Nameday celebration in Singapore

So it's my nameday. Yes, I know, the whole nameday celebration thing is so weird. Since I moved abroad I have had to explain the whole nameday phenomenon thing many, many times. But whether it's silly or not - it's something I am NOT going to give up, because it's Polish and I am Polish and hey - yet another occasion to get gifts and wishes so why not?... I have been sitting at the computer all day today, listening to the Polish radio Trojka. And all day they have been talking about Annas on the radio. About Anna (Ania) being the most common and the most popular name in Poland. And interviewing people named Anna, and playing songs about Anna, discussing books with Anna in the title and asking random people in the street how many Annas they know. A lot of people share Bryan's frustration - at some point he believed that MOST girls in Poland are named Anna. And DEFINITELY all but a chosen few have names starting with "A". As if we never moved beyond the first letter in the alphabet. Then he met two Polish girls, both of them named Iza (both of them in Austin) and it shook his confidence a little. Well, no matter what anybody thinks, I LIKE my name. And I like the fact that my name has a nameday. And I get to celebrate it. I don't get to celebrate it today - which is the actual Anna's nameday day, because Bryan is working late tonight and I am on duty. But we have celebrated enough over the weekend so I am pretty happy :). 

On Friday we went to dinner and movie. It was the second movie we've seen since we came to Singapore and our second visit to a movie theater here. The first time we went to a Gold Class theater but it's far away, hard to get to, outdated and expensive so we thought  this time we would give a regular movie theater a chance and see if we like it enough to not be bothered with a trip to a Gold Class to the other end of the city. Let me tell you - movie theaters in Singapore - not nice. The whole "going to the movie" experience here - not nice either. The weirdest thing is that Singapore is supposed to have what is referred to as the "movie-going culture". Allegedly seeing movies and going to the movies is a BIG THING to do here. Well, for starters, the selection makes me want to cry out loud - it's so poor. They only play Hollywood big productions here, the American blockbusters, and some Asian class B thriller or horror movies that I have no intention of seeing. And usually they play like  no more than maybe five movies in a given week in the entire city. I was sooo frustrated for the first few weeks. Scanning papers and websites and trying to find just ONE theater that would play something else than Toy Story 3 or the likes of it... No way. So at some point you just give up and patiently make a list of movies to see After We Go Back Home (whenever THAT is going to happen). On Friday we went to see Inception. Rotten Tomatoes said no no no don't go but given a choice of Inception and nothing we chose Inception. The whole premise of the movie was really poor and I am not a fan of Leonardo di Caprio (although these days I don't HATE him as much as I used to) but overall it was good entertainment, good suspense and good cinematography. So I was satisfied. Although the screen was the size of four tvs in our Austin living room put together. And the chairs in the theater looked like our kitchen chairs wrapped in velvet fabric. Not to mention like NO leg room - the theater is OBVIOUSLY designed for non-Western size people, and definitely not for the somewhat oversized Western people whom I won't refer to by names here... As for the symptoms of the Movie Going Culture - yes, the theater was packed. It was packed with teenagers and young adults who did all the things you DON'T want your fellow movie-goers to do. They ate. They drank. They chatted. They texted. They were on the phones. They treated the theater like their own private living room or a party room for that matter. It did get a bit more quiet as the movie started but it was not like they were watching in silence. And then the moment the first credit appeared on the screen they were all UP and noisy and laughing and talking and leaving and I just wanted to get up and do to all of them all the things one goes to jail for.  To add  to the fun of the experience, the theater is in a shopping mall. But of course - where else. Everything in this city is in a shopping mall. The theater does not have bathrooms in the theater area - to go to the bathroom you have to leave the theater area go out into the mall and go to the mall bathrooms. Which I can't even begin to describe what I think about, for fear of smashing the keyboard. As for the confections - the movie theater offers M&Ms or Mentos. And to sweeten the deal - the movie theater is on  the 7th floor of the shopping mall and at some point the mall closes so they turn off all the escalators for the night. So in order to get out of the theater and the mall you have to walk down fourteen flights of escalators. Being on escalator with Singaporians is a torture even when it is turned on and actually working. And I don't even want to mention the whole coughing thing again. They really take it EASY on escalators. Most of them text or do whatever they do with their smart phones when they walk on moving pavements or go on escalators. They walk really slow.  And its really hard to pass by them, because they walk in herds. So all that multiplied times ten when the escalator is not moving and they actually have to use their legs to go down the stairs.  Well... next time we are going back to the Gold Class. Old and far away and expensive as it is, at least it has a bathroom... Unless enough time goes by before another watchable movie plays in Singaporean theaters that I will forget this traumatic experience altogether and maybe give a regular theater at ANOTHER mall a chance...  Enough said. 

The highlight of Friday night happened when we were walking back from the theater. We discovered Emerald Hill. It's a place off Orchard Rd with really nice bars and pubs. Bryan claims he had been there once before but (was it all the beer?) did not realize it was the place and it was on Orchard. We walked by this side street and it was so lively with music and crowded with people that I said hey let's check it out and it turned out it was the Emerald Hill! We walked into a cocktail bar which served martinis at 15 S$ for 2 which is REALLY inexpensive in Singapore - usually a cocktail costs anywhere from 14 Singapore dollars and more. So I had two lycheetinis and they definitely cheered me up. The bar was one of these typical Singaporean bars that I knew they existed but have never been in a bar like that - the special thing about these "traditional" bars is that they serve you peanuts there in big bowls and everybody eats the peanuts by kilograms and just throws the shells anywhere. So the entire floor and bar countertop and tabletops are just COVERED with empty peanut shells. When I first walked in I thought it was part of the decor like the floor was covered with sawdust. That's what it looks like - sawdust. Sawdust everywhere. So I asked Bryan what it was and he explained - it's peanut shells... We did not eat much peanuts but it was still fun to just dump the shells on the floor. I know my brother-in-law would LOVE it there - he LOVES peanuts. So if he ever comes to visit that's where I am taking him to. We left the bar around 1.30 am and walked back to the apartment. That's pretty much the ONLY thing I really love about our apartment - its location. We can literally walk everywhere from here. And walk back from everywhere, too... And even at 1.30 am Orchard Road is alive on a Friday night. There are people walking down the street, and the street itself - this is an amazing sight, actually - the streets are PACKED with cabs. Literally, four lanes of every street are lined with taxis, all of them with the "hired" or "on call" light on, going somewhere. I have not seen so many cabs at the same time ever before. But cabs are the preferred mode of transport here in general, and when the MRT stops running (which definitely is the case at 1.30 am) they are the only mode of transport for all these people leaving movie theaters, bars, pubs and clubs... It really was something else to see all these taxis in the streets with no other cars around. Apparently people take the don't drink and drive rule here very seriously. As they should be. 

On Saturday we had dinner plans with some people from B's work and it was quite a pleasant evening. We went to Clark Quay where we ate, drank and walked around. Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. For me it was nameday weekend celebration night number two. The only drawback was that I foolishly (but happily) decided to wear one of the New Pairs of Shoes that night. Very pretty Camper shoes but they gave me blisters :(... I will break them though and I will wear them and walk in them for miles on end, blisters or no blisters - I love my Nameday Shoes. But by the time we got back to the apartment, having walked around Clark Quay and then back to the MRT station and through the interchange station and back home, I felt that my feet and my oh-so-nice high platform shoes have melted together and are now ONE and there is simply no way to remove the shoes without tearing some flesh off. I was absolutely convinced as I finally sat down in the apartment on the sad little imitation of a couch that when I take off the shoes my pinkies - at the very least - will not be where they have been for the last thirty six years - they will be still holding on to the oh-so-lovely straps of my beautiful new shoes. It was not very FAR from being true. But no involuntary amputation took place and the only aftereffect was that the next day, on Sunday, when we actually were going to Celebrate with a Nice Dinner, I had to wear flip flops, because with the number of plasters wrapped around my toes I could only fit my feet into some oversized felt boots or flip flops. So I wore flip flops. I wore the flip flops to my Fancy Nameday Dinner at the No Signboard Seafood where B. took me to celebrate my nameday. Even though the whole Nice Dinner thing did not turn out as nice as it was supposed to be (and not only because of me wearing flip flops) we had a very good meal - I got to try the famous Singaporean Chilli Crab. It's basically a crab that is stir fried in a very thick semi-sweet and semi-savory tomato and chilli-based sauce. It's served in a big bowl with a large spoon and some bread to dip in the sauce. As Bryan says - eating the chilli crab is not for the weak of heart - you actually have to dig into the crab, break it and peel the meat off the shell and out of the claws and all the nice and tidy things, as crab eating usually goes... But because it was my nameday (and also because I would NEVER put my hands into that bowl and that spicy sauce - well, unless I was like REALLY starving...) Bryan did all the dirty work for me, and he enjoyed it too. He LOVES the chilli crab. I liked it too, but it was a bit spicy for me. But I would definitely have it again. We also had some good veggie stir-fried noodles to go with the crab. So overall it was a good dinner experience, although I think that the restaurant is just a tad overpriced for what it is. And really - if you charge some 40 - 50 dollars per main course, don't charge me for the pickles that you bring out in the beginning and put on the table together with water, chopsticks and wet napkins (which are also charged for). I have accepted the fact that they charge you for the pickles and wet napkins at the less expensive places (they just try to make some money off you) but in an expensive restaurant they should just try and refrain from charging 3 S$ for stupid little bowl of pickles that no one even WANTS to eat in the first place. But chilli crab was good and we had some nice drinks afterwards at a bar with a funky name 7atenine which me - blondie - could not figure out how to read / interpret that name until Bryan read it out loud to me and then I was like AAAW that's a cool funny name ;). We finished the evening with some ice-cream... And I thought that was it as far as nameday celebrations go... But today - out of the blue - when I was slowly beginning to lose hope - the Parcel arrived from Poland. The Parcel infamously mailed by my Dad (He-Who-Never-Goes-To-Post-Office) some two months ago... Which, judging by the pace at which it got here, must have been traveling first to the eastern border of Poland on a  mailman's bicycle... then on a mule... and on a raft... and then maybe local Malaysian mailmen carried it to Singapore on their heads... or something to that effect... The slowest mail delivery system imaginable, all because my Dad decided that since he actually set his foot in the post office for the first time ever he would introduce some good old work ethics and law and order there. I honestly thought that the parcel would never make it. But it has! Today. I have lots of goodies now sitting at the table and looking at me. And I am looking at them thinking that it's not been such a bad nameday overall. On Saturday one of Bryan's colleagues from work, after hearing the whole nameday story in the context of me trying to tend to my blistered new-shoed feet on a nearby bench suggested that I should Name the shoes I got for my nameday and then celebrate each shoe's nameday and get some more shoes on the Shoe Namedays. How brilliant (if just ever so slightly sarcastic) was that? I LIKE that idea! But until that happens - happy nameday to me. And to all other Annas of the world!