Changi Beach Park

I made a special trip to this place on a cool, cloudy afternoon because only a few days prior Someone had told me that there was Something of Significance down here which would be good for me to see. 

And even though I initially had no idea of what it was I was supposed to see, by the end of it all, by the time I was ready to leave, I not only managed to see what I had come here for, I also held a deeper understanding of what the Significance meant. 

If you think that I'm talking in circles, well, I probably am. 

But that's because this place has so many corners, so many facets and so many stories that it is impossible tor me to describe all of them at one go. Where do I begin? What story do I first begin to tell? Do I speak of the trees that stand in this place? Do I speak of the islands that lie opposite? What of the bumboats that ply their routes between the mainland and Pulau Ubin and Pengarang? What of the horseshoe crabs that sometimes make their way up and down the sandy shore?

It isn't only that I don't know where to begin. It is also that more and more of herself does she reveal the more and more that I am here.

Well, at least that's how it is for me. 

You know, I didn't use to come here very much. 

In fact, I didn't even know of this place until I came here for the first time at fourteen years old. Much of that night I no longer remember, except that it was late, it was dark, I was new to the place, and I was all alone. 

The reason for my being here would keep me away from this place for a long time, and it would take several more years before I stepped into this place again. 

In recent years I've come to this place more often, and I've come to appreciate her presence much more. 

Still, I'm always surprised to find that this place sincerely resonates with me.

Different things I notice at different times.

At one time I might be seeing just a bunch of coconut trees facing out towards the open sea. At another time I may be seeing the bench beneath the same group of coconut trees also facing out towards the open sea. 

It varies. 

And I can never know what it is I should expect.

There have been times where I've noticed the BBQ pits and the  shelters. There have been times when I've gotten distracted by the weather and the trees and the scenery and noticed them not. 

Thing is, to fully appreciate the vibes here means having to come here with an open heart and an open mind. Erase everything you know. Remove every fact of this place that you think you know. Then, and only then, will she reach out to you. Then, and only then, will you hear what it is she is trying to say.

Perhaps I've grown to be more sensitive over time, but I've since found that there is so much going on in this one little place that I've totally given up trying to process it all. 

Nevertheless when the mood comes, I hop on either the bus or on Daffy, I come here, I say hi, I have a coconut water and I go around wherever my feet apply.

Now, if you're still puzzled by what it is I'm trying to say, well, let me put it this way. 

Everything here at this place is about the vibe. 

Not the vibe that she possesses. 

But the vibe that you yourself have. 

What is it that you want to see?

What is it that you want to hear? 

Take a moment, quiet your heart, and just listen.

You'll be surprised at how peaceful you'll find yourself to be. 

CB's Joo Chiat

   

This heritage district in the east side of Singapore may be (more or less) just a single road on the map, but it is, in fact, a place with three enclaves so distinctive from each other, yet so seamlessly merged that you don't know where one begins and where the other ends. 

On one side you have the enclave that heads into Geylang Serai. 

This is the side where the halal bakeries and eateries are. If you wanted a halal macaron, a halal cream cake or a halal chocolate tart, this place would be it. IF you wanted a flaky sardine puff pastry in the shape of a triangle, or a jumput jumput in the form of a deep fried banana ball, this place would be it too. This is where you have eateries both traditional and modern offering you everything from nasi padang to spicy noodles to mee rebus and halal zichar.

In the center of Joo Chiat Road is the enclave commonly  known as Little Vietnam. 

Here are the pubs and entertainment outlets. Here are also the coffee shops and eateries that specialize in the cuisine of Vietnam. Beef pho is the staple, of course, but you get some unusual stuff like BBQ quails, spicy cockles and Vietnamese rice rolls stuffed full with bits of lettuce and carrots and bean sprouts and other veggies. Come to think of it, most of the coffee shops seem to be centered around this particular enclave in which Koon Seng Road and Dunman Road slice directly across. Local food here doesn't lose out in any way as well. One finds claypot porridge, fish head soup and salted egg chicken, then there's crispy prata handmade fresh from the grill, prawn noodle soup, carrot cake and char kuay teow. D'bun has an outlet in this enclave; there's a bit of Thai, a bit of Japanese, a brilliant steak place, and a briyani place too. 

The third enclave comes right after. 

Somewhere around the Joo Chiat Community Center I think it begins, with Gobi Desserts a couple of steps before, and Picotin taking a major spot after. Picotin's one place to look out for if you like alfresco dining. They've got a balloon castle on weekends so the kids can jump around whilst you have your beers. Ahead are the burger places- I count Fat Papa's amongst the list- then there are the coffee and cake places, and the #supportlocal store with the famous cat who walks on the shelves and whom lets everybody stroke it. There used to be an ice cream parlor here offering scoops in flavors of teh tarik, chendol and Mao Shan Wang. I don't know if it's still there. But there's Awfully Chocolate, there's Sinpopo, and there's that place on the corner which serves up lots of craft beers and amazing local food. 

One thing I've come to realize during these interesting times is to appreciate what we have whilst they're still here. You never know when it will be that the landlords decide to rip the entire thing apart and leave you hanging with no more Cold Storage Marketplace to go, no more Tim Ho Wan to eat at, no cinema to watch a movie in, and no more boulangerie to go. #i12 

fast food in CB

So McDonalds dine-in opens today. 

I'm excited. 

Not that I'm going to dash down and have a meal right away, but hey, at least it is open, at least there's an opportunity to have a sit-in meal inside, and at least I know I'm probably to have a bit more of happy junk foods than I did during the two months of circuit breaker. 

It's a little hard to believe, but (looking back at the pictures now) I've realize that the total number of times I had fast food during the last two months came to a grand total of three. 

Yes, just three. 

I know it is, because I made it a point to take a picture every time I had a fast food meal, and these you see above are all that I have.

One time of McDonalds. 

Two times of Burger King. 

That's it.

Wow.

That's not a lot. 

That's not a lot at all. 

I thought there would have been more. 

I mean, considering the circumstances that we were in- having to be indoors all day, having to adjust to working from home, having to have nowhere but the supermarket to go- I'm genuinely surprised that there wasn't more.

Lockdown is a situation where you don't need reasons to want a McSpicy Extra Value Meal Upsize for lunch, and a Double Cheeseburger Extra Value Meal for dinner (accompanied with a dessert of apple pie).

Lockdown is a situation where you don't need to give yourself a million and one reasons why you should not be ordering a bucket of fried chicken- that you know can last you through lunch, dinner and supper.

And lockdown is a situation where you don't need to be embarrassed by your craving for Burger King's Hershey's chocolate pies, or the fact that you went on Grab and ordered  ten, especially when you know you can store them in the fridge for tomorrow's breakfast, tomorrow's tea and tomorrow's anytime. 

The over-consumption of happy junk foods during such a circumstance is perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable, perfectly justified. 

Yet, none of these I did, and none of them I'd had. 

No McSpicy, no McChicken, no Filet-o-Fish, no fried chicken(!?), no Mushroom Swiss. 

Instead, what I did have were the breakfast platters from McDonalds and Burger King, and shall I say, very delightful they were! 

Meat patties, hash browns, tater tots, omelets, cherry tomatoes, and PANCAKES- the latter which I relished a great deal, which I had with butter and maple syrup, and which I happily ate using my hands.  :D

Everything Mala and 水煮鱼

Being someone who doesn't do spice and chili very well, I can tell you that when all the dishes on the table are 100% mala, dinner for the day becomes a Dinner with a D. 

You know, it's a funny thing. 

I can do curries, no problem. 

I can do garlic chili sauce McDonalds style and sweet chili sauce Thai style, no problem. 

I can even do the satay fish snack on a stick and the tapioca chili snack that used to be sold with ikan bilis and peanut in the same packet (but they don't do that anymore)

However, give me sambal belachan, chili padi Peranakan style, or one bowl of pure, solid Mala broth- and I'm gone. 

Straight off gone.

I just can't do it. 

And I don't usually do.

But dinner tonight was a gift. 

A mystery sender had delivered the gift of Everything Mala for our dinner, and as much as I raised an inquiring eyebrow, I relished in the excitement of what this dinner would bring. 

I didn't know what to expect (mystery dinner, mystery sender) and so very pleasant, very amazing surprise it was when the dishes came and I saw that there was not just one very red, very spicy-looking tub of nicely packed shellfish, one of mala chicken but also a third huge tub of Water Boiled Fish. 

I've never eaten Water Boiled Fish before. 

And until this evening I'd never even heard of it. 

But there's Google. 

And a fish is a fish is a fish.

The mala chicken looked good. 

I knew what it was. 

I'd had it a couple of times before.

But this mala chicken wasn't as spicy as I remembered, and in fact, I think the spiciness seemed to be tailored just right so much so that I could taste the flavors of the fried chicken and the spark from the little chili within each bite. 

Now I wish I could say I loved the shellfish but I must tell you that these little lobsters scared the heck out of me. Oh, they were cute, yes they were, and each shellfish was fresh enough that none of the shells were broken, all their claws were still intact and every piece perfect in appearance and shape.  

But to eat them meant that I had to break open their shells, touch their claws, rip their perfectly intact heads apart from their bodies, and look into their lifeless eyes... 

I can do that with prawns. 

I couldn't do that with these. 

So I left the honors of hammering and mutilation to my dining companion (whom I think found it rather fun) and stayed content with just two- whilst working my way through the tub of Water Boiled Fish, or 水煮鱼 (as it's appropriately called) with my chopsticks, happily picking out the big, chonky pieces of fish swimming in a tubful of very red, very shiny oil. 

The fish was good- huge, fresh, sparky in taste, even comforting.

But what I liked about it best was that the oil really wasn't very oily, nor was it even greasy after all.

the Ann Siang side

You know how sometimes you can't think of one place without thinking of another, especially if both places are close by? Like how you can't think of Ang Mo Kio without thinking of Bishan, or how you can't think of Telok Blangah without thinking of Mount Faber? 

That's how it is for me when it comes to Ann Siang Road and Club Street. I've never been able to think of one without thinking of the other, and why should it not be, when geographically speaking, it is literally one single road that wraps around the curvature of a hill? 

Ann Siang Road begins from the summit of what is today Ann Siang Hill Park and cuts down all the way to South Bridge Road. Club Street runs perpendicular, beginning midway along Ann Siang, goes down the hill, and ends at what is today Cross Street.  

It's not so much the entertainment of the place that is fascinating (even though there're a good number of cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants there) but the architecture that the place itself entails, the stories those shop houses embrace, and the heritage that she represents.

I'd been interested in the vicinity of Ann Siang, Club, Maxwell and Amoy for a while, and when it so happened that I was in the area with a twenty-minute interval waiting for an errand to be completed, I decided I'd take a quick wander around the neighborhood rather than hang about (impatiently) in the common area.

Given that there wasn't much time I decided I'd head down to Erskine Road first to the 7-11 (so badly needed a drink) then back up to Kadayanallur Street, then make a left onto Ann Siang Road. 

By a building along Erskine Road, I made a quick stop. Interesting this building is, with five floors (I think), and where some of the barred windows are remarkably close to the road. The name of this now-empty building I do not know, but I read somewhere that it once used to be a Mission Hospital, and most recently, served as the offices of Tangs Department Store. 

On Kadayanallur Street, I made another stop right at the junction of Scarlet Hotel and the URA East Wing. From here I could look down Erskine Road towards the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple on the opposite side, the housing blocks of Kreta Ayer Estate, the Tanjong Pagar area to my left, and the roofs of Maxwell Food Center down below. From here too, at a vantage point of the back alley between two rows of shop houses (one facing Ann Siang Road, the other facing Erskine Road) I gazed straight ahead- as the crow flew- into the distance until the corner of the new State Court Building caught my eye. 

There wasn't time to walk along Ann Siang Road, so at the junction I grabbed a quick picture, then headed towards Ann Siang Hill Park where I found myself looking at a nice,quiet pathway that presumably led to the foot of the hill, and the back of a row of shop houses that stood upon Amoy Street down below. 

I don't know if I'll head back to the area again. 

Maybe I will.

Maybe I won't.

It depends. 

But what I realized that day of Ann Siang Road I won't easily forget. 

Because for the first time in a very long while, she possessed a very different vibe. 

It was a vibe that I never knew existed. It was a vibe that I thought had been long forgotten, and yet- yet- loud she was along the silent road, clear she was resounding in the brick walls of the shop houses now hushed of chatter and chillax music, and patient she was in the tale she still waited to tell. 

Chinatown's CB (lockdown)

If what they say about history repeating itself is true, then there must have been a time when the streets of Chinatown were as quiet as what it were during the days of the circuit breaker. 

Whichever time it was, it must have been beyond my years- because, not once, not at least to the best of my memory, have I ever seen the streets of Pagoda, Smith, Trengganu and Temple fall into a silence as deafening as this. 

Truth be told,  is not a pretty sight. 

We all know how popular Chinatown is. 

We all know how crowded this place can be. 

Always it has been that there will be that one tourist who stops in the middle of the path with his or her camera panned high to capture the length of the street and the lanterns above in one frame. 

Always it has been that there will be the tourist, and tourists stopping in the middle of nowhere to take a selfie with a) the street b) the shop behind c) the mobile ice cream man or d) the bak kwa. 

We have seen them; the hot and bothered Caucasian tourist stopping for a bucket of Tiger beers at the corner coffee shop whilst he works through a plate of (tourist-priced) chili crab. 

We have seen them; the dressed-up tourists in their sun hats, sunglasses and sunscreen who stand waiting by the side of a souvenir shop and fan themselves eagerly. 

There are the tourists who make a feast of our local cuisine at Smith Street and upload it straight to social media. 

There are the tourists who wander from one street to another armed with plastic bags (from purchases bought elsewhere), more plastic bags (from Universal Studios Singapore), their battery-operated fans, their phones, their crossbody bags, and their drawstring bags. 

We have seen them. 

The tourists, the visitors, the workers, the locals.

Yet, hardly a soul did I see on this day that I passed through the area from Eu Tong Sen Street to South Bridge Road on the other side.

There was nobody. 

The streets were silent. 

The shops were shut. 

And even the eateries- open as they might be with their tables stacked up and chairs pushed aside- were lonely. 

It was a little sad (I'm an introvert and so when I say it felt a little sad, it IS sad) but- but- if there was something interesting that existed within the empty streets and the deafening silence, it is that I (finally) got to see Chinatown for what it could be- without the crowds, without the clutter of footfall flow, without the cacophony of sounds. 

And, my goodness, was she really so beautiful.   

the CB diet Part 2: Takeaways

These pictures here are but a (small) portion of all the takeaway meals the bro had during the circuit breaker months of April and May. 

There are more, he says, and forthcoming those pictures may be, but these here are pretty much a general "sampling" of all the meals he had fitted to complement the carefully calibrated, cautiously calculated menu.

There was a lot of salmon. 

There was a lot of beef. 

And, he emphasizes, there was quite a bit of the Indian.

It wasn't difficult to get salmon. The supermarkets had it. The restaurants had it. Either he got salmon belly sashimi carried back from Don Don Donki, salmon sashimi don ordered and delivered from Ichiban, or roasted salmon belly sushi self-collected from the closest Itacho.  

Beef wasn't a challenge either. Until the day the management of Millennia Walk decided they'd shut the entire mall, he went down to favorite Turkish place Donergy for their Ali Nazik doner beef (kebabs with babaganoush and fresh vegetables), and on the days that he preferred steak, he ordered from Jacks' Place, Collins' and Hot Tomato . No preferences as to which of all three he prefers, he says, but the app shows Collins to be quite a contender.

The choice for Indian, however, was a deliberate one. 

He wanted the curries. 

To double up as ready-made gravies to fry with the pieces of chicken and chunks of beef in the days after. 

Very generous the portions were, he added, and it didn't matter from where the curries came from, whether they were from Springleaf (where he'd ordered mutton murtabak) or from Mr and Mrs Mohgan's prata stall at the coffee shop down the road.