It’s the season!

The weather is hot hot hot. I’m not kidding when I say it’s hot. It’s hot even when it rained buckets this afternoon, displacing all the hot air onto me (after all, this is a blog about me), engulfing me in a stream of sauna hotness. My English teacher (who taught me a lot) would have shuddered with the repeated use of the word ‘hot’. And the whining.

But the heat and sudden rain has prompted a wonderful blooming season. These are days for cyclinng outdoors, to get sun-burned, be invigorated by fresh air, be surprised by nature, be enticed by its beasts and floras…

Love these yellow saraca! I saw some budding ones a week ago near my home. Today we cycled along Ulu Pandan park connector and all these beauties were blooming! Yay! Plenty of egrets and kingfishers along the waterways too. Alas, birds don’t pose for phone cameras.

        

Later in the afternoon, in an art class, the lady next to me was painting these yellow saraca! Talk about coincidence. We both marvelled at our find.

       

Sundays are made of these meandering explorations. Yes it’s swelteringly – there comes the word a again – hot. But since you are already out and about, almost sun-burnt, you might as well just continue and keep on exploring.

Till next weekend!

Reflections

I cycled past Sungai Pandan some time last year. Maybe I will go look for it again tomorrow.

To a new year!

December came and went without my customary ruminations!

Here’s wishing everyone a glorious year ahead!

Be it a sunny day…

… or a rainy day like this…

… there are always plenty to look forward to!

Herbie & friends

Many years ago I started getting hooked on the likes of Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck when none of my friends were. Even then I didn’t get to step into a jazz club until I was 20… my first was Reduta in Prague!

Later on when I started having a little bit of savings, I wondered if I could ever treat myself to such a luxury trip to fly to Canada just to watch the Montreal Jazz Festival. Maybe catch Oscar perform acrobatics on the piano (he then passed away a few years after my first such musing). As much as I like travelling and music, flying overseas just to catch concerts just seemed a bit excessive.

Over the years the Singapore arts and entertainment scene has really elevated (overhyped? internationalised?) itself to bringing in superstar names. At what cost? Humble me don’t quite know. But I’m not complaining this time, because lo and behold, Herbie Hancock was invited to Singapore for the Mosaic festival. Performing with him tonight were the superb Vinnie Colaiuta, James Genus and Lionel Loueke. Loueke was a surprise to me and the segment with African folk themes was a delight. Overall the concert was just ultra ultra ultra cool. And hot hot hot at the same time. Does this make sense?

That it happened here is just too good to be true. And I didn’t have to buy a plane ticket just to watch it!

Prelude to a thunderstorm

This building is one of my favourite skyscrapers in Singapore. UOB Plaza 1 and 2 (right and left), on the Singapore river bank.  Each tower has an octagonal base with a geometric patterned shaft. The cross section is an eight-point star which is commonly used in Islamic art; on Fridays the faithfuls gather for prayers in the mosque in the basement.

Octagonal base, eight-point star, underground mosque. Coincidence?

This photo was taken tonight, the air pregnant with moisture. Prelude to a thunderstorm.

Mass ride

Crawled out of bed at 5am, ate and set off to the F1 pit stop for the annual mass bike ride in Singapore sponsored by a local bank.  I have wanted to do this since the event started some years ago but had always been taken away by travels. So finally I decided to sign up last year which is waaaaaay in advance so that way I’m committed to do it (which means my holiday plans have been postponed till tomorrow).

It’s a massive planning exercise for the organisers since the route takes us from the F1 Pit Stop, Marina Bay Sands, Sheare Bridge, Tanjung Rhu Flyover to ECP and back. This year more than 10,000 cyclists took part. The truth is one can cycle 40km or more at any time. But at no other time can you cycle on closed roads leading up to the magnificent Sheares bridge with a 360 degree view of the Singapore city skyline and rolling down at great speed onto the expressway.

 

 

 

Bike Sunday

Gone are the cool months of rain. Since the lunar new year, it’s been sweltering hot. But the upside is unadulterated sunshine and plenty of reasons to go for a ride!

Because blue skies, fluffy white clouds and the love for the wind on two wheels open up the heart just a bit more.

Near Sungai Serangoon

25km into the ride I had a flat with no spare tube on hand. Though this isn’t a bad place to end the ride. Don’t these coconut trees look like lanky ladies with crazy winds sweeping through their hair?

Pasir Ris Park. The sea separates Singapore and Malaysia.

Food & cleanliness in Singapore

Leftover food lie in a sea of styrofoam plates, like carcasses of a voracious hunt. The aftermath of a massive lunch crowd. Pigeons and crows swoop down with gusto, like scavengers in the wild. The collateral damage? Splatters of what used to be somebody’s lunch: curry, laksa, unknown black gravy. Food wastage. Tipping bowls. Utensils clanking on the floor. Scraps sent flying.

Grease and fumes in thick swirl, bloated by the trapped air under a large terracotta roof.  Even a vigourous December breeze fails to temper.

Then there is the drudgery of clearing what looks like a swathe of garbage in wasteland. In that moment, a hawker centre cleaner’s job is the most uncoveted in the world.

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*I wrote this after taking a shortcut walking through a hawker centre one windy Saturday afternoon. It was after lunch. At that time, that shortcut felt like a tramp through wasteland. For those of you who don’t know, a hawker centre is a centre for food stalls, born of public policy to remove hawkers from the Singapore streets and house them under a centralised area back in the 70s-80s: see this paper here. Today, the hawker centre is considered a typically affordable, down-to-earth dine-out place.  Much has been said about “returning one’s tray” and having the facilities for people to do so in these hawker centres. Apparently not enough is being done yet, both by those who lay out the infrastructure, and by those who frequent these hawker centres. Ironically, this is a community that takes so much pride in its cheap delectable eats: just look at the obedient queues at the food stalls and the plethora of food blogs on webspace. The passion for eating just doesn’t quite seem to gel with the respect for food and the facilitation of its consumption which would include cleaning up thereafter.

This morning I rode past the river. The river looks clean only because it has been cleaned up. Something to think about the next time you think Singapore is a clean city.

Sunday, lily pond, happiness

Sunday morning broke with beautiful blue skies, even though forecast says  it is cloudy. Despite improvements in technology, weather forecast notifications are often no more accurate than poking your head out of the window for a look at the sky. Take a deep breath, see if there is a whiff of that unique smell before the rain. Listen out for chirping birds – the noisier our feathered friends are, the more you know it’s going to be a fine weather day.

Went for a ride a little later than usual in the morning. On my way home, I decided to drop by the water lily pond I discovered some time back. As it was rather late in the morning I was not expecting to see any blooming flowers. But here they are, proud and pink. It is little unexpected moments like this that happiness springs from within.

I am glad to have spare time, to cycle to places, and some scenic ones, to put things into perspective. 

Later in the day someone asked me about the “4Cs of Singapore” – it’s a rather old joke referring to the items that symbolise the attainment of material wealth and social status (if you want you can read about it here). There is probably an equivalent of a “4Cs” or “5Cs” in every society. In a fairly wealthy society like Singapore, materialism is all the more prevalent. Even those who condemn it can’t escape not talking nor thinking about it. That is why It is so important to have some quiet time alone to sort out the wheat from the chaff in one’s head. 

A rhu by any other name

The bright sun filtered through the clouds that drifted in from the horizon. A splendid hue of turquoise; the sea framed by tall rhu trees. I can look at this for a while. But not for too long, as droplets of rain blew with the wind towards the seashore. Suddenly the drizzle became a downpour. Again not for too long, for the weather is moodily mercurial. The rain stopped. Cycled back towards Tanjong Rhu which literally means “Casuarina Cape”. What’s that saying again? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” It’s not the name that matters, but what the thing is.