The Secret Parade

Playing Kiddy Cards Games

This is rather embarrassing, but my repertoire of card games is about as big as Kate Moss’ waist. I remember being taught how to play Dai Dee, Bridge and Poker before, but after five minutes my eyes would start glazing over and people start wondering how I made it this far in the education system. Up till now, I still know Clubs as ‘Cauliflower.’ Enough said.

So the rest ended up having to play brainless card games with me. Stuff that’s suitable for ages 5 and up. Like Heart Attack. And I start laughing to myself like an idiot when I think of the funny moments:

1) When Seow Tian screamed louder than me every single time (and I do yell pretty loudly). He actually kind of screams like Bruce Lee.

2) My reaction time was so slow that sometimes I only ended up putting my hands out AFTER the hand slapping has been done. So I ended up slapping the slapper.

3) The game got so intense and violent that spots of blood started appearing on the bed sheets (we were using the bed as a surface to play). Turned out that Teck Wei’s arm was bleeding. BLEEDING.

4) We kept losing cards because they would fly in all directions, and most of them somehow always ended up under my ass.

From Flab to… Flab

I climbed to the top of the Great Wall in Beijing. I jogged 6km to the Tianjin Eye and back. And I even climbed 80% of a mountain, reaching 1200m above sea level before I had to turn back to catch the train.

As always, I start out very enthusiastic and determined. I always overestimate myself. It’s like that time Jia Long bet me that I couldn’t be demure for a week. I was so confident. Five minutes later, I kicked the door open when leaving class.

Excited and raring to go, blissfully unaware of the pain that was to follow.

THIS IS A PAEDOPHILE’S WONDERLAND. So many precocious little boibois. Too bad the girl with the yellow headband is ruining it. Go away leh. 

At this point I think the fatigue started to mess with my mental faculties.

And… it continued.

But at least I retained a shred of my dignity when I refused to buy a walking stick like the rest of the two jokes did. HAHAHAHAHA. Old fogeys.
It was also hilarious how Teck Wei was being super perky and encouraging like an OGL, but Seow Tian just kept bursting his bubble.

Teck Wei: It's okay guys, take one step at a time.
*proceeds to leap up the steps*
Seow Tian: YOU'RE TAKING TWO.

Teck Wei: It's okay guys, just imagine that there's a 5 star hotel at the top.
Seow Tian: Not as if we're going to stay there...

Teck Wei: Almost there guys, almost there.
Me: THAT'S WHAT YOU SAID TWO HOURS AGO

ICE SKATING

So I began by spending most of the time pointing and laughing at Ben and Jeremy, who were first-timers at ice-skating. Ben was desperately clutching onto the protective panels like how I would cling onto the last slice of prata during a famine. And Jeremy was making a lot of hapless yelping noises, some beyond the frequency of normal human hearing.

And then Maruyi challenged me to a race. We stood at the starting line and I stuck my ass out, ready to chiong.

Me: Okay! ONE, TWO, THREE -

SPLAT.

I’d like to think that it was my un-Asian chest that weighed me down, but I’d honestly have to pin it down to a sheer lack of coordination and balance. I didn’t even fall on my knees or fall sideways, which would at least have been more glamourous.

I fall face-first, my entire body making contact with the ice. Imran and Maruyi immediately rush to my help, concerned and frantic. I’m laughing, which isn’t easy because the wind has been knocked out of me. My first instinct is to check my collarbones to make sure that the other one didn’t break (God forbid I need another scar to create some sort of symmetry). Everything is fine except for spots which I know are going to turn deep purple the next day. All is well with the world - now my only concern is to get up gracefully.

Imran sticks his hand out to help pull me up.

I grab onto his forearm and my butt lifts an inch off the ground before I collapse back into an unglamourous heap on the ice.

You know, I do these things on purpose. Just checking to see if gravity is still working.

PEOPLE

I think I made a crappy first impression. We were all supposed to meet at the Beijing airport at a certain time but my flight got delayed. So because of me, all of them were waiting in the bus bay under the sun for about two hours. HAHAHAHA. When I finally arrived, I started frantically apologizing to everyone and they were all SO nice about it. “Oh, don’t worry about it!” “Oh, it’s okay!” “Oh, it’s fine!”

When I finally got to know the bunch better about a couple of weeks later, I brought up that incident and asked them how they really felt that day.

“YAH I was wondering, who is this stupid woman.”

“I was kind of drunk already and we had to wait for over two hours in the heat. Wah lao I wanted to kill you.”

“And then you came running over in your dress with a big suitcase. Wah, like a bimbo.”

I know that deep down they love me though. Very deep down. :P These are a few things that I will miss about the people:

1) Singing along loudly to cheesy ‘90s boyband music with my roomie in the middle of the night when the both of us are going crazy from writing our paper. And helping her order soy milk from KFC in my sleep.

2) Ernie’s laughter. I have finally found someone in the world with a laughter more horrendous than mine. There is yet hope for my marriage prospects.

3) Jogging to the Tianjin Eye with different people. Taking the wrong route, losing each other and having Teck Wei pace the streets for over half an hour looking for us. Dipping our feet in the water at night before realizing how gross it is when we saw how the river really looked like the next afternoon, and of course, singing along to M2M with the little boy.

4) Bombarding Imran with Malay jokes before realizing than he’s actually Indian. And then, making all sorts of Indian jokes (ACS trained me well for that one).

5) All the times I boo-ed people and got boo-ed in return. Real mature. 

6) Getting all excited over cheap dumplings - Ten for $0.60! And then, getting diarrhea.

7) Telling ghost stories with the girls and screaming when the doorbell rang -.-

8) Protecting the girls from getting hit on by yelling “WE’RE LESBIAN. WE’RE ALL LESBIAN” at anyone who approached us when we were dancing.
9) The numerous heart-to-heart talks on the bus, while touring, in the hotel, and over dessert.
10) Making faces at one another during class presentations 

Feeling depressed now. Shall go soak the pillow with my tears tonight. GOODNIGHT EVERYONE.