Racing, Germans and Jazz

Alright... (I think every time I start an entry with "alright", it is because I am in recovery state). Now I do not know if this entry will be full of long life lessons but I am going to write it anyway and we shall see where we end up.

Introduction
Like most of my stories, it starts as something and then finishes with something else. So, a few days ago, someone came up with the idea that the horse race (Singapore Cup or whatever that thing is) will be on and that we should go because it is allot of fun. Suddenly, I had this brain image of someone with a Fedora hat who was yelling, shouting at the horse with fists in air and spilling his drink all over the paper littered floor... Anyway it sounded kind of funny so I said that I was keen as long as we get hats.

élément déclencheur
So, it is Saturday afternoon and I painfully wake up at around 1300 O'clock. I look at my Facebook (it kind of just means to open my eyes since the laptop(Lucy) is resting her head on my second pillow) and see that Mark sent me a message ~30 minutes ago. Obviously, I have completely forgotten about the fact that we planned to go horse racing. I have no idea what time the event starts. I do not have a phone. I am not dressed. My goldfish is depress. I can not find my wallet.

So, I jump out of bed and run to the hawker center behind my house. I try to ring Mark on a public phone (those things are getting rare). He does not answer. I run to one of the second hand mobile shop and haggle my way through am Samsung mobile. (30 minutes... I'm impressed... I probably got ripped off) I then buy a new Sim card from the 7/11. While this is getting processed, I quickly grab some Chicken Chops from one of the western restaurant. (at least with that, I know that I am not going to be fighting with plastic chop sticks for another half hour) I swallow it very quickly and then go back to 7/11 to grab my new fully activated SIM card. I give a few phone calls and I am off to Chinatown in quest of a hat.

After allot of browsing through the tourist packed street market, I can only find some cowboy hats. I though this can work but I really hate the cowboy style and would never forgive myself to wonder around with one of those on my head. So, I end up meeting with Mark and we decide to put our faith in the hands of the cab driver. He brings us to this place where we easily found something cheap that is similar to a fedora. I haggle it from 15 to 10 dollars in about 3 minutes. We then jump into a bus to Mark's place so he can get change, have a drink and we're off to the race.

The Race
We get to the woodland Turf Club at about 1800 O'clock. We meet up some of Mark's friends. I have a bottle of Gordon Gin in my bag which the security nicely let me pass through the gate. (I had a whole smuggle plan...) So, without knowing ANYTHING about horse racing, we start drinking and betting on random horses.

"Oh that guy has a good name!"
"That jockey looks like a sneaky fucker!"
"that horse has the same name as an image compression algorithm!!"

Thats about how smart our choices are. It is really funny to see how people will get really into it. Obviously, some of them are betting allot of money on those races. Personally, I find it quite underwhelming. I never really believed in lottery and betting. It's all fake and you never make as much money as what you lose. I guess it is good to practice enjoying losing which I guess is more valuable than the money you potentially could win. I also realize that I have a problem with knowing when to shout for my horse. The race would usually start and I would be screaming like crazy but soon realize that I am the only one who's shouting. Someone eventually explained me that it is when the horses are close to the end that you are supposed to shout. I find the whole concept rather stupid since you are behind a window and there is no way that the horse or the jockey will hear you but it still is allot of fun.

Once again, I realize that I am impressed with how sad allot of those people are and once again, it is all due to MONEY. That night, this evil concept probably ruined a few people's life just because they though that a horse could potentially relieve them from all their troubles. How stupid do you have to be? I guess that if you are a loser type of person, it is good since you cannot really affect the outcome of the race. You cannot blame yourself directly for having lost the race. This might be one of the reason why some people will bet on a horse instead of going to the casino.

Anyway, I will cut the long story short, go for a Murtabak and then come back to finish. brb

back

So anyway, my horse (Jay Peg...jpeg... kekekeke...) won the big race, so I made 34$ out of 10$... wuhu! big fuckin deal... whatever...

After the second big race, we leave the stadium to go for dinner in a "fancy" german restaurant in Vivo city. We meet up with a bunch of German/Scotish people (I think). Now I do not know where Mark found those people but there were some very high class people in there. I feel a bit out of place to just rock up there with my converse shoes, a bottle of water filled with gin in my hand and a fake fedora hat that I found in chinatown but that kind of stuff never bother me that much. I am more worrying about how prestigious the place is. You kind of feel like if you are a super star and everyone is watching you. (I actually had second though about how much sauce should I put on whatever I was having or whether I should start by the potatoes or the meat...)

Anyway the people are quite nice. We are just chatting about the usual (where everyone comes from, where everyone lived, how it is different from here, germans, etc). After the food, those people happen to be Jazz fans so we head to St-James, up stairs in the Jazz room. (I did not know that the place even existed but now the tables had turn. I fitted perfectly with the crowd due to the hat that I bought earlier. I remember one of the guy saying that he wanted a hat). We get there and there is a live band on stage. A very very pretty signer too. She happens to be half Canadian and half Filipina. (I would have said chinese but what do I know... ). Anyway, it is about midnight. Mark and Me consult each others to see whether it is wyze to stay here due to the fact that we are supposed to work tomorrow, We figure that "we are not actually forced to work" so we kind of say "fuck it! bring on the drinks!". We start drinking heavily and we start talking shit. I can recall myself trying to explain to a banker and some other dude with money my whole theory of "money sucks!". I also met up with a group of malaysian people who came over the border just for the night (I can not remember the reason). We end up dancing to the jazz band for a while too (I did not know that I could dance on jazz music but hey... after a few drinks, everything is possible I guess...)
I also met one of the signer in the band (actually, I probably met the whole band). Tom Brown! haha that dude made me laugh. Jazz was not exactly his type of music but he was a great performer so he kind of got a job as a Jazz signer. Anyway the dude was a character so I chatted with him for a while.

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THE PLACE WHERE THINGS START TO GET BLURRY
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Now I do not know how this happened but me and Mark took off through St-James and went dancing/drinking a bit everywhere. I have some souvenirs of us being the only one dancing at the Boiler room (déjà vue?). Also some souvenirs of Mark arguing with every single bouncer in St-James because they did not want to let us in. So, I grab Mark and drag him outside before he gets bash. I am not actually sure whether we made it inside. I do have some souvenirs of Movida but I am really not sure.

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BACK TO MYSELF
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So we are standing outside of Movida and we see one of the guy that was with us in the Jazz club. He is getting dragged outside because he can barely stand up. His knee is bleeding all over the place. We went in to help, I told the bouncers that we will get him into a cab. Mr.Tom Jones was there trying to help too. Anyway after a bit of loud talk, we manage to get him in the cab. If we were in Australia, the dude would have probably gotten bashed by the bouncers but here they seem very tolerant.

So we chat a bit more with Tom and since everything was shutting down (I think that was the reason) he paid us a drink at the gay bar (or anyway outside... we never really made it in). The dude happened to be gay (didn't surprise me that much... i mean... he didn't have the full on faggot look or style but anyway). So we just chatted for a while, dropped my drink on the ground and then eventually took off with Mark because some dude kept telling me that I had a nice shirt. We manage to get a cab and then got home at around 5000 O'clock.

I then fell asleep waching The Evil Dead. I had some really weird dreams because of that.

Now here I would like to make another side note to point out how I am a bit sick of writing notes about my nights out. Obviously, I do not document every single one of them. I try to be selective to the ones that are remotely meaningful. I do feel that some of them are worth documenting due to some life experience that I encounter through them but I would like to write a bit more about... erm... meaningful subjects? So bare with me... the good intentions are there. In the mean time, I will just practice my writing skills.