On My Way to Find Bak Kut Teh

I'm sorry, I snuck a picture of this girl because she is JUST TOO THIN. Click on the picture to get a better look. TOO THIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of the pictures are taken from the bus (except the restaurant and ice cream) on my way to find Famous Bak Kut Teh.

This is the automated system that allows you to just scan a card that you add value to in order to pay for your bus and MRT (train) trips.

Some random church

These are houses that are quite expensive. Even though they are connected to each other, they easily surpass the S$1 million (US$750,000), depending on their square footage.

They put advertisements on their buses as well. There are both single and double decker buses, and since I haven't seen lychee flavoured non-alcoholic (0.5% alcohol) soda before, I thought I would take a picture. Two birds, one stone. Score!

They drive on the left hand side and the driver's seat is on the right. I'm worried about when I resume driving in the US, so I always tell myself that Singapore is weird. When I went to London though (which has the same system), I told myself that Americans were better. ^.^

Look familiar? Shell Gas station. Sold in liters (litres) and much more expensive than in the US.

Esso is quite well adapted to Singapore as well, and though there are plenty of 7 Elevens here, Cheers is their biggest competitor (in my opinion).

Quirky little fruit stansd and ghetto-looking restaurants are everywhere.

House of Seafood 180. I suppose this probably sounds better in Chinese, but when I look at it, I just want to go to the next seafood restaurant to eat. (There are plenty of seafood restaurants in Singapore, and it's quite famous for its chili crab. I thought that the chili crab would be more...peppery chili crab, but it's actually more like American-chili-without-the-beans on top of crab.)

HDB (Housing Development Board) has created enormous buildings they call HDB flats. You can tell which ones are older by the amenities (elevators, gardens, etc.). The first level is just a common area, sometimes with tables or sometimes even a mini mart.

And then...we arrived at this Founder Bak Kut Teh Restaurant, which is where plenty of local celebrities eat. You can sort of see the wall inside the restaurant, which is plastered with large pictures of supposed Singaorean celebrities (I only know like....4 Singaporean celebrities but still may not recognize them if they slapped me in the face.)

After Joey treated me to this famous bak kut teh (which really was quite nice, but I failed to get a picture because well....it's not much to look at anyways. Soup, rice and pieces of pork with bones in them...and they expect you to rip the meat out with your teeth. So not my style.), he treated me to Ice Cream Chefs on East Coast Road.

Even though I could walk to this restaurant, I still got lost. Sorry Joey. :)

Koko Crunch and Hershey's chocolate chips into a mixture of Hershey's chocolate and Peanut Butter ice cream (all freshly made, of course). It was lovely!

Singapore's Propoganda - 30 Years

So Singaporeans have gotten through some major propoganda, including the "Operation Smile Singapore" and "Speak Good English Movement."

However, neither of these compares to the 30th anniversary of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. 

Yet again, I find that these program(mes) are so Brave New World, where the government makes decisions on behalf of its people (as is its role), but down to the very language spoken at home? It seems ludicrous.

I have and always will be a proponent of speaking multiple languages, but it seems a shame that Singaporean Minister Mentor (MM) Lee says that by learning the other dialects of Chinese, most notably Teochew, Hokkein, Hakka and Cantonese, one limits oneself to only being able to communication with a measley few millions instead of the 1.3 billion that Mandarin offers.

However, I do indeed protest this number of 1.3 billion. They always manage to discount the fact that there are many Chinese people living abroad and that do speak Mandarin. 

People who do not learn the language of their ancestors will eventually lose all traces of their heritage. However, to encourage this through means of spending government money to promote this seems ...well.....like a soft dictatorship.

A surprise at Boat Quay?

My friend from Taiwan is visiting, so I ran him all around from Bugis Junction to National Library to Raffles Hotel to Raffles City to Boat Quay to Clarke Quay and back to Fairmont Hotel all in one day. I am thankful to be alive, though my feet are quite upset with me.

While strolling at Boat Quay (me secretly looking for a foot massage place but unfortunately, SOME people are too ticklish), we ran by a restaurant that featured carved out melons! It's too bad that they don't sell wooden versions of these because doing it in fruit seems like such a waste, but nevertheless, the hostess allowed me to take a picture (because I'm clearly a tourist today instead of a questionable-local). 

Of all the (TV show) Heroes powers, I think one of the greatest ones was the girl who could learn anything by just watching it being done once. Just imagine! Me being able to do that double back tuck......or being able to carve melons.

Missing Home

I'm a bit nostalgic for home right now, so what do I do when I'm a bit blue?

I go onto Google Maps and have a look at my house. It's sort of weird, knowing where my Tinky or my parents are right now, and I can do it with pinpoint accuracy because of the level of precision that Google Maps allows.

I see the gardens in which my dad spends so much time.

I see my bedroom.

I see the apple and cherry trees, though they look so small on screen.

I see the pine tree that I ran into after my dad had just removed the training wheels and blacked out.

I see the neighborhood that I grew up in, and it's so weird to be so detached from all the things I had as a child. A bird's eye view of all that I know.

No tears come, but this aloofness, this strange realization that I am so incredibly far away from home...it makes me feel as if a Horcrux is dangling from my neck as well.

Things I Wonder #6 Friday the 13th

So I was wondering earlier today, since there is no bad luck associated with triskaidekaphobia (fear of thirteen) in Singapore, what is? Well, I know a few things about numbers and Chinese superstition:

• 3 and 8 are especially lucky numbers because when you put them together and say something uninteligible to the American-trained ear, it means working hard more money or something like that. *waves hand as if shooing the notion away*
• 9 signifies longevity, which was particularly interesting to me because many Chinese emporers would have dragons sewn onto their clothes with the 9th dragon hidden inside (how charming).
• 4 is spooky! Four sounds like the Chinese word for 'death,' and so I wonder (though I haven't asked anyone yet) if April fourth is a really bad day.