Spontaneity, Sir? Let me check whether I can do that.....

Taking the lead from another popular blogger and also my Lady’s experiences, I wanted to draft a short blog on the lack of spontaneity that seems to have been bred into a lot of people on this small yet highly successful island.

While the education system has, by all accounts, followed the UK system teaching children to answer the questions in front of them for the purposes of passing a test (and has excellent results for that) it seems to have been at the expense of creative, out of the box thinking. And it’s not just me, it’s the press that think this (and ergo the Powers That Be: PTB) and also many taxi drivers...who are never short of comment.
A couple of examples that would lead me to believe that the educational requirements have bled into the everyday way of life are these that I have spotted or actually been required to conform with in the last couple of weeks.

Eat with your family day, sponsored by the National Family Council (www.nfc.org.sg). Indeed a whole family month; have breakfast, learn a sport together, take a picnic...how to family 101....can’t people do this on their own? I have even seen Singapore Family Sports day. Crikey!
I have seen emergency vehicles on several occasions with their lights flashing and sirens blaring, waiting patiently at traffic lights while the other traffic passes. Gosh knows what would happen if something unexpected happened...gosh knows what would happen to the people that called the emergency services should that vehicle not arrive.

Having said all this, after the incredible rigour around the retail banking system, I was opening a new account last week where the minimum deposit was S$1,000. I asked how I could pay that into the new account and whether I needed to go and get cash out my other account at a rival bank to do so. Oddly the gentleman serving me thought for a moment and said “How much would you like to deposit?” to which my initial response was “Nothing” but after some negotiation we settled on an arbitrary S$500. A little flexibility actually brightened my day up and left me S$500 better off!

While I’m here, I wanted to drop down a note on a good food establishment called ‘Fries with Everything’ on Joo Chiat Road.

It’s a novel concept and the owners aren’t even Belgian. An exceptionally plain and ascetic building, painted stark white concrete walls and floors mirrors the menu in its simplicity. Side orders apart, it’s a menu heavy on meaty things; cheese burger, lamb burger, chicken fillet, pork chop, beef steak and as the name suggests, everything comes with a portion of fries; shoestring or straight cut. Following up the very western theme come caesar salads, coleslaw and thick milkshakes.

We decided to eat here because the greeters were welcoming enough to come out to the street and talk to us, explaining how their steak is cooked and without pushing us to take a table. Nice, I like that.

Lady selected a lamb burger that was juicy with a hint of mint and a ricotta and roasted tomato relish and I took the char-grilled beef kurabi, slow cooked and so tender that my knife slid into the meat right through to the plate without any pressure being applied. It was sumptuous serving of beef and an absolute travesty to have served it with chips and coleslaw.

To be honest with a name like ‘Fries with Everything’ you’d expect to have some pretty good chippies, but unfortunately the fries were the worst part of the whole affair! Still for $40 (and the steak was half of that) it was a pretty reasonable dinner.

In comparison, here's some amphibian related algebra from the other end of Joo Chiat Road. 
I kid you not, a Vietnamese restaurant does a good line in frog.  But, if one frog and rice = S$8
and 2 frogs and rice plus 1 extra frog = S$16
and 4 frogs plus 2 rice plus 3 extra frogs costs S$30,
how much does one frog cost?


Shovel

Youth Olympic Games – Closing Ceremony

So inspired was I by the opening ceremony of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore that together with my Lady, we picked up tickets to the closing ceremony. Games and events during the weekends were all sold out and the weekdays, well, that’s for working, right?


At S$15 each, with 27,000 other people, we got to watch the spectacle reach its natural conclusion, the montage of achievements relived, the flags lowered and the flame extinguished. Not only that, but we got a pretty well stocked goody bag each (reusable, suitable for shopping and picnics by the beach), a Singapore national flag (handy for next year’s NDP) flashing hats and heart-shaped wands, a bottle of water and, get this, a YOG muffin. Like I said, well stocked for all eventualities.

With a haul of two silver and five bronze, Singapore has achieved much in the sporting arena. The young Olympians have trained well, fought hard, and leave standing proud, dusty, bloodied but champions all. One of the great aims of the PTB is to ensure that the Singapore of tomorrow has a sporting infrastructure and an athletic culture that rivals any small nation around the world. They seem to be on their way.

As hosts, Singapore put on a world-class display, hosting this event with short notice and limited resources. What went in their favour was unlimited local endeavour, enthusiasm and government support that could not and would not allow these games to be seen as anything but a success. As local journalists have said, the natural perfectionism of Singaporeans probably pulled this event off, but you’ve got to be engaged emotionally to want to produce this.

 Admittedly I think the international media coverage was limited, but then again this was the first of its kind. Without doubt, the first Winter YOG in Innsbruck, Austria in 2012 and the second YOG in Nanjing, China in 2014 will be bigger, but you have to start somewhere. And Singapore certainly removed all the stop-signs to start the ball rolling. It’s been a heart-warming experience to watch this and see the nation come together over something that’s not politically or financially motivated (and I firmly believe that sport should never be political – hence my frustration at the withdrawal of a 17yr old male Iranian taekwondo practitioner from the final of the -48kg category because he was fighting an Israeli. Honestly, build a bridge and get over it).

Unlike the F1 Grand Prix, which had long been shunned by the Singapore Sporting Council because of ‘safety’ but when it was proved there was a lot of money to be made from hosting it, the race got the green light to proceed, the YOG has been supported because it is the right thing to do for the future of youth sport in the world. With the cultural exchanges and educational program running in tandem, it seems to have been even bigger than sport.

I’m always mightily impressed at what a motivated and big-picture attitude can do. There’s a lesson for us all I think on a big scale.


Shovel

Commuting Arts & Crafts – folding a newspaper

Current chat on the I-Stomp pages of the free paper in Singapore is about capacity on the MRT. Apparently the system is just too crowded. In my recent blogs I’ve aired my frustration with commuters here in Singapore about how there is little perspective on how good they have it here, about how easy commuting is here and how much space, comparatively, there is in the MRT carriages. Rush hour lasts about 30 minutes and if I wanted, I’d never actually have to miss a train, however I choose to let the odd one go so that I can have a little more space to myself.


One of the things that I think people like about the cosy system is that they are still able to read a full-size newspaper, completely open with their arms out in front of them. That requires the equivalent of two human spaces to do and this is the problem. There’s almost double the space on trains that people actually realise, but they are unwilling to give up their precious personal reading space.


So I thought I’d put down the five simple steps on how to fold a newspaper in order to be considerate and thoughtful to your neighbouring commuters.

Step 1 – Obtain your free paper, choice of title is yours, chief-editor is the same....

Step 2 – Open your free-paper prior to entering the MRT or Bus.

Step 3 - Fold the paper in half on itself.

Step 4 – Half that page again, lengthways, showing columns 1 & 2 on one side available for your confined-space reading pleasure.





 

Step 5 – Flip the skinny paper and continue reading columns 3 & 4.

Of course, this method is best employed on a proper daily whose content and comment is worth the paper it is written on. You’re probably reading a free-paper, so it’s probably not worth the effort and adverts on every page don’t count. Like I said, it’s your choice; read selected news that you’re spoon-fed or get a small A5 book that might have something intellectually challenging or thought-provoking between the covers.

Shovel

Maintaining your drains – essential DIY

Sitting a gnat’s girth from the equator, in the middle of the warm south china seas, drains are going to be a festering problem. It is hot and humid here. Hot and humid all the time. Our storm drains and home drains are full of tepid water that doesn’t run away and we humans tend to wash down the plughole an awful lot of protein, hair and waste food. Some of the storm drains that run around these older neighbourhoods have only ever been flushed through after dramatic floods. I hear that people have actually fallen in them, they have been so flooded, and gashed their legs badly in a fetid bath. Delightful.

At home, we’re not talking about our u-bends or sink plug-holes. We’re talking about industrial, vertical drains built from industrial piping that run several stories down. For some odd reason these are always filled with water, about 35cm below the level of our floor. Around these drains we have inherited a breeding ground of slime and a furry mattress of hair and fluff from the previous tenant. Once already we’ve had a greasy ball of matted hair and human fats disgorged from a deep, dark part of the shower’s drain that was blocking the progress of water. Today I tackled the remainder of the drains that hard started to smell somewhat ripe with the recent heat.


Everything was going well; rubber gloves, long handled brush, boiling water and powerful chemicals were all dispatched into the dark with moderate success. On flushing the sink and opening the kitchen’s drain cover (and this is right in our kitchen remember) I came face to face with a stinking fat cockroach, twitching its antennae as it watched the cleaning waters race past. Now that’s not pleasant at all. Cockroaches spread a lot of nastiness and have a habit of leaving their eggs lying around in a careless fashion. Quickly the Baygon was to hand and the poor guy didn’t stand a chance. It struggled a few inches before collapsing at which point it was wrapped in a paper body bag and dumped into the external rubbish-chute.


The general message to all out here, keep your drains clean and flushed regularly. Watch what is washed away down the sink in the way of food stuffs and make bleach your friend!


Shovel

Youth Olympic Games 2010 - Opening Ceremony

Two and a half years ago, Singapore was given the responsibility to host the inaugural Youth Olympic Games. Two and a half years in comparison to seven years to prepare for the games; it was a tall order but Singapore have pulled off an absolutely amazing start to this new addition to the Olympics. Only a week after the NDP, Singapore once again hosted an enormous event with some 27,000 spectators in the stands and many thousands, if not millions worldwide in the international audience.

The Youth Olympic Torch - Robinson Road

Once again using the back-drop of the city-scape and a floating platform on Marina Bay, the events unfolded, telling the story of the young athletes’ hopes, dreams, fears and struggles. This time there was no military hardware and only one suitably unifying song; including the lyrics “you are the one, Singapore. Now is the time, here we go, yeh!” It was quite a show. True to most Olympic opening ceremonies, there was the underlying story-line that was narrated by the TV presenter, but most of all it was about the spectacle, the grandeur, the big vision of it all.
And Singapore did not disappoint, despite the fact that the venue is a multi-purpose landing stage on the Bay, it doubles as the platform for the F1 Grand Prix and other international events, the scale of the show was immense. Not to mention the fireworks and the vortex Olympic flame that I hope to get a picture of at the closing ceremony.Three thousand, six hundred young athletes from 204 represented countries will experience something akin to a cultural exchange trip over the next 13 days. While they all take part in their respective sports, they will also be exposed to a structured cultural differences program, and an international education program. It’s a brave new plan from the International Olympic Committee from Switzerland, but one that fits exceptionally well with the young nation of Singapore.
I was exceptionally impressed with the ceremony and have just booked tickets to the closing ceremony. Let’s just hope the weather holds! I can’t imagine sitting in rain for a few hours would be fun. I’ll update you in a couple of weeks!


Shovel

Sing a song for Singapore - National Day 9 August

Singapore exited from the Federation of Malay States in August 1965 to become a stand-alone country. Since that date it has strived to create a unique national identity through collective experiences and collective goals. That continues to this day through an unrelenting devotion to national service and pride in the nation. It’s a remarkable feat but much credit must go to the vision of the founding fathers that have set the path and shepherded the people.


Every year there is a celebration of Singapore’s success, strength, identity, shared aims and place in the world. The National Day Parade (NDP) is, as mentioned before, a big deal to everyone and requires a phenomenal rehearsal. We experienced our first NDP this year, after seeing the rehearsals for many weeks, but were a little confused by the content of the show that unfolded under the 2010 theme of “Live our Dreams, Fly our Flag”


For weeks on end the airwaves (remember, state owned airwaves) have been flooded with the sound of this year’s theme song; “Sing a song for Singapore” (for your listening pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVF_WClXXQc ). Malls have been running talent contests on Saturdays where small children (and some not so small children) sing along to the backing-track and television adverts have been reminding us day in and day out of the importance to the Nation.


I like my music, I really do and I think that my generic digital music device has some eclectic sounds on it. But this soporific and sentimental song has really pained me, every bar and chord irritates me. But in the hearts and minds of most people I see on TV, it brings them to tears. “It makes me feel proud” is a common phrase. I have tried to think of other songs that have instilled the same sense of National Pride in my most beloved countries and can only recall two equally powerful anthems:

• Jerusalem - by William Blake and

• Down-Under - by Men at Work
 As the NDP unfolded at the Padang in central Singapore, Lady and I wondered how often the same themes can be repackaged every year in a fresh and dynamic way. Brotherhood, Sisterhood, Respect, Filial Piety (the current favourite), Graciousness, Unity, Hard Work...the list goes on. And then we realised that you only need to pick a couple of these each year and when you run out of ideas you roll out the military. This year we are living our dreams, in camouflage, apparently.


It’s quite a spectacle coming from such a small nation who is, I believe, the second highest military spender per capita behind Israel, when they roll out the tanks, and armoured personnel carriers, the guns, soldiers and arrange the perennial fly past by Apache helicopters and F15 and F16 jets.


Admittedly it’s not quite like watching North Korea’s thousands of soldiers march in time past Kim Jong Il, but within 30 minutes of their exit from the stage, tanks and trucks were rolling through five heartlands around the island, Eunos (east coast) was one of them, saluting the local officials and receiving the cheers of a few thousand lucky spectators. To all intents and purposes, it’s a show of strength to the nation and the surrounding nations that Singapore is well armed and ready to take action if needed. All the NDP was missing was a sail-past in Marina Bay by a few frigates and a destroyer or two to really show what this was all about.


And as with all good national celebrations, once you’ve run out of ideas, sung all your national songs, recited the pledge of allegiance and sung the national anthem the next logical step is to light the firework touch-paper. And goodness me, can Singapore do some fireworks! WOW!

With the city and new integrated resort with a backdrop, the fireworks were spectacular! From our balcony, it looked like a fire was raging and the plumes of smoke ballooned over the roofs for a good few minutes. From the viewpoint high above the city in one of the five star hotels, it must have been one heck of a show!

Shovel

Katong Swimming Pool, Mountbatten Road

Lee Kwan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore had many great ideas. One of those ideas was that everyone should live within walking distance of sporting and recreational facilities. For me, that’s fantastic because it saw the building of vast swimming complexes, more than I’ve ever seen in my life, with parallel Olympic eight-lane pools and kiddy sized leisure pools tacked on the end. It’s a great set up for any out-door swimmer, be you competitive or recreational.


Since those early days though, it seems swimming still hasn’t really taken off. While racquet sports are to Singaporeans what football is to Brazilians, swimming may not be a Singaporean’s natural talent. Reading through forum pages on the internet there’s an army of people looking for buddies to learn to swim with and it’s not for their kids, it’s for them. On reflection, maybe that’s a navy of people looking to swim?

Last weekend as I ran down to the pool from our place, I realised what sort of a neighbourhood the Katong Municipality had chosen to locate their pool in. The area used to be very close to the old airport in pre-federation times and as I trotted past first one english named street, then a second I paid more attention to where I was;

Mountbatten Road     Wilkinson Road     Arthur Road     Goodman Road     Margate Road     Ramsgate Road     Branksome Road     Ringwood Road     Bournemouth Road     Wimborne Road     Cramborne Road     and finally, Clacton Road.
For 10 minutes I was running through the English gardens of Kent and Dorset with the smell of humidity and frangipani thick in my nose instead of roses and rain.


The pool itself was a mixed blessing. I’m a swimmer and my muscles have been aching for the burn of freestyle. My lungs have been missing the distance of a 50m pool but my Lady has not been missing the lingering whiff of chlorine. To have almost the entire complex to myself was aquatic freedom.
With the midday sun brushing a “hello” of light rouge across my pale shoulders and a clear lane infront of me, I pushed through my self-imposed “getting back in the water” set and felt rather chuffed with myself. Chuffed, but reminded how dramatically fitness falls away. It’s like climbing a mountain. It takes weeks and weeks of hard work, slow progress up and down between elevations to acclimatise and many days of pain to make it to the top of the peak. However, one slip and it takes seconds to slide in icy free-fall back to base-camp.
And so it goes with being a swimming machine. I look at my friends who are now undertaking 9 mile open water training sessions back in the UK and while I would happily have joined them in the murky water if I’d been in regular training, I can only dream about it. My arms would never make it right now.


Katong Pool on Wilkinson Road is alright for a swim. It’s an older pool and the tiles might not be the cleanest around the water line, but it works for me. It is open from 8am every day until 11pm so for most people that’s going to be an evening session. The best thing is that it’s a dollar entry in the week and a dollar thirty on weekends. Lockers are forty cents and there’s plenty of space to enjoy the water. Swim coaches for kids or adults come at an extra price but there’s plenty of takers to split the cost with!


Shovel

SPORTS SHOE SHOPPING – QUEENSWAY MALL

Moving to a new country requires you to recreate your training schedule and I figured I should treat myself to a new pair of running shoes to pound the streets with. I turned in my old Asics for the current model, it feels like I’m trading in my spouse for a younger model. The red-trim Asic 2030 runners had got me around a lot of the country, up a lot of hills and from A to B and back again quicker than the outbound. They’re still functionable, but not quite up to the job any more, the edges have gone soft, the support is lacking and, well, they’re just a bit drab.

I know you could pick up a pair of runners at any of the many sports shops in any of the many malls across the island, but to be sure of a better deal and to feel smug about your purchase, you’re better off venturing to Queensway Mall, an older outlet but one that harbours every athletic sporting good you might want. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, front to back with runners, trainers, badminton, squash, tennis, football, rugby, rock-climbing, skateboarding, hiking, trekking, beach, high-street, racquets, t-shirts, shorts: anything you might want to get you back out into the sporting world.

It’s truly jaw dropping the range of choice you have here, at some good deals too compared to high street prices. Any shoe your foot might prefer or require is here, although you’ve got to know what you’re after as there’s none of the helpful customer service that puts you on a gait-measuring tool or an instep sensor and suggests a shoe. The only help you’re likely to find is someone to grab a size ten from the back room and lace it for you.

What I did find, though, was that a lot of the stores have exactly the same prices which saves you the dilemma of trying to find the same shoe at a lower price. It’s a good informal agreement, leaving the only separator as the notional customer service. So after two hours of circling the three floors, lacing and unlacing, I return to the original store and purchase a new pair of blue-trim Asics 2150s at S$50 off the normal high-street price. In between times, I found my impulse purchasing taking over and I was loaded with new shorts, quick-dry singlets, running visor, waist-belt and water bottle and even a new pair of street-runners which I bought while waiting for the afternoon’s deluge to clear.


All in all I had a good sporty afternoon in the confines of a compact mall. The only downside of the aging store was the pungent smell of bak kut teh (pigs organs) being stewed and boiled for lunch, so if you’re olfactory nerves are on the sensitive side, best make it a swift sporty selection!


Shovel

FARMERS’ MARKET – DEMPSEY HILL

When you’re away from home there’s an overwhelming urge to dive into the local lifestyles and get to feel comfortable with your new surroundings. As explained on my earlier blogs, Singapore is a foody’s playground and there’s many many different new things to try. This weekend I ate my first fish-eye. Not quite as huge as those fish-eyes eaten on the UK trash TV show, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here” but a fish-eye none the less. It’s considered a delicacy here and along with the fish’s cheeks something that people fight over at the dinner table.

Yet with all the new experiences, there’s always a part of you that yearns for a familiar taste, yearns for that comforting morsel out of your Mum’s larder, yearns for home.

We came across such a well-stitched expat security blanket through mutual friends a couple of weeks ago. On the first Saturday of every month, hidden away at Dempsey Hill is a small but perfectly formed Singapore Farmers’ Market. It has a diverse expat focus, centered around the small kitchen called “The Pantry” (which runs cooking classes for the foreign maids to learn how to cook western food) and on a wet, grey Saturday morning we are greeted by bunches of flowers, french and spanish wines, australian chutneys, english pies and pasties, himalayan jams and more imported fruit and veg that you could shake a farmer’s crook at. Portobello mushrooms bigger than your palm, rhubarb (RHUBARB!), parsnips (which grow so much better with a sharp frost, something that you’ll never find in S’pore) and red onions that don’t look like they were fished out of a drain with a net.

Once again we bump into our friendly purveyor of wines and beers, George, from East of Avalon Wines, but this time steer ourselves towards some fresh barn eggs that have no added ANYTHING! The shelf-eggs are crammed full of added vitamins, A, C, Omega 3, Lutein...any food chemists out there? It makes for an unsettled stomach, so the fresh unadulterated barn-laid eggs are a bonus. Watch out for Freedom Eggs at NTUC Fairprice and Cold Storage. They’re not free-range and maybe freedom’s not the right name, rather ‘socially-mobile’, but it’s a step in the right direction.

As we purchase breads and tea-cakes from Wild Honey (which runs an all-day breakfast restaurant on Orchard Road, serving breakfasts from all around the world) we find that it’s more than just about food, it’s a social hub where foreign and locals alike arrive, meet and greet, share stories and for the more extravagant pop champagne over brunch. It’s all about getting into circulation and getting your name out there.

For example, the nice Australian Lady who spends all month cooking up jars of fabulous chutneys and piccalilli following her mother’s recipe, to sell them only on this first-Saturday. She is the culinary equivalent of the mayfly.

It’s an interesting place and one that needs the support of locals to really make a go of it. No doubt fresh produce and fine foods are going to bring in the crowds but they need locals to spread the word.
The Farmer’s Market runs from 9 – 2 on the first Saturday of every month at Loewen Cluster on Loewen Road which is just past Dempsey Hill. It’s pretty small and taxi drivers don’t really know where it is, so take a map. And take a taxi number with you so that you can call one to get you home.


Other amusing moments from this trip was the massive jam that occurred on our way home, along the PIE with jams at the junction of the SLE, CTE and KPE. Does that make sense to anyone?

A teen’s t-shirt with the simple statement “got chiz?”. Whatever that means, I don’t want it.

An advertising hoarding for a new apartment complex that describes that any investor would be “Living In An Attitude” should they buy in. Whatever that means, I don’t like it.

Shovel