Easter Flowers

Mike’s in Houston right now, and it’s just the 3 of us here for Easter.  It’s quiet, but it’s nice.  Singapore prides itself on it’s diversity and support of all cultures and religions, so it has lots of holidays throughout the year to make sure each religion gets its time: Singapore 2015 Holidays.  It does have to limit the number, though, so each major religion seems to get one key day.  Christianity gets Good Friday off.  It works.

Yesterday I was heading to voice lesson (I am so far behind practicing for our concerts, that I’m now paying Masako to make me practice! ), and my phone rang.  It was a florist!  What fun!  He noted that he had a floral delivery scheduled for me, and wanted to confirm my address.  I thanked him, and noted that I would be home later in the day, and the delivery would be looked forward to.  Hung up, and kept walking.  Not two minutes later, it rings again…The florist, again.

This time he was apologetic, but wanted to check with me about the arrangement.  Turns out that the arrangement selected was for a ‘sad’ occasion…more for mourning.  Would it be ok if they modified it to be for a more joyous occasion, as he believes this is for Easter?  Hmmm…..ok….not real sure how fresh flowers could be ‘sad,’ but I told him anything was fine.  I explained that Easter is one of those holidays where for Christians it’s very solemn and sad (Good Friday) and very joyous (Easter Sunday) all together, so I understood the confusion.

So I was curious….throughout the day I was wondering what in the world could have been the issue.  Was this an Asian thing?  A Singaporean thing?  I had coffee with a friend after my lesson, who’s Korean, and asked her.  She noted that white flowers are considered for funerals.  Well, white Easter lilies are pretty common, so maybe that was it.

I did give Mike a call (I figured he’s the one sending the flowers), to give him a laugh.  He said he just picked out an Easter arrangement online!  Go figure….I’m sure he just went to the “Special Occasions”, “Easter” section and randomly picked an arrangement!

My arrangement arrived – quite lovely!  I couldn’t figure out what they ‘changed’ because it’s filled with white flowers!  Oh, well.  I’m enjoying them!

A stunning arrangement!

P.S.  Mike did say the original arrangement was in a vase/urn-like container.  Maybe that was it?

Mid-Autumn Festival 2014

We had a lovely evening a week or so ago.  Mike’s work set up an ex-pat evening out – dinner in Chinatown, and then joining the lantern walk for the Mid-Autumn festival.

“What?” you say?  Isn’t that Mike at a pool table?  Doesn’t look too festivally to me!

True.  We did start at the dinner, enjoying the food & sites of Chinatown.

Famous Singaporean Chili Crab….a must have, but not my favourite. Too messy.

Stilts on the street!

Our restaurant for the evening….good food! Right across from the Heritage Center.

Making treats….bamboo cakes….yummy!

Lots of choices!

Then talked the kids into wandering down just one lane in the crowd…before letting them bail to head home (they’re not into these festivals much anymore….ok, never were….).

Then Mike let me drag him more through Chinatown to see all the lanterns – aren’t the flowers lovely?  It’s really a neat evening stroll.

Along the walk…..everyone was carrying lanterns.

Beautiful lanterns….this year, flowers.

The flower lanterns were handmade!

Along the main drag….

Well, as we’re heading closer and closer to the parade, and heavier crowds, we popped into one of the many malls in Chinatown, hoping to sneak around the crowds to the other side.  Turns out, the organizers thought of us, and others trying to sneak through, in advance – the other doors were locked!

As we worked our way back, Mike happened to look down onto the other floors – I swear it felt like there were 6 floors below us, and we came in at street level!  Lo and behold……pool tables.   With such a pathetic, ‘please….wouldn’t this be much more fun than wading thru the masses?’ look, we decided to head downstairs to see what was up.

Turns out we found a great pool hall in the basement.  Filled with a bunch of 20-something Asians (no expats!), just playing pool.  No food, no drink….and no smoking!  A beer would have been nice, but actually, it was a lot cleaner for not having food and drink.  BTW, I thought the cue ball was really cool – it was white…but with dots!

Check out the dots! Too cute

I had gotten my pictures from the festival, so we just hung around for a while.  Had a great time!  Would highly recommend it if you’re in town.

To find it (of course, I don’t have a name or address)…..find the McDonald’s at Temple Street & North Bridge Road.  The Lucky Chinatown Mall is just to the left of it.  Go in, and take the escalators down to the basement.  Only about S$14 an hour!

The mall next to McDonald’s….head to the basement.

Just to the left of McD’s!

And some last pics of the evening…..

End of the night….

In the center of the street! Stunning!

Heading home…..

A tourist in Singapore

Last week I found out about an opportunity to tour Little India – one of Singapore’s ‘neighborhoods’.  There is Chinatown (think you can figure that out), Orchard (shopping), Holland Village (lots of expats), Jurong (where Timothy’s school is), The Woodlands (where María’s school is), and more.  Since Singapore is so diverse, and was founded on diversity, we have quite a range of cultural experiences in which to partake.

Today was Little India for me.  Ok, just as an aside – I picked it because it was November 7th…Wedn…..the day AFTER the election, right?  Yeah.  That’s if you forget, yet again, that I’m over 12 hours ahead of you in the States!  And with the time change, it’s even more.  I’m now 14 hours ahead of Houston, 16 ahead of California.  Needless to say, I was disappointed I wouldn’t be home this morning to watch results coming in.  However, (yes, there is good news to this election!) as the election has been so close (too close to call?) for so long, I actually didn’t miss much.  Just a bunch of CNN talkers, talking.

So….what did I experience today?

Little India – a tour where I was one just just a couple of actual residents.  Funny me – I just didn’t connect that this would be a tour for ….wait…. tourists!    I had a great time.

As noted, Singapore is very diverse – I believe about 70% is Chinese descent, but Malays and Indians make up most of the rest.  Indians came over w/Stamford Raffles back in the 1880’s, when Raffles put ‘Singapore on the map’ for spice trade.

(Ok….for those that know I’m a klutz…I was just trying to connect the camera cable to the pc – so I could give you pictures! – and I spilled my coffee ALL over….down to the cords….don’t tell Mike!!    …. I think I got it all cleaned up….I hope)

Back to Little India.  I had a lovely time – basic tourist stuff.  Learned about Deepavali (a holiday coming up next week), saw beautiful flower garlands (you present them to family members returning home, put them on the Hindi gods, and more), wandered through a Hindu temple (very interesting….lots of neat stories – many similarities to the Christian faith, and some differences….that’s what makes us so interesting!), tried some yummy sweets (remember….Deepavali is coming up, and sweets are a BIG thing!).

Also wandered through my first ‘wet’ market (Sissy – here you go!).  Basically a wet market is a big farmer’s type market.   But where I’m used to just a lot of fruits and vegetables, and maybe flowers and crafts, in Singapore wet markets sell fresh meat as well – fish, mutton, chicken, and more.  The reason it’s called ‘wet’ is that years ago the floors weren’t kept as dry as they are now.  You have a lot of ice melting, and just general wetness.  Nowadays it’s much dryer over all.  But I did pick up yogurt & spices to make curry chicken tonight!  I went to a spice booth and requested spices for curry chicken, for 4.  The gentleman scooped up a variety of spices (don’t ask me which ones!), put them in a baggie, gave me my baggie of yogurt and….  dinner tonight!

Ended the morning doing something I’ve always wanted to do:  had henna applied to my hand.  I have always thought it was so beautiful (and really, it’s not REALLY like tattoos! ….it eventually comes off! ), and for S$5 (about $3.25 US) I had my hand painted!

Check out the pictures!  For those that can visit, I have some great ideas for restaurants in Little India to try!