Halloween is when you dress crazy and nobody faults you for it

Halloween started right from the make up process. It was so fun!

Evan came over to my place to make up. I helped her with her eye make up.

[Evan, you’re fortunate I didn’t shiver on you that much except for the lower spidery lashes which turned out like tears of ink.]

This is the first time I helped someone other than myself to stick on falsies and draw the eyeline. Usually, I only knew how to teach people but not do it for people. Hence, I’m a teacher, not a make-up artist.

We love how our eyes looked that night!


Mine




evan’s






Evan was getting into the mime doll mood while gera showed off her prowess.


All set, Lola the Lolita mime doll was born!


Now to get that bombastic hair, deranged look for me


It’s great to have a stylist good friend.

Pian1 Pian1, the pernicious Chinese ghost with a vengeance.


I was supposed to be a broken dolly but somehow the whole cheongsam gear made me look like a Chinese ghost.

[Big thank you to tif for lending me her fabulously tight cheongsam. I like it so much! =)]

Lola Lola… Love her small pouty lips.


I like her eyes too!

East meets West.


I slapped on loads of prickly heat powder on my face before foundation while evan merely slapped on foundation. However, she turned out a few shades paler. That's how fair she is and how tan I am!

Pian1 Pian1 goes “Boo” while gera goes… Squeak? Meow? Roar? Gera really could not decide what she was.


Before we went off…


In the cab, gera finally decided that she was a LEO PARD (pronounce as “Lee-oh-ParD”).


Getting into their characters




The broken dollies… check out our stitches.








I so totally love my right arm. My mum did that for me.

I love the ghoulish effect of this shot! This is straight from my camera with no touch up.


I think each of us had our own unique look which added to the haunting feel.

I’m seriously spooked by myself here.


We saw this very cool erm….. zombie?



Lola was really getting into her character so much that when she finally decided to smile, she looked sooooo SWEEEEET!


Ignore calefare in the background.

Don’t you love your eyes, Lola? *winks and flutters*


Gera asked me how hamsters look when they wash themselves and tried to wash her ears like a mouse.


But… you’re a LEO PARD, remember?

Oh yah hor? I’m a LEO PARD.


Reow! Moar!


Pian1 Pian1 smiled with Lola


Pian1 Pian1 must use bag to cover rosebud lips coz Pian1 Pian1 mei3 you3 shan4 zi3.


The only spooky thing about St James is that nobody grooves.

No, seriously… we wondered why nobody was dancing!

Now I know why April and her frenz left. BTW, we were supposed to hang out with April and her frenz who went as dark angels. I was dying to see their Halloween get up.

[April, please show me some photos! Post on FB or something. I know you always read my blog silently so don’t pretend you didn’t see this.]

Let me rant a bit.

There was some live show where a skeletal-looking gladiator would be on a podium and asking for takers for him to pour booze into their mouths. Everybody was watching and cheering and they forgot to dance. We watched, we clapped, we cheered but after watching 3 ladies getting booze squirt into their mouths, we got pretty bored and wondered how the rest of the clubbers could be amused by this repeated act the whole night.

We squeezed our way to different parts of the dance floor to imbibe the dancing mood from the crowd but still, we ended up the only ones grooving. Ok la, let’s give some of the clubbers credit, they tried to dance… like pumping action you know?

Finally, we stayed put at an area where there were people grooving in sync with the music. Just when we thought it was good, the music was so bad. There were many awkward breaks in the tempo. That was Powerhouse, mind you. We really could not believe how bad it was!

I always believe that it’s the company that matters, not the venue and so we held our spirits high and danced to our hearts content. Lola even did some mime dance every now and then.

Soon, we were invited to join a group who happened to be able to groove. It was really quite candid and fun. Suddenly, everyone seemed to wanna join our circle.





Lola and Pian Pian so totally cannot smile coz we look like Hannibal Lecter with scary buck teeth.


I kinda like the gal. IRL, she looks like a prettier version of xx.


Spiderman Spiderman. Where are you? Oh Spiderman? *sings to the tune of the tuneless song in Spiderman 2*


Love the devil! His eyes are so cool.


Masking Spidey up again.


Please ignore buck teeth smile.


Well, it’s a windbreaker so all you had to do was to put the hood over his face and zip all the way up. What a creative costume! One could get into and out of character in a jiffy.

Spidey and a giggly Chinese ghost


Spidey was so cute that even Lola was smiling.


Leo Pard looked like she was about to scratch out Devil’s eye.


I could not help asking if he was able to see through those lenses.


Evan said he fancied Chinese when she saw the photos up on FB. Check out where his eyes were looking.

Facing the side just so she would not look like xx.




Hopped over to the Gallery Bar (or was it?) for drinks.

Erm… there were supposed to be 4 people in this shot.


Zanne finally came looking for us.






After asking someone (who turned to to be Japanese) to snap a picture for us, a bunch of jap guys infiltrated our group.




[PS: Ignore my pupil-less eyes]

They were really quite lame but at least they don’t try anything funny.

That’s Leo Pard’s ears. See so lame!


After that, we went down (to Movida?)

If all shots taken by others turned out like this, we might as well be snapping on our own.




Another new friend.


SMOOCHIES




Deardear came to pick us up.

I didn’t drink a lot but I mixed different booze such as vodka, chivas, midori and beer that I warned kh I would definitely puke. His reply?

“HUH? I just serviced my car!”

Chinese ghost looked so seh while Zanne behind can calefare till assume supporting role.


I was trying to snap myself but all my crazy frenz tried to squeeze into the picture while kh frantically tried to siam.


I love my frenz. They’re so FUN-ny.


Ah… Just perfect!


As anticipated, I puked along the way, not in his car of coz.

Deranged Pian1 Pian1 looked more human now.


Bombastic hair back to 80% normal, blood-red rosebud lips faded off, complexion no longer deathly pale... I think I slapped on so much powder that I don't even look lobster red after drinking. People who have seen me drink would know that with just an itty-bitty bit of alcohol, I would turn red. Hey, but at least those nasty rash is gone forever!

Overall, it was a fun night. The make up process, the journey, the candid integration of fun-funny-weird-strange-lame people, the free booze, the entertainment... I've quite enjoyed myself. =)

My mum was so sweet that day. She could not sleep and was staying up, waiting for me. She helped me remove my make up and helped me blow my hair after my shower while I just closed my eyes in exhaustion.

I was determined not to call in sick as I was looking forward to the last lesson of the academic year of 2008. The kids would be doing enrichment and the English topics would be really fun. I woke up and made it to work just before my lesson and had a great day with my students.

I miss Pian1 Pian1.


Halloween at the Night Safari on 25th October

Did I say Halloween started right from the make up process?

Well, actually Halloween started very early this year at the Night Safari.

It was quite a unique experience. I shall continue blogging about it another day.

Watch this space! =)

~*~*~*~

Updated on 7th November 2008

Please skip this portion if you are one who would get nightmares upon seeing gory sights.

The Night Safari Halloween Cocktail Express was fully booked even when I called in the middle of October. Hence, we had to go as normal patrons.

Kh could not understand why I wanted to go to the Night Safari even though we’ve just been there “recently”. You know how “recent” was “recent”? About 3 donkey years ago!

He also deemed that we had just been to the zoo “recently” as well. That was 6 years ago all the way in 2002 when the baby cheetah cubs were born.





To him, the zoo is not a place which you would visit often as the animals would always be the same. I however beg to differ. Those cute furballs up there are definitely huge cats by now.

When kh drove into the carpark, we were taken aback by the number of vehicles. It was even more than a normal day at the Zoo. There were a few huge coaches spotted as well. How small is the night safari in comparison to the Zoo to have so many vehicles???

When we approached the entrance, we could hear the great hullabaloo from a distance and our moods were dampened. How we hate crowds.



We queued for more than half an hour.

While queuing, kh and I passed time by snapping pix of ourselves




Going to the Night Safari served as an excellent opportunity for testing out his Samsung Omnia’s camera night mode.

White out by the flash!


Did you just see two ghosts?

We also passed our time by me poking fun at his $4 per bottle Coke and he being made fun of his $4 per bottle Coke. He was thirsty and so took $2.50 in spare change to buy a drink.

Kh: $2.50 should be enough right?

Jo: I’m sure it’s more than $3. This is the Night Safari where laksa costs $15.

Kh: I don’t care. If the drink cost more than these coins, I’m going to walk right back here.

5 minutes later, kh came back with a bottle of Coke and a defeated face.

Jo: So how much does it cost?

Kh: Don’t ask.

After I got to know it was $4, I poked fun at him till the next day during family dinner.

At long last, we reached the counter. We decided to forgo the tram ride as we were doing some quick estimation of waiting time by gauging from the crowd. We forgo quite a bit of the Halloween scare but it’s alright.

Humongous arowanas outside the loo




A talking and moving “display” at the souvenir shop. Read what the signboard says.


Let’s start our journey!



Mousedeer


A clearer shot but it turned its back away


I was really sorry for frightening the poor mousedeer. As any animal enthusiasts, rule abiders and common sensers would know, flash photography of the animals is strictly PROHIBITED. I was testing out the night mode and “FLASH” it went. The mousedeer was fine but I really felt very bad. I abhor people who snap pictures of animals with flash and at that moment, I became one of those people I abhor.

However, nothing beats that CHINAMAN shouting really loudly for his friend. I feel like telling him to shut up. He doesn’t even bother that the animals need their peace and that he was really quite loud.

I admit that I’m quite arrogant at times. I cannot stand it when people don’t observe rules of nature. I cannot stand it when people cannot differentiate between very distinct animals and get some animal facts wrong. I cannot stand it when people mispronounce the animal names. The bitch in me really feels like correcting them but the nice bimbo always overrules.

Cute and human-loving otters


A much brighter pic of the cuties…


Kh Omnia rocks when it comes to snapping in the dark w/o flash.

That’s Simba’s cousin, the fishing cat.


I’m sure you can spot it here. The Omnia does it better.


After that, I just kept my camera and told kh he was in charge of snapping the animals.

This is a chao mugger. It’s called the mugger crocodile.


The difference lies in its short and broad snout.

For the whole trail, I was looking forward to seeing the cute sugar gliders and going into the bat enclosure.

I recall how cute the sugar gliders were back then. There were so many of them and they just kept lining up to crawl up the branches and go “WEE” from one branch to another. After which they would queue up again to repeat the act over and over again. It was as if they were going on a roller coaster ride and their actions were really smooth and swift.

This time, we only spotted 2 sugar gliders in the enclosure. Many people were crowding around the right side of the glass trying to catch a glimpse of one of it hiding behind a tree stump. Just then kh and I spotted another one of the left and quietly observed it. More and more people crowded where the crowd was and made quite a din wondering what animal it was or where it was.

“Oh look! There is the squirrel!” shouted one visitor.

I cringed when I heard that.

When we were about to leave the enclosure, I asked kh if we should tell the crowd that there was another one where we were so that they could observe it as well instead of crowding at the right side and terrorising that one. Before we could do anything, somebody spotted it and exclaimed. Half of the crowd trooped over while we silently made our way out.

In the bat enclosure…

Spot the bats!







One of the bats “opened” its wings till it resembled that of Batman logo. The wind span really makes it a HUGE animal.


Porcupines




There are times when his night mode sux…



We finally came to the end of the animal trail and arrived at the Bridge of Hell.

We weren’t scared at all for we could hear the screams by others and could therefore anticipate where the scary creatures would be lurking. Each time we walked past any human-like mannequin, I would ask kh if they were “people in costume”.

This one confirm not "people in costume".


Soon, we saw Mummy by the left of the track. It was very still but somehow we guessed it was a human in disguise getting ready to scare any unwitting victim.

Mummy


Asking mummy for a shot


Each time I asked these people in costume for a shot, I would say, “I know you can’t talk but can I take a picture with you? Yes.”

Army boy ghost hiding silently by the track


There were two of them who blended quite well into the foliage on each side of the track. I spotted the one on the left and was just about to proceed with caution when kh spotted another on the right. We decided to hold back our steps coz we didn’t really wanna be accosted by two “ghosts”. Then, a bunch of unwitting victims walked by and got scared outta their wits by the army boy ghosts.





The army boy ghost was quite thoughtful. I don’t think these people in costumes were supposed to talk. However, when I wanna take a photo with him, he said, “Be careful. It’s quite slippery here.”

After that, I realised he said that to almost everyone who wanted a photo with him.

What a friendly ghost!

Mangled body


Hey, look! I found your arm.


The arm felt really gross! Yucks!

When we looked ahead, we spotted jiang1 shi1 at the end of the bridge.

That fellow was totally immersed in his role! Somebody from the crowd exclaimed, “Brother, you are good man!”





A comical incident happened.

Kh and I went onto the gravel track after the bridge and ended up walking one round back to the start of the Bridge of Hell. We saw the same few “ghosts” again, said hello to them (we were ignored of coz, for they couldn’t speak) and laughed at people who got scared.

Yeah, we were really mean but hey, we laughed in a friendly manner, not in a condescending way.

We met with jiang1 shi1 again. He was terrorising the people on the opposite end of the bridge by jumping around and not letting them pass. From their expression, some of the teens were truly frightened.

We waited for jiang1 shi1 to finish scaring them and let them pass but they were just too afraid to run past him.

Impatience got the better of me, I went up to jiang1 shi1 and said, “Excuse me, can let us pass first?”

He politely stepped aside and we continued our way.

Aren’t we such a kill joy?

Some gory sights




I think this is one of the scariest prop.


Scarier than those bloody sawed off limbs and bodies pierced with spikes. It was scary coz it looked so realistic and precisely coz it was so far in the distance. I imagined that it would turn and face us anytime as it slowly inched towards us.

Long tongue ghost


His tongue felt like sponge.

This butcher wants a piece of MEat


This girl in red was damn emo.


Told her not to stab her doll she still kept stabbing.

She was totally immersed in her character as well. Even as she was walking from place to place, she walked with a hobble and looked quite freaky. Imagine Chucky trying to walk after his leg was sawn off.

We were sitting on the rocks near the exit while kh was talking to and sms-ing his friend.

Since he was looking down, I decided to look down as well to see if we would appear like ghosts.


Ok, a proper shot.


Kh wanted to take a nice pic of us from his omnia but it was just too difficult to get a good shot. We took soooooo many shots that I had to complain whereas he was determined not to stop. Usually it would be the other way round.

Photo-overload of us. You may just scroll through if you feel you may get sick of us.

Bad angle


Wah kua dio kwee!


I quite like my ghostly face here. Reminds me of one of the ghosts in Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts way back in primary school.

Why does my face look so big here?


Too much to the right



Almost there


Some ghosts flew past, leaving trails of glow


Still cannot?




Final shot.


Maybe we should have tilted the hp vertically right from the very beginning.


Bye bye to the Night Safari. We didn’t get a good fright but we had fun.


There were still quite a bit of buzz outside at the “lobby area”.

Only The Ring and this person could use a Vietnamese hat as a scary prop.


Sidetrack a bit…

At #1 Costume shop, evan asked me in puzzlement how a Vietnamese hat could be used as a Halloween prop and I was telling her it’s scary coz it was used in The Ring and in the Night Safari.
My bad. All along, the scene in the cursed Ring video that freaked me out was the one where somebody was wearing a Vietnamese hat, standing by the sea and pointing to the right. It freaked me out more than the girl combing her hair in the mirror and other snapshots. Now that I’ve googled, I realised that it was not a Vietnamese hat but just a cloth over the person’s head. It did look very pointy though. If you don’t know which scene that is, just google using the keywords “The Ring video” and click on “images”. You would be able to see that picture. Hell no, I’m not gonna put that picture up on my blog!

My favourite ghost!




I think she’s so damn cool. When we were sitting on the rocks and snapping countless pictures of ourselves, she “floated” behind us. She would spin her umbrella at times and continue walking under the umbrella with slow and smooth steps. I told kh, “She’s so cool! I like her!”

Well, maybe I spoke too loudly for she actually acknowledged by turning and giving a cold smile.

Kh figured that I like her coz she resembled those gory things I like for eg Corpse Bride and Sally from The Nightmare before Christmas.

An Indian Dracula bade farewell


There was an ugly witch, a scary-looking scarecrow, murderous-looking clowns but kh didn’t wanna take pictures of/ with them as he thought they were quite ugly, especially the clowns. We have a little bit of coulrophobia in us.

Even though we went home hot and sweaty and throroughly dirty, I was glad to have experienced an advanced Halloween at the Night Safari. It was indeed a unique experience.