Chinatown

Having just sat down for some lunch after an arduous few minutes buying all manner of Chinese New Year gifts for the nieces, nephews and God-children back home, I get a chance to do what I really enjoy and people watch. Chinatown is particularly good for this especially during the run up to CNY when it is busier than usual (although not the mayhem that will ensue this weekend, the last before CNY). The English couple in front if me have just been brought two large bottles of Tiger beer and are staring at them in astonishment (the bottles are 633ml each, more than a pint). The business of ordering lunch looks a hard task too. Menus are large, with a raft of unfamiliar looking food (although all printed in English with Chinese subtitles) and some of the items are apparently live.
'Euw, I couldn't eat anything living',
'It'll be dead by the time you eat it,' I interject, 'don't worry'.
They seemed to take this in the spirit it was meant although when the fish, still flapping in it's bag, was presented for their approval they did blanche slightly. The panic is starting to rise slightly I sense and a discussion ensues about the merits of ordering sweet and sour pork. The spring rolls arrive and much to their relief look 'just like the ones from the Chinese at home'.

Phew, the fries have also arrived. Just in time, it was all starting to look a bit 'Eastern' for my liking.
I must say the white faces and voices (mine amongst them of course), are quite prevalent today. Last Saturday the mayhem was very definitely in favour of the locals. We we're warned by one that it was a human traffic jam in there. He wasn't wrong. This was the evening for Singaporeans to do their CNY shopping. I found it quite enjoyable, however, I wasn't trying to shop.
So, remarkabley the beers have both been sunk and they've just asked for another. I think they're starting to get into the spirit of things. That's the thing about Singapore. It never takes long to relax into it if you give it a chance.

posted from Bloggeroid

Just testing...

Just wondering if my fingers still work after the vast amount of time between blog posts. The spell checker would suggest not!
So, what have I been up to? What haven't I been up to? Makes it sound more exciting than it probably has been but I'll try not to bore you too much with the detail.
Having just got back from Bali (a week and a half, our longest holiday for quite literally years),  I realised that I should be a bit more diligent with my updates even if they are only a few paragraphs long. I'll relate Bali to you in another post as there is a fair amount to tell.
Firstly, I'll try and update a bit on what has happened in our Singaporean lives since last I blogged. It occurs to me that the blogging stopped when two (hmmm, possibly three), unrelated things happened. Firstly the Ashes started Down Under which meant it was almost in our time zone, hence I could devote a certain amount of time to following it. I say following and not watching as it's pretty difficult to watch over here. There are a select few bars over here showing it and as the matches started at around 8am here even fewer that were actually open (for an orange juice obviously). So, for the first time, I followed most of the action via BBC text coverage and Twitter believe it or not. And it was quite entertaining. Especially as we spanked them 3-1 in the end!
The second and possibly more likely reason was the arrival of the parents-in-law (PIL) in Singapore. From the first night to the last we were pretty much busy all the time. I got to do all the touristy stuff that I haven't done since I got here which was a good excuse to show the Balls (for tis their surname), the sights and sounds of Singapore. The predominant subject was the Second World War and how Singapore was affected during the occupation. Now let me tell you, there are a lot of tours available on this subject and eventually I plumped for a company recommended by friends who had already done one of their tours. The Original Singapore Walking Tours leads a number of tours every week about specific parts of the Island's history or culture. We ended up taking four such tours during the course of the Ball's ten day stay. And very good they were too. They tend to do one or two tours a day so they don't spread themselves too thin and use possibly only two or three guides. And man, do these guides know their stuff. All of them (as well as the owner) seem to be a little bit obsessive about their subject matter which means that they know all about everything, even when it's off topic. However, unlike a lot of academics/obsessives they retained a sense of humour, knowing how to bring their subject to the customers (many of which, like me, had next to no idea about the history of the Island). This made for a very enjoyable few days of walking and being driven around parts of Singapore that otherwise I would probably not have visited. Almost certainly my visual and historical favourite was the Kranji War Memorial in the north of the country. Overlooking the Johor Straits to the Malay peninsular, it commemorates the fallen of WWII and has hundreds of graves as well as inscriptions to those never found (although still being searched for).
Quite a momentous, moving experience which will never be forgotten.

Other attractions visited included the National Museum of Singapore, where we pottered around the Pompeii exhibtion and then took the guided tour to the history of Singapore. Very impressed with the interactive walking tour (the start of which leads you through 'a day in the life of Singapore', a film spectacular of two storeys of video walls chucking out visual and audio imagery of the Red Dot and hitting the human sensors right between the metaphorical eyes). The headphones (supplied by Sennheiser), were very comfortable and the "MP3" player also held untold amounts of extra info when you wanted to access it. The girl at the ticket office said we could expect to take three hours to get round the museum. We were there for five hours and managed two exhibitions! Somewhere I need to go to again methinks!
Anyway, the fun and frolics came to an end eventually and we bade a fond and slightly emotional farewell to T's parents as we set them on their way for a well earned rest in a taxi bound for their flight from Changi.
The other reason? Ah, yes, the laptop died. Specifically the hard drive packed up. Well, it had had a good life. Nearly four months old it was. Who says we live in a throw away society? So off to Acer I went (yes folks the vendor, in this case Harvey Norman, takes no responsibility for the product after it's sold. So it's up to you to get it back to the manufacturer). Fortunately, this being Singapore, Acer's head office is a twenty minute bus ride away. So probably less stress than taking it back to where I bought it in the first place.
So now there's no excuse, the laptop is back. So am I. And so are the posts.

More to come......

Piccys

I keep meaning to post some photos but always seem to blog on my phone. So, here we are.......

Mum and D

Boy on his b irthday bike

Getting the hang of it!

Z watching D

Enjoying the day

That's my drink

Chinese chequers in Chinatown.

Not much action at the table.

Hand-painted name plaques in Chinatown

T enjoying watching the world go by in Chintown

My biggest fans

Backstreet Chinatown

Night time with Pinnacle@Duxton in the background

Click on any of the photos to see the larger versions......