Happy 39th Birthday, Singapore! This post is dedicated to my country, complete with a cheesy animated gif of a flapping Singapore flag, which I stole from someone else's site. I figured that if I did not hang a flag outside my flat (lift upgrading and painting going on, lah), the least I could do was to hang a flag on my site. (Update: James tells me I need to get permission from Prime Minister's Office to hang the Singapore flag on my site, so I have folded and put the flag back into the store room.)
In case you are wondering why I am posting so late in the day, it is because I was out early this morning having a lovely picnic at one of Singapore's fine Nature-Reserves-cum-reservoirs.
Five families, eight kids, and lots of food. It was a riot. We had lovely weather the whole morning till 2pm, and we managed to get one of the four sheltered huts because we were early. For food, we had beehoon, ngo hiang, curry, DIY sandwiches, curry puffs, otah, grapes, hot and cold drinks, and a bottle of chilled B&G red wine. Heaven.
The kids ran freely on the grass, we adults played a numbers guessing game following by Gin Rummy, which resulted in a lot of grapes being eaten as forfeit (we brought about 2kg of grapes).
Imagine if you will, losing a hand of Gin Rummy, and having enough Jokers and Aces in hand to rack up 150 losing points. Imagine that for each 10 points, you had to eat either a grape, a slice of tomato, or a handful of alfafa, or if you like, for each 50 points, you had to eat a curry puff, five pieces of lettuce, one slice of ham, or one piece of ngo hiang. You do the math.
It was no longer playing to win, but playing to minimise the losses. After a few Gins (and much fruit eaten), no one dared to hold on to their hands to Gin, and put down the first passports they had (with as many Jokers used as possible). Safety first. You don't want to have a Joker in hand when someone else wins. Not with five grapes at stake.
