Genting Trip

just came back from a short 2D1N genting trip (and birthday celebration for peter and qianhui) with anand, peter, wenyao and qianhui. the trip was generally ok, wasn't bad but wasn't exactly the most exciting trip either (considering that i've been to korea recently, which i will update soon).

it was quite a refreshing trip though, considering that the last time that anyone of us had been to genting was when we were kids, that's like more than 10 years ago and i must say that the place has changed more than we can remember how it looks like from like a decade back.

we left singapore at around 10pm and reached our destination at around 4.30am. we were discussing on the way to genting on what to do when we reach there at the particular ungodly hour and we realized that the only thing that we can do is to actually go to the resident casino at First World Hotel, Starworld.

it was the first time that most of us (including myself) have ever been into a casino and we were standing around the tables for the longest times thinking whether we should be putting down bets when the minimum bets for most tables were ranging from RM 25 - 50, which seemed kind of intimidating at first. watching with fear that our meager few hundred dollars will be gone in a flash, but i have to say, once we started putting bets down, we never looked back.

we were there till around 8 am before we checked into our rooms although the casino didn't see the last of me. i went back to the casino again after dinner and i learnt that greed can be such a destructive thing, i was up by around RM700 at one point and i just didn't know when to leave and you might have already guessed it, i lost all my winnings in the end. (*this is when you say "what a loser"*)

we checked into our rooms all physically (and mentally from casino, what did you expect, it's a lot of thinking involved) tired and i had a good laugh when i entered the toilet, behold, the industrial full body detergent!


this fantastic detergent is a shampoo, conditioner and a shower gel all in one. if it goes by normal standards of the many-in-one kind of shower foam/shampoo/conditioner, this would at least be like 6-in-1 body/hair/face wash and conditioner. it's not that i haven't seen this kind of showering foam before, it's just it's the first time that i've seen this kind of shower foam used in a hotel.

lunch after a quick nap and before we head to the theme park was at marry brown (which peter insisted on trying), which was kind of interesting. well, at least for the meal that we tried was kind of interesting, considering it's size.

the place was like a malaysian version of KFC and they sell almost the same things. we were attracted by this meal called the "mini bites combo meal", i know it says "mini" but who would have expected the burgers to be that mini.

anand looked like a big, burly (and black) giant monster eating a building from a city invasion of some sort when he ate the burger (pardon me for the bad analogy). i think the pictures will paint a better picture than my horrific description of it.

attack of "The Anand"!!

yes, that was how small the burger was but it was helpful though, since we were heading to the theme park after lunch.

the genting theme park was just alright, since quite a few of their "big kids" ride were closed for maintenance, so we had to make do with the few exciting (vomit inducing) rides that were open at that time.

the place was quite disappointing as we got a little bored after a few rides and realized that weren't anymore good rides left for us to do.

one good ride worth mentioning was "Space Shot". it basically brings you up to like around 10 levels high and drop you down as if it's free fall. i personally like to call it the suicide machine, everytime you feel like jumping off the building, take the ride, come back down to ground and consider again. maybe you can think about how your innate will splatter when you crash into the ground when you fall from somewhere around that height.

sorry, think i got carried away a little. hah.

that's pretty much all the highlights for this genting trip, apart from Transformers that we watched at the genting cinema before heading back to singapore was so good that i've yet to find a word to describe the show, so that'll be on another post.

if you're actually thinking of going to genting anytime soon, i would discourage your from going, it's cheap, but things to do are very limited there. unless of cos, casino is your game or you happen to be in KL and want to take a short bus ride up.

korea updates will be up soon. the guys took an insane number of photos (compared to the 33 photos that i took for genting) that needs to be sorted out before i can do anything with it.

Time, Health and Money

i was talking to a friend the other day about being at work and how life is becoming like a routine for me since i started going back to work for the holidays.

he then mentioned that there are 3 things that are present in life -- time, money and health.

when you're studying, you have time and health, but no money.
when you're working, you have money and health, but no time.
when you're retired, you have the money and time, but no health.

it's just quite impossible to have everything in life at any period of time, i guess it's how we make the best out of the situation :/

Drinking, Driving and Motivation

it's been a month since i actually did anything to this blog of mine but when i think back about how i've spent my time recently, i realized that i've been spending too much time stoning infront of my tv when i get home from work everyday and it's not like im a tv fan, im just there.

and no, im not trying to advocate motivations for drinking and driving, it's just that i was too lazy to post seperate entries, so now they've become one.

Drinking

my unit (yes, im back in camp for the holidays) had a farewell dinner kinda thing for 2 of the guys there who were going to ORD , one officer who's going to study overseas and there was like a buffet set up all equipped with food, drinks and beer.

it's been a long while since i've seen so many people drinking together and i must say that i really enjoyed it. im not saying that drinking is a good thing but all of us have to admit to a certain extend that drinks (with alcohol content) is a good social lubricant, brings people closer together (and even closer when they're drunk) and lets people pour their hearts out with people actually listening (but retaining is another thing).

during the dinner, i suddenly missed the days when the whole bunch of us would go drinking and have our idle banter for the whole night. it's hard now that everyone has ORD-ed and we're all taking different paths in lives, some are working and some of us are studying. but well, it was fun while it lasted.

Driving

i know it's probably too much to ask from drivers here, but someone should teach them some bloody courtesy. was driving to sim lim square on a saturday afternoon (read: DEATH) and i got stuck at the tekka market stretch, im amazed how people can cut lanes with signaling or at least turn back and make some sort of signal that they wanna cut the lane before i run into them.

the most amazing thing is that when people abruptly cut my lane and i almost knock into them when they don't succeed, they'll just act stupid like nothing happened, when i drive past and look at them. and im quite sure they know that im looking at them. makes my blood boil all the time.

Motivation

in a team, motivation is very important, both from other people and oneself, and this very motivation can make or break a team. sometimes it's essential for people in the team to motivate one another but it comes to a point that all that can be done by a person to motivate another has been done and the person that's supposed to be motivated doesn't have any self-motivation.

it'll all be back to square one no matter how good a motivator the person is, it all boils down to the person that's getting motivated, if he/she doesn't help himself/herself, nobody can do it.

it's really hard sometimes when you've run out of ways to motivate people.