Tour guide ~ long post!

Been acting as host for the last few days. First it was a visit programme from a consortium of Japanese businessmen...Then today I met up with a visiting German friend. One word: tired! :P But yeah, it was fun. Even the visit programme turned out more enjoyable than I expected.

I met this German friend while I was touring NZ. Hit it off with him because like me, he studied Biology (and specifically fish too!). Well, unlike us Asians who had to return to work or study soon after touring NZ, he has continued with his travelling since we last parted, so from NZ, he has toured almost the whole of the East Coast of Oz. Now he's on the final leg of his tour...Singapore, then Malaysia, and back to Singapore again before flying back to Germany to start on his further studies.

Brought him to eat stingray and then took a bus down to Esplanade to walk see walk see. It's only during times like these do you see Singapore with new eyes. It was kinda interesting to hear from him what he found interesting about Singapore. He found it fascinating that we always speak in more than one language within our sentences XD Also Singapore's history...guess you can't quite tell what Singapore has gone through just by looking at that ultra-modern looking cityscape. Pity ne. Really, more historical parts of Singapore should be preserved. It's not the London Eye equivalent types of attractions that make Singapore attractive to tourists. It's our own heritage and what's uniquely Singapore.

Anyway, I found out through him this new hostel at Joo Chiat. It is one of those Peranakan Houses so it's rather quaint. & for the price ($18), gosh, it's a steal!

As for the visit programme with the Japanese businessmen, I must say this group is much more friendly and relaxed compared to the other Japanese businessmen that I have met so far. Perhaps it has to do with the industry they're from :) Or perhaps it was cos I was with the "smaller fry" table during two out of the three meals we hosted them to. It's quite funny... we call the "smaller fry" table "the cuter half", cos as you can expect, the big fries are the older, more serious sorts. You can tell just from the conversation topics during the meals. The serious table talked about the Japan Economy, length of land tenure in Japan, etc etc (yawn~) while the cuter half table talked about movies, shopping in Singapore, etc etc. Yes we even talked about cosplaying! XD

& should I admit it...heh...I was unabashedly *smitten* by this chap who so considerately talked to me throughout the dinner session because he said he understood how I felt not being able to join in the conversation (as my Japanese is terribly limited). That's cos he was put in the same position before when he was sent to Indonesia and the staff there didn't understand a single word of Japanese nor English. So although his English wasn't the best (but I thought it was quite good already!), he took the effort to speak to me throughout the meal, and I felt really comfortable cos he was very relaxed and open about himself. The best thing was we found out that we both like Rugby and we support the ALL BLACKS! & are fans of Spencer!!! Woot!!!!! :)

Quite a lot of funny things happened during the visit programme. So hilarious that even now as I think about it I can't help bursting into laughter. :) These things make life so much more interesting, though. To be able to laugh about it is good! Like we were at this place (arrg..can't reveal what this place is..) and we were like being shown round these exhibition rooms. As we were leaving one room to go to the next, two of the consortium members were like at this corner and laughing about something. So we went over and looked enquiringly at them. They pointed to the wall above and... hahahaaa... itwas an aircon painted purple so that it will blend into the wall. It just looked... hilarious! XD Then in one of the later rooms I saw the aircon this time painted black, so I tapped one of those two guys and pointed it out to him, so we ended up sniggering to each other in the corner. Like some high school kids...so fun! hahahaa.....

In fact was quite reluctant to see them go. Hahaha... didn't expect to think this way. Before their visit I was like dreading the whole thing... I hope the next bunch of people I have to host turn out just as friendly!