broylim Birthday ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ PART 1 IS PLATOON

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

In three days, word shutter will officially be ONE YEARS OLD! Yeah~~ *throws confetti*

And to commemorate this special day (and to shamelessly commemorate my 22nd year on this planet we call Earth), I shall be blogging on my 22nd birthday celebration. There will be three parts to this collection (each part will be released every day until anniversary day arrives), unlike my 21st birthday, because you have to admit, being 22 years old is nothing special but at least it gives me content to blog about, yes? Plus, it's been awhile since I've actually blogged about my personal life on this personal blog - it's looking more like a CD review blog nowadays...

I've decided to call this year ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ because of what happened on the actual day of my birthday. For more details which I shall not go into, you can read my latest piece of the same title which I've blogged previously. If you get it, you will. If not, just treat it like a photographer/poet went insane.

And now, to the few readers out there (because I honestly think no one actually really reads my blog other than for the ONE DIRECTION album which garnered over 2,000 views and counting), let's begin with the party!!

Seems that my birthday is always tied to singing, no? Like last year, I've celebrated my birthday by singing 3 times in 7 days! Well, not that I mind because I love singing with awesome people but maybe next year, I shall try something different. Anyway, the first stretch of the celebration (sounds like a festival already!!) is with my IS platoon mates from army and the location is the 10 DOLLAR CLUB at Chinatown. Now, I won't be going into the details of this cheap singing location because I've already did so just click on the name to go to the link, yes?

I arrived even before my friends did because I took the day off after running till my back almost snapped on that faithful day - April 5, 2012. Sickening IPPT never fail to make me feel like some broken machine. I say, IPPT is the most inhumane thing that the government makes its male (sexist sexist) citizens go through but anyway...

This is the large room of the 10 Dollar Club. Considering that we had a gang of... *counts the number of faces in the group photo* 11 people, getting the smaller rooms was out of the question. The big room costs the same, in case you're wondering, and comes with a huge ass screen and a TV along with 2 wireless microphones. Feels almost like TOY MUSEUM already eh eh?

Shortly after snapping photos of the room specially to brag blog about it, my friends arrived straight from camp after booking out and we starting to sing out vocal cords hoarse. If you've been to the 10 Dollar Club or had actually been obedient enough to read through my review of this place (link above), you would have known that the 10 Dollar Club is not just cheap but also generous with their free flow drinks, like the warm honey lemon that most of us had that day to soothe our throats. Really delicious~ Plus it's free flow!! What could be better?

I'm not going to go crazy featuring every single shot that I took that day because I think I took well over 200 photos but I'm just going to use some to introduce the fabulous people who really made my day that day. Here's Aaron and Jun Sheng, best pals since Signal Institute. For y'all non-Singaporean lucky people out there, Signal Institute is a place in the army and it's not very interesting so let's move on...

Jia Wei, my legal buddy in my current unit. Also the one who often preaches that 人是自私的 (Every man is selfish). An important "life lesson" that I will use in my future endeavors so the rest of the world would probably know what a bitch I am *evil laughter*. Loving my neck and my jaw line in this photo!

The Client team!! Well I know that does not make much sense to those who are not in my platoon but my platoon is split into specialized teams. Yeap. That's as much as I can explain without being too technical. Here's the other April baby, Pei Da (guy in the middle) from my platoon who's also celebrating his birthday with the entire gang! His official birthday is on the 20th but I shall wish him...

HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY PEI DA!!

...before everyone else does because I'm that kiasu. Pei Da has always been the patient one in the platoon and often the 开心果 (Direct translation: "Pistachio nuts" but it also means "the one who brings much joy"). Sometimes I wonder how he can keep his calm so much and smile at everything. He also says and does the funniest things at times and I don't even know where to start elaborating. Person on the right is my new, and going-to-be-ex boss, of the client team, Ryan. Wonderful person to work with.

Joel Chua, also known as the slut amongst other things. Well, he may be a slut, or a vixen as some calls him, but he's extremely fun to be around because of his extremely (maybe too extreme) outgoing personality and non-stop nonsense. Shaun, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of this outrageous character and it's a surprise that they are actually caught on film together. Hahahahahaha...

Looks like Ryan is turning to the dark side... This is actually one of my favorite photos of the day~ I just realized that looking through the film, Joel appeared in many shots. I wonder if it has anything to do with his Pikachu shirt that I want so badly or because he's so photogenic and fun to photograph. Bet if he reads this, he will go around parading this fact but oh well...

"Exorcism of the Vixen" - I think this is the perfect title for this photo. You know, when there are so many people in a karaoke room and there are only 2 microphones, the ones who are not singing tend to do lots of funny funny stuff and here, my superior who we affectionately call Staff Jo, is exorcising the vixen in Joel for being too close to Ryan. And that's my tripod, by the way...

Surprise of the day - Amoz actually turned up for the celebration! He's normally quite elusive and rarely joins us for such events but this time round, he actually came and amazed the whole lot of us with his weird unique taste in old music and his ability to sing. But again, it's quite a known fact that he can sing because he sings randomly in camp anyway.

This photo shows 2 things - my big boss sitting on the right and the fact that she actually wasn't sitting next to Ryan. In fact, in the actual photo, there was an awkward space in between for some Capser the Friendly Ghost to sit in and so, I edited the photo to shift my ma'am over to the left. Not bad eh, my editing skills~ For the record, the edit is just to make the photo look better and no other intentions were intended, no matter how you think otherwise. :)

Someone took a photo of me singing and I believe I was singing "Born This Way" by Mother Monster, Lady Gaga. Ever since that song was released, it seems to make its way into my Must-sing-list every time I go to K. In fact, it's almost like a birthday song to me now because last year, I performed this song acoustically with my SAFTI mates and this year, I did it again but with the PV instead of acoustic instruments. Sigh~~ Miss those days in SAFTI...

Well Staff Jo had to leave early because he had some dinner to attend to but before that, he threw 2 big "bombs" at Pei Da and I - these envelopes which seemingly yearns to rob us of our weekends. In case y'all don't know, this organization loves us so much they don't even want to release us for our weekends at times so yes... Honestly, when I saw the title on the envelope, I was a little *sigh!!*

So, I opened the envelope to see what the "joining instructions" (which I stupidly didn't realize was wrong!! Who says joining instructions anyway!!) to see what nonsense the organization has to tell me but when I reached my hand to pick out the letter, it felt stiff and hard. And furthermore, it felt like it's been folded into a really tiny piece. The envelope wasn't small so I wasn't expecting the letter to be folded to a quarter of an A4 size so I started to get suspicious...

And I was right to be! The cheeky platoon used that envelope just to give Pei Da and me a horrible scare but what's inside the envelope is actually a card with all their well wishes! Honestly didn't see that one coming!! These are more than just plain cards...

They are actually BOARDING PASSES to Kuala Lumpur!! I was extremely stunned because few days prior to this celebration, they were telling me that our planned KL trip would cost almost 500 dollars and of course, I went berserk and started to bitch and bitch and bitch till no ends. In fact, I bitched so much that everyone got really sick of me bitching but I continued bitching. 500 freaking dollars to go to Malaysia for just 2 days?! I could use that money to go to Langkawi!!

Then when I realized that these cards are passes to KL, I was like "BITCHES Y'ALL!!" in my mind because they made the trip seem expensive just to get me to bitch non-stop! I hope they regretted that prank because boy did I bitch! But if they enjoyed that sick prank, then so be it. And yes, 500 dollars was a lie.

These passes are actually fake ones that Jia Wei painstakingly made by hand and they look pretty genuine, no? In fact, if they didn't tell me that these passes were fake, I would have brought them to the airport to get laughed at by the staff. But yes, they are really paying for the flight to KL for Pei Da and myself. Touched to the max!! I will never ever forget this horrible prank and this wonderful present~

A fabulous group photo with the platoon!! Thank you IS platoon for making my 22nd birthday so much fun and for that terrible scare (please don't do that again!) of going to KL for 500 dollars and of course, for the wonderful company! That basically marks the end of the singing session. We sang from 2:30pm all the way till 7:00pm, till our voices became really sexy but if you think that the day is over, you can't be more wrong... READ ON!!

Singing has always been a tiring affair because you use so much strength in your abdomen and that makes lots of us hungry. We left the 10 Dollar Club when we were done and headed over to bustling Bugis for dinner along this road filled with lots of restaurants. While heading to the carpark to Amoz's car, we saw these huge Chow Chow dogs and one of it was resting in this pram like some oversized infant. Really adorable!!

We arrived at the eatery which I have no clue what it's called and started ordering food around this miserably small table. We were sitting literally shoulder to shoulder because they ran out of large tables and the ones taking up those tables are really taking their own sweet time to consume their dinner. Well, can't really blame them for enjoying the food but I'm entitled to bitch, yes?

This is probably the first time ever in my blogging life that I've actually combined photos into a single shot to save memory and to save myself from actually having to caption every single photo. The food that we ordered were very Thai-inspired and knowing that it would be spicy, lots of us ordered drinks like lime or barley. Their barley was pretty good!!

We had this green curry that looks more greenish after post-processing that was quite nice but sadly, by the time it arrived, I finished most of my rice to accompany the curry. The chicken in it was so-so though but at least the sauce was great. The potato leaves were not bad as well but I prefer crunchier veggies.

Here, we have a hotpot tofu with vegetables, mango salad, frogs' legs and cereal squids. The mango salad was quite tasty but it lacked cashew nuts! I thought all mango salads should come with cashew nuts?! I love the sauce of the frogs' legs but after imagining those green creatures, the meat was a little hard to swallow. The cereal squids were probably the best dish of the day because it was so flavorful and well cooked - not rubbery at all! Favorite of the day!!

As we all know, Thai food is horribly spicy and I think I damaged my tastebuds. I think the reason why I was so full even though I think I ate the least of all that evening was because I was gulping down water and ice to extinguish the wildfire in my mouth. Thankfully, Ryan brought us to this really good ice-cream parlor just opposite the area we had our dinner - Tom's Palette.

At Tom's Palette, they serve homemade ice-cream featuring really funky flavors at a really reasonable price! Here's the signboard with the pricing if you're interested. I would recommend the medium cup because the small one is a little pathetic but if you're watching your diet, then it's probably worth it. But honestly, for just 80 cents more, you get a lot more creamy goodness as compared to the small cup.

When I meant funky flavors, I wasn't kidding. Who heard of a salted egg ice-cream before? What about lime and wasabi? How about chocolate sorbet? These flavors were so unique that a lot of my friends got them. The salted egg ice cream was quite unique - savory but yet still fits as a dessert. But for me, I stuck to the classic sweets of the chocolate sorbet (which was as creamy as any ice-cream~) and one of my favorites - rum and raisins. But if you want to experience new and funny flavors, be sure to visit them. The staff will be glad to give you samples.

For their opening hours and promotions, visit their website at:

http://www.tomspalette.com.sg/

To end the post, here are the pleased customers of Tom's Palette (including myself but I can't be in the photo obviously because I'm taking this shot). Do head down to try it out if you happen to go around Bugis because I think it's really worth it. Will definitely bring my other friends there next time!!

This marks the first part of my ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ celebration! Can't believe I've actually managed to discipline myself to sit in front of my laptop to do a full length blog post that's about my life for a change. 

Be sure to come back tomorrow to catch the second part of LITTLE MONSTER where I've got a pleasant surprise from my best friend, Alvin, and for more (hopefully) stunning photos. :D

Thanks for reading!! *waves to that few people who actually reads*

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

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10 DOLLAR CLUB + Food at Chinatown

This post marks the first post of the three that I shall "marathon" today before I go for my dreaded hair cut. Why must I always be cutting my hair like every two weeks? It's not as though I want to be born with thick hair~ Oh well~ Stupid regulations that doesn't make sense always drives us crazy, no?

Well, shall get back to the topic because I haven't got much time to dawdle now. Since last week, my friends from my platoon were considering singing this Saturday because Shaun wanted to and thus, he was the official organizer though Jun Sheng did most of the bookings and logistics. It was meant to be somewhat like a "farewell" thingie before he goes over to Australia.

Considering that it was my first time heading over to this KTV called the $10 DOLLAR CLUB located along Smith Street at Chinatown, hidden behind the popular Food Street (or at least that's how I call it), I shall review it a little over here to evaluate if it's worth going for a second time, yes? Hopefully this post will be informative for people who are looking for cheap and good deals.

And what's my blog post without pictures, yes?

Here's the entrance of the 10 Dollar Club and yes, I know it looks a little sleazy but it's perfectly clean. At least that's what I can say when the sun's up. If you have difficulties looking for it, just keep looking on the right side when you're walking down Smith Street (the Food Street) and you'll definitely find it. If you are anyhow taller than me, you should be able to spot the signs on the top of the building.

To get to the KTV, you have to take this wooden stairs all the way up to Level 3 to ask for the rooms. Weird, no? Considering that Jun Sheng already made a booking before we went there, we were kinda secured a room. I suggest you do the same too because after this post goes public, I believe more people will go there. Yes - I hope my blog's that influential too.

Once everything's settled, you will go to your room on your own. No escorts like K-box or PartyWorld but they don't really need one because there are not many rooms to begin with. Therefore, you should make early reservations all the more because even though this place is not popular, the number of rooms just won't support too many singers too.

The room is so much better than the ones at Teo Heng @ Tanjong Katong Mall. They may not be as spacious but at least they are not cheap-looking. The sofa (pictures later) and stools are comfortable and most importantly, the air con is working! The last time I went to Teo Heng, the air con was almost not there and I proclaim that the hottest K-session I've ever been to.

Unfortunately, the room's still quite small but should fit 4-5 people comfortably. Oh by the way, we got a smaller room because the bigger ones were taken up so too bad for us. The television looks okay and compared to some of the rooms in Ang Mo Kio's K-box, I say this is better because AMK's K-box are still using the old bigass TVs.

One of the most important factor of choosing a place to sing is of course, the song selection. I would say that the song selection is pretty reasonable - considering that they have some of ayumi's later songs like "Last angel", just like K-box and Teo Heng but they lack a lot of the older songs. Not to mention that some of the songs are misspelled. But that's just for my case.

In terms of Chinese songs, I don't think there's much to complain about because the system is pretty updated as far as I'm concerned. Shouldn't lose out to the likes of Teo Heng. For English songs, I think it's still okay. The overall song selection, I would say, is surprisingly solid but probably just a few notches below the more popular K-box or PartyWorld.

What bugs me a little is the system they use for you to pick your songs. They use a touch screen that's a little unresponsive but nevertheless, gets the job done. However, I would suggest just sticking to the remote because trying to wrestle with the screen is a little annoying. The photo above shows the main menu of the interface.

The system does not sort the artistes into their respective languages and therefore, you have to go through a long list of artistes before you find yours - a little time wasting. However, once you get the hang of it, it should be easier. They should really polish their song selection system to make the experience better. Definitely a huge minus in terms of singing experience.

Here's Aaron and Shaun singing together, as always. Like I said, the room's really squeezy so even trying to take a picture with myself all cornered there proves to be a challenge but this is the best I could do. The sound system is okay but I believe K-box's better.

Close up close up~ Random photo that has nothing to do with the ratings of this KTV.

If you are a fan of free flow stuff, then you would love the 10 Dollar Club because all drinks on their menu are free flow! However, the down side is that their selection is pretty limited as compared to the other popular KTVs, less Teo Heng which doesn't even provide drinks. BUT!! Free flow things are always better, no? I got the hot honey yesterday and it was really, really good! And if you get tired of drinking the same drink throughout your session from 2pm - 7pm, you can request for a change at no extra charge!

If you are a regular singer like I am, you would have experienced the hassle of trying to add up all the hidden fees of K-box and PartyWorld. The KODs, the charges for the services, beverages and snacks, extra costs for the ridiculous wet tissues you probably will never use, etc. No fancy fancy stuff at the 10 Dollar Club. Just look at their hand written receipt! $10 means $10 and that's that! They even waived off the 10% service charge because of their promotion! Promotion or no promotion, price wise, 10 Dollar Club wins HANDS DOWN!

Service wise, I would say that even though we were served by an *ahem* talent, she was really hospitable! Using the remote or touch screen, you can call for service and she will appear promptly to take your orders or refill your drinks. On top of that, what amazed me was her initiative. You know sometimes when you sing, you get those nasty feedbacks (the EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEE!!!! sound)? She heard it from another place and came over to assist us even without us asking! That's good service!

Verdict of the 10 Dollar Club? I say if you are looking for a cheap place to chill out, drink some non-alcoholic drinks non stop and sing your hearts out until you get tired, you can try the 10 Dollar Club because it's cheap and reasonable. The song selection and system may be a little annoying but once you get over it, you will definitely enjoy yourself there, I promise. On top of that, the service is also not bad and pretty prompt as compared to the K-box where you have to call nonstop to pester them for refills.

Therefore, I would recommend the 10 Dollar Club! Go experience it yourself~

Contacts to the 10 Dollar Club:

http://tendollarclub.sg/contact-us

Well, after singing our hearts out, some of them left to meet their other friends for dinner while Victor, Shaun and I walked along the Food Street to search for our potential dinner. More pictures!!

The evening scene at Chinatown's Food Street which boasts a wide selection of local delights which are amazingly good but slightly pricey because they are not meant for locals anyway - they are aiming at the foreigners' wallets. One good thing about singing at the 10 Dollar Club is that you hardly need to consider where to go for dinner because you have a whole variety to choose from the moment you step out onto the street! How convenient!

Are you ready for some FOOD PORN?! This is the Laksa (noodles with a thick gravy made of spices and coconut milk for y'all Non-Singaporean readers out there!!) that I had for dinner yesterday and because of it, my voice sounded real sexy yesterday night. The laksa costed 5 dollars but it was really good though - springy noodles soaked in the fantastic gravy accompanied with a generous serving of huge cockles! Yummy~

Eating with 2 big eaters have some perks when you get to taste a bit of the food that they order. Besides their main staples, they ordered lots of sides, like this oyster omelet where I took out the oysters just to photograph while they went on their food hunt. The oysters are reasonably big and juicy and of course, it's delicious in that chilli sauce!

The Char Kway Teow that Victor and Shaun each had yesterday evening. Even though it looked real normal, from what they said, it was pretty awesome~ Maybe I will go try it out one day.

Stingray anyone? Topped with sambal and accompanied with lime and some chopped onions - or what looks like onions. Really good this one!! Sadly, my stomach went KO after I finished my laksa and I couldn't swallow more food so I only had a little bit of this but that little bit was heavenly!

And of course, we had satay as well. Yes - they are monstrous eaters and when they kept bringing food back to the table, my jaw went down and down and down. Well at least they lived up to their reputations of being extremely huge eaters. These satays, like the rest of the food, are good too! Gosh I wonder how much calories I took in yesterday... :S

The food on the table yesterday evening and this is not even all of them!

Victor and Shaun enjoying their dinner. I was struggling to find space to rearrange the food for the photos because there were so many plates on the table!

And to wash everything greasy and fattening down, we had glutinous rice balls (tang yuan) for dessert. They are really good and they costed only $2 for 5 amazing rice balls served in this delicious peanut soup! Just look at how generous the peanuts are in the soup! You can choose to either have all 5 of their flavors (peanut, yam, red bean, green tea, sesame) or do it your own way~ Cheap and extremely delicious dessert!!



Okay then! Enough of the food!! Making me hungrier as I type. Shall end here and go have my lunch of instant roti prata with curry and maybe after that, go for my hair cut. Hate hair cuts because the queue's forever so excruciating long. Oh well~ What to do what to do??

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