Wet earphones

Made some very interesting pictures eh?

If I can’t go…

I’m sorry you felt pressured into giving me the ’safe’ dates.

Because that was frankly all I wanted to get so that I could check the prices, prepare savings and book my tickets on those particular days. I personally didn’t (and still don’t) care if i would only be seeing you for a week less as long as I get to see you this summer. Sorry I didn’t understand how much it means to you to be able to spend 1 more week with each other.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t confirm with my parents about the trip. I expected that I would get the permission much earlier, like just after I get the safe dates. It is all my fault for not trying hard enough to contact them. I guess I should have talked to my dad before he flew to NZ. Or cut debate and be online more to wait for them. Or perhaps call them at some point instead of waiting for them to come online when they’re free and feel like talking.

I’m sorry I could have mention the trip while they were discussing about my diploma, my problems with UADC or problems at home with my grandma. I didn’t have the courage to mention the trip during those times.

I’m sorry that you regret feeling rushed in giving me the dates and not applying for the other field trip. I thought that I have to know the safe dates so that I could book my tickets as soon as everything else is smoothed out. I assumed that my parents won’t take me seriously without the dates and the trip planned… Or at last they’d have less reason to say no if it appeared that I’m serious about making the trip.

I guess those reasoning weren’t sensible enough and was selfish of me….

So I’m sorry for causing you to prematurely accept a workshop which isn’t relevant to your field. And that it could reduce your chances of getting hired which will burden your family with a lot of debt.

I’m sorry that you had to arrange your schedule in such a way that it’d accommodate a trip that I might not be able to go.

I’m sorry I’m even more unreasonable, stubborn and so hard to deal with these days.

I’m sorry that I still don’t have the guts to tell my parents about you.

I’m sorry that because of my plans, it seems like I’d never get to know what it feels like to physically be around you.

And lastly… I’m sorry that it makes you sad.

This made my day :

From: “theconcerneddebater” <theconcerneddebater@yahoo.com>

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:38:27 -0000

To: <AUDC@yahoogroups.com>

Subject: [AUDC] mystery of the missing dca and the money grubbing plot

hello everyone!

vikram has been nice enough to tell us all that they are looking for a 4th dca but who is it going to be?? the philippines have estelle, singapore has mark, thailand has tj, and south asia has yaman (who is this guy?) but we dont see malaysia represented at all. not to mention that east asia is being left out of the fold again. isnt there a process of nomination for this or a call for applications or something? why does the exco just cut us out of the loop and present us with a person and ask that he be nominated, shouldnt we nominate on basis of regional representation? and this is even better, not nominate anyone and tell us there is a mysterious 4th dca that will be revealed “when the time is right” so its too late??? there should be open nominations and someone should nominate logan as well.

but that was just a polite expression of opinion. please allow me to rant now, which is my specialty.

wtf is wrong with the bloody reggo for this tournament???! are you seriously telling me we need to pay 11000 baht?! the only reason that assumption won the bid was because it was cheaper than dlsu. and now they increase reggo to 11000 baht?! (for this varied audience, that is 475 sgd per person, 15500 pesos per person, 1140 malaysian ringgit) thats absurd even with unlimited alcohol and stuff. dont get tj a elephant for the closing ceremony and stuff just cut the fees down. dont have a website, dont get go go boys to greet us at the airport, whatever it takes. most of us had a near-death complete mental semi-nuclear meltdown because that idiot who was retarded enough to name himself after a russian dictator and mass murderer couldnt keep his promises. what the hell is this?!? is this some idea of a horrible prank???! or are they planning to reduce it later and try to make themselves look like heros?!? its easy for me to get to the tourney but there are people coming there from korea – that is really far away!! and china, and pakistan, and maybe qatar (no fine they have so much oil money) and this is supposed to be an all asia tournament (no, not the all asians, thats taboo) for unity and stuff. so just make it cheaper already!?!

the concerned debater
founding member
the anonymous debaters and avian commenters cabal
from our hidden location in asia

ps 1: the first person who says something like “omfg the anonymous people are back have some guts lolz” will have tweety bird shit all over his/her front porch.

ps 2: what the hell is wrong with debateasia?!! what is vikram afraid of?? he has got all messages censored because they need to be moderated and basically this means he can control anything. wtf is with that?!? what about free speech?! im not even spamming the group with silly links im saying stuff that needs to be said!! this should be changed immediatly!

= @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ =

Fun stuff isn’t it? You’re my hero man, whoever you are lol. Gotta love the email’s name lol.

But to protect the pride in our transparency as a Tournament Director for the accused tournament, here are some explanations. (Note how I have to rant/explain this in my blog, not on facebook or debateasia group. Apparently I’m too aggressively direct for my organising committee’s liking lol… I don’t blame them, they’re quite right, I don’t know enough anyway lol xp)

1. DCA issue

Though really, it’s not what I should be clarifying, and I honestly don’t know much of what’s going on with the DCA issue myself since TJ’s in charged. (I guess I don’t want to be too involved anyway)

1.1 4th DCA… The reason why I THINK they haven’t named the 4th DCA yet… is probably because they’re still trying to find another neutral and internationally accepted person? (I don’t think it’s because they want to leave it to last minute = = I mean, what sort of DCA would want to risk being condemn for something like that) They also have to discuss with the candidate first and that takes time. And sure you can use the online nomination process, but generally you’d want to know that someone you nominate will actually ‘accept’ the nomination right? But that’s just my random guess.

1.2 Malaysia and East Asia rep in adjudication core… well… I don’t know if this is like, a naive assumption coming from me, but I frankly think you Malaysians are strong enough as a debate community and I personally don’t think it’ll affect your debating skills and results much if you happen to not have a Malaysian DCA. Regarding East Asia… I’m surprised (and not at the same time) that there isn’t a rep… I mean, Asian politics wise, they’ve been pretty quiet you know? You can’t force them to nominate someone if they’re not that interested in politics. Plus, whether the rep for East Asia is there or not, I’m sure SOMEONE who’s VERY good friends with that side in the adjudication core would protect their benefit either way. Though it is a fair concern that you’ve raised and I have been thinking about it ever since I got the names of DCAs.

2. Rego fee issue

Frankly, I couldn’t agree more that the registration fees is bloody expensive for an Asian tournament. I was pretty surprised myself when I was first told. Then when I sat down and look at the issues, I started to realised why it’s kinda justified.

Before I start answering all the questions though, I need to first explain why the registration fees increased by 1000 Baht. (from 10,000 to 11,000)

- When we bid for the tournament, we originally calculated costs based on the assumption that we can get the on campus residence halls like worlds. Thus reducing most of the transportation costs and accommodation fees. When we came back, we found out that the residence halls are completely booked and the university is not willing to give the same (or any) level of support (both accommodation wise and financial wise) as worlds. So we have to find accommodation off campus, meaning extra transportation costs will incur.

- The university has contract with a bus company, which states that all events hosted by the university will have to use their busses, and when it comes to a non-annual tournament like this, they’re charging crazy high price and uni can’t do much about it. It’s the highest cost in our budget since university doesn’t help us with it financially like worlds and THSDC.

- Even though au doesn’t support us financially, they still control the costs in the budget. it is the university’s rule to calculate the budget upon maximum (but reasonable) expenses of each category and (just) break-even from there. This is to safeguard any major loses in case any emergencies happen (ie: not enough food like worlds break night so need to urgently order more etc.). And trust me, the amount they ’safeguard’ on is only on food and a tiny bit on accommodation = =… The university’s rule also tells us to budget in the case that we can not get any cash sponsors. (And that’s wise of them cause last year’s THSDC couldn’t get cash at all, it’s a much bigger target for companies than an international tertiary tournament.) They basically said ‘don’t assume you have sponsors in number yet until you actually get one.’ Another problem is… we can’t ’start’ finding sponsors till the budget is released.

2.1 Yes we are seriously telling you that you guys might need to pay 11,000 Baht. Currently, we aren’t getting a cent from the university (like we used to). We’re still trying to deal with the budget issue till today. And it seems that we can’t do anything until the university approve the budget.

3. “The only reason why Assumption won the bid was because it’s cheaper than De La Salle” <<< Well… I wasn’t there to prevent the bid was I? And from what I’ve heard, our prices were comparable with each other. Sure it’s 100 RM more expensive now, but even if it’s reduced to, say 10,000 Baht, it’ll STILL be expensive.

4. This IS a no frill tournament, we only have 3 socials (opening, break and closing) and most of it will be on campus and probably in the same conference building we usually have briefings in. Even that hall costs money to operate actually. And as far as i’m concerned, the budget hardly accounts for free flow of alcohol, just better food. Cost of living in Bangkok itself isn’t THAT cheap. If you want a good dinner in an event, the meal itself may cost something like 150 THB per person.

5. Oh, randomly, elephant itself didn’t cost. It was the venue. The WUDC closing ceremony’s venue already HAVE elephants because it’s a Thai show theatre? It came as a bonus package when booking the venue. But yeah, we never thought we needed something like that again anyway, no money wth. We’re hardly scraping by with the current budget. I sure wish that some the expenses that we could have cut down was my wage LOL… Unfortunately, that didn’t exist in the first place. I’ve always been working for free man lol…

ps. And no, we’re not trying to look like heroes = =…How can you look like a hero when you have to risk so much conspiracy before you actually takes the heroic action? No one would considered you a hero then. That’s just dumb lol…

= @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ = @ =

I couldn’t reply to all the enquires in such details earlier because I can’t just type all these and expect people who don’t know me to believe me without a numerical prove. Hell, even people who know me might not believe me.

Anyway, all these information I just ranted will be released on the Debate Asia Group in a somewhat more… official form with flowery words by someone. First, we’ll show you the 11,000 THB Rego budget and the newly cut down one (if it exists). We’ll also provide another sheet with a list of budgeting options we’ve considered and why we chose to (or not to) do it. Just to clarify all the costs. And possibly list the consequences of each cut down just to inform everyone what to expect from this tournament. It’ll be out by the end of next week. Chances are, we MIGHT be able to reduce it to the max bid amount (which is 10,000 baht per person).

But if the rest of the committee won’t take my advise on doing this and releasing the budget publicly, it’ll be their asses getting grilled, not mine, since I’ve always wanted to clarify everything from the start.

So for now, lets see what sort of drama the message by this “The concerned debater” will bring, I’m already looking forward to the next few xp

Sweet ‘n Sour Fish

Fist proper dinner in a long time… Looks and tastes as good as ever. Oh how I love good food.

What I need now…

…two words…

I’ve asked for it… I got it… But I will need more to keep going.

I don’t need another lecture or advice… I know how to solve it.

Don’t tell me to stop… Don’t remind me why I started it.

Just let me hear those 2 words.

Koç Worlds : Getting around Istanbul

Woke up the next morning just in time for breakfast. We quickly got dressed, clean up then climbed upstairs to find bread, butter, (awesome) strawberry jam, olives, slices of fresh tomatoes, juicy cucumbers (don’t make that sort of face Irving, it’s nice!) and Feta Cheese. Apparently this is a very common Turkish breakfast (not because the hotel guy told is so… but because that’s all we’ve been eating for breakfast everywhere we go in Turkey!). Their vegetables are soooooo nice!!! The tomatoes doesn’t have that sort of weird smell at all! We all enjoyed our breakfast with cups of tea, facing the sunrise… though it was far too cloudy to see the sun.

Picture of the couple…

Wish my camera could capture the steam from the coffee…

We then set out for the Egyptian Consulate in the newer part of Istanbul by a cab. But you might be wondering why so?

Because the other 4 people didn’t have time to get their Visa for Egypt done before the trip. The website for Egypt visa was never really updated and different sites have different visa requirements for different nationalities. We tried to ask if we can get visa on arrival when we transit in Cairo, the guy told us that Chinese don’t need the pre-arrival visa, but Thais and Russians do. This contradicts with the websites which told us that Russians AND Chinese doesn’t need to get one. So to make sure, we decided to go to the Egypt Consulate in Istanbul to get clearer information and apply for the visa there. We called the consulate before we left to check if they’re open and consult them. They ended up telling us to give up because it’ll take up to one month to apply here. We decided not to give up and go talk to them about our situation.

While traveling to the consulate… we started plotting some dramatic story to request for a speedy Egyptian visa. (seriously… we did planned it)

The Egyptian Consulate was a cosy house with thick, old western style brick walls surrounding it. The people in there DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. There was apparently one guy who deals with foreigners. When he came out, we tried to slowly explain our situation with hand gestures. We also showed him the documents which are usually required to apply for a visa (student status, flight details, accommodation details, bank statements and etc.). He smiled (the Turkish style) and reassured us (in a strong accent) that we can apply for the visa here in time for our arrival date. To our relief, he took the 3 passports (Tiger will be arriving that afternoon so we’ll bring him here later) to photocopy. He made us fill the application form and we waited for a while. He came out to return our passports and say every thing’s fine. He didn’t give us any documents or visa numbers. Nor did he give us any more instruction of what to do other than ‘It’s okay, I’ve sent it to the custom in Cairo, you can just buy the on arrival tickets and you’ll be fine’. It was unexpectedly easy and simple… I had a nagging feeling that this wouldn’t work for some reason…

Since it was suppose to be very close to Tiger’s arrival time, we all head back to the hostel on the metro (just to see what it’s like + it’s cheaper). We we rather worried about Tiger because he’s traveling alone and he also needs to get to the hostel himself. We could only hoped that he knows how to travel and printed out all the information we forwarded him.

Here’s China trying to match her cat ears…

A very decent and clean metro station isn’t it?

We caught the metro from 4. Levent Station to Taksim Station, then to Kabataş Station. Kabataş Station is connected with the tram which cross over one of the bridges that connects old Istanbul and New Istanbul together. Our destination is now Sultanahmet Station.

We came back to find that Tiger has not arrived… So we waited for about half an hour and there he was, all light and smiley, jumping off the cab. It costs him almost twice as much as the 4 of us combined to get here… so I guess we weren’t really ripped off after all huh? We decided that since it’s so easy and simple to just submit our Egypt Visa application, we should just submit Tiger’s as well, so that tomorrow we can really see Istanbul. (After all, it will be our last day there).

While waiting for Tiger to unpack and settle in, Toei was playing with this cat; a frequent visitor of the hotel next door. One thing I’ve been noticing though… the stray cats and dogs here are soooo cute! They also – strangely enough – look rather well groomed and healthy. Stray animals in Thailand almost always looks sad and very ill.

The flower next door was so red it caught my eyes :p

We decided to grab a cab at the main street instead of calling it into the narrow street of our hostel.

The ride was evidently a bit cheaper than the last one. While waiting for Tiger’s application to process, I found this flower that looks some what like a large daisy… except… it grows on sand and is MUCH taller?

About 15 minutes later, we were on our way back to the hostel again. Since none of us had lunch, we stopped by at the nearest restaurant that looked interesting enough. As usual, the workers don’t speak English, so we ended up pointing the food we want and make weird sign languages. After we successfully (?) order, they gave us 2 baskets of bread. It seems that bread is like… a free flow thing… Since we were soo hungry, we ate 2 baskets before the actual food arrived.

Small serving right? It was actually really filling. You’ve got to love how much vegetables they give you with your meals over here. The rice tasted somewhat like Thai chicken rice (probably made the same way) though with hard grains of rice. (Ah well, we’ve been spoilt with nice Jasmine rice in Thailand) The meal was quite spicy, not to mention the fact that Toei pretty much replaced her meal with the provided home-made chilli paste. She absolutely LOVED it :p

Mutton and veges… A healthy LATE brunch (it was like 4 pm xp)

This building looked like one of those really scary roller coaster rides… huge drop then curve up a little lol.

They looked kinda like kids eh?

We decided that we want to see the sun set at the bridge. This means that we need to get off at the Kabataş Station without getting on the tram. But since each joint stations will cost 1.4 TRY more, we decided to stop as early as Taksim and walk towards the bridge from there.

To be frank, I think we got kinda distracted by one of the walking streets. Since Simon wanted to find a black tie, Tiger needed to find some sort of formal shirt and Cynthia just wanted to look at shops, we ended up walking through that street. We looked out for good exchange rates on the way. None were as good as the one we exchanged yesterday. A good thing really.

The sun was setting as we made our way through the street.

The street was becoming a lot more colorful with vibrant lighting and elaborated colors.

Cynthia and Tiger went their separate ways to look at perfumes and things. Toei, Simon and I kept on walking and was mesmerised by a sweet store… We entered it out of curiosity and found this dessert called Profiterol (Yes, I couldn’t finished this post earlier because I waited for my Turkish friend to tell me the name xp). If you look up Wikipedia… they said it’s like cream puff… But I beg to differ. The sweet hardly have pastry layers and the whole thing pretty much ’slip’ off the small cups when being served. Then the confectioner poured this rich but fresh tasting chocolate sauce over it… I found out form Ada (the new Turkish friend ) that this store called ‘inci‘ is the ONLY one who makes it in Istanbul, weren’t we lucky to find it?? I’m definitely going back to Turkey again just for THESE!!

Though they’re famous for their Profiterol, they also sell other kinds of sweets. Don’t be shocked when you see so many zeros on the price tag, they tend to display price per Kilos when it comes to sweets and spices over there.

The cafe’s setting’s so nice It feels like one of those enchanted stores from the fantasy fictions.

Yes they still use those over there, CLASSIC !

The sun is already setting… OBVIOUSLY we won’t make it to the bridge to see the sun set on time… Not like we minded.

Looks somewhat like the street in Ireland… I kept saying this but really! Look at it!

Toei walking ahead…

Gotta love the lighting.

APPARENTLY, this is  s HIGH-SCHOOL @ @

We made a small detour into a small but well lit street.

Where Simon got his Sheesha thingy for cheap price and asked Toei to carry it in her bag for the rest of the trip because he afraid it might break in his bag LOL xp

Gosh, i Love the color, it really DID looked like that!!

Another small sub street.

OMG… these buildings are so old, look at the ceiling of this building!! They managed to keeep all the carvings!!

We found Cynthia again, and she insists that we come have a Christmas dinner in this restaurant. Lovely place, use to be the wine cellar but since the land became a lot more valuable, they figured it’d be more profitable to make a super romantic restaurant out of it. The food prices was kinda okay but we promised to have Christmas dinner with the Chinese girls. So we decided to go back to pick them up.

Lol… They’re rather creative with their cake decorations eh?

On the way, we somehow lost Simon and Toei, since neither of them had their roaming on, there’s no way to find them except to meet them at the hostel. So Cynthia, Tiger and I roamed around for a bit and try to find our way back. There weren’t many signage and a lot of people don’t speak English very well. I had to use my instincts to get to the nearest Metro Station. Luckily, we found it.

Painting-like wall to show how the area used to look like.

So we got on the Metro, went through the same connecting stations and arrived at Sultanahmed Station. While walking back, we found out that this particular Mosque… has been around sine 1491!! OMG… Amazing when you think that it stood through all those invaders and stake overs…

St. Sophia from afar.

Stopped for Pomegranate (I still can’t pronounce the word properly = =) juice on the way…FRESH ones for cheap price A bit on the sour side though this one. It’s like a famous fruit over here. It’s ABbsolutely EVERYWHERE.

Blue Mosque at night… pretty lights

Oh how nice… so the hostel also have a commercialised Christmas for the foreigners.

Nosy Simon xp

Since none of us had dinner, we decided to go food hunting. We were told that there’re A LOT of restaurants around this area. Better check them all out So while waiting for everyone else to get ready, I climbed up the stairs to the rooftop. The lighting around this area looked even more superb higher up.

Random shot at the common decoration… pretty little things.

Overlooking the port…

Wow… that St. Sophia is actually really tall!

Majestic.

The Christmas dinner setting if you want to have dinner here.

Istanbul Hostel front at night.

So there’s a hostel next door! I’d love to try staying here next time :p

Back street of our Hostel… leading to the main road. It’s PACKED with restaurants actually. And every one try to tout us into their restaurant… I think it’s a tradition here. Even luxurious looking place TRY to persuade you into their restaurant. They’d even invite you for a free drink. It’s CRAZY. It gets worse when they try to flirt with you at the same time = =… BAD strategy guys, really.

After a bit of exploring, we decided… hey, lets just try that place just in front of the Four Season Hotel. The one that pitifully kept trying to get us to eat there ever since the first day we were here. We felt sorry for the old owner for keep trying lol… and we DID promised to eat there before we leave. As we walked back to the hotel’s direction, Cynthia and Tiger wanted to look at  a Leather Handbag store… Toei, Simon and I were too hungry by the time so we headed straight to the restaurant. We sat down, and started ordering. We didn’t know what to expect in terms of food because all we did was made sure the meat was either Lamb or Chicken. While waiting for our meal, we just had small talks about how Istanbul really impressed us. I was having more fun with my tiny camera.

OOH, the apple tea here is AMAZING!! You have GOT to try it when you come to Turkey, it actually tastes like apple!

The couple… damn I was in envy lol…

Cynthia and Tiger arrived not long before the food comes. They didn’t buy anything since those Handmade leather bags are wayy too expensive. She ordered and a while later, our food arrives.

It seems that bread is ALWAYS served before anything. It’s like an appetiser. What kind of bread they want to serve? Depends on the restaurant’s style and preference. This time, we’ve got this HUGE hallow bread… It was soo hot that steam was coming out of the bread when we tear it open

Unfortunately, my camera can’t capture the smoke.

I just noticed in this picture that Toei’s nails were really green :p

So my Chicken dish arrive… I was like OMG!! The serving was HUGE!! = =… But as always… With LOTS of vegetables, man I love Turkish food.

After a super satisfying dinner, we ordered a tea each, sat back and relax. Cynthia then ruined the evening by started talking about how Toei and I should register for ESL. How we should try to win and etc. Everyone went quiet… Um… REALITY CHECK?

1. I’m NOT ESL according to the WUDC constitution? We tried that last year and they rejected my application as soon as I finished my interview. It makes sense for people like Tiger and Simon who never stayed in a Native English speaking country. Toei could also qualify because she only went on in America exchange for a year. But it makes no sense for me to apply for the status. Even if Toei apply for ESL status, the team won’t be listed in the ESL category anyway because I’m technically not. So what good will it bring? Cynthia didn’t seem to understand why I need to be so honest about my ESL status. She wanted me to lie. Sure English IS my 2nd language. Sure ESL is for people who speak English as their 2nd language. But for me ESL thing was created for people like Nan, who’s FLUENT in English but never stayed in Native English speaking countries. It’s supposed to be a recognition for those people who actually have a gift and WORK to learn the language. Sure my English is pretty bad compared to a lot of other Asian debaters. But lying to get such status would just shame me for the rest of my life. I don’t care if most of those breaking ESL team probably didn’t deserve to be in ESL, but I care about MY application.
2. Both Toei and I are really out of practice? Last time we seriously trained was… hell… when RAVI was around. We’ve been busy hosting tournaments and training the newbies that we didn’t have a chance to train ourselves seriously. Neither of us have been reading or kept up to date with ANY news at all, how are we supposed to even BREAK in the category??

And seriously, even IF you disregard those two facts, WHO IS SHE to push and expect us to WIN or achieve anything? She doesn’t have the rights to force us? We weren’t coming to worlds voluntarily? The only reason why I was coming to worlds was to fill up the empty slots and get my money back! The only reason Toei was coming to worlds was because Ash said she’d come if Toei’s coming and Ash needs Toei’s mental support. And don’t act like just because we aren’t qualified for ESL, we won’t try hard in rounds. She knows we do. We never intentionally tried to screw up a round in neither of our debate career.

Toei snapped first and told Cynthia the things I just said and told her that it was totally my choice to decide if I want to be in ESL. Cynthia then started talking about how oh, I just want to club to do well, to achieve something. She then went on about how her cabinet was working fine and as soon as she left, the club just went to distraction. After hearing that, I quietly snapped too. WHAT THE HELL?? During HER presidency, it was me and Ash doing all the work because her excuse was ‘I’m in Huamak’. She also took the club’s money and never told us transparently how we’re spending it. It got so bad that we started doubting her. We knew she has enough money and she wouldn’t be using the club’s money for herself. But it got so bad it’s hard to protect her anymore. Luckily, that was towards the end of her Presidency and we let the issue go. And NO the club didn’t fall into distraction because she weren’t around. We still have some potentially good newbies like Sarah, Max and others to continue running the club? We also WON more tournaments during Ash’s term than her term if she want to look at it like THAT. Even if it did went down hill, it was more because we kept having to host so many tournaments and kept going away so we didn’t have time to train anyone. Toei made an angry attempt at telling her these things but of course she wouldn’t listen. Like some one told me… “Cynthia meant well for the club, but along the way, she’d piss 10 people off”. Simon, Toei and I got so pissed off that we paid the bill and decided to go out to Sheesha. Tiger and Cynthia went to bed. (We found out later that Cynthia was telling the Chinese girls about the argument, not like we cared what they think about our club though.)

We walked back to the back street, where we found an energetic American dude who was apparently here for a few weeks already. He was waiting for is fiancee to come back from Paris to travel to Iraq with him. He sat us down, ordered Apple Sheesha and a dew drinks for all of us. (He made friends with the bar keeper.) Toei and Simon got a beer each. Didn’t taste so good according to them.

Brad (the guy’s name) ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail for me. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it wasn’t bad lol… Pretty colourful too.

Brad was apparently was in the US army in Iraq for a while. He started talking about his trip there, how Iraqi people are actually very sweet. How they took him into their home and feed him as best they could. How he can just easily buy gun and try them if he wanted to. How he wants to take his fiancee there because she wouldn’t believe how safe it is and all other kinds of tales. He’s a talkative and likeable person. Of course we didn’t believe him at first but later we looked at his ID, and matched everything together. Seems true enough. But we decided hey, whether it’s true or not, it’s fun hanging out with the guy. (He was in his early 20s by the way, younger than Toei and Simon LOL.)

After 2 drinks each, we decided to go for a stroll. The guy just leads us to the small street further down which leads to the main road… Which leads to the rocky shore… While talking all the way.

A photo with our new friend.

So after butt flashing session, a high-speed dip in the ‘Black Sea’ (which i honestly think it’s on ANOTHER side?)… Toei and Simon were exhausted. Brad tried to convince them to go clubbing but it was almost 3 in the morning. We decided to walk back. On the way, he saw a funky bar so we stopped by quickly. Met another backpacker who’s been in Istanbul for a few days and intend to stay longer. Brad insisted that one of the bar keeper is on some kind of drugs and kept asking him for some too. The bar keeper insisted that he was innocent (don’t know whether he doesn’t want to share of because he was afraid of the strict laws on drugs in Turkey) so Brad didn’t get what he wanted. However, he got himself another Sheesha session.

We can see the Blue Mosque from here… Damn Toei and I are good at choosing accommodation

I thought the ceiling was pretty neat. Love all those colours!

After about half an hour, Toei and Simon reached their limits. I was also getting tired myself so we went back to the hostel with brad’s email in our hands. Simon added him on Facebook first

Thus concludes our Christmas Eve 2009.

Koç Worlds : Getting to Istanbul

We were so busy running for the plane to Cairo that I didn’t take any photos on the way… (we were on final call… the airport staff checked our boarding pass and said ‘we have the last passengers. they’re heading there right now’ on the radio… it doesn’t get worse in terms being late… omg…) but again… I’ve taken so many pictures of Suarnabhumi Airport already so I didn’t feel like I need to :p.

We arrived Cairo Airport in Egypt very early in the morning, so we sorta get to see Cairo’s sunrise. This was where we were sitting during our 3 hours transit.

This picture looks kinda dreamy right? :p Damn I was a little envy.

Cairo’s morning sky.

Cynthia’s Ipod… which we thought was fake lol.

It seems that Cairo Airport is either very poorly designed or doesn’t have enough space to design the airport in such a way that the tubes spans out… we always had to catch those buses to the plane and get on with these stairs. We found that the plane we were getting on was the size of Air Asia’s plane… which scared me a little for no reason LOL…

Since there weren’t many interesting events on the plane… This is the first photo we took in Turkey… at Istanbul International Airport… with a weird glowing tree… how nice.

Heading to grab our luggage… there I was hoping desperately that the bags didn’t go missing, since I’ve heard lots of bad complains about Cairo Airport’s and Egpyt Air’s baggage management.

So when we got out of the customs, there were guys in semi-formal suits walking around with an official looking tag on their suits. One of them walked up to us, flashed his tag quickly and claimed that he was the airport’s official staff there to help tourists. Since we were very tired from the half day flight, we decided not to care and follow him to the shuttle service booth located at the end. The shuttle service guy was nice enough and gave us 7 Turkish Lira (TRY) per person to go to our hostel in the old part of Istanbul… There were 4 of us so we basically just rent the whole ’shuttle’ car there.

Toei apparently found the driver really hot xp. The problem though… was that they seem to like Techno music sooo much over here… the driver had the darn thing on the whole way to our Hostel. Simon said that Istanbul is somewhat similar to Russia… and told us NOT to tell the Turkish that he’s Russian since there are wayy too many Russian tourists here… I didn’t quite follow the reasoning but decided to go along with it anyway.

So we’ve arrived at the cosy Istanbul Hostel.

After we’ve unpacked and settled in, we decided to go for a walk around the place, see what it’s like. It looks ‘kinda’ like this :p

We found out that we were located 10 feet away from Istanbul’s Four Seasons Hotel and 5 minutes walk from the famous St. Sophia and Blue Mosque. Good choice :p

The sunset would have been nicer if the sky wasn’t so cloudy eh? Imagine coming here in Summer! It was rather chilly there… 12 degrees I think? Just nice to walk around in.

A photo of me… photo credit to Toei

A narrow street really close to our hostel… opposite the Four Seasons Hotel.

This is our bed… low budget hostel style, just right for us poor students lol.

The former owner of the bed was a bit on the messy side…

Toilets over here are strange… you don’t ‘press’ to flush… you ‘pull’ to flush.

Our hostel looks kinda nice at night eh?

The Four Seasons Hotel.

Inside the Four Season Hotel… The bellboy guy called Serkan let me into the hotel to see its interior. Apparently it used to be a prison!!! Then they decided that the location was to valuable so they moved the prison to the outskirts of Istanbul and sold the place to Four Season Hotel chain… very wise… I could kinds see the typical western prison structure actually.

On my way out and to bed, Serkan’s friend called Murat (another bellboy) was leaving the shift and gave me some of the hotel’s free sugar coated biscuits… and MAN! Those were GOOD!!! It was soft, not too sweet and just PERFECT!!

Thus concludes our arrival in Istanbul

Kid’s cigar…

Gosh I miss this…

It’s up it’s up it’s UP!

Link : www.malaysiadebateopen.com

I have no clue how long I spent on making this PLAIN TWENTY-ONE pages website… I don’t want to know.

I wish I could decorate it more though, but when the color of the logo (that I designed in January 2009 = =… damn me) is black and white… and they wanted a ‘cool & different’ theme… I can’t think of how to work around it other than keeping it clean like this. But lets put that aside… all I know is that it’s now up and running without any broken links. A lot of pages aren’t done though but that’s because I’m waiting for the content from the MDO 2010 organising committee.

I’m glad I took on this project though, I learnt a lot of things from it I’m sure I’ll take much less time if I’m going to make a site that’s somewhat similar to this one. Ah well… Go visit it if you have a chance, it’ll help the search engine rate :p

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