Early Chrissie pressie!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! This Christmas is gonna be AWESOME!

• Originally I had to take 25th-10th off wasting my paid leave. I've now scored work for 4th-7th meaning I save 4 days leave = more overseas time.
• I got a GOOD payrise. Lets just hope it doesn't affect my taxes too much
• I got a promotion! Well......I've been in that role for a year now...just that we've never charged the clients for it. Now we're having a new billing system where if they want me, they gotta pay more!
• I got a special pressie from work that is limited to a small number of people only
• Staff party tonight where there will be more pressies!
• BAR TAB!

Merry Christmas all!! LET THE DRINKING BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 15 - Shopping!

My sister had to work today so she left me on my own to do some shopping. I went to my favourite shopping centre and visited my favourite store. Charles and Keith. I LOVE their shoes! They have the newest shoes at the cheapest prices. You would pay from $20-40 for a pair of new season shoes. Now convert that to AUD, you're looking at $15-30. I managed to find the same pair of shoes I bought last time I went to singpore and paid $10 for it! I also managed to buy another 3 pairs of shoes and walked around the rest of the day with 2 bags of Charles and Keith shoes. I went to the local CD/VCD/DVD store to pick up some cheap Chinese TV soapies. They always have a special where you can buy 1 box get 1 free. So this is a good chance for me to buy some of the classics on VCD instead of the videos we've had for about 20years. Most of them have started rotting.

The woman at the store could kinda tell I was one of the insane types because I threw myself onto the shelves and started grabbing things randomly. She noticed that I was struggling to hold my 6 boxes of VCDs as well as juggle about 8 shopping bags. She took all my shopping bags and the VCDs to the counter so I could shop in comfort. I ended up buying so many boxes of CDs and VCDs that I had to catch a cab home. Which was a few blocks away. She also asked me if Charles and Keith was having a massive sale based on the number of shoes I bought......

Oh.....did I mention that I also bought another 3 bags?



That is what I bought FOR MYSELF only. Not too bad considering I only spent 4 hours shopping plus my visit to the warehouse. Besides those bags, I bought another 6 handbags to give to my mum, sister and cousin....

Day 14 - The Flight continued.....

This was an interesting flight. We had one person freaking out about how small and old the plane is, despite the fact that this was the newest fleet of 747s for SIA, and the other one wanted to spend the whole flight passed out or screaming whilst I was busy scabbing free stuff like eye masks. That was when I told them that all the alcohol was free. Cocktails all round! w00t! We arrive in Dubai for a quick change over. Instead of exploring the airport, we RAN back to the terminal to wait 45mins to board a plane because we thought we were going to miss the flight.

We get back onto the plane and as we ask for more eye masks and steal all the toothbrushes in the toilet. We enjoyed the movie "Mean girls" and had a good laugh before scoffing down their plane food. Apparently one of the dishes were made specially by Gordon Ramsey. Seeing that we would never get to eat the food of a famous chef, we had to settle for his version of plane food. Bad idea. Moishii barely made it to the toilet to hurl everything back up. This was when the plane had landed and everyone had jumped into the aisle to gather their suitcases. Moishii had to dash up the aisle and knocking people over only to just miss the toilet. ewwwwwwwww We waited for everyone to file off the plane whilst Moishii reminisced the year of the vomit.

We finally got off the plane at Singapore, just in time for another visit to the bathroom and alot of hurling. This is when I bid them adieu and go visit my sister and the kids. From what I heard, Moishii managed to drag his corpse around the airport to score some duty free before vomiting his way back to the plane.

Meanwhile, I was in a cab on my way to my sisters place. I dropped all my stuff at her place, had a shower and dropped the kids to school then headed straight for the shopping centre. This was when the jetlag set in. The whole shopping centre was spinning, everything was so surreal. I almost passed out at the shoe section, although I suspect that the sales had something to do with that. I managed to score myself a wallet and find my way to the car only to pass out in the passenger seat. Seeing how jetlagged I was, my sister drove me home so I can catch up on some sleep whilst the kids had swimming lessons.

By the time I woke up, it was dinner time. We scoffed some food down, and when my brother in law came home, we left him with all the kids and me and my sister went bag shopping! w00t! We drove to this womens warehouse where she stocked all these vietnamese silk bags. I rummaged through her boxes and boxes of supplies and ended up buying more bags then I could carry! Dragging bags of bags back to the car, we went home so I could crash again. I slept well knowing I had completed my mission to buy all the bags I needed. Or so I thought.....

Day 13 - The flight

At 6:30am we suddenly get a call with Moishii's mum screaming down the phone that we are going to miss the flight if we don't start leaving the hotel! Moishii screams something, slams down the phone and we all go back to sleep. At 7, we get a panic attack, no thanks to my phone's alarm blaring some rock song to wake us up. We fell out of bed, scrambled to get showered and dressed and bolt down to the breakfast hall for some food. We shoved as much food as we can down our throat whilst Moishii managed to lose an Olive that flew over his head and landed somewhere. We were too scared to find out where it landed. We ran back to our rooms and grabbed all our stuff, hailed a taxi and was on our way to Moishii's cousin's place. We get there only to find his mum waiting at the front door panicking thinking we were either going to be late, or we were ditching her and going to the airport ourselves. We left our luggage in the lobby and ran through the rain to "The Barber" for some last minute happy snaps. We get back to the apartment just intime for Moishii to lug all his luggage down three flights of stairs. The best bit? His uncle didn't want to help him move so he sat there eating this breakfast as slow as he can whlist someone lugs down the 30kg suitcase by himself. This is probably why he dropped his ventilator machine that came crashing down three flights of steps!

We finally get into the taxi to the airport after much tears, hugging, photos and last minute screws. The taxi was prebooked the night before to ensure we had a station wagon and we even negotiated the price. 25million to the airport. Only when we got to the airport, the taxi drive said we owed him 45million because we had more luggage than expected. We had a nice bargaining session before some porter ran up to us to help us move our luggage. It cost us 15million for him to push the luggage across the road. FFS. Did we have "rip us off" tattoed on all of our heads?

We get to the airport trying to find our counter to checkin, but because we were so early, we couldn't even check in. So we squatted infront of the counter for about 20 mins whilst drinking coffee that costed me 21million before they let us checkin. Once all the luggage got checked in, we all needed to pee from drinking too much coffee. I walk into the toilet only to find the entire floor flooded with water. Half of the women were semi naked and others were cleaning themselves. I tiptoe to the toilet stalls only to see these women topless in the toilet stalls cleaning themselves!! With what? In toilets in turkey have this funny hose that sticks out where the water comes out to flush the toilet. Somehow, these women had rigged the toilet so the water was continuously running and they were showering with that water!! FFS ITS NOT A FREAKIN BATH-HOUSE YOU KNOW!?

I bolt out of there without peeing to try and find another toilet. Only thing is, someone was panicking about missing the flight even though we had checked in and gone through customs. So for peace of mind, we went to the terminal over an hour and a half early to wait for our flight. Suddenly all the lights in the terminal goes off and we start to panic. What the hell was happening? Was there a terrorist attack? It didn't help that some people were panicking about the size the plane being too small and unsafe. Mind you it's a boeing 747. The lights finally come back on and we run onto the plane. I can't wait to get home. We taxi onto the runway when we come to a skidding halt. The pilot announces that because the run way was under construction, we're supposed to do a 180 degree turn on the runway in order to take off. Unfortunetly, because our plane is so big, we can't actually do that. So we were stopping at the runway to wait for a tow truck to tow us onto the runway and turn us around in the right direction. God am I getting out of this country alive!?

Day 12 - The Swap

We get up early in the morning to pack our freakin bags YET AGAIN to move hotels. Luckily it was literally across the street. We managed to scoff breakfast down before dragging our bags across the road. Then SOMEONE had a bright idea that we should go have a second breakfast! Unfortunetly, we had no idea where the breakfast room was, so we decided to go for a wander whilst avoiding detection by the hotel staff. We bolt down the stairs only for Moishii to run smack bang into a waiter who was cleaning up the breakfast room. The guy asked us where were we going, and what did Moishii reply? "We're trying to get upstairs". Mind you we just came crashiong DOWN the stairs! I mean what type of excuse was that?

Having our second breakfast plans foiled, the only logical thing was to go shop. Grand Bazaar here we come! MAuahaUAah I walked into the place and within 5 minutes, managed to score myself a bracelet. Actually, I didn't even like the bracelet that much. I asked the guy how much was the bracelet and he said 35 million. I offered him 20million whilst he was complaining that the bracelet costs him more than 20million. So I turned and walked off. 50m down the aisle later, I hear this screaming behind me. I turn around and the guy is practically standing on the table waving at me telling me to come back. So we slowly walk back to the guy who was waving like a lunatic. I got the bracelet for 20million. MauHauahaUA The funny thing is......I didn't even want the bracelet. I just wanted to bargain for the sake of bargaining. But then he offered it to me for 20million and I couldn't pass the chance to snatch up such a bargain. How do I know? Because when I went to buy my second bracelet, where I also bargained it down from 30million to 15million whilst waving my new bracelet in his face, the guy told me that 20million is around cost price and I should count myself lucky for scoring that bargain *^_^*

We walk around and some how end up at this jewellery store where someone ends up buying half the store! The guy had to pull out hia reserved supplies for us to raid! I can't remember how much we spent at that store, nor can I remember what the hell we bought. I just remember I almost had to fight a 13y.o girl for a pair of earrings. Oh.....I also made the guy rip off these dangly things from the earrings I want and replaced it with other nicer dangly things from another pair of earrings. :D

Next stop? BELTS! The guy recognised me immediately but he was busy with another customer. So this other guy tried to serve me whilst telling me how much of a "bargain" he was going to give me. He could tell I wasn't interested in the prices he gave me and the word "sucker" wasn't permanetly tattooed into my forehead for a change. The big boss was watching the whole incident when he decided to step in and tell the guy to give it to me at wholesale price. When I heard that, there was a mad rush to grab as many belts as I could hold. I managed to get almost one of every style of belt they had and sat down whilst the guy ordered me a tea for the bargaining process. Despite him offering me the belts at wholesale price, nonetheless, being asian, I had to bargain. I think the guy thought I punched him in the face when I gave him my offering price. Meanwhile, someone was sitting there trying not to laugh whilst I was bargaining with this guy. We finally settled on a price and quickly ran outta there with my goods. Once we turned around the corner, we burst out laughing and practically peed our pants! What the hell was that all about!? God! I wonder how much they rip off other people who don't bargain!

*Insert another incident that we should not mention ever again*

Moishii decided that he would go to his barbar's one more time to get a shave and a haircut, because according to him, it costs him 1million and he's too lazy to shave. So I get ditched at the Grand Bazaar to shop by myself. Bad idea. I did my last minute shopping and buying everything I could get a discount on. Meanwhile I had shop keepers trying to get my attention in buying their crap. If I won't respond to "Hey miss", they'll start yelling "Hey baby!", "Beautiful lady!" or they will try and guess my nationality. "Japanese! Korean! Vietnamese!" I'll have all these people screaming countries at me whilst I'm walking. Can't you see I'm not interested!? Gees!

In between all of this happening, I saw a guy trying to sell a turkish tea set by taking a glass and bashing it against the edge of a table with all his might, an 80y.o guy chasing another guy whlist waving his walking stick over his head and screaming his head off. By this time, I had had enough. Well......not really. The real reason I had to leave was cos they were closing and I got kicked out of the Grand Bazaar.....

Making my way back to the hotel, I managed to buy about another 6 pairs of earrings, get stalked by a freak, have the most disgusting kebab ever made that contained slivers of chicken, carrots, pickles and no sauce in a bread roll. After 2 bites, I chucked the damn thing and bought a few puddings to take back to the hotel. I walked into a restaurant that had fresh made gozleme (turkish pancake of a sort) only for them to tell me that the woman has gone home for the day. I walk out and bump into the next door shop keeper who was screaming at me saying that I should have gone in earlier if I wanted Gozleme. WTF? Go mind your own farkin store! Biatch. With all the freaks on the street, I headed back to the hotel room to hide and pack.

This was when I stick my head out of the hotel room and see Moishii get out of a taxi. I scream at him from my window only for him to think he is hearing voices. When he finally spots the lunatic screaming out of the window, he realises that all this fuss was because I wanted a bottle of water and I couldnt be fucked walking down the street. He bursts into the room throwing the water in my face whilst screaming that he had a near death experience where he was having an asthma attack at the barbar as they were renovating. All renovation had to stop because some inconsiderate prick decided that the will have an attack right then and there.

We also find out, that according to someone's someone, that we had to leave for the airport at 9am even though our flight isnt until 1:30pm. Meaning we had to get to the airport 4hours early! WTF? Are there no normal people in this country!?

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!!

So I get a call today from this woman. Apparently shes from some casting agency where I signed up to be an extra (God knows what I was thinking when I did that). Anyway, part of my application mention that I am asian and I belly dance (Yes it’s astrange combo). She was so excited when she called me because she was so interested in my ability to belly dance. So she told me to come to the filming so she can put me up the front where all the cameras are. Like WTF? She also asked me to bring a costume, although wearing it will be optional. She also asked me to ask all the people in my class if they are interested in coming as well cos then she can put a whole big group of belly dancers on the show!! WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!?