Wow, time has just been flying by! We realized yesterday that (if nothing changes) we have just a little over two weeks to go here... And August has really not been a very eventful month for us. Mostly because of B's work - it dominated our lives for the first two weeks of August, as Very Important Things were happening at his work and Very Important People came from all over the world to be a part of these Very Important Days... Which introduced some variety into our lives, I met a lot of new people from B's company and I enjoyed it thoroughly - not every day do I get to sit at a table with people from Japan, China, India, Australia and US (and Poland...) at the same time - so much information to exchange, so much knowledge to gain about culture and places I have never been to.. But also so much practice in understanding various accents of English - I am getting good at it but still have a looong way to go... The sand settled at the end of last week when the last group of people left and we stayed behind... Getting back to our pre-Hectic Two Weeks routines.
Somewhere around that time B tried Durian for the first time. It was a work thing - a tasting organized by some of his local colleagues, so I did not get to go. The good news is that nobody threw up or fainted! And - as far as I know - everybody present tasted The Fruit. On the day preceding the Tasting I had a long conversation about it with Jenny from B's work - she is Malaysian and she grew up eating durian - allegedly her parents even have a durian tree in their garden. She claimed durian was DIVINE. That's exactly the word she used. Repetitively. DIVINE. To describe something THAT smelly as divine - it really gets you interested. Especially when at the same time you are shown this clip on the phone:
All you keep on thinking is how can something THAT smelly taste SO good? And curiosity is born. So the next day they all went to taste the durian. Luckily for me they also tasted a lot of other fruit, some of which B brought back for me to try. They tried to give him some durian to bring back to the apartment for me to try but he refused flat out. I imagine the smell would linger here for weeks, considering how small a space we have here... As for durian, the only information that, after a lot of nagging, I managed to extract from B, was that it had weird consistency, it smelled even more awful as you got closer to it and that it kind of tasted like a sweet, mushy avocado. It DOES sound DIVINE, doesn't it?... I tried to ask some other people who participated in the tasting for their impressions but to a simple question "did you like it" there was never a simple answer - just a lot of twisting, turning, hand wringing and weird facial expressions followed by non-specific phrases like "well... you know... uummmm... kinda...", until Chris, a very nice guy from Austin was kind enough to whisper "Nobody Really Liked It" into my ear. Will I ever try it? I don't know. I know now of the place where one should go to try it - the place where B and all his work colleagues were taken for the tasting - it's a little store in a strip mall where a truck of durian arrives straight from Malaysia (that's where, allegedly, the best durians come from) every week day at 6 pm so if you are anxiously awaiting the fresh durian during the durian season - that is THE place to go and stand in the line and wait for the King of Fruit to arrive in all its smelly glory, by a truckload. During these pre-tasting and post-tasting conversations in smaller and larger groups we formulated a lot of speculations as to why and how come the locals may indeed love durian, for example: maybe their taste buds get ruined early in childhood... We also tried to come up with a similar food item in the western cuisines that smells god-awful but people LOVE it and simply devour it. But we could not come up with anything (well, I kind of secretly came up with something, but I would NEVER ever admit it out loud for fear of being lynched either by my own husband or by my Louisiana friends back in Austin ;)).
For me, the upside of the durian tasting was the most delicious mango I have ever eaten, a bag of fresh longans and some MANGOSTEENS. Which I absolutely fell in love with. They are hard to peel and B had to show me how to open them (having been taught to do that by the durian and other fruit masters from his work) without spilling the juice all over me - the mangosteen juice stains are supposed to be very hard to remove, and I am not willing to verify if that's true. There is not much FRUIT in the mangosteen fruit but whatever there is tastes sooo good...I have discovered so many delicious fruit varieties here in Singapore! If only for that reason, living here has been worthwhile..
Monday, August 9 was the National Day in Singapore. It's the local independence day so everybody was off and the locals as well as the expats, were celebrating the 45th birthday of Singapore. The big celebration, including a very long and complex parade and an air show, was long sold out. The only thing to watch without the precious ticket was the fireworks, which we were invited to watch at B's friend's from work apartment with a view of most of the Singapore, including the Marina Bay where the fireworks were happening. They were really pretty impressive, synchronized fireworks set off both from the ground level and from the tops of the highest buildings at the Marina Bay. The show lasted a long time, and it was really awe-inspiring. And we got to have a very good view of it from the 23rd floor of an apartment building in the Novena area.
Tuesday, August 10 (two days ago) was the first day of the 7th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which means that for a month now Singapore will be witnessing the Hungry Ghost festivities. It is sort of a Chinese version of the America Halloween - the Chinese believe that during this period spirits are released from hell to visit their relatives here on earth. So everywhere we go we run into some serious meals prepared for the ghosts - in front of restaurants and stores there are tables set up with fruit, smoked ducks, chickens, rice. Apart from all these offerings, we also witnessed some "hell money" burning on a busy street in the city center! And then there is the smell of incense sticks... they are burnt practically everywhere. We are planning to visit Chinatown in the next few days, since part of the Hungry Ghost festivities are Chinese street operas - we are hoping to catch a glimpse of one of such performances.
Otherwise not much has happened...It appears like we are going back home as scheduled, which means that I will be back in Austin in less than three weeks, at least for some time... We are still hoping to make one more trip out of Singapore but the destination is yet to be determined. Also on the list of things to do - a visit to Holland Village, to the restaurant serving, we've found out, the best Chicken Hor Fun in town. And on the same note - we were told that the ultimate Chicken Rice (a signature Singaporean dish) is served at the Chatterbox restaurant at the Mandarin hotel - just a block down from our apartment. I've had some pretty tasty chicken rice (which basically is a dish of rice cooked in chicken broth, which makes it very flavorful, served with steamed or roasted chicken and chili and garlic sauces) but I want to have the point of reference to be able to tell whether the chicken rice I've had was good or just so-so - and that's why we are going to pay a visit to Chatterbox and try their chicken rice, overpriced or not. I have tried the other "signature" Singaporean dish - chilli crab at two restaurants so far - Jumbo Seafood at Clark Quay and No Signboard Seafood at the Esplanade - and I can say with all certainty that the one at the No Signboard Seafood is waaay better - the sauce is thicker, more flavorful and a bit less spicy - I LIKE. Shocking as it may seem, I have NOT had the Singapore Sling yet... But there are still more than two weeks to go so I am hoping that this may change! And all my observations concerning this famous Singaporean cocktail will be duly reported.
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