Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Falling on my samurai sword
The 2006 cyclone season is here, and if you're a resident of Florida, you know what that means: that you have the IQ of a meat ball.
If you had any brain cells, you should now be living in a less life threatening city, such as Johannesburg - or even Bagdad. This is especially true after last season, which was so bad that we went through the alphabet of official names and had to refer to the last batch of storms by making primitive grunting sounds.
I am in the world's safest and most anal retentive city (except of course if you don't count Perth) - Singapore. A little country where sales of laxatives must have a significant impact on the GDP. Ok I am being a little harsh and probably more crabby than I usually am.
Look on the bright side - I like to tell myself - I am not about to be crushed or drowned by a tsunami or a cyclone... or covered in molten lava from an erupting volcano... I am more likely to fall on my samarai sword (you know the one i keep in the bedroom cupboard) after another frustrating encounter with tunnel vision thinking...
If you had any brain cells, you should now be living in a less life threatening city, such as Johannesburg - or even Bagdad. This is especially true after last season, which was so bad that we went through the alphabet of official names and had to refer to the last batch of storms by making primitive grunting sounds.
I am in the world's safest and most anal retentive city (except of course if you don't count Perth) - Singapore. A little country where sales of laxatives must have a significant impact on the GDP. Ok I am being a little harsh and probably more crabby than I usually am.
Look on the bright side - I like to tell myself - I am not about to be crushed or drowned by a tsunami or a cyclone... or covered in molten lava from an erupting volcano... I am more likely to fall on my samarai sword (you know the one i keep in the bedroom cupboard) after another frustrating encounter with tunnel vision thinking...
Thursday, May 18, 2006
wessex paradise - bohemian bro
I live in a magical garden in the middle of a concrete jungle.
It's called, rather boringly, wessex estate, and the name gives absolutely no hint of what this beautiful place is like.
Wessex gardens consists of a collection of "black and white" walk-up three story apartment blocks and houses which date back to pre-second world war.
They were built during the British rule of Singapore and the blocks and houses are surrounded and shaded by 200 year old trees with wide, long branches .... which are also home to families of squirrels, birds, strange looking chamelions with orange heads, lizards, insects (ok the mozzies arent that attractive) ... yes a few snakes... and a host of symbiotic plants which have nestled themselves along hteir lenght.
I look out of my window every day and I see greeen... my favourite colour - the colour of life and balance and calm.
Wessex is such an oddity in singapore as most of the island is modern and accommodation is in the form of high rise apartments - be they governement or private condominiums. Indeed there have been rumours about the demolition of wessex for more than a decade - according to my neighbour who has lived on the estate for about 18 years.
You see the land on which wessex is built (it is situated towards the west of the island) is very valuable and there is a lot of it. The apartments were built in a time when it was not necessary to squeeze as many people into a small area as possible. There are several "unused" football sized fields around the estate. Most chinese locals (chinese make up 80 per cent of the population) dont like living in hte apartments because they are old and you cant get cable. Most of the residents are either expat, malay, indian ... although there are a few chinese.
There was talk of demolishing it and putting up condos, there was talk of building horrible government flats on the "football fields" - god onlyknows what hell that would be...
but for the moment we are safe.
Somebody high up in the government decision making offices decided that singapore needed to nurture more creativity amongst its peoples. So as a result Wessex has now been classified "Bohemian" and for that reason alone ... the arent messing with us at the moment.
Mind you, my friend is a speech therapist, and the other neighbour sells washing machines at Harvey Norman ... although there is an artist downstairs who grinds away on funny looking monolithic scultures which she leaves on her patio ... so we are all hoping she will carry the Bohemian torch for all of us.
I am doing my bit by burning loads of incense and hanging chimes in the entrance way...
Boho rules !
It's called, rather boringly, wessex estate, and the name gives absolutely no hint of what this beautiful place is like.
Wessex gardens consists of a collection of "black and white" walk-up three story apartment blocks and houses which date back to pre-second world war.
They were built during the British rule of Singapore and the blocks and houses are surrounded and shaded by 200 year old trees with wide, long branches .... which are also home to families of squirrels, birds, strange looking chamelions with orange heads, lizards, insects (ok the mozzies arent that attractive) ... yes a few snakes... and a host of symbiotic plants which have nestled themselves along hteir lenght.
I look out of my window every day and I see greeen... my favourite colour - the colour of life and balance and calm.
Wessex is such an oddity in singapore as most of the island is modern and accommodation is in the form of high rise apartments - be they governement or private condominiums. Indeed there have been rumours about the demolition of wessex for more than a decade - according to my neighbour who has lived on the estate for about 18 years.
You see the land on which wessex is built (it is situated towards the west of the island) is very valuable and there is a lot of it. The apartments were built in a time when it was not necessary to squeeze as many people into a small area as possible. There are several "unused" football sized fields around the estate. Most chinese locals (chinese make up 80 per cent of the population) dont like living in hte apartments because they are old and you cant get cable. Most of the residents are either expat, malay, indian ... although there are a few chinese.
There was talk of demolishing it and putting up condos, there was talk of building horrible government flats on the "football fields" - god onlyknows what hell that would be...
but for the moment we are safe.
Somebody high up in the government decision making offices decided that singapore needed to nurture more creativity amongst its peoples. So as a result Wessex has now been classified "Bohemian" and for that reason alone ... the arent messing with us at the moment.
Mind you, my friend is a speech therapist, and the other neighbour sells washing machines at Harvey Norman ... although there is an artist downstairs who grinds away on funny looking monolithic scultures which she leaves on her patio ... so we are all hoping she will carry the Bohemian torch for all of us.
I am doing my bit by burning loads of incense and hanging chimes in the entrance way...
Boho rules !
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
pula ubin - the last piece of "old"
I don’t even know HOW I found out about Pulau Ubin – but it wasn’t from a flashy tourist marketing campaign.And if you "Google" the island, you won’t find very much about it. It’s just one of those word-of-mouth kind of places.Pulau Ubin (Granite Island) is a small Singaporean island just a 10-minute bumboat ride from the "mainland".It's the modern, first world city-state’s last piece of old ... and a real-time glimpse into what things must have been like before Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965.
Situated northeast of Singapore in the Johor Straits, with a population of about 200, Pulau Ubin gives one the distinct feeling that mainland Singapore doesn’t really want to admit the place is still there. Akin to a decrepit old family pet ... You love it because you have a history together, but you don’t really have much to do with it anymore. I have been there six or seven times during the past year, and love it more with each visit.
Stepping off the bumboat onto the Pulau Ubin pier is like stepping into a 1950s kampung (although I was nowhere near being born yet then). Kampung is Malay and Indonesian for “village”.
Singaporeans lived in a collection of kampungs prior to its modernisation and the subsequent construction of high rise residential apartment blocks.
Here, though, there are no shopping malls, no flashy towers, no slickly-dressed women in pointy-toed court shoes (except maybe the odd mainland visitor), no sports cars and certainly no ATMs. Residents rely on wells for water and noisy diesel generators for electricity.The island is largely undeveloped bush and forest land - and there are cycling tracks with lead through it. A cycling trip takes you to the quarries, under the cool trees and past the waving locals in quaint old wooden shacks. (who sell you cold drinks at inflated prices).
Until recently, some of the island's inhabitants earned their living by keeping chickens.
This came to a swift end, however, during the bird flu scare and there are no more chickens on the island - except maybe the odd one which escaped.The only vehicles which use the narrow tarred roads are mostly bombed out cars and minivans, bombed out motorbikes and bombed out bicycles (which are hired out to the visitors for $5 a pop). A favourite rest stop of mine is the Buddhist temple.
You have to negotiate a very steep hill just before you arrive there, so I generally bowl into the place panting and sweaty.
The temple has paint peeling off the walls and concrete floors covered by worn woven carpets. The monks are extremely serene and the whole place smells deliciously of incense.Not far away, is a strange little house which looks like it might have belonged to a British settler from the 18oos. It would be perfect if you lived in a place which snowed ... the roof is pitched to allow snow to slide off it during winter!
If you are lucky you will find the smiling old man who lives in a ramshackle shack and is the proud owner of a very large, fat, black pig. She smells horrendous, is bad tempered and plain mean but the kids love her.
You will also be very lucky if you stumble upon the “Secret Garden” which is tucked away near a collection of vegetable patches guarded by scarecrows.
It really is secret, denoted as such by a large wooden sign proclaiming so at its entrance. I discovered it on my fourth trip to Pulau Ubin. It is a magical place straight out of something in a children’s story book, complete with its own stone well and a collection of gloriously aromatic flowers and herbs.
Pulau Ubin one of the few places one can go in Singapore which doesn’t involve taking on crammed shopping malls and spending lots of money.
I go to there whenever I can spare at least half a day to get out to the east of Singapore to Changi village where you catch the bumboat.If you are not up to cycling, there are mini-busses which go around the island but essentially cycling is the way to go to get the most out of the day.
I prefer it to the glamour of five-star Sentosa and recommend it be visited at least once before it’s suddenly "discovered and revamped" ... and a much loved piece of old is lost forever.
Situated northeast of Singapore in the Johor Straits, with a population of about 200, Pulau Ubin gives one the distinct feeling that mainland Singapore doesn’t really want to admit the place is still there. Akin to a decrepit old family pet ... You love it because you have a history together, but you don’t really have much to do with it anymore. I have been there six or seven times during the past year, and love it more with each visit.
Stepping off the bumboat onto the Pulau Ubin pier is like stepping into a 1950s kampung (although I was nowhere near being born yet then). Kampung is Malay and Indonesian for “village”.
Singaporeans lived in a collection of kampungs prior to its modernisation and the subsequent construction of high rise residential apartment blocks.
Here, though, there are no shopping malls, no flashy towers, no slickly-dressed women in pointy-toed court shoes (except maybe the odd mainland visitor), no sports cars and certainly no ATMs. Residents rely on wells for water and noisy diesel generators for electricity.The island is largely undeveloped bush and forest land - and there are cycling tracks with lead through it. A cycling trip takes you to the quarries, under the cool trees and past the waving locals in quaint old wooden shacks. (who sell you cold drinks at inflated prices).
Until recently, some of the island's inhabitants earned their living by keeping chickens.
This came to a swift end, however, during the bird flu scare and there are no more chickens on the island - except maybe the odd one which escaped.The only vehicles which use the narrow tarred roads are mostly bombed out cars and minivans, bombed out motorbikes and bombed out bicycles (which are hired out to the visitors for $5 a pop). A favourite rest stop of mine is the Buddhist temple.
You have to negotiate a very steep hill just before you arrive there, so I generally bowl into the place panting and sweaty.
The temple has paint peeling off the walls and concrete floors covered by worn woven carpets. The monks are extremely serene and the whole place smells deliciously of incense.Not far away, is a strange little house which looks like it might have belonged to a British settler from the 18oos. It would be perfect if you lived in a place which snowed ... the roof is pitched to allow snow to slide off it during winter!
If you are lucky you will find the smiling old man who lives in a ramshackle shack and is the proud owner of a very large, fat, black pig. She smells horrendous, is bad tempered and plain mean but the kids love her.
You will also be very lucky if you stumble upon the “Secret Garden” which is tucked away near a collection of vegetable patches guarded by scarecrows.
It really is secret, denoted as such by a large wooden sign proclaiming so at its entrance. I discovered it on my fourth trip to Pulau Ubin. It is a magical place straight out of something in a children’s story book, complete with its own stone well and a collection of gloriously aromatic flowers and herbs.
Pulau Ubin one of the few places one can go in Singapore which doesn’t involve taking on crammed shopping malls and spending lots of money.
I go to there whenever I can spare at least half a day to get out to the east of Singapore to Changi village where you catch the bumboat.If you are not up to cycling, there are mini-busses which go around the island but essentially cycling is the way to go to get the most out of the day.
I prefer it to the glamour of five-star Sentosa and recommend it be visited at least once before it’s suddenly "discovered and revamped" ... and a much loved piece of old is lost forever.
