Show, a Birthday & Sex talk

Let me apologize first because this is going to be quite a mundane post. Too much happened to cut it away, especially since it is this girl's birthday.

Had another show outside Esplanade today. Was supposed to be 3 half hour sets with breaks in between, only that it started to rain after 20 minutes into our first set and the rain didn't stop except during our first, prolonged break. After which we sat around and talk cock until 9pm when the organizers told us they're canceling the third set as well and that's good news for us because we get paid for doing almost nothing.

Was YZ's 18th birthday today and the members playing today bought a cake, meant to be a surprise. So as we were in the room allocated for us in the Esplanade itself, Damien sent me a SMS asking me to bring her out for a while because they had to prepare the cake. I was surprised and started getting nervous. Heh. So I jumped out of my seat and suddenly announced that I want to take a walk outside, would YZ please accompany me? Apparently she didn't find it odd and told me afterwards that it seemed normal enough because it was me. Well, thank you very much, YZ. =D Since the room in Esplanade had a smoke detector (and because they couldn't find a lighter), Damien used his laser pointer in place of the flame. Then after she made that blowing sound in the completely darkened room, he switched his light to a white one, like smoke. I offered to bring YZ to a club for the experience since it's her 18th and she said her aunt would murder her or something. Not ladies' night tonight anyway, I think.

We had dinner at Thai Express. The noodle was nice, especially the soup base. But the meat balls were a little too peppery for my liking. According to Jeremy it tasted like our normal chinese minced meal balls (with too much pepper). By the way, those balls were huge. No, the balls don't remind me of anything. It was nice seeing Jeremy again (because he's darn lame) and hearing him do a demostration of beat-boxing.

Yiang Shan and me hitched a ride from Damien and on the way we passed by Geylang, including the entire row of prostitutes lined alongside the road. I commented that I've never actually seen something like this before, so he took us for a ride along one lane in that area.

"The houses that have numbers on them are the chicken houses," he says (or something to that effect).

I saw a few men chatting up a few scantily dressed women, thought I spotted one who was quite pretty but can't really see. The rest were really just revealing flesh to attract customers. Men were just standing around doing nothing or standing around the women staring at them. One man stood in front of a row of women, looking as though he's making his choice. Yiang Shan said that the girls aren't very pretty.

"I heard that the best ones are usually inside the house," Damien replies and explains something about pimps, good/bad pigs and the not so pretty women acting as magnets. He further says, "If you can look into one of the houses, you might be able to see a 'fishtank' (room with glass window) with 'fishes' (prostitutes) inside. The men make their choices from outside, looking into the room, that's where the names come about."

We finish making the round in that one lane and looking at all the numbered houses. He advises us kiddingly, "So next time you all buy property, remember don't light up the number outside your house."

I am amazed at the sight because I truly have not seen such a thing. I didn't know that so many houses and nearby hotels catered to this trade. Naive, ain't I? YS mentions something about sex and how a malay girl in her class boasts to everybody that she has already done it with her boyfriend. Either Damien or her was commenting, "So great to have lost it meh?"

"It's getting common nowadays," I said, "In fact for my age group, for some if you haven't done it, you might seem weird to them, and this group of people are growing. It's actually normal to have done it (before marriage). It just isn't as important anymore."

Both of them seem quite surprised, then Damien thought about it and agreed that it is the case these days then he went on a little bit about STDs, babies and some friend of his who has AIDS. The babies are innocent, but if they suffer some deformity or blindness etc. because of something his/her parents did...

The conversation drifted off and turned to another topic somewhere, or was it because we've already reached the studio? In any case YS and I took the bus home from there after carrying the instruments up.

It felt odd coming back to my new/old house, but I liked the shorter walking distance.