the bride and a lonely driver

my bitch

and so it happened. the marriage was consumated. a love that transcends nationality, a romance without the blessings of my parents.





it was really quite an uncanny conincidence that led to me choose her as my bride. during my bride search, i was looking mostly at magnas and lancers which despite their dodgier performance reputations, are (most importantly to me) cheaper cars. Civics while reliable, are relatively pricier. to put things into perspective, a 2000 Lancer goes at about 8k-9k+. A '97/98 civic could easily cost more than 10k which was why i didn't consider a civic to be a viable option initially. then after several failed negotiations with Lancer owners, i decided take a shot at Civics and so i responded to an ad from some guy called Belson who was selling his '94 Civic GLI at $7500. Given his name, his accent (distinctively either Malaysian or Singaporean), and the place which he was staying (which was popular among Curtin students), i could be excused for thinking of him as the stereotypical young undergraduate civic beng owners who did every possible mod to his car. I wasn't expecting a deal initially, quite frankly, and i probably wouldn't have made the trip all the way there if not for the fact that it was very near to the place where i was viewed another Lancer.

And so me and daniel (who is also a fellow civic-owner-to-be) went down to this Belson's place in Canning Vale. The garage was open and so we actually saw the car even before we knocked on the door. Daniel's first impression was like 'Eh, this car looks damn familiar...it looks like my sister's car'. True enough, when Belson came out, Daniel confirmed that he was the person whom he sold the car to about a year ago (since his sister has left perth then). Unbelievably, we were actually talking about Daniel's sister's civic on our way there, and Daniel was commenting how the person who bought his sister's car got a damn good deal cos' she was desperate to sell and so the car was sold at $6500 way below the market price of about $8000+ a year ago.

that broke the information asymmetry and that was perhaps the defining reason that eventually shaped the deal. Even Belson himself was quite surprised at the coincidence and was telling me how that i'm actually fated to buy the car. He did some modifications to the car, most notably, the change of tires and the sports exhaust and eventually a deal was made at $6700. It wasn't a fantastic deal, but well at least it was significantly lower than what i would have gotten elsewhere or from a dealer. I swear, those dealers are fucking bloodsuckers. i saw a similar Civic selling for about 7-K and it was at like 280,000 Kms. mine's around 150, 000Kms. It never makes economic sense to buy from dealers unless you're looking at the newer, sportier pre-owned cars.

the interesting thing about Belson (who turns out to be singaporean) was how he and his wife were so passionate about evanglising to us about why we should get a PR here cos' somehow Singapore is destined for economic ruin in the long run and we hope on board. Belson, not unlike the singapore serf was in the IT line back in singapore and (according to his wife at least) was getting a 10K salary. well, in the process of their pontification they kinda pissed my housemates off when they came over to my place to settle the payment especially when his wife told my housemates how 'this time next year, we'll do away with our singapore passport' or something to that effect in a pompous tone. did i mention that Belson's wife works as a migration planner here in Perth? Apparantly last year, about 2500 singaporeans got Australian PR in perth alone.

for some reason, they seem to display an absolute disdain and it came across as though they were utterly disgraced by the fact that they were born in singapore. i have nothing against economic migrants who leave their homeland in search for a better life. it was after all, the very foundation which singapore was founded on in the first place. yet i've always believed that you can never leave the nation you identified as 'home' without losing any part of you. it was certainly the place, the environment that moulded you into what you are, positive or otherwise. seeking greener pastures is fine, but was it totally neccessary to disparage your former homeland in a desperate effort to justify to other people and consequently yourself that yours', and yours decision alone is the RIGHT way to plan out your life?

well anyway, i finally got the car registered on friday, and i was still alittle peeved about how the stamp duty costed me $230 rather than the $50+ which Belson told me. I was toying with the idea of personalising my license plate until reality hit in. an 9 lettered word (without your name) would cost around $450 for a polycarbonate plate. The aluminium ones (which have a word limit of 8 letters) cost around $320. Paying a month's worth of rent on a fleeting fancy just din make sense, though if i did strike lotto, i would be very tempted to do one that spells WINDWALK or DIVINERAPIER....





my bride after her baptism shower







Daniel and Joel. The inagural Civic Gang meeting.

As you can probably tell, despite the marriage, it's unlikely that i'll end my virgin hood anytime soon, though i probably can't say the same for my civic, especially if i find any suspicious white stains on the back seat cushions, which in most likelihood would have been the remants of the romance between *ahem* daniel's sister and her ex.

I'm no rockson 'takumi' tan, but i can probably christen myself as the virgin 'itsuki' undergraduate.





hence my blog shall be aptly renamed:Catharsis of a Lonely Driver.....