twinkly stars on the other side of the world

The air smells like smoke. It has intensely for the past couple of weeks - a yellowish smog most every morning here on the southwest coast. This time of year there's a temperature inversion that traps it close to the ground, too, and makes it worse. The smell wakes me up in the middle of the night thinking that the building is on fire. But apparently it's just Indonesia.

At work I consult my office buddies. WTH, smog?? say I. And they're like, Indonesia! "EVERY year we ASK them NOT to burn up their island", a friend said. "But do they listen? Nooooooo."

It makes me feel like we're all one great big neighborhood here in southeast asia, dealing with a douchebag neighbor. Turn the gd stereo down, INDONESIA, we are TRYING to sleep over here.

So anyway I open the grill on the windows in the living room and lean out, just making sure the building isn't on fire and happen to look up. Stars! Singapore, you understand, is just like Boston with the degree of light pollution. And you rarely seen see one or two stars, excepting planets-- Venus or Jupiter, which can be quite bright. But here, tonight, I see Orion's belt! And maybe his head ... or is it his foot, whatever. What a delicious surprise! Here is my ignorance: I wasn't even sure I could see constellations here from my former side of the planet.

And the stars-- the most I've ever seen-- are twinkling like crazy. The atmosphere is on the move and there's a good breeze. It'd be perfect sleeping weather if it didn't smell like a housefire.

We're gonna get a home weather station and install it here. When you arrive in Singapore you're like, oh geez, the weather never changes here, it's hot and humid all the time, there aren't any seasons, I'm trapped in a perpetual MargaritaVille endless summer with extra monsoon, omg plz help. But after a while you come to appreciate the little shifts in wind, in temperature, in humidity, that you'd hardly notice at home. And be thankful as hell for them too because a degree Celsius and 10% less humidity here will make you feel like falling to your knees and weeping your gratitude to the beneficent sky.

After midnight and my neighborhood gets darker. We all go to sleep about the same time every night because the fierce sun gets us up at the same time every morning. One by one the the lights in the flats around me go out...though we'll never have complete darkness here, the lights in the corridors of the apartment buildings are always on.

Goodnight, Singapore.

Shut the hell up, Indonesia!

woah, earthquake in indonesia

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1008365/1/.html

We didn't feel anything, though apparently some people in S'pore did: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1008370/1/.html

how dee's day is just the same. but isn't.

same: Today I got up and got ready to go to work.
isn't: I'm awake at 7am. ME. 7AM. (People who know me well may now wish to pause to let this sink in.) Cause EVERYONE in S'pore gets up at dawn. If the sun, a piercing orange DAGGER OF LIGHT directly into your EYEBALLS does not wake you up at the crack of dawn, then the garbage-man, the leaf-blower man, the street-sweeper man, or the dreaded cart-man (ARGH. Empty lorrie driven back and forth over speed bumps on our road all morning... why... WHY) will do it instead. Or the neurotic non-trained and no-walked trophy dogs next door. Or the massive biblical-grade thunderstorm.


same: The busdriver was heavy-footed this morning, barely slowing down for the speedbumps.
isnt': they're not bumps, they're humps. Srsly. The word "humps' is spray-painted on the road. Causing me to uncontrollably start mentally singing the Black Eyed Peas song EVERYTIME I see a speed ... hump... which means that at least 4 times a day -- back and forth on the bus-- I am singing MY HUMPS MY HUMPS MY LOVELY LADY BUMPS in my head.


same: The nice glass of wine I am enjoying is an okay semillon from Australia.
isn't: the bottle cost $47 bucks (SD). o_0;;;;;


same: Catching a ride home with a friend this evening, some guy cut us off in traffic. Our driver yelled at him.
isn't: Saying, with a complete lack of road-rage, "Oh LAH. Your grandfather build this road or WHAT."


same: Every purchase I make is ensconced in a plastic bag. No matter how small. Sometimes double-bagged.
isnt': you will never, ever see one stuck in a tree. Or blowing across the highway. Or discarded on the ground. It's just something that doesn't happen here. Like snow.


same: It's a clear September evening, a bright half-moon in the sky and maybe even a couple of stars visible through the haze of city lights.
isnt': it's 31 freaking C in here. *hugs the fan*


I just realized how long I could go on with this. This is one of the reasons I'm really enjoying S'pore. It's just like home but slightly, weirldly sideways-- not too much-- just enough to occasionally, gently, freak you out.

what have you been working on, dee??

Comics!! Chapter 16 of Nightschool is finished and away as of last week, Svet's outdone herself this time, the series just gets better and better, everybody go pre-order #2 it's so gonna rawk. Tones for Odd Thomas are next on the agenda, but this weekend was consumed with slacking, unpacking the rest of the boxes, cleaning AND EATING DIM SUM AT H.V. OMG, and also we found corndogs in Tanglin mall. No, for real! Corndogs and they were awesome!!! Why didn't I take a pic, that was dumb, I have no proof... eh, well, I'LL BE BAK. CORNDOG EXPEDITION PT. II RETURN TO CORNDOG.

(Seriously, succulent corndogs ... I never found corndogs in Boston the whole time I was there. And do not say Summer Shack to me, bleah those do not count.)

Anyway, oh yes, dim sum quite good for big "sunday" breakfast, although no one liked the pork buns but me... which,TOTALLY TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM, I heroically ate all three, yes, it's true, I'm all about the self-sacrifice for the good of others, thanks.

At Crystal Jade I had soya milk for the first time here. And it was awesome! Bean-y deliciousness! Of course I've had soy milk in the states but the stuff in the carton is bland and character-less, almost as if it's ashamed to be what it is and trying to pass itself as something it's not-- skim milk. Boo on you pale, bland, low-self-esteem soy milk! The glass I had at CJ was full of the Pride of Beans! Even had a slight texture. I liked it very much. C. says the restaurant makes it themselves.

The face Al made when we made him take a sip was priceless. Sadly no camera deployed. Classic case of pearls before swine. Won't eat his porkbun, won't drink his soya milk, sheesh.

...inhaled the prawn dumplings, though. Like a Hoover with attachments!

What was I talking about, oh yes, comics. Here's a page from Tacto and my entry in the Journeys anthology to be printed in Japan for us to sell at our table at Comitia this year, yay! So many wonderful contributors to this book, it's really gonna be amazing!
I really think this turned out so beautifully, really the best work we've ever done. Pencils by Tacto, inks & tones by Dee. And the setting is the 1964-65 World's Fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, Queens! Dee's favorite obsession!

i haz a birthday

We iz at The Prime Society eatin' dey Australian cowz, nom nom nom.

Also, ice cream there quite good. And the fizzy wine from Austria, delish!

btw, woks and stuff

Yes, you can make marinara sauce in your wok. You can also pop popcorn in it. (I learned this from the demonstration lady in the basement at Tangs who also cooks cakes in hers. I haven't tried cakes yet. Cakes? Hm, really?)

Woks are amazing tools, under-utilized in the States because our cook-tops are not set up for them. Here we've got a gas stove with a reserved space for a wok. And the gas is like FWOOOOOOSH RAWR BURN, very intense, so you can get the temp up to where you need it for a decent stir fry. And speaking of cooking, fresh green veg here are plentiful and cheap and you can buy a huge bag of bean sprouts for 19 cents. NINETEEN CENTS. And that's at Cold Storage, the Whole Food-esque grocery store! I guess if you got your sprouts at a wetmarket they'd fall to their knees and beg you to take them and be healthy.

The fruit and produce here are amazing. It seems very easy to eat well and we've both lost weight and have a rosy glow in our cheeks -- despite all the Tiger beer -- from all the walking (no car), the pool downstairs (!!!) and the good food entirely free of bullshit high fructose corn syrup. You go, S'pore.

Alright, the sin tax on alcohol sucks... 25 bucks for crap chardonnay out of Australia, urg, but still...

oh crap, it's september

21 days since last post?? Nooooooo! *Glassy sksh-POW ting bling ting! as resolution to post regularly shatters and hits the floor*

Work is kicking my butt. 1 dayjob, 2 night jobs and a side project for the Arteestly Trip to Japan coming up in November (squeee!) which I will tell all about soon, plus the remnants of getting the house set up, which...

Okay, this gets its own ordered list. I call this list:

DEE'S ELECTRONICS WHICH AL HAS BLOWN UP

1. One set of computer speakers
2. My printer

Hm... seems like this list should be longer... OKAY IT IS LONGER IN EMOTIONAL TRAUMA WHICH ADDS 12 ITEMS AT LEAST.

So on top of everything else it seems like every weekend something happens that prevents me from working. Like going down to SimLim Square AGAIN. NOT BITTER. to get a new printer because the fierce current of Singapore fried mine with Al's help. Like this:

al: *plug in*
printer: *BAM* *curl of smoke* *acrid smell*
dee: *@*^$#(#@#&$ PRINTER!!!1!!!ACK11!!!
al: Oh... so when the manual says either 120V "or" 220V... that's an EXCLUSIVE "or".
dee: . . .
dee: EXCLUSIVELY KILL YOU ARGH

So all the jobs are like, Dee, where's my stuff which is why I haven't posted or responded to kind emails from my friiiiiends! GOD, THANK YOU FOR WRITING ME, WAH. I think I'm beginning to catch upthough.

We finally got a phone (I don't have one yet. I'm holding out for an iPhone, which, there AREN'T any. Seriously, on the whole island. Singtel: "We're out of iPhones, Ma'am." WHUT. The nation of Singapore is OUT OF iPHONES? For a MONTH? I know, freaky. Anyway... AL gets a phone at last. Which means only one thing. Yes, this...
TAKE OUT PIZZAAAAAAAAA@21!!!!!@@1!! Mana from heaven. Pepperoni pizza, moist with the tears of an expat who hasn't had a good slice in months. Thank you Rocky's Pizza. T____T

I've some really decent food pics I need to upload soon. The thing is, almost EVERY meal in Singapore is memorable, so it's hard to discriminate-- I have to post them all. I mean, after shopping at SimLim the other night we just sort of wandered out to the street, looking for dinner, passed a couple of freakin amazing temples-- one Hindu, one Chinese-- and then stumbled across this tiny mall wherein was this humble little noodle shop staffed by 3 utterly charming and hard-working ladies that served me up one of the best bowls of beef ramen I've ever had in my life and a dish of fried dumplings that I still see in my dreams. I really need to blog every day.

things the cat is afraid of, part I

Say, what is that thing you're holding there, Dee? Little rectangular thing... not really sure... pointing it at me... blinking light thingy...

ARGH ARGH ARGH MY EYES ARGH!!1!!!@!

So here is a photo of Nemo on one of the rare occasions where he isn't hiding under the bed. The journey from Boston was rough on the cat, it was tough on all of us, but at least we had, like, free will, not being from some sort of Calvinist school of thought, so were nominally in charge of our own destinies and had the consolation of having made the choice to move. To Nemo it was all just so much I Am Totally NOT At Home On My Sunny Windowsill, How Much Longer Do I Have To Spend In This Freakin Crate, OMG DARK IN CARGO HOLD OF AIRPLANE HELP HELP, and 30 days in quarantine.

And then, of course, we were in uni temp housing for a month and then we had to move AGAIN and now, right when all should be peace, and things settling down again, we realize that we are in Singapore, Land of Tiny Yapping Dogs.

So, things the cat is afraid of:

• tiny yapping dogs. Specifically, the corgis next door. Meanwhile, a corgi is 6 inches tall, right? And REALLY CUTE. It's Ein, am I right?? And at 18 pounds the cat is actually BIGGER than the dogs. True, they outnumber him 2 to 1... still. (Let me just digress a sec and tell you about the sound of 2 tiny, excited corgis freak-barking at 7am in the corridor of our apartment building which has this amazing acoustic ECHO Echo echo reverb going on so that after a few nanoseconds it sounds like an army of Defcon Frenzy corgis are percussing straight into your skull with the sheer irresistible power of their acoustic Yap Beam, earth-quaking you out of a sound sleep and making one eyelid twitch Inspector Clouseau's boss-like all day long... well, it's better than an alarm clock, I can tell you.)

• things falling down the trash chute (I love the trash chute, you just pitch your trash... down the chute! And listen for the satisfying CRASH of an empty bottle of pinot greeze hitting the ground from 14 floors up, yay!)

• the wind. Up so high, the wind whips through the open door and windows and exits through the windows on the other side of the apartment thus keeping us alive at average temps of 33C. But it also blows things off the tables and whatnot and startles the cat.

• people walking down the corridor outside (fortunately not many people do this as we're almost at the end of the block)

• the mosquito truck (also the street sweeper. And the guy with the leaf blower. Do street sounds get louder as they disperse upward??)

• the camera flash (now)

It's tough being a little animal with only 2 functioning brain cells with which to understand your environment. I think it's getting better, though, gradually.

Deeeeeee bulleted list catch-up

Oi, 10 days since last update. I catch you up with a bulleted list! All about MEEEEE1!1!11!@

• the boat came with our stuff! we unpacked it all and left it lying in tottering piles all over the condo!! We have spoons!

• we put up screens for the cat. Well, we're ALLLmost done with that. Sharply perceptive Dee, with eyes of the eagle, spots an alternative to the screenMan at the DIY store (upstairs from Jen Jelita Cold Storage, which, I LOVE that store, it's small but the inventory is as refined and whole as a perfect pearl and you can find everything you need, really, and the Amazing Iron Man is there on weekends too! Demonstrating his AMAZING STEAM IRON *SKISSSSSH SKISSSSH* which I should write a post about later....) Anyway, the nice screenman who came and gave us an estimate of $1,800 for screens for all the windows and I was like *@#&(@^! WHUT CANNOT DO (even though he was a very nice guy and I'm sure the price was fair, it was just too much right now on top of everything else). So what we have done to keep the cat on THIS floor and not hurtling down 14 stories at terminal velocity is cable-stay plastic netting to the window grill. Which works great and is a billion times cheaper. By Grabthor's Hammer, what a savings! More money to spend on laksa, yay...

• let's see, I went to many meetings on campus for the new job last week. I like the people at NUS, I like being on campus, it feels like home. We almost got killed taking a shortcut over the ridge jungle back from the food court after lunch though. That's okay, I know the climate is just doing its job and it's nothing personal that it wants me to suffer heatstroke and die. My computer's on order and should arrive within thenext couple of weeks.

• we just finished Nightschool chapter 15 marathon!! Time for 2nd half of Odd Thomas toning marathon, yay!!

• I updated my portfolio site at jdeedupuy.com. Well, I haven't finished the about part yet but who cares. I did it in preparation for the con, which, I spent about an hour there on Sunday. But! there were comics! Lots of comics! It wasn't like Anime Boston, for example-- table after table of pinup fan art, bleah-- there was some fanart there too, but there were books! Lots of them. Sequentials! Very happy. I bought a big pile and chatted a bit with creators but was in too much of a hurry to get back to work to stop too long, loooking forward to actually sitting down and reading my pile soon...

• we went out to hotpot with Cynthia!!! It was awesome!! That deserves a separate post with pics...

. . . durrrr.... I'm sure there was more stuff... well, I can only think of stupid stuff like when I woke up day before yesterday after not too much sleep with a powerful misty image in my mind of a beautiful new moon hanging in a powerfully deeeeep blue-black sky accompanied by a brilliant shimmering star. ... and then, after a cup of coffee, realized that I hadn't dreamed this after all but had woken up and actually seen it out by bedroom window, which I confirmed by checking out Sky & Telescope then had to look up Castor and Pollux on wikipedia so here's your cheesecake for the day, hubba hubba!

my bag!!1!1!!!!!@!@@!!

Okay! I can't believe I haven't showed you guys this yet. My Singapore rig!
This is the CaseLogic bag I found down at Funan. My previous awesome bag, set up for Boston proved woefully inadequate for S'pore. It was way too small to accommodate all the new necessities. And I was beginning to despair finding something suitable, here in the Land of Conspicuous Consumption Designer Handbags, when lo!!! in Funan we found an entire store of nothing but Case Logic products!! *geek gasm!!!!*

This bag is actually a mini laptop bag, but works brilliantly as a daysack. It's even a great color since I am forbidden to buy any more black things >.>;;;;

The little orange bag carabinered to the outside is another caselogic bag, padded, with a drawstring close, perfect for rapid deployment of the camera!

Behold, the kit!
Okay! Clock-wise, starting upper left with the bag:
-Daruma charm (very important!)
-foldy out purse hanger (you put the flat metal part on the table and hang your bag strap off the hooky, useful for keeping your bag off the very public floors of the hawker centers),
-hankerchief I got from Porter Square in Cambridge, useful! need to get more,
-pen,
-keys (2 for the front door, 1 for the gate and THREE keycards :D;;;)
-sunglasses, glasses,
-folding fan ($2 at Daiso!!),
-passport, checkbook,
-portable toothwipes, bandaids (new shoes T____T), oil absorbing papers for face (essential in s'pore)
-travel sunscreen (2),
-zazzle business cards, burt's bees chapstick (lipbalm not really needed here, it turns out),
-hand sanitzer, moist wipes and tough-ply tissues (all of which you need at hawker centers since no one gives you napkins, ever, and there are rarely places to wash hands after wrestling chili crab to the ground),
-umbrella (more useful as sunshade than for sudden squalls. You're gonna get drenched if you get caught out in one of those, umbrella or not),
-Kiva bag (more on that in a sec),
-change + lucky Sacagawea dollar given to me by Linda a million years ago!
-phone, wallet, and ezpass for MRT

Oh, and in the middle, the ever present list of things we have to get for the house. :/

Keychain Kiva stuff-sack bag was a present from Al's relatives. Most excellent bit of gear! Compresses to almost nothing, light parachute material, uncompreses into indestructable little bag PERFECT for carrying groceries. Seriously, you can load it up with like 12 pounds of stuff - the straps are just big enough to get over your shoulder so it's supporting all the weight. This little bag has made the walk back from the grocerystore doable.

Nothing like a well stocked daysack to make you feel adapted to your environment.

you can make pancakes in a wok

No problemo.

And you can get maple syrup down at Cold Storage too. It comes from Canada and costs eleven million dollars.

Someday soon I'm going to go buy some plates. The plastic ones are a nice color, tho.

fried fish soup, delayed yum

Tonight's dinner at HV, a milk soup with rice noodle-- succulent fried, firm, white fish and "local spinach", Thai chili in fish sauce on the side to add-in, delish! Musical ambiance this evening = Miami Vice, an emo 80s mix tape.

This hawker center is not THE hawker center in HV, btw, but the one on the corner, across from the windmill. And ...whoever puts together the music for this center, is, like... A SISTER TO ME. Two weeks ago, the succulent carby-goodness of prata and dippage from the PrataMan combined with the Michael Jackson mix was, seriously, JUST what I needed to prevent slitting my wrists from homesickness. YOU SAVED MY LIFE, MIXTAPE LADY. I LOVE YOU, MAHN.

So here I am, tonight, contemplating my soup, which is far too hot to eat right away, sitting back in my chair, the big fans in the open air dining area oscillating gently, a cold mug of Tiger beer in my hand and the hubbub of contented voices all around me and I think to myself, 'This is me, Dee, watching an episode of Miami Vice in 1982 in metro Rocksonville, Floriduh. I am sitting in my mother's living room, and what's his face with the white linen suit is driving in his car, a warm night, just like here, with an 80s song blaring and the wind whipping thru his brush-back bangs. And in a moment of perfect clarity I look up, and see before me the timeline of my life laid out like a highway, punctuated with bright lights, a sensation of speed and the wind in my hair, just like the image on tv. I hurl down the road in the old Delta 88 I used to have, through this and thru that till I am looking down at a bowl of soup, cooling by degrees before me at an open cafe in Singapore. Slave to Love is playing. I watch a bead of condensation roll down my beer mug and pool on the table before I come back and start thinking mundane thoughts again, over in an instant, the spell created by the mixtape lady.

Here's the thing about this fish soup. 'Poo poo', said I, dipping a spoon in right when the gentlemn brought it out. It tastes raw and unsophisticated-- of milk and nothing else, where's its depth? But as I ate-- slowly, because of the heat, and waiting for the soup to cool-- the fried onions, the fried fish, the fish sauce and chilies (which I dumped in, of course!) slowly suffused throughout the soup, with the green vegetables. And slowly, as I chopsticked in the rice noodles, and ate the big chunks of fish, the soup transformed. From something hasty and simple, to somethign complex. Till after all the fish was gone, and the noodles eaten, it had become something sublime and savvory, something complex and wonderful. The soup at the end of the meal was entirely different from the soup at the beginning.

There's, like, some soup-y zen koan there or something, probably. YO I AM CLAPPING WITH ONE HAND CAUSE I'M EATING MY FISH SOUP WITH THE OTHER ONE WHAT SOUND AM I MAKING, GRASSHOPPER??!@!!

how the bubble tea lady in holland v almost killed me

Singapore is roughly 100 kilometers (about 65 miles) from the equator. FROM THE FREAKIN' EQUATOR. You forget that occasionally, or I do, it seems so incredible, like saying you live an hour's drive away from the north pole or maybe half a day's swim from the bottom of the ocean. But the sun will soon teach you to respect it, oh yes! here at the equator, where the surface of the earth bulges out like the spare tire on an aging geek, closest to the sun!! You say, oh, well, Starhub came to hook up the internet at noon and now they're gone and there's no food in the house, let's just walk down the street, 20 minutes, no problem, to HV for lunch. Forgetting that it's 12:20 at... The Equator. So your quick jaunt turns into a death march and by the time you get to HV you are actually on the verge of heatstroke...

AND the bubble tea lady, for whom you made a bee-line once you made it at last, knowing she had ICE, that magical substance that might-- possibly-- just save you from collapse, AND whom the Singaporean Toursim Board would have you believe speaks english, like all of the friendly nation here at the gateway to the east, does not actually speak english but Singlish, and finds your American accent completely incomprehensible besides...

in an effort to serve you well dutifully presents you with query after query trying to understand your order, blended/not blended, boba? jelly? juice? etc. (completely incomprehensible at the time) until you are literally swaying under the baking heat of the awning knowing that your face is beet red, your vision narrowing...

till you finally shove money over the counter, the amount you know not what, neglecting your change, taking the beverage from her hands as politely as possible considering your NEAR DEATH STATE and press the plastic freezie, I am not kidding, against the side of your neck where your carotid artery pumps blood to your brain that is several handfuls of degrees higher than it should be.

Two seconds from passing out you are saved. The bubble tea lady has a very poor opinion of you. But it's a small price to pay for your life.

I write 'I will show more respect to my environment' on the board one hundred million times.

the awesomeness that is Daiso...

the original 100yen store where EVERYthing therein is 2 SingDollars IS A SUCKING BLACK HOLE OF AWESOMENESS FROM WHICH EVEN LIGHT CANNOT ESCAPE MUCH LESS DEE ECLIPSED BY AWESOMENESS!!1@#!!1!
... I bought a folding fan. >.> Which I actually use, which causes people to look at me funny but they do that anyway so no worries. I'm totally going back to Daiso soon, though, to buy several thousand 2 dollar Japanese ceramic dishes for the house. All of which will be different. And cute.

the most violently crimson food ever made

... Anthony Bourdain-esque mutton marrow bones!!
Zoom in! Zoom in on the redness!
Aiiiieeee! My eyes!!

Al actually ordered this by mistake. Often in S'pore, if you're not from here, when you order in a hawker center you have to resort to pointing at photographs of the food on the header of the stall. The photo for this dish had obviously faded in the sun cause it looked nothing like the beautiful crimson dreamdish that eventually came out. (I wouldn't have recognized it either if I hadn't seen the Singapore edition of No Reservations...)

Aren't the colors amazing? This is how beautiful Singapore is.

culinary edge-bleeding at ion orchard!

Here is what you can find in the food court at Orchard Road's newest mall, Ion Orchard, down down down in the basement (B4):
All the rage now, Gindaco's takoyaki, observe the technique!Very awesome fast food, expertly made!

The food court at Ion is incredible, but quite busy and crowded. They should have installed it upstairs and let the vast and echoing, empty wasteland of shops selling yet more diamonds and rubies and designer handbags and gold bricks and luxury yachts and whatnot inhabit the basement instead.

singapore's comic con

SDCC's just over in the states, you can see people recovering all over the internets. But in S'pore what looks like the year's biggest comic con is upcoming: the Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention. Looking over the website, it seems disappointing-- boyzone-y capes & tights with zero info online about the artists alley-- but it's free admission so have hopes to find some trace of the local indy comic scene there!

the new apartment!

Okay! I found my camera cable! And the strength to compose bounteous posts because I also located my bag of 3-in-1s and had TWO, yay! Here are some pics of the new apartment! It's partially furnished, which is why there are couches and dining room table, etc.

Here is Al at the bar in the kitchen. The kitchen is what sold us on this place, which is not exactly conveniently placed. The apartment complex is old by S'pore standards but has been well cared for, restored and remodeled, so quite nice, modern and spacious!
Here is my bedroom--
and my wardrobes/closets. Very cool! I need to buy more clothes!
Here is the living room, we're on the 14th floor so an awesome view...
And the dining room as viewed from the living room
Here you can see the living room through the big glass window from the porch. I can't wait to get some plants!
Here is the view from the porch.
The apartment block across the way has very cool ornamentation on the top floor. I keep wandering over there to look for Gozer the Traveler who will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. YO, GOZER I AM THE KEYMASTER! And when I find him many shuvs and zuuls will know what it is to be roasted in the depths of Slor on that day, I can tell you!

We're missing a lot of furniture but what the heck, we have internet so all is well.

There's an awesome cross-breeze through the place if you open up all the windows and the doors (which is considered fine here, I'm told. There are actually metal grill doors which you can lock and keep your door open all the time, I should get a pic of that...). But we turn on the aircon at night because I'm worried about the cat jumping up on the windows, miscalculating and falling 14 floors. 0_o Hardly anyone has window screens in S'pore though most people have window grills (as you can see in pics). A friend has recommended a company that specializes in installing screens, we've made an appointment for them to come out and do an estimate.

S'pore is really noisy which takes a bit of getting used to, even moreso than Boston. The country is always making more of itself so there are jackhammers and construction noises all through the day. People here are dog-lovers so there's a constant highpitched yip/yap of apartment dogs being walked past townhouse dogs out in the yard, morning and evening. Then there's the streetsweeper truck which comes by approximately every 16 minutes to continue the WAR ON LEAVES which you see being conducted everywhere!! In S'pore trees are good but leaves on the ground must be vacumned or swept up by Leaf Commandos immediately!!!

we haz moved

... and now we're in that awkward period of waiting for the stuff on the boat to show up, which should happen end of next week. In the meantime, finding out the quirks of the new apartment and getting serious about work. Totally behind on pics and posts, the mac is set up on the dining room table (still working on getting a computer desk, kinda miss the one back home in the attic...), more soon as I locate the transfer cable for the camera...

dee's life, bulleted update

• Friday, 24 jul 2009: we got the cat back. One MONTH in quarantine. Too long, S'pore.
  
  
• We found an apartment. 2 year lease is a leeetle odd but typical here, I am told. We're on the 14th floor and the view is awesome. The landlord seems really cool and I've found a friend in our rental agent. Pics coming, end of next week.
  
  
• I am getting tan. This is WITH sunscreen AND putting up the umbrella on particularly piercingly sunny days. UV rays here curve under umbrellas and go merrily through your shirt, mocking your puny efforts to limit their play. Nyah.
  
  
• IKEA here is pronounced ICK EE AH. Not EYE KEE YAH.
  
  
• Still looking for a good comic book store. Kinokunya has a lousy selection. C. recommends Comics Mart at Serene Center, an expedition is planned soon...

custard apple follow up

OMG FEAKIN BLEAH.

Okay... so, the definition of the word 'good' as uttered by a person who actually EATS durians is DIFFERENT for, like, everyone else on the planet.

(custard apple ref)

around the world, searching for tuna buns

There is a tiny little kiosk in Porter Exchange in Boston that is the best bakery in the world. I forgot the name of it and it doesn't matter anyway because I'm not gonna be back there anytime soon. But they have the softest, springy-est, yeasty-est, most succulently satiny, golden, buttery smooth buns you have ever had in your life. Whether they take the form of a twisted doughnut, bejeweled with coarse sugar like stars, or... BUCKET OF DROOL... the fabled tuna bun... oh you silken temptress, your firm yet yielding sponge.. the perky tang of of your fishy secret heart... ohhhhhh...

What was I talking about... Oh yeah. Anyway...

A local chain here is Breadtalk. This is what I like about Breadtalk: you can smell it before you see it. You can actually follow your nose through a mall or a food court, aroma hanging, snaking in the air Buggs Bunny style until, on the other end of the chain of scent, you find a Breadtalk. Hee, cool.

Breadtalk has tuna buns too. They're good. They're not as good as the little bakery staffed by the shy Japanese man with the adorable little sweather cap and cute smile in Porter Exchange, but they are good. And the also have this thing:

upper right: tuna bun, lower left: floss

What is Floss, an exposé by Dee
Floss is shredded pork that has been spun into something that looks and tastes just a bit like cotton candy.

I am totally not making that up. What you do is, you take a yummy, yeasty bun and you slit it, not all the way through, just enough to get its attention, and then you ladle in some custardy mayonnaise. (Do not become ill! When you think about it what is custard but eggs? And what mayonnaise but egg whites? Abandon your preconceived notions, why shouldn't this work?)

And then you sort of SCHMEEEEER the mayonnaise all over the top of the bun. And then you roll it in floss, in shredded pork.

THE END

A Floss is sweet and porky and fatty and yeasty and good. And, okay, a little weird. You probably shouldn't take these home for later like I did, but should eat them on the spot as soon after the friendly lady in the white apron, cap and mask has assembled one for you, while they are still warm.

Spun pig. Whodathunk.

singapore, beautiful at night

A restaurant hostess waits for customers.

The Fountain of Wealth, street level, after the rain.

when it rains it ...

freakin POURS.

One night, wandering around in city center I know not where, a sudden squall:
We'd come down a street of restaurants, you can see them all there in this shot, tiny little shops, most of whom had a few tables on the side walk out front. One moment you are enjoying a fresh breeze and the next the realization dawns that your breeze has gone all mean and pushy, no playful zephyr but the herald of a storm. People leap up and scatter for shelter...
abandoning their steamboats for the safety of the awnings. If you look closely you can see red-shirted staff dumping food and dishes into plastic tubs, the evening's take a total write-off.

What looks like haze in these photos is a torrent of water, straight up and down like a curtain. Warm as bathwater.

Also, simultaneously EVERY cab in the entire nation is booked, all at once. Ha ha!

now where she at

... now there she go there she go there she go:

People have asked where we are now. Here it is, Pandan Valley condos!

Main gate. LOOK at all these cool palm trees all of whom have distinct names and varieties which I don't know!

(You didn't click that link up there, did you? XD)

soxxxxx... i miss uuuuuuuuuu

I totally just signed up for the gameday audio for Sox games (thanks, p!). I can't believe how much I miss baaaaysballllll. T___T

But why does my PAID subscription have ADS in the stream?? Papa Gino's pizza advert REAL useful over here, guyz. *bleah face*

fruit inflation

Not only are there rambutans, longans and lychees, there are also...

KING rambutans! YOUR HIGHNESS!!

King rambutans are large and somewhat less hairy-scary than regular rambutans and you can eat the seed. Or so says the Fruit Man in HV who gave me these as a sampler.

Also on the plate-- those awesome little mini limes that taste SO good squeezed over one's bee hoon. And behind that... longsats. Actually, 2 different kinds of longsats. Which look more or less exactly the same, not exactly fair cause one of them you can eat the seeds and the other if you eat the seeds you will LOOK LIKE THIS

>.<

and then cry like THIS

T______T

and then the Fruit Man will say, I TOLD you not to eat the seeds of THAT one and then all the ppl who are from here will laugh. Ha ha!

the truth about custard apples

Exotic fruit?

Or...?

sunday morning flower vendor at holland v.

Orchids! :D

i haz exotic fruitz

One of Al's cow orkers brought him a huge bag of these things the other day.

Because she is from here, we actually know what they are and how to eat them (as opposed to the rambutan, longan, lychee confusion, still on-going...)

... anyway, these are mangosteens!

Delicious! And fun! So to eat them, you take the fruit in both hands and SQUESH EET. Which pops open the heavy rind revealing the succulent white flesh within. The red stuff is very bitter so you don't eat that. And it tastes like... mangosteens. Not sure how to describe it, it doesn't taste like anything I've ever eaten before.

Apparently foodies in NYC pay $11 each for these things because they are so exotic and you can only get them in 1 market. So we have roughly 300 bucks worth of mangaosteens. Mmm mm!

canada: celebrated world-wide for its lovely pizza

I was riding around with the real estate agent, Ruth, the other day looking for new lodgings when we paused at a stop sign across from this:

I'm like, OMFG CANADIAN PIZZA bwah! as I whip out the digicamera.

Dee: Hold on, hold on, I have GOT to get a pic of this!
Ruth: o_o?
Dee: (wiping tears) Look! Look at the maple leaf!
Ruth: >.>;;;;
Dee: Bwahahahahha!
Ruth: (thinking) No one will want to rent an apartment to this crazy woman.

the debut of the Awesome Product Names category...

Oh yeah?? No, YOU'RE a cowhead!

prata: life-altering experience at holland v.

So, Holland Village. Where we're staying right now-- in temp housing subsidized by the uni (Pandan Valley Condos ... yes, I had to look up 'pandan'. It's a type of tree)-- is about a 20 minute walk from Holland V., a somewhat well-known destination for nightlife and good food. There are three hawker centers there, a ton of restuarants, a couple of good bars ( Wala Wala for good music and plentious Aussie expats), a wet market during the day and a bunch of shops, including two pet supply stores. There's also a windmill...
... 'cause, you know, HOLLAND.

Anyway, this story is not about Holland Village. This story is about PRATA. This story is about TRUE LOVE. Follow me...



Yes! This! The heavenly stuff on the right on the orange plate. Praaaaaataaaaa! T_______T

What is it? It's only the most delicious thing I've had in... I don't know when. And I've eaten some great food since I've gotten here, believeit. Roti prata is a type of Indian bread that's been PERFECTED by the Singaporeans. I've eaten it twice since I've been here. And annoyed the prata man by hovering over his stall to see how he makes it. It's fascinating.

Tangent but not Rly: The other day we were wandering through a market/hawker center on the ground floor of an extensive HDB when I passed a guy filling up a vast container with little balls of something pale and smooth. Round and round he went, piling the little handfuls of stuff on top of one another in a big spiral. 'Hmm', I said to myself. But I've been saying that non-stop since I got here, so I simply filed the experience away under WTH, I'll figure this out later. Now, later, I know what that was. It was prata dough, hundreds of balls of prata dough, in prep for the next days sales.

Anyway: What you do is this: you get your little ball of dough, which is silky smooth and perfectly elastic-- which means that the prata man must have kneaded the CRAP out of it, talk about hard work-- and you take it and you throw it down on a smooth metal surface and you STREEETCH it. You pull it with your hands till it's thin as tissue, then push it back together, and do this a few times. Then you fold it over on itself into a circle and sort of pat it down. Oh wait, I left out the good part, while you're stretching and folding, between layers, you dip your hand in a big container of ghee and liberally apply-- keeping the layers distinct, incorporating the glorious fat. Then you fling the dough down on a hot griddle. Cook one side, flip it to the other. Then you take it off, hot, then you SQUASH it, breaking the surface, revealing the layers.

Then you serve it up hot with a side of bowl of curry gravy for dippage and maybe a chicken thigh and give it to Dee who is now, like, your biggest fangirl, PrataMan!!!!1!1!!1#@!

breakfast

You don't know what those furry things are, do you? Look closer...


Yeah, I had to look rambutan up on wikipedia too. Rambutan in Malay means hairy. And they definitely look like something Harry would have. Except he'd only have two of them.

I thought they were lychees when I bought them (having only ever eaten naked lychees in a can of simple syrup.) When I saw them at the store I was, like, FSKJK@!!KW&#!!! OMFG LYCHEES!!!

Turns out, rambutan taste a little bit like lychees but not quite as good. I am looking for you, lychees. When I find you I will eat your entire lychee village!!

hello world!

We arrived in Singapore on Wednesday, July 1st-- which makes things tidy and easy to remember-- after one hop, Frankfurt, from Boston. It was somewhere around a 20 hour flight and BOY WERE OUR ARMS TIRED HAR.

Here, on the 11th, I think we've finally wrestled jetlag to the ground and can look around and reflect a bit on where we are. The brilliant, lyrical and deep posts--ones that shine like so many jewels upon the page-- are all by Dee. The rest are written in digital crayon by Al. And possibly Nemo, once he gets out of jail. You'll be able to tell the ones by Nemo because they'll largely be about Friskies and naps.