Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜发财！

Hello friends!

Last weekend (Feb. 12-14) was a holiday weekend here--and no, I'm not talking about Valentine's Day, whose normally tenuous but noticeable appeal in the Lion City was quashed by a holiday of the truest sort. I speak, of course, of Chinese New Year, a holiday which inspires Singaporeans of all stripes to think of the true meaning of the season--wait, what is the meaning of Chinese New Year, you ask? Well, besides the fact that it's a New Year (which doesn't really apply anymore, now that everything runs on the Western calendar)--not much of anything really. The main event is having parties and family reunions. Think of a combination of regular New Year and Thanksgiving...

 

Oranges and red packets, two of the pillars of CNY.

What Chinese New Year means to Singaporeans, as far as I can tell:
1) Repaying your debts (which also means nagging people who owe you money to pay you back),
2) Cleaning your house and putting potted plants outside3) Buying new clothes
4) Buying and cooking unimaginable amounts of food
5) Buying pretty much everything else as well, no matter how unimaginably crowded every single mall is
6) Seeing relatives, if they live in Singapore (or maybe Malaysia or Australia). Otherwise, meh.
7) Red Packets! i.e. getting free money (if you're a "kid"--kid meaning "unmarried")
8) Money that you have to give to all your relatives' kids and all your kid's friends (once you're married)
9) Oranges.

Yup, I think that just about covers it. 

 

Me, really enjoying this Red Packet thing :)

 

This is a bowl of Long Life Noodles, the traditional dish that you eat on New Year's morning. It's pretty good--chicken soup with noodles and wood ear mushrooms and fried hard-boiled eggs--mmm, look at that yummy egg. Yes, I did say fried and hard-boiled. They hard-boil it first and then fry it so it has that nice crisp coating. Then they put it in the soup so the yolk's all soft an awesome. Mmmmm....

 

Dan's uncle and cousin came into town from Melbourne for a week or so, so our CNY basically consisted of all of us eating several huge meals and lots of special New Year's cookies and chips (pineapples tarts--awesome! Google them...) We also went to my friend Katherine's house, which is near Chinatown, and overlooked/overheard the big celebrations, but I did not attend. It sounded too much like a parade. (Shudder.) But here are some of the beautiful New Year's decorations in Chinatown!

However, for lunch on New Year's Day we went out, because Merry had basically been cooking nonstop for days, and can you guess where we went? I'll give you a hint, here's their logo:

...

Indian food! Good guess! (Did you think that was a Italian man tossing a pizza? Yes, so did I. And I continue to think so every time I see the sign...)

Because of course none of the Chinese people were working and most restaurants were closed. So we went to our favorite prata restaurant down the street. Prata is a type of round Indian flatbread kind of like a pita, but fried. Hence the pizza-esque logo. 

And of course, we did have a small shout-out to Valentine's Day. Dan got me the Glee soundtrack (YAY) and a specialty Lavender-flavored chocolate bar from the Chocolate Research Facility. I made him an American breakfast (bacon, omelettes, pancakes) and a cake!

Please don't judge me poorly on my cake-making skills. The first time you try to flip, frost, and decorate a cake in a non-airconditioned, tropical environment, you will understand my pain. Basically, the cake doesn't stay together well (notice the horizontal crater cleverly disguised by frosting and the word "Valentine's" in the middle) and the frosting melts off. I had to keep the cake refrigerated at all times or else those chocolate chips would have slid right off the edges...

We were going to have a Valentine's Day lunch, but what with a late American breakfast one day and prata the next, we ran out of time.

Sorry, I didn't do very well at documenting the event in pictures--but I tried to make up for it by actually editing my pictures this time, so they're slightly more aesthetically pleasing!

Cultural Addendum: Attempt at African Food

I realized I had promised a blog update on my recent Facebook status about African food. I had seen this African food restaurant a couple of months ago when driving around and had been hoping to try it. Dan didn't seem to excited about the idea, so I decided to go with my new American friends Kathryn and Chris. They live just a few minutes walk away, according to Googlemaps, so I met them at their house and we walked over together. HOWEVER, when we got to where Googlemaps said the restaurant was, which also looked familiar to when I'd seen the restaurant before, there was no restaurant. We walked around all the nearby streets and alleys for about 15 minutes looking for it (and it was pretty hot outside), and we asked two people--Indian people, because we were in Little India--where the African restaurant was, and they both said they had no idea what we were talking about. Chris saved the day because he saw some African people sitting at a cafe and went to ask them where the African restaurant was. They informed us that the restaurant used to be there but had recently closed (thank goodness, I was starting to think I was crazy). Boo. But they said there was another African restaurant not too far away, yay! Sooo we walked to that one. It was a pretty long walk, in the heat. Then we got there, and it was Northern African/Middle Eastern food...i.e. Egyptian type-stuff. And it was practically empty and they menu only had about 10 things on it and it was overpriced and it looked kind of like a front for the Northern African mafia or something...so eventually we just went across the street and ate briyani and then followed it up with boring old Tiger beers. Oh well, at least the briyani was good! Not every adventure can be a complete success I guess. One thing that was a success-I caught the final MRT back to my house by only two minutes, so that was nice! And that was the attempt at African food. As far as I know there are not other African restaurants in Singapore. I guess I'll have to go back to the US to try some--who's up for African food between April 4 and June 7, which are the official dates that I'm gonna be Stateside? Hit me up!

A Dash of Culture: Hindu Festival, Little Thailand, Australian Visitors, Korean Barbecue

So here's a bit of an update on my whereabouts for the last couple of weeks. These photos are from January 29th to February 6th. (No, this is not the Chinese New Year/Valentine's Day post, that will come in a few days. I'm trying to go in order!)

So a couple of weeks ago it was not yet CNY, but it was a different local festival--Thaipusam! This is a Hindu festival of repentance...or something...where people peirce themselves with a billion tiny needles and then walk around in a big parade. Hmmm...

Actually I had forgotten about it, but I was lucky because sometimes I go out to breakfast with my boss, Mohanan, and his friend Chandra (both Indian of course), in Little India at one of their favorite breakfast places. So I actually caught the whole parade action on accident! Nice...My friend Kathryn was like "I had to plan to go see that!" So here are some pictures. If you're easily queasy-fied you might want to skip to the next section...

The top part is always very pretty, and their family and friends all walk with them to support them. I got more details on the backstory from the hostess at the breakfast place, but it's still kind of confusing. Something about penance, but also it's very desired because it washed your karma away in this life so you don't have to deal with the consequences in the next...something like that. Can't really see what's going on? Well, how about another picture then...

 

Yes those bells are hooked individually into his chest. And check out the face/mouth gear. Eeek...

Eesh. Again.

Okay, new topic. Dan and I were in the mood for Thai food, and since the Internet is THE BEST INVENTION EVER, we could look up "authentic Thai food Singapore" and get lots of results. Little did we know just how authentic this Thai food would be. We drove to a mall near the center of town which Dan had never heard of, and when we walked in it was like Little Thailand, for real. All the signs were translated into Thai, there were advertisements for phone cards to Thailand, a Thai supermarket...and every single restaurant was a Thai restaurant. We didn't think to write down the exact name of the place before we went in because we figured "it'll say Thai restaurant on it"...oops. I THINK we ended up at the right one...but no matter what it was super awesome. And I'm pretty sure it was authentic! Everybody in their looked Thai. So, food pics:

 Dan finishing up the Pad Thai.

Chicken wrapped in some sort of leaf, banana or pandan or bamboo or something...mmmmm.

Green curry. Super spicy and super tasty, although I wish we'd had a bit more rice to go around. The Thai beer (Singha) and the spring rolls were also good, but I'm tight on picture space.

We also strolled through the Thai supermarket afterwards and actually bought a few things. I didn't buy this, but I thought it was a great picture. This is chewy candy, probably like taffy, in four flavors that are just so unexpected to the pre-Singapore me, and yet very expected in Singapore, and especially in the Thai supermakert in Singapore. It wasn't even until I saw the candy the second time when I was checking out that I realized a picture was in order.


Dan's sisters were both in town recently, visiting from Autralia! Xiaoyi, his second sister, was in town from December 29 to January 20something, and Xiaozhen, his oldest sister, was only here for about two weeks, end of January/beginning of February. I don't have a pic of Xiaoyi, but here's a cute one of Xiaozhen and Dan.

Well, it's cute of Xiaozhen at least! haha. This was when were were eating ramen at a Japanese restaurant downtown right before she went back.

Speaking of Autralian visitors, Dan's cousin David was also in town for the first half of February. We went with him and our mutual friend Eun Jung, from Korea, to go see Body Worlds and then eat at a Korean Barbecue buffet.

Body Worlds was AWESOME, but you're not allowed to take pictures. So let me skip to the second awesome part of that trip, the food. Eun Jung said it was pretty authentic, and I would sure hope so because it was amazing. Words cannot adequately describe it. I will show you.

 

Yes, those are pictures of entire counters of raw, seasoned meat, ready for cooking. Mmmmmmmmm. The way it works is that you take it back to your table which has a built in barbecue and cook it yourself and then dip it in sauces. Nom nom nom. (There were also some prepared dishes, but those pictures aren't as cool.)

 

Dan and David approaching food coma. See the barbecue in the center? That grey cheetah print-clothed arm is Eun Jung, turning the meat.

One particularly interesting dish? Raw beef salad. Yes, you read that right. 

Doesn't look too appetizing right? I only ate that tiny serving (that bowl is a little sauce holder), because I didn't see it until the end of the meal and I was already stuffed, but I figured I owed it to you guys to try it--and it was actually really good! Surprsingly sweet. The beef was really soft and not too strong tasting. Highly recommended.

That's all for now, folks! There were yet more visitors from Australia who were here for New Year's, so look for more of them, and the general holiday activities, sometime soon. Hope you enjoyed the little cultural journey of today's post!