Not By Bread Alone

The Children of Rempang

2011-12-07T00:26:00.003+08:00

Playing during recess time in between lessons and a mock oral exam. The children gather outside one of the classrooms and play in the drain nearby. They're a high spirited bunch and love having the photo taken for the most part, posing happily for the camera.

This was a fortnight before their English exam and the team from Singapore was there as they usually are, every fortnight, to teach and conduct an oral examination. Participation from the students is voluntary since it is a Sunday but the turnout is usually good with classes largely about 20+ in size from primary one to six or as they term it, Class 1 to Class 6. The students range in age as well as they sometimes start later than would normally be the case in a more developed country.

Squelching through the Mud

2011-12-05T22:48:00.002+08:00

The wind in my face, the dogs on the leash, running with me. The mud squelching beneath my shoes as I brush through the grass to the narrow strip of land beside the canal. It's' a little piece of freedom to walk my dogs in a busy city filled cheek to jowl with people rushing here and rushing there. But on a slightly wet Saturday morning, on a piece of grass no one goes to because it's too muddy, I have the space to myself and my dogs. That's freedom.

I share it with the kingfisher, which swoops past periodically and if I get too close. A flash of blue and brown and red. He fishes in the large monsoon drain I walk past. The egrets are around this time of the year, migrating from north to south away from the wintry lands. So I see maybe one or two of those. Sometimes a little grey one, sometimes a pair of large white mature ones.

I see little wild weeds with little bell like flowers and purple centres or little mimosa plants with leaves that close if I touch them. I see the dwarf coconut tree, bearing fruit. The old tyre that has been there so long, it's half covered with grass growing over, embedding it into the earth as part of the landscape.

My dogs love it. And I do too. Sometimes I sit with them next to me, savouring the silence and peace and solitude with just my dogs for company. It's not that I'm alone as there stacks of flats just across, towering above and a construction site nearby with private condominiums sprouting up. So I'm never alone. But I feel alone enough that it feels good. There is a peace that nature and solitude bring that cannot be had otherwise.

The Singapore Social Inequality Map

2011-12-03T11:17:00.000+08:00

Inspired by David Brooks

Welcome to Singapore. It’s a tiny place and we all have to get along for life to be bearable. So here’s a brief guide to the social mores of inequality for our many visitors and foreigners who come to spend time with us.

We are a nation of whiners and whingers. We love complaining. We complain about everything under the sun. From the excessive amount of rain and floods (why can’t the Public Utilitiy Board engineers read God’s mind as they have done so well before and what have we become, a third world country?) to too much sun, to crowded (albeit excellent) transport infrastructure., we complain about everything.

However, like it is in many families, I may complain about my little Red Dot but that is because it is mine and it is home. Do be aware that while you are welcome, there are a few social norms to be observed while complaining about inequality in general.

Food inequality is not acceptable along ethnic lines or foods dear to the Singaporean stomach. You may not like durian or curry smells emanating from your neighbour’s home but you may not complain about them. Instead you must consider them to be an integral part of the exotic landscape. You may even be fed some strange food like fish-head curry and are expected to slurp up and enjoy it or be a good sport and at least taste it.

Food inequality is otherwise acceptable within narrow bands. For example queuing up for hours for your favourite bak chor mee (a minced meat noodle dish) with or without ter kwa (liver slices) or doughnuts while there are many perfectly acceptable substitutes nearby is seen as normal. As is raving about it in minute detail for a good half hour in polite conversation afterwards.

Academic inequality is acceptable at University level. It is perfectly acceptable to indicate which university you’re from whether it is the local universities or the Ivy League or Oxbridge or a London based university. Or any university for that matter. You may do this by subtly referring to it in your conversations or by wearing some university insignia or shirt with a logo.

Income inequality is acceptable only if you happen to be in the upper echelons in which case you barely notice it after all you earned it. For hoi polloi it is gradually becoming less acceptable. So, try not to brag about how much you earn. Instead you may endear yourself and underscore your social status indirectly by your largesse as in buying your employees, friends, generally lesser economic beings lunch or dinner. You need to figure out who earns the most at a table and if it is you, grab the bill when it arrives while the others put up a show of fighting for the bill but you must be sure to end up the payer if you’re the biggest earner.

Religious inequality is still generally unacceptable. It is wrong to look down on other people’s beliefs even if you consider them erroneous and your own faith is blindingly obvious. It is acceptable to share your beliefs provided it is done in the spirit of understanding.

Racial inequality is not acceptable. However we are so relaxed about race, we can often freely ask what someone else’s racial heritage which may come as a surprise to visitors from more politically correct climes. We can also shock visitors by sometimes discussing prejudices but you should refrain from making any comments. Do remember, regardless of our skin colour, we have all done Basic Military Training together, at least the guys have and in the light of a sergeant yelling in our ear, our colour matters not particularly when we’re all sprouting deep suntans and botak (shaven) heads anyway.

Toy inequality is definitely acceptable. You may line up for hours outside a fast food joint because it offers a Hello Kitty or other cult toy gift with your happy meal and you may crow when you are one of the successful ones. However it is not acceptable to start a brawl because someonone cuts in front of you.

Transport inequality is acceptable in a mild form. You may be very proud of your car which you will have paid through your nose for but any boasting should be restrained to remarks on how well the car handles or how comfortable and convenient it is for your children or elderly parents. After all, your car will speak for itself. You may also complain about the ERP (road tolls), traffic and parking problems to underscore your car ownership.

Job inequality is generally acceptable and often tied to the money it brings in. Bankers and doctors rank high on the social scale. Yes, even now despite the slight taint from the broken banking system and evident systemic greed. Teachers used to have a higher status but while still respected have fallen lower in the hierarchy since they now earn relatively less. Even gamblers have a high social status as long as you have several million dollars to play. However politicians ranking pay with job worth has become distinctly less acceptable of late since they are now paid quite a bit.

Space inequality is acceptable. Owning a landed property or private condominium is seen as having “arrived” and you are duly allowed to boast gently about it but only very gently. Like cars, your property will speak for itself. If you want to fit in, it is better to talk about your HDB neighbourhood unless you already move in exaulted circles.

Sports inequality is entirely acceptable. If you are a hobby tri-athelete you may moan about how hard the swim was while showing off your tight buns in a figure hugging outfit.

Technological inequality is entirely acceptable. Boasting you have just updated your phone as soon as you became eligible on your telco billing plan for the latest iphone is entirely acceptable. Showing off how much you know how to convert your last smart phone to a remote control for your high definition TV set is fine if you can do it.

Welcome to Singapore. We are an egalitarian (although less so now), meritocratic society, dedicated to a hedonistic enjoyment of food and shopping and having fewer kids so we can enjoy our shrinking apartments. Instead we welcome fully grown foreigners to make up for our baby shortfall, so welcome

Night Walk around Marina Bay

2010-12-05T17:44:00.005+08:00

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

2010-11-27T21:48:00.002+08:00

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

2010-09-05T17:32:00.002+08:00

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

2010-08-29T17:19:00.003+08:00

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?

2010-07-25T14:35:00.005+08:00

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

2010-07-10T20:12:00.002+08:00

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

2010-07-10T20:07:00.002+08:00

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

2010-06-20T20:57:00.002+08:00

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!

2010-06-12T21:45:00.000+08:00

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

2010-06-05T21:28:00.001+08:00

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

2010-05-29T17:00:00.000+08:00

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

2010-05-23T16:29:00.001+08:00

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

2010-05-16T16:19:00.004+08:00

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

2010-05-02T15:15:00.004+08:00

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

2010-04-17T20:25:00.003+08:00

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

2010-04-11T11:04:00.002+08:00

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

2010-03-28T21:33:00.004+08:00

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

2010-03-14T17:44:00.005+08:00

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

2010-03-07T21:23:00.009+08:00

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

2010-02-28T18:04:00.004+08:00

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

2010-02-20T23:17:00.003+08:00

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!

2010-02-18T18:40:00.004+08:00

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

2010-02-07T06:37:00.004+08:00

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!

2010-01-31T15:21:00.007+08:00

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

2010-01-24T15:56:00.010+08:00

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

2010-01-17T11:56:00.005+08:00

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

2010-01-10T00:07:00.000+08:00

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

2010-01-03T19:55:00.005+08:00

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.

Baking Brownies, Um, I mean Chocolate Cake

2009-12-27T16:56:00.004+08:00

I make brownies every now and again. It's the recipe from the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. It is my favourite recipe because it is simple and produces excellent results with very little effort. The only problem I have with it is that I lack nerve and therefore I fail every once in a while to pull the tray out of the oven in time (in my oven that usually means 20 minutes) when I use the usual (6" by 9") heavy pan I have.

If everything goes as planned in the preparation, and I do remember to keep an eye on the clock then I usually manage to steel myself and turn the oven off on time so that I get the brownies I prefer: slightly fudgy and extremely chocolate-ly (thanks in no small measure to substituting Van Houten's cocoa powder for cooking chocolate mixed into the flour. Van Houten's cocoa also happens to be remarkably cost-effective and I have yet to taste better results from any other chocolate or cocoa).

For anyone who has never baked brownies, but has tried baking cakes, the reason why this is unnerving is that brownies are best taken out when still not quite cooked which means the skewer test does not work unlike with cakes. It seems as if one is not fully cooking the batter and one will end up with partially cooked batter instead of squidgy brownies. Usually I manage to resist the pressure to leave it in longer and get my preferred result.

However, this time, I lost my nerve again because instead of consulting the recipe and going by the book, I decided to wing it and see I could remember the recipe. I did. I managed to remember all the ingredients and weighed them all out accurately. I managed to remember that half a cup of butter meant 4 ounces of butter duly melted in the microwave. And so on. The only thing I did different was the sequence in which I usually put in the ingredients. I reversed the usual sequence of mixing in the cocoa-flour mixture and the melted butter. The result: the batter ended up looking and tasting remarkably like chocolate butter cream. It usually looks a lot darker and has a stiffer consistency.

So instead of baking it for the usual 20 minutes at 180 C, I ended up leaving it in for 25 minutes and turned off the over and left it in for another 10 minutes. To those of you who are wondering how on earth I managed to make the logical leap to conclude that baking it longer will cure the batter of this error, I can only say, I thought that since it was more creamy than it was supposed to be, I should bake it longer as it would be impossibly smudgy otherwise.

The result: chocolate cake. It doesn't taste bad at all. It's a decent chocolate cake. But it is not a pan of brownies. I shall now have to rescue it by mashing raspberries and serving that along side the cake to make up for that. That of course is simply an excuse for eating up the glorious tangy raspberries with chocolate, one of my favourite ways of eating chocolate.

An Ode to the Christmas Crib

2009-12-20T21:35:00.007+08:00

My attempt at reviving my poetry writing exercises for practice. A Pindaric Ode anyone?

A mother young, a mother poor

Rushing round with husband dear.

For contractions came too soon for home

The star - kissed night draws clear.

Poor husband's fraught and strained

And then at last, a crack of hope

A manger, straw, ox. Now we can cope.

Cash registers ring. The date draws near.

Shoppers pile up gifts for kith and kin dear.

The turkey roasted fat. The drinks foam.

All it seems is cheer. Trees glitter, children roam.

Excess rules the day. The side show becomes the main

Event. We all join in the refrain

Of winter wonderland while places we "chope"

In the Christmas show down Orchard Road.

Has the child been forgotten in the fear

Of being alone? And Silent Night turned rowdy cheer?

And why are there, in tropical heat, foam

flecked reindeer frozen outside a mall on a dome?

Even for those who choose to drain

Belief from their lives, still acclaim

Christmas. The hope that fights the nope

Of modernist thought. And for that magic they grope.

Note: "chope" means to reserve. Translated from the Singlish to English. Orchard Road is the glittering main shopping street in Singapore.

Pack Leader

2009-12-13T17:22:00.005+08:00

I have been fascinatedly reading a book by Cesar Millan on dog training. Being the proud and happy owner of two dogs, I have belatedly recognised I have been baby-ing my dogs when what they need is a pack leader. I was transferring my emotional needs to them and it was not bringing out the best in either myself or them. It is not that I did not realise that I should be alpha dog, but that I never realised how far I had to go and what exactly I needed to do to maintain my status as alpha dog. And most of all, that I had to let them be dogs. And that I had to be me, but clearly in charge.

I have tried training a previous dog formally before in an obedience course, but I suspect some trainers do not actually know much more than I do. At one point, the trainer took it upon himself to demonstrate how I *should* be doing it. I saw my dog yanked so hard on a choke chain he literally spun around in mid air, and the trainer who did that, did not even realise this had happened as he had made a U turn and the dog had continued to walk in the other direction. Fortunately the dog wasn't hurt but I dropped out of the course immediately simply to save my dog from further mishaps. I decided that although I may not be a so-called expert, I had probably do better trying to discipline my dogs myself at home.

But as I devoured this book by Cesar, I realised that through the marketing hype, he was actually a keen observer of not just the dogs but the human owners and the bond that exists between dogs and human beings. And it was this that really persuaded me to try it out.

So this morning, I took his advice, ensured my dogs were calm with their leashes on before I opened the gate to take them walking. And that I exited first and that they ran behind me. And I have to say, it worked like a charm. They simply accepted it, much to my astonishment.

So I'm going to keep trying new ways of working with my dogs, to test this method and see if it continues to work or if I just got lucky this morning.

A Sketch for a Smile

2009-12-05T23:03:00.010+08:00

I was looking around for an empty table laden with my tray of lei cha fan (Thunder Tea Rice, a Hakka dish of rice with vegetables, anchovies, tofu, peanuts and a green tea mix of spices and herbs), and the middle aged Chinese man (whom I think was in his early 50s) seated at the table nearest to the stall, said cheerily to me, you can sit if you want. It was in Suntec City so the people were all largely office workers or people attending the conventions nearby.

His accent was not local. It didn't sound mainland Chinese either although I could be wrong, so he was either more cosmopolitan than I thought or someone from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China who had spent some time in the US and learned his English from US teachers as the accent had just that hint of the American.

Now, if you've lived in Singapore for any length of time, you'll realise that Singaporeans are not given to showing much cheery politeness to passing strangers. They're a kind hearted lot, but rather gruff. So I was surprised and of course accepted. It would have been terribly rude not to under the circumstances.

I sat there, wolfing down my lei cha fan, but politely trying not to meet his eye which meant I had to keep my eyes lowered since he was directly across me. I'm not the sort who's much into small talk and while he seemed nice enough, I didn't feel I should oblige him to making conversation when he'd already been so kind as to offer me a seat at his table in a semi-crowded food court.

As I was halfway through, I finally looked up and he and I made some conversation about the food we were eating since we had both chosen the same dish from the same stall. Then he reached into his black bag on the table next to his empty bowl, and he took out a piece of rough paper, (obviously recycled from a printer with one side printed and two holes punched in the side) and a black felt tipped pen. He proceeded to start sketching.

I could not at first tell whom he was sketching and asked if he was an artist. It turned out he was an engineer, apparently a mechanical and structural one (presumably he meant just mechanical). He said he was sketching the girl behind as she looked sad and he wanted to make her smile.

I glanced behind me, while trying to make it look casual, and yes, there was a young woman seated behind, Chinese Singaporean no doubt with long hair and dark rimmed glasses and pale skin. She looked serious and intent on her food.

He said he would give her the sketch when he was done and it would make her happy. She was so sad, according to him. As she was finishing, he hurried his sketch and in the meantime, while his pen was flying across the paper, he said that I should give it to her since then not just he and the girl would be happy but I would too. I was intrigued and amused. The thought did cross my mind that he might be trying to pick her up but as it was a fairly imaginative way of getting a girl's attention, and he did not seem pushy, I agreed. I became his wingman, in a sense.

I took his sketch, got up and sat in the chair across from her and put the sketch on the table in front of her, saying, this is for you. It's a portrait of you. I waited a short while for that to sink in and as she took up the piece of paper, said with a wave in the direction of the artist, and here is the man who drew it for you. He said he wanted to make you happy as you looked sad so he drew this for you.

She was surprised at first and took the paper up and took a closer look. At first she said, it doesn't look like me, which was somewhat discouraging for the hapless artist, but after staring at it for a few more minutes, a shy smile spread across her face and she looked up to the artist and asked if she could keep it. Naturally he said she could. And to those who were wondering, at no point did he try and give or ask for either of our contact numbers or elicit any personal information, so I think he really was doing it out of a desire to make us smile and nothing more.

I have to say he was right, he made three people happy. It kinda lit up my day and I'm sure it did hers too. It set me at ease and maybe that's why he did it. A gesture of grace and artistry stretched across an ordinary day and suddenly it was filled with light and laughter again. From the kindness of a stranger with whom I had the luck to share a table.

The Gift of Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T17:43:00.002+08:00

I'm immensely grateful for the gift of life both for my own life and the lives of my loved ones. They bring so much joy into my life so willingly it takes my breath away when I bother to think about it, which I have to confess, is not all that often.

Yet somehow, this Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent this year, I was moved to reflect about the gift of thanksgiving. I have so much, when I bother to think about it, I realise how ungrateful I am most of the time. Instead I focus on the things I do not yet have and this has an effect on me of being more grasping, more task oriented. When I try a little harder to be grateful though, all that melts away, and my soul somehow softens, and it is easier to see all the good things I have already been given and also to look beyond my own immediate desires and wants to the wider world beyond. It is the start of contentment.

And it is also the start of a period of reflection for me, as a preparation for the celebration of Christ-mas, the celebration of the Christ-child, made man: Emmanuel.

Who could have imagined such a gift.

We get, not what we ask for, but our God, in his generosity, gives all of mankind, far more than we ever dreamed of. And this is for ALL mankind, not just Christians. And this little child, soaring beyond the stars, beyond anything we dared hoped for, this is what we celebrate at Christmas.

Nidan to Yondan Aikido Grading

2009-11-22T13:57:00.005+08:00

Aikido gradings are tense affairs for those who are grading but happy affairs for those who are watching. It is a spectacle of technique and nerve, more the former than the latter since most are more than ready to meet the grade. The last grading at my dojo was no exception but this one brought its own surprise. Two very senior women, both of whom have been practising for 15 years and showed up to watch and take ukemi, were called up to the testers' table and asked to grade on the spot.

Needless to say they did extremely well and were duly double-promoted from nidan to yondan, an extremely rare event and certainly the only one I've ever seen or heard of. Being double promoted is rare enough at junior grades but at this level, skipping sandan is virtually unheard of. However as these two women number among the best aikidoka in our dojo, I'm not surprised. After all, one's skill at an art is always obvious rather like how a good cook is recognised simply through the eating of his/her food. It's hardly necessary to grade to achieve recognition.

It amused me to watch one of the women deal with one of the men who volunteered to ukemi for her. He got a light backslap in the face for his efforts as he failed to anticipate her atemi (strike) as she was turning back and has a tendency to resist which in this case, is simply asking for trouble. But that of course simply displayed her mastery all the more since she being a petite under 5 foot woman could easily take down this guy who towers more than a foot above her.

Skill in this case trumps being thick.

Caving in Halong Bay

2009-11-01T15:51:00.008+08:00

Photos courtesy of Taking5. All rights reserved.
Ever been in a karst cave before? This is what it's like in one of the larger caves in Halong Bay, Vietnam. As it's part of the Unesco Heritage Site area, the cave has been lit with a few bright lights within all the better to see with. However if you're unsteady on your feet or claustrophobic, don't. It's a steep climb up stairs often without a handrail and the cave can be a little moist on the ground. So wear decent shoes and go slow.

I've seen karst landscapes before in Kedah, Malaysia so none of this was a surprise to me although it has to be said this was the largest limestone cave I've been in yet. I also saw temperate climate limestone scenery in England but there, they have a whole activity called caving in which one has to don special suits etc and it is a much more adventurous sport than the casual tourist walk in Halong Bay.

The best bit was coming out of the cave and seeing the large stone legs overhanging as if someone up there was enjoying the vista across Halong Bay too.

Sailing Away down Halong Bay

2009-10-25T15:20:00.010+08:00

Halong Bay turned out to be every bit as scenic as I imagined. The junk was Chinese style complete with sails which stayed furled throughout. What was a surprise was the food turned out to taste almost exactly like home cooked healthy Chinese food with the exception of having simple salads and the odd habit of serving white rice only towards the end of the meal.

And the second surprise was the party-ing that went on at night. In the quiet of Halong bay surrounded by mystical karstic landscape, the night was punctuated with loud karaoke singing of hits from 70s all the way to 90s. Each junk had its own particular brand of music blasting through the dark wooden walls and airconditioning so that it was possible to hear each boat's merry making from quite a distance.

There was even an intrepid few who were swimming from junk to junk, asking to be allowed on board just for the thrill of jumping off the second level and diving into the cool waters in the evening. It was certainly a memorable trip from the peaceful cruise amid limestone scenery to the amusements on board of a very mixed bunch of guests from Europe, America and Asia.

More anon.

Julia and Julie : labours of love

2009-10-18T10:07:00.008+08:00

I'd read Julia Child's "My Life in France" and loved it enough to read it again. So when the movie came out, I promptly went out with a couple of friends and we sat, laughing our way through it. It's a great story of how Julia Child found her vocation late in life. She married late (especially for those days) and her marriage was evidently a very happy one which lasted the rest of her husband's natural life (and he died at 92). And in the course of following her cultural attache husband around Europe, she discovered she loved both food and cooking in France. It was the beginning of what would be a long labour of love, her master cookbook on French cooking with her good friends and co-writers, Simca and Louise. It was also one which fit well into her married life and the one supported the other and eventually her hobby grew to the extent her fame as a celebrity teaching chef became their joint means of earning a living after he retired from service with the US government.

Julie turns out to be a modern day blogger who cooks her way through Julia Child's masterpiece of a cookbook, all 500+ recipes of it in the space of a year and blogs about it under a blog called the Julie/Julia Project. Young, married and living in Queen's borough, New York, she finds Julia Child to be her saving grace from a tedius job and a cramped apartment. The movie, one rather suspects, is kinder about her than her blog is but as I've yet to spend much time reading her blog or her book, I'll reserve judgement on that.

As a movie, it was thoroughly enjoyable and bits of it are certainly memorable. Meryl Streep steals the show as usual and she gets Julia Child's voice pat down. I find that it's not that well sewn together in terms of how the two stories are intertwined. It's done simply enough with long takes of each story leaving you wondering sometimes what's happening on the other end. The cakes Julie bakes don't quite look French, and resemble the hasty American slap-together ones far more but other than that anomaly, the scenes of Julie battling with the lobster and duck are quite amusing.

I tend to think that the Julia Child story deserves a movie by itself but then I am generally fascinated by stories of how people learn to cook seriously and how they study the art of cooking and make their own discoveries in it. I also noticed in the nearby Harris bookstore near the movie theatre I went to, while they stocked the Julia Child, "My life in Paris" and the Julie Powell, "Julie and Julia: My year of cooking dangerously", Larousse Gastronomique, they only stocked a highly shortened version of Julia Child's masterpiece, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." So, is it that Julia Child's masterpiece has not stood the test of time and the editors were right, that there would be no demand for her demanding cookbook? I hope they're wrong.

So here's to good cooking and good eating!

Bon Appetit!

Swimming Beauty

2009-10-11T18:36:00.005+08:00

Swimming Beauty
All Rights Reserved

Sadly it wasn't quite the right time to go swimming in Hanoi in spite of the very inviting pool in the Somerset Westlake Serviced Apartment we stayed at. But any excuse to buy this bag will do and I was delighted not just with the gorgeous girl embroidered so delicately but that they had put in a waterproof lining and the zip was a hidden one. This little shop of embroidered treasures where I discovered this, is called Tan My Embroidery

Naturally after being enchanted with that bag, I rifled greedily through their carefully laid out selection of bags and selected a few others as gifts for people I knew back home. I have to say what I liked was the marriage of a 700 year old traditional craft in Vietnam to comtemporary designs and objects which can be used. Useful art or design is a whole lot easier to buy than something which simply hangs on one's wall, although that certainly has its place too and the embroidered art pieces were certainly stunning.

I'd say this shop isn't cheap. I guess the picture of Laura Bush shaking the hand of the proprietor should have given me a clue as to why all the items were priced in USD so don't expect a bargin. However, they do deliver high quality contemporary embroidery that can be put to good use whether it's duvets, bedsheets, pillow cases, a blouse or two, or a shoebag.

Blue Trees

2009-10-03T16:37:00.001+08:00

After the initial din in the streets of Hanoi, slipping into an art gallery or two, was soothing to the senses. I entered a world with long empty spaces and up narrow staircases, I discovered wall after wall covered with contemporary Vietnamese art that attracted and entranced.

It's easy as a visitor to find the galleries as there are a few streets in the Old Quarter of Hanoi which have a gallery every few steps. I wandered into the Green Palm Gallery, and a few others along the same street and finally came across the Mai Gallery which had paintings by my favourite Vietnamese artist, a woman called Phan Thu Trang, who paints lyrical, impressionistic scenes of trees, houses and people with the colour of the trees showing the season: green, pink, orange/yellow and blue for spring, summer, autumn and winter. I especially liked the winter and summer landscapes. I also came to the conclusion that the Vietnamese must love their trees as quite a number of artists had clearly taken some pains with their trees lavishing them with a nuance, gradation of colour and suggestion of movement that caught my eye. And Hanoi had a great number of old trees in it with the roots spilling across the pavements.

Other pieces which stayed in my memory were the oil and acrylic mixes of bucolic farmhouse amid field scenes where it was more the impressionistic mix of colours that was so striking. The haunting, subtle monk or monks disappearing into a canvas of dark black or orange also stood out.

But the surprise was saved for the last as one of the last galleries we entered turned out to be a gallery where one could order a masterpiece so to speak eg if you wanted a Van Gogh Sunflowers, you could tell them this was what you wanted and in three days, they would have one ready for you at USD $30-40 depending on the size. Some of the work was original but the gallery clearly did their best business simply in providing a poor art enthusiast with an inexpensive rough copy of his favourite artist's work. These paintings were sometimes simply in the style of, sometimes outright copies, albeit not fakes as they were clearly copies. These would have no investment value obviously unlike the expensive S$700-1400 pieces of emerging Vietnamese artists, but they had their own market niche.

So, a blue tree by an unknown artist anyone?

In Celebration of the Vietnamese Salad

2009-09-28T22:34:00.005+08:00

In the five days I spent in Hanoi and Halong Bay, I did not see a single fat Vietnamese. Our tour guide in Halong Bay was a little plump but by and large, the Vietnamese were slim bordering on the skinny. A lot of this has to do with their diet which is made up of salads, fish for the most part with meat such as pork and beef taking a smaller proportion and rice as the basic staple in either noodle or its natural form.

(Photo is courtesy of Taking5 and all rights are reserved.)

I delighted in the salads which were clean in their taste often with liberal amounts of basil and coriander leaves. I noticed also a free hand with spring onions often and garlic. Sometimes tropical fruit was used as in the green papaya salad and peanuts delicately sprinkled on top but never enough to come anywhere near overwhelming the dish. Vinegar seemed to be the main sauce used with a touch sometimes of fiery little chilli padis and fish or shrimp sauce. One of my favourite dipping sauces turned up in Cha Ca La Vong, that mother of all grilled fish restaurants as a pungent shrimp sauce, slighly pink in colour. However sadly this sauce never quite made its appearance at any of the other restaurants I was at. It reminded me of a non-salty version of chin cha lok (that odiferous shrimp condiment famous in Malacca in Malaysia).

Perhaps, as a largely agricultural nation, their food is fresher, with the farmers having walked miles into town each morning with their produce neatly arranged in two baskets hanging off a bamboo pole and Hanoi filled with little side streets of markets. Whatever it is, the clear, spare frame of the Vietnamese ladies riding with ramrod straight backs in their ao dais on their scooters are a testament to a diet of freshly prepared salads.

The Sidewalk Sidle

2009-09-27T16:35:00.009+08:00

Being in Hanoi was a dusty, noisy experience on the sidewalk as it's often filled with motorbicycles, cyclos and scooters taking up half or more of the space and the remaining space being taken up with little hawker stalls selling all manner of vietnamese meals and snacks.

The hawker stalls are a picturesque sight with little communities forming around them and often regular customers chatting to each other and to the hawker. The food is often cooked in a largish metal pot and the customers sit on kid-sized wooden stools. They usually sit on the side of the sidewalk nearest the road, leaving the pedestrians a little space to squeeze past whilst still on the sidewalk. The country folk come along with their baskets at a tidy little jog, their fruits neatly piled in a conical fashion and always on the lookout for a customer. These hawkers have walked for miles from their farms since 3am or so to sell their wares in the cities before returning in the afternoon or evening back home.

It struck me altogether than the Vietnamese were extremely efficient in their use of space in the Old Quarter but of course that often meant the pedestrian was often forced to walk onto the narrow road, which is filled with hooting motocyclists and scooters and the occasional car, truck or minibus. The din has to be experienced to be believed but by the end of the first day, I had a splitting headache from walking around amidst this lively scene no doubt accentuated by the difficulties of figuring out how to cross a Hanoi street. (The answer for those who might be visiting, is to wait for a little gap preferably with no cars or trucks and walk out slowly into the river of motocyclists who will part like water around you. )

The little narrow shopfronts which I slipped into to escape the din were a welcome relief of coolness and quiet. They often ran deep inside and I often found myself mounting a flight of very narrow wooden stairs into a further floor deep within. No wonder the Vietcong were so very efficient at living in tunnels!

Now that I'm back in safe, clean Singapore, I miss the din of the Hanoi streets and the sense of life lived literally out on the sidewalks. There is a sense of warmth in seeing these little communities out on the sidewalks, of little side street markets where people often know each other and settle down to drink a cup of Vietnamese coffee together as they get an early start to the day. It's a city which grows on me and doubtless if I lived there long enough, I'd start looking past the dilapidated or gentrified shop fronts, to see more the heart and soul of the people of Hanoi, and the communities they've created in so very little space.

The Gift of Anticipation

2009-09-13T17:30:00.002+08:00

I have recently been planning a holiday. It will be my first visit to Vietnam so I'm quite excited. It's been a long while since I've travelled to a city or country that I've not previously been to, to a country where I don't speak the language and is not all that developed. My previous trips over the last few years have generally been to places I've been to before and where I know people so the excuse for travelling has been to renew kith and kin ties. My shorter trips have been to nearby seaside resorts and the familiarity was comforting since those trips are really just to chill out rather than be adventurous.

So for the first time in years, I'm actively anticipating a trip fraught with discovery of new sights and tastes and people. A planner by nature, I enjoy having something to look forward to, a precise date and time I leave and a good sense of what I want to do there. I'm past the age where I research things to death before I go, but it's still nice to have a rough idea of what the Temple of Literature is like and why it's worth visiting or that Halong Bay is worth the side trip as it's a UNESCO heritage sight . I've even "planned" to have days where my travelling companion and I can just hang loose and wander around the older parts of the city, replete with history and culture.

I truly enjoy this sense, of preparation, of working towards a clear goal, and of feeling it draw a little bit closer each day. Not of course that it was particularly difficult to organise since the only real questions that confronted us were whether to travel on a budget airline or a better airline. Or whether to spend one night on a junk or two. But as I approach my holiday in a similar way to how I approach most of my life, my work, my relationships, I find for me, this advent period to be just as important as the event itself.

So here's to the gift of anticipation: may it help us to remember that it is the journey that matters just as much as the end itself.

Listening to Grasshoppers

2009-09-07T23:06:00.003+08:00

I've been thinking a lot about democracy lately since I'm reading the book "Listening to Grasshoppers" which is a litany of how democracy has allowed the tyranny of minorities and the dispossessed in India. It's a searing, gruesome account in essays by the celebrated writer, Arundhati Roy. It's the world's largest democracy but it's a sad day indeed when all the institutions have been corrupted so that it fails to function to protect minority interests. I think the tyranny of the majority definitely happens in places that are the bastion of democracy in the Western world as well with slavery, women etc all being prime examples but the sheer bloodletting is hard to get over in Arundhati Roy's book.

So I guess I'm cheerful then about living in a country where by and large it's a safe place for minority races and groups still. And I hope it remains that way although I do wonder what the best way of safeguarding that is. Pray for all our leaders then, because the temptation to use power for one's own ends can be strong indeed.

Does Winston Churchill's comment on democracy still hold, "...democracy is the absolute worst form of government except for all other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Departures

2009-09-06T19:08:00.003+08:00

Departures is one of those entrancing, beautifully made and filmed Japanese movies. With great attention to detail and a quiet humour, it's the story of how a man deals with transitions in his life from his transition to his new job as a mortician, to the transitions that each family undergoes as they experience the death of a beloved family member. And the underlying transition of how he comes to terms with the father who deserted him when he was six years old.

It stars a cast so perfectly cast with the highly expressive Masahiro Motoki as the lead character, my heart ached for each character as their stories played out. It showed how each of the members was able to make their own transition in a way that led to reconciliation and new life even though death seems like the end. It's gentle inspiration for me and a very cathartic movie. One of those movies that help me value my own life and relationships more.

Mushrooms, Cheese Tofu and Fishballs

2009-01-28T14:28:00.002+08:00

Mushrooms, Cheese Tofu and Fishballs
All rights reserved

It's Reunion Dinner time or "Tuan nian jie" was last Sunday evening and this year we had it at my younger brother's home. These were some of the dishes for the steamboat. The kids loved the cheese tofu while the adults prefered the mushrooms and fishballs. My mother's family from Malaysia came down and we all had a good time catching up.

A Slice of Pannettone

2009-01-25T15:20:00.003+08:00

A Slice of Pannettone
All Rights Reserved

I got into baking mode late in 2008 due to my little thumb injury. However once I got going, I did get a bit adventurous and decided it was worth trying to bake bread again.

As you can see from the picture above, I baked the Italian festive bread: a pannettone. I baked it old fashioned style ie without the commercial high fluted pannettone moulds that give it its characteristic shape and incredible lightness. Since I lacked that mould, I simply used whatever came to hand in my kitchen which is pretty much how your average Italian housewife would have done it before the advent of that famous mould and the commercially baked ones.

The result: a flatter, slightly more dense bread but still a great texture and taste with the little orange peel bits and zest. I also ran out of lemons so no lemon zest but being it still worked very well with orange substitute. It does take a while as most breads do with 2 risings but is otherwise reasonably easy to make and very rewarding to eat. The rapidity with which the two pannetones disappeared was clear testament to its tastiness.

A New Year Begins

2009-01-01T23:02:00.003+08:00

I managed to get up and out of the house for 7.30am new year's day mass and then went to the gym for a Body Pump class. It felt good. It was also the first day this week I wasn't feeling quite as flu-ish since I came down with a cold at the start of the week.

My resolution has been to pay more attention to my faith life particularly by nurturing my prayer life both through personal prayer time and community prayer ie the mass mainly or some bible sharing sessions but let's see what else comes along. There's always the Rempang project which i've volunteered to go on with my two friends.

And my other resolution was to start going to the gym again to attend Body Pump and Pilates and yoga classes. It's been a good four to five years since I went to a Body Pump class so it took a while for my muscle memory to kick in and I remembered all the old moves, the clean and press etc. It felt very good to have completed the class and I've had lots more energy the rest of today. Now to keep it up for the rest of the year!

Advent: a Time of Waiting

2008-12-08T20:18:00.007+08:00

It's been a while since I wrote. I hurt my thumb four weeks ago and while I could still type as a 9 finger typist, somehow having only one opposable thumb and being a bit of a hypochondriac about it made me slow down a lot of activities in general.

It did make me think though that sometimes it's better just to wait and this is the season of Advent after all. A time of waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas.

It's been a good year in some ways but also I have been impatient in the recent few months for things to happen and it always seems to take forever. So like with my thumb, even though there are little signs of improvement and growth and the new pink skin growing underneath and the old skin on top flaking off, I'm still impatient. However I know only too well that trying to pick at the scab or trying to exercise it too vigorously at this stage can only set the healing process back and create more scarring. So sometimes it really is better to do nothing and let nature take its course.

But it's forced me to reflect more about how necessary it is to be sensitive and wait sometimes. Not to intervene or to intervene only very precisely and accurately, almost like a surgeon going in, only to fix that one little thing that's wrong and not do any harm otherwise. Otherwise sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease. Again my thumb has areas of slight numbness and I can't help wondering if it's the internal scar tissue and inflammation that's causing it or was it the injection that harmed the nerve a little. Who knows, but it's so very important to just not do any harm by being as precise and as sensitive as possible when dealing with practically everything in our lives but most especially living things, human beings and relationships whether these are at work, at home or just general dealings with people i don't know so well.

So it was very comforting to me, in this time where I can be frustrated with waiting, to read a passage from a book I have and it quoted Psalm 4:1,3, heading it with the title: "God answers your call" and it went

"Answer me when I call, O God of my right! you gave me room when I was in distress....The Lord hears when I call to Him."

And the reflection was, to Trust that God will provide. I quote, "Have you ever turned a problem over to God, only to take it right back? Maybe you didn't really believe God could help. Maybe you got tired of waiting for a response (God's answers don't always come on our schedule). Whatever the reason, the end result is the same - more stress, right back on your shoulders!

Next time you turn over a problem, really turn it over. Trust God to take care of it. You'll be glad you did. "

It's so important i think sometimes to listen to people, to listen to nature, to hear what is being said in any situation and to give ample room for that intuitive understanding to grow, so that in life we can react more precisely and humanely to people, to do as little harm as possible, and to help as much as we can. And to wait upon each other as Christ did for us.

(excerpted from WWJD series title To Rise Above Stress, by Daniel D Grippo)

Aikido Grading

2008-10-11T15:05:00.003+08:00

We recently had a grading in my Aikido Club. As I wasn't grading I decided to steal a shot of the grading in progress. This is a shot of the white belts doing their very first grading. The grading panel is to the right of the picture. It consisted of four men this time around of the senior level dan grades and the chief instructor. It's often tense for the ones being graded especially at the junior levels as it's never easy being scrutinsed.

The Forest Walk

2008-10-01T21:55:00.005+08:00

I took a stroll along the Forest Walk, the elevated section of the Southern Ridges trail from Alexandra Road to the Mount Faber walk today across the Henderson Waves. It turned out to be a very good walk indeed. The Forest Walk for those of you who have not been on it is an elevated walk at a height about 2 storeys off the ground on a metal walkway. It's on a gentle incline with a mesh walkway and is really a bridge built firmly into the ground which takes one at a level where the views of the trees are great. I went with a couple of friends and my two dogs in tow. It was a bit crowded as it was a public holiday at least on the way up.

The Henderson Waves bit is made of wood and curves up on one side and on the otherside of the wide wide walkway, are great views all the way to the sea. The kids I saw there had discovered that it was possible to slide themselves up a quarter way up the "wave" bit that curved up and then let go and slide down quickly. Trust the kids to discover a slide where none was meant.

For anyone who would like a walk and take a different view of the forest, it's a walk well worth doing. I really liked coming down at that incline and jogged practically all the way down as the footing was great even with my dog enthusiastically pulling me along.

xi yan

2008-09-18T20:39:00.003+08:00

Xi Yan epitomises for me modern Chinese cuisine. Subtle and innovative ways of combining flavours and creating new tastes. And at an affordable price for the non private dining option. Superb. the quality of food and service has certainly been upheld since the last time i dined in Hong Kong more than 13 months ago.

I'm waiting for Xi Yan Singapore to open other than their private dining option. It's fast becoming a must-go dining place for me in Hong Kong. I'll see if they're able to raise mid-priced dining in Singapore to the same culinary heights they did in Hong Kong.

I'm also very happy to see in Hong Kong a very wide range of mid priced Chinese restaurants from their private dining kitchens to normal restaurants and cafes. I think in general the restaurants here somehow don't have the same range. Maybe it's simply a function of the size of the market? I do however like to think it's the demanding Cantonese customer in Hong Kong that keeps the standards high.

What I also like is that people there value their own cuisine so highly that these restaurants can survive. Chinese food is most definitely not a cliche there as i suspect sometimes it becomes in Singapore where it's a lot more staid and tried and tested. And i don't even think of myself as a foodie.

Are You Wearing (Under) Pants?

2008-09-07T21:52:00.003+08:00

I was carrying my 3 year old nephew out the door the other day while his daddy was putting on his shoes and was surprised to hear my nephew go, "Aunty xxx, are you wearing pants?" Glancing down at my shorts, I figured he didn't mean those and from the slightly embarrassed chortle that came from my brother-in-law I figured the little tyke was actually asking me if I was wearing underwear.

I responded, "You're lucky you're only 3 years old" so my brother in law explained he was trying to train his little boy into wearing underpants which my nephew was none too keen on. So our discussion continued down the driveway on the merits of wearing underwear.

Priceless moments of parenthood....in this case, aunthood.

Pilates

2008-08-11T11:12:00.003+08:00

I feel like I've been getting distinctly flabby over the past year and putting on inches and weight as well. So I really do need to start more muscle building exercise as my favourite form of exercise, aikido, may be great for many other things but it's definitely not a good way to lose weight. That plus since I've just been having a lot of problems with my left knee so I need an exercise regime where I'm in a lot of control over what I do.

So I finally braved a pilates class at Amore again where I'm a member. I have discovered that I like the instructor at the Heartland Mall branch a lot more as he's more patient with beginners like me and will actually adapt the positions/movements etc so that people like me with weak core muscles can still derive some benefit and actually do something as opposed to flopping like a fish out of water.

He was distinctly more encouraging this time as well compared to the last time telling the class at the end that those who are just starting out need to be patient with themselves and the class since it takes a while to build the strength in the core.

Looks like over the next few months I'm going to be a bit more regular and try and make it to pilates once a week. My Saturday yoga class is already part of my regular schedule so now I have to step things up on Sunday.

Counter Cultural

2008-08-03T16:17:00.002+08:00

I bumped into an old friend at Fr Keane's 50th Jubilee Mass at St Ignatius the other day. And it turned out to be wonderful catching up with her and her husband and four children. Her "socialist" tendencies means that despite her oxford education in law and her husband's being a specialist doctor, they lead a life sans maid, in a HDB apartment in an old estate (albeit newer block) and essentially keep it simple. They live well within their means and she's cheerful and happy as are her husband and children.

They don't preach (at me at any rate) or complain and they said they turned down an offer of a house from her parents because it would mean scaling up their existance to a level which they could not afford ie the house would require a maid and an additional car at the least.

Maybe part of it is sheer rebellion at a life of pretension and status of her parents lifestyle but having seen her through her university days and watched first hand how she interacted with the prisoners in Oxford prison as part of a group of Catholic students helping a priest say mass there, and watched her do other things like go help out with Mother Theresa in the Rome community, etc etc, I'm fairly convinced this is not a youthful rebellion she has yet to grow out of, but a deep seated detachment from material things.

I'm in awe really and greatly heartened. I don't think I could have done the same in her shoes and I'm not necessarily advocating this as a way to live for any of us who have choices otherwise, but I'm awfully glad that she's there as a shining example of how it's possible to not get hung up with the 5Cs and to brush off society's expectations of how it is they should live. Truly some of us really do cut our own paths in this world and she and her husband are doing just that.

Poetry Exercies: Heroic Verse

2008-07-20T11:05:00.003+08:00

Here I am, sleepy headed on late Sunday morning after having had wine and barbequed feast the night before. However, I'm determined to try and keep up some semblence of pace on this poetry writing.

So here is the next exercise Stephen Fry set. The instructions were to write in heroic verse ie iambic pentameter rhymed couplets. A contemporary monologue of a guy stoned off his head and trying to explain away a packet of cannabis found in his possession.

Trying to write this while being sleepy and tired gives me some sense of what it must be like to try and string logical thoughts together while in a semi-stupor.

To all you non-Singaporeans/Malaysians out there, this is written in Singlish: the bastardised version of English as she is spoke in my beloved country.

Explaining Away A Packet of Cannabis:
Aiyah! sir ah, this one how can mine one?
I *tole* you al-rea-ddy someone put it in for fun
Like joke like that - into my bag. I know
I know: you don't believe, ah, but it's so.
So suay. My friend, he run away. Lagi
Now worse for me. Aiyah, you search prop'ly
Neh mind neh mind. U don't believe? Is true
You say it's what? kah-na-bis? I no clue
This word I say also cannot. Ear-lier
When he give me, he say curry powder!

Needless to say i'm sure the cops didn't believe his story.

Suay: unlucky

Poetry Exercise: the Ballad

2008-07-12T00:18:00.003+08:00

I do not like writing ballads. It's a bit like liking country and western music. Maybe I can like a tune or two and it is catchy to hum or sing along. But writing it is a different story. I find it really hard to be that exaggerated with my emotions or that sentimental. However in the name of doing Stephen Fry's exercise poetry exercise number 12, I did at least write a couple of stanzas so I can say I did it.

Now gather round and let me tell
The tale of Danny Wise
And how his sweet wife Annabelle
Did suck out both his eyes

And if I tell the story true
And if I tell it clear
There's not a mortal one of you
Won't shriek in mortal fear

Sweet Annabelle and Dany Wise
Did love each other so
But late one night he heard some cries
And ran to her too slow

By then the vampire bit her neck
And though he chased it far away
His wife was white and sick
Next moon, she turned. And well, the rest is history

Kungfu Panda - Go Watch!

2008-07-06T20:32:00.003+08:00

Today I decided despite the busy-ness of work, to take time out to watch Kungfu Panda with my aikido mates. It was a good choice. Huge amount of fun and I was laughing out loud throughout much of the movie. Po, the main character, is of the bumbling hero lineage and one of the funniest scenes is when he is trying to get into the training grounds where everyone has gone to watch the martial arts display before the next Dragon Warrier is chosen.

What i really liked were the fight scenes which are so reminiscent of the kungfu movies and the magical way in which the martial artists often do the gravity defying huge leaps and bounds. I always find that only in animation does this ever seem real to me. Flesh and blood would represent too much reality. I'm too much of a realist to be able to suspend belief for real flesh and blood actors but am quite happy to suspend normal laws of gravity and live in my imagination with animated movies. The animation world can almost perfectly represent for me the platonic ideal plausibly.

I won't say too much more as I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who watches it but I have to say it's the best movie I've seen in this genre for a long long time. It's great for any age.

Oh and I totally identify with Po's "I eat when I'm stressed" line :).

Akan Datang

2008-06-20T12:57:00.002+08:00

Sorry to the regular readers of this blog as its been a while since I posted. i've been overwhelmed by work, my brother's family visiting, a short holiday, and nursing one of my doggies (who had to have stiches so mainly i had to make sure she didn't chew them off). Just a notice to say i'll be back blogging in about a week and that I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth.

Poetry Exercise: Spenserian Stanza

2008-06-01T00:58:00.000+08:00

The last of the open forms: the Spenserian Stanza is a 9 line stanza of which the first 8 lines are iambic pentameter and the last line an alexandrine ie iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.

This form of verse the poet Spenser took.
Immortalised "The Faerie Queen" he did.
From then the form took life and shook
Our senses in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
"St Agnes Eve" - the cold crept in, it slid
By Keat's genius the fluttering owl's wing
Enshrined this form forever: iamb feet
Lord Tennyson, his "Lotos-Eaters" sing
Same tune and ends too with the alexandrine.

*Finally* I've completed Exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". It's been a long stretch of just composing self-referential poems describing these open forms.

Poetry Exercise: Ottava Rima

2008-05-25T10:28:00.004+08:00

Here's the next self-referential open form poem. One of the poetry exercises set by Stephen Fry.

The ottava rima as its name suggests
Was borrowed from Italian epic form
Too use in jest as with Lord Byron's epics
Best: Don Juan - the romantic satire long.
Later though, its mocking roots it left
And so his "Among School Children" was born
WB Yeats' philosophical anguish at ending years
End in perfect square of words that sear.

The rhyme scheme is abababcc. For those of you who saw the earlier draft, please erase the thought. I made horrendous mistakes in that rhyme scheme. As you can see I'm getting a bit too careless!

Bishan Dog Run Outing

2008-05-22T15:40:00.001+08:00

Lookeee the doggeee in the yellooww booties!

I finally made it to the Bishan dog run with my dogs in tow last Vesak Day. I say "finally" because the last two times I tried, the carpark was chocablock and I wasn't able to get a parking lot despite waiting around a bit. Had the usual good chats with fellow dog lovers, met a gorgeous, gentle German Shephard, rescued at the 11th hour from being put down at the SPCA by his new adoptee owners. Also saw the cutsy dog above just as I was leaving and couldn't resist taking a snap.

And as always this sense of peace from being amidst the greenery slowly seeped in as I ran with my dogs and hung around in the dog run. Life always seems a lot easier to face after being out in this park, more settled, more in perspective. It's like recharging the soul.

The Best Little Japanese Restaurant

2008-05-19T15:50:00.012+08:00

Warning it's expensive enough that I'd only recommend it on a corporate expense account...having said that, it's superb and if you like Japanese food, go!

Shiraishi is a tiny restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton, Singapore, with barely enough seating space at the tables for 10 people and a little counter that sits maybe another 10. So even though we went late, it was still crowded. The service was good and they had held our table though we were slightly late and had shifted us from the counter to the table at our request.

The crockery is lovely and so is the menu. With typical Japanese attention to detail, each piece of porcelain/pottery was designed to match the food served. I especially liked the watercolour paintings on the menu which was made from handmade Japanese paper so has this rough textured finish to it.

What we had: a sampling of sashimi then we ordered a couple more dishes such as sea urchin, salt baked fish head, summer vegetables and desert. All were exquisitely laid out and tasted very fine.

My favourites though were the seasonal vegetables and the sea urchin. The vegetables each came a little carved and artistically arranged into a medly of colours and tastes. The sea urchin was so fresh and soft and full of flavour I think it beat even the one I had in Japan many years ago at a very expensive Japanese corporate dinner. The salt baked fish head turned out to be the cheek rather than the whole head.

What I was also very impressed by was that all the wasabi and other condiments were obviously made from scratch. The sushi leaves were imported from Japan and tasted amazing. I could have just gone there for the freshly grated wasabi alone.

We didn't eat a lot and our bill ended up at over S$200. She'd decided since we were both so very full still from our buffet dinner the night before (me) and her indian lunch (her) we could only take nibbles for dinner. Hence a good time to try out an expensive sushi restaurant. Overall, I'd say despite the price, if you treasure good sushi, this is the place to go to, after saving up of course and not going ravenous.

Poetry Exercise: Rhyme Royal

2008-05-18T10:24:00.000+08:00

This classic English poem from old
Has iamb feet in pentameter lines
From Chaucer's time till present day it's mould
Not changed. But now its language modern is fine.
To not update it would be a shame, a crime.
With refurbished words, a new lease of life is given
The form can live again in modern times.

Aikido Bag

2008-05-15T16:14:00.001+08:00

My aikido sensei gave me a bag! I was quite taken by surprise and it was actually very nice of him to do so. I think it's meant to be a sign of appreciation for helping out here and there with classes ie showing up regularly, helping with mats, adminstrative work on Fridays etc. Still, I don't really do that much actual work so it's kinda nice of him to do that.

Poetry Exercise: Rubai

2008-05-12T10:19:00.003+08:00

The exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled has me writing several self referential forms. This one covers the Rubai which is an open form (ie can go on ad infinitum).

The Rubai:

This form was used in Persia long ago.
Omar Khayyam's moving finger writ it so.
His jug of wine to fuel his thoughts
And loaf of bread to help his poetry flow.

It's only rule is to rhyme lines one, two and four
In four line stanzas, no more.
Ignore line three: its rhyme matters not.
And there you go: a rubai from from yore.

Poetry Exercise: The Quatrain

2008-05-04T21:07:00.003+08:00

At long last, I got down to writing again. To those of you about to chide me for my tardiness, I will say in my defence I did write an earlier one but as it was upon my lunchtime in the office and I had wanted to consult Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, I had left two lines left unwritten. And then promptly lost the poem between the office and home.

So anyway, to cut a long story short, here's the quatrain, freshly written in my living room and I'm rapidly committing it to blogger before my laptop finally carries out its recent threats to die entirely.

The exercise was to write a self-referential poem describing the essential structure of a quatrain.

The Quatrain

The quatrain is what is all to us
A poem quintessential true.
Or so we think: it's just no fuss.
Can be strong, can be fun or blue.

The mood may vary, but same stays
The rhyme: abab, cdcd
Efef and so it goes
All emotion fits four lines, this story.

If You Want to Make God Laugh

2008-04-22T13:20:00.002+08:00

If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans

- Proverb (undoubtedly Jewish)

Homemade Strawberry Jam

2008-04-20T21:30:00.004+08:00

Strawberry Jam is nice enough when it's a decent brand bought in a store. When it's home made by my nephews next door and my sister-in-law, their mum, however, it's superb. They bought a punnet of strawberries from the supermarket and with sugar and honey made this suberb jam. After I ate a bit of it, it's hard to revert to store-bought brands again. The freshness and the sheer strawberrieness of it came through so strongly. And the honey was the best touch.

However making it this way costs double the amount of a decent store bought brand and that doesn't include the skilled labour of the gaggle of kids who made this. So, sad to say, we won't get this strawberry jam very often as a result.

This jam was a special edition jar made for their grandma's birthday which we ate after the dinner of duck, fish, prawns and mango rojak.

Terza Rima - Poetry Exercise

2008-04-20T19:09:00.007+08:00

The point of this exercise it to get familiar with terza rima which is a form of poetry where the rhyme scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, etc. It is an open form which means the poet can go on forever as opposed to closed forms where there are meant to be a fixed number of lines. It is stopped usually by adding an additional line to the last remaining stanza which so that the last stanza is abab instead. Or as Stephen Fry pointed out, Hopkins end stopped his by using a rhyming couplet instead.

The task was to write a self-referential terza rima explaining the form of the form.

Terza Rima:

I tried to write a rhyme once
Or twice, or thrice, but it was hard.
The rhythm slid away from this dunce.

Then I scribbled a terza rima shard
And it didn't seem too bad.
Not quite a poem yet - I'm not the Bard.

But aba, bcb, cdc, wasn't too hard
In fact I think I could go on and on
And on. Each interlocking rhyme is shared
Between the stanzas to lead me along.

This new poem written as an exercise comes after a haitus and is written in thanks too to another blogger who blogs on Taking5 who very kindly obtained a discounted copy of Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled for me. I had been using a copy from the National Library of Singapore and had already renewed it once. At the rate however that I was working through the book, it would have taken many more renewals and with each renewal at S$0.50, Taking5 had worked out it made more sense to buy a copy especially since she had a discount coupon. So I finally sat myself down in Dome in Dempsey today with an expresso and an orange carrot muffin to fuel me and worked this exercise out.

Many thanks to Taking5 for her encouragement.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

2008-04-15T22:18:00.005+08:00

My nephews, all four, aged from 2+ to 9, actually baked these soft American style cookies and very nicely brought over a plateful, all nice and warm still from the oven. They were beautifully moist and the chocolate still half melted from the heat of the oven. Absolutely perfect in texture and taste so I immediately scoffed four and had to move the plate out of my own reach lest I eat the rest.

The flower is not edible just in case anyone was wondering.

I have a young sister

2008-04-05T15:04:00.004+08:00

I have a young sister, far beyond the sea
many be the druries that she sent me

she sent me the cherry without any stone
and so she did the dove without any bone

she sent me the briar without any rind
she bade me love my leman without longing

how should any cherry be without stone
and how should any dove be without bone

how should any briar be without rind
how should any love my leman without longing

when the cherry was a flower then it had no stone
when the dove was an egg then had it no bone

when the briar was unbred then it had no rind
when the maiden hath that she loveth then she is without longing

ANON (circa early 15th century English song)

druries: love-gifts leman: sweetheart unbred: unborn

One of my favourite poems, so replete with sisterly love and understanding of love requited. I found it in a book of poems which a friend gave to me of poems that had been displayed in the London Underground.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Kopi

2008-04-04T15:59:00.006+08:00

I have the perfect excuse for hanging out in cafes, drinking coffee and watching the world go by: work. Yes, now that I have to do market research on coffee serving cafes, their service and the quality of baristas, I'm happily spending time with my papers from work, reading and drinking coffee.

I have to say i really like Ya Kun's coffee. It's the local kopi-tiam kopi and I usually take mine kopi-c-kosong which for those of you unacquainted with the lingo here, it means coffee with milk without sugar. It comes in a little teacup of thick porcelain with a saucer to match and a tiny chinese spoon. I also had mine with two slices of their thin crisp brown bread toasted and spread with butter and kaya. Yum. I couldn't resist dipping my kaya toast into the kopi and I have to say it's actually rather good that way as long as I don't dip too much of it that i lose the crispness of the toast entirely.

The coffee? it's good. Thick and strong in flavour. It's very possibly from beans roasted with margarine or butter as it has that richness in it. Maybe corn? Not sure. But overall, the taste is excellent. The milk is rather strong as they usually use evaporated milk but the coffee taste still stands up well to the milk. It's way stronger in flavour than many a cuppa I've had in the expensive western style cafes. At S$1.50 it's also a lot cheaper but of course doesn't have the piped music etc but does have airconditioning and a fairly decent place to sit down even if not sofas.

Service levels were generally good. I've noticed that I'm usually served quickly and promptly and got pretty geniune smiles out of them when they served me and when I left the cafe. I've noticed the service at this particular cafe in Holland Village near my office tends to be quite consistently good so kudos to the staff there.

Human Pretzel

2008-03-30T13:17:00.003+08:00

Yoga stretches parts of me I usually forget about. I'm reasonably flexible about the shoulders and the hamstrings but not around the sides of the waist, hips, knees or ankles. I've resumed yoga practice since joining Amore and as they have a branch at Heartland Mall, I try and make it there on Saturday morning when they have a very good instructor whose name escapes me at this time.

Last Saturday we were doing a lot of asanas which stretch the side just above the hip and twists which work the entire waist including the side. And given I feel like I'm developing a little paunch, I felt it was much needed.

We did an asana which was new to me: do the half lotus tree pose with one's hands together above the head and then bend and hold to either side for at least 30 seconds each time. We also stretched our sides in another asana where we were also in half lotus but with our knees on the group rather than either of our feet and this was a similar stretch for the waist.

We also did a very elegant (when properly done that is) dragonfly pose which involves lying on one's stomach and raising one leg straight up backwards as far as one can go and propping that leg up with the other leg. So it looks great but for me, my foot just kept pulling my track pants down steadily so I would give up at the point where it was going to lead to some immodesty although given that it was a room full of women, that didn't really matter.

Hopefully if I remember to stretch my waist, hips and ankles, they'll slowly become more flexible with time.

Gubana

2008-03-26T01:42:00.004+08:00

I'd been wanting to do something special to mark Easter Sunday other than attending the Easter Vigil mass. So this year I decided to bake an Italian Easter bread called Gubana. Gubana is from a region east of Venice called Friuli, near the what used to be Yugoslav and Austrian borders. It's a briochelike dough rolled up like a strudel with a nut and dried fruit filling and twisted itself around like a snail then baked.

The recipe I used came from a book by Carol Field called "The Italian Baker". It's an excellent book and I've had good results from recipes I've tried in the past. And twisted doughs have always appealed to my inner aesthetic cook. So out I went on holy Saturday morning with my shopping list of ingredients.

As our domestic helper is always wanting to learn things new in the kitchen I decided she could do the dough and I would do the filling and walk her through the process. So I showed her the recipe and told her she could either use the electric mixer or knead it with her hands. She chose the mixer with the dough kneaders.

The process took the whole afternoon but of course much of that time was spent doing other things while waiting for the risings to take place. The fruit (mainly rasins and candied peel and lemon zest) and nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) was mixed with a mixture of different liqueors and spirits so it tasted wonderful on its own. The filling was spread on the rolled out dough rather like spreading jam onto a swiss roll and then rolled up. The additional step was then to roll up again to form a round snail, wait for it to rise again then pop it in to bake in the oven.

The result was great when freshly baked but I was on the whole a bit disappointed with what it tasted like the next day. It was nice enough, but nothing to rave about. The fruit filling while it tasted great before being baked lost a lot of its nuance afterwards so I'd personally adjust the recipe to include more raisins and more liqueor.

As it doesn't have any artificial preservatives, it doesn't retain its freshness well although it keeps so it greatly benefits from toasting from the next day onwards. I felt that while it tasted nice enough, it could have been kneaded more to create a greater elasticity in the final bread plus maybe bread flour rather than all purpose flour would also help to that end. But it is actually meant to be a dense bread, so maybe the texture wasn't wrong, just that I prefer my bread slightly softer although I still like chewy textures. However while I grumble, you may notice that the only picture I managed to take is on the second day when most of the bread had already been eaten or given away. So it was certainly edible enough to get eaten fairly quickly and distracting enough for me to forget to photograph it freshly baked.

Overall verdict: interesting but not rave-worthy

Syllabic Verse Exercise

2008-03-24T14:15:00.003+08:00

The next exercise in poetry was to write simple stanzas with pre-set numbers of syllables each. This form of poetry focuses on the number of syllables regardless of the number of stresses. It's not too common in English poetry because English is more of a stressed language than eg Japanese or Chinese where syllabic poems are far more common.

On Rain:

I saw my brother run once
Down the slope near home
I was driving up the slope and
Wondering why he ran

Then just behind him, a sheet
Of rain I saw. Light
But growing strong. It followed
Him to the door. Slam!

Hygiene:

Hygiene counts
When baking bread: no ants,
Birds,
Are allowed in
The kitchen while it's done.
At least during
Which
One's hands especially
Are washed, dried.

Kneading means
Wet, sticky, doughy hands.
But
Later this turns
A drier dough which springs back at
A gentle prod
So
Then we rest it and clean
Hands and wait.

As you can see, I was contemplating the process of baking as I had planned to bake an Italian Easter bread called Gubena so it seems more interesting to slant the poem in that direction. For those who are interested in the outcome of the baking, stay tuned.

Napolean

2008-03-22T15:47:00.003+08:00

I watched the TV mini-series Napolean recently on DVD and was highly impressed. The acting was outstanding and the casting perfect with Christian Clavier doing a great job of portraying the Emperor of France in a way that one can understand how his humanity and charisma had men and women willing to give their lives and their love to him. I liked the way both his and Josephine's love life and their other loves were portrayed. In a way it struck me as being so much more realistic than many American type dramas are wont to be. Isabella Rosallini was the beautiful but older Josephine. Tallyrand, the foreign minister of the period, is also outstandingly acted by John Malkovitch, and typifies the whole balance of power approach to international (read European) politics of the time.

The costumes and scenes showed a period in French history that was breathtaking in its stately homes, and dress of the upper classes and aristocracy. I spent much of the time admiring the coats, tunics of the men who seemed to be more stunningly adorned than the women a lot of the time.

The war scenes were a real study in military tactics before the advent of fire power. There were some muskets in use but clearly the battle tactics had not yet adjusted to fire power with phlanxes of men forming squares and moving forward in large formations. Nowadays they'd be sitting ducks and the loss of life intolerable. But the bravery of the men was remarkable and also how Napolean needed to be there to inspire them.

I have to say also that just before watching it, I had read a thread on www.aikiweb.com which impressed me about the ability of the French to organise and have central command. Aikido is one of those organisations where the founding country, Japan still has a strong central Headquarters but in the manner of all human institutions, as the art spread across the world, the groups in different countries, as in Japan itself split. What struck me about France was that there are only 2 main schools there, one headed by Tamura Sensei and the other by Tissier Sensei who is himself recognised by Hombu Dojo. France is a large country with a strong tradition of aikido. My own country, much smaller already has 4 main schools. And apparently Israel has 47 and counting. It really dawned on me at that point that the French have a tremendous ability to organise themselves in large groups and to respect a central command which meant that they could have someone like Napolean lead a large army across Europe.

Anyway, the series is highly recommended for history buffs, for those who liked military history, Europhiles and anyone with a taste for period movies. The movie is beautifully shot and has sumptous sets and costumes.

Fruit and Veg Juice Galore

2008-03-21T12:33:00.006+08:00

I've finally discovered a fruit juice stall that serves exactly what I want and more besides. And it was practically in my neighbourhood too. Or at least nearby in Hougang Street 21. There's a hawker centre next to Heartland Mall and the fruit juice stall has an amazing range of fruit and vegetable juices. I'm highly enthusiastic since it will make my detox days much easier. I'm soooo not into making my own juices because I always end up with too much fibre and hate cleaning the bits off the juicer.

So far I've tried three different mixtures he has. The pineapple and chye sim is fine. Not too green tasting but it's a nice green colour. The spinach and apple is sweeter, without the tanginess of the pineapple and is a slightly deeper green in colour. The beetroot takes the prize for colour with its gorgeous magenta hue ending in a purple-pink foam top which you can see in the photograph.

If I make it through to the end of the day with a detox, I'll go back and try three more. He has a chives and ginger one which sounds interesting but rather strong so I wonder if he dilutes it with some other fruit juice to make it more palatable. There's more exotic drinks like cactus juice and he does have a nice succulent cactus leaf hanging as part of his decor over the stall front.

Overall it's good to see an imaginative hawker who's come up with a much larger range of vegetable based juices to complement the usual fruit juices. And the fact that it seems to be surviving nicely certainly seems to imply there's a market out there for even healthier drinks than plain fruit juices.

His prices are usually around S$2.30 to S$2.60 or so for those of you who are curious enough to want to go try and he lists all the prices upfront. I didn't however ask his opening hours but he's certainly open in the mornings and my guess would be the whole afternoon and evening but I'm not sure what time he packs up. The nearest MRT is Kovan and it's just a couple of minutes walk from the station exit.

A Good Barista is Hard to Find

2008-03-21T12:03:00.003+08:00

I went in search of good coffee yesterday and my search took me and my mum to two places: Highlander Coffee Cafe in Kampung Bahru/Blair Road area and Wiener Kaffehaus near 6th Avenue. Both were set up as specialist coffee houses by enthusiasts. One by a pair of Singaporean engineers in pursuit of their dream and higher coffee standards and the other by an Austrian who wanted to replicate the Austrian coffeehouse experience in Singapore.

I have to say I was disappointed as my expectations were high. I'd say the staff of both were eager to please and were definitely trying hard, but the coffee, for places which specialise in coffee, and roast and grind their own beans, the actual drinks turned out to fall short.

Both places are nice to sit and drink in: the Highlander is a cheery, newly renovated shophouse unit in the conservation Blair Plain area near Outram MRT station. They just reopened so perhaps that accounts for the less than knowledgeable staff, who presumably will learn as they go along, and I'm sure if I go back in a few months, I'll be able to ask questions about the beans etc and get more confident and knowledgeable answers. I liked most of the decor except the neon bits didn't really go with the shophouse ambience. The training area was behind a door and since there was a training session in progress, I wasn't able to take a peek at it.

The Wiener Kaffehause is meant to be a replication of an Austrain coffeehouse and has traditional leather covered, dark chocolate coloured seats and lots of lovely Gustav Klimt reproductions adorning the walls and a couple of art deco lamps here and there. The staff were certainly friendly and warm without being intrusive which I appreciated. The only thing missing was that since they do not roast the coffee on the premises, it doesn't have that coffee aroma hitting you once you walk through the door.

For those of you who would like details on the drinks: I had an expresso machiato at the Highlander Cafe and this turned out to have a very pretty clover pattern done with the crema but the taste of it was sour which I dislike very much in coffee. I'd rather bitter than sour and in fact I'm one of those who never adds sugar to coffee because that seems to result in a sour aftertaste once the initial sweetness wears off. The whole cafe smelled great as did the actual expresso, and one of the reasons why I dragged my mum along was that she has a far more sensitive nose and palate than I do, and I wanted her opinion since my taste buds and nose aren't quite as reliable as hers. Turns out she had the same opinion as me except more exaggerated. So I rest my case. Either that or having been brought up on kopi tiam beans, she's a Malaysian kopi devotee.

In the Wiener Kaffehaus, the decaffinated cappucino was better although it left me wishing I had ordered an expresso machiato as well so that I would be able to taste the coffee without the milk getting too much in the way. However, I still am not convinced it was as good as it could have been. It didn't have a sour aftertaste but it was not as full bodied as it could have been. I do also think it got a little bit overfoamed. My mum's verdict on the cappucino was again similar to mine but less enthusiastic.

The big hit was sachertorte which my mum positively gobbled up, she liked it so much...I found it just a little dry but the taste as my mum atested to, was a wonderful mixture of chocolate and a touch of almond and cherry.

The best coffee of the western roasted variety that is, I've had in Singapore, still remains in Da Paolo's restaurant along Jalan Merah Saga. It caught me by surprise as I simply wasn't expecting great coffee and it was at the end of a business lunch. And I'm generally not too picky and ordered a decafe cappucino but when I took the first sip, I was very pleasantly surprised and now I know what coffee aficiandos fuss about. It was a taste bud opener. Sadly the gastronomia place under the same ownership does not do decaf any longer so I've stopped ordering coffee from there.

Tau Hui with a Twist!

2008-03-21T11:51:00.004+08:00

At Serangoon Gardens Chomp Chomp hawker centre, there's a stall which serves the traditional soya bean curd in the usual ways, plain or with toppings such as gingko nuts, lotus seeds or flavoured with traditional flavours such as almond etc. What makes this place unique is that it also serves flavoured soya bean: bandung (read rose syrup with carnation evaporated milk poured over) is what is shown in the photograph. It really does taste like bandung, the drink of milky rose syrup and is a very pretty pink.

The bowl to the rear of the picture contains the more traditional tau hui with gingko nuts on top which is one of my favourites.

There are other interesting flavours. I liked the green tea one which has a distinct green tea flavour to it and a more gelatinous texture, more jelly like than tau hui-like with a dark green transclucent hue to it. The chocolate one, sad to say isn't that chocolately, so chocolate lovers consider this to be more asian flavour chocolate ie lightly chocolate only. I haven't yet tried the other flavours although I've seen my aikido buddies lap up all manner of colourful choices with gusto. They're major fans and the ones who introduced me to this stall. For them, they love the texture but personally I still prefer the more liquid texture of the more traditional tau hui, but for variety of flavours, they sure can't be beat: the baskin robbins of tau hui.

Alliterative-Accentual Verse

2008-03-16T16:50:00.003+08:00

I tend to write on a full stomach rather than empty so when I did this exercise, I was thinking more of drinks and snacks so my food tends to be less robust than what Stephen Fry came up with. However as the exercise is more about writing in the bang bang bang - crash! style ie alliterate three times and then change in a line, so it scarecly matters really what the subject matter is.

Here's my attempt and for those of you who don't yet know what alliteration is, you will by the end of the poem.

Things I Want or Don't Want to Eat or Drink Right Now:

Chocolate comes first or cocoa with froth,
A lemony drink or lime leached juice
Speedily hits the spot and sooths but then
Coffee doesn't. Caffeine kills my mind
But my body remains hyped: bouncing off the walls

I crave kana a lot, those clumps of fruit
Dried, salty, sour and sweet - I drool
Now that I'm done with drinks and desert, I desperately want
A Kaya toast: covered in coconut eggy jam
Thin crisp bits of bread, buttered and hot.

Or half-boiled eggs basting brown wholemeal toast
With soya sauce and pepper, spotting the yolk
Teh halia heaving with froth is heaven I think
So I'll stop soon enough to ready my mug
Yew tiao too is tea-dipping worthy

I wouldn't want wanton mee right now
Nasi lemak's not nice - too gelak
Oyster omelette oozes oil and lard
All these add on an extra pound or two
So to the gym I go and gallop on the treadmill.

Poetry Exercise: Anapaestic Hexameters & Dactylic Pentameters with Spondees

2008-03-15T14:49:00.003+08:00

Can't say the title sounds that appetising with all those technical terms in it. Nevertheless I plough on with one quatrain of anapaestic hexameters which for those of you who are interested means a di di dum beat and six of them in a line.

The exercise was to write a quatrain of such lines as directions to one's house. Since I'm not about to place a set of directions to my house online, I've written a set of directions which will hopefully take one from my office to the nearest Catholic Church.

At the end, Merah Saga, turn right at the lights. Again Right. Up the slope
To the T, a third right. Go on past all those flats. Filter left at the cross
Farrer Road. At the lights midway down go on left. Empress Road
Old Market so go past. No, it's not the white spire on your right. Instead look
Straight ahead and you'll see. There she stands: new St Ig's, looms above.

And the second half of writing metres was to write a quatrain of dactylic pentameter ending with spondees at the end of each line.

Stopping for a Cow crossing the road:

First one I saw as a child was on route up to Penang.
Still so she stood on the road. She was muddy, bedraggled
Queen though she strolled on across as her hooves did go clip clop
Forced so, we waited, ablare was our horn and we wooshed past.

The second exercise was slightly more enjoyable to write...clearly I like cows more than I like giving directions. Fortunately we take a pause from stressed syllable counting in the next exercise as we move to alliterative beats instead.

Poetry Exercise: Tetrameter, Trimeter

2008-03-09T19:48:00.003+08:00

We take a break from the pentameter here. The exercise was to take the subject, television and write

(a) two quartrains of standard, eight syllable iambic tetrameter

A whirr of words and issues too
The PR crises fly. Control
The press, with truth, not lies, just spin
It lightly so. That's CJ's job.

The bargining, the compromise,
All part of cooking law, Thus Josh
And Sam and Leo too, all work
To get things through: the White House Corp

(b) two quatrains of alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter

A little town called Stars Hollow
Community abounds.
There's Luke, the grumpy diner man
And Taylor, grocer old

But most of all, the girls themselves:
The Gilmore daughter and mum
They're smart and sassy and their words
Do snap, crackle and pop

(c) Two quatrains of trochaic tetrameter: one in "pure trochee" (dum-di instead of di-dum) and one with docked weak endings in the second and fourth lines.

Dead man speak not through words.
Science clears the mist. Just blood
Spattered or paint scratched off can
Clue the team and cases crack

Murderers they find entrenched in
Crime. The lab reveals all that.
Intent still needs a human touch
Jigsaw the remaining facts

No prizes for guessing my favourite TV shows.

Pyrrhic and Trochaic Substitutions & Weak Endings

2008-03-05T10:13:00.011+08:00

The next exercise involved writing in some pyrrhic substitutions, trochaic and weak endings to a basic iambic pentameter. Write 16 lines on any contemporary news items, so ordered Stephen Fry. It was, I found, a very difficult exercise.

The Jargon:

Pyrrhic substitutions: instead of the basic iamb di-dum, it's di-di
Trochaic: instead of di-dum, it's dum-di
Weak endings: at the end of the usual heroic (iambic pentameter line) add an unstressed syllable/word

Pyrrhic and Trochaic substitutions both score 5 points each while weak endings and emjambments score 2 points each. Points are deducted for poor style.

The results:

On the recent escape from the Whitley Detention Centre by Singapore's most wanted man and JI operative, Mas Selamat Kastari.

We seek him here. We seek him there. We seek
Him everywhere through undergrowth, through roads and
Sea. But selamat datang, mas. A ghost.

Enjambment: 4 pts
Weak ending: 2 pts
Trochaic substitutions: 5 pts
Deductions: 0

Total: 11

On the hustings in Malaysian elections:

The date's been set. The ruling Barisan
And opposition parties' race is on
"Vote!" they all cry, "It is your right you know."
But sad to say, democracy's a game
That's hard to win, in best of times. Even
A fool can win, though, of course one hopes not.

Pyrrhic substitions: 12.5
"Barisan"...I wasn't sure if this was a pyrrhic sub to be honest so I'll cut these points to half for that particular one. The other disputable one is at the end "hopes not".
Trochees: 5
Weak Endings:0
Enjambments: 4
Poor style: - 5

Total: 16

I really did have a problem deciding if some phrases were equally stressed or pyrrhic subsitutions. And I found my ear getting somewhat inaccurate after a while, rather like drinking too much wine to be able to taste it well. So if anyone disputes my scores, I would happily accept some independent criticism.

On the proposed means testing in Singapore hospitals to determine the level of subsidy for patients:

A sliding scale, a "Testing Mean", or is
It "Mean Testing"? Oops, I mean "Means". But not
The plural of "mean", I mean. A fairer means?

Trochees: 5
Pyrrhic Substitutions: 2.5 (again I'm having a problem as I think it's two words emphasied next to each other rather than a pyrrhic sub so I'm deducting half)
Enjambment: 4 pts
weak ending: 2 pts

Total: 13.5

On the recent move by the IIF to debate a banking code discourage short term risk taking at long term cost through restructuring compensation packages for bankers:

The Institute of International
Finance debates a banking code: to cut
Pay in the aftermath of subprime woe.
Can law subdue such unbridled greed so?

Pyrrhic Subs: 5
Trochees: 20
Enjambments: 4
Poor Style: -5

Total: 24

Grand total: 64.5

My total is a far cry from Stephen Fry's 106 and my pyrrhic subs aren't always actually pyrrhic subs. I wasn't that happy with the quality of the verse either but well, I guess that's why Stephen Fry's a celebrated writer and I'm not :).

Poetry Exercise: Enjambments & Caesuras

2008-03-04T16:11:00.003+08:00

The next exercise for crafting poetry is to write run-on lines (otherwise known as enjambed lines) and write in some pauses (caesuras) on top of a basic iambic pentameter couplet. So I first wrote a set of five couplets in straight iambic pentameter with end stopped lines and a second set as a variation on the first with enjambments and caesuras. The subjects were given by Stephen Fry.

1. Precisely what you see and hear outside your window

end stopped:
I sit and hear a car and bike roll past.
I see a tree with leaves so green give shade.

enjambed:
A bike goes swish. A car roars past. But green
Remains the tree. In silence growing strong.

2. Precisely what you would like to eat right this minute.
NB: since I did this exercise right after lunch I wasn't hungry but wanted a nice drink so that's what I wrote about.

end stopped:
A cappucino would be nice to sip
Or cold green tea sans sucre oh so sweet

enjambed:
A frothy drink, all steaming hot, would suit
Me fine. Or else a tea, all icy green. Sweet.

3. Precisely what you last remember dreaming about:

end stopped:
I really don't remember what I dream
I fall asleep and wake and all is gone

enjambed:
The dark enfolds: I fall asleep. Enwrapped
am I till dawn. Then sunbeams wake: all dreams are gone.

4. Precisely what uncompleted chores are niggling at you:

end stopped:
My income tax forms call out to be filled.
And my computer desk so old discard.

enjambed:
More tax, more tax - more papers still remain
Unfilled. Computer desk so old it must go soon.

5. Precisely what you hate about your body

end stopped:
I wish I had a slimmer tum and arms
More hair but not upon my legs but head

enjambed:
Tight abs: not me! Nor toned, taut arms. Alas,
My hair: it falls but grows too slow. O me.

Poetry Exercise: Iambic Pentameter

2008-03-03T13:28:00.004+08:00

I've been inspired by my cousin's example and Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". From the moment I read the first line of the Forward, " I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry." I was sold. I got myself a notebook and am now taking spare moments to put pen to paper and start practising the craft of poetry. It'll at the very least give me a greater attention to words and hopefully make me write more carefully even in everyday speech and writing. And it's also fun.

Here below are the results of the first exercise: a batch of iambic pentameter lines which are non-rhyming.

On an Aikido (Japanese Martial Art session):
I went and threw my uke so he fell
And hit the mat with an almighty bang

NB: an uke is one's partner and crash dummy in aikido as we practice in pairs co-operatively

On my cafe du chocolat from the Japanese bakery:
This choc-filled bun is wonderfully yum

On waiting by the phone:
I wait and wait: my mobile does not ring

On my new pair of dress trousers recently purchased from GG>5:
My trouser legs have seven buttons each
A show of leg and ankle they do line

On email missent:
In office land I stare at my computer screen
Aghast that I have sent an email wrong

On my dogs greeting visitors:
My dogs are runing up and down the stairs
Excited, barking: strangers they proclaim

On waiting for my prennially late friend:
I can't believe she's *always* late, and then
she goes and does it yet again. O hell.

On prayer:
I pray my prayers each morning, noon and night
Awaiting God, His Presence, Love and Grace

My prayer go forth, an arrow seeking light
From darkness bursting doubt and into faith

On work and frustration:
I try and try but nothing's going right
My boss's words of comfort scarcely heard

Birthday Celebrations

2008-03-02T20:07:00.004+08:00

My parents, two aunts and my cousin and I recently repaired to the nearby Bintan Island, Indonesia, a short hour long ferry ride away from Singapore. We stayed in a lovely little villa part of a series of villas called Banyan Biru (after the large-ish pond which both my aunt and dad were at pains to point it was green rather than blue or "biru"). It was really a lovely birthday celebration for me and I'm very glad that so many people were actually able to make it and share these few days with me. So thank you to all of you who could make it.

I came back to a lovely surprise dinner party organised by my sister and my sister-in-law contributed lots of dishes too. It turned out to be lots and lots of scrummy food with my brother-in-law turning out a wonderful duck dish for which he made a great marmalade wine sauce. Yum!

All I can say is after 3 days of feasting and being pampered in a spa, I'm spoiled. Thank you to my dear family!

Conehead

2008-02-18T03:17:00.003+08:00

Custard, my one year old dog, got neutered on Valentine's Day and has since had to wear a cone to prevent him from licking and potentially infecting his wound. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about being left at the vet and I had to trick him to go into the consultation room, but he recovered quickly from this operation, much to my relief, and by the following morning, had returned to all his mischevious ways.

After a puzzled evening when he was still dopey and bumping everything because of his new dress, he has discovered how to do virtually all his usual tricks, upsetting the dustbin in the kitchen, sticking his nose out the gate at the hole just when one is about to stick in one's hand to open the gate, and generally figuring out how to eat and drink with his Elizabethean collar on.

My very macho little nephew, all of 7 years old, laughed and called him a girl dog for wearing a girl collar so they got a little education in Elizabethean male and female fashion.

I'll remove the collar on Friday morning assuming there's no further problem and no sign of infection. I figure a week is enough for things to have stabilised.

To Friendship

2008-02-14T21:22:00.003+08:00

I have a very dear friend, who sends me flowers each valentine's day and I, her...it's a girls' tradition for us and while we have been physically separated much of our lives by entire continents and oceans, she of all my friends, is the one who understands me best, with whom I have carried on an unending correspondance and with whom I can always pick up as if there's been no gap whenever we see each other again. So to my beloved friend, thank you very much once again for a bunch of flowers that so aptly celebrates our friendship.

Here's to friendship.

Coconut & Lemongrass Ice Cream

2008-02-10T17:47:00.002+08:00

Our domestic helper is a whizz in the kitchen. This weekend she decided to turn her hand to ice cream and after she figured out (from me) that the recipe's mention of an ice cream maker was unnecessary (as I told her the word "alternatively" meant she could still use the manual method), she turned out an intensely flavoured ice cream redolent of my childhood. The lemongrass gave it both a nice tanginess as well as a lemony aroma which was not too sharp and citrusy. I could taste the coconut but what surprised me was that the end taste was actually reminiscent of condensed milk: another childhood comfort flavour. It must be all that sugar and cream and maybe she used brown sugar or gula melaka?

The texture, for those who like their ice cream to be creamy and smooth, is not that great because it does need stirring every hour for the first 2-3 hours. Otherwise ice crystals form within. However my mother who grew up with homemade ice cream actually much prefers this nostalgic, icy, flaky texture so I guess in our home, that's the way it will continue to be made. However for those who didn't grow up in that era, but instead on the rich creaminess of American superfatted ice creams, you'll need a ice cream maker or be particularly diligent about repeatedly whipping it into shape.

Funky Blue Shoes

2008-01-17T15:25:00.001+08:00

In a fit of frustration over someone at work, I went out and bought a new pair of funky blue shoes.

I don't usually do retail therapy but as this pair was a steal at S$20 and such an cheerful bright blue and white, they made me feel happy just looking at them.

It helped that I did need a new pair of casual blue shoes as my other pair was on its last legs.

Settling Down to Boardgames

2007-12-09T21:47:00.000+08:00

Choo choooooo! And we're off! All four of us gals settled down to a train across Europe game, trying to outwit each other in playing a game which involved chope-ing (monopolising) train routes across Europe (see photo for our game in progress). Yours truly won but in a group of beginners it was purely by chance rather than strategy.

It was our first time at Settler's Cafe, a boardgame cafe in Singapore near Clarke Quay on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I was bored and I ended up rounding up a bunch of friends to try this out. It turned out to be a lot of fun and I liked the whole set up of a fairly plain and simple cafe, with game masters in attendance at the press of a bell to explain rules and otherwise take orders for snacks and drinks.

I went back again for their member's night which also turned out to be a lot of fun but I think that was partly because I had a ready friend there in my cousin who has been mad about boardgames ever since his teenage years. So integrating into the group was made easy for me. Definitely a good scene for anyone interested in boardgames.

Stretch and Ache

2007-12-07T13:39:00.000+08:00

My tummy has been noticabely expanding and so I finally decided to stop being in denial and return to the gym. Aikido is great and I do not want to have to cut down on my thrice weekly practices but it simply doesn't keep me in shape enough.

So I signed up at Amore Fitness which is a gym just for women. It's not that I demand an exclusively female atmosphere but I was looking for a combination of convenience in terms of location and a selection of classes I would like to go to at the right time. Amore fitted that bill this time and offered a once a week package which is costing me S$70 a month for a year. It's expensive but I'm hoping that after a year I will be in decent shape and can go back to just aikido.

I was sold 20 minutes into the Belly Blitz class which is a class based on belly dance movements because I was having sooo much fun with it. I figure it's good for my sense of coordination and my belly but I noticed that it was not my abdomen that ached the next day but my shoulders. I've since tried another Belly Blitz class with my brand new hip scarf which shimmers and jingles along with the music but sadly I was a lot less coordinated that day so despite the adornment, I'm sure I looked more clumsy than sensuous. And this is one class I'm glad is being held in a women's only gym since I'd be a lot more self conscious if there were men around.

So I then decided I should experiment around with the other classes to see what else would suit me and tried out the pilates class yesterday. It was a slow moving workout concentrating on a lot of the smaller muscles which was interesting. I discovered that my lower abs are very weak and some of the muscles which help with my balance in my legs also need strengthening. But oddly enough my left shoulder is very free of tension which surprised me since I spend a lot of time on the computer...must be all those nikyo pins during aikido have stretched that joint out nicely. My right shoulder joint is also nice and loose but is slightly more tense than my left. It's actually very useful doing this class because now it gives me a better idea of what areas of the body I really need to work on and lower abs is really one thing I'd like to improve. Other than of course overall fat reduction and toning.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to try out the yoga class and the abs, hips and thighs session as well.

My Favourite Spot: the Hammock

2007-12-04T14:45:00.001+08:00

My Favourite Spot: the Hammock
Originally uploaded by CatSienna

This for me symbolises Pangkil most: the long lazy afternoons spent dozing or reading in this enormous hammock which can fit easily 2-3 adults.

Private Island Bliss

2007-10-08T16:16:00.000+08:00

I recently stayed again on pulau pangkil kecil at the kind invitation of a friend.

Pulau Pangkil Kecil is a tiny little island southeast of Bintan which I have been told, belongs to the Marden family of Wheelock Marden fame. Bought initially as a private family resort, it was developed by an American very successfully. It consists of 6 chalets each with their own bathrooms and even a treehouse, and another open treehouse area near the swimming pool.

As one rents the entire island at a time, privacy is guaranteed other than the little army of staff there to cook and clean and maintain the place. They have their own quarters and are remarkably discreet. Best of all, they're great cooks and I especially love their freshly baked bread every morning. I believe they have a baking machine. The bread tastes rather brioche like and is a buttery yellow in colour and very slightly sweet. One is fed to the gills while there with mid morning and tea time snacks and a fully stocked bar with bar snacks as well available all the time.

I was lucky enough to go there a few years ago and again very recently at the invitation of a friend who's family is in the shipping line and have business connections with one of the Marden companies. Hence I got in at a fraction of the cost. Normally it would cost approx S$700 per head for a weekend from Friday to Sun with all meals included.

Private islands are not all that expensive, contrary to popular belief . At least not in the Riau archipelago where the cost of buying an island is low. However developing it is expensive as getting the materials and labour over to the island can be costly.

Needless to say I enjoyed my time there hugely. The first time around it was a very small group staying there but the second time around, we were fully packed in so I ended up sleeping in the large chalet with the fabulously huge bathroom but sadly no enormous hammock beneath the chalet. The hammock is my favourite spot as it's so big it can take easily 2 adults at a time. And I arrived with two books and spent much time reading quietly in the shade of the chalet.

I also spent much time either in the beach or in the pool. The waters around are beautifully clear and there is even some coral that is still alive particularly near the area around the swimming pool. However swimming there without fins was a bit tricky as there was a moderate current and the rocks around there were sharp, so we rapidly retreated after excitedly pointing out to each other the more vivid colours of the corals and fish around that area. However I have to admit that if one really wants to see something more spectacular, it would be better to take the fishing boat out a little deeper and snorkel or dive from there. However for scaredy cats like me, I tend to stick very close in to shore.

433 Race Course Road

2007-09-29T12:55:00.001+08:00

I spent some time in the last fortnight looking at shophouses in the Farrer Park area hoping to find one suitable for my office to purchase.

My trip took me down a road which turned out to be quite interesting as it had three Chinese temples on it, at least two of which were buddhist and one of which I suspect was taoist. The street also had a hotel, eating houses, and numerous pretty shophouses many of which had conservation status. Altogether a street with plenty of character and surprisingly enough reasonably quiet.

I was in two minds about whether or not I really wanted to have my office there but in the end, the decision was not mine to make so the decision was made for me. I cannot yet decide if I'm relieved or happy and I think in any case I would have been sad. Either sad because I would have to leave my current office which is very beautiful and perfect in many ways, in Holland Village, or sad that I wouldn't be able to have this shophouse to play around with and turn into a permanent beautiful little space for my work. As it turned out, the sadness was for the latter and now I'm waiting to see if my office will renew its lease on my current office.

Miss Potter

2007-09-28T13:54:00.000+08:00

I did read Beatrix Potter as a very young child but somehow didn't remember it well and other reading crazes at older ages left a deeper memory. So when the film, "Miss Potter", came out last year, I didn't bestir myself to rush to view it. More recently however, my sister lent me her DVD copy and I found it actually inspiring as a tale of a woman who was greatly determined, and endowed with high imagination, intellect and artistic skill. She was a woman who despite the Victorian constraints on a well off family managed to become a botanist in fact if not in name.

I also only discovered through this movie that she was also a conservationist in the Lake District area in England. I must have seen the areas where she walked and owned property and I must have even rambled across some of the land she bought up as farms and subsequently gave to the National Trust in England.

She also married late in life and only after achieving independent income and wealth and then became a farmer and I was thinking for a woman of her class and in her day, she really transcended class and gender.

Hats off to a very creative and strong willed soul who has given us not just bunny tales, but a whole tract of land to walk upon, not to mention her botanical work. "Miss Potter" is a movie I'd highly recommend that all women in particular and people interested in the Lake District, England, the English countryside, conservation and of course Beatrix Potter tales in general would most likely find enjoyable.

Love at First Bloom

2007-09-12T07:42:00.001+08:00

This tea is called love at first bloom and it unfolds at the hot water cascades down the boom. The petals and leaves unfurl and flutter in the water and form a flower tea that is delicate in flavour. I've seen this served in Singapore in a restaurant at Raffles City basement as well, but of course couldn't resist ordering it with it's intensely romantic name in this Lock Cha Teashop in Hong Kong Park, Hong Kong. It did not disappoint but of course nothing beats the first time around.