The land of 7-11 and Starbucks...Allo folks, I'm finally back. MY head is a bit wozzy now cos i just took some cough mixture and other funny pills cause i had a hint of URTI. Feeling rather high and imbalanced right now. I only had a cocktail of two kinds of medication. However if you take like maybe procodine, piriton, anarex or some antibiotics, hell, you'll be seeing flying elephants man....hahahahaha
Anyways, during last weekend, my funky mates from SNU, Salsa Nuts Unite!, and i went for our first overseas blitzkerg salsa mission. I call it OPERATION: SALSA STRIKE KL. lol... It was a fun filled and memorable 3d2n for all of us. The experience that we had, the bonding, the quirkiness of each and everyone one of us and the snails we ate will always be close to my heart.
Before i procceed to serve up the main course of the trip, let me first appertize you about what the hell SNU is. We are basically a group of salsaeros and salsaeras that got to know each other from salsa lessons and also from union square. After hanging out together for a while, most of us thought that well, "these guys are cool man" So after even more nights at union square and subsequent suppers at the prata shop, we slowly felt a weird sense of belonging to each other. So after the ceremonial initiation prata (a more delicious and fun way of of joining the group compared to cutting yer finger and dripping blood into a communal cup for all to drink....lol) at the nearby prata shop, Clarence decided to name us SalsaNutsUnite! and gave us opur first home, a yahoo group...lol As of why he chose that name, i suspect that he decided upon it after 3 shots of absolut vodka and 2 cans of beer...hahahaha.
We have a variety of characters in our group. We have an international membership of high flyers including architects, pharmacists, chemists, secretaries, people in the advertising line, civil servants, future undergrads of SMU and NUS, a JC student, a violinist, possible Singapore idol 06 and other leaders in other fields of expertise....lol Thus with such a diverse and explosive mix, fun is always the order of the day.
Anyways, things have moved on quickly since then. We have since filmed a salsa video ( still been edited) and went on a trip to KL. Other things like our very own webbie and highly anticipated shirt are in the pipeline. And no, you won't be able to get our uber exclusive shirts for $6.95 at Carrefour...lol
SalsaNuts
Ok, back to the trip. I have to say, it was insanely enjoyable. We set off from golden mile complex on the 20th at around 2.30pm. Jean got us seats on a spankingly comfortable blue grassland coach. They even had an in-bus movie!(however, i suspect the vcd they used is pirated cos the movie kept skipping...lol) The seats were spacious and i actually had enough leg room. Clarence had a poratble speaker and so he began to blast salsa music on the bus. Maybe he wanted to preach salsa to the people on board and then again maybe he was psyching us up for the trip lol...
And the mayhem begins
Serene with some dark freaky shadow
Jackson off in lalaland
Julianae all bright and cheery...
~ I am a stone... I am a stone...~
Jwo contemplating deeply about that bloody move...
Argh my legs getting caught in this ancient device of torture
And so, we started entertaining ourselves will cards, music and good ol' fashioned nonscene...lol. As for me, i began my career as a paparazzi in the making by taking incriminating photos of everyone onboard. My ultimate lvl 6 skill is continuous photo shots for 3 hours, dealing 6oo dmg per shot, stunning targetted unit for 3.5secs and blinding to cause the targetted unit to miss 73% of its attacks....wahahahahah. We had a rest stop along the North South (aka Non Stop) highway. Freshened and rested up abit and had some food. We boarded the bus again and continued clowning around.
Rest stop
Was this the msyterious white stuff... ...
... ... that freaked Serene out?
I was along ride, a total of 6 freakin hours!!! It could have been shorter if not for a jam on the highway and in KL itself. Upon reaching KL, we were promptly greeted by jerry... ... WITH A MERCEDES E CLASS!!!! WOAH!!! Wad can i say man? SNU TRAVELS IN STYLE!!!! WAHAHAHAHAHHA. Anyways, we then trooped off to julianae's apartment, which is in the heart of KL city, opposite Berjaya times square. Its location is super convienient. Her apartment wasn't the Ritz but i felt that it was comparable to the Marriot....lol.
Like i said, SNU travels in style
SNU's KL base camp
I washed this toilet, I'm so prouda myself :)
We touched up our base camp and finalised our plans. Jery decided to bring us to Wing's cafe for dinner. It was a music cafe with a live music act consisting of a guitarist and a vocalist. It had a nice warm lurvy dubby atmosphere to it. The food there wasn't spectacular but it was still passable. We enjoyed the sweet serenade, the food and each other's company. Julianae then decided to strut her stuff and went on stage to sing for all of us. We were all blown away ....lol This gal can sure sing...wahahahahah. I felt that she even out sung the resident vocalist...wahahahahaha. You go girl. You definately will make it big one day... :)
Wings from the outside
The performance stage
Singapore idol 06's debut performance
Her loyal supportive fans
After dinner, it was off to salsa. Our first stop was Q Bar, located at the Marriot hotel. It was a rather chic place, lots of ang mohs (presumably from the hotel) and locals too. I think the it is actually just a nice chill out cum dance bar. It seems that salsa music is only played on certain nights, unlike union square. Anyways, it was packed, very packed. The music was also very loud, a bit too loud for my liking. I had my first dance with jul on the pavement outside the bar. We decided to deposit our bags at the conceige before we went back and squeezed into the middle of the dance floor. It was way too packed for salsa so we just pranced around.....lol. The resident latin band came on to perform its last set. We tried to salsa as best as we could. Well, i wasn't very keen. There's nothing like a crowded dancefloor that turns me off. After the the band stopped, we left too.
Giant floating pumpkins
We started walking to a different part of town. Along the way, we realised that KL has way toooooooo many 7-11s and starbucks. Some were so ridiculously near each other that they were practically staring at each other across the road. Wad the hell?! Is this their take on trying to be the city that never sleeps? lol.
Making big bucks outta coffee...
Anyways, we reached another part of the city in our quest to find a bar called Little Havana. We eventually found it in a really run down district, with dilapilitated houses, many dark corners and a sleezy dance club called the Frangipani. It was scary cause it really looked so similar to the settings of many a horror and slasher flicks with madmen and monster waiting to lunge at you from any possible dark corner. We started to walk more closely together with the guys providing close escort support for the ladies. Little havana was closed by the time we got there. We were rather dissapointed but even if it were still open, i doubt that we had enough energy to salsa though.lol
After visiting a nearby 24 hr shop to rehydrate ourselves, we embarked on a route march back to base camp which was seriously quite far away. We reached the apartment at about 3am and settled down for the night. Clarence decided to watch white noise which freaked him out. I wasn't watching cos i was trying to sleep in the room but since it was white noise, there was lotsa freaky sounds which also in turn freaked me out. I slept at 5.
We woke up the next day or rather later that day at around 12pm. Yesh, i noe. We are lazy people....lol. Clarence and i went down to get some coffee from starbucks. We ordered a total of 9 drinks. I also had a marble cheese cake. By the time we finally managed to haul our lazy asses out of the house, it was about 1 plus. We decided to got to Sunway pyramid for lunch as we wanted to visit the ice skating ring there. The menu for that meal was chinese food decided by the gals. After lunch, we gave ice skating a miss cause there was going to be an ice hockey game soon and the time available for us was too short. Instead, we went shopping instead. The shopping center was big. I managed to buy a pair of jeans and a British India silk shirt :). We also took a walk down memory lane as we found an A&W fastfood restaurant still in operation. It was then that jackson inspired a new move called the swipe!!! All i will say about the incident is that it involved jackson, a large A&W glass cup and a plastic bag. I wont go into details...hahahahaha
Couple outfits?!?!?!
OMG!!!! Jean shrunk yet again
The 3 nutty ones
Damn... i look sooo good...wahahahahah
We're going shopping!!!
The endangered fastfood restaurant
ET go home...
I say again.... DON'T PISS HER OFF...lol
Upon gathering back again at 5.45pm, jerry introduced a friend to us. The best part was that he also drove a car and so he gave the rest of us a lift back to jul's apartment. Some of us decided to hit BT square upon touch down and it was then that i got my self a blue Jeep shirt which was on sale at RM44.95.
This is how jerry looks when he's driving
Later on at about 8.45pm after resup at base camp, we hit a nice place called the ship for dinner before our target for the night. It supposedly served "the best steak in town". The setting was posh and unique. Being ship themed, the staff were all clad in sailor uniforms and stuff. We ordered lotsa food like brandy steaks, mixed grills, Barnie stone grills, seafood and... ... SNAILS!!!!! hahahahahaha. Escargot to be exact. ( Hmm... ... i wonder why de hell does escargot gotta be only french snails? Damn snobbish leh... Maybe next time i'll just go down to the garden and catch some common garden snails, cook them and serve tham as Sgcargot... and call it an exquisite local exotic dish....wahahahahahha). The snails were great especially in the garlic sauce that they were served in.
My mixed grill
French snails
Look ma, im eating snails
Jul wanted to order a rare brandy steak but after the waiter gave her a Duh look, she changed it to medium rare instead. Maybe the waiter just wasn't ready to drag a live cow out for jul to carve up...lol. Dinner was was generally good and the prices were reasonable. I dare say that everyone enjoyed it.
The brandy was actually burning on the steak but the flash from my cam ruined it... ...
Jackson's Barnie stone grill
Long lost sibilings
Happy and well fed
The next stop was Salsa Havana at Federal Hotel. It was still early when we got there and thus it was stil relatively empty. There was no cover charge but we had to buy 1 drink. The place was the shape of a rough rectangle. We snuggled down into a couple of tables and started to dance. As the night drew on, the place grew more crowded. A distinct group started forming up at a table in our vicinity. I felt that there was a smell of competition in the air. One group would dance for a song, followed by the next group.
Salsa Havana!!!
All i can say is that WE ROCKED!!!! WAHAHAHAHA. The msians had nice body movements and styling but lacked more complex turn patterns. We on the other hand lost out in terms of styling and body movement but more than made up for it with our flashy and complicated turn patterns...lol We we danced, the competition gave us funny looks. Some of us said it was in awe, others feel that it was more like "wad de hell"...lol... As a whole, i must say the msians danced well but we danced even better...hahah
The battlefield
Jerry struck up a conversation with some of them and realised that they were dancing cuban salsa as opposed to LA salsa that we were dancing, were explained the lack opf complex turn patterns as cuban salsa focused more on the footsteps and body movements i think.
Jwo meditating as usual
I also realised that the ladies that danced salsa in KL were generally taller then those in sg...hahahah. I had a couple of dances with them and found out that they generaaly did not give enough tension and tend to anticipate moves causing them to be harder to lead, religating me to do only the more basic stuff. This was true for most of the ladies except for one whom i later found out from jerry was actually a performer.hahahah Can you imagine a student who has only taken lessons up to inter 3 1st lesson can actually dance with a performer? lol
There was one guy who was damn good. He was wearing a hat with a red band in the center. He was super fluid and flashy. His body movement was god like and his merengue caused our jaw to drop in awe. He could turn his partner like 30 plus times in a row!!???!??!?! Woah...lol
Other than him, i felt that the rest weren't exactly spectacular. The guys were also reserved and only one or two guys actaully approached our ladies for dances. We on the other hand were dancing like nobody's business with the msian ladies (or was it just me....lol).
SNU SEF operation salsa strike KL, mission acomplished
It was also then that jean was picked up by a cute guy who claimed to be drunk. If jean can do it so can you....lol. Learn salsa, join SNU and getting picked up by cute guys will be a breeze...hahahahah
Jean's cute guy
At around 3am, we left for base camp after dancing our hearts out and my custom made black bossini shirt started to change its design...hahahaha. The movie that night was Elektra, starring a goregous lady in red. I rached lala land at around 5am.
The next day was a blur. We mostly packed up and prepared for the trip home. We had a quick lunch at mac's at BTS before boarding our ride home. The ride backed seemed shorter and was uneventful. I guess all of us were to tired. We rested on the trip back which seemed shorter than the one we had 2 days back.
Eilieen must be trained in the art of smoking out cos this the only photo i managed to take of her...
I told you we were tired
Our ride home
When we returned to singapore and hit golden mile complex yet again, we had dinner at the food center across the road before taking a cab down to DXO for yet another salsa party. When we reached the esplanade and unloaded our barang barang, i thin many thought that we were performers or something due to the luggage we were carrying and our bus-lag faces. We linked up with the rest of the gang, namely Shervonne, Adrian and Darius (aka Bacarradi)and changed into our salsa attire before hitting DXO.
I felt the party was so-so, nothing spectaculur. The dance floor wasn't big enough and the place was stuffy. Nevertheless, it was still a change of environment. At least Jackson was happy, having found two white baccardi angels to cozy up too....lol and we had a total of 16 bottles of baccardi brezzers to drink. I was tired and left early at 11.15pm. I heard the rest left soon after 12am.
My pet peeve... packed dance floors
The JJ performance team
Jackson's angels
I would like to take this oppourtunity to take everyone form SNU and the Salsa Expeditionary Force to KL. Life wouldn't be the same without you guys. Special thanks to jul for providing us with a roof our our heads in KL, to Jean for buying the tickets, to jerry for bringing us around KL in a mercedes and all the rest for doing what you do and making all this possible.
SALSA ON!!!! We aint crazy, we're just nuts.....lol
You guys rock!!!
