bibimbap from the other day ... always easy to fall back on:
i must have inherited my dad's perfect egg-making skills so admired by those cousins of mine... hehe
and my sad attempt at making soup with fake chinese brand "hot broad bean paste." the soup wasn't bad... just kind of bland. i should have added salt. or more soy sauce. i don't know. either way, it was korean-tasting enough that i enjoyed it... :)
additionally, one of my canadian friends, jonas, gave me a tasty treat on sunday... contraband gum from malaysia!
note the obsession with keeping the ground gum-free ^anywhose, today i didn't have class so i spent the afternoon in clementi. clementi is the nearest city to campus and is a big jumble of residence areas, hawker centers, and stores selling everything from mattresses to plastic toys to gold jewelry.
picture of the poster enforcing the ban of the infamous durian from the public bus system:
here are some of the residences in the clementi area:
in singapore, i suppose like in a lot of other asian countries, people usely live in apartments. while singapore is one of the 20 smallest countries in the world, it's also one of the top 5 most densely populated.singapore is also still developing heavily. they're only 44 years old so i guess that's suspected. everywhere you go there are new developments and construction going on -- generally in the form of very tall buildings.
and now to my favorite part of clementi: the food & shopping! clementi has multiple food areas to choose from. here are a couple pictures of the hawker centers that i'm always talking about:
because everything is outdoors, they have fans everywhere. you have to choose where you sit wisely, otherwise a fan will never reach you -- that would be pretty horrible when sitting out in the hot & humid singapore weather eating a hot plate of food...a fruit stand in clementi located next to a bakery, yummy!
the downside to the fruit stands and grocery stores is that the smell of durian is EVERYWHERE. really, there's no escape from the putrid smell of the king of fruits.strolling around in singapore makes you thirsty all the time and leaves you craving for anything cold or drinkable... today i chose to get ice cream from one of the wall's carts! wall's is the name of the ice cream cart that you see everywhere here in singapore. while you can get ice cream in a cup, the more exciting, singaporean way is getting the ice cream man/lady to cut you a slab of ice cream from a rectangular block and sticking it between two wafers. yay! even though this is your regular mint chocolate chip, there are other exciting flavors of ice cream including sweet corn, yam, red bean, and durian.
while going around the back alleys of clementi i stumbled upon this open area for shows that i didn't even know existed! they were playing fobby chinese music and looked like they were celebrating some festival or another...
like i said, clementi has lots of stores to look around in and sells pretty much everything, except for clothes, for cheap. here is what your typical sidewalk in clementi looks like.
stores sell socks, underwear, luggage cases, shoes, jewelry, notebooks, hair accessories... everywhere i walk people yell at me in chinese to buy their merchandise! apparently i look chinese, but still definitely have that touristy look to me...anyhow, while i rummaged through what the stores had to offer, the highlight of my day was buying these:
adorable, no? even though clothes are expensive here, shoes seem to be fairly cheap. these cute little flats were only 9.90$ SD which is equivalent to around 7$ in the US. hooray!tomorrow after my dreaded 8 am indonesian tutorial, my friends and i plan on going to bugis --- the largest bargain shopping area in singapore! yay!
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