Now You’re A Man (A man, man, man)

Ok I’m a day late but anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN! Finally hit the 21 mark and I’m damn proud to say that you have certainly, er, blossomed into a man capable of taking everything life throws at you with a strong chin and fantastically dry sense of humour. God Bless, bro!

The birthday boy

The celebrations were compressed into one late afternoon of gluttony, courtesy of the Rose Veranda at Shangri-La. Obviously one of the rarest things in life when a family member’s 21st birthday coincides with a (insert family title)-day celebration, so no expenses were spared (it was Mother’s Day fyi). The little restaurant, housed on the mezzanine floor, had been expanded on Sunday specially to accommodate the expected surge of patrons, so we sat in one of the function rooms. This was perhaps the first time everyone (short of Stephen) was there for a meal so we made the best of the high tea and stayed for almost the entire 2 hour duration (and had some nice free champagne), of which by the end we were all ready to explode from all the food we ate. It didn’t help that after we were done, there was still a small birthday cake for John for us to finish.

Lovely cake courtesy of The Line

The end of the meal even produced some vouchers which means breakfast at The Line soon! And since we don’t get to do this all that often, I took the opportunity to get a photo taken.

Thank God for family. More photos on Facebook. Cheers

My Rifle and my Buddy and Me

The holidays have certainly been rather eventful, almost to a point where I actually feel guilty for not interning. However, I do think given the fact that I will now be moving house much earlier than expected, plus the little projects here and there, it does seem a better idea to perhaps clear my community service hours and at least give myself some breathing space when I need to start packing (ugh).

The post-exam festivities kicked off with a short trip to Bintan, which you can read about on Da’s blog here. Since the write-up is already rather extensive and rather well-written, I shall not comment anymore. The trip started a week-long binge in which I ended up drinking everyday of the week from Monday to Saturday. These horrid enjoyable events where friends get together to revel in each other’s (drunken) company have been well documented on Facebook. Trust me, pictures do paint a thousand words, but most of these pictures just induce a long, head-shaking, silence. I’m not exactly very inspired to recount all that happened, but if you were there, you know it was kickass.

What was really exciting though, and managed to get me to wake up at 1030am as opposed to 3pm, was the trip I made down to SAFTI MI today to visit my former Wing Commander from Delta Wing in the Officer Cadet School (OCS). The trip was born out of a random conversation between Stim John, Louis, Tits and myself one day when we started talking about the uber-comfortable OCS shorts we used to wear. This then led on to how we should go back one day to visit the place that held so many memories (and nightmares) for us. Today was thus the fruition of that extremely frivolous discussion. Prepare to laugh.

After a lovely lunch and a good chat with our Wing Commander, who never fails to amaze us with his wisdom and inspire us with his genuine and sincere character, Louis, Stim and I headed back to OCS for our secondary agenda of the day – checking out the e-mart and gift shop that has been the recipient of a huge proportion of our cadet pay. Back in the day, the gift shop served as a life saver for all us monkeys who would lose different things on a daily basis and need to re-stock before we got our asses handed to us by our instructors. Upon discovering at the e-mart that my account had $226 worth of credit, the three of us proceeded to go mad and grab things off the shelves like they were going out of stock. This was hugely satisfying I suppose simply because it was all free (and we REALLY need some more green towels. No, really). The trip to the gift shop was less inspiring though, and Louis only ended up buying a hammock (?).

In desperate need of a drink due to the immensely hot weather, we decided to see if our favourite canteen stall was open. We were in luck, and even found out that Louis and Stim knew the nephew of the stall uncle (he almost didn’t remember his nephew’s name). This place is known by cadets past and present for selling, amongst other things, a kickass dish known as Ji Dan Mian, which really is chicken egg noodles. The dish, that used to be the highlight of the rare canteen breaks we got in OCS, consists of Maggi Mee with a black soy sauce, fried chicken and a fried egg. Unhealthy doesn’t even begin to describe it. But it is SO GOOD.

I used to love the root beer floats here so I decided to have one as well.

After having our fill, and getting slightly sleepy, we decided to head off, but not before sneaking some more shots near the OCS parade square. You can check out the few photos we took on Facebook, but here are some (please don’t charge me MINDEF).

You’re so gonna get charged for this, Stim.

The three of us and the OCS tower behind us.

All in all, a day well spent. Whoever thinks that NS is a waste of time just wasn’t as blessed as we were.
DELTA!