Butterfly Does Europe

We all have things we want to accomplish in life. Things we hail as definitive milestones that will be craved with sybaritism and immortalized in our memories. Call it bragging rights, ephemeral phases of growing up or self-validation. Or maybe it’s just a silly list.

When we think of life as a journey and death as the great denominator of it, or the final destination, we measure the worth of life through the things we do. Some people chose to devote their lives with imaginary stuff like ‘cure for cancer’, ‘eliminate poverty’ or ‘gay marriages’ and they die not realizing their life was a complete waste and that it’s never going to happen.

For others, we party, get drunk and wake up naked with random strangers. Sure you might catch diseases, but that’s what the other fore-mentioned idiots are for; to find a cure for you.

I’ve added a new acquisition to my dating annals, one which has never been much of a priority but it took me quite awhile before I actually decided that passing off a hot white Caucasian female was something I cannot allow a lack of erection (and interest) to decree.

And so, I had to strike off two points in my infamous “To Do List”

How this actually started was nothing less than an accidental arrangement that was like accompanying your friend to a casting and landing the lead role instead. Yes, apparently being altruistic does pay off.

When LB first met Nat, he was smitten like a pussy to a bowl of warm milk. He started throwing words like, “smokin’ hot” and "damn power" at me. Yet, she was like any other Caucasian female to me, fair skin, blonde, sharp features and taller than me. This efficiently equated to,

“I know you are pretty, but I prefer that Asian skank over there.”

I was like the regular Asian lover. Deeply patriotic to my continent men and willing to sacrifice a night out at the Playboy Mansion for a chance to harvest rice with some prostatic-nosed Thai village girl. I was an idiot.

From a short conversation with Nat while smoking, I eventually managed to introduce her to LB. This eventually reached the ears of Round Eyes, who was also particularly fond of her and I soon became the only person who did not have a legitimate interest in her, other than to have her pick cereal boxes off the highest shelf at the supermarket for me.

There were early tell-tale signs, which I chose to ignore despite LB’s hints. For one, she loved Asian men, didn’t mind dating men who were slightly shorter than she was, loved shufflers and thought I was cute. I was a perfect match.

I knew that I was emphatically adored by ladyboys, had great affinity with Thais and appealed to women who were out for a gratuitous no strings attached revenge fuck or rebound, but Caucasians?

Nat eventually showed enough symptoms to be diagnosed with the horrible disease known as ‘interested in Butterfly’, the eventual outbreak of this is usually, excessive crying with horrible words like “do you love me”, but Nat was thankfully still in that infancy stage of getting pissed when I ogled at other women.

We met up for dinner couple days later and I dragged Round Eyes down with me. It was a simple construction of keeping familiarity and trying to pitch someone who had more interest in her than I did, to her. She lived in the apartment behind Wisma Atria and passing through town was one of the many routes I could devise from my office to home.

The dinner naturally didn’t work much to Round Eye’s advantage because he has serious socializing issues and Nat didn’t warm up to him entirely as I had hoped.

Nat was a contract dancer, much like the showgirls at the now defunct Crazy Horse, only except she got paid to keep her clothes on and entertained people with her group’s boring avant-garde arty silly ballet routines with a fusion of cabaret fervor.

I went down on a separate night with some of the guys after her set and she had already gotten herself inebriated enough to throw random confessions and desires to take me home. And she was dead serious about it.

She: “Darling, come home with me tonight.”

And my reflex response was to tap her on the head and say,

Me: “You are drunk, go home and sleep.”

What the fuck is wrong with me? Not taking advantage of the situation? Trying to play the chivalrous male who bears a conscience? I was utterly disgusted with myself. There were like a million better things I could have said like,

“Only if you swallow” or “We are fucking at the balcony”

And I said, “you are drunk, go home”? My gawd, I am a moron.

I eventually drove home and Nat started calling me,

Nat: “Darling, I can’t sleep. Can you come over now?”
Me: “I’m tired. I have to work tomorrow.”
Nat: “But darling, I want you to come over..”

This went on for about 4 calls, all of which ended with me choosing sleep over a possible night of mad sex at a $14,000 per month condo. I eventually got so tired of this, I switched off my phone entirely.

The next day I recounted what happened to the guys and they were convinced that I was indeed the biggest moronic dick head ever to be called an Asian. Some even thought I was gay. I was presented with arguably the pinnacle of sexual conquest in terms of racial context for an Asian heterosexual man, and I blew it off.

This was a girl that almost all of the guys in my group would have dropped their pants for in a second and my only excuse for it was, “I prefer Asians”. Amazing, if this bout of stupidity continues, I will have to cut off my dick myself.

It took me about five ‘what the fuck were you thinking’ reprimands, a bottle of beer and two nights of watching Prison Break alone at home to realize that I had passed off the greatest chance for me to nail two checkpoints in my list.

Nat was Caucasian and she was taller than me. This was like being hit in the head by a fucking gold bar and surrendering it to the police as evidence of killer litter. I had to arrest the situation and I did.

I eventually surrendered to all my inhibitions about dating a Caucasian, which included holding hands with her. She only needed a sash, some background music cue and I would have qualified as those little Asian kids holding the hands of the Miss Universe contestants and escorting them out for the pageant.

I already knew where the dating was going to lead, it was a matter of where and when I wanted the whole cordial conversing to degenerate into a parade of carnal explosion. The only problem was, unlike Asians who are generally more reserved (except the Japanese), my inexperience with Caucasian women proved that they took ‘reservations’ out of their Women’s Charter, some time after porn was invented.

Apparently, I was the bait. It was a matter of where she would have me and when she wanted it.

It almost didn’t matter that she wasn’t the best of kissers, or that she didn’t have the best of figures, because she made this up with so much dexterity that she moved between the front passenger seat and my drivers seat, almost as if she was some Beijing bound midget gymnast in an MPV.

She would tear into me like some voracious lioness over her kill, while I was pre-occupied with eyeing curious passerbys with ‘you can watch this on, we-fuck-in-cars.com’ stares. It didn’t matter to her if anyone was looking, or that she was close to being half naked, or perhaps she just had too much faith in tinted windows, but this girl looked like she was trying to prove that she could rape me if she wanted to.

I don’t know if the entire ordeal was a tease or a test of mantle, because having to drive down Mt Faber with someone’s mouth at your groin is like having to land a plane after your 7th bottle of whiskey.

There was nothing remotely romantic of how this whole episode started or had as much tickle in my heart as when I last went up with my Japanese Doll, but this was quite a thrill. Especially with a police patrol car tailing behind me and I had to start counting sheep and think of a valid reason as to why Nat wasn’t wear a seat belt and had her face buried between my thighs.

It was a separate night when Butterfly conquered Europe, and there wasn’t even a decent cable TV to celebrate it with.

Surviving Orchard Towers

Where Florida has Disneyland, Paris the Eifel Tower and Japan the Para Para machines, Singapore has Orchard Towers. Think of it as our perennial winter wonderland, a vortex that just intoxicates you with the scent of vice, that you slowly find yourself faced with an addiction.

They call it the ‘Four Floors of Whores’, Singapore’s dark underbelly situated just at the fringe of Singapore’s famed shopping district. This incidental hub of vice has been the silent playground for the lonely accidental tourist and curious young men.

Beyond the squalor of pervasion, perfumed and sustained by the foreign sex workers, Orchard Towers is beyond just a carnal circus of travesty and a looking glass into the world of transsexualism. For the untrained and misinformed, this would eventually be a slaughter house for the clueless foreigners and locals alike. Who better to cleave the knives over your heads than the Ladyboys?

Thankfully for you, you have me and a guide on how to milk this place for everything it is worth. I give you, the guide on surviving Orchard Towers.

If you think this place is the congregation of filth and decadence, then you are probably right. I can’t deny that despite my growing approbation for the place. I am a sociologist by major and thus, it’s the underlying mechanics which governs the place that intrigues me, and maybe the occasional bar top dancing.

While I cannot deconstruct this shrine of lubricity and profligacy, I will offer you a look at humanity behind the masquerade of madness. Or maybe not.

Warning: Long entry ahead.

1. Ladyboys

If Orchard Towers ever decided to host the SEA games and needed a mascot, it would be a Transsexual in thongs holding a plank card that says, “I love you long time” and fine prints that read, “You, me, hotel, 100 baht”.

Nothing defines Orchard Towers better than our Thai imported Ladyboys, and if you collectively put them together, you would have enough silicon to qualify as a natural resource.

Ladyboys are also one of the funniest people to talk to if you do not have homophobic inhibitions or moral stamps to abide by. Beneath those mountains of silicon, endless legs and waist that will put anorexia to shame, are very real people with emotions, and a huge appetite for sex.

For nostalgic sake, here’s my Ladyboy test.

2. Racial Composition

All Orchard Towers needs is a front door security and you’d think you walked into a South East Asian embassy. While Thais make up the vast majority, you can also find Philippinoes, Indonesians, Viets and the occasional Malaysians. They all just need to wear soccer jerseys and you’d have yourself the Tiger Cup semi finals.

3. Tipping

While direct monetary tipping is not blatantly practiced, women working at the club earn tips through having the customer buy them a ‘ladies drink’, which are exorbitantly priced. A glass of fruit punch can cost as much as $18 and you don’t even get to keep the glass or get a complimentary handjob with it.

Buying a ladies drink is one way to keep the lady with you long enough for you to pass off as interesting enough for her to devote her next half hour sitting there with you instead of running off to the first Caucasian prey that steps through the door.

4. Club Romeo and Crazy Horse

Located on levels 3 and 4 respectively, these are the only two transsexual themed clubs. If you’ve been to Romeo enough, you’ll also realize that nothing else conceptualizes the analogy of a carousal corporeal skin fest, just short of an orgiastic coitus by the bar, or maybe there already was.

These are the flag-bearers of pruriency. Lewd, risqué and a carnal delight for the few who can swallow this magnitude of obscenity like communion on a Sunday morning. I know I can.

You have to remember that these are women with surgically constructed vaginas, with only a very small percentage of them still having waste meat hung between their thighs, but when you see the Caucasian men caress them, you actually wonder if they know what they are getting themselves into.

I once saw this Caucasian man finger one of the ladyboy’s pussy as if he had found the lost city of Atlantis. And that was in full view of everyone in the club. It’s amazing to see their face smudged with arrogance and pride. Do they even know what they just messed with?

Romeo and Crazy Horse offer us the closet substitute to the famed streets of Patpong. While you do not have side shows of women squirting goldfishes from their pussy or pulling out razor blades, you do get women (physically, not biologically speaking) dancing under neon lights with prop poles. And more often than not, you get a wardrobe malfunctions, like maybe every 10 seconds.

Personally, I prefer Romeo because my friend works there as a DJ and she spins great hard trance tracks. However, people at Crazy Horse seems so much friendlier. All the ladyboys there greet me by reaching for my crotch.

If you are a man and you really had to for some perverse reason, absolutely had to like all other normal women died of vaginal cancer, REALLY must fuck a transsexual, then you should at least know what to expect.

Disclaimer: I know this for a fact because I am very well loved by ladyboys, but largely because I did a sociological research paper on them when I was still at NUS.

Ladyboys practise discriminant pricing as if communism never existed. Mao Zhedong will flip in his grave if he ever knew this. I also generally believe this is a direct correlation to stupidity.

For starts, local men here pay anywhere between $100 - $150 for a fuck. Japanese or any other foreign Asian male would pay between $150-$200. For Americans and Europeans, the price starts from $200 and can reach as high as $400.

Did you just say, “What the fuck”? Yes, you read it right. That was my sentiments exactly. I didn’t understand why would anyone want to fuck a surgically made woman, when $150 would get you a decent girl in Geylang plus a good ass licking. Naturally, I thought this was incredulous and decided to ask my ladyboy friend on this.

Me: "Why do men want to have sex with you?"
Ladyboy: “I can suck cock better than any women.”

Best.Answer.Ever

5. The Patrons

For ladies going there, your best bet to not be mistaken for a working lady there, is to go in a track suit. Anything short enough to expose your knees is a flirt with an abstruse culture, with consequences beyond your ability to handle.

While you will not get molested, you might get harassed, but there is nothing a quick knee to the groin cannot solve.

6. The Women

While Orchard Towers is flooded with surgical vaginas, we must not discredit the other good fraction of real women who have traveled from various neighbouring countries. Some even look like they came straight from the village riding a bicycle.

I’m serious. Some of the girls look so bad, you wonder if the pub doubled up as a maid agency in the morning. Some of them have figures that would earn them as a stunt double for a Gummy Bears commercial and they have thighs so huge, you wonder if they are here to dance on poles or to kick a field goal.

Personally, I gather that the girls tend to look better the higher the bars are situated, but that’s just me. Taste is relatively subjective because I’ve seen girls, who only need to wear white with black polka dots to qualify as a cow, and yet are still being hit on by less discerning Caucasian males.

While it’s not impossible to find gorgeous women, who are actually being born with a vagina, they are few and far between. The only thing that entirely beats this in terms of rarity, are obese dancers and I wonder how they actually made it onto the plane here without being kicked in the face.

I’ve actually seen a whale working as dancer. Not impressed? These dancers have to dance on a circular table top with a steel pole in the center and to get up on the table, these women actually need a decent amount of dexterity to scale the table by mounting the chairs.

When you see how much difficulty some of the slim girls actually have doing this, you absolutely wonder how that fat fuck of a whale managed to get up without tearing a tendon or stocking, and all that while wearing heels. Impressed? I know I was. I was also convinced that, that was David Blaine in a 300 pound body suit.

7. The Clubs

While the clubs operate under a different name, they all cleave the butcher’s knife the same way when it comes to buying drinks. To begin with, the culture in all the clubs are the same. When you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all. The only breathers for novelty are the live bands and how little clothes the women wear.

There are about 3 decent joints there that are worth stealing a peek and they are spatially divided between the first, second and forth floors. There is no need to name drop. You cannot possibly miss them and it’s not like Ochard Towers is some mega mall that you will get lost in. From the front entrance, you can look up and see almost the entire place, and very often maybe a couple of panties too.

8. The Drinks

While buying drinks is a great way for you to get to know the girl, it’s not some mandate scribbled at the entrance. You don’t have to buy a drink for anyone, you just need the girl to be interested in you.

I can’t teach you on having game, because I was born able to miraculously speak Thai and they love me to bits, but I can teach you how to say ‘No’, when they try to peddle you a shot.

Girls will go round carrying a tray off Kahlua milk and tequila shots, which go for $11 per shot. Sounds reasonable? Not when you factor in that there is almost zero alcohol content in them and they have probably been diluted with tonic. If I remember my economics correctly, this is called, a Rip Off.

This is obviously made so because these drinks are meant for the ladies. And less alcohol equates to being able to drink more, which in finality rolls in the cash for the clubs. Hit the gravel and ring the buzzer, because we have a winner here and a true example of an astute business marketing, supported and made lucrative by idiots. In this case, the male population.

Usually, a simple ‘No’ will suffice, but at times when the person peddling these shots is either deaf or stupid (maybe both), because they cannot understand ‘No’ and they are not ugly enough for you to punch their face in, we need a different approach to get the answer across.

Taking that they are deaf since they cannot hear me when I say ‘No’, I generally proceed to work on a miracle, and this was an actual event,

Girl: “Buy a drink.”
Me: “How much?”
Girl: “$11.”
Me: “What? Does it come with a free handjob?”
Girl: “Buy a drink.”
Me: “Ermm no thanks.”

Girl: “Buy ME a drink then?”
Me: “Are you crazy? I won’t even buy me a drink.”
Girl: “But you can buy me a drink.”
Me: “I tell you what, I will do a trade with you. I will give you some serviettes for one glass.”
Girl: “Buy me a drink. Okay?”
Me: “Do you not understand me? I will give you these napkins and throw in a few ice cubes for one glass of tequila.”
Girl: “No.”
Me: “You obviously do not understand the dynamics of a barter trade, that’s why you never progress and you are still selling shots.”

She stormed off immediately after mumbling some expletives, which I believe to be some hex. It’s a miracle, I made the deaf hear again. I am one amazing human being.

9. The Bar Fine

If you don’t know what a bar fine is, then I hope you do not have a penis, because these are important words for men, like ‘steak’, ‘soccer’ and ‘abortion’.

A bar fine is what you pay the bar to buy out a girl’s time in the bar, which means you can take them out of the club. This is applicable only to real women. You do not need to pay the bar if you are taking a ladyboy out. Hell, they will even follow you out of the place like you had a $50 bill tied to your dick, by just simply winking at them.

Yes, you can actually take some of the girls out for something as ‘low’ as S$360. Do you know how many times for this amount of money will you get your ass licked by some Chinese national? I will question your stupidity on this but some people actually do. Morons.

If you really want to take them out, just wait till the bar closes and you can use that money to impress her by buying 50 Sausage McMuffins for breakfast.

10. Love

If you lose your heart there, you’d also probably lose half your pay cheque and brains. Just so long as you are fucking a real woman while doing the above, I will generally try not to laugh at you.

If someone tells you they love you and you feel like you might feel the same way, you might want to check with me if she’s told me the same things before.

While Orchard Towers serves as a sanctuary for the sexually deviant, there are places in there, which serve up a fest of disguised decency. It really isn’t that bad when you’ve been properly orientated. Remember, you can keep your dick out, just as long as your brain can co-function with an erection.

Butterfly on MSN

I have a rather amusing issue, which I think is just about ripe to address.

Firstly, while the gender demographics on my blog’s MSN contact list is skewed towards a majority of females, I do have guys whom I believe to be avid readers. This assumption is based largely on the introductory statement, which generally falls in the same template as,

“Hi, I love your writing..”

Which is perfectly cool. I won't ever fuck you, just so you know, but I have known people off here that have made it to my immediate social circle. If you think you laugh alot reading what I write, then you haven't seen me drunk and poking fun of stupid people. You'd break a rib from laughing, or maybe from the bar fight I start.

Then there is that insidious fraction of guys whom I until some time ago, had no idea as to why they actually have me on their list, when they don’t read my blog. How do I know that? One simple reason, they think I am a female.

It started pretty awkwardly because these guys would message me regularly on the very few occasions that I logged on with that account. Instead of immediately classifying them as homosexuals vying my virginal ass, I thought they might have been over zealous readers who were more interested in getting to know me.

Yes, the naivety in me is strangely instituted from an obscure predilection to see good in people. I have after all made some close friends with people off this blog and it’s a stellar cast of vicarious worshippers to clubbing companions. I welcome them in my life, they just have to stop before my bedroom.

Then as the days went by, it confused me further. For one, these guys seemed to know nothing about me; asking me stuff which I have been religiously preaching on the blog and quizzing me on about if I was generically sarcastic or case specific towards them. For a moment, I thought all men had either started taking mandatory sensitivity courses at the neighbourhood community centres or they donated half their balls to the starving children of Somalia.

Eventually, I got slightly worried when they started asking, “What are you doing tomorrow night, wanna do coffee?”, when everyone knows that my weekend nights are calendar marked for inebriation.

Hello, do I look like I want to spend my weekend nights in the company of a complete MALE stranger? No. You have a penis and I'm sure its a great one, but I happen to have one too, and unless two penises gets me a free bottle ofDom Perignom, there's nothing about you I'd be interested in that cannot be conversed over the internet.

The final straw came when I changed my display picture to a clearer picture of myself and they started asking, “Is that your boyfriend?”.

Raise your hands if you said, “What the fuck?!”, because that was the exact same sentence my fingers subconsciously spilled out across the keyboard. What the fuck is wrong with these morons? Which parts of my stories have remotely championed the rise of femininity? Have I ever mentioned about anyone licking MY pussy?

Then I realized something. All of them added me somewhere along the time where I had a picture of MissSeptember up, or if you didn’t realize, it was that picture of the girl where I captioned “The Human Pinball”.

Now it started making sense. One of the guys mentioned, “I think you’re hot.”, and I thought that was just a harmless asexual compliment. How silly of me, but this was just incredible. These guys had actually added me because they thought I was MissSeptember and had not even read a single post of mine after that. I'm glad I didn't post pictures of little boys or my MSN might have been flooded by Catholic priests.

Look, I’m sure logic comes with having a brain. When you are trying to pick someone up, especially off a random blog, I’m sure reading about that person is going to help. You add me just because of one picture of a girl? What a fucking moron.

Just so you missed the point. I’m running this by you again like a bullet train to your face. I am Butterfly, I am a guy and I love laughing at idiots. If you are a guy and you add me on MSN thinking I’m a girl and try to date me out because of it, I will personally fist fuck your ass and post that video here.

Any takers?

Hello 2008, Goodbye 2007

My life is a marquee looking glass. As how Alice peered through the looking hole and fell into Wonderland, I welcome you to Butterflyland, the place of never ending parties and rivers of champagne. Grab a glass, you are in for a long ride.

2007 had been rather kind to me, with many calendar dates that have marked significant milestones in my life. For one, I’ve had decently spaced holidays, five for that matter, that have allowed me to keep sane in our race paced engagement of the working life.

I actually had a new year’s resolution last year to settle down. 12 months on and 7 women later, I realized that I had a greater scheme of things planned out for me, which required me to stay single. Namely, the big Taiwan escape plan or any of the holidays I’ve taken, would never have been possible if I had someone sharing my bed permanently.

So, in tangent to my year in review write up as I have done for the last 2 or so years, I give you Butterfly's,

10 Moments of 2007

1. Driving License

An eternity. That was how the 1 year and 4 months felt like without a driving license. In case you just jumped onto the bandwagon, I was unceremoniously stripped of my life when I blew a 50mg on the BAC at a Clemenceau road block in Dec 2005.

Since then, I have been an ambassador for drink driving. If Samuel L. Jackson grew a strand of hair every time I pointed to a traffic police poster for “Drink driving shatters life” and said, “That shit is real!”, he could qualify as Bob Marley.

I finally got down to retaking the lessons and I bitched about it every day it ended. I felt like a high school dropout being kicked right back into kindergarten. You can read it here.

I don’t think I've shared the Driving Test Story, but I actually almost had an immediate failure as soon as I drove off. That would have made driving history.

We buckled up. I did the mandatory checks. Greeted the invigilator with my best ‘will give good head if you let me pass’ smile and fired up the ignition.

He: “We are going to test route 10, go out turn left.”

As he said this, he gestured with his right hand titled towards my direction and in a reflex action, I immediately steered the car in that direction. 2 seconds later, he tugged at my steering wheel.

He: “I said turn left. Why you turn right?”

I nearly choked. My pupils widened and if I ever needed to find my testicles, they were on the floor, probably somewhere between the clutch and brakes. I was screwed and scared shitless. I was now prepared to offer my first blowjob.

He: “Never mind. Go on. 19 turn left.”

I proceeded, turned left at 19, conscious not to scrap the kerb, and drove straight on. A split second later, he depresses his side of the brakes, which would almost certainly be an immediate failure under most circumstances. What did I do? Did I mount the kerb? Surely I didn’t run over a Bangladeshi. They maybe everywhere, but surely not in the driving center?

He: “Eh, I tell you turn at 19 of course is for parallel parking lah.. where you trying to go?”

I swear. I nearly pissed my pants if I had any liquids in me. I got so scared, so nervous, my legs were shaking so badly that I was barely even able to hold on to my clutch. My voice also escalated by two octaves and I immediately did the only logical thing to rescue my plight.

Beg.

He eventually allowed me to continue with a very stern warning about some rubbish on having to fail me the next time I pulled another stunt like this. For the record, I passed with 2 points. I always knew I was talented.

2. Phuket

The greatest challenge for us when it comes to travelling, is actually making to the airplane on time. This pickle with flight schedules started in January when LB and I took our first trip abroad with Huixx. We nearly missed the flight and we almost had to come up with some story of LB being our illegitimate spastic son.

I had one crazy hook up there with two other options in spare, a plenteous recap of being hit on at the clubs and we returned to Singapore swearing we found paradise. This eventually swayed our decision to return there to celebrate our birthdays in end August.

The second trip started off with a foursome and eventually climaxed with us missing our flight back. That won my vote for ‘Most Moronic Event of the Year’.

3. Taiwan and Perth.

I’ve elaborate this in a 10 part post, but in case you didn’t get the message,

“Best.Fucking.Holiday.Ever”

For Perth, I took this trip on a heavy sedation of mindless impetus. I was bored, wanted to get out of Singapore and had no one to travel with, so decided I would visit Eugg in Perth. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I had a better chance of scoring with a Kangaroo than to make out with anyone there.

Apparently, I was wrong. I hooked up with a girl, nearly had my balls chewed off by a Kelpie, smoked out and even nearly had a glass thrown at me. What is there not to love?

4. House Parties

While I only wrote about one of the house parties we had, we actually had two more and boy were they crazy. We had 4 girls who were complete strangers come over and we did some really crazy stuff.

These were girls, very young and all of them worked as models. So what would make 4 girls in the company of total strangers lose all their inhibitions and participate in every of my suggestions? Alcohol. Don't you just love it?

They started out coy about the whole thing and by the time we did a round of our drinking game, these girls were open to the idea of stripping down to swap clothes with us. The only sheath to this madness was the youngest girl, whom we referred to as the 'cock blocker'.

If I could have my way without disrupting the proceedings of the night, I would have punched her face in and hung her over the balcony. This girl was like the enunch in an orgy. Perpetually grumpy, refused to strip or take a decent gulp full of vodka. Fuck her.

5. Goodbye Michael

I had a platoon mate who committed suicide two year ago and we only got wind of it when I was in Perth. It was tragic. Not only because we discovered it this late or the unknown circumstances which drove a devote Christian to take his own life, but because we weren’t there when we could have helped.

I was never particularly close to him to begin with, but we went through some insane training regiments together. He snapped one day during training and that marked the slide from the rest of us. It affected me more than I thought it would, standing by the niche, while everyone else shared a story.

You have always been loved. You just didn’t see it.

6. End of Anonymity

I actually came out of anonymity this year to very mixed reactions. Almost everyone thought it was a bad move, but I just got so tired of having to edit off my face. To begin with, I never liked the idea of posting pictures, because I believed it took away the focus on the writing.

The good part was that I immediately got recognized more frequently at clubs and people started buying me drinks. Although, it’s weird having people call you ‘Butterfly’ at a club.

7. Cleo

Yes, me. Cleo’s 50 Most Eligible Bachelors. What was I doing in that stellar line up of hunks you might ask? Beats me.

8. Break ups

Strangely, 2007 seemed to be a year of break ups, at least for the people around me. I found myself sitting in on more sob stories about how the relationship was killing them and I never understood how the concept of a ‘break up’ can sound so vulgar to anyone.

It’s not that I’m an advocate for breaking up, but I generally do not see why people constantly shroud themselves in misery for something they no longer have faith in. Most people I know cling on because they are afraid of being alone, which is a stupid reason to. The only thing dumber than this, is a box of air.

And because I do not patronize, I generally laugh at my friends for clinging on to stupidity. Thankfully, some of them have snapped out of it, while the others continue to tickle me with their plight.

It’s good to be single. Just look at my life.

9. Miss Months

I started this year with Miss February and when that ended, some of the guys thought I was a complete idiot because I allowed a hot piece of ass to slip from me. I can’t post any pictures of her because this girl is more famous than I am, and I’m pretty sure you’d have caught a glimpse of her on TV or in some men’s magazine.

Miss September eventually found her way back into my life and at one point. I was pretty sure no one could possibly love me more than she did. I mean, this was a girl who would shelter my face from the sun bare handedly while I was sleeping and waited a year for me even though I constantly gave her shit and made no promises.

I never entirely understood what would make her do such a thing. I never understood how she could possibly fall in love with me in under a week. I never understood why she wouldn’t move on and clung on so faithfully to memories we had a year ago.

That was until she gave me a photo with a caption that would impact me like nothing had in the last 3 years.

“Love like war, easy to start, hard to stop.”

10. My Nephew

My sister finally gave birth on Christmas Day. I actually felt bad that I wasn’t around and was instead in Taiwan celebrating debauchery with a hefty tab. Call it honing my paternal instincts, but when I carry him, it’s like finding a whole new dictionary of life.

Now I’ll just have to wait till he gets to about a year old and I’ll have to start introducing important words of life to him. I’ll start with “Whiskey” and probably end off with “Margarita”. Somewhere down the line, I might have to whisper, "marijuana".


So 2008. I'm already taking a sabbatical from binge drinking, just so that my liver heals up. It's a new year and I might have to start growing up. I'm also probably going to give this 'monogamy dating' less of a derogatory stare and more thought.

I'm also planning my holiday fixtures already and the earliest one will be in February with the boys and hopefully I can pen Melbourne down for September. I'm also open to anyone who is willing to sponsor my trips.

Hello Taiwan Pt 10 - The Round Up

This was one of the best trips I've taken and I actually dreaded having to load my bag pack into the taxi and watch Taipei city distant itself from the rear view mirror of the cab. The city we've spent the last two weeks at had slowly weaved itself into me.

Sure, I complain about the lack of English incorporated into menus, or how everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road, but everything else was to love. The people, the weather (God bless winter), the clubs, the topless dancing girl, everything. I'd have well loved to trade my passport in.

So many things happened, which I'm unable to detail it with credible justice at this point of time, but it's a memory I'd cherish and a befitting end to the year. Hence, I'd figured that pictures would do the best narration for now.

This was our last night in Taipei and it was a crazy KTV session, which eventually ended with a card session back in our room till about 6.30am in the morning.

These are two of the girls we got to know the last time we were in Taipei. That's Rita on the left and the other is XiaoBao.

Rita brought us to one of her girl friend's place one night to chill out. While I didn't immediately recognise her when we were being introduced, everything slowly fell into place and I realised that she was one of the girls we picked up from Room18 last year.

I had to actually scramble the internet to show her the picture we took in May last year, just to prove that we've actually met and I wasn't running by some cheesy pick up on her.

I can't remember her name, but she was the first girl in the club that we got to know. Or at least I think she was.

Our favourite smoking spot outside Taipei 101.

Meet Tracy. Store manager of DKNY, our 101 smoking companion and LB's favourite Taiwanese girl. To be fair t LB, this picture didn't do her any justice.

This was on Christmas day itself and Queenie invited us along to have dinner and drinks with her friends. They told us some hilarious stories.

One of it was about one of the girls visiting Singapore and how she mistook the 'Uniquely Singapore' balloon for the moon. She also summed up her perception of people in Singapore.

She: "新加坡的人不好看。有很多黑黑的，还有些喜欢在头上绑一条布."

I swear to you. I nearly choked on my pizza.

The other one was from this guy who used to be in a dog unit and he told us the best way to get a dog to obey you, was to give him a handjob. Funny, I believe this is how women train men too.

I was having pizza, gulping beer and listening to stories on how to give a dog a handjob. All I needed was to have a choir fall down the chimney start carolling "Joy to the world" and this would have qualified as the best Christmas ever.

LB and I decided to walk back from a club one night and we got lost and decided that rather than to spend our time looking for a cab or asking for directions, we would use that time more productively taking pictures.

This girl selling juices was VERY cute. I was almost smitten by her smile until I realised she hadn't even turn 17 yet and was probably not old enough to buy popcorns at the cinema.

Feng Jia Night market at Taichung. I didn't see the difference between this and any other night market in Taipei, except having less pretty faces.
Taipei 101

This was probably one of the WORST Japanese food I've had and we actually paid about SGD100 for it.

Bally's at 101

The thing I love about the tea cafe concept in Taipei, is the smoking allowed regulation.

The street we pass every morning to start our day and at night, when I'm drunk.

Goodbye Taiwan, hello 2008. And it's back to Singapore. I hope the weather has changed and it's been snowing since I left. I also hope that people have been religiously stripping in clubs and that the concept of an open bar is adopted.

Get the champagne ready, save on the cake and mothers hide your daughters. I'm coming back.

Hello Taiwan Pt 9 - The New Year's Countdown

I’m actually glad we decided to spend the New Year’s abroad. Call it a chilling premonition, but I already knew how I’d have spent it if I was in Singapore. It’s a familiar routine of being packed in crowds and getting sloshed, the same bruising we subscribe to foolishly every year when we are too lazy to plan a decent house party.

So Taiwan came as a refreshed escape from my senseless delirium of knocking champagne glasses and superficial well wishes to random strangers in the clubs. What did we do?

We got packed in crowds.

It’s not like Taipei was some rural retreat where you can plant sweet potatoes and fetch water from the well to mark the close of the year. It’s another Singapore, except laced with diligent vendors and endless pretty faces.

There was only one place to be that would validate our presence in Taipei on the last night of this not entirely wonderful year; Taipei 101, where the fame fireworks display has drawn a mob of half a million, who have travelled from the city fringes to catch a glimpse of a vibrant display that would last 5 minutes. How smart.

Perhaps it was the festive soaked atmosphere, or the jibberish Mandarin chants that people were periodically shouting, or maybe it was just the $800 tickets, but I’ll be lying if I said there wasn’t a difference.

We were like the other half a million idiots who had jammed the peripherals of 101 (Taiwan’s tallest building), only difference was that we were tourist and hence allowed the occasional idiocy, like gushing over sparkles and fireworks, as if we just arrived from Bangladesh and seeing it for the first time.

Everyone else seemed more excited at it than us. There was this particular group of morons in front of us who were all holding helium filled balloons with resolutions scribbled on them. In the dozens of balloons, I hoped there was one that said, ‘shout less next year’, cos I fucking needed ear plugs.

Taiwanese get excited over the slightest stuff. Fireworks, they scream. Fireworks changes colour, they scream. Fireworks end, they scream. I really do not want to be around when they strike the lottery. They might just tear their vocal chords, crack their voice and maybe have a second puberty along with it.

The build up of anticipation was there as usual. Probably so, because we were just standing there with nothing else better to do and there were people around us who had started singing. From where we were, we couldn’t even see or hear the official countdown and I was interrupted mid speech by exploding fireworks.

Me: “These fucking morons in front of me are…. Wooooo HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

The aftermath of it was the sort of scene at the start of a marathon. It’s like taking half a million people and marching them on a four lane street. And just for fun, you have them meet at an intersection. Total pandemonium. And maybe, just maybe to make things a little more interesting, you make LB extremely urgent to take a piss.

This is the sort of nightmare you dream of.

You need to pee. You are stuck in a crazy crowd with people connected by the shoulders and walking at a pace that will make Terry Fox look like Asafa Powell. The nearest toilet is 100m away or in this instance, 40mins. And when you finally get there, the toilet has an out of order sign. What do you do?

You beg.

LB: “I need to use the toilet.”
Waiter: “Sorry sir, our toilets are out of order.”
LB: “Can you open the back door for me?”
Waiter: “Sorry sir, I do not have the keys"

LB grabs the waiter.

LB: “No no no… you don’t understand. I REALLY need to pee.”

The waiter took one look at LB, who’s face was a kaleidoscopic collision of agony and pathos, and immediately understood the gravity of the matter.

Waiter: “Ok..follow me.”

LB would eventually go on to break the World Record for Longest Pee Time.

The video is here.

This is Yiling. Queenie's friend and perhaps the darkest Taiwanese girl I know. She's also a great singer, rides a bike and loves tickling me on the bed. Nuff said.

The people we counted down with. The girl on the extreme right is very pretty and has a boyfriend that looks like he is grouchy 24 hours a day.

Human traffic jam. And this is JUST one small section. If you think walking with thousands in the same direction is crazy, you should see the intersections.

Morons with ballons. If you can actually read Chinese, the balloons says, "I am an idiot."

We had steamboat after the countdown with Queenie and Yiling. I actually loved the how we ended the night over supper and negated from having alcohol thrown into the equation. Well, that was largely because the clubs were already full, but steamboat is always a fair enough substitute for Vodka.

Farewell 2007..

Hello Taiwan Pt 8 - Last Party Night

I’ll cut the story short on this. For one, I got so smashed on this night, I stuck half my body out the cab in the middle of the road to puke. For my efforts, we got a NT300 penalty because I purged onto the side of the cab. You cannot imagine how thrilled LB was at this.

This was actually our last night out partying and we celebrated it with another bottle and at least half a dozen shots of tequila. This was also the last time we saw Sunny and his girl and got to know probably a dozen others. Amongst those, a handful actually turned out to be tourist like us.

All I was concerned with was my pretty waitress friend whom I got to know the last trip round. Only thing was that she warmed up to me so much faster this time round instead of playing up that icy bitch persona. She was actually the only Taiwanese who greeted me with a kiss and a bear hug followed by constantly stroking my face.

I seriously cannot remember much. I know the guy was Japanese and the woman had quite a delectable ass.
The girl on the right was actually pretty cute. Sure, she looked like she just ran out of Secondary school, but if middle schoolers looked this good, I'm going down for cheap canteen food daily.

This is Amanda. My favourite waitress. On normal circumstance, I'd have taken our flirting back to my place, but this girl had a boyfriend who was a bartender. And last I checked, my life still depended heavily on alcohol.

I couldn't remember her name all night long so I just called her "girl in white". She got pretty cheeky towards the end.

She: "You like to take so many picture for what? Sell them is it?"

Me: "I'm drunk. I'm going to pee, come out and not remember whatever you just said. Wait here. I'll be back."

I came back and she was gone and I insisted LB find her for me.

That's Sunny and his girlfriend. The funny thing was, the people whom we drank with all night came from all over the world.

Sunny was Taiwanese, his girl was Cambodian, there was that Japanese guy, a Hongkie lady, a Malaysian, one Swede, an American and god knows what I've missed. It was like having an early Olympics at the the club. All we needed was some flags, coloured cardboards and dice, and we could all qualify as a Risk board prop.

Some members of our United Nations gathering.

I was already tpsy by the time I took this shot. Any longer and I might have been staring at her chest instead.

Amanda had given me 2 shots of Tequila on the house to celebrate her coming birthday. The bartender LB and I got to know gave me another round. And I ended up buying three more on my own. With all that Tequila in me, I was probably half Mexican that night.

Towards the end, I was complaining to LB that they had cleared my bottle, which I vehemently contested wasn't empty. That was till LB assured me that it was and that I drank the last of it. Perhaps, I was more drunk than I thought I was.

By the time LB had gotten me into the cab, I was constantly shouting,

"Where's my vomicue."

Say what? Yes, I have no idea myself. I presumed I was trying to say, 'Vomit Cue", which still didn't make much sense anyway. I spent the next 3 hours giving the toilet bowl a blowjob. I woke up the next day feeling like I swallowed a squirrel and that bugger was still running in my stomach.

I eventaully puked at some public toilet and clogged up the toilet bowl. You cannot imagine how much I puked. I might have dropped a weight class.

Hello Taiwan Pt 7 - Luxy

It was Wednesday and the world was in unison, celebrating one of the greatest calendar dates since Christmas; we call it Ladies Night. I’ve actually never realized this was a club phenomenon practiced out of Singapore, but apparently the world celebrates feminism every mid-week.

This was a night lambasted with a dilemmatic toss between two of the best clubs Taipei had to offer. In one corner, the heavyweight, helmed by beautiful strangers and celebrities alike, offering a staple diet of house and hip hop mixes, Room 18. The challenger, famed for its foxy dancers and flamboyant bartending, with hot women abound, I present you, Luxy.

Our decision eventually swayed towards Room18 after the visual fest it gave us on Friday. It was a logical decision, since if it’s ladies night, you usually multiply the number of hot women by two. Wrong.

When we got there, the place was hardly even bordering on quarter capacity. There were probably three monkeys prancing on the dance floor and no one there looked remotely like they deserved a free drink from me.

The only rational thing to do now was to knock back some shots and head for Luxy. We got to the bar, skulled two tequila each and headed back out to flag down a cab. There wasn’t going to be room for hesitations, not even if Luxy was on fire.

The moment we got to the other area where they played Trance, LB started chatting up one of the RedBull promoters. She was cute, didn’t speak any English like most of the other Taiwanese and promised to find us again when her shift was over.

Me: “Let’s get a bottle.”
LB: “No.”
Me: “Why not?!”
LB: “You can get buy bottle if you find two girls to drink with you.”

Seldom does anything motivate me to take aggressive initiative to engage people in conversation, but this was a full bottle of Grey Goose. I will even chat Colonel Sanders up. I immediately shot towards two girls by the corner.

Me: “You girls have to drink with me.”
Girl: “Huh, why?”
Me: “If you drink, I get to buy a bottle. You don’t even need to drink all, just a sip. I’ll drink the rest.”

They obliged and I rewarded myself to a fresh bottle. Along the way we also made friends with a couple living in San Francisco and a Dutch who was there alone. The American guy, Sunny, started buying us shots and LB started telling him about my Starbucks disaster.

Once I was cleared to reward myself with a S$250 bottle of vodka, I immediately knew how my night was going to be written. I was going to be licking glass and making imaginary toasts to myself. Why shouldn’t I? I was in Taiwan and LB was sharing a drink tab that I was almost going to be single-handedly consuming. Life cannot possibly get better.

Maybe I was wrong. The only that would have been better than knocking back vodka shots, was sharing it with women.. about 10 of them. LB had requested for 2, but under the wretched influence of alcohol, I had rounded up 3 different groups and took our stable to a healthy number 13.

The down side was that there was no one whom I thought was remotely hot. Except one girl, but that was because her boobs looked like they were falling out anytime soon and I kept my focus primarily on it, just so I wouldn't miss a moment of it.

This girl was pretty cute. I don't think the pic did her justice, but I can't post the other pic of her.

If you raised up your hand and said "This is the boob girl!", give yourself a pat on the back. You are right. In case you are wondering if she's a ladyboy, allow me to put your doubts behind. She's a bona fide woman. And yes, the boobs ARE real. Trust me.

They actually asked if we wanted to grab supper together, but I was drunk and I only wanted to stay till the lights come on. Don't ask me why. I'm quite an idiot when I start to drink.

This was one of the girls that I asked to drink with us for LB to agree on blowing money to please my liver. This was the only pic I had of her without us in it.

I picked this chick up with the only pick up line I knew for the night. I wasn't drunk enough and she was the only girl I knew no one would really care if I dragged her away.

Me: "Come drink with us!"
She: "Wha..what?"
Me: "Drink.With.Me."
She: "Oh..ok."

I don't know if she was thirsty or just downright intimidated by me, but it did the trick.

These are the two girls that gave me my alcohol license for the night. I owe it to them to at least have their pics up.

Redbull Girl. Nuff said.

There were about 20 other pics of that night, but I was already passed the legal limit to be riding a bicycle and I have no interest in showing you how I look when I'm tipsy.

Hello Taiwan Pt 6 - The Room

Our trip would be nothing if I didn’t take at least a post to tickle you with our lodging. And I do mean tickle. From the get go when LB told me about it, I held it with as much doubt as a eunuch would if his wife got pregnant.

NT4500 (S$210) for a 13 nights stay. If you paid enough attention during mathematics lessons, you would know that that went down to about $16 a night. And, if you went through bible study like I did, you would know that this is what you call, a miracle.

This was a room with attached bathroom and a bed, right in the city of Taipei and at the heart of Taipei’s infamous, 林森北路. The room was recommended by Queenie, who’s friend actually owned the place. It came with several caution stickers, which lit up my MSN screen like an early Christmas.

1. The room is above a KTV.
2. The area is infamous for it’s congregation of shady KTV and other trajectories of vice.
3. Very cheap price and situated in close proximity to the MRTs.
4. The room is small and has the lingering odor of cigarettes.

I don’t know about you, but I was sold at the second point and I hardly paid any attention thereafter.

When we actually got to the place, everything that she had warned us of was true. The room was indeed small, but ample for decent maneuverability. The bathroom was decent and came equipped with heater. There was cable TV, which boasted a vast array of channels to keep even a control trigger-happy couch slouch such as myself satisfied.

The only problem was the bed. Or the lack of it..

Sure, there was a mattress, but there was neither a bed sheet nor a comforter. Needless to say, blankets were not standard issues for the price we were paying, but they did throw in about 3 complimentary mosquitoes. Our room had sufficiently defined, spartan living.

Despite consuming a full bottle of vodka in under 2 hours between us, the bed still posed a challenge to even catch a quick wink. It was hard, like it was built from a slab of marble. The last time I slept on anything this hard, it turned out to be silicon breast.

We got up the next morning and got right down to bitching about the bed. Everything from a lack of bed sheets to the how hard the mattress was to even the dull beige fade colour. It was like the bed makers had entirely left out the cushion and merely wrapped the springs.

Then it hit me. Could it be? No.. we couldn't possibly be that stupid? Could we?

Me: “Help me flip the mattress.”

LB and I quickly flipped it over like a Saturday morning pancake and suddenly, we had gone from wild partiers to complete idiots. The mattress had been flipped down. We had been sleeping on the springs for the entire day. Yes, I can’t believe I actually have an IQ, which qualifies for Mensa.

Not like it thrilled us to find that we actually had cushioning for the night because the sheets were grossly dusty and we were visibly going to be a human buffet to the millions of bed bugs that were probably tucked between the sheets.

It was good that LB suggested stealing the blankets on board the plane. Without it, I might have woken up to see my leg chewed off by bugs at the kneecap, and seeing how Taiwanese cooks everything, they might have probably used it for soup.

The great thing about the place however, was the vibrancy of night that sprung to life under the cover of darkness. The quiet lanes had transfigured into neon lit pubs with the occasional bar fights. The cue was simple. All we needed was someone to shout,

“Kan ni nia eh!” (For the uninitiated, ‘Fuck your mother’)

And the response drill was to drop our television remote, grab a cigarette and a jacket, and watch the fight from the window.

Best.Bedtime.Story.Ever.

That's Angel, sitting at the stairs leading to our room. It took her like half an hour before she eventually made it down to the bottom.

That's Queenie, the girl that hooked us up with the room.

And this is the street we live on.
Sure, it looks dull now, but wait till the sun goes down, and the cars parked along the streets will turn into 4 inch heeled transvestites.

Hello Taiwan Pt 5 - Taichung

To be spending 13 days entirely in the confines of Taipei would be an opportunity cost for having to miss Taiwain's vice capital, Taichung. Besides, pretty faces and hot gyrating asses at the clubs can only sustain a man for a limited time, and this is me; an attention span as long as a size two mini skirt.


I was pretty glad we actually got down to leaving Taipei, which made this trip alot more fulfilling in that we were actually soaking up the sights and roaming out of our comfort zones of designer boutiques, discos and coffee joints.

It was like marking another destination on our passport. Not that Taichung varied alot from Taipei. The weather was the same, so was the food and shopping, but we strangely found the pretty girls lacking there. Maybe we've been too spoilt up in Taipei that we expect one postcard beauty to greet us at every corner.

Getting to Taichung was also surprisingly easily with the HSR (High Speed Rail). It was an hour away and the trains were considerably comfortable and lavished with the occassional pretty attendants who were peddling drinks and snacks off their carts. It was like budget airplanes on rails.


So what did we do in Taichung to escape our cyclical routine of skirt chasing, alcohol gulping, dusk to dawn partying? We look for the best club, and surrender ourselves to life's greatest invention.. alcohol.


God, I'm absolutely pathetic. I might have to check myself in to re-hab when I get back.

The answer to our quest was Xaga. Reputedly the best club you can find in Taichung, or so we've been told.


When we got there at 11.30pm, the club was near empty. I could throw an ashtray an probably not even hit a shadow. The only saving grace it had was a 6 complimentary drink policy which kept us there long enough for enough people to fill the place to stop me from trying to pick up LB.


By midnight, the club probably had enough people to start a campfire. There were still no on stunningly beautiful or gorgeous enough for me to unzip my pants. I took two more quick shots of Tequila, while LB kept to his coke.


There were only two girls in the clubs whom I was interested in. The DJ and the cashier. I picked the one most accessible, while LB went to work on a group of four girls. Well, 3 to be exact since one was a whale and this is quite a rarity in Taiwan. I believe they are on the national endangered species list here.


The cashier was friendly but she refused to have a picture taken with me because she said something about 'not being allowed to' and part of their 'working policy'. I could understand any of the rubbish she was saying. The only reason why I didn't throw a punch at her was because she gave me two free tequila shots and a whiskey coke.


This puzzled me. They can't take pictures but they are allowed to give me free drinks? In any case, I love being me.


By the time I got back, LB had already worked enough magic on that group to have them constantly coming back to where we were. Instead of coming back to wing for him, I made the next move to hit on the DJ.

While she wasn't exactly in that Ivy league of girls that you can pluck off at the Taipei clubs, she was the best piece of ass in a tube top I could find at Xaga. And trust me, beer googles is quite a requirement if you really want to share a toast with the mass public.

The DJ however had several things which held my attention. A killer ass, friendly, a killer ass, spoke english, a nice body and a killer ass. I paid almost no attention to the stuff she was telling me and just fixated myself on her pearly whites and glossed lips. When she eventually stopped talking, I started,

Me: "Let's got get some shots."

I took a glance at the group of girls that had plastered themselves with us and decided to buy myself another round of tequila shots. I then got another round for myself and the DJ, whom I now believe was the prime catch of the night or whatever Taichung had to offer me. LB was still avidly sober and making conversations with random strangers.

The DJ had to go off for a while for her set and I knew I was going to be inconsolable for the next half hour. I turned to see that group of girls still by our spot. I started drinking faster.

By the time the club closed, I was sufficiently tanked and dragged out by the group. I had lost sight of my DJ, didn't have the time for a last minute flirt with the cashier and no idea what was going on.

I did however know that one of the girls in the group was trippin' that night, one was hideously fat and ugly, one had on an extremely short skirt and the other whom I would remotely drop my pants for, was a hairstylist.

There were options for LB and I, but of which had been scaled down severely by the group. You know you've been claimed property of when they tell you,

"Where shall WE go now."

We eventually went for a singing session at a KTV and by the time we actually got out of the place, it was morning. The sun was up, people were already commuting to work and MacDonald's had already started flipping pancakes.

LB and I were pissed. We had just spent NT2000 on a hotel room which we barely even spent an hour in and we had to check out in 4 hours. We've had a torrid time with our accomodation in Taipei and we actually planned for this to be a rejuvenating slumber.

I'm talking fresh sheets, warm quilted bedcovers, fluffy pillows and multi-option flushing systems. These were luxuries which eluded us back at where we housed in Taipei and we almost forgot that bed bugs are not standard room furnishings.

LB: "What time must we check out?"
Recep: "12pm."
LB: "3pm ok?"
Recep: "1pm latest, additional hour is NT300 per hour, but rooms are fully booked."

We got up to the room and LB collapsed onto it almost immediately. I set the alarm for 11.45 am, considering we didn't have anything to pack. This gave me approximately 3 hours to catch a wink. By the time 11.45 am rolled by, I was too cajoled by the soft sheets and pleasant dreams to even consider waking up as a possibility.

I nudged LB,

Me: "Extend.. we'll pay the extra.."