I was in Singapore on my birthday weekend. I happened to be there on a Thursday and Friday for some meetings and so I just decided to stay the weekend since I had to fly off to Beijing from Singapore right after the weekend ended on Monday. My Hello Kitty was nice enough to fly down right after work on a Friday night to hang out with me in Singapore.
On Saturday a bunch of us went to Universal Studios.
That’s my second time there and I’ve blogged about it before so I won’t go into too much detail here but after this second time I can safely say that I have been on ALL the open rides on Universal Studios SIngapore.
Except for some merry-go-rounds or kiddy ones. Oh and except for this Battlestar Gallactica that is still closed since the park opened.
I soo soo soo wanna try that! You know it’s one of those rides where I’m damn freaking scared to go on but I still wanna go on. I will eventually get on the ride and then realize that it was a mistake right after I have been strapped into my seat. I like how they controlled the number of tickets they sold each day. I mean there was plenty of room to move around but the lines for the rides were already pretty long. Can’t imagine if they didn’t have a limit on that.
Here’s Yanti and Eileen lining up to collect our food vouchers. The girl on the right who’s covering her camera-shy face is Karen.
The only picture I managed to get of Karen is this accidental picture I have of her.
I happened to also take this awkward picture of My Hello Kitty. In what looks like her adjusting her holding on to her hat in fear of someone about to steal it from her. Well we had some other good pictures too.
Like this picture with Marilyn Monroe.
We felt a bit sorry for Marilyn Monroe. There were so many people lining up to take pictures with her and throughout the whole time that could go on for an hour or so, she had to keep a smile on her face. How do you do that? I smile consistently for 15 minutes and already my smile muscles hurt.
We ended our day at Universal Studios later in the evening and went for dinner at my favourite Sunset Grill where I was surprised to see Pierre and Lay See who had come down just for my Birthday :). Anyway, this place is known to have spicy chicken wings and rate them from Level 1-30. Level 2’s spicyness level is like Nandos hot peri-peri, and Level 30 is… well… pretty fucked up for your stomach and tongue. If you eat above Level 20, they’ll actually take your name and put it up on the wall.
Amos was the first one who had the balls to try Level 30. Everyone took pictures and videos and cheered him on.
This is how Amos looked after he had ONE piece of Level 30.
Yes… it wasn’t a pretty sight. Notice all the empty cans of drinks around him. That’s how much liquid he had to take to cool down that Level 30 fire.
The next guy who had the balls to do it was Stanley. He quickly shoved it into his mouth and surprisingly managed to recover rather quickly.
Stanley’s experience had a whole other story altogether. Right after dinner he went to Marina Bay Sands’ Casino to gamble with Ming and Pierre. He decided that since he just had a Level 30 chicken wing, he was going to the first roulette table he saw when he walked in, and placed S$500 on number 30!
On that very table, number 30 had just came out when they arrived but that didn’t stop him. Guess what… the wheel spun and the ball ended up landing on number 30! 5 minutes from entering the casino and just from making one bet, Stanley had turned his S$500 to S$18,000 (which is like over RM40,000). I ended up gambling at MBS too right after the clock struck midnight into my birthday. I kept telling My Hello Kitty that I was FEELING LUCKY… but she said “there’s no such thing as feeling lucky”.
True enough, I ended the night losing S$200 which was as much as I could afford to lose.
Anyway the next day which was the day of my actual birthday, I woke up and had lunch with my brother. Then it was time to send My Hello Kitty off. We dropped her off after lunch and said our Goodbyes. I wasn’t going to be able to see her for a week or so since I would be traveling to Beijing and Hong Kong before I return to KL.
Ming, James and Estee picked me up right after lunch and we went for coffee. Spent an hour at this old army barracks that they had converted into a chic place for people to have coffee and hang out. Then Ming decided it was time for him to take me go buy my birthday present. They ended up driving me to this quiet place with two run-down houses that nobody lived in anymore. Waiting right outside one of the houses was some of the MY and SG Nuffies, some friends and My Hello Kitty!
Turned out that they had organized a surprise Laser Tag session and My Hello Kitty ended up missing her flight just to attend it. Man laser tag was sooo fun. It’s sort of like paintball only that it felt a lot more realistic in the sense where there are different kinds of guns, some heavier but with longer range (good for sniping) and some light but good for spraying.
I used the gun this guy was holding. The P90.
We broke into two teams and we played different missions like protecting the VIP or just pure team deathmatch. If anything it really felt like real-life counter-strike to me.. how sometimes I would stand at the window and shoot people and hear the people on the other side shout
“SNIPER AT THE WINDOW SNIPER AT THE WINDOW!!!”
I also learned that it was almost impossible to shoot accurately and run at the same time. And that it was also difficult even just to keep aim at something and walk since you had to keep looking down to see what uneven ground you’re stepping on.
It was so much fun though! So much fun that I wanna play it again in KL if we have something like that here. Do we?
After laser-tag, I said my goodbye to My Hello Kitty and went to Ming’s place for a surprise Sukiyaki birthday dinner he had planned for me. Ming’s mum and dad were nice enough to prepare everything… I felt terrible. I thanked them as much as I could.
I didn’t have any pictures from that night on because it was then that I realized I had left my camera with My Hello Kitty and she was unknowingly bringing it back to KL. So I’m just going to have to tell you that… it was a great night. It was the first birthday I’ve celebrated in Singapore… but it felt like I was celebrating it at home.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space