Of course, I do not deny the allegations that the rainy season just before CNY was dampening (no pun intended) everyone's mood and kept the hype over at Chinatown suppressed. I remember every year prior to this, my parents would go to Chinatown before CNY and shop together with thousands of sweaty, enthusiastic Singaporeans who had no idea what they wanted to buy. Lots of shouting, bargaining would ensue throughout the night.
While I have never even joined them once, the wet weather still definitely rained on my parade (again, not intended) as well as theirs. Since they did not attend the annual auntie-uncle gathering at Chinatown, they stayed at home and ka-cheow me. What could have been a peaceful night of gaming and listening to music became the usual loud-tv-beside-me routine as the old man in the house watches his China programs on mio-isuck-TV.
So, where were we. Uhm, Chu 1 went pretty well. As usual, all my paternal side relatives came my house and I had to wake up early in the morning to help my mom prepare all the food. As many of you may know, I'm not a fan of socializing, although that may not necessary mean I'm not 'friendly' as someone may think. Anyways, following my sister's advice, which is to busy myself with the kitchen so that I need not socialize with the guests, I succeeded in maintaining a low profile. However the dinner with my cousins did make us realize that we do not hangout often, or even not all. I'm not surprised, to be honest. I was never close to them, more of a maternal side cousins kinda guy. I mean, I don't even have their facebook or phone number, and they're my direct cousins. Long story short, they suggested going Butter Factory. Like okay, first outing and it's to a club. Oh well, I guess it could work.
At least the young'uns won't be coming with us.
Can't really stand them.
The second day was going to a gathering at my maternal side and I think it was at there where I learnt how to play this game called In-Between.
Now, as some of you may know, my A levels had ended and I got a part time job to kinda support myself for the time being. As such, I have some spare cash to spend and hence this year's stakes at Blackjack rose from usual 50c bet to 2 bucks. After many rounds, 2 Blackjacks and 1 ban-ban, I ended up with a profit of around 26, 28 dollars? Can't really remember. It wasn't much, I admit, but hey, a profit's a profit.
And this is where In-Between comes in. Initially, I was shocked to how my sis almost lost 70 bucks last year. (she ended up winning 150 bucks, which was a miracle) This was partly due to everyone's bet being a mere 20c. How the hell does one win so much with such small stakes? And this was no inter-classmates game where the only cash you see are shillings, this was with working adults who have blue and red notes all over the table.
Anyways, it was after a few rounds then I knew how it worked. And hell I did know the dangers. For I lost 30+ in one round.
There goes my profit from earlier on.
Alright, I was planning to explain the entire shit but after noticing that it's 3:50am and I have to wake up at 10+ tmr, l decided to just skip that.
Basically, the money just piles up and if someone bets all and they lose, they pay double the amount and the stakes on the table doubles. Hence, a 4 dollar game may soon be 8, then 16, then 32, then 64 and you probably know the rest of the numbers as they're similar to Hard disk memory numbers.
It sounds like complicated shit but yeah it is pretty simple to understand after playing a few rounds.
On Saturday, the secondary gang hung out together at Mrs Wee's house at evening, which was, to be frank, pretty boring. After that, the guys clique went to stayover at Lincoln's house where we played more Kinect and few of us took turns to play Amnesia: The Dark Descent. As you can probably tell from its name, it is a scary game and what is good about it is that instead of clichéd sudden scares it builds fear through its engaging storyline and atmosphere. Kinda like Dead Space. Except in Dead Space, despite being only an engineer, you have access to tools and weapons and hence you have some sort of sense of security, like at least you have some defense.
In Amnesia however, you're just some random dude in an asylum (I think?) and you have to solve puzzles to regain your memory about what had happened there. You have absolutely no defense against the game's enemies and the only thing you can do is run or hide. Yeap. So its always flight, not fight. Which is why I regard the gaming experience of Amnesia to be worse (in a good way) then Dead Space.
Right, like anyone in real life can actually live through this.
Anyway, it was a crazy night and I didn't sleep until I reached home at 8 plus. To which I had a few hours of uninterrupted sleep and then being woken up for more Sunday house visiting.
At evening I went to a friend's house where they were having this gigantic gathering that had like at least 40 people. Not kidding. Her house is those 3 story private property together with basement which her dad converted to a wine cellar. Seriously, its like one whole glass room in the basement filled with shelves of wine with an air conditioner keeping them at optimal temperature.
There's even a board room table there just for wine enthusiasts.
So after meeting her secondary school friends and exchanging some stories, we watched the Lion Dance troupe from NTU perform their act. They were hired by the dad I think, I'm not sure. Because I expected them to be at least decent or passable. Whereas their entire 'performance' was sucky to the extent that it was laughable. Seriously. I'm no expert but when they could not get the jump after 3 tries and required other team members to get a stool, obviously they're a phail. At one point I even remember their shoe coming out. I mean wtf? My school Wushu Lion Dance troupe could do better.
This is why NUS is always better.
Perhaps I should not say so much. For all I know I may just end up being in NTU. Even so, I will never join their troupe.
I had no interest, in the first place.
So then my friend the host suggested that we head to her room for drinking games, where another friend and I got excited. Because we thought that meant drinking as in alcohol. The friend even took out 2 bags of assorted drinks where they said was for mixing. I was going 'hell yeah'. All the way until I found out the 'mixing' was between the drinks itself, and there was no alcohol to be involved.
WTF.
It was meant to be a disgusting cocktail they say, so that one would not want to drink it. That's just stupid. All they had was allswell drinks and some assorted sodas. How gross could that get??
None of the drinks they mixed up tasted revolting. Some were even pleasant to the tongue.
Sigh.
Needless to say, my friend and I were disappointed. What a waste.
Okay I'm getting kinda sleepy and I don't wanna continue this tomorrow so Imma rush this.
I guess the drinking incident can be compensated by the dinner that was presented to us. Being the sort of host that my friend's dad is, he arranged for tables to be placed at their porch and everyone had steamboat for dinner. Which was fuckin' awesome.
Mind you, the porch was even able to squeeze about 11 tables or so. Yes, it's that big.
She even had her own pool at the backyard.
When I entered her house for the first time last last year, I thought I was in an episode of MTV Cribs.
Bad jokes aside, we, being her friends ate last as her father's clients and employees ate first. Which was no problem, as the unfinished food was all given to us. Uncooked, of course.
In a nutshell, it was one hell of a dinner.
Now my previous Chinese New Years were always just visiting relatives house and nothing much. Also, without the thought of going to school on Monday helps. Which is why I regard this year's Chinese New Year as one of the best yet.
It's a great feeling to just get together with old pals and celebrate heartily, without any qualms.
I know for a fact, that such a chance may not exist again, as in a few months I would be entering NS.
From then on, it would be CNY in midst of National Service, followed by CNY in midst of Uni (hopefully), then CNY between work.
None of that no worries bullshit.
Okay. 4:33 am. I think Wei long is gonna be pissed at me for being late tomorrow.
Heheh.
0 comments:
Post a Comment