*1224 - rent

Whenever D's not around, I get severe separation anxiety because we spend every waking and sleeping moment together otherwise.  From sprinting for the bus every morning together, working from 8 to midnight together (yes, not the ideal lifestyle, new years' resolution to change that), all meals together, passing out from tiredness at the same time.  Anyway, he's away and whenever that happens, I turn into a sloppy gluttonous jittery trashy-American-TV-watching slob.

Which is what's happening now as I'm talking way too much to Poka, blazing through all the chocolates in the house, and getting really mad watching House Hunters.

These people furrowing their brows over having $600 rents per month should try living in San Francisco.  Our little house is so much littler, so much older, and I don't even dare to tell you how many times that amount we are paying than that.  Ahhhh!!!

Leaving for D's in a few days and hopefully my sanity will be restored soon.  It is almost Christmas!

*1223 - pixie

If I weren't Moonface ...

(Remember him? Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood/Faraway Tree, favorite childhood series)

... and perhaps were blessed with a nice petite bone structure, I would LOVE to have a chic little bob.  Cropped it all off once in my life and unfortunately that was not to be.  I thought it to be ultra fun and cool but it was really hard to maintain, and it wasn't the cute little pixie bob I've always dreamed of having.

Oh wells, it's always going to be me and my boring long hair I guess!

*1222 - bangkok

It made sense to swing by Thailand since we were all the way in Southeast Asia already.  And the contrast between Bangkok and Singapore was remarkable.  

Whizzing around in tuk-tuks: quickly discovered it was cute but a bad idea and switched over to metered taxis.

Man or woman?  We watched the ladyboy cabaret show, albeit nervously on the edge of our seats which happened to be the front row, dead center seats.  Audience participation in a ladyboy show?  Sure gave us the jitters.  

 

And of course we sailed the Chao Phraya river on a long tailed boat.

 

 

This cute little river merchant came by and ended up selling fresh pomelo to the ang moh couple behind us.  I was like UHHHH are you SURE you want to eat ROOM TEMPERATURE RAW EXPOSED FRUIT on the Chao Phraya with your delicate non-Asian tummy bacteria?  Perhaps they were armed with preemptive charcoal tablets like we were.

Wat Arun, temple of the dawn.  Fascinatingly decorated with bits of porcelain, apparently brought by Chinese boats.  Dizzyingly steep, made my knees wobble especially on the way down.

 

The reclining buddha's toes!  

     

And a very.  Eyeopening.  Experience.

 

View from the observation deck of our hotel.  Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest hotel in Bangkok.  The daytime view of Bangkok is a lot better than the nighttime view.  We went up there the first night, peered around, shrugged and went to sleep.  And lo and behold, woke up to this lovely view!

Apparently the best mango sticky rice street stall.  I could not tell you where it was, T led us there.

I looove mango sticky rice.  Especially with the little crunchy things by the side.

Also on the agenda was our first Thai massage ever (involving a roomful of Thai massage ladies screaming with laughter at our pain), other touristy sights, lots of mystery street food (just point and consume and down charcoal pills after), lots of really good non-mystery non-street food, and realising why girls in Singapore head to Bangkok for the sole reason of shopping.

*1221 - brunch in Singapore

My recent trip home served more of the purpose of immersing myself totally into the Singaporean culture/food that did not exist elsewhere; hokkein mee and prata and chilli crab and carrot cake and sentosa and the gardens and ku de ta and the like.  But every once in a while one does need to sit down in an atas environment, preferably surrounded by green lushness, and likely frequented by the casual ang moh in her yoga wear and doggie in the middle of a weekday.  Nothing quite beats good old sweaty hawker food, but there must be appreciation for everything else that is good in a different way.

Spruce.  Very tucked away and pleasant ambiance apart from the fighting ang moh couple next to us whom we tried very hard to ignore due to extreme awkwardness.  The lady was throwing a silent tantrum and refused to eat her $20 lox and cream cheese and not a word was exchanged the entire time.  Woops.

Eggs benedict was fine, the saving grace was the corn waffle beneath it that provided some interesting sweetness and texture that raised it a teensy step above a regular eggs benedict.  But then, I am hyper-critical of eggs benedict given the number of really amazing ones I've had.  So ... not bad but wouldn't return for it.

The advice we had going in was to ignore the brunch items because anything they made, I could probably make just as well on my own.  Yes, that is the sad downfall of being able to cook--things that used to be WOW become yeahhhh-I-could-make-that-myself.  Snob, I know.  So anyway we got a burger which was ... also fine.

Overall it was LOVELY ONLY BECAUSE COMPANY WAS LOVELY, otherwise, a place to relax and nibble and be seen but overrated in my opinion.

Then, D and I tried Jones the Grocer.

An Australian concept, I believe, and actually had inspiring pancakes.  Coconut, with mango, and why don't we ever eat pancakes with ice cream around here??  They need to do that more often.

 

The bread with the "BLT" was lovely, crisp, herby, and the "L" in the "BLT" was watercress I believe which was a lovely touch.  The tomatoes were thick and seasoned.  I thought the details were impressive.

And this was classic Singaporean customer service, where we wanted hot water for our teapot and were refused because it was policy not to be able to refill teas.  We managed to weasel out a cup of boiling water from the server which we poured into our teapot and refilled ourselves.  It was bizarre and an embarrassment from the outside looking in but if you know anything about (poor) Singaporean service, it was all rather ordinary actually.

Sitting outside on an unusually cool day, people watching without deadlines and without anywhere important to be or important to do.  Thumbs up to vacations.