Sun City Thai Disco & An Urban Legend

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That was a smattering of Singlish there. Singlish is the endearing way us locals speak English to one another.

So I had like at least 9 seeds of durian this evening after dinner. Durian is a tropical fruit found in Asia which disgusts the Caucasians but which is a delicacy over here. I prefer them chilled, their soft yellow meat taste best when served cold, according to my tastebuds.

I seldom eat them though, like just once per year because they make the body heaty. One is supposed to down a glass of saline solution after eating them to counter the after-effects but I no longer do that for some reason.

There is this urban legend regarding drinking alcohol after or while eating durian - it's supposed to kill you. I've always wondered if that's really true. I heard some dude actually died from drinking alcohol while having durian but that's the only isolated case I've heard so far.

So according to the text message above, my childhood gaming (and ex-occult + ex-Heavy Metal) buddy I grew up with since our Ghim Moh days asked me if I would like to go have some drinks at the rather new Sun City Thai Disco over at Taman Jurong near our own estate, together with our friend Ben (Lim calls him 'Ah Fat') whom we got to know when he was working at the only coffeeshop in Jalan Bahar we frequent.

Nobody goes to a disco to drink coffee, so I figured that ought to provide an opportunity for me to use myself for the experiment to see if the durian-alcohol urban legend is true or not. Me a Kamikaze nut? Well, you bet. That's the job of us Scorpios and I have to answer the call of duty. The truth is worth dying risking for. Just ignore all these if you're below 18.

Anyway, Lim & Ben came in a cab to pick me up under my block and we arrived at the Thai disco after a short ride.

Lim charged straight to the KTV private rooms section and so we checked those out first. After asking about the room rates and some debate, me & Ben finally persuaded Lim to head over to the open-concept disco instead.

I was there for an experiment and so, it wouldn't make much sense for me to pay too much for a private room. Lim was hesitant because he wanted a private KTV room for easier hanky panky with the hostesses. He didn't mention it that way at all but I wasn't born yesterday. Hey, the man's a single guy and who am I to judge my buddy. But still, who knows, I could have spared my ears from some awful crooning.

Inside the disco

So we settled in the disco. Every occupied table has Thai hostesses accompanying the guys and Lim asked from the female captain for a hostess while Ben & me just shrugged it off. I was busy listening to the Thai music playing while downing some beer from the tower to see if that would make me drop dead or something.

Then when this Thai hostess came over to our table, instead of attending to Lim, she just kept on hanging on to me instead even after I've told her it was Lim who asked for her. She told me her name is BeiBei and she didn't believe me when I replied her question about my age that I'm 38+ (+ meaning crashing towards 39 by the end of this year).

I think I pissed her off because I couldn't really hear what she was saying to me from all that din, so she had to constantly repeat what she was trying to tell me but she continued to hang around me anyway. So what I did next was to pull Lim outside and told him to get the girl off me since he didn't do anything about it and I was feeling bad about the situation for him and didn't want him to misunderstand that I was trying to snatch the girl he has requested for off him.

Didn't work, she still hung with me even though she had to leave to attend to the other tables occasionally, after which she would come back to me everytime. So I had no choice but just let her sit around since I couldn't just kick her away. At least she was quite decent while talking to me despite the fact that she tried to wrap herself around me a few times.

And just for the record, I'm not gay. I love women and I'm straight and I happen to be married and my wife is a real woman.

Anyway, this other pretty chick who reminded me of one of my prettiest customers kept looking my way and she approached our table after some staring. The female captain told me the girl's from Cambodia. I greeted her courteously Thai-style with clasped hands and a bow but I didn't want to talk to her much, so she left after awhile. Thick-skinned BeiBei was still seating at our table and hostesses usually don't try to cannibalize or snatch game away from one another, even though it wasn't even like BeiBei was having me for a meal.

(Jokes aside, my heart does go out to the hostesses that I find to be really poor things. Which girl in her right mind would be willing to work in such an exploitative trade? Life circumstances must have forced them to do so).

All these were going on while Ben played dice with another Thai girl with a punky hairstyle. Games of dice are a common thing in Thai discos and I never bothered to learn how to play those even when Ben tried to teach me. Besides, I still had an urban legend which validity I needed to verify. Ben is a decent chap because he kept his hands to himself instead of on the girls there.

Miss Cambodia came back later and put a tray of I think Tequila shots on our table and not giving a damn, I downed a few shots, passed some to the guys and BeiBei out of courtesy and had to pay 32 bucks. Lim asked me what in blazes I was doing and said that those shots weren't free. So I told him I thought it was he who ordered them.

Miss Cambodia came back later again with those trays of liquor shots and without knowing exactly why, I downed a few more shots and passed some to the guys and BeiBei again and ended up having to pay a further 24 bucks.

That was when I 'woke up' and hauled the guys outside to discuss about why the heck I had to pay for the second round. You see, I thought we didn't finish the first tray of shots which I've already paid for and so Miss Cambodia brought the remaining shots for us to finish.

The captain came and she and Lim explained to me that those things were charged PER SHOT and it's 8 bucks per shot. Ouch. So in order not to make things difficult, I told the captain I'll pay the $24 dollars with my card but I insisted no more shots be brought to our table since we didn't think they were worth the price; shots come in small glasses no bigger than a toddler's fist and I was still standing sober anyway.

Lim wanted to pay me his share but I declined since he paid for our tower of beer. I think we had two towers in total. Learn a new thing and move on, I guess. At least I've thrown in some liquor to reinforce my experiment to test out that urban legend too. So fuck it, just as well then, I told myself.

Lim dancing to Lady
Gaga's 'Poker Face'

As the night drew on, Lim started dancing his head off and that was the first time I've watched my childhood buddy dancing with such fervor and wild abandon and it was funny as hell. He even insisted that we watch, which made it even more hilarious.

I absolutely detest drinking with people who become trouble-makers or who will start boasting and talking big when they become intoxicated. To me, that only shows how lousy such people can hold their alcohol intake and lose their grip on themselves. Boo.

But drinking with Lim is absolute fun everytime since he always becomes an entertaining funny comical clown when the effects of alcohol kick in.

While I was replying to my friends on Facebook and updating them about my little experiment and letting them know I was still alive, Lim kept tapping on my shoulder so that I would turn around and watch him dance and he would dance harder whenever I took a snapshot of him doing so. Gawd, the man is so freaking funny.

Later, I suddenly noticed that there seemed to be what looked like spilled chunks of beancurd on our table in front of Ben. "Hey, what the fuck are those chunks of beancurd doing on our table?" I asked Ben and he shook his head slowly while answering: "I have no idea, man."

Well, a couple of minutes later, I found out why. I saw Ben just sitting there & vomiting said chunks of beancurd nonchalantly onto the table as though it was a pretty normal everyday thing to do. "Oh fuck, shit ewww.." was all I could manage to say as I dragged him off the table away from the goo.

After cleaning ourselves up in the washroom, we decided to call it a night and went outside to chill for awhile first to shake out that fog in our heads. All the while, Ben was constantly bitching about how that punky girl he played dice with must have spiked his drink.

Yeah right, I was thinking he couldn't hold his alcohol instead and was just trying to save himself from some embarrassment, LoL. I wanted to tell him it's ok if he can't hold liquor well. What's wrong with that anyway? Can't say it's something to be proud of if one can drink an entire reservoir of alcohol anyway. Why is it that guys like to measure their masculinity with how much they can drink? Fuck that. But I just laughed it off. Ben did puke once more out here.

I was talking to Ben when I noticed that Lim had suddenly disappeared. Looking around, I saw him lying sprawled on a couch at the outside area. So I walked over to him while Ben started wandering off randomly to some corner in his stupor. After I've gathered up the flock, Lim decided to go to the McDonald's downstairs to eat something.

I had a quarter pounder meal and Lim had a filet-O-fish meal while Ben was knocked out on the bench. When we finished our meal, I asked Lim: "So what are we gonna do about Ben?" He answered cheekily: "Let's just leave him here. He can go home himself when he wakes up." So I told him no fucking way. How could we just leave our big friend behind after coming here together?

I wondered how Ben would have reacted if he heard Lim saying that. Being the big sturdy dude that he is, Ben would probably kill Lim with a bone-crushing mighty bear-hug when he sees him next after this incident. Imagine the 0 hugging the 1 in 10 to death.

This reminded me about the time many years back when my best friend Joe, together with Patrick, brought me to this pub called 'Orange' to celebrate my birthday. I was COMPLETELY gone that night and locked myself in the cubicle in the washroom. I couldn't even move a muscle to react when they banged on the cubicle's door. I couldn't even talk. All I could manage was utter weak and almost inaudible gibberish when I tried to.

Joe & Patrick then got a bouncer to break the door down and they manhandled me back to Joe's house where they and Joe's wife Emilyn nursed me back to sober consciousness. I'll never forget that incident and everytime I recall it, I'll feel really ashamed about it, even now.

You just don't embarrass your buddy by being dragged to his home drunk in front of his wife.

So no, I wasn't just gonna leave Ben behind. After all, I happen to respect men who have enough self-control to keep their hands off hostesses. Would be a nice thing if others do unto you what you would have them do unto you, so you do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

Lim then began waking Ben up and luckily, he did. Even luckier still, he could walk without us having to support him at all. Small miracles do come in big sizes.

At the taxi stand, this group of Thai girls who just got off work from the disco & KTV walked past us and Lim kept saying 'Arigato' while waving at them and making embracing gestures, beckoning them to come over for a hug. Seems like he got nationalities confused. But the girls were sporting enough to smile and wave back. My friend gets his kicks out of cheap thrills, I suppose.

Lim is a nice guy with a helpful heart, really, he just likes to clown around. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be hanging around with him. I choose the friends I hang out with with prejudice but am nice to everyone else. "Walk softly but carry a big stick behind you." Theodore Roosevelt had some wisdom about himself. Yeah, he was a Scorpio :D

Ben asked if he could borrow 10 bucks off us since he wasn't feeling secure about taking a cab with just 10 bucks he had on him and so I lent him the money. He's staying at Choa Chu Kang, so he had to take his own cab.

Lim is staying at Jalan Bahar which is just behind my estate and so we both shared a cab. When our cab passed by this 24-hours coffeeshop that suddenly popped into view as we rounded a street corner, we decided to go have some coffee there first since Lim also had to buy some smokes.

At the coffeeshop, there was this man who spoke to us who was obviously not right in the head but he was harmless. He sat opposite us and Lim popped a smoke and offered him a cigarette.

After we were done at the coffeeshop, we managed to hail another cab without having to wait for one (which was surprising, considering how remote that place is) and headed home.

Lim dropped me off at Boon Lay Place where I bought a packet of coffee before walking back to my block where I'll enjoy the beverage while surfing the Net downstairs first before going up to my apartment, as is customary for me everytime when I come back from outside after midnight.

This time, I walked home while entertaining myself with the thought that I've debunked a myth and survived the ordeal (I wasn't even feeling sick or anything) and earned some bragging rights about it, even though it's something silly with actually nothing to brag about.




(Update from the future: The Thai Disco at Taman Jurong is no more)