Carpet Working

I came home half past two last night, which is the latest I have come home in a very long time. Ash was managing an event and needed help, so I did. It was great fun and I walked away with more experience than I had before. Every opportunity I get to learn something new, I take!

Fucking Bunnies

Our good friend Dawn invited us to go see a short movie her long time acquaintance had written and starred in. We knew nothing more about the movie than the name: Fucking Bunnies. It was screened at a place called The Projector, known for its high prices and hipster setting. I had never been there, John had but in another part of the building.

Cinco de Mayo - Singaporean Version

If you are planning an event, specifically a celebration with cheap drinks, do estimate how many people will attend. Last night when we arrived a Chimichanga it was so crowded! The restaurant was a hole in the wall with few tables outside. It was ridiculous!

One Unforeseen Celebration

Holidays and celebration has never been a big part of my life. I never really enjoyed Christmas, never understood Easter, liked Halloween for a while but later lost interest since the original purpose was lost to the modern world. There are some holidays only celebrated in Sweden, or in few European countries, which I did take part in but never understood. Such as Walpurgisnacht, which was last weekend.

Racing Fancy

A new first! I have always enjoyed watching horse racing on the TV, but now I have seen it from the VIP room with buffet and free flowing wine. What an interesting experience!

Four-legged Floor

There is an annual Pet Expo here in Singapore that has been going on since 2014. I heard about it over an event-site and thought it would be a small adventure to do. Either way, none of us had been to the expo before. It had its own subway station and is located close to the airport.

A Human Adventure

Months ago John heard about a NASA exhibition at the Art Science Museum here in Singapore. The website has been up on my computer for a very long time. I was super excited to go. John took Thursday and Friday off work, compensation leave from his work-trip to France, and bought tickets for the first day.

It was a hot day yesterday. We left around three o'clock, knowing it would not take long to get there and we had an estimated time of an hour and a half to go through the exhibition. The building looks like a gigantic white flower in bloom, standing next to the water from where you can see the Merlion. A large elevator took us up to the fourth floor. The view from inside the glass elevator was incredible and the size of the building was unbelievable. Then it took us to the basement, where the exhibition was held. We walked through the gift shop, already picking out things we wanted to buy, before finding the opening to NASA's exhibition A Human Adventure.

The first room instantly reminded me of the inside of the TARDIS from the very old TV-series Doctor Who. The room was a tribute to great authors and film makers that had very early ideas of space travel. Two screens showed facts about the artists. I recognised the movie where the space ship crashes into the moon's eye (but I have never actually seen it) and the only name I knew was Jules Verne. We then walked through a small corridor with facts about the first space missions - like launching Sputnik. There was a full scale replica of the satellite and it was surprisingly tiny. Just a silver ball with four metal sticks. A small TV was looping JFK's speech about going to space. It was inspiring and sad; he seems to have been such a great president and now look at USA.

The next room had the real deal. In the middle was an engine that had been used, they called it Space Flown. The backside was impressively complicated. A nose cone lied by itself, lit up from the inside to show of its fascinating cables. It, too, had been to space. Pictures of scientists was displayed on the wall with black panels explaining their work. I had difficulties standing still to read any of these things, my eyes were drawn to the modules. Along the next corridor lied a long, yet small, replica of the largest rocket ever built. The Saturn V. It was developed to send humans to the Moon. Seeing the video explaining the three stages of the rocket was educational. It takes a lot of power to go that far. The little capsule where the humans sat was very tiny in comparison to the vehicle.

The exhibition showed five types of space suites; the oldest to what John and I guessed would be the newest. In the background we could hear the speech from the first moon-landing. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. Behind the showcases were the two moon buggies, looking as cute as they do in the photos I have seen online. I like to imagine driving one of them on the moon, going over the dunes and glide downwards into a smooth landing. It makes me sad thinking about them still there, left behind since there was no way of retrieving them.

There were only two rooms left. First we passed through a smaller room with displays showing the food and the small utilities used back in that time. I found a small bag where the explanation said a space survival kit. To me it looked like 3D glasses and portable phone charger. I guess we can switch the common question what would you bring to a deserted island to what would you bring to a deserted space station? I have to think of an answer to that one. In the same room we saw a door that had been space flown. It looked like it had taken a few beatings with several holes and scratches across its surface. Imagine the sound of small rocks hitting the only thing that keeps you away from floating freely in space. Scary thought. I admire astronauts.

The last room was high in ceiling to be able to display the life size replica of Atlantis. Going up a small staircase led us to the backside of the display and we could see how it looked like inside the cockpit. Is it called cockpit in a rocket? There were four uncomfortable-looking chairs and a lot of small lights. Beneath, going back down and around the ship, we could see the small compartment where the rest of the crew sat. More uncomfortable chairs with the wonderful view of storage boxes. I will wait until it looks more of a comfortable journey before I will go to space. In the corner was the G-Force Astronaut Trainer - two black boxes spinning around. There was a surprisingly long queue for it, especially since one trip costed six dollars and only lasted less than a minute. I could not ride because of my sore back but I would not have gone even if I could. It looked like a nauseating machine - nothing I could have handled!

Before leaving the Art Science Museum we bought a white extra large NASA t-shirt and a white NASA cap. Outside the sun was still blasting. We walked over to Gardens by the Bay, having set our minds on a satay dinner early on. We both became sweaty after just a few steps among the trees. It is fascinating how well they block the sound of the eight lane highway nearby. We walked all the way through and had a tasty dinner at Satay by the Bay. When we had finished we were done for the day, walked to the MRT and were just outside our condo when the rain started falling.

Sweaty Weather Either A

For once, I left the apartment before John went to work. I am one of those annoying morning people. I was wide awake before my alarm started ringing at ten minutes to eight and immediately rose from the bed. Ymir lied sleeping in the bathroom so I even woke up the cat. I fed the cat and I fed myself before anyone else started waking up.

Annika and I were attending one of SWEA's events that started nine at Sentosa Island. I had estimated that it would take us thirty minutes to get there with taxi (since the estimated time with subway and bus was over an hour). Unfortunately we left the apartment quarter to nine and so we were already destined to be late. When we finally arrived, after spending too much money getting there, there was no group waiting for us. We looked around for quite a while, asking people if they had seen a group of women walking past. They were not there, so we started walking with the sea on one side and amazing buildings on the other.

After a while we bumped into a group of women, speaking a language we recognised and asked them if they were SWEA. Yes, well of course they were. Most of them were dressed in gym-clothes but a few, just like Annika and I, wore regular clothes. There was no indication on the website that this was a power-walk, thus there seemed to be some confusion about the tempo. The group was between ten and fifteen women, but we only walked with four of them. Eventually they caught up and we met some of the others. Nobody was even close to my age. All of them were between thirty five and sixty. It is not that I can not hang out with people in that age since some of our friends here in Singapore are much older than we are, but my expectations had been where I thought I could at least meet one in my age and make a friend. One of them recommended a young woman living at d'Leedon and she could not be more than twenty five. Another gave me the number of her daughter who was apparently the same age as me (if not one year older or so).

The group came back to the point where they had started. Some left to go home and others wanted a fika. We decided to go to Joe & the Juice which I think is overpriced for small portions. Annika bought us each a juice and shared an avocado chicken sandwich. We sat down amongst our fellow countrymen and talked about things. The woman to my left talked about SWEA and tried to show me where dengue-cases had appeared in Singapore. She also tried to invite me to a group on Facebook but claimed that there was more information on the computer. I bit my tongue to not be rude and explain a thing or two. The woman to my right talked about moving to Singapore recently with her husband. She told me I looked like her sister's daughter (or something) and I had trouble understanding if that was something I could answer to. Our conversation was short. The two women then leaned over my chair to talked to each other about a family situation where left-woman's dad had gotten diagnosed with cancer. I felt like I could not interrupt and not join the conversation. It felt awkward and I felt in the way. Eventually I had enough and asked if the left-woman wanted to switch places so that I could talk to Annika. I asked if we could leave.

Annika and I explored the small east side of Sentosa Island. Lots of huge villas, most looking seemingly alike, not many looked like someone was living there. At the end of the island we saw the marina and the skyscrapers. To the left we saw a green area, possibly a golf course even though I failed to see any flags. There we saw a bird. It looked like a black pelican with shorter beak. Its wings were half folded and it had something sticky in its beak. It did not look well. We decided to go back the way we had come and find someone to tell. Annika explained the situation to a guard sitting in a little booth in the middle of the road. He said he would call and reached for his phone as we left, but when I looked back he was not on the phone. I did not trust him. It started to rain and we found shelter on a floating platform with a group of Indian workers. We stayed a little while for the rain to calm down and in the meantime we decided where to eat. Annika asked for the direction to the bus that would take us to the bridge over to HarbourFront.

On our way to the bus stop we walked to this door that I had noticed at our arrival that morning. It said Rangers and so we knocked to let them know about the bird. At first no one answered the door, but when we turned our backs two rangers opened it behind us. They seemed confused. I stammered an explanation, having been talking Swedish the whole day my English had not been warmed up, until Annika helped and made the errand quick. The ranger took my name and number. It felt like they cared and would go look for the bird. Unfortunately I never received any calls about this so I have no idea what happened to it.

At the bus Annika found four Danish women and indulged in a casual conversation. They told us where to get off and we followed them. I recognised where we were and said we should go the other way, but Annika wanted to follow the Danes since they seemed to know where they were going. For ten minutes we walked on a small walkway next to a busy highway. It stopped quite suddenly in the middle of the road with three lanes of traffic on either side of us. One of the Danes ran across to one side but there was no way out over there. We followed them to the right instead, where we could see a staircase, and thus walked swiftly across the street. I skipped ahead. I felt angry since I had been right about the way we should have gone and the stupid Danes led us to the middle of a road. Never trust Danes.

We made it to HarbourFront intact but I had gotten two large spots on my shirt right where it folded into my armpits. I had to get a new shirt. I hurried to Cotton:On and brought a bunch of shirts to the dressing-room. I picked two, two for twenty, bought them hastily and met Annika outside. We bought drinks and took the subway towards Chinatown. It was five minutes away so it went fast.

Of course we went back to our new favourite restaurant. It was Annika's last day here with us so we went to Genki Sushi. Please read this to understand what this restaurant means to us. It was a late lunch. I bought a package of their green tea and have to say it was the first tea I ever bought for myself. Then we split. Annika went to get massage somewhere and I headed home. I was really tired from an early morning and an active day. I declined going out again to have dinner with John and Annika and left them to eat dumplings in Holland Village by themselves. I regret not getting those delicious buns. My dinner was a sad bowl of yogurt and cereal.

Food-day

Yesterday we found a new hawker centre nearby. A couple of acquaintances had asked us why we had not been there before and seemed honestly surprised when they learned that we had not. The only reason was that we did not know about it. It was very close to the street where we walk a lot, between the Botanic Garden station and FairPrice. It was as simple as crossing a street and there it was, behind some bushes lay a very Malaysian hawker centre. It was crowded even though it was three in the afternoon. Half of the stalls were closed and the ones that were open had little food left. I found two stalls that sold satay but both were out. John wanted ayam penyet, but they were out of that too. Instead we ordered nasi lemak - fried chicken with rice, a fried tofu and a small bowl of onion soup. Apart from the soup everything was cold and tasted like it had been cooked hours before. Even though the food was very disappointing the centre felt good. All of us wanted to return another day at a better time.

Before we left Annika bought an avocado/banana smoothie (Avocanana) to me and a carrot/orange/apple juice for herself. Mine was okay, not amazing but still very good. Another time I will try something else. Annika's was fresh and thin, easy to drink and tasteful. We headed towards FairPrice to do a bit of grocery shopping. We ended up with more than I had expected. Annika found a fresh fish, sea bass, which she thought we could eat for dinner. We bought it and a smaller one for less than a dollar that would be Ymir's dinner. Annika was kind enough to pay for everything which we were very grateful for! It was a lot to carry but eventually we made it back home.

When it was time to start making dinner Annika and I gathered in the kitchen together. We looked up a recipe online on how to cook the fish but ended up going against the instructions anyway. I filled the fish with onions and lemons after Annika's suggestions and folded the whole thing inside aluminium. I put it in the oven to start cooking while Annika cleaned potatoes that would go around. I chopped some red onions and spread both potatoes and onions around the package in the oven.

Then I fried the smaller fish for Ymir. When it was done Annika showed me how to separate the fishmeat from the skeleton, but still I had to fiddle out many bones afterwards. John joined me to sing for the cat and present the new fish for the little guy. He turned one year old on the twenty ninth of January. Happy birthday, Ymir! After tasting some small pieces of the fish he abandoned the thoughtful gift from his humans.

The human's dinner was a simple meal that filled our bellies. The white fish had some taste but needed to be enhanced with salt and lemon. The potatoes was my kind of softness; not too mushy but not so chewy either. They had a nice balance of pepper and salt on them so no need to exaggerate the taste. To this we had a way too simple salad containing tomato, cucumber and baby spinach. I would have liked something more to complete it, like corn and cheese.

We finished the day in the sofa watching a movie. It was called Captain Fantastic and was really good. The theme was unusual; about a family of six children living out in the forest, the mom is not present in person but her spirit was the essence of the movie. I really recommend seeing it. It was two hours long but managed to feel much longer. The ending had a small plot hole, but could be overlooked if you are not too picky. As for me it was something unresolved and I could not understand how the movie, having been so clear and precise throughout the two hours, could leave it at that when it was only a few minutes left. It is like they ran out of minutes and could not squeeze in an explanation.

National Exhibitions

On Sunday John and I went in to Bugis to have lunch before we met our friend. We decided to visit the Food Junction's food court, this only being our second visit even though we have been in the area many times. I had no specific desires and so John had to take the lead. After passing by every stall possible we retraced our steps and ordered Indonesian food. John had nasi briyani, chicken breast with curry rice, and I had ayam penyet, a mild chicken leg with plain rice under chicken floss (I also added more vegetables than the lady served me). We had not yet reserved a table, by placing napkins or something like it on top, and thought we would find one quite easily in a very busy food court at the busiest lunch hour on a Sunday. But before we went to hunt down a table we bought drinks. Might as well since we had no idea where we were going. We had food in one hand and drinks in the other and started looking for a table. There! Without much confusion or searching we found one, made our way to it before it was taken and had our meal hot and tasty. Very good - the chicken floss on top of the rice was delicious!

We were close to the National Museum and so we decided to walk there. It was a thirty four degrees hot winter day (so strange) and we were sweating before even making it out in the sun. We used John's new phone to get directions and started walking. Soon I realised we had walked there once before, with Annika and Thomas in September 2016. I had to send them the information about our situation and got a response that they were having minus five degrees and a grey sky. Such different worlds and yet the same planet.

We arrived at the museum some half an hour before we were supposed to meet our friend. At first we thought we would go inside and see some exhibitions without him. There was a small line up to the counter where we then could see the pricing for the two exhibitions. One being the permanent gallery showing Life of Singapore and the other was down in the basement called What Is Not Visible Is Not Invisible. We were unsure which ones our friend wanted to see and concluded we should wait. We sat outside in the open doorway, which cooled us with freezing AC from the lobby, until John received a text saying our friend would be even later than expected. Business meeting or something like it.

John and I bought two tickets for all exhibitions, costing us eighteen Singaporean dollars each. We took the elevator up to the second floor (yes, we were at the first floor but who can handle stairs when it is sweaty business to just exist?) and entered the first room - Life in Singapore: Modern Colony. It displayed clothes and furniture from the 1920s to 1930s. I found it a bit bleak and boring, which was sad since I truly enjoy hearing about that decade. I found a gramophone that I would want to own, but sadly it was hidden behind reflective glass and I could not get a good look.

Second room showed Life in Singapore: Surviving Syonan (~1940s - 1950s). Personally I thought this was the most interesting since I know shamefully little about history. I had John hanging over my shoulder while reading facts hanging on the wall. I walked around and understood the people, the why and how, the build up since, and at one point it dawned on me - this was not long ago. While in there our friend arrived and came to meet us. I greeted and then walked away, perhaps looked a bit insolent but I was deeply focused on the story in the room and the artefacts from that time.

Third exhibition we saw was called Life in Singapore: Growing Up (1950s - 1960s) where they had the an old bike belonging to LKY, the Father of Singapore. It was mainly about school - songs, books, toys, etc. but in a smaller room furthest in I found something I have never seen and was mesmerised by. I forgot to take a photo of the description so I have no idea what is it called. Apart from this confusing creature there were three windows displaying different things. Our friend explained them. In one there was small games like marbles, small sandbags and a slingshot. In the next one over they showed hairstyles from the time when Elvis Presley was huge. In the last they showed food which our friend explained was special treats from the different nationalities living in Singapore during that time.

Last exhibition that is permanently there was Life in Singapore: Voices of Singapore (1970s). This room had a strange display of pictures from around Singapore during that decade, but it was made of several small screens that did not lay flat together but stuck out from the wall in different forms. Looked like cubes in various sizes placed in an illogical order. I sat down behind two men that enjoyed the view and soon I discovered that those two men were from Sweden! The world is huge but our planet is small. I enjoyed their conversation much more than the photos from Singapore. After they headed to the backroom I looked at the posters of movies, covers from music albums and a dress and a suit from a famous performance which I knew nothing about.

    In the backroom there were seats made to look like cars to create the feeling of a drive-in theatre. The screen showed old videos from the 70s. I took a seat at the back of a truck but realised it was not very comfortable. When a couple of women left, John wanted to sit in the front car and so we moved over there. The seats were comfortable but now we had the frame around the front window of the car in the middle of the screen.

We were then done with the permanent exhibitions and crossed into the Glass Atrium. It reminded me of an airport in Stockholm. The vast space to the ceiling, the escalators everywhere, the walls covered by windows. It was a lifting feeling to walk out there. We entered the Glass Rotunda and found ourselves on a bridge where the ceiling was bent and showed falling flowers. Immediate interest! We crossed the bridge and came out on a ramp which led in a full circle around the spherical room. Along the ramp was a playing video of a forest. To be honest not very good looking or well made since the animals were stiff and got stuck. It was still lovely to see. It went from daytime, to a cave (when under the platform from where the forest had begun) and into the night of the forest. 

At the end of the ramp we came into the room underneath the bridge where this exhibition had started. Inside there was a fair amount of people laying on the floor, occupying huge pillows. I found a spot on one of the pillows where two girls tried to take it all to themselves. I puffed it up and asked John to lie down next to me. Suddenly the flowers were falling all around us. A forest grew around us and moon bears sat washing themselves in the night. It was peaceful and relaxing. 

There was a short exhibition about old trees. It was not very interesting. The photos were bleak which for me lost all of the trees energy and grandiosity. I suppose it was to get the feeling of it being really old photos but when photos looked like that the trees in the pictures were not that huge. I think the idea fell flat and it was a sad walk-through.

We came out into the Singapore History Gallery which displayed when the British arrived and made it their colony. There was a short opening of how it was before, with a ship to walk around and then the story of who came there and what happened. John read some of it to me and I understood some of it too. Not much. By that time my feet were beginning to hurt and I had to sit down while they kept walking around in the open space. John liked the hat tunnel and we strolled through it gleefully.

We kept walking further in and was suddenly in the invasion years again. A video showed how Japan worked its way down to Singapore and how many years that took. A small tank was in the middle of the room together with a chart of the commands in the Singaporean army. I sat down on old uncomfortable chairs to hear a man talk about the day it was clear they had given up. "The planes sounded differently. For days they had gone boom boom but that day it was just the sound of them passing by." (It is not a direct quote, but something like it.)

There was a lot to see in that section but I felt like I had enough information to process from the exhibition on the second floor so I did not read that much. Next room contained cardboard men with recorded voices and a podium where, if you stood just right, you could hear a speech from their recently deceased leader NAME? He seemed like a great person and a good man. He talked like he cared about the country and I am kind of sad that I missed out on him, having moved here only a years or two after he passed away.

After that I really wanted some sugar and the exit was just across from a café. My legs steered me in that direction but when I had entered John pointed out that we only had one more exhibition to see and then we could leave for dinner. I agreed and we escalated down to the basement.

This one was called What Is Not Visible Is Not Invisible. We showed our tickets and entered. This was a maze of small rooms showing things. First room was a thin blanket held up by ropes fastened in the ceiling. Underneath was a fan blowing up and forming a bulb in the sheet. Very inspirational? I have no idea. It continued like this. Videos showing nothing - a man sleep talking for four hours, a horse standing in the middle of a road for one and a half hour, a light slowly growing until the screen is completely white. It was very pretentious. Only fun room was when we came to the middle. There we found a ring with lamps where I stood and enjoyed myself. Then John saw a room full of balloons and could not contain himself and scattered inside. He laughed so much! He could not stand still when I wanted to take photos and when he did he wanted to make it extravagant (hide amongst the balloons and jump out in time for the photo). There was also a sheet hanging from the wall in the room, covered in blue paint and when I moved closer to read the name of the art it said Paint on sheet. Very inspirational!

We found a bomb shelter, which our friend said was not really a bomb shelter but a strong room. I found a camera in a corner and the screen outside so I asked John to step inside. Being the great man I love deeply he started acting out and striking pose after pose as if he was really in a strong room. At the stand where the screen was I found a large paper, Shelter Schematics, showing what potential psychological settings might happen when in there. On the other side there was a small crop-out shelter which I will not be doing.

We left the museum around five and took our friends' car to Arab Street. John have long wanted to go there but we had not before that day. It was beautiful, felt like being abroad all of a sudden! We searched for a place to have tap beer and dinner but were unable to find both. We decided to sit down at the most crowded bar and have appetisers. We drank really good beer that was well needed after a long day walking around the museum and also ordered satay to share. Here you get seven sticks of chicken and beef, a bowl of red onion and pressed rice. Also a bowl with the satay sauce of course. It was really good, I had the most because it was that good. No shame!

I looked at the map and discovered that one of the stared places was nearby. I have marked some restaurants we would like to visit and when in that area I can find exactly where to go. So I led the way to Kaw Kaw SG. It was a burger place with a lot on their menu, some expensive and some to a relatively good price. We ordered and waited. I had Classic Chicken which was a fried thigh between buns. It was good, not the best ever but surprisingly tasty! Maybe I had low expectations but it managed to exceed them at least. To that I had nachos but fries was also an option which John took to his Smokey Beef Bacon. Sadly enough the bacon was very chewy and he had to take it out of the burger. I tried a piece of the bacon and sat for minutes chewing. Bacon bad, burger good!

Of course our friend wanted to share dessert with us and we are not people that say no to desserts. He drove us to a side street near Bugis and ordered some very Chinese sweets. We had rice-balls with sesame inside, floating in a sea of sesame sauce. Ice cream with mango and shaved ice. A plate of mangoes which I tried to eat all by myself but John stopped me. We were really full after that. The time was almost nine when we eventually headed home. Our friend was kind enough to drive us. It was a good day. Both of us really enjoy museums and good food. I will start looking for another to visit soon!