the adventures of “Rico Suave”

OK, lots of ppl have been asking me similar questions:
1) No, i didn’t get laid. yes it was unfortunate. let’s move on
2) No, i DIDN’T PAY KTV girls to give me sexual favors. REALLY! i have values… Stop laughing…
3) Yes, I do eventually want to work there. When? possibly fairly soon actually.

Things to ask about:

1) Calling Card and Phone booths
2) Sexy Guy Award
3) Ordering food
4) Line Ups
5) Rain and how I didn’t have an umbrella
6) my street map of singapore and how i only got it the day before i left.
7) "Quota"
Cali the resident slut
9) Night Safari
10) eating in an alley in KL

I’ll be expecting a barage of questions very soon!

Saturday Day time was a COMPLETE Write off. i think all the boys, including myself were increadibly wiped so we ended up watching movie after movie. Finally we decided to hit up the Roxy at about 10:30 for a Pimps and Hoe’s Party

Roxy was great, there wasn’t much pimps nor hoes but there was ROOM, and after crowding into small places with shitloads of people, ROOM was very well recieved!

ALSO, Juliet. the girl i met the day before was there too! wow, fate interviened. I asked her if she was stalking me and she said for me to be careful in Canada cuz she just might pop out of my closet. wow. we need girls like that here!

we got home after Roxy at about 3 and i had to stay up till 6am to go to the airport. So Teresa and I just chatted and watched a movie. At about 6 am Singapore Time, i said my goodbyes, thanked them for everthing and was on my way.

I miss them already, not becuse it’s been a long time, but because it will BE a long time till i see them again. And, all the people i’ve met there were very entertaining, but it just feels empty, as i probably wont’ see them again. As is life i suppose. I’ve very glad to have had this experience, to travel and to be taken out by extremely nice hosts and hostesses. It truely changed my life and perspectives on things. Thank You. I’ll see you again very soon.

I guess i haven’t been giving excellent play by play as this post is going to encompass tuesday ALL the way till Saturday night and the flight out on sunday morning.

ok here we go. tuesday till thursday we chilled out and went rock climbing THAT IS ALL hahahaha i think we were all (mostly I was) suffering from the evils of insufficient funds and because i couldn’t actually earn any money while i was in singapore it’s definately was a hiderance into going out.

ok FRIDAY was a bit more eventful. knowing it was one of my last days in singapore, i openned up my bank account to go shopping! hahahaha. i bought this really nice egyptian cotton shirt from a local company named Raoul. all i have to say is WOW those locals make NICE shirts!

THEN it was off to hunt for LIMITED EDITION PUMAS!!! i noticed a trailer on my exploits around town and I asked Darren about it and he said that, the trailer gets moved around week by week and ALL they have there are Limited edition things! So, naturally I HAD TO GET THEM!!

FRIDAY NIGHT

Double Trouble Hotties Teresa and Serene (Derek’s Sister and Sisters’s Best friend) came out and partied with us. I met these two girls before in Vancouver and Teresa just so happened to be in town for a wedding. can you say YUMMY?

we went to this private birthday at this place called "Hideout" and it REALLY was a hide out as it was quite difficult to find! and yes, quota was still in effect so naturally i turned on my charm and met this girl. her name is Juliet, she’s pretty cool, more on that later.

anyway after that we decided ok, no more sitting and drinking we need to dance and drink SO off to Zouk. Zouk is a multi club complex that 1 entrance will get you into all of them. Think of it as Clubbing Theme Park, in "Future" they play straight hip hop, in "Velvet" they play top 40ish songs and in "Zouk" itself they play electronica-ish stuff.

We decided to ALL pile into a Van sized cab and this is my interpretation of what happened while we were deciding where to go:

Darren: Hey ppls let’s go to zouk and party it up! HEY… where the hell did Derek Go?

Renold and Teresa: Zouk? yeah ok that sounds promising. Derek? Did you see Derek? i didn’t see Derek, we didn’t leave him behind did we?

Derek: YOU (*&(*&%&*&%$^%@#&^@*&$!!!! I HAD TO HIDE IN THE TRUNK! THERE ISN’T ENOUGH SPACE UP THERE IN THE FRONT

HAHHAHAHA that’s not exactly what happened it’s definately entertaining!

anyway we went to zouk got wasted and danced the night away. hahah honeslty there isnt’ much more to see about that, we all know how things end when drinking =P

Well not really, vacationing is about doing as little as possible and buying stupid ass soviniers that only friends think are funny because they are so lame =)

here are some pictures and signage that i found around town that i found particularly interesting.

There a lot of illness and drug themed propoganda posters here. as in.. "If you take drugs, who really pays?" and "Safe To Eat" with the avian flu thing.

also in case you think the fake product market was non existent here in law abiding singapore, all you had to do is go to Chinatown

here is THE FAKEST versace belt i’ve ever seen. I’m holding my sunglasses (which are real) to let you compare and contrast.

It was really funny because beside the versace one was the same belt.. but with a gucci logo on it hahaha. gotta hand it to the chinese to make everything fake hahahha.

AND they actually have live fogs in how cool is that! and yes I unknowingly DID eat some frogs. they.. tasted like a cross between fish and chicken… they should be called… fishken or chickish hahahha

and that was as much as i got done in the last few days!
it was awsome

The phase of the day is "GOD DAMN I"M TIRED"

the day started about about 12pm after waking up from the night of crazy partying and went to eat breakfast RIGHT AWAY… we all had about 2 cups of coffee each and i think that’s what kept us awake for the next few hours.

First event of the day: Rock Climbing

that’s right, you can take the boy away from the cliffhanger but you can’t take the rocks away from the boy!
I specifically brought my LaSportiva Katana Rock shoes to singapore with me because i was promised that we would go.. and boy did they deliver

CHECK OUT FACILITIES AT THE KL ROCK PLACE:


They have 2 complete floors each as big as the coq cliffhanger and a boldering section about twice as big. it’s quite formidable. The only thing is that i’m not used to the route setting and it’s hard to figure out the proper routes as they dont have tape on them.

I met this cute girl there that was at the drinks counter that i met. her name is Tasha and she gave me her contact on a piece of paper that had "shopping list" on it. unfortunately i did’t have a phone and she didnt’ come out to party with us that night. But hey that’s cool. all in good fun =) AND my quota for the day was done! hahahaha

the rest of the day was spent driving. We wanted to go go karting but JUST as we got close to the track it started Raining like CRAZY. so we had to head home and have food. and then go clubbing.

During dinner, i had a red bull, on the way to the clubs i had a red bull.. i was just DAMN TIRED. WELL we had to troop on and party because it wasn’t a choice, it was a requirement.

THe funniest thing happend at the club. well not really funny but a VERY interesting expierece. there was a Extacy Police raid at the club next to us which caused a club wide panic and a massive exodus. hahaha we all were fine but man outside the club there were dogs and a few paddy wagons. Those malaysian police didn’t look like they were having fun AT ALL and i felt sorry for the ppl who were in the other place. Apparelntly they dont let anyone leave and they do a urine test for EVERYONE in the club and sometimes the testing lasts till about 7 am. that’s just fucked up!

in any case.. we DID manage to slip out and went to go eat.
we went to this "coffee stand" which .. didn’t serve coffee at all..

it was more like an outdoor green hut. and.. for the first time.. i ate food.. in an alley… on the street. and that… was my day.. GOD DAMN I’M TIRED! hahaha

We decide a few days before that we were going to get an early start on the day, wake up at about 10 and head out at 11 so we’d be there at about 4. miss all the rush hour traffic of KL and all.

OH BOY DO PLANS CHANGE! hahaha well what do you expect when you have 4 guys going on a road trip right? hahaha. We were extremely late. i think we FINALLY ended up in the car at about 3 pm, and honestly i think that wasn’t a bad time considereing how bad our "one drink" night was the day before.

anyway here are some road trip images

Death to drug traffickers… again?! man what’s up with that! i think we should make of these for Canada, except it’ll say "Be forwarned: M3’s and Mercede’s for drug traffickers" hahaha, in any case, derek says that even though malaysia and singapore has the same law about it, malaysia is pretty over run with drugs as police corruption is much worse there.

ALSO for those of you who don’t know, Malaysia is a muslim state so porn and women degration and such is not really permitted. *cough bullshit cough*

This picture was taken at a toll both and it tells everyone to "Say No to Porn" and at the bottom it instructs ppl to press Alt+f4. HAHAHHAA oh man! thats RICH

Anyway, after meeting the parents and the family, we had dinner and then we went drinking… again…
hahhaha these guys party REALLY hard, like.. REALLY hard

i think we hit up about 3 clubs and we HAD to pick up 1 girl each per day. it was the "quota".

The girl i met was a manicurist and really wanted me to look at her toes and such, she was pretty cute i must admit. SHE asked for MY # and said i was visiting KL and i’d be leaving soon so she could email me photos, but, the weekend is over and i haven’t recieved any emails. boo urns! hahahaha oh well.

we didn’t get disgustingly drunk and i was REALLY glad and that was KL day 1

Day 5 can be summed up with 1 phrase: "I’ll Just have 1 drink". I think we all know how that will end.

ANYWAY,
the day started much like the last few casually wake up, have some food and just chill.
Bernice asked me to go shopping with her today as she could get some discount on a dior bag if she had a foreign passport. hahaha WOMEN! users! haha that’s ok, i got to go out with a sing-a-guide again, so that was cool.

We left our humble #1602 - Ava Towers, 10 Ava Road, abode (in case you wanted to send me fan mail)

we hopped on my very first bus ride. As some of you may know busses are plastered with advertisments but there are NO Print ads on the inside of the bus.

But what do they use to raise revenue then sir?
WELL, with TECHNOLOGY!
instead of having print ads, they have mounted LCD’s in the bus running continuous advertising. WOW why would anyone want print ads anymore!?

those singaporeans… think of everything!

After returning home, i was pretty tired and was about to take a nap at about 5:30 pm when i got a phone call: "Hey Renold, Come downtown, me and the guys are going to get a drink or something" and with that, i took a taxi to the Olgivy Building at 10 Robinson Place where Darren (Derek’s Brother) works.

We eventually ended up at this Northern Indian bar near Darrens work. I forgot the name but we went and had about 3 beers. I though, ok.. well it’s about to go home, but.. NO. On to Beavers, this pub that’s close to Derek’s place where we add decided we’ll just have one… yeah right

after our 8th "first one" we looked like this:
drunk and happy as hell.

But that was not the end, Next we ended up at some KTV joint singing karaoke with random girls AGAIN. I didn’t have a "companion" this time, i was totally not in the mood. anyway, after KTV.. Home right? HELLS NO, went to ANOTHER club! by this time, i was not sure WHY we were even there! I mean, i’m SURE none of us could walk properly and probably talked MUCH worse! hahahaha.

here we are.. disgustingly drunk as hellllll!
So, the moral of this story is: don’t trust anyone that says they’re just going to have ONE they’re LIARS i tells ya!

Usually this wouldn’t be so bad, but.. we were supposed to be leaving for KL, Malaysia the next day. oh man when i got home that night it was OVER! hahaha I said it before and i’ll say it over and over again" i need a vacation from this vacation!

i think i’m going to call this day "LAZE-A-DAY 4" or "St. SAT-ON-MY-ASS" Day

as the title entails, i parked on my ass, watched tv, slept and did all the things that normal ppl would do on a sunday. it was wonderful. the only non air conditioned air that i felt was going out for dinner where we had pepper ribs. it was really yum!

WOW most interesting post EVER! hahahha

Day 3 is all about gradually expensive chilling.

after the last 2 days of wreckless spending and hours of walking around the city, i decide to make it a chill day and possibly conserve some money. And let me just say, WOW, plans change! hahahah

$200 later the day was over. This might not seem like a lot for an asian country but the exchange rate is only $1.38SGD:$1 CAD so.. $200 is about.. $150 CAD.

SO let the tour begin.

The day begins on the couch.
this is what thier apartment looks like. IT’s quite cozy if you ask me. check out the ikeaesque bookshelf, coffee table and fake sheepskin mats.

that couch is where i plant my ass the last few days in the morning to watch my CNN and wait for derek to wake up so we can go downstairs to eat prata and fish curry for breakfast.

i stayed there and parked my ass from 10am-12pm and then 1pm -6 pm

from 12pm-1pm, I went to this corner restaurant that derek calls "The Best Place On Earth". it’s a small corner restaurants that serves delicious chicken rice. It’s like eating at Banana Leaf or Tropica EVERYDAY.

at about 8 pm i went to this place called The Night Safari. It’s the worlds first and so far only zoo for nocturnal animals. It was REALLY COOL. yes it was hard to see sometimes but it was really cool to see some of the animals you couldn’t see in a non tropical environment.

there was an animal show quite like the beluga show in vancouver except they have cats, owls and such instead of a fat mammal in cold water.

Unfortunately all of my other pictures were only different shades of black.

This is the trail map in which Bernice and I are both "Vanna White"-ing for you viewing pleasure.

AFTER the night safari with Bernice and her boy, i went to chill with MY BOYS and that was a lot less touristy and much more debachery filled. First it was booze and live music at this place called "Acid Bar" and after about an hour of drinking we went to sing karaoke. See.. singing karoke here is.. not like singing karoke in vancouver. For example, you don’thave to provide women to have fun here.. APPARENTLY they provide them FOR YOU. haha well i’ll leave that one to the imagination but needless to say i had an interesting time. I think i would have had a better time, but i was just really.. not used to it. hahahhaa maybe if went more frequently on this trip .. hahaha or maybe not.

anyway.. that the way the day ended. crazy!

Let’s reflect on the fiasco of a day that we will call "DAY 3"

Day 3 started at 2 am (local time 11am vancouver time) when i was kept awake by the snoring of my generous but extremely-loud-when-passed-out host. This prompted me to get up, go into the living room to watch TV. Lucky for me, his roommate, Bernice, was still up as well chatting away on the phone.

in anycase, we had a good converstation, some cigarettes and she offered to take me with her in the day time to run some errands and i could just chill and see the city at the same time.

WOOT, Sing-a-Guide #2 was CREATED!

we left around noon and she had to visiti various offices, and i basically tagged along. I kinda.. felt like i was 5… but then again, in a city where you’re completely not familiar with, being 5 is better than say.. being 2 and unable to communicate.

This image was taken from a window from her office tower. Yes, that’s a pool on top of the ajoining office building. WOW. Live it up!

This is me in the business district. That’s one tall ass buidling. something like.. 70+ stories.

yes, that’s an interesting pose i have going on, but.. let me assure you i’m 100% hetero-male. HAHAHAHA

JUST to drive home that hetero fact a bit more, let me introduce to you Bernice. she’s… quite a hottie i must admit. And, Yes boys, she does sleep in the room next to mine. hahaha, i know, i know. you’re jealous.

in anycase, she had to leave me for an appoitment at 3 pm and so, i was off on my own for the first time. I have to admit, i think i bit off a little more than i can chew with this, "don’t worry, i’ll set off on my own- I have a map!"-esque attitude.

i didn’t quite get lost, but i WAS consulting my map every 3 or 4 steps, JUST TO MAKE SURE i was going where i was going. HAHHAH can you say TOURIST!? - LOVE IT

THEN, it started raining

Let me tell you, this isn’t some vancouver drizzle, it’s like turning on the shower with your clothes on. SERIOUSLY. but the good thing is that it only lasts about an hour and it goes away just as sporatically as it starts.
Unfortunately, i didn’t have an umbrella. so… it REALLY was like i was standing in a shower. and i got fully soaked
hahahah GOOD TIMES

These people didnt have umbrellas either, but i guess they were smarter than me and just stayed under cover. I swear, life stopped when it rained and everyone just waited.

that… was pretty much it! hahaa wow being a tourist in the rain … kinda sucked! hahah but that’s alright, i’ll hopefully have better stories today