ben and weevien's most wonderful adventure
or: how to incite a nation to hatred of the chinese race in seven days
It is never a good idea to travel with an economist. There will inevitably be arguments over the efficient use of time, the opportunity cost of visiting one place over another, which country to change your money in (obviously depending on the currency policy of the nation in question, duh?) and worst of all, an incessant use of graphs to try and explain the most obvious things.
I don't think I even need to start on medics and lawyers, or Singaporeans and Malaysians for that matter. (read: kiasu)
Fortunately though, from what initially looked like a recipe for disaster we managed to cook up a storming trip filled with merriment, absurdity and self-discovery (read: benkoh).
Day 1
Our adventure began at 2 am on a cold Sunday morning with a gut-bursting run from Drummer Street to Parker's Piece, prompted by one Benjamin Koh - perhaps an instinctive reaction to being awake at godforsaken hours of the morning with a large heavy bag on his back, or a precautionary action in expectation of the excessive amount of gelati we were going to eat. Fueled by a desperate fear of missing the first bus of our trip, even Weevien sprinted the whole stretch, and I'm sure you can imagine the relief and satisfaction she experienced as we arrived at the station two minutes from the bus' departure.
Now visualise the look on her face when the bus stopped at Drummer Street to pick up anyone who had waited there by accident.
Ben was already running at this point... (note Ms. Teh's initial nonchalance)
Fatigued from our morning exercise, Alex Teo had the ingenious idea of getting some much-needed rest whilst one person queued at the check-in counter. An efficient use of personnel indeed - but this led to a rather unpleasant surprise for the agèd couple standing patiently behind Weevien in the queue and the start of a long list of people in Europe who will forever curse the names of Teo, Kuok, Teh, Wong, Ho and Koh.
Our first port of call in Rome was our hostel, stories of which will be detailed later, and after depositing our bags at "Hotel Dino" (it was not a hotel) we decided to head towards the Colosseum. Jasmine was understandably upset to find that the Roman gladiators outside the arena did not in any way resemble 'Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife who had his vengeance in his first life, not the next' but Alex was more disappointed to learn that the tour we had latched on to was actually a free tour and he had neither earned more points for the group nor pissed anyone new off as he was wont to do.
WAIT.
Backtrack a little - I neglected to include a crucial moment in the timeline of our trip: the almost Damascus-esque episode in which Yingmei found meaning in her life, discovering that happiness and joy on this earth was available for only two euros (three if you wanted an extra scoop):
There was also a heated affair at lunch between the girls and an angry waitress to whom our meagre tip seemed deficient. Needless to say, we will not be welcomed into that ristorante ever again.
Anyway. Back to the Colosseum and the ruins of the Roman forum, our tour guide for the afternoon was a tall American man, seemingly knowledgeable, well-spoken and pleasant - save for the annoying device he seemed to have had implanted in him which, every forty-two steps, would force him to utter the words:
Templum Divi Antonini et Divae Faustinae
When in Rome... drink as the Romans did.
We then moved on to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where we were shocked to discover a gay-pride parade in progress with the slogan "one son, four grand-fathers" plastered everywhere.
It was here that Ben began his process of self-discovery:
A propensity to play with dolls.
A Roman fling.
A wandering hand.
Joy in discovering the miracle that is lipstick, eyeliner and eyebrow shader.
It is never a good idea to travel with an economist. There will inevitably be arguments over the efficient use of time, the opportunity cost of visiting one place over another, which country to change your money in (obviously depending on the currency policy of the nation in question, duh?) and worst of all, an incessant use of graphs to try and explain the most obvious things.
I don't think I even need to start on medics and lawyers, or Singaporeans and Malaysians for that matter. (read: kiasu)
3 singaporeans + 3 malaysians + italy = national tragedy
trust me, I do math.
Fortunately though, from what initially looked like a recipe for disaster we managed to cook up a storming trip filled with merriment, absurdity and self-discovery (read: benkoh).
Day 1
Our adventure began at 2 am on a cold Sunday morning with a gut-bursting run from Drummer Street to Parker's Piece, prompted by one Benjamin Koh - perhaps an instinctive reaction to being awake at godforsaken hours of the morning with a large heavy bag on his back, or a precautionary action in expectation of the excessive amount of gelati we were going to eat. Fueled by a desperate fear of missing the first bus of our trip, even Weevien sprinted the whole stretch, and I'm sure you can imagine the relief and satisfaction she experienced as we arrived at the station two minutes from the bus' departure.
Now visualise the look on her face when the bus stopped at Drummer Street to pick up anyone who had waited there by accident.
Ben was already running at this point... (note Ms. Teh's initial nonchalance)
Fatigued from our morning exercise, Alex Teo had the ingenious idea of getting some much-needed rest whilst one person queued at the check-in counter. An efficient use of personnel indeed - but this led to a rather unpleasant surprise for the agèd couple standing patiently behind Weevien in the queue and the start of a long list of people in Europe who will forever curse the names of Teo, Kuok, Teh, Wong, Ho and Koh.
Our first port of call in Rome was our hostel, stories of which will be detailed later, and after depositing our bags at "Hotel Dino" (it was not a hotel) we decided to head towards the Colosseum. Jasmine was understandably upset to find that the Roman gladiators outside the arena did not in any way resemble 'Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife who had his vengeance in his first life, not the next' but Alex was more disappointed to learn that the tour we had latched on to was actually a free tour and he had neither earned more points for the group nor pissed anyone new off as he was wont to do.
WAIT.
Backtrack a little - I neglected to include a crucial moment in the timeline of our trip: the almost Damascus-esque episode in which Yingmei found meaning in her life, discovering that happiness and joy on this earth was available for only two euros (three if you wanted an extra scoop):
There was also a heated affair at lunch between the girls and an angry waitress to whom our meagre tip seemed deficient. Needless to say, we will not be welcomed into that ristorante ever again.
Anyway. Back to the Colosseum and the ruins of the Roman forum, our tour guide for the afternoon was a tall American man, seemingly knowledgeable, well-spoken and pleasant - save for the annoying device he seemed to have had implanted in him which, every forty-two steps, would force him to utter the words:
"Hi, my name is Jason! The tour is free! If there are any English-speakers around, you are welcome to join us!"I think what Jason is saying is pretty obvious.
Templum Divi Antonini et Divae Faustinae
When in Rome... drink as the Romans did. We then moved on to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where we were shocked to discover a gay-pride parade in progress with the slogan "one son, four grand-fathers" plastered everywhere.
It was here that Ben began his process of self-discovery:
A propensity to play with dolls.
A Roman fling.
A wandering hand.
Joy in discovering the miracle that is lipstick, eyeliner and eyebrow shader.Next stop was the cat sanctuary (the best place in the world ever), which was also less importantly the home of the oldest excavated ruins in Rome.
Closeby was the best gelato shop in Rome - Il Gelato di S. Crispino - and I leave Yingmei's joy to your imagination.
We returned to our hostel by the Metro and upon our homecoming the girls were pleasantly surprised to find that all our belongings were still there and that our room-mate for the night was a young Brazilian man named Leonardo. The girls informed us guys (Alex and I) the next day that Leo wore tighty-whities - ironically they were green - but we changed the topic quickly lest we be told how exactly they found that little tidbit out.
Day 2
Having set our alarms the night before so that we would be dressed, fed and raring to go at 8 am, we left the hostel at 1015 and headed to the Fontana di Trevi.
Yingmei and I, however, were rather concerned (yet impressed) to find that all the abandoned shophouses we had passed the day before had reopened and were now populated by Chinese migrants from all over Italy - what previously could only have been described as the "slums of Rome" had now been transformed into Chinatown. The most disturbing thing, however, was seeing Alex emerging from shops smiling to himself and frantically scribbling down notes.
Tradition has it that if you throw a coin over your shoulder and make a wish, it will be granted. All of us obliged with a penny/euro cent, but one member of the group made his wish with a single Malaysian cent. No prizes for guessing who it was.
We ambled along to the Spanish Steps and there we stopped for a break, just to chill out, and also to try and get into as many random people's photos as possible. I was only leading by seven when we decided to leave but several Americans (oh my gawd) were starting to look quite violent so we felt it was the right thing to do.
Hunger was a common theme throughout our holiday and from the Steps we headed straight towards lunch - a pizza parlour named PizzaRé, supposedly one of the best in Rome - under the impression that pizzas were 6 euros on Mondays (which turned out to be a lie, because the website had not been updated in a year). Still, it met expectation and upon devouring our meal we sat back and let the food settle - affording Jasmine some time to play with her leftovers and Weevien some time to camwhore:
To be continued...
Closeby was the best gelato shop in Rome - Il Gelato di S. Crispino - and I leave Yingmei's joy to your imagination.
We returned to our hostel by the Metro and upon our homecoming the girls were pleasantly surprised to find that all our belongings were still there and that our room-mate for the night was a young Brazilian man named Leonardo. The girls informed us guys (Alex and I) the next day that Leo wore tighty-whities - ironically they were green - but we changed the topic quickly lest we be told how exactly they found that little tidbit out.
Day 2
Having set our alarms the night before so that we would be dressed, fed and raring to go at 8 am, we left the hostel at 1015 and headed to the Fontana di Trevi.
Yingmei and I, however, were rather concerned (yet impressed) to find that all the abandoned shophouses we had passed the day before had reopened and were now populated by Chinese migrants from all over Italy - what previously could only have been described as the "slums of Rome" had now been transformed into Chinatown. The most disturbing thing, however, was seeing Alex emerging from shops smiling to himself and frantically scribbling down notes.
Tradition has it that if you throw a coin over your shoulder and make a wish, it will be granted. All of us obliged with a penny/euro cent, but one member of the group made his wish with a single Malaysian cent. No prizes for guessing who it was.
We ambled along to the Spanish Steps and there we stopped for a break, just to chill out, and also to try and get into as many random people's photos as possible. I was only leading by seven when we decided to leave but several Americans (oh my gawd) were starting to look quite violent so we felt it was the right thing to do.
Hunger was a common theme throughout our holiday and from the Steps we headed straight towards lunch - a pizza parlour named PizzaRé, supposedly one of the best in Rome - under the impression that pizzas were 6 euros on Mondays (which turned out to be a lie, because the website had not been updated in a year). Still, it met expectation and upon devouring our meal we sat back and let the food settle - affording Jasmine some time to play with her leftovers and Weevien some time to camwhore:
To be continued...