PEARLYN IS BACK.

Hello universe.

Got to flog myself for always forgetting this baby. Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks, not to mention a psychotic couple of weeks.

Here is a summary of what is to come. Escape while you can, because it is going to be a borefest.

1) Spain won Euro 2008. Is it possible to be proud and resentful at the same time, as well as victorious and heartache? How can one person be capable of so many emotions without combusting is beyond me.

Proud: Because I have seen the team grow after all these years. And I stand by the decision to leave Raul out because all he did was destabilize the team.

And to think that new coach Del Bosque (Ex-Real Madrid coach, and GROSSLY pro-Raul) is leaving the door open for Raul.

God, please no. Unless you want the team to give up everything they fought for over the past few months.

Liked you once before, Raul, but your presence is like mould. Silent but deadly.

Resentful: Half the world had no idea who David Silva was before Euro 2008.

The other half of the world did not even like the Spanish national team.

As always, after every triumph, there will be new fans popping up from Bora Bora to Tahiti, which pains me to no end.

Guess I should go find a pitiful team to support from now on. Andorra, here I come.

Victorious: Do you know how it feels like to see a team you support win it all? After all these years, they've managed to defeat their enemies -- themselves. Which leads me to my next emotion.

Heartache: Unfortunately, I was only able to feel victorious by reading match reports and watching match highlights.

Because I missed everything.

Everything.

All of it.

Stupidity catches up on me so many times in my life. But it couldn't have waited till after Euro 2008 to strike me, can it?

Noooooo, I had to miss the quarter-final against Italy, the semi-final against Russia and the final against Germany.

Just as well. The good thing was, I avoided a potentially traumatic experience because the Spanish celebrations would have proved too much for me to handle. Casillas in his underwear, frolicking about in glee.

Really not an image I wish to subject my weak heart to. Casillas is lovely with an impeccable jawline sometimes (when his head is facing a certain direction and the light is just right), but he should always be clothed in my opinion.

I apologize if you are reading this, Iker, but shouldn't you be scrubbing your goalkeeping gloves rather than reading a deranged blog?

2) I went to Australia with 2 of my closest friends. Time of my life. Highlight of my world. Story of my universe.

Originally, I thought I would just give you the link to Rekha Makalingam's blog. Which is http://someone-like-me.livejournal.com/

Alternatively, I thought I would just copy and paste the entire travel journal that we wrote during our holiday.

Then I thought it'd be like plagiarism, you know? Since it appeared on Rekha's blog first.

All right, I know I was the one who wrote it in the first place. But I realized there were many things I left out, and some things that I wish to clarify. So I'm going to write an entirely new day-by-day journal right here. Hope I beat the record for the longest blog post ever.

Here we goooooooooooooooo...

Day 0, Friday, 6pm

I was late to the airport.

Well, late by Fart’s standards anyway. Muahaha.

The plane ride was rather unfruitful, since none of us actually slept. Fart and I were trying so hard to make ourselves go to sleep, but the stupid chairs were so stiff and I don’t particularly fancy the idea of reclining my chair because I’d always feel sorry for the poor suffocating bloke behind. So I ended up trying to sleep in a right-angled position, which I can tell you is not the best of choices.

So Fart and I thought that we should choose some mellow music to listen to. You know, something sleep-inducing. Since Fart and I were sharing my mp3 player, Pablo, both of us had to make do with my music list.

Where is Brian McKnight when you need him? We both thought Brian McKnight would have been perfect in putting us to sleep, especially the dreadful songs “Back at One” and the other one which involves counting and numbers as well…six, seven, eight or something, is it? Unfortunately I had neither. Pablo has a standard to uphold and Brian McKnight will not be accepted in Pablo.

So for some reason, we decided that the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA songs would be a good choice.

It started out fine and the initial soft melodies lulled us into complacency. Then came the pounding organs all of a sudden, which stunned us tremendously and caused us both to open our eyes in shock.

Never listen to the phantom when you are trying to sleep.

We finally decided on Nsync…which put Fart to sleep for fifteen minutes or so. Me? Oh I took it upon myself to sing along in my head to test my memory of their lyrics. So, no sleep in the end. Grrr.

After we realized that none of us were going to go to sleep, we decided to amuse ourselves with the entertainment system. We started out playing Hangman, which was such a yawn. And the cartoon man being hung wasn’t even remotely interesting.

Then, Fart and I realized that Maka was utterly silent, as she was intensely playing a game which caused her utmost agitation. The game is called “Twins”, which is basically the computer version of the Memory game. It had a time limit and it was tricky, very tricky.

Maka almost sprained her wrists playing it. It was only because she was rather incompetent in the game, unlike Fart and I who approached the game in a cool, calm and collected manner. Maka could not get past Level 1, while Fart and I got to Level 4. Go us!

I suppose we were also a bit loud on the plane. Maka kept cackling (if you have met Maka, you will understand what I mean by this) insanely in the middle of the night, which was so disturbing on so many levels. At one point, there was a woman who raised her eyebrow at Maka because I believe she was a bit frightened by the sadistic laughter in the dead of the night.

Was a bit intimidated by the white cards we had to fill in. Fart was afraid she would break the law by bringing in an extra pair of sports shoes, because the card stated that such shoes might have infected soil in them.

Resorted to asking the air steward in our desperation. He must never have gotten such a question before (I suppose it WAS quite a ridiculous question, since we were asking if we had to DECLARE Fart’s sports shoes, which sounds VERY dramatic I admit), because the air steward looked a bit stunned. He thought for a long time, and eventually told us, “Well…uh…I suppose you don’t have to declare those shoes…Unless, say, you have, like, a BIG CHUNK of soil stuck there.”

Hahahahahaahaha. We felt so stupid after that. Big chunk of soil. He kept staring at us like we were safari people or aliens after that.

Day 1, Saturday, 5am

So! We arrived in Sydney. None of us could believe it, we were so convinced we were dreaming of it and that suddenly we would walk out and it’ll be Changi Airport. No such cruel joke occurred, thank goodness.

It was a dead hour but we took a cab to our budget accommodations. Alfred Park.

It was a Middle Eastern cab driver, who had good music at first…One Republic. STOP AND STARRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE (not a big fan of One Republic but I don’t mind that particular song, I fancy myself singing it you see). HOWEVER, due to the presence of my 2 friends, the cab driver thought it would be cute to change the radio station to suit THEIR musical tastes. Arabian music for Fart and Maka. I think it was lost on him that neither one of us was actually from there.

We arrived very early. It was about 6.30am or so when we got there, and some China youths let us in, thinking that we were harmless.

I mean, we WERE harmless, but how were they so sure we weren’t armed? Plus, Maka looked like a thug because she was a bit grouchy. And I had mad airplane hair. The China youths were however a bit perplexed, they were wondering where all 3 of us were from because all of us looked like we dropped from the sky. I guess they decided that none of us could understand Chinese because Fart and I overheard them talking. For a while, we wanted to pretend that all 3 of us were internet friends from all over the world or that we were step-siblings or strangers who met at the airport and decided to go on holiday together.

So we were stuck playing the Alphabet game for about 2 ½ hours. We exhausted so many categories. Bands. Songs. Movies. Actors.

Counterman at Alfred Park could NEVER remember us by the way. When he eventually arrived, he spoke to us three like we were old buddies, but within 2 hours, he forgot who we were and things like that. For the next few days, we had to announce to him which room we were in everytime we talked to him. Otherwise, nice man.

Tried to force ourselves to take a nap in the morning once we got our room. Were placed in a 4-bed room despite booking a 6-bed room. Thank goodness the 4th person never did arrive, because we made ourselves VERY comfortable in the room. All our clothes were strewn all over the place, as well as our towels…Fart had a really humongous towel by the way.

Could not force ourselves to take a nap because this live jazz band was playing in the park opposite our hostel. Frank Sinatra. Grrr. Decided to go to the park to kick off our day.

Caught a dogshow. Bark in the Park. Cute much.

As you can see, Maka was not very impressed with some of the dogs. Especially bulldogs.

Went to the Paddington Bazaar. On our way there, we met this German girl named Carolyn/Karolin, who seemed perpetually confused. We told her we were going to WALK all the way to the Bazaar, and she said she was going to take the bus. However, we gave up because some people told us we were crazy. Well, not exactly, but they implied that we were crazy. So we decided to take a bus. And there Carolyn was. Bumped into her again and again and again and again and she perhaps seemed to welcome our presence quite a bit because she invited us to join her at Bondi Beach, which was where she was headed to. We declined because we didn’t think we were going there…but in the end WE DID. She must hate us if she saw us there.

Before Bondi, we went to Kookai. A dodgy-looking place, really, but it was where Fart had her first Australian girl-crush. Rachel Fah!

We could have gotten free clothes but we somehow missed out on that.

Ended up at Bondi Beach. Very very beautiful. It was winter but the place was filled with surfer dudes…surfing obviously. Lots of strange people tanning as well, I guess the fact that it was obviously cold was sort of lost on them. Kept seeing an obscene man as well who refused to put on looser shorts, which ended up in us seeing more than we really wanted to. Plus he kept tossing a rugby ball with his dude friend, so he had to keep jogging in front of us. Trauma.

Maka was a bit cranky at first. Because she THOUGHT she did not bring her camera (she only realized it was in her bag all that time about 2 hours later, when we were in Macs). She was also moody because she hated the birds for pooping in the air while they were flying.

I must remind you, Maka hates any form of living organism other than herself. Even children are not spared.

Beeyooteefulll.

Ended up at Macs. Busy place, and we ended up intimidating a newbie named Nathan. Actually, “we” would be inaccurate. It was really all Fart’s doing. She had to confuse him by asking him for Ice Lemon Tea. And if he was panicked before that trying to push all the buttons, he was about to heave and hyperventilate after Fart gave her insane request. He furrowed his eyebrows, his face turned white, and he whispered pitifully, “Excuse me? What is that you want?”

I suppose Australians don’t drink that?

Nathan got scolded after that.

Went to get cheap fruits after that, as well as lettuce, which Maka secretly harboured a hatred for but was too polite to voice her opinion…

Took a bus back to the hostel. Had a mishap along the way, however. Maka, who was responsible for carrying the two big bottles of water, was totally unable to withstand the pressure of doing so. As a result, she carelessly dropped the said bottles ONTO MY FOOT while we were on the bus, which is not the most pleasant of sensations. As the bus was crowded, in my haste in trying to pick up the bottles, I somehow managed to drop it on some unfortunate punk’s foot. He was not very kind as he gave me a rather steely stare, what a dramatic dude. It was really all Maka’s fault to begin with, but she was too tired to notice.

Day 2, Sunday, 11am

Fart tried to assault me in my sleep. We were sharing 2 large beds, all three of us, and I had the fortune of being next to Fart.

Woke up in cold sweat, obviously.

Was headed to Chinatown that day. We were unsure of the way so we decided to ask a kind-looking old man for directions. He was initially very helpful, but upon seeing my Chinese face, he snarled in a condescending manner because apparently, I was supposed to have a telepathic connection to Chinatown and because of that, I shouldn’t even have to ask for directions. He still helped us nonetheless, but he did keep shooting glances at me whenever he said the word “Chinatown”. And he emphasized it very hard as well.

Along the way, we were asked for directions by Rain.

OK, he really looked like Rain. As in famous Korean man Rain. He was asking for some visa thing. At least, it sounded like “visa”. Or it could be anything that rhymed with “visa”. Pizza?

We sent him away obviously.

If it was really Rain, I’m sorry.

Went to Paddy’s Market. Spent money unnecessarily. On things that none of us would actually need. But that’s the point of holidays yes? Cheap things, obviously. But strange things like loose leather bracelets in my case which I still regret to this day. It made my wrist look diseased.

Maka had cramps, so we went to Macs to relax for a bit. Maka, through her pain, actually managed to sneak in 4 whole packets of sugar into her hot tea while no one was looking, talk about being an ant in her past life.

Met 2 young Asian boys (we strongly suspect HongKongers) who could not stop saying “Hi!” to us. It was really our fault actually, because we started it. But they just did not want to stop. I suppose at their age, greeting people is a tremendously fascinating activity. Maka, being the demon that she is, rudely commented, “Can’t they say something else?” As honourable as her intentions were to expand their vocabulary, Maka came across as a thug.

Went back to Paddy’s Market, where Fart was as usual rather inflexible. Being a master planner, Fart thought it would be perfect if we went column by column, so we did not miss anything out. Organization is her past, present and future.

It was then that we were told that we would not be seeing Christine/Nuowen. We were going to go to Melbourne to surprise her.

And then she told us she was flying back to Singapore, ON THE SAME DAY may I add, to likewise SURPRISE US.

Surprises are never good things.

Went to Sydney Harbour after that. Was entertained by an old man who played a hauntingly pleasant tune on the guitar to entice us to live in Sydney forever. Maka still claims to this day that she can recall that particular tune, but Fart and I have our doubts, and rightly so too.

Walked down the harbour, where we were approached by a little lad who bore a striking resemblance to a young Beckham (to ME anyway). He politely asked for 50cents for some ice cream. A modern-day Oliver Twist I’ll say. Plus the skateboard that is.

So we asked him to do a skateboarding stunt for us to earn his 50cents. I suppose he never ever got that request before in his entire life because he looked horrified for a minute, but he coolly turned around and said “OK” before proceeding to do a non-existent stunt. Which basically involved him jumping on his skateboard. Just that one jump. And his skateboard didn’t even go above the ground.

His little dude friends were more excitable, and was very eager to show us some of THEIR stunts so that they could earn money from us as well.

But uh, they were really lousy.

Charming, but just terrible.

Ended up giving 50cents to the cool leader of the pack, the one who first asked us. The rest of them were grumbling because they didn’t get any money, so we told them to share that one cone. Though the thought of 4 young boys sharing one cone is a little bit amusing.

Fart taught us to do the Mat kiss. It was, unfortunately, an action that me as a Chinese was unable to master, though I still insist that I was able to do it a couple of times. Maka sounded like a lizard.

Also tried to beatbox, because we were bored. I was the best. Maka sounded like she was suffering from a terminal disease.

Spain jacket worn to pay tribute to the team who was playing Italy that night. Not that anyone there knew.

Spent a long time trying to figure out the lyrics to “My Boo”. Fart and Maka were slightly unpleasant during this period, because I was apparently very distracting. SO HURTFUL.

Went to Macs. Maka asked for hot tea again.

And she proceeded to dump 7 packets of sugar into her hot tea.

SO CUNNING.

We then tried to steal some Macs cups, much to the horror of the Asian countergirl who was probably aware of our heist. Pity us, we had nothing in the hostel.

We had our first “quarrel”. Kudos to Maka, who stepped in wisely, like a saint dropped from the sky. All she had to do was go, “Relaxxxxxx guysssssssss…” in her Luna voice, and Fart and I were appeased. So calm, so cool.

Words could not be remembered due to the TENSION.

Muahaha! Maka then admitted that SHE was the cranky one because of bad cramps.

We had Lebanese bread for dinner that night. Frighteningly cheap bread that nobody wanted, which made it very dubious but we bought it anyway since we were on budget. We were so daring.

It didn’t taste too bad actually. At some points it was like rubber, but it was fine as a whole.

Watched UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN on TV. Ohmygod, can I just say what a lousy movie that was? I could feel my hair turning white just watching it, one scene jumped to another and we kept saying it was probably because the TV station was bored with it and fast-forwarded bits of the movie.

Maka went to bed a bit earlier, while Fart and I stayed up to play the Memory Game with my handy pack of cards. Fart was uber competitive, she wanted to win every game, but I was the master of the game and I won it mostly. Maka was grouchy and I think she was awake the entire time, because she kept opening her eyes all of a sudden sometimes.

Can I also say that Maka is a VERY light sleeper? According to Fart, all Fart has to do is to turn and face Maka and Maka would suddenly open her eyes and get up. I don’t really know how many times Maka opened her eyes at night, but apparently she sleeps while anticipating for all sorts of exciting things to happen. Unlike me, a dynamite can go thru the room and I’d still be sleeping soundly.

Day 3, Monday, 1pm

We had no discipline.

Woke up late.

Valley Girl was our friend.

Fart denied me a long-awaited trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Or National Botanic Gardens. Along those lines. There were nude beaches there for Maka.

So that was what we ended up seeing. It wasn’t even slightly BOTANICAL in any way (uh, WHAT is it actually?). But Fart the Human Clock was insistent that we not miss our ferry to Manly Beach.

Ended up in Manly Beach. Took a ferry there which was sleep-inducing for SOME. I was the coolest. Maka was drifiting off to some other dimension while Fart was staring into space.

Went straight to Macs because it was DARK when we got there. So much for our time management. Fart had an Australian boy-crush this time…jailbait! He looked no older than 14. Or 16. Ordered things from him the first time. After that went back to him again for a teaspoon. After that went back to him AGAIN for sugar.

A few hours later, we were back in Macs again and guess who Fart wanted to place her orders with?

Boy looked traumatized. Maka as usual was blissfully unaware because she was caught up in her fantasies of her sugar-filled hot tea.

This time, however, Maka actually had the determination to reduce her intake to a mere 4 packets of sugar. I wonder how her blood looks like. Clumps and chunks of sugar everywhere.

On the way back to mainland Sydney, Maka timidly asked for some Lebanese bread. Like we were starving her or what. Don’t really know what she was so afraid of.

We eventually decided to have cup noodles, but they had a very dreadful range of flavours. Decided on Tandoori Chicken cup noodles after that, plus some cheap sushi for me.

I went on a psychotic sushi rampage in Australia, you know? I ate it night and day. If Maka has balls of sugar in her blood, I’ve got seaweed.

Ate the cup noodles in our room in the hostel, because we did not like to socialize. Besides, the English lads in the kitchen were having a joyous time flirting with this one girl. I suppose we could have marched in with the Tandoori Chicken cup noodles in tow and pretended to be a part of their fascinating conversation about Birmingham, but we decided we would have more fun by ourselves.

After that, on our way downstairs to dispose our trash, we met a strange man. For the longest time, he kept staring at us thru a window. Well I sort of noticed it when we first walked by, but I thought maybe he was staring in disgust at how big my nose was, but after a while I looked back and he was still staring at us. I mean, I know my nose is giganto but no one has really stared at it like it’s the eighth wonder of the world before. Fart sort of found it strange as well so we decided to edge our way back to our room, which unfortunately was on the fourth floor by stairs.

Suddenly, the man started talking to us and staring at us and asking us where we were from and blah blah. For some reason, all 3 of us stared at each other and blurted out at the same time, “Malaysia!”

And then we gave weak smiles and ran all the way up and back to our room. Maka then chided Fart and I for being so childish, but she forgot that she was running frantically as well, faster than me I’ll like to add.

Day 4, Tuesday, 12.30pm

Planned to get up earlier. Really, we did.

But no.

Counterman then, after asking us for the ten thousandth time which room we were from, tried to discourage us from going to the Blue Mountains, because it was apparently too late.

See, Fart and I aren’t really the sort who’d take no for an answer or who would like to change plans all of a sudden. So we stamped our feet and pumped our fists in the air and stood our ground. We were going anyway!

Minus the feet-stamping and the fist-pumping that is.

It was a two-hour train journey on the coolest train ever. There were 3 levels. 3!

And so many seats. Cushioned too. I felt like I had never seen the world before.

Started playing the Alphabet Game. Yet again. That’s the tradition we have to pass time by. Exhausted all categories before, so we added in new ones. Countries. Cities. People we know. Places in Singapore. ANIMALS (Maka really wanted that, she had the most boring category choices).

Also, Maka kept saying “Xena” for “X”. WHATEVER category it was. Name an actor starting with the letter X? Xena. Name a person you know starting with the letter X? Xena. Name an animal starting with the letter X? Xena.

Reached the Blue Mountains, which was in KATOOMBA. Sounds so suspicious eh, like a tribal war chant. It was a very pretty town, too bad we went so late. All we saw was the Three Sisters, but the scenery was just, not to be cheesy or anything, breathtaking.

It was also there that Maka commented rudely, “WHAT DEFORESTATION?”

It IS a lot of trees.

I was so unfit by the way. I took a thousand years to climb these giant step things, while Fart and Maka were merrily prancing up the steps like Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh.

Because it was our last night in Sydney, we decided to give ourselves a treat. For the past few days we had been stealing things from Macs (cups, spoons, ketchup) and eating plain bread with raw tomatoes and things like that. So we decided to get ourselves some PIZZA. Go us!

2 large pizzas to be exact. Plus garlic bread. Plus the larges bottle of Pepsi I have ever seen.

All of which we could not finish.

And Fart and I still had the cheek to get ourselves donuts.

We were going thru some psychotic episode I think.

We decided to bring the excess food down to the kitchen in our hostel, where we offered it to whoever wanted it.

And THE MAN was there. At first, he was a bit hostile and refused to look at us when we offered him our leftovers. The other people in the kitchen were greedier.

However, he warmed up to us when we said the word “pizza”. And we made sure to smile for more than 2 seconds when we saw him there, because we felt bad for the night before.

AND THEN. Fart and I were headed to the toilets late that night and who did we see?

Well, at this point I would like to say Adrian Gonzalez. But alas, no.

THE MAN was edging sneakily out of the toilets. And Fart was, as usual, spacey. I was horrified.

The man seemed to remember us three (though Maka was not there). He chanted and boomed, “ONE CHINESE. ONE MALAY. ONE INDIAN. ALL FROM MALAYSIA. MULTI-RACIAL COUNTRY, VERY GOOD.”

I seem to remember us nodding a bit weakly in return. Wanted to run back to our room but that would have looked really absurd. So we ran to the toilets after making sure he went off.

I think it was just the way he stared at us and how he talked to nobody else but us.

Benefit of the doubt, maybe he was very chatty with everyone else in the hostel too.

And that wraps up the bulk of Sydney for you.

I’d really like to go on to Melbourne instead of stopping at this CLIFFHANGER here. Like, what happened to the man? What did we do next? Was Maka grouchy again?

But I have to go to bed. Mother was very upset that I slept at 620am last night. I know I know, I’m a freak of enormous proportions.

I’ll continue sometime soon with Melbourne.

In the meantime, here are some snapshots of Sydney.

Goodnight.

OK guess what. I’m too lazy to upload anything else. My facebook’s got some pictures if you’re dying to see how Sydney looks like.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn