Sunday, November 28, 2010

A Visit To The Universal Studio Singapore

I finally went to the Universal Studio!!! Initially it was Dewi's desire to go. I think I was more Singaporeanized about the whole thing. After hearing stories that it's small, not worth the money etc, I thought it wasn't an amazing place. But then I thought, I didn't go anywhere for a holiday this year, so why not. In the end I kinda "pushed" Dewi to go and our excitement kinda made 8 of her colleagues who were coming here with her to tag along as well. Apparently and amazingly, the tickets cost cheaper if you buy it in Indonesia. The ticket price for weekdays is S$66 in Singapore. Dewi booked it at S$63 from a tour agency in Jakarta. It's actually pretty strange because I tried to book it here and the web said it was sold out. So I suspect that they're giving some quota for tour agencies. I did find a tour agency in Singapore that allows us to book the tickets from them but I didn't proceed with it. I can't explain though why it is cheaper in Indonsia. Maybe Indonesian do really have lots of money to spend and maybe Singapore do banking on us to help their economy :P Anyways, the ticket came with two S$5 voucher, one for a meal and one to be used in the gift shop. I thought it's a really good deal. I love the vouchers :D

Dewi and her colleagues landed yesterday and after their lunch, they headed straight to Universal Studio. I was actually planning to be there by 1.30 latest but with this and that, we only entered the compound at 2. If you're wondering if it's enough time to explore the whole place, my answer is yes! The Universal Studio Singapore is like Singapore itself. It's tiny but it makes it easy to go from one place to another. Some people may not feel it's worth the money but considering I had only half a day to explore the theme park, I found it to be rather convenient. If you're wondering if there weren't many people in the park, there were actually quite a lot of people. Yeah it wasn't as full as Disneyland Hongkong but waiting time in the Universal Studio still took pretty long. I think the longest we waited for a ride was 1 hour or so. By the way, the last time I entered Sentosa was 2 years ago when Dewi came to Singapore. She was saying that somehow she ended up with me when she visited a theme park outside Indonesia (my Disneyland trip was also with her). Well, this might be the last time, seeing that she's getting married next year. She already asked me to book the second half of next year for her wedding. Anyway I'm digressing.

So Dewi came with 8 of her colleagues and my selfishness reared its ugly self :P I kinda got frustrated that we had to wait around. In the end they decided to just split from us (Me and Dewi). I have to add that I almost thought the Universal Studio trip wasn't going to come true simply because Dewi had her colleagues to think of. In her words, she had "the people's needs" to think of. That sentence doesn't come out so nice in English :( So I thought she's gonna bail on me, but she tried her best to accomodate me which makes me think that she's really the true friend (teman sejati) :P I guess she really knows me. The wrath of Eka can be pretty scary and so she really just let me drag her around :P I had quite a culture shock meeting her colleagues which was ridonkculous because I'm an Indonesian. For example, her colleague called me "Mbak" which is basically a nice way to show respect to me, but I was just stunned. Decorum is an integral part of Indonesian culture. Like for Dewi and her colleagues, she rarely called any of them with their name. There would be Mr or Madame for the older seniors and for the ones with similar age, I guess they use "Mbak" or "Mas". So anyway her colleagues left us and I felt kinda bad because I don't think they enjoyed the park much. They decided to leave early. I don't think they played much of the rides :( I hope they don't feel it was a waste of time and money. I had a list of things that I wanted to do and I had to say that I think I only missed out 2 but that's okay because I think more or less they would be the same like the things in HongKong Disneyland. So here are the things that we went into:

- Lights! Camera! Action! Hosted by Steven Spielberg --> I thought it was pretty cool seeing how a scene would be filmed inside a sound stage. I think the study of special effects is really interesting.

- Accelator --> Reading about it, I actually didn't want to go but in the end I went in and it was actually very very tame :P

- Revenge of the Mummy --> I knew this would be like the Space Mountain ride in Disneyland which I was really scared about but for some reason I thought I should do it, simply because I will never ever have the nerve to do Battlestar Galactica: Human vs. Cylon. Again my stubborness dragged everyone in (well there were some who stayed behind and didn't take the ride). It was scary and seriously for me and roller coaster, I cannot scream in them! I always get scared that something would go wrong, that my heart would stopped or I get injured or something, so I would always and always hold on to dear life. By that I mean, I was holding on to whatever safety gear I had on and I would be so focus on that, that I couldn't scream at the same time! Dewi said that I should actually scream to make sure my heart is beating and my lung is open. That would stop us from being dead. I need to google on this. Anyway the good thing about this for me (which is a let down for others) is that the ride is pretty short. That's kinda the thing about many of the rides in here, they're pretty short. Kinda perfect for a chicken like me, but for those people who like the thrill, they will get disappointed. When we were kinda slowing down, I thought it was a pause before something worse happened but it was really the end and we were like "Praise the Lord!" but I know some people would have wished it was a pause for something more :P Anyway, I actually looked pretty good in the picture that they normally take of the people during the ride, but of course I didn't buy the picture :P

- Treasure Hunters --> This is where Dewi's colleagues left us. They didn't want to wait. We waited and yes it was quite a kiddy ride. So nothing much I can say about it :p

- Shrek 4-D Adventure --> I'm such a chicken that I didn't feel comfortable in this simply because there was one point when our seats were tilted that my feet were dangling. Yes, even the little kids are braver than me, I'll admit this :P

- Waterworld --> I thought this was pretty cool because the stunts were amazing inspite of it's being done in such a small pool. I have much respect for all the casts and also to whoever build the sets. It's just amazing that things don't get totally destroyed even though they're like on fire 3-4 times a day. I actually got wet here because one of the cast water-gunned our area :(

- Canopy Flyer --> This is a ride up high with our feet dangling. I thought it was gonna be a nice easy ride. The person even said, just open your eyes and enjoy the view. God damn it, it wasn't!!! It was pretty fast, there's a bit of a tilt to the ride and Dewi having the need to scream chose to screamed out my name instead of the usual aaaaahhh. I tried to scream but it's just hard for me. Luckily again for me, it was pretty short :P

- Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure --> We knew it would be like "Arung Jeram" in Jakarta's Dufan but as we went along, we thought there wasn't much of a challenge and we didn't actually get wet. That is until we went into a dark tunnel (I hated this darkness thingy) then there's a lift that brought our raft up and then we were unloaded and as we plunged, we got totally soaked :( I don't think the raincoats that some people used helped keep them dry. I think our investment in the locker was much better :)

That's about it. We stayed until the 9.30 Lake Hollywood Spectacular pyrotechnics show. It was pretty bizzare for me. There were announcement to tell people about it on the loudspeaker but when it began, there was no accouncement or introduction. No music, no nothing. It was basically just a fireworks show. I hope they're still working on it. I love fireworks but I think they can do better with it. Overall I am definitely a Disneyland person. I'm too much of a chicken for Universal Studio. Like if I go there again, there's only so little few that I would go for :P I'm glad that I went though. Another thing I can cross on my list. Here are some pictures. The castle is from Far Far Away (Shrek and Fiona's Castle).

More pictures here

It's pretty good to be meeting Dewi. The silly her was like speaking Indonesian when she wanted to ask something to people. Lucky for her, for some reason she encountered mostly malay or people who understood malay who could reply to her. That made me think that Singaporeans are actually pretty friendly. I did tell her that Singaporean Malay are friendlier than Singaporean Chinese. I don't really know if this is true or it's just because we are Indonesians. It's obviously easier for us to relate with the Malay simply because we kinda can speak to each other. This makes me wonder if Chinese from Taiwan or Hongkong for example would find Singaporean Chinese to be friendly.

On other news, I found out that Emilia is pregnant and Rista told me today that she is also pregnant. Dewi is getting married next year and I am sure my cousin, Marlisa, is following soon after. So this is it, this is really the point when I am really left behind. I want to be totally happy and excited for them but I have to admit that I get pretty scared being left alone. Oh well, repeat the line: what you don't have, you don't need it now. Anyway I should feel happy that apparently I look young :P Today a 22-year old said that I looked 21!!! I could't believe she thought I am younger than her :D Anyway, I am rather excited to see the babies which are coming. I hope they are cute and will always be nice to Auntie Eka. Darn, I hate having to be called auntie but that's what I am going to be to these kids. Let's see, which one sounds less painful, auntie or tante. Either way, I have to get used to it :P

This week's enlightenment thought is: hate grows faster than love. I am too tired to explain how this thought came about. It's nearing 6 months now. It's pretty fast and I am thankful that I've made it this far. Thanks really be to God. It's very very late now. I can't remember the last time I'm awake at this hour. Take care peeps. Have a great week ahead!

:) eKa @ 1:52:00 AM •