Chris Hansen’s blog

Friday

Friday was an interesting day. First, I had to go to meet Marvin, one of the guys I’m going to Cambodia with. We had coffee in The Coffee Bean shop at Junction 8 and got some stuff settled. I have to buy a flashlight (torch). mosquito repellant and sunscreen, and a towel. Then, I went downtown to Funan to get a cable lock and a portable DVD drive for the Asus Eee. Got a Sony that needs a wall wart but it’s relatively fast. Will need it to install some software. Came back to Bishan to drop it off, and had a packet of peanut chips for lunch.

In the early afternoon I went downtown to meet HWMBO, as we wanted to go to the National Museum to see a couple of the exhibits. While the museum space is lovely, we found that most of the exhibitions were, well, somewhat lacking. The one we liked was called “Doubleness: Photography of Chang Chien-Chi”. It was very powerful and it’s a shame that it probably won’t make it to the UK or the US.

The other exhibit (a small one) that we saw was called “Weapons of Mass Desier”, which is about consumerism after the Second World War. It was not very good and we didn’t think much of it, although the old Vespa at the entrance was interesting. WMBO gave it 4 or 5 out of 10.

Then we went up to Fort Canning Park, where we sat and rested for a while. A road tunnel has been built underneath it, so it is quite still and cool under the trees. Some cute joggers went by, and I discovered among the grave markets set in the walls (when the colonial graveyard was moved) one for Brother William Temperton with a very faded Square and Compasses on top.

Chris at Fort Canning (there’s an escalator that goes up to the park):

HWMBO at Fort Canning (we’d gone up the escalator):

Bro. William Temperton’s gravestone

We spent half an hour in the Chinese Herbal Garden, then walked down the road, stopping for a short while in the Singapore Philatelic Museum, and then passing by Freemasons Hall. I have pictures of all these, and am uploading them now. We saw a lovely orchid while walking down the hill:

Plaque on Freemasons’ Hall

We then spent a happy hour or so in Delice de France, in Funan Centre, sipping coffee and eating a very small pastry apiece. HWMBO was very agitated about a gentleman sitting in a very empty area of the restaurant, not eating or drinking, but talking on his mobile phone. I should have gotten a picture.

Over to City Hall station control area, where we waited for my brother-in-law, Petrus, and Roy Tan, our old friend with whom we had a lovely dinner the last time we were in Singapore. Roy is now an activist, it seems, and will be leading an event in a few months in Hong Lim Park. We then walked for what seemed like ages until we got to Marina Centre, and this Japanese pasta restaurant that Petrus swore was great.

I took pictures of the food, but will spare you them here. However, I couldn’t help but take one of Roy waiting for his dinner:

HWMBO and Petrus seem to have a biological similarity: they blink when pictures are taken. So to see them both with their eyes open, you’ll need to see two pictures:

HWMBO closed his eyes for that one. Now the other one:

in which Petrus closed his eyes. Would Photoshop it but don’t have Photoshop here.

After pasta Roy generously offered to drive us to DYMK, where we went upstairs to be greeted by Dillon, who is an absolute gem and a great host. I had a Manhattan, HWMBO had a fruit punch, Roy had a glass of wine, and Petrus had a Cosmopolitan (how SITC that is). There was a bed in the corner for us to sprawl out on (no seats available, unfortunately) and we drank our drinks and chatted until almost the wee hours. Roy got us back to the MRT, and I got back to Bishan around midnight.

Saturday

Saturday was a great day. I met for lunch at Bugis; we went to a Thai restaurant and chatted about religion, our friends, and such. Then we repaired to the basement for coffee. Picture is here, courtesy of the waitress:

I did not remember how tall and physically imposing Fonsus is (we met once by accident the last time I was in Singapore). After a short stopover in Bishan, I went to Woodlands station to meet Kevin for dinner. We had a choice of three restaurants, and I chose Crystal Jade, which had a nice selection of foods. We had Hokkien Fried Rice, Roast Pork, Cantonese Moneybags (wrapper filled with pork and deep fried), and Prawn Ho Fun, with limitless tea. It was quite nice. I didn’t take any pictures of the food, but in the coffeeshop afterwards for coffee took a picture of the impish one himself, and of what we shared:

Kevin

He looks really impish, doesn’t he? And then our waffle:

We walked around looking at shops, then went home our separate ways. A lovely two days.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 03:48 pm 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.