Sunday, 26th June.
2:00pm. Hotel 81 Chinatown.
When I parted with Scarlett Ting the night before, I promised I’d do lunch with Sassy Janice and her today. Its already 2pm and she still hadn’t yet replied my SMS. Wait any longer and our lunch date is gonna turn into dinner.

I messaged ‘Very Poisonous Lady’ Apple Lim since I was supposed to meet her for coffee as well, but there was no reply either. Man, I never felt so neglected.
Still feeling giddy as I recounted the events of last night I ventured out of my hotel alone, wandering around aimlessly and ended up at Plaza Singapura.
3:45pm. Plaza Singapura.

I like heart-shaped latte art.

Phone call from Ting, finally. Believe it or not, that woman had only just woke up. You know you’re a blog addict when you went home at 6am after meeting so many people from the blogosphere and the first thing you did was to update your blog.
By coincidence, paikia(bad boy)-loving Finicky Feline was in Plaza Singapura as well. We arranged to meet at Cafe Cartel, and she bought me a drink. Thanks, FF!
Her old-time friend GuoJun joined us a little later. He paid for his own drink. Poor bastard.

In case you were wondering. That’s not FF’s real face.

Something unusual happened while we were sitting there chilling out. A man approached us and placed a little pin attached to a card on our table. The card reads something like this: “I am deaf. I would appreciate it if you help me out by purchasing this badge, which costs SGD$5”. I’ve seen people doing this in Kuching as well.
I had my suspicions because the man is obviously well-dressed and well-fed, probably more well-fed than I am. If it were to choose between giving him or the Kuching Shuffler money, I’d choose the latter without blinking twice. FF reckoned it was a con, but my lousy conscience got the better of me.

When the man returned, I handed him SGD$2 and asked him to keep the pin. FF looked at me quizically. I looked back at her grinning sheepishly. Was I conned?
We looked over our shoulders when we heard funky music blaring over the speakers. Apparently there’s some cheerleading demonstration going on. FF, GJ and I ran over there like primary school children at the start of their lunch break.

Download cheerleading video: here or here.
I always thought male cheerleaders are kinda gay. Despite that fact, you gotta envy them because they can anyhow grab, fondle and touch those hot nubile little cheerleaders without landing themselves into hot water. So lucky. When I grow up I wanna be a cheerleader too.
5:00pm. Plaza Singapura.
FF and GJ left to watch some crappy movie. Scarlett Ting sent me a message blasting me for making her meet so many strangers. And Apple Lim just woke up.
“OH MY GOD! I slept like a pig!! Seventeen hours!“

Seventeen hours! Have you heard anyone who have slept for 17 hours?! Gee, what is it with Singaporeans and punctuality? 😉 And I thought Xiaxue was being mean for making me so long for the answers to her IQ questions.
6:15pm. Bakerzin (or was it Baker’s Inn?)
Scarlett Ting, Sassyjan and I finally had “lunch” at 6:15pm.

Joining us was “Chao Ah Lian” Apple Lim.

Apple’s round necklace and ring intrigued me. She said she likes round things. I think that’s probably the reason why she likes me.
Apple Lim is truly one of a kind. I’m not saying that because she once declared that she wanted to hug my hairy leg to sleep. I’m saying that because I’ve never seen a self-confessed Ah Lian blogger as good and as hilarious as she is. She’s also in the Wheels Magazine Race Queen contest, so go vote for her.
There’s this stereotypical misconception that models are usually stuck-up bimbotic airheads. Apple is the exact opposite.

Me giving you that grin that makes you wanna throw a punch to my face.

We talked only once on MSN. When I told her I was coming to Singapore, she was nice enough to offer her place (not her room lah, siao) for me to stay. I declined, fearing she’d secretly take photos of me in my red boxers and post it all over the Internet. She suggested Hotel 81 Chinatown, which is why I stayed there this time round.

Interesting fact: all the girls in this table are or were at some point involved with modelling / talent agencies.

I felt so left out. The only modelling experience I had was when I did my SarongPartyGirl pose.
Anyway, I’m surprised Apple Lim is so unpretentious, so incredibly down-to-earth, so likeable. It was the first time she met us all, but we seem to hit off pretty well. Scarlett Ting and Apple had a lot more in common than they think, and they were chatty throughout lunch dinner. Apple told us her interesting encounter with a fortune teller. I was amused she put so much faith in what a fortune teller told her.

I had agreed to meet James Seng and mr brown for dinner at 8pm, so I bade the girls farewell.
8:30pm. River Valley.
Finally. Some male bonding after all that female attention. Never thought I was ever gonna say this, but after a while, I kinda grew tired being surrounded by hot and pretty girls, especially when these girls belong to the can-see-but-cannot-touch category.
I had a long chit-chat with mr brown that night, and it was definitely the most enlightening moment throughout my whole trip in Singapore. No wonder they called him the ah kong (granddaddy) of Singaporean blogosphere. This man knows his shit. Right down to its colour, texture, and the number of undigested yellow kernels in it.

Pyramids of chicken rice. Beware of boobie traps.

We talked about the Singaporean blog culture, the upcoming Blogger’s convention, the commercial aspect of blogging, among other things. One thing I realised from our conversation is how much more mature and serious the blog culture is in Singapore compared to the rest of Asia. Its evident from the facts. Mr brown, Miyagi are writing for Today; Wendy is writing for The New Paper, Maxim, endorsing LocalBrand; and most interestingly, commercial entities are APPROACHING the Bloggercon organizers for sponsorship, instead of the other way round.
All these are happening while Malaysian bloggers are still gloating over how they got their first cheques from Google Adsense.

James “Drupal” Seng, mrbrown, some Malaysian dude, and remote control specialist HC

I learnt so much from mr brown that night, and yet he still chia me eat chicken rice. What a nice man. Thanks mb, I appreciate it.
12:30am. Holland Village.
Decided to meet up with the princess again before I leave the country the following day.
I was buying FHM and Maxim (as I always do when I’m in Singapore) at Cold Storage when a makeup-less Wendy in pink platforms suddenly appeared and gave me the shock of my life that froze me. How appropriate was it then that I was in Cold Storage.
We adjourned to the nearest kopitiam, where she wowed and entertained me with her amazing blowing skills.

BUBBLE blowing skills lah. What were you thinking?
Quite a few people have asked me how Xiaxue is like in real life. I admire her for her willingness to share details of her private and personal life. I think in a way, she is very similar to the way she blogs – feisty, straightforward, sometimes mean, sometimes vindicative. But not mean to the point where she’ll kick a stray dog off the road lah of course.

Kenny: “Eh why you cross the road like that? Not scared cars knock you down one is it?”
Wendy: “Never mind lah. Cars won’t knock down ‘mei nu’ one.”
Kenny: “…”

Still, it takes a lot of understanding to click with Wendy’s sense of humour and not get offended.
People are so used to her being that snobbish vengeful bitch online its kinda difficult accepting her nice, angelic side. And she does have an angelic side. Its the subtle things she did that speak for itself. Like how she blew bubbles to make a little toddler girl smile, and later gave the whole tube for her to play with.

Somehow this picture looks very wrong. Its not what you think alright?

People usually don’t notice things like these when she writes about it online, but it does bring a nice fuzzy feeling to my stomach.
Wendy and I chatted, joked, strolled till 5am in the morning.
In the process, we encountered one big ass spider.

Wendy tried to act chio by planting a flower on her head.

I tried to act chio, but failed.

Miserably.
5:15am. Hotel 81.
I returned to my hotel after exchanging goodbyes with Wendy.
I was about to enter the lobby, when out of a sudden I spotted two familiar faces scurrying towards the exit. It all happened within a few seconds, but I managed to whip out my digital camera in time to snap this scandalous picture.

mr brown and James Seng. Seen walking out of Hotel 81… TOGETHER!

Now we know exactly what the Tomorrow.sg editors meant when they say “We work together hard. Very hard.“

Continue reading →

“Its becoming a hangout place for bloggers here.” Belinda said of the Hideout. She’s only been running it for 2 months.
I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t have found out this gem if it weren’t for brown, Miyagi and Caleb blogging about it.

Saturday. 25th June. 9:15pm. A small crowd began to form after the Oddfellows moved their equipment onto the de facto stage area. I wondered how they’re able to perform when the drunk Ah Bengs downstairs were competing with them singing Lee Shen Jie. The place started to get noisy and Bel kept disappearing and reappearing as she and I tried to hold a decent uninterrupted conversation. Fat chance.
It didn’t take long for Belinda to excuse herself again, only this time she came back with a male companion.
“Kenny, meet my friend Ben.”

In front of me stood a man that looked more like a boy if it wasn’t for his funny-looking little goatee. I instantly recognised him as the poster boy on mr brown’s photo album. “Finally! Nice to see you Miyagi!” I shook his hand as he apologised for coming in late.
Its exactly like an irc gathering. I addressed him by his online pseudonym instead of by his real name. I felt like I was 15 years old again.

Mr Miyagi aka Benjamin Lee aka the guy who Today-ed me.

I sometimes forget Mr Miyagi is 35 because not only does he not behave like one, he talks and jokes like he’s still 21. We bonded over beer, chicken wings and Belinda’s Ah Gua cocktail as we talked about his job, how he dealt with his pseudo-fame and our common topic of interest – blogging. We talked about the commercial-side of blogging which, whether I like it or not, is probably gonna come knocking on my door. I’ll write about it some other day.

Her boyfriend is an Oddfellow

Through Miyagi I met a few other bloggers who were present. Evelyn was here with a few friends and she introduced herself to me as Juicypout. It wasn’t until I got back to Kuching that I realised she’s actually Mail Order Bride. (No, she’s not from Vietnam. Her online nick is MailOrderBride.)

“Shit! How can his one be bigger than mine?”

postmaster-general looks like a bad-ass army general I wouldn’t wanna mess with. He was there with his female companion. He offered us some fine cigars, which I respectfully declined. Learn to say no to smoking, kids. 🙂
10:20pm
A young, demure-looking girl nudged Mr Miyagi and whispered into his ear.

“Hey, where’s Kenny Sia? Did you see him?”
Miyagi’s eyes grew big, act all surprise and replied, “No leh. He’s supposed to be here by now but I don’t know where he is!”
I heard my name and I turned around.
I looked at her and she looked at me and I smiled at her and then suddenly she just burst out like that laughing non-stop.
Her: “You are Kenny Sia!”
Me: “You are Finicky Feline!”
We: “!!!”
She covered her mouth in an effort to unsuccesfully silence her paiseh laughs. I just stood there wondering what I did wrong.
I’ve been a silent reader of FF for quite sometime now. She’s one hilarious man-basher and its very easy to get hooked onto her. I’m glad the admiration is mutual. There’s always a tinge of exhiliration when you meet an anonymous online person for the first time, and I felt that with FF.

She is actually very fair and pretty but I had to cover her face with soft brown fur to protect her anonymity. Sorry har. Let me know if you prefer a different type of fur.

Too bad I actually thought she’s Indian because she used to call herself Babushka. That is, until I saw a photo of her back sometime back (bad pun, sorry).
“Where’s Ting?” I asked FF.
“She’s in the toilet.”
“Oh ok.”
“She was here. She actually saw you just now so she ran to the toilet.”

“Huh!?” Walau. I’m not that ugly kua.
FF led me to the unisex toilet where Scarlett Ting was hiding. The door was unlocked, held closed only by her feeble strength pushing the door.
“Ting?” I asked.
“… Yea?” she opened the door. There she was. Scarlett Ting, the twirly mouth babe.

To those of you not familiar with Scarlett Ting, she twirled her mouth in Photoshop to maintain partial anonymity.

“What were you doing in there?”
“I SHY!” *nervous giggles*
“Crazy lah. What’s there to be shy about?”
Scarlett Ting is the first person from Singapore I knew over the internet that I can honestly say has become a closer friend of mine. It started when she e-mailed me after reading about the frustrations I had to go through caring for my father when his condition was critical. She empathises and I appreciate that. The on-and-off email communication soon turn into the MSN conversations that we have regularly now.

This photo freakingly similar to the album cover of an S.H.E CD.

Our friendship is reflected in the more personal description that I wrote of her in my Singaporean blogger personality quiz. Its great to finally be able to meet up.
(At this point in time, I starting to feel as if I’m writing Friendster testimonials on kennysia.com. So I’ll cut the crap and get to the point.)
11:00pm

Mr Miyagi, Mr Brown and Mr… Coconuts.

Mr Brown arrived! We spent the evening talking blog, talking gadgets and debating whether Tomorrow.sg or PPS is better.

R U OK, me, MakanGuru , Dank, and the infamous blog-for-date couple Sandralicious and TripleTripod TriplePeriod.

The Cowboy Barflies! Airhole dropped by a bit later. They were at Wala Wala a while ago so its nice for them to come all the way from Holland Village to drop by and say hi.
Just as I was running around trying to make small talk with everyone. Mr Brown nudged me and said that Wendy has arrived. I looked to my left, looked to my right, but saw no trace of her.
Then I looked down and realised “Oh! There she is!”

Wendy!

Two familiar faces, Shuyin and ‘Wo Shi Mei Nu’ Wanyi tagged along. It was a pleasant surprise as I didn’t expect them to come to the Hideout at all.

Shuyin, Wendy, one goddamn lucky guy, Wanyi and Ting.

Any man would love to be in my position right then.

The name’s Bone. James Bone.

I was molested.

But I was satisfied.

12:00am
I returned to the Hideout with Wendy, Shuyin and Wanyi after a detour to the nearby kopitiam grabbing something to eat. By then, most casual patrons there have vacated the place and the only people left are people who know each other.
Perhaps the only regret I have of that night was that the whole thing felt like a birthday party. You know how when you invite people from work, from Uni, from secondary school, your relatives, and so on to your party. You know all these people but they don’t know one another. So you’re running around making small talks and trying not to make anyone feel left out, dividing your time equally between each group of friends that you have.

Kenny: “And its all your fault.”
Wendy: “What my fault. Your head ah!”

That’s how I felt that night. I didn’t have a chance to hold a decent conversation with anyone. But you get that, I guess.
1:30am

mr brown pretended he didn’t know, but he was sitting on Mr Miyagi’s right hand.

Wendy, Shuyin and Wanyi left for Partyworld KTV. I thought of joining them but I have singing voice that could close down a karaoke joint and put them out of business. So I decided to stay back and hang out with the rest till Belinda chased us out with a broom.
We were having supper at Shah Alam Restaurant when we saw a fight broke out between two groups of people. One side, armed with broken bottles and pool cues chased the other down the alley. It was like a scene out of Young and Dangerous, only starring Singaporean Ah Bengs.

Look! The girl in front is wearing Nothing!

Download fight video here.
2:30am
I waited 20 minutes for Janice to turn up to no avail. By then Wendy had already sent me multiple death threats for making her wait at the KTV. So I excused myself and made my way down to Partyworld KTV in Orchard. Ting and Janice joined us a little later.

Guess which one is Janice’s leg?

I can’t sing for the life of me. Everytime I sing, clouds turn gray, birds fall off the skies, and babies start crying for no reason.

Shuyin fell asleep singing.

But damn, those girls can sing! God knows why they invited me to ruin their otherwise nice KTV session.
I stayed till 6am that night. When I got back to Hotel 81 (alone, mind you) the receptionist said she was about to report me to the police for failing to turn up. Regardless, I was thoroughly entertained. I had tons of fun. So you ask, how the hell did I still manage to have fun when I couldn’t sing for shit?
Well…

That’s why. 😉

Continue reading →

Saturday. 25th June. 10:30am. The coach I was on had only just departed Puduraya bus station en route to Singapore.

KL contrast – old buildings with the twin towers as the backdrop

My Singapore trip was more or less decided on an impulse, having just booked my hotel room the day before I was supposed to leave (a grave mistake as I found out later). I made some really close friends from across the border, so I thought while I was in Peninsular Malaysia, why not make a detour down to Singapore to pay them a visit? There’s a list of people I was hoping to meet, though I didn’t want to let them know ‘cos I was secretly planning to give them a surprise.
So I told Scarlett Ting, who was supposed to mastermind a dinner with Finicky Feline (FF) and some others, where I’d appear out of nowhere and give her the shock of her lives. Ting came up with that evil plan, and I loved it.

Slept at 4am the night before thanks to nuovo.

Apple Lim knew too. But that’s fine ‘cos she’s always been very indepedant and I know she wouldn’t be telling anyone else.
Then I told minishorts, which I thought was ok since she’s Malaysian. Wrong. Within 15 seconds, she sent a message Mr Miyagi-san, who then told mr brown, who then relayed their phone numbers and a time to meet back to me almost immediately. Darn that minishorts.

Someone else I wanted to surprise is Wendy Cheng. The night before I was supposed to leave for KL, I hinted her that I was coming down. She demanded that I come down. So I told the blog princess my plans.
At this point, I’d like to iterate although I was portrayed as a casanova, our relationship is definitely not a romantic one. But telling you that kinda spoils half the fun. So pretend you didn’t read this message.
So as I was making myself comfortable for that 5-hour coach trip, I suddenly realised one thing… I SUCK AT GIVING SURPRISES.

Can you see Singapore’s neh neh pok?

Anyway, I didn’t make any appointment with any of them because I want to stay flexible, so a lot of our meet-ups were improvised and impromptu. I thought that as soon as I arrived in Singapore at around 4pm, I should be able to meet with Wendy for some chit-chat, dinner with mr brown and Miyagi around 7pm, Ting and FF at Wala Wala around 9pm, then finish the night with Apple at Devils Bar around midnight. Everyone goes home happy.
Wishful thinking, Kenny. Stop planning your schedule like a 3-year-old.
I was sleeping on the coach when I was interrupted by this message from mr brown.

“Actually, I am lyin on my back without my shirt on, listen to cool David Tao music on my iPod, while getting my monthly facial with my wife. So metro, right?”

brown = ‘metrosexual’? Suddenly I have this image of a half-naked mrbrown forming in my head.

“I’m lying on my back without my shirt on, Kenny…. Come draw me.”

I continued the rest of my journey holding vomit in my mouth.
When I arrived at the Golden Mile Complex on Beach Rd, Wendy gave me a call and said something along the lines of “I don’t want to meet you anymore” , Miyagi said he’ll call me at 8pm to meet at the Hideout, Ting said to meet at 8pm (as well) at Wala Wala, and Apple was holed up in some place far far away called Tampenis.
Worse still, when I checked into Hotel 81 in Chinatown later that day, the receptionist told me they’re fully booked and my reservation didn’t went through. Nabeh. Just ‘cos my surname is SIA doesn’t mean you all can go fly aeroplane on me.

Boat Quay.

6pm. Orchard Rd. Ting messaged me back after I asked her to try to convince FF to meet at the Hideout instead. Then at least, I get to meet brown and Miyagi together with them. Scarlett Ting tried, but the Feline’s flawless cat sense managed to see right through her. My attempt to surprise FF: FAILED. At least she agreed to go to the Hideout at 8pm. Good.
7pm. Orchard Rd. Still no word from the princess, though I knew she wouldn’t want to turn up at the Hideout. At the back of my mind though, I was secretly hoping she’d use her brand spanking new Zouk card on me. That is, after my excursion to Hideout.

Raffles Place skyline. Taken while I was talking to Miyagi on the phone.

8pm. Raffles Place Stock Exchange. Ting advised me to alight at Raffles Place MRT to go to the Hideout. She’s still at home. Miyagi just got home after work. Brown was at church. I thought the princess was angry at me ‘cos I still don’t know what her plans were.
I walked around the nice pubs at Boat Quay and Circular Road trying to look for the Hideout to no avail. Obviously they’re not called the Hideout for no reason. That is, until Muthu from Shahbucks showed me the way.

Can’t afford a Starbucks. So they started a Shahbucks.

8:45pm. The Hideout. Finally I’m at this place after hearing so much about it from the Singaporean bloggers. Old furniture in amongst maroon walls casually decorated by simple art pieces. Jazzy music playing in the background. Holy shit, its almost exactly the same as Moon Cafe, my favourite late-night hangout place in Perth. Its like coming back to a familiar place after so long. I fell in love with the place almost instantly.
When I got there, it was still rather quiet, save for some really bad karaoke singer on the 2nd floor. I seated myself at the bar and ordered a pint of beer from Chris the bartender. “Hi, welcome to Hideout.”, Belinda took the seat next to me as she introduced herself as the owner. She didn’t know, but I recognised her.

Bel: “Is this your first time here? You’ve been here before right?”
Kenny: “No, it is my first time here.”
“Oh welcome. We don’t get many new visitors here ‘cos its so well-hidden. How did you find out about this place?”
“My friends told me about it actually.”
“That’s nice.” *reached over and passed me a namecard* “Here’s a card. There’s our website and I keep a blog there as well. Feel free to drop by and sign up for our spam list.”
“Spam list? That’s alright I’m not from Singapore actually.”
“Oh that’s fine. 🙂 What’s your name?”
“Kenny.”
“Hi Kenny. Bel.”

I know. 😉 Belinda walked around entertaining some of her patrons before she made an abrupt U-turn and came up to me again.

Belinda, that delectable owner of the HideOut. Gotta love the top she’s wearing that night.

“You don’t happen to be from Malaysia right?”
“I am.”
“Your surname don’t happen to be ‘Sia’ right?”
“It is.”
“Oh… my… ! You’re waiting for Ben (Miyagi’s real name) aren’t you?” *starts getting excited* “I was thinking what are the chances of someone not from Singapore, whose name is ‘Kenny’, coming to the Hideout!”

Not many. That’s why I was there that night, Belinda. 🙂
Anyway the time now is 4:30am and this entry is getting a bit longer than usual. There’s a lot more to write but I do need my sleep so I’ll continue my story tomorrow. Sorry for being such an anti-climax. Promise me you’ll check back hey?

Continue reading →