The Longest Break - 4 - 还岛拜拜拜！

As with my mother-in-law's tradition, temple visits are a necessity.

“城隍庙” at Paya Lebar...













This is the God of Fortune. Unlike the usual God of Fortune which we see, this is the fiercest one I've ever seen. He doesn't look smiley and approachable... All humans (regardless of race, religion, colour) pray for wealth. Most Chinese specifically pray to Gods of Fortune for "side wealth" or "横财” a.k.a. big / huge wins from Toto, 4D, Big Sweep.... so that they could quit their jobs the next day and "throw money at their bosses"...

Other than the God of Fortune, other objects will supposedly bring luck and little fortune too... like the abacus or “算盘”. All you have to do is roll your hands back and forth the beads. This temple's abacus is also one of the biggest I've seen so far. The size of each bead is that of a block of cheese the English chase down the hill every year....













Temples in Singapore are well maintained. I suppose the management of the temple (yes... they have management and board of directors too....) puts donation money collected from donation boxes around the temples to upkeep the look and keeping the temple away from the old notion of old, dusty, musky, dark (blackened with soot from the incense and candles) and creepy image, to appeal to the younger generation?

Most temples have intricate work done on them. The table tops where offerings are laid, the urns for the incense, the beams and pillars, even the statutes of various gods, saints etc etc... However, human by nature have itcy hands...They'll touch here, feel that, dig here, poke there, and worse, some stuff cigarette butts or rubbish into the crevices within the carvings... hence, causing the dragon to be locked within grills - as shown above...














Apart from statutes of gods, there are also guardian animals abound the temple grounds. Most of the time, you can find dragons, lions and the gold kirins... They ward off evil spirits and keep the temple "clean"....

But, if you see a tiger with chunks of meat stuffed in its mouth, you are not supposed to kneel down to it... apparently, it represents evil people who does you harm or “小人”... just put your joss sticks in the urn any way other than kneeling (i.e. squatting, standing, bending, etc etc... )


"天福宫” at Tanjong Pagar....













This temple was closed down for renovations for a few years. It was recently reopened and is one of the few temples housed within Singapore's financial district.

The Thien Hock Keng is a “妈祖” temple. Long long ago in ancient China lives a family of fishermen. One day, her father and brother had gone out to sea to catch fish. The “海龙王”(similar to King Tritan / Neptune) was in a fowl mood and had stirred up the sea. The sea turned rough resulting in fishing boats capsizing. 妈祖 sacrificed herself to the sea in exchange for calm waters and smooth wind (hence 风调雨顺）to bring her beloved father and brothers back home. Since then, 妈祖 is the protector of all sea farers. Nowadays,y as "cruise" is not as popular as flying, 妈祖's job scope has been expanded to include "flyers" as well...














It is impolite to visit other people empty handed. This applies to visiting Gods too. However, at the temples we don't say they are gifts. They are called offerings. Offerings includes the usual joss sticks / incense and candles, peach buns, fruits, roast duck / chicken / pig, noodles or mee suah. Affluent people who wish to show that they are super sincere will even offer gems, gold, thousands and thousands of $$$ as donations... Food offered can be taken back by the offeror because the Gods have taken them spiritually and have the physical food blessed for human consumption. The gems, gold, $$$ will stay....













One of the demons who causes the stir-up, and 妈祖 delegating her task to "sea angels", bringing sea farers to and fro safely.


大伯公 or Tua Pek Gong temple at Amoy Street...













This small temple is famous amongst punters. Apparently, any 4 numbers that was shown within the temple grounds will be drawn... i.e. 4D punters buying the 4 numbers with numerous iterations have a high chance of recovering lost bets from Singapore Pools.... According to my in-laws, any new numbers that were given will soon be bought out (i.e. you cannot place bets on that number any more...). But of course, you can always buy them with "other sources"....

The number shown for that day was 0508... True enough, it did materialise... it was in the Starters category, better than consolation... every dollar bought would have "earned" you more than a hundred bucks... easy money right?

However, be cautiouned... In my opinion, going to temple to pray for extra / excessive wealth is greed. And that there's no such thing as a free lunch - even in the spiritual world. Should you win based on the numbers given, you are obligated to "return the favour"... i.e. return to the temple and give something (usually $$) back.... or whatever you have promised the god in return for the wealth.

So was I one of them (who placed bets on the number and won some extra $$$)? - No... (so no treats from me... haha...)


And the latest, newest, most expensive one of all "佛牙寺” or Buddha Tooth Relic Temple at Chinatown...













The Buddha on the left is the Maitreya Buddha a.k.a. the future / coming Buddha. Legend has it that come the end of the world, He will come and save us.... This is not the usual version of Maitreya Buddha that we've come across. The more common image of the future Buddha is that of the Laughing Buddha or “笑佛”, who has a very jovial character, always having a hearty laugh, big pot belly and carries a gunny sack. The Laughing Buddha is also the most "molested" devine being of all. Why? Because people believe that if you touch his big ear lobes, you'll have longetivity, if you touch his laughing mouth, you'll be happy forever, if you touch his pot belly, you'll be blessed with fortune and never be hungry and last but not least, the gunny sack, so that you can bring wealth back!

This temple's theme is based on the Tang Dynasty. Hence, all figurines, architecture are highly influenced by the culture back then.

The God next to the Maitreya Buddha is none other than Guan Yin. However, this Guan Yin is again, different from what we usually see. This Guan Yin is no "娘娘". It is not the female form of Guan Yin. The Tang Dynasty's Guan Yin is a male. And when the touch up to the statute are done, the final stroke will be two moustaches on the compassionate Guan Yin's face.

Believe it or not, these two statutes are carved from one huge block of "balak" or timber (a special kind of hard wood that was preserved through soaking in river water - as I was told... sorry, forgot the name of the timber...)

Big statutes must be accompanied by big accessories right? The "wooded fish" and the alms bowl...

If you are not happy to share, you can "adopt" one too. They come in various sizes and pose (diferent pose, different meaning / blessing...). But mind you, adopting one is a very expensive affair. It is not normally done by ordinary people because it goes into the thousands!!!

The Maitreya Buddha will be flanked by 10,000 other Buddhas as well as 100 dragons on the walls.


















And this bling bling - the Golden Stupa (and I mean GOLDen) will house Buddha's tooth. A total of 420kg of gold was melted and moulded into this stupa. Where did the 420kg of gold come from? Well, from kind donors of course. It signifies the utmost respect given by the donors to the Buddha and such action brings forth good merit and karma. Even some of the floorings within the chamber are made of gold. However, only the Sanghas are allowed to enter the chamber. All unauthorised persons are to stay in the viewing gallery. We were told that the tooth relic will only be open for viewing twice a year. Once during Chinese New Year and the other during Vesak Day.

The chamber will progressively be filled with other paintings of Enlightened Ones.

The whole temple had required up to SGD$43million to date to complete. For more information on Singapore's newest addition, please visit http://www.btrts.org.sg/Eng_Index.html

Of course, these are not the only temples that we've been to, but the ones that we've been able to capture on Esmond's camera.

Temples nowadays are no longer what it used to be. Most of them are so commercialised now, that they are running like a business empire. They "prey" on human's nature - greed. Some unorthodox will have their members going to the extent of "selling" their services, pushing for adoption of some of the artefacts / figurines etc, "threatening" that unless such and such is done you will not have an easy going life, "enticing" you with "you will be blessed with good fortune etc etc" if you do such and such / make contribution etc etc....

Whatever happened to contentment? Shouldn't it be whatever is yours will be yours? And in Buddhist terms, its your karma. If you are having it bad now, it must be because you've done worst in your previous lives, your family members had done wrong by others and the "retribution" / effect falls on you, or you are just reaping what you sow...

Call me outdated, call me old fashion... but I do not agree with the modern ways some Buddhist temples are run... I still prefer the shabby little temple where people turn to for some spiritual support. At least, it felt more sincere back then.


P/S: Whatever it is, I sincerely hope that all funds donated are put to good use, are monitored and audited independently and accounted for and does not fall into the wrong hands. We do not want a repeat of the NKF saga again - only this time on a much bigger scale....

The Longest Break - 3 - Food!

Food! Glorious Food! .... One of the main things that we were back in SG / MY for... Food!!!

WARNING!!!

The following pictures may cause drooling and hallucinations.

Let's start from the top!

From left:

The best tasting soya chicken noodles that we've ever tasted. The chicken was smooth, soft, and very very delicious that we could have gobbled down the whole chicken in one go! We had this for dinner / supper at Kallang Bahru hawker centre.

Katong laksa, fried wonton, nasi lemak and 'otak' at “四马路” near Sim Lim Square.

Ben & Jerry ice cream - Vivo City (and any other major shopping centres...)

Seoul Gardens BBQ & Steamboat buffet - Tampines Square (and any other major shopping centres)

“虾饺” from a dim sum coffee shop in Upper Thomson.

“上海小笼包” - this one was from the Food Republic food court at Vivo Cuty. However, you can get more delicious ones from Crystal Jade and Ding Tai Fung!

"Kopi" - a.k.a. latte Asian style costing only SGD$0.80 in most coffee shops

Tau Huay and Chin Chao - what we have to pay AU$3 per bowl, you only have to fork out SGD$1 each!

Chinatown's Teo Seng Pork Porridge and raw fish slices - also famous for its frog legs porridge. Notorious place to have lunch, dinner and supper. Prepare to "wait long long" during weekday lunch hour and weekends.

“福建虾缅” - available at any hawker centres and food courts around Singapore. By far, the best Hokkien Prawn Noodles that I've had was from the hawker centre behind Bugis Village. Too bad, that Uncle had a stroke and is no longer selling his famous dish...

Mushroom soup & Rosti - where else but from Marche! Marche had actually close down its outlet at Hereen - Orchard Road and Suntec City, and moved to 3rd level at Vivo City. The place now is less than half the size of what they had in Suntec, but food fare and quality remains the same. Though, I must say that the rosti seems to have shrunk! However, soups are now self served so you can top it up to the brim! haha...

Golden Mile's Tuan Kee Steamboat - Esmond's favourite because the ingredients are fresh and they serve the most wicked Hainanese Chicken Rice. You can have both the steamboat, Hainanese chicken and pork chop all at the same time. Just tell Aunty....

Calamansi with sour plum - This version is only available in Marche. However, there are other adaptions across hawker centres. Theirs is called "Lime Juice with Sour Plum". Kopitiam's not too bad... It's a very refreshing drink to have especially in hot, humid Singapore.

MOS Burger - One of the many fast food restaurants available in Singapore and not found down under. Yakiniku rice burger remains our favourite, as was their Corn soup, deep fried mussels, and Ebi prawns....

Dian Xiao Er - Roast duck lovers must try! Their signature dish - Herbal Roast Duck - allows you to choose from 3 herbal soups. Their other dishes like “东坡肉” is tops too! It's one of the newer restaurant chain to hit Singapore. Outlets can be found at Marina Square and Vivo City.

Last but not least, home cooked food. Nothing beats home cooked food. Specialty of this dish is the steamed kampung chicken. Because it is kampun chicken (or organic chicken), the chicken's skin appears to be yellow. But it's the most sweet tasting steamed chicken I've come across...

Of course, there are other delicacies that we've gobbled up that are not up there. Reason being - we were too fast! We finished it before we remember to take pictures of it....

Little wonder we've put on weight during our 5 week break....

For Ernest: Just to tickle your fancy and give you some ideas before you leave for SG this coming week.

For the rest who're else where other than in SG: You can only "望梅止渴”。。。until your next trip home... (this includes US! sob sob.....)

The Longest Break - 2 - Camera!

After the experience of taking pictures with a not so new, not so powerful camera, I was resolved to buy a new one to replace my stolen one.

We went to Sim Lim Towers' Alan's Photo and came back with Fuji S6500 for me and Olympus FE-230 for Esmond.

To read all about Fujifilm's S6500, click here.

To read all about Olympus FE-230, click here.

My Fuji camera is a prosumer with 10.7 x zoom (300mm). If I have had this camera during the Aviva Open, I would have been able to take clear pictures of the players (and can even see if he / she has any pimples on their faces!).

Night view from my in-law's place in Toa Payoh.

Day view...

Singapore's CBD skyline can be seen from the balcony.

The power of 10.7x zoom.... yeah!!!

As Esmond didn't want to lug my "tua leng gong" around, he got himself a tiny camera with 3x zoom. It can be carried around in the pocket to anywhere, any time with ease. It takes good pictures too!

For a tiny camera, it has quite a number of functions. Its 'scenes' function includes night & portrait, cuisine, in the window, candlelight, etc in addition to the usual portrait, scenery, sports etc etc...

Some of the photos taken using Olympus FE-230...

In the end, we spent half a day at Alan's Photo and close to SGD$1,000 for 2 cameras. But we feel that it's money well spent because, these will be our tools to capture "moments" for our reminiscense in our later years.....

The Longest Break......

Hi all, so sorry as I've not been updating my blog for the past few weeks. You see, we've been on a LONG break from work and we had totally enjoyed ourselves. What break you ask? Well, we were on 5 weeks leave from work and we had returned to Singapore and Malaysia for the duration. (Shiok right?.... how many employers allow their workers on such a long leave, especially when I've just completed my 6 months probation?... haha )

We left Brisbane in the afternoon of 21 April 2007, and spent the first week in Singapore and the second week back in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia. As my camera was stolen, I didn't have any pictures taken for these first two weeks.

Technically, they were spent catching up with family, relatives, friends and ex-colleagues. We had also spent a fair bit of our time shopping! After 10 months away from Singapore, we now truly believe that Singapore is a shopping haven. We just couldn't peel our eyes away from the clothes, shoes, knick knacks and brick bracks right before our eyes.

When we got back from Malaysia, our first destination was the Indoor Stadium. Why? Because of the Aviva Open, a world class badminton tournament participated by world class badminton players! We bought two season tickets to premiers seats for SGD$52 each. It was well worth it! We were seating close to the courts and could see the players clearly.

The view from our premier seats.

The tournaments were so exciting that it got all the spectators so worked up, rooting for their players, shouting, clapping, drumming (yes, I'm serious. Somebody brought a small drum, a few brought kompangs - signature of Malaysia's supporters).

Malaysia' bus load of supporters, armed with uniforms, flags, kompangs and whistles...

The fans of various countries have their own characteristics. Malaysia's for example, will unite (regardless of race of players) and cheer with all their heart, bringing along their kompangs and chants of "Malaysia Boleh!". Indonesia's supporters are mostly students, with 1 big Indonesia flag and chants of "In-do-ne-sia! clap! clap! clap! clap!". Where as China's, they have powerful vocal cords that are so sharp and clear you can hear them from across the stadium even if there were only a few of them. They came with 1 big flag and chant of "中国队加油!"

When there are no Malaysian players playing, the Malaysian supporters will root for their neighbouring countries and especially the host nation - Singapore. The Indonesia supporters never roots for China. And they also jeered at Singapore's Ronald Susilo as "import" and asked him to "Go Home" as he was originally from Indonesia.

Not only did we get to witness world class badminton standards, there were also bargains to grab! Yonex, one of the sponsor of Aviva Open, had their badminton goods on display. After every match, the booths were packed with badminton fans, selecting sporting outfits, badminton racquets, shoes, bags, magazines, etc etc... Not only the spectators frequent the booths, but the players as well. And we met Peter Gade, defending champion of Aviva Open's Men's Singles. Unfortunately, Peter Gade lost to China's Chen Yu (the eventual runner-up).

Above: Esmond with Denmark's Peter Gade. Right: Peter Gade vs Taufik Hidayat (Indonesia) who's famous for his backhand smash, which didn't get to materialise because Peter played in such a way that he doesn't have any chance to "出招".

The finals was held on Sunday, 6 May 2007. We arrived an hour early to "chop" seats. The turn out was very good. There were 5 final matches: the men's singles, women's singles, men's double, women's double and mixed doubles. Out of all 5 matches, the most exciting match is the last match of the tournament - the men's doubles. It was China against Malaysia. The crowd were divided into two factions, each rooting for their players. Whenever they score, they celebrate with cheers and claps so loud that it thunders across the whole indoor stadium. After 3 heart stopping games, China won. Malaysia was so close to winning but alas, it was not meant to be.

Top: Malaysia's veteran players Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah vs Tony Gunawan and Chandra (Indonesia) in the semi finals.

Bottom: The winner (China) and runner up (Malaysia) of men's doubles.

Actually, this year's Aviva Open went to the underdogs. Heavy weights who were expected to proceed to the finals were eliminated as early as the preliminary rounds. Lee Chong Wei, Peter Gade, Lin Dan (Top 5 players in the world), Taufik Hidayat all didn't make it to the finals. Instead and unseeded Thailand player won the men's singles - Boonsak Ponsana. He beat world no. 1 - Lin Dan and went on the fight Singapore's Ronald Susilo in the semi-finals.

Thailand's Boonsak Ponsana with his coach after his victory against Singapore's Ronald Susilo.

Why the sudden interest in badminton you ask? Actually, I was hooked onto badminton back in 1990s when Malaysia hosted and won the Thomas Cup. After secondary school, the interest waned and was only rekindled when I'm in Brisbane as we've been participating in weekly badminton sessions with some friends.

We hope to watch Aviva Open LIVE again in June next year!

(And that international badminton tournaments will be held in Brisbane!)

Easter 2007 - Houseboat Day 5

09 April 2007, Monday - Final day...

After last night's adrenalin rush, we were all so tired that we slept till well past 8am in the morning... (during the trip, we usually woke around 6+ - 7+). But for Rachel, she slept like a log because she took 2 travel pills before bed so that she won't wake in the middle of the night in rough seas... In the end, she had no idea how choppy the water was the night before...

This morning's breakfast was leftovers of sorts. We had salads, BBQ meat, chicken wings, bacon, prata.... Rachel came up with bacon and cheese prata, which was snapped up by the crew...

After breakfast, we set sail for Ephraim Island and Sovereign Island. This is Esmond's request as he wanted to see what he termed as "architecture disaster houses" which he saw from some brochures. He couldn't understand why those houses do not maximise their space and had to leave voids here and there. It's just not practical...

The journey to the island take a good hour or so. On the way there, traffic was pretty heavy. There were speed boats, luxury boats going past us - fast! One of them caused such a commotion that the wave following it threw everyone off their feet! Glasses, cups, bowls, plates, pots, bottles were "flying" off their places. Shy "flew" to save a bottle of red wine from falling off the table and knocked himself in the tummy. (Great save Shy!)

Pei, Yan Ngoh (Kareen), Haw and Jit had another round of Monopoly while Shy and Pearl took to their beds.

Pei: "Yay! I finally managed to buy some property!" (Pei didn't managed to buy much in her first round of Monopoly on Day 2

We had a near miss at getting grounded a third time. All of a sudden, we seem to be stationery at one spot. So some of us ran to the back where the motor was to check things out. And we saw the propeller churning out sand!!! We thought "Oh no... Not again! And on our last day too! If we get grounded here, we will surely not make it back to Brisbane today and in time for work the next day!". So Roger made the engine "huff and puff", churning more sand by the minute. We prayed that some miracle forces will give us a slight nudge and dislodge us from the sand bank. Our prayers were answered and we were "free"!!! Thank God! (Thanks to Roger who reminded me of this little excerpt!)

When we got to the island, the architects (Heng Onn, Christina, Pei, Haw, Shy) started explaining to Esmond about the logic behind the designs. Esmond took interest and had learnt a new "archi" term - light well. It's a tower / open space with windows allowing natural light to filter into the house.

Ephraim Island and the "architecture failure" apartments...

After admiring million dollar water front properties (apparently, there's a security gate at the entrance of Sovereign Island and only residence with passwords / remote are allowed entry!), we started our journey back to the pier at Coomera.

We admired the water front properties along the way. We also said that we'll do another houseboat trip in 10 years time - a reunion. We'll rent the most luxurious houseboat and bring our family along. We'll probably need to hire two houseboats by then, if we were all "productive".

Roger and Ian tried their hands at steering the boat from the upper deck while Heng Onn, Christina, Esmond and Rach chatted...

When we reached the pier, we contemplated if we want to have lunch on the houseboat. But because most of us are still full from breakfast, we decided to dock and go ashore. The leasor saw us coming into the pier and checked if we are returning the houseboat. He came in 15 minutes time. By then, we were almost done with our packing.

The man was so skilled that he "parked" the houseboat with minor bumps! We didn't feel it at all!

Once docked, we unloaded our stuff and took group photos with the houseboat to commemorate our memorable trip together.

We loaded our luggage and leftover food into our respective cars and headed back for SunnyBank. We had an early dinner since we skipped lunch - Endless Noodless at Pinelands, after which we left for Esmond and Rachel's home so that she could copy down all photos taken, consolidate it and re-distribute it to all.

At around 7pm, our Easter holiday was officially over. We returned to our respective homes and crashed!

Thank you all, for such a memorable trip.

p/s:

The whole trip cost each person slightly less than AU$400 each (inclusive of rental of houseboat, food, games, petrol, mileage)

A few of us were actually still swaying when we went back to work the next day. Ian, our captain, who flew back to Malaysia on the same night, said that he will never do flying after boating because he didn't know if he was sick from the boat or from the flight!

Easter 2007 - Houseboat Day 4

08 April 2007, Sunday - Highlight of our trip~!

Instinctively, the first thing that all of us did when we woke was check out our surroundings. After last night’s episode, we just wanted to make sure that we are still where we are and that we had not floated into the middle of the ocean.

Fortunately, we were still anchored and secured. Unfortunately, we were too secured… to the point of being grounded. Yes, we had run aground. Of all spots, we landed on this one – 10m to the left of deeper waters!

When we woke up, it was slightly less than 1m deep. After breakfast (mushroom and spinach omelette, bacon, hashbrowns, salads), the water was less than 1m deep...

Since we were grounded, we decided to do some rowing. So Esmond, Roger, Pearl, Kareen and Rachel climbed into the orange dinghy. All the girls tried their hands at rowing and even scored themselves a few blisters. Ian and Heng Onn went on the inflatable dinghy and both boats competed to reach the nearest sandbank. The inexperienced female rowers had the dinghy turning round in circles and doing s-courses. Needless to say, Ian and Heng Onn had paddled to the sandbank and back to the houseboat, while the girls were still struggling to keep their boat heading in a straight fashion. Roger and Esmond were getting pretty impatient, telling the girls what to do while sitting back and looking on helplessly.

At one point, Haw and Shy had walked from the houseboat towards our dinghy and lent a hand by pulling us towards the sand bank. Finally, Pearl and Kareen was able to bring all 5 safe and sound back to the houseboat while Jit and Pei continued with their swimming lessons.

Since we were grounded and it was forecasted that wind speed would be between 20 – 30 knots in the evening, we decided to have the BBQ for lunch rather than having it in the evening.

We brought all BBQ food stuff up onto the upper deck, while Roger and Shy worked on the BBQ burner. With wind gusts of 20 – 30 knots, it was almost an impossible affair to get the gas BBQ burner going. But they finally got it going when Esmond and Shy formed a human wall, sitting upwind of the BBQ to block off the wind. But the burner was too slow and we were starving! So we carted some chicken wings and Taiwanese sausages back down to the kitchen and have them grilled in the oven. Which is just as well, because shortly after, it started pouring! We packed up and ran in a frenzy, back into the lower deck and have “bbq” in the oven.

Christina had also whipped up a nasty Malibu cocktail, which all of us had some. And you know what alcohol can do to people… we went cuckoo / nuts / bonkers / “siao” / off our rockers… you name it, we had it… well, most of us did anyway… we did something that someone may regret it in the future….

And the story goes….

Take a guess...

Whose beautiful eye is this?

Roger was feeling dozy from the late night’s sleep, the morning’s activities and the booze. So he dozed off on the couch. Pei came to “disturb” him and suddenly “ding!”, she came back armed with a lipstick! She tried putting lipsticks on Roger’s pouty lips! But Roger was aware and he woke and tried to struggle free. This was when 4 girls (Pei, Christina, Pearl and Rachel) pounced on him to hold him down. He was trapped! He had no where to go and we had forcefully ‘made him up’. Then, Christina and Pearl went back to their bags and brought back more make ups!

Upon seeing this, Roger again tried to struggle free but was held down again. He subsequently resigned to his fate and sat quietly on the couch, “enjoying” the make up session. So he had some eye shadows put on, blusher and his eye lines drawn. He was so, so pretty, that he paraded in a catwalk and posed for some very raunchy photos!

Phew-weet...(wolf whistle....)

But seeing him in his T-shirt, sweater and shorts with his make up on didn’t really match up. So Rachel went into her room and came back out with a wrap around skirt. The girls went into a frenzy again and nearly tore off Roger’s clothes from his body. We even enhanced his figure and put in some implants for him! (Originally was two oranges, which we decided wasn’t big enough… so we settled with two rolled up t-shirts!). And this is his final look.

Wow... well endowed.....

All these while, the girls were having the time of their lives. The screech of laughter could be heard from afar. They were laughing so hard that they couldn’t stand straight! While the girls were having fun, Esmond just looked on and Haw and Kareen were busy taking pictures, recording the whole event. Heng Onn, Ian, Shy and Jit were out helping other people pushing boats into deeper water.

Esmond shouted for them to come back for a show. When they saw Roger, they couldn’t believe their eyes! And Shy (who was Roger’s ‘hubby’) even……

When the girls were done with Roger, they eyed a new victim. The sleepy Esmond! After some minor persuasion (he had already resigned to the fact that he’ll be one of the ‘models’ when the girls made Roger do it…), he too was made up. To a further extent compared to Roger. Esmond had his eyelashes curled and was given some mascara as well! And he had beautiful, curly lashes! The girls were all so jealous! And because Esmond was bigger in size, the girls had a hard time trying to find a costume for him, but had settled for the wrap around skirt, in a different fashion. Esmond looked like a Mamasan!

Ha ha... you were laughing at me right?
Now's your turn...

Oh my... mamasan!

Next came Ian! He was reluctant but after some persuasion from the girls (and the two new ‘chicks’) he was also made up! He has a different style compared to the other two. He’s onto the “kawaii” / cute image! Rachel whipped out a cute set of costume for Ian. Look how cute he looks!

Kawaii~! (so cute!!!)

Last but not least, Shy. With 7 people going after him, he didn’t have much choice. Pearl designed his costume from a scarf. Isn’t he sexy?

When they were all done, the girls came to the conclusion that when a guy has a pretty sister, he’ll be pretty when he has make up on! All looked a little more similar to their sisters after having cosmetics on.

Originally, the girls wanted to do it to all 7 guys. But Haw and Kareen had disappeared to their room after Roger’s stint, Heng Onn too had gone to bed after Roger, Jit had hurt himself while helping people with their boat.

Unsatisfied, the girls got the 4 new ‘chicks’ to pose for photos….

(see how the "new chicks" are enjoying the photo shoot? The girls didn't have to use force at all!)

After all this, it was back to more serious matters (as the alcohol had worn out….). After the lunch and make up sessions, our situation turned from bad to worse. There were no water surrounding us as all! We were practically on dry ground!

What the?!

The crew was thinking of ways to dislodge the boat from the sand. Roger suggested digging the sands out from both sides of the boat so that it’ll be easier to float when the tide comes in. Esmond thought otherwise.

Then, Pearl (thanks Roger for correcting me) suggested having the anchor moved to a different position so that when the tide comes in, we will be led to deeper waters and away from the shore. We agreed, and the crew put their backs to it.

Once the anchor is out, it was carried 8m to the right of the ship, towards deeper waters and was set down. To ensure that it was firmly embedded into the seabed, Heng Onn reached down into the muddy water. He felt something and thought it was a shoe, but he immediately flung the ‘object’ down upon seeing it. 5 seconds later, he realised that that ‘object’ was a sea cucumber (a fine asian delicacy) and reached into the waters groping for it again. When he got it, he flung it towards the sand bank and it landed with a thud. It was a fat, big, long sea cucumber – about 6 inches in length. But it was not a pretty sight as it started spewing “gooey shit” out of one of its end. This turned us off and we left it where it was… (some Asian aunty would have ‘ta bao’ it home for claypot sea cucumber….)

Oh no! We're stuck! Help!

It's all his fault!!!

He picked the spot!

Suddenly, it began to pour, causing us to run helter skelter back to the houseboat for cover. The rain continued till dinner and past dinner, on and off and the wind was howling. Our wish was that the rain would bring in a higher tide faster because it was forecasted that the highest tide would be at about midnight.

That night, we had baked rice and Chick Kut Teh (bak kut teh with chicken meat) - thanks to Esmond and Christina.

We didn't have our Pictionary - charade competition that night. We were all tired and felt that we had somewhat become "expert" and cleverer in trying to deliver our acts. So we sat down and "talk cock, sing song, play guitar"....

As we were aground, the toilet wasn't able to pump up water to flush so we had to get sea water from outside. Braving the rain, Esmond played hero and braved the rain to get water. Luckily he went outside to get water because the rain was so heavy, our dinghy was filling out with water. His years at a naval base came in handy because he knew we had to bail water out from that dinghy otherwise we'd have another problem - a sunken boat!

Past 10pm, the tide came in and was pushing and tugging at the houseboat. The familiar swaying feeling came back. We were elated and continued to pray for more tide so that our boat could loosen itself from the sand bed and do what ships do - float!

Come 11pm, our houseboat had started floating! So everybody was activated and posted back to their positions on the various decks as Roger ignited the engine and steered us to deeper waters. We anchored and monitored for half an hour to ensure that we were secure and was not drifting. As we were in deeper waters and in a wider, busier canal, the seas were rougher and the houseboat was bobbing up and down more violently than ever.

Luckily, Rachel bought some travel pills during the emergency shopping on Day 2. The girls took them and went to bed.

Aren't they beautiful? (It's as if it's taken in a studio~!)