Pasar Malam

So Pasar Malams are travelling markets... the marquees are set up in a particular place for about 1 month and there are all sorts of stalls there, ranging from food stalls to clothes stalls and stalls selling special cleaning liquids that magically get rid of all sorts of stains. There is one just across the road from our place at the moment and here are some pictures of it.

The guy in the middle is demonstrating a cleaning product on a microphone and people are gathered around to listen to him and see what the product is all about.

An example of a food stall...

Another food stall....

This is a stall selling DVDs and CDs.

This is the ice cream man. It's a cooler box with wheels attached to a motor-cycle. It used to be attached to bicycles in the past. The ice cream usually comes in rectangular blocks which are cut into a rectangular block the size of an ice lolly... this block of ice cream is then sandwiched between two pieces of bread or between two pieces of thin wafers.

Interesting signs...

We have been taking pictures of interesting banners and signs... to post them when there is nothing really interesting to say.

Here is one that was in the coffeeshop just down the road from our church... It's by the Public Utilities Board educating everyone about the function of drains... and how to keep the drains clean.

Our church

We are attending Pong's home church - Paya Lebar Chinese Methodist Church. This is where we got married too.

As you can see from the signboard, there are 7 congregations, and we attend the "English (Liturgical)" one.

This is the library - Pong's favourite place... so he will probably be helping out in here again.

The books are packed into a cabin bag...

And then laid out on a table after the service as a mobile library... the books are changed every week so there is a different selection on display.

The service itself is liturgical, so this is what the order or service looks like, and hymns are sung from the methodist hymnal.

There are light refreshments and drinks after the service to encourage social interaction and fellowship.

PSI

Now and again, there is a haze in Singapore. This is due to forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia, where farmers practise "slash and burn" agriculture. This is how they clear up land to plant plants for palm oil.

PSI stands for Pollutant Standard Index and conversation starters would be estimates of what the PSI reading is, and then checking to see who has the latest actual PSI reading which they may have heard on the radio or looked up on the internet.

Singaporeans have contacted the National Environment Agency (NEA) in Singapore to complain about the haze. Yesterday, the NEA said they will monitor the situation and "register their concerns with their Indonesian counterparts" if the situation worsened. I guess that's how things work in Singapore - just complain to the government and they will have to sort the problem out...

The light of day...

After 2 years of being in boxes, our books can now finally see the light of day... here they are sitting pretty in the bookshelves.

These are the Christian books in the middle two shelves and the top half of the shelf on the right. Fiction and medical boooks are in the last shelf on the left.

And these are Pong's academic and non-fiction books.
Now we have to make sure that we make good use of them and read them, so that they are more than pretty things that sit on bookshelves.

Bookshelves!

The Ikea bookshelves have arrived this morning! Three and a half on the right side of the room and two on the left side (with Pong on the left edge of the 2nd photo, all ready to clean them...)

Our trip to Ireland

Here are some photos from our trip to Ireland... we went there for a long weekend just before we returned to Singapore.

Inside one of the houses in the Ulster-American Folk Park, which was very interesting and we would recommend it to anyone visiting Northern Ireland. They had literally moved real houses and buildings to the park (beams and logs and all) to showcase what life was like for Irish people who migrated to America.

They even had real people in costumes in the houses, telling you about that particular building and about their way of life. Some were also cooking things that were representative of how they ate - like oatcakes by the peat fire and corn cakes.

The schoolhouse... only one room for the whole school! I am not sure if they had separate classes in the same room or if they all sat together in one class.

One of the costumed characters in the Ulster-American Folk Park recommended that we drove through Gortin Glen, and along the way we randomly followed a sign to Gortin lakes...

This is at Portstewart, along the coast.

Having a scone and milkshake at Portstewart.

Along the coastal path at the Giant's Causeway... which was absolutely beautiful.

This is the "amphitheatre", which was also spectacular... I couldn't quite capture the awesomeness of it in a photo though...

The famous hexagonal causeway stones...

People were just climbing all over it.

More of the Giant's causeway... well that was the main reason for us going to Ireland - because I had seen amazing pictures of it and for the longest time wanted to see it for myself and walk on the stones with my own feet.

Okay, I shall stop putting more photos of the Giant's Causeway now. But I thought I should put one with Pong in it. :P

This is on the island that you get to via the Cerrick-a-rede bridge.

At this point, our camera ran out of battery, and other photos were on our phone, which we have not downloaded yet... so I am afraid there are only photos from the first 1.5 days in Ireland. :P

We also went to Glenariff, which we would definitely go back to as well... they have a few walks of varying lengths and difficulties. We went on a 3km waterfall walk which brought us though broadwalks and wooden steps along the riverside, which was beautiful as well... the uphill climb back to the car park seemed never-ending though... :P

Anyway, guess what we bought from Ireland as souveniers... nope, not fridge magnets... not those tea towels that have pretty pictures and say "Ireland" on them... yes, you guessed it! we bought books! 2 books from Wesley Owen in Coleraine - both on assisted dying/ euthanasia... both from a Christian perspective, but one pro-euthanasia and one against euthanasia. I have started reading one, and hope to make good progress through it later this week after we are more settled down with unpacking and packing.

Hmm... did we buy anything else besides books? Oh no, maybe it IS true that we only buy books and nothing else when we travel... let me think... think hard... oh yes! We did buy three postcards. :) See? We do buy other things beside books when we travel.



Our trip to KL

We went to Kuala Lumpur this weekend to visit our good friends. We set out from our home at 6.30am in the morning and took the bus to Copthorne Orchid hotel, where the "Nice" (Nice is the name of the coach company) coach to KL was departing from. Arrived at about 7.50am and enjoyed a complimentary cup of tea and a piece of cake before boarding the coach and leaving at 8.30am. The journey was meant to take 5 hours, but we took 6 hours instead to get to KL, probably because they have imposed speed limits and compulsory rest stops for drivers after a certain period of continuous driving time, following a major accident involving one of these coaches. 

It was nice to meet up with M and Y, and also to play with C and E who are now 7 months older than when we last saw them. C still remembers us although she was shy to start off with and needed about an hour to "warm up", after which she was quite happily playing with us... she remains very chatty and happy. E has grown up as well, and he LOVES to eat and will quite happily eat C's food, which C is only all to happy to share with E. Although E does not seem to be as chatty as C yet, he is very cute and they both seem to be getting on very well together.

No trip will be complete without a visit to the bookstores... so Pong went to three different bookstores even though we were in KL for just under 24 hours in total! And we bought some books too... in particular, we were very happy to find the book that Pong was hoping to get - a book that is either banned in Singapore or is just not sold in any of the bookstores in Singapore if it is not officially banned. It's titled "Once a jolly hangman"... get Pong to tell you what it's about - he is already more than two thirds way through the book as he was reading it on the coach back to Singapore.

However, to dispel the myth that we only buy books and nothing else, on Sunday after lunch, with 10min to spare, we went to a local bakery to get some cake and pastries for our families in Singapore... See? We do buy things other than books when we travel. :)

Anyway, we got so engrossed with spending time with our friends and shopping that we forgot to take any photos... so here's one of the "Nice" coach that we took from Singapore to KL.

For Matthew

Especially for Matthew... as requested...

Here is a train approaching the station on the left.

It's nearing the station, and another is just coming out of the station... can you see it?

There it is on the right, coming out as the other train enters the station...

It's out of the station now...

And away it goes towards the next station...



Eating places nearby

You cannot really walk for 5 minutes without coming to a place where you can buy food, particularly in HDB housing areas.

This is the "coffeeshop" just around the corner from our block. Coffeeshops typically have 6-8 stalls(to the left of the picture above) selling different kinds of food, for example chicken rice, fishball noodles etc. And then there is also 1 stall selling drinks, including coffee. There is a seating area that services all the stalls.

This is a typical "hawker centre" that is usually situated beside a market. This one is just a 5 to 10-minute walk from our block. There is similarly a common seating area, and a variety of food stalls in rows around the seating area. There are usually 3 rows of stalls back to back, i.e. 6 rows of food stalls, with 2 full sections of seating (you can see one of them in the picture above) and 2 sections half the width at both edges of the hawker centre... not sure if I am making sense. :P

Our new home

Looking for a flat to rent in Singapore has been an interesting experience. Properties seem to only come on the market when they are available immediately, and there seems to be a great sense of urgency when viewing flats. For example, the estate agent will tell us to bring a chequebook along so that the deposit can be handed over to secure the flat. Flats which are advertised one day could be snapped up by the afternoon or evening. Estate agents also seem to work at all times of the day and every day of the week - which reflects the work ethic in Singapore, but that is another story for another day.

We arrived in Singapore on Thursday afternoon, viewed 2 flats on Thursday night and 2 on Saturday.  We decided on one and handed over the deposit on Sunday, together with photocopies of our identity cards. We are renting a HDB (housing development board) flat, so the owners then had to ask HDB for permission to rent it out to us. They managed to get approval to rent it out to us on Thursday, and then they handed the keys over to us on Saturday.

So here we are in our new home... this is what it looks like from the outside.

It's a typical block of HDB flats along a main road.

The bus stop is just in front of our block, with a covered walkway of course so you can keep out of the rain (or more importantly, stay under the shade out of the sun).

This is how it looks like from the back - clothes are often on bamboo poles outside the flat to dry.

This is what the common corridor looks like, with individual flats off it.

The view from the common corridor outside our flat - as you can see, we live along the MRT (mass rapid transit) train track, and the MRT station is about 500m away (the white bit on the far left).

The view of the flat from outside the main door... with my dear husband inside the flat.

The view from inside the flat looking out of the main door. It is not uncommon to leave the door open and lock the gate so that there is a breeze coming through the flat. Otherwise the flat can be quite hot and stifling.