It’s nice to be home

I’m blogging from The Gallery Hotel in Singapore — I arrived yesterday afternoon from a 12-hour journey that took me from Tokyo to Nagoya to Singapore. It’s very nice to be home. I’m already speaking Singlish at top volume to cab drivers and fruit sellers at food courts.

The parents were keen to squeeze in as much makan (eating) time as possible. Food is the way they express their love and they sure did put in a lot of effort to make all my favourites.

Last night, we had popiah (rice paper veggie wraps with a mean chilli dip), sayur lodeh (Malay veggie curry), our family veggie stew (it’s usually made with deep fried chicken slices in a tomato stew of peas, onion, carrot and potato but there was a separate vegetarian version for me), Chinese spinach soup, and durian for dessert. My dad drove all the way to Bedok (an eastern suburb in Singapore; we live in the north) to buy creamy Malaysian durians for me to feast on. Awwww….

To me, this is ambrosia. I only get to eat this like once or twice a year. What a treat!!

I played with my dogs, Taffy and Coffee, who still remember who I am. Taffy is pretty old, deaf, and blind but she licked my hand when she confirmed my smell.

Coffee is our nervous, excitable mini pinscher who would love to be a doberman but she is truly too much of a scardy cat to be the big dog she thinks she is.

I miss them sooooo much when I am in Tokyo.

In the meantime, I’m just happy to hang out and relax with friends and family before we bugger off to Australia for two weeks. I took a stroll to Cold Storage to buy some fruit for breakfast and I was amazed how Robertson Quay has changed — there are new bars, restaurants, condos and buildings. Everytime I come back, Singapore looks different to me. No wonder the government announced that we are bouncing back from the recession at breakneck speed, especially construction, service, and manufacturing industries.

I’ll try my best to blog from the road but I left my Macbook in Tokyo so that our part-timer can use it to process Beauty Box orders — yes, the show must go on!

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