With Two Minutes to Spare

I am shallow. To a certain extent, I admit that I am shallow. So when I saw the cast and crew of Winter's Tale by the Bridge Project, I went straight ahead to buy the tickets without a second thought. I mean, how often does one see Ethan Hawke on stage or Rebecca Hall (Vicky from Vicky Christina Barcelona) being directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) in the Esplanade?

Winter's Tale is a Shakespearean play about Leontes, King of Sicilia, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. Being childhood friends, Polixenes visits the kingdom of Sicilia and catches up with his old friend. But due to Leontes's misguided jealousy, he accuses his queen, Hermione(Rebecca Hall), of having an affair with Polixenes and is actually carrying his bastard child. Polixenes manages to escape, while Hermione is imprisoned, gives birth and later dies.

The child, a baby girl, was abandoned and later adopted by a shepherd. Time passes and the girl named Perdita falls in love with Florizel, Polixenes' son. Polixenes objects to the marriage, the young couple flee to Sicilia unknowing of Perdita's heritage. Eventually, with help from a rogue named Autolycus(Ethan Hawke), Perdita's heritage is revealed and she reunites with her father. The kings reconciled and approve of Florizel and Perdita's marriage. While they all go to see a statue of Hermione, the statue comes to life and is then revealed to be the real Hermione, who went into hiding.

I was late with only 15 minutes to spare to run across 3-4 buildings before reaching the theater amidst mobs of people on the streets. I was in my typical high heels, black dress, trying not to pop a boob or fall on my ass as I half-stumble half-run to the Esplanade. Un-glamorously, I made it to the entrance, with 2 minutes to get seated and the show started. Phew...

The first few acts of the show was heavy, really heavy. A king's dramatic fall in paranoia, a queen driven to a corner. There was alot of room for overacting or really pushing the play into a very dark direction which thankfully did not happen. I thought that Rebecca Hall carried the first part of the play well, she used her body language effectively. Full of love evolving to disbelief, feminine and maternal, channeling earth goddess.

The second half of the play took a lighter direction with the young lovers meeting and running away. Family and friends who finally reunite. Ethan Hawke as the rogue who pulls the loose strings together like the hand of fate, channels more of a singing Captain Jack Sparrow with a guitar. Charismatic and brilliant, but Rebecca Hall really got my attention this time.



There was a Question and Answer session afterwards with the cast, nothing truly serious, lots of Ethan Hawke groupies and young students all angling to get a look.

Cruising Along the Top of Trees

My legs haven't seen the sun for the past 1 1/2 years, I blame it on the cold weather in China and Europe, I blame it on the long distances that I have had to walk in my jeans and sports shoes.

Now I have glowingly white legs, glowing in a very scary manner when I first spotted them in the mirrors of my True Fitness gym last week. These are the same legs that have jogged in Macritchie Reservoir for the last couple of days and still.. they are so fair that it looks a bit unhealthy.

Decided to go for the Treetop walk, entering via the Venus Drive road. It was a breeze walking to the suspension bridge. Along the way, there was muddy roads..

Army Barracks ...

Ranger Station

After a short uphill climb, there was the suspension bridge..

Getting up to the bridge was a good feeling, but the best part of the tree top walk was the stairs leading down from the bridge. It was littered with little signs educating the public on the various aspects of the tropical forest.




All in all, the entire walk took me around 3 hours, considering that I went up to the Jelutong Tower, it should take considerably shorter if you do not take any detours. The tower gave a better view of the canopy of the forest than the suspension bridge. It was a nice place to just chill out and grab a drink. I would highly recommend the treetop walk for people who just want to take a break from the city with their mp3 player and its catchy tunes.


The HSBC TreeTop Walk is accessible from MacRitchie Reservoir Park via
1.MacRitchie Nature Trail (indicated as Route 3 on map) or from
2.Venus Drive, off Upper Thomson Road.
(Map)

Change is the Only Constant

Feeling like a bit of a foreigner in my own country, I had to restrain myself from calling the cab drivers, "Shifu / 师傅", from screaming "Wait Staff / 服务员" at poor service in restaurants. I even felt the Singaporean way of English was a bit jarring to my ears. Dear God.

Finally signed up for driving lessons, and met up with the Old One for a movie today. (Anyway, the movie was Watchmen, I couldn't stop laughing at one scene where the super villain built this amazing building in the middle of remote Antarctica and all he did was to vege out in front of 30 TV screens with his pet. MEN ! Give them everything they want, and they still all do the same. :P)

I arrived at Ang Mo Kio a tad earlier than expected and started exploring this old town centre. I remembered spending alot of time after school during my teen-years hanging out. But like most estates, it has been transformed dramatically since then.


I had this nostalgic craving for Singapore's best curry puff - TipTop. Only located in Ang Mo Kio central, fully handmade with sizable chunks of chicken and potato. The rest of the puffs out there(polar, A1) are only pastry, now this is the real thing. Change might be the only constant, I am glad for some things that do not change.

Tip-Top Curry Puff
722 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8
#01-2843
(Located in a coffee shop behind the Jubilee building)

The Second Stop - Dongguan

We initially made plans to spend about a day in Dongguan then make our way to Guangzhou for some sightseeing. Plans.. being plans.. disappeared the moment we met our brood of relatives on my grandmother's side. There were so many of them, till now, I still can't identify some of them in my photos.

We went for some of my craziest dinners ever. Presenting the photographic evidence, I now know how the saying about how the Chinese eat everything that fly, swim, crawl or move.


We had the 'Hundred Bird Back to Nest' Hotpot,

The wok was located in the middle of a table, with its contents stir-fried while we ate claypot rice with the contents. The contents ... were... whatever birds that you could think of. I knew something was up when my Dad picked up the tiniest fried sparrow from the wok. Then the waitress told us that the wok had peacock, sparrow, dove, pheasant, wild duck... I stopped listening after peacock ....


I was introduced to 天地一号, a fruit vinegar drink to aid digestion, which was manufactured in Guangzhou. I personally quite liked it alot, especially after the exotic feast.

Next stop, the beef feast ...


I am a maneater now. Officially. This blurry photo is actually the remnants of double-ox penis soup. The penises were removed from the soup, chopped into pieces and eaten after being dipped in soy sauce. Yes, I had some. With beef lung, kidney, marrow. Penis was good. Like eating a giant chunk of tendon. *demonic laughter*

One of my best and most memorable dinners was at the farm that my relative owned.

And who says that a person owning a farm is poor? Please shake that thought out of your mind. That building and the hill in the distance? Belongs to my granduncle as well, not to mention the farm that I was taking the photo in. He owns a pig farm that supplies Guangzhou and the surrounding regions, owns 300 mu of land, fish farm, duck & chicken farm and the 3 star hotel that we were staying in Dongguan. Coming from a farming background, he went into construction as a bricklayer and worked his way up.

My granduncles caught 3 ducks from the lake for soup. Skinned 2 chickens from the farm, fished from the fish pond. Everything was caught from around us and prepared freshly in front of our eyes.

I was really touched at the effort everyone made for us. The farm was seriously out of the way, that day happened to be the day that Guangzhou started raining after a dry spell for close to 3 1/2 months, the roads were all muddy and almost impossible to drive into. They carried huge boxes of sauces and vegetables on foot. We left feeling terribly touched and guilty that we burdened these kind relatives for so many days as they went out of their ways to drive us around, feed us with the best that they can find.

I tried to make do as much appreciation as I could show with my meager Cantonese, but my only regret was that I couldn't understand as much as I could due to their accent. Chicken speaking with the Duck.

Panyu - The Village

As we slowly headed to the village in Panyu where my grandfather and his siblings had lived. My granduncle? (grandfather's sister's husband.. you tell me..) showed us around the village, telling us who owned what and how they are doing still.

To put it simply, there was once a GIGANTIC piece of land, then there was 8 siblings that split it equally. Since noone in the family sold anything, my whole extended family owns about 2 lanes in a village somewhere in Panyu right now. I'm a landowner!


One of the plots + house where the sole remaining family is staying.

In the land and house where our family still owns and is part of my father's (being the oldest son of the oldest son), hung the picture of our grandparents. It was the only association that I can make with that place. Without that picture, it could have been anywhere, anyplace. Only much later in the day, that i discovered that it was really a 'anywhere, anyplace'. Our family came from Anhui !!! Only the last few (maybe 10?) generations settled in Panyu.


The day we visited the ancestral village, was also my Dad's birthday. He was 63 and his first visit home.

Panyu.. .the first stop of the ancestral trail

On the 1st of March, I met up with my Dad in Guangzhou to start on our search for our roots. It is not much of a search honestly, my Dad was the last of his 6 siblings to head back to the ancestral village and we had relatives that flew in from Hongkong to guide us along on our trip.

On this one week trip, we headed to Panyu - a place where many people believed that Guangzhou originated and grew from and Dongguan, famous for being the 'factory' of China. Panyu was easily accessible from a 2hr bus ride from the Guangzhou airport. A 2nd-3rd tier city, it was your typical run of the mill town littered with malls and shops.


We had streetside Beef Tripe ..


Spotted some unusual looking smelly doufu that we passed on. Luckily, we were told later that many of the street vendors felt that their 'smelly' doufu was not smelly enough so they used sewage water to make it smellier. Buyer Beware !



Found the best ... BEST sesame paste that we ever had. It was thick, slightly sweetened. It did not have the taste or consistency of the starch powder that people normally add to the sesame paste. We deliberately stayed an extra morning in Panyu to have it again. Tried all four, sesame, almond, walnut and peanut. But honestly, the sesame was the best, even though the rest ain't that bad.

Somehow the dessert in Panyu was good or even somewhat legendary, even for the ginger egg custard (姜汁撞奶) that our relatives brought us to, we spotted on the walls of Hongkong celebrities, cooking chefs (肥妈) and food critics trying it out.

Don't take my word for it, even the critics on Dianping are praising it endlessly.

聚隆甜品
地址: 近郊番禺区市桥镇清河东路13号
电话: 020-84616912

I can't really remember the shop name for the ginger egg custard. But here is the friendly Dianping to guide you along if you're ever in the area. Link to Old, Famous Desserts in Panyu