The hunt for all things Japanese along the Singapore River
Monday, August 27, 2007
No, you didn't read it wrongly. This is not a Primary school kid blogging about his/her first history walking tour along Clarke Quay nor is it a tourism site for visitors to Singapore because this is not a direction manual (although I can't believe I went on a walking tour along the Singapore River, must have been ages since then hur hur).
Anyway what better way to start this tour than to have Peiqi, my fellow historian Japanese language classmate, who incidentally also works at SAM (Singapore Art Museum), accompany me? (You know, sometimes I amaze myself with my lameness).
Anyway we didn't plan for it to be such a big thing. We originally planned for a simple ramen meal, but of course one thing led to another and we found ourselves planning to walk along the Singapore river, so we decided to walk from Central to the obscure ramen place and then
back the same way past Central to National Museum of Singapore to catch some old movie. Apparently they are screening old movies for free in the open, and we thought we could just check it out since we were in the vicinity anyway.
But things didn't go as well as we planned.
Instead it went like this: I met her (late of course) to catch the train to Clarke Quay and we ended up walking around Central because it was still too early and hot to venture along the foul-smelling river (not that I've tried smelling it, but anyway). After some shopping, we headed off towards the river and found ourselves irresistably drawn towards the smell of ice cream (not that we can smell ice cream from such a distance, but anyway), the signboard screaming "Hokkaido Asabu ice cream" was too disturbing to the stomach not to notice. So we decided to treat ourselves to a bit of ice cream before ramen. I mean, considering ramen was some twenty minutes away, I don't see the reason why not.
So we ended up like this:
This is the perfect picturesque painting (excuse the alliteration!) of greed I tell you.
And this is one of guilt. My fingers were practically running with matcha ice cream because I was trying to eat up both at the same time. Hur hur.
The very yummy custard-filled Hokkaido balls with even more delicious red bean paste smeared over them. Ooh la la!
And this is what happens when you're both desperate and greedy and try to eat too many things at one go. The poor statue had to endure our insults by tainting its leg with red bean balls.
This is some colourful bridge we came across while walking towards our destined ramen. Ah look! There's the Singapore River!
Here is Peiqi resting and fiddling with her handphone while we have become restless in between after walking quite a bit and waiting for our ramen.
Ah ha! The much desired ramen. I know it doesn't look like much here but it is very good! Peiqi even swore she would boycott Ajisen after this HA
And here we are finally with my Quest (or rather the Quest, since we planned to eat this for a whole month before finally settling here ha) 
We had so much food that we decided to lengthen our walk to NMS by visiting the neighbouring places like Robertson Walk. Quaint little town-like thing here which almost convinced me that I was somewhere in Europe or something. Look at this tower! I could have sworn I saw some building of similar structure in Italy or Eastern Europe or something. How I miss Europe, sigh (Sheds imaginary tear).
And from there we made our way to NMS and got distracted by some fair selling jewellery along the way. Sorry no pictures 'cos it started to rain a little and we panicked and walked even faster. We soon reached some dingy building, on top of which sits Peiqi's office, yes SAM, and then it started to pour, so obviously we couldn't go to the open-air show anymore. So we decided to seek shelter upstairs (hur hur, how convenient), and met her slightly eccentric colleague upstairs who half talks to us and half chats on msn to her "very cute" guy friend who is now in Arabia.
We ended up sitting upstairs (me getting traumatised of course by her colleague) for almost an hour and decided that it was way to far to walk back to Central, and so we heaved ourselves towards Bugis street as some small form of compensation for the oldie movie.
Which concludes the hunt for all things Japanese along the Singapore River. Well watch out for the Chinatown one the next time round LOL.
8:06 pm
クロサギ
$1.20 of happiness
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
It's ironic and somewhat disturbing to notice how $1.20 can buy you a strange but brief sense of happiness... especially after a chugging three-hour block period of going in and out of classes. And the curious thing is that it's just a cup of bubble green tea with yeast pearls. How nostalgic.
And yet, it isn't
just a cup of bubble green tea with pearls. How cheaply can happiness be bought if it were so. It's the association of the thing to the giver and receiver i.e. it can be anything so long as it was given with a sincere heart, in this case, a kind colleague who went out for lunch and decided to bring back drinks for the few of us stuck in the neighbouring cubicles.
I suspect another reason is also because my table is perpetually in a huge mess and I never seem to be able to find my things even though I did manage finally to get files for the numerous pieces of paper lying around my desk but obviously have not ventured into using them yet... all these despite the fact that I only just moved in approximately slightly more than a month ago.
Anyway I digress yet again. The point is that there is never very many happy things on my table, excepting the twin foxes, sushi magnets and movable fish origami. Er by happy I mean, strictly speaking,
food. Yes, the sad fact is that I can't leave
any food on my table overnight. And I do not mean those unsealed food, because even my supposedly airtight mug emerges the next morning with ants triumphantly crawling in and out of it. Ugh, good grief, they must be my greatest enemy.
To cut things short, my area (and perhaps the entire office) is ants-infested, but my table especially because behind me sits a pregnant lady who has an entire minimart on her desk (I'm not exaggerating here!) So while she's happily chomping away completely oblivious of the even happier ants building their nest at her table, I, the little small fry who sits at the back with no source of electricity or internet cable and thus has to leech on her supply has to be contented with her lot by not trying to constantly eat at her desk, by pretending not to see occasional ants crawling by and by absolutely not leaving any food, packaged or not, on the table, at the risk of an ant colony internal conflict over which table is the best house, or rather, nest.
So the minute I see any remotely familiar alien species on my table, otherwise known as food, or also known as the thing that can give most (if not all) people happiness, I will indefinitely break out into a wide grin, only short of shrieking hysterically and dancing around my cramped quarters because the sound will give the rest minor heart attacks.
Hmm, then again, maybe not.
10:20 pm
クロサギ
