A little bit of everything

My mother called just now while I was making a strawberry cheesecake.

"Why didn't you call in? Didn't you get my sms? Were you out?"
"When did you send it?"
"10 minutes ago!"
(my mother wholeheartedly believes I have my handphone sewn onto me and the moment a text message is sent, I should read it and reply)
"I was in the kitchen"
"What are you doing in the kitchen?"
"Is there a law against standing in my own kitchen? Making a cheesecake"
"So free ah?"
"No lah. I'm trying to finish up all the stuff in the kitchen so I won't have to pack it over summer."
"You sound like you're really trying to relax after exams"
"Is there a law against relaxing after exams?? No, mum. I'm trying to stress myself out even more Uhuh."
"So when are you going to help your sister with her t-shirt design? Your father is no help. All his designs are so old fashioned. She needs something modern and cute."

All of a sudden the strawberry cheesecake does seem like the greatest crime on earth. It's obviously not as important as using my precious free time to help my sister, and then my mother unleashes the final blow.

"You're so good at these kind of things. I know you can do it."

And before she launches into a tirade about God-given talents, and using it to help other people (other people always being my brother or sister), I say "Okay, okay..." and she passes the phone to my sister.

My sister is ever so cute to talk to. Last week I told her about the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride at Alton Towers and she asked if I could bring back some of the chocolate for her.

"Will it make me smarter?"
"Erm, you're allergic to chocolate."
"Oh!"

Isn't she so cute?

So anyway, I did go to Alton Towers and I did go on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride.
It was a chance to get out of the rain (and an excuse for me not to go on Oblivion). The weather pretty much required umbrellas throughout the day. And cutesy OomPah Loompas do not make up for it.


Ok, so I went overboard with the Photoshop paintbrush. I was trying to recreate the magical childish fantasy of being inside a chocolate factory (as opposed to CL's sex fantasy no. 5: to be spray covered in chocolate, thanks for letting us know). I haven't photoshopped in a while. Give me a break.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself in terms of my Alton Towers story. The day started out like any other. With Wei Kiat failing to check the time of the train and thus having 5 very sleepy people yell at him for making us wake up at 6am to catch a train that was only at 8am.


Nevertheless, we let bygones be bygones and tried to look happy upon entering the place where they try to make "happily ever after" work, but it doesn't last on cold, gloomy (your basic English weather) days.


Following Wei Kiat's lead, we headed first for Rita Queen of Speed. I had already psyched myself up in order to get over my roller-coaster phobia, so I was in a kind of daze. It was probably a good thing that it was rainy and the queues were short. The longer the wait, the more frazzled my nerves get.



Big surprised, I survived it! And Chien Liq screams like a girl.

Anyway it was still raining. But we were still quite happy.


By 11.30am, I had 2 rollercoaster counts to Yi Shan and Wei Kiat's one. Go me! Soha had hit her ear and it was bleeding, but being the brave trooper that Soha is, she went on all the coasters in Xtreme park, while the lazy bums (CL, Su and me), sat in KFC polishing off a 10 piece pack. After such gluttony I didn't feel ready for more head spinning, and as a result this happened:
Now you know the real reason they brought me along. It wasn't so bad really. I just stood there preparing to snap a photo of their whizzing carriage, when I heard the unmistakeable girly scream bursting through the air. Yup, that's them. SNAP! Anyway, they managed to persuade me to go on the spinning whizzing pinball machine thing a second time round. I screamed my lungs out. It was therapeutic.

Anyway, despite the gloomy weather we still managed some pretty nice group shots.

And some pretty bad ones
And some where we just had no clue at all
In search of more rides (namely Nemesis and Air) we took a stroll through the woods
And even climbed a few trees
In the end we reached the Forbidden Valley, and I became bag carrier amah again while they went on Nemesis (the words "most intense roller coaster experience in the world" wasn't very comforting, even though Wei Kiat and CL tried to block the sign). But to my credit, I went on Air which was the most superb flying experience ever!
Then just to humour me, we rushed over to the river rapids (the only ride I initially consented to go on) to get royally wet! [I'll put up the group photo later... I'm getting lazy, in case you can't tell]

Finally it was the end of the day, and with just 10 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, Wei Kiat led us to the wrong park entrance - on the OPPOSITE end of the park! This led to an Amazing Race - worthy dash to the park entrance upon discovering our mistake (Non elimination! Non elimination!)

And on the bus we were pretty much like this:
Stuffy busrides make me more nauseous than any ride at Alton Towers ever could.

Ok I'm done for now. It's back to Facebook absorption - or to quote the name of a Facebook group: "Facebook is eating away my life, and MSN is polishing off the remains". How true!