Singapore Shenanigans from April

Hai from Singapore! I noticed that I still hadn’t posted pics from my LAST Singapore visit, so now is an appropriate time 🙂

We stayed at Clarke Quay, at the lovely Swissotel Merchant Court which was just moments away from the water.

The hotel room itself was lovely and very bright, with a great view of the quay.

 

I loved the Kopitiam food court in the nearby mall,  Liang Court. We ate there 3 times in our short stay! Sometimes for brekkie/brunch, or as here, for a refreshing Ais Kachang. More on food here in a separate post.

 

For our evening meals, we couldn’t go past Jumbo Seafood. Both times we went to the one further away from the bridge, because the tables at the bridge establishment were already reserved til way late! We elected to have Pepper Crab instead of the usual Chili Crab, and it was delish (more on Jumbo later too, in a Singapore food post to come).

 

After a short rest and freshen up, we glanced out the hotel window to see a load of people gathered on the bridge, seemingly drinking and chatting en masse. But wasn’t this squeaky clean and orderly Singapore? Do they allow drinking on the streets? In Sydney there’s an open container law which prohibits you from public drinking except in designated areas (like, in pubs or right next to them).   Dom popped out to investigate. And our eyes did not deceive us!

I scurried to get ready, then we raced out to mingle with the locals. We hadn’t arranged to meet anyone, though we’d met a few goths back in 2010 when we went to Heart of Darkness. Spotting a few black-clad suspects, we decided to loiter nearby, while beginning to enjoy our cold Tiger beers purchased from the nearby convenience store.

 

Erm yes, blurry – but then, that’s how we felt after a few beers! Before long we got chatting to the people next to us…and behold, they were goths and punks! One lovely girl called Prethi leaned over to say how nice my hair was, and that was it. Soon after I discovered that the Indian guy with the death hawk (see pic above) was none other than Philip Von Grave, who had been a facebook friend since we met back in 2010! Small world! (And poor memory).

Basically, we got to meet all their friends (a couple of whom I’d met at HOD before), and one of them got out his laptop to play some alternative tunes: Rancid, Clash, Bauhaus, the Cure etc. And we all got drunk and silly together and talked about gigs and albums we liked until the wee hours. I tell you, it really made the night for us!

 

On our second day, with cranky brainboxes we dragged ourselves back to Kopitiam for morning nosh and I had a delightful dish of silken rice noodle wrapped around small tasty prawns, before being smothered in a soya sauce. YUM! OK, so I also had some dim sum sides, while dom had some wontons with noodles:

 

After brunch, Dom went to Chinatown, while I headed to Geylang (see my Geylang/Joo Chiat post here). We reconvened for a meal @Central, before hightailing it to the Marina Bay Sands. OK, so we got off at the wrong stop and had to get back on the metro, meaning that by the time we got to the top, the sunset was all but over. It took a long time to walk through the complex, find the lift, wait to board the lift, disembark, join the queue, find a spot to take photos… Despite the rush I couldn’t help but marvel at the architecture once again, both inside the complex and outside at the city views.

 

The view, once we made it to the top, was stunning:

 

However, the delay meant we were late heading out to the Singapore Night Zoo, and eventually we had to admit defeat on that score. Not to worry though, let’s just head to Jumbo Seafood again!

I’ll soon be posting some of my CURRENT Singapore and Malaysian shenanigans…more soon!

Hongdae on a Saturday Night

Well it almost seems a dream now, but back in March I was in Seoul for a week, staying right near Hongdae, which is the student and entertainment district.

I have mentioned Hongdae before (Hangin in HongdaeCoffee & Drink Palace Hongdae and shoe-store glimpses in My Travelling Wardrobe), but here I show a little video so you can get a feel for how mad the place is on a Saturday night. There was a break between bands I was seeing, and so I walked around, checking out the other people walking around, the street markets, the street food, the bars, cafes, clubs and boutiques that litter the place. Oh, and the traffic jams. Boy, do people like to take their cars out there!

If the above isn’t visible, visit the link Saturday Night in Hongdae. And make sure you go, when you’re in Seoul!

Newtown Festival 2010

Last Sunday was Newtown Festival 2010, and despite a fairly wet November, the sun came out in force to ensure a scorching day for all.

The promise of a free gig by fab band The Snowdroppers lured us out of bed and up to Camperdown Park around 2.30.  We were not disappointed, and I only wished I’d gone to see them at Manning Bar on Friday night.  There were more than a few parasols and umbrellas in sight as festivalgoers attempted to keep sunburn at bay, and though grey clouds threatened to dampen proceedings, the rain held off.

I wore a new top by Bebe in a ruched ethnic print with royal blue silk trim. I wore bright blue engineer boots to match, a black ruffled skirt and black and white leopard print leggings.

   

It seemed to me there were less people than in previous years – but it was still slow work trudging from the main stage area to the food tent area. Ah well, it gives you time to look at the market stalls, and people-watch. Such an array of food was offer, with cuisines from around the world – and yet it was the Dutch chips with mayonnaise that called out to us “eat me”.

Being as hot as it was, most people opted for t-shirts and shorts, but I managed to find some people with style, and a sense of fun and colour. I noticed the fun make-up on the face of this guy Daniel, and discovered the lovely lady he was with – Elise – writes for Inner West Live! (as I occasionally do).

   

A stylish group of friends with rad hairstyles:

I just had to snap the girl on the left with her colourful outfit and cool hair – but she totally got photobombed by singer of the Snowdroppers, Johnny Wishbone! To the right, pretty in pink.

     

Some ladies chose trilby hats to keep themselves shaded. To the right is Carly from the Dark Shadows, just back from a whirlwind tour of the UK and Japan. We caught up for a while and chatted about London and Tokyo.

Now usually I wouldn’t drink until night-time, drinking responsibly and all that.  But Newtown Festival is a special day, and when friends travel across town to be with you, well, you know what time it is when they arrive. BEER O’ CLOCK!

As you can imagine, both the quality and quantity of photography may have gone somewhat downhill after that…and as the festival drew to a close we decided to decamp to a pub nearby. We tried the Carlisle but it was packed to the gills, and so we made for our usual haunt, the Townie. This is the view from our vantage point, the balcony. Ah, Sunday afternoon on the balcony of  your local, watching the world go by…

crossing Enmore Rd

We met up with some more old friends and newer acquaintances, like Terry here (in the cap), who is a regular at Take It or Leave It.

I wisely decided to put the camera away at this point.  But here’s to Newtown Festival 2011! Cheers!