miércoles, octubre 25, 2006

There's so much more! - Part 7

In protest of Fall, a season I'd like to wish out of existence, I bring you the fan palm. I am a big fan of the fan palm. What a nice, little, well-behaved tree - never turning unsightly colors or losing its leaves. Fan palm, you rock my world.

domingo, octubre 08, 2006

And again - Part 6


I met Blue’s parents for the first time at the HDB Hub in Toa Payoh. Yes, I actually wore a dress just like the one you see above. Blue had to go there to help them sign some papers for their new flat in Punggol. Before saying a word, his mother and father both handed me red packets. Everything they did from this point on made me nervous. They said their English wasn’t all that good and insisted in speaking Chinese for everything except hello and goodbye. But they were obviously capable of understanding most of what I said. More about them in another post. Much, much more.

I’m almost positive this is the day I had that rule of giving and accepting with two hands drilled into my head. I wasn’t too thrilled with Blue that day. He always told me things like this after the fact. How was I supposed to know I ought to be taking those red packets with two hands?After the apartment business was taken care of, we went to the mall foodcourt for lunch. Luckily I had already learned not to cross my chopsticks or leave them in the bowl when I was done eating. Blue’s family ordered up a feast. I had one of those herbal soups with lotus root. I was so nervous I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I had to eat something. Why nervous? Well, this was the first time I would see just how much Blue's parents depended on their one intelligent son (they had another, but he was a good-for-nothing) for just about everything. I was also a bit weirded out by the whole concept behind the red packet giving - welcome to Singapore, we're pleased to meet our potential future daughter-in-law, here's some money to bring you luck...

Say what??


Have you ever eaten lotus root? Not the kind of food you want to be eating in public. It’s very fibrous and the clear strings that run between the vegetable and your mouth look like drool.

ps - I hate blogs without pictures so I'm illustrating. Quality ain't so hot because I don't have a scanner. I'm using my camera.