I got there at 1pm and and found out the earliest Transnasional bus is at 5:30. Transnasional would have been a lovely ride because I’m used to it; it is reliable and it stops at Lavender Bus Station. Very few buses stop at Lavender.

A guy in uniform shouted, “Bus to Singapore? Stop at Woodlands? Beach Road? Lavender? 2 o’clock?”

Hmm… his offer was very appealing, but I haven’t heard of City Tours before. Even though it operates from an official booth in the official terminal, I hesitated. I looked around for the next best choice but found none that was leaving before 3 o’clock. I took up the offer.

Bought the ticket for RM39.00 and boarded the bus. Despite the dark smog and din outside, the inside the bus was as quiet as a mouse. A few passengers were lazily leaned into their seats with their eyes glassy or half-closed. 15 minutes later, some one less passive spoke up.

Passenger: Uncle, what time is this bus leaving for Singapore?
Driver: This bus ah? This bus leave at two-thirty!
Passenger: Oh. Where does this bus stop in Singapore?
Driver: Woodlands.
Passenger: But, most buses will stop at Beach Road or Bugis, right?
Driver: No no, only stop at Woodlands. From Woodlands, you take taxi to Beach Road.

Hmm… lesson learned. Although, I’m not sure how I’ll do this next time. It doesn’t make sense to go where the buses are and ask every driver if he’s going to my destination, and if so, at what time – Puduraya is the country’s national bus terminal with hundreds of buses going in and out to various locations all the time.

Ho hum. What’s your suggestion?

They gave the bride-to-be a shirt with a list of tasks scribbled on it. Each time that she successfully completes a task, they will scribble a tick on the shirt. She put on the shirt readily.

Her first job was to sell two condoms at five ringgit each. That was surprisingly easy. On the streets of Kuala Lumpur, she explained to two expatriates her situation and they cheerfully bought it from her.

Next, they went to Frangipani but the place was desolate.

They headed to Beach Club but it was full of women who seem to be prostitutes. As they were entering, they noticed that every male in the club including a line of taxi drivers were leering at them from head to toe and back to head again.

After getting a Flaming Lamborghini for the bride-to-be which she daringly drank up, they felt so uncomfortable that they left for Aloha instead.

Aloha seems to be full of older uncles. On Sunday night, the DJ was playing cantopop music. The bride-to-be was a little drunk by now. She was given her next task which is to persuade a male stranger to put on lipstick! To prove that she succeeded, he must leave a kiss stain on her shirt.

It was also surprisingly easy. All she had to do was ask and a guy agreed. After applying her lipstick on his lips, he caught hold of her and kissed her on the tip of her left boob! Not only that, he didn’t let go of her and was about to go on kissing. Thankfully, two of her girlfriends were standing at the corner to watch her. When they saw what happened, they grabbed her body and pulled her out of his grasp.

Every one was in a state of shock for a while.

The bride-to-be waved it off, but her friends felt terrible. They regrouped and decided to leave as soon as one last task was completed. This time, she had to invite two strangers to drink with her. That was easy too. Not only that, the bride-to-be revealed to one of the guy that my cousin is an excellent drinker.

The guy raised his eyebrow and came over to challenge them. He poured six shots of whisky for her and her friends and everyone bottoms-upped. He poured another row of six shots and this time, he said that all six are for my cousin.

My cousin who can hold her alcohol very well downed all six mini glasses. They left after that. My cousin didn’t even get mildly drunk. She was completely sober when she came home and told us everything that happened.

So girls, be very careful when you hang out at these places and plan your hen parties carefully.

This time, we didn’t blow the bank account though. Instead of getting the chef to plan our menu, we took matters into our own hands. We picked and chose from the extensive menu.

Despite that we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore, the bill only came up to about RM60 per person.

After the dinner, we asked a young waitress for our favorite dessert – the Cherry X.O. Ice Cream. She informed us that they were out of Cherry X.O. ice-cream and recommended that we try their Chocolate Berries ice-cream, instead. We did.

But after scrutinizing the Chocolate Berries ice-cream over and over again, we unanimously agreed that we couldn’t see any sign of berries in this ice-cream.

Then we tasted it, why, it tastes just like chocolate ice-cream drenched in Bailey’s.

We were first introduced to Aoyama by Chris of Geek Terminal who is a die-hard Japanese food connoisseur some time last year.

We learned from Chris that when you get here, you won’t even need to look at the menu. Just tell Chef Jovy you want his very best. The chef will ask you for a budget, you can expect him to floor you with a totally unexpected combination of flavors in every dish that he serves.

In fact, Chef Jovy enjoys it when you trustingly request for him to plan and serve your entire meal. He even took the liberty to serve only one portion of the larger and more filling dishes so that we have more room in our stomachs to try more variety of his foods.

Above: crab meat, straw mushrooms and goodies that Chef Jovy had expertly combined, baked under a shell of cheese

Below: An interior view of the same decadent dish

Below: Chef Jovy’s twist to the traditional sushi. This dish got me speechless for a few seconds.

We oohed and aahed at how duck meat could be so tender

We snacked on vegetable fritters

With a side dip of coarsely ground chili-peppers

One of Nic’s favorite japanese dish is garlic rice so even though Chef Jovy did not include it in our meal, we ordered it individually. Just look at the chunky dried garlic Chef Jovy sprinkled on for extra oomph!

We ate a few other indescribable dishes which I forgot to photograph. (Sorry!)

For dessert, we had Cherry Rum ice-cream which totally stole our hearts. If you haven’t been to Aoyama, I urge you to GO. You MUST make a trip here at least once in your lifetime.

It is not difficult to get here at all. If this map is not helpful enough, feel free to email me via my contact form or simply leave a comment here. It is my life’s mission to make sure you successfully get to Aoyama, I’ll be more than happy to help.

So where are you? I’m at Starbucks Mid Valley! If you’re in the area, come on over, who knows if you might catch me red-handed.

I’m soaking in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, I bet when I walk out of here, my hair and clothes will smell of freshly brewed coffee. Nic is going to get so high when we meet in a few hours. This reminds me of a lame joke silly old Nadnut posted on her blog. :lol:

I walked up to the counter to place an order for my chamomile tea. The guy behind the counter informed me there’s an insect resting on my head. Forgetting that it’s April Fool’s Day, I totally believed him.

He didn’t know I’m the sort who’s unfazed by insects. I said to him with a big grin,

“Oh, don’t worry, I love insects!”.

“Oh, you got it. You knew it’s April Fool’s Day.”

-_-”

Can someone help slap the sweat off my forehead?

Frankly, I’m a little tired of this same old story. Loan shark lends money to a gambler or alcoholic, he refuses to pay for whatever reason, loan shark burns his house down while he is at work but his wife and children at home, or loan shark kidnaps his children from school or loan shark splashes pork’s blood all over his front door to embarass him in his neighbourhood…

While we often feel angry towards the violent lender who would do anything to get his money back and empathise with the bullied borrower and his suffering family, the borrower does need to take responsibility too. Why oh why did he borrow from the loan shark in the first place? Correct me if I’m wrong but from what I’ve heard, it is usually to feed a gambling or drinking or drug addiction.

We desperately need help in addiction management as well as debt management.