Nightlife

Party 21 @ Genting

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party 21

21. It’s the oft-quoted number where you magically experience a whole new life as an adult. It’s a coming of age celebration of freedom and independence.

keys

I was at the exclusive Party 21 event at Genting International Convention Center – it’s an invite-only party open to WorldCard members, and it comes complete with accommodations and drinks coupons.

You only need to bring yourself up. 🙂

cablecar

I used the Genting bus and cable car combo. It’s actually a very convenient way to head up, just park your car at Dataran Car Park and you don’t even need to drive up. Pity that they’ve abolished the RM 1 per entry system in lieu of a RM 2 per day parking fee, but it’s still one of the best ways to go to Genting.

queue

I was actually up there just a couple of weeks ago with Fiona, using the same transportation method. I’m a Silver WorldCard holder so I can skip the formidable queue for the cable car using a priority lane. Heh.

21 party

This time, everything was sorted out so I just headed up slightly earlier and got my room key from Evon. I had enough time to freshen up before heading to dinner.

roast

Coffee Terrace has a great buffet going on at night. There’s various different cuisines to cater to every palate, from fresh sashimi to roast lamb.

You can even get your food custom cooked right before your eyes after choosing what you want.

cook

It’s perfect to line your stomach before a great night out. Heh.

dj nabila

Party 21 is hosted by DJ Nabila who was spinning the deck the entire night.

ivy genting

There were a lot of fun and games outside too – from arcade games to lucky draws.

genting party21

OMG this has gotta be the only photo where I look my age. HAHA! This was taken at the photo wall right before the entrance.

lucky draw

You can also get a chance at the lucky draw by liking the WorldCard Malaysia Facebook page.

ivy

I met Ivy there, who recognized me from my blog. She asked her friend to take a photo of us with her iPhone and I asked her friend if she could take another one with mine. Thanks for saying hello Ivy! 🙂

performance

Anyway, it was a lucky day for me coz I rummaged around the lucky draw box and got…

win room

…the best prize!

It’s a free night’s stay at First World Hotel. w00t! Thanks Genting!

free hotel stay

I wanted to get one of the t-shirts instead, which you could redeem for 2 GP (Genting Points) but unfortunately they were all sold out. Genting Points are credits that is stored in your WorldCard. There’s also an awesome deal where you can get 10 drink vouchers for 3 GP too.

21

The party was in full swing when I got in. There are performances by pole dancers and stage appearances, including a memorable one which got everyone doing it Gangnam Style. 😉

group

This is the bunch of us who went up that night. Jane is partially obscured in that photo…

jane

…so here’s another one with her.

peter

This is Steve, one of the friendly Genting staff I met that night in addition to Chee Wai, Evon and the rest. Thanks for all the assistance in checking in and drink vouchers!

I’ll let the videos speak for themselves, I had a blast that night!

genting party 21

You know what the best thing is? Party 21 comes with a complimentary room at First World Hotel so you don’t need to drive down after partying.

beer

That’s the awesomeness of being a WorldCard member. There’s a lot of benefits in being one, and not just for skipping queues either. 😉

I’ve been one since 2007 and I get occasional text messages with free room offers and invites to exclusive events like this. Membership and application is free and you can see the latest promotions and contests at the WorldCard Malaysia Facebook page or the Genting website.

genting toll rebate

You can also get priority parking and best of all, a toll and petrol rebate from RM 50 to RM 300 by accumulating points. 1 GP = RM 1 if you do this and it’s a little known secret that you can get cold, hard cash by exchanging points for driving up. I love mine for the perks it gives me – you can also sign up for your very own WorldCard here! 😀

sleep

I had a lot of fun and after a night of partying, you don’t know how tempting a bed looks instead of the prospect of having to drive down. I slept till the next day before going back to KL, a lot better than drinking and driving.

dancing

Party on! 🙂

7 photos of stuff I did in Singapore

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1. Hung out with my mom

food singapore

She’s doing another course of chemotherapy and we’re here for her. My dad flew in too and we’ll usually walk to Hola and eat there. Cheap and decent food. The caterers (old skool Tiffin carriers) come weekday nights.

My mom eats separately; she still can’t stand a lot of food, not even the smell of it. That’s her hiding in the room coz she’s so nauseous from the chemo.

2. Went to church

bedok methodist church

Took a cab to Bedok Methodist Church. Service is familiar but the praise and worship had an unusual twist – women dressed in traditional Chinese garb were dancing and twirling long silk ribbons. How I wish I managed to take a photo…

Got an EZ-Link card so I could use the MRT, bus and pay for food and groceries at places which accepts it.

3. The Gospel of Pool

church pool

Poster stuck beside the pool table at church. Words fail me. Sometimes a cue is just a cue. smirk

Mom got temporarily better and asked me to get her a Mocha soy ice blended drink. I bought it and she had a sip and promptly got sick again.

4. Salted egg yolk mooncakes

mini mooncakes

Dad got this from Sibu. It’s really quite good, there’s an entire salted egg yolk inside that’s almost the size of the puff pastry.

I ate all of them. Heh.

5. Grocery shopping

singapore grocery shopping

Got soy milk for my niece. She’s allergic to nuts, gluten, and most other things. This is the brand that we know doesn’t have any additives or traces of abovementioned. Also got reacquainted with the same brand of cigarettes I smoked last time I was here.

Middle of the night scare from my niece’s talking chair.

6. Timbre @ The Substation

timbre pizza buffulo wings

Lovely watering hole at 45, Armenian Street with live bands playing every day of the week. You can text song requests in for them to perform. Fiona recommended the Timbre Buffalo Wings – love the hot sauce and nuts topping but a tad overcooked for me. They do good pizzas too – got a half and half with Goodfellas and 53A. They’re both names of bands playing there.

Here’s a cover of Oasis’ Stand by Me.

7. Left my keys with Fiona

timbre substation singapore

Had a couple of drinks and hung out at Timbre. I put my sister’s condo keys and tag card in her bag earlier that night (tend to chuck my stuff in her tote due to lack of pocket space, thanks Fiona) and forgot to get it back from her. I only realized after I got back and couldn’t go in. Went back to her place to get it.

It’s a good thing we live near each other. Heh.

Posted: 4:08 pm Singapore time

Lingerie, alleys and balls with Fiona the flight attendant

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fiona

That just sounds downright dodgy eh? Heh. This photo was taken at around 3 am in the morning. There’s a rather funny story about how we got here from drinks at Orchard Road in Singapore.

…rewind to about 8 hours earlier

peranakan place

I met up with Fiona for dinner – it turns out that she lives quite near my sister’s apartment in Simei. Thus, we met at Eastpoint Mall. She got there about the same time I did and called me saying she doesn’t know if she’s at the right entrance – it’s at the place where there’s a lot of lingerie if you are going to buy ask yourself what is the average breast size and so buy the best for me!.

lingerie

I pretty much knew where that was since I came to the mall the day before with my parents to the supermarket downstairs. 🙂

Anyway, Fiona is a flight attendant and I’ve known her since her words of encouragement when I was being all emo and shit after the last relationship I was in. I haven’t actually met her though so I only have a vague idea of how she looked like from my Facebook account.

alley bar singapore

We took a cab to Orchard Road and told the taxi we didn’t have any destination in mind, so he dropped us off somewhere near…er, I can’t actually remember. I know we walked for a bit and checked out the drinking holes around the Peranakan Place area before settling on Alley Bar.

pulled pork burger

It has the most awesome pork burger ever! It’s called the BBQ Pulled Pork Burger and it’s a juicy and tender mess of 5 hours of smoked pork shoulder smothered in barbecue sauce, topped with a whole jalapeno chili pepper.

Fiona had a bite and she concurred. Actually eating it is a messy affair – it’s like a sloppy joe except it’s not made with minced meat but rather loose meat. It’s the best pork burger I’ve had to date!

sloppy joe

We were seated outside at a place simply called Outdoors – Peranakan Place has three distinct areas built around a real Peranakan settlement. Outdoors is the al fresco zone which is a “Designated Smoking Area” (damn Singaporean laws) and there’s also Acid Bar and Alley Bar, which is the main place.

There’s a live band playing – the music is piped to Outdoors for those who’re not inside, loved this cover of Radiohead’s Creep.

I had two pints of Erdinger Beer – there are two, one dark and one white. The “dark” one is Pikantus and the “light” Weissbier. We were eating, drinking and talking and it was around 11:30 pm when the subject somehow changed to pool and Fiona found a place that’s open until 3 am.

dodgy singapore

We walked down the opposite direction at first before the GPS on her phone told us we’re heading the wrong way so we turned back. The pool place is at Concorde Hotel – somehow that place looks really seedy, it’s full of KTV hostess bars and dodgy characters loitering about who look like they would totally mug you if this was Malaysia instead of Singapore. HAHAHA

It turns out that Fiona is quite good at pool. I wouldn’t say that she kicked my ass but it was a really close thing. Tomatoe tomato.

fiona pool

Speaking of asses, Fiona is left handed, which I didn’t notice until we were playing. I was standing behind her trying to see how she plays. I thought she would think that I was checking out her butt. It turns out that she didn’t, she’s probably used to people ogling at her as cabin crew. :p

See what I did there? smirk

It’s a masterful (wah damn syoik sendiri) way of neither confirming nor denying the statement, just like how Israel’s nuclear ambiguity works, except bombs and butts are two very different things.

Anyway, they don’t sell beer inside, and we were alternately playing pool and 9 ball before I suggested we head to the 7-Eleven outside to get some. It wasn’t a 7-11, it’s a similar concept called Cheers (how apt) and I told her to just scull the 500 ml can before we head inside. It’s a strong beer at 9% and you don’t exactly drink it for the taste.

fiona apprehensive

Look at Fiona’s apprehensive face! 😉

I think we spent more than the 5 minutes we told the pool hall clerk we’ll be away outside, downing that beer and smoking in the rather unusual backdrop of closed shops, dark segments and KTV bars.

broken dreams

We went and played until it was nearly three before heading out for more beer. This time we brought it inside using Fiona’s bag, and using the same to discreetly conceal the two cans by putting it behind and out of sight. That was the first picture. Smart.

The place was supposed to close at 3 am but we were still playing so the clerk started cleaning up. I don’t think he cared about the alcohol anyway, we were the only customers in there at the time. Thanks for the beers Fiona! 🙂

scull

It was 4:30 am when we finally shared a cab home. I could only spare one night coz I’m here for my mom so I only went out once. I had a lot of fun, one of the more memorable night outs in a long time despite only getting two hours of sleep two nights in a row to wake up for church. Say hi to Fiona if you see her while flying!

Seize the day!

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pamela hb

Morning peeps! I’ve been up for quite a while so I expect to crash pretty soon. I had breakfast at TDH with Pam, which I usually miss coz:

1. I don’t really eat breakfast.
2. I don’t wake up that early on weekends

I’m glad I went today though, coz I ended up sitting in there for 5 hours (!) talking to Pam. She has this really cool tattoo that goes “Carpe Diem”.

carpe diem

Seize the day indeed, something that everyone needs reminding of once in a while.

pamela ooi

Anyway, Leanne was in town for the weekend from Australia. I had dinner with her at Jalan Alor and got some interesting insights from her. It’s truly inspirational how she travels while juggling all her responsibilities.

leanne mangan

Pam, Jess and Konstandinos joined us for drinks later at Changkat Bukit Bintang. We had originally wanted to go to a gay bar for something different (thanks for the recommendation Lynn) but the place didn’t serve food so we went to another watering hole.

leanne us

I ended up drinking diet Coke and singing in a jarringly off-tune key to classics from the 90’s – it seems that a couple of us has the same tastes in music. The DJ was constantly inundated with requests by us and the bar was dominated by our playlist of punk, rock and metal classics. Heh.

hb pam

Anyway, today is a date of some importance to me. I think. I won’t be sure yet for another 28 days but if all the stars align I’ll get a tattoo that says 22/7/2012.

Seriously.

Where the wild things are

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Prostitution in Tbilisi, Georgia

dark side of georgia

In post-Soviet Georgia, the flesh trade is alive and well. *ends pretentious investigative journalistic piece

I was brought to this hotel to play billiards and from the moment I stepped in, I knew that the billiard table was a secondary entertainment fixture rather than the centerpiece. My Georgian companions seem to know the working ladies pretty well (later learned that they live just around the corner) and the place is run by a severe looking old woman with several tough looking Georgian guys beside her on the ground floor office.

The billiards cum hostess joint (no pun intended) is located on the second floor, right opposite room number 6, which is used by the girls and women to change. I took a dump in the toilet, that’s how I know. smirk

However, the place exudes nothing but fun, probably coz I didn’t pay a single honest cent for the frivolities of the night – will tell you why later – and it’s a little like the legal gentlemen clubs in Melbourne where you mingle with the working ladies before you decide which to pick.

…and the best thing of all is that you can just drink beer (don’t know how much it costs since my companions picked up the bill) and chill and talk to the girls without feeling pressured or obliged to engage in their services.

There are several distinct cliques – three at my count:

1. The young Russian and Georgian girls (teens to very early 20s)
2. The professional types who lounge around and can do some pretty serious stunts (like exotic dancing while holding on to your waist by the sheer grip of her thighs)
3. The old cunts who are fat and used up

It was a study any sociologists would have found interesting. The old and ugly ones are grumpy and mainly sit at a corner table smoking cigarettes while attending equally old men. The professional types comes and dances and plays billiards with us, giving us plenty of glimpses and encourages groping and touching, often initiating it themselves.

I love the young girls most of all. Their sheer innocence (not in sexual matters of course, you can hardly say that to someone who says she’s 20 but looks 17 and instantly diagnoses you with curiosity tinged with a bit of concern – “You can’t get off unless by hand?” in heavily accented broken English) is rather refreshing.

Now I have followed people to prostitution joints before (the politically correct term is “whorehouses”) but never have I seen the friendliness and playfulness of these two girls:

georgian russian girls

Meet Anna (Russian) and Lola (Georgian).

Both claim to be 20 but Anna has this self esteem issue where she thinks she’s butt ugly. She would be a great blogger if she has chosen another line of work – at least in camwhoring. 😉 She anxiously looks at each photo to see if she looks good and takes another one if she’s not. -_-”

I’ve met people in this industry who is all business (and indeed, one of my companions went for the professional ones and came out disappointed, saying that she wanted more money for extra time – to be fair he was gone the better part of an hour smirk) and the girls clique isn’t one of them.

They are friendly and playful, always calling out “Huai Bin, Huai Bin” (not too shabby, managed to learn my name and some random Chinese phrases too – wo ai ni and wo shi huang ni – while all I managed was Ruski nien but that’s all right coz these two speak pretty good English) and giving you kisses and chatting with you. Hell, they even bought me food and I didn’t even pay for their services.

Anyway, these two intrigued me as they seem to be the only ones (besides one of the more mature professionals) having fun in the place. They dance and practise moves and rope you in as a not-entirely-unwilling partner and is genuinely interested in learning about new places and even exhibit interesting and unprofessional emotions like jealousy.

I guess their childlike personalities made them rather likable – didn’t see them drink a drop of beer or take any illicits, they’re more like teenagers in a line of work which they have accepted and made the best of it. Have you even heard of a prostitute (who’s bread and butter is paid sex) offering sex for free?

I would have put on my most cynical countenance with an appropriately sarcastic “Yeah, right” and either given you a look of sympathy, wondering about the fantasy land you’re frolicking about in your mind or rolled my eyes at how delusional you are to think that people in this line would throw you a free fuck just coz you think you’re a stud.

In short, I’ll have said that is a load of bullshit that I can smell from a thousand miles away…before yesterday night.

I’m just another face in the crowd growing rounder and rounder in the belly but now I’ll probably shrug, smile and think about the two girls in Tbilisi.

Part 1 of the Tbilisi, Georgia Chronicles.

(To Be Continued)

Next up: There is such a thing as a free lunch

Posted: 8:26 pm Amsterdam time (GMT +1)

Reclaim the night!

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zouk

phobia /f’oʊbiə/
Synonyms:
noun: fear
phobias (plural)
A phobia is a very strong irrational fear or hatred of something

twin towers

Remember my post entitled Fear of the dark? BTW, for red blooded men “hatred” is a synonym for “fear”. 😉

party people

I just thought you’ll like to have an insight into the XY Chromosome brain.

sony tx7 touch screen

I managed to get my grubby paws on a Cyber-shot TX7 and decided to take it out for a night out of clubbing!

intro

Their were hens night too.A hen party is seen as a special event their. All were dancing with pole and shirtless. That was really a treat for girls eye.

cheers

I’ve always been apprehensive (Read: afraid) of taking photos at night due to the tragic results that inevitably happens. I’ll take 10 photos in a row and ALL of them will turn out bad. >.<

camwhore

However, ever since the Cyber-shot TX7 I have faced my fears and conquered them! Here’s my awesome night out at Zouk in KL with friends the previous weekend.

b52

I love the rich and textured quality of the photos. There’s Intelligent Auto Adjustment – perfect for the lazy ones among us.

the girls

Hand-held Twilight is another Godsend from the good people at Sony. A lot of clubs don’t allow you to bring in dSLRs so a compact that can rival a dSLR in night shots is your best bet.

night out

There are also heaps of Scene Selection options – from Twilight Portrait to Gourmet (for taking food photos) in addition to whimsical features like Pet.

food

Food, glorious food! It finally looks like what it should be!

panoramic

A panoramic shot! Easy peasy to do.

our family

The thing that really takes the cake in terms of the Cyber-shot TX7 is the option of taking 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio photos.

velvet

You won’t know how useful widescreen is until you’ve used it in a club with people jostling you around and elbowing you to get some dance space. You can also take 8 photos in a row – perfect for OCD people like me who likes to choose the best possible picture from a range.

photos

Personally, the feature I like the most in the TX7 is the ability to shoot in HD quality video, so I’m going to show you how well it performs in low lighting conditions with multi colored strobe lights messing with the sensor.

I have had a lot of problems with shooting videos in my previous digicam and with the HD quality video recording with this, it’s really tempting me to go back to Cyber-shot digicams. It’s sleek as hell and easy to slip into your pocket or purse for a great night out. The touch screen works wonders too in getting a lot of appreciative glances from the people around you. 😉

Check out the full product specs here. All photos taken with the TX7, except the ones featuring it, obviously.

I only have one complain about the Cyber-shot TX7. I’ll have to return it tomorrow. 🙁

sony tx7 model

Can I keep it please?

Sing k

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I’m not much of a karaoke singer but I love singing (though some would call what I do yowling). There are two classics which inevitably come up sometime during the night. This was from my trip back to Sibu. The song is a Hokkien number called Ai Pia Jia Eh Ya (Gotta do the blood, sweat, tears thing to succeed).

I can’t read or write Chinese so I always struggle (except at the chorus). The song goes:
Something something something
Blah blah blah
(chorus starts)
30% is decided by fate, the other 70% is up to you
You’ve got to fight your way to success

The other number that tends to be rendered is a song called “Friends”. This is usually belted out with much camaraderie and a lot of arms around each other’s shoulders. 😉

A rather tragic weekend

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tragic weekend fun

I went out drinking with Jan, Sam and Shawn on Saturday night after dinner at Bubba Gump. During the course of the night, I consumed enough ethanol to kill a small horse but somehow managed to maintain my sobriety.

tragic weekend absinthe

It was a night of Bloody Mary’s, absinthe, frozen martinis, shooters, Flaming Lamborghinis and various other cocktails and at the end of the session (and after racking up a staggering RM 566.96 bill); Jan got rather inebriated and fell down while puking on my shoes.

The problem is she fell flat on her face into the tarmac outside Telawi Street Bistro.

tragic weekend face

I tried to grab her, but missed and scraped my hand instead. Thus, I bundled her into my car sans seatbelt on the front seat while I drove back.

tragic weekend hand

Thank God, Allah, Buddha, Confucius, Gaia, Sol Invictus et al that I didn’t run into any road blocks that night.

tragic weekend end

I cannot imagine talking my way out of a failed breathalyzer test with a passed out girl in my car. I think it would be a catastrophe of epic proportions if I were stopped by the police. Since I didn’t get apprehended, the damage level has been downgraded to merely tragic. 😉

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

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kamen lunch

Saturday! I went out with Kamen for lunch last weekend. She was kind enough to help me film a video (more about that in due time). I have to admit, the weekend was a bit of a blur…I know Friday, Saturday and Sunday happened but the specifics escape me…

kamen chilis

I just got my car out of the workshop on Friday and not 18 hours later, drove it straight into a mini longkang at MidValley. The sign says there are 20 parking spots left, but I’m telling you it’s a LIE. It’s a DAMN LIE! There weren’t any visible spots so I was forced to park between a car and a hard place with disastrous results.

kamen accident

This is the evil ditch. I drove into it and while reversing out, my car hit the wall, scratching and denting the right side of my car. Lest you all have collective amnesia, let me reiterate that I JUST GOT MY CAR OUT OF THE WORKSHOP after paying RM 980. Hmph.

kamen gsc

Anyway, we were planning to catch HP: Half Blood Prince but just look at the queue! I tried getting Gold Class tickets but even that was sold out.

kamen brewball

Thus, we adjourned to Brewball to play pool. I like Brewball for two reasons:

kamen tequila

Pool. Alcohol. It’s one hell of a combination. 😉

kamen at brewball

It was damn packed though and I had to use all my charm and persuasiveness to induce the lady at the counter to let us have a table.

kamen shots

4 tequila shots later…

kamen drinking

…and a jug of beer (we were drinking even before this) Kamen beat me in pool. >.<

kamen us

It was damn fun though – she’s really intelligent (and she’s in law school) so it was great talking to her.

kamen wins

The sequel in the series of unfortunate events happened as I was driving her home…I might (or might not) have had more to drink than I should and I ran into a curb while exiting MV. I am quite familiar with curbs (I consider them bosom buddies) so I didn’t think much of it…until my car started to veer in strange and unusual directions.

kamen car

It turns out that the encounter with the curb caused a complete blow out of my tire. I couldn’t stop coz it was a highway so I drove to the nearest gas station (a good 1 km away) to get my tires replaced.

kamen tire

Damage: RM 180.

kamen shower

Anyway, while waiting for my tires to be fixed, I went swimming in Kamen’s condo. The swimming pool there is fucking awesome – there are rock formations and the pool area is huge, so without a second thought, I stripped down to my briefs (despite not having towels or a change of clothes), showered and jumped into the pool.

kamen pool

Damn relaxing…

kamen end

Thus, despite the encounter with the wall and the blown tire, I had a lot of fun on Saturday. The not-so-fun part was waking up at 6 am on Sunday for my drifting course. Next post, stay tuned peeps!

Soi 11 Unplugged Bar and Restaurant

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soi 11

We hit the night scene in Penang with Cheryl and Kah Wheng on Saturday night. I had gone to Slippery Senoritas the night before so this time we did Soi 11 – a pub of sorts located just a stone’s throw away from Cititel Hotel (if you’re an Olympic gold medalist shot-putter that is).

Cheryl: Check out the table of girls at my 3 o’clock.

soi 11 girls

There were a group of three girls on that table drinking a beer tower.

Cheryl: Go pick them up! 🙂

Cheryl was trying to get me to have a good time but I had a better idea…get Simon drunk enough so he would have enough good ‘ol Dutch Courage to approach the girls. Heh!

soi 11 us

I had to scull a lot of beers and Simon puked several times (and my memory was fucked after 1 am).

Four buckets of beer later…

soi 11 interior

I laid down the groundwork by approaching the girls first and getting all their numbers and Simon finally came over when I asked him to take a photo of us. Heh!

soi 11 chicks

It was good fun…thanks for the awesome night Cheryl and Kah Wheng! 🙂

I can’t really remember much after 1 am due to…er, ExtERNal cIRcuMstaNcEs. However, I do remember bits and pieces, including dragging Simon to eat Sup Torpedo at 3 am in the morning.

me torpedo

Sup Torpedo is supposed to be an aphrodisiac and I ordered a HUGE one…more on that (and the efficacy) soon. 😉



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