Curry rice, very nice

I thought I would put up a few photos from lunch yesterday with Mel and N before I hit the sack!  I hadn't seen Mel in awhile and when she finally got a Friday off, we  made a date to meet.  She wanted to buy me a (belated) birthday lunch.  She'd recently got around to trying banana leaf rice (I couldn't believe she'd been missing out for so long!) and when she found out how much I loved it, she suggested Samy's Curry at Dempsey.

I love Samy's Curry, more for nostalgia than anything.  It used to be part of a very old civil service club branch and since my parents were both civil servants at one point, we used to go there a lot.  I have very fond childhood memories of the old eighties arcade games that we used to play while the food was being served.  After eating, we would take long walks or drives through the knee high grass that surrounded the main building.  There were small, empty churches or abandoned barracks with their windows smashed in.  

Now Dempsey is a hipster stomping ground, but Samy's looks exactly the same.

A not very picture of a very, very good meal.  If you've never eaten banana leaf rice, it's literally rice served on a banana leaf and piled high with tonnes of other dishes that commonly include chicken curry, two types of vegetables and papadums.  On top of that, you can choose things that you want to add on at extra cost.  I'm partial to fish cutlets, mutton mysore and chicken masala, washed down with neon green lime juice or chai masala. 

The flavours are absolutely awesome but it is a very spicy meal and I don't recommend it for Indian food novices.  I'm always dying to bring my foreign friends here but I'm never sure that they won't come away with a severe stomachache. 

Though they usually eat a fair level of spice, N and Mel really started sweating once we tucked in.  N sweated so much that the sunglasses that he had perched on his forehead started fogging up! 

N and I shared a dish of giant-ass prawns.  He was happy to share various bits with me because Mel doesn't eat red meat or seafood.

It was an awesome lunch and we laughed and chatted relaxedly over cups of tea afterwards.

I took pictures of this adorable cat that was chilling out by the stairs.  Some animals are natural camera hogs.  The moment I pointed my lens in its direction, the moggy rolled obligingly into a perfect pose.

On our way back to the car, we walked down a long sloping path framed by trees.  The path has been there since I was a child and I remember walking under pine needles that were still dripping leftover rain.  We decided to take a few photos and N got really crazy with the camera.

He insisted on taking this photo that looks as though we're holidaying in Cameron Highlands.  He got down on the ground, pointed the camera up at us, and when Mel said, "What are you doing?" in horror, he replied, "I'm very creative with my angles, okay?  I'm showing you the world from a dog's perspective."

We couldn't stop giggling after that.


He made us prance down the path and said, "Turn your butts to the camera."  Mel gave up halfway, but I'm an America's Next Top Model, yo.  That's dedication for you.

Not from the perspective of a dog: this shot taken by me.  I kind of love it - they're cute together and the pose is cool.  Mel wants me to say that N changed his shirt at least three times before deciding on this winner.

I have to admit, I loved her shirt more.

Afterwards, we headed over to Peninsula where I got my lenses.  N found a jamming studio tucked away in a cute little music memorabilia shop and we spent two hours singing everything from '60s rock songs to hymns.  (You may not believe it but ten years in a Catholic school means that I know As the Deer forwards and backwards.)

I was having so much fun I forgot my camera, but I do wish I had taken a picture of N looking very cool behind the drumset with his sunglasses and Mel belting lustily.  My beloved friend is, after all, a professional singer. 

I leave you with this test shot that I took on my new zoom lens in the shop, at 55mm, ISO 1600, aperture probably around 3.5.  I haven't touched anything except for upping the warmth by exactly four points to avoid the pasty-fluorescent-shop-light-look.  I really like the image quality (grain level is acceptable to me), especially for the price.

I'll put up some shots from the 35mm prime soon.

Thank you, Mel and N, for an awesome day out!  Mel and I have spent at least thirteen of our birthdays together and we don't intend to stop anytime soon.

Her smile here says it all: it was everything a Friday should be.

What the hell?! Or, how I ended up with four lenses

Since Becky's wedding in March, I've been unable to stop thinking about lenses.  I constantly wondered what new glass might do for me and what the best possible purchase would be.  In my madder moments, I actually toyed with the idea of getting a whopper of a pro lens that would easily cost more than half a month's salary.

Today, it all came to a head.  I had lunch with one of my besties, Mel, and her friend, N.  When she and N decided to drive to Peninsula Plaza to look at guitars, I took it as a sign.  

I'm not a particularly savvy buyer, especially because I know diddly-squat about cameras.  But I go by gut feel.  If it's in my budget, if it feels like it'll suit my needs, and most importantly, if I feel like the salesperson is really listening and recommending something that is in my best interests, I'll bite.  Maybe that's foolish, but it's worked well for me so far.

(Woe betide the salesman at one Harvey Norman a long time ago who tried to sell me a smaller, slimmer camera than the G11 that I wanted because "it comes in pink and will fit nicely in a handbag, so girls prefer this".  I stalked out, fuming.) 

I went into The Camera Workshop, met with a very patient man named Daniel and that's how I ended up with four lenses.

I was initally looking at a 28 - 75mm Tamron lens whose real selling factor for me was it's constant 2.8 aperture.  Given that I already have my 18 - 55 kit lens and my darling 50mm 1.8 prime, Daniel thought about it and said that while the Tamron was a good lens, it wasn't giving me very much more range and I was losing a lot on the wide-angled end.  I groused about my lighting issues - I've confirmed that it really was the kit lens aperture that was giving me problems because the lighting on my prime is sweet - and he suggested two intuitive upgrades to my kit.

In the picture above, you see the two lenses I already own on the right.  On my camera, is my new 35mm, f2 prime lens and at the bottom of the picture, fully stretched out, is an awesome new 55 - 250mm zoom lens, both by Canon.

Here's what each one of them does:

1)  My kit lens is pretty much your standard everyday knockabout lens.  It came with the camera and takes relatively pleasing photos.  It wasn't delivering enough zoom in concerts or at the weddings I've attended so far, and it's just a little low on light.  It's a great workhorse though, light and convenient.

2)  The 50mm/1.8 takes awesome portraits with beautiful lighting.  It's not one for capturing scenery and you definitely need a lot of space to take full body shots of people, but I can quite happily tote it around for days on end.  The colours and bokeh are amazing and once I realised that it had to be stopped down to 2.8 to avoid weird soft-focus issues, I fell head-over-heels in love.  It's made of plastic, which explains the awesome price, but I'm not fussy at all.

3)   The 35mm with a constant f2 fills the gap between the first two lenses.  It's a portrait-ish lens with a lot more room and just as much light.  I now need far less space to get pictures of my friends and this seems like it could also work very well as an everyday lens for the random, mundane things I usually shoot.  It's a good quality lens made of metal and makes a gnarly, zipping autofocus sound.  The best part is that like my 50mm, it's snub-nosed and fits beautifully and unobtrusively into a handbag.

4)  The 55 - 250, finally, relieves all my zoom-related frustration.  Now at a concert, I'll no longer feel like I have to crop every picture to a ridiculous extent.  If I choose to take pictures of a friend's wedding, I can stand at the back of the aisle and still grab smaller details quite easily.  And it weighs less than 400 grams and is very reasonably priced because it sometimes comes with kits.  I took a picture of Mel in the shop and the quality was perfect for my needs.  This is the lens that will come with me to the zoo!

 
It's not that big compared to my kit lens and it's not a whit fatter, so I'm well pleased.  (The camera shop guy threw in a new lens cap for my kit lens!  Thank heavens for parallel imports!)

The best part about the outing was that Daniel listened to what I wanted very patiently and asked about what I was hoping to get out of my full kit.  Apart from recommending the lenses to complete the range of length I wanted, he also talked to me about upping the ISO and balancing the other stats in such a way that I was pushing the equipment as far as possible, as well as dealing with grain in photos.  Even though these are considered to be low grade Canon lenses, he told me how I could use them well, for example, in shooting a wedding couple coming down the aisle, and why I don't need anything more expensive.  That is what I really want my photos to be about - making the most of the things that I have.

So, the price of today's outing?  Two lenses, two filters, a free lens cap, screen protector for Big's screen and some really great advice: $700. 

I'll take it.

Snacks 'n' stuff

I've been on an odd jellybean kick lately.  It happens once every few months or years and I suddenly get a yen for chewy, gummy sweets.  Jelly Belly is my poison, but I hate the every-flavour packs that we get in supermarkets because I really only care for the beautiful blue-flecked-purple plum flavour and the tart peach candies.

Right now, my colleagues will pick out some of the flavours I don't eat.  But nothing compares to the time in Birmingham two years ago, when I found a candy shop in the basement of Selfridges that dispensed Jelly Belly by the flavour and I filled an entire ziplock bag with my two favourite tastes.

Later that evening, I saw Derren Brown perform live for the first time.  I was the lady in the nosebleed seats, gasping in awe with a palm full of rattling candy.  That was a good night.

Since the Cold Storage in my vicinity is now devoid of even the multi-flavour packs, I've been settling for their slighty less piquant Jellybean Factory cousins and the last helping of Rowntree's Jelly Tots in Singapore.  Not as good as Jelly Belly, but they'll do in a pinch.

On the weekend, I opened a 12 year old Junior College bound copy of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  I had had an idea to write a story based on it and wanted to comb through it to see if it was as I had remembered. 

My childish scrawl and my JC friend Doreen's drawings leaped out at me.  Suddenly, an image came back to me of us sitting in a circle in a vast classroom, the afternoon sun slanting in through the windows.  Our teacher, a slight bird of a man, made us play the different parts and circle significant words.  We shouted and play-fought and slammed imaginary doors and when we were not reading, Doreen would nudge me on the shoulder and sketch flowers in the margins.  

I put the book down and texted her immediately.

There have been brief games of Draw Something with David.  And more snacks.

Miniature pears for breakfast...

... A raisin "California" from Breadtalk that Priya and I used to eat only because it made us think of Rufus Wainwright...

... and one morning, when I couldn't tolerate eating wholegrain spelt buns anymore, a nostalgic egg-and-frankfurter breakfast at Hans.

Our office has also been decorated with the coolest balloons I have ever seen.  You can write or draw on them and float messages to people. 

My neighbour, Son, is optimistic and always loving, as you can see.

On mine, I wrote "Sarcasm is always welcome, as are you."

The next morning, I laughed my ass off.  There were no less than four post-its on my balloon saying things like, "Wow, sooo "creative" and "This is the "best" balloon I have ever seen".

I could not love my colleagues more. 

Gratitude list

1)  Cute costume jewellery

When I was a child I was a hopeless tomboy and my mother lived each day in hope that she would have a girly girl to dress up one day.  Now that I'm finally interested in sparkly things, she keeps bringing little tidbits home for me.

One of my favourites of late is this pair of faux pearl and crystal wreath studs.  They are subtle and light enough for work but look glamorous and catch just enough light.

2)  Thank god for work

We get lots of stickers to use as incentives for the younger children and for a time, the office gave us these "index seals".  The kids don't like them (after all, who wants to mark the pages of textbooks they never read?) and so I have leftovers that I've finally found the perfect use for - as markers in my own notebooks!

3)  Wai Kit

My beloved just came back from what seems like an incredible holiday in Japan - he was just in time for the sakura, ya'll - and brought everyone in the office a chic minimalist coaster and a Japanese wafer cigar.  

Love letters after Chinese New Year?  Yes please!

Out and about

I really enjoy Friday afternoons.  Away from work, I get to squirrel myself away in my room for several hours with a scented candle and do whatever I please.  Sometimes, I write.  Sometimes, I knit.  Most times, I manage to squeeze time in for a nap.  Pretty thrilling, I know.

I also like looking back over the pictures that I've taken that week.  Carrying a DSLR almost everywhere you go is no fun, but it allows me to practise on almost anything that I see.  

Lately, I've been thinking that I could spend my Friday afternoons going walkabout in various places of interest to see what kinds of photos I can take.  I've been out with a camera before, but people are always patiently waiting or not so patiently sighing as I get down on the floor to take my fortieth picture of a random plant, so the idea of exploring for an afternoon at my own speed really does me.

Right now, the Botanic Gardens and the Singapore Zoo are at the top of my list.  (Okay, I don't have a telephoto lens but even if I don't get great animal pictures at the zoo, any excuse to go there, am I right?)

For now, here are some of the places that I've been wandering around this week.

The first picture and the one above are sights that I see at Waterloo street every Saturday.  I love all the buildings on the street, each with their own stories and histories.  Every week I show up for my exercise class fifteen minutes early so that I can take a slow stroll.

Some weekends, I walk to this playground down the road from my house and do some stretching and arm exercises there.  The children stare at me, but it's quiet and tucked away from the main road.  You have to walk down a lane between two blocks to get there and the alleyway is full of pigeons.  I'm not fond of what my friend, Julien, once referred to as "flying rats" but I do think that the sight of them perched all over hapless citizens' laundry can be quite amusing.

I particularly like this picture: it looks like Darkwing Duck is swooping down on unfortunate evildoers.  (The '90s anyone?)

And finally, this Thursday, I went down the road to Amanda's house for what I hope will be one of many swim sessions before work.  She has an awesome pool in her estate and we spent a half hour doings laps before eating some well-earned MOS burger.

I love the little garden outside her house.  It's packed with plants in all colours and variegations and it looks deliciously cool, mysterious and welcoming at the same time.

My favourite part is the pot fountain that bubbles behind this hospitable gnome:

I also got to meet three of her six cats.  In particular, Blackie was very charming, following his human all round the house and miaowing plaintively when he realised that she was going to leave.  He is so quick and sleek and black that I didn't manage to capture him properly, but I think what I did catch is pretty sweet.

What's in my backpack

I love handbags.  Love them.  I went through a phase a couple of years ago where I could name every designer handbag I saw from Balenciaga to YSL.  For a long time, I would stand outside the Loewe boutique in Ngee Ann City, longing to touch the thin, dumpling-like skin one of their Nappa Aires.

I don't have the money to support my addiction, however, and sometimes, when you're straggling between buildings with heaps of worksheets, books and assorted knickknacks, you just want practicality.  In this department, my Dakine backpack works every time.

And for some reason, I love looking at what people have in their backpacks because it tends to be a lot less precious than what people carry in handbags or purses.  I've been toting mine for the last two weeks and here is what I carry in it.

My Dakine (gotta love that colour scheme) is quite a hefty one with many little pouches and hidey-holes for better organisation.  The front pouch on the bag is made of insulator material and you could pop a cold can of coke in there on hot days.  I, however, use it for tissues and unmentionables.  People don't like to talk about pads in such posts but I like to keep it real.

My favourite compartment is the one right in the middle for the sheer number of pockets that is has.  The phone-sized pockets are conveniently foam-lined so that your stuff won't get scratched up and when I travel, I put my passport and valuables in the hidden pouch so that they're protected by two zips.

I'm terribly disorganised so compartmentalising things really works for me, whether in my head or in reality. 

This is the rest of the junk that I keep in the main hold of the bag.  The number of notebooks fluctuates depending on whether I'm making story notes that day.  On weekdays, the padded laptop slip pocket holds stacks of worksheets for marking.  On weekends, it holds my folded exercise gear.

It doesn't look particularly glamorous but I kind of enjoy how tough my backpack makes me feel - like I'm still that teenager who was brought up as a boy, bullied and who felt like she could kick the shit out of anyone who came too close. 

Mostly, I just like having my hands free.

Ma

A year ago today, I was having an argument with my mother in the car.  We had been straggling to the hospital in shifts and we were tired.  It was hot.  I was wearing something unbearably ratty and I hadn't had time to shower.

My father had made me go because he couldn't and after the three years of fighting, my grandfather's death six months before and the last week in SGH, it was feeling interminable for all of us.  I had barely known her before she came to live with us, and by then, she was deeply ill.

Just the day before when I had seen my grandmother, she was lucid for about five minutes.  Between the rattling breaths she was drawing over the feeding tube, she looked at me.  Her eyes wavered over my face.

"Ma," I said gently.  "Zhao An!"  It was how I greeted her every morning at home.  When she could still speak, she would say, "Zhao An!" cheerfully in reply.

At first I didn't think she had heard me.  Her eyes glazed over.  Then with an effort, she groaned around the tube.  An approximation of the tones and syllables.  "Ao Ahh."  I started to cry.  She slipped out of focus again.

In a break in our argument, my mother sighed over the steering wheel and the phone rang.  "Come quickly, Shu," my aunty said, tinny from the hospital payphone.  "She's going."

When we got there, she was dead.  My mother stood, crying silently by her bed, stroking her chest again and again and saying, "Mama."  We brushed her hair away from her yellow face.  Tied her jaw shut with a bandage.  Talked about her in hushed voices.  The other patients kept staring at the curtain round her bed.

We chose the casket.  Dressed her in black and gold brocade.  Planned the flowers.  Laughed and cried through strange Chinese descriptions of incomprehensible coffin-lifting rites.  

Just before her funeral service began, it occurred to me that Amazing Grace wasn't in the hymnbooks.  "Aren't we singing it?" I reminded my mother.  I was shocked no one had thought to ask the pastor about her favourite song.  We sang it in the end.  I couldn't make a sound.  I crumpled, hunched over the entire funeral, dripping silent tears while people gave thanks and prayed around me.  Until then, I didn't know how much I had grown to love her.

On the way to the crematorium, they put her in their fanciest car.  The speakers blasted Amazing Grace all along the highway and I thought she would have been so proud.

Four days of non-stop crying passed.  I went back to work.  We all spoke about how much of a mercy it was that she had left peacefully.  I started to think of her and my grandfather together again, in some place filled with light, beyond pain.

The thought comforts me a lot now.  That they are happy somewhere, in the way that they couldn't be in the last five years of their lives.  Walking in slow, bow-legged steps along back streets.  Reading.  Eating soft-boiled eggs.  It's a happy knowledge and I can forget that she suffered and slowly lost her mind.

Every now and then though, the one memory that catches me off-guard and undoes me is of the last time my grandmother wished me good morning.

Absolute balderdash

Last week over lunch, Eddie and Shirin told me a story about a game of Balderdash with someone they knew.  I held up my hand.  "Wait a minute, what's Balderdash?"  Eddie explained the rules of the game and I thought that it sounded like an evening of non-stop, rolling on the floor laughter.  

So a bunch of colleagues from work decided to meet for dinner, drinks and games on Saturday and test what good liars we are.  This is a group of co-workers that I often have morning meetings with and given the conversation we usually enjoy, I fully expected them to come with their sneakiness guns blazing.  

Guess whose house we descended upon?  (Why does every child have their name done in cross-stitch when they are born except me?  Tonight I will demand an explanation from my parents.)

Jia Min, Crystal, Denise and Shirin were as prompt as they could be and what I really liked about meeting with this group was how quick and easy it was to arrange a gathering.

Eddie had an Edward Gorey poster in her bedroom and since I'm not familiar with Edward Gorey, I thought for a moment that they were the drawings of David Roberts who illustrates Chris Priestly's Tales of Terror books that I talked about here.  Turns out their drawing styles are very similar.

By the way, I've ripped through all the Tales of Terror books since then and I highly recommend them to kids who love creepy stories but hate to read.  Some of the stories are just deeply bizarre, in a good way and sometimes when we have ten minutes to spare, I'll read a little for my students.  They love it and insist on having the lights off.

Eddie's dad and brother put together a delicious dinner, complete with cocktails made from scratch and a cheeseboard.  (I contributed the smoked cheese in the corner!)  I ate tonnes at the table then we continued munching on the chips and chocolate that others had brought.

A frosty Pimms cocktail with apples in and a delicious array of very tender meat and green vegetables. 

After dinner, everyone gathered round the coffee table and the game master explained the rules.  Basically each round, the game master picks one thing from a card like the one above.  It can fall under the category of a random word, a name, the initials of something, a movie title or a date.

Everyone has to make up what they think the words means, the significance of the date or the plot of the movie and then the game master reads out all the answers and players guess which the correct one is.  The fun is in just how ridiculous all the options are, including the correct one!

Also, look at that list.  How should anyone know what the heck a Pilwiz or who Plennie Wingo is? 

Our group of seven was fairly imaginative and the answers ranged from extremely serious and credible to the fairly ridiculous sounding.  The movie plots tended to yield the best answers because of the creative license taken.  Jia Min came up with a plot for The Adventures of the Queen (which ran something like "A priest, Charles Smith decides to embark upon a new career as a drag Queen named Clair Voyant") that had us in stitches.

Edie's brother, Harold, created a storyline for the movie "A Jar" which ran, "A mystery about a half-opened door".  Everyone blinked in confusion until it sank in and we collapsed laughing on the floor.

I only took pictures of half the attendees because the rest of us were sitting in shadow but rest assured everyone else was smiling this widely.

In between chatting about boybands with Jia Min, Edie constantly trying to break into my phone, scoffing snacks and shrieking with laughter over everyone's nonsensical answers, I had an awesome time.  Hopefully, we can have Part 2 soon!

I leave you with some scribbled answers to questions including the suggested plots of two movies, The Adventures of the Queen and my favourite, Dirty Little Billy.  I was going to say that you just can't make this stuff up, but um, we really did.