10 ppl went to Tiong Bahru for dinner. Tiong Bahru is a historical site man! It was like a history field trip! The housing, the restaurant's setting, the fans, the verandas, the streets, the backlanes, etc. Where we sat, it felt like we were transported back into time where ppl used to hold their wedding dinners in the open. And then some drunks would come and make trouble... and then the violent breaking of the beer-bottles scenario would take place, followed by a clash of the parangs in the backlanes. But that aside, dinner was fun and refreshing after a long week.

Just some interesting snippets from dinner.
- The youngest of us all is getting married! Wow!
- It's cheap to get married. Only $20 for certification.
- The slim girls rule at rice consumption!
- A 'fort' built around a certain special someone to prevent her from falling off her chair. =)
- Someone who had an "invisible" boyfriend and someone looking for a part-time girlfriend were "paired" up.
- No one dares to eat the last piece of food left on the plate.


Now for the next part of the story.
3 girls entered a particular restroom and waited outside 3 cubicles. They stood there for a whole 5 minutes chatting happily... while a stranger stood in line behind them. Suddenly one of them wondered aloud, "Why is it taking so long?" and subsequently gave the cubicle door a slight push. And lo and behold! It pushed opened! The cubicle was EMPTY! And you know what? ALL 3 cubicles were EMPTY! =)) They all denied that they were teachers-to-be.

Afterward they proceeded to the playground with a friend. They hopped onto the flying-fox-like swings and started on their ride. Alas, it was too slow for their liking. No loss to the 1 girl who wore a skirt. And one particular law of physics was proved wrong! Bigger size does not translate into faster speed on the swing! =) Then they tried entertaining themselves on obstacle-like balancing beams and certain wooden-stools... and even tried to fling each other off some swingy thingy and some jostling table-like thing. NIE trainees. 1 girl wanted to climb the spider-web, but resisted the temptation, cos her friend was in skirt. Hee.

Next pit stop was MacDonald's. This was educational. We watched a live nature 'documentary'. We observed how a particular lizard planned its attack strategy and preyed on a fly. We saw how it tried various techniques and finally ingeniously hopped near the fly and happily chomped it up. It was a cute light-coloured lizard with pretty "fingers" (fingerlings?) and toes. I think I shall name it Luke. Dunno why too. But we did launch into a little discussion about how you can't kill lizards and how their tails drop and they are freaky. But Luke Luke was cute. =)

To end the whole episode, we toured Singapore in Mr Zhuai's (nah, he's not THAT zhuai...) car and boy, is he a good tourguide! We went "Singapore-Malaysia-Malaysia-Singapore" when we crossed a railway track. We even entered Malaysia-like environment in unfamiliar territory! Had our feel of the built-up environment and the somewhat rustic feel of Singapore. Singapore might be small, but there is so much we don't know about!

Oh well, it was an interesting episode. I hope there are more to come!