You know the order of the world is achanging when you turn on the TV to follow your friends as participants of a reality TV programme.

Last month you were air kissing them and gossiping about what colour it was we had dyed our hair. This week you're following them as they run through the streets of Hong Kong, clean fish and carry handbags.

Reality TV programming and 6 degrees of separation has shifted the dynamics of entertainment to the point where we are being entertained by our friends.

I'm just thinking how fun it'll be to watch Robin and me do the Amazing Race; him with his dramatic antics and operatic / jazz singing & me with my anal retentiveness and methodological approach to everything.

Everyday people, ok maybe quirky everyday people, deciding to dedicate some of their time to win $100,000, discover things about their friendship and entertain everyone while their at it.

This new world of entertainment is fun!!

And it takes the phrase of "We entertain ourselves" to a whole new level.

So we were asked to paint Bangkok FUSCHIA and we had 2 all-nighters over our 4 nights there, had our share of romping around and did quite a lot of shopping so I guess that counts right?

First day was shopping at Zen and here's Robin holding an award for best shopper! His eye for quirky things is amazing so he really deserves this award. There were 30% - 50% mark-downs on all things so it was kind of hard not to shop.


It also helped that we didn't have much to wear so we were spurred to buy t-shirts and shirts for the subsequent nite outs.

The shopping got even more amazing at Platinum Shopping Centre which Robin has never been to. Upon getting there, Robin gave us a time limit of 1 hour. After grabbing a bite at the food-court on the top floor ... we walked floor by floor and eventually ended up spending 3 and a half hours there. By the last 2 floors we kept telling ourselves ... enough already ... we're not gonna buy anything more ... we're just gonna zoom past the floors. But we still ended up buying little things like belts and 3/4 jeans.

This place is amazing. There are many shops on every floor and the thing is to take your time and look at the stuff each shop has as you'll never know when you wud stumble upon a surprise. A lot of the shops design their own stuff so that's even better right!?

Here are pics of the all the shopping we did:


Here's a close up of a shirt that we love ... a gem we found while browsing a t-shirt shop ... each of us bought one of course.


At the end of it all, I think Robin had about 15 new shirts / t-shirts and a lot more other stuff? I just love my new white shoes!

I wanted to go to Siam Paragon to get my Bole sunglasses and some nice Thai designer outfits to wear to functions and events in Malaysia but we didn't have any time left later in the trip. We didn't even make it to the Emerald Buddha which we intended to visit on Monday.

Here we are walking to take the BTS after shopping at Platinum Shopping Centre. Got some interesting pics along the way.


Yup ... that big black bag holds ALL our shopping.

There was this great restaurant near our hotel which Robin dubbed a lesbian joint.


Turns out its gay owned and has been around for 9 years. Has a great menu including a vegetarian selection and we arranged dinner there with some SG frens we bumped in to while in BKK. It was supposed to be a dinner for 9 but due to the long and hard partying the nite before ... it dwindled down to 4.



I didn't hit a sauna at all this trip making it 2 years now since i've been to one in Bangkok. Didn't take off my top at the clubs and only went onto the podium when forced to. Think trying to be low-profiled had its effects as that seemed to get a lot of guys interested to know this "quiet & well-behaved" person. Hahaha ... Bryan was saying he should take notes.

Hit the clubs and you'll definitely meet all the familiar faces from the international party circuit. We also met some friends we sometimes party with so it was great fun seeing them and hanging out into the wee hours.

Last nite at an extension, met a really nice Thai guy from Chiang Mai who's been working in Bangkok for a while. He was really sweet and helped get Robin and me into a cab to the airport on our last day when we realised it was the eve of a public holiday and Bangkok was jammed beyond believe.



What can I say about Bangkok .... it was nice. This time, cause we were hanging out with frens who worked and lived in Bangkok ... and also coz we were at an extension with a lot of locals ... we got a different perspective of the city, the party life and of their culture.

They were a lot more excited this weekend as Tuesday was a major public holiday so the partying on Sunday seemed even better than usual.

We had fun ... Robin and I were just saying we both missed Bangkok ... not sure why cause it wasn't that great a trip like Songkran. But still .. i guess it was coz we had a good time with some frens we never expected to hook up with and it's been awhile since we've both travelled together.

So I might need to visit Bangkok again in late Sept. Wonder if I should visit Platinum Shopping Centre again?

Here's a really grainy video taken from a handphone of robin and me singing "I've got you under my skin".

To prepare for this one song on stage at a small jazz club in KL, Robin kept telling me to listen to all the different versions i could find of the song. Hear how the different singers have interpreted it ... listen to how they've made it their own. Then when I sing it .... know & understand every word ... and make it my own.

I practised and practised and practised for that song with heaps of help from Robin. Nite of the performance ... I was all nerves so we split the song into parts and did it as a duet.

I sang "I've got you under my skin" again at a gay couples' 15th anniversary a few months later and many were surprised. they all loved the song ... and my interpretation of it. Thanks best fren :-)

Its really through Robin that I learnt, not just how to appreciate a singer's interpretation of a song, but how to really sing a song.

My best friend has a concert at the esplanade, 17-20 Jul 2008.

Its got a R(18) rating.

I think its the first concert to have ever gotten one in Singapore. Ain't that something!

Knowing Robin, he'll be singing about being gay and living life to the fullest! And saddest too ... because you have to have those torch songs.

He's a singer who'll sing you his version of the songs he's picked to entertain you for the night.

If there's a story in, about or related to that song ... he'll tell you that story too.

So this is a plug to tell all my LJ friends and anyone reading my blog to go buy a ticket to watch Robin in concert.



HAPPY ROBIN


For more information & to book tickets click here

its nice to have robingoh in KL with me

we haven't spent this much time together for about 2.5 yrs ... ever since my move to KL ... i find him so eccentric now.

the years have really changed the two of us to very different creatures

he's constantly doing one of the following:
- singing to himself
- telling me and junhon how wonderful he is
- talking to jasper in cat language
- being animated
- being dramatic
- rhyming and alliterating
- generally scaring people around him

in our youth ... i used to be the boisterous one and he was the quieter one

funny how we've switched places

dino and jasper lie beside me and junhon and i just look on at his antics

robin found this youtube. its a music video of a song for a movie he had starred in years and years ago called The Road Less Travelled

its not him singing the song .... the singing voice is of another fren Peter

i'll get the track from the movie that robin sings and i'll upload that shortly

ain't robin cute here!! and he looks so young!

got back to singapore late last nite and after arriving at shaoann's place .... we went out to the 24hr coffee shop downstairs so i cud remind myself how tasteless singapore food is.

shaozie's place is very quiet .... even in the morning when i expected to hear people going to work.

singnet being singnet provides useless applications that are of no help for a Mac to get connected so i didn't manage to get online till this morning. wasted 20 mins on the phone with "tech support" before they cud tell me that the modem-cum-router's WEP 64 bit encryption is not supported by Mac. i got so frustrated that i told them ... "just tell me how to get into the modem and i'll go in and tinker around myself"

problem solved in 5 mins ... just need to change the security protocol!!! How difficult is that to talk through!? now Shaozie can take the new iMac out of the box and he can set it up properly

Anyway ... went to see my dentist and had a tooth extracted this morning. lots of blood. argh ... my mouth is still hurting from the ordeal.

went to visit Selena and hang out at her house. here are pictures of me and robin being silly:

sitting at a cafe in taoyuan airport waiting to board a flight back to KL.

feeling blue

the past 5 days just flew by

was really lucky to have frens in taipei to show us around coz we did many things that we normally wudn't have done.

sigh ... getting up at 5.30am to hop into a cab at 6am was a little depressing

stood at the entrance of the airport doors watching the sunrise and a bit of taipei go by

i wish i had a few more days here

my frens hope i might come back maybe in Sept or Oct .... or at least before they make a trip to KL ... that's a thought

gonna miss being irritated to death by robingoh as well

shaoann & robingoh were in KL this weekend. Its been a long time since the 3 of us were together in the same country. It was really nice to hang out together and catch up.



somethings never change ... like dressing alike coz we have the same clothes ... this ocassion was deliberate though :-)

Feeling bored at home so decided to fiddle around with iMovie and I created this ... so fun!!!

robingoh passed me the O2 phone yest and I spent about 4 hours setting it up, downloading things and getting info into it so I can use the PDA phone.

its been awful ....

i've never had to restart my Mac so many times before in a single day. infact ... this is the first day in my entire 3 yrs of using Mac that I've had to restart my computer at all!! all the other Mac programs and things are OK ... just the sync program keeps going into "not responding" mode

windows is damn painful to use especially when there's no drag&drop capabilities.

using it as a phone is even worse .... the number of stupid steps u have to go through just to make a call is ridiculous.

then there's the pain to type / write SMS messages ... i used to send 1,000 plus SMSes a month ... at the rate i SMS ... i doubt I'll even hit 500

and the viewing of ur contacts doesn't make any sense at all

and further stupidity is the way PocketPC displays up-coming events!!!

and i'm not going to get started aboutu using a stylus to write / use a phone

i'm gonna keep trying at this .... can't be that big a Mac snob to just chuck this thing running windows after half a day right!? .... maybe if i give it a few more days things will get better

.... seriously ... i can't wait for the iPhone to reach Asia

so we've been on a break since CNY started and I go back to work tomorrow. this CNY break has been awful on my mid-section

was back in SG Monday to Wednesday with junhon. we ate a lot a lot visiting family and frens. robingoh and junhon visited and my 99 yr-old grandma gave them an ang-pao for good luck.

We went to PowerHouse and all I can say is that it was way too crowded. Everyone said get there late so we arrived at 1.30am hoping to avoid the crunch but the place was packed to the rafters. It was so packed that we decided to leave after one and a half hours and 2 drinks. I can't remember when I left a club way before closing time but all the guys pushing and shoving .. the funny layout that wasn't conducive to walking around ... the long queues at the bar and the ultra long wait to get one's change was just too much.

maybe I'm getting too old for clubbing .. or maybe its just coz I was tired from the drive back to SG and the visiting earlier in the day. shaoann thinks i shud come back on a regular weekend and give it another shot. speedo28 agrees so I'm thinking maybe I should extend my next visit (which is for SJI's class of 87's 20th year reunion) in late March and give PowerHouse another shot.

so back to KL on Wed and it was tennis thur, fri and sat. I'm now super dark and on the brink of being burnt.

today i stayed home and snacked and snacked and snacked. the bad thing about CNY is all the snacks that sit in front of the TV which beckon to you. and the food that sits in the fridge waiting to be cooked and eaten.

sigh .... i gotta go back to the gym to work off the flab around my stomach and get back to some semblance of fitness. motivation ... taipei .... or maybe songkran in Apr. 1 month to get in shape so i can take off my shirt among the lean toned gay circuit boys

Some pictures from the weekend in Penang with my parents and robingoh




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