Public Transport Entrails: Part VI

What did I do on the next Wednesday?  Oh yeah, I caught a bus to Commonwealth MRT station, then the MRT to Paya Lebar.  In this instance, it would have been faster to go to Holland Village and catch the Circle line to Paya Lebar.  But oh well, bad experiences on the Circle line...

I decided that the best way to get the most out of this trip to Joo Chiat would be to follow this website's instructions for a food journey stopping at every second cafe, which seemed comprehensive by telling me 'turn here, turn there'.

After getting out of the station, I followed the instructions, but it was quite stressful because I still didn't know if I was going in the right direction.  I was meant to pass the landmark of a fake Malay kampong, which the website said was not worth going to even if the admission fee were to be scrapped.  The thing was, I couldn't see this landmark nor the HDB block I was headed to.  It appeared the kampong museum had been scrapped and it's block of land had big metal walls around it.

Then the printout of the webpage said I should get to Geylang Serai Block Three, walk through a tiny passage and ta-da, I should enter a market selling spices and cloth, and I should walk through the wet market behind this to the hawker centre.  I think the place had been renovated since that page had been written, because the market was two storey and next to a main road (though still at block three, luckily).  Downstairs was the wet market - omg, you could buy a plastic bag of CRACKED EGGS!  So weird, right? - and upstairs the hawker and clothing market.  Speaking of clothing, I was feeling very hot, as this was a very sunny day.  But walking around the hawker centre, I felt like I ought not to feel tired from the heat when I am obviously not dressed as warmly as the Muslim women eating there.  Pretty much, I felt like I should stop being so whingey, even though I wasn't complaining, though maybe I was just a bit in my head.

The thing I always do when I want a good meal, is pick the stall with a long line.  I did that the day before at the Maxwell Food Centre.  The stupid thing I did that day when I found a chicken rice stall with all these pictures of the owners receiving awards and this picture of Anthony Bourdain saying  something like "chicken rice is so fragrant, it can be eaten on it's own", which made me laugh because he might not have been referring to the chicken rice from that stall, was queue up then when I was almost at the front, I realised that this stall took up two spaces and I had to go bak to the other one to place my order!  But it was a really good chicken rice!  The chicken was tender but ACTUALLY COOKED.

Yeah, but back to the point, this time I was with my father so we got this MASSIVE BRIYANI AYAM and shared it.  Then I also got these goreng pisang which were so yummy because each piece was a small banana.  It also seems the bananas were green.  And the coating for the deep-frying was perfect, not like at some "commercial" places, i.e. chain stalls in malls where the coating is sometimes too salty.  Now I shall tell you a mini-story about how I was buying the fried bananas, which are not like the ones in Chinese restaurants in Australia, and the woman making and selling them was speaking to me in Malay and I was saying I didn't understand.  But she continued and finally she yelled repeatedly in my face "Four, Two Dollars!", but it wasn't really in my face because she was shorter than I.

I was going to do one of those blurred faces for my dad in that photo, but then I realised that a) it's too hard for me to do that and b) he looks cool and his pose looks really good.

It was a good idea to bring my dad along on this trip because he could take pictures both of me and for me.  Thanks for the photos Dad, even though you haven't even seen them since you took them on my camera.  But some of these are my photos.

The instructions on the webpage told us to walk down Joo Chiat Place until we reach where it joins Joo Chiat Road again.  But neither of us found this intersection. Sad.  We kept walking and then tried to find a main road.  We nearly got to one, but we really were getting into area that was more and more residential.  So we decided to catch a bus to the nearest MRT station.  I tell you, the bus frequency in Singapore!  I think SMRT and SBS have something against me.  I always see buses until I get to the bus stop.  And then when I'm at the bus stop, the other side of the road gets the buses and I don't.  Seriously.  We waited twenty-five minutes for a bus, and in that time, only one other bus came past the stop.

We got to Eunos station and had a drink.  I had run out of water pretty quickly.  There was no fruit juice, so I had to get a grass jelly drink because they are cooling.  My dad had a soy bean drink and I spent the whole time we were sitting there repeating the story to him about this time when my mother bought both a soy bean and grass jelly drink at Holland Village where they advertised this mix of the two, calling it the Michael Jackson.  She thought that my brother and I would be drinking some of the drinks she bought, but neither of us liked them.  So she decided that she could have her own Michael Jackson for less money by drinking from two bags of drink at once.  You see, in Singapore, when you have those two drinks as take-away, they put it in a bag.  And then my mum was feeling sick on the bus.

Then we caught the MRT to Bugis and then walked to Haji Lane where now there are many more shops, including Muslim fashion shops, and the trend for ruining Japanese vintage fabrics by turning them into ugly frocks is gone.  I don't think I have ever seen anyone in Singapore actually wearing one of those dresses.  I was too tired to take pictures as the result of walking long distances in new shoes.  Good work, Billie.  Why did you still get massive blisters?  I thought you were super accustomed to walking long distances in new shoes or shoes which are so old they hurt?

Here are the few pictures I took.  

Perhaps you cannot see the girl with the guitar being filmed.

The following picture is of my late-night dessert snack.  I'm not actually sure whether I got it on this day or not.  Oh well.

Oh my, I thought this blog post was going to be very short!  Oh dear, the next one will be far longer...

Public Transport Entrails: Part V

This is the most epic of my tales.
On the Sunday, I thought my ez-link transport card had run out of money.  At eleven I tried to get on a bus to Orchard Road, but I thought I didn't have enough coinage and they cannot give change for notes.  So I just got off the bus and went back to the atm to try to put money on the card but you can only do a transfer from your credit card to your ez-link card.  I also couldn't swap a ten dollar note for coins.  So I went back to the bus stop and tried to take one that took the shortest distance to an MRT station so that I would be able to top the card up.  I paid in coins, but not quite enough.  It was very stressful.  I got to Holland Village and topped up the card then went down to the MRT.  In fact, I actually still had just over a dollar on the card.  I think that the previous time I used it I must have accidentally double tapped the card when I got on, meaning that I both entered and exited when getting on.  The only way to get to Orchard Road on MRT was a stupid loop but I could not be bothered to go back up and cross the bridge over the road to the bus stop.  I waited six minutes for the train.  After a few stops I decided to get out at the Botanic Gardens and take a bus from there.  I looked at the locality map and I knew the roads but thought that maybe they would be taking me the wrong way.  So I went back down to the train but it was leaving the platform.  I waited six minutes for the next train.  I got on and at the next stop, I realised I had gotten on a train going in the wrong direction.  I got back to Holland Village and hiked over the bridge to catch a bus.  I was so relieved when I got on that I didn't hear the driver calling me back to say that I had not tapped my card upon entry until the people around me were also alerting me to this fact.  My 1230 appointment had been changed to 1300 meaning that I was having fifteen minutes to spare.  I was determined to make it over to the Scape Underground to exchange some clothing item.  So I hiked down Orchard Road to Grange Road, since I had gotten off at Lucky Plaza area.  I was rushing down to the underground but really ground level basement and shortcutted through a Long John Silver's fish and chips shop across a wooden deck and then because it was wet, I slipped and fell over.  I managed to get my stuff done, then hiked back down to Scotts Road, having a mini panic attack at the end of ion because I was above ground and sure I was at the right place but I saw a street sign saying Patterson Road.  But it was all okay because Scotts came off the other side of Orchard Road.  I was super tired because I was wearing these shoes I never really wore for very long before but also they sort of had these skinny pumped heels, which are obviously not that high, but I am just not used to wearing them.  And I had a heavy bag on my shoulder.  Dude, seriously, like, all day I nearly had a breakdown!

No pictures of this day!  But it's about time I put up a picture of the MRT system!

Public Transport Entrails: Part IV

Now I am blogging seriously late.  So I'll have to skim quickly.  You may miss some great stuff because of this.  The day after the one last blogged about, ie, on Friday I was catching a bus to meet someone at Holland Village but caught the wrong one but I didn't know.  I knew I had to get off at an over-the-road bridge.  So I got off on the first one I saw, even though it was the one nobody gets off at. I went over the bridge, which was at the opening of Dempsey Road, and hiked past more bridges to the one at the Gleneagles Hospital.  And then had to catch a bus back to Holland Village.  So then when I met up with my grandaunt, we then caught the bus to Orchard Road, despite the fact that I had nearly made it there already.

In the afternoon, I went back to Scape Underground but forgot to take a photo of the signs about how you should shop there if you are sick and tired of mainstream shopping or whatever.  It was quite packed as it was a Friday afternoon and all these kids were there.  I took the pictures of the skate shops, techdeck table and the pool parlour overlooking the skate area for my little brother.

After this trip, I went into the Mandarin Gallery, which is now my favourite shopping centre.  It is quiet, clean, has few people in it, and the shops are good.  I saw for the first time a Jones the Grocer outlet in Singapore.  I was surprised, I must say.  This shop used to be in Manuka.  Obviously Asia is just getting more trendy compared to Canberra.  The Mandarin Gallery looks like it would be super expensive but actually it wasn't always super expensive.  I liked this brand called Hansel and they were having a sale and dresses were reduced to under a hundred dollars (Singaporean).  There was a man outside another shop who gave me a free sample face cream and told me to give it to my mother.  I laughed because she always tries to get as many of these sort of freebie face-creams as possible.  At the Mandarin Gallery they also had all these comfy places to sit!

This picture is so bad.  But anyway, it's of this cafe/tea/cake shop where one can also do a painting while having tea!

Then I ate this talam hidjau at the bus stop.  But I was actually at the wrong bus stop.  But it was all okay because I was just on a parallel street and I knew I could easily get from this stop behind Ngee Ann City to the one on Orchard Boulevard and get straight home.

Here are some yummy yummy ang ku kueh.  A peanut one and a yellow bean one.   I'm making the size X-Large so it's really in your face.

Oh, and I forgot my pictures of breakfast:

Comprehensive Collection

Now I'm really irritated because this has happened again.  I schedule a blogpost and it doesn't work.

I forgot to show you earlier how I pick up all these FREE MAGAZINES AND COOL THINGS.  These ones are from the Peranakan Museum, the camera shop, and the Ann Siang Hill shop.

Ziggy and Juice are hilarious "hipster" magazines.  The editors/writers are too cool!  I feel like I really know them already!  Talent.

Whatevs.

For some weird reason I feel sort of awkward when I ask the shop assistant about the price of everything in the shop but don't buy anything and then look for the free things.  It's more awkward than all the times I fall over in the street.  

I'll tell you about yesterday's now.  It was raining.  I was carrying a bag on one shoulder, an umbrella in the other hand.  I was walking down a slope.  I stepped gingerly, as J.K. Rowling would say, on this slippery metal (which had pathetic grips, obviously) covering (I don't know why they have them every few metres.  Maybe there are storm water drains beneath the road) and then slid straight onto the right side of my bum.  So weird.  I just crashed!  My leg was so sore afterwards, I was worried I would not be able to walk up the stairs.  It still hurts, but I probably just bruised and pulled some muscle.  I also cut my ankle.  I also made this loud noise, not really a scream but a loud yelling of "oooww".  So weird, every time I drop something and it makes a noise, I yell "ooww" or "ouch".  Then all these people at a cafe on the opposite side of the road (I was near  corner) made noise and looked up at me, and the waitress was looking at me and yelling loudly.  But I didn't understand because I don't speak Mandarin.

Which brings me on to something I've been meaning to say for a while.  How I get really annoyed whenever people speak to me in Mandarin, which is like, all the time in public.  Probably I get annoyed because a) I probs looks stupid, and b)  I learned Chinese for many many years, but never could understand or speak or write anything.  And Chinese is like a new global trend and I just can't deal with it.  But anyway, if you saw me on the street, would you think I am Chinese and speak to me in Chinese?  For a long part of my life, nobody ever saw me as being at all asian.  But back to what I was saying in the question, I really should feel lowly and ashamed, but I reckon I'm offended because a) WHITE PEOPLE LIKE BEING OFFENDED, and b) the fact that someone made an assumption is an action which can always be justly seen as offensive.  This is a fact.  Christian Lander wrote about it a), and I am an expert and came up with b).  But seriously, here is what I wear: worn up converse as shown in picture in last post, ankle socks, either linen shorts or shorts from one of my old schools, either a country road singlet or a singlet from the organic shop, Ted Baker sunglasses, a Kipling bag, and a Tree of Life bag.  Seriously.  Sigh.

Public Transport Entrails: Part III

This is a tale of how even the best of plans never work out.  On Thursday, I left the house at about 1230 and had to rush a lot because I had a hair appointment at Raffles Place at three.  I even drew myself a map so that I could go to Ann Siang Hill before three. 

But alas, after waiting for a bus for ages, the bus did not seem to be taking me to the station at Commonwealth despite passing above-road MRT tracks.  I was stressing, because this put we well out of the time-frame I had thought.  When I thought I was near the Queensway shopping centre, I got off the bus saying "oh well, perhaps I can find a pair of spectacles here" and "there will be more buses coming here".  But it turned out I was quite a distance from the shopping centre.  So I hiked in the sun and was also hungry, but made it to a bus stop.  It was okay from there.  I got on a bus and got off at Outram Park Interchange for the MRT to Chinatown.  Then from there I managed to get to the egg tart shop Tong Heng with no problems, passed another fancy analogue camera shop and then went to the Maxwell Food Centre.  I was planning to get some kueh kueh there, because last time I was in Singapore, the ondeh ondeh and kueh kosui were so nice!  But when I got there, they were sold out!

Golden shortcake with a layer of lotus paste inside 

My mee pok

Went back to the kueh kueh place and they had these mochi-like balls but the skin was so soft and thin and delicate and the filling was the gula melaka coconut for kueh dadar.  I never understand the flour it's rolled in!  I get so excited because it looks like sugar, but then eugh, it's flour.

Then I went up Ann Siang Hill, which is very small.  All mostly clubs.  Went to the knick knack and patisserie shop.  Very very expensive.  Can buy the weirdest type of photo books.  Like blog instagram pictures on eight pieces of creamy paper and with a big number on it.

Next door downstairs was a vintage clothes shop!  And it was a good one.  Racks and racks of flannel shirts, denim shorts and other.  Prices I saw were under seventy dollars, though most items didn't have tags!

Not as interesting a photo compared to last trip's - I'm not in it. 

Then I stepped up out of the basement vintage shop to find a tropical storm.  So I took some photos as I walked back to Chinatown station.  By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, my shoes and socks were soaked through.  And I wore them for the rest of the day.  Hmmm.  Somehow they were dry in the morning which was surprising, seeing as nothing seems to dry in Singapore.

Somehow I managed to get to Raffles Place on time and didn't get lost.  Somehow I made a beeline for the right place.

Then after my haircut I was walking around this random mall in the Raffles area and there were all these silly dead ends.  I didn't buy anything.

Then I was running late to get home, but I still walked over to Lau Pa Sat in the rain where the food stalls looked unbelievably fake, then got sidetracked on the way back by stalls of clothes which weren't even nice, but I also look anyway.  And then I think I got home no problems after that, but of course was a bit late.

Public Transport Entrails: Part II

On Wednesday, I caught a bus with my aunt to Commonwealth then caught the MRT to Bugis to have lunch.

The place I ate at was the sectioned off part of the food court where there were five or so ramen stalls and after eating, you can vote for the best ramen shop.  I didn't vote because what kind of vote for the best ramen place would it be if I had only tried one?

Another food court stall:

After that, I was walking around Bugis Junction and the iluma mall.  I thought about buying some things, but I didn't.  Then I went outside and spotted the Victoria Street markets.  I didn't buy anything. I saw these massive durians:

Then I realised I was maybe near the arts precinct.  So I hiked over to Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts,   which took a while because I didn't really know where I was headed.  The traffic lights in this area were so slow, too!  But there weren't any galleries open there.  Then I was trying to get out of the area, and I was walking all over these weird streets.  I took some photos, but they don't at all show how I was walking every street in the district 50 times.

Then I headed over to the Lasalle College of The Arts.  There was a lot of glass and a lot of glass installations and some students who were maybe doing a holiday program were queuing up for a meal.  It looked like this.

I was hoping that I would end up at Bras Basah station so that I could catch an MRT to Chinatown to get to Ann Siang Hill.  But I didn't find it.  And it was getting late, I was running late.  I was waiting at a bus stop but no bus I wanted was turning up.  Somehow I managed to hike back in the rain to Bugis Station, which was really hard, seeing as I couldn't see the buildings where it was.

And I was rushing rushing rushing.  And caught the MRT to Holland Village.  Running in the rain to the bus stop there.  Now is the place where I pause to rant about the litter I am finding these days in Singapore.  Can you believe that?  Everywhere I go, I am finding cigarette butts all over the ground, empty cigarette packets all over the ground, today my foot got stuck in an empty drink container and a man on the bus was peeling the top of this gourd or whatever and throwing it on the flour, and back to Wednesday, I was sitting on a seat on the bus and there was a mandarin peel stuffed in the crack between the seat and the wall.  What is this, Canberra?!  And the most frightening thing of all was when I was running up to the bus stop at Holland Village in the rain.  Now, this path was only about a metre wide and practically was in the shops, seeing as awning hung over it and some shops put wares on the other side of the path.  And what did I run past on the edge of the tiled footpath?  A used sanitary pad!  What is this, I ask you.  What is this?!  WHAT IS THIS?!