IF YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT I DID IN R.O.C.

20 september saturday

it is a sunny norning, 10:17. i am lying on a bed half occupied by my bag and uniforms. in fact the living conditions are worse than that of a construction worker's. furthermore i sleep on top of a doubledecker. the good stuff: i have a ventitlator right behind my bed. it is true that i brought too much money. singapore looks like a miniature model from the air. the bad: i fell asleep watching the italian job on the plane, it is 10 days till R&R, it's fucking hot and there are mosquitoes. as you see the cons totally outweigh the pros.
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breakfast - burger witth soya milk. lunch - felt like in prison cuz they made us use metal trays.
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the sun sets early around here, and the wind turns cold in the afternoon. had a short run which took us to the parade square (very good for nationalistic soviet-style parades). i should have brought a book along. i am too far from the tv set and the stench from the toilet is overpowering. waiyong: this position is the fucked up of the fucked.

the afterthoughts - i used up all my money to the last 1 NT. the toilet is more open than that of BMT and everyone has fun in there.

24 sept 11:03 pm

the need to keep an account of the days gone by becomes less and less apparent as each day passes. i have just gone for my first nights out. fazed by the variety of cutely packaged drinks out there. ate the requisite beef noodles, xiang ji pai and drank some authentic red pearl milk tea. not so much different from the s'pore one, just cheaper.

a lot has happened in the space of 4 days. i totally screwed up my mission cuz i lost my way to the objective and every major officer was there to witness it. i hope i don't get to be a sect comm otherwise i'll really die.

we went from Hukou plateau to Guanxi, which is more hilly and offer some spectacular views from the cliff edge. the bottom of the cliff was a rubbish dump. again, not very good performance overall but the CO seems to think that we are the best section out there. he followed me into the thick vegetation when i was doing the flanking. unfortunately the rest of my secion charged even before i could throw my grenade. more fun was the next day's bashing adventure. took 5 hours and went through the coolest terrains. including a sewer, under a concrete bridge (so very special ops!), inside a watery ravine, sliding down sand walls, suffering many cuts along the way. mosquitoes were vicious too. went through the exact same route at night. somehow my section is always the last to return to the admin area.

must have been too garang. point to note: the plants there are damn mean. they grow spikes and thorns and purposely attack you. my saw always kanna stuck. the lallang is taller than humans. much later i also found out that the other two sections (those who completed the missions) also had sect comms who were very blur about the way to their objectives. except that their section instructors helped out and mine didn't. gps is extremely useful.

26 sept fri 7:45 pm

i sat on the humvee (an oversized rover) looking at life backwards. hills, wheat fields, impatient drivers, a gigantic canal. a bunch of cows, lilies, a power station. the second day of navigation: full battle order. less exciting than yesterday, but finished faster. slept at a wind swept slope for an hour after we found the 3 checkpoints, baking in the sun and eating sand.

i ate my last instant noodles and am waiting for more supplies.
in my notebook's calendar i am sircling the date, almost getting to oct.
LOTR3 is coming out!
wonder how everyone is doing.

put my mountain climbing skills to good use when getting up a steep slope. was almost the one to find the piece of paper that marks the checkpoint but was on the wrong side of the tree.

27 sept 9:41 am

i am waiting for my turn for thurs' newspaper (strait times). there are more days of training. i look forward to climbing the five finger mountain. i hope it's not too difficult.

11:06 pm

tv's showing a melodramatic reality show about a mother trying to rekindle her relationship with her estranged daughter. [crying is the best way to gain sympathy] last night i kicked my blanket off the bed. there will be overnight rifle cleaning tomorrow.

i am trying to think of meaningful things to write, like those jc students who won a british poetry prize. one about a moment in a day, one about time spent with her girlfriend.

how to be good by nick hornby sounds like something i would write, if i could sit down for a few months to write one..

11:47 pm

the lights are off.
i am so so sleepless.
the toilet lights keep getting switched on.

it was a hot night. i ended up falling asleep at 12 plus, after tossing about for ages. luckily i got a very easy mission for the next day's platoon training.. setting up a far fire base. basically got the mg team in a hole on the knoll while i sat by the side listening to our pc talk. he's a funny guy.

30 sept tuesday 10:48 pm

i am at last at the end of my ROC trip. had a very unchallenging climb over at the mountain. from like 700m to 1000m. suffice to say, it was even easier than panti. so all of us ended earlier than expected and followed up with some area cleaning which involved clearing mudpools.

poor junhong was IN the mudpool scooping the silt up. tough work.

1 oct wed 2:02pm

it's children's day.
i m done with the packing and cleaning. what's left? a dinner, a kit bag inspection, a last night here in the camp. i dreamt of reaching home this morning.

4:24 pm

apparently the dinner will be at a place lousier than a hawker centre. still haven't gotten my money back.

the place wasn't that bad but the food was. karaoke was bad. the wind kept blowing the cups off the table. alcohol landed on my jeans. dinner turned into a drinking contest for the officers with all of us cheering them on.

that was the end of my entries.. cuz then it was r&r which was fun.. there were the amusement parks on thurs where i got high riding on the roller coasters, happily dangling upside down. the first time i was swearing every single second. when we got to the ultimate one i was already hooked. the feel of free fall was exhilarating. of course the good ones always did not last long enough. there were some water rides which left us drenched..
at night we checked into a damn ulu hotel and grabbed a cab to ximending, which was all neon lights and billboards. chaotic and disorienting, like tokyo. we immediately set out on a shopping spree. well actually not we, just me. in a span of half an hour bought two pairs of shoes. the shop assistants there were really friendly and helpful. eveyone was buying adidas everywhere, especially those white ones. i asked for a very retro model. actually the variety was even greater at a shop we saw the next night. many many puma sneakers! but by then most of us had little money left.
then i ate some sausage laced with lemon juice which i suspect caused me to have diarrhoea for the next three days.. then i also shopped for clothes.. yaohong bought something which i was considering but felt that it was too me. already people can tell me what i will or will not wear, my sense of style is so easily predicted!
saw a shop which sold the biscuits we wanted to buy back but didn't know if it was ex or cheap. turened out it was cheap.
at night returned to the hotel hoping that there was porn on the telly but was extremely dissapointing. this ugly woman spent 10 mins standing up fully clothed doing funny movements. another story about a prostitute and her customer who saves her by killing the pimp. only closeups on her face. so bored that i fell asleep at 12 something. my friend said that it gets better at like 2 to 3, but who stayed up until that late?
on fri morning they took us to yehliu to see weathered rocks but noone was particularly interested. i just took a few pictures. there was a dolphin show that somehow incorporated a sealion show and some synchronised swimming, yes, in the same pool.. the one that took the cake was the high attitude diving. this guy was standing at like 100m high and just plunged down. it's like falling off from the ultimate roller coaster - 'the flying condor'.
then to a musuem which i couldn't be bothered with so most of us slept on the coach. then to a shopping mall which was gigantic but equally expensive. bought some ethnic food from there. movies there are very expensive, like around 14 bucks here.
the whole lot of us persauded the tour guide to take us to a bakery to buy the sun biscuits. bargained like hell. we were determined to buy down the whole shop.
lastly went to the shilin night market. many food stalls but i didn't dare eat anymore food.. wasted my time. firstly went with this group who were finding this souvenir shop which makes clay figurines of them and their girlfriends. not that it was their fault. i defected to another group who later went to find a sex toy shop. yeah.
the toys are very expensive.
very soon went back to the hote and got ready to leave. watched legally blonde 2 on the plane. by 10 am sat i was home. by 11.30 i was out again, going ktv. by 12 mn i was taking a taxi home, having missed the last train again. 28 days later is highly recommended to anyone who's reading this. i woke up at 1 today..