Every Wednesday I make a playlist of artists who will be playing live in Berlin next week (now for 12 - 18 June)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ckbl7YZpdbpREx2dje43m
Enjoy the music! 🙂 And if you like what I do and would like to spoil me with a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/musicliveberlin
I update the playlist every Wednesday. DM me your email if you want to get an update alert.
You can find listings for all the shows and a gig submission form at https://duhdum.com/music-live-berlin/
​
Music! Live! Berlin! on other streaming platforms:
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-200468545/sets/music-live-berlin-929421898
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/library/playlist/p.MoGJ98ktv65o8b7
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhquGzILJaw119k9vdvJTx5oJG4972_8r
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhquGzILJaw2k4AQxumkN-nmV4xFRg6W4
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/playlist/11436419044
​
And if you are looking for even more things to do: www.berlineventsweekly.com

Every Wednesday I make a playlist of artists who will be playing live in Berlin next week (now for 12 - 18 June)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ckbl7YZpdbpREx2dje43m
Enjoy the music! 🙂 And if you like what I do and would like to spoil me with a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/musicliveberlin
I update the playlist every Wednesday. DM me your email if you want to get an update alert.
You can find listings for all the shows and a gig submission form at https://duhdum.com/music-live-berlin/
​
Music! Live! Berlin! on other streaming platforms:
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-200468545/sets/music-live-berlin-929421898
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/library/playlist/p.MoGJ98ktv65o8b7
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhquGzILJaw119k9vdvJTx5oJG4972_8r
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhquGzILJaw2k4AQxumkN-nmV4xFRg6W4
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/playlist/11436419044
​
And if you are looking for even more things to do: www.berlineventsweekly.com

Hello!
Idk if someone made this list na. A quick search in this sub did not yield the results I was looking for.
To preface this: Yes, we can study in our dorms / houses. Minsan talaga, we need that change of scenery when studying, especially during the height of exams season. Plus, hindi lahat may rooms na always conducive for studying. I am of the opinion na okay lang twice or thrice in a semester mag-study outside (arbitrary numbers).
Some of the cons that keep me from studying out are:

• SAFETY. I lived in Cebu since college (2015), so di na ako new sa environment. Pero with news about gun shootings sa cafe (to be fair, I'm only aware of one during college, pero schoolmate ko kasi ang victim so it hit closer to home), I have my reservations. PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF YOUR SAFETY DIN, can't stress this enough. It's a scary world.
• My chair sa room is so comfortable, my desk is wide and tama ang height. Well-lit din because lamp.
• Sadly, since the pandemic, parang shiny rare Pokemon na ang 24-hour places :(((
• Mas mahirap umuwi at night because less na ang jeeps that ply the road. Truly missing the pre-pandemic time vis-a-vis studying out and 24-hr places.

​

• For USC students, okay mag study sa library. They adjust their operating hours depende sa demand. Bring jacket!!! The library has a small retail corner (library and bar ops) where u can buy instant sachets ng kape, biscuits, candies, ordinary medicine like biogesic na you don't need prescription for, papers, pens, highlighters, drinks, may water dispenser for hot and cold water, may 7/11 across the street. If you prefer, be friends sa blockmates mo, order kayo sa Grab for food and coffee, share sa delivery fee. There's wifi but mahina sa library. You can mobile hotspot pero parang mahina ang Globe din there. Stay safe and vigilant pauwi at night.
• Library in your school / university if meron and conducive for studying. Take advantage sa binabayaran mong tuition. Plus, if you need to more references, chances are may books available kasi nga library: this dawned on me a little too late.
• IT Park has a lot of study places.
  • My favorite in undergrad was Krispy Kreme (coz hello donuts and relatively cheaper coffee) and Bo's Coffee yung near sa Jollibee/Chowking. Closed na ni nga branch sa Bo's, I think? No wifi na yata ang KK and di na 24 hours. I forgot when siya mag-close. Baka open pa ang Bo's Coffee branch in the same bloc where Krispy Kreme is.
  • Recently, may Dunkin Donuts na but they close mga 8 PM yata? For sure walang wifi. Idk okay lang mag-aral there. Takeout ka na lang ng kape.
  • Starbucks near the louvre triangle thingy na closed na today and near Sugbo Mercado. Closes like 2 AM as far a I know. Madaling mapuno. Don't finish 2 venti espresso-based coffee in a span of 4 hours before your big exam. I think no outlets? I haven't seen any. There's a Starbucks near Krispy Kreme/Jollibee/KFC din, pero I haven't tried.
  • Civet Coffee, pre-pandemic hanging 4 AM yata sila. Small tables, small chairs. Idk, my friends liked it there.
• MangoSix. Salinas Drive. Parang gusto ka na nilang paalisin sa lamig ng AC nila. I don't think you know what is cold before you experienced MangoSix cold. Bring jacket. Maybe may times na it won't be as cold. They have wifi. Contrary to (my) expectation, they don't just serve mango stuff, hehe. Limited outlets.
• Idk if Cafe Talk in Escario St. is still open for studying. Poor cell reception inside. Last time I was there was in undergrad, they have a box-like set up: you're inside a cubicle na sa sides ang opening so may ceiling ka, you squat inside like a Japanese would for meals. They had outlets per cubicle back then. Idk now.
• Bo's Coffee near Cebu Doc. I haven't tried, but I always see med students study here.
• Dunkin Donut, Fuente Circle. I think 24 hours sila, pero when I was there, they had to close at like 2 AM kasi they have to clean up, mag-open again in a few hours. For sure open na sila by 6 AM kasi I used to get my coffee there before I go to work. No outlet. No wifi. Love their coffee. Cheap, strong, good taste.
• Tom N Toms. Idk their operating hours sa new na location nila at 88th Avenue. Con is tuyoon kayo siya murag di for students and convenient lang if naay kay car? FOR ME. Back in undergrad, I studied sa branches nila in front of SM City Cebu (APM mall) and yung near sa Greenery. Okay study atmosphere. These 2 branches are already closed na today, sayang.
• Bo's Coffee sa Ramos, I haven't tried studying here. Saba daw here based sa naka-try. I think maraming med students here since near siya to medical schools. Maka-order ko sa foodpanda at dawn so I think 24 hours ni.
• Starbucks Colon, closes by 8 PM I think, small area. Madaling mapuno. May outlets daw but limited. The baristas are kind.
• *Dunkin Donuts, Colon - under construction pa I think, but may tarpaulin sila showing Dunkin, Idk when mag-open, high hopes for this place.
• Starbucks - BPI Ayala. I love it here sa morning kasi wala masyadong tao. Jazzy, quiet, chill vibe. Mapuno late in the afternoon, becomes noisy, closes at 12 AM I think. Their staff is accommodating and approachable. Poor cell reception sa Globe. Wifi is gosurfwifi.

If possible and you're lucky enough na you can have them in your space, get a comfortable chair with back support, a wide desk na appropriate say ang height, and a good lamp. This saves you the trouble of going out. SAFETY FIRST. Pa-deliver ka na lang ng kape.
​
Do you know of other studying out places in Cebu City na you'd like to share? (10%) char.

Just getting back into playing after a while away and was wonder what you all would suggest for my mod order and or replacement suggestions to get the best results The list is all the mods I can remember and in no particular order since Im at work and cant see what order I have them in currently. Thanks in advance
minimal Advisor interface Real AI Traffic FMOD Realistic Mirror FOV Kenworth W900 Improved Dashboard Crypt Keeper Voice Nav (SCR) Smarty’s Wheel Pack Real World Billboards Interior Cabin Lights (beacon) MoMo’s Physics: American Dream Kenworth W900L Accessories Pack Farsel’s Cab Cats Real Trafic Density Accessory Parts for SCS Trucks municipal Police Traffic Pack Realistic Rain ATS Police Tweeks ShockerXL Trainhorn SiSl’s Mega Pack Enhanced vegetation Metalic Fade Dowls High Resolution Skyboxes High Quality Construction Props Realistic Vehicle Lights Mod Bright Headlights
Zeemods:
Weather Sound & effect Kenworth Interior and Effects GPS Voice mod Train & Crossing Road & Wind Interior noise and one of the engine packs (dont remember which one)

I (20F) am writing this out of my agony and heartbreak. I dedicated this to someone (25M) I met here on reddit last March that probably turned into a mere stranger who knows my secrets. He was just 6 years my senior. If you're reading this, I hope your life now is much better and happier. You know, I still read the comic you gave on my birthday and I hope you looked at the music box I gave you and it would remind you of me.
Maybe you're reading this on your freetime or during work. I want you to know I miss you so much that my heart craves for your hugs that you refused to give last saturday afternoon. Your responses too were icy cold and dry, that made my sister and my best friend wondering if ever na magjowa pa ba tayo? Kasi they told me para kang naiilang while I waited in line.
I am still awake at 5 am— clinging in the hopes na magrereply or tatawag ka pa ba or hindi na. Pero it's just very rude of you to simply iwanan ako sa ere, left me drowning in the sea of uncertainty. My sister advised me na lay low muna ako and not chase you. But these won't stop me to write a mere story about our tragic flame that quickly extinguished in the span of 2 months, di natin alam if ever liliyab pa to ulit.
I am still wondering if your promises you said na di mo ako iiwan because I suffered too much are just empty words? I am already suffering as my thoughts running nonstop and all I need is reassurance from you, pero ano nakuha ko? Dry replies and more questions for myself to doubt to.
Anyways, enough abt this, here's one story dedicated for you.
C/W s*icide sa story.
In a quaint coastal town nestled between towering cliffs and the vast expanse of the sea, lived a young woman named Marianna. With a heart filled with boundless dreams and a soul drenched in romanticism, she longed for a love that would ignite her spirit and fill her existence with joy. Fate, in its unpredictable nature, led Marianna to a chance encounter with a sailor named Thomas.
Marianna, with her mesmerizing hazel eyes and an infectious smile, caught Thomas's attention as they crossed paths one fateful day. He was a man of the sea, weathered by countless voyages and adventures. Their connection was instantaneous, a magnetic pull drawing them together. They soon discovered a shared passion for literature, and it became the cornerstone of their budding relationship.
Every month, on a designated day, Marianna and Thomas would rendezvous at a cozy café nestled along a cobblestone street. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the warmth of their conversations, creating an ambiance of comfort and familiarity. From there, they would wander hand in hand to a charming bookstore, where they would lose themselves amidst the shelves, engrossed in tales of love, loss, and adventure.
Their shared love for books soon blossomed into a love for each other. When Thomas sailed away on his nautical voyages, Marianna's heart ached with longing. But they refused to let distance dim the flame that burned within them. Their correspondence became a lifeline, a testament to the strength of their love. Letters filled with heartfelt confessions, poetic declarations, and promises of eternal devotion bridged the gap between land and sea.
On Marianna's twentieth birthday, her heart fluttered with anticipation. She yearned for a celebration that would fill the void left by her own family, who seemed oblivious to her tender soul. And there, in the familiar embrace of the café, Thomas appeared with a mischievous smile, bearing a gift wrapped in delicate paper. It was one of his treasured books, adorned with a note that whispered of endless tales and shared adventures. Marianna's eyes sparkled with gratitude and love as she embraced the precious gift, treasuring the significance it held.
The day unfolded like a dream. Thomas took her hand, leading her on a journey of enchantment. They wandered through quaint streets, where the world seemed to fade away, leaving only their entwined souls. He taught her the art of shooting with a gun, a skill that bonded them even further. They strolled along the sun-kissed shoreline, their laughter and whispered secrets carried away by the gentle breeze.
As twilight painted the sky in hues of orange and pink, they found solace in a secluded hut, seeking respite from the world. In that haven, their desire and passion collided like crashing waves. They surrendered to the intensity of their love, words no longer able to convey the depth of their longing. Their bodies intertwined, hearts beating in unison, and in that moment, they felt a transcendence that only true lovers can know.
But as the weeks rolled by, an inexplicable change swept over their once vibrant love. The passionate letters that had once ignited their souls became scarce, devoid of the fervor and tenderness they had known. Marianna's heart, once buoyed by Thomas's affectionate words, now sank into a sea of uncertainty.
Anxiety gnawed at Marianna's fragile heart, pushing her to seek answers. They met again, amidst the joyful chaos of a vibrant festival. The atmosphere crackled with excitement, but a cold wind blew between them. The once radiant Thomas treated her with indifference, his eyes devoid of the spark that once captivated her. The pain of his aloofness seared through her, leaving her trembling with unspoken fears.
Summoning every ounce of courage, Marianna confronted Thomas, her voice quivering with desperation. Tears welled in her eyes as she pleaded for clarity, for a semblance of the love they once shared. But Thomas, like a sailor evading treacherous waters, deflected her questions, his gaze drifting into the distance. The ache in her chest deepened as he recoiled from her touch, a stark contrast to the warmth they had once shared. Her invitation to a future festival was met with a dismissive rejection, the final blow to her fragile hope.
With her heart shattered and no solace to be found, Marianna retreated into a desolate world of her own making. She penned her final letters, ink stained with the tears of a love unfulfilled. She poured her soul into every word, expressing her unwavering love for Thomas, yet grappling with the haunting question that plagued her every thought: Did he truly love her as he had professed? She reminded him of the promises they had woven, the vows of unyielding devotion that had bound them. Alongside the letters, Marianna placed a meticulously crafted music box—a token of their love, an embodiment of the melodies that once danced between them. Inside its delicate lid, the words "La vie en rose" were etched, a symbol of the vibrant world they had painted together.
With trembling hands, Marianna sent her final tokens of love into the world, never to be retrieved. A heavy veil of sorrow draped over her, obscuring the once radiant light within. She then retreated to the riverbank, her footsteps heavy with the weight of her despair. The moon shone brightly overhead, casting an ethereal glow upon her fragile figure as she gazed at the shimmering waters below.
In a white nightgown, she stood at the water's edge, her heart pounding with both longing and despair. The weight of unanswered questions and unfulfilled promises bore down upon her fragile frame. She longed for an escape from the torment that consumed her, a release from the suffocating grip of unrequited love. With one last glance at the starry sky, Marianna succumbed to the frigid embrace of the river, surrendering to its relentless current.
As the water swallowed her, Marianna's existence faded into the depths, her once vibrant spirit silenced forevermore.

Payment must be made via Venmo or Cash App.
(MA): Movies Anywhere
(GP Split): Google Play
###Movies:
* Addams Family 2 4K (iTunes): $9
* All-Star Superman 4K (MA): $10
* Ant-Man Quantumania 4K (MA): $12
* Ant-Man Quantumania HD (MA): $9
* Babylon HD (MA): $10
* The Bad Guys 4K (MA): $8
* The Banshees of Inisherin HD (MA): $8
* The Banshees of Inisherin HD (GP): $5
* Batman: Doom That Came To Gotham 4K (MA): $9
* Beast HD (MA): $6
* Belly 4K (Vudu): $5
* Black Panther: Wakanda Forever HD (MA): $6
* Black Panther: Wakanda Forever HD (GP): $4
* Black Widow HD (GP Split): $5
* Bodies, Bodies, Bodies HD (Vudu): $7
* Catwoman: Hunted HD (MA): $6
* Creed III (Vudu): $10
* Death on the Nile HD (GP Split): $5
* Detective Knight: Independence: 4K iTunes or HD Vudu): $9
* Dungeons & Dragons 4K (iTunes or Vudu): $12
* Dungeons & Dragons HD (iTunes or Vudu): $9
* Dr Strange MoM HD (GP Split): $4
* Live, Die, Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow 4K (MA): $8
* Empire of Light HD (MA): $10
* Empire of Light HD (GP Split): $6
* Encanto 4K (MA): $7
* Encanto HD (MA): $6
* Encanto HD (GP Split): $5
* Eternals HD (GP Split): $4
* Fantastic Beast & Where to Find Them 4K (MA): $6
* Flashdance 4K (Vudu or iTunes): $8
* The French Dispatch HD (MA): $5
* The French Dispatch HD (GP Split): $5
* Ghostbusters HD (MA): $5
* Ghostbusters 2 HD (MA): $5
* Highlander 4K (MA): $9
* Honk for Jesus HD (MA): $11
* Jungle Book 2016 HD (GP Split): $4
* Justice League x RWBY HD (MA): $9
* King Richard HD (MA): $7
* The King’s Man HD (GP Split): $5
* Knock at the Cabin 4K (MA): $10
* Knock at the Cabin HD (MA): $8
* The Last Duel HD (GP Split): $5
* League of SuperPets 4K: $8
* Lightyear 4K (MA): $7
* Lightyear HD (GP Split): $4
* Lyle Lyle Crocodile HD (MA): $7
* A Man Named Otto HD (MA): $9
* Men HD (Vudu or GP): $6
* Magic Mike’s Last Dance HD (MA): $10
* Missing HD (MA): $8
* Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre HD (Vudu): $8
* Plane HD (Vudu & iTunes): $8
* Renfield HD (MA): $old Out
* The Rescuers HD (MA): $5
* The Rescuers Down Under HD (MA): $5
* Reservoir Dogs 4K (Vudu or iTunes): $5
* Resident Evil Welcome to Racoon City HD (MA): $7
* Rons Gone Wrong HD (GP Split): $5
* Shang Chi HD (GP Split): $5
* Shazam: Fury of the Gods 4K (MA): $10
* Spider-Man: No Way Home 4K (MA): $8
* Spinning Gold HD (MA): $9
* Strange World HD (MA): $6
* Strange World HD (GP Split): $4
* Strange World 4K (MA): $9
* Super Mario Bros. 4K (MA): $12
* Super Mario Bros. HD (MA): $9
* TAR HD (MA): $7
* Thor: Love & Thunder GP Split HD (GP): $7
* Till HD (iTunes): $7
* Top Gun: Maverick 4K (iTunes or Vudu): $7
* Turning Red HD (GP Split): $5
* Violent Night HD (MA): $8
* The Whale HD (Vudu): $10
* Who Framed Roger Rabbit HD (GP Split): $5
* The Untouchables 4K (iTunes or Vudu): $4
* 007 Skyfall HD (Vudu): $5
* 65 4K (MA): $12
* 65 HD (MA): $10
###Bundles:
* Amazing Spider-Man Collection 4K: $12
* Back to the Future Collection 4K (MA): $16
* Fast & Furious 9 Film Collection HD (MA): $20
* Jurassic Park Collection HD (MA): $15
* Mission Impossible Collection 4K: (iTunes or Vudu): $25
* Puss in Boots 1 & 2 HD (MA): $13
* Rocky KnockOut Collection 4K (Vudu): $20
* Sing/Sing 2 HD 2-Film Set (MA): $10
* Walking Dead Season 11 HD (Vudu): $10

Imagine walking into a burning building, and everyone laughs and tells you the fire’s all in your head. When no one believes you, are you going to stay to burn up with them? Every passenger in that crowd waiting to embark on the luxury cruise was already dead—they just didn’t know it yet! I stared through the windows of the terminal at the magnificent Seastar, at the broken glass and spatters of blood that only I could see… and then I fled.
Without warning a single soul.
What would have been the point? My name is Cassandra—I see death six days before it happens, and can feel it if I shake a cold hand—but no matter what I do, I can never, ever prevent it.
My flight took me as far as the escalators before a flash of purple brought me screeching to a halt. Lily Tsuki? No—it wasn’t the purple-haired musician who’d given me with cruise gift card. But suddenly I remembered how I’d been looking forward to hearing her performance aboard this very vessel…
Oh God…
It was one thing to turn my back on doomed strangers. Terrible as it sounds, it’s a bit like reading about a catastrophe in the news. Quite another thing to abandon somebody I knew! Could I really leave her to become one of the bodies putrefying in the belly of the Seastar? Every time I ordered a drink at my favorite bar, I’d remember I hadn’t even tried to save her!
“Fuck!” I cried, fumbling for my phone. “Oh, fuck me sideways… how much time…?”
Ninety minutes.
Ninety minutes to get on board, find the musician, and… what? Convince her to disembark?
How?
And yet my feet were already turning toward the gangplank—because as it turns out, I would rather plunge headlong into a ship full of the rotting dead than face an empty piano bench and the guilt that no amount of alcohol would ever drown. But to have any chance at persuading Lily, I’d need to know how the passengers died. This meant that in addition to finding a purple-haired needle in a Titanic-sized haystack, a horrifying task loomed ahead of me. I was going to have to do something I had not done in a very long time—plunge directly into my vision. Walk into its very maw and face whatever gruesome horrors lurked at the source of that nauseating odor.
I was going to have to find the bodies…
… and whatever killed them.
Boarding
The stench was so overpowering after crossing the gangplank that I dropped to my knees and dry heaved. The flow of passengers moved around me past the concierge desk. I must have looked exceptionally sick, because a pretty girl in a suit skirt approached, asking if I needed assistance. She reached out a hand to help me up—cold!
I staggered away from her and inside. Then—because I felt I might throw up—quickly found my way out to the promenade deck and the blessed breeze.
Lifeboats hung overhead. Beyond the rail, the sea sparkled in the afternoon sun. Cushioned loungers lined the deck. None were in use, presumably because the pool, patio, spa, and other amenities on the upper decks had much more attractive areas for lounging. I leaned against the rail and gulped the air, listening to the waves splash against the side of the boat, noting blood spatters further down—but nothing signifying the cause of the blood. Just vague signs of violence.
After circling the entire promenade deck and spotting only the occasional bloody spatters, I gritted my teeth, pulled my shirt collar up over my nose, and plunged into the nearest door.
The Seastar’s interior had the atmosphere of a luxury hotel. People milled about the restaurant and shopping area, buzzing with excitement, talking about cabaret shows and fine dining, while perky crew members answered questions, all perfectly oblivious to the putrid sweet rotting stench. I’d most likely find Lily Tsuki at the piano lounge, but since I didn’t yet have any plausible explanation for what had happened to the passengers, I continued wandering, entering a bustling café overlooking the ship’s grand staircase. Stepping over an enormous blood stain on the carpet, I passed the counter, nauseated by the fancy pastries behind their glass cases, peering among the tables and chairs. Paused when I spotted an eyeball in a teacup. No trace of how it got there. No body with an empty socket. Just the eyeball, swirling in a congealed bloody jelly at the bottom of the cup…
I scurried away, snatching a cloth napkin to cover my nose.
The interior darkened as I ascended the central staircase. No electricity, I noted as I clutched the railing. Why would the power be cut? A storm?
But storms don’t scoop out eyeballs with a dessert spoon….
Coming onto deck 6, I peered down a long, dim corridor lined with passenger cabins. To passengers coming and going, the hall was illuminated by electric lighting—but since I was seeing the ship six days in the future, the narrow hallway vanished into blackness. With no way to enter the cabins, and nothing much to see here or in the other dimmed halls of the passenger decks, I ascended until I reached the pool.
Pool Deck
Deck 9 opened to wide panoramic windows, dining, a spa, and of course the pool. I emerged outdoors with relief, removing the napkin from my nose as the sea breeze gave some respite from the odor.
Around me, people partied in bikinis and beachwear and suits, sipping all manner of drinks around the sky-blue swimming pool. A young woman stretched on a blood-spattered lounger, oblivious to the gore beneath her tanned figure. A few bodies floated among the swimmers, bloated and discolored. My vision shimmered briefly as a teen boy swam right through one of the bodies, splashing as if it were not there. My heart lurched when I realized that it was his own, albeit dressed in different clothes—
“Oof!” I grunted as a small figure bashed into me, her arm grazing mine.
“Sorry!” cried a little girl in a pink swimsuit, bolting by as her mother yelled at her to watch out for people.
I tried not to think of how cold the little girl’s arm felt. Counted the bodies: eight in the pool. One by the towel bin, head caved in. I made a circuit of the pool, occasionally brushing against people—cold, cold, cold.
No survivors, it seemed.
But why?
That was when I spotted a shirtless old man sitting at a table under an umbrella. I froze, goosebumps prickling along my skin. Unlike the floaters, there was no obvious reason for his death. His back was to me, the bare skin of his shoulders gray and blotchy. In his hand he held a broken drinking glass. He was positioned in repose… so what killed him?
My heart quickened as I moved round to the front of him.
His mouth hung open, shards of glass and a mangled tongue lolling out, crimson trailing down his shirt front. The source of the chewed glass was obvious—the cup in his hand was broken, its jagged edges bloody.
He’d died choking on the glass.
“What the fuck is happening here?” I whispered.
Forward Stairwell
The jogging track and the sundeck—decks 10 and 11—offered a stunning bird’s eye of the pool and ocean, but I did not stop to take this in as I circled to the bow, opting to take the forward stairs down, rather than central.
The stench hit me like a cloud.
I had to stop as I descended into the dim stairwell, clinging to the railing, doubled over, gagging. It was so so bad. My eyes watered. My stomach bucked. And it was dark. Thank God for my phone’s flashlight. I fumbled it on and, napkin firmly over my nose, plunged down into the depths… The phone’s thin illumination flashed along the carpeted stairwell and the hall of the first of the passenger decks. I kept descending. Paused at an unidentifiable slick red mound. I was examining it under my light when a crewmember jogged up to me and asked, “Lose something, miss?” “Just my marbles,” I muttered, shooing the crew member away and inadvertently brushing his hand. Cold. I turned my attention back to the mound.
A slimy pile of intestines on the stairwell… trailing down to a disemboweled body.
Intestines… eyeballs… eating broken glass… nothing about this makes sense! I swiveled the beam to check further downward.
That was when I found the source of the odor.
My path down was obstructed by a mass of bodies. The ones underneath seemed to have been trampled, but the ones on top… I squeezed my watering eyes and retched against the wall. Some of the bodies bore horrible mutilations—fingers bent and twisted, joints out of alignment, faces smashed in and jaws torn open. Many more appeared to have been crushed in the press of bodies. Best guess, there was a wave of panicked people rushing upstairs from below, colliding with a wave of others fleeing down from above.
Why this staircase? What was near this part of the ship?
The cabaret lounge, I realized. No electricity. No elevators. This was the nearest stairwell to the auditorium.
Closer. I was inching closer to uncovering the fates of the passengers. And yet, I still had no idea what the passengers were fleeing from. Who were the attackers? Or… I thought of the eyeball. The glass chewed and swallowed.
An icy pinprick at the base of my skull whispered the question I didn’t want to ask…
Why? Why did some of the passengers go mad, and do it to themselves?
Piano Bar
I took the long way round to the cabaret theatre, going all the way back up the stairs and coming down on the central staircase, only to detour on hearing the notes of a piano. I found myself in a cozy lounge and spotted a purple-haired figure at the keys. And just in time—the ship was due to depart in less than half an hour!
“Lily!” I rushed over.
The musician’s face lit. “Oh it’s you, friend! You made it!”
“You’ve got to get off the ship!”
“Off the—”
“I know it seems crazy but you’ve got to! Everyone on board is going to die—I’ve seen it because I’m psycho!” I heard it a second later and smacked my forehead. “I mean—psychic! PSYCHIC!! I can see the future.” At her scrunched eyebrows, I burst, “Look I know how I sound, but I’ve been able to see things since I was a little girl, and I am telling you that this ship is going to go dark! The engines will cut out! People are going to flee and trample each other on that forward staircase…” Launching into a rapid-fire recounting, I was just getting to the eyeball in the teacup when she interrupted:
“You’re afraid of some sort of terrorist attack?”
“No, no! No! It’s almost like… a kind of madness, a contagion, that spreads through the ship—”
“A zombie apocalypse?”
“Not zombies…”
“Poltergeists? Possession?” She played a riff from a horror movie. “Should we call an exorcist?”
“We should leave!” I checked my phone. “Quickly!—"
“What an odd duck you are! I can’t imagine any sort of catastrophe as big as you’re saying. You know this ship has tons of safety protocols. And even if I did believe some disaster were drawing near—do you really think I could abandon crowds and crew?” She looked at me over her glasses, shimmering purple lips curving in a smile. “Listen friend, if this were the Titanic and I was the only one who could see the iceberg, I’d stay to steer us right, not run off leaving everyone to die!”
Icy fingers raked along my spine. Even if she wasn’t taking me seriously, she was right—I did have a moral obligation to save people. An obligation I’d been trying to fulfill ever since I was a little girl, until the attempt killed my brother, and even after, I kept trying for years and years…. until at last I realized that there is no way to change anything. That is why I call myself Cassandra. For the Greek prophet doomed to predict the future but never be believed. Try and prevent what I’ve foreseen? You might as well try and pluck the stars from the sky!
Every hand I’d touched was cold. Everyone on board would die.
My fists balled, fingernails digging so hard into my palms they bled. “You really have no idea what you’re asking of me…”
“Oh, I’m not telling you to stay. I’m just explaining why I have to. Besides, I’m under contract.” She winked and focused on her playing as guests entered and sat at nearby tables.
She had no idea! None whatsoever! If I thought there was even a sliver of a hope, I wouldn’t abandon people! Oh, if this happy-go-lucky musician understood the futility!!
But she will, came another, darker thought. She will know the full depth of the horror coming…
“No,” I whispered.
“Huh?” She shouted, “Wait—friend, where are you going?”
But I was not listening. The cabaret theatre—was the answer there? The reason for the crush of bodies in the forward stairwell? I rushed past the cafe with the eyeball in the teacup, through the grand doors into the cabaret hall—
—but the cabaret hall was surprisingly quiet, save for a light touch of classical music. A few passengers mingled here or there, unnoticing of the cadavers draped on chairs and tables. The stage itself was pristine, the wood smooth and polished in the fading orange light through the windows. Apparently, the origin of the panicked flight up the forward stairwell was not this grand entertainment venue—nothing here supported that theory.
Nonetheless, I gave the place a thorough search until my phone’s battery ran low, and then I returned to the grand staircase.
In one direction lay passenger cabins. In the other, the gangplank back to the port terminal and safety.
“It’s not too late to be a coward, Cass,” I said. “Run from the ship, run from the empty piano bench at the bar, find a different, cheaper hole in the wall to crawl into like—like the cockroach you are…”
Always the survivor, eh…?
Or… or, I could try just one more time. “‘Hope,’” my brother always said, “is the thing with feathers.”
And look what happened to him! flashed through my mind. My heart slammed against my ribcage. I’d just die too, unless I left in the next—how many minutes? I checked my phone, but it was dead. Like I would be if I stayed.
A horn sounded the Seastar’s departure. A distant cheer rose up from the upper decks and balconies. I felt a brief panicky impulse to run back out on deck and throw myself off the ship… but in truth, my fate had already been decided before the ship’s horn blew. I hadn’t been paying attention earlier, but I’d been rubbing and rubbing my hands, and finally realized they were cold. Probably had been since I’d boarded. I shuffled leaden feet toward the passenger cabins, guided by my phone’s light to the brass number plate for 4044—my cabin. Reached for the knob and stopped.
That smell—dread squeezed my intestines like a wet rag.
Smoke. Burnt meat.
I wrinkled my nose and opened the door.
Orange rays shone through the window, the sunset so vivid it almost gave the illusion that the room was on fire. The walls and ceiling were charred. The edges of the mattress and sheets a smoldered ruin. But the worst damage was the small sofa by the coffee table. Broken bottles scattered round. And there on the sofa—
My fingers went limp on the door handle as I stared into melted sockets of a body charred beyond recognition. A dark line encircled its wrist. The blackened remnants of a charm bracelet.
My bracelet.
While the man on the pool deck swallowed glass, I would succumb to the insanity here, dousing myself in alcohol and flame—
—immolating myself.
[Part 1]

The thing I want to let out is one toxic mindset of the filipino families. Walang pinapalagpas na family reunion ang mga tita mo na di ka sinasabihan mapamataba man yan or mapayat. Alam niyo naisip ko na rin yan eh kasi kahit anong gawin mo may masasabi at masasabi pa rin sayo. Mabait sila sayo pero pagsasabihan ka naman ng kung ano ano pagkatalikod mo. Pag wala naman silang mahalungkat na issue sayo, siyempre mapapansin yung physical features mo. Nung bata ako okay lang akong tinatawag na mataba, I don't really mind. And every reunion or times na nag uusap, i I got conditioned na baka pang asar lang since close family nga. Kada tumataas yung edad ko palala nang palala yung sinasabi nila. Nung una dinedescribe lang eh. Next level is, sasabihan ka na "dalaga ka na, magpapayat ka nga antaba taba mo" and since I was a teenager and I think may point naman, so I did. Mid high school I did everything to limit my diet. Proud na proud ako sa pinapayat ko and I was losing fat on my belly. All I get is yung tawa ng mga magulang ko na kesyo wala naman daw epekto yung pagpapayat ko. So ayun na nga here comes the next level. Since pumayat ako nang onti lumitaw yung dibdib ko dahil medyo malaki, lahat ng suotin ko nagmumukhang masikip sa akin. So they told me na "magdamit nang maayos" (at the same time sinabihan nila ako na magkilos babae kasi hindi naman ako masyadong feminine that time) Fast forward senior high I was still on the chubby side dito na lumala. Sinasabihan ako ng mother ko na mas mataba pa ako sa kaniya na magpapayat na ako. Sa tingin ko naman that time normal lang yung body composition ko para hindi masyado nakikita yung sa size ng dibdib ko pero I did what she said kasi nga insecure na insecure na ko sa sarili ko. Sa isip isip ko, "Ganun na pala ako kataba?" And I did something very wrong. Instead of limiting my diet I began starving myself. I would go home at sasabihin kong kumain na ko sa labas or sa school para hindi nila malaman. Kung hindi naman ay kakain ako ng mga tatlong subo. It felt like I'm achieving something when I didn't eat in a day and all my stomach could store was coffee. I am obsessed with searching ways on how to make myself thinner. Minsan triny ko maglagay ng Ice everyday sa tiyan ko just to rid some of the fats. I would walk home even if medyo malayo for walking yung school ko. All of that paid off and I got the body I wanted but I can't eat without thinking anymore. Dumating sa point na sinasabihan na ako ng pamilya ko na tama na yung pinayat ko, any more of this would be "panget na tingnan" or "hindi na bagay sa katawan mo" I felt disgusted with myself dahil hindi ko alam kung saan ako lulugar. Sasabihan nila akong magpapayat but when I do it sasabihin nila na panget tingnan. What's worse is that when I am in fact thin enough for their tastes they still keep on calling me fat. The irony of it all is that all of the people (my own blood, my family) who keeps bodyshaming me are also fat. They seem to like transferring their insecurities to other people. Thank god I got to eat healthily again. I was conditioned to turn myself into something they want to be. I am not a clay for them to mold into something of their own interests. Hopefully someday kapag binodyshame ako ulit I would get to speak out the same sa kanila. Kasi mas deserve nila yun eh. Pero sa ngayon kelangan ko ng peace of mind sawang sawa na ako mahusgahan para lang sa katawan ko. Sinayang ko yung mga panahon na dapat hindi ko na iniisip kung kakain ba ko or hindi sa araw na yon. You guys eat what you want but with moderation. Do not forget to eat your meals. Don't let other people decide what your body should be for you. Wala yang beauty standards na yan kung confident ka sa sarili mo. And trust me you will get peace of mind instead of anxiety sa araw araw.

An open letter that concerns no one.
Lumaki ako sa pamilyang abusado at mag nanakaw. Yung nanay ko naging residente sa japan at doon nag asawa. Pinanganak ako sa japan bunsong anak sa unang asawa. Pag katapos mamatay ng tatay ko, wala pang isang taon ay may bagong kinakasama na ang aming ina. Kaming dalawang anak niya ay inuwi niya sa pilipinas upang dito na manirahan for good. Nakatanggap kami ng karapatan makapag aral dito at kalaunay grumaduate ng elementarya. Tanda ko pa noong elementary sa walang kadahilanan sinaktan ako ng nanay ko, sinampal. Nakita ito ng iba ring magulang. Naging close ko din ang pangalawang ama na kinasama ng nanay namin. Marahil, ito kaya ang dahilan kung bakit mainet ang ulo ng aking ina noong panahong iyon? O kaya'y nagdodroga siya? Di ko talaga alam sa murang edad bakit ganoon ang ginawa ng aking ina. Sa panahong ito ay nag bunga din ang kanilang pag mamahalan ng dalawang bata.
Imagine ako na elementary school student pasan pasan ang mabigat na sangol. Uuwi nanay namin galing japan ni hindi siya makilala ng musmos naming kapitid. Kalaunan naging okay naman sila.
Sa mga sumunod na taon mas malala na ang aming naranasan. Sa sama ng makikitungo ng aming ina, yung ate ko gustong mag pakamatay sa murang edad. Literal na mag pakamatay gamit ang patalim. Ngayong nasa wasto kaming edad nalaman ko na kaya niya pala gusto mag pakamatay sa murang edad e dahil na rin sa masamang mga salita at pananakit na ginawa ng aming ina.
Ang ginawa ng aming ina sa panahon na iyon na kami ay musmos pa lamang, na gusto mag pakamatay ng panganay namin, ay nilatagan ito ng iba't ibang kutsilyo sa harapan niya. Tila in-encourage niya pa ang panganay namin na mag pakamatay. Sinong matinong ina ang mag tutulak sa anak na mag pakamatay ito. Hindi natuloy ang gusto ng ate ko kaya't pinaluhod ito sa asin at may hawak na nakasinding kandila sa mag kabilang kamay. Bawal siyang tumayo o matulog dahil sa ginawa nito na tangkant pag papakamatay. Sa mga sumunod na araw habang umuulan pinag kuskos kami ng mga lumot sa pader at sementadong sahig sa aming bakuran. Sa murang edad di ko alam kung naka droga ang aming ina at pinakain kami ng dog food na hindi ko tinikman. Pati ako na walang kinalaman ay nadamay dahil ang rason ng aming ina "kasalanan ng isa, kasalanan ng lahat".
Meron pa pag kakataon na muntik na din ako masaksak ng aking ina. Hawak hawak ko ang mop at buti na lang ay nasalag ito ng hawakan ng mop. Di ko mawari kung bakit kailangan ko masaksak sa murang edad.
May time pa na siyempre ang bata pag nakitang may humawak na iba ng laruan nila iiyak kahit di naman kinukuha diba? Yuny kapatid ko may hawak na laruong bola na may pailaw sa loob. Nabitawan niya ito at pupulutin ko lamang sana upang maiabot o maisuli sa kanya. Nang akin itong hawakan, ang kapatid ko'y umiyak. Ang aking ina naman ay nagalit at akala ata ay pinapaiyak ko ang aking kapatid. Tinusok tusok niya ako ng tinidor at nakita pa ito ng aking pinsan. Dumugo ang braso ko, kasabay nito ang pag basag sa ulo ko ng malaking plato. Bawal ako umiyak o gumawa ng ingay kahit alam kong masakit ang ginagawa niya.
Meron din panahon na nag ko-computer ako pero hindi mag hapon dahil adik sa farm ville ang aming ina. Nag pahinga ako sa pag lalaro at pag iinternet. Di naman ako inaabot ng oras sa oag cocomputer noony ako'y bata pa. Kinahapunan nag miryenda pa kaming mag ina at pag katapos ay itinuloy ko ang pag lalaro. Maya maya'y ako ay biglang sinaktan na. Palibhasa'y tulog din siya nung mga oras na ako'y nag pahinga din at natulog.
Lumalaki na yung mga kapatid ko. Meron time yung kapatid ninakawan ako 3k pinang libre sa mga tao sa labas pinang bili nila pag kain walang bumalik sakin. Itong nanay ko tinawanan lang yung ginawa nila lmao nakakatawa yern.
High school moving up wala man lang umattend sakin kasi yung lola ko nainip kakaantay. Senior high school ko? Wala din ni ISA sa pamilya. Wala akong naging problema sa high school life at shs life ko bukod sa konting mishaps at misunderstanding gaya ng pagkawala ng budget ng room na nikaw ng kaklase.
Moving on to college era punyeta ate ko ninakaw tuition ko 20k. Muntikan ng hindi makapag exam bhie. Etong ate ko kasi magaling mag pa utang, astang mayaman inom dito inom doon. Magaling ata manlibre ng truepa at magaling gumastos. Gastador na siyang may hawak ng budget pati budget na nakalaan para sa iba ay gagalawin niya. Wala naman akong pake kung mag pautang siya, manlibre siya, or mag astang mayaman bumile ng kung ano anong merch ng kpop idol niya, branded na damit, sapatos at cap, or bumili ng ice coffee niya IDC. Pero yung budget para sa amin WAG NIYANG PAKIALAMAN.
In the end ayun pag uwi ng nanay namin galing japan hahampasin kamay niya ng bakya. Katanda na makakaranas pa din ng corporal punishment.
Moving forward naging okay ang mga sumunod na taon, natuto maging independent ang panganay. Nag trabaho siya, nag rent ng sarili niya. Etc. Dumaan ang pandemic. Yung mga kapatid ko sa pangalawang ama e katatamad. Kahit mag hain ka ng pag kain sa agahan lantang gulay ang mga iyan o di kaya'y haharap agad sa computer. Adik sa madaling salita. Adik sa computer to the point na need na lagyan password at timer yung computer para magamit lang sa pag aaral utos ng ama at ina nila. Yung bakuran namin kahit ako nag lilinis ng di naman nakikita ng ibang tao or camera eh ibang tao pa din ang mapupuri sa aking mga ginagawa. Di ko naman need ng puri pero yunt sabihin niyony bunsong kapatid pa namin yuny nag lilinis e hindi yan makatwiran.
Pandemya, dito din nag simula yung pag hihiwalay ng aming ina at nang kanyang kinakasama. Punyeta may times maranasan namin dalawang buwan hindi yan mag papadala ng pera. WALA siyang maririnig na daing o tulong o ano mang reklamo sa aming mga bunganga. Panahon ng axie boyfriend ko na sumalo ng gastusin sa paaralan at pag kain pag walang wala na. Hanggang ngayon hawak namin ang resibo katunayan na may mga panahon di nag padala ang aming ina at transactions sa gcash kelan ginastos ang mga pera at para saan. Ang hilig niya pa mag sabi na mag ipon daw kami eh pano makakaipon pamigay din siya ng pamigay ng pera sa mga MANGHUHULA NIYA. 10 kiyaw sa unang mang huhula pang paayos daw bubong. Bumili ng manok para katayin, tapos kung ano ano pang pera jusko. Tapos may pangalawa pang mang huhula. Yung pangatlo matindi, taga siquijor kasi binagyo binigyan niya tulong financial. Ano yang nanay ko bangko sentral ng mga manghuhula. Sige nta hulaan nila ano future ko sa pamilyang to na mag nanakaw.
September 2022. Masakit ulo ko, di naman ako nag rereklamo na madaming sira sa bahay pero asumera tong ate ko at nanay ko na masakit ulo ko dahil sira yung tangke at ilaw sa cr. WALA AKONG SINASABI. Nakayuko lang ako. HINDI AKO NAG REREKLAMO AT LALONG WALA SILANG NARINIG NA "MASAKIT ULO KO DAHIL MADAMING SIRA".
In the end di na siya nag padala ng pera for 2 months. Yung kinita ng boyfriend ko sa manila ayun pinang salba namin makakain lang sa buong buwan ng october. Bago kami pumunta ng manila sinabihan na namin ma wag lalabas or kakausap dun sa kabilang bahay dahil mga kaaway yon. Dahil tanga yuny mag kapatid na kapatid ko sa labas ayun pumunta sila nakipag chikahan.
Long story short madaming information na hindi dapat lumabas pero nakalabas dahil sa bobo naming bunso. May time pa na pinag mukha niya akong tanga. Kasi need niya daw ng rosary, so bibigyan ko siya rosary that night. Kinabukasan pumunta kami dun sa isa naming tita na galing sa japan tinanong siya ano need sa school ang sabi ba naman "rosary". Eh binigyan ko na nga siya. Edi binigyan ulit siya ng rosary. Nabugbog ko siya dahil sa kasinungalingan niya. Nag sinungaling siya na need niya ng rosary, nag sinungaling yan before sa madaming bagay 1 is yung pag hahalo niya ng kung ano anong gamit sa bahay like shampoo, conditioner, dish washing liquid, baby powder, baby oil, downy, etc. na di ko alam kung oara saan at ginagwa niyang laruan. Mag gupit ng damit, mag diy ng kung ano ano. Sinungaling silang mag kapatid. May time pa yan gumawa ng kwento na kesyo nasira daw yung bagong speaker dahil inalis ng boyfriend ko yung adapter na wala naman kinalaman sa langgam na sumira nung speaker.
Basically itong pamilyang ito mag nanakaw. Mag nanakaw ng karapatan bilang anak, bilang kapatid, bilang kapamilya at bilang tao. Ninakaw nila yung karapatan kong mag paka ate, magalit sa mga naranasan ko, magalit sa naramdanan ko, magalit sa kanila bilang nakakatandang kapatid. Ninakaw nila yung karapatan kong makapag simula ng sariling buhay, makapag hanap buhay at maging ganap na parte ng lipunan. Ako bilang hapon/japanese e hindi makapag simulang mag trabaho dahil yang nanay ko inuna ang kalandian bago ayusin ang visa o pasaporte ko, ang penalty na over staying ko, taxes namin sa japan. Punyetang pamilya ito.
Ako na bilang ate bawal turuan ng leksyon mga kapatid ko. Napuno na ako, sa loob ng almost isat kalahating dekada nag alaga ako, umintindi ako, nag paka anak ako, nag paka panganay at magulang ako. Bawal ako mag labas ng saloobin, bawal ako makaramdam ng sakit, bawal sumakit ulo ko, bawal ako mag kasakit, bawal ako umiyak, bawal ako mapuno, bawal ako magalit, bawal ako lahat. Gagawin ko lahat luto, linis, mag paka ate turuan sila ng leksyon o aral habang lahat ng ito sabay sabay pandemya sasabihin ng teacher ko bawal ako mag luto sa harap ng camera. PUNYETA.
Nanay ko sinasaktan ako ng walang dahilan tapos ako na gusto lamang turuan ng tamang asal at nang leksyon yung kapatid ko bawal? HIPOKRITO.
Ngayon tinanong niya ate ko kung totoo na pinakain kami dog food mag tatanga tangahan siya na hindi niya alam?
Lumayas na ako sa pamamahay niya. Ito ako ngayon di makapag trabaho, walang karapatan sa bansang pinag iwanan niya sa amin. Nasa bansang wala akong karapatan ultimo makapag hanap buhay sa dami ng requirements na kailangan. Ito ako inampon ng ate kong nag tatrabaho ang lakas makapag sabi ng mga plano niyang, bibilhan kita kama, enough na ba yung 5k a month or 2.5k kada cut off ginawang 1.5, tapos ngayon buwan wala naman na binibigay na parang ang sama ng loob kasi di niya masunod yung lifestyle na gusto niya dahil may jowa siya at instant anakis na dalawa tapos ako itong ginagawang tanga na parang katulong lang na ang usapan namin is tumulong lang sa gawaing bahay mag pakabusog or tumaba. Sa bigat ng lifestyle niya di niya na ako kaya sustentuhan at pinag aantay sa wala na punyeta siya naman nag simula.
Ito ako. Ninakawan ng hinaharap. May existential crisis. Masaya akong may jowa akong laging nakikinig, handang isugal lahat hanggang sa huling sentimo ng sinasahod niya sa freelance kahit nakarinig nang kung ano anong masasakit na salita sa pamilya ko. Ako yung pinalayas dahil sinagot ko yung nanay ko? Ang tanong bakit ba kasi uminit ulo mo eh masakit lang naman ulo ko. Ako yung pinalayas mo kahit harap harapan ka nang ginagawang gago niyang mga anak mo sa labas. Ako pa talaga ang pinalayas mo na walang ginawa kundi maging katulong niyo sa bahay na itinayo mo gamit ang pera at dugo ng ama ko na ang makikinabang e anak mo sa labas. Ako pa talaga ang pinalayas haha
Ito ako, walang karapatan. Tila isang dahon na handa nilang tapaktapakan. Isang trabahador na "thank you" lang ang dapat matamasa sa lahat ng panahon, iyak, dugo, at pagod na ginugol ko sa pamilyang pilit mong binubuo. Ah kaya pala sabi mo nung high school ako, katulong lang ako diyan sa bahay mo. Sa murang edad tinakda mo na kapalaran ko. Ultimo pensyon ng tatay ko kahati pa yang anak mo sa labas na IKAW ANG GUMUSTO. Sinapak ka nung kinakasama mo kaya ka nag pabuntis diba, yan ang malakas na nanay isang sapak lang katapat.
Sa bunganga na ng ina ko mismo nanggaling "maganda na sana bubay ng mga ate niyo kung wala kayo". Gusto ko sabihin sayo na BUTI alam mo maganda sana buhay talaga namin una mong anak sa unang asawa kung hindi dahil sa may nakilala kang bago. Lelz.
Masiyado na itong mahaba kaya sana di ka napagod mag basa, kasi ako, sa totoo lang, pagod na. Di mag kakasiya sa kwadernong ito ang lahat ng masasamang alaala ko sa pamilyang iniwan ako, at iniwanan ako ng sama ng loob na sobra na para sa isang lifetime. Kahit mareincarnate pa ako feeling ko dala dala ko pa din yung sama ng loob hanggang kabilang mundo. Pwede ba for once maging gentle ang mga tao. Flease fow lord.

First year college pa lang us and in the circle I belong in, walo kami. Originally there were five of us. Kasama na dun si "best friend." Ang una kong impression is mabait siya and friendly, but boy, was I ever wrong.
Best friend turns out to be lying about a lot of things. One of them is yung knowledge niya about playing the electric guitar and she said pa nga na apat ang gitara niya sa bahay, dalawang acoustic at dalawang electric. Since ako dakilang uto-uto, naniwala naman. I was amazed by that kasi biruin mo, a friend of yours, maganda na, matalino pa, marami pang hobbies. Now, keep in mind yung about this guitar thingy.
It all started here. February this year, nagkaroon ako ng happy crush sa isang senior high school student sa school namin. Nung Valentine's day, binigyan ko siya ng letter. I gave that letter to him para makapag-move on na ako. I was fearless sa pagbigay ng letter nun thinking na grade 12 and 18 na yung guy. This student, aspiring musician siya. Sumali sya sa battle of the bands nung first sem and kahit wala ako that time, based sa vids na sinend ng friends ko sa gc namin, malakas ang charisma niya. So ito na nga, after I gave him the letter, ready na ako mag-move on then, all of a sudden hinanap ng friends nung guy yung giver ng letter (ako). I didn't tell him the letter was mine and rather pinaabot lang thru me. Then ayun na nga medj nagkagulo na, and amidst that chaos, nawawala na talaga feelings ko sa guy kasi naiipit na friends ko into the mess i made, tapos biglang itong si best friend mo, naging crush niya naman si guy.
Ito rin yung time na she's having doubts sa relationship niya and she thinks her bf is cheating on her. Sinabi nya na kapag nalaman nya daw na totoo hunch nya hindi daw sya makikipag-break sa bf nya and gagantihan niya pa daw, mangangabit din sya. That's a problematic way of thinking, and I agreed na lang dun sa balak nya because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
Akala ko happy crush lang kasi may bf itong si best friend at 4 years na sila. Nung una I was really supportive since alam kong sa school lang sumasaya itong si best friend kasi medyo magulo household niya. Pero this time, napapansin na ng ibang mga kaibigan ko na best friend is becoming a little too obsessive sa guy. In-add nya sa fb and ayun inaccept naman ng guy, and I could tell na happy si best friend dun. Then all of a sudden, bigla na lang din sya nakikinig sa music taste ng guy and she proudly tells us na icocover nya nga daw yung isang kanta nung artist na pinapakinggan nung guy. She posted her very first cover ng electric guitar after a major argument sa friend group namin. She thinks kasi na yung isa naming friend is nag-a-isolate pero sa kanya lang. Nung naayos na yung misunderstanding sa usap, she posted that cover as "for us", her friends. Ang post na yon is pic ng kamay nya na nakahawak sa electric guitar nya habang nagpeplay yung cover nya. Parang audio lang ganon tas may pic ng kamay nya.
After that, very vocal na si best friend about this crush of hers. Sa sobrang vocal pa nga, yung isang friend sa circle namin biglang nasabi na "uy may bf ka, ikalma mo teh" (non verbatim), tapos na-offend si best friend dun. I get naman my friend's point kasi nga may bf ka tapos sa ibang lalaki ka mababaliw. And then, nalaman namin na grade 11 pa lang pala itong si guy, and 17 years old pa lang. Mature na kasi sya tignan. Tapos itong si best friend syempre hindi tumigil, grabe magpapansin sa fb, at magka-chat pa nga sila nung bata. Tapos nag-post ulit siya ng cover ng good 4 u. This time, natugtog na din siya. Nag-post din siya sa story nya ng cover ng dangerous woman. Both of them, electric guitar covers. Then days after, biglang nag-story si best friend na sinira daw ng papa nya yung mga gitara niya dahil sa "anger issues" nito. So i comforted her, and consoled her. She thanked me for it pa so I felt special.
March and April came, unti-unti nang lumalayo loob ng most friends ko kay best friend, had no idea why. But I sticked with her kasi i cared for her and I don't want to make her feel na mag isa lang siya. Tapos may isa pa kaming friend na sumasama so bale tatlo kami na magkakasama na sa months na nabanggit. Tapos one time, after school, nagpunta kaming tatlo sa coffee shop malapit sa school namin. Dun na nag-rant si best friend about sa sinasabi ng rest ng circle sa aming dalawang kasama niya. And I had to admit, sobrang napaniwala niya ako kasi ang galing niya magkwento. Sinabi nya pa nga nun "may sinabi sila tungkol sakin, gaganti ako, sasabihin ko rin sa inyo mga pinagsasabi nila." I even asked best friend pa nga na pano nila magagawa yun, naging vulnerable sila sakin and kahit papano I know their struggles. Sabi ni best friend, facade lang daw yun.
So sobrang devastated ako. Hindi ko pinaniwalaan agad sinabi niya kasi kilala ko mga kaibigan ko kahit papaano may morale naman sila. So the next day, kinausap ko si Matcha (not her real name), one of my friends sa circle ko to ask if what best friend said was true. Umalis muna ako sa tabi ni best friend nun and we had a talk. Sabi ni Matcha, malalaman naman daw niya kung may sinabi yung iba kong friends tungkol samin kasi vocal naman kami lagi at open sa communication. Pero before that, may pinakita sa akin si Matcha na dalawang videos. Those two videos, ARE THE SAME VIDEOS na pinost ni best friend as "her covers" to impress her crush na musician. She cropped and edited the tiktok videos tapos pinost nya as her own.
Later that day, pinakausap ako ni Matcha kay Vey, isa pang friend sa circle namin and I asked her myself if totoo ba yung sinabi ni best friend. So i did. Now, imagine my surprise when Vey said na hindi totoo yun at wala syang sinabi na ayaw niya ako kasi OA ako. Vey was angry sa lie na sinabi ni best friend, and she was so offended. Unti-unting nag-iba ang tingin ko kay best friend. Turns out, may sinabi at pinupuna rin pala siya hindi lang sa kanila, pero sa akin din. i don't want to elaborate on it any further kasi lalong hahaba, but very mean things yung sinabi sakin. Ngayon na hindi na namin sya kasama, I'm really appalled na by the thought na binackstab nya yung mga kaibigan ko knowing well na she did the same to me and wala akong idea dun.
Ito pa, sa sobrang pagka-obsessed ni best friend sa g11 na musician, bukod sa pagpopost ng covers for clout, inistalk niya lahat ng kamag-anakan ng bata. Ofc habol niya pictures. Pero late ko na na-realize na that was creepy. I was manipulated into giving her my sympathy. I think she took advantage of that kasi sa circle namin ako yung pinakamabait, caring and understanding. I felt taken advantage of.
Right now, sem break namin, lilipat na ako ng school this academic year while the rest of my circle, best friend, and the g11 guy na incoming g12 are gonna stay in that school. Alam na ng halos lahat sa klase ang ginawa niya, hindi lang kami nagsasalita. I just hope she learns her lesson na, pero sabi ni Matcha, she doubts na matututo pa siya if ganun ang ugali niya. She can live her life with our one friend na nag-iisang sumasama sa kanya. I loved her as a friend and I cared for her, but now all of it is gone. Bahala na ang Diyos sa kanya.

Ive made it two weeks without PMO. I wanted to share my experience with this. For one, Im still horny and I still have the same old cravings. Theres more energy but this really just means Im more likely to get things done. Its not like I drank 4 cups of coffee. I feel less shameful yes but it more like I have and Im learning how to master something which has boosted self-esteem and confidence. Loosing and removing a lot of influence from my electronic devices has helped tremendously with this. Generally I am happier but its not like a blinding burst of light breaking through the clouds and getting super powers. Im more social and flirty which comes along with oogling at women and ironically without the shame of doing so.
I generally have morning wood but then I have to pee. The morning are the toughest not to PMO, MO, or just M. Im not walking around with a chubby all the time which makes me think that this is some sort of flatline or God's assistance to keep me going. I miss that the most.
Its all been pretty positive. I just miss the sexual passion. I want to express that side of myself most of all.
Generally I feel Im on the right path.

The Chery Tiggo 8 Pro 2023 serves as a testament to the quality of cars manufactured in China. This SUV offers a delightful driving experience, with its turbo engine consistently urging the driver to push it to its limits.
The Chery Tiggo 8 Pro boasts a self-developed 2,000 cc four-cylinder engine equipped with a turbo to enhance its braking power. As a result, the car's power output is impressive, reaching a peak power of 250 PS at 5,500 RPM rotation and a maximum torque of 390 Nm, which is noticeable even at low revs. The engine is paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that provides smooth and fast gear shifts. The Chery car's dimensions are large, measuring 4.7 meters long, 1.86 meters wide, and 1.74 meters high, with 18-inch rims and a weight of 1.7 tons. However, the turbo engine ensures that power is always readily available, making overtaking easy and effortless.
The Tiggo 8 Pro can seat up to seven passengers and can accelerate from 0 to 100 km per hour in just 7 seconds. The car features a rest reminder that displays a coffee cup symbol on the instrument cluster after two hours of continuous driving, encouraging drivers to take a break.
During a 536 km journey from Jakarta to Surakarta City, the car consumed 10.2 liters per 100 km, which is impressive for an SUV with a 2,000 cc engine that is often driven aggressively. The car's LED headlights, which automatically adjust their intensity, provide excellent visibility during nighttime driving. The cabin's shocks and wobbles are minimal, and the steering wheel responds well to the road's twists and turns.
The Tiggo 8 Pro features several high-end amenities, such as a joystick-like transmission lever, two-zone AC control with its own screen on the center console, and headrests that can be adjusted on all sides. The car comes equipped with an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), which includes features such as adaptive speed control and blind spot notification. However, some ADAS features, such as lane keeping and collision warnings, are only visual warnings and do not intervene on the steering wheel or brakes.
Despite its impressive performance, luxurious feel, and abundant features, the Tiggo 8 Pro is reasonably priced and is even cheaper than its competitors from Japanese and South Korean manufacturers.

In just under two weeks, ARMYs will descend upon Singapore to see SUGA!. Help an ARMY out and let them know about safety, how to get around, where to eat, tourist attractions, BTS-related things to do, or anything else that you think someone should know when they visit! (Special thanks to the mods for your input and feedback for this guide!)

BTS' Past Visits

Red Bullet Tour (2014 BTS Live Trilogy Episode II) at the The Star Performing Arts Centre (13 Dec 2014)

• Fancam
• Official photos by Hallyu Singapore
• Official photos of Hi-Five session by Hallyu Singapore. Session was for all Cat 1 VVIP ticket holders ($268), who got a Hi-Five Pass and Concert Poster. The first 100 VVIP ticket holders also got to go up on stage to get a "Dark & Wild" album autographed by BTS.

Music Bank performance (4 Aug 2017) at the Suntec Convention Centre

• Fancam
• Quiz game video
• Outing at the Merlion statue and Singapore flyer: Photos Set 1 Photos Set 2.

Love Yourself World Tour (19 Jan 2019) at the National Stadium
This made history as the first time a K-pop group held a concert at the venue (largest concert venue in the country) and tickets sold out in about 3.5 hours! (45,000 audience)

• Concert review
• Witty notice from the Singapore Police Force abt avoiding ticket scams (it uses the BTS song titles!)
• Bonus: Jimin picked Marina Bay Sands as his special spot in the BTS x Street Galleries collaboration with Google revealed on ARMY Day (July 9) 2022

Concert Venue

Do note that it’s currently the June school holidays too (26 May-26 Jun), so the Sports Hub and surrounding areas may be crowded with many other visitors besides the concert-goers. Please be mindful!

• Singapore Indoor Stadium, right next to the National Stadium (both are part of the Singapore Sports Hub) where BTS performed at their last concert here in 2019. In fact, the Indoor Stadium was then used as the waiting zone for the standing zone ticket-holders.
• Concert guidelines been posted yet (will update here when they are), but here are the general guidelines for events there (links opens a pdf)
• The nearest MRT station is the Stadium station, on the Circle line - here is a train map (with Stadium MRT circled out in light purple). You’ll know when you’ve arrived as the station design is quite unique! Go up the elevator and follow the signage - the path is sheltered.
• You can find Kallang Wave Mall right next to the venue, for a spot of shopping and dining before the concert (opening hrs:10am-10pm daily). There is another smaller mall Leisure Park Kallang located next to the carpark, which houses an ice skating rink, bowling alley and cinema alongside more food options. The open space in front of the MRT station and the two malls is where ARMYs are likely to gather to exchange fan support and stuff (latest info is that for recent concerts, fans have been prevented from gathering for fan support activities at the usual area, so many have moved to another open space nearby, the Stadium Riverside Walk, circled in this image).
• The nearest hawker centre (i.e the affordable street food) is Old Airport Road Food Centre, one of the oldest and largest hawker centres in the country. It is about 20 mins walk away from the stadium, or you can simply alight at the Mountbatten/Dakota MRT stations (one or two stops away from Stadium MRT station respectively); both are about a 5 mins’ walk away from the food centre. Here is a list of recommendations (unfortunately, not a lot of Halal food stalls here. Let me know if you need those).
• There is also a McDonalds’ & KFC near Mountbatten MRT if you want something more familiar, or potentially try whatever new promo is currently going on at these places.

Sightseeing/Activities

Non-exhaustive list (all prices are in SGD)

• National Gallery Singapore. There is a special Namjooning Tour as part of the Gallery Wellness Festival. Slots are fully booked for the guided tours on 25 & 30 June. You could try the self-guided tours instead, which start on 17 July. Gallery passes for general admission to the permanent galleries (needed to access the tour) cost $20 for non-Singaporeans aged 13-59. Closes early (by 3pm) on some weekends in June and July (see dates on website).
• National Museum Singapore. Has very interactive and engaging exhibits. Highly recommended (I used to be a volunteer docent there for abt a year). Tickets cost from $15 (for access to permanent galleries only)
• Singapore Zoo & adjacent parks (Bird Paradise, River Wonders, Night Safari). We have one of the best zoos in the world! Single park tickets cost $50. Multi-park options also available. .
• Gardens by the Bay. Pretty gardens with outdoor sections and 2 indoor air-conditioned conservatories - you may have heard of the supertrees that have been featured in the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" and K-drama "Little Women". Provides a welcome respite from the heat. It’s free to visit the outdoor areas, but it’s really worth it to pay for entry to the conservatories. There are various pricing packages, so best to check out the website yourself.
• Singapore Botanical Gardens is our first UNESCO World Heritage site, the first and only tropical botanic garden on the list. Admission is free.
• The Merlion and the Marina Bay area. I personally recommend going at night to see the famed cityscape of Singapore all lit up (the temperature’s cooler too!). Marina Bay Sands Mall has a light and water show every night. There is also the iLight Festival going on now until 25 June with artistic light installations (mix of free and paid attractions). Bonus: Yoongi wore a Merlion Singapore t-shirt in a travel-themed Lotte Xylitol ad!
• You can also ride the Singapore Flyer for an aerial view of our city like the boys did! Admission costs $40.
• Visit our ethnic enclaves, Chinatown, Little India, Kampung Glam and Geylang Serai to see old shophouses, shop for souvenirs and try ethnic food
• One of the fanbases here, BangtanSG, has teased an ARMY event from 11-13 June. Will update when more details are released.
• Sentosa & Universal Studios Singapore theme park - you can access the island via various modes of transport with varying admission fees. Transport within the island is free.
• If you don’t want to think too hard, the best airport in the world for 12 years running is also an attraction in itself! See the airport section below for more information.
• Singapore is also located in the centre of Southeast Asia - if you’ve never been in this oft-forgotten region of the world, take the chance to check out our neighbouring countries as well! Malaysia can easily be reached via bus, and Indonesia via ferry.

(Note: You may want to check out Klook for discount tickets/passes)

Dining

Singapore is a food paradise with various cuisines from the local ethnic groups, as well as international ones. For Muslims, there are a lot of Muslim-owned or Halal-certified options around (look for this certificate, or the label “Muslim-owned”), including most of the fast food chains like McDonald’s/KFC/Burger King/Subway.
Carrying some cash with you (~$10 per pax) is a good idea, especially if you’re venturing out to hawker centres; while many places now have an electronic payment system in place, cash is still king in terms of versatility, and anecdotally most hawker stalls prefer cash or will charge a credit-card payment surcharge.

Where to eat?

• Most of the malls have a good selection of dining options, ranging from the (relatively affordable) multi-stall foodcourts to fast-food restaurants, cafes, and more upmarket restaurants.
  • It can get crowded during lunchtime (12-2pm) as office workers come out for their break, so try to avoid those hours if possible, or make advance reservations.
  • If you are staying/shopping in Orchard Road, Far East Plaza (level 4 & 5) and Lucky Plaza (multiple levels) have relatively more affordable food options for the area..
  • There’s a myriad of other malls in the suburban areas outside of Orchard to be explored.
• Hawker centres: A “hawker” in Singapore refers to a street food vendor, and in Singapore they’ve been centralised into food centres to create an iconic Singapore dining institution. These places are generally not air-conditioned, but they are the most affordable dining option. If you see an item on a table even if it’s something innocuous like a tissue paper packet or name-card, it means the seat's been reserved (“chop-ed” in the local slang) by people who are off queuing for their food.
  • Look for stalls with the longest lines (the most popular stalls will have long queues all day long), but most stalls should have decent food.
  • Newton Hawker Centre (near Newton MRT station) and Lau Pa Sat (near Telok AyeDowntown/Raffles Place Stations) are probably the most well-known to tourists, but beware of touts and over-charging, especially at Newton.
  • Taking the MRT out to slightly less central areas like Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Kallang, etc. should bring you to other hawker centres that cater to locals.
• Order in: GrabFood and Foodpanda are the two most popular food delivery apps with extensive coverage all around Singapore. Deliveroo is also available. Just be prepared to pay upwards of $5 delivery fee during peak periods, and the listed online prices are usually higher than in-store. The apps also have pick-up available if you’d simply like to order in advance.
• The ethnic enclaves like Kampung Glam (Malay/Muslim), Chinatown and Little India have a higher concentration of the respective ethnic cuisines, but most places in Singapore have a good mix of different local and international cuisines

What to eat?

Breakfast (These are generally very affordable options that should cost you below $10 per person, particularly if you go to food courts/hawker centres)

• Tea/coffee with kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. Available at most hawker centres (usually at the drink stalls), and chains like Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Killiney Kopitiam in malls. Order tea/coffee like a local by referring to this guide.
• Among the fast-food chains, KFC offers the more local option of chicken porridge (congee)
• Roti prata, a south-Indian flatbread (also known as paratha in India, or roti canai in Malaysia), available at most hawker centres and Indian coffee-shops
• Nasi lemak, coconut milk-flavoured rice with a variety of side dishes (usual ones: omelette, fried chicken wing/fried fish, fried anchovies).
• Beehoon, rice vermicelli with a range of toppings like fish cake, luncheon meat (spam), chicken wings, veggies etc.
• Chai Tow Kway (“carrot cake” - it’s actually radish cake), Tau Huey (soya bean curd pudding) + Youtiao (chinese fried dough)
• Mee Rebus, a Malay noodle dish with thick & spicy potato-based gravy topped with hard-boiled egg, bean sprouts, fried shallots, tau kwa (fried beancurd) and spring onions

Lunch & dinner

• Chilli crab: I don’t have any personal recommendations, and it could be costly because the crabs are usually charged by weight, which may vary daily. The link gives a run-down of some popular places
• Hainanese chicken rice: Again, no personal recommendations, but you can find this in most foodcourts and hawker centres. You should be able to find one of these for $5 or less.
• Murtabak/Briyani: My favourite is ZamZam Restaurant (est, 1908) at North Bridge Road in the Muslim enclave of Kampung Glam, but there is a whole row of Singapore-Indian restaurants serving a similar menu there
• Everything under the sun :) Google maps & data coverage generally works well in most parts of Singapore, so search & explore! Some sites you can start at include Chope & Burpple.

Snacks

• A must try, it’s sold by any ice cream man you see roaming around with a popup like this
• We have a ton of bubble tea (boba) stores if you’re craving it, you’d probably find a bubble tea store or two within 20mins of walking anywhere. Koi/Gongcha/LiHo are quite standard options, and then there’s others like Playmade/Chichasansen with their own unique points. Here’s a list with 61 of them...
• There’re plenty of 7-11s and convenience stores around, as well as “mama shops” around public residential housing.

Getting Around

Singapore has a great public transport system. It’s really easy & cheap to get around on the MRT (mass rapid transit trains) and buses. Use Google Maps or the City Mapper app to navigate yourself and get route recommendations (the latter also has transport arrival timings and fare estimates. It also works in many cities globally, so is very useful for tourists). Various transport passes are available for tourists, but you can also use your contactless credit cards (Visa and Mastercard) to pay for the fares (no registration required).
In general, using the Circle Line (yellow) or Downtown Line (blue) should get you to most tourist attractions. Orchard Road (main shopping belt) can be accessed via the North South Line (red), between Orchard and Somerset MRT stations. Map for reference, with links to versions in Chinese/Malay/Tamil available for download.
Taxis and ride-hailing cars:

• We have Grab and Gojek in place of Uber.
• The largest local taxi fleet - the blue Comfort Cabs - also have their own ride-hailing app to compete, although they can also operate via the traditional meter & can be booked via phone call/flagged down as usual. Fares can be paid via cash post-ride or credit card for all these private car options.
• Ride-hailing tends to be very expensive. At peak periods, ride-hailing services could be even more expensive than taxis, but at least you know the price beforehand. All malls have a taxi stand where you can stand in queue and hop on the next available cab. Queues can be long at morning and evening peak periods, so avoid taking cabs then if you can.

General navigation
All signs are in English, and the locals - esp the younger generation - are able to speak English fluently. If you’re really lost, feel free to approach others to ask for help! People are generally friendly and helpful despite initial appearances :)
As a side note: in general, if Google Maps is asking you to circle around a building to get somewhere - don’t. You can cut through most places on the ground floor quite easily, even the residential buildings (unless they’re private properties like condominiums/landed housing). MRT stations are connected to a good number of places via sheltered corridors if they’re nearby enough. Enjoy the aircon & shade instead of walking outside in the heat if you can.

Shopping

• K-pop merch, CDs and DVDs: There is House of Kpop, multiple locations, the most central being at Singapore Post Centre, next to Paya Lebar MRT station (one MRT stop away fm the concert location), and Beadsofbullets at Level 2, Orchard Gateway. Popular Bookstore has a BT21 corner in some of their stores. The flagship store at Bras Basah Complex (near Bugist MRT) would likely hv the biggest selection (though really not that big). Kinokuniya Bookstore at Takashimaya Mall, Orchard Road, also has some albums, DVD sets and maybe even magazines (not sure if any BTS-member covers are available at that time). You can call ahead to ask if they hv stocks.
  
• Orchard Road is our main shopping belt, running from Orchard to Somerset MRT stations. You can find many shopping malls there, with collections ranging from upmarket to fast fashion. Check out Design Orchard, a retail space for fashion and lifestyle items by Singapore designers.
  
• For an old-style emporium experience drop by Mustafa Centre. It used to be open 24 hours but this was disrupted by COVID19 and now it is only open until 2am (best place for late night shopping!). It's not a glitzy mall, but has crowded aisles chock full of all manners of things, including snacks and souvenirs (avoid going on Sundays when it gets super crowded with migrant workers on their day off).
  
• Already mentioned above are the ethnic enclaves Chinatown, Little India, Kampung Glam and Geylang Serai with smaller standalone shops. Special mention for Haji Lane in the Kampung Glam area, a small street with cute boutiques.
  
• The many, many other malls scattered across the country - a brief list. For example, Paya Lebar alone (just another station up from Dakota!) is connected to several malls like Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ), PLQ 2, PL Square, Singpost centre, and a couple more within a 5-mins’ walk (Tanjong Katong Complex, City Plaza, KINEX etc.).
  

Weathewhat to wear

The weather is especially hot these days (max temp of up to 35 degrees celsius, or 95 Fahrenheit), with possible spurts of heavy rain at certain times of day, so dress light and carry an umbrella (most places do have sheltered walkways between buildings and bus-stops/MRT stations though, so don’t worry too much about getting around in the rain). Mall air-conditioning can be cold, so hv another layer (e.g. cardigan/wrap/scarf) on hand. Remember to hydrate frequently & avoid staying outdoors for too long!

Airport

• Singapore Changi Airport is often voted by travellers as the best airport in the world, with lots of shopping, dining and leisure options in the various terminals. BTS (except Jin who took a different flight) stopped over at Changi Airport on the way to New Zealand for Bon Voyage 4 (airport lounge scenes shown in Episode 1)! While you may not have access to the business class lounge like them, there are various other options to rest and hangout, like the many gardens (some even accessible from the public areas) and even a free 24h cinema (Terminal 3 transit area).
• Jewel Changi Airport which is attached to Terminal 1 is an attraction in itself. It's worth arriving 2-3 hours earlier than your flight check-in time to grab a meal and have a look around Jewel. A particular highlight is to take the skytrain between Terminals 2 and 3, cutting across the centre of Jewel, to get a spectacular view of the indoor waterfall. There is also shopping aplenty (Tip: NTUC Fairprice supermarket in Jewel has a nice selection of food and non-food souvenirs which are pretty affordable).
• There are various transport options for getting to the city from the airport. Public transport like MRT is convenient if you are travelling light, else there is a shuttle service to selected downtown hotels. Taxis and ride-hire cars can be expensive, especially with the airport surcharge.
• Sort of related, Yoongi gave a shout out to our national airlines (Singapore Airlines) for its great seat and amenities in business class in BV4! (He said: let's always fly Singapore Airlines in the future!). The airlines must have taken notice, because they recently announced that they would be adding BTS content like songs, MVs, LY New York concert, and Break The Silence docu in their in-flight entertainment system to commemorate BTS' 10th anniversary. An ARMY also spotted a write-up abt BTS in their in-flight magazine.

We’ve tried to achieve a balance between being succinct and informative, but certainly the above info is not exhaustive. So do feel free to ask in the comments below if the info you need is not here! Fellow SG ARMY, or those familiar with Singapore, feel free to chime in!

Keeping Secrets
First Prev
“I’ll keep this brief, as you both have quite a bit of paperwork to get to.” Dae Yeong sat on the other side of a conference room table from Alex and Carbon, leaning over it as he slid them each two stacks of paperwork. Archaic, certainly, but still the most official. “Do not speak to anyone about anything you experienced in any fashion for the duration of your mission, without a signed order.”
“Oh, well, that shouldn’t be too hard. ‘So how was it?’ No comment.” Alex crammed another mini muffin into his mouth and washed it down with passable coffee. The program at least had the good sense to have food waiting in the conference room. He pulled the mountain of paperwork over to himself and shuffled through it. At least a dozen manila folders, all legal size and many of them finger thick, were stacked on top of a pile of pale blue paper with Tsla text peeking out at him. He’d see about getting a translator when he got down to those.
“I would recommend more tact, many people will never fully understand these circumstances and answers like that may put them off. But you are essentially correct.” He leaned back in his chair and looked between them. “If either of you have any questions, I will be available to you until you are done.”
Carbon shook her head and Alex shrugged as they started in on the forms.
It was basically what Dae indicated, but full of lawyer words that Alex had a tenuous grasp of. His eyes darted over to Carbon with a touch of envy. Her stack was shorter and the CPP had a personal AI waiting for her when they arrived, giving her near-instant access to any sort of reference material she needed. He got to ask questions.
The sheer volume of the forms was unsettling, but each covered a unique aspect of the mission and the many, many things that went wrong. There was the original mission non-disclosure agreement and the new extended non-disclosure agreement. Then there was the encounter with the Eohm, which included special agreements for being in control of a government vehicle when it sustains damage, being attacked by hostile nonhuman entities, using emergency equipment, and using a government vehicle outside of normal operational parameters, to start.
That didn’t even eat up half of the pile. The rest covered seeing, touching and boarding an unknown object, using unidentified technology and having an alien foreign object implanted. It was a strange mix of documents that hadn’t been altered in decades and a few that had been finished just days ago. It was only the second time in 60 years humanity had found abandoned technology, which had only been an old tkt settlement. There wasn’t a lot of precedence.
Alex took his time reading everything that had been put before him, even if it was slow going. It at least appeared that Carbon was doing the same. They took a break after an aide had delivered lunch, several hours into the day. By the time they had pushed through to the Tslao paperwork, they had been there for just over eight hours.
Dae locked the signed forms up into two different briefcases and handed them off to another aide, securing the door as she left. “Thank you for your patience with this. Many returning crews chafe at having to go over paperwork and there is usually much less to do.”
“I kind of expected it. Had a lot going on, you know?” Alex stood, stretched and leaned back against the table.
Dae shook his head. “Officially, I do not. So that you understand, Alex, that alone is almost too much information for you to give out.”
“Oh, yeah. This is going to take some getting used to.” He rubbed his eyes, which reminded him of how much his wrist hurt from all the writing.
Carbon pushed her chair away from the table and stood apart from both of them. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Yeong. If it is not troublesome, may I be shown to my room? It has been a very long week.”
“Of course, Shipmaster. Both of you have been given diplomatic quarters for the time being. It breaks with the decompression routine, but there is enhanced security and privacy up there.”
“That will do fine, thank you.” Carbon smiled faintly and gave him a shallow bow, little more than an incline of her head, some sort of formality. She’d done the same thing to Alex when they had first met, without the smile.
“I could stand to get some rest, myself.”
Dae nodded and led them out to the elevators, waving his badge over the call pad for an express that bypassed the rest of the hotel that occupied this portion of the upper tower in the station. It was very well appointed, with wood accents and a thick carpet and not a hint of the blue-gray paint that seemed to cover most everything else on the station.
The floor they stopped at was more of the same, Dae showed them down a side corridor and dropped Alex off at his quarters before leading Carbon further down the hall.
The room felt strange. It was nicer than anywhere Alex had stayed before, just short of being what he would consider opulent. Lots of real wood, granite counters in the bathroom and a king sized bed. At least the package of clothing they had left for him on the dresser was just standard CPP issue station gear. He picked it up and headed for the bathroom.
Quarantine had bothered him a little, but that was still a very compact area. This was just... enormous. The bathroom alone was larger than his cabin on the Kshlav’o had been. There was elbow room when he changed his clothes.
Maybe it was better in the dark. He crawled into bed and tried to get comfortable. “Lights, off.”
He waited for several minutes. It didn’t get better. He still did not like the dark. The room still felt empty and now he couldn’t tell where anything was. Maybe he could sleep in the closet. Fold up the comforter and make a little bed...
A knock at the door interrupted his descent. Alex wasn’t sure he had heard it until it happened again. Someone was actually knocking on the door, not using the call button on the lock.
He shuffled over towards the door controls in the dark and thumbed the button to activate the viewer. Only the top half of a head was visible, clearly Carbon. Probably no one else on the station had blue-black fur and antennae, anyway. He hit the panel, squinting into the light of the hallway. “Hi.”
Carbon pushed him back into the room and closed the door behind her, resting her head against his chest and slipping her arms around his waist. “I have missed you, Alex.”
“I missed you too.”
Carbon dragged him back to bed, not that he resisted. In the darkness the room still felt wrong, but Alex found it much more tolerable with Carbon’s back against him. She draped his arm over her waist and shifted her head around on the pillow. Her antenna landed on top of his head with a muted thump and they shifted down into the shared existence.
”This is nice.” Carbon’s mind felt smooth and hard, still prepared to deal with stresses beyond her control. There were little chips and cracks, though they seemed to be dissipating.
”It is. We should do this more often.” The Alex part warmed with mirth and cozied up to her.
Carbon began to shift, still smooth but less rigid as she relaxed. ”I would find that desirable. I have been thinking about our relationship, Alex.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He assumed it wasn’t bad, it didn’t feel bad when she had said it. He lacked the skill to successfully hide the burst of anxiety that it caused. ”Go on.”
”I wish to continue with this, but I fear you will be ostracized by your species if we do.” Carbon tried to ease his fears and radiated a calm presence.
It actually worked very well, settling Alex down as he thought about his reply. ”I don’t know if ostracized is the right word. It’s new territory, I’ve never heard of anyone else having a relationship like ours. There have been a few instances in human history where parallels could be drawn.”
A hopeful sort of curiosity. ”How did those turn out?”
”In the long run or short term?”
Followed immediately by disappointment. ”Ah. I had hoped that your race would be more accepting, you seem to deal with change well.”
”Really? Us? It takes decades before you see any social norms change...” He pondered that for a moment, ”Two generations, probably.”
Carbon was quiet, ruminating and growing discouraged. ”I had hoped that there might be some refuge for us with one of our races.”
”The Tslao will not be accepting of this either, I take?” He couldn’t avoid the worry lacing through his thoughts, an uneasy sense of loss already seeping in.
She gave a sort of short, sharp laugh, sarcastic and pained. ”No. We are very insular, Alex. We do not like change, I fear the reaction would likely be worse from my people.”
”You don’t seem to mind change.” At least, she didn’t mind him.
Carbon shifted, softer but still pessimistic. ”I am an individual with an unusual upbringing. When I was a child, we were taught that humans were dangerous and unpredictable, like wild animals among the stars. Had I not seen them, interacted with them myself... I would have believed it.”
”That does explain why we’ve always had cool political relations.”
A pulse of agreement. ”Before the disaster, the number of my people who have met humans did not even number into the hundreds. Many were terrified at how quickly you expanded your borders.”
”Wow. Okay... I probably keep a closer eye on things like this than most people, but that’s not how the Tsla’o were portrayed in history classes. I guess that concealing yourselves thing worked a treat.” Alex unfocused, silent and contemplative. ”I don’t think we will be entirely alone here. My mother already likes you quite a bit.”
Carbon rippled with a burst of shock and surprise at that. ”She does? I thought I had been rude the first time you passed a message from her to me?”
”Oh yeah, you snapped at me good for that and I, uh... I just started making up replies for you.” It had seemed like a civil thing to do at the time, but saying it now was just embarrassing. “Nothing crazy, just polite responses that didn’t really amount to anything. I didn't want her to think you were mean.”
Embarrassment and a curious type of admiration marbled her presence. ”Thank you for protecting my honor when I had done nothing to deserve it.”
”I figured you were having a hard time. You looked like you were. I just wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Alex warmed, unaware that he had been doing her a favor at the time. He’d mostly been doing it for his mom, who’d been more interested in aliens than he ever had. ”What about your father? Would he accept us?”
”I do not think he would react well.”
Her answer had come so quickly he was sure she had already been thinking about it. There was no hesitation, no more consideration to be done. She’d had a week to do nothing but dwell on things. ”Oh. Your aunt?”
Fear spiked in mind, cold and crisp. "No! No. She would never."
That her reaction was strong enough to make him afraid as well, an echo of the ‘narcotic effect’ he had learned about before, was surprising and unsettling. ”Okay. Well... At least we have my family.”
”Is that enough?”
”It’s a start.”
Carbon thought on that awhile, bemused. ”It will have to do. I think we should do our best to keep our relationship hidden, until we have better gauged reactions to it.”
”I agree. Are you going to keep coming over?”
The answer was coy and practically dripping with anticipation. ”No.”
”Liar.”
A memory of a smile and a laugh. ”You are not the only one with a room, Alex.”
He gave her that. ”I don’t know where yours is.”
”It is the next one down the hall. How do you think I got here so quickly?”
”So should we trade off nightly?”
”We will decide what to do when the time comes.”
Alex did the closest thing he could do to grinning. ”So every other night?”
”That sounds fine.” The Carbon part was amused by that, but quieted and became serious a moment later. ”Will you do something for me, Alex?”
”Sure, name it.”
”It has been a long week, will you show me a memory? An exciting one?”
 
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*****
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to get buzzed off your... very, very close friend's memories in Tsla'o society.

Hello! I am moving back to the east coast at the end of the month and am assisting my current roommate with finding someone to take over my room. Available July 1st is an unfurnished master bedroom with private, en suite bathroom. Communal spaces are furnished. Rent is $1365 and includes water and trash. Utilities tend to run $100-$150 pp/mo. Security deposit of $1245. Property is pet friendly, up to 25 lbs, and requires a pet deposit of $500 with a $50/mo pet rent. There are no pets currently in the unit. Apartment/property amenities include one gated parking space, in unit washedryer, dishwasher, fireplace, central ac/heat, and a pool. Property is within walking distance to grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, gyms, and the Arcadia mall. 5 minute drive to the arboretum. Management and maintenance team are responsive and communicative-issues are resolved fast!
Roommate is late 30’s female who is gainfully employed outside of the home. She is clean, quiet, and respectful-hopes to find the same qualities in a new roommate!
If you are interested or want to see photos, please reach out. Thank you.