Singapore Snapshots (Eunos, Geylang)

While I procrastinate on writing about our rather awesome orangutan odyssey in Sabah, I thought I might as well share some photos I took a while back during various explorations of Eunos and Geylang and never ended up posting. There’s nothing in these photos quite as exciting as trekking through leech-infested Bornean jungles, but I like them because they are souvenirs from sleepy weekend afternoons spent walking around quiet neighbourhoods near our home, doing nothing exciting but happy nonetheless.

A bird shop in Eunos:

Bird Watcher

We ventured deep into the Eunos warehouse district in search of dining chairs to match a $100 dining table we scored off Craigslist. Although we did end up buying conventional chairs, for a moment the idea of dining horses was rather tempting:

Random model horses

You can pay $8 (or more, not sure what the price is now since I haven’t gone there in a while) for Penang assam laksa at Penang Kitchen on Tanjong Katong Road, or you can go two or three bus stops down the road to the food court at the top of City Plaza and enjoy this one, just as good, for $3:

$3 laksa at City Plaza

Anthony Bourdain listed Sin Huat as one of his 13 Places To Eat Before You Die, but he probably didn’t mean from splinters:

Decrepit tables at the famous Sin Huat

I am rather fond of roadside altars. Not sure why. It might be bundled up in that somewhat trite tendency of modern yuppie Singaporeans to celebrate the preservation of traditional practices they have no intention of really perpetuating themselves.

Roadside Altar, Geylang Road

Durians. What to say about durians? I’m actually fairly indifferent to durians, although I do like photographing them. I still think Andrew Zimmern is a fucking wuss though.

Durian stall, Geylang Road

‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Galangal

I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone I couldn’t see in a room nearby had just broken out into what sounded like a line from one of my most-played songs of last year. In almost exactly the same way I’d gabbled the line in countless mad solitary post-midnight subwoofing dances in my room, she was saying “Galang galang galang”, and even managing a fairly good approximation of MIA’s singsong.

My first excited thought was that there might actually be someone in the office who listened to non-mainstream music. Although over the years I’ve grown used to having almost no friends who listen to the same sort of music I do, it’s still really nice to meet someone who does. My second excited thought was that with my now-pathetic grasp of current music affairs, maybe I was just unaware that by now Galang is mainstream music and it’s a hit! Either possibility would be cool.

And then the next line of the conversation burst both my hopeful little bubbles. She walked out of the room, followed by her friend, who was insisting “No lah, the best tau huay is at Selegie Road!” And what, then, did my ostensible fellow MIA-lover say? She repeated what she’d said before, same rhythm, same singsong – “Geylang geylang geylang!”

I’m crushed, but I might as well get something out of this disappointment – if you have a view on where the best tau huay is, please share.

[Note: This post is better understood if you are a) a music geek or b) familiar with places in Singapore, and best understood if you’re both.]