Much About Munch

Soo, I'm back in the capital of Tweetless land, as I like to call it. Haha. I'm also doing it here as I've become just ever so slightly paranoid after spending about 4 months here and hearing stories of censorship and the like.

Anyway. Just to ramble somewhat incoherently about being back here.

I have to admit I wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect of coming back. There were many many other places in the world I'd rather have been jetting off to.

That said, it's not like I despise this city and wish to stick voodoo pins into everything about it.

It's just that there are a number of things about living here that just really got me down.

One of the most fundamental 'Boooo'-inducing things about life here for me is the food. Perhaps it's a sign of age, or the seeping influence of the mother, but it bothers me a lot when I'm unable to procure proper food.

A lot of the food here makes my stomach turn when I think about it, and sometimes, I'd really just go without eating rather than put that stuff into my body. Even if it tastes good, I think it's probably not doing your health any wonders, what with the oozing oil and artificial tastes and textures. I swear some of the fruit actually taste chemical.
Horror stories that really seem true about how 10% of cooking oil in this country is recycled from sewage really do nothing to bolster my confidence in eating here.

I didn't have a proper kitchen last semester, and only owned a saucepan (which I set on fire one evening. Haha) so after a while I gave up on preparing my own meals and relied on eating out and take out food.

The good thing was that I lived in 'Little Korea', and so there was this wonderful little Korean diner that dished out yummy Korean food that received the stamp of approval from the Koreans too. I ate waaaay more Korean food in those few months than I did in my whole life up to that point!!

Took the bus to my old neighbourhood last night to be reunited with my old haunt. :p
Where I got off, the 'fish man' was there!!!
No, I'm not referring to those peddlers with carts of tanks crammed full of goldfish and poor bunnies in horrifically tiny cages and other inhumanely housed pets.

It's this fish!!


A lovely snack that here, is sold with a milk chocolate or white chocolate filling. I believe they originate from Japan where they're usually filled with red bean paste.
The 'fish guy' got his equipment from Korea, which is this round implement with many molds and a gas fire.


Yesterday's fish was nice and crispy. ^-^
I tried not to think about how the oil he coats the molds with is probably the dreaded sewage oil.

Maybe I'm just over-paranoid. Or maybe the problem isn't so much with the food in Tweetless land but lies with me instead. Hmm.

Anyway, for dinner I had a wonderful bowl of pollack soup, which was bean paste based and spicy (surprise surprise. Haha) Good stuff!


Right. Time to put an end to my whining about food here.

PS: Typing 'Tweetless land" is probably useless, given my tags. Dorh.

Climbing the Hill of Emerald

Ta-dah!!

This sort of allows me to vaguely tick off one item on my things to blog about. Haha.

'Sort of', because I can't really say Emerald Hill is a favourite place of mine, and also because it's a non-exhaustive item.

Anyway, I do like having a quick poke around Emerald Hill, though, and the other night, I had some time to kill, so clomped my way down Orchard Road in the direction of that little pocket of old-world charm.



Aaaand, we're back! There's been a more than a month-long gap between what you've read before this line, and, well, what's beyond this line. ^^; The pictures were all inserted back then as well, though I was too lazy to continue.

Finally getting down to posting this, but am going to do it in a rather slip-shod manner.





These beauties are termed 'shophouses' as that's what they were - shops on the ground floor and lodging above.

They used to be rows and rows of them during the colonial era, but sadly most have been bulldozed for towering monuments to modernity.

In my extreme laziness, I point you to wikipedia for more elucidation on this architectural form. Note the section on the 'five-foot ways'.



Well, lovely Singapore's love of knocking down old things did spare some of these shophouses, mostly in strategic tourist spots like Chinatown and Boat Quay (nnngh, not a fan), sprucing them up in the name of conservation while blasting huge holes in the frontage for glass shop fronts. *rolls eyes*

The little pocket in Emerald Hill is mostly residential, though. It seems like they were originally wholly residential as well, which makes me wonder if I can stuff them under the classification of shophouses. But well, enough of my ignoramus ponderings, and on to the pictures!

I photographed a series of front doors. Some traditional, some tropical, some modern, some sweet, all beautiful.








To be honest, Emerald Hill is not my absolute favourite spot for shophouse gazing. I don't go there much, probably because there's not much to do but oogle the dwellings of others with gazes just ever so slightly tinged with envy. Haha.







The neon brightness of the stretch of Orchard Road where Emerald Hill is.


What would I give to live in one of these!!

The Roos and the Ras

I'm back from a week-long trip Down Under to the South West of Australia!! Photographic evidence of me being there with some grazing 'Roos. With joeys in their pouches to boot!

My first time back in Australia since 2004! That is rather a long time ago!
I'm appreciating the Aussie sunny disposition and sense of humour again. At the airport duty free shop, when I commented on the length of the 20cm or so receipt with all sorts of fine print about duty free and passing through customs and blah, the girl at the check out counter naturally and effortlessly said "A little light reading for your flight."

Anyway.

We flew into Perth, and motored around the southwestern corner of the state of West Australia, which is staggeringly huge (something like half the size of the US?? I think I got my trivia a little wrong here, as it sounds rather preposterous. But it's huge. It's practically a third of the whole of Australia) so we could only cover a tiny little corner of it.

A whirlwind post of the trip.

Lovely town of Fremantle ('Freo') with quaint architecture and cute cafes.


Dramatic skies and surfs. It was winter so it rained quite a bit. We were told it usually rains a lot more, so we were lucky.
This was at a little town called Gracetown, where, as we found out in the local papers the next day, a surfer was killed by a shark earlier in the morning. We saw a rescue boat being launched into the approaching storm, but that was probably to search for the shark.


Beautiful sunsets.
Another little settlement near Margaret River. Got there to find the cafe shut and a trailer park, but the sunset was amazing.


Curling up by what was possibly my first proper fire. Nice and toasty.
And the next morning there was a kangaroo grazing on the lawn.


An abundant supply of rainbows.
Faint rainbows. Partial rainbows. Double rainbows. Full rainbows. Sea rainbows. Alpaca rainbows (more on this!! :p)
Because the rain kept coming in spurts, the rainbows were out in full force as well! Think there were about at least 7 over a period of 5 days!!


Ugly green beast.
The rental car was a most strikingly violent green. It probably inspired shock in the heart of many a driver who caught it in their mirrors, as well as a number of kookaburras and kangaroos.
(I absolutely love kookaburras, by the way!! They look so incredibly adorable! I think it's the large heads that work the magic. A couple of them rested on trees just off the track eyeing the ugly green beast as we were trundling along an ancient karri forest trail)


Lots of food, sweets, and a little wine.
And a rounder face and stomach for souvenirs. ^^

Self Archaeology

I need to start piling stuff into suitcases again.

But I decided that this was the perfect time to rip out the contents of my room and strew them about the floor.

The room has now been in a state of destruction for the past 3 days, with me putting away something like 3 things each day. Yargh.


Something I invariably end up doing when I'm back in my room at home is what I term 'self archaeology'.
Sifting through the artifacts of the years I've spent on this earth.

Old diaries, lecture notes, scraps collected on travels, bits of childhood, letters, random 'junk'.

I'm quite a serious hoarder, I have to admit, and just can't bring myself to steel my heart and be 'ruthless' to throw things out.

This makes for a very full room.


Anyway, what I unearthed today were the journals I wrote for school way back when I was 11.

Two exercise books filled with my gawdawful and morphing handwriting.

Something like 90% of the entries featured my cat. xDD Strange little girl that I was.

And, flipping through them, I realised what an amazing lady my English teacher then was! She actually took the trouble to comment on all the entries, with little scribbled notes filled with humour and care. The teacher for the previous year simply arched huge ticks across the page without even correcting my mistakes.

I remember my Primary 6 teacher well. She was the one who was horrified at the distortedness of my handwriting even at that age, and made me copy out a book of my choice ('Martin's Mice' by Dick King-Smith xD) in parts to practice my penmanship. Harhar. ^^;
I don't really remember my exact feelings to this additional piece homework, but I do realise that she had gone beyond the requirements of the 'curriculum', and was motivated out of concern for the sorry state of my handwriting.

I really wonder where she is now. I felt a huge urge to contact her and express my appreciation, but google yielded no clues.

Anyway, reading my old journal filled me with poignant pathos, for the days that are long gone, for the cat who is no more, for the teacher who is somewhere out there, and for the girl who has gone far, far away.

More Excuses

I was in the middle of what I intended to be a quick 'whoops, haven't been blogging for too long. Here, have some ramblings and some videos dumped on you!' sort of post that had begun to morph into a long rambly post with squee-ing when my usual hyperactive short-attention-span-induced clicking between browser tabs and refreshing brought pretty shattering news for my universe.

My favourite Japanese band, Ayabie, are breaking up.

Everyone but the vocalist, Aoi, will be starting a new band and shifting to another record label. From the comments issued, it sounded like things were pretty ugly.

I don't think it's quite sunk in for me yet.

Sooo, more time will probably have to go by before I post up the two entries I've been working on.

Think I'll go bury my face in a book. Oh, a third entry about my reading is probably in order too. Hmmm.