Powered by FeedBurner

Powered By Blogger

Monday, January 1

Akemashite Omodetou Gozaimasu!

Happy New Year peeps! Yeah. Joy. Hurray.

Alright, let me tell you how my December 31st went. Jan 1st comes later.

December 31st, 2006. Woke up at around 9AM, which was quite early in my usual vacation standards. Today was a special day; the family's going to the airport to meet a friend of my mum's from the Philipinnes, Aunt Gay (as in 'happy'). Mum's been telling me all about her, especially about her husband, who happens to hail from Tokyo, Japan. I was psyched. At last, a living breathing Japanese specimen I can converse with, in (broken, extremely basic, with bare honorifics special to 'gaijin' picking up the lingo) Japanese. All throughout the journey there by car, I was practising my "yokoso", "hajimemashite" and "watashi no namae wa..." 'introductory speech'. Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') has a son too, whom I later learnt was a trilingual 9 year-old with a strong Philipino accent named 'Kent'.

We watched through the glass walls as the family picked up their luggage at the belt and approach us at the automatic doors. I was the first one to greet them, with a cheery 'yokoso!'. The husband responded with a polite 'domo, domo'.

It was refreshing, to say the lest, to even be around their family. Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') and Kent were quite adept at the language too, obviously, and I listened intently to their conversations despite having a zilch clue of what they're talking about. I didn't note that Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') address Nodo Kunio-san as 'tousan' and Kent as 'nisan'. So these addresses are universal in the family, I figured.

I wanted to ask the good 'nihonjin' of his opinion of Singapore's international Airport, Changi. I made a slight blunder with 'airport' (I didn't know it was 'kuukou'), as he didn't understand when I asked him (even the way I asked him, was suck), "Changi airport suki desuka?" When Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') explained to him, he understood, and gave me quite a decent reply, one I didn't understand and made my mum comment on how little of the language I knew, and how ineffective it was in normal conversation.

We saw the family off at the car park (I greeted them "dewa mata desu", and got another reply from the whole family that I couldn't understand), and went home ourselves. We had to prepare for tonight's Countdown party at Changi Beach Club. At least, my folks had to. Me and my bro were just tagging along just to get out of the house a bit.

Meanwhile, I decided to play PangYa on the computer. I haven't touched it for a long time now, and I just picked it up again yesterday, after a certain incident with me and a PangYa figurine Gachapon machine at the nearby Gaming Store. I had also checked that I was entitled to receive a Christmas sweater for my Kooh character, as a free gift from the PangYa staff for the Christmas event (man, I'm so late, aren't I?) Sure enough, we I logged in I received a message saying that 'my gift has arrived'. But, upon checking the Gifts section, I got a pleasant surprise.

Somebody by the name of Cyprel (female), who happened to have a very nice game of golf with me the day before, has gifted me with a new character (Arin, whom I have been pining to own for ages now), two caddies, Xuexue and Bruela (no images available), whom I've not a high enough level to employ, a chocolate brown blouse and skirt set for Arin to wear, also too high a level for me to equip, and a set of Mach 4 Rocket Booster clubs, also which I am not 1337 enough to use. I am eternally grateful for the Arin she gave me, though. Then again, there's always the possibilty somebody has hacked into her account and given everything she owns to me. I managed to test her out a bit (I was thoroughly impressed at her stylish and adorable way of playng golf) before I was rushed off to the car, bound for Changi Beach Club.

Dad and mum were participating in a 'Retro Night' event. And I had nothing to do. However, I made myself busy greeting the folks there, and spent a bit of time in the Karaoke room, before heading back home out of boredom.

I had to take the 29 Bus from a nearby bus stop to the Tampines Bus Interchange, wrom where I can transfer to another bus that would take me home. The street was completely deserted, save for an occasional passing of a vehicle. The area around it was eerily dark, too. A dimly-lit park downhill to my right, a derelict WWII building to my left, and nobody at the bus stop but me. There had been rumours of 'sightings' around these parts, but I couldn't care ush for that.

As I sat there waiting for the bus (which always takes a very long time), I decided to chat up with Him up there. No, I didn't pray to him, I didn't confide in him. Shameful as it is, I do not possess the Faith. I hold a very scientific viewpoint towards Life. I do not Believe. That said, It was only idle chatter. I told Him about my problems of 2006, and how I resolved to avert all of them in the coming year. As He quietly listens, I explain how I've always been making New Year'S Resolutions every year, but I usually forget them before February ends. This year, I have vowed to drop my procrastinative attitude. If you're like me, I suggest you make that resolution too. Before it's too late and you get too lazy.

I reached home at around 11:15PM, and played a bit of Family Mode PangYa (1P/2P gameplay on a single machine), whilst admiring my new, absolutely beautiful, Arin.

At 11:57, I turned on my TV, and prepared my digital watch. I do this every year: Synch my watch with the New Year countdown. That was when I made the startling discovery that Gurmit Singh, JJ Lin and Jun Yang all play DOTA. Anyways, yes, in the end, I did get my watch synched.