krisalis

Singapore’s National Day is coming up.

On August 9th, Singapore will celebrate 38 years of independance. To mark the occasion, the government encourages the its people to decorate their apartment blocks with the national flag.

Some housing estates take the flag decorating very seriously, with all residents ‘strongly encouraged’ by their neighbours to hang the flag out at a certain point on the balcony or from a window, so the whole building will end up decorated evenly from top to toe. Other places are much more lax, with different households hanging their flag from different points on the building, resulting in a rather scruffy, haphazard look. And, of course, there are some people who just don’t bother with the flag thing at all.

I have asked a couple of people why they don’t hang out the flag for National Day. Reasons given included: - If you put the flag up the wrong way round, you get fined. - If you put up a flag that is torn or discoloured, you get fined. - If you put up a flag, and it falls down and injures someone below, you get fined, and possibly jailed. - If you put up a flag, and you forget to take it down by the end of August, you get fined. Thus, it’s better not to put up a flag.

August 9th falls on a Saturday this year, so I’m fairly sure we will mark the occasion by doing all the standard Saturday things – sleeping, eating (the most universal of Singaporean traditions?) and puttering about the flat. We might also watch a bit of the National Day parade and the fireworks on TV. There is no way I’m prepared to do the Singapore thing and line up for hours on end to aquire a ticket (even if they’re free!) to go to the National Stadium to witness the parade first hand.

Happy National Day Singapore. Selamat Makan!

Separating egg whites from egg yolks is quite fun. Glooop, gloooop, gloop. Egg whites remind me of snot. Woah, that’s a lot of butter Ouch, that’s a lot of whisking. Did I mention that’s a lot of butter? And, ouch, my arm hurts from whisking. And the darn sauce is still lumpy. Ooh, too hot. Hrm, not hot enough. Yikes, kinda lumpy. Ah well. Serve it anyway. Here you go, husband dearest. What? You like it? You want more? You want to scrape the bottom of the saucepan for that last tiny drizzle to put on the final bite of salmon? OK, then. We’ll call this a culinary success.

[Thanks to Bailz who sent us the cookbook I used to make dinner last night, and to Mark, for eating it, and most of all for doing the washing up.]

Do you know what a scrunchie is? You know those elasticated bands of material girls use to tie their hair back? That’s a scrunchie.

According to my hip youngest sister Lennie, scrunchies aren’t fashionable anymore.

I must have missed that memo, because I still wear scrunchies from time to time. I’ve usually got one in my handbag to pull my hair back when it gets in the way.

Lennie informs me that scrunchies are “so nineties”. Apparently, everyone is wearing tiny clear elastic bands now, or at the very least, a regular non-material covered hair elastics.

While I’m busy mulling over the demise of the scrunchie, Lennie delivers the kicker.

“But you can still wear scrunchies if you want to. After all, you’re a child of the nineties. It kind of suits you.”

Lennie is 17, and she thinks I’m really old. I probably thought people who were 28 were really old at her age too. But suddenly, I feel like I just turned 58 instead of 28. Are scrunchies to hair what shoulderpads were to t-shirts from the eighties? Am I desperately and unredeemably out of the loop? Will I ever be trendy again?

After spending a couple of days scrutinising hair styles from my position of scrunchie denial, I caved and bought some of the tiny clear elastic bands. I got a small bag, filled to the top with little clear elastics while I was in Italy. Lennie knows all – tiny clear elastics are all the fashion in Italy too.

Tiny clear elastics may look cool, but they are a complete pain to use. They’re difficult to put on, they slip down after a couple of hours, they break easily, and they can only be used once. The regular elastic bands are better, but I still feel like they tear at my hair in a way that my comfortable material covered scrunchies do not.

I may have to return to my scrunchie loving ways. After all, I am a child of the nineties.

I signed up for the Singapore Movabletype Meetup, like a good sheep. It’s scheduled to take place on Monday, 11 August at 7pm.

I’ve half-heartedly been seeking some advice/ input on the creation and maintenance of a photoblog with MT, so maybe this forum will help me get my act together. I’ve found some good tutorials/examples on the web, but nothing that quite matches up to what I want to do.

I’m also thinking of jumping on the bandwagon with 26things. I thought I wouldn’t have the time for it this month, what with the wedding and all. However, I took so many pictures on the honeymoon that I reckon I should be able to meet all 26 categories out of those shots.

I speak very little Italian.

I speak very little Italian, and what I do speak, I speak molto badly.

I mispronounce things. I use the wrong gender for objects. I insert French words and Spanish words and made-up gibberish words into my malformed sentences.

Everytime I spoke to someone in Italian, they answered me in another language. Mostly people responded in English, but a whole lot of people also spoke to me in German (which I don’t speak at all) and a few people replied in French. The German thing has me a little puzzled. Do I look German? Does my terrible Italian sounds Germanesque? Does Italy suffer from a deluge of German tourists, eating their ice cream and stealing their sunbeds, and hence assume that all non-Italians speak German? Hrm.

I speak very little Italian, but I can acutally understand a fair bit, based on my French, some high school Latin and a dollop of common sense. By speaking a little, and listening a lot, I think I expanded my meagre Italian vocabulary slightly, and became more confident using the few phrases I needed on a daily basis.

Buongiorno. Quanto costa? Scusami. Vorrei due birra, per favore. Aqua minerale. Vino. Caffe. Dov’e la toletta? Il conto, per favore. Grazie. Prego. Ciao. Buonasera. Due bigletta, per favore. Arrivederci.

On our last day in Venice, I wandered into a bar, and asked for two beers.

“Vorrei due birra a la sinistra, per favore”, I attempted.

“Sinistra?”, he asked, looking around the bar with a puzzled expression. Then he continued speaking to me in Italian.

For the first time, someone actually answered me in Italian.

I understood that he didn’t understand me, but I had no idea how to say what I wanted any other way. So, naturally, I reverted to sign language. I pointed the beer tap, and held up two fingers.

He started laughing straight away. “Oh! A la spinella!”

Then, still laughing, he spoke to me in English. “You asked for two beers on the left. I couldn’t see any beer on the left. You want two draft beers. Sinistra is left. Spinella is draft.”

He served up two tall cold glasses of beer and left them on our table with a wink and a smile.

Pictorial documentation of the hen weekend’s activities, as described in the previous entry…

They have been digging up the roads around our apartment for the past year. It’s been a complete mess for months on end. It was a complete mess when we left 3 weeks ago.

Somehow, in the 3 weeks that we were away, the construction fairy has paid a visit, and put everything back together. There are smooth road surfaces and pavements where giant heaps of rubble used to be. The bus stop has a proper shelter. Neatly trimmed grass and perfect little trees line the newly striped roads. The traffic flow has completely changed. There is a new one way system. Cars and trucks and taxis whizz along unimpeded by bulldozers and workmen.

It’s great. I don’t know how they did it all.

Also, while I was away, Lyle got evicted from his domain, Meg moved of her own accord, Vanessa redecorated, Bailz drove 1600km for drink, Lucian got married and Andrea went to Scotland, came to my wedding and then promptly moved to China. I miss her. Kris has been globe-trotting, Monkey’s been enjoying Lara Croft’s assets, Mattay got a cold sore, Shauna went to T In The Park, and appears to be updating more often, yay! Jann got a job, Trish completed a triathlon, Jenn had an encounter with The Spectre, but also a nice tax-return, and Mark (from Zapology, not my Mark) has rejoined the darkside with a new weblog called Xynk, using Moveable Type’s Typepad service.

You people have been busy! It’s great. I don’t know how you do it all.

I was a little apprehensive about the Hen Night. Nervous, even.

I shouldn’t have worried. (Sometimes I think “I shouldn’t have worried” should be my motto).

I had a most excellent time. My friends and sisters are the bestest, nicest, mostest wonderfullest people ever.

To kick off the proceedings, we all donned the regulation official Hen Night t-shirt and headed off to a spiffy health club, where we lounged in the hot tub, lazed in the sauna and got hot and steamy in the turkish baths – all the while chattering nineteen to the dozen. Then I was taken away, wrapped in a gigantic fluffy towel and treated to a gorgeous hour long massage. I emerged feeling immensely calm and relaxed, all wide-eyed and gooey with happiness.

We met up with the remainder of the Hens, freshly arrived from London. Official t-shirts were distributed to the new recruits, and then we retreated to a nearby pub for lunch and more chatter.

(Aside: There’s something totally bizarre about wearing a t-shirt with your own picture on it.)

After lunch, we headed back to base for a catnap before getting glam for our night on the town. No one would tell me what the plan for the evening was – just that I had to be outside, dressed and ready to go at 6.30pm. Billie and Katie kept an uncharacteristically close watch on the time, and by 6.32pm, we were standing on the pavement, feather boas at the ready, when a white stretched limo pulled up.

“No! You can’t be serious? You hired a limo?!”. I was totally surprised.

Anna and Sarah tumbled out in a cloud of laughter and feather boas, offering glasses of champagne. Me, Billie and Katie clambered in, and then we collected the remaining feather boa clad hens from the final pick up point. We cruised the city with the sun roof open, sipping champagne, singing along with the radio, and waving at random people who tried to peek inside.

The limo dropped us off on Castle Street for a couple of cocktails. The Hens distributed stickers, and dressed me in a veil and sash, proclaiming my status as the Bride To Be. I once swore I would never ever wear a veil on my Hen night – too tacky and trashy, I thought – however, I quite took to the little veil they bestowed upon me, and happily wore it for the rest of the evening.

After happy hour ended, we moved on to dinner at a lovely little French restaurant that served gorgeous food. Three courses and a very full belly later, we rolled out of the restaurant and headed back to the pub. Except somehow, we got distracted along the way, and ended up going into a dodgy club we used to frequent as students, after the bouncer promised us the DJ would play whatever we wanted. The DJ duly complied, and we claimed the empty dance floor as our own. Tres groovy.

We called it quits in the club when things started to get crowded, and headed back out to the pub as per the original plan. It was a warm night and the beer garden was packed in a sociable sort of way. There were several other hen and stag parties there too. Great minds think alike? Or fools seldom differ? Closing time came too soon, and next thing I know, we were back on the street, talking to a bunch of blokes wearing dresses, and heading back to the dodgy student dive because it was close, cheap (free?), and we knew we’d get in. Classy, I know.

We danced until closing.

Hot and tired from dancing, buzzing from the beers and loud music, we walked all the way home, watching the sky start to turn from black to dark purple to deep blue as the sun gradually crept towards the horizon.

Despite British Airway’s best efforts to prevent us from going anywhere over the weekend, we made it back to Singapore safe and sound last night, tired but happy.

Things are in pretty good shape back at the flat – just need to take care of all the laundry and deal with the mail (mostly bills, but a few wedding cards) that has accumulated while we’ve been gone.

Back to work today, where there will undoubtedly be several hundred emails to wade through as I attempt to switch my brain back on in work mode.

How’ve you been?

Hello! Oops, the page went blank!

We’re in Chamonix now. About to head off for dinner.

Regular blogging and many pictures to follow once we get back to Singapore on Monday!

Honeymoon has been fabulous. It’s going to be hard to get back to reality!