we visited the stretch of outlets at the camel building where I managed to grab a nice jacket. It was the one of the few buys from hk. I was quite convinced its hard to get a good bargain these days...

Day four: Citygate outlets - I walked out empty handed, though they really had every outlet housed in a building. And bid cw and kl farewell.

Day five: The Dragon's Back of Hong Kong's trail - It never got this cold although at first refreshing. The view was breath taking. If I had the time I would bring up some hot cocoa and sit there the entire day. I really would.

On the 6th Jan, midnight, I touched down back in sg. I had a casual chat with the cabby on my way back. Never felt better when I dropped my bags. I was exhausted and deep down glad that the IH volleyball match on the next day was postponed.

On the 7th evening, my family had dinner at the Long Beach restaurant off the east coast park. It was good to have dinner with the entire family every now and then.

The next day I had two of my wisdom tooth removed. The process was sort of nerve wrecking I admit. I wasn't in much pain but spitting blood in the sink didn't make me feel any better. The bleeding has stopped but not the lethargy.

Before the surgery I ended up buying a siamese fighting fish. I call him Mr B (for barracuda). I can't stop watching him swim around in his tank.

I watched the guys game on saturday and spent a good portion of sunday out gallivanting with my parents, from the hawker center at amoy street to the flea market at china square central, to the marina square and then to clementi. In the last few hours of the night I watched episodes of 'That 70s Show' which made me have some good laughs. Its been a long time since I had good laughs.

School starts tomorrow. December I should say was rather well spent. Sure, there weren't many days of laze and rest. That is how I know I was out having a kick ass time. I sure hope its a good semester ahead. A good internship ahead. And a couple of good trips ahead...

Labels: december, gess, nbs, travel, vacation, volleyball

t'was the course registration in school on a friday morning. i had trouble sleeping and then find myself speeding the latio to school. i didn't quite get my modules on first click which led to a lot frustration. i had an exchange of emails with the school and finally got my modules finalised for the coming semester. the thing is, i find myself doing one module on my own. it could be refreshing, meeting and working with new people. or something else then again.

the kenai/casper gang swang by my place that night for a bbq. it was mini gathering of sorts. it went well. and then half of the bunch came up my place for a night of poker. my brother joined in. i bled chips. but i couldn't stop the haemorrhage. we had the left over chicken wings in the oven and it was smoking awesome. by the time the guys left i was dead beat. i slept through saturday. i dropped by shawn's place on saturday night when i exchange textbooks and got a threadless tee from him. 'birds of a feather'. it was very cool.

sunday night came along. it was the party at adam's. i managed to hitch a ride from andy. almost nine when we reached sensoria. jean and angie were waiting for us at the pool side where slipped into our uniforms for the themed party. for that night i was superman disguised as an rjcian. there were a couple of generations under that roof. generations of orientation groups. it reminded me that this phase too would fade away. we'll all move on to something else. after the gift exchanges and photo takings, we had another round of poker. i was going at some astonishing rate. i tried to get some shut eye thereafter but it didn't work out so i found myself back at the table playing daidee doing the weirdest forfeits. i toyed with the ukulele i got from jean. it was of a classy white. someday i might just get a hang of it!

it was monday afternoon, a brief four hours of sleep after party. i went down to school for the inter school games after i got wind of it during the party. the preliminaries were dead easy. with a bad nose i decided to cancel the night out with some friends, forgoing the night out at orgo, and avatar in 3d. the next day i went for my appointment at the national dental center where i had the x-ray done and figured that i needed two extractions.

i can't remember much of wednesday. i think i watched public enemies in the late night(or in the wee morning hours). i thought it was tragic that they killed off the johnny depp character. the scene where he sauntered into the police station was most awesome. i spent christmas eve at parco and then the esplanade. the ice cream flavors at tom's palette were sort of bizarre, yet enticing. christmas eve ain't like how it used to be on those rainy december nights when they used to air the 'home alone' movies on channel 5. i used to hang socks and wonder how would santa have popped by. there was no damn chimney!!! but i believe i was missing the point of this festive season. blink 182's 'i won't be home for christmas' has always been the most apt of songs.

on christmas itself, i paid my grandmother a visit. my parents and i had dinner at imm. we had some walk around the place before the dropped me off at kw's place. soon, the gess gang was at joce's place where we had the johnny walker, coke and pasta. we talked about how things have been and went back and forth about plans for the new years eve. we ended with rounds of cai quan and lots of laughter. i went to bed at 7 in the morning, after another one of those episodes of the simpsons...

the next evening that came the gess gang regrouped at the Games Haven at clark quay. we headed up to Players. joce and cz soon joined us. surprise surprise. the sirloin steak that refused to be put on the table stirred up a fuss and we left with a bad aftertaste despite the very very apologetic waitress. we found ourselves at a tcc where the candles went out and cake was served. at the end of that night, while some contemplated a night at the club, a few of us decided to make it back home...

Labels: bbq, casper, christmas, gess, kenai, nbs