Take flight!
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
Bangkok Tour! (Day 2)
Ok, here's something that truly defies logic. Our concerts will be on the 6th, and today is the 5th. Why oh why, then, are we going to Dream World the theme park today, where the kids could lose their voice screaming? It truly escapes me, this. Then again, read about the practice in my previous post. Apparently, "logic" and "obvious-ness" was not in the conductor's vocab. Unbelievable!
My dear scooted off with our soloist Shi Hua after breakfast to have their own programme, leaving me with the kids and no one to seek comfort in. The madness! Thank God the parents were helpful in controlling the troublesome kids, while the kids who're traveling w/o their parents weren't THAT troublesome (still got a bit).
Once inside Dream World, the teachers assigned the kids traveling w/o parents to different teachers in smaller groups of 4 or 5. I got the group that wanted to go for all the rides, which was fine by me, since I was in the mood to scream incoherently anyway. We tried the Hanging Coaster and the Viking Ship before lunch. Fun! After the 2 rides, my group of girls weren't as cocky as before. Serves them right!
When they wanted to go for the wet ride, I just volunteered to guard their belongings for them, hence I couldn't go for the ride. *Hehe* When the kids emerged totally drenched after the ride, I realised that some of them needed a quick lesson on wearing proper undergarments under a wet white T-shirt, but I was not in the position to give such a lesson. Suddenly I felt dirty. Darn you kids!
After lunch, my kids had a go at feeding the animals at a "farm". Riiiiiiiiiiiiight... and my room is the freaking Grand Hyatt Hotel Suite, thank you. But then, it's nice to see them interested in animals they rarely see in S'pore. Not that we don't have cows and lambs there. It's just that the kids normally see them served on plates instead of walking in the farm.
Throughout the day, I was like the kids' chauffeur, helping them carry bags while they go for wet rides, leading them from ride to ride, hanging around while they went shopping etc. Good thing that the girls have enough conscience to treat me a cold drink. That was sweet. :)
The freakiest thing occured not in the theme park, but at the restaurant we had dinner. At first glance, it looked like those old style Chinese restaurant with a stage and red curtains. We saw the sign at the entrance saying, "No nightclub on Mondays" and felt relieved. Boy oh boy were we wrong...
Halfway through dinner, a musician started playing music on stage, then a female singer joined in singing Chinese oldies in front of the curtains. That's still Ok, but what's not OK was when the curtains opened, Michael Jackson popped out. Yessssssss, you heard me right, THAT moonwalking, crotch-grabbing, ethnicity-bending Michael Jackson. Or his evil twin, the one that knows magic tricks. Confused? Don't be. Simply put, he's a magician cum MJ-impersonator. He performed magic tricks while dancing to MJ songs. Moonwalking while pouring water into a newspaper cone. Get the picture?
The younger girls didn't know who MJ is, but the magician was keen to grab his crotch to show them what made Jacko famous. They squealed, we teachers squirmed, the parents twitched.
So far so good for our second day in the Land of a Thousand Smiles(tm)!
My dear scooted off with our soloist Shi Hua after breakfast to have their own programme, leaving me with the kids and no one to seek comfort in. The madness! Thank God the parents were helpful in controlling the troublesome kids, while the kids who're traveling w/o their parents weren't THAT troublesome (still got a bit).
Once inside Dream World, the teachers assigned the kids traveling w/o parents to different teachers in smaller groups of 4 or 5. I got the group that wanted to go for all the rides, which was fine by me, since I was in the mood to scream incoherently anyway. We tried the Hanging Coaster and the Viking Ship before lunch. Fun! After the 2 rides, my group of girls weren't as cocky as before. Serves them right!
When they wanted to go for the wet ride, I just volunteered to guard their belongings for them, hence I couldn't go for the ride. *Hehe* When the kids emerged totally drenched after the ride, I realised that some of them needed a quick lesson on wearing proper undergarments under a wet white T-shirt, but I was not in the position to give such a lesson. Suddenly I felt dirty. Darn you kids!
After lunch, my kids had a go at feeding the animals at a "farm". Riiiiiiiiiiiiight... and my room is the freaking Grand Hyatt Hotel Suite, thank you. But then, it's nice to see them interested in animals they rarely see in S'pore. Not that we don't have cows and lambs there. It's just that the kids normally see them served on plates instead of walking in the farm.
Throughout the day, I was like the kids' chauffeur, helping them carry bags while they go for wet rides, leading them from ride to ride, hanging around while they went shopping etc. Good thing that the girls have enough conscience to treat me a cold drink. That was sweet. :)
The freakiest thing occured not in the theme park, but at the restaurant we had dinner. At first glance, it looked like those old style Chinese restaurant with a stage and red curtains. We saw the sign at the entrance saying, "No nightclub on Mondays" and felt relieved. Boy oh boy were we wrong...
Halfway through dinner, a musician started playing music on stage, then a female singer joined in singing Chinese oldies in front of the curtains. That's still Ok, but what's not OK was when the curtains opened, Michael Jackson popped out. Yessssssss, you heard me right, THAT moonwalking, crotch-grabbing, ethnicity-bending Michael Jackson. Or his evil twin, the one that knows magic tricks. Confused? Don't be. Simply put, he's a magician cum MJ-impersonator. He performed magic tricks while dancing to MJ songs. Moonwalking while pouring water into a newspaper cone. Get the picture?
The younger girls didn't know who MJ is, but the magician was keen to grab his crotch to show them what made Jacko famous. They squealed, we teachers squirmed, the parents twitched.
So far so good for our second day in the Land of a Thousand Smiles(tm)!
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Bangkok Tour! (Day 1)
Aye, it'z zee veree veree long December travelogue time again! Nah, gonna keep it short and simple this year, coz (a) I went to Bangkok to bloody WORK, not PLAY, so not much luck at taking nice pictures there (still got some, though), and (b) I already met the love of my life last year! :D
So, on a warm and sunny Sunday morning in sleepy Singapore, we left for the even warmer and sunnier Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand's still pretty much a developing country (reminds me of some of the rural towns in M'sia x 100 in size). Its development is so behind that of M'sia and S'pore, even its time is 1 hour behind us! :P :P :P
OK, non-PC jokes aside... This is my first time in Bangkok (read: my THIRD foreign country in 26 years), but the run-down charm of the place does strike a chord in me, reminds me of Seremban, M'sia. One thing that struck me was the highways. They're so bloody huge! Not that I'm a mountain tortoise and therefore never see a highway before, but it's just that these highways are so sprawlingly confusing, I wonder if anyone actually lost their way on these elevated mammoths and never come down from it. What a nightmare that would be... stranded on a highway above ground level with nowhere else to go but forward, and couldn't find an exit to escape the inevitable END of the road... COOL! (I'm twisted, doncha know?)
Ahem... sorry for sidetracking again. Anyway, the 4 choirs that performed in the Singapore Sports School concert were all here, in the pristine (Riiiiiiiiiight...) Bangkok Palace hotel. We started our practice after dinner. The kids were obviously tired, the practice venue was obviously hot, the teachers were obviously jet-lagged, the music CD was obviously too soft or too loud (no piano for my dear, can you believe THAT??). Too bad that these things were not obvious enough for the conductor, so he was obviously pissed off. DUH!
So far so good for our first day in the Land of a Thousand Smiles(tm)!
So, on a warm and sunny Sunday morning in sleepy Singapore, we left for the even warmer and sunnier Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand's still pretty much a developing country (reminds me of some of the rural towns in M'sia x 100 in size). Its development is so behind that of M'sia and S'pore, even its time is 1 hour behind us! :P :P :P
OK, non-PC jokes aside... This is my first time in Bangkok (read: my THIRD foreign country in 26 years), but the run-down charm of the place does strike a chord in me, reminds me of Seremban, M'sia. One thing that struck me was the highways. They're so bloody huge! Not that I'm a mountain tortoise and therefore never see a highway before, but it's just that these highways are so sprawlingly confusing, I wonder if anyone actually lost their way on these elevated mammoths and never come down from it. What a nightmare that would be... stranded on a highway above ground level with nowhere else to go but forward, and couldn't find an exit to escape the inevitable END of the road... COOL! (I'm twisted, doncha know?)
Ahem... sorry for sidetracking again. Anyway, the 4 choirs that performed in the Singapore Sports School concert were all here, in the pristine (Riiiiiiiiiight...) Bangkok Palace hotel. We started our practice after dinner. The kids were obviously tired, the practice venue was obviously hot, the teachers were obviously jet-lagged, the music CD was obviously too soft or too loud (no piano for my dear, can you believe THAT??). Too bad that these things were not obvious enough for the conductor, so he was obviously pissed off. DUH!
So far so good for our first day in the Land of a Thousand Smiles(tm)!
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