Hey ho, another five days have gone by. Let’s see how fast I can get through describing THIS crazy week. First of all, I only worked a half week – Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. After that was all off for Chinese New Year. Hooray for that. Monday and Tuesday were unproductive at work as I called around all over the place and didn’t get anyone at all on the line, and barely any email respoinse. OK. Wednesday I was more productive in a half day than in the two previous full days, go figure. Tuesday was a shocker, because an important person suddenly put in his resignation – yoiks! Oh well, life goes on.
Monday was Mum’s birthday, so we were supposed to go out for food in Chinatown, but the clouds opened up and it rained for hours all afternoon, so I headed home and we had schnitzel and wine – yay. Naoko bought mum flowers, which was nice. Ralph didn’t call or email, so mum was heavily bummed out. Maybe she’ll get over it some day, or maybe she will be bitter about it for the rest of her life. Happens to everybody. Yes, EVERYBODY!
Tuesday we did get a chance to go out to Chinatown, and it was fun wandering around the streets and alleys. Chinatown might seem redundant in a Chinese place like Singapore, but that’s what they call it (incidentally, the Chinese themselves call it “niu che shui,” which means “horse car water”). Chinatown has a lot of Chinese shops (uh… so does the rest of Singapore) but what is special about Singapore is the cool old buildings and the shops that have been there for ages and ages. The shophouses are well-preserved, and the streets were lined with stalls selling plastic crap and obligatory CNY stuff. We found lots of funny styrofoam monkey figurines decorating the awnings and bridges, then wandered until we found the Yam Cha Restaurant my co-worker had told me about. Ate a small-ish meal for four with beers for 88 bucks, not bad. Dad paid, thanks dad. The food was great, but the service sucked hard – they brought us the wrong dish once – monkey head mushroom shark fin insead of the monkey head mushroom vegetable that we ordered. The wrong dish was only 8 times as expensive as the one we really ordered!! Monkey head mushroomy, by the way, are amazingly delicious – great texture and amazing juicy taste. They also overcharged our beers, took their time bringing food, and weren’t too friendly. Long Beach, and Tienjin Guan are both a million times better, but you can’t always go there. Mum had trouble finding non-fish food, but we sorted it out.
Wednesday I only worked a half day, got home at 2:30, rushed off to IMM to buy a printer and a fan and some beer and wine. Not too crowded, but we were over 45 minutes in the taxi queue waiting for our ride home. Not many were coming, all the CHinese taxi drivers were off work and the non-Chinese taxis were speeding around taking Chinese people over to the relatives houses, stuff like that. Hmmm… At least we got a good printer and can now print things at home. Will come in handy with the new translation we got.
Thursday we just hung out here all day, went swimming, cycling, hung out, went to the park, played guitar.
Today, Friday, we went to Sentosa. It was a good day to go as we could avoid the crowds, but unfortunately it rained on and off all day. We got there by bus, took a cable car over, then the monorail around and it poured down rain. When it stopped we got off and walked along the Merlion walk, then up along the cable car loop, ate pizza lunch and had coffees, then took the cable car back. What did we do on Sentosa besides ride the monorail and see the Merlion? Took the cable car to Mount Faber and saw that, it was pretty OK up there. Got home, chilled out, went for a swim, saw some local lion dancers, watched Pitigora Switch on TV, ate dinner. Amazingly, Zen went to sleep near 7. Poor kid, he had a fun day but it sure was tiring with barely any nap besides a bit in the stroller.
