touring in singapore...

on wednesday night, a friend of mine, whom i consider as my amateur tour guide in singapore, asked me to join her peeps/homie (hehehe...^^v) to go to night safari at singapore zoo (well, d'uh ^^'), and i agreed to join them.

we agreed to meet at her flat, somewhere in choa chu kang. she told me that it would take me around 45 minutes from serangoon mrt to choa chu kang mrt. there are two routes that i can think of to reach destination. one of them requires to change trains twice and another only once. since i was lazy on that day, i decided to aboard on the later route (ha!...i'm a genius!). boy, what a big mistake i just did!

i only took a glimpse of mrt route map, and thought the route would only take a little bit of extra time, around 5-10 minutes, i could bear that, i told myself. the journey from serangoon to dhoby ghaut was alright, but from dhoby ghaut to choa chu kang was a different story. i had to stand all the time during that journey for 50 minutes, more or less. my right foot was sleeping for couple of minutes also. i think the train was moving slower than the last one, or maybe the destination between each station is that long. actually, i could get an empty seat, but i have to give up that seat for someone older than me (someone who needed more than me), on each station. there were a lot of empty seats when i was 2 or 3 stations away from choa chu kang, but i decided not to take a seat since i was almost there anyway. for this trouble, i'm just going to blame my amateur visitor guide for not giving me enough information which route i should had taken...bwahahahaha...[evil laughter]... ^^v.

i was planning to arrive early at her flat to create chaos there^^'. hmmm...maybe this was the reason why she didn't tell me which route i should had taken T_T. well, at least, i know now ^^. we had quick introduction to each other (because of my late arrival...noooo...i hate being late...T_T) and went to the near food court to have dinner. took a bus, arrived, and bought tickets (i wished someone had bought me the ticket...i'm unemployed, you know...lol). we all bought for admission only, no tram (trams are for sissies...lol...j/k ^^').

the night safari was quite fun for me. we went to creatures of the night show. it was cool when the host asked couple of tourists (or non native english speaker) to speak in their native language regarding not to use flash of the camera during the show, but there were still people using them though (either they came late, didn't pay attention, cannot speak english, didn't know how to operate their cameras, or just plain ignorant).

the show had, somewhat, element of surprise (wheee...!!!). one of the zoo keeper blent in with the audience and in the middle of the show, he acted losing something, a pet to be exact. "maggie!? maggie?!?...where are you?...(etc)," he yelled. he made a middle-age woman cried tho (well the host said "don't cry ma'am", i assumed she did cry ^^') with his unique screaming. turned out maggie was a freakin' giant python snake, and they put it under the seat, somewhere in front. i'm glad i didn't sit in front, lol. people are screaming and running, especially those who sat near the snake (wheee...fun, eh?). i wished the zoo keeper returned to his seat with maggie, because he sat next to our tour guide, i would like to see her reaction ^^v.

they also had 3 (three) trained-otters to do recycling (sponsored by...nokia...buy our products...we recycle!). funny thing, the last otter made a mistake and the host blocked the trash bin immediately with her body. well, i think i have spoiled enough your fun by telling you what are in the show; so why don't you watch the show yourself? ^^. here is the url to singapore's night safari website: http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/. oh by the way, mosquitoes are everywhere, prepare your trustworthy repellent ^^.

after the show, we started walking along the trails to see the night life of animals. my tour guide told me that most people recommend to see in the morning or afternoon. i can see it why, it was hard to see the animals at night, and most of them were hiding or sleeping already...lol. i saw an alligator, indian gharial to be exact, reminded me of florida (i wonder why gators don't move much, i'm still tempted to throw a rock at a gator, wonder if it will move ^^'). i also saw a freakin' huge red squirrel, it's called giant flying squirrel. the board said it can fly accross five football (soccer for you americans) fields, wow...must see it first, then believe it...lol ^^. saw the famous spotted hyenas, too bad none of them were laughing. i stared at them and they stared at me back, that was it! i want to hear them laugh T_T. we also saw sloth bear. i was thinking it must be an obese-lazy-bear, and i saw it was just laying on the rock. but the zoo keeper told us, the bear was named sloth bear because of the shape of its claws matched the claws of animal called sloth. we also informed that tigers (including lions, perhaps?), sleep 20 hours a day (wow, what a lazy *bleep*) and the zoo also has play time (i wanna play too ^^) for each animal, since animals might get bored with their environment. i wonder when we will be able to play with all the animals in the zoo. watching animals in their environment is not fun, i want to play with them, but i am afraid to be mauled by them T_T.

there are a lot of other animals in night safari, but i could not mention all of them to you, why don't you go see for your self? ^^. well, that's about it on wednesday night, lets move on to the next story, shall we? ^^.

yesterday night, i went to asian civilisations museum (acm), somewhere near raffles place mrt, with my friends, the amateur tour guide and another tourist like me (one of the last time i met at choa chu kang) ^^. raffles place mrt was our meeting point, and this time, i arrived early (ha! beat you ladies! ^^v victory!!! lol).. before went there, we had dinner first at lau pat sat food center. my tour guide told me it is a 24-hour food court, i wonder if what she said is true...hmmm...lol ^^.

lau pat sat is quite big for me, we had some trouble at first to find what food we were going to eat. a lot of vendors offered us their food, especially to our blonde lady friend, it's tough to become a blonde tourist...lol ^^. i saw a japanese food, then my trouble was over...lol. if i'm having trouble to find what kind of food i'm going to eat, i'll just try to find japanese or korean ^^v. i had teriyaki chicken set, and i couldn't taste the teriyaki sauce, maybe it didn't have teriyaki sauce; even my tour guide asked me, "where's the teriyaki sauce? i can't see it." well, at least he gave me tissue unlike other vendors. also had mango ice kacang, hmm...mango...mmm...ice kacang. i like cantaloupe, but never see cantaloupe ice kacang, i guess mango is good enough ^^ (i like durian also, durian ice kacang exists; but, too bad many people dislike its odour).

after done eating, we went to acm and the admission was free (wheee...!!! note: free admission from 7 pm on friday). check out acm website at http://www.nhb.gov.sg/acm/. our primary reason to go to acm was to see kebaya (peranakan ladies' custome) exhibition, nyonya (madam in english ^^v) kebaya: a living art. we had to go through other asian culture exhibitions, including chinese, thailand, etc. they had touch screens (i prefer to call them poke screen, since i love to poke ^^) which will give you more information on the specific asian culture. we didn't utilize them tho, since the explanation were too long for our limited time. it's fun to see our tour guide, with her limited knowledge, was trying to explain to us...lol ^^.

finally we reached the kebaya exhibition. they have a lot of different types of kebaya, from 0ld sch00l to modern time. our tour guide was excited or overjoyed or [place approprite description here] explaining the history of kebaya, indonesia, malay, etc. she sometimes asked me and most of the time i had no idea what the answer was ^^' (hey, they're ladies' customes! lol). after done with the kebaya exhibition, we went back to chinese culture exhibition and spent some time there. afterward, we went to east asia culture exhibition and then gift shop. i almost got a heart attack when saw the price for kebaya, beyond s$100 *meep*. once we were done, we were trying to figure out which way we should go before we went home. as a good tour guide, she asked us, but my answer will be and, perhaps, always be, "i don't know. you are the tour guide ^^". it's tough to be a tour guide with a friend like me...lol ^^v.

we decided to go boat quay (thanks to my cousin to tell me the correct one ^^v). a lot of pubs and restaurants along that road, and, as usual, vendors offered us their food to our blonde lady friend...told ya it's hard to be a blonde tourist ^^. she was our distraction from the hassle of the vendors (wheee....thank you! lol ^^). at the end of the street, we decided to go back to raffles place mrt and got lost for couple of minutes, good thing someone brought a map, and it wasn't our tour guide who brought it ^^.

overall, we had fun. it's more fun to see our troubled tour guide friend explaining than a boring lecture ^^, correct?

today, as usual, looking for a job from the recruit of the straits times and jobsdb.com; saw some, sent some, and waiting to be called sometime next week ^^. i guess, i also have to postpone the campaign; hopefully, sometime in next week, i will be able to start again. i should prepare for my formal interview (second interview) with nanyang polytechnic <http://www.nyp.edu.sg/> on monday. i am pretty sure they are going to test me, but i have no idea on what.

this is all the news on me. have a nice day people and remember to have fun ^^v.