Geyland Serai Hip Market

On Saturday evening, B3 is celebrating his prelim exams finished with his classmates with a trip to the much publicised Hari Raya market in Geyland Serai.  We dropped him off in Bishan station so that he could meet up with his classmates and go there together.  B1 is interested to check out the market as well although Mummy is quite reluctant due to the crowd.

Since I am the driver, I thought we can see if we get carpark.  If so, we could let B1 and B2 enjoy the festival.  It was the last day of the market.  We had dinner at the hawker center.  It was about 6pm, so there are many seats as the main patrons have not buka puasa.  B1 and B2 tried Nasi Padang with a long queue.  Each plate is about $4 but has no meat as all the meat dishes were sold out.  Mummy and I had 10 chicken satay.  After dinner, we explore the festive stalls.  Like the Straits Times publish, plenty of "hip" food and the prices are exorbitant.  B3 spent $18 and felt it is ok as he expected to spend more.  What is with the kids today?!  B2, B3, mummy and daddy spent only $20 for dinner for the 4 of us.  B3 is spending the same amount on himself and felt it was ok.

My hip starts hurting after walking for maybe 10 mins.  So I go to the Alwadi Indian Muslim Coffeeshop for teh halia as teh halia is not available in the Geyland Serai Hawker Center.  The teh halia cost $1.20 and taste quite good.  They have fried banana and fried jampelak(similar to jackfruit).  The fried banana is so-so as it is not ripe.

Two women with a young boy shared our table and we strike up conversation as she explains eating the dates before breaking fast to us.  It is to give the sugar rush to the brain before they start eating.  I find Malays are friendlier and comfortable talking to strangers.

It was a nice trip out with our 2 boys:)

Sciatica

I had pain in my right hip for more than 3 weeks now.  I had the pain the following day after I nearly fall of my bike at Lorong Halus.  I had MRI done a few weeks earlier.  The report says my L4 and L5 are touching the nerve.  I must have aggravated the 2 vertebra and caused them to rub on my nerves every time I walk or move.  It is quite painful and at time debilitating!  I search the Youtube and tried many videos and this morning, I found one exercise that can give me immediate relief.  However, the pain came back after a few hours.  So I will need to stretch more frequently.

Wonderful to have My 3 Boys Home

B1 is back from his trip in Europe.  So now all our 3 BBs are at home.  Soon B2 will be leaving for Canada to start school and we will be left with 2 boys again.  I am very happy to have our complete family.  This is a short window.  After that B2 will be out for a few years and then it is B3 turns to go for University.  My boys will flew the coop soon.

It is getting very precious for them to be together with us.

The Sky Turning Blue

It is 6:37am and the sky is slowly turning from dark grey to greyish blue.  It is nice to be up early and see the sky brightening up.  It is turning more and more blue.  The birds are chirping like they just woke up.  It is like whispering.  Chirp, chirp, chirp.  Chirp, chirp, chirp.  Nice the heard birds singing early in the morning.

It is prelim exam week even though it is mid-term school break.  Soon, I have to send B3 to school.  He has so much to do and hopefully he does well.

Maintaining the Garden

My wife is very good in maintenance.  She just bring out the cutters and starts working on the garden.  So I have no choice but to help.  We trim the trees and our plotted plants.  I cut the grass which is only a tiny patch and after one hour, the garden looked like nice and clear with all the foliage reduced.  I have to wash the balcony and presto! it is neat and beautiful.

Two prawns are still alive in the pond and actually molted once.  It is so amazing!  I have to get more bread to feed them.

NEA checking for Rats

Yesterday and this morning, NEA came to check for rats in my estate.  Its seems someone from our neighbourhood is sick with disease carried by rats.  They found droppings in one my neighbour's unit at level 2.  The rubber of the aircond piping was chewed up.  It is terrible.  Rats is a perennial problem when we live right at ground level.

I hope they can solve the problem quickly.

Build Up

When I first move into my estate 12 years ago, my place is really in the backwater of Singapore.  The kampong is surround by the secondary forest.  It is a very quiet neighborhood.  Then everywhere starts to build up.  The jungle cleared up, the hills were cutdown.  Now many HDB blocks in are what used to have greenery.  Some parts has been become a park.  Mostly, are just flats for people.  It is so sad.  New roads, new schools, now a hospital is also coming up.  I have watched Sengkang build up.  More buildings are coming up.  Now my neighbourhood is like other parts of Singapore, full of flats, roads and cars!

I missed my laid back home.

Chong Pang Market

B2 has ORD.  So I have not gone to Chong Pang Market for about a month now.  We have not been eating enough fruits as selection in NTUC is quite limited.  This morning, I went to Chong Pang to get fresh fruits.  Mango is in season so I bought 3.  I also bought papaya, red banana, green lychees and jackfruits.  The green lychees is actually cheaper in Cold Storage or NTUC as I went to Nex to kill time in the afternoon while waiting for B3 to finish his tuition.

Price for durians is still quite high.  So I did not get any.

Brand New Balcony

My level 3 balcony is done!  It is now black in colour and the surface is matt, so the grip is excellent!  I now have a wonderful new floor with great grip when wet.  It is so nice to have a floor that is flat and no popped up tiles.

I will need to transfer my potted tree as it was dirtying the floor whenever it rained.  So my Jasmine tree will need to be relocated to a more suitable location in my garden.

House of Spirits

My wife and I are watching this drama serial from HongKong.  There are lot of comical and humorous sketches and at the same time human drama of family ties.  It is nice to pass time together doing brain dead activities.  I think my eyes is burning as we have a marathon sessions on the drama.

We will take a break at we finished.  It is not good to be glued to the phone screen!

Beautiful Morning

White clouds and cerulean blue sky.  Beautiful morning.  Work is in progress to put in the tiles.  The workers are quite nice and asked us where to cut the tiles.  We asked to cut it on the inside.  This way, the tiles looked complete when we walk out.  We have nice black tiles.  It will be hot but good contrast from our neighbours.

Wonderful Homecooked Dinner

We bought Russet Potatoes on sales last week in Cold Storage.  So the potatoes are growing buds and soon will be bad.  So my wife bought pork chops to cook for dinner.  She also buy sakura tomatoes as it has claims of no pesticides.  She made both french fries and mashed potatoes.  The pork chop is fried and I also cooked up bacon bits for the mashed potatoes.  She made me scooped the mashed potatoes using ice-cream scoop and then decorate the bacon bits on the plate.  The Western pork chop set was done professionally with french fries, mashed potatoes and roasted tomatoes.

B2 and B3 enjoy the dinner very much.  B1 is out in East Europe for tour.  My wife is so happy we are delighted by her cooking.

Double Loans during School Holidays

It was raining heavily this morning, so there is no work done on my balcony.  So after sending B3 to school, I went to hawker center in Marymount for breakfast.  But many of the stalls are not open.  It seems the hawkers are taking a break during school holidays.

Now I am trying to download more audiobooks as my computer was wiped clean when my office IT reset it for home use.  I was pleasantly surprised that library has double the quantity I can borrow.  This is really good to encourage more reading.

Readership in the library according to the statistics has dropped.  Nowadays, I also watched Youtube before I sleep rather than read a book.  The technology change has made us lazy to read.  It is so much easier to have short video and when you watch, there is a tracker that tracks your interests and keep suggesting videos of similar genres.

Tough Job!

The 2 men are working under hot sun.  There is no shade, so they wear big straw hat to get some relief from the blazing sun.  The cement they poured this morning is dry now.  Right now they are hammering out the concrete to prepare for laying the tiles tomorrow.  I admire the workmen.  It is tough work and requires skills.

Putting in the Tiles

It is a group of Chinese workers this time.  They are the tiles layers.  They are mixing the cement and paving the floor.  Now there is electric mixing machine making the work easier.  The sky is cloudy.  Hopefully, they can finished the job before the rain comes.

Water Ponding Test

My balcony is flooded with water.  The waterproofing is done and the place is filled with water to make sure there is no leakage into our bedroom and toilet.  The heavy rain in the afternoon also make us worried as we were out to the chiropractor and lunch.  Luckily, the water overflow into the drain hole.  So far, everything is holding up.  I hope everything turns out well.

Lucky Me!

This morning, I went out early to cast net and fish.  I caught one and let the rest go.  A young Malay man was casting his net too.  He caught some fair size Toman and gave me one.  I cycled home and it poured after I reached home.  I am so lucky and the rain was very heavy.  I gave the one I caught to my arowana.  The Toman, I left in the bottle to acclimatise with fresh water but it jumped out.  Luckily, I saw it before it died and I decided to put it right away in the tank.  It has been in the tank for a few hours now and seem to be doing fine.

Hard Work

It is hard work to remove the debris from my balcony.  The heat is very intense.  Now that they clear up all the broken tiles and concrete, they are ready to do the waterproofing.  I can hear them arguing over the job.  The project manager want them to waterproof up to the wall.  So he is telling them even if their boss says no need, they have to do.

It is no an easy task.  Hopefully the work gets done in time.

Popped Up Tiles

The tiles in my balcony popped up.  Today, the contractor starts work on it.  It is so noisy with the electric chisel.  I am glad I had a couple hours of peace during lunch.  The drilling does cause headaches!  Seems like the chiselling is done now.  I will glad when the job is over as we have plenty of cleaning up to do during this week.

Visiting Father-in-Law

My father-in-law has undergone radiation or gamma knife treatment.  His youngest girl gave him a tiny piece of phiten tape to use.  He says it helps reduce the pain.  So my wife went to buy the tape for him.  When we delivers, he complains that she is so stingy, just give a tiny piece.  So he pays my wife for the tape.  I do not know if he is joking or he meant it.  I asked whether they told that to their daughter.  As usual, they do not answer on this kind of questions.

I find it funny that they like to pass words to their kids indirectly.