I miss Singapore. I didn’t think I did until the Yapps, the two Chuas and I went there last weekend. The efficient transport system, the shopping, the food, heck, even the ah lians and ah bengs - I miss them all. I miss the times when I could just pack up and travel all the way down south for the weekend, or when I used to stay there for two weeks at a time for the film fest.
But that’s all in the past.
There’s always going to be one smartass in a group.
My Singapore weekend was pretty tiring. Since I don’t travel much anymore (BUT WHYYYYYY????), I find it rather tiring to go from one place to another, even if it is in a tiny city like Singapore. Is this what they call, gettin’ old, mayhaps?
Doesn’t matter lah.
The two weddings I attended were beautiful and pretty emotional too. Of course, I had to get drunk at Mr and Mrs E.Teo Cina’s wedding (I realised then that I have low tolerance for champers), otherwise nobody would have known that I was actually there.
Luckily, Rats’s mum had a shopping crisis in town so we plus the tall R left the do before I managed to make my way to the piano dude and demanded he play Bohemian Rhapsody in E minor.
Ah, good times with friends and family.
Ees good, no?
Speaking of family, the troops will be marching in at De Villa this Sunday. Yay! Better get the guest soaps and towels out…
Oh, go watch Happy Feet. Ees funny. You know you like it, no you do…
Calling all former St Francis Convent Secondary School Class of 93 students! Follow the link below…
http://sfc-reunion.blogspot.com/
Now who was it who said I didn’t know how to post a short and sweet message, huh?
I got a little nostalgic last week. What triggered it was this new ice-cream kiosk that opened at my regular haunt. It had a Carpigiani machine. Can anybody tell me what a Carpigiani machine is?
Yes? You at the back?
"It’s an ice-cream machine ma’am. From Italy. It makes delicious ice-creams."
Uh-huh. That’s right folks. A freakin’ ice-cream machine got me reminiscing the good ol’ days of yore when me and the friends thought that Fido-Dido bermudas were so cool and that NKOTB songs were the only songs worth singing to (yes, I am exaggerating, fool).
You see, when we were much, much younger, there used to be this ice-cream truck that went by all the neighbourhoods in KK. There was only one truck at first, mind you, and we know it so because that truck would only come around to your part of town, like once a week. Two if you’re lucky. But later on, a few people claim to have seen more trucks going about town, and I suppose it was because the demand for ice-cream grew tenfold or something, thanks to greedy kids like myself and many of my friends (who are soooo denying it right now).
Anyway, this ice-cream truck sold yummy ice-cream. Ice-cream that wasn’t like the kind they sold at supermarkets in cartons and tubs. Ice-cream that was so creamy and rich, you’d be super satisfied with just one cone. It was cheap too - 50 sen a cone, RM1 for a double serving. Plus, there were only two flavours - vanilla and chocolate - so it was easy to choose. No need to mull for days over which bloody flavour to get from 33 choices (wink, wink).
In case you’re still wondering (also translated to: In case you’re to thick to get it…), the ice-cream truck I am referring to sells ice-cream made from the Carpigiani machine. We used to call the ice-cream "Capri", mainly because the truck had a sign that read "Carpi", but it was in brush script (it’s a type of font, yes, I’m showing off my skills) so it was kinda hard to read. Everyone thought it was Capri, and that the guy who owns the truck misspelled it or something.
Also, Capri sounds much nicer than Carpi…
It didn’t help too that there was a fancy schmancy (at least to us kids) restaurant in town called Caprilla that also sold Carpigiani ice-creams.
But back in the day, nobody knew what gelato was. Nobody had even heard of the word, until one by one my friends left town for the greener and dirtier pastures of KL. Soon, stories about this lovely thing called "gelato" reached my letterbox. I was jealous of "those people" who had tried gelato and couldn’t eat enough of it.
When I finally had the chance to eat a great big serving of gelato, I was thrilled. I thought that the world was complete again. Yes, it was that dramatic and no, I am not a country hick.
Little did we all know that we had been eating gelato all our lives.
That’s right. Those hundreds of gallons of ice-cream we consumed from the good ol’ Carpigiani machine when we were young were in fact, soft gelato.
Aiyo.
And those blasted ice-blended and frappucino drinks we all love so much? Yu-Yu Ice (if you’re from KK, you’ll know what they are, no matter how pretentious you have become). Well, okay, not really Yu-Yu Ice but hey, it’s the same basic preparation: Get ice, put in blender, pour in flavoured drink, blend, serve in plastic cup.
Anyway, back on my nostalgic trip…
Last weekend I saw this movie I haven’t seen in more than 20 years. It was The Bad News Bears 2. I used to love that film, mainly because I had a crush on Kelly Leak. Looking at him now, he was actually kinda ugly hahaha. But I was a fat kid who went to a Convent school and Kelly Leak was a skinny 13-year-old boy with a ‘tude who smoked Marlboros, drove a van all the way from California to Houston, and rode around in those big motorbikes.
Kelly Leak was a rebel, but one with a good heart. He was a confused and misunderstood kid whose bark was worse than his bite. And I liked him so. 
Ah, the good ol’ days….
Last week marked the 10th anniversary of my working for The Star. Yes, THAT long. I forgot all about it, actually. It only came to me this morning, on my way to work. Every year, on my anniversary, I would do something, anything - bake cake, eat cake, buy shoes, whatever.
So I guess I missed that this year. How sad.
Ah well. Singapore beckons and so are those shoes that I know I will buy. How many shoes do you think I should get to commemorate the 10th year of my working life?
