We woke up early to check around. Took the bus and we all decided to take a peek at the famous Merlion that spits water from its mouth.
It was a long way from the bus stop so we had time to walk around check out the architecture of the city, the buildings and the streets. Again... it's all in order. The people, the traffic, everyone is following the strict rules, who wouldn't, a fine of $1000 will be imposed to anyone who's caught littering, jaywalking... disposing chewing gum on the street... I'm kinda liking the way things are here.
Then we arrived at Suntech. It's a titanic mall, Megamall times three or four I think. The event will take place at a gigantic hall at the top of mall. It's the biggest event I've covered so far. They flew in around 1500 people- the gamers, referees, the press. I can't imagine the logistics that took place.The opening though was a disappointment, I mean I was looking forward to a much more grander scale in terms of the production number, but we only saw cheerleaders and an anti-climatic fireworks at the end. Heck the Enchanted Kingdom closing production number spells more grandeur.
Nevertheless, everyone's all excited. We got to meet the Russian, German and a number of the European teams. They're actually very intimidating, I mean they are cyber athletes in the first place. They are paid to play gaming consoles and the corresponding p.c. games, and they all have big companies backing them up as to compared to our boys, they are all still studying and they can't play as much as they want to.
The boys said that they will give a good fight. They're all excited just by participating.
I'm still dead tired. So I told San if we can just go for a rest. But I needed a cold beer to end the day. We religiously went to the net cafe to check our bilins from back home. I was trying to get the number of my friend Kai who's Singaporean, wanted to ask him what's the best thing here that's worth our while. I got an email from him, and too bad he's in Malaysia for his friend's wedding and he'll not be back till Monday, he recommended a place called Tanjong Pangar. So after checking out our emails, we hailed a cab to check the place out.
It must have been my luckiest day because our driver turned out to be a born again Christian. I told him "Uncle, we're new here and we'd want to go to Tanjong Pangar, we heard that it's a good place to hang out..."
And he responded back "Oh... no... no... I'm Christian you see, and that place is no good place for tourists (sporting a very difficult to understand Sing-glish accent). You try the night market instead la?"
"But..." Before I can finish my sentence he tried to cut me and said... "It's my moral duty to protect you and tell you not to go there... It's bad... there are lot of boys kissing each other there..."
I can't believe what I was hearing actually, a taxi driver trying to argue and win his way so that he can save us from an "apparent" danger. I wanted to reason my way out but I just didn't have the energy so we decided to check out the night market instead.
Much to our disappointment, there's really nothing new there. Greenhills offers a much better find.So after a spicy curry dinner, we got ourselves a Tiger. It's their local beer. It's a big beer so San and I decided to share one bottle. It's the closest thing that we got to that elusive local color that we were craving for since we got here. We're crossing our hands that we'll get to see some action and some color in this rather bland city.
Second day in this dry city is uneventful. Damn that Taxi Driver.
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