In case you didn't know, I spent Valentine's Day in Bangalore. But no, it wasn't that bad and all so pitiful. You can keep your hankies away. Because all in a night, I was rocking to glam metal music, drowned myself in alcohol, did a sing-aloud busker session with Kat along the streets, swore at our stupid driver and made nuisance pranks calls to my boyfriend. See, I still am eccentric no matter where my coordinates are.

Just when the clock struck midnight, the bunch of us were grooving to the tunes to Warrant and Bon Jovi at Hard Rock Cafe, along with the dozens of dozens of expats who probably had nothing to do (and nowhere to go).

High ceilings allow endless space for wall-mounted rock memorabilia, from guitars and drumsticks to rock-studded gloves. I spotted Jani Lane's guitar! There was no live band, but no lack of quality rock songs to jam up the atmosphere. Kat and I sung our hearts out. The days' work wore us out and knocking back a couple of ice cold beer helped. Since Kat could do a good rendition of an Indian, I thought her talent shouldn't be wasted. At 2.40am (Singapore time), I reckoned SQ needed a good laugh. The rest is history.

Like I always say - sometimes life f***s up. This time, it involves a punctured tyre. Midway on our journey to the apartment, the ride became more shaky than usual. The driver kept looking out of the window, towards his back. That's when we took hint that some tyre was gonna give way soon. All because of our F1-aspired non-English-speaking driver who decided 120kph is perfectly fine on a road with drivers who give no shit to road courtesy and lane-changing etiquette. Not long after, the bus took a hit from the gravel lacing the edge of the roads.

Prefect excuse for the pack to smoke their arses off though, while the skinny (and probably impoverished) driver hee-haw urgh-ah changed the tyre.

Most days during the show were spent idling around, making long walks to the nearest CLEANEST toilet and sitting around spotting fellow Singaporeans. You might ask why I didn't some time off to visit the malls or return to my apartment for some sleep. The logic is simple, but frighteningly bizarre - each time we try to step out of the exhibition site, our mobiles would ring so often that I thought, "WTF??" Situations would arise whenever we were not around. We decided to just stay put. The French like us being 'permenancy'. Well, so do the Israelis.

Here's when the AV technician, whose service you've paid for and brought along for the trip, is crucial. If he's a smart one, he would know what to do to entertain us. Build us an entertainment village!

First day, we were enjoying ourselves to music and movies on a spare unit of desktop screen . The next day, Kelvin decided to put up a wall-mounted 32-inch screen with better sound output quality. He didn't stop there. The day after, he treated us to a 42-inch plasma!! It felt great chilling out beside your client's exhibition booth, with a 42-inch screen playing some Hong Kong drama serial. Other contractors were left wandering out under the hot sun with absolutely nowhere decent to hang out.

That's a problem at airshows. Exhibitors expect their contractors to be on stand-by all day, rain or shine. But there is no single decent place for contractors! For fark's sake, a contractors' village should be set up! Well, we probably won't need the fancy-pancy optionals given to exhibitors/delegates, but a decent clean place with shade, chairs and tables. Most of us still need to work while onsite. Power sockets for laptops will be appreciated. I am seriously not expecting the organiser to expect us to sit along the big canal, hanging out with the local Indians. I'm not that sociable.

Anyway, big misconception Singaporeans have of India: you'll find NO ROTI PRATA in India!

I know. But most friends still make roti prata jokes when I inform them of my India trip or have returned from the Curry Land. The fact is, roti prata is a variant of India's chapathi. And as usual, Singapore has a knack of mish-mashing stuff and re-creating one as its own. So there, for the record, Indians Indians don't make roti prata.

But the curry is pretty power. A class of its own. By far, the ones I have had in India are pretty creamy, less watery as opposed to the ones we usualy have in Singapore. And the Indians like their curry with lotsa ingredients. So one'd find lotsa chickpeas, herb leaves and meat chucks in their curry. Then again, 14 days in Bangalore, 14 days of spicy curry every morning can be quite an overdose.

Soon enough, Kat and I were craving for good 'ol westernised junk food. Good thing Domino's is only less than five minutes walk from our apartment. Pizza Hut is on the next street. And KFC, well, is not that fantastic much to my disappointment. So yeah, we had PIzza Hut twice and Domino's was absolutely fab - a good break away from lousy Chinese takeaways and oily spicy Indian curry. Sometimes, we just want some junk food.

Oh I really want to talk about the apartment we stayed in. In case, you don't know, hotels in India is jack-arse crazy expensive. The good ones. Cheaper ones can be dirt cheap. But they are next to lousy. I mean really lousy, sometimes dirty and the rooms are smaller than my bedroom. Basic amenities are next to none. There are virtually no middle-class accommodation (so far my experience in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore). This time, we were so lucky to have found a new service apartment along New Bel Road - Banaglore's up-and-coming residential district for the affluent locals.

Greenpath is a green living concept - brain-child of Mr. XXX (pardon me. I'm rotten with names). Anyway he's a lawyer. Damn rich a lawyer I must reckon. He purchased the entire 4-storey building - with existing individual 2/3-bedroom apartments and converted the place into a serviced apartment - 'part of a larger effort of creating awareness on alternate, ecological lifestyle...'. Damn right it is! Mr. XXX owns an organic farm of all sorts and breakfast served to us every morning are all from the organic farm. The water heater runs on clean green energy and a whole lot more which I have failed to find out in details. But you get the drift. The fact that Mr. XXX personally trains his staff to provide personal above-the-par services impresses me. Seriously, local standard of service will make you vomit blood. The guys here at Greenpath are different. Professional.

On our last night, Mr. XXX threw us a farewell party. Hah, nice dude.

See that guy in pink, right beside me? That's da Boss - Mr. XXX. Anyhoos, I've made a few new friends during this exhibition. Israelites and all. Serious-looking dudes but pretty crazy funny up in the mind. According to one of them, they were just 'being Israeli'. Alright, that made my glasses drop. Really? Are Israelis supposedly that funny and chummy? Well, we are talking about the same Israelis who nearly wiped off Hamas, no? But well, perhaps my spunk and nonsensical quips broke the ice. After a few days of 'me', the usually dead-pan-looking Israeli security officers relaxed quite a bit and chatted rubbish with me. Really. I teased them by lying that the law and order in Singapore is brought about by the severe penalty of caning even for littering. I laughed it off and told them the truth after seeing their drop-jaw expression. But they chose to believe my lie because they heard the same from some Malaysian girl.
*rolls eyes*

Seriously? A Malaysian? I looked straight into the eyes of one Israeli and said, "You're not that smart after all,"

They loved me after all that spunk and truthiness.

Lots of stories to tell. But I'm tired. Next time.