The Diary of a Young Girl

Yesterday was International Holocaust Day.

And for what appears to be the first time, there were subtle reminders and hints here and there about its approach. There was the feminist-angled article about Melania Trump deciding to forgo Davos and go alone to the Holocaust Center. There was this thing on Facebook where Yad Vashem invited its Facebook community to join their IRemember wall where your profile would be linked to the name of a Holocaust victim from their Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names and then posted on the wall.

I had my name linked to one of the names in the Database.

 

See, the Holocaust has always held a bit of fascination to me. Those close to me would disagree. They'd say that far from being just 'a bit', this is one of my favorite topics, of which my ear will perk up every time someone mentions anything about it. Well, they wouldn't be quite wrong either... given that I've gleaned as much resources as I can offline and online, that I mark Schindler's List and The Pianist as two of my favorite movies, and that any random resource about The Holocaust that pops up still grabs my ear. 

 

I was thirteen when I came by my first resource about The Holocaust..

 

That was the year I chanced upojn an excerpt, a short paragraph really, of Anne Frank's diary in my English textbook of which someone from the Curriculum Planning Division had included.

 

That one paragraph, written in the childlike, lively voice of Anne herself, and which later I would find out to be the very first entry that she wrote in her new diary- was what hooked me in. I can't explain why, but I dearly  wanted to find out more about this young Jewish girl who started this diary in 1942 when she was thirteen, and who had to go into hiding from the Nazis. I wanted to know what life was like for her in 1942 Holland, what she did, what her school was like, what her life was like, what her friends were like, was she the same as me, was she any different... 

In short, I wanted to know her.

 

 

Over the years I've come to know her a bit better.

I've read through her diary four, five times, and each time I feel like I'm getting to know her a little bit more. The first part interests me the most, what with her anecdotes and mention of her school and friends and parties. Throughout the diary, her honesty, her innermost thoughts, her humor, her own story, it all resonates with me. And though I've read more resources about The Holocaust since then- Elie Wiesel's Night, and Day. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. Schindler's Ark- even the Holocaust Cybrary- nothing means more to me than The Diary of a Young Girl. 

What does it for me, I think, is the personal voice that her diary was written in, the voice of a regular child, a young girl immortalized through her writings, immortalized through years and time. 

That's just what it is.

A voice.
 

A voice that cuts through the millions and resounds with a voice of hope. A voice that speaks of life as it is for her, not of a reollection, not with a purpose, not with the same spirit as one would do a memoir. This diary stands in a category in which it is not a book of fiction, neither is it a memoir.

Instead it is the voice of a thirteen year old girl who turned fourteen and went into her fifteenth year. It is the voice of a girl who lived in Amsterdam and had birthday parties and had friends and visited friends' homes and who then later had to go into hiding into The Annexe with her mother and father and sister and who because of that, lost all her friends and lost her regular way of life and had to make do with new routines of living whilst all the time having to behave like they weren't there at all.  

 

She never wrote her diary reliving through events that happened in the ghetto or the camp. She never wrote her diary 'looking back'. Her original manuscript was not written with the intention of remembering the six million that perished. How was she to know the number? How was she to foresee that she, tragically, would become one of them? Her diary, therefore, is not a memoir of a singular event in which she wrote it whilst recollecting through events of day by day. Instead, it is a real-time account, written as it happened 'this afternoon, this morning, yesterday, the day before.' And she wrote it as it was, incidents big and small, reactions big and small, perspectives and perceptions, everything.

 

It wasn't written with the indisputed knowledge that her loved ones had died. It wasn't written with the memory of the tragedy and the trauma that unfolded before her eyes. It was written in a way that as ordinary people, living ordinary lives with needs and wants and dreams and emotions and dreams and hope, would have written, as if the war, and the very real terror that they were in were just another inconvenience which they had to cope with in the day by day.  

 

That alone, I think, has made her diary a voice of hope in what we now know as a terrible, terrible time. That alone, knowing what we know today, reminds us that in a time of Chelmno and Westerbork and Auschwitz and Birkenau II and Bergen-Belsen, there were people, victims themselves, who lived, knowing that there were terrible things going on out there, and yet could not do anything about, but to try and live and survive and hope.
 

She captured what living in The Annexe was all about. She captured events as they happened, day by day. She captured what hiding from the Germans meant- what they ate, what they could not eat, how they used the toilet, how they washed, how they had to keep the windows shut and the curtains sealed, how they had to tiptoe and could only get a break mid day when the workers went home for lunch, how life for them really began in the evenings when all the workers had gone home, how they had to deal with tight spaces and interactions with her fellow dwellers.
 

She captured her dreams of what she would do after the war, her own feelings about what was going on, about the news on the radio, about everything that she saw and heard that was going around her and she captured what she was feeling right now about her mother and father and Margot and Peter and everyone else.

There is humor here and there, and which makes her diary a clincher, a spark that distinguishes it from everything else. There cannot be humor in Night. There cannot be humor in a memoir. But because she had hope, and because she wrote her diary with the sense of hope and future, we have her wit and her humor. Amidst everything that was going on, oh my goodness me, there was actually humor!

 

As it is, we not only have her vivid account, we not only have her story, we not only have her perspective of a typical teenager in the 1940s towards her family members (little has changed, I should say), but through her diary, begun in 1942 and abruptly cut off in the August of 1944, we have the life of one fifteen year old with the name of Anne Frank, who died in Bergen Belsen, put in blessed memory. 

Daffy @ Mandai

We finally biked to Mandai.

 

After three weeks, after a couple of short and not so short rides, we finally did the route that passes from Yishun to Mandai and then back down Woodlands Road.

 

Mandai's an interesting road. One that fascinates me.  

 

It's one of those roads that links the northeast to the northwest and it is a relatively seamless road that doesn't have many intersections along the way save for one turn into Sembawang, one turn from Mandai Avenue to Mandai-something, one turn into where the crematorium is and which leads to Seletar and Upper Thomson, and one turn into the zoo. It's a road that arcs across and connects you from Lim Chu Kang and Kranji to Yishun (or Nee Soon) with just one cut into the Sembawang in between.

 

I've never turned into the zoo road when I'm on the bike, by the way.

 

Usually I go straight. I'm already up north. I don't have time to turn left and turn right. Either I turn in from Woodlands Road and then zip right across, up and down the hills and slopes of Mandai, some of which need a bit of huff and puff, or if not I'm coming from the Yishun side and then I'm zipping right across towards Woodlands Road and  Kranji.

 

The latter was the route I took this time.

 

And which, frankly, I'm uber thankful that I made it up to Yishun at all.

 

Getting there from the east  coast side this time was quite a challenge. Nothing to do with falling down or near accidents, thank God, but because of dust and air pressure. Contact lens wearers will understand what I mean. :) And this happened still, despite the fact that I was wearing clear glasses... It got so bad that at least three times I had to stop and take a breather, push my bike to park, calm down, and rinse my lenses out as carefully as I could.

 

And that's not counting the rains that happened right as we were out of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 and heading into Lentor.

 

Normally I'd have continued. But Lentor is a pavement chock full of trees with few shelters and it would not be safe to get caught in the open during a thunderstorm on a route like this.

 

So we waited.

 

The rains paused. We went on. Lentor hasn't changed much.. a very good thing. They've straightened out some paths here and there, but the rest of the route, especially nearing the reservoir, is more or less the same. A bit of tree trunks upheaving the path. A bit of broken pavement. It was cool, windy and pretty okay altogether.

 

Heading up from Yishun Avenue 1, we stopped for dinner at Northpoint. The original plan was to have Collin's... because we'd already tried the outlets at Balestier, Marina Square and Cathay Cineleisure and we wanted to try out this one. But the diner is indoors and we didn't think we'd get away with parking our bikes indoors. So we had Four Fingers instead.

 

Fried chicken. :D Korean style. :D

 

And then it was the Mandai route after that.

 

I'm glad little has changed. The slopes are the same. Long, drawn out, with lights along the side; The trees are the same. The crickets are the same. The view of the reservoir from the road (if one can glimpse it) is the same even in the dark of night. The traffic lights in the middle of the slope are also the same. As is the ghost of a Shell station. There's just one exception though. Right opposite the gate of one of the camps today stand four blocks of temporary housing for the foreign construction workers.

 

Wow.

 

It's done pretty well, so well that I thought an estate had sprung up in the middle of nowhere, until I saw the lorry stop on my left and a group of workers hopped off and I had to yell a bit to get their attention just so I could first pass.

 

We made our way back down east after that, going via Woodlands Road, passing by a train depot, then down all the way past Bukit Panjang, then down Hillview, down Rail Mall and part of the Bukit Timah Hill range- one tough upslope that took the air out of me- and then one long, long slope down before turning into Dunearn Road, and then it was a familiar route back down via Rochor and Lavender and Old Airport Road.



more thai Gold food

You know how a couple of months back I wrote that much of the time whenever me and my Co Diner had our meals at this little cosy nook of a diner at Sunshine Plaza, we'd always go straight for our favorite orders of pineapple fried rice and chicken omelet?

 

Well, we were there late last month, and this time, we decided we'd take something different. No special reason whatsover, other than the fact that it was rainy season and it was raining that particular day and though it wasn't very windy and chilly, it seemed great weather for something hot and sour like tom yum goong.

 

So we had it.

 

Their tom yum goong, I was told, leans more towards the Chinese style of preparation, which makes it more of a sour than more of a spicy, and that is perfectly fine for someone like me.

 

 

See, I  like my spice. I'm fine with it.

 

But I'm happier when the level of spice doesn't demand too much from my palate, and the tom yum goong here does just that. The spice is mild, so mild that it is like a tap on your tongue and it's gone. There is the sour, which is lovely, cos it really does linger on your tongue and your throat and whets your appetite, and the best part is that there're enough of seafood ingredients inside. We had prawns, fresh succulent, juicy, chewy ones. We had mushrooms that were easy to slurp up with the soup, and we had lots of veggies which complemented the taste and light, slightly oily texture of the soup.

We decided on their BBQ pork as well.

No, it's not bak kwa. Neither is it char siew.

It is a plate of skilfully sliced pork that is either lightly fried or lightly grilled and which is lean enough but has just that little bit of fat on it. I love how homecooked it makes me feel, and how that tiny wee bit of burnt fat makes that little bit of difference. I eat it all.. :)

I love how cosy and intimate this place is, in the sense that we know what to expect and we know what we want. There're few surprises to be sprung here, and which makes it a great place to be when you've got a long day at work, when your brain is muddled up and you're not sure of what you should do, when you're caught up in discussion and planning and casual chit chat, because somehow, whether on a hot afternoon or an early evening, having their iced tea somehow just calms me down and preps me for the meal ahead. :)

  



spacing Out

I'm not anywhere near this area right now.

 

In fact, I'm pretty far away from it.

But even at where I am, at my desk, with my laptop open in front of me, the sight of this picture transports me to the very area where I stood, gazing out over the waters, admiring the glow of the setting sun, oblivious to the crowds around me, enraptured by the beauty that only a sunset can bring.

No doubt, this area charms me. Harborfront, Vivocity, Sentosa Island, Labrador Park, Keppel... the entire area has a certain magic which I can't describe, and I don't know whether this particular feeling has always been there, or whether it has been enhanced by the sight of the ferries in the harbor. 

Maybe so.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Because how is it that barely an hour away from this bustling, busy, concrete and glass city with a couple of green spots here and there, lies an island in the Riau archipelago that has mountains and streams and that is part of a country that has seismic activity and volcanic craters and supervolcanoes and tropical rainforest?

How is it that barely an hour away lies Batam, which is part of the Indonesian islands and where everything is geopolitically different?

It puts me in a pensive mood, this realization.

It gives me hope too.

And maybe that's precisely what I'm clinging to.

Maybe that's the emotion that I'm holding on to.

That as much as there are things to be done, so there exists a world where there are other things that get done, and they and us all dwell in this realm of living, this earth, this soil, this water, this planetary home. :)

lots of Christmas trees

Not a year goes by that I don't take a picture of a Christmas tree.

 

I've mentioned this before, I've written about it before and I'll keep writing about it as long as I have new pictures of Christmas trees to post and new stuff about Christmas to write. :)

 

So here're a couple of Christmas trees, snapped randomly, all through the Christmas season, from trees colorful to trees glamorous, from trees really huge, to trees really intimate and small.

 

And may these pictures last me till the Christmas of 2018 again. :)

 

 

 

 



Collin's

Just thinking about how to start this article has me wanting to head over to Collin's for a meal, but there're only four outlets that I know of, and none of them are near where I am right now, or where I'm going to be after.. -_-

They've got an outlet at Balestier. They've got an outlet at Marina Square. They've also got an outlet up north at Yishun and one more at Cathay Cineleisure in Orchard.

The first outlet I went to was at Balestier.

Someone had suggested we have dinner there, said that it came highly recommended by social media influencers, so it should be quite good. Now, I can be a tad cynical about the full extent of social media marketing- it sometimes has to be taken as a touch and go- but I'd say that the Influencers weren't s***ting themselves this time. :D.

We got a table large enough to sit ten, perched ourselves on the stools, looked around at what the others were eating, and then decided to order a pizza.

Great choice. :)

The pizza had marvellous toppings and lots and lots of cheese.. I think we had the beef and the ham and the mushroom but looking at the picture, you can't really see it all, buried under the thick chewy layer of cheese as it is. And it isn't mozzerella cheese. It's brie, and which is so generous and so good that the taste of cheese is all that I can think about as I'm writing this right now.

Maybe it is the flavor. Something. Just something.

But I really cannot think of this pizza without thinking of all the cheese. :)

Pizza...

I love the veggies actually!

We had beer battered potatoes too. They've got their own name for them that I can't recall now. Think of crisply fried potatoes that are cutely shaped, served in a sort of wire mesh alongside two kinds of sauces. and you've got it. One's a salted egg sauce, the other's a mayonnaise and whilst a saltier salted egg sauce would be lovelier, but hey, just as good.

Beer Battered Potatoes

There is quite a charm eating at Collin's. Perhaps it is the casual dining vibe that strikes a chord with most diners. This is a family-friendly place. This is a place to come to for dinner on a fun date. This is a place to come with a group of anything-also-can-jiak friends, or even a relative who is the type that doesn't quite know what they want until they get to the place and thoroughly study the menu. :)

They'll find a very extensive menu here. Collin's has got two pages worth of appetisers alone. Then there's one page worth of pasta and baked rice. There's one page worth of pizza. There's one or two pages for the mains, and right at the end there's one page for dessert and drinks. 

I've seen a family of four order three plates and share amongst themselves. Steak, fish, ribs, pasta, the works. I've seen ladies pick off each others' plates. I've seen couples share one dish after another as it comes along.

Me and my Co Diner did the same for a recent celebration. :)

Ordered a steak and grilled fish dish topped with coleslaw, salad, corn on the cob and sweet potato fries to share, ordered a french onion soup, sipped an iced Earl Grey tea topped wih sliced lemon and finished our meal off with a small Ben & Jerry's ice cream. :)

French onion Soup

Steak and Salad

More Veggies!

Earl Grey Tea

 

a Street Cat

 

She's hung around the neighborhood of the officetel for more than a year. Of that I'm absolutely sure. Because she was the first to greet me in the wee hours of New Year's Day 2017 when I was making my way back to collect a few things, and she is still there today, January 2018.

 

Did I see her this recent New Year's Day?

 

No.

 

I didn't manage to head in that direction.

 

But I'm sure she was lounging about comfortably somewhere.

 

When she first came, or how young she was when she first came to this area, or whether she was always in this area, I don't know. I wasn't here yet. She was already here by the time we arrived.

 

And I didn't take notice of her at first, this area being, you know, an area of cats, and cat feeders surreptitiously placing little dishes of cat food where the cats gather. But one day she just came up to me and my colleague and started winding herself around our legs and from then on, we were more or less smitten. :)

 

She's a charming feline, this one.

 

And in all this time, whilst she has migrated from the power box where we first saw her, to the drain where she sometimes decided to hang out, to the parked cars and even some of the residential homes, she has become a friend.

 

Our friend.

 

We find ourselves doing things we wouldn't normally do. Like walking further just so we can visit her in the evenings. Like calling out her name (the one we've christened her) unabashaedly when we're in the area. Like peering under cars- to the amusement of one owner who asked us what was the problem with his car-and peeking into the lovely homes just so we can grab a glimpse of her and call her out to us. Like standing around, hands in pockets, whilst we make all sorts of funny sounds just so she'll hear us and come out.

 

And she does.

 

Every time.

 

Sometimes she runs (I think she runs like a puppy). Sometimes she sneaks up and startles us by curling around our legs. Sometimes she gazes at us sleepily for a second or two before deciding whether to come over. Sometimes when she's scared, she peers out at us from her hiding place before happily bounding over. And when she's snoozing away, she ignores us for a couple of minutes before lazily stalking her way over.

 

 

Watching her is quite a delight, I admit, despite my self-proclamation that I'm more of a dog person. I love the way she curls around our legs and thumps her tail against our calves. I love the way she eyeballs us whenever we turn up and purrs when we come by. When she sits at the side and cleans her paws, she's just so adorable. And more often than not, she just does what a cat does- lie down in the middle of the road and eyeball us for belly rubs. 

We've watched her clean herself, dramatic style included. We've watched her play with lizards. We've watched her creep up to birds and sniff at them (with us yowling frantically at the side to not eat the bird, thank you very much!) We've also watched her make that funny sound she does when another cat steps into her turf. And we've seen her make friends with a white cat whom we jokingly refer to as her boyfriend and ask if she is gonna have babies.

 

We bring her snacks and food from time to time. Sometimes I bring her remnants from a fried salmon dinner. Sometimes I bring her bones and fins and fish parts from the fish that I've eaten- all nicely tied up and stored. Sometimes we bring her proper cat food that we specially buy from the supermarket and which is really fishy and we know she likes it.

 

Last Christmas we sneaked off a couple of d*** solid steamed fish pieces from the buffet table and hand carried them back to the neighborhood where we gave them to the cat as a Christmas dinner treat. Judging from the way she cautiously sniffed each one, then carted each piece off one by one to eat, away from prying (!) eyes, I'd say she had a fine time.

 

With all this feeding, and this unexpected interaction  that has been forged between the cat and me, so much so that I get worried for the cat whenever it rains heavily, I  guess, in a tiny little way, I'm continuing the legacy of my late maternal grandmother who fed the cats in her neighborhood faithfully and who, at birthday dinners in Chinese restaurants, had the family swipe remnants of the roasted duck, roasted chicken and steamed fish dishes off our tables into plastic bags bring home "to feed the cats". 

And I'm thankful for it.

Really, really thankful for it. :)

over at Astons

Having a meal at Astons marks the difference between having Western cuisine at a neighborhood coffee shop and having Western cuisine in a sit-in casual diner, a fact which they have made no bones about, and which is probably the reason why their outlets are popular with millennials, teens and families alike.

There's hardly an outlet that I've not seen a queue. Especially in the evenings. Groups, singles, couples, families with kids, even the elderly, they're waiting for their turn.

 

Thank goodness the wait isn't a very long one. They're pretty fast, they're very friendly, they're gungho, they're lively and they strive to get your requests right at the first serve... even if there have been mix-ups of sides from time to time.

 

Okay, not that it should matter a huge deal, because their sides are quite good, but that time at Cathay Astons, I'd ordered fish and chips and what I really wanted was the pasta salad instead of an extra serving of fries... :)

 

It's been a great experience so far at most of the outlets I've been to, whether at East Coast Road or Bugis+ and even the newly opened one at Singpost. Very streamlined, the process is. You queue, you decide, you make your order, you pay and then they direct you to go sit down. 

 

There's just one thing though.

Now, I study the menu every single time I'm waiting in the queue, and even though I deliberate on my choices, somehow I always end up going for either the teriyaki chicken, the lemon lime chicken or the fish and chips. Just these three! And it's strange, because it isn't that I don't like the other items on the menu.

I do!
 

They've got spaghetti. I like spaghetti both aglio olio and with cream. They've got grilled filet of salmon. I like salmon. They've got lots of steak choices. I like a medium rare steak from time to time. They've even got grilled fish, burgers and wagyu, all of which I don't mind one bit at all.  

 

But somehow, palate preference or whatever, I always end up with my usual... :D

Like this Saturday afternoon at the new Singpost outlet. There I was, in a brand new place in a newly renovated mall, and  after trying to decide between fish & chips and lemon lime chicken, I ordered lemon lime chicken- again. IAnd  didn't even choose new sides. Out of everything that was up for one's choice, I could have chosen the pasta salad or the potato salad or the house salad even, and I could have chosen mashed potato or rice or baked beans or kernel corn, instead I just stuck with my regular sides of Onion Rings and Mac & Cheese! :)

 

Daffy got Rained In

There are not many rides I've had that begin with a bout of rain, but when one really wants to ride and when the rain doesn't look like it is going to let up, you just heck lar, don't care, and just go.

Which I did.

Last weekend.

Zipped up my parka, threw everything into a double drawstring bag, strapped on my backpack and went off.. :)

Of course, rain also means that you gotta modify, and modify we did. The original plan was to head to MBS via the Marina Barrage and then up towards Vivo before going onto the West Coast Highway and beyond.

So we took it step by step.

First to MBS, cutting through the housing estate of Jalan Batu before turning into the PCN, heading towards the National Stadium, then turning out along the paths of where the Meyer Road condos are, then finally into Marina Barrage itself.

Where, to my surprise, I found people. There were cyclists- some in tank tops and shorts- there were walkers clad in sneakers and sports wear, there were joggers- really hardcore, I thought- and there were the strollers armed with umbrellas, hoodies and wet weather gear. 

We continued our way across the Marina Barrage Bridge, past the place where the otters make their crossings so often they've put up a sign, then MBS itself where we parked and had a breather. :)

We didn't go to Vivo after all.

Instead we decided on Holland V. 

So, off we went, heading past Lau Pa Sat and the SGX Building, then a turn into the road that leads to Hoe Chiang Road before turning out onto Cantonment Road. And then it was more or less straightforward from there. Cantonment, Outram, Kim Seng, Grange, and Holland Road, past the US Embassy, the Australian Embassy, the Dempsey area, the lovely slope down that connects to Farrer Road, then up some more...

It was still raining persistently when we got there.

Didn't let up, I think, nope, not at all.

Not whilst we had our dinner alfresco. Not when we were setting off. Not when we were going uphill along Holland Road past the former KTM Railway route (and which, I can assure you, was soooo soooo chilly cold!!!) Not when we missed the turn into Sixth Avenue. Not when we reversed the route and made our way back down the other side of Holland Road, and certainly not when we were along Sixth Avenue.

Which made the ride down Sixth Avenue a pretty adrenaline one, cos this avenue is really a long, long, long slope down past Ming Teck Park where you speed up, but then it plateaus out, and after that is another slope up that goes past Namly Avenue, and all that rain meant lots of splashes with plenty of good brake control. :)

The rain changed our plans.

Where I still wanted to plough up Upper Bukit Timah, Woodlands Road and beyond, the Co Rider decided otherwise.

So back east we headed. Relatively smooth, thankfully, from Dunearn Road down Newton Circle, Kampong Java and Rochor and Lavender, except for that bit of waiting near Stevens Road because the Co Rider took a wrong turn onto Adam. ;)

Outside SCGS

I learnt something about myself though.

I learnt that the next time I decide to bike in the rain, I really, really, really will have to keep my head covered. Not only my arms and my back, but my head. Especially my head.

Because right now I've got the sniffles and snuffles and a box of tissues by my side, no thanks to having been gey-kiang, and letting my poor head be exposed to chilly headwinds that relentlessly blasted in front, and above me on what was a rainy, 22 degree day.

Hotel Jen Tanglin

I knew this hotel from when she was still called Traders. Back then, her decor seemed to be reflective of an upscale business hotel reminiscent of the late 80s and early 90s, a place where you could come back after a day filled with meetings and discussions, whip off your shoes, throw your briefcase onto the bed, throw your handbag at the side, take out your papers and lay them out on the wooden desk before going to take a good, long soak in the tub.

 

But the tub has gone now. Alongside with the name change and an extensive renovation inside, they've dismantled the whole tub, replacing it with a more spacious-looking shower stall. Apparently the business travelers of today are more shower-power people than soaking-slow people. They are also people who prefer cleaner lines for their furniture warmer lights and quirky artwork on the wall. Some rooms have sketches of bicycles. Others have sketches of shuttered windows.

 

The place is now all very Instagrammable. Nearly every spot is Insta-worthy and bloggable.

 

And no doubt, Hotel Jen Tanglin is one of the hotels that has successfully transformed herself from a place of the 90s to a place of the present day where business people are no more only the suit-jacketed and leather-shoe shod, but can be with laptops, backpacks, messenger bags, bucket bags and designer sneakers, where Influencer marketing reigns through blogs and social media and where travelers and visitors have greater mobility all-round much more than before.

 

Clean lines, lighter, movable furniture and lighter vibes are what make the world of today and she embraces that completely. Gone are the heavy vibes from her previous decor. Gone are the heavy lampstands and heavy armchairs. Today. from her corridors, which have more wall lights and none of the heavy, dark wood doors now, to her furnishings, she's definitely as Millennial as Baby-Boomer as she can be.  

 



What I love though is that she has retained her sense of warmth. That's what Traders had. That warm, cosy feel that hugged me every time I stepped in. This Hotel Jen is the same. Maybe it is the decor. Maybe it is the choice of furniture. Or maybe it is the color. Bronze, brown, black, camel, khaki and olive green, with splashes of bright orange, green and blue here and there.

 

 

 

 

She makes an easy, comfortable stay, this hotel property. They've got a comfortable bed, comfortable pillows, cushions that you can use either on the sofa or on the bed, a great shower, neat toiletries, bath robes, bedroom slippers, a cute long cabinet for those outfits that need hanging, wide drawers, and more than adequate space for the suitcases. I have a special fancy for the desk though. Its so neat, and so high that it reminds me of those co-working spaces where one is encouraged to work either standing up or at the bar counter. :) Very Millenial, I told ya...

 

I've eaten at their restaurant downstairs. I've eaten at Ah Hoi, chili crab, salted egg crab, lunch sets and all. I've been to their club lounge and hung out there in the late morning, the late afternoon and even at night, which is a very cool thing if you wish to have a bout of quiet or even get some work done.

 

 

The only thing that I haven't really done is to hang out by the pool and go into the in-house spa.

But she has been part of my life journey for a while now... and whilst this isn't the usual PR spiel, can I say, with all sincerity, that she has been here through moments of living and of life?

 

It was here that a bowl of laksa curry became more than a bowl of laksa curry. It was here that 12 dishes became more than just 12 dishes. It was here that truths were explored and secrets hidden for years were revealed. It was here that the first deal- after a long, long while- was signed. And it was here where a selfie titled Sadako was taken because it was just one of those days and those days were remarkably challenging ones.

 

The hotel has become more than just another property. She has become a friend, a go-to, a consistent companion in the realm of hotel stays, friendly hi-s and bye-s and business discussions, and with her rooted where she is, may I say that I hope she'll continue to be so for lots of times to come. ;)
 

 

 



the Coastal Punggol ride

You know that ride that I took along the new TMCR to Changi Village? Yup, the ride didn't stop there. No one stops at Changi Village unless you've got a flat or you're too pooped to continue or you're staying at one of the hotels there.

We continued our way, my co rider and I. First up, a drink at the hawker center- more coconut water and a bunch of snacky biscuits to go- and then we were back on our way again. :)

 

Loyang Ave first, then down Loyang Way, of which I'm soooo glad we took this direction cos I avoided the friggin' hill altogether (so happy!!) and then we turned into Pasir Ris. I think it's Pasir Ris Ave 3, and which is this long, long, long road that brings you past Downtown East, past Pasir Ris Central, past all the housing blocks and this huge wide river with lovely bougainvillea growing by the banks and then onto Pasir Ris Farmway.

 

This Farmway area is one of the most intriguing places to me on the island. I don't know why. It just is. You get all the housing estates and the blocks of flats, and even there's the turn into Elias Road and Pasir Ris Park and then suddenly, there's this stretch of road that is smack out of the rural- I mean, there're huts or stables or whatever on your left- and then there're all the puppy farms and then after that you're at Lorong Halus, which connects to the Serangoon Tidal Gates and then you're at Punggol already. :)

 

I sometimes wonder how it was like prior to being done up. But I can't visualize it as well as I'd love to. Maybe this was all Punggol last time. Maybe there wasn't a Pasir Ris until much later. If this were Punggol, then it would be fairly interesting, because there were once holiday bungalows here and there was a sort of private zoo. But I don't know how it looked like, and I don't know how it was in the earlier days.

It's all a neat waterway now.

A waterway that runs along the Serangoon River and which you can still see the outline of trees silhouetted against the night sky.

 

We took the route going towards Seng Kang this time. Right after the bridge, the Lor Halus Bridge, we made a left and just kept going and going, past the dimly lit pavements, past all the families cycling, past all the shared bikes and the electric scooters, past this brightly-lit eating place that is *really* called L'Chaim and which looks like a fantastic bistro to eat at, then down the path until finally we found ourselves at Punggol Park at the Buangkok Drive side. 

 

I didn't know which side I was at first. I thought we'd reached Hougang but a direction made me realize that I was going further into Buangkok instead of Hougang Avenue 10, so back we went, taking the road this time all the way till we found ourselves back on Upper Serangoon Road.

Daffy at Dinner

A straight road it was from there towards the Teochew Porridge place where we finally stopped for dinner. Two kinds of steamed pork, one plate of steamed egg, eggplant, yam roll and porridge... a light, light meal, but so suitable for tired riders, before we got back on our bikes and headed back to the East side.

 



the MSF staff canteen

Cafe Canteen

The last time I came here, I was three weeks fresh into the job of an administrative assistant at a center in the social services industry. I'd come here to get some stuff for one of the programs that was run by the center, and having known that a former classmate was working here on one of the upper floors, we'd arranged to meet for lunch.

We'd eaten here in this staff canteen.

That was over a decade ago.

She has since found her love and married.

Me, I've moved on to another role in a completely different industry altogether, and I'd like to think that I've come a long way since the days of being an administrative assistant in an office housed on the ground floor of a residential block. I've learnt much along the way, I'm more aggressive than what I used to be, and I'm less patient than what I used to be. I guess I'm more practical and more honest and more direct than what I used to be, too... even if I try to be as diplomatic as possible.

Not that it always works.

Things do change,

Like how the industry that I'm in now works on a time-cost- critical standard. Or how the moolah is carefully caliberated and so there is very little room for trial and error and any trials and errors have to be factored in and planned for with no nonsense in the process.

Cut a long story short, I need a job. :D

And because I need a job, I cannot simply be the same person as I was over a decade ago. :)

But some things don't quite change. Some skills you still retain. I still do my own paperwork. :D And I still punch holes and file my papers by my ownself because, you know, this is a cost-critical industry, and no one is going to pay for an assistant when you can do your own d*** task. :)

Which made this one lunch visit a fairly nostalgic one.

Because the place looked almost the same as it did ten years ago. Sure, there are modifications- the furnishings are different, there have been renovations done, there are more plants now, and it looks more like a cafe than a staff canteen- but the vibe was more or less still the same. There was the same quietness that comes with it being upon a hill surrounded by trees. There was the same staff canteen lunch hour feel that made you feel partially welcome, partially held at arms' length because you had no staff pass.

But it was charming.

And almost comforting.

As if the place were telling me that no matter which industry I'd transited to, no matter how much I'd changed or grown, no matter where I'd go in my life journey, the career path that I'd once embarked on would always be a part of my life, and wherever I went to, the memory of that time would always be there still.

The thought sat well with me that afternoon.

Made me feel kind of homely, kind of villagey even, whilst I drank the post-meal mug of kopi, served to me in a sponsored Goldkili mug with enough coffee and condensed milk inside. :)

the TMCR ride

When someone mentioned to me that the (new) TMCR felt like it was double of what it used to be, I couldn't quite visualize it.

Now I do.

The new TMCR is really, really long. Truth wise, it isn't much different from what it used to be; it's about.. 10km? 3km more than what it used to be. But maybe because this time the route isn't straight and because of that, it feels longer than what it really is.

And you know what's the most amazing thing about it?

It's the fact that you  now suddenly realize that all this while there were all these unexplored pockets of land and you didn't know. It's the fact that you now start to wonder what other pockets of land remain unexplored and whether you can actually go and take a wander around there.

We began from East Coast Park. It's been a while, so very scenic it was to finally be able to bike there instead of walking, and walking, and walking. There're more shared bikes on the PCN now, which is a very good thing. There're also more children cycling there now, which is an even better thing. Somehow there's this unspooken consensus amongst all cyclists that if you're going on the PCN- any PCN- in activity hour, that is, broad daylight and fine, fine weather, you're gonna have to slow down and be patient to other riders who might be doing their best on the mobikes and obikes, or the children who are still figuring out how to use their bikes and so will brake suddenly halfway.

Lunch was at the East Coast Hawker Center. Had a place of chye tow kuay and char kuay teow between my co-rider and I, plus coconut and teh o air limau. :)

And then it was a straight route all the way.

Little has changed on the other side of East Coast Park, save for a single route change where cyclists now turn right instead of going straight. The winds are there. The trees are there. The coast is still the same on this end. The planes seem to fly lower now. That's all.

But the TMCR begins after you make that distinct turn that runs along the canal. I call it a turn where there're four seats and a dustbin. And over here, where we used to cross the road, go straight and make a short left before going parallel to the airport runway, now we turn right and keep going, going, going.

It's all trees.

Trees, trees, trees, more trees, with a very little break in between. There's the cycling lane on the left, but it's one way heading back to ECP, so the PCN was the choice. It was long, or it felt long. I don't know whether the presence of all that space on the left (where presumably the new T5 is going to be) made one feel that way even more, or whether  it was the sight of more forest and grass and turf on the right leading to the coast.

Maybe it was both.

The day was cool, the winds were cool, the skies were mildly grey. But on a warm day, a warm day with high humidity, it would have been more of a challenge. A drudge sort of challenge.

Plus, there really were very few shelters along the route. I counted four, perhaps five.

It wasn't completely void of people though. There were a few worker dormitories along the route, purple in color, really bright, really vibrant, with security(!) and everything on one entire section near what I think was an old plane runway. And there were lots and lots of shared bikes, some standing alone, some in pairs and some in clusters.

Altogether a fairly smooth ride for me, except for one part when there was this roadie who decided to make a sharp turn up to the pavement where I was coming down and the proximity (because I'm one of those peeps who needs a wide, wide berth) made me swerve left and I ended up applying my disc brake really fast and hopping away on my left leg just so I wouldn't fall.

Would it have hurt him to brake just that lil so that a fellow rider could make her way down happily and safely? -_-

But that was the only incident along the TMCR, thankfully, and we continued on happily, until we reached Changi Beach Park and then it was familiar way until Changi Village. :)