Chinese New Year...No.1

On Thursday morning Helen and I explored the area around Community 6, near my doctor's surgery. There were many Chinese New Year decorations and stalls to buy them as well. As we explored we heard drums and saw a brightly coloured parade, complete with marching girls passing by. Of course I stood in the middle of the road to take some pictures and only discovered after the colourful vehicle passed me by that it was of course, not a CNY parade but a...funeral!

Stall selling CNY decorations

Another goat!

Head of the funeral procession

Right behind this truck was the coffin

kampong home

At last I instigated a walk that was dry and stayed on track. After meeting at Hougang, Peter, June and myself ventured through Punggol Park to the Park connector before following the LRT over to Sungei Pungol. Finally I got to visit the last kampong in Singapore, which I found to be reminiscent of many Australian beachside areas of years gone by, with small timber houses and dirt roads. 

Entering the kampong

After work on Saturday night Libby, Eric, Peter and I travelled in to Chinatown to check out the New Year decorations and ate in Smith St. This meant many more pictures of goats...this could become a bit of a theme in this years blog. It was extremely busy so we headed over to Sque bar for a nightcap before having an earlyish night as 3 of us were flying back to Australia the next night after work.

A BusyWeek

Even after last weeks long, adventurous Friday walk I was still allowed to 'lead' another one. This time we ventured out to Punggol Point, an area that is only accessible by car or bus. I had been told there were a number of bars/restaurants overlooking the Johor Strait which proved to be correct. Unfortunately we had no sooner left the dryness of McDonalds at Farmway when the drizzle began...and it continued in earnest as we walked. Some of us were smart enough to bring umbrellas but not all! Still it ended dry and we now have more possible eating/drinking venues.

Peter feeling water-logged!

Kathy has been "on the case" regarding my upcoming birthday so Monday saw Bev, Kathy, June and myself sailing off to Bintan for the night to look at possibilities. We viewed several places and enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of massages and have found a place to follow up. There was a lot of laughing, but not much drinking as the cheapest wine was $50+ so we made do with a cocktail over dinner.

June, Kathy, myself and Bev

 

Me and the goat!

Yusheng Salad assembly

Tuesday night was the Morris Allen Chinese New Year Dinner. One tradition at Reunion Dinners is Yusheng. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. It is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor. After the ingredients have been added to the plate all diners at the table then stand up and on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various "auspicious wishes" out loud. It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diner's growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically.
There are many goats on display for the Chinese New Year and as I am a 'goat' I seem to be gathering a number of photos of me with a goat!

Tossing the salad

Wednesday was Peter's birthday so after work a few of us headed to Grapevine Bar at Kovan to help him celebrate. Robert and Peter had a head start on the rest of us but it didn't take long for the rest of us to catch up in preparation for our rendition of We will Follow Him especially rewritten for the occasion! Peter appeared to enjoy it then some of us , erred a little and retired to the Smiths abode for a nightcap...or 2. Thursday was a very slow day!!

Peter's birthday

Moroccan Dinner and Thaipusam

The build up to Chinese New Year is well under way with the condo looking very colourful at night when the lanterns and lights are all lit up. At work Belinda and Catalina have been busy creating decorations for our front office area and it all looks very colourful.



 

Purple heron

I was allowed/encouraged to set a walk on Friday so we met at Fernvale LRT for what I thought would be a shortish, easy walk around the old airport at Seletar. Perhaps relying on a 3 year old street directory is not such a great idea in Singapore as we found that some areas that appeared to be accessible were not and so we continued to walk forward when it may have been wiser to turn back. In all we walked about 12 km and by the end it we were all a little weary. However we did manage to see some interesting birds, and I even identified one, the purple heron.

Long-tailed shrike

Collared Kingfisher

Last year we often finished our Sunday nights at Bliss restaurant in Kovan but unfortunately it closed at the end of the year. There is another Bliss in Ang Mo Kio where we have another branch so on Sunday night a number of us from 4 branches gathered there to start our weekend . It measured up to the Kovan Bliss and has definitely been added to the list of places to eat/drink.

Mondays walk this week was from Buona Vista to the Rail Mall along the Rail Trail, which is a stretch which used to be the train Line from Malaysia into Singapore. It was decommissioned several years ago and the tracks have been removed. It is a pleasant, shaded walk and Eric generously bought his binoculars along for me to share. Unfortunately as the day was rather overcast, although we did see some bird varieties, they were difficult to identify as it was hard to pick up the colours. One we didn't need the binoculars to identify was the Laughing Thrush as it was in the trees right beside the track.

Laughing Thrush

After finally finding my preserved lemons it was decided it was time to put them, and my tagine to good use so a dinner was arranged for Monday night at Robert and Maria's new home. Everyone contributed something towards the meal and over dinner the decision was made that we should do this every second month, with a different food theme...so next one will be at Rio Vista with a Sri Lankan theme sometime in early April. I'll have to get a cookbook while we are there in March.

On Tuesday Helen and I went in to Farrer Park to experience Thaipusam! Thaipusam is a Hindu celebration which sees Hindu devotees in Singapore seeking blessings, fulfilling vows and offering thanks. The festival is celebrated in honour of Lord Subramaniam (also known as Lord Murugan), who represents virtue, youth and power, and is the destroyer of evil.The Thaipusam ceremony starts in the early hours of the morning. The first batch of devotees carry milk pots and wooden kavadis. Some pierce their tongues with skewers and carry a wooden kavadi decorated with flowers and peacock feathers balanced on their shoulders. Other devotees carry spiked kavadis that require elaboratepreparation. 'Kavadi' literally means ‘sacrifice at every step’ in Tamil. They then walk from one temple to the other, a distance of about 5km. We entered the temple where the preparations are made and witnessed some 'astounding' sights. We watched the transformation of one young man from beginning to end. His sister assured us he had done it many times!

After such an exhausting afternoon I headed back to Little India for MAE mid-term dinner  at the Banana Leaf for a delicious Indian meal, before ending the night with a nightcap in Albert Court.

Australia Day/Libby's Birthday/Test week

In the 4th week of every term all our classes undertake tests, which I think are designed to test us as much as the kids. Most of the questions are in multiple choice style and one of the questions in year 4 was: 
The _____________daughter resigned from her job to take care of her ailing father.

a. filial
b. pious
c. grateful
d. indebted


It has been rather cool here in the mornings so I took the opportunity on Friday to take a solitary walk over to Robert and Maria's new abode. It was very pleasant strolling by the river and I spotted, and later identified via the internet,  a Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker. It was much smaller than I had envisaged but its pecking habit was just like Woody Woodpecker! Obviously this is not my photo! 
 A little further along the path I passed a shrine set up by some workers who are on the construction site next door to us. They visit these shrines to honour their ancestors and to leave offerings to them especially at certain times of the year.

 

Riverside Shrine

As I wandered through Punggol Park I was struck by the many and varied uses people make of outdoor spaces here...from a guy practicing his flute to tiny 3 year olds, all in uniform, doing exercises. The park is a delightful patch of green, with a lake in the centre and there is a restaurant at one end...in fact we are planning to finish our week there this Sunday night.
Another pastime in the park is the game of Woodball. No-one was playing today but I have seen it in operation before. It appears to be a cross between golf and croquet with a wooden ball being struck with a mallet, which is made of a plastic coke bottle filled with sand, on the end of a long handle. The ball is maneuvered around a track marked out with pipes, with different 'pars'.

Woodball Course

There were preparations all around for Chinese New Year, which happens on February 19th. There are red lanterns everywhere and I walked past this large statue about to be hoisted into an upright position at a nearby neighbourhood precinct. As I got closer to my destination I was taken by the way an effort is made to brighten up the areas of high rise buildings know as HDBs, by painting some of the facades.
My one hour walk certainly brought home the diversity of this interesting island country, especially when you get away from the central area, which unfortunately, is all most tourists see.

After a reasonably easy weekend administering and marking tests it was pleasant to relax by the lake in Punggol Park with the usual diehards and as it is close to home for me it was not a late night.

It is amazing that you can do the same walk several times but going around a different path you see things not seen before. As we walked out of Hort Park on Monday's walk we were able to read our horoscopes for the Year of the Goat...mine was not overly cheerful, but things are supposed to get better by the end of the year!

We also passed a colourful mural made of ceramic tiles. We had a different perspective of the Henderson Waves as it was closed for maintenance and we had to go under it for a change. 

Monday night it was time for the double celebration of Australia Day and, more importantly, Libbys birthday. It was a very pleasant night with great food and drink, and friends, at Plonk in Serangoon Gardens. Peter did his usual stint of singing, with a touching song for Libby and a couple of people really got in to the Oz theme.

Peter serenades Libby

Reunion Week

On our recent trip to Morocco, Michael and I did a cooking class with the lovely Karima. We cooked a Lemon Chicken tagine and one of the ingredients was preserved lemons. Since our return to Singapore we have been trying to find some, without success...until this week. After trying the area around Bugis as well as a number of different supermarkets I finally found them in Mustafas...you have to love that place even if the prospect of going in there is something akin to entering a maze that you hope you will be able to find your way out of. Hopefully this jar should last me through until I leave Singapore as I'm not sure that I would be able to find the right shelf in Mustafas again!

I

I had got in to the habit of doing a walk with Libby on Fridays but due to her knee injury we have not been able to do this, so when Peter texted his intentions to walk on Friday I decided to join him, along with June and Jo. I hadn't been to Bukit Timah for a while and after an hour and a quarter on the bus I think I remember why! Still it was a pleasant walk from there and for a change we finished up at Thompson Plaza, a new experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to buy some genuine Portugese tarts which my colleagues and I enjoyed for morning tea.

3 Wise Monkeys at Macritchie Ranger Station

After work on Saturday night many of the continuing staff converged at Clark Quay to meet up with Caroline. She had been a MAE colleague who finished up at the end of 2014, and has been travelling in Europe, and is now on her way back to Oz. It was good to share travel stories as she toured Morocco 2 weeks after us and as it turned out had the same tour guide, Samir. She also did the same cooking class with Karima in Marrakech so I guess she'll be on the hunt for preserved lemons too! 

catching up with Caroline at Sque bar

After the closure of our regular Sunday night haunt late last year, Libby has been on the lookout for alternatives, so on Sunday it was Grapevine halfway between Kovan and Serangoon. It was a reasonable price and the food wasn't bad so it could become a regular fixture on our end of week drinks roster. Instead of a beer tower, they have a beer bubble which Melisa soon had under control.

Melisa in charge of the beer bubble.

Mondays walk was a new one for me, although the others had done it towards the end of 2014. It was a long haul to get to the starting point in Choa Chu Kang, involving a bus and 4 different rail lines, but I was there on time. As we walked through the park we passed along an avenue of Chinese horoscopes so were able to confirm it is the Year of the Goat (rather than sheep) so it is supposed to be my year...along with Michael and many of our friends so ...

It was amazing to see quite a few community vegetable gardens with their garden tools nearby and obviously no fear of theft or vandalism. 

We finished the walk at the Rail Mall 3 hours later, hot, very weary and ready for a healthy lunch.

well-kept veggie gardens

Lake area undergoing rejuvenation near Bukit Panjang

The girls of the "Lady Cave" (name of our new abode) spent a quiet night in, completing the smallest jigsaw puzzle I have ever seen ( it came with a pair of plastic tweezers to pick the pieces up with) and playing cards. Kathy cooked us a very tasty pork stir fry as well.

On Tuesday night it was time to meet up with Deb and Michael Canaway, more ex MAE colleagues who finished up at the end of 2014. We travelled to Portugal with them in 2013 and they have been touring Sri Lanka, Italy and Thailand before returning to their "real"lives back in Australia.

Michael with Libby

Deb with Sid and Kim