Some time back, I met this group of people through an Internet forum. After weeks of inane but fun online banter, I agreed to join them at one of their real-life gatherings.

That was when I realised that people could be really unkind.

The guys literally spent hours discussing how attractive or unattractive the girls they knew were, as if all that mattered about a girl was her looks. They used a secret code to rate girls. If a girl was “one paper bag”, it meant she was puke-worthy. Two paper bags meant twice the puke. I think the rating system went up to five paper bags.

Continue reading…

I thought my movie would never get a chance to be screened after it was withdrawn from the Singapore International Film Festival due to censorship issues.

But Sinema Old School picked it up (yayness) so… I am akan datang!!

In a manner of speaking.

In case you’re new to my blog, I’m an actress and this is my first major film. I blogged about the shooting of this film last year, under a different working title (God is a Woman).

The world premiere screening of Female Games is happening on July 22 (Wed, 8 pm). That’s the one I’ll be attending. Tickets are available to the public and can be bought through e-mail, phone or fax at the Sinema Old School site.

If you can’t make it on July 22, check here for other show times. The film will run till the end of the month.

Please be aware that this is an R21 artistic, experimental film with sexually explicit content, and has been touted as “the first contemporary Singaporean film to boldly portray female homosexuality”.

If any of the words above bother you, please don’t watch it.

Critic have raved over the film, though. Not a single bad review so far! Read one here.

I hope I don’t regret advertising this.

I think I’m going to.

I’m lazy today and Kenny Sia just e-mailed me a bunch of photos he’d taken of me and Nanny Wen while we were in Kuching, so today’s blog post is a photo gallery!

We were there on a press trip to cover events, and Kenny very kindly sacrificed his weekend to take us around during our off hours.

Dinner at Four Points Hotel by Sheraton:

Shopping at The Spring:

Second dinner at a hawker centre (after Four Points):

The last time I was in Kuching, Kenny looked through the photos I had taken on my camera and he was really amused to see that I had taken tons of photos of photographers taking photos (including of him).

Seems like he’s done it back to me this time!

Another second dinner (Kenny always took us out for more food at his favourite places after we’d finished dinner with our official hosts, even though we kept protesting we couldn’t eat anymore):

Notice the cup? How did a sugar cane drink stall in Kuching get CHIPPY British Take Away cups??

Mmmmmm…. crabs!!

At the Kuching kucing:

Taking shelter at someone’s tourist van while waiting for our turn at the kucing because the sun was really scorching:

Nanny Wen got her giant Teh C Special:

Actually we shared it. And, even then, we couldn’t finish it and Kenny had to help:

Nanny Wen’s failed attempt to take Kenny’s photo (wrong focus) mwahahaha:

Pass at last:

Taking a photo of my Sarawak laksa (yum):

At the massage parlour to soothe our aches after our 10 km mountain race:

Wearing the bigass inhouse slippers:

That’s all!

End of photo gallery! =)

I have to be honest. I’m a pampered city girl and I love my modern city creature comforts.

But I was excited about staying in a jungle longhouse, which is the dwelling type for the indigenious people of Borneo, called Dayaks.

I mean, I don’t know, funny little things in life excite me, even if they fill me with dread or distaste on another level. (Like, I was really excited about being admitted to the hospital for a major operation ages ago.)

So, similarly, I was really excited when I saw the room that I was going to be sharing with Nanny Wen.

It was something different, so it was like an adventure. I was surprised to see beds and a fan. I had expected to sleep on thin mats on the floor or something like that.

The fan is actually more for discouraging mosquitoes than for providing coolness. Sarawak at night is cold and dry, almost like being in an air-conditioned room.

Unfortunately, our room only had one electrical outlet, so we had to decide between using the fan for mosquitoes or charging our laptops and phones at night.

Both our phones were flat by the end of the day because we had used it to Plurk and Tweet all day.

Nanny Wen asked me, “Would you rather sacrifice your phone or sacrifice yourself to mosquitoes?”

I thought for two seconds and said, “Sacrifice myself.”

She laughed. But I think she had the same sentiments.

Besides, I had brought three kinds of insect repellent with me, and Nanny Wen had Tiger Balm and lavender essence.

I am terribly spoilt.

Our longhouse:

We were hosted by Mathew Ngau, an acclaimed sape (traditional lute) master who owns a village and built this longhouse by himself. He also makes his own musical instruments and handicraft items.

Sorry, bad photo.

Longhouses are usually built on stilts and feature steep, narrow logs for steps.

It’s quite scary when you try them for the first time, especially the descending part.

This leads to the bathroom area. We were told that Mathew had specially built tile walls for the bathrooms just for us. Before this, the walls were made of bamboo leaves or something like that.

There’s no hot water!!! I nearly died trying to shower at midnight when the air was really cold.

Cute doggy standing guard outside the bathroom!

The front of the longhouse might be pretty and green like a well-kept garden, but the back is a jungle.

This is where Mathew grows food for the village.

They have their own supply of rice, vegetables, fruits and fish. Once in a while, they will trade for other meats at the market.

Durian tree!

This tree had begun to fruit, but the durians won’t be ready for consumption till August. Sad. =(

Crossing a little log bridge to another segment of the jungle:

We came to a tilapia pond, where Mathew allowed me to feed the fish off a little wooden bowl.

Nanny Wen and I were thrilled about pretending to be farm girls.

Back at the longhouse, we were greeted by cute doggies!

The dog on the left has a crippled leg. It was run over by a vehicle. I felt so sad for it seeing it hop around on three legs. =(

There’s also a very attention-seeking cat the longhouse. Friendliest cat I ever saw. She would go up to strangers and wait to be petted and fussed over.

After our jungle tour, we had two hours to rest before dinner, so I took a shower and got down to work. I had to write my Star Blog entry for Monday’s update.

It started raining right after I finished my shower, so it was really comfortable and cool lounging in our shabby room. Nanny Wen slept while I worked. O_o

Because of the rain, our van got stuck as we were driving out to dinner, so the men had to get down to push.

Nanny Wen and I got down to take photos. Haha!

We were on our way to attend the Gawai closing ceremony. Gawai is a Dayak festival to give thanks for a good harvest and to ask for blessings for another good year of harvest.

We would be fed two dinners that night. Once at 6:30 pm and once at 8:30 pm.

Goodness!

Thinking back, now, I realise that for the three nights we were in Kuching, Nanny Wen and I had two dinners every single night! OMG.

But Kuching is a really great place for food. Everything is good and cheap (especially the hawker fare and Dayak cooking) and I have developed serious cravings for many dishes that can only be found there. Can’t wait to go back again!

Oh, yes, I have yet to recount my experience of sleeping in the longhouse.

Um… two words: INSECT CITY!!

At night, all the insects come out to play. I decided not to spray insect repellent on myself cos I can’t stand the smell, but I had brought repellent sachets which can be placed beside your bed.

I guess it worked because I didn’t get bitten. But I could still see all kinds of strange insects flying around the room all night.

After washing up and staying up a bit to chat with the guys and drink a bit of tuak (native rice wine), I went to bed at 2:30 am.

The communal area just outside our rooms where we hung out:

I set my alarm for 4:30 am because we had to leave at 6 am to drive to our mountain race.

I got woken up several times by varieties of insects noises during my first hour, but I did manage to get some sleep.

But at 3:50 am, I woke up for the final time and couldn’t go back to sleep. There was this stupid fly that wouldn’t quit buzzing around my ears, even after I put the repellent sachet right next to my ear.

I lay in bed, trying to get back to sleep, but sleep eluded me. After half an hour, I gave up. At 4.20 am, I got out of bed to wash up and get ready for the day. (Anyway, we only had one bathroom, two toilet cubicles and one wash basin to share among six people, so someone had to start early.)

With only about an hour’s sleep, I looked forward to doing my 10km mountain trek. Awesome.

But it was good. I mean, I wasn’t traumatised or anything by the humble accommodation and insects.

I did feel a little grossed out at finding insect shit on my bed. There was this small lump of wet, black shit which smelled disgusting, which my index finger accidentally discovered, to its dismay. There were also several lizard droppings scattered around.

The scary thing was that they weren’t there in the day when we checked in. I only found them at night after we got back to the longhouse, so I was kinda worried all night about lizards shitting on my face while I slept.

But it was interesting and cosy. I’m sure if we’d had the chance to stay there for a few more days, I would have gotten used to the insects.

And, maybe, next time, I will sacrifice my phone for the fan.

When Kenny Sia met up with Nanny Wen and me after our 10km jungle/mountain race, which was advertised as a “Nature Challenge”, but should have been named “Suicide Mission” instead, he couldn’t stop laughing his ass off.

Thanks to her jungle tweets.

He laughed till he was red in the face. He was incredulous. “Didn’t you girls know what you had signed up for?”

No. The answer is no. I had asked and asked and researched. But no one could tell me and there was nothing on the Internet which told us what was in the trail and what to prepare for.

I mean, I had a more realistic expectation of the challenge than Nanny Wen did, but the actual experience far exceeded my wildest imaginations.

Kenny was dying of amusement.

But he was also very proud of us because he said our trail is more raw and challenging than Mount Kinabalu, which he had climbed.

He called us princesses in the jungle because he had an image of us as city princesses with nice clothes and makeup, so it really amused him to imagine us roughing it out in a perilous jungle.

Anyway, I can’t blog about my jungle experience yet because I’m waiting for photos. I didn’t bring my camera for the race and I’m glad I didn’t, even though I wish I had.

So, today, I’ll talk about some random stuff that we did in Kuching.

First photo taken upon landing:

We were hosted at Four Points Hotel by Sheraton, which is only minutes away from the airport.

That was our first and last taste of city princess treatment. We shared a nice big room with a nice big bathroom that featured a rainforest shower (which didn’t work or I am too retarded to make it work).

Nice, funky stuff in the room.

Dinner was the hotel’s continental buffet. It was truly welcome because I was starving!

I only managed to take two photos of the food before I was stopped by a waitress.

The restaurant has a no-photo policy. Which was just as well, since that meant I could get on with the food.

After a filling dinner, Kenny took us out to dinner.

That wasn’t a typo. We had two dinners that night.

But first, we made a brief stop at The Spring, which is Kuching’s biggest mall. (Kuching only has two malls, according to our tour guide.)

It was raining and I took this photo from inside Kenny’s car.

We spent about 15 minutes in there, enough time for Nanny Wen to buy a cheap towel and for us to give the mall a once-over, and then we headed off to a hawker centre.

This was our after-dinner dinner:

For three people.

Everything was so good!

I feel bad that Kenny always pays for our meals when we visit Kuching, but he refuses to let us pay, claiming that he is always pampered and not allowed to pay when he comes to Singapore, so fair’s fair.

The yellow drink is freaking awesome. It’s like a mango milk concoction with lychee. I need someone to make me that in Singapore!!

Nanny Wen does really sillly things. She bought a cheap towel at The Spring to use during the trip, right? We were going to stay in a longhouse on our second night and we assumed towels wouldn’t be provided. (We were wrong, but we still used our own towels.)

On our last day in Kuching, I spotted something on her towel which I hadn’t seen earlier.

Haha…

It’s the freaking price tag. She used the towel for three days with the price tag still attached.

I wonder if she even realised it was there.

Our pilgrimage to the famous kucing in Kuching:

On our last day, Kenny took us out for breakfast. We had Sarawak laksa and soft-boiled eggs and kaya toast.

The eggs were so huge!!! And the toast was so nice!!! It’s a little different from the kaya toast in Singapore. It’s a lot more, I dunno, organic and authentic than the commercial Ya Kun variety. I mean, Ya Kun is nice and all, but eating the ones in Kuching fills me with nice, happy feelings.

I ate a LOT of toast. I had Kenny order a second set after I finished the first set and my laksa.

I’m gonna miss the food again!

By the way, I skipped two days of events because they’re kinda long so I’ll blog about them another day.

Yay! Kenny just commented on an earlier post!

See, I wasn’t lying. He can’t stop laughing!!! He’s still laughing two days later!

Okay, look forward to my mountain race post! Nanny Wen just told me that her colleagues asked her how come when she told them the story it doesn’t sound treacherous at all.

Hopefully, I’ll get some photos that can give you an idea.

If not, I’ll go back there again one day and take photos.

Haha.