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We put the kids to bed by 10pm (children must have consistent bedtimes, it is good for them), on Saturday night. Finally, some peace and quiet, and a chance to check out the "Chinatown" set up at our estate.
This year they really went the whole hog. Lights, Pasar Malam (Night Market), and even fireworks.
They even set up this giant God of Fortune statue. It almost felt like the real Chinatown.
There were many stalls, but a few empty ones (economy not yet fully recovered?). We had a walking strategy that would cover the whole stretch.
All the usual suspects were there. Junk food stalls, dodgy game stalls (try knocking ALL the cans down or fishing something decent from the floating Pokemon pool), kiddie rides and New Year goodies.
Conspicuously absent were the pirated music and game stalls, a staple in Pasar Malams. Either the Residents' Committee was told to keep these non-kosher stalls out (intellectual property laws, FTAs, and all) or the new copyright laws are really scaring these vendors away from such public events.
We picked up some Red Packets, despite getting boatloads of free ones from petrol kiosks, insurance agents and banks. The ones sold at the stalls looked really nice, with gold embossed designs. After we bought them, we realised that we had to use them all up this year, or wait another 12 years for another Rooster year to use them. Yes, the darn things had the Rooster motif on them, and you couldn't use them for Chinese weddings either (unless there was some kind of Rooster theme).
We should have waited till one night before the Rooster year to buy the packets. Sure get discount, because the vendors would be desperate to dump them.
Ginny and I stopped by the Malay burger place (there were several scattered throughout the market) to pick up a Black Pepper chicken burger. I could not see any Ramli burgers this time. I think the authorities (Ministry of Illegal Importation of Unlicensed Meat?) clamped down hard on these tasty burgers which are found across the Causeway. Ramli burgers are Da Bomb. But I guess Ramli patties could not get their passports chopped this year.
They also had Roti Johns (submarine sandwiches fried with egg and meat). The Indian cook was very amused by my photo-taking, and waved at me with a smile after we left with our burger. The queue was long, but we bought a bowl of shredded ice cream (Mango flavour) from the stall next to the burger one to eat while waiting.
Ginny picked up a Made-in-China wooden blocks game for Faith, and we also headed for the sweet stall to pick up sweets for the New Year. It was a sea of colour, all beckoning us to buy them all. And I think my wife heard the Siren's Song, because she got carried away and picked out $18 of sweets.
It's not like we're going to entertain the President or something. Ah well, I suppose I will have to finish the sweets myself.
The stall owner displayed a surprising amount of religious sensitvity, because she grabbed a bunch of sweets from another container, and asked us if we would mind them taking them. They are given free when customers buy a certain amount, she said, but it was her duty to inform us that the sweets had been offered to the God of Fortune to be blessed for good luck and peace. We had no issues with it, and told her so (free, what), but I was quite surprised she took the trouble to ask us first before adding them to our bag.
While my wife looked at the clothes on sale (anyone wants fake Pokemon t-shirts for kids?) , I was entertaining myself laughing at the obviously fake Barney soft toys and very tacky New Year decorations. They were even selling life-like roosters that bobbed their heads forwards, to "give you good fortune", the man said. More like frighten the living daylights out of my kids.
They also set up a kiddie rides area, with puke-inducing rides that went nowhere, just round and round. But the kids seemed to enjoy it. Until they hurl.
We missed the fireworks when they officially launched this event. We were on our way to dinner, and we didn't want to join the crowds gathering for the light-up anyway. But this mini-Chinatown was a fun enough distraction until we make our way down to the Real Thing. That will require a lot more planning and preparation, since the crowds for the real Chinatown will be insane. But what to do, we are suckers to 凑热闹 (or joining in the festivities), even if it means going to Chinatown during its busiest time. Never mind, this year got Chinatown MRT station.
All we wanted was to pick up a few things at the Postal Centre mall, near Paya Lebar MRT Station.
Mommy went to shop, and I took Faith to the POSB ATM to withdraw some money.
Here is an important lesson for you if you have an autistic daughter who loves to swim: HOLD HER HAND when you are at the ATM. Especially if it is located near a body of water, like a huge fountain.
Faith probably understood me when I said, "Wait". She did not promise to follow instructions though. The split second I turned to enter my PIN into the ATM, she bolted towards the fountain, climbed over the ledge, and jumped right in.
As I ran towards her, I could see her step over the ledge. What I did not expect was her disappearing from sight. The water was way deeper than I thought. It seems the shallow waters I saw earlier only applied to the top part of the fountain. The spot where Faith went over the ledge was a deep pool where the water collected.
By the time I ran there, she was in water head deep, bobbing up because she held on to a step, looking a little bewildered.
I fished her out and called Mommy who dashed over to take Faith to the toilet to take off the wet clothes and shoes. My job was to buy her something to wear from the nearby This Fashion store. But before I left for the store, my quick-thinking wife said, "But wait! Don't go yet!"
"I have a This Fashion discount card! Got 10% discount."
What presence of mind, and what typical Singaporeans we are. Emergency can still remember a discount card.
Faith ended up wearing a blue (slightly too big) dress Papa bought (at 10% off), and had to go barefoot because her sandals were wet too. And I had to carry her for the rest of the shopping trip because she had no shoes on. Mommy took one look at my choice of Faith's dress and made me swear never to let her wear that thing outside the house.
All this to welcome the Year of the Cock.
And as Mr Miyagi points out, Singapore Rooster can lay eggs one.
image via muddynights
You jealous or not? I had dinner with Xiaxue leh. Plus a whole lot of other bloggers too. We were there to have dinner, meet up, and chit chat.
Xiaxue is showing us her two phones. Some peoples very the loaded one, got two phones all. Not like poor me, only got one phone to bau ka liao.
I got to eat dinner with Singapore's most popular blogger, Miss Xiaxue. And also Agagooga (thanks for bringing me Arwen's jewels), Adri (aiyah, did not get a chance to chat longer with you), Mr and Mrs Acorn were all there.
These are the drinks Miyagi and I ordered. I had the blue detergent drink, he had the green detergent drink. The drinks look appealing, no? In the background, to the right, you lucky readers also get to see Xiaxue's... hand (I was aiming at the drinks, honest).
I even shared a few beers after dinner with Mr Miyagi, Miss Idledays, Mr Myrick, Mr NgeeAnn, and Mr Preetamrai.
It was all good.
What made it better is that, at an event like this, you get to meet a long lost classmate you have not seen for twenty years. And we chatted like we left Secondary school just yesterday.
It is a good time to be a blogger, because of the new friends you make, and the old friends you meet again.
My friends would like me to let you know that although you may think mr brown is funny (or... not), his jokes go through a very rigorous screening process.
And that for every good one you read here, they have to listen to the other 99 jokes that bombed.
They would like you to acknowledge their sacrifice to make your day a funnier one.
Because of their brutal honesty, mr brown no longer has of that harmful condition known as self-esteem, and you, gentle reader, get to hear only some of the bad jokes he makes on a daily basis.
These men are the true heroes of our nation and they deserve a National Day award.
According to the photographer, before this, the guy was fingering the sculpture's nipple.
Thanks to Alex for the link to the rest of the photos.
Singapore's Most Wanted is now at Friskodude's blog, go and look to see who you can pick out from the criminal line-up. That "Males with long hair will be attended to last" sign alone is worth the click on his link. I've been hunting for that sign for the longest time.
And that kissing schoolgirls shot is still a classic.
I have only recently started to track my site stats in detail, and I thought I'd share a little glimpse into the traffic I have been getting lately on this site, as well as the amount of bandwidth this little site chews through in a month.
I have to say, I am surprised at the numbers. Where do you people come from?
Based on this ten-day snapshot, from 15th Jan 2005 to 24th Jan 2005, mrbrown.com is averaging more than 100,000 unique visitors and almost 200,000 pageviews a month. That dip you see on Friday the 21st of January was due to a public holiday, and the traffic patterns (high on weekdays and lower on weekends) are fairly consistent. You skivvers surf my site at work, right? Heheh. Er, carry on, soldier.
And that bandwidth number has been climbing from 3Gb per month a few months back, to the current 15Gb. More than three times my allocated bandwidth of 5Gb per month.
Another interesting snapshot is the browser traffic for the last 100 users: 73% Internet Explorer users and 20% Firefox users. I would like to believe that many mrbrown readers are enlightened Firefox users.
I will post a more complete monthly stat overview when I have more data. But so far, these are interesting numbers indeed.
Nice of them to feature this site. Some more I get referred to as Mr Lee.
Now I will await the movie offers, slimming ad endorsements and teeth whitening ad deals to swarm my front door.
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