We had another wonderful weekend. On Saturday, we woke up early-ish and got ready to leave the house for our lunch downtown in Ootoya in the new Orchard Central mall, where our dear friend Peggy works. Zen did his homework, then we took the bus at 11:00, arriving around 11:50. It was our first itme in Orchard Central; I had not been in any hurry to go there, since I don’t really care a fig about new malls – they would usually simply be more of the same thing – but this one had a cool upper deck with eating areas, outdoor escalators, an indoor rock-climbing simulation, a tall stretched woman statue, and other cool things. I was also impressed that we had the place mostly to ourselves. Got to Ootoya at noon, and we were one of the first guests, but it quickly filled up. The food was yummy, the decor cool and relaxed, and the staff friendly. The only problem was that things were a bit on the slow side, and my meal arrived much earlier than Naoko and Zen’s, but nobody was starving or in any great hurry. Peggy came out a few times to talk to us, but she was too busy to spend much time with us. But at least we know what her shop is like, and we were very impressed.
After a slow wander from the eighth floor down to the second floor, we took the bus to North Bridge Road and the Renaissance and Excelsior Hotel basement where we shopped for a guitar for Naoko. We first found a shoe shop, where we bought Adidas cleats for Zen (he’s taking soccer as an extracurricular activity in his school) at a good price, then we picked up Naoko’s guitar at Guitar 77. It’s an electric acoustic cutaway built by Celtone, a very handsome device. We then tried to take Zen’s broken camera to some camera shops to see if they would repair them, but they all laughed at us. Camera salesmen are really the biggest assholes in retail sales, at least in Singapore. Then we headed home by bus.
When we got home, Zen’s mood disintegrated, and he sulked and fought about the three pages of homework that he needed to do. Finally, he got it done after dinner, and that night we just watched an episode of Space: 1999 (“Voyager’s Return”) and read from The Lightning Thief. I stayed up late watching the Leonard Cohen concert DVD “Live In London.”
Sunday we slept late, but Zen was up early. As difficult as Zen was on Saturday about homework, Sunday he was the opposite – he had it all done before breakfast! Naoko whipped up apple pancakes, and we had a great morning playing catch in the park and kicking the soccer ball. In the afternoon. I did a bunch of work, and listened to Leonard Cohen.
Zen ordered kids' hamburger steak, with a cool flag of Norway in it.
Ootoya is great!
Super Peggy and Ultra-Zen
Naoko and Peter and their guitars
His 'n' hers guitars.