Life Sucks

In those days in the 1960s, my paternal grandparents were considered one of the slightly better off folks in Singapore. They stayed in Chinatown. Unfortunately, the place where the house once stood is now the Hong Lim Complex/Fook Hai Building. There are no pictures of the place available and so before my memories failed me, let me pen down what I can remember during the short and infrequent visits that I spent there during my early years. In those days, Chinatown was informally divided into different zones or rather streets. Each street houses a special trade or people from certain part of China e.g. Sago Lane where all the death houses were or Teochew Street where all the Teochew stayed. My grandfather's house was in Pickering Street (if my memory served me correctly). This street was devoted to small business and was rather orderly unlike the next street where there were street hawkers. The house looks something like this The house itself was a 3 storey shop house...

Went by this bakery at East Coast, thought the place looks interesting and went back after lunch for a look see look see. Turned out it belongs to the people from Awfully Chocolate and was actually a 3 in one outlet comprising the Awfully Chocolate which had relocated from Katong Mall; JooJoo (what an unimaginative name!) which sells yakitori and finally the bakery which attracted my attention, Mooshi Bakes. Was awed into silence when I saw their cream puff was priced at $3.90! Now what type of cream puff is worth that price? Of course, curiosity sufficiently piqued, went back after work and bought 1 cream puff plus an assortment of other breads to try. The cream puff was fairly big and filled with lots and lots of errr very creamy cream. Ha ha I know it sounds kind of crappy but that was really the only way to describe it. In fact, I asked for it to be taken away and eaten there and then but the staff insisted on putting it inside a beautiful white box claiming the ...

I run along Marina Bay very often and every time I am captivated by the lights and I always vowed to go down one evening to take pictures. And finally after almost 3 years? I did it. But sadly even with a DSLR and a tripod, the images came out bad. Lesson to learn is a steady hand and a tripod is not good enough to avoid camera shake. But anyway, these are a few I managed to salvage. The Singapore Skyline Another view of the original Singapore Skylight. The sky had turned somewhat ''chocolatish'' The Helix Bridge with the Marina Bay Sands in the background A panorama view of the Marina Promenade from 1 Fullerton Hotel to Pan Pacific Hotel 

Everybody loves a big Mac. And the french fries. But just exactly what do they add in it? A lady has kept a hamburger since 1996 and apparently to date the hamburger has not decomposed. Now another lady in the Big Apple has kept a happy meal since April and although it has turned hard as rock, it has not decompose. Check out the series of photos here . Hmmm it's almost enough to make me go out and buy a big mac and do my own little experiment.

Attended one of those super boring cocktail event where everyone walk around with a drink in hand making small talk and looking bored to death. What I don't understand about such events is... the organiser spent lotsa money on it yet the very basic thing they forget or ignore is how do they expect the guests to eat? Like this one. There was this mini performance so there was a program booklet given out. After the performance , there was a door gift. This was an oblong shape thingy. So there I was program, gift in hand and the first meal counter they had there was serving mee siam in a bowl! So now I had to carry program, gift, a bowl, chopstick (I had already decided no way I could manage a spoon as well) in my 2 hands and trying to slurp at the mee siam at the same time. Looked around for some tables. All the round mini size cocktail tables of which there were only a few were already occupied. So I had to slurp up the mee siam with the program and gift tucked under the arm, and ...

I have stayed in the East for more than 20 years. And I consider myself quite adept at sniffing out good food and yet I didn’t know of this place until a relative brought us there for dinner. I have even passed by(drive/ran) this place many times. What a mountain tortoise!  I am referring to this little place, The Bark Café , next to the Changi Chapel and Museum . Located so far away from the bustle of the city light to be a prime candidate for ‘ulu’ restaurant of the year, it is a pub cum restaurant serving local fares. While we were there, it was never fully packed, but there was a good healthy flow of customers as the crowd kept streaming in. According to my relatives, the place hots up even more as the night progresses. Apart from that, actually, the food is not that fantastic. At $14.90 for a plate of crayfish horfun, it is definitely not cheap. The final tab for the 16 of us that evening came to slightly over $400.00 and what we had were mainly local food like noodles...