Memorable Beyond Measure
Looks yummy enough? These are the empal penyet and soto ayam that I ate today.
Since today was the day after the exam, me and my friends decided to have an outing together while celebrating three of our classmates’ birthdays - Andy, Ranjit and Girish. We went to Ayam Penyet RIA in Lucky Plaza together to have dinner. There were about 15 of us taking the space in that small restaurant and we ordered food like there was no tomorrow. I ate steamed rice plus empal penyet (smashed beef steak) and soto ayam (some kind of a chicken soup) and drank a big glass of milo which filled my stomach to the max, feeling very satisfied.
Since we started the dinner on 7.30pm, when the dinner ended, the night was still young, so we decided to take a walk to the Coffee Bean near Paragon to have a chit chat and let the food in our stomaches go down. We talked about things until it was around 9.00pm, then we decided that we were going to have a little game of pool to lighten up the night. So off to Lucky Plaza again we go, but before we leave, I got an SMS from Aji telling me that Gerry, an old friend of ours from our high school days in Indonesia is coming to Singapore and that they are eating at the moment in a Thai restaurant at Takashimaya. What a coincidence, the Coffee Bean is right in front of Takashimaya! So after receiving directions, I just run up across the road to the Thai restaurant on the fourth floor of Takashimaya…
It didn’t take me too long to find where the Thai restaurant was, and thanks to the glass windows I can see Gerry and Aji from outside. I came in and sat. For Aji and Gerry, it was their first meeting in six years after Gerry went to Australia in 2000 to continue his education. I already met Gerry last year when I was strolling around Pakuwon Trade Centre in Surabaya, but nonetheless meeting an old friend far from home is good. Since Gerry would return the next day, we decided to spend a long night and go watch a movie. We went to Cathay cineplex and choose The Banquet, which will play from 12.15am. At that time it was still around 11 pm so we went back to Gerry’s room in Phoenix hotel to have a chat about the old days and what has happened during these six long years. Turns out that a lot of our friends were already married and having families. Hmmm… life feels so fast, don’t you think? I’m sure Rita would agree with me.
At 12 pm we returned to watch the movie. This was a brilliant Chinese epic kind of movie that far outclassed even Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Zhang Ziyi performed superbly here, being the evil empress who seeks to fulfill her desire for power. Daniel Wu, who usually played bastard guys, like his role in The New Police Story against Jackie Chan, played exceptionally well as the Crown Prince here. Zhou Xun also managed to capture the emotion and feelings of the audience with her moving, sad and somewhat tragic love story (move away please, Lake House!). All in all this movie is a must watch which I will highly recommend to you all. This is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen and it will rank very high on my movie list. You’ll miss something really great if you miss this movie, especially if you love Chinese epics, art, drama and performances. The movie itself is a very splendid work of art, the cinemarography, art direction and musical arrangements are beyond amazing. Wow.
It’s about 2.30am by the time we finished watching the movie. After saying goodbyes, I went back to my home in Redhill by taxi, as there was no more MRT service during this hour and I don’t know the bus route to go home from there.
Sleeping at 4 in the morning, I took a long rest and woke up at 11. After cleaning up and eating lunch I went to GPO at 2.30pm for vocal group practice, and afterwards youth fellowship at 4.15pm. After the youth finished, we arranged a plan to go to DXO - a dance club of sorts which photos you can see above - to support our friend Yustina (and all other GPO youth friends who were there as her models). She was having a fashion show as part of her final project, and the chosen venue was DXO, so off we go right from church to a dance club. Talk about moving from light to darkness so fast!
Welcome to Sin City. That was the theme of the fashion show where the seven students are assigned their own themes based on the infamous seven sins. Yustina got the theme of LUST (yes, LUST) so their costumes will be mainly red in colour.
The night unveils to be a very amazing night. From the first group, GREED I think, there was a very mafia looking guy with very short white hair, wearing glasses, with wooly costume and opened shirt revealing his muscles and tattoo. I was thinking where the heck did they hire a yakuza like that… And one performer from the last group, PRIDE, was… shocking. The man just wore a white underwear (yes, KOLOR, Indonesians!), ONLY that, plus some kind of feathery ornament. He seems to be very proud of his firm muscles, abs and six pack, but man, talk about wearing only that in front of more than one hundred person audience… whoa!
Our friends’ performance were amazing too! We rooted for them and took pictures and videos of them, though it’s better to leave them unpublished at the moment, before I get their permission. They managed to convey the theme of LUST amazingly (doh, for a second I forgot that they were churchies, haha) and their red/black costumes look very amazingly made. Their hairdos also look fabulous, man, those were some amazing style from an amateur (maybe not even amateur, she was still a student!). So proud to have them as friends, though, I don’t think these kinds of costumes will ever be used in any church dramas, events or the likes, hahaha. So with the ending of the night, it ended an amazing experience for me. Dance club, friends’ fashion show, groovy music… whoa. This must be simply be my best night in Singapore ever since I came here.
These two days turned to be very amazing, especially the last one. I will forever treasure these memories, as these two days are days I spend with my dear friends, old and new. It feels… complete. The first one was with my campus friends, the second one was with my old friends from my highschool days and the last one was with my new friends from the youth. There could be nothing more I can ever ask for, no better way to spend two days. I will forever treasure these two days, for they are memorable beyond measure.
Thank GOD for this Friday and Saturday.
