Gargantuan Post

Ok, I'm sorry that this is gonna be a long post, but it doesn't happen often does it? ^___^

ok stop stoning me.

First of all, Xams over yesterday, and I spent much of my time sleeping. To recover from the overnight mugging. I don't do that often...just that this particular topic, Philosophy of Science, is a level 2000 module taught as tho it's a level 4000 or 5000 module. Crazy hard. The lecturer is someone new, a visiting fellow, so maybe he overestimated our abilities.

Oh. And. He totally looks like what Harry Potter would look like in his mid-30s, complete with glasses and a British accent. Girls are slightly ga-ga over him, but I foresee plenty of casualties in his module who have to da bao (fail and have to re-take the module next sem).

Other than sleeping, I installed Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel without a Pulse, which has been sitting in my comp for more than half a year, totally ignored.

The game takes place in the fictional city of Punchbowl set in 1959. The main character, Edward "Stubbs" Stubblefield, was an unsuccessful travelling salesman in his life and was murdered in 1933 during the Great Depression by Otis Monday after coming home to find "Stubbs" with his daughter Maggie Monday. Otis unloaded a shotgun into his side and "Stubbs" was carelessly buried under the site of what is now Punchbowl. Nine months later Maggie gave birth to Andrew Monday, the playboy industrialist responsible for Punchbowl's creation.

The city of Punchbowl is insanely retro yet futuristic, with hovering vehicles, robotic repair-men, gas station operators (who make refuelling cars look like they are peeing), guides, security, etc. The soundtrack is actually remixes of lotsa old classics, such as "lollipop, lollipop, lolli lolli lolli..." etc. which makes the game very very silly and fun.

There's nothing in Stubbs' vocab other than growling and the word "brain", and at one point he manages to make an entire speech to an army of zombies lasting 2-3 min with nothing but the word "brain". Irritatingly stupid, but somewhat comical. I started the game thinking I could finish the game in a day, and after about 5 hours plus, I'm only at the 5th out of 8 chapters...and it's really addictive.

His basic arsenal is eating victims' brains, regaining health and recharging weapons while also turning them into zombies (who can turn others into zombies). The advanced arsenal includes a fart which stuns a wide area, hurling internal organs which explode like grenades and turn those killed into zombies, bowling his head (which spits toxic gases) turning victimes along the path into zombies, and the really fun Hand.

You can dislodge your left arm, and you can crawl around (like the hand in Addams Family), it can climb walls, walk upside down on a ceiling, and take control of humans - pretty useful especially when there are soldiers carrying bazookas, you can use his weapon to make short work of an entire army.

That's stubbs, with the useable weapons on da right.

Stubbs happily chewing on the brain of a victim

And his motley crew of suit-wearing zombies.

But I got work to do, so prob not gonna resume my game any time soon.

When Clarisse came back on Sunday late night, she brought back a gift from my dearest sister-in-law, Tingting.

A Death Note replica!

When she came over, I lent her the entire series of comics to read, and this is sort of a gift in return. Well also in return for the autographed JJ Album I got for her from eBay (she's a JJ fan)

The whole set of rules

And pages replicated exactly like in the comic book - except it's in Chinese. The original is in Japanese words, but it's understandable cos this came from China and is prob a replica, but it's the whole thought that counts. ^___^

REWIND!

Day 3.

Excursion Day.

Set off with Clarisse as she went to work, and I went to rush for a ferry.

That's another ferry which looks exactly like the one I was on.

Arrived at mid-point destination, Silvermine Bay after 40 min. Bus took some time to set off, so I took a rest. Went to Mac's and used their toilet, so I felt paiseh...and bought myself a sausage mcmuffin...(I eat mac's like once in 2 years or sthg like that) for hkd 80. That's like 1.60 sgd can? And coupled with the fact that we got an exchange rate of 1: 5.3, it's prob somewhere around 1.50. And it tastes exactly the same as what you would get in sg. Diaoz....

Bus came, and arrived at destination after a 1hour bus ride.

Tian Tan Buddha.

Looking down from the top of the stairs.

Da Buddha's crew.

View of a nearby peak from da top.

Photogenic pic of da buddha against the sun.

Made some donations and entered the museum (no photos allowed), which houses one of the many buddha relics scattered all over the world. Many nice artifacts, like manuscripts carved on bamboo by Qian Long (one of da Chinese emporers), and some microcarving scriptures which managed to squeeze like 200 or so chinese characters onto a small square piece of ivory about 2cm by 2cm. Needs to be seen UNDER A MICROSCOPE.

The main temple at the foot of the Buddha statue peak, Po Lin Monastery

A really nice flower, which sits among many many bougainvillae pots, within a garden named "bougainvillae garden" I'm pretty sure it's not a bougainvillae, but who knows? Maybe a close relative? Really nice no matter.

After some donations, you get a complementary vegetarian meal. Pretty humble - but the Soya Beancurd is not. It's the best that I've tasted, better than the famous Sweet Dynasty beancurd which I had tasted the previous night. The secret is in the water - it's made with mountain spring water. Really fresh. I could da bao for Clarisse, and 8 hours later when she ate it, it still tastes fresh.

A pic before leaving da Tian Tan Buddha.

Took the MTR back, cos I wanted to try different ways. Cost is about the same - but MTR is more comfy. About 20bucks to get from Hong Kong main island to the Buddha statue. Anyway, since I stopped at Central, thought I might as well pay the IFC a visit.

One of the shops sold 2 pretty funny chess sets. This is a RTK chess set, and you can prob recognise Guan Yu near the Bottom. Liu Bei is in da centre, flanked by Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang, and further by Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun.

And on the opposite side, Cao Cao and crew. Pretty recognisable ppl, xcept the funky one on the right-most, with a sabre over his shoulder and cool shades (prob oakley). Neither Clarisse nor I can tell who that is.

The other funny set, Journey to the West. The pawns are little monkeys on one side, and little bull-devils on the other. LOL.

A really nice trench. I brought Clarisse back on Thursday (day 5) to try it on, and it looked fantastic, material was very very good, (100% wool), but the price tag was just as fantastic. 9,600 hkd. Seriously out of our budgets.

Well it's still much better than the trench I liked (for myself), from Lane Crawfurd, a dark Grey 100% Angora Rabbit Hair Trench. I flipped the price tag and my jaw dropped to the ground. 70,000 hkd, after a 20% discount. I left without looking at anything else from Lane Crawfurd.

Foot of Dildo (IFC one).

IFC is actually a rectangular area (almost as large as Vivo; but Vivo is still bigger in ground area). Two opposite corners are IFC one and two, and the other two opposite corners are Four Seasons place (a number of restaurants there), and Four Seasons Hotel. All are linked together in the first 6 floors, which is the IFC shopping mall. The top floor is a sky garden which is pretty much like Vivo's roof, just smaller.

A nice water feature complete with lens flare.

View of BoC Tower and Cheung Kong Centre from the sky garden.

Four Seasons Hotel

The convention centre at Tong Luo Wan

IFC two.

Dildo from the sixth floor sky garden

A huge curtained structure in the central hall of IFC Mall.

The Xmas Tree

Its unveiling ceremony was on Thurs, and we saw it, it's really pretty.

A Boutique with pretty cool decor. That's a pikeman replica, and a grossly oversized Knight chess piece.

A mannaquin in the same boutique with a pretty ugly looking humongous red ribbon. OVER HER HEAD. Like, totally, whatever for??

And back to the hotel to wash up before picking Clarisse up. It was now that I figured out how to use the tram. Really fun and cheap way of travelling, flat rate of 2 bucks hkd (40 cents) can get you from one end of HK island to the other end. Our hotel is on the pretty far West end of the island.

Not to mention, it doesn't face traffic jams, so it's effectively the fastest mode of transport during peak hours - just that it gets a little sardine-packed with people during those times.

The Western Market - I didn't knnow, but we would return here on both of the following two days.
Something I spotted while waiting on the tram. It says "Singapore" with the year 1918 on the lightning conducting strip. Understandable. cos Sg was a central tin market for the world during that time, where tin ore came from all over the world (tho mainly Malay Peninsula), to be smelted, refined and re-exported.

The yet unposted view of our room - looking diagonally away from the sea. Pretty good view eh?

Picked Clarisse, and went to the 2nd nicest restaurant for the whole trip - Ming Court restaurant. Price was 120 for both of us, but the food and service was all top class. Nice comfy seats, authentic Ming Dynasty artefacts in the decor, and topped off with impeccable service.

Da us in da Ming Court Restaurant

Our main course, suckling pig fried rice.

The reason we ate there was cos we were going to Women's Street, and it was one of those recommended restaurants nearby.

Women's Street. Really really crowded.

After walking for about 2 hours or so, this was the only thing we bought - or rather I bought. A pretty funky Bear Claw Glove ^____^ RAWR. only 40 hkd, about 8 bucks. I know, it prob costs less, but we bargained off 50% of the price, it's good enough for us.

And on our way back, I spotted something.

Wing On House. There's also Wing On Department Store. It's cantonese translation of Yong An, I know, cos that's my uncle's name... but I really can't help it when I saw those 2 names, this was what went thru my mind at that time:


Seriously. I couldn't help it.

And after that was back to da hotel for a good night's sleep.

A little something I dug out of my archived junk, dating all the way back from 14 years old. I've been backing up my stuff constantly since then, with at least 2 copies at any one time. It's a treasure trove I tell u ^_^


Gotta prepare to set off - tonight is Clarisse's co's annual DnD, with the theme "Copacabana" which is a beach in brazil. We're like totally stumped what to wear. It's time to spend an hour or so figuring out.

Next up: Day 4