The (very awesome) farewell/ wedding gift from our good friends that was separately shipped a few days after the packers had gone. At last check, our gazillion boxes of pots and pans, books and clothes are still stranded at a port in Shanghai. Gee, thanks.
Waiting for the elevator after visiting my aunt and uncle.
You have been instructed…
… to stand behind the yellow line.
How many of us know that MRT in Chinese is 大众快速交通 ? To be fair no one says that in everyday use, 地铁 it is (even though it isn’t even underground half the time).
74 is the magic number of my childhood.
Daily life at the town centre.
The florist at the market sells fake flowers too.
Last night’s non-sober conversations become today’s crates waiting to be collected.
A quick snap on the new overhead bridge we are forced to use because barriers have been erected to curb our jaywalking habits.
The neighbor’s cat ready to pounce (sort of).
The multi-storey car park behind our apartment.
Stairs because we live on the second floor.
A spot of green amid mundanity.
Pathway leading to the bus stop.
Not far from the bus stop.
Where is the bus ?
Technically this has nothing to do with being an Eastie but I usually have something to read on the bus to mommy’s noodle stall. Thumbs up to Female’s captivating cover this issue, I really like how the two typefaces interact.
Alighted from the bus. It takes about five minutes to cut through the neighborhood to reach mommy’s stall.
Halfway there…
… almost there.
Tell-tale signs of the Chinese New Year festivities at the hawker centre.
The view from inside the stall.
Why I went to mommy’s stall: To get lunch ! My mommy makes the most kickass fishball bak chor mee. I think I had two bowls of noodles that day.
That’s all for now. Here’s a kitty good night from Bedok.
There is something about the design of Chinese envelopes that rings back to old-fashioned ways of the past, despite my inability to write on them correctly. There are two postal code fields and I know they are respectively for the mailing and return addresses but I’m not sure which goes where so I just slink back into international protocol: writing the return address on the back.
Sending out Chinese New Year cards to the family is an annual ritual I’ve adopted since I started living overseas, which is a little ironic considering I resented doing it when I was younger. My mom used to make my sister and I send out cards and we would get into trouble (usually scoldings) for all sorts of reasons ranging from mailing them late, poor handwriting (by mom’s standards), too many cancellations and forgetting archaic Chinese letter-writing formalities.
From this year onwards, I’ll be writing twice as many cards each year though I’m not complaining. I hope my new family in France and Spain will like them too.
J received a very lovely new year card the other day. Did I tell you I like pop-up cards very much ? They are always so magical !
A good friend has just given me my first Christmas gift this year in the hope that the plant “will keep me company in the apartment” since I’m working from home given my recent back troubles. I only just found out that the plant is also called Noche Buena and is actually indigenious to Mexico. Nice !
1. The bus driver would (finally) get into some crazy traffic accident because of his reckless driving.
2. Another unapologetic, impatient Chinese person would push me from behind and/or step on my foot.
