Changi Village and the furthest reaches of the East Coast Park

As the rains have started to come down more steadily, the weekends have begun with a completely grey hue. At 04:30 we were woken by the same dog that has woken me at 04:30 for the three weeks, then woke again at 08:00 by the thunder and rain of a wet Singapore day. Apparently Singapore’s a fun place when it’s wet because everyone stays inside. It’s almost better to get out in it, underneath an umbrella and go to explore while the populous maximus stays inside and watches reruns of Two and a Half Men with the ever tedious Charlie Sheen.

With this noble effort in mind, we got up, got out and ventured far from the city, well, as far as we could, to get some perspective. Heading further east to Changi Village on the number 2 bus we quickly left the concrete and steel behind. There is indeed a cycle path that runs from just east of Marina Bay all the way to the airport, from there you can continue, hucking your bike onto a small boat and puttering across to Pulua Ubin to continue the two-wheeled adventure. However I’m not sure how would get a bike to Changi Village without a car if you chose not to cycle all the way? What say you live in the west of the island, can you get the bike onto the MRT or do you cycle all the way? For me I can cycle from my place to Changi Village, it would even be a reasonably pleasant excursion, sweating aside.

Changi Village is not so much a village as such but rather more of a boat-quay and beach coupling that serves as a residential area for the pretty, wild but militarily-minded east. The proximity to the airport, military bases, manufacturing for aircraft companies and of course the Changi Prison makes it a sensible area to live if you’re employed in those industries. Changi Village has a short strip of eateries and bars which are of a western orientation. We took in some dumplings at the Airport Food Court which were pleasant enough, even the deep fried durian puff, like hot custard in a crispy shell. The bars advertise their happy hours and western style to the maximum which I think says a lot for the town itself but as hot as it was we weren’t too fussed for beers this early in the afternoon.

Down on the beach there’s not much in the way of public facilities; it is simply a beach and grassland for people to use in whatever way they choose. The biggest outlet is the Bistro@Changi, a small decked area with shade right on the last point of the East Coast Park. It is somewhat expensive at S$8 for a juice, but it is the only outlet for a rehydration stop if you haven’t brought your own. It’s like the far stop at the night safari; once you’re that far across the zoo, you have no other option. Clever huh.

The beach and waves are pleasant, it’s a million miles from the city, definitely, but it’s only a few hundred meters from Changi Airport’s runway. The spectacle itself is amazing; both if you’re into planes or even if you’ve never been that close to one as it’s actually flying. Planes land every couple of minutes and when Singapore Airlines immense behemoth of a plane, the Airbus A380, flies overhead, everything shakes just a little. That aside, it’s a pretty peaceful area and nice for a change of scenery.


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JUNE - Hotter and wetter..

It's June and I think the hot and wet season has started. By that I mean the hotter and wetter season.
In the last week I must have woken up to a deluge more often than not, postponing leaving the house one morning by a half hour to wait for the biblical downpour to abate.


At some point what goes up must come down and the forecast for what seems weeks has been sun and rain but the weather patterns have never followed through on the rain part. Yes, we have had some ominous skies, but I can't remember it actually raining in any great measure. Now it seems the time has come and we're settling into a couple of months of rain and general damp.


Which reminds me, I must check the status of my winter clothes. They're in wardrobes, loosely packed with more dehumidifying crystals than you'd find in the sweaty locker of a Bikram Yoga teacher who practiced in the Amazon rain-forest, next to a turkish bath. We have a lot of crystals in our cupboards.


You can buy low voltage air warmers that plug in and fit at the bottom of your wardrobe. They are designed to gently warm and circulate the air so that it doesn't become stale and moisture laden but I don't have power-points in my wardrobes and I'd rather not create an assault course of wires criss-crossing my bedroom floor, I can barely see in the mornings let alone have the dexterity to hop-scotch my way around the room whilst I pick out a shirt.

So now is the important time to become surgically attached to your umbrella, to carry a plastic bag to carry your umbrella in when it inevitably becomes wet and to wear sensible shoes to avoid slipping on the polished tiled floors. I nearly fell on my behind this morning, sliding on the polished concrete of a gas-station forecourt on account of the river of rainwater running across it. So beware, any place can get you and no one is going to rush to your aid ensuring they can get you compensation. Compensation doesn't work the same way as it does in more litigious nations; if you have an accident in Singapore then it's probably your fault so you'd better learn from it. The school of hard-knocks indeed.


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Little India – a different country in this country

We’ve been to Little India on three occasions now, first time when we pitched up in January for a look around, and subsequent to that we’ve been on our own and with some friends.

Banana Leaf on Race Course Road
Named of course because your food is served straight onto a green banana leaf from buckets of rice or curry.  It seems rough and ready but is far from it; yes the setting is simple with sturdy heavy trestle tables and benches lining the aircon restaurant but the furnishings are rich, red and gold.  Don't be fooled by the rough menu, just ask for some curry, rice and popadoms and you'll be taken care of.
It's not super cheap and a simple meal with a couple of beers ran to S$50 for the two of us and they do still supply you with cutlery! 

Jaggi’s at 34 Race Course Road
For excellent, flavoursome and no-nonsense food from the Punjab or the North of India, you can't go past simple Jaggi's.  There is again a coice of cutlery or fingers but it's totally up to you, just be mindful that there can be quite a line-up for the washbasin’s after you’ve finished. Tea urns or bottled beer caters for all sorts. It’s pretty loud when all the families get in and start chatting, but that you get entire families mixing together there says something about the ambience of the place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a simple room, pretty rough around the edges but it’s all about the food here; simple food that tastes great.

Chapatis and Dhal are excellent as is the brinjal (or eggplant). The tandoor meats do get nuked to warm them for you on the spot, but they’re all freshly cooked that day.

Komala Vilas on Serangoon Road
I’d been there once, a long long time ago. It looked familiar when we’d walked past it on an earlier exploration of the gridded streets, I remembered the metal trays with inset sections for various sauces, dhals and curries and for the first time, eating with my hand.

Its still the same vegetarian fare with optional utensils and we take a seat, chewing on a handful of fennel seeds, the licorice taste and barky husks sticking to our teeth. The menu is pretty simple, well thumbed and curled around the edges, but the offerings are totally dependent upon what the kitchen is cooking today. On three occassions the attending guys had to run out to check whether we could get what we wanted.

Dosai, stuffed with vegetables and with three sauces to dip into. Vadai (pronounced wadai), a savoury donut that’s plain but you can dip into further sauces and an onion baji, which was the oddest looking baji I’ve ever seen. It was more a ring of onion inside a deep red bready type package that was deep fried.

Lady had a chapati derivative that looked like two doughy breast implants, puffed up like double Ds and full of hot air. She popped them with a spoon to release the steam and then ripped them up, using them to pick up the rich chenna masala and vegetable curry.

For four of us, the bill came to S$30. It wasn’t a huge meal, we had the equivalent of a small main each, a small drink and two masala teas and it sounds very reasonable doesn’t it. It was a quick cheerful meal, so in that respect, yes it was pretty cheap for four of us. I think the comparison to what we’re used to is that it didn’t include any meat, which obviously is more expensive than veggies, and it didn’t include alcohol. So the lesson learned is that if you stick to the basics, you can eat very cheaply here. The added frills are where it gets you.

As an aside, while I'm talking about all this indian veggie food, in the back of a taxi to the airport last week I was watching an advert; some SG taxis have a small TV screen and internet hookup on the back of the front passenger’s head-rest. The advert-come-infommercial was about how to save the planet by becoming vegetarian, citing a number of stats about the volume of resources that cattle require in return for nutritional value of protein. On the strength of the food from Komala Vilas, I’d consider it, well maybe just a reduction of meat in my diet.

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Walk around East Coast/Katong

One of the most famous streets near where we now live is Joo Chiat Road, named after a generous benefactor who granted the land to the state and thus came into being Joo Chiat Road. It runs from the beach, north to Geyland and has the most wonderful aray of shops and bars every step of the way, serving fantastic peranakan foods and a suitably sleezy neon-glowing karaoke scene.

We walked through the small back streets off Koon Seng Road, remarking at the mix of old and renovated peranakan style shop houses dating back to pre-war times. Their individually tiled fronts and small but compact gardens are a welcome contrast to the concrete and glass condos of River Valley Road or Holland Village. Even a street away from the busy Joo Chiat, the streets are quiet and calm and people have set up small tables outside their houses and sit chatting happily with a glass of wine or a beer.

At the cross-roads of Dunman Road, Koon Seng and Joo Chiat is the Dunman Hawker Centre and we stop in for some food as dusk settles. The stalls offer predominantly fish and seafood based menus which isn’t so good for my Lady who is still in her first few months of pregnancy, so we work hard to find some chicken and rice for her. It’s an alright centre, nothing flash, but if you like seafood, give it a whirl. There’s also a nice little dumpling seller who serves beautifully crafted glutinous rice dumplings. At 70c a go, you’d might as well try one.

Also up by this corner is the treasure-trove of an alcohol store called East of Avalon Wines.  It's just below this wonderful old corner-shop at the corner of Koon-Seng and Dunman.  It’s full to the brim of other-world beers and wines from no where that most people have ever heard from, but I assure you it’s worth taking a punt on some and seeing what you think. Ask for George, he’s wonderfully english, and he’ll walk you through.

However, it’s at night that the real gems of Joo Chiat open up and a good mile of street becomes lit with neon and blasted with noise and crooning from the endless KTV bars. You can hear male voices coming from what must be only a few paces behind the black tinted front doors and many young women we see have started to parade the streets in shockingly short skirts and toweringly high heels. The food courts have filled, with their fluorescent lights showering the diners in a weak orange glow while dusty fans blow equally dusty air around the venues. And suddenly it’s all got a little seedy, the girls are fawning about the much older gentlemen, the men are touching the girls and giving them what my old swim coach would have called “inappropriate hugs” and everyone seems to be a little heady on the night air. That will be the Geylang factor that has spread from the northern end of the street.

Behind Joo-Chiat we stumble upon a multi-purpose hall where an Indian family was celebrating a wedding. Around the corner of the same hall we find a Chinese festival happening. Across the street we find a Georgian wine importer and on East Coast Road we find Vic’s Place which is an Western Australian wine importer.

To the west of Joo Chiat and on the corner of Ceylon Road and East Coast Road is the famous and exceptional 328 Katong Laksa, serving the best laksa in Singapore. Simple, no nonsense, authentic creamy spicy goodness, but don’t have it too often; your doctor will have a fit as you have a coronary.

It really is a great area to be living in and there’s so much history hidden in back streets and tucked between shop-fronts to live amongst that you’re never going to be short of things to see, or things to eat for that matter!

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Weekends down at the beach?

I write this short catch-up blog with a heavy sense of irony, given last week’s minor incident down at the beach.  However, it is important to spill the beans on the delightful part of Singapore that is the East Coast Park, the right lung of the city.
East Coast Park is…is….is what? To many here it is the essence of outdoor living. To others, on first view (and maybe this is because I have lived in other places where open-space is not a luxury) it’s just a park. A long, skinny 200m strip of grass on reclaimed land (effectively a flat sand-dune) that stretches for several kilometers from Marine Parade to Changi Airport between the East Coast Parkway (a highway, also built on reclaimed land) and the tanker-filled ocean. To me, it’s a place of peace, meditation, good spirits and escape from the office.

Squeezed into this furrow, like taught hamstrings in a pair of cycling shorts, are a walking track, a bike and in-line skate path, multiple bbq pits and even camping zones. On the weekend there are any number of extended family pitches set up around the bbq pits; it’s a heart-warming sight in this day and age to have 20+ people, sitting together, laughing and smiling together, enjoying a family meal and simply having fun together. The beach itself is not so much a beach as another furrow of land that is made of golden sand. Further to the east the beach does become more of the Australian type beach that I’ve come to know and love, but you’re still swimming in a boatyard.

After exploring the childishly amusingly named Kaki Bukit shopping strip one weekend, Lady and I took a cab through the rain to East Coast Lagoon Food Court – a huge set up of structured food stalls, covering the usual whirl of Asian delights. You can sit by the lagoon (a man-made lagoon) and watch the new 360 degree cable-water-ski or alternatively stare out to sea and watch the tanker and cargo ships swinging slowly on their moorings not one mile from the beach.

East Coast Park is an action centre for Singapore; cycling, running, futsal, volleyball, triathlon, kiddy ball-pits and now waterskiing/wakeboarding. It’s got a lot to offer and with very established food outlets covering thai, seafood, a micro-brewery (Red Dot) and even KFC or MacDonald’s (for the teens of course, once in a while) there’s heaps to do for a whole day and evening.

That I think is one of the important things to remember if you’re on the island for any length of time. You’ve got to split out your weekend activities and pace yourself. Singapore’s not the biggest place and without leaving the island, your options might initially seem less than what you may be used to in larger countries. I mean, the UK is not the biggest place either but within a 4hr drive you’re in the Lake District or sub-tropical Cornwall. 8hrs from London and you’re in Glasgow, an erstwhile European Capital of Culture, none the less.
However, search, dig, seek and you’ll find nuggets of joy hidden between the glossy exterior of one mall and the next. Maybe that’s why another taxi driver told me that the three national sports in Singapore are shopping, eating and drinking. Today we managed to split our day into two main focuses, 1) being shopping for Junior and 2) took a late lunch and a walk through the park. It took us all day and combined two of the national sports missing out on the third as we’re not drinking together given the pending arrival of a small Shovel. A trowel, if you will.
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