Saturday, December 06, 2008

Ben & Jerry's "chunkfest"

WHOA, BABY. You know what's the part I hate most about updating journals? It's editing photos. I wrote this entry three days ago, wanted to post it up, then realised: I have not edited the photos. Three days later, I did it. Hurray!

Ben and Jerry's chunk fest is the worst chunk fest I've ever been to. There was no fest and there was no chunk, only a measly bunch of people gathered around wondering why the hell they were doing there.



Beautiful corporate branding. Tricks you everytime.

First of all, it was located at Fort Canning Hill.

Fort Canning Hill is a place full of danger and peril, especially for people who do not exercise. I was in pants and platform shoes, and by the time I climbed to the third flight of stairs I was huffing and puffing like a mad bull, feeling like I was made to exercise against my will for ice cream.

ME: WHERE IS THE ICE CREAM.
ANOTHER 50 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS: LOL

Halfway through the climb, I turned to my friend. "Can you believe," I said, "that we're actually exercising for ice cream?"

She gave an intellectual nod. "Perhaps this is a warm-up."

Another 10 steps and she wasn't so certain. "Perhaps," she said, "we should go home."

There were a bunch of people in front of us just as lost, and I could tell this from the way they were dressed: not the typical kind of wear you'd find at any nature park; fancy and dolled-up. In fact, they looked exactly like us: meandering around the place like lost sheep, acting cool by looking at road signs and trying to lead the way.

Everyone, I could tell, was lost. Everyone, I could tell also, was reluctant to cave in and ask for directions. Including my friend and I. In fact, I half-expected someone to have a mental breakdown and run screaming down the Hill.

"I bet," I said bitterly, "that in another part of Fort Canning Hill people are lapping at their ice creams delightfully and laughing at the idiots making up their way on 50 flights of stairs."

Finally, we reached the place.

In my wildest dreams, I pictured the fest to be held under great balls of disco lights and wild dancing people. There will be trucks of ice cream queuing up to be eaten. There will be mad dashes for free stuff. There will be stomachaches, but of the happy sort, after which I will write in my blog, "I HAVE EATEN TOO MUCH ICE CREAM," and go to bed dreaming happy dreams.

What I did not expect, however, was this:



A grass patch.

Yummy.

If you do not know what a grass patch feels like on a muddy day with your toes poking out, don't try it. Just... don't.

Now, normally that wouldn't have bothered me if I weren't in pants and platforms. But I was. In pants and platforms.

"Good thing I wore something shorter," my friend said thoughtfully to me.

Here's what the grass patch looks like with people:



To the right of the picture, there is a guy smiling at the camera. It's nice to see someone enjoying himself.

The place had a sad array of activities. There were a bunch of ice cream stalls lying around (Ben and Jerry's website says "12 EXCLUSIVE FLAVORS FROM USA") looking neither tasteful nor exclusive. In fact, I believed I only saw 3-4 stalls and maybe this is attributed to heat hallucinations, but I was more preoccupied with the 12 million people standing around the place. It was nuts, the queue for any stall was insanely long, and any previous thoughts of eating ice cream in calm and serenity were happily defenestrated. (Thanks, Facebook.)

There was also a stage and an emcee, emcee-ing to a bunch of people with more interest in ice cream than games.

EMCEE: AND NOWWW, FOR AN EASIER QUESTION-- WHO IS THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
ME: This is ridiculous.

We decided to queue at the stall with the shorter queue - with about 12 people in front of us. There was a signboard with a list of orders, and a window through which we place our orders. We looked at the signboard.

It says (according to my memory):

Flavours: Strawberry kiwi, Mango Mango, Lemonade,

Sorbert flavours: Lemonade, Mango, Strawberry, Life on the Beach...

"LIFE ON THE BEACH," we said in unison. "NOW THAT'S EXCITING."

All through waiting, I thought of what a medium-sized sorbert "Life on the Beach" ice cream would look like. It would be cold in our hands and freezing on our tongues. It would be huge and completely lovely. It would be reminiscent of life on the beach: dancing around half-naked in your pants and feeling the wind around your chest.

In front of me, the cashier girl picked up an ice cream cup, and I saw, to my horror that it was dreadfully small. Until she passed it to the girl standing in front of me.

My order came.

The girl handed me a medium-sized sorbert drink in a cup.

ME: ...I'm sorry? Is this- is this my order?
CASHIER GIRL: Yes it is...
ME: Er. This is no ice cream. WHERE IS MY ICE CREAM. Can I change my order?

To say I was shocked was putting it mildly. My mind did a double-take and went blank. Years of dreams came crashing down into a nearby drain, splashing mud onto my toes. I thought of taking the sorbert drink and just scurrying away from sheer embarrassment.

But I was a customer and therefore, unreasonable.

"Er. I'm so sorry," I said. "I thought this was ice cream. Do you mind if I change my order?"

The cashier girl looked at me, confused, and then at her supervisor who, thankfully, did not.

"Okay," she said, a while later, dizzy from the heat.

So it turns out that "Life on the Beach" was a sorbert drink, and either we were too blind to see the menu or that it was all actually very silly. Obviously, when you go to an ice cream chunk fest everything you see will resemble ice cream, including but are not limited to, things that are not ice cream.

In the end, we ordered Mango Mango and Lemonade. The Mango was nice but tasted horrible with Lemonade. I caught the cashier girl seeping a sorbert drink, probably wishing that customers were a wee bit smarter.

A few hundred metres from us, the emcee was still emcee-ing.

EMCEE: NOW, YOU GUYS. SAY IT WITH ME: PEACE! LOVE! AAAANDDDD--?
RANDOM GIRL ON STAGE: ICE CREAM!
EMCEE: THAT'S RIGHT! PEACE! LOVE! AND ICE CREAM!
ME: ...I think this is the part when people start to clap.

Some photos:



WHOA, ICE CREAM.



WHOA, NOTHING.



Some floaty thingies in the sky: See I like it so much I added a copyright. About the only thing awesome about the 'fest'.



"This has been a long journey," I said afterwards to my friend. "And only 10% of it involves ice cream."

"We are now on the other side," replied she. "Thinking of the people on the other end of the Hill climbing up 50 flights of stairs."

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Thursday, December 04, 2008

Japan Media Festival

453fdjfaWER#@$#$34 I wrote this entry two days ago but was too lazy to post it up:

Just a short review of Japan Media Arts Festival and I hope it won't drag out for too long, as I'm really bored with myself right now.

JMAF - We went there and looked at things. But before that, we got lost and incurred about $17 worth of charges, including ERP. The world isn't fair. The museum we were going to is called '8Q' and what it stands for is apparently 8th Queen St. Seriously, please don't tell me that a normal conversation with your friend involves mentioning street names. o_o

ME: Hey, I'm going to NAFA. You know how to get there?
FRIEND: ...189655...
ME: Sorry, what?
FRIEND: 80 Bencoolen Street.
ME: Oh, I see. So what you're saying is that I have to get out of Bugis MRT Station, bypass Bugis Junction, walk along MidLink Plaza, cross 3 traffic lights and pause until I see Sunshine Plaza which is just across the street from Cheers and directly facing the school?
FRIEND: Exactly.

NO YOU DON'T SAY THAT. (Or at least I don't, which suggests that the average Singaporean, who takes for granted that he represents the average Singaporean, don't either.)

Instead, a normal conversation about directions usually goes like this:

ME: Hey, I'm going to NAFA. You know how to get there?
FRIEND: Err, let me think, I think it's near Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station.
ME: You think or are you sure?
FRIEND: You hang on ah. I call my boyfriend.
FRIEND'S BOYFRIEND: You hang on ah. I call my mother.
FRIEND'S BOYFRIEND'S MOTHER: You hang on ah. I call my friend.
FRIEND'S BOYFRIEND'S MOTHER'S FRIEND: You hang on ah. I call my sister.

1 hour later,

ME: Err, so what does your boyfriend's mother's friend's sister say?
FRIEND: She says that it's near MidLink Plaza.
ME: Which is where?
FRIEND: You know Waterloo St?
ME: No, I don't. And I don't know Bencoolen St and I don't know Victoria St and I don't know Queen St and if I do I won't be asking you for directions.
FRIEND: Okay, okay. Sorry. You know Bugis MRT right? You go out, you see Bugis Junction? Then I think you cross the street and go left. Then I think you will see a traffic light and you cross that one also. Then you walk a bit and I think you will see Midlink Plaza, and then I think you will see another traffic light so get over to the other side. I think that's very near Sunshine Plaza which is opposite Cheers. Then I think you walk straight until you see that, and across it I think you will see the school.
ME: Oh I see.
ME: I think you need help.


Exactly my point. Do you honestly think that the name will make sense to first-time visitors? Or that recurring visitors will actually remember its name?

WIFE: Honey, there's an exhibition at 8Q. Let's go.
HUSBAND: 8Q?
WIFE: We've been there before, have you forgotten? 8Q is the product of careful consideration and meticulous calculation of a visitor's convenience representing subtly its strategic geographical location at 8th Queen St.
HUSBAND: ...which is WHERE?

Apart from that, the JMAF was rather interesting. I wouldn't say extremely, but it was just like an other exhibitions that you can go to: displays of things that you've never seen before, in this case, games, animation, toys and some coolio-looking Jap tech stuff. Most of the exhibits there will actually wow you in terms of handiwork (detailed, mind-boggling stuff) or remind you that the Japanese enjoys pushing the boundaries of technology.

I am told, however, that the Singapore JMAF is actually at the tip of an iceberg, the real experience to be found only when you attend the massive one at Japan. A tempting proposal, one that I will attempt after winning the lottery.

I can't show you guys any pictures, because we weren't allowed to take them, but possibly you will find some of the exhibits rather exciting. Like the old manga prints of Hokusai, which is where manga originated from, some beautiful linework dating back to the ages which reminds me very much of Disney, and the 2-metre-long spreads of Nodame Cantabile. :)

The one exhibit that really unsettled me was, however, not found in the JMAF. It's located at level 3, if anyone wants to check it out, and it's part of an exhibition done by a group of Singaporean artists, which includes :phunkstudio.

The exhibit is titled and it's displayed in an entire room by itself.

When I entered the room, the first thing that hit me was the smell. I have gone to a number of exhibitions in the past, but never have I come across one that has a smell, and never one like this. It was a mixture of old wood and decomposing matter, or at least that was the first thing that came to my mind: death and decay.

The room was also very dark and very cold, and I felt at once a wave of nausea and fear.

There was a table in the middle of the room, the only place where light was shining on. I walked up to it, and saw on the table among other things: an old, cracked mirror and a pair of scissors - the kind that I would be tempted to pick up and scare my friends, if not for the fact that I was very freaked out myself. Because next to the scissors were photographs of dolls. Many, many dolls. Dolls with their faces broken, dolls with cracks running across their cheeks, dolls with empty eyes, sneering dolls, grinning dolls, dolls with disfigured faces...

If you still can't picture any of these dolls right now, go to Google and look up 'Chucky'.

When I was a kid, apart from Enid Blyton books, I loved dolls. When I went out with my mother, I begged for a Barbie. When I got A for my Chinese exam, I begged to be bought a doll. I've had dolls that were 1-m tall, and dolls that were 15-centimetre short, dolls that came with a playground, even a doll that my mother won at Las Vegas (ironically, with my birthdate). My favourites, however, were still my two porcelain dolls.

Now, the things is, I'm also an avid listener of ghost stories. Ghost stories, I believe, are the greatest ice breakers ever. You don't have to make room for small talk, don't have to feel awkward that you can't small talk, and when your new friend tells you a ghost story that scares off your pants, then the both of you can be scared off the pants together.

I know that dolls often play huge roles in horror stories. And I probably can guess why. It's because they are flat and lifeless no matter how you access them. It's because they look like humans, and humans are fearful of anything that look like them - especially something as cold and empty as a doll.

Now, I would go on describing to you what else there was in the exhibition (a small wardrobe, coffins and photographs of more dolls) but I think the effective thing would be to visit it yourself. You know what they say about a movie trailer don't you? It tells you the gist, but never the whole story.

So, go there yourself, and pretend that I'm not really too lazy to type anymore.

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