Hong Kong continued...

(Photos have now been added to this post and the previous post. Click on photos to see the larger versions.)

Day 2 - Saturday - 20 August 2005:

It continued to be a grey, rainy day unfortunately. R. and I were woken up when the house maid unlocked our door around 10.30 am (as we hadn't hung the all-important "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door when we arrived back at the hotel seven hours earlier). The maid hurriedly backed out with a "mou yi xi" when I groggily exclaimed in alarm, "What the F***?" Given our completely exhausted and slightly ill states, we both fell back asleep only to wake up around 2 pm, a little frustrated because it still hadn't stopped raining, and more importantly, we hadn't gone on holiday just to sleep.

After showering, we decided to attempt to do some damage to our hitherto untouched wallets (S., our guide and generous friend, had paid for all our food the day before) and go to Mong Kok, where we ended up shopping for close to four hours at Langham Place (a 12-storey shopping mall) while hoping the rain would stop. We ate at their version of a food court where the Hong Kong cafe didn't have any English translation, prompting me to put my head on the table and begin whimpering in agony while my more well-versed-in-Mandarin friend did the arduous task of ordering our lunch.

Later on, frustrated at not having taken any photos of Hong Kong just yet, I decided on a new theme - indoor photos of Hong Kong - where I got some cute photos of store names and other assorted goods.

Right: Any Guts To Come? Er... no. I'll stay outside.

I also managed to pick up some pimpstress (oh, I love that word) wear at Extravaganza (a streetwear shop) and a copy of Gilmore Girls - Seasons 1 to 3 (the legitimate China version) for T. at Sino Plaza.

Left: Isn't this the quirkiest and cutest cock ever? I desperately wanted to bring it home. Unfortunately, sanity prevailed and I returned home cock-less.

This was followed by dinner at Wang Jia Sha, a great Shanghainese restaurant in the vicinity, where S., demonstrating the serious business of eating Hong Kong style, ordered three appetizers and four main courses for three people. Needless to say, there was a lot of food left over. After dropping off our haul at the hotel, the rain stopped, much to our delight and we decided to check out the famous Temple Street night market. Sad to say, because of the deluge earlier, the entire street was deserted. The Ladies Market was slightly better, but none of the stalls there tempted us.

Day 2 was concluded with drinks at Aqua, a gorgeous designer bar similar to Singapore's New Asia Bar, with a former colleague, Y. and her boyfriend, P. who turned out to be a delightfully interesting person. I could definitely see why they were still together after three years.





Aqua Bar (Bar to the left, lounging area to the right)




From the bar, I had a fantastic view of Hong Kong Island. However, because there was still a lot of water droplets on the windows, I wasn't able to get a good clear shot. Pity, as I love taking night shots of cities. I returned to my hotel an hour later and collapsed into bed.

It later turned out R. had left me a note asking me to wake her up at 9 am, but because I had been too polite a room-mate to turn the lights on when I got back, I missed it completely. As a result, we woke up at 11 am. Again. But that's another post.

Nuclear waste row leaves bad smell in Lithuania
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Thursday August 25 2005
The Guardian

A bizarre diplomatic skirmish has broken out after Belarus retaliated against Lithuania's decision to build a radioactive waste dump close to their shared border by announcing plans to put two giant pig farms in sniffing distance of its neighbour.

Minsk complained that it had not been consulted and the facility would threaten its nearby Braslavsky lakes national park.

Now it has retaliated with a project of its own: two farm complexes for a total of 216,000 pigs close to Lithuania's southern border, one beside a river that runs straight into the Baltic country.

The Lithuanian prime minister, Algirdas Brazauskas, condemned the plans in a radio interview this week, saying: "Construction of a pig complex in the Neman river basin would be a barbarous act."

Waste could flow down the river to a popular spa resort at Druskininkai in south-west Lithuania, officials in Vilnius believe.

As a follow-up to my previous post on good ice-cream shops in Singapore, here's a Business Times review on several shops.

Estivo Gelateria
26 Greenwood Avenue
Tel: 6469-6763
Open from 10am-10pm from Tue to Sat. Mon, from noon, and Sun, from 1pm

All the gelato flavours here are natural-tasting, not-so-sweet or milky, but what really stands out are the fruity sorbettos which are somewhere between an icy sorbet and a denser gelato. The grapefruit is refreshing, with a natural bitter aftertaste, and the cantaloupe too, simply lifted the palate. Priced at $2.80 for a small cup and $3.90 for a large cup.

Island Creamery
10 Jalan Serene, Serene Centre, #01-05
Tel: 6468-8859
Open from noon to 9pm from Mon-Fri; Sat till 10pm, and Sun, 2-7pm

If you like your ice-cream super creamy and on the wild side where flavours are concerned, here's the perfect ice-cream parlour. Takeaways come in nice white plastic tubs which are definitely useful to collect and re-use. Stanley Kwok's specialties are local flavours like cendol and teh tarik, and then there's pineapple tart pieces in vanilla ice cream, with funkier flavours like Tiger Beer sorbet and Guinness Stout ice-cream. A single scoop sells for $2.50, and a takeaway tub, $8.

SweetStix
2 Pandan Valley,
Acacia Court,
#01-203 Tel: 9800-8728
Open 11am-10pm daily

A laid-back ice-cream parlour with American-styled creamy rich ice-cream, this is a place to head for if you want a booze buzz but still look angelic about it. The rum & raisin could go up in flames if you light it, although the raisins are pebble-hard and petrified. The champagne chocolate also tastes like a moet & chandon bottle had been poured into the tub, while the horlicks flavour is the genuine article, but can be a tad too cloying after a few spoonfuls. Each scoop sells for $2.50 and takeaway tubs are $8 each.

The Daily Scoop
41 Sunset Way
#01-04 Clementi Arcade
Tel: 6463 3365
Open from 11am-9pm, Mon-Thur; till 10pm on Sat; and 2pm-9pm on Sun

Despite being an ice-cream joint, The Daily Scoop's offerings are more similar to gelato which means they'll be perfect for those who like their ice-cream less milky or creamy and cloying. The lychee martini is very pleasant, while the cempedak captures the fruit's natural tastes. The durian however is rather bland despite assurances that it's made from Malaysian durians and not Thai. The chocolate also tastes like it was made from cocoa powder rather than chocolate bars. It costs $2.90 per pop, while double scoops go for $4.50.

Venezia Gelateria
Guthrie House,
1 Fifth Ave, #01-01
Tel: 6468 3656
Open daily from 9am-10.30pm on weekdays; closing at 11pm on weekends

Now, if only the girls serving you at Guthrie House had a more cheerful disposition, going to this gelateria would be a perfect outing. Venezia makes very consistent high-quality and delicious gelato. Visually, each tub is also topped with signature swirly, billowy waves of gelato beckoning you every time you pass by a Venezia outlet in many of the malls around the city. Chocolate-based and nutty flavours are tops, while local flavours are also blended very well. Its latest outlet is at the Singapore Art Museum, where you can have a gelato in style.

Wild Hibiscus
Polar Cafe, #B1-02 City Link Mall
Tel: 6835 9909
Ice-creams available daily from 11am-10.30pm

The flavours here have a pretty feminine character, given the use of herbs like lavender and elderflower mixed with mainstream ingredients like chocolate and banana. The balance is not quite there yet however, as the chocolate and lemongrass tastes mostly chocolatey, and the orange and lavender tastes like lavender, with bits of lavender husks in the ice-cream which you have to find a way of spitting out gracefully unless you want it to count as roughage for the day. The elderflower sorbet is quite light and refreshing.

At Do Yourself In, I ran into E., who was back here for a short break. Though I was there with T., a friend of mine told me that she thought E. and I should have gotten together. After all, we're compatible, we get on well and we look good together. "How?" I said. "Yes, I had a major crush on him last year, but he didn't feel the same way." That's not true, she countered. "He told me how much he enjoyed talking to you last time when you guys first met. And he probably didn't admit to liking you because he was going off to the U.S.." In a strange way, that both saddened and gratified me; saddened because I wonder how things could have been like, gratified because I now know I hadn't read him wrongly.

Not that that helps either one of us now. He's in a complicated relationship, he said, and I? The same. "Don't break his heart," E. told me, referring to T.. "He's far more likely to break my heart than I, his," laughed I, with some bitterness shading my attempt at a flippant reply.

If only we had met under different circumstances. Perhaps neither one of us would be experiencing the pain that we're now going through with our respective relationships.

Weekend in review:

Saturday

Pulser at Onyx proved to be more thumping than expected. The trance he was throwing down was definitely uplifting and driving, akin to the trance I'd expect to hear at festivals. Sadly, the warm-up DJ was useless, playing tribal-techno-house-what-not just before Pulser came on. I expected better of Onyx given that it's hosted some pretty big-name DJs in the trance scene recently, but apparently, the departure of several key members of its management team recently have affected not just the musicial quality of the residents, but also the warmth and friendliness of the overall place.

Despite the good music that Pulser was throwing down, I left at 3.15 am to go to Zouk to check out Christopher Lawrence, who was playing "underground trance bordering on house," not something you hear everyday, and something my friend who had just arrived at Onyx from Zouk said I should get a taste of. So off I went. I'm happy to say that CL was good (not as good as Pulser, but good nonetheless) and definitely different from the kind of trance I'm used to hearing my DJs play. His encore began quite early - at 4 am and ended before 5 am, leading my trance guru friend at Zouk to yell, "jiak juah!" (Hokkien for "eat snake", used to refer to people slacking on the job) at him several times while plying me with lots of Martell.

Friday

Very Xotic at Zouk was packed and the free flow was temporarily interrupted because the bar ran out of glasses. I didn't manage to catch much of the fashion show owing to the hordes of people and while I'm in no position to assess the quality of the exotic dancers, the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves. By all accounts, there were some complaints that the lap dances were too raunchy, but seeing as they (both the males and females) only took the caps and jackets off their costumes... I would have considered it too tame!

Do Yourself In was interesting, if not exactly my kind of music. It's rare for such a party to be held at any government-owned building so the event was understandably popular. T. had lots of friends there and I was grateful that a friend of mine had decided to follow me from Zouk to The Arts House because T. left me alone for much of the night, something I eventually blew up at him for, because if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have gone for the event in the first place. I apologised later for getting so angry, but the truth is, I'm still a little mad about it, because it's not the first time. I'm not a controlling girlfriend. At the very most, I'm a moderately medium-maintenance one. But if you're the one who wanted to go to an event, the least you can do is spend some time with me.

Parents will be parents.

I'm almost 25 years old and today, over dinner, my mum casually commented that people who go clubbing frequently, like I do, can only be doing it for one reason - drugs. She looked at me, saw my reaction and quickly amended her statement that most people must be doing it for that. My parents have never understood the attraction that clubbing has held for my friends and I, not comprehending that I truly do love the music and enjoy dancing to the melodic beats the DJ provides, and that I also occasionally enjoy showing off just how good a dancer I am. Of course, I also love drinking and dancing allows me to drink that much more.

Instead, they've concluded that people who go to Zouk (what other club in Singapore does anyone my parents' generation know?) must be on drugs. And then, they started to ask me: Who is it that I go clubbing with? Are they old school friends or people that my parents don't know? Do I know everyone in my clubbing group well? Can I say for sure that people around me - and not just my friends - aren't on drugs?

If you're wondering what prompted this, it's because, apparently, my parents read an article in The New Paper which reported that ecstasy is now available in liquid form (EDIT: my parents were confused, liquid ecstasy is GHB, a date rape drug, not the same as MDMA aka ecstasy), and my parents are worried that some unscrupulous arsehole may try to spike my drink. And I agree with their concern. I used to be very careful when in clubs, never allowing strangers to buy me drinks, but lately, because I've got to know so many different people, I tend to drink whatever's offered to me, as many other people will be drinking from the same jug.

In the end, after one more failed attempt of explaining to my parents why it is I go clubbing so often and what I like about it (the drinking and the dancing, which led to another lecture on alcohol), I told them I have never done drugs (true), I have never even smoked (true), I have never been drunk (untrue, but what else did you expect me to tell them?) and ended off by acknowledging that there are freaks out there and that I will be more careful from now on.

I do sometimes hate the uncertainty and extra caution one must take being female, as well as the incredible double standards levied on us (the age-old "stud/slut" comparison made between guys and girls who indulge in the same kind of so-called promiscuous behaviour). I really do wish I could enjoy life without having to worry about these sorts of things... and having to put up with these extended lectures from my parents in which they claim they're not trying to control my life.

Movies I hope will make it to Singapore:
The Aristocrats - Comedy veterans Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on their insider status and invite over 100 of their closest friends (who just happen to be some of the biggest names in entertainment, including Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Drew Carey, Steven Wright, Bill Maher, Eddie Izzard, Harry Shearer, Martin Mull, Hank Azaria, Paul Reiser, and Sarah Silverman) to reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world's dirtiest joke, an old burlesque routine, too extreme to be performed in public, called "The Aristocrats".
Thumbsucker - A high-school loser finds that fate (and modern medicine) plays some interesting tricks with his personality in this dark comedy.

Movies I thought would make it here but never did:
I heart Huckabees - A husband-and-wife team play detective, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, the happy duo helps others solve their existential issues, the kind that keep you up at night, wondering what it all means.
Garden State - When Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral, he reconnects with old friends and - since he’s gone off his depression medication - himself. A chance meeting with Sam (Natalie Portman), who also suffering from various maladies, opens his world to the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

Found via Mr. Brown.

Happiness is... having the boyfriend pop up unexpectedly in the area to have lunch with you, hold you while you wipe away your tears (later found to be unnecessary, but what a relief!), and then after, some semblance of normalcy returns, surprise you by dragging you off some place quiet amid the chaos of the city with a look of mischief in his eyes.

I finally managed to take a much-needed break over the weekend when I went to Hong Kong with R., a university friend, from Friday (19th) to Monday (22nd). Unfortunately for me, Hong Kong was on a perpetual amber rainstorm alert with the city seeing the heaviest rainfall it had in 23 years on Saturday. And yes, it was my first time in Hong Kong ever.

Day 1 - Friday - 19 August 2005

We arrived in Hong Kong shortly before 12 pm only to be greeted by a heavy downpour. In the 5 seconds it took for us to dash from our coach to the entrance of the centrally-located Prudential Hotel where we were staying, we got soaked. Exhausted from the lack of sleep and frozen from the powerful air-conditioning in the hotel room, I huddled underneath two blankets while sipping the cup of Nescafe Intense so thoughtfully provided by Valuair to thank us for our patronage.


Rain, rain, please go away.

Left: Hong Kong Island from one side of Harbour City

Right: HK Island from the other side of Harbour City

Our HK friend, S., arrived and decided to take us to Harbour City, the city's largest shopping mall, because he assumed that we, being the girls that we are, wanted to take in some high-end shopping. In the end, he was the only one who ended up buying something.

Later on, we went for dinner at Peking Garden where we partook of an amazing 6-course set dinner including a round of incredibly good Peking duck where we met up with another person from our university who I recognised but had not met before. Pity that, for I thought he was quite good-looking for a Hong Konger.

Anyway, after dinner, we went to meet my colleagues for drinks at Kee Club (6/F, 32 Wellington Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Central) before going clubbing at the very exclusive members-only Volar (thanks to S.'s connections and much to the surprise and envy of my other HK friends who hadn't gone there yet. Add: B/F 39-44 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Central) where DJ Wild was playing. The club wasn't anything special, however, and the music, while not bad, couldn't match Zouk's standard. So off we went for supper at Tsui Wah (a 24-hour restaurant similar to '97 in Leicester Square, London) before stopping at Jewel (a classy lounge, 37-43 Pottinger Street, Central) where both of us fell asleep and then back to the hotel.

Hah! Money can buy happiness after all. Well, sort of.

I always knew it was a case of knowing where to shop.

A thrill for any Simpsons fan: a Flickr map of Springfield, complete with 400 notes.

Uploaded by Dan Cameron.

My weekend was spent watching several local films:

Forever Fever (1995, directed by Glen Goei) proved to be a better than expected movie. I'm not a great fan of the Singaporean accent and was expecting that the usage of typically local dialects and accents would turn me off this adaptation of Saturday Night Fever, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. Adrian Pang was delightfully sincere and pai as Hock, the Bruce Lee fan and unlikely disco dancer extraordinaire (with a little help from his guardian angel, John Travolta) while the other members of the cast were okay. The dance scenes were pretty convincing, calling to mind the time I watched the Saturday Night Fever musical avidly, trying to learn the dance steps to Jive Talking (Incidentally, the steps for the Night Fever Hustle can be found here and here). All in all, I'm glad T. wanted to see the show because I doubt I'd have seen it otherwise, despite my love of all things to do with social dancing. Oh yes, Kumar was really funny as the dance instructor doling out sage words of advice such as "the more you shake it, the more you make it!" and "the more you dance, the more you romance!" Heh.

Moveable Feast (1997) is a 15-minute showcase of the wonders of food in Singapore, going through the narrator's typical day, from breakfast at the coffee-shop to lunch on the go to high tea to wedding dinners. Line I loved most: "Man's innate fear of fire." Coffee-shop assistant walks by, yelling "siu, ah, siu!" while carrying drinks and people jump aside.

Eating Air (Jiak Hong) (1999, written by Kelvin Tong) wasn't too bad. Eating Air is a story revolving around a 15-year-old boy only identified as well, Boy, who loves riding motorbikes (hence, the title) and his friendship with Ah Gu and his romance with Girl. Boy is a bit of a gangster, not hesitating to beat up people who offend him or his friends. Nevertheless, he is a loyal friend, willing to go to any lengths to help his best friend, Ah Gu. Along the way, he meets Girl, a responsible schoolgirl with a rather irresponsible mother, and they fall in love. She learns to be more carefree and at the same time, becomes stronger, telling her mother off for her frivolous ways when her mother comes running to her for the umpteenth time after having broken up with yet another man. This movie is punctuated with manga drawings and Boy's rather fanciful flights of imagination (where he imagines himself as a long wanderer in the pugilistic world (aka "jiang hu dao") and local humour (one hilarious scene has one of the young gangsters bringing along a huge stingray instead of a pig's head when they want to teach someone who owes them money a lesson because he "work[s] in a fish market," and so couldn't get the required object) and local music (Boredphucks). Naturally, with such a setting - young men in gangs - this movie was never supposed to have a happy ending.

And I learnt one strange thing. T. seems to have a healing effect on me. I had been sick since Wednesday with a rather bad cold, and was feeling like crap on Friday. In spite of that, I still went out with T., only getting back at around 4 am, fully expecting to feel even worse on Saturday. However, I woke up feeling fine. This isn't the first time it's happened. The same thing happened when I went to Steve Lawler and Roger Sanchez at Zouk with T.. Some things work in mysterious ways.

Hee hee.

If I recall correctly,I got into Britpop mostly because of the influence of Smash Hits magazine, which I had begun buying because I was madly, deeply in love with Take That (still, in my mind, the world's greatest boy band).

And while on that topic, I also remember feeling utterly devastated on my way to my dental appointment on Februry 14 1996 when I heard the news that TT were disbanding.

How embarrassing.

Remember the first time
August 12 2005
The Guardian

Without Britpop, would we have had hit guitar groups, stadium anthems or rock stars on Newsnight? Ten years on, John Harris looks back on how Blur, Oasis, Pulp and co changed the face of UK music

"Towards the end of my time with McGee, we pull apart one last theory about Britpop's legacy: the idea that, three months after the Blur-Oasis battle, when the latter group released Wonderwall, the rules of British music were decisively changed. From hereon in, the lighter-than-air ballad became obligatory, and the leather-trousers era of rock'n'roll was over. When Chris Martin plays his rapturously received songs of plodding redemption, or Snow Patrol deliver yet another mid-paced example of their anodyne craft, you can hear echoes of the song that made Oasis ubiquitous - can't you?

"'No, no, no,' McGee protests. 'I would defend Wonderwall to the hilt. It's an amazing song. None of those people will ever write a song like that in their lives. Ever, ever, ever. They could try for the next 50 years, and they wouldn't do it.'

"You can pin all kinds of epochal changes on the Britpop generation - but there are, it seems, limits. 'I don't think you can blame Noel Gallagher for Coldplay,' says McGee. He suddenly looks slightly horrified. 'And you can't blame him for Athlete.'"

I have purchased my ticket to go to Hong Kong from the 19th to the 22nd of August. This will be my first proper break in five months, and man, do I need it. I need to get away from the office, Singapore, the family and the boyfriend - basically everything that's causing me stress - and just chill. Unfortunately, how much chilling I'll be able to do in the shopping and Chinese food eating paradise this side of the Asia-Pacific, I don't know. But I do know that I need to get away.

And upon my return, it'll be four days of working like hell trying to catch up with work after having been away for five days (because I'll be out of the office for three days earlier in the week) and then, the Very Xotic party at Zouk, featuring Xotic clubwear and lingerie (available only at CK Tangs), exotic dancers from thebodytalks, waxers from Strip and goodies from Awfully Chocolate... And of course, free flow of alcohol. And later on that night... hopefully, I'll be spending some quality time with the boyfriend... Doesn't that just sound delectable?

I got my very first proper manicure and pedicure today. However, being the rough girl that I am, I've already got a deep groove across the pretty pink nail polish adorning one of my fingers. This has led me to conclude that while I would most certainly enjoy the trappings that come with being a tai tai, there's no way I'd be able to take being one permanently. But then again, I already knew that... as does almost everyone who's met me, despite my constant moaning about wanting a nice, good massage.

Getting a hair cut, having my body massaged, getting my nails done and trying on pretty outfits are all what I love about being female. Today, however, I am also experiencing one of the downsides: aches and pains and mood swings. I didn't use to go through these, but apparently, as with many other things in life, they get worse with age. I tell you, if there weren't so many perks to being female...

I'm kidding, of course. I wouldn't trade being a girl for the world... even if it means being the one who usually gets her heart broken. While there're disadvantages: we're physically weaker, it's harder to travel alone, and face it, at work, there's always a glass ceiling and most of the time, we take things far too personally, but still, I have very much enjoyed being female and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Now if only I could get that nail repainted...

Yesterday night proved to be another drunken night of fun, frivolity and tears for me. We'd headed to New Asia Bar early in the night to take advantage of their fabulous Sundowners happy hour and also to stake out a good spot for the fireworks which was going to come on at midnight. I'd arrived at 8.45 pm, just in time to order a pretty powerful San Shine (which must come quite close to a Long Island Iced Tea in terms of its effect on me) and a bottle of champagne ("the cheapest one?" queried the waiter after a brief discussion between us three as to which label we wanted.)

The good:
- Free drinks - my friend, and his friend, both of whom earn quite a fair bit of money, bought us additional bottles of champagne after we'd polished off the first bottle in record time.
- Dancing - another friend had brought her dancer friend along and I ended up salsa-ing and jiving well after having drank way too much.

The bad:
- Bruises and other injuries - I fell down the first few steps leading into the New Asia Bar main area after I didn't see them and also after I had a few to drink. I also managed to break my adorably posh hair clip which fell off during a dance. My friend also managed to spill other people's drinks three times, getting my new shoes in the process and also proving to us that the floor at that side of the bar was definitely sloping.
- Fireworks - Was that it? I've seen better. And I'd expected better from the Singapore team too. Never mind, there's still Sunday.
- Way too personal - the friend who disapproves of my going out with T. continued to harp on it the whole night. "He's not your boyfriend!" she cried out to the whole table, which included people I'd just met. No matter how hard I try to defend him and going out with him, and no matter the fact that we both didn't think we were going to work out in the long-term, her disapproval largely centres on the fact that I still had faith and was willing to give being a proper couple a shot, and that he didn't... and still doesn't. In a moment of drunken indignation and righteous anger, she informed the whole table of this fact, something I couldn't respond to because of the tears that had sprung to my eyes.

I didn't enter into this relationship hoping to change his mind. I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid. The thing is, we're happy when we're together, and I really love seeing him, and he, me... but I do find myself wondering every so often, "when is he going to break my heart?" When, not if.

As a result of that discussion, I decided against going over to his place to see him after even though I had originally told him that I'd like to come over. Not for any hanky panky, you realise. It's just that I'd have liked to fall asleep in his arms. It's one of the nicest feelings in the world, apart from snuggling in front of a roaring fire when it's freezing cold outside. I guess it's a good thing I went back home because had I failed to wake up in time to get home before my parents got up (which would have been the case given the amount I drank), I would have gotten into a lot of trouble indeed. This way, the only person who suffered was me, from drunkenly crying myself to sleep once I got home.

"I think you should give him a shot. Stop going out with T. only."

"There is a reason why I go out with him. He's my boyfriend."

"Yes, but he himself said it's not serious and it's not going to work out long-term. You can't keep shutting the door on everyone else who's interested when you're in a relationship where he's going to break your heart."

I guess you're right... but I'm just not equipped for this. Even entertaining the possibility of going out with a person whom I have no feelings for without letting T. know makes me feel guilty, much less the act itself.

Upcoming clubbing calendar (I'm not going for all of them, just listing them here):
August 13 - Sat - Aldrin - Zouk / Leama - Onyx
August 19 - Fri - Filterheadz - Zouk
August 20 - Sat - Misja Helsloot - Onyx
August 27 - Sat - Christopher Lawrence - Zouk / Pulser - Onyx
September 10 - Sat - Gabriel & Dresden - Zouk / Cor Fijneman - Onyx

Ever since I found out the boyfriend liked ice-cream a heck of a lot, I've been on the lookout for good ice-cream places to bring him to. I'm aware of Estivo Gelateria at 26 Greenwood Avenue (and I'd love to check out their Milo ice-cream) but however, it's a little difficult to get there and neither he nor I drive.

A feature in The Straits Times almost a year ago lists these places for good ice-cream as well:

• Island Creamery (Serene Centre, #01-05)
  
• Kulfi Bar (13 Upper Dickson Road, #01-01)
  
• The Ice Cream Gallery (Eastwood Centre, #01-13)
  
• Scoopz (Parkway Parade, #B1-154)
  
• Sweetstix (2 Pandan Valley, Acacia Court, #01-203)

I'm not too sure when I'll be able to drag him to any of these places, given that we only ever seem to be able to meet up briefly after work and during the weekend for drinks and clubbing, but hopefully, I'll be able to surprise him some time soon with this.

Agnelli & Nelson's set at Zouk last night has got to be one of the more surprising sets I've been to in recent times. I expected the night to be good, but not as good as I got.

I arrived around 1.30 am (A & N probably came on around 12.30, but I'm not sure) and spent the 1.5 hours or so ducking in and out of the main room because while they were spinning good trance, I just wasn't feeling it. I felt it was a little boring, to be quite honest. It was good to listen to (and also to make out to) but not great for dancing. I did recognise a couple of tunes like Armin van Buuren - Shivers, Young Parisians - Jump the Next Train and Reflekt - Need To Feel Loved but they just didn't do it for me.

Then a little after 3 am, A & N started playing harder trance (as in more thumping beats and faster tempo) played Paul van Dyk - The Other Side and things got way more interesting. I ended up dancing all over the place, managing to lose one earplug along the way (for the second time this year, damn it). Their style, as described by a friend of mine, could only be called 'festival trance', i.e. trance designed to excite... if that's the word for it! Oceanlab - Satellite and Agnelli & Nelson - Holding On To Nothing were dropped sometime after 4 am, if I'm not wrong.

At 5.30 am, A & N had yet to stop even once. They dropped Chicane - Autumn Tactics, the vocal from Fatboy Slim - Star 69 and then went straight into Paul van Dyk - For An Angel (a song I'm almost sick of) and then one of them (Agnelli, I think, the one on the left side of the picture in the Zouk flyer) stood on the console basking in our cheers and then jumped down to dance with all of us. After For An Angel finished, he went up to the ladies platform to dance making him the third guy I've seen there ever (after the dancing doctor and Lincoln himself).

Other tunes dropped during the last 45 minutes of the set included Delerium - Silence, something by Orbital, a breaklicious remix of Deep Dish - Say Hello, a tribal beats tune sampling Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way, a remix of Coldplay - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (which, in my opinion, has got one of the sexiest guitar basslines around, and the remix isolated it for a really great buildup) and ended off with a chill-out remix of Paul Oakenfold - Southern Sun. I couldn't identify the final encore which brought the set to an end at 6.30 am, but by then, I was all tired out, having completely exhausted the full store of energy I brought to dance floor.

All in all, once A & N got the crowd going towards the second half of their set, there was no turning back. It was a truly vocalicious set and I'm of the opinion that those of you who weren't there - even if you were off having a fantastic time somewhere else - really missed out on an awesome display.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10 - any DJ that comes down and dances with the crowd gets extra points.

If you ask any trance fan worth his or her salt, he or she will tell you that the heyday of trance was undoubtedly 1999/2000. Even though I only got into trance upon my return home in 2002, I can't help but agree. It's very difficult to explain to someone why we feel this way. I told my friends recently that I'd much rather go for a local trance consortium's event rather than see the renowned German remixers in town that same night because I felt that trance nowadays was rather anaemic (compared to the anthemic sound of 1999/2000).

Still, not having experienced trance at its peak firsthand, I've been very curious as to how others felt about it. It would appear that I'm not the only one. A young man has just started this up as a topic on the TranceAddict forum.

Some comments:

Music was't produced for ASOT [and] people didn't collect every track heard on
ASOT from P2P.

and

I think one of the keys things about back then was that it was more about fun, today just seems far too serious.

I, for one, know I am now so picky when it comes to nights out, and will berate DJs who play stuff I don't like, when back then, I'd just have fun with everyone else in the club.

Ignorance is bliss after all.

and finally,

Much less people had recordings of sets so they would have no idea that this DJ
overplays these tracks. This has been said before: DJ's dont play for people who
sit on the their computer tracklisting and collecting sets, they play for the
people in the clubs, and most of them don't have mix collections.

After all those arguments about the Internet forcing musicans to come up with good music because people wouldn't want to pay top dollar for an album with one good track and 14 crap ones, who would've thought that so many blame the Internet and the accessibility of live sets for download for the demise of quality trance?

Related links:
A Small History of Trance - written by a fervent TranceAddict in 2001
Ten Classic Tracks You Should Have In Your Collection

Nathan Fake - Outhouse is a brilliant piece of progressive house. True, it may have been released in 2003 and hence, it's a little late for me to be writing about it now, but it is such a good piece of dark, atmospheric, melodic music that I felt I couldn't not write about the effect it had on me when I heard it on Armin van Buuren - Big Room Trance.

It starts out with a droning bassline with the leading melody slowly fading in. Then a higher pitched bass kicks in (sounding a little like what Maniam would play on his tabla) before diving into a breakdown which then segues into another section where the beats have become more compact. Right after this, the tune becomes more upbeat and atmospheric, even emotional. The second breakdown then returns the tune to a state of calm.

Outhouse is Nathan Fake's debut release on Border Community.

Link of the day: "Welcome to Bitter Asian Men, the site made by bitter asian men, for bitter asian men... and also for all of you out there who might be curious as to why we, as asian men, are so bitter."

Includes an Asian Asking Out Simulator and a scientific look at why Asian men are screwed as well as a video on the Asian girl's mentality.

Another Asian link: Angry Asian Man (to do with all things Asian, not just - or maybe not even to do with - being dumped by Asian girls.

Interesting links I've come across while trawling the web:

• Pitchfork's incredibly hilarious illustrated review of Daft Punk - Daft Club.
• The Observer's feature on Nick Hornby's 31 Songs - I found this while looking for reviews specifically pertaining to Röyskopp - Röyskopp's Night Out, one of the best downbeat songs I've ever heard. It's chaotic and atsmospheric and is easily the best song (for me) on their debut album, Melody A.M.. That aside, the book looks very interesting, particularly because music's always been an important part of my life despite my apparent inability to articulate just what it is about the songs I love that I love so much.
• An article in The Independent on the demise of cheese making in France. J'aime le fromage, bon fromage particulièrement. So when I found out that the traditional art of cheese making is dying out - in the land of gourmet cheese, no less - I found myself feeling a little sad.

In other news, I'm looking forward to Screen Singapore. Curiously enough, for someone who's such an avid viewer of independent and foreign films, I've yet to catch a local production although I have seen a Malaysian show, Sepet. This month, I'm planning to catch:

• Cleopatra Wong: “She purrs like a kitten... Makes love like a siren... Fights like a panther. This side of the Pacific, she’s the deadliest, meanest and sexiest secret agent!” Said to have inspired Quentin Tarantino.
• Jefri Zain: Made in 1965, this show's about Singapore's own James Bond.
• Forever Fever: Kung fu meets disco. Kind of like the local version of Saturday Night Fever.
• 15: A serious look at the social misfits and underclass of Singapore.
• Ring of Fury: A kung-fu film dealing with gangsterism in the '70s. Banned for almost 25 years.

Also, for those hardcore ravers out there, there'll be an outdoor dance party at Port Dickson on the 20th of August. Recharge Revelation 3 featuring Johan Gielen, Scot Project and Markus Schulz (all harder trance DJs) is apparently one of the more well-known raves in these parts, and there'll be plenty of Melbourne shufflers on display. I don't have any plans to go as I'd rather take my much-needed and long-awaited weekend break during that weekend. Pity though. I've - surprisingly - never been to a rave before and would like to go to one while I still have the energy to do so.

Monday's Child by Mother Goose
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

I was born on a Sunday. That explains a lot.

Which day were you born?