11:26 a.m. - 2003-12-30
3 million cows in new zealand
last night army guys outing was fun. we were green army men hanging out together. twelve of us in the ajisen ramen restaurant creating a fuss, forgetting our orders, talking about recent events, making noises and pointing fingers at one or two to make them embarassed, the ragging we used to do in camp, the humour of the prisoner.
walking about in a huge group of twelve pple is actually fun. i used to abhor such big groups of outings, thinking it looks like a big loserish orientation group or a bunch of sheep. but i kind of like it last night. where you can just shift from person to person, talking to anyone you like or just keeping quiet and listening in to conversations, or maybe instigating "suaning" (teasing and whatnot) sessions at certain pple, mentioning their recent embarassments or 4 yr-old embarassments back in the army days.
our new zealand trip came up whenever we met. we went to new zealand for a battalion exercise when we were in first year army. It was fun. An alien experience, not sweating despite running and hurrying about our action front procedures.
there were various humourous stuff that happened.
like the time our vehicle went up a steep slope and at a sudden bend, suddenly tipped over with two side wheels in the air, for a brief moment it hanged there, and then just as sudden it came down. the pple at the back of the vehicle were all cursing.
another anecdote was the one we descended on rotorua town for our RnR. the whole battalion went down to the local small bar strip club, only to be disappointed with some erm not very chio strippers. but it was funny, hearing my fren recount the incident of how the girl waved one of the stoic mates to slap her bottom and he after a few moments of consideration, gave her bum one of those tai-ji palm thrusts like kung-fu.
another anecdote was the one where the whole battalion turned up one after another without prearrangement at the Showgirls stripclub in Auckland. It was the second night of our RnR. We walked around beautiful and cold Auckland with its shops like Orchard till we came to the famous Showgirls.
It was a very sexy show. And classy too. But imagine a bunch of chinese singaporeans in the strip club, overcrowding the local caucasian population. Funny. Our female officers also came in to take a curious look.
Below showgirls club was another club called showboys, catered to girls. While we came out of the club to go back to the hotel, a married Auckland couple and their frens were just going to enter showboys, they were dressed in white wedding gown and tuxedo and they asked my fren hows the show in showboys, "is it good?". hahaha... we always twisted the story to become the couple asking, "are you performing?"
we made some vague plans to go back to newzealand or auckland after our graduation. i remember the cool weather, the clear blue sky, the nice uncluttered horizon, the low one-storey neighbourhoods, the huge breakfasts, the lack of cigarettes in their mamashops (they have a stricter cigarette ban than in SG), the general small town setting, they said more cows than pple but we never saw more than 4 cows the whole trip there. quite beautiful.
