day 1 madrid

was glad that the plane finally reach madrid, then saw everybody dressed in full battle order(full winter clothing aka jackets, sweaters n such) so all i had on was some teamNUS jacket, i thought that was enuough, but i was wrong. the moment u step out of the plane n board the shuttle bus, the cold bites you. yes, it is that cold. the temperature was around 4 degress that day bah.

checked into Hotel Gaudi, located along Gran via, madrid.

then took a short walk with the tour captain, nice streets i must say, they give u a sort of nostalgic feel.

for ppl in spain, life starts after 10pm, although it was around 12 when we started walking down the streets of gran via, we could still see a lot ppl in the streets, the guide did tell us that the pub area was somewhere behind the metro station of gran via, but there were children in our group, so he could not bring us there.

free internet access in spain

after so many days on the move, i finally found free internet in Alicante, its some city in Spain along the eastern coast, slightly lower than Valencia, or approx 2 plus hrs drive from valencia-

its not that i dun wanna blog, it is too expensive to blog, so far, from madrid to barcelona, the hotels that i stayed in charge 2 euros for 10 mins of internet access. which is almost 4 sg dollars for 10 mins.

i have already lost count of how many km i have travelled. i think close to 500km or even more bah.

wine is super cheap here, u can get a bottle for like 4 euros or even less. the cheapest i saw was 2.70euro for a bottle of red wine. in case u really must know, vino tinto is spanish for red wine.

Spain is 7 hrs behind singapore time. so its like 2300 26-12-06 here.

Places travelled so far

day 1
reach madrid, check in hotel.

day 2
travel to segovia n back to madrid.

day 3
travel to zaragoza n reach barcelona

day 4
city tour of barcelona

day 5 today
travel to tarragona then to valencia n now Alicante.

dun think i can hog the computer for much longer, there is this Spanish couple staring at me from across the room. i can almost feel their murderous intent liao.

n i know this is late but
Felix Navidas to all, which means merry christmas in spanish.

live from DOHA

arrived in Doha in approx 3pm singapore time but the time here is slow by 5 hrs so, we reached at around 10am local time. along the way while the plane was about to land, i glanced out of the window to take a look at wat Qatar looks like. then all u will see is sand n more sand. 1st u see a bit of the ocean, then the sand more sand, n even more sand, u cant even see a single tree, the closest u get to some vegetation is the occasional bush. n all the buildings like they just came out of some factory mould, all one colour, n mostly the same type. the local currency is riyak. one euro equals 4 riyaks, n so 1 sing dollar equals 2 riyak.

the first meal i had here was some A&W(virtually non-existent in spore) 3 piece chicken meal that cost 22 riyak, i didnt know if the meal included a cuppacino or not, but when the lady at the counter offered me a cup, i quickly grabbed it without asking further qns. (typical singapore kiasu mentality) it came with super large serving of fries n some funny looking bread. it tastes the same as tissue prata but softer n with less oil.

the initial flight plan was that we were gonna board a plane to madrid at 2pm, due to "unknown" technical reasons the plane was delayed by 2hrs, so we bo bian must carry on waiting til the plane is ready. darn! they did gave us some meal vouchers as compensation. but on the other hand there's nothing much top eat here anyway. haiz...

at least theres internet access, which will help in killing off some time. yes, n the keyboard rather special also, there all this arabic characters together with the typical qwerty characters.

cant upload photos as there's no usb port, took some really "bo liao " pix of Doha.

will continue to update if there are more chances.

signing off for now...

flying off in less than 6 hrs

will be on a plane to Doha from 0630 n will transit there before flying off to madrid. will reach madrid approx 1740 23/12/06.

ppl go Doha take part in Asian games, i go Doha for transit. =p

will blog, if i get the chance to go online.

my spanish is only limited to yes n no.
si = yes
no = no

thats all... =(

for now, wishing everyone out there,
a Merry Christmas n a Happy new year!

more tales from in-camp

day one

was surprised of the food they serve in the cook-house, 1st meal got ice cream to eat already, haha, "were they trying to give us a good first impression?"

even the dinner was a special, they catered a christmas buffet for us, complete with turkey n log cakes, which was nice, cant recall since when army so nice to u, dunno y but somehow i felt that "they were like fattening us up then slaughter us (the tough training that will follow) in the later part of the in camp"

slept super early since there was nothing to do besides reading newspapers.

day 2

woke up at 0545. yes this is some super insane time. i totally cannot recall since when i woke up that early maybe since ns that time bah.

then it was followed by weapons revision. it was then that i saw my old pal again. the "not-so-light" big gun. argh. i thought i got rid of that lousy nightmare since ns that time, n now it has returned to haunt me for another ten years. damn...

then it was ippt. sianz. u know u cant run when u have excess baggage around the waist.

day 3

the most xiong/tiring day of the in-camp
it was this day that told me that reservist was not slack.

went out-field. being attacked by a brigade of mosquitoes. i was hoping for it to rain n i thought that we won't have to go out for training if it was raining. i was wrong, seriously wrong.

the rain did come, but the training didnt stop.

i can still remember how was i doing field training in the rain, bashing through the forest in the rain.

super unforgetable. trust me. u start to wonder how come u're doing this shit when some other reservist guy is now inside his bunk shake leg n doing nothing.

day 4

training was over in a flash. but we had to start clearing our bunks.

day 5

last day! started off by clearing our bunks. the most de-moralising thing is see-ing people who clear their ippt out-process at 10 am, while others who fail could only leave at 6pm.

just when u told the in-camp was over, the higher-ups dropped another bombshell on you, telling u that your next in-camp would be in july. sianz.

then just when u think u can safely out-process n regain your freedom, the rsm starts to go on another berserk run. double checking your hair-style before allowing you to out-process.

n how u know suigei gedong camp is a lousy camp? when u can spend close to 30 mins n more calling for a cab n there is no available cab that will want to come pick u up.

leaked results

there was some hoo-ha on some web-site that showed your exam results before they were officially released. this was on fri nite. but they later removed the link by sat morning as they(admin) found out that too many ppl were logging in n checking their results, i figured the results are roughly representative of wat i'm gonna get, just glad not to repeat the lousy mistake of year 1 sem 2. u actually have an idea of where u stand if u go n check the mid-term results, u will roughly know where u stand, so u can expect to put in more effort to catch up if u're lagging behind.

back from in camp training

day one

super long journey to camp, u should see how the cab i was in was speeding lor. 120km/hr, damn power... haha.

1st thing that happen to me, is that i got caught for haircut, despite cutting my hair over the week-end. the rsm was standing at the in-process counter n would only allow u to carry on n move to bunk if your hair reached his standard. n if not, he would confiscate either your green ic or pick ic. it was the back that was too long n touch the collar. then must queue up to get hair cut. n must pay $5 for lousy hair-cut service.

thats all for now, will continue when free...

countdown

can see various msn nicks at this moment.

"i hate ict, the darkest moment of my life"

"ict 11-15 dec"

"starting army again"

"countdown to army"

haha, as u can see i will be away "serving the nation" from 11-15th dec. will be back on fri nite, but dunno if got energy to blog. so see yah.

secret identity

there's this bubble tea shop near my place, it seems they give 10% off for the temasek poly students, n in order to take advantage of this offer. i "bluffed" my way thru by showing them my red ez-link student card but just use my thumb to cover the school logo. pretty soon, the uncle starts to mistakes me for a real temasek poly student. n sometimes he tries to chat with me abt sch(poly) starting. but the best was yesterday.

i was with my fren in that area. n he asked me which bubble tea shop was the best. so i recommended him the one that i usually frequent. the shop owner(as usual) mistaking me was telling me to jia you for next week. my fren heard that n thought that the uncle was referring to the ict, n was telling me to jia you. then the uncle said it was because of the term test next week. term test? haha. i simply said yah lor. my fren didnt wanna disclose anything so he juz play along by saying only i got n he dun have term tests when the uncle asked if he also having term tests.

haha, i wonder wat will happen one day when i say to the uncle that i'm 23 n studying at NUS instead.

exams over

woke up this morning, feeling a little lost. unlike during exams, which is either wake up do help-sheet or go for exam.

finish watching Mission impossible 3 in the evening. i think it's over-hyped. they somehow must force tom cruise to be the hero, else it wont be called a tom cruise movie. super lame. war of the worlds also slightly lame.

need to get back the feel for bowling, bowling like crap nowadays. i would place a smiley with a crossed eyes look if i could add it in.

monday's coming...

damn...

i seriously wonder how i'm gonna drag all the stuff to chua chu kang.

on one hand

on the other hand.

on one hand, please that exams gonna be over, tommorrow's my last paper.

on the other hand,i dread the coming of 11/12.

y? cause going back for ICT.
u thought it was all over when u got back your pink ic?
no, here comes part 2 of the green nightmare...