年年更有余

The man slyly stated that we ought to follow certain Chinese New Year traditions.

I was most suspicious. He barely speaks the language.

He declared that we should have fish to signify abundance for the lunar year of the Ox.

Ha! Indeed. Like rounding up the FaerieFolk for a sushi and sashimi dinner at Tatsuya.

I suppose everyone's in a festive mood. Everyone was beautifully dressed and all excited to sit down to a fantabulous dinner. Well, we largely shop online. So there were breathtakingly splendid jewel colors from Cynthia Vincent, Jovovich-Hawk, Alice+Olivia, Graham & Spencer; boho chic from Leave of Grass and Erdem. So yes, I fingered the fabrics and drooled all over the girlfriends. ;p

Some dresses are reserved for special occasions. I finally mustered up enough courage to wear this Hervé Léger bandage dress that I never dared to wear because it was so unforgiving. What the hell, curves are in.

The horde of us filled up the sushi counter and yabbered away.

I'm almost embarrassed to say, but we ate so little for lunch in order to have stomach space for dinner. We had a lot more sushi than what is shown here. Even though I didn't use any flash, I didn't dare to take that many photos!

A Familiar Type

This woman gave us a packet of Lim Chee Guan bak kwa. "The gold coins type!" She reminded us that she was giving us good stuff.

Since we don't eat bak kwa, we would have just given the pack away. But we thought we'd first open up and see if it was okay. Luckily we did.

We were horrified to see that the pieces of bak kwa were not even proper pieces. Much less 'gold coins'. They were the leftover charred bits and ends from the main squares.

This is the same rotund woman who at our flat, wants to tapau her half-eaten second plate of biryani and anything else she can lay her eyes on. It is also her who would, along with her sons with voracious eating capacity, eat up all the food on the dining table with nary a thought for the other guests.

At the rate she's waddling, she really should embark on a strict exercise regime. Oh, and at the same time, teach her husband that a cheek-to-cheek greeting is preferred instead of a his-lip-to-my cheek and leaving a trail of drool on each side. I always have to surreptitiously wipe away his saliva after. Eioow.

This is one woman who will shamelessly and blatantly "贪小便宜". She's extremely embarassingly, to say the least.

She's damn one kind lor.

I can't help but chuckle each time I remember how one year at lunch, she took offence at the luxurious napkins we used that depict beautiful Botero fat women.

Most Creative EVER!

When I opened up the card, I cracked up completely. I roared with unbridled mirth for a good 15 minutes. I laughed so hard till I had tears streaming down my cheeks! The woman not only decided to pen me greetings in Chinese. What got my funnybone were the 2 squares of her city's toilet paper she had sent along with the card!!!

She couldn't get over my penchant for white toilet paper!! Woman! You're h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s!!! I will have you know that if these 2 squares are defined your "rough-grained ugly greyish-thing brown being used as toilet paper", the "rough-grained ugly greyish-brown thing" they pass off in my country is nowhere near your standard of softness or thickness. Mine's at least thrice rougher and half the thickness. Go figure. Your 2 squares are plush in comparison and beautifully soft. With dotted hearts embossed to boot.

You get 'Best Birthday Pressie' this year. Full of wit, ingenuity, thoughtfulness and a damn good sense of humor. I love you lah.

CNY Visiting

We went out to do some house visits proper today.

It wasn't too unpleasant.

House visits don't mean a thing to us. But it means a fair bit to the people we're visiting.

We like them. We see them rather regularly actually. But I know they want us to visit specially during Chinese New Year because they celebrate it. So we do.

The street lamps were lit when we reached the last venue. Perfect timing. We left the moment the sun set fully.

When darkness fell, we slipped away to the cinema.

It was time to clear the mind, have a light dinner and wind down to a good movie with wine and cheese.

Cold Water Please Aunty Imp!

Uh oh. I think I've just influenced the little niece to drink really cold water.

Like many tots, she's not fond of tepid water. She gets forced to drink it anyway. But she's getting really good at squirming off.

She was grouchy and said no to her bottle of water. I clinked my glass of ice water at her. The ice cubes made musical sounds that caught her attention. She was most interested in it. She stretched out a hand to touch the condensation on the cold glass. Then I touched the glass to her lips.

She licked the edge of the glass and then gulped the ice cold water! She grinned at me and willingly drank a couple more sips. I'd think that cold water, for some reason, is a lot tastier than warm water. Heh. I don't drink tepid water either!

年初二 :: The Day of Wii

It was awesome how we didn't have to spend all that money at the arcade anymore and we could still complete The House of The Dead!

The friends put it on unlimited credits. It was so cool that we didn't have to die! We just reload and fire-at-will!

The Wii-motes were vibrating so much that our hands were numb after every stage! The friends were definitely tempted to buy the gun version of the remote. Just so we could get on to playing Ghost Squad!

The intense frowns of concentration and screams of "Die zombies die!" that reverberated around the room were simply hilarious.

年初一

Thank goodness that as our preferred habit and a nod towards the Indian side of the family, we have Indian food during Chinese New Year.

The man also whipped up a Thai glass noodle and minced chicken salad. This is one dish he perfected after tasting 2 spectacular failures and 1 mediocre final product.

That dhaal-cha, mutton korma, chicken biryani, basmati rice and the sorts make it feel so much better that we don't have to adhere to the traditional dishes of the festival.

I gingerly threw the chicken onto the man's plate. I lapped up alot of that biryani and mutton.

Cass McCombs, Don Henley and the embarassingly gay Erasure (I love their acoustic album Union Street!), blared soothingly out of the speakers through iTunes. Well, I'd like to see you try doing Mambo moves to Erasure in a cheongsam...

I'd puke if I have to sit down to another 8-course Chinese meal with dong-dong-qiang music blasting over the eeky PA system.

A Gift

Each time we chill out at the girlfriend's, she would sternly remind us not to bring any alcohol.

She had enough stock at home to open a cosy bar for a year probably, without needing to bring in supplies. Her dad would keep aside premium blended whisky and single malts just for us.

This round, her dad took us down to the cellar. He told us to take our pick of alcohol. We oohed politely at the bottles of red wine. But of course our line of sight zoomed straight to the single malts sitting quietly at the corner. The dad was really sweet and insisted on giving the man this special bottle.

Bottled independently by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, this 22y.o single cask No.105.11 almost blew us away. Wryly referred to as "Lip-burn on a race track", it was apt. Straight up, it was piercing. The man immediately identified it as a Speyside. Once distilled with a dash of water, the floral notes came through. My tastebuds couldn't take the cask strength of this one. I had to open it up with an ice cube. And I went into an orgasmic 'ahhhh'.

除夕 :: 团圆饭 2009

If I have a choice, I will not eat chicken in any form.

That meat, being so politically correct, is omnipresent and absolutely scary.

It's gotten to the point that my stomach churns if you so much so as mention 'chicken'.

When I have no say over the menu, no matter what the occasion is, I will reject sharks' fin. Seeing the dish on the table already breaks my heart.

But I love abalone. I love it as sashimi. I love it dried or out of a can. I love them to be served plain in broth, in noodles or porridge.

办年货 , 准备拜年

You know my dislike of ang pows.

But I know some of the friends' parents will still insist on handing out ang pows to us. I don't like visiting homes empty-handed. Mandarin oranges no count.

So this year, I've also prepped 'return' gifts of abalone, bird's nest and pork/fish floss to wish the families good health and abundance.

If you're celebrating Chinese New Year, 那就预祝您新年如意，岁岁平安.

Flag Day

These past few weekends, many schools are holding Flag Days. There are many students in uniforms going around all venues with their charity tins to solicit for donations from the public. The charities' logos and names are conspicuously pasted on the tins . Couple that with the school uniform, there is a legitimacy in what the students do to chalk up brownie points.

While it is all good to do fundraising in the name of charity and for VWOs, my problem is, these students seem to just hold out the tin and ask for donations without knowing a single thing about the organization/s that they are supporting.

Granted, the students are pretty polite when they thrust the tin in my chest. But when I ask them "What charity this is", "Where is it located" and "What does it do", I get the most terrible answers. The answers range from "I don't know", "I'm not sure", "My teacher didn't tell me" to "You can google it later" and "Can't you read it on the tin yourself".
You tell me, can die or not?

I'm wondering if schools just blindly send out students to do this sort of fundraising without a briefing. Shouldn't there be some sort of background information these students are supposed to digest before stepping out to meet the public? But there are the rare few who could, in all of 30 seconds, answer my questions quite comprehensively.

What Makes Me Smile

Happiness is:

- waiting up and fidgeting because the man's parents aren't home even at midnight.

- hearing the door open and rushing out to greet them.

- putting the abalone, bird's nest, ginseng powder and fresh flowers into his mom's hands.

- grinning at her look of surprise at the many gifts.

- seeing the parents smile because we remember to do little touches.

Ginger Tales

I had a grand time laughing at a dear friend's blog post.

She marvelled at the different types of ginger in the supermarket and took a photo of it. The caption below the photo read:

"There was mango ginger, lesser ginger (which makes you wonder if the other gingers laugh at it), tumeric and other roots."

I had to beep her on msn. Seeing this was a late night conversation, I bet you we made perfect sense to a third party.

imp says: "lesser ginger (which makes you wonder if the other gingers laugh at it)," Priceless!
imp says: versus lesser mortals.

scully says: well didn't it make you wonder?

imp says: i think i better be a normal ginger.

scully says: Normal Ginger : HA. You Lesser Ginger you
scully says: *Lesser Ginger moves to back of line*

imp says: normal ginger might end up at le cordon bleu.
imp says: lesser ginger ends up at the zi char stalls.

scully says: poor Lesser Ginger
scully says: but then again they all end up dead. so maybe it doesn't matter!

imp says: OH DEAR.

scully says: tis true
scully says: as Lesser Ginger and Normal Ginger are parted for the last time. and Lesser Ginger says, "it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known"
scully says: or really the whole thing does Lesser Ginger say , "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known"
scully says: then poor Lesser Ginger loses his head on the chopping block
scully says: *clomp*

imp says: i'm convulsing in hideous laughter right now.

scully says: tsk, tsk, poor Lesser Ginger's death is a laughing matter?
scully says: i propose we observe a moment of silence for all gingers, great and lesser.

If anyone wonders why we were having this sort of conversation, it all stemmed from this great flurry of insensitivity.

Bowmore Marmalade

Quaich Bar held a mini Chinese New Year celebration. The owners were really kind and treated us to the famous roast meats from Tiong Bahru Market.

They also picked out an assortment of Chinese New Year snacks and pastries for sampling. Normally, I avoid these pastries. But put a different marketing spin on it, tell me that it complements whisky; I'll think about eating it. Strangely, the snacks and roast meats went really well with the Bowmore 16 y.o, Auchentoshan Threewood and PC6.

The thing that really got my attention was the Bowmore 12 y.o marmalade. It was sweet and tangy altogether! Held together by pectin, this marmalade was absolutely pleasing. We wanted to get a couple of bottles for the friends. But the marmalade wasn't available for retail. The owners brought only a couple of bottles back from Scotland for their personal stash.

Bowmore really has an awesome range of whisky flavors that match different foods. I do love this distillery's expressions quite a bit.

What Chinese New Year Means To Me

We discussed what should go into the goodie bags for our old folks this Chinese New Year. As much as we wanted to pamper them with bird's nest and abalone, we realized that these 年货 wouldn't satisfy their needs. It'd make them smile and make us happy, but it wouldn't achieve the desired impact.

At the end of the day, we narrowed it down to these items:

1) a 10kg sack of rice. 2) 6 small bottles of chicken essence
3) 1 kampung chicken 4) 2 packs of fresh chye sim
5) 1 packet of dried mushrooms 6) 5 S$10 NTUC vouchers
7) 1 big ticket item at each volunteer's choice/budget.
We figured that these would be practical. These don't mean anything to me. It might not be anything to you either. But a goodie bag containing these items means alot to our intended recipients.

No.7 would be decided by the volunteers responsible for their roster. The individual volunteers are in the best position to know what the old folks need. It could be a month's supply of medicine, walking stick, radio or even a television. Whatever the volunteers see fit.

Being Chinese New Year, these would be accompanied by an ang pow. We would also need to sit down with them to go through the Budget measures that are relevant.

I find no joy and significance in celebrating Chinese New Year. It's a festival that carries no meaning for me. But I find peace in doing something concrete to fill up the days during this period. If our actions could bring some cheer and tangible benefits to the old folks within our sphere of influence, that would be something positive within a festival (though rich in cultural roots and history) which I find shallow in practice.

The PAs

I work very closely with many fierce PAs. (Personal Assistants)

I'm unfailingly polite to PAs, no matter what.

I've gotten quite used to their quirks, moods and short-tempered days. I'm rather scared of a couple actually. PAs wield enormous power.

It's hilarious really. Like today.

A PA just ranted at me over the phone. (It wasn't my fault!) I could empathize with why she was grouchy. I wasn't even angry! Ha. I gauged my tone to keep it neutral and used phrases like, "I'm so sorry...", "Yes. I understand." etc. I didn't even protest at certain things she said. Luckily she stopped short of calling me "useless". I just let it slide. She's much older than I am. Formidable too. Anything to soothe her ruffled feathers.

I'm still going to send her cookies for the Chinese New Year to thank her for her advice.

Amazing hor?

PAs are the only people with the concession to scream at me; I can still smile after I put down the phone.

A Morning Stroll

We like to infuse a little bit of nature into our weekends. We don't want to be cocooned in air-conditioning.

This morning, we did a 7km slow walk in 2.5 hours. We hit the suspension bridge to do that treetop walk and swung back. We parked further away at the Venus Drive carpark on purpose so that we could clock a longer distance.

It was my first time there! But I really didn't think it'd be difficult. This is Singapore!!! How unfriendly can the terrain be?? While the rest wore sensible jogging shoes and berms, I stuck to wearing trail sandals and a tennis skirt. Heh. But I insisted on carrying a bag of supplies. No matter how easy a trail is, accidents can happen. I know that all too well. That bag had stuff that could keep me alive for 48hrs, even with a broken leg!

It was literally a stroll in the park for us. We skipped and sprinted along some parts of the trail. But we didn't run lah. Not that on to run all the way uphill and across rocks. The monkeys scared me at one point. When the monkeys saw us, some scampered down to perch on the railings of the boardwalk. We kinda stopped for a while. We had to walk by the monkeys and we didn't know if they were going to jump at us!!! ARRRRRRRRRGH. I swear the monkeys were grinning at us! Me and animals. No good that way.

Anyway, the view from the suspension bridge was quite beautiful. We lingered for quite a while there without anyone else coming along. We considered stopping by SICC for lunch and ask them to buggy us to the cars. But the breeze was lovely. Not too humid at this time of the year. So we decided to just finish the rest of an easy 2.5km to the carpark. Lunch can be somewhere else more interesting.

Our weekends should be spent walking around the parts of the island that are not exactly within a concrete jungle.

A Get-Together

I like Margarita's for its high ceilings and cheerful colors. We ordered the gamut of quesadillas, enchiladas, guacamole and salsa. Then we asked if the vegetable soup was vegetarian. The server said "Of course!" And of course our table was quizzical. Vegetable soup could have been cooked in chicken stock okay.

That started the whole conversation about vegetable dishes that weren't actually vegetarian, how airlines and restaurants weren't understanding about Jains who don't even take vegetables that are roots. We traded many stories on flying experiences on the different airlines. The man also recalled that once on our national carrier- he made his choice of having Indian-vegetarian meals. The stewardess actually replied without thinking, "But you're not Indian." 

Conversation with this bunch is always hilarious. Anyway. The big debate of the night was whether everyone should own a Wii. Just so we could stop plonking coins into the machines and complete House of The Dead 2 & 3 in peace. The man was terrible and stole the birthday girl's bumblebee windmill.

Sorry birthday girl!!! I hope the gore-tex jacket keeps you warm in the chilly spring breeze and makes up a little for it!

In Play

A friend sent me the link and urged me to go play this.

I told him I'm bad at games.

My my. It's rather fascinating. Beautiful too.

I'm hooked on it.

Go figure it out.

Play Auditorium.

We Taught Her The /f/ Consonant

Brave little Missy R came out with us for dinner despite nursing a fever from a vaccination jab. I had so much fun repeating "Friendly funny faces!" to the little tot. It was probably the tone I used and kept to the whole evening. For some strange reason, it tickled her quite a bit. She giggled everytime I ended the phrase with a silly face. I think her mommy will roll her eyes at me if /f/ is the first consonant she picks up! Haha.

Glad that the little one's fever dissipated by the end of the evening. I hope she stays so sweet as she learns to recognize the humans hovering around her. If she's okay with me, I can babysit her very soon!

Shall attempt to teach her sounds!! I don't allow little tots that I'm babysitting to watch tv. So I shall drill the 19 vowels and 25 consonants into her. I'd love to have her recognize the differences between grapheme and phoneme. And when she's much older, I want to teach her the alphabet and phonograms!

Perhaps we could play spelling bee when we're older! We can draw and paint! So exciting.

One Man's Meat Is Another's Poison

Somebody wanted to suck up to me. They obviously didn't know me enough.

They had the nerve to send me a piece of sharks' fin.

It was all I could do to not go too hysterical over it. I couldn't stop shrieking. I threw a fit.

Delicacy my ass!

I instinctively stomped on it and junked the box and its contents into the bin. I didn't even want to give it away and perpetuate the eating of sharks' fin.

I'm writing a cheque to the sender instead and very nicely tell them not to ever send me this sort of crap again. There are certain issues I take a firm stand on. This is one of them. I will not swallow it just so to make the sender feel good. What message would I be telling the sender?!

Sure, I'll be diplomatic about rejecting the gift. I'll craft very poetic lines. But I must do it.

Educate Your Children At Home Please

You know what irritates the hell out of me?

Parents who give their children a running commentary at the movie theatre when it's screening Red Cliff, not a cartoon.

And the parents encouraged the children to talk loudly for the whole 2.5hrs. The parents replied to their questions just as loudly. They talked over the sound of war scenes and explosions.

These children are not toddlers. They are at least 5 - 7 yrs old. Old enough to know that talking in cinemas is a social disgrace.

For all the 'culture' they impart to their kids, they forgot to impart the most important- social graces.

And I said so. The parents were indignant because they viewed it as their right for buying 5 movie tickets. They didn't think it was any booboo in talking throughout.

I hope your children don't grow up to be like you.

I hate Singaporeans sometimes.

At That Age

He sings good. He's only 16.

He's sweetly awkward and very earnest. As a singer-songwriter, Weiwen Seah's got it started for sure. The talent is unmistakable. Some covers and some originals. Very nice. He's going to add a lot of depth to the Singapore music scene.

But ummm.....I kinda wish he didn't keep reminding the audience 5 times in a row about his "upcoming EP" and his myspace address. That got really tiresome. Dude, I can google you know.

Self-promotion needs to be done with a certain level of finesse so that it sits well with consumers who will pay for his albums. I'm a critical consumer, not a friend. So I hope with age, he will become more polished.

So when he wasn't talking and did only the singing and the strumming, I really enjoyed his gig with For This Cycle at Esplanade tonight.

Kat Parsons

Hearing Kat Parsons in a private setting is lovely.

But listening to the singer-songwriter do an acoustic gig at Esplanade's Outdoor Theatre is an audio visual treat.

Put the lovely backdrop of our city skyline and an almost cold breeze, the evening is postcard worthy.

I hope you strolled by Esplanade earlier and caught her one-night public acoustic gig. It'd be a pity to miss it. I really love how the arts and music scene is becoming so much more vibrant in our little island.

Kat Parsons has got uncannily strong pitching. Each note she chases and bends is pitch perfect. She has got a very very powerful voice. Her vocal lines are very melodious.

She also did 2 covers- the classic 'Someone To Watch Over Me' and then gave a really cute twist to Rihanna's 'Umbrella'.

She's a really good storyteller too. I love how she reveals the reason behind each song she wrote. Witty, funny and superbly down to earth.

Stars

We went for our first gig of the year!

Stars were in town for an evening.

Our friends in Brisbane were raving about the Stars gig there 3 days ago. We were expecting good stuff for this Singapore leg.

Unfortunately I had a pounding migraine that didn't go away even after dinner. I was rather tortured, but nothing earplugs couldn't help alleviate.

At the risk of being murdered, I'd say that they sounded pretty pop-ish rather than cutting edge. Good pop though. Very easy listening.

The band was really charming. They bantered, they joked and appreciated the audience.

I hope this first gig of the year means that there'll be more good gigs to come!!

A Beep From The Bestie

The bestie is traipsing Germany. I told her to party well for us.

I didn't expect her postcard to come in the mail tonight. It's a thing we always do. Wherever we are, we send postcards to each other. I love it that she does. It is a most pleasant surprise this first week of 2009. She giggled and asked if I had to pay extra postage on the postcard. I was puzzled.

"Postage is 1 euro, babe. I only stuck on 0.45euros!" She explained. Oh. HAHAHA. Well, nope. The post office must be feeling very kind during this festive season.

Our Day Out

Today was a shopping day with my little god-daughter and her mommy.

The man was a sweetie and chauffered us around all day. He took us out to lunch at the club before dropping us at the shops.

The little one ignored the man all day. But when he picked us up from the shops and said hello to her, she beamed and chirpped a "hello!" right back.

The little one needed shoes, some dresses and a sweater.

I didn't dare to buy the little one anything earlier. Toddlers grow so fast and before I know it, things don't fit anymore. I need her physically beside me in order to have a perfect gauge of her size this month.

It was so fun buying stuff for her. There was no way to just stop at one item. In the end, the shopping bag was filled with lots of cute stuff for her.

And nothing for the 2 adults.

The mommy was like, "What do I do with 10 pairs of socks??!"