Life Sucks

Patara Fine Thai Cuisine

2012-01-29T16:53:00.004+08:00

Lots of food to eat during this period contributing to the increase in the waistline. No choice somebody got to sacrific for the sake of not wasting all these food.

Some of the more interesting and memorable ones in the next few posts starting with this set lunch at the Patara Fine Thai Cuisine restaurant at Tanglin Mall. The last time I went to this restaurant was when it still has an outlet at Raffles City which was like a gozillion years ago. Now there is only 1 outlet left and more disappointingly no more dessert buffet.

We ordered the special lobster set lunch promotion which cost $88.00 but paid only $68.00 under an OCBC credit card promotion.

This is a four course meal which comes with this starter comprising a chicken popiah, a fried prawn, a "gold" pouch wanton and a choice of pomelo, papaya or mango salad. I opted for the pomelo salad. The portion was much smaller than I like but it was kinda expected since they have the "Fine" food tagged on to the restaurant name and I have come to associate "Fine" with less.

Next up was the Tom Yam soup. There was a total of 1 prawn, 1 scallop and a few slices of cuttlefish and fish. But it was not too bad although not spicy and sour enough for me

Following that was the main course which comprised a green curry with an option of chicken or beef. I had the beef. The curry was a bit sweet in my opinion.

The main course - olive rice, stir fried vegetable and 1 lobster. The lobster wasn't that fresh. In fact it was quite hard, the flesh I mean. Maybe because it was stir fried and not steamed? The olive rice was also so so and definitely not up to what I expected from the place. I can get much better food from the many small Thai eateries that is now all over town.

Dessert was a choice of Red Ruby or Mango sticky rice. Since there was 2 of us, we each had one.

The red ruby was not red at all. In fact it was so colourful. A bit sweet but rather satisfying.

Unfortunately, I can't said the same of the mango sticker rice. It was rather bland. How they got something so simple so wrong I don't understand.

All in, after tax and service charge, we paid more than $180 for both of us but more than the price, it wasn't really worth the money. The standard of the food was so so and in fact plain ordinary. The service was good and impeccable of course, as befits a restaurant of its standard but other than that, the money could have been better spent on 4 similar meals at Thai Express and I will dare say without much difference in quality.

Parking Idiots

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000+08:00

Following my earlier post on the Mercedes Benz in a No Parking lot, I snapped another photo of another "big" car improperly parked in the same HDB Multi-Storey Carpark.

This time I uploaded the picture to FB and made a general comment implying that people with "big" car tends to any how park.

I was very swiftly contradicted by a friend who sent me the following photo

Okay this isn't a "big" car but it is still in that class which I classified as "rich man" car. Again I generalised but the impression I get is "I got money to buy expensive car so I can anyhow park. At most pay fine only what!" shitty snooty snobbish type of attitude.

And this photo reinforce my view. An "ultra big" car occupying the motorcycle lot!

Need I say more. I rest my case.

Sunnyhills Pineapple Cake

2012-01-22T16:36:00.000+08:00

Was reading the Sunday papers on Tuesday and came across this review of the Sunnyhills Pineapple cakes. Pineapple tart is something I must have during CNY and this year unfortunately my lobang for the Le Cafe golf ball pineapple tart is no more. So I was pretty keen to try this import from Taiwan until I saw that it was located at Raffles Arcade in Raffles Hotel which means it was going to be expensive and true enough it was going for 10 pcs for $25.00.

But somebody up there must like me a lot cos the next day back in the office, a box appear on my desk!

And in less than 10 minutes, 3 quarter of it was gone. Okay so I shared it with the colleagues but I still kept half for myself and I rationed myself to 1 pc per day.

This pineapple cake is very international. The pineapple and eggs are from Taiwan, the flour is from Japan and the butter from New Zealand. So how was it? It wasn't too bad but different from our local version. And 10 pieces for $25.00? Way too overpriced. I think we paying more for the packaging and air freight!

Hongkong Soya Sauce Chicken

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000+08:00

Out for lunch and went I couldn't get any teochew porridge after going through 3 hawker centre; sold out; closed and sold out respectively, I was left scratching my head wondering what to eat.

There was this stall which always have a long queue. It was selling soya sauce chicken, not something that I eat on a week day and certainly not for lunch but since I had nothing else to eat, decided to join the queue. The signboard said Hongkong Soya Sauce Chicken. The only other soya sauce chicken that I like used to be the Upper Cross Street Soya Sauce chicken. Was this good? Should be, judging from the queue and the adverts

The delicious chickens hanging from the display window. The chickens are braised right at the stall not delivered from some factory in Woodlands or Bedok.

Everybody was ordering half a chicken to take home. Me, I ordered a plate of noodle and ask for roast pork to be thrown in as well. To my surprise, it only cost $3.50.

But cheap price not withstanding, how does it taste? Why not find out yourself? Me? I went back on one of my off day and bought half a chicken home.

The stall is on the 2nd floor of the Chinatown Food Centre. Just walk around and look for the soya sauce chicken stall with the long long queue.

Boat Quay

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000+08:00

Boat Quay. I walked there occasionally on my way to Running Lab and every time without fail I get accosted at almost every Thai, Chinese and Indian restaurants that I passed by. Now I can understand if I am strolling and looking at the restaurants but there I am walking rapidly and certainly not looking like I am looking for a place to eat. It gets very annoying especially since I have no intention of eating there having been badly overcharged once when I dined at a Thai restaurant there.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I walked through the place recently and nobody; okay 2 places made some half heartened attempts; to "jio" me to eat at their place. What has changed?

Apparently there is a campaign by some of the restaurants to stop the touting, overcharging and clean up the image of the place.t

Let's hope they succeed but frankly I don't think the momentum will be carried through for long. Many have tried and all have failed.

Personal Parking Lot?

2012-01-10T00:00:00.000+08:00

This Merc seems to have found himself a nice private parking space right in a HDB multi-storey car park. The shelter seems purposed built just for it. Lucky soul.

But wait a minute, what is the red stuff on the floor just next to the left of the car?

Closer look. Its says "PARKING". Wow, HDB very good tell people this is for parking is it?

Double Wow, Singapore Cricket Club member somemore. Wonder what's it doing in a humble HDB carpark?

Tampines Changkat Butterfly Garden

2012-01-07T21:31:00.000+08:00

Made an exciting discovery that somewhere in Tampines, there was a butterfly garden!

First opportunity available, grab the camera and went there to see what was available.

Turned out it was a real mini butterfly garden but it was the first time I ever see so many butterfly in one location. But as usual, I was lazy and just snap away, handheld without any tripod.

Mottled Emigrant

Add caption

Common Grass Yellow

Found a Dog - A Pomeranian

2012-01-05T22:35:00.000+08:00

The Princess found a Pomeranian on her way to school.

Anybody know of anybody living who lives in Pasir Ris and has lost his/her dog, give me a buzz or email me here.

If no claimant within 2 days, unfortunately will have to hand the dog over to SPCA or whichever organisation willing it take it in since we can't keep 2 dogs.

Pasir Ris Mangrove Swamp

2012-01-04T00:00:00.000+08:00

Surprisingly I have not really explored Pasir Ris Mangrove Swamp which is almost a stone throw away. Managed to find some time despite the wet weather and gloomy sky and went over with the Princess, each one of us lunging a camera, one fitted with a macro lens and another with a zoom. We interchanged the lenses and cameras and came away with a big haul.

The area is indeed rich in biodiversity and we were so surprised that right on Sungei Tampines, there were so so many birds, much more than our last trip to Sungei Buloh last month.

Here are just some of the more interesting sightings.

A squirrel

A mud crab

A tree climbing monitor lizard

A beautiful caterpillar

A praying mantis

Dragonfly

Another dragonfly

A leave, a bug or a caterpillar?

This one landed on my arm

This is where I wish I has a more powerful ie longer lens to capture the many birds.

A heron

Should have brought along my tripod

A common kingfisher with a fish

A storkbilled kingfisher high up on a tree

Bicycle No More?

2011-12-31T21:00:00.000+08:00

This was the scene 1 month ago when I first blogged about the bicycle situation in Pasir Ris.

One month later, the bikes are gone. Is it due to the holidays and everybody is away?

Well no, there is this big sign put up by the Town Council on the removal of bicycles. Me, I would like to think that my earlier blog post has something to do with the Town Council's enforcement although I cannot be sure.

But of course, sign or no sign, there will be some soul brave enough to take a gamble that the Town Council will not enforce the rule and park their bicycle right under the banner. I hope the bicycle can tow away.

SMRT CEO next move

2011-12-29T00:00:00.000+08:00

Since the 2 break-in at the SMRT compound and the recent spate of break down, SMRT CEO, Saw Phaik Hwa has been on the receiving end of the stick from the public for her inept handling of the problems and her lack of empathy for the commuters.

Everybody remember this and nobody remember that firstly she is no engineer or transportation expert and is merely a retailer. Secondly, she single-handedly transform the very bland and stale stations into vibrant bustling "Xchanges" and thirdly in the process increased SMRT profits from $56.8m in 2002 to $161m in 2011.

With her vast retail background, I am sure she is more than well suited to solve the problems of commuters. I am very sure her brain must have lighted up and her eyes go $$$$ when she read the experience of the poor commuters who were trapped in the train without light, drink and food!

So I am pretty sure her next move, sorry guys, hate to disappoint you here but she won't be resigning, will be to introduce a new retail experience for train commuters:

Drumroll please..... tada tada........

Photos lifted from various sources off the net

What were you expecting? Think of it. Food and drinks are banned in the trains. Train break down and commuters get stuck in train for hours. Hot, thirsty and tired. What better way to alleviate their suffering than to sell drinks and maybe snacks to these poor souls and make more money for the SMRT.

Brilliant isn't it? Now you know why she is not resigning. She is too busy coming with new retail ideas for the SMRT!

Food in Cambodia

2011-12-26T21:37:00.001+08:00

I had expected the food to be like Thai food but was really surprised that it was more Chinese and Vietnamese than Thai and certainly very palatable to our taste bud. But unfortunately, the food are not so cheap with an average meal being about US$3.

Vietnamese "popiah". This seems to be on the menu of practically every restaurant.

Cambodia Barbecue. Actually it is a combination of steamboat and barbecue. They use a piece of pork lard to grease the metal portion and small slices of various type of meat are then placed on it to cook. Our this set comes with crocodile meat although we couldn't differentiate which was which. Some other stalls also serve theirs with snake meat!The soup at the side is for the vegetables.

At another place, the barbecue steamboat came with these lot of vegetables that looks really like the wild plants in the forest. And they were rather tough and frankly not very suitable for the steamboat.

The national food of Cambodia seems to be this beautifully wrapped food basket which contains a not very spicy curry known locally as "Amok". The amok mostly comes with fish slices and vegetables but there are several options for chicken and pork.

One of the more common street food found in Cambodia is barbecue. The real thing - not the steamboat type. We had a nice feast of prawn, steak, squid but it was rather pricey US$15, if I remember correctly, for these lot.

Another very common food everywhere and which we had many different version over the course of the few days we were there was Vietnamese beef noodle. This particular one was from a street stall in Phnom Penh and was delicious.

We also had "you tiao" and roti prata with banana, 2 food that is found commonly all over Singapore as well.

Certainly, I don't think any Singaporean will starve or miss Singapore food in Cambodia.

Scams in Cambodia

2011-12-23T21:26:00.000+08:00

The situation in Cambodia is much better than Thailand. Here, one can take the tuk tuk or taxi without worries. Most places are safe to walk alone even at night. Only worries might be the land mines:)

But there are a still a few scams floating around though.

Most blatant is the "Fish Massage" which is everywhere.

But instead of using real "spa" fish ie Garra Rufa which is a type of sucker fish, here the Cambodia used another type of fish.

The real thing

The fish a sort of tilapia or cichlids used by the Cambodian. The problem with these fish is that they do not eat the dead skin like the real spa fish but are simply nibbling away at the human fresh!

The fake fisb

At least the fish scam cost only US$1 and maybe some loss of skin and fresh. Not a big deal unless you suay suay go and catch some diseases from the water.

This young lady was carrying a baby and going around being “friendly” with tourists. We had been pre-warned by our guesthouse owner. The modus operandi is to tell the tourists that she has no money to buy milk powder for the baby. To alleviate the suspicion of tourist who do not want to hand over cash, she will suggest that the tourist pop in to one of the nearby convenient store and buy a can of milk for the baby. When the transaction is done and the tourist is satisfied that he/she has done his/her good deed for the day, and after he/she walk off, the lady will return to the store and sell the milk powder back to the store at a discount. She gets her money and the store gets a small cut. Win win situation for everybody except the tourist!

Most tourists to Cambodia know that the country is improvised with many orphans and war victims. Not wanting to hand over cash to the many aid organizations around and have it misappropriated by officials, most tourists will bring over stationeries etc for the schools and orphanages. We too did the same thing lugging over a stack of stationeries. And we were so happy when we saw this school just 3 doors away from our guesthouse.

It claims to be a school for the poor children in the neighbourhood and every evening when we walked back to our guesthouse, we could see tourists happily conducting English lessons for the children. So we handed over our supplies to them.

Our joy was rather short-lived though when we were told the school was a scam. How so? Firstly, the school purports to offer schooling for the poor children in the neighbourhood who cannot afford to go to normal paid school. If that was so, why was classes conducted only in the night and not day? Secondly, most of the children cycle to the school. If they were really poor, they would not have been able to afford the bicycle. And thirdly, the area the school is in is considered one of the more affluent neighbourhood. There are no poor families in the area!

Apparently, what the school did was to entice tourist to contribute cash; there is a huge collection box at the entrance; or supplies which they could sell off to shops. So we were one of the suckers.

But considering the extent of the scams in Thailand, Cambodia’s scam pales in comparison. At least for the time being.

Angkor Wat

2011-12-20T00:08:00.000+08:00

Our main purpose of this trip was to run the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon but of course just seeing the temples during the run is definitely not enough and so we made a return visit after the race.

We only had half a day so our friendly tuk tuk driver brought us to the main highlights of the immense complex

Angkor Wat. This has got to be the most famous of the temple complex in Cambodia.

Angkor Thom/Bayon. I find this more interesting than Angkor Wat. There are a series of temples here - the central temple being Bayon. Climbing up and down the place was all joke and the sidekick who has a fear of height was terrified of climbing all the way up to the top but she did it!

Ta Prohm.This old temple is most unique. It is slowly being destroyed by the giant trees whose roots are uprooting and covering all the buildings.

Finally, instead of bringing us to the more popular Phom Bakheng for the obligatory sunset photoshoot, our tuk tuk driver brought us to an alternative place, Pre Rup which was easier for us to climb up.

Unfortunately, the place overlooks a vast forest which means the photo could have been taken anywhere and the cloud had to act as a party pooper and covered up the sun so nicely that all I could get was these 2 streaks of sunlight.

The rest of the photos here

Siem Reap

2011-12-17T00:00:00.000+08:00

We didn't have much time in Siem Reap but we managed to spend half a day visiting the Floating Village, Kampong Pluk, where the villagers stay in floating houses on the Tonle Sap.

There is even a school and a temple!

Children playing in the water. I can't imagine seeing a scene like that in Sg!

After the boat ride, we went on a temple hopping spree.

First on the list was the Wat Preah Inkosei, which was supposed to predate Angkor but what we saw was a lot of Stupas.

Next we walked to Wat Bo, one of the oldest temple in Cambodia.

Next up was Wat Dam Nak, a former royal palace

These 3 temples had been extensively made over yet retained some of the old structures. Not so, for the next temple, Wat Prom Rath which although the oldest in Siem Reap has bee so extensivelyt madeover, it looks so new!

Next: Angkor Wat

Phnom Penh

2011-12-14T00:00:00.000+08:00

We have only a few days to spend in Cambodia yet we took the 6 hours + journey overland from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh just so that we can see the Killing Fields. I know there is something morbid about wanting to look at death but this genocide in Cambodia was huge and something that I think everybody need to see to understand how deviant and cruel human beings can be.

The is is entrance to the Killing Fields, officially known as the Choeung Ek Genocidial Center.

Part of the place was so beautiful and tranquil that if not for the various signs and pits all over, I can never imagine the horrors that have been committed there.

Inside the stupa at the entrance is where all the remains of the victims of the Khmer Rouge are stored.

Just one of the many signs in the Centre telling the stories of what behalf the poor Cambodians.

From one Killing Fields to a Killing School, we went to the Genocide Museum or Tuol Sleng Prison. This was a school that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and turned into a prison where the prisoners are tortured in the day and driven to Choeung Ek to be killed at night

A school exercise station converted into a gallow used to suspend prisoner upside down and where they are dipped into the pot of cess below.

Some of the remains of the prisoners

Seeing is believing and it is hard to believe that any human can be so depraved that he or they can order the death of so many innocent peoples. I hope the on-going trial of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders will bring a proper closure to the victim's families and the perpetrators will receive their due whether from the Cambodian authorities or from Power higher up!

Next: Back to Siem Reap

Long Route to Phnom Penh

2011-12-10T22:00:00.001+08:00

I can't believe that we took almost the same time it takes 1 to fly to the USA for us to go to Phnom Penh from Singapore!

We had booked the Silkair flight from Singapore to Siem Reap instead of flying in direct to Phnom Penh which would have taken just over 2 hours. But since we were returning to Singapore from Siem Reap and it was much cheaper to have a return ticket from the same airport, we had no choice but to fly in to Siem Reap first. The problem was, while the flight itself direct to Siem Reap also takes about 2 hours, this flight we took has to fly via Da Nang airport, Vietnam with a 40 minutes transit. Naturally, to add to our discomfort, our flight took off late by about 20 minutes from Singapore, took off another 40 minutes late from Da Nang and landed late in Siem Reap. All in, we were delayed by about an hour and a half with the flight itself taking over 7 hours!

Nevermind, we were met at the airport by our friendly tuk tuk driver who took us to our hotel in Siem Reap. But we were suppose to go straight to Phnom Penh, so the friendly guy at the hotel or rather guesthouse, allowed us to bath in one of the room and we then took the 12midnight bus to Phnom Pehn. Sadly, like our flight, the 6 hours bus ride turned out to be more like 71/2 hours. Sighed! So all in, it took us over 14 hours just to reach Phnom Penh from Singapore.

Speaking of our bus ride, this was our ride. Looks ordinary enough?

Imagine our surprise when we climbed inside to see 2 rows of bunk beds!

We got our beds but it was a rather uncomfortable sleep though. The bus was quite stuffy and smelly and the blanket that was provided didn't look very clean. But it was a midnight trip and everybody including the many Caucasians just hunker down and make the best out of it.

Next: Phnom Penh

Market Street Carpark Building

2011-11-30T23:29:00.000+08:00

This used to be a familiar sight along Cecil Street. There are only 2 buildings of this nature in town where the dominant usage is car parking and not retail. The other building is the Golden Shoe Carpark building which ironically is on Market Street itself.

The Market Street Carpark building was build in 1964 which made it the oldest carpark building in Singapore. This is a picture of it taken just after it was built.

Picture from the National Archive

In 2008, the building got a reprieve from the demolition man when the building owner, Capitacommercial Trust decided to defer the redevelopment of the building. Instead, it embarked on a facelift which resulted in the now familiar orange sight for office workers in the area in the past 2 years. They even added some food outlets on the ground floor and spiced up the few shops along the front.

Sometime this year up came the hoarding and down went the building.

Now you see it, now you don't. The empty space where the building used to stand and now you can see right through to the buildings behind.

Coming up in its place will be another high rise office block all the more to capitalise on the demand for office spaces in the area. The new building will cost an estimate $1.4 billion.

Picture from Capitacommercial Trust's website.

And those hoping that the building will replace the 700 car park lots, dream on. According to the information from their website, the building will only have 170 - 180 car park lots.

Tampines Eco Green 2

2011-11-27T09:59:00.000+08:00

During my recent temporary lay off from running, with time to kill while waiting to recover, been going around taking pictures. This trip, the Princess and me, went over to Tampines Eco Green. So far I have only ran there never really walk around in it and look at the flora and fauna. And it was my loss. There are so many beautiful creature of nature!

Definitely worth a visit. For people who drive there, park across the road at the HDB carparks next to Sun Plaza Park or at the multi storey carpark at Tampines Ave 9. By public transport, take the MRT train to Tampines and transfer to the feeder bus no 293 or take bus no 28, alight at the first bus stop along Tampines Ave 9 and walk to the entrance at Tampines Ave 12.

Barrier Free?

2011-11-24T00:23:00.000+08:00

The HDB said that a $22m programme to make most HDB estate barrier free will be completed by end of the year. Kudos to that but is it really so? Providing the physical feature is one thing but did HDB or whoever came up with the design think through the whole process?

Let looks at this example. The following picture is a picture of a typical overhead bridge that was built in the late seventies and eighties. To go up the bridge, one has to climb up the flight of staircase which means most elderly will balk at the gigantic steps to be taken and wheelchair and handicapped will not be able to cross.

Photo taken from thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com

So the new generation of bridges that came along features ramp. Great right? Unfortunately no. Take a look at the next picture. It feature a long ramp approximately 30 metres. And that is just one portion of it. There is another ramp next to it. Some bridges like the one across the PIE to Bedok Reservoir has 4 ramps on each side. Now which elderly person will want to walk almost 200 metres just to get to the top of the bridge? And wheelchair friendly? Yes but only if someone is pushing it. Otherwise, I don't see how any wheelchair bound person will be able to push himself/herself up all those inclines!

Then we have these nice sheltered walkways connecting the various HDB blocks to amenities and public transport. But somebody forget to tell these cyclists that this is not a bicycle parking bay. Just look at the number of bicycles chained to the railing! How is any elderly persons or handicapped person who need to hold on to the railings going to walk through that tangle of bicycles! The HDB and town council should seriously clamp down on these illegal parking otherwise it defeats the purpose of having all these barrier free features.

Last but not least, the authorities also decided to level the curb to make it easier for those in wheel chairs to move around. But did anybody tell this freaking selfish motorist that it is not meant for his personal parking space! By parking his car on the pavement, made easy by the removal of the curb, he is forcing pedestrians to walk on the road!

Barrier free by end of the year? I doubt.

Teo Heng Teochew Porridge

2011-11-21T00:00:00.000+08:00

My absolute favourite Teochew Porridge. But unfortunately, one that I can only get to eat once in a while because like all typical Teochew porridge, it's is quite pricey. There are 2 stalls, one at Hong Lim Complex and another at Amoy Street.

Amoy Street

Hong Lim. Signboard changed after the upgrading of the hawker centre

Unlike the other Teochew Porridge stalls which has a wide variety of foods, what Teo Heng has is less limited but it more than make up what it lack in quantity with quality! The food they served can be divided into 2: Black and White. The white are the fishcake, fishball, sotong, tofu and their specialty taukwa pok.

The black are the duck, braised pork and inards, and the best semi-hard boiled eggs in the whole world! They way they do the egg, the york is not hard and dry but a bit runny and it taste wonderful. They used to use duck eggs before switching to chicken egg which is not quite as good but still wonderful!

They also serve a mean salted vegetables which is usually served over a steam fish. Talking about fish, the fish they served is a must try but be warned - it can be pretty expensive.

A typical lunch for me (as picture above) without fish is about $5.00 to $6.00 and with fish, it is usually at least $10.00 per person which is why I only patronise the stall like once every 2 weeks. But judging from how early they sold out, I don't think they miss my business.

Flower Dome and World Orchid Show

2011-11-18T21:27:00.001+08:00

Had an opportunity to visit the Flower Dome at the new Gardens by the Bay at Marina South. The Gardens is still under construction and only the Flower Dome is open for a preview in conjunction with the World Orchid Show.

Getting to the Flower Dome is via a pedestrian bridge from the Marina Bay Sands. And what a walk! There was a nice view of the Singapore Flyer and the open grounds of the Gardens.

The view of the Singapore Flyer from Marina Bay Sands

The view of the Gardens by the Bay

The Flower Dome was a wonder! It is a giant glasshouse with humidity and temperature control and walking inside was like walking in a temperate country. There were all sorts of plants including bottle trees from Australia, thousand year old olive trees from the Mediterranean and lots and lots of cactus from all over.

The spacious interior of the Flower Dome

After the nice walk outside, we headed indoor to the World Orchid Show. This is a biggie show, held for the first time in Singapore.

More photos here

Belacan Fish and German Pork Knuckle

2011-11-12T19:48:00.001+08:00

I have been going to Bedok North Blk 85 for the longest time. But when I go there, it is usually for the minced meat noodles, chicken wing and satay and seldom anything else. Until one day a friend told me about a stall there that sells pork knuckle.

One evening, while there, and after ordering the usual, I suddenly remembered the recommendation and went looking for it. The good thing was I found the stall but unfortunately having already order the usual stuff and it being supper, figured my stomach had no more place for the pork knuckle. But the next best thing was that I discovered that they were selling this:

Ok I know the picture doesn't look too appetitising but this was a belacan fish! The last time I had eaten it was when my dear beloved MIL, God bless her soul, cooked it! M absolutely loves it and maybe it reminds us of her mum so I bought one and it was absolutely the best. Fried to perfection, with just the right amount of belacan neatly placed into the fish, it was comfort food at its best! At $3.50 per fish, it was practically a steal considering that nobody seems to be selling it anymore!

But we have yet to taste the pork knuckle. So we went back again. I had expected the usual braised pork knuckle but instead it was the German style fried pork knuckle. The stall certainly has an unusual mix of food - from curry to the typical western food to the belacan fish and the German pork knuckle.

I had tried several version of pork knuckle from German food outlets and zhi-zhar stalls but this one at $18.50 for a set with coleslaw and fries was the best value for money. Without the sides, it cost only $16.50. So was it worth the money? The pork knuckle was deep fried, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. There wasn't too much fat though which was a disappointment to me since the skin and the dangling wobbling fat was what I loves the most about pork knuckle.

The stall also serves several type of curry. We ordered the vegetable curry to go along with the fish and the pork knuckle. It was rather normal although M thought it was great. But I guess one can't be a good at everything.

Bintan Agro Beach Resort

2011-11-09T22:53:00.001+08:00

Over the long weekend, found myself at the Bintan Agro Beach Resort. I thought it was part of the Bintan group of Resorts but unfortunately or fortunately, it was not. Why?

Night view of the main lobby and a wee little swimming pool

It wasn't really much of a resort. The website looks good but look can be deceiving as we found out too late. Firstly, it was small. Too small for my liking. I had brought along my running gear intending to do a nice round around the resort but the only runnable route was a 800 metres stretch of pavement.

The signboard seems to suggest a whole lot of facilities but most of them are the name of the blocks of rooms.

The accommodation was rather basic and looks run down. There were only 2 restaurants serving rather mediocre food! In fact, for the time we were there, we had the typical buffet lunch and dinner that back in Sg we normally cater during family gatherings. So after dinner on Sunday evening, a group of us took a cab and went to Tanjung Pinang for seafood!

Our 2nd dinner venue!

There wasn't much things to do too. Apart from a nice beach, there was a spa but it was fully booked by the time we checked in. There was a horse cart ride at $10.00 a ride, a gym which was not air conditioned. There was also a "mini" zoo which comprised 3 pathetic cages of rabbits, and some parrots. There was also a "plantation which was actually more of a vegetable plot with several different type of vegetables.

Horse cart riding!

Its only saving grace was the beach. The almost 300 metres stretch of beach had nice clear water and was so shallow one could walk 200 metres out and the water will still be up to the thigh at most! The exciting part was the water sports which apart from the kayaking was the "skiing" on various contraptions pull by speedboat.

Nice beach & clear sky

Inflatable boat skiing!

Apart from the beach, the only other saving grace was that the prices in SGD were rather reasonable compared to Bintan Resorts. But apart from lazing around and getting burnt to a crisp in the hot sun, there isn't really anything else to do. After all, one can only do so much skiing and that again will have to depend on the tides too!

Will I visit the place again? Honestly no, unless it is 100% free.

Swatow Seafood Restaurant

2011-11-05T00:00:00.000+08:00

After watching Buffet Buffet 2 on Channel 8, decided that since I was going to Toa Payoh, to check out the dim sum buffet at Swatow Seafood Restaurant. That despite the rather negative review on Hungrygowhere.

We were early and didn't qualify for the high tea buffet which starts at 3pm. But since we were there and we reckoned we can't eat that much, we went in anyway. The place is old style in design but aesthetically it was rather modern. There were waitress pushing the traditional dim sum trolleys and service was fairly decent despite the reviews on Hungrygowhere. Maybe it is because it was not the dim sum buffet time and the crowd was not that big.

We started off with several trays of unusual looking steam dim sum.

This is an interesting looking dim sum. Suppose to be seafood inside.

One very unusual dish that they have is the pork cartilage jerky. This is no longer available in Singapore. The last time I tried this was maybe 15 years ago when I bought them from a shop in Bangkok, Chinatown!

They also serve the pork knuckle jelly.

One of their specialty is this durian whatever.

The egg tart were not ready yet so we settled for the orhnee tart which was simply yummy.

Overall, I am pleased with the place. Service was not too bad. Price wise, it was rather decent at about $3.50 per item. Will I be back? Certainly as long as I find enough kakis.

Admiralty Park

2011-11-02T01:00:00.000+08:00

Have not been to this part of Singapore before and really didn't know what to expect. So to find out, the only thing is to make my way there first. Was surprised at the beautiful carved out trail there. A bit short only about 2km but it was fantastic. A nice place to run and a nice place to look at nature.

Was not there to run (this was during my rehab period) just walking around taking pictures. The Princess took the SLR and I ended up with the compact. Still, took a few rather nice photos.

A stream running through the park

A skink and there were plenty of them there

A swarm of flies devouring some insects

A little birde

A trumpet shape leaf

A changeable lizard

Across the road is another park that overlooks the Causeway and right onto the shoreline of Johore

Pork Jelly and Shark Meat

2011-10-30T20:25:00.000+08:00

There are not many place left in Singapore selling traditional food. This stall here on the 2nd floor of Hong Lim Complex in Chinatown is one of 3 left in Singapore still selling pork trotter jelly and cold shark meat. The other 2 stalls are in Smith Street Chinatown and Jalan Berseh Cooked Food Centres.

The pork knuckle jelly and the shark meat

The pork knuckle jelly

The Shark Meat

I like the chilli dip and the peanut mix that comes with the 2 items. Put them together with the yam rice and wow! An absolutely satisfying lunch!

In addition to selling the pork jelly and shark meat, the stall also sell braised pork and,kway chap and Kiamchye duck. The kiamchye duck is one of the best I ever tried and it sells out pretty fast.

Punggol Waterway

2011-10-26T11:44:00.000+08:00

After many years of waiting, I think the people of Punggol are finally one step closer to the vision of Punggol 21 that the gahmen announced like a zillion years ago. After last year opening of the Punggol Promenade, the Punggol Waterway is now completed! The 4.2km waterway stretch across the edge of Punggol from Punggol Way to Sungei Serangoon. It connects Sungei Punggol and Sungei Serangoon and was build at a cost of S$234m (+/- a couple of million). So is it worth the money?

Was there to take part in the Punggol Waterway Fiesta and first impression, I must admit I was impressed. Just like the Alexandra Canal, the HDB has created a beautiful little stream that wound through different section of the park. Each part of the park has a different theme with something for everybody including a place to catch the setting sun, a sand play and water play area for children. There is even watersport available!

One thing that irks me about our public parks is that Nparks or whoever is in charge of the project loves to cut down every single tree leaving the area bereft of shade. Then they plant those tiny little saplings which will turn eons to grow into matured tree and so in the end the park become underutilised in the day due to our hot hot weather.

Anyway, back to the waterway. The Punggol MRT station is just 10 minutes walk to the start of the waterway here

Shelters of all designs are provided along the entire stretch. Some are position right up the slope providing a nice view of the setting sun

There are also various crossings like this one along the way to cross to either side of the bank

A small section of the waterway with the HDB flat behind it.

Wonder where this uncompleted portion leads to?

Looking back where we came from

Another view of the waterway. Look no railings at the side!

There are fountains all over providing circulation for the water

Participants of the Fiesta being guided through the park

Kayaking!

Beautiful place. Worth a visit especially those with young children. But keep an eye on the children, go in the late afternoon or early evening when its not so hot!

Chinese Opera

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000+08:00

Have not seen a Chinese opera or wayang in Singapore for a long time. So was excited when I came across one at Chinatown. However, hope of getting a closer look was dashed when the way to the front of the stage was blocked by this burly broke who asked for a ticket! And since I didn't have one, could only stand from the side of the road and took this snap with my mobile phone.

I believe the opera was staged more for the "enjoyment" of the deity, whichever that was for this particular occasion, and I don't see why the organiser should want to charge admission. After all, there was hardly anybody watching the opera from the paid seats. It was day time after all. There were however, a few old folks who were standing, squatting where I was, in the sun, trying to catch the show and the organiser should have just let them in so that these poor folks don't have to stand in the hot afternoon sun.

But I guess not. Sad to say, the opera like everything else here in Singapore, had gone commercialised.

What ails our Toilets?

2011-10-20T22:58:00.001+08:00

I mean public toilets. Not my house toilets. Toilets that are used by the public especially those in food centre, coffee shops, parks etc. Singapore has a first class economy. The WTO or World Toilet Organisation is headquartered here.Yet despite all these, we have 3rd world toilets. Okay maybe except for the zoo, bird park, airport and a few posh malls, the rest of the toilets here are craps (pun intended)!

Just go to any parks on a weekend and visit the toilets and you know what I mean. I was at Admiralty Park recently. This is a pretty new park. Yet the toilet which was next to a restaurant was a major stinkhole! The basins were so dirty. And let's not forget the toilets in the coffee shop and food courts! And I still shuddered when I recalled the time I walked into a shower cubicle at the then newly renovated toilet at MacRitchie Reservoir and saw a pile of shit on the floor!

So why is it that Singapore cannot get its toilet act together? If Japan, Korea, Hongkong can why not Singapore? Let me try and list down the reasons:

Public toilet at Punggol Promenade

1. The design of our public toilet. Firstly, those in open areas like park are not lit up in the day and the only light going into the toilet are from the small ventilation vents at the top of the wall. A bright airy toilet somehow will inspire people to take more care of it. Just like dark gloomy places attract cockroaches, damp dark gloomy toilet somehow cause people to not bother too much with the cleanliness .act like cockroaches. Just look at the toilets at the East Coast Park in the day time. They are so dark and gloomy! And the location of the hand dryer! Where are they found? Right on the other wall away from the basin. After washing the hand, you walk to the dryer and in the few steps you take, the water will have dripped all over the floor. The result, wet floor! And what is it with those fancy wash basins that are so shallow the water just splash off onto the floor. The basin at MacRitchie is a good example! Then there is the lack of a proper store room for the cleaner. So all the cleaning tools are dumped all over resulting in a very cluttered looking toilet which again doesn't inspire people to keep it clean.

2. The cleaning crew. Have anybody seen how the cleaners clean the toilet? Just take a hose and spray water over the whole place including the wall and toilet bowls. The result is everything is all totally soak and people who want to use the toilet ends up squatting on the bowl cause you don't know whether the liquid on top is pee or water! And wet floors meant footprint all over. Also, most cleaning company do not provide their workers with proper cleaning detergents. Most of them simply give a perfunctory scrub to the toilet bowls and the stains start building up faster than you can pee. The other problem is the lack of toilet paper so people who are too stingy to buy the minuscule paper from the vending machine ends up using all sort of paper including newspaper which ends up choking the toilet!

3. Finally the user. There are 3 main groups of people I blame for the state of our toilets

- The beer uncles. You know those old men who gather at coffeeshop and drink the whole night or even day long. These are the people who will spit everywhere, throw litter all over and never wash their hand after going to the toilet. And they are the main culprits for the newspaper in the toilet bowl and wet floor caused by their pee flying in all directions! They are the one who grew up in kampungs and the older buildings where the toilets facilities are not that great and their habits have continued into their old age. These uncles account for most of the dirty toilets in coffeeshops and food centres. I know these people all too well because my FIL is one of them!

- The pampered brats. These are like the beer uncles. Just much younger. People who have never had to do any housework or cleaning caused there is always the maid or parents to do it for them. These people think that there will always be somebody to do the little work for them so they do not flush the toilet, do not throw the tissue in the dustbin and generally leave a mess after using the toilet. They are the heck care and the can't be bothered! Somebody will clean up after them. These people are responsible for the filthy toilets at the fast food outlets, the parks and malls.

- Finally there is the hygiene freak! Yes people who are obsessed with cleanliness. Why do I say so? Cause they are so freaking clean and scare of germs that they will not touch the toilet flush so they do not flush the toilet. They will squat on the toilet bowl because God knows what is on the toilet seat. And they throw the used hand wipes on the floor because they dare not touch the dustbin cover. These people will even teach their children to pee and shit on the floor and not into the bowl because it is too dirty! I should know cos we used to have such a guy in the office and he would just leave the used tissue on the wash basin because the dustbin has a swing lid and he dare not touch it. He also wash his hands so vigorously that the water splashes all over creating a mess all over

Will we ever have clean public toilets in Singapore? Sure, just as long as we have a legion of foreign workers on standby 24/7 to clean up, like at the airport. Otherwise, hold your breathe, do it and don't leave a mess!

Tew Chew Street Tew Chew Porridge

2011-10-16T00:03:00.001+08:00

I loves to eat porridge and I have it for lunch almost like 3 times a week. This is one of my favourite Teochew porridge stall but also the one I frequent the least due to its distance from the office.

With a very unoriginal name, the name itself can tell of its origin. Tew Chew Street presumably is a street in old Chinatown where the Teochew stays. Anybody know which exact street is it? So anyway, this stall is now in Chinatown Smith Street Food Centre. To find it, you got to look hard because it is quite non-nondescript and dinky. There is only a small display case unlike the other normal Teochew porridge stall in say Geylang or Havelock Road with its long array of food.

But what it lacks in look and variety, it more than make up for with its very original porridge and fares. The porridge here is not the watery type. The rice grain are cooked till it is soggy but yet firm enough. It is almost sticky like glue. Apparently according to a newspaper report some time ago, only this stall cooks the porridge this way! The porridge are kept in an earthen pot and ladled out upon order. And this is absolutely the best porridge ever.

Of the limited food available, there are the usual steamed yet kept until cold fish, fish cake, squid, cabbage, haebihiem(spicy dried shrimps0 and minced meat. Its specialities include the 3 layer meat but this is served not braised but steam/boiled with a generous helping of chincalok. It also has the black soya shark meat which is my absolute favourite. Oh and did I mention the pig trotter?

There is usually a steady stream of customers, mostly old fogeyies like me, and the food sells out fast. Best to go before 12.30 pm to get to pick from more varieties. And yes, one final difference with the modern day Teochew porridge stall. It is cheap!

Bukit Brown Cemetery 2

2011-10-11T22:44:00.000+08:00

Bukit Brown has more than grave and tomb stones. In fact everywhere we walked, we can hear birds chirping away. There are beautiful flowers everywhere and plenty of insects. I managed to snap a few pictures although it sure was darned difficult to get a good close up without a macro lens.

Noni fruit

Bukit Brown Cemetery 1

2011-10-08T21:39:00.001+08:00

Have been reading a lot in the papers about Bukit Brown Cemetery and its impending 'destruction' to make way for a road and private development. I guess even the dead cannot be left in peace in small little Singapore. Anyway, with the running curtailed for the time being, managed to find some time to go down (twice in fact) to see the place for myself.

First thing that we saw and which is one of the most recognised landmark of the place is the main gate. The gate is now permanently open. Look neglected and it evoked memories of those cemeteries in the Western movies. Luckily we were there in broad daylight.

The Cemetery Gate. A little bit of effects to make it look its age

Once inside, I was surprised at the vastness of the place. Other than the many graves that dotted the whole left, on the left side of the road was a sprawling piece of forest. To many developers, this would definitely be prime real estate. No wonder the government is so eager to redevelop the place. After all, the cemetery by itself is a unproductive place. Not only does it not generate income, the government has to incur cost to maintain the place, although from the look of the vegetation growing wild, they have obviously not been doing much! I can't imagine how much the gahmen will make if they slice up the place and sell it bit by bit to developers to build 'angmoh chue' instead of the current 'kwee chue'.

Just one view of the green

The graves of many pioneers of Singapore are located here. Among them are Lim Nee Soon, Gan Eng Seng, Ong Some of them seems to be in very good condition but some were so run down or overgrown that it cannot be spotted.

A neglected grave

An extremely well maintained grave

One unique feature of the bigger Chinese graves are that there are usually some sort of figures "guarding"the graves or "serving" the dead. Like the following:

A maid

A Celestial Lion or is it monkey?

And probably unique to these region, a Sikh guard.

Outside the Cemetery gate, there was this bare tree and there were many birds on it. Again, it reminds me of a scene from one of those horror movies.

I think a lot of people will be thinking - what's the big fuss? It's just a cemetery. So what if it is gone? But having gone there and seen the place, I think it will be a shame to lose such an important place with its rich history. Erecting a plaque or monument in another place is not going to be the same. But sadly, our ever pragmatic gahmen will definitely go ahead with its plan. After all, dead people cannot write complain letter or create Facebook pages to protest. Or can they?

Continue here

CB Leave

2011-10-05T00:02:00.000+08:00

A long long time ago, while I was serving NS, one fine day during a camouflage training session as a recruit, the trainer shown us this plant and told us it is a no-no to use its leave as camouflage material.

I recognised its leaves as those that are used for wrapping nasi-lemak. But the instructor than proceeded to tell us the name of the plant: the CB plant! I am sure botanists are going to scratch their heads over the name. The people in the know will be able to identify it as Dillenia suffruticosa or by its common name Simpoh Air and definitely not a CB plant. What in the world is a CB plant? The trainer than proceeded to show us why it is called the CB plant:

This is a close up of one of the leave

Right at the base of the leave where the main stem meets the stalk there is a sort of gap:

Press it open and this is what you get:

Errr get the picture now? No? Still don't get it? Do I really have to spell it out?

CB is the abbreviated version of a Hokkien (local dialect) word for a certain part of the female anatomy. Now do you get it?

Johore Bahru Bau & Tim Sum

2011-10-01T00:32:00.001+08:00

Almost all Singaporeans are familiar with the Malaysian's tim sum and especially their version of bao or pau.

So I was excited when I chanced upon this shop in Changi Village that proudly proclaimed "Johor Bahru Pau" one evening. Will it taste like those in Malaysia? As it was about 5pm in the afternoon, there were no customers in the shop but at that time I didn't feel like eating what to me is "breakfast" food. So I left it for another time which came just the week after.

A closer look at the various signages at the shop and it was rather promising.

There was the Amy Yip bau. Amy Yip or 葉子楣 for the uninitiated was an Hongkong Actress in the late eighties and early nineties who was more well known for her pau errr I mean bosom than her acting. So the pau are obviously named after a certain part of her anatomy.

Then there was a Chinese paper article with the famous Bruce Lee tucking into what presumably was from the parent shop in Malaysia?

So the pau and tim sum must be good? 3 of us sat down to eat. But I had these nagging feeling that something must be wrong. It was about 10am prime breakfast time and yet there was no other customer. The mainland Chinese manning the store seems very disinterested even when we were peering at the posters and ads. In the end, we ordered 1 Amy Yip pau, 1 tray of siew mai and 1 har kow just to try. When the sidekick bought back the food from the counter, I knew straightaway it was a dud . There were no proper fork for us, just toothpick and the chilli sauce were those packet type. Bad sign. True enough, the siew mai and har kow were too salty. The pau was too soft and the whole skin just gave way when we picked it up. Certainly it was nowhere close to the Johore Bahru pau that I tasted at those pit stops in Malaysia. And if I were to compare it with our own Gozilla or even the Red Star pau, this Amy Yipc could have been totally flattened by Gozilla!

No wonder the shop was empty both time I was there. At this rate, I think the next time I go back to the area, the shop should have close down by then. And good riddance to bad ~~rubbish~~ food.

Not so Old to New

2011-09-27T22:28:00.001+08:00

Everybody knows that most of the old pre-war houses in Chinatown have been torn down and in its place have risen nameless concrete high rise building that bears no semblance to the past and is a clone of buildings all over the world.

But in the name of development, a fair number of post war high rise buildings have also been torn down and in its place have risen newer and higher buildings.

This was the old Robina House. I remembered MacDonald had its first CBD outlet here in eighties.

In its place now is a gold color shiny One Shenton.

Just around the corner at McCallum Street, there used to be this building known as Nat-West

Now it is a Residential cum Commercial Building called The Clift.

Another one that bite the dust was this popular building where one of the oldest Singapore Turf Club outlet used to be - The Asia Chamber building.

It was demolished, a worker was killed in the process and is now the Tokio Marine Building.

Chia Seeds vs Basil Seeds

2011-09-24T13:59:00.004+08:00

Most superfood are actually very normal food that we consume almost without any thoughts and become superfood only when some angmoh company decided to teach us Asian and the world how to eat them and make them; the angmoh company get rich in the process. So we have mangosteen juice costing $80 a bottle, acai berries and Chinese Wolfberries (Goji) costing an arm and leg. Then there is Chia Seeds - one of the latest superfood. Thankfully, the Chia Seeds appears to be pretty reasonably priced in comparison, about S$15 for 250 gm. And even more so, Basil Seeds have not gotten on to the spotlight of the angmoh and is still cheaply available.

Chia Seeds (image from Wikipedia)

Chia Seeds (Silvia Hispanic) originally comes from Mexico but Australia is the biggest producer in the world. Chia Seeds was popularised by Christopher McDougall in his book "Born to Run" and has become some sort of cult food for runners. Chia Seeds looks a little like sesame seeds and comes in either brown, black, white or grey. It expands when soak in liquid and is commonly added to pudding, juices and salad.

Chia Seeds are rich in Omega 3 and calcium and according to some websites, a respectable amount of antioxidants.

Another website list the benefit of Chia Seeds as:

Heart Health
Increase Energy
Relief From Rheumatoid Arthritis
Feeling Good
Anti Aging
Regulated Blood Pressure
Reducing Menopause Symptoms
Gastro-intestinal Health
Bone Health
Mental Health
Control Of Type ll Diabetes
Prenatal Health
Breast Health

Basil Seeds

Prostate Health

Wow, so great! Die die must try right?

Then, there is the Basil Seeds (Ocimum basilicum) Basil Seeds looks almost like the Chia Seeds but is found in the Mediterranean and Asia. In this region, it is consumed mainly by the Indian and is added to juice and desserts.

It supposedly have antioxidant, antiviral and antimicrobial properties. Potentially it can be used to treat cancer. According to one website, it can aids in digestion, treats cold, cure respiratory disorder, is a stress reliever and is good for treatment of skin infection.

So there you have it. 2 super food that is cheap, easy to eat without needing any preparation and full of health benefits.

What are you waiting for? Add them when making jelly, agar agar, add to juice, tea, milk, sprinkle onto salad, bread, throw them into rice, side dishes etc.

NB: Information obtained mainly from Wikipedia.

Mellben Seafood Pasir Ris

2011-09-20T22:02:00.001+08:00

Have always wanted to try the famous Mellben Seafood in Toa Payoh but has never found the courage and time to brave the crowd. Fortunately, here in Pasir Ris, there is a branch of the famous seafood restaurant. And after moving here for over a year, finally found the time to go down and try the food.

We ordered Mom's favourite, the cereal prawn.

Also, there house specialty, the tofu. It came with a nice thick sauce and plenty of chye poh. This was good.

And of course, what we came for. The crab. We had this curry black pepper crab which was super spicy. And the lady had asked whether we want normal spicy or extra spicy. Thank goodness, we went only for normal.

Everybody favourite - the crab noodle.

Personally, I didn't think the food was great. Certainly the expectation was much higher considering its pedigree, but maybe because this was a "branch", the standard is not the same and not as good. But price wise, for the 2 medium size crabs, the prawn, tofu and 1 vegetable, we paid just slightly over $120.00 which I think is pretty decent.

Little Critters

2011-09-17T22:00:00.000+08:00

With no running to do, my weekend has gotta kinda boring. So when M goes for her runs, tagged along (actually not much choice there, have to be the driver). So when the occasion calls for it, decided to turn photographer. First up was the TNF 100 Challenge 2nd Progressive Run at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.

While waiting for the runners to return, went around the trails looking for some subject to snap. First came across this little critter - a cotton stainer bug as I later found out. I also found out it was damn tough taking this sort of 'macro' photo without a proper macro lens.

Cotton Stainer Bug

I was using a 55 - 200mm len initially for the runners but for the bug, no matter how I zoom, or stand far away, I couldn't get a clear sharp picture. So I switch to a 28 - 55 mm len but didn't fare much better. I didn't dare go too near in case I scare off the fella but standing far away means I couldn't be able to get a nice close up. In the end, went with all the possible permutations of manual focus, auto marco, plain auto on manual mode, aperture priority, shutter priority, full auto and finally got one which I think is decent enough.

It was the same with this grasshopper. So the lesson to take away from this session was macro photography of nature needs a steady hand, a good set of macro or extension len of which I have neither and a tripod which I have but hate to carry around.

A weeks later was back at the same place. This time for some trail maintenance under the TNF 100 programme. While clearing part of the place, the Princess unearthed 2 little critters:

A hammerhead flatworm which we mistook for a slug.

Hammerhead Flatworm

A Black Eye Litter frog which we thought M killed with her changkul but fortunately did not.

Black Eye Litter Frog

Both these latter photos were taken with the Canon SX210 compact camera. Again, we found it wasn't easy taking such photos with the camera without the necessary accessories even if set on macro mode.

Mooncake Index 2011

2011-09-14T15:12:00.002+08:00

It's that time of the year for the Mooncake Index, first stated in 2007. For the life of me, I can't remember why there wasn't one last year. Maybe I didn't get any moon cakes? Not very likely though.

Anyway, the MCI reflects the state of my expenditure and the business given out and the corresponding reactions to the business doled out. On this count, the year appears to be a good year for businesses despite a drop in ad spending.

The first one (actually 2 of them) was from Crystal Jade.

Among the early bird to arrive at my desk was everybody favourite, the Champagne Truffles Mooncake from Raffles Hotel.

Next was this box of White Snowskin Champagne Truffles Mooncake from Li Bai of Sheraton Towers. Not bad, a close 2nd to the Raffles Hotel's Champagne Mooncake.

The box feature a nice jade like seal in the centre. Me think the box might possibly cost more than the moon cake itself.

Then there was this longish box from Royal China, Raffles Hotel again.

This one, I didn't even try and gave it to my colleagues.

This mooncake from Marriott has the most exquisite and unique box. It features a pull out drawer below the lid. How did the mooncake taste like? To be honest, I didn't know since I also just gave it away to my colleagues.

Finally, a box of multi-color fruit infused mooncakes from Goodwood hotel. I of course like the Durian mooncake but the Jackfruit was not bad and so was the lychee.

Pulau Tekong

2011-09-11T15:55:00.000+08:00

The last time I stepped onto Pulau Tekong was more than 20 years ago. And unlike the younger male of today, I did not do my Basic Military Training there. So I had very hazy memory of the island other than that it was bare and hot!

View of Tekong camp from the sea

Recently I managed to visit Pulau Tekong. No I wasn’t going there to do any soldiering. Me I too old for that. I was there to send off the Kid for his stint. D day for him and a good old walk down the memory lane for me.

The last time I went there, we were dumped onto Changi Beach from our 3-tonners and then herded like sheep up to a hot and open RPL. Once on Tekong, we had to march to the training ground. But nowadays, the soldiers are ferried in air conditioned passenger launch from a airy clean ferry terminal at Changi and whisked off straight to another equally spacious jetty which leads directly to the compound of the camp.

I don’t have any impression of the old camp there but certainly the camp on Tekong now squeaks squeaky clean. It looks a little like one of those nice holiday resort!

We were taken on a mini tour of the camp. Much has changed from my times. The parade square is tiled. The obstacle course has changed too. Now there are more obstacles and only a few favourite have remained. Training for the soldiers has changed too! Now, it seems there are no night training in Tekong and training ends the latest at 6.30pm. Is that true? Maybe the Thursday night story is real after all! Now, the soldier uses mini-note book instead of paper manual and honed their shooting skill in air condition comfort in an arcade like simulator room! Now, the mattress the soldier sleeps on is 6 inch thick, branded some more! Mosquitoes net are available for those who fear mosquitoes!

Swearing In

Last time we did our swearing oath at CMPB. Now the enlistees get to do it in air con comfort in an auditorium with all the parents, friends and relatives present.

The standard of army food has apparently improved. Even the canteen looks different. More spacious and seems like they no longer use those heavy compartmentalised metal tray.

Chicken Rice

We got to sample the day lunch of chicken rice which comprised one roasted chicken thigh and some cabbage. It also come with a small bowl of tofu soup. The food is certainly edible. Not great gourmet food but at least the normal food court standard. I remembered back in our days when beehoon taste like rubber band and the hot beverage that they poured out was whatever our mind wants it to beJ

All too soon, our little tour ended and we bid goodbye to the Kid and memory of what it was as they marched off from the tiled parade square to 2 years of learning how to defend the nation and become a man in the process.

Mariners' Corner Restaurant & Steak House

2011-09-07T23:40:00.000+08:00

I have heard of this place for a long long time since I started working in that area 25 years ago but have never went in there until now.

It was a quaint old place just like The Ship Restaurant or Shashlik. The decor is so dated. They used those cheapo plastic table mat and red and white checkered table cloth. Even the music they played were oldies. And best of all, the price of the food stayed almost in the 80's, that is to say, it was pretty decent.

Having survived for so long and in such an obscure corner of town, I reckoned the food must be pretty decent. Indeed even on a Sunday evening, there was a sizeable crowd in the small little diner. Unfortunately, that didn't turn out to be true. The portion was fairly big but taste wise, it was so so and nothing to shout about.

We ordered a plate of baked cheese which cost $16.00.

M and myself had a mixed combo set of prawn and steak costing $21.00. Paid another $4.30 for the set of soup, salad, dessert and drink. The sirloin steak was a whopping 160gm and the 2 prawns were huge!

The Kid had the T-bone steak. It was really big. And comes with its own side dish. And all for just $22.00

The Princess had a salmon and sausage combo

All in, the food wasn't that great but for its price and the cosy ambient, the place is well worth a visit. And service was excellent!

One Saturday Afternoon in Orchard Road

2011-09-04T13:31:00.000+08:00

One of the few times that I walked down Orchard Rd from Scotts Rd till Orchard Central. Along the way, pass this giant poster that has been attracting the wrong attention.

Some 'concerned' citizens have written to the press to complain that the ad is indecent! Read the complaints here and here. I looked left and right and mostly up and down and frankly I can't see anything indecent about it. However, I do agree that the ad should be removed. I thinkthe visual of a half naked male torso serve more to attract the 'other' group of 'guy'. Me think, they should replace it with something that is more soothing to the eyes like this ad:

Further down the road saw this super long queue snaking all the way from Orchard Building to Yan San Building.

What were they queuing for? To get into H&M, the latest international brand that opens its door in Singapore today. People even queue up overnight! All this to get into an outlet which is so common in other part of the world! Singaporean really got nothing better to do!

Chinatown - Preserving the Old

2011-09-02T22:31:00.000+08:00

The gahmen has been trying to preserve the old pre-war shophouses in Chinatown. However, somehow even after restoration, although the buildings now look nice and clean, somehow they have lost its charm.

This is the Nagore Durgha Shrine. It used to be so run down it was in danger of collapsing but after a few years of renovation, it is now opened as an Indian Muslim Heritage Centre. What is said is that it is now so commercialised and there is a cafe right in the middle of the hall!

Some of the shophouses have been restored by the private sector. This one is fairly well done although it is a pity the coffeeshop on the ground floor spoiled the ambience.

This one at the corner of McCallum Street and Amoy Street is so colorful it looks so weird and out of place! And the picture of the Chinese Junk!

Much better done is this building which is now a hotel known simply as The Club. Tastefully done, it looks even stately.

Another restored building turned hotel is the Scarlet Hotel at Eskrine Road just behind the Club Hotel. Very clean and sanitized!

Across the road at Maxwell Road is the restored Red Dot Traffic Building. This used to be the Traffic Police Headquarter. It now houses a design museum, offices and food outlets. The red color is unique. It makes the building stand out...like a sore thumb!

Last but not least is the former White House Building which is now known as the Maxwell Chambers. Again, it now houses an arbitration centre and food and beverages outlets but of the whole lot, I think the restoration for this building is the best and the building has regained its past grandeur.

Kapok (Cotton) Tree

2011-08-31T06:35:00.000+08:00

I was walking along the park connector next to Sungei Tampines at Pasir Ris when I saw a lot of cotton wool on the ground. Later, I remarked to M that some inconsiderate people had a pillow fight there. She laughed and told me I so goodnu. The cotton were from the Kapok Tree lining the river.

So the next day I went again and this time I saw this. Cotton bud from a pod on the ground!

I looked up and was amazed to see this tree and a few others along the whole stretch.

And there were plenty of bud on the trees including some that has burst open.

Picked up a pod from the ground and bought it home for a close up shot

The cotton inside the pod.

And to think that I have passed this place countless time and never noticed them before until now. Sometime I really need to stop running and smell the flowers!

The Day After The Presidential Election

2011-08-28T12:57:00.002+08:00

There was no catastrophic change. In fact, other than many sleepy heads, life goes on. So I guess the PE is not as earth shattering as the government and the media would like us to believe.

I am a bit gutted that the molat guy has won. Actually I don't think he win. Had there been 1 less candidate, he would have lost big. When the 4 fellas announced their candidacy, I was surprised. Is the money that good that so many people were interested in it? Surely the candidates themselves didn't believe that the job was that important. Nevertheless, I had expected the Elections Commission to reject the application of Mr High 5 and the Opposition guy. After all, they didn't exactly qualify directly under the criteria laid out. But still they were accepted. And then it dawned on me. 4 candidates means there will be split votes and only one person will get the benefit from this. And so true enough, the other 2 candidates managed to gather some votes and critically as a result, the real medical doctor borne the brunt of the outcome and lost out by a mere 7,269 votes. If only.........

The PE is over but there have been some sweet and hilarious moments which shall live on in our memories:

The High 5 guy

The Village Doctor

The Molat Guy

All the Tans

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My Choice for President

2011-08-25T18:13:00.001+08:00

Singapore is in the midst of another election fever barely 3 months after the General Elections. This time round the stake is much lower. It is a race to be the next President of Singapore. Now I really don’t know what the 4 candidates see in this job to be vying so hard for it since as far as I can see from what the previous Presidents have done, it is more a Wave hand, hello smile for the camera job. Certainly it can’t be about the money since all of them san 1 has agreed that the $4m paycheck is too big and is prepared to settle for less. But it have been 2 interesting weeks as the candidates slugged it out in the media and went about from Jurong to Tampines, Kaki Bukit to Bukit Timah canvassing for our votes. Isn’t it great to feel so wanted?

But that leave me now with the dilemma of which candidate to vote for. The gel/mol-lat model? The hi-5 guy? The good old doctor or the pro-opposition candidate?

From reading of the ground, it is clear that there are 2 camps – the ABTT and the pro-establishment ie PAP. Me? I am firmly in the ABTT camp. Why?

1. I can’t stand his pompous arrogant gel/’mo-lat’ look. To be fair, I don’t know him personally and therefore shouldn’t judge a person by his appearance but how to vote for somebody you don’t even want to look at?

2. I don’t and I suspect many Singaporean don’t like threats and the more threats thrown at us from the government, business leaders and unionists about how the economy and businesses will be affected if the ‘wrong’ guy is voted in, the more determined I am to prove that we can live with our decisions.

3. He does not appear to be able to relate to the people on the ground. Born with a silver spoon and fast track all the way, there is no way that he can understand how the common people feel, unlike say President Nathan or the late Mr Wee Kim Wee who came from more humble background. Just imagine – at yesterday lunch time rally – after the rally, he took a taxi to his car which was just parked like 2 buildings away! Can such a person understand our issues with the packed MRT and the poor bus services?

Right, so I moved on to the hi-5 guy. When he was in NTUC Income, a fair bit of friends working there didn’t like him. I think it is his management style. But I was impressed when he stepped forward to help the investor during the Lehman Brother crisis. However, I think he will garner the least votes and while I could like to give him my support, I think it will not be enough to put him in office and I could prefer the vote be given to a candidate and hopefully tipped the scale against the mo-lat guy.

Third the good old doctor. I always have a good impression of him. Much has been said about his charitable deeds and willingness to help his patients. His PAP roots notwithstanding, I like that he has went against party whip, declared openly more than once his opposition to various policies of the PAP and finally his latest act – to resign from the Board of the new Ng Teng Fong Hospital in protest against the naming of the hospital after the late property magnate Ng Teng Fong which the hospital did in return for a sizable donation from his estate. But will he eventually prevail in the battle of the 4 Tans?

The last guy standing is the former and pro-opposition guy. I think he will have the 2^nd highest number of votes after the mo-lat guy, most of which will come from the hardliner anti-PAP camp. I too am tempted to vote for him but unfortunately as some friends have commented, the photo of a “Lam-a-Chan” looking Mrs Tan in public areas is downright frightening! Yeah it is not his fault his wife look like that but how? And her dress sense? OMG! Okay I can’t resist that but coming back to the election, he got the best chance so maybe just maybe he can get into office with all the little votes here and there. And I will love to see the look on the Dragon Prince and LKY when they have to stand up and show him respect at public events!

So who am I gonna go for? Tough question but maybe, if maybe somebody is willing to give me his half of the salary.. then maybe……..

And finally for the resident of Singapore, I leave you with this little sms I got:

Make sure you vote for the right Tan.

If not, you may end up with a 笨 Tan

Or worse, a 坏 Tan

who will 捣 Tan and

Singapore will be 完 Tan

Out of the Stone Age

2011-08-21T14:28:00.000+08:00

I finally succumb to the temptation of the smart phone and went and got me a smartphone. Actually I had a smart phone already which I got in 2008 but never did have a data plan which means I only used it as a ordinary phone. Kinda waste hor? But back then there was never a need to be in touch daily with what's was going on in the world. And this nice state of affairs could have continued except that 1) the phone was dying and 2) the office went and install some super duper firewall and banned all access to webmail/FB and a host of other sites. The final straw that broke the camel back was when during a recent upgrade, all my forwarded mails from FB and the webmail to my office's email account (my way of keeping in touch with what's going on in my friend's life) ended up in the IT Manager inbox instead of mine!

My original choice of a phone was the HTC Desire but the darned thing was upgrading so fast that the price went beyond what I was prepared to pay. I decided to settle for a lower end HTC phone but at the shop I ended up with this:

A LG phone! Ha ha so far I don't know anybody who owns a LG phone but after playing around with it I must say I am pleased with the purchase since it only caused me S$46.00!

Battery life was okay. Roughly 10 - 12 hours of standby plus some fiddling around so far. Fairly easy to use although some functions still leave old foggy like me lost but got the Princess to the rescue.

Camera quality is impressive. The 5m camera phone took fairly good pictures:

This close up photo was taken in fairly low light in the living room

This picture was taken at about 7.24 pm when the light was limited

And so now with a data plan I can now use Whatsapp, FB on the go and etc... So I am in contact with the world 12 hours a day? Heck no There is limited, actually almost no signal in that little corner where I sits in the office. Sighed! Back to square one!

Old Days "Refrigerator"

2011-08-18T16:12:00.000+08:00

We are all familiar with the refrigerator. From basic storage of food in all sort of temperature to churning out ices and even internet surfing! But what about the days before the modern day refrigerator was invented? How does people back then store their food?

Back in those days, when there was no artificial ice, people generally preserve their food by salting them. Thus, there was all sort of salted stuff, from fish, to duck, to pork and vegetables. For other food that needs to be kept at room temperature there is the wooden larder. I think there are no more to be found in Singapore but while I was in Malaysia recently, I came across this wooden larder.

A closer look at the contents of the larder. All the perishables, left over foods are stored inside the larder to prevent flies, cockroaches and rats from getting to them. The front is wire-mashed whilst the side are made of wood and the whole thing is on four long legs, I think to help the food dry in case of flood.

The larder is even designed to keep away ants. Don't place it right against a wall and let the legs stand in a small tray filled with water and volia - an ant proof cabinet!

Storm in a Curry Pot

2011-08-13T01:08:00.000+08:00

It looks like the CMC has generated a storm in a curry pot. For those who are still blur about this, where have you been? To recap for the benefits of those who are totally lost about this curry war, on 8 August, a mediator at the Community Mediation Centre(CMC) in a Today newspaper article gloated about her satisfaction in achieving a solution between 2 neighbours. Apparently, a PRC family living in a HDB flat objected to their neighbour, an Indian family cooking curry as they(the PRC) could not tahan the smell! The CMC solution was that the Indian family could only cook curry when the PRC family was not in.

Picture stolen from www.sailusfood.com

Obviously, that was a most ridiculous and stupid solution and this immediately led to an outcry on the web as bloggers, forummers and everybody took up the cudgels for the Indian family with many baying for the blood of the PRC family, presumably to cook curry! Ha ha but fear not, they just want the PRC family to balek kampong. The other half of the vitriol went to the mediator and CMC for proposing the solution. And of course the gahmen got slammed as well for neglecting the rights of local and championing that of the FT. What type of silly solution is that? Next we know, some other FT will complain of durian smell and durian will be banned from HDB flats or worse the country! I think those buggers at CMC need to be sent for a course on learning how to mediate.

The CMC in a reply to Today newspaper clarified that the solution was suggested by one of the family and accepted by the other. That of course didn’t wash down well with the public who promptly fired off another round of vitriol. Read the full story here, here, here, here and here. There is even a Facebook page inviting everybody to cook curry on 21 August. Oh heck just do a google or a bing for curry and prc and volia!

What do me think? I think I will love my Indian neighbour to bits if they cook curry just as long as I get to eat it! As for the PRC family, they should be sent for a ~~brain washing~~ re-education camp at the local Community Club. And for the people at CMC, don’t they have bigger things to fry than settle something as trivial as curry smell! Why not investigate the frequent complains of the mysterious dragging of chairs in the middle of the night or the bouncing of marbles (where do you get marbles nowadays?) on the floor or the idiot that continues to leave rubbish inside the lift?

Glossary of local lingo used in this post:

Blur about this - did not know about
Tahan - tolerate
Balek Kampong - Go back to where they come from
Gahmen - Government
FT - Foreigners living in Singapore

Hai Kee Teochew Char Kway Teow

2011-08-11T02:10:00.001+08:00

I have been eating char kway teow since young and my absolute favourite is Hai Kee Char Kway Teow. This stall used to be at Margaret Drive and my family used to patronise the stall when we were staying in the area. Thus I can safely said I seen the young man grew old and he seen me grew old as well! But then again, he still looks younger than me! Must be the secret ingredients that he put into his CKT!

Anyway, with the closure of the Margaret Drive Hawker Centre, he has now moved to Telok Blangah Crescent. Since the move late last year, I have not been there and so I was all excited when a friend invited us there to sample his father's Char Kway Teow and it turns out his father is the famous Hai Kee Char Kway Teow!

So a big group of us gathered for a Char Kway Teow feast and we had CKT with hum (cockles), more chilli, less chilli, no hum etc. After a rather lengthy wait, (son also got to queue up), we finally got our order.

Photo by Francis Chia

A lot of time, after a stall has been relocated or even the hawker centre upgraded, for some reasons or other, the taste change. Or maybe due to a change in the ingredients, (like trying to do a healthier version), the taste change and most time for the worst. Did the taste changed in this case?

Thank goodness it did not! It still taste the same, not too wet and not too dry and comes with a generous heap of cockles. Mind you, this is sinful food and not for the health conscious but I enjoyed every single bit of it and slurped down every single morsel even before the rest of the noodles came for the other people in the group! At $3.00 a plate, (I think price has increased), it is still worth every single cents if you don't mind the cholesterol inducing oil and lard!

Photo by Jancy Yap

Hai Kee Teochew Char Kway Teow is now at Blk 11 Telok Blangah Crescent Hawker Centre opposite Safra Mount Faber. They also have a facebook page and a blog.

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 6

2011-08-09T01:58:00.016+08:00

What makes a good Singapore birthday song? The song should bring a lump to the throat and maybe even a tear or two. And this song, certainly did.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 5

2011-08-08T01:52:00.003+08:00

What make a Singapore birthday song? I like this not so official one I think. Fun and a bit irrelevant but not the rousing type. This one don't make the cut but it's worth a listen.

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 4

2011-08-07T02:12:00.003+08:00

What makes a Singapore birthday song? This official "unofficial" version from the people at Pungol who decided to pen their own version. Good effort by all the VIP including the now so famous Yam Ah Mee. Close but somehow it lacks that little bit extra to qualify as our birthday song.

n

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 3

2011-08-05T02:17:00.001+08:00

What makes a Singapore birthday song? Certainly not his so called flash mob doing a Step up Singapore at Ion Orchard. And its a bit scary when flash mob goes mainstream, the govt gets into the act and become official.

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 2

2011-08-03T02:08:00.002+08:00

What makes a Singapore birthday song? This is the official one for this year. Okay nice but somehow it lacks that little bit extra, that oomph and rousing effort. Give me the good old Stand Up for Singapore, Count on Me Singapore or Home.

My Singapore - The Birthday Song 1

2011-08-01T02:25:00.002+08:00

What makes a Singapore birthday song? Certainly not this rip off. Whatever possess the NDP organiser to take a pop song and rewrite the lyrics for their own?Not that it was ever contemplated to be one but thank goodness, some common sense prevail and we won't see this at the actual NDP although it will now live on forever as another blot on our little red dot.

Whoever approved this need to be thrown off the floating platform and fed to the sharks!

Chinatown - Not just Chinese Temples

2011-07-28T14:43:00.000+08:00

When talking of Chinatown, the first impressions is that it is a place founded by the Chinese and the facilities there caters only for the Chinese. Hence, there should be plenty of Chinese temples which is correct.

One of the biggest temple in the area is the 天福宫 Thian Hock Keng temple in Telok Ayer Street. This temple was built in 1839 and completed in 1842 by the Hokkien and is dedicated to Ma Zhu the Goddness of the Sea.

One of the unique feature of temples in the early days was that no nails were used in the constructions and the whole place were adorned with carvings, sculptures and intricate columns.

Nearby is the 仙祖宫 Siang Cho Keong Temple. Built in 1869 by the Hokkiens, it is dedicated to the Tua Pek Gong. Nowadays, the temple is more famous for its lucky 4-D numbers. On the first and fifteen of every month, devotees gathered to witness the drawing of a new set of 4-D number which is pasted prominently on the main urn.

There are other Chinese temples nearby but within the confines of Amoy Street, Telok Street and Cecil Street, these are the only 2.

Surprisingly, there are 2 mosques. The first is not exactly a mosque but the Nagore Durgha Shrine. The place built in 1828 and is dedicated to Shahul Hamida holy man from India. The Shrine restoration was recently completed and is now an Indian Muslim Heritage Centre but sadly commercialization has reared its ugly head and the main courtyard is now occupied by a Banquet Food outlet!

Further up the road is the Al-Abrar Mosque. It was built for the Tamil and Indian Muslims in 1827 and moved to its present site in 1855. Today, it is a popular mosque for the office workers around the area.

Of course, the area is not completed if there is no church and right at the top of Telok Ayer Street is the majestic castle like Chinese Methodist Church. Built in 1925 by Westerners to house the growing number of Christians coming from the West, the church first had it roots in 1889 when a physician and missionary first started the church.

No Indian temples? In those days the Indians in the areas were predominantly Muslims but nearby at South Bridge Road, there is the Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Indian temple in Singapore.

Picture from Wikipedia

Sign of the Times

2011-07-25T13:37:00.001+08:00

Its a sure sign that I am get getting older by the day when instead of me bringing my children to see the doctor, its my son who is the one sending me and picking me up from the hospital.

I am glad that the children are growing up fast but it's ain't a good feeling to feel and grow older and have to depend on others for simple things.

Ok this is not a whining post but a self reminder to work harder to maintain my health and fitness and not be a burden to anybody. But still as age catches up, something got to give and that day will come but till then, I will press on.

Amoy Street - The Old and the New

2011-07-23T12:11:00.000+08:00

Everyone knows where Chinatown is. When people talk about Chinatown, they think of the part where the Chinatown Food Centre is located; where the yearly Chinese New Year Street festival is held, and where the food street is located. But Chinatown is more than that. Just across the road between South Bridge Road and Cecil Street, there is a sizable piece of less visited Chinatown.

This will be the 3rd of a series of post on this part of Chinatown. Chinatown is changing changing and along with the old comes many new new buildings. The contrast is startling in some places, subtle in some but soon most of the old will be gone.

Amoy Street

Telok Ayer Street

The latest addition to the area

An old style fire escape

The new looking down on the old

7 boring days

2011-07-20T12:13:00.000+08:00

7 days has elapsed since I went and got a metatarsal stress fracture. The frustrating thing about this injury is that I am perfectly fine, feel perfectly okay but yet cannot do anything except laze around. And I got another 3 more weeks of the same thing to go!

It's not like I am so sick that I have to lie in bed all day long or am incapable of doing simple thing like the last time after my knee surgery when I really cannot do much. This time round, I feel fine, look fine but yet because I am not supposed to "bear weight", I have to restrict myself to sitting on the couch channel surfing or going on the net and being a couch potato.

Most likely, at the end of the 1 month, I will have gain an extra 5kg. Sighed Such a miserable life:)

Kiasuism at its Highest Level

2011-07-14T13:05:00.000+08:00

This is something that I want to blog about for a long long time but somehow never got around to. The picture is of the MRT entrance at Cecil Street/Telok Ayer Street. Seems pretty ordinary right?

In this second photo, noticed the circled item? These are CCTV camera. At this entrance, there are a total of 4 cluster of camera and each cluster has 6 cameras facing every which way but up. 2 set of them are on the right and 2 sets on the left which means there are a total 24 cameras at one entrance alone.

And apparently this is not just at Tanjong Pagar but at all the other MRT stations. Further, walk into the Tanjong Pagar station at the concourse and platform level and you will see more cameras. In fact, there are cameras everywhere. Maybe that's why they need to increase transport fares?

But the most ironical thing is, go to any above ground station and you can hardly find any cameras on the open platform. So it seems the authorities are more concerned with terrorist threats and sabotage rather than recording how people seems to be falling on the tracks.

Lau Pa Sat

2011-07-11T20:25:00.001+08:00

I don't have any memories of the original Lau Pa Sat or Telok Ayer Market as it was known back in the sixties.

This was a picture I dug out from the National Archive.

According to the National Archive, this picture was taken in 1967.

Subsequently, due to major development work in the area, the market was temporary abandoned in 1984 and most of the stall holders moved over to what was popularly known as the Transit Market. The most famous stall was Ya Kun Coffee but in those days I didn't know about the stall. My only memories of the Lau Pa Sat was the eating fried noodles with my then girlfriend after our weekly badminton game at the YMCA at Palmer Road. (too bad can't find any picture of the transit market - anybody out there got any pictures to share?)

The stalls moved back to the original location after restoration work and it was renamed the Festival Market. However, initially, it was not popular with the office workers around there as it was literally a furnace in there during the day. After some change of ownership, the place finally took off but somehow it has lost its character. It is now a food court with its most famous component being the Satay Street which only opens at night. And Ya Kun is no longer there.

Compare the below pictures with the picture above. The restoration seems to have done its work and it looks almost the same as the original market.

The clock tower is still there and functional.

The interior of the market with the elaborate steel beams.

The beautiful struts which I am quite certain cannot be found anywhere else locally

This post is one in a series on Chinatown, Singapore

Durian Pilgrimage

2011-07-08T22:09:00.000+08:00

For the third year running, I return to the hallowed stall of durian for the annual durian pilgrimage. This time round, there were 9 of us, the biggest group so far, I think.

The stall holder seems to want to get rid of his durians. He keep opening durian after durian until we were truly stuffed.

First up was the Black Pearl durian. This was simply shiok. Super creamy, a little bit wet with teeny weeny little seed.

Next was the Red Prawn. This one, the flesh is supposed to be a bit reddish but it wasn't really so. It was however, just as creamy.

After that came the D13 or is it D17?. By now all the durian tasted the same to me and I really couldn't differentiate which was which.

Following that was the Jin Feng or Golden Phoenix. This one tasted very nice but most of us were too stuffed to really appreciate it.

The final type was the giant size cat mountain king alias Maoshanwang.

We couldn't finish all the durians and so the kind stall holder packed up the uneaten durians.

I think between the 9 of us, we had more than 20 durians and all for $25.00 per head! Shiok shiok!

Hanging Garden of Cecil Street

2011-07-05T22:34:00.001+08:00

This looks like a fairly ordinary building in the heart of the city.

But goes behind the facade and onto the walkway, look up and this is what one will see.

A vertical garden just above the walkway.

A closer look at the plants

Continue to look up into the "skylight" and plants extend all the way up to the top.

A closer look at the overhead garden through the sky light

It's really beautiful. I love looking at the plant whenever I walked past. And there's a cooling sort of feeling and it's made more realistic whenever the auto sprinklers comes on and spray water on everybody below!

Yes kudos to the smart alec who came up with this brilliant piece of garden in the air but did the chap took into consideration the cost of the maintenance? Every time, they need to trim or replace the plant, they have to put up scaffolding which to me seems pretty wasteful and I am quite sure before long the building owner will get enough of the cost and remove the plants.

Angus Steak House

2011-07-02T18:17:00.001+08:00

I don't eat steak very often although I love beef. My favourite is Beef Hor Fun but on occasions it is a sort of to must have nice western food meaning steak. Unfortunately, my unadventurous mind and cheapo self usually bring us to the few usual places like The Ship, Shashlik and some weird places where the prices is more affordable. However, since this was our 21st anniversary, abit 1 day late dinner, decided that we need to go to a slightly more different place. After trawling the net, finally, settled for this place at Ngee Ann City.

And I must said I am pleased as punch about the decision. Have passed by the place a few times but never been inside cos it looked expensive.

Anyway, we ordered steak what else! M had the tenderloin since she likes the meat to be more tender while I had the ribeye. All of them done char grilled style. We ordered the set dinner which comes with the full works.

The first item to arrive on our table was the hor d'oeuvre. Why can't they just call it appetizer? But what an appetizer! It was a fine piece of cod fish very tastefully done. And not too small a piece too!

Next was the soup. The soup of the day was Cream of Carrot. It looks like baby food to me but it taste good and although I am not really a western soup fella, I finished every drop of it.

Then came a small .bowl of greens. I guess cow eat grass and since we are going to eat the cow, it makes sense for us to eat some grass before eating the cow! Forgot to mention this place is a Japanese steak house so the salad came with Japanese sauce and not the usual dressing.

Finally what we came for. The steak. Tender delicious and beautiful looking steak. For the first time ever in my life since I know her, M did not ask for chilli sauce. The steak was that good. And unlike the usual places, there was no large amount of french fries or other stuff to spoil the taste. Just good old piece of steak and some greens and potatoes.

Following the steak, there came a nice little piece of cake for dessert and a coffee. And all this for an average of $65.00 per head well worth the money.

And oh for those who gets all excited about girls in uniforms, the waitress here wear the cute little chambermaid uniform. Service is excellent with the waitress being very attentive.

Tampines Quarry

2011-06-29T07:00:00.001+08:00

Have heard about this place and finally found the time to visit it. Once inside the track, one is greeted by the sight of a panoramic view of the quarry.

There were lots of activities going on when we were there.

There were this group of people who were sailing remote control boat. There was this guy with this own made can collector boat. Pretty impressive as he demonstrated to us the boat ability to go round collecting the drink cans that people dump in the quarry.

There were a number of shrines. I guess most of these are abandoned by HDB residents who have given up worshiping them or ran out of space in their home.

When we were there that particular evening, we came across a group of people with bags and bags of fishes.

Following a prayer by a monk (looks like one of those Lamas) after which they let go all the fish. Sigh. Don't these people realise they are only releasing these little fishes to be food for the bigger fish that inhabits the quarry? Or maybe that was their intention all along?

Anyway, I managed on another day to explore the place further. Read about it here.

For those who wants to go to this place, apply liberally insect repellent. The mozzies here are commando 'standard'!

1 Day Durian Trip in Malaysia

2011-06-26T20:35:00.000+08:00

Have heard alot about the durian trip up north so when a relative decided to organise one for the whole clan, jumped at the opportunity and took a short day trip across the causeway.

After reading about the jam caused by the new finger print procedure at the Malaysian's causeway, we set off early. 5.30am to be exact and reach the Malaysian's custom just before 7am. Heng ar, no jam and no finger print scanning too! Luckily, they also never ask us to strip and do naked squats. Maybe we all lau kok kok not worth looking at?

Anyway, it cannot be durian the whole day so our first stop was for breakfast alfresco style no less. Actually it is just a coffee shop at Gelang Patah but the choices there was unbelievably.

But mindful to keep space in our stomach for the durian, we only had a small plate of dim sum, char kway teow, and shared in the carrot cake and you-tiao and 'butterfly',

After breakfast, we stopped at the obligatory local products stores where the ladies grabbed everything and almost anything that is edible. No wonder these shops all located in some ulu areas are doing so well!

There was also a stop at the brown rice outlet where they touted the benefit of brown rice and the slew of brown rice products. This one, we ended up buying a big mixed packet of very unhealthy chips!

Finally, the highlight of the trip! The durian farm. But the excitement so turns to dismay when we saw the mass of these.

They were all over and swopping down on every opened durian. After a few futile attempts to shooed them off, everybody gave up and went outdoor eating standing up with one hand on the fruit and one hand eating it. The amazing thing about these pesky flies is they don't even bother with the beehoon and curry. Only the durians. Trust the flies to know what's the real stuff.

The shiokness of eating the durian were spoilt by having to wolf down the durian before the flies get to them and in the end, I think I didn't get to eat enough. Oh well, there's always another trip.

After the durian, another obligatory trip to a chinese temples where the folks there took every opportunity to suck us foreigners dry with all sort of prayer offering. Even their children were roped in and were using loud hailers to get the tourist to offer this, offer that in return for 'blessing'.

A short stop at the local supermart just to while away the time before dinner.

Dinner was the usual super size spread so typical of tour packages but unfortunately it was also a very rush affair as the restaurant had a wedding dinner and needed to chase us out by 6.30pm. So we had a 9 course dinner in under 30 minutes!

And so we left Malaysia filled to the brim with food, food and I daresay, some flies in the stomach.

Bukit Brown Cemetery - Is there no other alternative?

2011-06-21T10:01:00.003+08:00

Read with sadness the planned development of the Bukit Brown Cemetery for housing. The Urban Development Authority has earmarked the 86 hectares sprawling ground for housing development. According to a statement from the URA, " ‘We have to take a balanced long-term approach in land-use planning, and be very selective in what we conserve because of our land scarcity.As our population grows, we have to meet increasing land needs for various uses. Bukit Brown and Bidadari occupy large land areas that will be needed for housing purposes, and are not included in our conservation plans.’

Behind all this mumbo jumbo crap, what is the guy really trying to say? Let me try to interpret. Dead man pays no tax, the ground does not generate any income and is a valuable piece of land which is a gold mine. So forget any idea of preserving the sites. It is just not economically feasible.

And that is the plain truth. To said that there is land scarcity and we have to be balanced in how we make use of the land is utter rubbish. Yes there is land scarcity. But there are also a lot of lands that are being used for very unproductive (in my opinion) purpose and worse, only a small number of the population is making use of it. What am I talking about?

Golf course! Yes at last count, there are at least 23 golf course in Singapore. Each 18 hole golf course is on average about 49 hectares. The majority of the bigger golf course here are much bigger. Laguna is 126 hectares and has 3100 members, Tanah Merah with 2 courses is easily one of the biggest with each 18 hole course at least 6000 metres in length. The NSRCC has 2 golf courses with the one at Tanah Merah having 27 holes and another 18 hole course at Kranji. You go do the maths. SICC has 2 courses ironically opposite Bukit Brown. And I can go on and on. By all accounts, the members of these golf courses holds multiple memberships across the clubs and so in my reckoning, golfers still form a minority of the population. But I must admit that the background of the golfers means they bring in the big bucks for the country and the industries they are in so maybe golf courses are "untouchable?"

So rather than take back a few golf courses that are not in the catchment area, it is easier to develop Bukit Brown (no need to pay compensation) or even Bukit Timah reserve. But really, is there no other alternative? Do we need so many more private developments? Certainly I am sure that Bukit Brown is not going to become a HDB estate but a private estate just like the surround areas around Bukit Timah Reserve.

Support the initiative to preserve Bukit Brown. Join the free tours, join the petition on the web. Visit the place to see for yourself our rich cultural history. And if you really can't find the time to go, take a look at what you and the rest of Singapore will be missing once it is gone:

Heritage Trail
Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery

Father's Day Cake

2011-06-19T01:34:00.000+08:00

The Princess baked this Coffee cake for Father's day.

Back to the Dinosaur Age

2011-06-16T22:59:00.000+08:00

Pulau Ubin

2011-06-12T08:30:00.001+08:00

Over 2 Saturdays, with 1 more to come, a gang of us visited Pulau Ubin, the last bastion of the "ulu" way of living and an unspolit nature. The trip to Pulau Ubin involves a short 15 minutes trip ferry trip from Changi Ferry Terminal. The ferry ride cost only $2.50 each way and the ferry will only move off if there are 12 passengers.

Pulau Ubin is now largely inhabited by a few storeowners who run bicycle rental kiosks and restaurants catering to the hordes of weekend visitors who goes there to soak in the fresh air and get some exercise. Pulau Ubin is also home to various students training facilities like the Outward Bound School, the NPCC and NCC training camps. There is also a small holiday resort which seems to be not very popular.

The welcome sign at the jetty after alighting from the ferry.

Most of the villagers have gone now leaving behind abandon houses such as this

A close up look at the sign on the wall

Pulau Ubin is covered with swamps. Probably a good 50% of it is swamp such as these.

Then there are the forest. Some are rubber plantations, some are just secondary forest and some are simply nature growing over all the abandoned houses

In the past, there used to be some vegetable farms but these have mostly shut down and now the only vegetable left is in this little place known as the Secret Garden where all sort of crops such as these pomelo can be found. Admission is free like every other place on the island.

One of the more well known place in Pulau Ubin is the Ketam Mountain Bike Park, a vast area specially set up for mountain bikers. This is an advance bike riding park not for novice rider and the park is installed with artificial obstacles in addition to the natural trails.

On the way to the Ketam Mountain Bike park, there was this sign. A German Girl Shrine? Unfortunately, we didn't have time to locate the shrine. Story has it that in 1914 a German girl felled off a cliff and died. Her body was discovered the next day and buried at the beach. But the villagers kept seeing her ghost and eventually they moved her remains into a temple.

The Ketam Mountain Bike park is a 45ha park with about 10km of trails . We only covered a portion of about 1.7km and this is part of it. This portion comprised several sharp turns on a slope.

The highlight of the mountain bike park is the panoramic view of the Serangoon Channel and the Ketam Island which is what the park is named after.

The most famous place on Pulau Ubin is Chek Jawa, a sea shore teaming with sea lifes. In the past, people are allowed to wade in the water and look at the creatures there but they were at the same time destroying the sea life there so the Nparks has now built a wooden boardwalk and visitor has to view the creatures from the it.

The boardwalk stretch from the entrance of Chek Jawa covering the swamp with plenty of mangroves and palms.

There is a watch tower and this is the view of the island from the top of the watch tower.

Creatures we spotted from the board walk along the coast line include this fiddler crab. Actually, there were plenty of the little creatures all over the shore.

Then we saw this bird. Not exactly sure what it is since I no naturalist. Is it a heron, an egret or a crane?

Slightly more easy to recognise is this hornbill.

And from Chek Jawa one can get a view of the Changi beach

Because Pulau Ubin is so small, one can access many beaches. Like this small little unnamed beach

Then there is the Mamam Beach where one can see a whole stretch of wooden stilts probably belonging to some fishermen.

After the Maman Beach, there is this heavily fortified Noordin beach meant to dissuade illegal immigrants.

While running around, we came to this stretch of dam fronting the sea. There was a hut there and plenty of rubbish along the whole stretch evidence of either fisherman or illegal immigrants?

The patch of swampland behind the dam

Pulau Ubin is known for its many quarry and this is one of them. I think this is the Balai Quarry.

And this is the Pekan Quarry

Pulau Ubin has some quirky signs. Like this one. Both sides are on a single pole at the front of a road. So if the road is close, why still ask people to use it?

Maybe it is tongue in cheek? Cos the people there seems to have a great sense of humour. Like this drink stall owner.

And this shop owner has a great quote from the great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

Even the ferry owner got in on the act with this charming little ditty

And of course there are the serious sign like this very obvious danger sign. And luckily for us, we didn't spot the hornet nest.

Free the Dolphins

2011-06-08T07:14:00.011+08:00

Resort World Sentosa reportedly stated in a letter to the papers that its upcoming park will exceed international standardsfor animal welfare. It noted that dolphins in the wild 'do not enjoy a totallycarefree life, but fight for their survival from predators, fishing boats andpollution'.

It said studies show the captive dolphins can livefor more than 40 years, double the average lifespan of dolphins in the wild.

Right.Applying the same logic, human living in our urban jungle also do not enjoy atotally carefree life but has to fight for their survival from fellow humans,germs, road accidents and pollutions. Human in jail enjoy free access tomedical care, free meals and time off for exercise daily without worrying aboutbeing run over by a car or wondering where their next meal is going to comefrom. So why not we put everybody in jail? After all, it’s for our own good?

Fact is, RWS is not keeping the dolphins for research or any noble cause. It is purely for the bottom line. Maybe someone should start a FB boycott of RWS until it relents and agree to release the dolphins. But even if it does so, will it be a matter of too little too late seeing that the dolphins have been in captivity for some time and may not be able to adjust back to life in the wild?

But damn, the dolphins do look damn cute. Maybe if dolphins can be breed, then it won't be so bad?

A Foreigner's Solution to the Foreign Worker's Problem

2011-06-05T00:14:00.000+08:00

Was talking to this lady who happens to be a sort of "foreigner". She like many, commented that Singapore has too many foreigners. Quite ironic considering that she is also a foreigner but of course she was referring to those lower level workers and not so called "foreign talent" like herself.

Her solution to the problem? Remove the hedges. Do I hear you go "huh?"? Yes I didn't write wrong. The way she sees it, Singapore has all those nice little shrub along the road sides. She reckons that these hedges serve no purposes other than to generate jobs for the contractor who has to maintain it and who does these contractors employ to maintain them? Yes foreigner! She went on to further elaborate why we don't need those plants. Other than aesthetic reasons, she sees only issues and problems with them. Firstly, the shrubs planted along the road side outside her place made it difficult for her to walk in a straight path. Secondly, plants along the road side in the city made it difficult for her to get out of her car when she has to parallel park. Thirdly, the plants block her view when she is coming out from side road to main road and last but not least, the plants in the middle of the expressway prevent her from seeing what was going on the other side of the road.

So by her reckoning, if we remove all those hedges and shrubs along the road, we can do away with at least 50000 foreign workers!

Do I hear applause from those who also think we have too many foreign workers? How about nominating her for some sort of WITS award?

My Uncle's House

2011-05-31T13:07:00.000+08:00

This unit at the junction of Circular Road and Canton Street used to be where my mum grew up in and was the home of my uncle for many years.

Right now it houses a restaurant and a yoga gym at the premises but in those days in the seventies, it was home to my uncle and 2 other families.

It was a 3 storey building. On the ground floor was a provision shop and the owner and his family stayed there as well. I don't really remember much about the shop though.

Entrance to the upstair was via a side door. On the 2nd floor was a man who keeps rice there. Rumours has it that he keeps a python at the premises to eat the rats. Whether that is true or not I really don't know since I never seen him or the python.

My uncle and his family stayed on the 3rd floor. The interesting thing about his place was that the main door was a trap door type of door and not the usual vertical door. So upon reaching the top of the stairs, one has to push the door which was about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide and it was no small feat for us kids! My uncle had also build an extension to make up the 4th floor which was where he and my aunt and their 7 children sleep. My maternal grandmother sleeps on the 3rd floor. I remember she had a giant of a wooden platform bed and we kids loves to climb on top to play on.

When we visits, we were sleep on the 3rd floor with the younger cousins of our age. For this purpose, my aunt had a stack of mattress just for us. The highlight of our trip to my uncle's house was of course their television and we spent many happy hours watching the black and white cantonese movies.

Even though my Uncle stayed near to the Singapore River, we were not allowed to go there on our own. In those days, the river was a bustling place with tongkangs and a lot of coolies loading and unloading cargoes. From time to time, we were hear of bodies being discovered floating in the water which was pitch black most of the time. My uncle used to tell us that these people were mostly opium addicts who either killed themselves or were so high they fell into the water and drown.

My greatest memory of the place though was the Robinson fire. At that time, Robinson department store was the biggest department store in Singapore and located at Raffles Place where the current OUB Plaza was. We were at my Uncle's house the night of the fire and we could smell the flame from where we were. There was even talk among the adults whether we should evacuate just in case the fire spreads over. Fortunately for my Uncle, the firemen managed to contain the fire.

Unfortunately, with the repeal of the Rent Control Act, my uncle was forced to move but by then he had in his foresight already prepared for it by buying a house in another part of town.

Sin Hoi San Seafood Restaurant

2011-05-27T00:10:00.001+08:00

Was looking for a place to eat on Mother's Day and since was in the town area, decided to check out more new places. Went by Tiong Bahru area and decided to try our luck at Sin Hoi San. As we were rather early, managed to get a table. Whew!

Have heard about this place but never ate there. So wasn't really sure what to order and ask the China lady to recommend and we just went along.

Of course, no outing to a seafood restaurant is complete with seafood so the main items we had were crab and more crab!

First was the obligatory black pepper crab. The crab was huge. It was fairly well done cooked just right.

Since the children had suddenly developed a craving for crab beehoon, we also asked for crab beehoon although it was not on the menu. No problem - said the China lady. Actually this was a bad choice cause the beehoon was almost tasteless. In the end, we didn't finish it and ask for it to be doggy bagged. Mum had to refried it the next day to make it more palatable.

Another seafood item we had was the spicy crayfish. Again, didn't really think it was that great although the crayfish were pretty big.

We also had a papaya soup. Initially it tasted great but as the sweetness from the papaya begins to be absorbed into the soup, it became too sweet and we got a bit gelat.

The best food for the evening was the mushroom tofo. Soft succulent tofu with lots of mushroom on top.

The lady also recommended a special grass jelly drink. It comes with grass jelly and another transparent white jelly which tasted a bit weird. The combination didn't work for us. None of us like it.

The dinner wasn't really cheap and I can get better food at Seafood Centre at East Coast. So it's still a puzzle to me why this place is so packed most of the time.

A Chinese Funeral 4

2011-05-23T00:23:00.000+08:00

Typically, during a funeral, friends and business associates of the deceased and deceased's families will give wreath, banner and of cash known as "pek kim" or white gold. The former are valued by businessman as the more their are on display, the more status and prestige is accorded to the deceased and family. The pek kim is to help in defraying the cost of the funeral which can runs into thousand of $$$.

On the day of the funeral, the elaborate altar is removed and replace by a long table laden with offerings.

There are food galore

Flower and fruit baskets. Each of these are "dedicated" by relatives of the deceased and each one either singly or in group will offer it to the deceased. Again, the purpose of these offerings is to ensure that the deceased has enough food to last the journey.

In most cases, at an auspicious time, the coffin will be "closed" if it has not been done so. During this process, everybody present at the funeral will need to turn away. Why? I think it is just consider bad luck - symbolically, to drive the nail into the coffin. Same thing when the coffin is being carried to the hearse.

Talking about hearse, in the past, the hearse was a very beautiful carriage decorated with colorful pictures.

Nowadays, it is a simple van.

In the past, the funeral procession was also an elaborate affair. The grander the more prestige accorded to the deceased. There was performance by Giant Dolls, stilt walkers, flower girls and band. Nowadays, it is rare to see these anymore. At most it is a band, a cymbal performance by a clan organisation and a scaled down procession.

A scaled down procession

A funeral band

Cymbals from a Clan organisation

The family has to walk behind the hearse. Where possible, the most immediate family has to place their hand on the hearse sort of to "accompany" the deceased for part of the journey. The eldest son carries a broom like stick with a paper lantern hanging from it. This is where the soul of the deceased is supposed to be in during the journey. He also has to carry the incense bowl with a single lighted incense stick. A

t every junction and bridge, he has to kneel and call out to the deceased to "cross the bridge" so that the deceased know where to go.

It is more common now for the body to be cremated instead of burial. As Singapore has only 3 crematoriums, due to the tight schedule, the final ritual is a short affair. A prayer and immediately thereafter the cremation. In the past, the family would have to mourn for up to 100 days but nowadays, most do not even mourn for even a day and they will ditch the "badge" immediately after the cremation. This means they no longer need to wear mourning colours thereafter. In fact, they will change into colorful clothes immediately to symbolise the change of status.

The eldest son will also carry the urn back home or to a temple where the deceased tablet and photo will be placed for up to 100 days and the daughter in law will have to continue with the daily process of bathing the photo. Of course, again it is now more common for this to be outsource to the temple where the monks will carry on with the rituals.

Those who attended the funeral will cleanse themselves with "red flower" water. This is a potpourri of flowers put in a pail of water. This is supposedly to get rid of any bad luck associated with attending the funeral.

And finally after all is over, there is a feast to thank friends and relatives and to wrap up the funeral proper.

And this conclude the final post on the Chinese funeral. Hopefully it has been informative enough for a glimpse of a Chinese funeral. For a more detailed information on Chinese funeral, read here.

Tampines Eco Green

2011-05-18T20:46:00.001+08:00

Living in the east, previously the only natural greenery Eastsiderhave was the reclaimed land of Changi Beach. Otherwise, it was the usual smalllittle town parks scattered all over the HDB estates + of course the 3 big beach park. But unfortunately, all ofthem are nicely manicured products – the products of the zombies sitting intheir nice air con offices in the Nparks. How much better for the people in theWest and Central where they have the Bukit Timah nature reserve, the variousreservoirs, even “Little Guilin” in Bukit Batok and Mount Faber.

However, within the span of a year, things have started tolook up in the East.

First, there was the opening of the Lorong Halus wetland.The artificial part is still there but right next to it is a vast piece of wildreclaimed land where mud, oil and slime fertilize the plants and feed the manybirds that called the piece of junk land home.

Wide open green carpet trail

Then recently opened is the Tampines Eco Green. I used tosee this vast piece of empty land when I go to my father-in- law’s place. I have expected HDB flats to sprout out fromthat land but surprise surprise, what came up almost 20 years later was a beautiful piece of parkland called the Tampines Eco Green.

Leaving most of the natural vegetation untouched, the parkplanner has cleverly designed a 3 km walking trail around the 36.5ha Park.What is unique about this park is that the paths are not the usual concrete orasphalt path or dirt ground. In fact it is covered with a layer of “carpet” grass that is sosoft to the touch that it was almost like walking on air!

Bird hide made of twigs and branches

Everything there is touted to be “eco” friendly down to the toilet which supposedly does not use water for flushing and use friendly bacteria to keep the smell away while the waste decomposed naturally. During my last visit there, the toilet was still not open so no chance to spend the “aroma”.

Then there are a few bird hides for people to hide behindand look at the birds. The structure is made from waste wood and looks like avertical bird nest that has been sliced off in half.

Savannah?

A swamp?

Finally, what is most exciting is the “natural” feel to it. Theplace looks like a savannah and I almost expect to see deer and zebra roamingaround and crocodiles lying around the various ponds. That would be nice but no such luck. What I understand is that thereare plenty of birds and insects and is a wildlife photographer’s dream cometrue. Just look at some of the shots posted on the net!

Me? I am just so excited at the prospect of another trail torun just 1km away from my place. This + the Tampines Mountain Bike Parkcan provide a good 10km workout! Hurray!

A Chinese Funeral 3

2011-05-15T01:14:00.000+08:00

Throughout the funeral wake, prayers are held for the deceased. In Buddhist funeral, Buddhist monks will conduct the prayers. For those who are members of Buddhist temples, the relatives may invite the Temple members to perform the prayers as well. These members are usually dr essed in black robes and led by lay monks instead of Buddhist monks. In addition to this, the relatives may also invite a religious organisation "Siang Tong" 善堂 to chant the final prayer on the eve of the funeral. The prayer is to pray for a smooth journey to the nether world. The priest and his group will sing prayers asking for the protection and blessing of the Gods, sing praises of the deceased and ask for guidance for the deceased. Even the address of the deceased is mentioned!

The Priest saying their Sing Song prayer

Relatives of the deceased participating in the ritual

Crossing the bridge. This symbolise the journey of the deceased and the sending off by the relatives. Note the "back pack" on the back of one of the mourner. This is something that has caught up with the time. It the past, the mourner simply carry it in their hand. The mourners throw money into a basin when they cross the bridge. The money are meant to serve as bribe to other spirits so that they do not block the journey of the deceased.

After the 2 hours long session is over, all the paper peripheral that were used in the rituals and other offerings are burnt. Almost standard item is a paper mansion for the deceased to stay in.

Together with the mansion is a maid and a manservant. After all, with a house so big, definitely need somebody to take care right?

The old meet the new. A car and a trishaw - part of the luxury that the deceased will enjoy in Heaven

Each relative also offer personal treasure chest to the deceased. The chest are typically filled with some paper clothings and joss paper. If all these can really be converted to something that can be used in the next life, the deceased appears to be richer dead than alive.

All these are burnt in a big bonfire while the priest continues to chant.

While the offering are burning, the mourners will beat on the floor with a bamboo stick and at the same time calling out to the deceased to stay in the big house and collect the offering. The beating of the stick is to scare away other spirits who may want to "take advantage".