Chris Hansen’s blog

I think that I’m over my jet lag now; I’m sleeping fairly well, and getting up at a “normal” time (7:30 am local time). So, I can concentrate on enjoying myself.

I decided that yesterday would be downtown mall day, after lunch with Alex and before dinner with Mak. So, first I met up with Alex Au. Alex is one of the very few people I know and the only one I could call a friend who is in Wikipedia. We have known each other for about 11 years now and I try to have a meal with him whenever I’m here.

We ended up going to Lao Beijing in Novena Square, the same restaurant we couldn’t eat in earlier this week. It specialises in northern Chinese food (“Lao Beijing” means “Old Beijing”). We had Ma Po beancurd, which was different from what I have had in the UK but absolutely delicious: small cubes of beancurd in something that was close to a tomato sauce, but with chunks of vegetables and tomatoes; grilled dumplings, which were delicious and a bit better than The Well’s version (don’t tell Vincent…); and a pork dish where the pork strips were cooked, served with small square pancakes and slivered spring onions. Wonderful stuff. We talked over politics, world affairs, people we know, lots of good stuff. The staff seemed a bit lackadaisical, in that we asked for the check three times without response. We then continued to a Japanese coffee shop for pastry and coffee, and continued talking most of the afternoon.

I then had about 4 hours to kill until 7:30, when I was to meet , a.k.a. Mak, so I went shopping, as you do. I first went to Suntec City, which was an interesting place but devoid of a lot of good stuff that I could shop for. They had a small computer stall section, with a Dell store there–first time I’ve seen one of those. However, the rest of it was fairly predictably singaporean. Some observations:

• There was a very long line at the money changer’s booth in the main atrium. I now know why: the Singapore dollar had gone up against other currencies and people wanted to cash in.
• There are many shopfronts that are empty or under construction. I think that was the first symptom of the economy tanking here. Singaporeans and tourists love the shopping here.
• Up until the last time I was here, the way to get to Suntec City from the MRT City Hall station was, first, by a long underground passage, out of which you had to walk, into the outdoor heat, and up to a bridge over the street. They have now, as part of the construction for the Circle Line, continued the underground passage to Suntec city, with only a short walk in the outdoors from the end of the passage to the door of the mall.

While I was walking around, I got a call from Kit, who is the wonderful guy behind asianxhibit, a blog about his life, illustrated by great artistic pictures of Kit, suitably masked to protect his identity. We talked for a very long time, and I really enjoyed the conversation. I hope that someday I’ll get to where Kit is so that I can chat with him in person.

I didn’t find anything else interesting at Suntec City, so I travelled to Marina Centre, where I (again) walked around, found some slides I liked in my size and bought them, had a coffee and read my book while waiting to get to Orchard Rd. for dinner.

So, at 7:30 I was at Orchard, and, after a few minutes’ delay, arrived, almost sliding across the floor when he got to me. We had dinner in London earlier this year when Mak was interning at the Eden Project, so this was a “return engagement”. We walked to a shopping center that I’d been in the last time I was here and went into the basement restaurant area. We chose Indonesian food, and it was extremely good. Herewith are the pictures:

Gado-gado is a kind of Indonesian salad, with lots of bean sprouts, tofu, and peanut sauce, with peanut chips. I liked the chips, and enquired what they were. Mak kindly asked whether we could buy some bags of chips so I ended up with 5 small bags of peanut chips. Thanks, Mak! You’re a sweetheart.

Beef rendang is a kind of curried beef–very oily so stay clear of the sauce.

Nasi goreng, a kind of fried rice with stuff in it…closest I can get to what it is.

And, finally, something I’ve never tried before and the name of which escapes me. A kind of wall of tofu conceals in interior of sauce and vegetables.

Then, we got in touch with , Dillon, who wanted to say “Hi!” and had offered me a drink in DYMK when I finally got there. We decided to meet Dillon and his friends at a large complex on Somerset, which has been around for a while but the name of which escapes me. There’s a huge cinecomplex on the top floor and lots of shops and restaurants below. We met Dillon and his friends in a Hong Kong restaurant.

They were having dinner after gym at California Gym next door. But, you can tell that their appetites are very youthful:

This is Hong Kong French Toast, a very large cube of bread, French-toasted on all 6 sides and covered with butter and syrup. OMG!

Here’s Dillon and me, enjoying lots of light-hearted banter. He is thinking of teaching English as a foreign language, and we talked about opportunities to take courses in teaching that in London.

Isn’t that a devilish look in his eyes? You will note that half my shirt seems to be wet. I gallantly shared my umbrella with the umbrella-less Mak coming over from Orchard. As has become usual this week, a bucketing thunderstorm swept over the island last night and we were caught in it. Mak was on my right, as you can see from the shirt…

Dillon offered to buy me that drink, and I chose something that intrigued me: Iced dinosaur Milo. Milo is like Nestle’s Quik (for you USans) but is kind of malty as well as chocolatey. I asked what “dinosaur” Milo was, and was told it had extra Milo powder. I was not prepared for what arrived:

They float the powder on top! I can’t say it was awful, but you got a little capsule of powder with every straw-full. There is an iced Godzilla Milo too, which adds whipped cream on top of the floated powder.

Here are Dillon’s friends, Ian is on the right, and the lovely gentleman on the left, I’m sorry, but your name escapes me.

Then, off to the MRT and home to bed.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 08:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.