In Continuum.

Halloween is drawing near now, just a little more than a week till the ghosts and monsters rule the streets, albeit in their miniature versions. I was surprised to hear a couple of months ago that people actually do celebrate Halloween in Singapore, something which I haven't actually heard or experienced of before. I suppose it isn't exactly very wise to be prancing about the neighborhoods of Singapore behind a thick rubber mask while staying under layers of costume for hours on end with the humid weather. I keep imagining a miniature mummy collapsing at somebody's front door, or a vampire dying not from a stake through his heart, but a heatstroke. I suppose it is because I live in a condominium, or maybe it is because most people in Singapore cannot care less about this day. They don't keep a bowl of candies by the front door, just waiting for the children to come trick-or-treating. The last time I dressed out for a non-performance related event, it was because my sister thought it to be a brilliant idea to put earrings on me. That was probably my first and last cross-dressing experience, and not something that I'd attempt again anytime soon. Either way, I like dressing up in costumes, although I may seem too old for trick-or-treating. Candies aren't really my thing, after all. 

Which is why the Night Safari has organized an event to cater to us older folks, who are too old for trick-or-treating and yet, still young enough to want to have some fun. I actually didn't know about the event until I was being told, and the posters at various bus stops in Singapore with the cartoon bat hanging upside down suddenly made sense. I am not sure who thought it'd be a good idea to put monsters and animals together into one place, but I suppose monsters and a vast expanse of forest marries well together. So that was the plan last Saturday, to visit the Night Safari and try to be freaked out by the ghosts and the monsters. You  know how it is with most parties and events like that, the ghosts and monsters are probably going to turn out to be lame and, let's admit it, boring. At least that was the case for the Halloween party held by my school last year, or so I heard, when it was more about showing off some skin rather than being scary, for the most part. Despite having been to the Night Safari only a couple of months earlier this year (in January), I still agreed to head down there with Kat (an alias) last weekend. She hasn't been to the Night Safari in ages, and I suppose seeing animals is always a good excuse to escape the bustling crowds. So that was what we did. 

First of all, I must say that Ang Mo Kio Hub kind of sucks. It seems to be the common thing in between most of the new shopping malls popping up all around Singapore, they lack this flow somehow, and everybody are just running into each other like blind ants without their feelers. The same for Vivo City, the same for Central, and even Ang Mo Kio is somewhat of a giant maze of confusion. It was difficult to find our way around, and it wasn't helped by the fact that people were all disorientated at the very same time. So we kept bumping into people that gave us cold stares, and we quickly learned that the only way to retaliate was to stare them back. Anyway, it took us forever just to find something to eat in that mall, and you start to wonder why it is called a "Hub" in the first place when it is void of a lot of shopping mall essentials. I mean, it doesn't even have McDonald's, not that I am a fan of it in any way. Speaking of which, everything is a "hub" now. Singapore wants to be the education hub, the IT hub, and even the telecom company is called Starhub - what's up with that? Before this "hub" thing came along, there was the "@" thing, when every library was "@" somewhere. Then before the "@" thing, it was all about replacing every "Ex" as "X", what's up with that?

There is a certain excitement in taking long bus rides down long expressways and passing by empty bus stops. I love empty bus stops, because they mean that the bus doesn't have to stop for anybody, which also means a speedier journey to the destination. Still, there we were in the back of the bus, and it was packed with people as if we were being shipped off to some concentration camp, or being sold as human labors. I tried to imagine ourselves being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and then asked to jump into a ditch of dead bodies. Anyway, it was really strange, because the bus was obviously traveling to nowhere, and yet the bus was packed to the brink, and I mean it. Of course you would want to go to the Night Safari with nobody in it, you'd want the whole place to yourself, and maybe whoever that is going with you. Yet, there they were with their tourist cameras and their tourist hats, looking like tourists when they are really mostly locals. There was this woman that stood next to me, and she was probably colleagues with the three younger girls, since they were wearing the same uniforms. Anyway, it was irritating enough that the girls were removing their nail polish on the bus (which explained the horrible stench), the woman was breathing onto the top of my head. I swear, I should have fed her to the lions. 

Oh, the Night Safari, I do miss this place quite a bit. It was after a brief rain the last time I came, which explained why the animals were rathe reluctant to come out from their little caves. This time around, the weather cooperated, though the place was pretty packed with tourists and, gasp, ghosts and monsters. I have to admit, the ghosts and monster didn't look half bad. Or rather, let's put it this way, most of the ones that didn't have to show their faces, did a marvelous job. The scarecrow genuinely freaked me out a little bit, and we joked about how some of the ghosts could be real ghosts, and merely blended into the crowd to have some fun. Anyway, I thought the rag doll ghost girl was pretty cool, and she had that whole Tim Burton feel to her. The ones with the cart wasn't too successful though, though she did garner the most screams. The clowns probably frightened Kat the most, and I suppose it would freak Samantha out too if she was there. Clowns are just naturally scary, which is why I refuse to watch Stephen King's IT. But the clowns, to me, were alright, they looked pretty OK. Sure, they were wearing blood stained costumes but, they were still rather tamed in my opinion. Someone should really craft a costume after the members of Slipknot. 

I don't get how the people there would scream at these so-called ghosts and monsters, knowing that they are humans to begin with. I don't know, it's not like they jumped out from around the corner or anything, they just kind of prance around the queues and stuff. Some people were cool about it, took pictures and whatnot with them, while some of the ladies just kept screaming their heads off. Seriously, I had have the mind to murder the lady at the suspension bridge because 1) she kept screaming and screaming ceaselessly because of a chinese vampire who looked very human 2) she single-handedly caused a human traffic jam behind her because she refused to move on the narrow bridge. If only the butcher knives used by some of the actors were real. Anyway, we started with the tram ride first, though the enthusiasm of the commentator was received mostly by the lukewarm response of the passengers. The tour started out as usual, with the animals passing by and by on our left and right. I loved the elephants, and it was great that we actually stopped right next to a pair of them - I was so close! I have an endless fascination with elephants, I swear, and I'd so buy one with enough money at hand. 

Then, we entered the gates of Hell. Well, not really the gates of Hell, but just an entrance decorated by fake skulls and creepy red bulbs. Then what kind of freaked me out were the mannequins being stuck on metal poles all along the trail. Mannequins scare me a little bit, with their blank plastic stares and their distorted limbs, they can get pretty creepy. But of course, I wasn't exactly showing it, and remained rather composed throughout the journey. Then the monsters started popping out and to chase the tram itself. I thought it'd be awesome to hire about thirty people, and they'd rush out of the forest and start biting planted employees on the tram. Oh, the splattering of fake blood would be so awesome! Anyway, there was a Pontianak (think of a female vampire) in the league of the ghosts as well, and I actually made an attempt to grab her fake plastic baby. Then there was that other monster, at least I think he was supposed to be one. He looked more like a man who has spent too much time in the jungle, and I thought I recognized him. So when he climbed onto my side of the tram, I asked if I knew him, and he just kind of ran away into the dark afterwards. Maybe, just maybe, I do. 

I couldn't help but laugh at the attempts to frighten me for the most part, but still I thought they did a wonderful job as a whole. I wasn't expecting much, but they did pull it off in the end so, kudos to the crew. I must say that the creepiest ghost was probably the one dressed as a dead soldier that remained hidden behind his camouflage until an unsuspecting tourist came by. The trail became a little scarier when we had to go on foot, though I actually helped a corpse to pull up his fly - someone must have pulled it down, bad tourists! Anyway, I can never stop looking at animals, I just can't. I am the same person who'd stare at my fish tank for hours when I was younger, and I'd gladly stare at the tiger enclosure until the safari closes. Still, we kind of moved from one enclosure to another, and some were rather disappointing I must say. Like the last time, the animals were hard to spot for the most part, and they'd always be in the shadows or sleeping. That kind of reminded me of the initial scenes from Jurassic Park, though I do hope that none of the meat-eating animals would escape. The lion's roar was awesome, by the way. 

Otters rock, they are just awesome. They are like hamsters, but infinitely cuter and more interactive. I suppose it was smart for the zookeepers to have otters all over the safari, because they really are fun to look at. There was a point in the trail whereby the otters all gathered onto a branch in the middle of the pond, and just kinda stared at us while we stared back. The female tourists made funny noises while I was just trying to mimic their sounds. They were so, so, so cute, and I'd like one for my birthday next year - pretty, please? Anyway, I think the safari should really somehow figure out a way to lure the animals out from the shadows, or at least make sure that the tourists don't stare at an empty space when it obviously has signs of animals printed on the map. The giraffes were definitely the greatest disappointment, because they were nowhere to be seen. There was one zebra, and that was about it. Most of the lions were sleeping, the leopards disappeared into the shadows, and even the alligators remained submerged most of the time. 

Despite those, however, I had a great time with Kat, and it is always the case for any outing with friends anyway. It was fun to see her squirm at the gates of Hell, or when the creepy loner ghost came by with her voodoo doll. I, on the other hand, kept trying to make the situation awkward for the ghosts and monsters. I am such a bucket of cold water at times, but how can you look at a clown and not shout "Why so serious" ? Anyway, it was a fun night at the Night Safari, and I had a great time. It was getting late, and she actually missed the bus home. Nothing a few dollar notes and a cab wouldn't solve, and we were home safe and sound, save for the massive amount of mosquito bites that I sustained. To the zoo next time perhaps, and maybe I'd get to see my other favorite animal: sloths! 

P.S. If I am going to make a costume this year, it'd be a downward sloping graph of the U.S. stock market.