zhichar hor fun at hanis

When I went to the Chinatown Point outlet for dinner one evening, it was, as usual, a toss between their zi char hor fun, their fish and chips, and their ham and cheese omelette, and let me tell you, never mind whichever Hanis outlet I'm at, the decision is never an easy one.

Some diners seem to be very sure of what they want for their meal, They come right up to the counter and straightaway order. I'm the opposite. I take the menu, flip it through, look at the options, hem and haw, hem and haw some more, and finally ask the Co-Diner, before I make the final decision.

I love their fish and chips.

I also love their ham and cheese omelettes.

The fish in their fish and chips are battered real nice and quite big a piece each with enough salad and chips to munch alongside.

The omelettes are not only great value for money- yeah, I'm practical like that- their QC means that they're chock full of ham bits wrapped in gooey melted cheese, served to you fluffy, cheesy, creamy, and warm, with a side of veggies and a serving of fries.

But I also have a very special love for hor fun, and so when there are days where I want something Asian but don't feel like finishing a whole plate of fried rice all by myself, this zi char seafood hor fun in gravy be precisely it.

Never mind that the noodles aren't as chewy and sticky as I like them to be. :)

a no-picture please Meeting

Occasionally I get to go for meetings where I am politely informed that, yes, although this place is open to the public and anybody and everybody can come through here via bus, car, lorry, motorbike or bicycle, capturing memories of my visit here would not be wise.

It doesn't matter if it is your first time here ever.

"No."

It doesn't matter if you are openly gawking at the sights, smells and sounds of everything around you.

"No."

But if you really, really, really, want to take a couple of pictures, keep your camera low, stick to the General Public areas that are far away from here and maybe just keep your pictures to the locations right next to the MRT stations.

So here we go.

 

see the Cute in LinkedIn

Now, don't judge, but one of the things that used to deter me from using the LinkedIn app on my phone was the font.

Yes, you got it right, the FONT.

See, I'm one of those peeps who will not be satisfied with whatever the font is on my phone or my laptop and so will go about hunting for new fonts to download and apply just so that everything on the screen looks easy on my eyes and goes straight to my heart. 

That's what I did with my Samsung.

And so it was very jarring on my eyes, and on my heart, when most of my apps utilized my cute-looking Korean font on the system, and LinkedIn didn't. It was very odd to switch between, say, Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp with the cute rounded font, only to be slapped with the corporate, formal, we-mean-business font of the LinkedIn.

Sure, one might argue that LinkedIn is for professional use, and the platform is really all about connecting professionals for work purposes and industry purposes and so it should be so in the messages and blogs and so on.

I don't argue with that.

LinkedIn is really uber fantastic for everything professional. The algorithms link you up with a whole bunch of people from your industry and from industries you're related to, and they're all first level, second level, depending on how it goes. What fascinates me is that there're just so many people out there doing great work and keeping the world moving in one way or another.

This is a platform for work and corporate related stuff, absolutely, make no question about that, but this is my LinkedIn account, this is my LinkedIn profile, and this is my phone. 

And if I want to see all my words look cute on my phone, never mind whichever app it be, why can not that be so?

Again, and this is an oft quoted refrain, that the choice of font is reflective of who you are, and, like an outfit, forms a person's perspective of you, so thereby, since LinkedIn is a professional platform to connect (only) professional peoples in well recognized industries, we should carry ourselves properly in a business-like, professional manner and cultivate the image that is office-appropriate.

But this is MY phone.

This is MY personal, self-bought phone.

And no one else but ME is going to be looking at my LinkedIn Home and Messages and Profile on the app that is sitting in MY own phone.

So, let's say that if I want something childlike and cutesy that's not in the phone system, or if I go the opposite direction and want something classic and cursive that's also not in the phone system, and if I want to see alllll my apps in that font, why can it not be so?

Of course, you'll notice that I'm saying all this in the past tense.

Because it IS in the past tense.

Three, no, four days ago I logged on to LinkedIn from my phone, and to my greatest delight, the Home, the Messages and the Notifications are now readable in the phone's system super cute font, and yes, the Professional in me has now been cuti-fied. :D :D :D :D  

Pizza! Pizza!

 

This has to be one of the most interesting, and best tasting pizzas I've ever had.

Now, in Singapore, good pizzas are not that hard to find.  

Some of the best I've had thus far include the recently-opened Pizza Express (which I'll write about another time) and long-time favorite Modestos.

But what makes this pizza here at Pasarbella so unique, I think, is the sea salt the chef uses in the preparation- and the generous amount that he puts in.

I've written about this before, but I can't help it.

I just gotta rave about it again.

See, if you ever were curious to know the difference between the flavorings of sea salt and ordinary table salt on your palate, or the benefits that come with sea salt, this pizza would be it.

It's salty, no doubt, and at first bite, it can feel so very salty that you'd be forgiven if you thought the pizza was a bad one that required ladles of salt to mask the lack of freshness.

But savor the food a little more, let your taste buds acclimatize to the (startling) strong flavors and you'll realize that the saltiness doesn't linger on your palate, that it disappears along with the food, and that it brings out the best of the crispy beef pieces, the fresh mushrooms, the black olives, and the sticky, gooey cheese. 

briefing near the Mango Tree

Their decision is still pending, so I won't be saying anything about this briefing that I attended a couple of weeks ago.

Let's just say that it was held on the campus of a reputed, top-five junior college, and let's just say that it has been twenty years, more or less, since I sat in an MOE-type classroom, armed with papers and pen, listening attentively to a person speaking up there.

Twenty years!

Yes, that's how young I am!

There're some things about college life you don't forget. There're some parts of your college grounds that you don't forget either. I don't think I'll ever erase the memory of the school hall, the classrooms, the field, the canteen and the AVA Room of Jurong Institute.

I'm pretty sure the students at this college won't be forgetting this tree anytime either.

Not when there're such huge juicy mangoes dangling from the branches all ready and ripe for plucking.

A couple of curious questions I got though.

What happens to the mangoes?

Do they get sold in the canteen? Do the canteen vendors make dishes out of mangoes for the students? Who plucks them? The staff, the students or the school gardener? And if they're not sold in the canteen, do the staff get to bring them home? Or if they're not allowed to be brought home but only meant for in-school usage, then are they actually eaten or are they exclusively designated for academic purposes... :)

 

 

animal Pics!

Pictures of animals are the best to post when you're in a weird mood because of a Facebook exchange, so I'm just gonna place as many as I can down here and I hope they'll cheer me up. :)

 

There's the street cat who hangs around the area not far from the officetel. This is one cat that sneaks in and out of front yard gates as she so wishes, climbs on car hoods to snooze, fiddles her claws on the landscaped bamboo and who is most adorable and playful and languid and friendly at the same time. .

 

And then right at the bottom there's this random picture of a dog I saw whilst taking a biking break at Waterway Point. She- I think it's a her- was waiting pretty patiently for her pawrent to come out from the mall, and I had a most amusing time watching her stand up in anticipation, sit down, do a quick scratch, and then repeat the whole process over and over again.

 

 

 

selling to Family and Friends

So the other day I wrote about being at Starbucks and eavesdropping on a particular sales training session.

 

What I didn't get to write about was what the mentor said to his student when the session was wrapping up and they were about to leave.

 

What happened was that the mentor told his student how well he had improved since earlier this year, but (BUT) he was not developing enough leads and so he had to expand his prospects list.

 

(Not verbatim) "When you meet up with your relatives, just like casually ask, 'how are you, what are you doing these days, how's life, everything good, ah, these days I'm doing this thing, let me share with you, it's really good,' then you explain to them..."

 

I'm not sure about the business and sales practices utilized by others.

 

There is no right or wrong about it, I suppose.

 

But doesn't such an approach ruin personal relationships, and dear me, in the world of adulting, aren't there already too few precious personal relationships as such to be risking what we still have?

 

Yes, it's okay to share what you do and so on, but it's kind of weird to worm in a sales pitch, is it not? 

With friends and relatives, I'm actually very quiet when it comes to talking about what I do. If they should ask, I simplify the lot into two lines and leave it there and then move on to other more interesting topics.

 

Such a decision wouldn't sit so well with the mentor above.

 

Well, too bad, that's just not my style. 
 

First of all, the industry I am in is so wide and so complicated that to really talk about it would dominate the conversation and I'm much more keen to listen to them than yammer on and on about what I do. 

In my case, it is possible to begin the conversation with a bit of talk about public relations but then that leads to animation and special effects. Then, after that there's the movies and then the games and you know, there are so many genres of games on so many platforms, and after all that, there's still all the future tech.
 

But it would eventually come out sounding like I was trying to solicit for business- which is the very thing I was never planning to do.

And if it came out sounding this way, then who amongst my friends and relatives would want to meet up with me and catch up after that?

 

Again, that's all right and good if one wishes to do so, but we now live in a world where sales and marketing efforts can go as global as one wishes to, so why continue on it during personal, non-business time?

 

Unless you have the solution to a friend or relative's need, which he or she so happened to share, then of course, your product and expertise and supply would be very much welcomed, but otherwise, worming in your product (and objective) whilst making the conversation sound like you were genuinely interested in the person not only would raise questions on the sincerity, but would also make the interaction very irksome.

 

I guess I'm someone who values my personal time and personal relations and friends more than meeting business needs, and so best as I may, may it never be so that I should call upon them for the need of business, and may it never be that they be seen as nothing more than business prospects.

Life is meant to be lived, and I wanna live it.

 

That being said, there is no rule that says business acquaintances cannot become friends, is there? :)

me and my Hair

Whenever someone offers me a compliment on my hair or tells me that the length is beautiful, I know who it is that I have to thank.

 

This is someone who has been designing my hair for six years now.

 

When I first met her, she was a hairstylist (or so the title went) at Lacoco salon in Orchard Central. Later she went on to another salon at Ngee Ann City. Then after that, she became a Hair Designer at a Korean salon in Plaza Singapura, and now she's both a Hair Designer and a Director at BedeBon- which coincidentally, occupies the very same space where the previous Korean salon used to be.

 

 

All of the hair stylists at this salon hail from Korea. What it means is that they're very attuned to hair trends from the K Entertainment scene, and if you ever wondered whether you could carry off the hairstyle of your favorite Korean artiste, or some other celebrity, or whatever hair trend that exists for the moment, here you can be reassured that they won't just 'do what you say' but will make the best recommendation for you.

 

I should know, because at one time I wanted to have bangs on my forehead- I thought it would make me look different- but she took one glance at my face, thought a quick while and shook her head. It wouldn't suit me, she said. not a good idea.

 

How she does it, I don't know, but for six years now, I've had my hair done in a way that gently frames my face  regardless whether I tie it up or leave it down. Maybe the magic lies in the locks of hair that fall by my cheeks, but whatever it be, it exudes my personality to a pretty good degree. I am not the kind to go about with my hair pulled firmly away from my face. And neither am I the kind to all go feminine with chignons and clips and ribbons and bobby pins, so this is very much me.  

She's someone I highly recommend to any of my friends who want a change in their look, who need a boost of confidence  in their life, who are making a new start, or who simply wish to just have a great hair style that complements the shape of their face and embraces their personality. 

Me, I know I'm going to be sticking with her for a long, long time.

 

After all, I never thought I'd have a hairstylist whom I'd want to stick to, much less have a Hair Designer from Korea whom I definitely trust my image with.

And it is not often where a lady with just her hair style alone, can feel girly, feminine, fun, hippie, messy and completely natural all at the same time.

 

 

I only wish that I could drop in more often instead of once every couple of months. Actually, I should, really, I should. :)

the Woodlands jetty

This is one ride that I'll remember for a very long time.

 

Not because of the accident that took place when we were cycling back- I'll write about that later- but because of the route, and the effort, that we took to get there.

 

I can't remember the last time I had such a poopy ride.

Funny thing is, we hadn't planned for it to be that way.

When we said we'd try biking to Woodlands Jetty, we'd mapped the route out such that we'd start from Serangoon Central, Upper Serangoon Road, Punggol Road, Punggol Jetty, Seletar North, Yishun Dam, Yishun, Sembawang Road, Gambas Avenue and then finally somewhere in Woodlands.

 

On Google Maps, it looked straightforward. 

 

It looked doable.

 

But Google Maps doesn't tell you traffic conditions or topography and you don't realize how challenging things get until you're there, and somehow that's how things turned out to be once we hit Punggol Road.

 

See, we hadn't expected that the whole road would be made of hills, and that for most part of the road, we'd be traveling upslope in 35 degree weather, battling the sun burning overhead, the traffic, the traffic lights , the heat, the humidity, and the buses.

 

Also, we hadn't expected that Punggol Road would suddenly shift from four lanes into two at Old Punggol Road near the St. Anne's church and that we'd find ourselves squeezed up a very steep slope with double decker buses on our left and traffic speeding up on our right.  

 

Neither did we expect that we'd find ourselves at Gerald Drive instead of Punggol Jetty, and that we'd have to use Ang Mo Kio Ave 5 and Lentor Avenue to get to Yishun instead of Seletar North and Yishun Dam.

 

It was all very unexpected, I tell you, and by the time we reached Yishun- with its pedestrians, its cars and its many, many shared bikes, we were sweltering, sunburnt and pooped.

 

Here my Co Rider and I stopped for Arnold's fried chicken (because if we're gonna huff and heff all the way up north from the east, we're going to d*** well eat a good piece of oily, fried chicken!) and during the meal, I was offered the choice of heading back via Mandai or going upwards to Woodlands Jetty.

I chose the latter.

 

Because we'd already come this far and it seemed a waste to give up now and make an about-turn.

 

So after dinner, after getting more iced water and working through two wet wipes, we made our way up to Woodlands Jetty.

 

Honestly, the route there, I don't really remember very well. (I was kind of following my Co-Rider most of the way.)

 

If I'm not wrong, we went by Yishun Ring Road, somewhere that passed by Khatib Camp and then we were on Sembawang Road where we turned into Gambas Avenue and then I think we rode by the 3M factory (near the road that turns into Canberra). After that we were on the road somewhere near the Woodlands Industrial Park E.

 

On this road we turned in, stopped for a while to watch the Indian workers play a friendly game of cricket, followed the road all the way till the end, made a left, and after that, found ourselves *finally* at the Woodlands Waterway Park.

 

Where we were greeted with a sight as beautiful as this.

Made it all worthwhile, no doubt about that.

Because it is not every day, and every place, where one can see the fiery towers of Senoko, the rich tree-lined shore of Admiralty and Marsiling, the causeway in the distance, the Woodlands Checkpoint, the lovely rippling waters of the Johor Straits, the seafood restaurant so reminiscent of seafood places in Muar and Kukup, and the skyline of Johor Bahru all bathed in tropical twilight.  

 

 

 

 

a Lesson in selling

You know, one thing good about being a digital nomad is that you get to eavesdrop on interesting conversations.

So like I'm at Starbucks right now, and next to me are these two guys. They've been here for over two hours now carrying out a session on sales and the art of selling. One guy, who looks the part in impressive black long sleeved shirt and black pants and a watch with a square face plus a ring on his finger, is the mentor. The other guy, in shirt and jeans, his student.

 

I don't get to hear much of what they say- my ears are half plugged in- but so far the little I've heard is making me wonder when it was that sales and sales training got so complicated.

 

There are words like "touchpoints", there are phrases like "using point 2 to sell to XXX person" and "you must catch the moment!" and "leveraging on people who are more engaging".
 

It is an interesting way to do sales training. First the student reports to his mentor how many people he has approached, who he has targeted, and why he hasn't done it yet. Then the mentor tells him to share who those prospects are, and questions him how he's going to sell the product (I've no idea what it is) to them. After this, the student studies his file and his reference notes, comes out with a sales suggestion only to have the mentor shoots it down.

Now, I'm not going to question whether such or such a sales training method works. Each organization to its own, I always say, but I've dabbled in sales before, and I can tell you, my sales report meeting didn't last this long.

Why?

The BD didn't have time.

So our meetings were all very chop-chop. 
 

The general meeting would go something like this: "What are your numbers? How many? Why so low? Who have you called? What happened to the others? Who are you following up with now? Close it, please. We need XX numbers for this. Anything else? Contact this prospect. She's usually quite friendly to our services. Leave her a message. Just keep leaving messages. Okay?"

 

That was it.

 

End of Meeting.

 

I didn't have so big a file of lessons and pointers to study or adhere to. There were no theories. If I didn't know how to approach a prospect, or if the prospect seemed disinterested, she simply advised me what to do, and that was it.

There was no other talk.

Specifically, there was no sales motivational talk.

She didn't tell me things like how much she admired "Steve Jobs who was a f**king good sales person" and how I should learn from him. (Partially because the revolutionized iPod would not be released till a year after and also because Steve Jobs hadn't made his presentation at San Francisco in his trademark black turtleneck A THING.) 

She didn't ask me whether my sad numbers were a result of non effort or non skill or whatever either. She gave no other advice than to tell me straight up what to do. And there was no encouragement from her in the form of "You have improved, really, you have improved, but....."

Our meetings were all very business-like, very crisp, very direct, and yes, it did get me very stressed, but the stress was not due to the sales training or the way she was handling the reporting. The stress stemmed from the very role that sales itself brings. 
 
Maybe it is because it is a stressful profession that the training itself seems to have taken on a different direction entirely these days. From what I hear, there appears to be more training sessions, more steps to memorise and follow, more mentorship, more encouragement, more motivation, more scaffolding, more empowerment.



And yet, I wonder, does it work? Does it really work? Or is it just an extended attempt to condescend others just to boost your sense of self-ego?

when in the West

I don't hang out at the West side of Singapore very often, and so it is a great delight when I happen to find myself at this side of the island in the middle of the afternoon.

Because it means that I get to take pictures.

Pictures which I don't normally get to take even if I do come to the west side, because I usually come here riding Daffy, and it is dusky evening or night by the time I get here.

 

 

 

Daffy went to Geylang

We wanted a bite of supper.

And because we wanted to go have it at a place where we'd never been to or hadn't been to in a long time, there was a long list of possibilities.

First up was Downtown Shenton Way- maybe we can go for satay! 

Then we thought about Kallang- biryani, maybe?

But we didn't quite want biryani for supper so we considered Aljunied and Tai Seng- nothing there- and Simpang Bedok- prate- and East Coast Park Lagoon Food Center- char kuay teow and chye tow kuay.

But everything seemed a tad too far for a quick bite of supper and so we finally decided on Geylang.

Specifically, the soy bean curd shop in Geylang, which we googled just to get the exact location, and the exact name. 
Now, if there's one thing that Yong He Coffee Shop at Lorong 22 is pretty famous for, it is their savoury soy beancurd.

But because we'd tried it last year when we were hanging out in the area, we decided we'd go for the sweet one this time.

So we ordered one big bowl of sweetened beancurd, one stick of youtiao and one plate of pot stickers.

The beancurd was really bobbly and nice to carve, the youtiao was large sized and crisply fried, and the pot stickers we ordered were super original with a chewy skin and lots of filling inside.

Sad thing is, I didn't get a picture of the food- I should have- but I got a picture of what I was looking at from my roadside table seated on my stool. :)
 

.

 



biking for Prata

 
There're two routes I can take if I want to have this murtabak and The Tarik for dinner. I can either take the Changi Road route and then zip through Opera Estate- of which I will most likely get lost-, or I can go by Telok Kurau and East Coast Road towards Siglap. I prefer the latter. The route's easier, wider, more comfortable, more straightforward and I don't like making too many twists and turns to get to my dinner. 

What I simply do is to turn onto East Coast Road, trundle past all the cars stopping to buy durian and roast duck rice, keep going forward past Frankel Avenue and all the way until I reach Siglap Center. Then it is a left turn into Jln Tua Kong where the east side outlet of Springleaf Prata is somewhere inside.

It's a short ride, not too many cars, and the absolutely fantastic Prata plus well pulled Teh Tarik make the bike ride to and fro worthwhile.

But I do try to take the alternate route on the return trip sometimes- gotta work off the prata- which, honestly, I do find a little more complicated.

Let's see if I get it right.

I go to the end of Jln Tua Kong, turn into this little pedestrian park walkway that's really the back alley between two rows of terraced houses, turn out onto a park connector and then go all the way straight until a curving ramp upslope leads me to the spot opposite Decathlon. Here I push my bike- too lazy to climb the famous Chai Chee Hill- and then head back past the Kembangan stretch, the Kim San Coffee shop and one half of Geylang Serai. 

yes, we really need AI

Not too long ago I needed to make an enquiry on a banking transaction-basically I needed to find out the process if I wanted to do such and such.

 

And because it seemed more convenient, I did it the old school way and called the customer service hotline at the bank.

Bad mistake.

 

Three times I enquired, three times I got three different kinds of answers.

 

First customer representative told me that I needed to inform the other party three details.

 

Second customer representative told me that in order to get what I needed, I was required to inform seven details.

 

Third customer representative told me that in fact, for this particular transaction, I didn't need to inform seven details, or even three. All I needed was only two.  

 

Needless to say, I got extremely confused- and very embarrassed.

 

Because I'd informed the other party the necessary information each time and it was beginning to look like I didn't know my own banking s***. Worse still, it was coming out like my own bank didn't know their own banking s*** either! 

 

By the time the third enquiry came into place, I wanted to go thump the bank teller's counter and ask them would they please tell me what in the high heavens was I supposed to inform the other party and would they please give it to me one shot just so this d*** transaction could go just right!

 

Of course they could say that I should b***dy well know, but I also wanted to tell them that, look, this might be second nature to you, and this might be second nature to many a person, but it is not necessarily the same for everyone, and so there will be customers who will either be doing this for the first time, or who have not done it for a long time and thereby forgotten how to go about doing it. Let's not assume.

 

Well, I'm glad to say that the matter is settled now, it's all clear and we're all good.

 

But this has started me seriously pondering about the use of AI, Machine Learning, Intuitive Websites, Apps and Avatars in corporations whose industries involve plenty of enquiries, explanations, clarifications, introductions of business offerings and the like.

 

I'm talking telecommunications, financial institutions, hospitality, government bodies, insurance corporations and the like.

 

This isn't an epiphany sort of perspective.

 

With AR and VR coming about, with blockchain and bitcoin and Machine Learning and AI being the buzz for a while, it's already been explored and already been discussed, and many a corporation are already using chatbots and analytics for customer engagement, still, when it comes to situations like what I've experienced, a d*** solid AI could be well put to use.

 

It's like, a website can be more than a website. After all, there can only be that many questions when it comes to certain transactions. Sure, there are many, many, many questions for the many, many products, and there are many, many clarifications for the many, many transactions, but I'm quite sure there is a number to it all.

And if it can be quantifiable, it means that all of it goes into a single set manual or if I may boldly interpret it- Artificial Intelligence- where keywords are recognized, interpreted, confirmed and then key answers made available.

 

Unless the AI decides to curate the information(!), I'd think a simple "how do I do it" question would fit easily into the standard AI manual which would then generate me the standard answer to which I'd have a full and complete direction as to what to do.

 

And not have three different answers on three different occasions for the same d*** question.

 

It irritates me no end, I'm telling you, even thinking about it. Because it's time wasting when things get held up and when you can't move forward or backward because there'll be implications and you're just sitting there prepping, prepping, prepping.

 

And neither is it a situation where you either have no bank, a bank, or a bank that exists but is so complicated that everyone openly says they don't want to use.

 

It is a situation where it's strongly believed that processes are streamlined and oh, there's no problem anywhere and we just have to do this and do this and do this and we'll be fine.

 

But it's not.

 

And so maybe this is a great opportunity for AI. Will there be anomalies? Will there be that one weird question that pops out from a customer somewhere which the AI hasn't figured out? Sure. Most certainly there will be.

But that's where the human touch comes in, and hat's where Machine Learning comes in.

There's this overwhelming (but valid) concern that AI and Machine Learning will overtake the human element. I cannot say for sure, but there's also the possibility that instead of overtaking jobs, it may enhance the human experience further- because it takes the pressure off the employees and customer service person- and so the staff can really focus on doing what the AI cannot do- be the guiding point to the AI manual, be the  emphatic human, be the listening ear and be the helping friend customers will definitely need.

siew mais at Home

 

You know what's the most beautiful thing about this (simple) home-prepped dish of cuttlefish balls, shredded lettuce, ngoh hiangs, cherry tomatoes, fish cakes and siew mais?

It's not that The Parents suddenly decided on a whim that we hadn't had supper together on a weekday for the longest time and today was as good a day as ever.

It's also not that we were all seated around the dining table armed with mugs of Nescafe and plates and forks and that we had the radio playing our favorite night time program at the side.

But it is that I'd casually mentioned to The Parent a few weeks ago that we hadn't bought frozen siew mais from the supermarket for a long time and that I kind of missed eating it- and The Parent actually remembered.

I didn't burst into tears upon seeing the siew mais- that would be drama queen- but I did squeal happily and plunge my fork into the first one, and then later after I'd finished my equally divided portion, exchanged half a fish cake for another one. :)

It's times like these that make you thankful for family and loved ones, because we live in a world where there's so much talk and so much communication and so much noise clutter that having someone who really listens to you, processes it, keeps it in mind and then acts on it is truly a most pleasant surprise.

pretty foods: the steamed stuff

 

What's a person to do when you're at lunch in a random food court in a random shopping mall and you don't feel like having the typical choices for your meal?

 

What's a person to do when you've got a variety of stalls offering chicken rice, duck rice, yong tau foo, economical rice, fishball noodles, porridge, nasi padang and ban mian- but you don't feel like eating any of them?

 

You go straight for what's familiar to you.

 

You go straight for what makes you think of home.

 

Steamed egg and steamed pork were family favorites for weekend dinners. The Parent was fond of preparing seamless, easy-to-prepare meals and between the stove, the rice cooker and the slowpot cooker, the latter two were her preferred.

 

If we were making steamed egg, we'd beat the eggs together, pour them into this special enamel plate and place it in the rice cooker. If we were making steamed pork, then we'd go down to the wet market downstairs, buy xx grams (I never knew how heavy) of minced meat from the butcher and then bring it back home, marinate it, pour a beaten egg over it to make it stick, pat it into the special enamel plate, tear up some strips of salted fish and then put it into the rice cooker.

 

I can't say that the prep methods of the stall in this food court are the same, neither can I say that the texture of the minced meat is as well balanced as the way we do it at home, and we don't put a salted egg in lieu of salted fish, but when you really don't want noodles or yong tau foo or economical rice but want something steamed with a slight vibe of home even during lunch time, well, these two dishes just gotta do.

Strolling Sights: UIC-Bestway

 

So I don't usually get down at the bus stop that grants me this sight, but two bus stops before, just at the very moment when I was about to alight, I'd discovered that my phone had somehow fallen out of my jacket pocket, and so I stayed on the bus until I finally found it on the floor underneath my seat.

 

How it happened, I don't know.

 

One minute it was in my pocket, the next minute (thanks to the weight of the phone), I felt my pocket lighter than it should have been.

 

I'm glad I managed to discover it in time.

 

A much greater hassle it would have been otherwise.

 

I'd have to report the loss to the police, report the loss to the bus company, and by the time all that was done, the phone would probably have been gone for good.

 

So I'm thankful for the miracle that on this day I had my wits about me, I wasn't in some sort of dreamy daze, and I wasn't rushing to whatever it was I was supposed to do. 

 

Thing about me is, more often than not, I'm either so hamster-like or so muddle-headed that I simply move from one thing to another without realizing that something's missing or that something's gone.

 

Guess that's the same for many of us too, especially us who live in an urbanspace like Singapore.

 

But sometimes, it does us well to stop and remember how we are, how we used to be, how our landscape and urbanscape has changed, and where we are now.

 

Sometimes it is good to live in the moment.

 

Because we are a place where infrastructure changes regularly.

 

We are in a place where roads get rebuilt, where estates pop up from empty spaces of land, where buildings get demolished and which get replaced by new ones.

 

And we don't know just when it will be.

 

Was it less than 10 years ago that the UIC Building stood in this very spot where these glass skyscrapers are now? Did it not feel so long ago when there were all these new office buildings coming up on Shenton Way and Anson road and Robinson Road, and that to be able to work in an office was a very progressive thing for the family and for the country? Was it not so long ago that the building was new, and then it wasn't so new anymore, and now it's so not new that it needs to be torn down and a new one built in its place? 

 

But that's just how this area is.

 

The UIC Building where a loved one used to work in is gone. The Telok Ayer School is gone. And now there's just a huge hole where the CPF Building used to stand.

It's unbelievable.

The CPF Building, mind you.

A new building will soon rise in its place, the same way new skyscrapers have risen from the plot of UIC and the Telok Ayer School.
 

In the meantime, there's still Shenton House. There's still Bestway Building and International Plaza and Temasek Tower, so I suppose it's not totally bad and we'd be better off being glad for those, shouldn't we?

TEXTures @ The Arts House

For someone whose first full-time job was in the local theater scene, it is kind of embarrassing to say that it has been a long time- years- since I made a planned, intended attendance at an arts festival or even an arts event. 

 

Sure, I've kept myself in the loop with brochures and flyers and all, but most of what I've attended has been merely in-passing, where, drawn by the crowds, I manage to catch only the tail-end of the performances.

 

Life got in the way, I suppose.

 

But Life is a mandela and She has an interesting way of bringing you back to where you began. It doesn't matter how you've lived your life, how you've grown, how you've pivoted or varied or whatever, Life just somehow finds a way. 

 

Which is how I found myself at The Arts House on a particular Saturday afternoon. 

 

I hadn't quite thought about it, but a colleague of mine suggested going together to this one TEXTures event- "it's a Writing Festival!"- "it's about a movie!"- "it's about autism!"- and because I'm interested in books, movies, special needs, society, meaningful movies etc etc, on we went.

 

It was a pleasant time.

 

Seldom is it when you get to go to an event where the author of the book and the director of the movie sit together on the same stage and talk about both the book, and the movie.

 

Often it is either one, or the other.

 

Not so here at this TEXTures event.

 

Because even though this was technically a celebration of words and the written expression, there was room for performance. room for the cinematic expression, and listening to them both speak on "Open" and "The Wayang Kids" gave me a resassuring nod that regardless of expression, regardless of the medium, regardless of art style, writing style or cinematography, Storytelling and Character and Personality form the foundation of them all.

 

I wasn't there very long, two hours maybe, thereabout.

But long enough to make me think of another black box theater, another room, another staircase, another time.

The black box theater is still there.

And I hope it continues to remain.

Because there is something really beautiful and timeless about architecture. Every wall, every room, every foyer, every stair, every staircase landing, it all possesses a story of its own.  

 

I cannot imagine what memories they will hold, what stories they will tell.

Who entered this place, why he or she entered this place, what they did, who they met, who they greeted, what did the foyer look like, where were the chairs and tables, where was the drawing room, was it a residence, was it a waiting area if it was not a residence, were there pets, were the interiors beautifully done, what was the river waterfront like, were there parties, who went up these stairs, where did they go, what were the rooms like, what was the view like, were there bedrooms with four poster beds and linen drawers and curtains, was it an office, were there desks, what kind of desks were they, and the light, what about the light, did they use gas lamps or candles, were there horse carriages, were there motorcars, what was the kitchen like- if there were one.

The questions are endless.

Of which I presently yet have no answers but which I think must be sitting quietly somewhere waiting to be dug up and filtered through.

Maybe one day.

One thing though, Life really does go in a circle.

I'm talking about this mobile snack truck parked right outside The Arts House.

You see the Sawadeee Cup on the door. #sanook

You also see the statue of an elephant in the background.

An elephant gifted by Thailand's King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) in the year of 1871 to commemorate his visit to Singapore.  

An elephant that has been around the same space for 147 years.

That's a long time.

But you know what, they're still here.

However the world has changed, however the world has pivoted and transformed and shifted and the technology has advanced and the climate has changed, they're still here, and I don't think they're going anywhere away.