Happy belated New Year to all! I hope you guys had a fun and enjoyable holiday, as well as a fruitful year ahead.

After having gone out drank until late into the night the previous day, I still got up at 7am. Was supposed to meet TH and Sharon for mahjong at my place later. We were short of 1 person. Regular hang out group, Elaine and Sotong both got plans for the day and can't come. So I started asking pp to come my place play mahjong. That and doing a java project for some friends. Anyway, unfortunately, I can't find any person for mahjong.

Then, Elaine told me that she will play if we changed to Sunday (the following day) instead. So we decided to play on Sunday instead. But that leaves us with another problem. What to do for the day. I could have stayed home and do the java projects, but it's a bit, for want of a better word, sian. Sharon suggested going JB, yes JB again, and JB we go.

We met at about 3:30pm at Kranji MRT. There are very little people at the custom this time when we reached there. Those who wanted to go Malaysia for the holidays have mostly done that in the morning or the night before I guess.

I wanted to get this stripped shirt that I saw 2 weeks ago. It's sold in the Factory Outlet at City Square. Unfortunately, it's all sold out except for 1 L size which is too large for me. I wanted to get a S.

Sharon went to check out a Genting promotion where it's only RM$45 for 1 night's stay per person. It's quite cheap, but unfortunately, she couldn't get the tickets for a convenient time.

[IMAGE: Tickets to The Promise]

Having done what we set out to do barely 1/2 hour after clearing the custom, what do we do next? Movies.

[IMAGE: The Promise]

The story is a bit crappy. Overall, the story line is ok, but it's littered with ridiculous scenes. The ending could have saved the story, but instead of using it as a meaningful conclusion, they chose to turn it into another crappy event. Click here for spoiler.

Hide spoiler.

[IMAGE: Destiny]

The story is about a girl, Qing Cheng who became the most beautiful princess in the world but will never experience true love. Even if she did, it will be short lived. Unless the river flows upstream, the time goes backward, the dead comes alive, or so said the Destiny Goddess. The Destiny Goddess is a funny looking goddess. The hair is always flying up like there's a wind blowing from under. The skirt doesn't fly up though the tail (do you call it tail) is flying up. And there's a halo as well. The hair flies thru the hair halo.

[IMAGE: The General]

Guang Ming is a great but ruthless general. He used an army of 3000 to defeat an army of 20000. I may have remembered the numbers wrongly, but you get the idea, overwhelming odds. He achieved this by sacrificing 133 slaves that he bought specifically for this batter.

[IMAGE: The Slave]

He also had help from this slave, Kun Lun, who can run exceptionally fast. He can gallop faster than buffalo stampede while on his fours. Impressed by his ability, the general decided to keep the Kun Lun with him.

The general is tasked to rescue the King from the evil Duke. He is injured while on the way to the palace, and he tasks Kun Lun to take his armour and go rescue the King in his name. He Told Kun Lun the king is the 1 without the sword.

[IMAGE: The Princess]

Qing Cheng is now the King's wife. He is being held in a coup by the duke. He used Qing Cheng's beauty to mesmerized Duke's troops to put down their weapons. However, since he treated Qing Cheng badly, she turned the table against him by making all the troops points their weapons at him again. In a fit of anger, he raises a sword and attempt to kill Qing Cheng.

When Kun Lun arrived, he saw the King holding a sword attempting to kill defenseless Qing Cheng. Seeing Qing Cheng in danger, he threw his own sword at the king, killing him, and escaped with Qing Cheng. They were chased by the duke to a cliff. And there, Kun Lun jumps off the edge of the mountain in return for the duke letting Qing Cheng off. Qing Cheng is touched by his actions and fell in love with the general in the Crimson Armour.

When the general recovered, he rescues Qing Cheng in his own armour from the duke. He fell in love with the princess in the process and he retired. They lived together in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Not happily ever after though.

[IMAGE: The Duke]

He was captured by the duke later and to be tried for killing the king. In the meanwhile, Kun Lun also discovered that the duke massacred his tribe, including his mum and sister. He learns the truth by running so fast that he manages to run backwards in time. However the river of time still stands between him and tribe and he sees them die right in front of his eyes not being able to do anything. He was very angry and aggrieved and vowed to take vengeance. He also learned that the duke has a magical robe that lets a human transcends time and cross the river of time.

He attempted to rescue the general and engage his help in killing the duke, but the general has become disillusioned and chose to face the punishment for a crime that he did not commit.

During the trial, Qing Cheng discovers that Kun Lun is the one who killed the king and not Guang Ming. She is very disappointed in him. However, the 3 of them is now captured by the duke, who is going to kill them.

At the beginning of the movie, there's a scene where little Qing Cheng scavenging for food among dead soldiers. She was caught by a little boy who claims that the soldiers belong to his dad's army and thus all properties in the battlefield belong to him. Qing Cheng promised to be his slave if he unties the rope binding her, but she went back on her word and escaped.

At the end of this movie, the duke revealed that he is this little boy. He blames Qing Cheng for robbing him of his faith in the human race when she cheated him when young. Now, I liked this part, though half the cinema erupted in laughter when he said this. I thought this is a nice touch, but since the series of crappy moments in front turns this part into another crappy moment as well.

Anyway, Guang Ming manages to escape from his binds and had a fight with the duke. the 2 of them died in this fight. Kun Lun manages to escape put on magical robe and you see the river of time flows upward. Now Kun Lun can turn back the time. The river is moving upstream. Qing Cheng's true love, Guang Ming, is dead. The last ingredient to let Qing Cheng get her true love is to make Guang Ming come back to life.But alas, that's not in the plans of the scriptwriter and producer. Instead, they make Qing Cheng and Kun Lun fly to the sky like Superman and Lois.

Grr. At least the special effects not bad.

After movie, we went to Pelangi Plaza. I wanted to try rabbit meat again. The last time that I come, it's not cooked nicely. This time I am hoping to try another restaurant, but apparently, that's the only 1 left. So we gave it a 2nd chance.

We went there in a taxi. The driver offers to bring us to some disco that is offering free dinner and free drinks. Sounds like a good offer, but we are a bit skeptical, so we declined.

[IMAGE: Dinner]

The rabbit is not nice. At least the frog is nice. The pork chop and veggie is not bad. Don’t think I'll go back there again after disappointing me twice. At least we saw some fireworks outside the restaurant though.

[IMAGE: Passport]

After dinner, we make our way back home. Again, there are not much people at the custom. We cleared it like a breeze. TH wanted to sing, so we go to Tanjong Pagar Party World only to find that it will cost us $130+ which is very expensive. So we left. We had our countdown outside the party world. So happening.

[QUICKTIME: Fireworks]

After leaving Party World, we managed to catch another display of fireworks. This is much better than those we saw up north earlier.

The 3 of us were wondering aimlessly around. We thought of going to the Boat Quay Coffee Club, so we slowly walk there. We bumped into Kristine along the way. She's going to some KTV, should be the Tea Lover House.

Then, we bumped into a Taiwanese couple. They have just arrived in Singapore for holiday this morning. They asked us for directions to walk to Orchard Road!! And they also enquired about walking to their hotel, which is at Tanah Merah. We were at Hong Lim Garden. Anyway, since we nothing much to do, we decide to bring them to Orchard Road. We barely walked 100m when the lady complained of aches at her foot. It must be her boots. The guy asked us where in the vicinity where they can buy a pair of slippers, of course we won't know, it's after 12mn. So they took a cab back to hotel.

And we continue on our way to Boat Quay.

We passed by a 7-11 along the way, and Sharon went in and find that they do sell slippers. :P

We reached the Coffee Club slightly before 1 am. It's full house. We walked along the stretch at Circular Road. All pubs are full. Just as we were about to give up and go home, we saw this:

[IMAGE: Pit Stop]

Pitstop Cafe We saw the sign at level 1. It's at level 3. We climbed a very long flight of stairs before finally reaching it.

It's a decent place. I can't remember exactly, but I think the charges at Minds is slightly cheaper at $2 or $2.50 per hour. It's $3 per hour at Pit Stop. They don't normally open till so late, but since it's holidays, they made an exception. The people there are quite friendly. They recommend us games which are quite fun. They even teach us the games.

[IMAGE: Galloping Pig]

This game is called the Galloping Pig.

[IMAGE: Game 2]

I forgot the name of this game. Everyday, 12 men will be executed. We supposed to choose which men to save. Different points are awarded to the people we saved and those with the most points after 3 days, wins.

Game 3 I forgot to take pictures. It's arranging blocks on the board in such a way that we cover the most territory.

The games we played there are quite fun. You guys and girls can check it out if you want.

We laze around at their sofa for awhile more before making our way to the bus stop. It's TH's first time taking night bus. He's always been taking taxi. There are a lot of people at the bus stop despite it being quite late. Such is the wonders of the New Year's Eve. Th's bus is NR1, and it came pretty fast. I can take NR5 and Nr8, but Sharon can only take NR5, so I forgo NR8. We waited a long time, and NR5 still do not come. Sharon concludes that it is going to be very packed when it did arrived, so she decided that she';; take NR8 with me to my place, then change to NR5 there. Hopefully the bus will be less crowded when it reached my place.

We reached the bus stop near my place at about 4:30am. We waited until 5am before NR5 came. It should be the last bus. And to make it worse, there's a slight drizzle, and there are a lot of ants crawling on the floor of the bus stop. Some of it climbed up my sandals and bit me. So Sharon and I have to endure the rain. Better that than being bitten by ants.

Finally the bus came, and I walk back and sleep. There's Mahjong next day at 2pm...