More new gastronomic experiences yesterday. Went with Raju, an Indian guy at work, for northern Indian food, which is as uncommon here as it is common in Chicago's Indian restaurants. This was a different type of northern cuisine than what I'd eaten in the States: chapatis with curries and chutneys. Interesting.
Dinner was the real adventure. Went to Yew Chong's apartment in Tanjong Pagar for dim sum and "fritters". This was tasty but not so unusual outside of the hundred year old eggs and the preserved squid. The challenge, indeed the ultimate challenge in S'pore cuisine, was with the fresh durians for dessert.
Much has been written about the durian, so I'll try not to tread too much where others have gone. Durians are dangerous looking creatures, smaller ones are football sized and they are covered with sharp strong spikes. They have in fact been used as weapons in some well publicized cases here. You would not want to mistakenly bump into one.
Fortunately, you are not likely to have a durian slipped onto your chair without warning. You would have smelled it before it came within 100 meters of you, for the fragrance of the durian is its most infamous feature. You can get durians in Chinatowns in the States, but these are frozen for shipping and have lost their potency along with their pungency. There is no comparison between a fresh durian and one that has been frozen. I had never eaten a fresh durian before last night, so really, I had never eaten durian.
Many have tried to describe the odor. Odious comparisons to gasoline, vomit, and rotting meat are repeatedly made. In fact, the smell is not so bad. It's just very, very strong. So strong that it is illegal to transport durians on the subway. I can easily tell when my neighbors have opened a durian. Everyone else in the building can also tell. Most foreigners here find it impossible to get past the smell. Some work up enough courage to give it a try and will admit that the taste is superior to the smell (big surprise) but they avoid the fruit ever after.
Smell and taste are connected of course. Plug up your nose completely and you can't taste the difference between an onion, a potato, and an apple. So, the only way you can truly appreciate the complicated flavor of the durian is to come to an understanding about its odor. Many people say you don't really notice the smell of a durian when you eat it, but I say the opposite is true-while eating the durian you start to discern the taste/smell with greater comprehension, so you don't find it so overwhelming. You're close to the opened fruit, intimate with its inner secrets, so strong and sensual. It's heady ripeness and creamy custard flesh draws you in. The Chinese say it is very "heaty," meaning it is full of yang. They shun mixing it with alcohol in a meal and try to drink some "cooling" water afterwards. Embrace the heaty odor, suck the meat clean from the seeds, and be thankful for your chance at the fresh durian.
Crossed the chaotic causeway into Malaysia this weekend into the steamily untidy, brothel infested border town of Jahor Barhu. The nasty pleasures are there of course, because Singaporeans cross the border to search for them. (There are brothels in S'pore, just not so many and much more costly.) However, remember that shopping is one the greatest pleasures for Singaporeans, so they also cross in droves in search of bargain prices. "Tijuana" JB is happy to cater to all needs.
There is only one land connection between S'pore and Malaysia, just one. They are building another one, but now there is only one causeway, and not a very large one at that. About 2.3 million people a month cross over. Almost 75% of all the people who travel to Malaysia come in from Singapore. So, the causeway is always jammed.
The traffic jam problem on the causeway has been exacerbated by the currency crisis. Although all the ASEAN country's currencies have fallen, they have not all fallen equally, and Singapore's has fallen less than its neighbors. So, while it was always cheaper in JB, now it is cheaper still. To make matters worse, a minor political squabble has turned the jams into near disasters. I won't go into details, but the Malay side started a slowdown at the checkpoint because they wanted lorry drivers to ship a different way, and the S'pore side started checking incoming traffic for violation of tax laws because people were loading up on Malaysian goods. They also check your gas tank, as you are not allowed to go over to JB with less than ¾ of a tank of gas.
Fortunately, we were forewarned and ready for difficulties. We planned a conservative agenda for a day trip over, threw some tarot cards, and made our way towards the border on the MRT. There, we caught a sardine packed bus headed for the causeway, so crowded we couldn't make our way over to pay and were propelled out the door when it stopped. Rather than perspire in the jammed bus, we decided to walk across. This turned out to be a good move as few people do this and you wind up moving faster than the traffic anyway.
Once over we faced huge lines to go through immigration, but we had an ace in the hole. Most of the lines are for Singapore or Malaysia residents. They have a few lines open just for other nationalities and these are far, far shorter. We got through fairly swiftly.
We did our errands, checking out the train schedules for future trips to surrounding towns, found out where the bus terminal was, and purchased vitamins and two dictionaries (Malay and Chinese). We also visited the famous Royal Abu Bakar Museum, which is the former palace of the Sultan of Johor. They charge foreigners six times the admission price of locals, which is especially galling because this palace is filled with unimaginably valuable treasures (wonderful Chinese and Japanese pottery, gold and jewel laden silverware, and French crystal furniture) and it is still used in government ceremonies. However, it's a good museum, so I shouldn't begrudge them of some hard currency income when it appears they really need it.
The most infamous part of the museum is the Sultan's trophy displays from his prolific big game animal hunts. Heads from every horned creature in the area line the walls. The sultan's taxidermist was kept busy preserving the many tigers (often chopped in half and displayed pouncing out of the grass), oxen, crocodiles, and even a rhinoceros. There are so many elephant tusks and skulls that Sybil exclaimed: "Boy, if someone brought an elephant here, it would go nuts!" He has ashtrays made from the legs of antelopes and elephants and cigarette lighters from tiger skulls. He even displays tortoise shells-must have been a pretty scary hunt for those guys.
We had some difficulties finding the correct way back over the causeway. At first we went the way we'd come in, but that was only for entry into JB. A taxi driver, after getting over his amazement at our insistence that we actually wanted to walk across, told us we had to go around to the other side. We tried to do this but crossed the wrong bridge and wound up in a dark deserted area. At one point we tried to cut down a pitch-black ravine and met with a large group of homeless men living under the bridge. Could have been a nasty situation, but they just wanted to be left alone.
Finally, after walking down another dark road, a car pulled up and asked us if we needed help. The driver looked trustworthy, so we gratefully accepted his offer of a ride over to the correct area. He told us we needed to go through exit customs over by the bus station and get our passports stamped. Otherwise we'd have trouble getting back into Malaysia. The driver told us he was a travel guide, so he was used to dealing with lost foreigners. He really went out of his way for us and it was a lucky break to run into him.
I've mentioned that the Jurong Bird Park was worth a return visit, but I wound up getting back there sooner than expected. POSbank, a bank originally associated with the post office, had a promotion where passbook holders received free admission to the Bird Park. Since I have an account there for my paycheck deposit, we took advantage of the offer. After viewing some feedings and a show we were caught in a terrific thunderstorm. Ferocious lightning strikes hit nearby as the marvelous deluge sent water rushing through the gutter trenches. When the storm subsided we ventured out from under our shelter to revisit the impressive waterfall aviary. Later we found out a typhoon had hit Thailand to the north and we'd only caught the edge of it.
Last week I was invited out with a group from work, including our bosses, for lunch. They took us to a fancy, fou-fou pseudo-Italian place, expensive and overpriced. Most people ordered large meals, but as I usually don't like to indulge in perks like that, I was more restrained in ordering.
This week I discover it wasn't a perk! A secretary came round to collect the evenly divided bill for the lunch, demanding a share twice what I'd ordered and ten times what I would have spent on a normal lunch. On top of that she wants to collect money towards presents for people I don't know who are leaving the company! Amazing they could be so cheap, cheaper even than other places I've worked, which is saying something.
I find it stunning that they can be so shortsightedly penny-wise and pound-foolish. Personally, I don't care much for showy perks, but this is ridiculous. I had been working diligently, but my incentive level just slipped a few notches. At least now I can get some more journal writing done.
{Later, I found out this was supposed to be "Boss's Day". What a joke!}
I'm determined to turn negatives into positives and have had too many opportunities to put this into practice lately. First off, I had a sleepless night. I fell asleep with my toes pressed up against the mosquito netting and woke up in the middle of the night with three bites on the tips of my toes! Very nasty place to get bit! An inspector had just come round to check for mosquito hatch sites, so I suspect our area is badly infested. It's a real problem because they do have Dengue fever in Singapore, so you have to be careful about bites. I tend to get bit a lot, at least three times on a regular (non-outdoors) day, so my odds are increased.
Even after the bite irritation succumbed to a Tiger Balm bath, I couldn't sleep because of a floodlight coming through the windows. So, I decided to get up and have an early morning jog. I only went a short way but it was quite enjoyable. I watched the sun come up as I stood atop a hill overlooking an Indian temple, and jogged past some interesting old buildings, overgrown with weeds and dilapidated.
The other negative I've been working on is at work. Our manager is sometimes very difficult. Unlike most S'poreans he is bombastic and bullying. He doesn't act this way with me, but he is contrary and can lapse into endless contradictions. We have an enormous amount of work coming up and he isn't making it easy. Strangely, he can be quite lucid at times, and even perceptive. I'm going to try to stay positive about work and prepare as best I can for the big changes we are making to our system (too numerous and technical to detail).
Went to a Chinese teahouse last night with Sybil and her friend Terry. Terry is an ex-accountant turned Shiatsu masseur. He has recently developed into a tea connoisseur, which is something Sybil and I have started to get into. It was a proper Chinese teahouse with the tiny cups and pots, various rinsing articles, tongs, kettles, dumping tray, etc. Terry did everything correctly-rinsing and warming preparations, then infusions, a bit more than usual before changing leaves, but this can be excused because we used a slightly expensive Taiwanese green (Three Golden Leaves, S$45 per kg) and besides we all prefer it mild. Milky sweet S'pore tea is fine and tasty, but this brew is golden fragrant nectar and truly a pleasure.
Sybil has been working on translating Chinese characters from a newspaper. The first article she attempted appeared to her as: "What? Husband wife live together 5 years yet still get woman." I suggested to her that the last two characters taken together could have another meaning, so she asked two waitresses at the teashop to translate for her (Terry, like many young S'poreans, can not read Chinese characters). The first waitress giggled at her and the other said the last two characters meant "virgin". Then they ran away laughing. Terry had heard about the news item and said this could only still happen in China, where the couple lived. In fact, I'd heard two other stories very similar to this one while living in China years ago. Perhaps lack of sex education is one of their standard birth control methods.
Terry's birthday is coming up, so we treated him to dinner as well. Which reminds me-people here, despite having a general reputation (or perhaps because of it) for being material-minded maniacs and mean as Scotsmen are very quick to pick up checks when eating out. I know this sounds contradictory to what I've related about the business lunch debacle, but if you go out with a few people one of them will invariably try to pay the whole bill. At first I would try to pay people back, but it doesn't always work. Once, after a guy paid, I gave him a $10 bill for my share and asked him if he could make change. I put the money he gave me away without looking at it and only later realized he had given me $10 in change! So, now I pay attention when the bill comes around and grab my share of them.
{A woman at work just came over and handed me some cake. What a great office! My bad attitude is gone.}
I've been meaning to mention the geckos we have in the apartment. Sybil was upset about them at first, but now she's grown used to the tiny, almost transparent lizards that share our home. The young ones will sometimes spring out from the wall and get under foot. The only fear is in stepping on one. I like them and consider them good luck.
Which reminds me of the feng shui (literally "wind water" but translated as geomancy) I've been studying lately. It seemed to be becoming a bit of a fad just as I was leaving the States. At least I was hearing about it a lot more than I used to. Feng shui actually encompasses more than just geomancy, but the main idea is the proper placement of objects within one's living or working environment. Just like acupuncture, much of the teachings on the subject are described in terms of "energy flow," but it's not all hocus-pocus. People do react positively or negatively according to their surroundings.
True, there are some bizarre stories of geomancers who have insisted on widening every doorway a few centimeters, knocking down entrances that line up with entrances across the street, putting up guardian lion statues, and rearranging anything that may resemble an unlucky Chinese character. Still, I feel our apartment has many feng shui characteristics that do make it a better living area.
Anyway, I fancy I might have a natural flair for feng shui, as I can often sense things about places and see them with respect to their aesthetic value. I'm also quite interested in design, so I may have missed my calling. For now, I study and dabble, and I'm thinking of moving some items around to improve alignment. The one window where the floodlight and mosquitoes came in needs modification. Sybil put up some aluminum foil there to deflect negative energy (light and heat). I'm thinking of putting a raised plant on the balcony as water collects there and may attract mosquitoes.
I'm also concerned about the feng shui of our computer room at work. Right now, the entrance lines up with the door to our department, which is traditionally very bad (drafts?). Just as you walk in, we currently have two large, non-working printers. This is ok because they collect the negative energy that enters the room due to its poor alignment. However, we need to expand so we will soon move out the bad printers. I don't think we should put a machine into this negative energy place, especially one I am responsible for. I think we should put a large safe, which we've ordered, in that location to block out and withstand the bad energies.
Of course I'm also concerned about making feng shui suggestions, as it will sound funny coming from a foreigner. Feng shui is also not nearly as popular in Singapore as it is in Hong Kong or Taiwan, so they may find it especially silly. Still, when the time comes for the move I'm going to try to find some way of avoiding that spot for the machines I am caretaker of.
Went out to the wholesale area for Cold Storage supermarkets today. It's on the West Side of the island, near the shipping docks. It was my first glimpse at the huge shipping industry here. Singapore and Hong Kong are the two busiest ports in the world (they often trade off as to who's number one) and Singapore is building an additional monstrous port. Many, many things come through here and then out to the rest of the world.
On the way back, we stopped by an English CEO's house to reconfigure his PC! The place was filled with valuable Asian antiques and sported a private swimming pool. The CEO was in Kuala Lumpur and the house was deserted save for the Filipino maid. Aside from the PC and printer he snarfed from the company, the home office in Hong Kong sent him a scanner. However they forgot to send the SCSI card to connect it to his PC, so he can't use it-what a shame.
Another nocturnal insect attack interrupts my sleep. Sybil wakes me up with a yell and much thrashing. A giant Asian cockroach, longer than my middle finger, slipped under the mosquito netting and crawled on her. She took full revenge by nuking it in the microwave. She wanted to feed it to our geckos, but I was afraid the cockroach might emerge victorious.
Visited a trio of Chinese Buddhist temples, all very different, but as I'm determined to shorten this up some, I'll only mention two of them. The first is near my work, near a formally Jewish (!) area, and is devoted to Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. She's also the Goddess of Children, so people wanting to conceive make offers to her. I say her, but Kuan Yin is also portrayed as a man sometimes. This is the same deity as the Indian god Avalokiteshvara (Lord of Compassion). I think when some of these Buddhist gods bounced back and forth between India and China they gained different names and characteristics.
Once again we were lucky to visit during a celebration and the place was packed. I guess this goddess is also used for fortune telling (Kuan Yin translates as "see and hear all") as the ritual here was to bring carnations and chrysanthemums (there's a large florist next to the temple) and fruit (mostly oranges) to lay at the alter in exchange for good fortune. People also lit long incense sticks, waved them through the air while praying and chanting "Namo Kuan Shi Yin Pu Sa" (a full name for the Goddess is Kuan Shi Yin Pu Sa) to call for the Goddess to hear their pleas. Some people also chant the familiar "Om mani padme hum", meaning "Om, the jewel in the lotus" because this God/Goddess was born holding a lotus, and is often depicted with a lotus flower in one of his/her many hands. The burning incense is then placed in pots filled with sand. Petitioners would also shake bamboo fortune sticks (chiam si) and throw them on the ground to answer questions. Finally, they would buy fortune-telling almanacs (tong shu) that are supposed to reveal a personal destiny. I guess these books are a bit difficult to decipher as several people outside the temple hired out their services to read them if you couldn't do it yourself.
The second temple of note, Siong Lim, is a much larger complex associated with a monastery. It commemorates Buddha's birth in a grove of treas and his death between two Bodhi trees. Unlike the other two temples, this one didn't display the Buddhist symbol that resembles a reverse swastika. Much of it was under construction, which provided interesting contrasts, such as bulldozers and cranes in front of dragon festooned buildings inhabited by robe clad, incense swinging monks.
Fascinating chaos reigned inside the main building here. This seemed to be a temple of smoke, as it billowed out from hundreds of long incense sticks. People would light huge handfuls of sticks and wave them around at each of the many altars, leaving behind three burning sticks at each alter. Although the smoke was tremendously eye stinging, it must get even smokier as many of the gods there had charred remains in their mouths, so burning incense must be placed there. In addition, many of the god statues had cigarettes left in their hands or pipes-a real smoker's temple!
Amidst the haze, roosters, chickens and pigeons pecked underfoot. Paper hats hung from the rafters in what looked like some sort of lucky draw lottery. Huge towers made up of many little lighted Buddha figures flanked immense Siamese statues. Makeshift altars were scattered about for each particular Buddha. Each alter would have a few dozen of his type of statue, along with statues of something associated with this Buddha, say tigers or cocks or wealth or asceticism, along with some pictures laid nearby for good measure. Fruit and incense would be left at each one.
Another building in this complex was quieter and more contemplative. The room was large, with a colorful, blinking statue at the front and chandeliers (?) on the ceiling. People sat or kneeled on the floor, or bowed and prayed, or just read newspapers (?). Others sat on benches outside, looking in and counting off prayer beads. At the entrance, people poured Knife brand (cheap) cooking oil into a pot, and floated lit candles atop the oil. I still have much to understand about such places.
This same day, Saturday, we also visited Sun Yat Sen's villa. During his years of plotting revolution against the Ching dynasty in China, Sun Yat Sen made several surreptitious trips to Singapore and stayed in this quaint old building. It's used as an art gallery now, but S$7 million was just granted to renovate the villa to its former condition. The place was full of garlands of congratulatory flowers for their boon. It's well worth renovating and will be worth a return visit when this is completed.
Right next door to the Sun Yat Sen villa is a Burmese temple, perhaps the only one in Singapore. This cavernous, multi-storied complex was nearly deserted, giving it an eerie feeling. Its best attraction is the many wild and colorful murals on the wall, depicting the fantastic story of an enlightened one's battles with demons, thumb chopping bandits, heretic hermits, false women, and drunken elephants! Quite a life he led!
Saturday was even more eventful with the morning spent in the Katong section of town. Early in our stay, we'd visited this area, famous for its gangsters today but in the past for its Straits Chinese (last century, usually wealthy families consisting of Chinese husbands or Babas and Malay wives or Nonyas) heritage. Now we can better appreciate the older Peranakan architecture, characterized by classic European influences mixed with local feng shui, often adorned with colorful tiles and intricate ornamentation. There are some incredible temporal anomalies here, somehow spared from the modernization mania that plagues this town. We saw an antiquated dentist chair, still in use, and a bizarre herbal shop, filled with dusty items, where a retarded guy emerged from a trance to scream at us. I bought some tasty rambutans (hairy egg shaped fruits that taste a bit like lychees) to eat as we walked about a nearby Malay shopping area, where traditional drums are beaten by enthusiastic young men.
The real find of the morning was the Katong Bakery. It's right across the street from a modern mall-deserted and suspiciously filled with "hot spas" and people furtively watching out. The bakery transports you back in time at least forty years. You can sit in the front part and sample the house baked wares. The tables are still marble topped and a creaky fan rotates above. Refreshingly, no attempt at ornamentation is made. Winding your way through a labyrinth of boxes, back towards the Chinese toilets, you can see the bakers at work, rolling their dough with thin sticks, surrounded by antique equipment and incongruously listening to 60's US pop rock on the radio.
Here, we eat some delicious pork bao, shrimp paste roll, and fruit cake. We drink tea served impeccably old style, with the milk and sugar on the side, by a Chinese Methuselah, thin and bent over with age, yet somehow still graceful. The prices are too cheap. The Peranakan style building and its antiques inside are too valuable. Everyone who works here is ancient-this place cannot last. Feeling fortunate to catch this glimpse of a slower, more elegant Singapore, we linger long here, savoring this last trailing tidbit of a moribund era along with our fine cakes and tea, served by ghosts and sheltered for a time from the modern world outside.
Sunday we had plans for a very different sort of tea-high tea at the ritzy Alkaff Mansion, built in the 20's by wealthy Arabs and sitting high atop Mt. Faber, offering fabulous views of the city. First we felt we had to warm up to the decadence, so we toured the old Colonial district near the downtown. The Parliament and Judicial Court buildings, with their grand columns, could be lifted straight out of Victorian London. A 19th century bridge, brought over from Glasgow, still carries foot-traffic. The Cricket Club occupies its choice space on the Padang, a large open grass field. A match was in progress as we passed by-white clad men heaving balls at paddle-armed batters or loping lazily after a hit ball.
We walked out on a newly opened bridge to get a face-to-face look at the famous Merlion-a lion headed mermaid that guards the entrance to the river. Down in the Merlion Park there is a smaller version of the fabulous water-spouting beast, along with a surprisingly good poem of an imagined visit of Ulysses to the Merlion (stranger even than Garuda or his Naga brothers). A grand old tree stretching out over the water wonderfully shades the tiny park, as well as passing tourist bumboats.
After hopping a bus towards the foot of Mt. Faber we visited a deserted Mosque and then an amazing cemetery climbing up the hill. Unlike any other cemetery I've seen, it is filled with small nameless chess piece headstones, some enclosed in mausoleums. The ruins of an old bathhouse, built before the cemetery, can also be found here. The grounds are wooded, messily strewn with rocks, and unfortunately, full of mosquitoes.
We climbed Mt. Faber, which turned out to be a far sweatier task than tour guide Sybil had anticipated. We were drenched by the time we make it to the top and thankful for the cool breeze and scenic view. Pressed for time, we walk the length of Mt. Faber Park, climbing down again, vowing to return, and catch a taxi at the bottom to take us up again to the other side of Mr. Faber and Alkaff Mansions.
The high tea is not cheap here and the gardens must make for wonderful wedding receptions, so I'm sure the 1920's splendor of Alkaff Mansions will outlive the Peranakan charm of the Katong Bakery. Still, we had a very enjoyable tea on the breezy veranda, and the original art nouveau decor was a treat. Again we linger, eating slow, talking and reading from a connoisseurs book about tea. Afterwards we take a turn about the garden and climb up to the top of the terrace garden park next door.
Offered as proof of my tea fanaticism, what is often called "high tea" today is closer to what was originally called "low tea". Low tea was a gentile affair in 19th century Britain, taken in the early afternoon by the upper classes and consisting of a light meal of delicate sandwiches and sweets. High tea was taken after work at 6pm by the middle and lower classes and included more substantial meat pies and dinner type items. I guess nowadays, "high tea" sounds better than "low tea" so that's how fancy places the world over describe their tea time offerings.
At night we go swimming in the large public pool near Fort Canning, nearly deserted in the evening and less than $1 to enter. We exercise in the deliciously cool water, float on our backs, and watch bats swoop down over the water to collect insects.
At work today the treat passed around was packs of Wrigley's chewing gum, smuggled in from Malaysia since it is illegal to sell it here. I think it was considered almost as generous as the woman who brought in the fancy Indonesian layer cake. Actually, it's quite pleasant to live in a place that doesn't have old chewing gum wads left all over. The government here often gets a fascist labeling from the Western press, but there is often some method to their madness.
Went to Chijmes last night for a poetry reading. Chijmes is a former nunnery, a lovely place, converted into upscale shops and restaurants. The reading turned out to include music and prose recital as well. Plus they had good food! All in all and excellent yogi opportunity. At one point, a strange woman in the audience persuaded the director of the event to let her recite some of her poems. She would alternate between fast paced screaming into the mike and quiet, slow speech. She berated the Singapore media for not covering the famines in North Korea and thanked the director ad nauseum when she was finished. Still, she wasn't that terrible. In fact, no one there was really awful, and some were rather good-which is amazing. I usually detest artsy events like this, but it was fairly well done here, not so pretentious, and a good thing to see in Singapore.
Friday night we had dinner at our place with Yew Chong and his extremely pregnant (due in three weeks) wife. Sybil made a great dinner out of some fresh salmon purchased from a Chinatown wet market, with pasta and vegetables. She'd been planning all week to create a flambé mango sauce over ice cream for desert. I gave her a hard time because mangos are out of season and extremely high priced and rum is $S30 for a small bottle. Most of all, I wasn't sure she could pull it off without scorching the mango into blackened mush. However, it turned out quite nicely and everything was a success.
Saturday, we went over to Chinatown to see the market Sybil had discovered. It's a large, active wet market, with plenty of produce, meat and fish. We watched a guy skinning live frogs with his hands. He did it so quickly the frog seemed to be inside out and still alive-amazing! I wanted to get a durian, but we didn't want to lug such a heavy and dangerous item around, so we decided to eat one outside at a table.
We both genuinely enjoy the durian and soak up the local scene. Two great old wooden posters hang on a wall near us. Both depict a monkey holding a durian-probably a trademark for the nearby stand. Wooden bins are set out to hold the husks and seeds. A large tank with a spigot over a sewer hole holds water for hand washing. The smell of fish and produce from the wet market tries to establish a presence against the awesome power of durian odor. People move about everywhere, shopping for everything.
Moving on, we pick up a few things ourselves-ginseng and royal jelly drinks, and then some "cooling" herbs that Sybil buys on a recommendation from a visiting Hong Kong herbalist. We look for good green tea but come up empty. We cross an overpass, make our way past the "oldest mosque in Singapore" and find ourselves across the river from the Clarke Quay. A busker's festival is in progress, so we stop to watch two performers, both American.
Since we have a coupon for a free beer, we head for the Brewerkz, an American microbrewery we'd visited once before. It's happy hour, so we pay for two beers to get a free (delicious Thai chicken) appetizer. Even with the free beer and free appetizer this is an expensive place, but we play darts for free and have a good time.
Wandering home, crossing over a footbridge, we see some fireworks explode in the distance. We don't know what they're for, but we laze on the bridge and watch them. It's a fine night with perfect weather and we enjoy the stroll home, suffering no ill effects despite mixing alcohol with durian.
I've been rereading "Dharma Bums" aloud to Sybil at night. We both read it as teenagers and felt drawn to Kerouac's attitude towards traveling and anti-materialism. Some parts seem dated to an older reader, but the spirit expressed still comes through. We will be Dharma bums ourselves one day. Kerouac influences some of our HEN philigious beliefs.
Like the ex-marine hobo Ray meets in the novel, I stand on my head for a short time in the morning and sometimes at night as well. This is a habit I've followed at various times throughout my life, but somehow had fallen out of it for quite some time. The Hanged Man in the tarot cards finds enlightenment in his reversed position and I suspect there may be some truth to this.
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