Blurbs from Singapore – Day 5

The best food in Singapore is served on a plastic plate for $3 a person in a communal eating area cooled by dusty rotating fans. Bring your own tissue as napkins.

A distinctively local experience that I cherish each time I return is the neighborhood hawker centre. No frills, just down home authentic Singaporean cuisine prepared in a bustling cluster of 50-square-foot stalls representing all flavors and cultures of the region. Among countless others, there’s the…

• Malay food stall, serving up spicy dishes like mee rebus and beef rendang, all prepared Halal.
• Indian food stall, offering plates like vegetable briyani and roti prata with curry for dipping.
• Peranakan (a.k.a. Nyonya) stall, with its unique twist on traditional Malay dishes like laksa and fish head curry.
• Chinese stalls cooking up various noodles (soupy or dry) and rice plates, usually served with a heaping spoonful of chili on the side.
• “hot/cold drinks” stall, offering variations of coffee (kopi) and tea (teh), and an assortment of tropical fruit juices that are blended or squeezed to order while you wait.

Most storefronts display the sign, “no pork, no lard” as a welcome for Muslim patrons; and most shopkeepers can conduct business in English and Malay, and at Chinese food stalls, usually Mandarin and at least one other dialect as well.

Tonight, I watched sugar cane being squeezed through a mega juicer resembling a wood chipper that filled a heavy glass mug with refreshing green juice on ice for SGD$1 (or USD$0.75); and cheong fun (rice noodle rolls) being made from scratch, stuffed with a generous portion of shrimp, and cooked on a unique square steamer for SGD$2.50 (or USD$1.80) a plate. A trifecta feast for the eyes, mouth, and tummy. So many stalls, so little time...

Blurbs from Singapore – Day 4

It takes only 30 minutes to drive from my childhood home in Changi on the east coast, to the west coast district of Jurong. En route, along the scenic East Coast Parkway and Ayer Rajah Expressway that traverse the southern part of the island, we see signs of the nation’s ongoing march towards growth, progress, and in this economic climate, job creation:

• The Singapore Flyer, a 165-meter (541-foot) ferris wheel observation deck equivalent to the London Eye;
• The Marina Bay Sands Casino and Resort, comprised of three sleek 50-storey hotel towers capped with a 2-acre "sky garden", and a domed casino, slated to open their doors by late 2010;
• The Esplanade (or “Durian” as it’s affectionately called by locals because of its spikey resemblance to a favorite fruit), a performance arts venue with concert halls, theaters, and outdoor stages; and
• The Marina Barrage, the country’s largest reservoir where picnickers and kite-flyers blanket the museum’s garden roof.

This is certainly a different Singapore from the one I left 26 years ago. But even though I'd probably be lost around here without a map, a part of me will always find this place familiar and call it home.

Blurbs from Singapore – Day 3

I love the rain. Especially in the tropics, where:

…it brings a welcome respite from the heat;

…its heavy pitter patter on the corrugated tin roof makes for cosy curl-into-a-ball-type slumber; and

…the fruit bats on their nightly feeding visits to the backyard chiku tree seem to chirp a little louder to be heard over the showery din.

Blurbs from Singapore – Day 2

Day at the beach! We spent it at Pasir Ris Park on the northeast end of the island, where fishermen’s tents dot the grass-sand transition zone between land and sea. Wetland trees heavy with moss lean over to shade tiny fiddler crabs that scurry sideways across the beach, the males seeming to shyly hide their faces with their one oversized claw.

From the edge of the water, Dad gathered the folds of his casting net and, in one graceful stroke, released it like a smooth drape over the water. His first attempt brought in a pair of foot-long triangular fish with blue-tinged scales. “They seem to travel in pairs,” he remarked, which made me sad for their demise but would later be a distant memory when they comprised our dinner, along with other catch of the day and a couple of rice plates from a nearby hawker stall.

A friendly spectator in a floppy hat told us they were nicknamed “Lee Kuan Yew fish” among the Malay people because Singapore’s highly respected former Prime Minister was the first local Chinese to eat it. “Auntie,” the man had exclaimed excitedly to my mother, “they sell these at Changi Market for $3.50 per kilo.” He had earlier been wading along the shoreline himself, but instead of a casting net, he had wielded a changkol (Malay for “hoe”) and was digging for earthworms to use as bait for an overnight fishing expedition. When he proudly showed off his prize, a 2-foot-long worm in a plastic bag of writhing soil, I couldn’t help but recoil a little while trying to look impressed.

Food recap, a requisite for any Singapore travel diary, whether you’re a foodie or not: laksa, nasi lemak, otah otah, curry puff; and for dessert, chendol, durian ice kachang, gula melaka, papaya, and longan. Good thing we’re doing lots of walking on this trip.

Blurbs from Singapore – Day 1

Greetings from the Lion City! Our 18-hour flight seemed part of a dream sequence when the whistles, squeaks, and hollow caws of waking tropical birds stirred me from sleep through the brightening dawn. The portable air conditioner blinked 27 deg Celcius (81 deg Fahrenheit), the same outdoor temperature that welcomed us when we emerged from the airport after midnight several hours earlier.

The rest of our day, Billy Joel-style: roti prata, pei dan jok, lontong, mee siam, Sam Sui chicken, kang kung belacan, mee suah, fish head curry, okra, eggplant, pre-WWII family photos, …, all in the company of folks I've known for almost 40 years.

*click* Archiving this emotional snapshot.

Uh, Okay Thanks, FB...

Thoroughly amused by Facebook's "unsolicited suggestions" feature in the top right margin of my Home Page. Recent highlights...

[friend's name]

He only has 13 friends on Facebook.

Suggest Friends for Him.

Leave him alone, I say!

[friend's name]

Poke Him.

Never mind that this person is my former Pastor. *awkward*