Sunday, July 13, 2008

Chap Olympiad!

I will admit, I had slim chances of making it there. Not because of the clues I had to the location, but because I'm soooo crap at directions. Shuai will understand *grin* I've always told Shuai, "I'll navigate, and I'll guarantee you we'll get there. Eventually."

Have you any idea how HUUUUGE Hampstead Heath is?!?


Dear lord. I started off well. I got off at the right station. That was Clue #1. Clue #2 said I should walk between two ponds. That's where I went wrong. There is more than one path between ponds :P By the time I realised I was on the wrong path (because I could suddenly see people bathing in the pond where I was suppose to be, apparently it's a great gay pick-up spot because skinny dipping is allowed), I thought, "I'm close to the end of this path, surely I can just turn left and meet up with the other path".

Bad move.

I got to the end of the path, and it exited the park. So I wandered to the left a bit, then down a bit, and entered the park again at a completely different spot. I then spent the next HOUR walking inside the park. I was dying of thirst. Clues at this point were hopeless.

Eventually, I bumped into a bunch of Engrish dandies.
Tracking some dandies in the wild:


So I followed them :) And stepped into a different time! Boat hats, pipes, tweed jackets, turbans, handlebar moustaches :) I gotta say it was fun seeing everyone dressed up, and I felt left out. It turned out to be a great sunny day for a picnic. Warm enough for me to take off my jacket *grin*



I was kinda miffed though that the Engrish dandies decided to make fun of the stereotypical oriental. The Fu Manchu with the whiskers and round glasses, made an appearance dressed in a sumo suit. I'm all for taking the piss... but when "Chap-a-San" (*groan*) lost every fight, and people hissed and boo'd when he toppled his opponent - That was a bit hard to take.

*Shrug* I'll upload a vid when Flickr decides to work.


All in all, a good day :) I'd love to do this again next year, with a bunch of friends all dressed up.



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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sort of agree with the sumo-wrestling being over the top because I thought it just went on rather too long. I've no problem with people mocking the British (because, well, we're funny) but it wears thin when it just goes on...and on.
I saw several orientals in the audience laughing initially at the event but the smiles got increasingly forced as it went on. Would it be fair to assume you were one of them?

Here via google - I was at the olympiad and was curious at to who else was too.

16/7/08, 10:28 am
reenie said...

Having gone to school in a very white neighbourhood, the most common racist line I use to hear was, "Go back to your own country". So hearing a similar line to that 15 years later and in the first 5 mins of the match was a bit of a shock. Yeah, I was definitely in the front row grimacing... Again, its all in good fun but Chap-a-San could've at least showed some balls and won a couple of rounds :P

16/7/08, 1:10 pm

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