Month: April 2003

This is something I found out after being exposed to many cultures. What barking sound does a dog make?
In English it’s woff woff!
In Chinese it’s wo wo!
In Malay it’s kong kong!
In Japanese it’s ha ha!
In Finnish it’s hau hau!
– 5:44PM

Down boy, DOWN! Here’s an excerpt from an online conversation with a guyfriend earlier today –

him: eh I heard your mum is hot
me: !?
him: =D
me: if your next line is ‘can intro-ar?’, I SWEAR I will kill you
him: =D
me: I SWEAR
him: shit..

And that wasn’t the first time I got that from my guyfriends who are just a liiiiiitttle bit tooo horny-lar y’know… WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!? ITS MY MOM!!!!… Geeezzz….

4.50PM

Read this article about How to treat the Dutch, it’s damn funny http://www.ignatzmice.com/Adam/features/HTTTD.htm

Happy Birthday to Daniel, the person who follows my blog religiously..hehe
– 10:00PM

Watson 16 now has 2 more added to da family! Vivien (or Terry or Sekoi) the ghost and Josephine the rat! One biiiig happy family!!

Let me tell you guys how the whole ghost thing came about… Frank has this deck of Tarot Cards and everybody had a fine time asking questions while Frank interpreted the cards. And damn, was he good. Damn accurate sometimes, ok!!! Frank was damn stressed though with all the non-stop questions which he kept fending off by saying he was tired and all…:D Then someone asked if our house was haunted and the answer was telling us ‘to stop seeking answers’. Scary shits… But IF it was haunted, it would be a tomboy-ish girl or a feminine boy. I dunno what happened along the way but our Watson 16 ghost became female and got her name(s)!

SO that’s what happened to all my black undies. 😀

Anyway, nonsense aside, Jia Hui, Daryl, Wee Kiat and I queued up for the Real Madrid v Manchester United game the other day… we were trying our luck on those tickets which nobody collected. After finally deciding that we didn’t mind queueing up the whole day for it, we reached there to see a line of about 40 people and some of them had camped the night to be in front of the line!!! But with good company, 4 hours wait really didn’t seem so bad but things started getting edgy when the line in front of us somehow got ‘thicker’ with people (damn you!!! people who jump queues will BURN!!!). The game had started and the cheers from inside the stadium seemed to float out towards us outside… crossing our fingers while the Japs in front cheered as they got their tickets (I never wanted something so badly in my life!!!) but unfortunately, about less than 10 more people to the front – there were no more tickets. Shite…. and it was a damn good game too. 🙁 Ahhh never mind… I am not some hardcore football fan anyway. And it was a cold night anyway. And Raul wasn’t playing anyway. I don’t even like football.

(Definitely a typical sour grapes scenario here but muaHAHha at least I am satisfied with my justifications :P)

3.35AM

Damn, why are there so many psychos around? Abby received a call from a stranger and asked her to do unspeakable and obscene things. It�s not the first time that guy called. He stopped for a while but continued again. How sick can that be? I don�t know what should I do to stop it. I�m so far away and if I provoke that guy, what would he do? It’s just like Nic�s case last time where he harassed Melody everyday by sending threatening messages to her. We even tried lodging a police report but we gave him a second chance anyway.

Changing her hand phone number would be a good idea, but is it worth it? Calling him and screw him would be a good idea too, but the problem is, that coward uses a public telephone to call her. Damn, if I know who he is, I�ll break every single bone that he has. I swear!

Anyway, I’m too lazy to build a page for the pictures I took during my Aussie backpacking trip. Here are the links, it could be viewed from my album section too.
Sydney 2002
Canberra 2002
Melbourne 2002

Reviews about the trip can be read from,
http://www.xes.cx/MT/archives/travel/aussie_backpacking_2002
6:39PM

Day 2 Amstermdam
I found a new place to stay. It’s called Delta hotel and is located at Damrak road and it’s only 65e a night for a single room. My room is located on the fifth floor and the best was it has a double bed and a single bed. A price of a single room for a triple room!

We headed to the museum centre by tram. Abby and I went to RIJKS Museum while her mum and Jess waited outside. RIJKS Museum was pretty boring, as both of us have no knowledge about art and painting. We had totally zero admiration for them even though some of the paintings we saw were world famous and worth million of dollars. However, we spent more than 2 hours walking around the museum. It’s quite huge and has many rooms. They even had a cinema showing documentaries about the paintings.

Another common sight in Amsterdam is a human statue. They could stand for hours without moving, just like those guards outside Buckingham Palace. They usually dress up in a costume or paint themselves with paint. Obviously, they don’t do this for fun, you have to give them some tips in order to take pictures with them or see them move and they could come out with loads of different creative movements. Abby took pictures a man and a young girl, painted with silver, blowing bubbles.

Canal Ride around Amsterdam City wasn’t really enjoyable. The tour is conducted via a television with blurry screen. And we got really bad seats and it was hard to take photos. The ride only lasted for an hour. There’s something special about canal houses in Amsterdam namely the architecture of it, the windows are uneven, and some of them looks crooked and tilts on one side. This is due to the foundation of the building. During old times (some buildings dates back to 1400s), the foundation of the building are made out of wood. Hence, after many years, the wood contracts with water and softens, and there you go, an uneven looking house, which looked like it’s going to fall down.

After canal ride, we went souvenirs hunting around the city. The entire Damdrak Road is filled with hotels, tour agencies, eateries and souvenir shops. Postcards, t-shirts, mugs, toys, fridge magnets, replicas of canal houses and windmills, bongs and pipes and so on are sold in every souvenir shop. The scenery postcards are really nice hence I bought couple of them. Obscene postcards are sold as well, the pictures ranges from naked gay men to mutated sex organs. Postcards can be sent all over the world for a price of 65cents. As for the stamps, I bought loads of them. Whenever I visit a country, I’ll make sure I’ll get their stamps as stamps portray the culture of the country.

We had dinner with Edwin, Jess’s friend, a 30-year-old Dutch working for Malaysian Airlines. He brought us to this small Italian restaurant at a small village outside Schiphol. The restaurant was at the verge of closing but they were nice enough to serve us. Edwin couldn’t stop talking about himself and he thought I was Abby’s brother. We played along and all the while he thought I was Abby’s brother. The food wasn’t that good anyway.

Night time, we went to take a walk around red light district. It was really dodgy. There were loads of men around, they are either looking at the prostitutes or looking for prostitutes. I brought Abby to a peep show, which cost 2e for 2 minutes. Peep show is where you go into a small room, just enough to fit a person, and watch a girl doing obscene things on a rotating stage. She said she felt indifferent but not disgusted.

I then brought her to a small sex shop. The things there ranged from dildos to S&M equipments. The S&M equipments fascinated her. Hehe
– 11:40PM

OK, that’s it! Everybody say bye-bye to our dear webmaster Leong… coz HE IS GONNA DIIIIEEE!!! COME HERE!!

11.35PM

Day 1 of Amsterdam
Bad news, I had to cancel the hotel I booked because Abby’s sister thinks that it’s too expensive. I had to sleep on the floor of their hotel room.
Amsterdam was hot, so hot that I sweated. It was probably about 20 degrees Celsius plus. Since it’s spring now, the sun doesn’t sun till 8PM. It gave us plenty of time to walk around.
Our first destination was Keukenhof, the largest spring garden in the world. Visitors have enjoyed the splendour of over 7 million flowering bulbs more than fifty years. The trip from Schiphol Airport costs us 10e. Bloody expensive I would say. The place is located on a flat and beautiful suburb, with beautiful typical Dutch houses and tulip farms.
There were loads of people in Keukenhof. So many till we had to queue up to take pictures. Unfortunately, it’s not the bloom season yet. Not all the flowers very fully bloomed hence we couldn’t see the spectacular view of a fully colourful long stretched tulip farms. However, it was still good, more than half of the flowers in the park are fully bloomed. Good for photography!
There’s a huge windmill built during the 1800s, it no longer function as a production machine but yet the propeller still works. It’s now a tourist attraction.

The history of the tulip
Wherever in the world you see a tulip, you automatically think of Holland. The flower is the symbol of the country, yet it certainly does not originate here.

Since 1593
Carolus Clusius, the famous biologist of Leiden’s Hortus Botanicus, is generally credited as the man who introduced the tulip into Holland in 1593. He would never have been able to do so had he not been a good friend of the Flemish De Busbecq. It was he who, as ambassador to Constantinople, fell under the spell of a beautiful flower in the palace gardens: the tulip. He sent a few bulbs to Clusius who cultivated them in the garden in Leiden.

Tulip mania
Stories about this special flower spread rapidly. Enchanted by its beauty, rich Dutchmen were prepared to spend vast sums of money for a tulip bulb. That the Dutch have always been astute businessmen was apparent then too because before very long, foreign buyers also appeared on the market. The tulip was ‘hot’ and a sort of ‘gold-fever’ developed, similar to the Internet fever of the 1990s. Of course, this came to an inevitable and bitter end. In 1637, there was a ‘Tulip Crash’ and tulip mania was over. Finally, the tulip did not appear to be quite so rare as to justify such high prices any longer. Over-supply led to lower prices and many dealers went bankrupt.

An export product
But the trade in tulips has continued unabated. The tulip, closely followed by lilies, gladioli, daffodils and many other decorative flowers, is now one of the Netherlands most important export products. Most of them go to the United States, Germany and Japan. Of the billion bulbs that remain in Holland, the vast majority are used to grow cut tulips.
If you’re wondering, there’s a difference between Netherlands and Holland. Netherlands means low land and it’s the name of the country. Holland is a province in the Netherlands and Amsterdam is located in Holland.

We spent 4 hours in the park. We were so tired by the end of the day. We headed to Amsterdam city for dinner. We went to this restaurant hidden from main streets. Apparently, Jess, Abby’s sister used to go there often when she was working for Singapore Airlines as a stewardess. But it took us a while to look for it, Jess forgot where was the place located.
We had pork ribs and escargots (snails) were good, which were good according to Jess. The portion was really huge and we had to share 2 plates of pork ribs between 4 of us.
We headed back to the hotel after dinner. Jess and her mother went to sleep immediately. I had to sleep on the floor. It was so uncomfortable till I couldn’t sleep at all.
– 3:30PM

I’m back from Amsterdam. It was a really goddamn good trip.

The ultimate highlight of the trip was definitely magic mushrooms. Abby, her sister and I shared a box of Thai magic mushrooms, with 2 sticks each (however, according to Ju Leun, 2 is not enough for hallucination). The raw mushrooms tasted really horrible. The effect came after an hour. I felt so relax, so comfy, so warm and so fuzzy. The bed that Abby and I were lying on turned to be the most comfortable bed in the world. The lights were off and I had my contact lens off (hence I couldnt see anything). It felt like the world was just within the bed. The feeling was so good, so, so good. So good that no words can explain how well I felt. I no longer felt tired, anger or worried but just pure happiness. I was in a state of euphoria!

Soon, our body shuts down. I could barely feel anything from my toes to my head and Abby can’t feel her legs. We couldn’t move our body. The only that was working, was our mind. We talked for hours. We whispered for hours. The things we’ve said, has never been said to anyone else.

However, all good things must end. I’ve no idea how long we talked for. It was like eternity. The feeling was so good that at one point I felt like dying. I don’t mind ending my life in the state of happiness. 😀

Coming down was hellish. My head started to ache and my stomach has a mint feeling on it and I cant really move. Abby on the other hand, had a massive headache and couldn’t move at all. I had to feed her water and take care of her. I’ve no idea how long the coming down effect lasted. All I know is that the next morning, I could barely wake up and felt dizzy and had a mild stomachache. Furthermore, mushrooms affect your erection when you’re at the stage of euphoria but it doesn’t really bother you when you’re at the stage, you’re just too happy to care.

Will I ever do it again? No, I don’t think so. This feeling is too good to be experienced often.

More updates tomorrow.
– 11:00PM