You should look up Christian psychedelia on Google

Rather than attempt to talk about my month in Paris or the film that is underway about the trip to Sicily with my friend and her family, I'm going to tell you what's cool.

Christian psychedelic is cool.

Let me tell you about my purchases at this shop on Rue de Belleville.  It was this Chinese two-dollar type shop, but it wasn't particularly two dollar.  In the bottom of the window, an image caught my eye.  A few days later I knew I had to buy it, so I returned in the snow and bought a couple of these Jesus pictures.  When you look at the picture from different angles, you see a different image.  I shall upload a picture another time.  I was spending so long deciding which images to get and the shop dude went to the back to get me more and kept showing them to me.  Then after I paid, I walked out and then this Chinese dude who was standing outside the shop was yelling at me in Chinese and I didn't understand and I thought he was talking to the shop woman and probs saying how weird I was.  But then I realised.

Oh yeah, and they had a wooden backing and gold-painted frame, and even though they were made of that processed wood, I had to declare at Australian customs.

In continuation of my in-depth details of places around the world, I shall tell you about this random place in Paris.  I went there because I wanted to eat pho and looked on the internet and found there was this place called Dong Huong, which apparently is the best as it was recommended on Lonely Planet website.  But, dude, the service!  Everyone else was served quickly.  I had to get their attention to come to take my order, my food took ages, which it shouldn't have since it was a bowl of soup, and they took ages to clean the bowl away eventhough I indicated it to them, and then I had to keep getting their attention and asking for the bill.  And it took ages.  And then I had to wait for my change.  Chicken pho is often not the best option, but I thought I would get it because I prefer it to beef and because they had a special northern selection and chicken pho is a northern thing.  It wasn't the best option, but then again, I didn't eat anything else there.  Also, as it was considered a well kept secret, those who consider it a secret were there. Id est, White People.  But it wasn't all bad!! It was pretty cheap and authentic and didn't taste of MSG.

So, this road was called Rue Louis Bonnet, and there is actually an exit from Belleville station directly on to it.  Which is good.  Because you come out and then you are on this street full of Vietnamese restaurants.  What I noticed were several Vietnamese sandwich bars, which I have not seen in Australia.

The second time I went to this part of the 11th, I went to have pho at Restaurant Tin Tin, which I recommend.  Also, they had a small portion option, which made me very happy because then it means I can almost finish my serve.  On the menu they also had all this other cool looking food and cha kway teow pictures and it actually looked not just authentic but delectable.  And the ambience was better.  

Then, in the snow, I went back to buy the Jesus pictures from Rue de Belleville.  One crosses from the Vietnamese street - Rue Louis Bonnet over Blvd de Belleville to Rue de Belleville.  Here are some pictures of some random stuff from that part of the 20th.  It was really weird because it was a bit of a Chinatown on this one street, but not in a trendy way.  And there were these vans with graffiti on them, and people selling vegetables and the streets were lined with Chinese men in black jackets and smoking while it snowed.  And then up the road it became more middle eastern. 

The not so good pho ga. Also, I feel weird when I eat egg and chicken in the same dish.

I think I have discovered that the claim that you are can't get good Asian food in Paris and its ghettos is not true.  "Restaurant Asiatique - pho, Thai food and sushi" is not the be all and end all.

So what does this have to do with Christian coolness?  Ahh, you may have noticed in my pictures some Christian stuff that was randomly in the 20th jut after the Chinese restaurants.

Weird and cool right?

So, Christian psychededelic.  This does not mean wearing bracelets with virgin marys from Sportsgirl.  Since when was that a thing.  You've got to have guts to do that ironically, like, you've got to be the type who can do the whole feigned post-ironic thing.

This look is wearing rosaries that are meant to be on the wall or in your pocket, as necklaces.  Yep.  Also, here's some music I'm into:

1. I don't want to go into depth about how saying how this music makes me feel cool to be Australian when I gets totes aggro about people feeling "proud to be Australian".  But seriously, an Australian Catholic nun made this music in the 1960s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uvZPIE6f-s

2. This Singapore 1960s group called October Cherries (or the Surfers, before they changed to October Cherries) is way cool, just like in that "Jesus was was cool" song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijo8e5FoFjU

That's it for now.  

Actually, no it is not.  You need to know the difference between true Indie Christian coolness and the taste of the congregation/masses.  Here are acceptable types of Christian music for Indies:  Anything that is not modern, id est, not "Worship Music", Christian pop or hip trendy church stuff.  Hymns and old stuff are fine.  Thee sixties is always great because it's a way progressive period.

How to Be On Time

Finally my final post for Singapore and it is three weeks overdue.  I still haven't finished my Indie quiz which I started writing in Singapore.

Sunday was my big day for getting out and about for the flea markets.  Shops seemed to open in the afternoon, so I drew myself a map and wrote a list of all the places I should go and when to be time efficient.   But hahahaha.  It didn't turn out at all as I had planned.

On my mother's advice, I left the Thieves' Market on Sungei Road a miss.  She thinks she remembers her father buying a second-hand hammer there.  I was planning to go to the Clarke Quay flea market but then I didn't because something like I was getting conflicting information from different websites about whether it still exists or not and on the actual Clarke Quay website it says there was a night market everyday that weekend for Christmas products or whatever.  So I was doubtful that the morning market would be open.  

So I set off in my new favourite usual way - taking the bus to Commonwealth, then the MRT.  I got off at Bugis and was walking down the road and came across my aunt and uncle.  Which almost didn't occur because I almost didn't take that exit from the station onto that road.  Then we went to KFC at Bugis where my cousins were.  We were planning that I should walk in on my own and sit near them, but it didn't work out because they saw me at the door with their parents.  Anyway, that was cool.  But I don't usually talk about personal things like family on my blog, but rather personal things like myself.  So back to the story.  After that, I set off back down the road to find this Kampong Glam flea market which was supposed to be every third Sunday of the month.  And that was the date.  But what the hell.  I got there and the "kampong" was like, deserted.  Groan noise.  

I hurried back down the road to Bugis Junction because I was still trying to find a certain top for my mate.  I have not told you that story and shall not.  This is not just because it is not interesting, but my memory is just not good enough.  I found it there but you know, it's just not a top that can be hung, and they were hanging it and it was not good.  So I didn't buy it.  And then I was feeling really crap and worn out already.  My legs had had it from the past couple of weeks.  Then, stupidly, I went to the markets across the road to try to find the top.  But they didn't have it and stuff there was surprisingly expensive in some stalls.  I think buying clothing from Chinese brands is probs cheaper online.  Then I went up the escalator to the next floor, walked one aisle then was dying to get out of there.  So I did and went across the road to a hawker centre and bought a pineapple juice.  I wanted to get some congee but then I simply could not be bothered to buy any food and this hawker centre was super crowded.  Groan again.  I was getting cranky.  That always happens.  I get hungry, get cranky, then am too cranky to want to eat.  Whatever.  The other thing I hate is people who can't be bothered.  Which brings me to my other hatred, which is for people who whinge about themselves or about anything.  Which means that it is now time to say the sentence I was going to say before the one about whinging,  which is about how much I hate people who have negative qualities to them.

I then got on the MRT because I wanted to get somewhere.  At City Hall the doors opened as they should and then I was standing on the train and then I remembered the sunglasses shop on Coleman street, so I jumped off the train and walked up the escalator, but then remembered that sunglasses are not easy to carry and I was feeling too tired to be bothered to go all the way there.  So I went back down to the platform and waited for the next train. 

I think I got out at Raffles Place and the I just wouldn't trust myself on whether I walk left or right.   So I tried both a couple of times.  I was alternating between thinking "never trust your initial feelings" and "your initial feeling will be correct 95% of the time".   

I saw this outside Raffles Place Interchange and wanted to laugh because it made me think about that site with the sad things found on the street.  One cannot really see that it is absolutely bucketing rain in this picture.

I got to this place I was planning to get to, which was sort of very touristy and was meant to have a flea market but DIDN'T, believe it or not.   And it was an absolute ghost town and not all of the automatic doors were functioning and these people having coffee must have thought I was weird and I suppose they had reason to judge me.  Whatever.  Then I was running out of that place to Telok Ayer street, which was long and interesting but pretty much had nothing I wanted to look at apart from an antiques shop where I think I might have shook my wet umbrella over the shop guy.  And this shop was just the weirdest.  Shopfronts on these old buildings are wide, as shown in my previous photographs.  And there was no way to enter the shop.  Seriously.  There was a cabinet across the whole entrance.  And from what I could see, the whole shop was filled with stuff.  I couldn't see any walkway inside the shop either!

And then I got to another hawker centre.  I think it might have been Amoy Street.  I even went upstairs there.  But I then just couldn't be bothered to eat there.  So I went back down and was walking up the street parallel to Telok Ayer street.  And there wasn't much to see and everything was closed anyway.  Then I had to walk halfway down it again to get to this weird mountain path that was like a bit of fake forest to get to An Siang Hill.  I was walking around there and looking for some vintage store.  I couldn't find it then realised it might have been the basement one I went to the other day.  I wanted to go back to that store anyway because they had this beige denim jacket with embroidered flowers on it and I actually was going to buy it.  But the sign on the door said it was closed because they were relocating to Haji Lane.  Clearly,  I was not in a good mood.

Then I was trying to get back to South Bridge Road, but then came across China Square Central, which I had given up looking for.  Yay! They actually had their antiques market on!  But there wasn't anything to buy unless you like buying old things which aren't very nice.  But at least I felt not so sad.  Now, China Square Central is an actual air-conditioned plaza/mall and there was a permanent vintage fashion store and it was such a nice one.  I shall have to return.  I had never seen vintage in such good condition and these were good clothes, proper fifties and sixties outfits.  With hindsight, the prices were actually not too bad, though maybe I din't think so at the time.  Oh my god, I just remembered that I forgot to mention the bookshop at Bras Basah Complex which had all this communist China stuff and Mao stuff!

Then I returned to the egg tart place in Chinatown and then I actually surprisingly caught a bus home rather than try to explore some more.  I nearly bloody froze to death on that bus!  The aircon was intense brah!  Seriously.  I was afraid of pneumonia.  And it was raining outside (and not actually extremely hot) and I was kind of wet, so it felt a BIT WINTERY.  And believe it or not, this was the first day I returned home on time!

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.