Night Walk around Marina Bay

I have to say that the Singapore skyline around the Marina Bay area now looks spectacular at night. I took this shot while at the F1 race earlier this year. I've not been up though onto the Sky Gardens at Marina Bay Sands building which is the tall tombstone like 3 blocks in the background. It costs S$20 per visit and it's apparently spectacular. So one day I shall go. Oh and one of my favourite things about living in the tropics is that walking out in the evening is lovely as it's cool but not cold and in Singapore, remarkably safe so strolling out with friends is really nice particularly with stunning views like this.

Spot the Difference

These were a trade sample. But as I photographed, them, I realised other than being left and right, they weren't identical. I was really impressed with the level of detailed attention to even the eyelets which had the brand names on it.

I still think of them as souped-up batas though with that wonderful white mesh fabric. Certainly would have qualified me to be the best dressed convent girl.

For anyone who's curious, these are original Feiyue's direct from the French owners. Not grey goods.

Tiger Prawns for Dinner

This was at a seafood restaurant along Patong Beach where the customer can choose his seafood, and it is then cooked for him. The tiger prawns are really tiger sized and succulent since they are so very fresh. However I would say that the quality of the cooking was watered down in flavour compared to what Singaporeans are used to. Evidently the cooks are catering to blander palates with less robust flavours. Pity. Nevertheless it was still a very enjoyable dinner.

Patong Beach

I just came back from Phuket, Thailand on a corporate beach holiday. As the company I went with is young, hip and happening, we stayed on Patong Beach, the most built-up, well known, beach in town. While it is not a place I would have picked on my own, I was very pleasantly surprised indeed by the hotel we stayed in: The Sea Patong

Despite the punny name, it was a hidden gem. It cost us less than S$50 per room per night (with each room taking two people). It's conveniently located since it is within walking distance of Patong Beach, all the shops, pharmacies, pubs along Patong and even a major shopping centre, JunkCeylon, is within walking distance. And no, I'm not being paid for this blog entry.

The food was excellent too on the roof top by the pool dining. And drinks in the sister hotel, The Nap, next door, were reasonably priced and made with fresh juices (and of course the required alcohol). All at 20% off.

However, the price we paid is probably not going to last as it is a young hotel less than a year old and we went in an off peak season. So get it while it lasts! A stylish, modern hip hotel at budget prices. Just make sure you don't lose any of the beach towels on the beach as at that price, they're bound to charge you for any lost items.

A Once in 50 years Incident?

It seems to me that quite a number of people do not understand what probability means in the recent flood. Due to the very successful flood alleviation programme instituted by the Public Utilities Board of Singapore, the flood areas in Singapore have been reduced drastically over the years so that the public in Singapore has become accustomed to flood free situation despite living on a low lying, increasingly built up tropical island. However, in the last month, there have been flash floods on three occasions in low-lying areas of Singapore including the famed Orchard Road, around the Scotts Road junction.

Horror of horrors, are we living in *third world* country?

The reaction of the public would be amusing if it did not betray such innocence of probability let alone other physical and economic factors. When the public is told, this is a "Once in 50 years event" what they do not seem to recognise is that this is a probability. In other words, there is a one in 50 chance of such a flood occurring in the same way that if one flips a coin, there is a 50% chance it can turn up heads but it could easily be flipped 100 times and still be heads all times and that still does not change the truth of the original statement that there is a 50% chance of it being heads although of course that is certainly a rare series of events.

As a bunch of engineers, generally excellent at what they do, PUB engineers forget that the general level of understanding of simple probability, let alone an understanding of engineering, rainfall, tides, permeable versus impermeable surfaces and a low lying island, is sorely lacking. So perhaps what is needed in this case is for engineers to improve their ability to communicate with the public in simpler terms. Idiot-proof explanations are needed and any comments relating to probability should be avoided.

Good luck engineers and don't forget you can always hire a spin doctor but make sure your spin doctor understands some rudimentary engineering and probability and has a good dose of common sense.

The Full Monty

Adrian Pang is the one new face on the Singapore acting scene I really like. I first saw him in a TV series acting as a supposedly blind man tracking down the killer who tried to do him in and was duly impressed. I then saw him in a production of Much Ado about Nothing and realised he was more than a good actor, he was a hot bod. Then he finally set up his own company with his family including his young sons and I watched the debut production, the Full Monty last Sunday.

It was excellent. The acting, the sets, the singing and choreography all came together well. I enjoyed it and laughed at all the right places. While I enjoyed the story better as a movie, and think that genre better suits a tale of down and out men who go to work as strippers to earn their keep, and find their self-respect, it remains highly enjoyable as an upbeat musical.

I look forward to Adrian Pang & family's next production.

My Gray Victorian Dress

It's always a pleasure to find a locally designed dress that is affordable, comfortable, and fits me. And I like grey. I found this in a shop that is called Celadon, which used to be in Bugis Junction some time back but the slip did not shrink quite as much as the outer shell. I finally got around to getting it altered to raise the hem. It now fits better than it used to as it was a mite too long to be flattering before. I'm more delighted with it than ever. Now for an occasion to wear it.

The Backyard Cola-mentos experiment

For my nephew's birthday, my brother, decided to try out the coca-cola - mentos experiment. It works. I was never fast enough to capture the first full spurt so here is the best shot I managed to get after one of my nephews capped the bottle with his hand immediately after the mentos went in.

For those of you who have never seen this before, if you add mentos to carbonated drinks like sprite or coca-cola, the two react to form a fountain. As we were using small bottles, the fountain did not last long but if you use a large 1.5 litre bottle and more mentos sweets, then chances are you will get a result that you can capture more easily on camera.

One wonders how this was discovered. Some chap eating mentos and drinking coke perhaps?

Let them Eat Cake!

I forgot to buy more bread and one Sunday morning awoke to wonderful baking smells and thought it was my neighbour. When I came back from walking my dogs, I realised there was a lovely lemon cake on the kitchen table, still warm and in its baking pan with a beautiful, cracked top. It tasted heavenly with little crunchy bits inside. And that the table was not its usual laden self with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and another of jam.

My ingenious maid must be a descendent of Marie Antionette. And unlike the hapless poor of that time in France, my kitchen is still well stocked enough for her to rustle up enough eggs, flour, sugar, lemons for a fabulous breakfast cake. Definitely no need to riot.

I should forget to buy bread more often.

A Crumb of Old Singapore

Where I grew up, my mother used to order groceries from a grocery store called Chop Soon Heng in Beauty World. It was a dry goods grocery store which sold canned food, rice in heavy burlap sacks, biscuits in glass jars scooped out and sold by weight. My mother would call every week or more often and they would then deliver to our doorstep. No delivery charge in those days. It saved my mother a lot of heavy carrying.

Recently, I discovered an old provision store in Commonwealth Drive that still sells these old style biscuits by weight. My friends and I were delighted and promptly bought some and munched our way through an entire packet very rapidly. They taste like yummy jam biscuits with apricot jam in the middle.

Nothing like the taste of childhood.

Supping Bak Kut Teh

There's nothing quite like the Singapore tradition of adjourning for a late night supper. Tropical evenings are the perfect temperature for a stroll out to the nearest coffee shop after aikido practice and we're all tired and hungry. So four guys and I from class late one Friday evening decided that a bowl of soup would really hit the spot and we went in search of the bak kut teh (pork bone herbal soup) down Balestier Road.

Balestier Road in Singapore is one of those roads with a lot of mixed use development ranging from old to new commercial buildings. There are some lovely shophouse blocks which must have been built over 70 years ago (and in Singapore this qualifies as old) with their white decorative facades. Surrounding them are blocks of apartments built anytime between the early 1970s and beyond. It's a higgledy piggledy mixture of buildings with a bunch of little restaurants thrown in and the hill rising up on one side of the road and a pile of cars parked on one side or the other forcing the traffic to slow down considerably as cars pull in and out into the flow of traffic.

Me, being me, insisted in trying to find the "best" bak kut teh (pork bone soup) stall down the road, which meant we trekked from the car park near Mandalay Road all the way along Balestier until we found it, with me striding along, hungry but determined and a fellow aikidoka keeping stride beside me and the rest trailing in a more desultory fashion behind. Unfortunately, this one bak kut teh place is so popular, there was a line of people outside and at this my determination melted away since I loathe queues for food. So much for being able to try the Malaysian bak kut teh again which had me drooling for more the last time I went.

So I settled for the more traditional Singaporean version of bak kut teh which has a clear soup and a peppery taste in a shop house that still had the green tiles running up to halfway up the wall, and the very high ceilings for good air circulation, built in an era without airconditioning and the mosaic tiles on the floor. We ate our way through bowls of bak kut teh (pork bone soup cooked with herbs including pepper), white rice, pigs trotters, intestines and kiam chye (preserved green vegetables).

Much to one of my friend's delight, it was an old fashioned enough place to have a little charcoal brazier at each table ready to fire up a little earthern teapot with a bright pink packet of tea next to it. The tea is served in absolutely tiny teacups only slightly bigger than a thimble and one is to down the tea within a minute or two of it being poured. It's bitterness cleanses the palate and is supposed to help clear the cholesterol-laden meal we had just inflcted on our stomachs.

So there we sat, whiling the evening away and our tiredness melting away with each mouthful of food we ate and bowl of soup we drank. The harsher sounds of kitchen clatter and the gutteral Chinese dialects bounced off the walls and I was happy that evening.

Human Dignity

It struck me forcibly in last Sunday's homily, given by a wonderful missionary priest, who has spent his whole life in SE Asia, that really the choices that we have to make, not to sleep around, not to act out of jealousy but to rise above all these temptations, are really so much about human dignity. And that is what purity of heart is: not using people but to have respect for each person as a child of God.

And I think what gave his homily force is simply his ability to live out this message in his own life. His great gentleness and love that emanates from him, that all around him have experienced, give credence to his message. To hold to standards which seem archaic in the modern world of how to treat people and ourselves is not always easy to live up to when I think of it in terms of "Thou shalt not..." as it seems harsh and joyless, but transformed into a notion of love and dignity of each person, lifts it into a higher plane and suddenly it all makes sense. And it is most certainly not joyless but a celebration of life and each person.

Dogs teach me to Pray

One of my favourite old priests, who serves in my parish, said something which really struck a chord with me. He related an incident where he was grumbling on his way to church as a young priest, to do his duty about mass or some other service. In his grumpy mood, he arrived back home and was greeted by his favourite pet dog, a dalmation, a dog he has always found very appealing. As dogs do, he was given an enthusiastic and warm welcome and shown much affection, and it occurred to him then that if a dog can show his master so much affection over a simple return home, how ungrateful and ungracious it was of him to be grumbling to see God, our master.

I loved the story because I have on many occasions, come home and have had my spirits lifted by my dogs who rush to the door or the gate, and when they cannot get out the door, will make all manner of noise, standing on their hind legs, pulling at the door handle in a fruitless attempt to let themselves out. Never mind that I only saw them just this morning, but I get a welcome as warm as if I had been away a year. It's especially heart-warming when I've had a hard day at work and they're one of the best stress relievers I have.

I can't believe sometimes how much love they have in their little bodies to pour out to me, so unconditionally and yes, I too can certainly learn from them to serve my master, God, well, with more affection, more willingness to go to prayer and to serve wherever he wishes me to serve, and bear whatever cross he wishes.

My Feathered Friend

Having seen several wild parrots around my home, I was delighted to be able to see my friend's pet parrot. This was a very cleanly kept parrot so there was no smell and it was a very clean bird. It was also very tame so it was willing to meet a bunch of strangers and sit on our hand or shoulder. It has its flight wings clipped so that it cannot fly too far away. It almost made me a convert to keeping birds!

Signing

Shall I learn sign language? There's a short course for sign language for religion in my church and I was thinking, it is such an elegant and beautiful language, I am tempted. I see glimpses of it when the deaf community gathers for Sunday morning mass in one wing of the church and they're all signing with the intepreter intepreting to them. It's so poetic it goes straight to the heart . The snag is that I am not a natural at languages, learning new ones I mean. I struggled with Chinese for years and still not that fluent in it. And I did a passing bit of french, only just about enough to order food in a restaurant and not much more. (Ah, yes, the important bit of the language, I agree).

I'll think about it but if anyone wants to weigh in on the conversation, please do. Or what version is worth learning.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sometimes we fear to dream too much. Safety and security matter a great deal to most of us as they do to me. However once in a while, I need to dream to and while in much of my life I have clung to what is safe and familiar in my life choices, that desire for venturing into the unknown sometimes rears its head. It is built into the human psyche, that desire to explore, to find that which is unknown, to seek that which is not limited by our own experiences thus far. And when we encounter that which we find limitless and beautiful and terrible, then the emotion we experience is wonder.

For me, that desire has partly been expressed in my practice of aikido. And for me, today since I am grading for nidan in aikido, it really brought home to me that even for someone like me, who loves clinging to that which is safe, I too need my little bit of adventure, and I need to that sense of exploration and wonder. I have never stopped learning. I have never stopped being amazed by what I can be taught by those who are skilled both in the art as well as in the art of teaching, of sharing what they know. It is a joyous experience to step on the mat and simply see where our skills can take us. And I never thought I'd get this far or stay this long on this journey.

Gambatte!

The Boy and his Bubble

A blast from the past: I have taught my nephews to blow bubbles made out of some sticky plasticy material that I used to buy at 10 cents a tube as a child. Now I buy them by the boxful from the one remaining toy shop near my office which still stocks a number of these old time toys. These bubbles last for weeks as the material is airtight so I've yet to actually see one deflated as usually someone manages to squash it well before then.

The Communal Durian Feast

Eating durians as a child meant I accompanied my uncle and mother or father out to the roadside stall nearby. It was usually a makeshift stall set up when durians were in season and they were generally from Segamat, Malaysia or some other place in Malaysia. There were some fruits from further afield from Thailand. Selection depended on one's ability to tell and the fruit vender's willingness to open and let you try before selling it to you. One of my elders would usually do the bargining and tasting and after a bit of haggling, there'd be a sackful of durians to haul back home. Fortunately we had a car, otherwise, we'd all have had to troop out to eat by the roadside stall.

Durians for the uninitiated, are a tropical fruit, with a thick, spiky husk in which are pockets of seeds covered by creamy flesh that ranges in colour from a pale to dark yellow. It has a pungent smell and for those who hate it, it smells like something rotting in a drain. For those who love it, it just smells like durian, a strong, rich smell. Fortunately in my house, the entire family loved durians so we had no qualms bringing back the entire fruit and my brothers and father would have to get the wedge out and start breaking open the durians. There would be newspapers on the patio and all of us squatting around, digging our fingers into the rich, yellow creamy flesh with delight. We'd eat and eat until we were sated and in those days, I could pack away an entire durian by myself or even two if they were small. But the pleasure was also in sampling the different varieties from the sweet and creamy to the slightly alcoholic and more stringy ones.

A young Malaysian guy gave us the chance to relive that childhood past the other day when he came a-knocking on our door asking if we wanted to buy durians from his kampong home and he'd carted them over in the boot of his beat up Proton Saga. We did, and I promptly hauled my young nephews over to come feast with us. I then was confronted with the thick husked spiky fruit and my mother pointed out that while the seller had cut each open near the stem to show me the fruit was good, I should have asked him to wedge them from the base, where one normally opened them from.

Oops.

I'd always relied on my father or brothers or uncles to do this, but now, it was just city slicker me since my brother was overseas and my father not as able as before. Hmmmm....I grabbed the wedge and under my mother's direction, discovered the faultline and forced the wedge along the faultline from the base of the durian. It opened reasonably easily so I could then teach my nephews. Easier than I thought. A darn sight easier than opening a coconut anyway which I still can't do.

The reward: a happy set of nephews who now if marooned on a tropical island during the durian season would not starve. And two large bowlfuls of durian seeds covered in scrumptious yellow flesh. I had durian for dinner that night!

Burger Shack

Burgers are great comfort food and this one is served at Burger Shack which is near Coronation Plaza off Bukit Timah Road. It is a nice casual hang out with the same kind of vibe as the Island Creamery with the photo printer in the corner for patrons to print out photos of themselves and hang it on the wall. The service is cheery and the burgers are chargrilled to perfection even if they are asian sized rather than American sized. This one is the mushroom swiss one and it was certainly delicious. Nothing like hanging out there after church with a small group of friends chatting and catching up with each other. Given that it is on the edge of a posh estate, it is not unusual to see some personalities there and I saw one of the ex-NMPs hang out there once.

Chap Goh Mei

Since it is the last day of the 15-day long Chinese New Year, a day known as Chap Goh Mei, I'm celebrating by putting up this picture of my favourite lunar new year snack: pineapple tarts. This are not just any pineapple tarts but tarts baked with love and skill by my sister-in-law and her maid. The pastry is slightly crisp with a glazed top and the pineapple jam is chockful of pineapple and not too sweet. This little tarts are, I am sure, a big cause of my expanding waistline this year.

The post-CNY diet starts tomorrow!

Hong Kong Lunar New Year Rice Cake

This is a traditional rice cake eaten in Hong Kong particularly during Chinese New Year. The decorative elements of stars and other shapes are made of ingredients such as watercress (for the green ones), beetroot (for the red), corn (for the yellow) etc. This particular one was made with no artificial colouring or preservatives. So it tasted very pure and simple but delicious. For me it tastes like agar-agar jelly with interesting textures and a far more natural set of flavours than usual. For those of you unfamiliar with agar-agar, think of a jello but with a far firmer texture so that it is slightly crunchy.

Ship Ahoy!

Anyone who likes boats should take a little visit to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. It is a little gem of a museum in Stanley, Hong Kong. The section featuring the older period chronicling the early Chinese Voyages into the Far East and the Indian Subcontinent has to-scale models of the ships used. It dates all the way back to the early Chinese ships. The second gallery features the modern period, all steel and diesel engines. However it is the intricately carved wooden boats that really capture the imagination.

Hong Kong, at one stage, had its own ship-building industry, and the models were made by people in that industry, clearly with loving care. That era has now passed however so this museum is all that remains and Hong Kong is about to lose that too. The Murray House where these collections are kept is the perfect place for this as a colonial eara building of solid grey stone and the little jetty upfront and the tiny boats scattered like leaves in the bay outside.

Shanghai is about to take over these beautiful ships so fortunately they will find a good home there but it is sad that the Hong Kong Government could not find the funds or a suitable place to house these historic collections.

The Great Procastinator

I'm a great procastinator. I procastinate about getting out of bed, about doing my work, about tidying my desk, my drawer spilling out with clothes, my financial affairs etc. I have somehow found the resolve to start cleaning up my act and it feels good. So my motto for the week shall be, "Do It Now" as opposed to, "oh, let's just lie in bed for the next five minutes" (which inevitably stretches into at least half an hour if not more). I'm tired of feeling unproductive and the task-oriented me is now resurgent.

So let's just get on with it and I'll let you know how it goes.

The good news is that I have been much better about a couple of things in my life already since the end of last year and now it's time to take things a bit further.

ReversO!

My all time favourite chocolate ice cream is made by the Island Creamery in Singapore. It's called ReversO and for a while it just did not occur to me why it was called that. Then I realised that it was because it was an Oreo reversed with the cream surrounding the biscuit. It is an intensely chocolate-y creamy taste with rich dark chocolate biscuit bits buried as bits of secret treasure.

This is one of my favourite pick-me-ups and it seldom fails.

Hooray for the Golden Rule

I used to wonder why it was even necessary to have the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12) since it seemed to me as a young adult, that it was much more important to figure out what someone would like or would not like that was *different* from what one would personally like or dislike done unto one. I always thought that people's innate sense of fair play would dictate that one would automatically do unto others as one would them do unto you. At least to one's friends, family and generally to anyone that one did not bear any ill will towards as opposed to one's clear enemies. In other words, I would to a complete stranger, behave politely, not shove him or her, be punctual, give him a drink of water if he asked for one and so on.

In and Oxford undergraduate tutorial, I remember sitting in some freezing room in my college with my fellow PPEists and the Greats students, debating not whether the Golden Rule was necessary in our Moral Philosophy tutorial, but how it should be understoond more finely or whether it made sense at all. In other words, one man's meat may be another man's poison so we then arrived at the conclusion that on specifics, we should bear in mind other people's different interests. For example, if I hated tea, then being offered a cup of tea which was very common undergraduate courtesy when receiving a visitor in one's room, was not a polite gesture by someone who knew me well, but would pass muster from a stranger who did not know me as complying with the Golden Rule. However in a broad sense, the Golden Rule still worked eg remembered that I hated tea, my host would also be obeying the Golden Rule by generally being considerate of my taste buds.

It was much later in life when I had friends who were persistently different in their lifestyles and persistently friends as well, that I came to understand why it was even necessary to spell out this rule: essentially because some people really do believe that it should be one rule for them and another for other people including people they considered friends or family. Let alone the next level of becoming more sensitive to how different someone else might be.

So now that I am older and wiser, I have learned to cope in more imaginative ways. I have learned to listen better to figure out what someone is really saying and to assess whether or not they have the ability to comply with what they themselves have agreed to. And to adjust around that in different ways. I certainly get a lot less annoyed this way.

In the meantime, I can entirely see why the Golden Rule is necessary. It still is a standard for many people to, hopefully, aspire to.

My Secret Garden

It's not quite a garden I have to admit. It's more like an empty field with large, old trees in it that have grown so high they dwarf the public housing flats in the distance. It is my secret place only because I seem to be the only person who uses it. In land scarce Singapore, it is inevitable that this piece of land will soon suffer the fate of being dug up and concrete poured over the living earth. Indeed I think it has already been tendered out and sold but the developer has not yet taken possession of it or the sale is not yet complete.

In the meantime, in this pocket of time and space though, I roam freely in it, sitting long under the tall trees, or walking by the canal watching the little egret and the great egret fish. Sometimes I see a kingfisher flash past if I go early in the morning. I am almost always alone, save my dogs, although people are near enough as there is housing surrounding the field and a train station on the edge of it. This morning I saw an oriole flash past in siren yellow and black as I jogged gently towards my empty space.

I often wish I lived on a farm or in some village when I come here so I could have the same sense of space, and that sense of eternity that comes with it. It reminds me of the times I spent rambling in the hills of Yorkshire and the Lake District, or lolling in the gardens of Oxford colleges. In such moments, communing with God becomes easy and the heart stills no matter what the heartache and the busy-ness of working life falls away.

Nothing like a Cuppa

Nothing like a cuppa as a pick-me-up on a long work afternoon. It is all sweetness, froth and milky tea.

All ye Malaysians and Singaporeans will instantly recognise this drink. For the uninitiated, all you have to do is to stroll down to a coffee shop and in this part of the world that usually means a non-airconditioned little street cafe which serves often both meals and drinks quite cheaply.

If you do not intend to drink your tea sitting in the coffee shop, then ask for "packet" and they will decant your tea into a plastic bag like the one you see in the picture and lo and behold you have a portable cup that you can hang (as long as you can find some where to hang it off). This cost me all of S$1 (less than an American dollar).

I especially like the version which has a strong dose of ginger in it and it's called Teh Halia (or ginger tea). It is heavily sweetened with condensed milk and has been aerated by being poured from one large cup to another several times with the upper cup held a good 2 feet above the lower cup. Cheaper and faster than a cappuccino machine, if you can aim right that is. Ahhhhh.

A Burst of Yellow

I love Christmas and have enjoyed this year's thoroughly with much feasting with friends and family. It is all about to end though with the Feast of the Epiphany so I am about to sink into a post - Christmas - back - to - work gloom. Luckily for me, there is a birth of a new baby to celebrate, and I do not mean Jesu (although that is clearly a reason too) but my sister give birth yesterday to a gorgeous healthy thumping baby boy.

So to celebrate, I bought her a bunch of yellow roses and while I was wandering around the very cold flower room at Far East Flora wholesale centre (where it is possible to buy flowers in small quantities quite cheaply), I came across a lovely bunch of deep yellow orchids which I could not resist buying. I thought to share the latter with my readers.

I do hope you like them and I will be back in full writing force by next week.