Friday I'm in Love

The trip was a blast! I got off the train a little bit late. The train broke down in the middle of the night somewhere and I overheard a KTM personnel telling a passenger that there was something wrong with the engine and they had to have it changed. I checked my watch and drifted back to sleep. When the train started chugging along later, I check my watch again and we were set back an hour. We were also held up at immigration a lot longer than I thought we'd be.

Singapore Trip (2007) - On the Train

My traveling companions arrived the morning before at about 3am so we planned to meet at Orchard Rd for a little sightseeing and shopping. I knew where all the Toys R Us were on Orchard Rd were so I was set. We had lunch at Marche (Heeren) but it's called the Vill'age now. The food's the same but they're not using the Marche name for some reason.

I forgot how large the portions were at these sort of places in Singapore (burp).

Singapore Trip (2007) - Marche (Heeren)

The TRUs were much like the ones in KL in terms of Transformers stock. Nothing I wanted. But I did manage to find my SOUNDWAVE! Grabbed that and a new 30th anniversary Han Solo for good measure and off I went. We went back to the apartment early cuz like we had a rock show to go to.

The Cure Concert

Those guys rocked the house! They played songs from almost every album! Even from wrist-slitters like Faith! They played almost all the hits too and those got the crowd jumping! They played over 3 hours and came back twice and in the final encore, played all the old stuff from Three Imaginary Boys! 10:15 on a Saturday Night, Grinding Halt, Three Imaginary Boys, Fire in Cairo (I thought they wouldn't play that here) and the other stuff like Killing an Arab and Boys Don't Cry. Woot!

Some songs weren't so good I thought. They didn't have a keyboard player, they're probably going back to their all guitar roots and wanted a 'raw-er' sound. So stuff from like Three Imaginary Boys, Pornography, Faith and Bloodflowers sounded fantastic but songs from Disintegration suffered a little bit, especially Pictures of You and Love Song. But Fascination St. sounded perfect.

We got really good seats and they played for so long, It was definately worth the RM300++ we paid.

Day 2

Singapore Trip (2007) - Misc

I continued my search for Movie Transformers on day 2, but again TRU at Suntec didn't have the new Bumblebee or Blackout or any Voyager (except for 1 Megatron but that wasn't a priority). We were also in the vicinity because Thomas wanted to check out Camping and Camera gear and I was there for the guitars at Peninsula Plaza.

I had at that point given up on the toys and started looking at guitars instead. A few shops had Japanese Fenders at quite affordable prices. Strings were cheap. But I stumbled into a toy shop that had Starscreams and Ironhides in abundance! A check with the aunty about Bumblebees and Blackouts yielded a 'Come back in 45 minutes' response, since they were getting new stock that afternoon. They didn't have any when I got back, so I got a Starscream for myself and an Ironhide for my brother. These were the Japanese versions and came quite cheap at SGD45 each. I eventually found Blackout at another shop at Suntec which wasn't opened earlier for SGD54.

I thought that was a nice climax to a great trip. We got back earlier to manage our stash so that we wouldn't get abused by Customs. I took all the toys out of the boxes and hid them separately in my backpack and slingbag. Thomas carried my empty boxes. We traveled separately again, I went on the train and had to leave them earlier, at 9pm. The journey was uneventful on the way back and I reached KL Sentral with more than enough time to spare to get dressed at the office.