Golden & Silver Excesses

I'm a mister Happy today because I can choose it if I want to. I don't need a reason. I can just, be. I've come to terms with things. After all, I did actually make it to Porshee's without having to sell my soul to the devil.

 

The Friday before last, Dream Theater stormed the Indoor Stadium. Words can't do justice to their musicality and showmanship. Mike Portnoy has the whole mad scientist gig going for him, Petrucci's shredding now not only sounds but looks cool, and James LaBrie... well. I thought when he started off, he inhaled helium or something, but his voice was just getting warmed up. Shame that John Myung's bass was too soft in the first half of the show! And they played too much of Octavarium - wah lau, surviving a 26 minute song (extended even longer by the initial messing around on the keyboards!) is a bit siao even in progressive metal.

 

Saturday to Tuesday was spent in London. First day was nondescript because we arrived in the afternoon, and you realise it gets dark around 4pm, so the family visited Chinatown to see the New Year deco. Sort of nice lah, but dreadfully cold so we ran into Shanghai Blue for our "reunion dinner" and knocked out around 8 plus.

 

Sunday began at Trafalgar Square for the city's CNY celebrations, which, if not for the crowd, wouldn't have been any more spectacular than a heartland mall celebration. Obviously the more sane Chinese people must have skipped out on this event, because I didn't manage to find any acquaintances in the crowd (yes, I was going through the whole damn crowd looking out for anyone I recognised, I bo liao can?). Had Nyonya prawn mee for lunch (it's damn good... those London-bound people are damn lucky to be easily able to get good Chinese food) and did a bit of shopping before nightfall. Dinner was at some lousy restaurant in Bayswater, cos the infamous roasted duck restaurant was stuffed to the brim - although with that racking cough, I couldn't really argue against porridge! After dinner, I dawdled around a bit in the hotel until it was time to meet Wingyee at Russel Square.

 

Now, London in the winter is not a place you want to be dawdling around in when you've agreed upon a rendevous in an outdoor area. This I painfully learned when I thought I'd pre-empt Wingyee's arrival and not keep her waiting for me at the Russel Square tube station, only to find that the station lobby was absolutely exposed to the outside! I had to take refuge in the nearby Tesco for like 20 minutes and the security guard was probably looking at me funny.

 

Finally caught Wingyee at the Hotel Internationale (where we thought the salsa club had moved to), after which she kindly lead me to the true S.O.S. I've already talked about the amazing performances and the high standard of dancers, so let me mention that I was mildly terrified to have to ask utter, complete, not-even-the-same-race-or-nationality-as-me women to dance when I spend half the time in Union cowering! Okay, I exaggerate lah. The scarier thing was that in a bid to style a bit, I ended up hitting this burly black guy's face! Suffice to say, you just have to use your imagination a little to guess how I felt about his ensuing glare.

 

Monday was a day of wild wandering (my favourite activity when I don't sweat) and around lunchtime I went for the totally wild.... Oxford Street. -__- Trust me to go for such safe areas. Spent some time admiring the immense Marks & Spencers and AppleCentre, which is more reminiscent of the Cineleisure iShop rather than the actual AppleCentres in Funan and Wheelock. There's also free internet access in the Regent Street AppleCentre, which attracts plenty of freeloaders like myself...

 

For the afternoon I had the good company of Penelope/Candice, at this quaint French cafe tucked away in an tiny alleyway along Oxford/Regent St that I never would have spotted ordinarily - it's damn secret lah. Was lovely just chatting randomly, but my goodness... this is the second time I've been accused of being metrosexual. Bloody hell (insert Sherry accenting here), if there's anyone who's metro it's Lawrence!

 

Penny and I took what appeared to be an innocent stroll in Hyde Park... until.... it got.... dark.... and freezy... and first she wasn't cold at all... and second she was like "now, was it this building we should be heading towards, or... oh my, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in you now does it?" x_x When we were around the pond/lakeside, this army of ducks in single file deviated from their course towards the water and marched towards the girl... I suppose the duckies took revenge for me, haha. Finally, after a long walk and tons of whining on my part, we arrived at Penny's apartment in Paddington. Nice, warm, and big... too big for just 2 girls to be staying in! Met her flatmate (whose name escapes me at the moment, argh!) and we chatted for a bit before the Mum called me out to dinner back at Oxford Street. Yauatcha was a lot more impressive this time around, being less sick and able to appreciate the decor. Now, I had wanted to go to Bar Salsa, home of Super Mario, but alas my strength was failing me after the "late night" with Wingyee, so I gave it a miss.

 

My last day in London began with more wandering around Oxford (heaven knows why -_-), Embankment and Canary Wharf, where I'd be meeting Ling. Canary Wharf was a disaster - I hadn't known that there was a LRT-like service going through East London, and Canary Wharf was actually a interchange for the London Underground and the DLR (Docklands Light Rail), so Ling and I ended up waiting for each other at 2 very different places! Hurtled through tons of human traffic before I finally got to her. Yet to add insult to injury, I suggested that I might have liked to try some authentic London cod fish and chips, and we set out on our way to somewhere else in East London... and got lost again. We decided to settle down at London Bridge and grab a quick sandwich, having spotted a lone, shady, hole-in-the-wall fish & chip shop throughout our entire journey. Nevertheless, 'twas nice to see her somewhere outside of Singapore...

 

Met young master Li at London Bridge for a cuppa. Hasn't changed one bit, still goofy yet earnest as ever. You can see the twinkle in his eyes when he says he'll be back in Singapore for an internship! Ever the busy guy, he had to dash off for yet another power-suit interview or something, so I headed home for dinner at Bugis St and the flight back.

 

Fast forward to Friday and Peter's wine party. I think it's a fact that I've gotten old when I no longer find wine repulsive. Kena conned sia, I didn't eat dinner because I thought there was going to be food! Likewise most of us were conned too, haha. It was kinda funny initially when Porshee asked me to look out the window, seeing Kenneth and Yingyi getting up to mysterious hijinks, we were like "OOOH scandalousssssss", because with the waves of bad news I temporarily forgot about the photoshoot collage. Wasn't really in the right mood for the shots, but well. 

 

Because there's a copious gap in my memory where Saturday should have been, I'll plunge straight to Porshee's farewell. First person to greet me is.... Shihao. Oh Kay. Went up to Porshee's room... like quite dead also... All damn shagged! I was pretty sad cos I wasn't able to make it home to take Krispy Kremes and the PS2 Guitar Hero, would have had some fun but oh well.

 

Really I can't remember much except the qian bian wen da ti MRT station game, snatching Sherry's orange blobby pillow (or is that Porshee's ball), and of course Sherry's infamous suicidal self-quote of the day/week/month...

 

Woke up to breakfast, Eddie and I fail as waiters with Milo spilling left right and centre. Towards the end, while everyone was discussing how to settle getting back to their respective agendas, I was keeping extremely quiet, noticing that the other drivers like Peter, Kenneth and Youyi had all disappeared... Lawrence has been discovered to have goaded Adeline to try and blurt "Hi Brian!" in a bid to get me to send them to LADC, but Ad was like "so bad!!"

 

Then Alison did it anyway, without any prompting whatsoever.. x_x