Little Nymph

Your new toy, a Leica no less.

Squinting at the controls under the 4 o'clock sun.

At the Botanic Gardens. Where most novices start out anyway.



And I'm glad I was there.

When you took your baby-steps into the world of Talking Pictures.

Unkers@TheTheatre - The PillowMan

Friends said it was fantastic.

It ended its run to rave reviews in New York and London. And this was its encore performance because it was also very well received in Singapore last December.



But I didn't count on the Singapore Repertory Theatre's, The Pillowman, being a butt-crunching 3.5 hours long. I mean someone warned me it would be lengthy but not THIS lengthy! And since I'm still quite numbed (backside and all) by the experience, I shall let SISTIC give you a synopsis of this play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.

With the twists of a thriller, and the twisted logic of a horror film, The Pillowman is darkly funny and surprisingly poignant. Katurian, a writer of terrifying short stories, has been newly imprisoned and is questioned by the police, who scale new heights of brutality - and black humour - with their version of the good cop/bad cop mind game. Along the way, the reasons for the storyteller's capture are revealed in a viciously entertaining cat-and-mouse game that has you on the edge of your seat.

Which isn't saying very much and still doesn't do justice to the dark humor and psychological thriller-esque mood of the entire production.

But its a seriously intelligent play. Frequent shocking morbidity and sometimes tiring soliloquies aside. Strongly fronted by an able cast of Adrian Pang (Tupolski), Michael Corbidge (Michal), Daniel Jenkins (Katurian) and Shane Mardjuki (Ariel) who would, collectively, perhaps do Singapore Theatre proud even on Broadway.

We enjoyed abit of mental stimulation on a Saturday evening.

A trifle disturbing really, but good creepy fun nonetheless, especially when they played RadioHead during the intermission.

Chiang Mai Chatter 3

Sometimes you wonder whether the Thais really revere Elephants the way they claim they do.

I suppose if they can exploit women and girls to bring in the tourism dollar, its not hard to imagine the big beasts being next on the ingenious agenda to ring in the 'Eco-tourists' dying for a chance to get up close and personal with the Tusky Ones.



OK so I was a sucker as well. Jumping at the opportunity to get out of the hustle and bustle that was Chiang Mai, to make the 1.5 hour drive to the Mae Taeng Valley. Where the prospect of an old-school Ox and Cart ride, Elephant Trekking through hilly forests and a leisurely drift on a bamboo raft down the shallow Mae Taeng River seemed too interesting to pass up.





Alex and Chris preferred a walkabout in the Old City. But Cheryl braved her fear of wobbly heights by agreeing to join me on top of a grey mammoth the size of a small lorry.

To the animals' benefit, the Mae Taeng Elephant camp was a nice enough place to be in. Nestled in the middle of a picturesque valley, in a landscape so quintessentially hilly North Thailand, we spent a beautiful morning taking in all the countryside vistas on various modes of archaic transport.



We got back to Chiang Mai in time for a late lunch. But not before popping in to see Wat Phra Sing, the largest temple in an ancient quarter chock full with beautiful testimonials to Lanna culture and creativity. The Wihan Lai Kham (gilded hall) of the sprawling Wat was particularly pretty. In the middle sat the much worshipped golden Phra Buddha Sing which, according to historians, originates from Sri Lanka.



Outside, the tourist buses were slowly beginning to disgorge their Chinese, Japanese and Korean contents. And that meant our time for some peaceful snooping around the temple grounds, came to a pre-mature end.



The 4 of us then re-grouped, and told Aik to take us to the Hong Dong district where the Ban Thawai Village was situated, for a spot of some Thai antique furniture shopping. Ban Thawai is the place to be if you had always craved that wooden chofa from the roof of some abandoned temple but didn't want to pay the GDP of a small African nation for it. Woodcarvings, Lacquerware, Hill Tribe pottery, you name it and Ban Thawai has got it. With shipping companies dotted all over the village that will teleport your newly acquired possessions anywhere from Tangier to Timbucktoo.



Then it was off for some retail therapy at a real Arcade, back to the hotel for a quick shower, dinner and then Part deux of some more pseudo sado-machoism at the massage spa.



48 hours in Chiang Mai.

Wished we had more.

Chiang Mai Chatter 2

Aik, our driver, had this habit of half-giggling like Scooby Doo whenever he got excited.

And that got the girls a little irritated. Especially when the both of us launched into saucy banter and the poor man got a trifle horny. Well someone had to humor the fella right? But he played the role of Host par Excellence and tried his level best to ensure our 48 hours were not wasted.

Before I could tell him I wanted to make the 20km trip out to the Doi Suthep mountains to see Wat Phra That, Aik already suggested we take the drive up. So after some lunch of fantastic slither-down-your-throat Kway Teow in fishball soup, we piled into his Vios for an hour's snooze, enroute to the much visited temple above the thick forested foliage that is Doi Suthep National Park.





The sinewy ride up the mountain was worth it because Wat Phra That is really a magnificent piece of Lanna Art. Two Nagas flank a sweeping staircase of 304 steps that lead up to an elevated courtyard where the Wat's central golden chedi stands glistening in the mid-afternoon sun. On top, hundreds of pilgrims were making their slow circuits around the shiny behemoth, fresh lotus flowers in hand, knuckles clasped in prayerful supplication.







And then it was time to give our bodies a little punishment with a traditional Thai massage. I must state, for the record, that I am not a fan of muscular ladies kneading your tired muscles with the only instruments of torture being their hands and feet. Or should I say elbows and knees.

I was contorted in every which way. Bent, pulled, pressed ,twisted and stepped upon in every evil position imaginable. And still managed to giggle like a pre-pubescent schoolgirl when the masseuse used her sharp elbow and planted it on my inner thigh. It didn't help that Alex, who was on the neighboring mattress, was trying her darnest to stifle her own laughter. With little success, I must report.

We swore to only stick with the aromatic oil massages after that. Well at least with the oils, sufficient smooth lubrication would ensure a somehow lessened vice-like grip on the bodily parts that matter.

Then it was back to the hotel for a shower, and then a seafood dinner at this excellent restaurant whose name I can now not remember.




You know Chiang Mai's Anusan Night Market rates as the best in the whole of Thailand. The level of refinement in goods sold at this after-dinner-stroll bazaar certainly gives Chatuchak a big run for its money. And there is a very decent variety of stuff on sale to boot.





The day's exertions then began to take its toil. Because by the time we reached our dinghy Downtown Inn, just 100 elephants away from where the action is, we were too pooped to even take a shower.

Yes, dirty people.

Chiang Mai Chatter 1

I realised, sometime during my 3 hour budget flight to Chiang Mai, that this was my 3rd trip to Thailand in the space of 12 months.



The new Siam isn't really the Land of Smiles in my book. Its not that the people are unfriendly or anything (on the contrary!). Rather, I think 'Smiles' should be replaced by 'Ironies' instead. Because just below the overtly Buddhist veneer, lies an economy well oiled by the skin-trade, dodgy massage parlours and girlie bars. The current Junta-installed government would surely be up in arms over this, but lets face it, sex sells. And its doing a roaring business in Thailand, when coupled with the other Tourist activities, this country blessed with beautiful islands, rugged mountains and ancient temples has to offer.

For a couple of years, when the Tourism Board used the tagline 'Amazing Thailand' in its promotional material, it was sort of ironic for me as well. By day, the Wats come alive with the saffron splendor of the Dharma. But at night, the A go-go Bars take-over with equally gaudy aplomp. Such seamless symbiosis must surely make a case for curious amazement.

And so I thought to myself, as TR 122 came in for a touchdown, maybe there is this latent, warped, appreciation for all things ironic that keeps me coming back. Seeing this country first putting one holy bare foot forward, and then a sexy stilettoed ankle the next. Perhaps the Land of Ironies' allure lies precisely in its two faces.

But after collecting our backpacks from the turnstiles, there wasn't much time for such useless pondering. Because we had barely a 48 hour sojourn in this 2nd most important city after Bangkok. Where the Northerners are still justifiably proud of its somewhat more cultured disposition.

And penchant for the finer things in life.

Moving Out

I have actually been mulling over this the past few weeks.

Whether I should be starting a Blog of my own.

But I am undecided.

On one hand, Unkster has become the repository of my hopes and dreams, trials and tribulations, happy and sad times, over the past 2.5 years. And I suppose, in my own little way, I've given an insight into the life of a sometimes screwed-up 30-something. Whether that insight translates into any useable information for the reader apart from being, what I call, nothing-else-better-to-do reading, remains to be seen. Call it stupid sentimentality if you like.

When we first started out in October 2005, I had not even kept a diary before. Unkster was supposed to provide a tongue-in-cheek glimpse into the lives of a trio (and later quartet) of thirty year olds. A place to chit-chat about growing up in an age where you're too old to be gushing about having a crush on a colleague, but too young to be discussing taking out your CPF savings.

Some call it the Quarter-Life Crisis. And its not unlike the Quarter-pounders they used to sell at Macdonalds. You're like a big burger, sandwiched in between the call for increasing responsibility and the allure of re-discovering your recently spent youth. You've reached a plateau of stability. And yet ironically, the road ahead still looks a little fuzzy. Maybe its just me.

On the other hand, I wish the rest would write a little more. Afterall, this is not MY Blog alone. Its name should really read Unksters and not Unkster. And perhaps therein lies the problem. Unkster has become my personal journal. And this has somehow taken away the raison d'etre for its existence. So maybe if I have to be the only one talking (on most occasions anyway), I might as well take my inane ramblings somewhere else. Alone.

A diary need not always be about self-discovery. Or contain melancholic entries about the pitfalls of living and loving in the 21st Century. It should be about anything you want to say or do. Most importantly, it should be true and reflect how you really feel. You owe that much to yourself. But the trouble with online diaries is that you then open up huge portions of your life to public scrutiny. This has the dual effect of making you feel liberated one moment, then exposed and vulnerable the next.

Maybe all this is a reflection of how I am getting more and more afraid of sharing my life with anyone else, whether in the real physical world or bunking-in together in Cyberspace.

I am getting abit solitary.

And that scares me.

For The Broken Hearted

To all my friends, facing one kind of heart trouble or another.

Nelly Furtado. And her thoughts about leaving it to the Divine One.


I looked at your face
I saw that all
The love had died
I saw that we had forgotten to take the time
I, I saw that you couldn't care less about what you do
Couldn't care less about the lies
You couldn't find the time to cry

We forgot about love
We forgot about faith
We forgot about trust
We forgot about us

Now our love's floating out the window
Our love's floating out the back door
Our love's floating up in the sky in heaven
Where it began back in God's hands

You said that you had said all that you had to say
You said baby it's the end of the day
And we gave a lot but it wasn't enough
We got so tired that we just gave up

Now our love's floating out the window
Our love's floating out the back door
Our love's floating up in the sky in heaven
Where it began back in God's hands

We didn't respect it
We went and neglected it
We didn't deserve it
But I never expected this

Our love floated out the window
Our love floated out the back door
Our love floated up in the sky to heaven
It's part of a plan
It's back in God's hands
Back in God's hands

It didn't last
It's a thing of the past
Oh we didn't understand
Just what we had
Oh I want it back
Just what we had
Oh I want it back
Oh just what we had

The next step...

Looks like this time, there will be no doubts.
Just like what the Tarots cards says, it is so obvious now.
The plain truth spread before us. Things that we know and too shy to bring up and speak out.
They spoke on our behalf and accurately too. (It still gives me shivers thinking of them)
The problems seems to be lot more less complicated than others.
Even as I contemplate the wait for the matrimony home, I will want to use this full 2 years to do things that I will want to do before being engulfed by marriage and whatnots..

I don't expect that there will be much changes when I get married, it seems that I have been waiting for it for so long, I am quite numbed to it.
But of course, the prospects of seeing someone I love everyday and night do excite me.
Still, I expect that both of us have our "own" life. Our pursues and passions.

Among the UnksterS, I am the only who has not "experienced" marriage, I will look forward to all your advices and your compassionate ears for me.
It will be still some time from now, we will not know what will transpire.
Meanwhile, let's celebrate our life every moment and how blessed we are now.

Unkster Uncovered 16 - Pengerang, Johor

I'll say it upfront.

If cycling is not your thing, don't bother with Pengerang.

What started off as a daytrip to recce an off-the-beaten track option for our informal Bike Club, turned out to be a day spent waiting for Bumboats to take us to and from this little sleepy district at the southern tip of Johor. You see, unlike Ubin, which has the boatmen uncles doing a roaring trade ferrying wide-eyed urbanites to and from our only rural paradise, not many people visit Pengerang. At least that was what we thought when we waited an hour for the requisite number of 12 passengers to gather before our boat could make its way out of Changi Point ferry terminal.

But when we finally got to ulu Tanjong Pengelih jetty at noon, after a bumpy 50min ride on an intoxicating, diesel-smelling boat, our cab driver advised us to be back at the pier to catch our watery ride back to the Mainland at 2.30pm.



Yes. But why?

Because, as it turned out, a whole clan of Singaporeans and Malaysians had descended on Pengerang over the weekend to attend some big wedding. And at three, they were expected to leave via Bumboat en masse. So looking at the pathetic frequency in which the boats called at Tanjong Pengelih jetty, and if the both of us wanted to arrive back on the Mainland in time for work on Monday, we had better get our butts back here on time.

OK. Duly noted. And so we were whisked to a seafood lunch at Sungei Rengit, 18km away, in this really retro-looking, bone-shaker of a taxi. I figured cyclists would usually do this distance to the kampong town of Sungei Rengit if they bothered to lug their bikes with them. But since we didn't have our own set of wheels this time, we had to contend with the air-conditioned ride through thankfully flat terrain, snaking along the coast, past non-descript kampungs and mosques, to our lunchdate with crabs at Good Luck Seafood restaurant. There was also no bike-rental shop in sight. Certainly not within the environs of the jetty which would have made it convenient.



Good Luck Seafood restaurant. A place where our driver said Fiona Xie came to visit and eat last year. Fiona Xie, that pretty little tanned vixen, in Sungei Rengit sweating over chilli crab? We looked at each other incredulously. But the food was great. Simple, cheap and maybe because we were hungry, tasted better than the usual suspects you order from the lousy restaurants back home.



Sungei Rengit is so small, you could cover the whole mega-Kampong in 45mins, flat. And because we didn't really have the time to explore every nook and cranny on foot, it looked superficially uninteresting. I would have loved to have a murky cup of Malaysian kopi-o in a runned-down shophouse or something but that was not to be. Because we made the ultimate mistake of getting the cabbie to take us to the Desaru Fruit farm 28km away.

I had wanted to see if the route was do-able on bike. And I am happy to report that it is not. Not only is the road to Desaru a typical bumpy B-road with undulating hillocks and what-nots, the farm was a place of bad-tasting durians and lonely bananas. We paid 20 Ringgit for a small child's head of a Mao Shan Wang (Cat Hill King variety) fruit, assured that it was of the finest quality by the crooked vendor, only to discover that the texture of the seemingly golden-yellow seeds were akin to unripe Jackfruit left to dessicate in the fridge. Hard and tasteless. Ptui! In the interest of personal safety in a foreign land, I did not throw the empty shells at the head of that stupid con-man.



But as time was ticking away, we had to make our way back to the jetty. And when we got there at alittle past 3pm, there was already an army of chatty S'poreans, old folk, young folk, kids in tow, plastic bags aplenty, waiting for the bumboats to take them home. We were late. Damn!

Anyway, we spent the next 2.5 hours, camped on the uncomfortable seats of the new (but dilapidated) Tg Pergelih Jetty complex, looking forlornly out to sea. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the next, nearly extinct, bumboat to take us away. The last boat leaves Changi with its full complement of passengers at 4pm. And so by 3pm, I don' t think many people from the Mainland would be visiting Pengerang in the late afternoon. That, of course, translated to an increasingly impatient group of wedding merry-makers waiting at the jetty because the bumboat arrivals were so few and far between. Whenever a boat appeared, I swear the crowd cheered.



So, was it a bad trip? A waste of time and money? I think not. If you look on the bright side that is. The company was great. I had the chance to see what a potentially nice ride a trip on mountain bike to Sungei Rengit could be. And lunch was yummy. Pengerang has to be enjoyed from a pedaling perspective. Not from the air-conditioned comfort of a taxi (which by the way was damn expensive!)

But I wouldn't be on a Bumboat in a hurry.

Not for the next month or so anyway before Ubin beckons again.

Better In Time

You know the Buddhists believe in the cycle of life.

Do good, accumulate positive Karma, and you'll be reborn into a better life than the one you're living now. Do bad, accumulate bad Karma, and you'll end up in the ghetto, or worst still, as a cockcroach. Of course if you've been a really good boy or girl, concentrated on your meditation, yoga, Bodhi Tree trances and all that, you'll get Enlightened, become a Buddha, and free yourself from this painful rollercoaster of Rebirth.

And so I beg your indulgence for alittle creative and spiritual license in this very flippant interpretation of the Dharma.

But someone please tell me. If and when, one does become a dirty, disgusting, 6-legged insect that inhabits garbage, how would you get yourself back on the path to Nirvana? You start by not flying into someone's hair? And making her (or him in this day and age of girly metrosexuals) scream for the Dalai Lama to come swat you with a Lotus leaf?

The concept of Karma, its principles of Cause and Effect, coexist with our understanding of Time. Time gives Karma its good or bad face. But the ironic thing is, given more of it (time), there's an equal chance of accumulating either good or bad Karma. Which then decides whether you really become a Bodhisattva or ancient Arthropod.

So what you really need is someone. Someone on the path to Enlightenment who will give you that little nudge in the right direction. Someone who would help you ensure your next life will be better than your last. And that you don't scurry in dark and dank corners using feelers twice the length of your body.

At some point or another, in this life or the next, we're all looking for that Someone. Because deep down, we all want to believe that things will get better in time.

Closet Optimists perhaps.

Although we don't say it.

Dave and Me

i hit my new (used) irons very well..i am pleased.. Dave is pleased.

puntoboy flew like the wind...I am pleased.. Dave is pleased.

We sold..I am pleased...Dave is pleased.

when the realization, that matters are out of yr hand, I have to choose nothing but happiness. Why choose to be sad, when happiness is just a thought away?

Things are better, they can be worse. And when things are worse, they can be better.

I have no hope, I have no fears, I have no expectations.
The more you have those, the more you stand to lose.
The more you lose, the less you are.

Be free, free from it all.

Only then you can find the answer.

2am Thoughts

Its better to have loved than never to be loved before.

But sometimes, its better to be loved than having loved and lost.

Its easier that way.

And that's just the myopic, selfish Narcissist in me talking.

Ignore.