ALYSSA YOU DEVIL!!!
There was Prince of Tennis tankouban at the 'chuangyi' booth! And it's in Chinese too! LIAR!
Let me start from the beginning of this story.
Yesterday, there was this supports school activity called "Toy Competition Prize Presentation '08" organized by the Singapore Polytechnic. It so happened that the prize presentation was held at the "Singapore Toy and Comic Convention" which is held in Suntec Hall 603.
I think today is the last day of the convention.
Anyway, I went for the support school activity to finally get my 3rd and final signature, a key to getting promoted (that is if I pass my exams...). I didn't actually know they sold comics over there until I walked past 'chuangyi' 's booth with Vivian and Fish (was Gloria and MinChih walking with us?).
'Chuang Yi' is this publishing company that publishes comics (mostly Manga). I recognize it as the publisher of Prince of Tennis (my all time favourite Manga) and went to check out the booth. There were 4 sides to the booth (actually, it's more like the pillar in the middle of the booth had four sides which were actually shelves).
The corners of the booths were connected with some weird quadrant which had pictures of characters from Mangas published by them on it. I SPOTTED PRINCE OF TENNIS' TEZUKA AND INUI!!!
I dunno what happened to me. I rushed to search for the Prince of Tennis (probably motivated by that little pic somewhere at the bottom right of one of the quadrants...) I was searching through one of the shelves, when I was informed that we would be late if we didn't move our butts. So I reluctantly went, not having caught a glimpse of a Prince of Tennis tankouban yet.
During the prinze presentation, Alyssa came up to me and asked if I recognize her. She was wearing those traditional Malay outfits for ladies (dunno what that's called). I said I did. I asked her if she had seen the 'chuangyi' booth, she said she had, and even bought some Mangas. She showed them to me, but the titles didn't really register in my head...
I asked her to help me check if there's any Prince of Tennis tankoubans in Chinese there. She said she would (I had to confirm she knew how Prince of Tennis' characters looked like first cuz she probably doesn't understand Chinese). So after a while, cheering and clapping for our school when we won a few prizes, she came back and told me there were none.
I was like so disheartened, thinking in my heart that the stupid picture on the quadrant gave me false hopes. I thanked her for her efforts anyway.
After the whole prize presentation ceremony was over (it ended about 25 minutes earlier than expected, and RGS won 3 consolation prizes and 1 top prize, gaining the title of 'the school with most achievements' or something), I left the rest and went over the the 'chuangyi' booth by myself. Don't ask me why. I just went. Call it intuition.
So when I went, I turned the whole booth topsy turvy in search of Prince of Tennis tankoubans. It wasn't until the last shelf I searched (I skipped one of the shelves, all it ever held was Pokemon and I'm not interested...) that I spotted something...
The fateful books with blue spines staring right back at me, almost yelling at me to pick them out of the rest of the tankoubans...
Fan Girl Mode: KYAAA!!!! PRINCE OF TENNIS!!!!
Normal Mode
I was like, OH MY GOSH, Prince of Tennis... and ...ALYSSA YOU LIAR!!!
I immediately sprinted over to it and ran my fingers down the blue spines, staring in disbelief at my luck. (This happened the previous day when I walked into the school bookshop and saw 'Prince of Tennis' books 37 and 38 [printed in Chinese], but just add in a few hysteric bounces, screams, and jumps while clutching the poor books to death) I was so mesmerized by them that I just stared at them for seconds.
Then I slowly picked the books up. There were books 1, 2, 3, 38 and 39. I'd have to go the the school book shop to pick up book 37, I noted. On Friday, I SMSed my father to ask if I could buy the tankoubans which are in Chinese from the bookshop, he replied 'yes', but when I asked if I'd have to pay with my pocket money, he didn't confirm it so I didn't buy them.
When I went home and asked him, he said he'd pay half if it's in Chinese. I was, like, over the moon. So when I saw the Prince of Tennis tankoubans, I was in heaven cuz the amount I have to pay is halved and that there were FIVE of the tankoubans here. Well, 5 isn't a lot out of 42 though...
So I dug them from where they were unjustly hidden and purchased them at 10% discount because there was a 10% discout booth wide. There were two of each tankouban at the booth.
After I purchased them, I couldn't believe my luck. All I could do was thank my D&T teacher for introducing this support school activity to me, because, if not, I wouldn't know there was this convention, and would not have been able to buy the books. And all this is because GOD arranged it. THANK YOU GOD!!!
As I was in line waiting to buy the book, two men walked past me, one of them said, "Sugoi su ne." and I was like, "Yes, it's so amazing," in my mind. Oh. 'sugoi su ne' is Japanese for 'it's amazing'. I really couldn't believe I could get my hands on these books! It was only recently that I started this mission to get the tankoubans after I saw a picture of one of the Prince of Tennis tankouban on the net.
I thought, "I must be so lucky to even get to see one first hand."
There was D.Gray-Man manga in Chinese too, from book 1-13 and Death Note 1-12 and its How to Read. But they were in Chinese too.
Hey, who said D&T sucked? It has its quirks too!
Oh yeah, that day was my youngest paternal aunt's wedding, and I missed their Church Wedding...so sad...
But then I attended her wedding dinner after rushing home to bathe and change after ballet. The dinner was scrumptious! Since my fater was 2nd son, my family go to sit at the VIP table with my grandparents and eldest uncle and his 19 year old daughter and third eldest uncle. They served us the food on idividual plates instead of one whole dish chucked in the middle of the spinning thing because we're at the VIP table. =D
Anyway, the spinning thing held a candel stick with quite a cool design and multiple candles placed in glass cones fill with some liquid (of course, the candle sat on the liquid). The dinner was held at the Holiday Inn's Crystal Ballroom. I think.
There was a special performance my my aunt's and uncle's friends (who were married). The lady sang some solo about love (I think it's 'Your Love' or something), and then the man joined her for a duet about love too. This would probably be the last wedding I'm going to attend for a long time.
Oh, just something, a flower bent too low and burnt up.
