Church Camp 2007: Day 2

Woke up at 7am for a quick jog before Morning Devotion. It cleared my head quite a bit for the games that I had planned for the dinner that evening as well as the meditation verse (Mark 9:49-50). By the time I went back to the villa, everyone was up and about. So I took a long shower, made my hair and when I came down, ALAMAK! Everyone was waiting for me to start the villa devotion. I quickly settled in and we all prayed and sang some songs together before proceeding to the function room again for sharing of the day's meditaion verse.

After that was the usual breakfast where I chowed down some fruit, a salad, half a dozen chipolatas, a sunny side up, baked beans, milk and a bowl of cereal. I had to gobble that down in less than 20 mins because I had to go back to the function room to help Auntie Esther with setting up for the next corporate game: the Paper Aeroplane Factory.

At about 10am, people started milling in for P&W. Somehow, this morning's P&W seemed different; more powerful and moving than the previous day's. I had this sudden compulsion to cry so I just let the tears flow. Perhaps the sessions that we had done proved to be a motivating factor for all who participated? It was great to see everyone singing and shouting with no inhibitions!

We started the corporate game at about 10.30am. Auntie Esther had tasked me to MC the whole game as she had to tabulate the scores. Again, the memebrs were broken into men, women and youth. It was great fun tekan-ing them and watching all hell break loose as they scrambled to get their planes made and delivered. All in all, it was a very fun, insightful sessions which the youth won in the end.

Lunch was after that, same old buffet food again. I started off with the usual salad before moving on to attack the roast duck. Desmond, as usual, couldn't help but whack the crabs. The desserts were yummy too, with cream puffs, brownies and other forms of delectable pastry. Couldn't eat much as most of the breakfast was still in my stomach.

Headed back to the villa to get my socks before heading to the bowling alley. Couldn't get my form right as I couldn't find a ball that would fit my big knuckles nicely. How I miss the Superbowl at SAFRA Mt Faber! After getting an embarassing score of 101, I rushed back to the villa to make preparations for the night's games. Managed to finish it in under an hour and a half before heading for a nap. Could feel my head pounding already.

Woke up at 6pm and headed for the function room. It was HUGE and provided me more than enough space for me to tekan everyone again. Haha! I proceeded to place on all the tables the props needed for my games later. I was shaking with excitement, I couldn't wait to unleash my nonsense on everyone! Bruhaha!

We didn't start the dinner until about 7.30pm when everybody was seated. We started off the dinner with a closing speech from Ps Don followed by the presentation of trophies to the winning team from the bowling session. I kicked off the night with the Fake Bingo game to get everyone riled up. Fortunately the crowd were so enthusiastic about completing their score sheets to realise that they were all doctored to enable EVERYONE to win. Ha!

The food, surprisingly, was the best we had so far. I conitnued with the Jigsaw puzzle game which saw everybody clamouring to put the pictures together. We carried on with the lucky draw, with myself winning an Electric Kettle (2nd prize). It sure seemed odd to receive a lucky draw prize at a dinner I'm MC-ing!

I called representatives from each table up on stage to share about what they had learned from the camp. After they were done with their turn, I thought it was only fair that I shared my view too. As I did, I suddenly felt really emotional and started to break down when I addressed my 'speech' towards the youth, the usual hoopla about how they had so much potential waiting to explode. But this time, I really meant it and I felt so much for them. A bunch of enthusiastic youngsters wanting to be taken seriously, bursting at the seams with so much energy, but yet were equally misunderstood at the same time.

I ended the night with the Pop Quiz game, where only one table (Ps Don's) got the Snuffleapagus question right. We gave away prizes to the winning table (Thomas') of which I was a part of. For the second time that night, I was receiving another prize, this time an NTUC voucher.

After laying hands and praying for me, I made my way home at 10pm with Uncle Desmond (he hitched a ride 'cos he also had to go back to work the following morning).

By God's grace and divine protection, I finally reached home at 11.30pm. What a day!

Church Camp 2007: Day 1

After being postponed for a year, we finally went for our church camp at Tanjong Puteri Resort. I only managed to join the group on Tuesday morning due to work commitments on Monday.

Getting there was quite a bitch. Got played out by the stupid flyover outside Carrefour (that is FINALLY complete after taking forever) along the Tebrau Highway. So after getting lost and braving some unexplored territory, I finally arrived (with my friend Isaac in tow who probably almost puked in the car!) at about 8.30 in time for Morning Devotion! Yippee!

After breakfast, we broke into groups to do our stuff. I handled the youth to share about the Power of Praise: what it can do and why we should do it (this is my own unofficial title for the presentation lah). It was really fun sharing with the youth and in the midst of doing so I obtained fresh revelation about P&W that I never knew before.

Lunch was buffet with the usual spread. I chowed down quite a bit of salad since I had been pigging out quite a lot the few days before. After lunch, we all headed back to our villas to prepare for the corporate games out in the field, under the scorching hot sun!

As a bystander (and supposed referee who didn't do much), it was hilarious watching the teams play the games. R&R time followed but I didn't have much time to rest with the night session still left unprepared. I put together another simple presentation entitled Who Am I?: Realising your full potential & putting it to good use. With that done, I had barely enough time to catch a quick nap before dinner happened at 6pm.

Not one to complain, but dinner was quite horrible so I didn't eat much. It was hilarious to watch Desmond tease the waitress about having kambing soup instead of the planned 'egg drop' soup.

After dinner was back to the villa with the youngsters again. This session saw them doing a SWOT analysis about themsleves and pairing up to find out certian things about their partner that nobody knows about. The results were surprising, funny and mind-boggling all at the same time.

Topics we touched on included (but not restricted to): benefits of boxer shorts, dangers of eating too much junk food, gays and tranvestites, clubbing, passing gas after eating certain foods. We all had so much fun talking and sharing that we didn't even realise that time had gone by until Uncle Larry and Auntie Teresa came back with their snoozing kids. I didn't have time to finish up what I had planned!

Ending the session with a prayer, everybody returned to their respective villas to do their own stuff. Me, I showered, had a short discussion with Auntie Esther about the following day's corporate games, went through the meditation verse and decided to sleep after not being able to decipher the meaning.

It sucks to be sleepy.

Toy report #1

Like all women who can't resist handbags and shoes in a sale, I couldn't help but part with $55 of my hard earned money as this offer was too good to pass. And the uncle in the shop telling me 'This is my last pair' didn't help much either.

Jumping on the whole TRANSFORMERS bandwagon, I grabbed these two buggers off the shelf faster than you could say 'More than meets the eye'. Made by Japanese toy company Kaiyodo, this is a new range of super poseable action figures called REVOLTECH. Other figures in the series include the robots from EVAGELION, Trigun, Revy from the anime Black Lagoon (who gives Lara Croft a run for her money with her, er, 'weapons of mass destruction'. Heheh!), the police robot from PATLABOR and other such similar gems. They are ball jointed at the appropriate places, which gives them their super poseability.

I have been resisting the temptation to buy one of these little babies as they don't come cheap; they normally retail for $30 each. Damn evil, then, of the uncle to offer such an irresistible bargain! These little guys also come with interchangeable hands, heads, etc, so that, like clothes, you can customise them according to your mood. Megatron comes with an extra head featuring his trademark evil grin. Optimus, well, doesn't have much facial expression to speak of so he only comes with one head.

Soon to be flying around: fluid, metallic dude and chunky pieces of metal

Now that all the hoopla surrounding Spiderman 3 has somewhat eroded to the back of your heads, lock 15 June into your calendar, kiddies! That's the date that the Silver Surfer is landing into cinemas!

For the uninitiated who are unaware about the hype, follow the link to check out bits about Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer. This is a follow up to the first one which, in my opinion, was way better than Spiderman 'cos it stuck more closely to the original comic and didn't try to do too many things at once.

So what's the big deal about this movie? Jessica Alba in tights for one (although my wife will say 'Aiyoh! Why you like her so much her tits so fake! Dunno why Tiger pay her so much money, blah, blah'). And they seem to have given her a look that closely resembles the Sue Storm from the original Fantastic Four series in the 70s (though she looks very plastic from certain angles). And Johnny Storm with Super Skrull powers! BAM!

Also, check out the trailer and you'll see that the Silver Surfer is wickedly cool! Played by Doug Jones (who played another watery fella Abe Sapien in Hellboy), this character has been a long time coming since they made the T1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Think a more fluid T1000 flying around on a surfboard and you'll get the picture.

The other thing to look forward to kiddies, is TRANSFORMERS! Altogether now: More than meets the eye! *insert funny morphing sound that the robots make* If you missed the trailer on TV (which they aired on Ch 5 on Sunday just before the 9.30pm news) check out the wicked posters of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Directed by Michael Bay, you can expect the usual panning worm's eye view camera angles; the dusty, sunset, orangey look that plagues ALL his movies; nail-biting chase scenes with breathtaking crashes; explosions and more explosions. And yes there's also Bumblebee (the VW Beetle, but they made him into a Camaro here), Starscream (they made him into an F22 Raptor like the MP03 toy), and some Insecticon (or Scorpionok?) I couldn't recognise. They also kept that funny morphing sound, which seemed odd in the movie. But still cool nevertheless. Wonder if Megatron is going to scream his signature ' Decepticons! Reeetreeeaaat!' in his usual whimpy way. Like Borat would say 'So excite!'. What can I say, I'm a fanboy.

And coming up next: Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark aka Iron Man (yucks!). What were they thinking?!

Spiderman 3

We finally had a chance to watch Spiderman 3, one week after its official opening. Apparently the tix were sold out everywhere for the first few days following the opening, which was understandable given all the hype surrounding the movie.
The opening credits were cool, which gave a little summary of the past two movies. I thought the movie was a little rushed, addressing too many issues in the 140 minutes. PP & MJ's relationship, newfound powers with the black symbiotic suit, Gwen Stacy, 3 new villians. They didn't dwell deep enough into each of the issues, but instead opted to add bits of everything without explaining much. At certain points it all became like one big rojak with stuff tossed all over the place. But that's just me who has been reading the Spiderman comics. Penny thought it was alright and liked the movie pretty much.
If I was Sam Raimi, this is how I would have broken it up. Just deal with the PP/MJ relationship and black suit, with Sandman (Flint Marko) and the young Green Goblin as the villians. Explore deeper about the circumstances surrounding Mr Marko and Mr Osborn, how they became what they are, blah, blah.
Part 4 will have Peter Parker going to Dr Curt Connors for help regarding the symbiotic suit (although in actual fact he actually went to Reed Richards for help), how to exterminate it, blah, blah. And they succeed! But, suay only, it moves on to take over Eddie Brock who becomes the bad ass Venom. And all this while you have Dr Connors dabbling with lizard DNA in an attempt to grow himself an arm and as a result becomes The Lizard (duh). So BAM! Two villians again.

So that leaves Shocker, Kraven and the rest of the baddies for Parts 5, 6, 7, etc, etc (I am somehow of the opinion that the Demogoblin is too diabolical for the genral audience and all the kids will start crying in the theatres).

But the best part I think would be in time to come, they will make a movie with the Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, etc) trying to stop a rampaging Hulk, with cameos by X-men, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Spiderman, Blade, Nick Fury (this time definitely will NOT be played by David Hasselhoff) and all the Marvel characters they've turned into movies.

You just wait. In 2003 when I told people there was a Ghost Rider movie in the making, everyone say I siao cos there was no way in hell they would make a flaming skull look believable.

Food glorious food

More proof of my earlier statement that Singaporeans are all bonkers and will do anything to get their grubby paws on all things drool worthy.

This is the queue at the famous People's Park hawker centre yong tau foo stall during lunch on Sunday. Those of you who swear by Koo Kee Yong Tau Foo Noodles, this right here is the original one. The Koo Kee people just stole the idea and added noodles.

Yes you heard me right, this stall just serves the soup without any noodles/rice/whatever. These people very atas, and rightfully so. Just look at that long queue. You complain they'll ask you to FO. Just like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.

"If you can't wait, then don't eat lor," their face will seem to tell you.

And these people are the masters of suspense. We were there at about 11.30am and wanted to order. They just said, "Not ready. Come back at 1pm." Just like that. No apologies, no nothing. And at 1pm, BOOM! This queue appeared from nowhere. Then they'll take their own sweet time to serve you.

The Chinese always say man kong chu si huo, which literally translates to 'slow work produces fine products'. But seriously, this stall's food is waaaaay overated. If you like yong tau foo, there's a reaaally old man (and I mean like Yoda kinda old) in the Chinatown food centre who makes a killer yong tau foo soup. And it comes with noodles! At his age, you can't blame him for being slow. But when you put the stuff into your mouth, you will finally realise what man kong chu si huo actually means.

Makan in Melaka... or Malacca?

We Singaporeans are siao one, willing to go through fire and brimstone just for good food. The numerous programmes on our local channels promoting food in various corners of the island is testimony to that fact. Take my family, for example, who drove all the way to Melaka over the weekend just to eat. Apparently, my parents and my brother had already been doing this on a regular basis, so I was a little slow to jump on their bandwagon.

Our trip started off on the right note. Nice, not too sunny weather with white, fluffy clouds crowding the sky. Minimal traffic at the Second Link, which was quite surprising given the potentially long Labour Day weekend if one were to take leave on Monday. Once we cleared the Malaysian immigration, we shot off like a bat out of hell and just went ZOOM! I was doing about 120 all the way, occasionally changing lanes to slow down when I lost sight of my dad's car in the rear view mirror. Or when I was being tailgated by a souped up Kelisa with an exhaust so loud it would put any WRX cowering away in shame.

Vel fell asleep 10 mins into the ride. Which meant we didn't have to worry about entertaining her. She only woke up when we stopped for a toilet break (my brother's SMS read: Stop at next toilet, mummy is leaking) at Pagoh. A little stretch, a quick pee and some drinks later, we were on our way again, comforted at the fact that we were nearing our destination.

We were driving quite fast, so we reached Ayer Keroh in a under an hour. From there, it took us another 30 mins to reach Melaka town itself. Passing by landmarks along the way like the famous waterfall and the Melaka zoo, I started to salivate with the thought of getting closer to all that yummy food. Which made me drive even faster, zipping in and out of traffic.

But we had to make a quick stop at Jonker Walk to check out the famous popiah stall which, according to my mum and brother, was supposedly very shiok. However, the stall was closed by the time we got there about 6pm. So we end up buying cincalok and other local favourites at a nearby shop before heading off to hunt down our dinner. But we ended up going in circles because my poor dad, whose hunger probably affected his sense of direction, took a wrong turn. Some giddy turns later, we finally arrived at Newton food centre. Like its Singaporean namesake, this place also offered tons of yummy favourites.

All of us came to a consensus: to order bits of pieces of everything so that we would have space to chow down more rubbish at the Jonker Walk pasar malam later. In the end, our 'bits and pieces' came down to 10 sticks of otah, two plates of oyster omelette, one portion of Hainanese chicken, one plate of bean sprouts, two portions of Portugese BBQ stingray, two bowls of curry noodles and 6 chicken wings. We were all quite stuffed by the time we finished everything and went through a round of drinks. The logical way to end all this was... CHENDOL! So we all hopped into our cars and made our way to Jonker Walk.

When we arrived, the place was already bustling with people. And it was really hot! We milled about for a bit, stopping here and there to buy nonsense for Vel (a Chinese fan, a stick of maltose candy, a toy and those retro throw-on-the-floor-to-burst crackers) and a 100gm bag of sotong bakar for a freaking RM$10. But it was gobbled up within minutes by the endless pits we all were.

We settled on a dessert stall down the row and we all ordered chendol (or cendol as it's known in Melaka). Mummy, not being a big fan of coconut milk, decided to be safe and go with ice jelly. Vel, as usual, was curious as to what the hoo-ha was about and shared my chendol with me. My parents and bro, being disgusting as they are, decided to squeeze more gula melaka onto the already very rich dessert. I didn't even manage to finish everything cos it got very heeby-jeebly after a while with all that sugar and coconut milk. When we were done, it was already past our ETD (we were targetting to leave at 8.30pm) so we headed quickly back to our cars to make our way home.

A quick pit stop at the Shell station at Ayer Keroh for a final toilet break, fuel top up, chewing gum and Vel to change into her PJs. Then off we went! Zoom! Back to Singapore at 140. I shot past my dad at some point along the way and never saw him after that. An uneventful 2 hours later when we cleared the Malaysian and Singaporean immigration (no jam!) on the AYE headed for home, my brother SMSed to say they were still at Abu Bakar.

We put Vel to bed and fell asleep as soon as we finally hit the sack at 12.30am.