Sunday, December 7, 2008

From the Drag Queen to the 7 dwarfs

Wow, it's been a long time again.

Quite an eventful two weeks actually, but let me start with Friday night last week...
Ting decided to take me out, and treat me for dinner and a show. When she told me it was in Orchard Towers I started to wonder if it was not one of Tinker's stupid jokes. For the folk who don't know, Orchard Towers is the place where prostitutes, lady-boys and the crowd that goes with them, hang around... The show is a stand up comedy by a humorist called Kumar.
Kumar is an Indian man's name, and I was expecting the usual Indian guy with his funny accent, well I was wrong. Kumar is a beautiful, tall, slim, with big eyes, long silk hair and cute expression; lady.... boy, man actually. Because he hasn't worked much on his voice and when you hear him, there is no mistake, at all.
I'm not going to tell you about the show, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it is very funny. He gets people on stage to do funny stuff and his stories are very colourful. By the way, don't take your children under 18 (21 for Singaporeans). So we had a really good time, and the dinner that was served before the show was very good (mexican food!).

Saturday, instead of doing house work, we decided to go out. And as we didn't want to shop, we did the second best thing in Singapore: trekking!
We departed for Mount Faber by MRT and from there there is a 9 km walk. We didn't finish it of course as we were expected for dinner for Ting's dad's birthday, I'll get to that after.
Nothing really special happened during the walk. We saw HUGE spiders on their web, tried to take photos but it's not very clear. Here is one of them.

And we went across a special bridge called "The waves". It's nice, apart from the splinters in my fingers resulting of my taking a picture on the floor. As we speak I still have these splinters, they're hard to take out of my hard Yeti's skin.

We finished the 4.5km in a cute little park and took a bus home.
Then dinner with the Tinker's family. Very good seafood place in east coast called Hawaï Beach or something. All the courses were delicious, with the prawn in XO sauce winning an award from Ting, she ate the whole dish almost by herself, barely leaving the heads to the rest of the table.

We went home not too late after this and were in bed early. Which is a good thing as at 8:30 the Sunday morning some loud music started at our block, and then this girl talking extremely loudly in a microphone... And as I was pestering and covering my head with the pillow she announced: "Everyone come to the Block Party at block 204!!!" I knew my Sunday morning sleep was lost and that the music wouldn't stop. So Ting and I went down to have a look. They had installed a stage and chairs and games for the kids and this weird Malay guy was singing Chinese songs in a joyful way. The show had started...

I took a few pictures of the Malay guy, of the games and the rest of the show (a puppeteer who had no idea how to speak to children was quite funny). You will find all the pictures in our Picasa link in the links. As I appeared in this Asian crowd I couldn't go unnoticed. As Ting puts it, I stick out like a sore thumb... So the lady host spoke to me. "Where are you from? You live here?"... Try to be discreet and the whole world sees you. I have to admit I quite like it.
The party lasted until the lottery was finished, at about 1pm. No one would have stayed any longer anyway, when you have something to win the Chinese will participate, once it's over no one is interested. We had one ticket, number 0148, which of course wasn't picked. The host had said she'd buy the ticket back from me if I didn't win, I'm still waiting for the money. Our afternoon following this seemed very quiet, plus I was really tired being deprived from my beauty, sorry Yeti sleep... Until my good old brother called me at 23:30 Singapore time to chat on webcam with my parents... I was pleased to see them mind, just a little sleepy.

That was our week-end. And back to work on Monday (yeah, you have to work as well in Singapore...)

Then Wednesday 3rd, we took Ting's little sis to see a pantomine, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. I'm saying we took Ting's sister cause I don't want to admit that I really wanted to go myself. I remember when my grandmother took us once in Scotland, it was Jack and the Beanstalk. I remember having a great time.
And in Singapore the traditions were respected. It was hilarious. Everyone, not only the children, were laughing. And the crowd was participating as well: "Don't eat the apple!! It's poisonous!! It's got Melamine inside!". And very critical toward Singapore's government and lifestyle (the dwarfs were not small, they were just ugly which is why they couldn't stay in the Kingdom, when you come here you'll know what I'm talking about). So each age group in the audience could take their own little favourite moments. Really a good time... hahaha.

I think that's about it for last week. Singapore is nice and cool at the moment (yeah, 25-27° only), it's rather nice. But it's raining quite a lot.
As we were Christmas shopping last night, I didn't see the effects of the financial crisis. Everyone was carrying quite a lot of bags (me too...), but it's true that the sales seem to have started already, which is a first before Christmas I think. I guess the shops haven't been selling as much during the past months as they usually do. But shhh, according to the government everything is fine and no recession in coming. Singapore is still as powerful as ever, but still can't grow it's own water!

Take care till next time. I've got some announcement to make concerning the wedding.