08 Oct

testing 1 2

Hey it’s me. Hello? Yes. Me. Hi!

It’s been a long time since I wrote here. I’m still here though, and I miss you. It’s just — you know how the more you put something off the more daunting it becomes? So you avoid it, and it just gets worse, and then you feel REALLY awkward about it? Yeah, that. That’s what’s happening now. That’s what’s been happening for the last six months. Nothing else, though. Nothing else has happened AT ALL. Because, you know, 2020. You understand. You’re living it too.

Anyway, I sit here and I miss you and I miss writing but there’s a big sheer wall of ice in front of me, a wall of things to tell you. “No it’s too much. Let me sum up.” But even summing up is too much. So let this post be an ice pick to the wall and tomorrow next time we’ll just pick up like nothing happened, ok?

Hey if you’re there, ping me and say hello. I’ll feel less like I’m shouting into the void.

03 Apr

breaking the ice

I have this fantasy. In the fantasy, I have contracted Covid-19, but because I’m in Singapore, I’ve had excellent medical care, and I’m now recovered. I’m sitting in my room discussing things with my doctor. In Singapore, you stay in confinement until you have had two tests showing that you no longer have a viral load, because it turns out you can feel like you’ve recovered but still be spreading the virus. Right now, the way it works is that once you no longer need hospital care you are moved to another facility where you can convalesce until you are fully clean. It reminds me of sanitariums for tuberculosis patients. Or WWI casualties, which is apt, because this also is a war.

Anyway, in this fantasy, I’m consulting with my doctor, who is telling me I am now recovered and ready to be released. (The amount of time I spend dwelling on the doctor depends on time of day and mood.)

“So I’m no longer infectious?” I ask.

No, I am not.

“And I cannot catch the virus again? I am immune?” They aver that this is indeed true.

“Right,” I say. “So, how can I help?”

At this very moment, as I write this, I am serving a Quarantine Order. There is a cluster of Covid-19 cases at B’s school, and her class has been put on quarantine. The QO is strict, but it needs to be. It’s what needs to be done to beat this. As far as I can tell, B is a second-degree contact of a case, and I’m in quarantine as her carer. As such I’m not that worried about her contracting it — but I also know that if she were to get sick, we are very lucky to be where we are. This is where the fantasy comes in. I’m already so grateful for the attention and care of the Ministry of Health — they call me multiple times a day to check on B’s wellbeing — and I know if she actually got sick that would continue. So, I want to give back. I want to help. If I were part of the herd immunity, wouldn’t that be the best superpower to have?

*

A lot has happened in the 14+ months since I last wrote, and these days no one will even care about it. The biggest news, and the biggest obstacle to me writing, is that I’m now working again. It is really great to be back in the workforce. However, I only went back to work last August so I both have no excuse for the preceding months of silence, or, by now, the lack of fitting writing into my new days. I have no real excuse. It has been oddly hard, to go back to full time work. Vexing, also, to have all my time taken up. But right now, sitting alone in the evening, B asleep and Dave on the other side of the house, I really appreciate it.

I’m sorry for the silence. It got harder and harder to break as time goes on. I hope you’re all doing well. I hope you’re safe. I hope you’re healthy. I hope you’re staying inside and practising Social Distancing, because we all need to work on that. But mostly, I’m feeling lonely and grateful, and I miss you, and I hope you are okay.

28 Jan

Favorite buildings #1: Ayer Rajah Telephone Exchange

I’ve been having another down patch the last week or so. Nothing major, nothing really to cause it, but it’s been a bit of a drag and nothing fun to write about. But! I’m coming out of it. Yay! So today I thought I’d take a break from the navel-gazing (because it’s dark and fuzzy in there) and talk about actual Singapore stuff. Because, isn’t that much more interesting than hearing me jabber on about the same old things time and again?

Here I’m starting a series about my favourite buildings and architecture in Singapore. You probably know all about the iconic Marina Bay Sands, and even the Art Science Museum and the Durian. But there are so many buildings here that are just gorgeous. The thing I love about Singapore is they’re not afraid to be daring with their architecture, even HDB blocks are cutting edge. And it’s all different.

So my first one is a mystery building. It’s over in Clementi, near the Singapore Polytechnic, and it looks like this.

Godzilla building, Clementi

Rarr!!!

And the mystery is, no one really knows much about it. It’s actually the SingTel Ayer Rajar Telephone Exchange building, and it was built in the 1970s to hold telephone switching equipment. And that’s about all that’s known. Why does it look like that? Why doesn’t it have any windows? What is it used for now? It’s been called the Tetris Building, and the designer, Yap Kwong Ling, said it looks an old rotary phone handset. But I think it looks like Godzilla, standing and menacing everyone. And I absolutely love it.

If you want to see it for yourself, head east on the East West Line towards Jurong. B’s school is over that way so I get to see it semi-regularly, and whenever I catch sight of it, I just feel really happy.

isn’t he adorable?

See? Absolutely nuts. I love it.

What do you think?

 

16 Jan

My Sim is more interesting than I am

Last week, on the last day of her school holidays, B did a 24-hour Sims challenge. This is something she found on YouTube (she watches too much YouTube) and what you do is watch what your Sims do for one whole Sim-day and then you do it too. Whatever it is. Watch TV? Yep. Screw in a light bulb? Sure. Die in a horrible accident involving said light bulb and a leaking tap? Well, hopefully not that; B promised me there would be no DIY during this day, “and also it’s not funny, MUM, the other Sims are still sad about that, STOP LAUGHING, MUM.”

So anyway. she spent several days creating our house in her Simland (with a nice view of the shrine for the one that died, I’m sorry but it IS funny), and then our family. She made a point of adjusting all the size settings on my Sim to their maximums, it was like you took a photo of a normal person in portrait mode and stretched it into landscape. It was spiteful, but I have to admit it looked fairly accurate.

(I wanted to show you a picture but when I asked her to screenshot it, she said I was “gone”. Gone where? “Just gone.” This seems ominous and I’m afraid to ask any more questions.)

Then she gave them a pool and a playground and let them free, and watched them for a day. Then it had to be scheduled, because she needed a full day without commitments and I wouldn’t let her miss tennis (there is no tennis court in Sims). This is a sample of her day.

0620 wake up
630 eat cereal
0635 watch tv
0645 go to toilet (waiting for this was hard)
0700 talk to mum
0730 leave dish on floor and wander off
0750 mum picks up dish
0830 sit on sofa
0835 hug dad
0840 watch tv

and so on. MY job for the most part was to sit on the sofa watching TV for the day, for which I’m totally qualified.

It turns out the 24-hour Sims Challenge WAS a challenge. It’s hard to be as boring as a Sim! Who knew? The biggest excitement was waiting for the moment when she put the bowl on the floor and then me picking it up 20 minutes later. We did have fun playing with the doll house when that was scheduled. She pretty much gave up at the end, when we decided “watching TV” could also be “watching YouTube”, and she switched the timings round so she could have a snack when she wanted. Oh, and she refused to have cereal for dinner or wash her own dishes. Fail.

So anyway, she went back to school last Wednesday and it’s back to regular programming for me. I think I unfairly blame her for me not getting stuff done on holidays. She’s actually quite easy to deal with, she just wants to play on the computer or watch TV. This is basically how I also want to spend my days, but I feel guilty letting her do it so I make us do things neither of us really want to do. I need to be better organised and plan more fun things for every day. And when she’s on the computer I should do my stuff. It’s hard to settle, though, when she’s there. It’s a bit like how I can’t really settle to give the house a good clean when there are other people around. It doesn’t help that she’s a bit of a chatterbox and narrates EVERY SINGLE THING that crosses her mind. I need quiet to focus, I need time inside my head. A blow by blow account of the current Roblox obbie does not help that at all.

So now I’ve got some of that blessed, blessed quiet, and I’m focusing on me again back to navel gazing. I’m tired of making new year’s resolutions (or Nicolamas resolutions) and them falling aside and being forgotten in the day-to-day. So I’m trying to come up with actual things I can do every week to make them happen. Maybe that will keep them in my mind? I made a plan for this week and alongside pay electricity bill and put winter clothes away finally ffs, I’ve got journal/freewrite every day and walk around Labrador Park on Mon, Wed and Fri..

But some things have been hard to quantify, which makes me think my goals aren’t very SMART. For example, I’ve got be more productive on the goals list, by which I think I meant to stop wasting time on my phone or watching TV. But you can’t just sit down at your desk for an hour of Being Productive. (Trust me; I tried.) You have to work out what you want to be productive AT, otherwise you waste it rearranging your to do list attractively. I suppose this is where all the work comes in, choosing the right things, because I’m doing stuff, but I’m not sure I’m doing the right stuff, you know? And the days just seem to melt away before I’ve even noticed, and all I’ve done is pay that electricity bill and faffed around with emails, and I’m not sure what else. And then I haven’t got anything to write about, either.

This sounds a bit stupid, now I’ve written it down, but I hope it will help. However did I manage back in the working world?

PS I hope my Sim is OK.

01 Jan

Can.

This will be my year. I mean, it really will, for in a few weeks it becomes the year of the pig in the Chinese calendar (although that supposedly means I won’t have a good one, this horoscope stuff is nonsense), and I am a metal pig. It also means I will be turning 48 this year, but we’ll skate across that information for the time being.

This year, the one starting today, this one is going to be mine.

David did some amazing things last year. He changed to a less-pressured job, and focused on his health. He dropped over 20kg, started doing triathlons, got really fit. I was inspired by him, and in the first few months of the year lost around 9kg myself, but then stalled and gradually gained most of it back. It was disheartening, but also I could see how I didn’t make it my focus, the way he did.

This past year has been amazing for a lot of reasons too. I have done so many things from my bucket list that I’m starting to wonder if I’m dying. I am very fortunate in this life, to live somewhere safe, and have my loved ones with me. But at the same time I’m kind of just… drifting. I lack internal motivation, and if you ask me what I do with my time, I can’t tell you. So I want to change that. I want to live my best life.

It’s not just that it’s the start of a new year. We’ve just come back from an amazing holiday in Finland and and the Netherlands (another thing I haven’t told you about; clearly what I do with my time does not include writing) and I’m feeling refreshed and happy and ready to make changes. You need to go away for a few days, sometimes, to clear your head. My head is now clear and I’m ready to be the best I can in this coming year.

I know I can

bangle

This bangle was one of my Christmas presents. It’s from The Mindful Company, a Singaporean store that makes jewelry with simple positive affirmations: Breathe, Gratitude, Live In The Moment. I chose this one, because it’s so simple, and also so Singaporean. If you ask a Singaporean for something (could you deliver this on Monday? can we move the appointment to 2pm?) they won’t say, “sure, no problem!” or similar equally-long sentence. They will say, “Can.” Or sometimes “Can can,” if they’re being extra nice. And occasionally, “Can not.” It is so efficient and Singaporean, I adore it. So I chose this bracelet, both as a direct statement whenever I am having doubts (Yes I Can!) and also to remind me of this beautiful place and how lucky I am to be here.

So yeah, 2019: for me it will be the Year of Can. What about you?

yes I can

It is very hard to photograph your own wrist

 

29 Sep

Crazy Rich Asians

So we saw Crazy Rich Asians. Actually I see them pretty much every day, ha ha yes that’s right it’s a documentary about a day in my life. Just kidding. I saw the movie, probably the last people in the world to do so, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was funny and sweet, and did I mention funny? And it made me want to wear nice clothes and pretty makeup and be skinny, and also to hide Dave’s towels and shirts so he can lounge around against doorways dripping water and telling me how he’s not worthy of me.

he is not worthy of shirts

I’d heard criticisms beforehand that it doesn’t really represent Singapore or Singaporeans, and of course it doesn’t, just like any chick flick set in New York with everyone living in cool apartments doesn’t actually represent how people live there. But, there are plenty of families like that here. It’s not unusual; there is a LOT of money in Singapore. And to be honest the part of Singapore the film showed was very small, just around the CBD and Marina Bay, and a bit on Sentosa. The rest is just as beautiful though. And Singapore was shown fairly accurately, apart from a few driving shots where we kept asking each other, where are they going? Because they’d be going in completely the wrong way for where they were supposed to be going.

(Actually, I’ve been talking to a couple of friends about it, and they’ve all asked me if Singapore really is that beautiful, because I’ve never really shown it, so that just proves how I’ve failed at my job of showing my life here, haven’t I?)

A couple of thoughts:

  •  I’ve never seen that many people at Changi airport at any one time. It runs way more efficiently than that.
  • they were staying at Raffles hotel but it has been closed for at least 18 months on a massive refurbishment project and isn’t due to reopen until next year
  • the wedding reception was held in the Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay, which is always covered in tourists. In fact one of the Supertrees has a restaurant in it (maybe they catered the reception?). I can’t imagine they could close that off for a private function, but maybe it could be done. Hell, they managed to seal it off for a film shoot so maybe I’m being unreasonable.
  • one of david’s workmates has been to a wedding where they transformed the church in that way. We have not. (We did go to a wedding in India that was essentially a society wedding, but that is another untold story.)
  • The friend lives on Sentosa Island (as established by the overhead shot of Palawan Beach before Rachel got to the house the first time), but she’s supposed to have walked there from Gardens by the Bay? It’s at least a 9km, 2 hour walk, and there’s no fucking way she’d find her way without Google Maps, in which case just phone the friend to come and get her, or grab a cab.
  • it really is that beautiful here. Hell, it’s even more gorgeous than that, they showed you so little.
  • I understood some of the mandarin! Major win! Okay, maybe just the song lyrics where they were kind enough to keep repeating it over and over the way people in the wetmarkets never will, but also the scene in the hawker centre where he asked for 1 bowl of laksa, a little spicy, and some of the other conversations.

this broke my suspension of disbelief

The story itself I thought was great fun, very sweet and funny, and the rest of the cinema thought so too. I only had a couple of issues with it, which I’ve hidden here just in case there’s anyone left who hasn’t seen it:

It was a really, REALLY dick move for Nick not to tell Rachel what she was getting into. I get that he’s not into the wealth and status and likes that she loves hime for him and all that, yeah yeah, BUT he should have said, “hey babe, that ‘little family dinner’ we’re having is actually going to be a massive party at my family’s mansion and you’ll need to wear something special. Let me take you shopping.” From a movie perspective the way they did it was a much more dramatic funny moment when her friend reacted to his name, but if that HADN’T happened she would have shown up in that little red dress and been horribly shocked and embarrassed, so from a CHARACTER perspective it was s shitty move. It was bad enough that he made her show up on her own (while he was already there dressed in a white suit, don’t pretend you don’t know clothes are important, Nick), but to not tell her what to expect was totally unforgivable.

Secondly, when Rachel first met Araminta she seemed dorky and sweet and down to earth, but she turned into a complete brainless bitch from the start of the hen’s night. I mean, I’m sure she didn’t know about the stuff her friends were doing, but the gold lame suit and the squeals of shopping at the tacky shop seemed completely different to the person at the hawker centre. Maybe it’s because you play different roles depending on the people you’re with (and those friends expect that sort of brainlessness) or maybe the difference was to show Rachel’s impression of her changing but I think I’m reaching for excuses. It was out of character.

But apart from that, I liked it a lot, and it’s made me feel proud to live here and to fall in love with Singapore all over again. (And if you think my life is all shirtless hunky guys and buying expensive earrings, well that’s not so bad either, is it?)

11 Sep

Toothless

So you may have seen in my Instagram that I did indeed go to the dentist about the tooth, and it had to come out. It was cracked, so badly that it showed up in the x-ray, and way below the gum. If it hadn’t been too bad I could have had a crown, but it was bad and it had to come out. Like, right now.

I had B in the waiting room because we were supposed to go out to lunch afterwards, but the idea of the tooth breaking off all the way down the root and leaving me with a hole in my mouth scared me enough to not argue. So I made sure she had wifi for the youtubes and off we went.

Now, the last (only) time I got teeth extracted that I was awake for was when I was 17. It was my top two wisdom teeth and the dentist pulled them out with pliers. There was no pain but I still remember the feeling of part of my skull TEARING away. I screamed, with the first one. He put down the pliers, went and shut the door to the waiting room, and came back for the second. It was just as bad.

(The bottom wisdom teeth were four years later, with a different dentist who suggested we do it under general anaesthetic. That was much better.)

So anyway, I was nervous, but dentistry has come a long way in the 600 years since my first dentist trained, and there was no pain at all. There wasn’t even much discomfort, apart from a bit where it felt like he was climbing into my mouth, it was so far open; he took a break about 20 minutes in and I thought he was pausing before the actual extraction but it was already gone. A bit of dressing, a couple of stitches, and I was sent home one tooth lighter.

I’m pretty certain this is how my dentist did it. Also, retractable teeth would make everything easier.

It’s now almost a month later and I’m fine. It’s not even tender anymore, although the front-facing camera on my phone has been getting a workout as I try to take photos of my hole to see if there’s any food stuck in it.

So what’s next?

Well the options are either a bridge, or an implant. You can’t really leave it because the other teeth will start moving around and ruining your bite. You could get a single denture, but the dentist said “no one does that anymore”. I highly doubt that, because I’m sure there are people for whom the other options are not possible financially, but in the rarefied world of Singapore expats, I bet he is right.

For a bridge, they make a fake tooth, attached to a crown for the teeth either side. Like a… bridge, you know? Or a big piece of Lego. The fake tooth sort of rests on your gum and it’s all one piece. The pros of this are: it’s quick, it can be all sorted in about a week and it doesn’t involve any more surgery. Cons: the adjoining teeth need to be filed down and crowned, which is a shame when one of mine is (surprisingly) without any cavities, and this can leave them sensitive; if any of these teeth later have problems all three are affected; you have to be really careful about food getting stuck between the fake tooth and the gum, which means poking at it with dental picks.

An implant is the better option from a dental perspective. This is where they put a metal post in your gum, and when that is healed they cap it with a fake tooth. You don’t affect the other teeth, which is a big Pro. But the Con list is long: you have to wait for the gum to heal from the extraction; you may need a bone graft if the extraction took too much away (and then that will need to heal too); after the post goes in you need to wait another 3-plus months for it to heal before the tooth can be added. In all it’s at least 8-12 months of work and multiple procedures. But you end up with a better tooth. And, if you think you’ll want to do that then you really should have the extraction performed by the specialist oral surgeon, who can take HOURS to make sure they’re leaving as much original bone as possible.

My dentist said the bridge would cost about SGD $4,200. The implant would be about $6,000, not including the price for the fancier extraction and any costs associated with the bone graft.

Now, I’m a good girl. I like to get the “better” option, because I want to look responsible and get the approval of my dentist (but not enough to floss regularly). But, the price and time stuff put me off, so I said I’d go for the bridge, and hence the cheaper extraction. Which still put me back $1600.

Welcome to the dark place

I was a bit upset at Dave’s reaction to all this. He was all, OMG that’s so expensive and we need to see what insurance will cover and my friend at work went back to India to get his bridge done and it was a fraction of that cost. And I said, you don’t even want to go to India for a holiday, why would I go there for dental work? And he said, okay maybe not India, but Thailand, or even just over the border in Johor Bahru in Malaysia, my colleagues use a dentist there that’ll cost about a third of that and they’re easy to get to. Or maybe even get it done when we’re next in Australia at our old dentist?

I’ll be honest, it was a low time for me. Dave is not a bad guy, and his reaction is normal and sensible, of course you want to find a cheaper option. Things here are so bloody expensive. But I was already feeling sorry for myself, and I was in the depressed part of my cycle, and I just felt so useless, like I wasn’t worth spending the money on. And angry because yes, our health insurance doesn’t cover dental, but when we were getting it we looked into it and it was way too expensive (like a couple hundred dollars a month) for what it actually covered, so we decided to self insure. So that is what we’re doing, we’re SELF INSURING, the money we saved will cover this already. And why is it okay to spend money on trips and concerts and nights out, but not on my tooth? And I felt sad, and guilty that I don’t bring in any money anymore so by definition all I do is cost money. I’m a liability. I suck.

Obviously most of that is untrue, and I’m not feeling like that anymore, but that’s how it was at the time and I want to be honest. And it highlights something, that I don’t feel equal anymore, because I don’t earn. All our money comes from Dave, all I do is spend it. And I know that’s not quite true, I do a lot of stuff to raise B and support him and manage stuff so all he needs to worry about is work, and I know there are a LOT of wives over here that don’t work, but maybe they have more money to begin with. Or actually do bring something in themselves. I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve got to stop spending and start earning and then maybe I can buy my own tooth.

So where are we now? 

Well, I’m trying to get in touch with my old dentist in Melbourne to see if it’s workable to get the bridge done there. And I suppose I should find out about the dentist in JB, but I’d much rather get it done by someone I know. And, I need to find some work so I can buy my own pretty things.

13 Aug

Back again

So I barely started telling you about my last holiday when I went away on my next one. Don’t you love long summer hols?

This time we had almost two weeks in Vietnam and Thailand. It was really lovely. We had 5 days in Phu Quoc, an island off Vietnam, a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, and then a couple more in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where one of Dave’s friends has just moved to, and which was absolutely beautiful. The only bad bit was Bianca got quite sick with a fever in Ho Chi Minh, and we had to wait another day before we could fly out. Now we have a battle with airlines and travel insurance to get that covered. It was quite scary, and then even after the fever she kept seeming ok and then flagging again. So we didn’t get to do as much fun stuff in Chiang Mai as we wanted. The good news is though, that our friend is wonderful and has given a standing invitation to go back, which we will of course take advantage of until he regrets it.

But I’ll tell you all about that later, I promise.

Now there’s just one more week before B goes back to school so this week will be filled with trying to keep her occupied and getting stuff organised. And, some wellbeing things. I’ve had a bunch of things on my to do list to do with my health, which keep getting put off because they’re not that important and also a bit tricky (talking to new people!) and now I feel like an old car that’s breaking down. My glasses finally broke completely (and I lost the lens), I think I have a crack in a tooth, and there’s some Lady Stuff that is well overdue. But this all costs money and I don’t really know where to go, and the dentist is bound to yell at me so I’ve been putting it off.

While I was away I did a lot of journalling about goals and organisation and things I want to achieve for me, and if I can keep the momentum going on that, this next year will be brilliant. Of course it is way easier to think about that stuff when you’re sitting in a villa in a resort miles away from any of your chores and responsibilities, not so much when you’re neck deep in them.

But we’ll see.

I’m going to finish with a photo that I took in Ho Chi Minh City. It was impossible to capture the craziness of the motorbike traffic, but this one gets a little bit of it. I loved it.

How have you been? Did you miss me?

09 Jul

I am very cold

It is school holiday time so we are doing the regular visit to family back in Australia.

It is also winter in Australia. Do you know how many pairs of cold weather-appropriate shoes I own? Just one: my runners. Everything else is sandals, and I just can’t pull off the socks and sandals look. So, I had to go out and buy some.

I always have to go shopping on the first day anyway, because B has inevitably grown out of things. My usual plan is to pile enough clothes on her to get her from the airport to the car, and the car to a Target, and just buy everything we need. This year we only needed a couple of pairs of leggings and a puffy jacket, because last year’s stuff I got so ridiculously oversized that they now fit fine. I’d feel bad about the rolled up sleeves and legs, but she only gets to wear them for a couple of weeks, and even though we usually manage to hit the mid-season sales I want a bit more wear out of them all, dammit.

Happy travellers, deep in a discussion about Sims. Look how short those pj pants are!

o anyay, new leggings for B, boots for me, and layers and layers of tops and scarves and we are set for the freeze. I brought my cool leather trenchcoat along and feel damn fine no matter what else I’ve got on. Although, I’ve lost both my hat and my scarf already. God help us if we ever went anywhere with actual snow, I have no idea how to cope.

We flew in overnight last Monday, as we normally do, and landed at 5:30. We finally got through customs at 7. God, Melbourne airport is shit, the line to go through customs snaked all the way round the baggage area. I mean, I understand the importance of biosecurity but all they are doing is making us queue to hand in our little card, how is that adding any value? The people who’ve declared something still go to be checked. The people who lie on the card still lie. You can pull just as many foreign-looking people out for “random” checks if you let them filter past you without the card. And everyone else would be happier. But anyway, when we came out it was still dark and the wind so bitterly cold and we only had our plane cardis on. But once we were in the car and on the road we got to see a beautiful sunrise.

Blurry

Last week we were in Ballarat visiting my mum, and this one is Melbourne, and at the end we’ll got to Queensland for a few days. It is a very quick trip. In hindsight we could have stretched it out a bit longer, our hols are seven weeks long, but there were Constraints and Reasons. We like to time the Melbourne bit to line up with when B’s cousin WiiWii (not her real name) (I shouldn’t have to specify that, but bogans) is around, which meant this week, and the family’s original plan was for the cousins and grandparents to go away for a few days from this Thursday, so we’d have to vacate then. Also, Dave is working the whole time so two weeks is about as long as he could stretch to be away. Really we should have done Queensland first and then B and I should have gone to Ballarat after all this to stretch it out, but I didn’t think of it. I’ll try to remember for next time.

It took a few days to catch up on the sleep lost on the flight

So far the trip has been filled with catching up with so many wonderful friends, and ones I don’t normally see. It strikes me, how many smart, clever, wonderful women (and men, but this is about the women) I know and like. And I’m so touched they like me too and want to see me! I spend a lot of time in Singapore alone, feeling I’m boring and unlikeable and no one is bothered if I’m around. I need to pull these memories out in the low times.  I feel so happy and cnourished by it all. And a bit guilty for being out and about all the time, but B has WiiWii and Dave is at work, so no one really notices. (Except for Dave’s parents, to whom I’m so grateful for hosting us and looking after B while I’m  flouncing around.)

So thiese are my days now, reconnecting and being inspired by my friends. And then at the end of this week we fly up to Queensland for a few days to visit our parrot and the friends who look after him. More wonderful people! It will be hard because my budgie Cabbie died recently, and I’m not sure how I’ll go. Will it make me realise he’s gone even more? But Sheldon is still there. I wonder if he still remembers us?

27 Jun

making zongzi (sticky rice dumplings)

It was the Dragon Boat Festival last Monday, and my mandarin teacher hosted a workshop on making sticky rice dumplings, which are traditional for this time.

The dragon boat festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar. It commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, who lived about 3000 years ago. He was a minister in the royal house but when he opposed an alliance, the King banished him for treason. He committed suicide by throwing himself in a river. The local people, who considered him a hero, rushed to rescue him on boats  and threw dumplings in the water so the fish and dragons and river monsters would eat those instead of his body, but alas could not save him. Thus the traditions of dragon boat racing and making the dumplings were born.

new words to learn

First, you start off with a couple of bamboo leaves, and twist them to make a cone. It’s important to fold the bottom of the cone over so the rice can’t get out, but when I did that mine ended up really small compared to everyone else’s. I don’t know why.

Then you put in the filling. For the sweet ones, it was a mix of glutinous rice and red beans. The rice has to be soaked in water for about 8 hours beforehand.

rice

For the savoury ones, the rice was then marinated in soy sauce for half an hour. You put a bit of rice at the bottom of your cone, then the fillings (marinated pork belly, chestnuts, salted egg yolk and mushroom) and top it off with more rice. It’s important not to overfill your cone, otherwise the rice will come out.

clockwise from top: chestnuts, salted egg yolk, mushrooms, marinated pork

Then you fold over the top of the leaves, tuck in the sides and wrap the end of the leaf around the cone, maintaining its shape. This looked fairly simple but it was nigh on impossible to do without squeezing all the rice out.

I was not good at this bit.

And then, you have to tie it up with the straw string. This is what mine looked like at the end. Some people’s had a really pleasing tetrahedron shape and neatly wrapped string; mine looked like a potato wearing a sloppy mummy’s costume. See?

oh dear

Then they are put in a pan with water and steamed for about 2 hours, or 1 hour in a pressure cooker (Chinese people love pressure cookers). Here is the finished product.

I have no idea how everyone else got theirs so big

After that you unwrap them and eat! Don’t eat the leaf, it is only for pandas. Also, normally you would use different coloured string or use bows to differentiate, but we didn’t so it was a bit of a surprise. The red bean ones are very bland and should be eaten with jam or honey. Some people mix honey in with the rice. The savoury ones have lots of flavours and were my favourite.

red bean and rice

And that’s how to make sticky rice dumplings. Safe to say I won’t be going into business anytime soon to make these, but at least I can eat them successfully now!

so damn elegant