Supermarket Discoveries!

As much as I frequent supermarkets, it is in fact very seldom that I actually get to browse, and shop for my groceries. More often than not, I already know what I want, I know where the shelves are, and each trip to the supermarket is a targeted mission where I go in, grab what I want, and get out.

There's (usually) none of the browsing, the repeated comparing of prices, the hunt for favorite products or the distractions.

Fast in, fast out.

But there are times when I decide that I WILL NOT BUY ANYTHING TODAY and enter the supermarket with no intention other than to get some real-world, real-time lessons about the world around me.

I've said it before, and I say it again: There is really no better place to learn about the world around us than to hop into a supermarket and spend time browsing the shelves.

Especially in a country like ours where diplomatic ties run high, international trade relations are good, we are a transportation hub, we have a strong food culture, and we're accepting of races and religions from all over the world.

What this means is that it doesn't matter whether you're kosher, halal, vegan, vegetarian or keto- and it doesn't matter whether you're from Northeast China, Taiwan, India, Germany, France, Brazil, South AFrica, Norway, the Middle East, the United States, or Canada, there is something in our supermarkets for you. 

It doesn't matter that your home country does not have (friendly) political ties or trade relations with another country.

Neither does it matter if your home country enforces such a strict no-frills policy that trying to find an imported product (that is also domestically produced) is like finding a needle in a haystack.

You won't be having such challenges here.

Don't have the product back home?

Chances are you'll find it at Cold Storage, Jasons, Marketplace, Fairprice Finest, Fairprice Xtra, NTUC Fairprice, Giant, Sheng Siong, or the Prime Supermart that's usually found tucked away below a carefully selected HDB block in your housing estate neighborhood.

The fun part of the whole thing is that you never know what you'll find at where.

Or that you never know what you'll find.

Like these square-shaped bottles of natural mineral water from the Dolma Spring in Tibet.

I saw them twice- once at Fairprice Finest and the other at NTUC. At Finest where this picture was taken, they were alongside the Volvic water from France.

These bottles caught my eye, because first of all, there was the Tibetan language neatly printed on the bottle (that's culture for you!), there aren't that many products from Tibet sitting on our shelves (oh good, we've got their stuff here!), and wouldn't I mind trying out bottled water from the Dolma Springs (natural mineral water from the Earth is a good thing, yes?) Oh, and they were distributed out from Hong Kong (that's some sort of economic trade etc etc etc for you...)

And then there are times where you might think you'll only find certain products at certain places, but the shelves at the other places which you didn't plan to go may turn up surprises you didn't expect at all.

Call it competition, or whatever.

But it's great convenience for the consumer, it's marvellous fun for the window-shopper and the killing-time shopper, and for souls like me, a single trip to the supermarket can really motivate you enough to want to see the rest of the world.

Like, or Love

 

I posted this on Facebook just the other day.

 

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"It is so easy to mistake companionship for love. They're not the same thing. You can be great friends and great companions with someone- but it is not love. You can even work out a great partnership with someone- but it is also not love. Just because a couple looks united together does not mean they have a beautiful love story. It can be simply that they work well together and make a wonderful team.

 

I like how the Chinese language puts it succintly. 我是喜欢你呢还是为你心动呢? Apparentl...y 好感,喜欢 and 动心 are all different. Do i have a crush on you, do i like you, or has my heart moved for you? (I know, cheesy, but let's roll with it) When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Do we like someone or do we love 💕💕 someone? Are we comfortable with someone or are we drawn to someone? The feelings, or 感觉 as the Chinese describe it, arent on the same spectrum.

 

One can grow into such feelings, yes, and it is possible to have someone who wraps up all three, but also possible it is to have someone who is best acknowledged at a certain level.

 

I suppose that's as good a question as any to ask ourselves. And also a good question as any before we look at any iconic couple and decide if they have a powerful love story enough to make it our couple goals."

_____________________________________________________

 

It wasn'r written on a whim.

For some time now I've come to realize that it is possible for a person to be best friends with someone and yet not feel any love for the person.

Mind, I'm not referring to platonic best friends- that status I understand- in the sense that we might be great friends with someone from the opposite (or same) gender but we'll never fall in love nor enter into a relationship with each other.

What I mean is when you're with someone whom you've never agreed to be mutually platonic- but are best friends.  

Best friends are people whom you go straight to when things go downhill. They are the ones who will reach out to you during such times, and whom you will simply jump in and reach out to when messy shit happens in their lives. You're the ones who accompany each other through difficult times, check in with each other from time to time, and are always a text or phone call away.

Best friends are also those whom you interact well with. Things which you wouldn't tell others, you'd tell each other. Secrets to the rest of the world aren't secrets to either one of you. Both of you click. On topics that you differ, you agree to disagree. On topics that are of interest to one but not the other, you gladly listen. Over time, the friendship grows to such a stage that you understand each other well. You accept each other with your own weaknesses and your strengths. You accompany each other and do things together. You even manage to finish each other's sentences and know what each other is saying automatically so much so that many say you both have a strong dynamic.

Then there are best friends whom you might spend the day on day with. Maybe you see each other frequently. Maybe you work together. Maybe you hang out together all the time, and you text each other when you're apart. You might be best friends who share hobbies, chores, and maybe even responsibiltiies together.

You're that shtuck that you're seen together all the time, and people think that you're connected, together, dating, in a relationship, or married.

But, surprise. you might be in one of the above- connected, together, dating, in a relationship, or married- and yet, YET, what you have is not love.  

Hard to fathom, isn't it?
How is it possible to be above, and yet not feel love towards each other? How is it possible to be with someone day in day out, to be intimate and sincere and honest with the other, and not love the person at all?

And yet, it is possible.

Very possible.

You may not realize it, but you actually like the person more than you love the person. Sometimes the liking develops into a strong love (mutual or one-sided). Sometimes it stays just there. One doesn't know how it will turn out to be- it is very hard to plan such things- so when it happens, it happens.

It gets a little confusing.


Maybe that's why I like how the Chinese have different terms to describe the various stages.

It becomes very clear when we ask ourselves at which level we are with the other. Are we at the 好感 stage (crush), the 喜欢 stage (like), or have we evolved to the 动心 (lit: heart move) stage? It isn't just a single word "love" that covers all- as how the English language does it in a generic way. (Yes, I know we have vocabulary in the English language as well, but generally we tend to use just one.) In the Chinese language, each word has a different meaning that is used at a different time and for different people.

Do i like someone? Do I love someone? How far will I go for someone? Am I attracted to someone? Has that attraction grown? Will that attraction grow? We get along, but do I love the other? Are we better off as best friends or can we become lovers? Does my heart move for the other? Does my heart still move for you?

And for the empaths amongst us, how do we differentiate between feeling moved for everyone, of moved for just one? In other words, do I really, really love you? Do I really, really care for you and think for you, and are concerned about you, and is that a sincere emotion that is dedicated to you, or are you on the same level as just about anyone else that I feel the same for?

They aren't difficult questions.

They just need time to think through, and they require one to be congruent and honest with your own self.

Of course, it might be redundant to enquire that when a couple is married, or long-married as to whether they love, or like each other- except when there're issues and they want to figure out if the relationship is worth working them out, or not. (Let's not judge- each to his own) Such introspect questions are more for singles, or the unmarried and the uncommitted.

The more certain we are of ourselves, the fairer we will be to the other party/parties, and it becomes easier to agree, and move ahead from there.

Having a relationship hang in the balance is no fun.

Sticking around in a relationship just because you're used to it is also no fun.

That doesn't mean that you automatically break up and go your separate ways.

It means that you know where you stand, and you can either recognize each other as companions, best friends or lovers. If you decide to be best friends even whilst together, so be it. If you want to grow from being just companions to lovers, then there's mutual work to be done.

And if you've shifted 'downwards' from lovers to companions, well, then that's where your own decisions towards commitment (or otherwise) be considered.

Maybe you'll decide it is better to separate.

Maybe you'll decide it is better to stick together and use the years of friendship that you've already forged and re-grow the friendship into a blossoming love.

Either way you know exactly where it is you stand, and you can cease living in confusion with the other, and with yourself.

I'll tell you honestly now that this realization spoke to me.

It made me realize the significance of "listening to your heart" and "feeling the heart move", and as cheesy as it sounds, it meant a great deal to me.

Because I no longer needed to be afraid of paying attention to my feelings, my heart, and to which direction it moved. Neither did I need to be shy about why it moved where it moved.

By the way, even though I've used the Chinese Language, this isn't an Asian thing.

In the Ancient Greek there exist many different words to describe the varying stages of love, or the varying types of love. Theirs, too, is as clear as day, with words such as agape, eros, philia, philautia and so on.

You just need to know which of it you have- for yourself, for those around you, and for the other.

Pain Plasters for the Senior

Those of us who get into Eldercare know that there are some days which are easy-peasy and light, there are some days which make you feel like a very bad dream, and there are some days which fall right in between.

 

It is no simple task taking care of an elderly person.

 

Seriously.

 

What looks like a routine of basic tasks becomes double the effort and triple the time when it comes to the elderly.

 

No fault of theirs, of course- it is just one of those things- and how well the day goes depends very much on the decision of the individual.

 

If the elderly determines to be easy-going, fuss-free, jovial and warm-hearted, the task becomes easier, allowing both elderly and carer to chuckle their way through.

 

But more frequent it is that we find ourselves interacting with elderly who have worked hard all their lives and hence decide they *shall* be crusty, grumpy and insistent upon their (set) ways because heck, they deserve it.

 

That, then becomes quite a thankless chore, especially if the elderly person is going through a Mood of a day.

 

The safest thing for the carer to do is to avoid.

 

But since we all know that is impossible, it becomes necessary then to exercise as much cutesy humor as possible, balance it with a bit of gruffy seriousness when required, and be firm, straight to the point, and creative all at the same time.

 

I might be exaggerating, of course, but really, creativity, a bit of drama, and humor can go a long way when it comes to coping with eldercare. It works for them, it works for the caregiver too.

 

We had an errand to run this afternoon. The errand was no issue- it went smooth- not much waiting at the neighborhood bank- thankfully- but halfway through the elderly (Miss Brown's hubs) suddenly realized there was a need for pain plasters.

 

You know, the kind of plasters that you stick on achy parts of your body and let the infused herbs soothe the muscle aches away. 
Not just from any brand, mind you, other brands weren't as effective as the brand he'd always been using, so best thing it would be if we could get the plasters from said specialized brand.

That in itself would not have been an issue, except for the fact that the brand didn't distribute their plasters in any other medical shops, and there were no stores in the neighborhood we were in.

So I did the next best thing.

Stepped into one of the neighborhood medical shops, got permission from the counter lady, snapped zoomed-in pictures of all the pain plasters that were on display, whatsapped them to the carer who was with the elderly, and got the elderly to choose.

The technique worked.

There was a bit of grumbling, of course, on his side (ya lah, I know lah, that brand is the best, but the nearest store very far away from here, you know, and I don't own the stores, so what can I do) but after some deliberation, the elderly selected several packs of the pain plasters that are in the last picture.

I think they're working quite effectively.

There've been no complaints. :D

Thanks for the Sweets

Vivocity has made some good retail transitions in the last couple of years. Where once the mall had a happy (but mixed) bag of retail offerings, today she has so carefully curated her stores that the happy, Island of Fun vibe is no no more confined to only certain areas, but is pumped out along her corridors, through her open areas, and in her stores.

 

And whilst some tenants are anchors- Tangs and Golden Village cinemas being two of them- they've been there the longest time-some spaces have witnessed a bit of transition.

 

Like this gargantuous space that sits right across from the cinemas.

 

I dont know if y'll remember, but before Candylicious, it was a bookstore called Page One, and this I'm pretty sure, because The Parents and I used to hang out here together with the hardcover books, the pretty stationery, and the movie merchandise.

 

It was a sad day when the bookstore closed down and moved out.

 

Still it wasn't so bad when Candylicious moved in, because candy and chocolates are happy foods and I spent a good amount of time hanging around the shelves looking at beautifully wrapped chocolates, colorful candies, jelly beans from The Jelly Bean Factory in the United States, and big bags holding Hershey's Kisses wrapped in foils of silver and gold.

 

Candylicious was a great place to be at Christmas time and on Valentine's Day.

 

At Christmas, there would be boxes and boxes of elegant-looking chocolates for the purpose of gifts, there would be tins of chocolate-coated biscuits for the children, and there would be alcohol-infused chocolates in gold-colored tins for the drawing-room types amongst us.

 

Come Valentine's Day, however, there would be beautiful roses made out of fabric arranged artistically on the shelves, and on little tables placed around the store, each of them accompanied by boxes of chocolates decorated with flowy, romantic ribbons.

 

It has been some time since I visited Vivocity, and so it came as a surprise when I dropped in the other day and found that Candylicious was having a moving-out sale.

 

Of course I went in- for nostalgia's sake- and to be honest, it was a little sad to see the shelves devoid of all the familiar merchandise. Gone were the lollipop teeshirts, the lollipop holders and the candy-colored toys. Gone too were the Reese' peanut butter cups that I used to buy. All they had now were earthy-colored cushions- each of them going for $9, boxes of biscuits, several (large) bags of M&Ms in various flavors, some very big lollipops, and the collection of jelly beans- which, still, no sampling. :)

 

It is time to say goodbye to the candy people at Vivo, I suppose, and even though this side of mainland may no longer have their store, thankfully there's still one at Resorts World Sentosa across the body of water locals call a pond.

 

I just have to walk across to there.

thai with Nakhon Kitchen



A good number of places in this country for Thai cuisine I have been to- I make no bones about the fact- and so it is always a delight to discover new dishes at new places that serve up Thai street food.

Every good Thai street food place will have the 'standard' fare of pad thai, tom yum soup, green curry and mango with glutinuous rice on their menu.

But each place has their own distinctive charm that distinguishes them from one another. And after having gone about a couple of rounds, I can safely say that I've got my favorites in each place. All of them serve up pad thai- no question about that- and I can go eat pad thai at any one of those places. But I'm the sort who likes going for the dishes that I love, and so in one place, for instance, I may decide to order the  barbecued pork collar. At another place, however, I may order the more-sweet-than-sour tom yum soup that is like a rich, red broth than a soup. And at still another place, I may have coconut soup that is sweet and which comes served in a claypot.

I've come to street food place Nakhon Kitchen a couple of times now. 

And because they do have a couple of outlets all around the island, the choice of meal depends very much on my appetite for the day.

I have had days where I take pad thai and green curry with beef. I have had days where I've gone for a bowl of tom yum soup and a plate of prawn omelet with rice. And I also have had days where I've decided it shall be fish maw soup and basil pork rice.

But after having had a couple of meals there, these days it is their butter chicken that I specially go for.

Beacause not only is it exclusive to this place (so far I've not seen it anywhere else), the dish is prepared in a way that stimulates the palate with sweet and sour, buttery and salty.

Plus, there's a hint of salted egg in the sauce.

Sure, the dish can lean a little bit to the oily sometimes, but hey, the fried chicken is good, the sauce bursts onto my tongue with its explosion of flavors, and the colors make me happy.

There is nothing else to feel when you've got a canvas of saffon, orange, yellow, red, green and white right in front of you- and if these colors don't cheer me up, well, little else will.

a Facial Mist

 

 

You know, had you told me a year or so ago that I would be spending the next twelve months thinking, talking, and sharing so much about this brand- I'll tell you honestly- I would have found it hard to believe.

It isn't because I didn't think I wouldn't be dedicated to it.

But because there're a couple of us who are involved, and all of us are pretty stoked about this thing that we do.

 

It doesn't matter what aspect of the business we talk about. Whether it be about the product, the investment structure, or the series of large-scale activation events that are currently being planned, we're all very thrilled about SkinCalories, and Skins Festival in one way or another.

As we should be.

These are products that have been specially formulated, carefully curated and are now marketed in such a technique that, I can gladly say, differs from the general process of Marketing as so taught in Business School.

It begins with a good product. 

Something which SkinCalories has. 
Organic skincare is always a winner, and when you have one that has its ingredients not only certified in the EWG Green Zone, but is also lavender scented, and which complements your daily skincare, well, that's something I call a sincere winner. 


We have a couple of products in this range- a total of seven- and right now I'm glad to say that two are ready to go to market. The facial mist that has been on the plans for a while, and the lavender sunscreen which is heading into marketing and production. We're stoked about them- all of them- and there's a (quiet) sense of heightened anticipation between the personnel even as most of us are trying to tamp it down for professionalism's sake.

It isn't just about the product that we're thrilled about.

It is also the Technology- and the Marketing that embraces the Technology.

It was a conscious decision many moons ago that we would not focus on individual campaigns with each brand new product release, but to integrate the products (and the entire brand) into a series of large scale activation events that would fulfill the necessary Marketing KPIs whilst utilizing a formula that has already frequently applied to the entertainment industry. In that sense, we would combine the techniques of the entertainment industry and apply it to business-school systems that currently serve most of retail, branding and consumerism.

SkinCalories is not (just) a regular skincare brand, but it is a brand that embraces technology and innovation to plug the gaps in the market. It is one thing to utilize technology and all that it offers, it is another to make technology applicable to the most important people to your company- the consumers. SkinCalories isn't just about using augmented reality to enhance the company's drive towards innovation, it is about making technology interact with you.  I suppose I could rattle on about the incoming 5G network and so on, but that's technical, and  a little too complicated for this article's purpose, so I'd much prefer to say that the aim of this skincare brand is to interact with you.

To that end, the technology is already in place.

And we have the assets to accompany alongside it.

See the face of the girl on the bottle?

That's Magda. 

She's a digital ambassador, a digital character, created in 2D and 3D, who has a backstory and a dream she wishes to fulfill. Don't treat her like some flippant character which you can disdain and then toss away like trash. If I'm seeing it right, these characters will have a much greater influence upon you than you think. But that's for the future. Here, she's a girl whose image you will see here, there and everywhere  on multiple platforms as she shares her journey of dreams with y'll.

How she's gonna do it, well, I won't go into  the longwinded details- they'll surface as time goes by- but let's just say that it involves a fair bit of character development, a bit of flamboyant storytelling, a strong Internet network, live-rendering on a game engine, and a couple of pretty cool people. :)

the Drinks people

Maybe they'll join us.

Maybe they won't.

I don't know.

I (ahem) hope they do.

Even though it would take nothing short of a miracle to have them drop in a message and say that, yes, after all the consideration, they're gonna join in, and how shall we take it from here? (Nothing Is Impossible)

Still, if this is not going to happen for 2019, I'm sincerely hoping that they'll come in for 2020.

Because I know what the s*** it is that I am doing, I know where it is going, I know its potential, its approach, its dynamics, and as much as there are sceptical eyes out there in the universe, I know that a partnership with them will be as good for them as it will be for us.

What we're doing is creating a platform than supersedes a singular live entertainment platform. Not that the curernt platform is going backstage, it's just... well... it's just that experiential entertainment is waiting in the wings and very soon you're going to find yourself being more than just a passive audience waving lightsticks in the air. You're going to be an active audience that participates in the platform itself, and for those who are keen, you're also going to grab a couple of technology (or whatever) techniques along the way.

This is as summarized a version as I can put it. :)

Beyond that though, on a quieter, more personal note, I'm just glad that I got the chance to drop into their offices near Clarke Quay this year.

Never would I have imagined that I'd be speaking to them about crates, bottles, glasses and bartenders.

But hey, I did.

And guess what, that's to me a big deal.

Because, you see, I'm a near teetotaller who chooses fruit beers, makgeolli and fruit ciders over cocktails, soju and beer, and although I can hold my champagnes, my reds, and my whites pretty well, truth is, I didn't start appreciating wines until about a decade ago, I didn't glug down makgeolli until a couple of years back (thanks to all the k dramas),  and it is still the case that gin, whisky, cognac, scotch and rum are as far from me as cigarettes and cigars are.

boba Tea and handmade Pasta

 

A very good thing it is, I tell you, that there are no rules when it comes to the pictures you take whilst out on dates with friends.

Because although it is now commonplace (even expected) to take group shots and wefies during said dates, some of us just look SO BAD that any wefie taken should be carefully kept in the archive- and never shown to the world- Forever.

Such is the picture that my lovely friend and I took on this particular weekend date that we had together.

And whilst I've not said anything thus far, I actually do feel very sorry towards her for ruining our memory picture with that resting bitch face of mine, and especially more so because that was certainly not how I was feeling that day.

We'd arranged to meet for coffee at this little place that sits somewhere between North Bridge Road and Jln Sultan, and although we did meet there, the place was so packed with the tunch crowd (they had waffles!) that we migrated to the more conducive boba tea place next door instead.

Sure, the tables were smaller, the vibe was different, and the dishes were not as fun, but there were fewer patrons, we could sit indoors, and we had the liberty to switch tables as and when we desired.

Over our orders of teas- one yuzu with a bit of jelly (hers), one brown sugar with pearls (mine)- we looked out at the Jln Sultan road traffic and happily chatted away.

If it sounds cliche to you, well, I'll just have to say that it was how it is. She's a friend whom I've known for over twenty years, and it is divine I always say, how we reconnected through Facebook, started chatting online over Messenger, discovered that we both have hippie spirits nestling somewhere within, were pretty open to yammering about our lives and dudes and all, and could do the serious sharing stuff and the fun stuff all at the same time.

We didn't do much shopping on this date- we're saving it for next- being such that it had been a long time since we met- over a year, in fact- and we kind of wanted to get together to (in my case) spill more beans on about how I'd been doing since one of the most difficult weeks in my life that occured only just this year.

She had been there.

Consistently.

And it is something I'm really, sincerely, very thankful for.


Many things we shared on that particular afternoon- she spoke, I listened, I spoke, she listened- and the hours just went past until it was nearly time for dinner.

We'd no idea what we felt like eating, and so in the midst of me checking out Eatigo (no, it's not a shoutout) and throwing out the names of my usual hangouts, we decided it be best that we simply walk along North Bridge Road and see what came along.

Yes, very hippie, I know! :)

So we did, and that's how we found ourselves at this pasta place where this picture above comes from. I can't remember the name, but it's tucked somewhere between the row of shop houses on North Bridge Road and has a very casual, cosy, drinks-set kind of vibe. A quick study of the menu (she's the chef type and so knows her ingredients) and she got the seafood on pasta served with a tomato base, whilst I got the prawns on pasta with one poached egg and a sauce of pesto. The pasta was handmade, and made without egg.

I took a mussel and a bit of pasta from hers.

She took a prawn and a bit of pasta from mine.

And then we talked some more. :)