Thursday, January 31, 2008

Why go to the market when you can pick from your backyard?

Today I spied the forest as I awoke. The sun was shining and it was bright. It would be too hot. So I fell back into bed and into slumber. Awoke once more and ate the usual cereal breakfast. Then, the sun hid behind a cloud and the weather turned cool again.

So I decided to do what I wanted to do for a long long time.

I decided to go back into the forest.


This time around, I'll be prepared. So I gathered my tools - shovel and forked tool, durian gloves, big-ass plastic bags. Wore the 'protective gear' of track pants, trekking shoes and cap. Brought the maid along and towards the forest we go.

The landscape's always shifting, always changing. The digging and construction --and slow death-- of my forest, made the paths different from what I remembered. I had to enter it from the highway, through another clearing in the tall grass. Up the hill-slope and into greenery and solitude. The forest is silent. There are no noises here, no people around, save the trampling of the feet under twigs and the swarming of insects. There is no other living thing. But the forest is old. It has a history. And it used to be a fruit orchard, brimming with gifts in its heydays. Now its in delapidation. That people and time forgot. But not I. Not others cunning and opportunistic. The forest isn't uninhabitated. Some squatters have chanced upon this unguarded land and set up shop. I stay as far from them as I possibly can. Some people, like me, come ad-hoc to gather once in awhile. Those curious enough to venture in discover the treasures the forest holds, and become regulars. But we rarely cross paths. For the forest is big and there are endless days and hours to visit it. But unlike parks, the visitors are few. And the regular, less adventurous Singaporeans, hole themselves up in comfortable flats. Never daring to venture into the forest just outside their doorstep. Not knowing what it holds. And people say they've seen and discovered all there is to Singapore.

How laughable.

My forest. Is a little kept 'open' secret this side of the island. Or rather, this stretch of 'the end of the world', my affectionate term for the dirt-hole location I live in. For one of the few redeeming factors about this location, is the forest. And I know no where else you can find one as such in Singapore.

I used to learn driving along the highways here. And the instructor would tell me to turn my head and look out the window at the durians hanging in the trees in the forest. And as I do I look away from the road. While driving. That's how important it was to look.

Every year, would witness me sitting upon my bed, looking outside the window, head tilted to the side, wondering at the wiry old folks spilling out of the forests, red big plastic bags burdened with somethings round and heavy. Upon their bikes they go and off they disappear. And I wonder what is in my forest outside my window. But Singaporeans were born and bred to follow rules. Nobody said the forest was safe or even open for entry. Nobody told me I was allowed to go in. In fact, they have that 'state property' sign stuck all over the place. The one which shows the soldier firing at a tresspasser. So I didn't go. But curiousity day and night just outside your window gnaws at you after awhile. And so a few years back I decided to find out. And I went into the forest.

Today. Is my second time.

And I was determined to get what I didn't get last time.

The place isn't as I remember. The main 'roads' are still there, but the side tracks are not what I remember. We tracked through the jungle, passed sentries of spiders and their webs. I almost walked into a few of them. We found this tree which bore fruit the size of mellons and green as peas. I had no idea what the heck they were for. My maid say can eat (cos they cook it in Indonesia), so we took two which offered themselves on the ground. Further on, there was a clearing. And it was cultured. There were neat rows of corn plants, and upon closer inspection, rows of pineapple heads jutting above the ground. Then at our feet, we saw creeping plants with leaves carpetting the floor. If you look closer, you'll see pillows of fat melons. Some as big as bolsters. It was very. Very tempting to pick those and take away. But the vegetation here, doesn't look wild. Someone grew it. Some squatter. And I had a very bad feeling that if I took it, it would be akin to stealing. Although, of cos, nothing on this land belongs to anybody. Technically and legally. But still. The last thing I want is to be discovered carting off a big fat green fruit by a machete-wielding squatter. Who knows what this people could do to you? I'm in a forest. Far from the highway. It's quiet and no one can hear any violence that goes on. I told my maid to leave the melon alone.

Further from this make-shift planatation, there was this small little clearing. There were sweet potato plants. We dug but to no avail. Then as I was walking back, right at my feet lay one of the biggest yams I had ever seen in my life. It wasn't even... buried in the ground. It was on the ground. Growing big ferns and leaves from its shoots. I gasped, and hacked away at it. We now have 3 items in the bag.

We walked further and further, up pathways that led to nowhere. Nowhere interesting or 'fruitful' in particular. Some paths lead to dead ends, which were disappointing for you had to turn back without any gain. But I was sure all the paths that were trodden must lead to something of use. For these paths were trampled by people, there aren't big animals here. Perhaps they've taken the fruits from this place already, or I just ain't looking hard enough. We came across several gardens of tapioca plants. I resolved to get tapioca this time. But even then, my tools weren't enough to dig. It was too difficult. I need a big "chanko", or I'll never dig up the white stuff. So we left again.

Later, there was a starfruit tree by the roadside. I didn't recognise it, but my maid did. I knew it was a damn good idea to bring her here. So we stopped at a place I would otherwise overlook. There were baby starfruits strewn on the ground. All were ripe, some were eaten, we took what was usable. Organic starfruits. Mmm. Why pay a high price in a supermarket?

On our way back, we passed by an empty bicycle. Then we walked further and returned to near where the bicycle was. But it wasn't there anymore. Instead, I caught a glimpse of an old man riding the bicycle off. Something green and laden in the basket. Aha! There must be fruits or something edible at the path which the bicycle was parked at. So we followed the path into the forest. There we came upon a big growth of massive plant shoots. My maid gasped, I went what? She said 'ginger'. And so we dug at the roots. And yeah definitely. There was the smell of fragrant ginger. Young ginger. But tubers are a stubborn lot. We had to dig with our tiny tools. And pull and pull at the root.

After awhile, I got fed up with the digging, I decided to go further for I saw banana trees ahead. Lots of them. And as I walked off, suddenly I came upon my quarry. Jackfruit. Yeap, I told myself today I wasn't going to leave the forest without one of its humungous jackfruits. There was one, wrapped up with cloth like a fat baby, still attached to the tree. I got my maid to retrieve it and lo! near the ground there was an even bigger one! So huge I didn't bother carrying it. I rolled it along the ground like a log. Two jackfruits. The plastic bags were totally full. We pulled out whatever ginger we could. And decided to go. I realised that the presence of cloth on the jackfruit meant someone else was eyeing it too. Plus I saw make-shift shelters near our location. The squatters live around here. Best to be going before anyone came back. Forget the bananas.

2 very sweaty hours later. We stumbled out of grass onto the highway. Happy and laden with bags so heavy even my maid had to rest her hand. I can't wait to eat the weird fruit my maid recommended.

But still.

The biggest haul of the forest remains out of reach. One day, when I get better tools and more time to explore the huge place. I will deign to find durians (which is what the forest is famous for-- famous amongst those in the know of cos), and rambutans (I've seen them high up in the trees), and finally dig up all those tapioca carelessly lying around.


I'll be going back to my secret garden soon.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Met the scgs girls a few days back. Was good to catch up once more, and trade stories, and be foolish as usual. Doing the tai-tai thing, eating at Sun and Moon (I knew it! I knew it!), coffee and cakes later. A meal is never complete without dessert, and the stomache contents magically part like a red sea to make way for it. Trying to dig dirt and gossip out of each other, seeking answers to questions.

Aren't we a lovely bunch? =) Everyone still seems the same in certain ways. Sure, our exteriors' have changed, but the core remains the same. Everyone's mannerisms are as I remember it.

------------

Some days, you're just too lazy to exercise. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. This is so metaphorical of other aspects of life as well. Some days, you're just too weak to be positive. It's tempting to yield to hum-drum melancholy. But just like exercise, you always feel it's worth overcoming the mental hill later, when you're on a post-exercise high. Let's not be weak shall we?

It's a beautiful day out there today. And I want to think beautiful thoughts.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Oddly. Strangely. I feel quite happy.

It ain't no burst or spurt of happiness that I get sometimes, when I picture the future and I see a lovely gay gathering in the horizon. And the thought of head-thrown back laughter; cheeky teasing by the lesbians or blatant adoration and fooling around with of gay men. And suddenly the sun is shining.

Nope. Not that kind of effect.

I don't seem to need to think of my 'social calendar' to get uplifted. Which I used to do so in darker days of yesteryear, with the crazy deadlines and piling amounts of work. The clawing and digging of desperate fingers up this impossibly slippery mountain. Last semester was oddly tough, and oddly abit morose.

I don't know.

Maybe, it's still week 3 that's why. Maybe, it's the coming of the new year and excuses to let your hair down. Maybe its the cruising along of project groups, the cruising along of class participation. Maybe it's the mini-successes of toastmasters (I'm starting to have a fan club within my club haha). I know for sure it ain't the miracle of a certain night. The exhilaration, has mostly expired, though I know a fond little part of it will forever linger in happy memory. Haha.

There seems...in some fortunate way, that there is this backburner of positivity going on. This background happiness that seems to colour everything beautiful. Some unspoken, hardly noticed thing.

How do I know? Cos there seems to be less... discontent. Less 'asking' of things from God, from out of the blue, nowhere. Less questioning. More... whatever goes, goes.

Notice the absence of melancholy, and you notice the presence of joy.

Why? I don't know. I hope it lasts.

Some wants can wait. Things do not seem too important these days. Just the doing of whatever floats your boat.





God provides.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

New musical discoveries!!! No more usual pop or hip hop or R&B or whatsoever. Who needs it when you've got...!

Death cab for cutie!
Indie music like...
Metric
Broken Social Scene
Cansei de ser sexy
Dance music like...
Steve Aoki (DJ!)
Justice


They are awesome awesome music...food for the ears. And I'm on a nightly binge.


Happy Days! Life is good in my little bubble of delirium. Don't burst it >.<

Sometimes, in my most intense moments, I wonder if my worklife is more suited to a kitchen than an office cubicle. Cos there's nothing else that yanks me with such deadly attraction like an invisible rope but cooking research...okok, so really cute and alluring girls do the same, but I digress....

When I was in Nepal, there were so many wonderful and intrigueing flavours and textures that were characteristic of the food there. One example that really stood out for me was sel roti. It means 'round bread' and it's shaped like that heavy, rubber ring thingy that we used in primary school PE. It's kind of like a fried donut, and it's created by grinding water, rice (soaked overnight apparently), sugar etc into this semi-coarse paste. Then you pour the paste into a funnel, make a donut shape in the vat of boiling oil and deep fry. They eat it with chickpeas and potato curry. Very tasty. It was such an interesting food item to me... that I even attempted to find out the recipe from the villagers, who made that particular breakfast for us.

So there I went, away from the orgy of fellow team-mates, hyper-enthusiastic school kids, wizen and weather-beaten villagefolk who were caught up in a never-ending process of saying goodbyes and hugs and write/email/don't forget mes. To a quiet little part of the village, where this lady was threshing wheat in a very postcard-perfect manner. I kinda like this scene of village life, so I went up to her, greeted her and took pictures of her going about agricultural chores. We started to communicate, tried to, failed, and so I whipped out the phrasebook and that helped abit. Somehow, another elder lady joined us and we chatted. I told them in broken Nepali, that I loveeed! Sel roti.... and then (I think) they started to teach me how to make it. And in between bits of rapid Nepali, sign language, the flipping of pages and shaking of heads, I got a pretty vague idea of how it's done.

Then I came back to Singapore, and I tried to recreate it by finding voila! online recipes on this humble little donut! So I made it once, and on the second try, I experimented by using the batter for goreng pisang, mango, and did other variations like some milo-chocolate and another parmesan one. And each culinary endeavour was an experience savoured and loved. Sweating in the deep-fried heat, standing for more than an hour, I don't notice such things. For the mind was fully concentrated on the important and dead serious task at hand.

First time turned out well, second time experiments not so. Even then, it never stops me trying. If the food doesn't turn out good, in the bin it goes. But the experiments don't end.

I guess you could call it a hobby. Though to me, it sounds like a terrible understatement.

If only I could place such intense passion in my studies and 'work that needs to be done'. If only it was cooking, I will never procrastinate. Ever. For I have absolutely zero patience once inspiration or epiphany of a food idea strikes. I MUST do it immediately or as soon as physically possible. I will even do it late at night. *which reminds me ... that someone, maybe O, once told me that our dear boss from SB used to be so seized by the urge to bake that she will wake up in the middle of the night to bake bread....* Hmmm.

For all the experiments I've done,
I've wasted heaps of flour, sugar and eggs in creation of sucky cakes
I've wasted cups of rice, sugar in sel roti experiments
I've cracked 3 tiles in my pizza pursuits with a 'zeng-ed up' oven (successful and worthwhile, though the need for tile replacement is a headache and problem yet to be solved)
I've wasted bars of cooking chocolate, spatlase wine, avocados, mangos, chicken livers
I've wasted loads of eggwhites (and the accompanying egg yolks)
... I could go on further, but this is all I recall for the past 3 months. Hmmm.

I theeenk. Culinary school... will be one education I would adore. Which is so oxymoronic eh? Education + love... the two is has never met.

Maybe cos I've been getting the wrong education all this while...

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I've been discussing this with various random people on my msn list (3 in total). And of cos, with the gay boys....

And we all want...


A MAKE OUT BUDDY!!!!! Just someone else to kiss into oblivion and happy days haha.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Life is looking like this big bright yellow sun right now =)



I could just smile and feel the awesome winds in my face...



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Been talking to some pals from the nepal trip lately, about love and relationships and the stresses and heartaches and string-pulling you'd feel. And how I'm strangely free of all these entanglements now. I guess the pre-nepal trip shot at love didn't really work, and I don't feel like trying anymore. Heck, she doesn't even dare look me in the eye these days haha. I've already done a, b, c, but I guess if people just don't want to. They just don't want to. Oh wells, I guess I was on the verge of getting over already since the start of the trip. So it's not too bad.



But anyway, I always tell myself in soothing, "If they don't love me? It's their freaking loss!!! Muahahaha...." Yeap. Onwards here I go, to spread my love elsewhere!

Sometimes, when I think back of the past and that period of attachment.... all those feelings of no time no time... all the 'I need to make time make time'. All that urgency, all that notions of longing and how much time can I spend with her this week or else I won't be satisfied. All that string-pulling and heart-wrenching. The feeling of being constantly occupied and realising that I have almost zero time for self.

Basically, the feeling of being 'attached' lah. For awhile, it was abit claustrophobic. Like now my time is also someone elses'. Not so free willy anymore.

Sure of cos. One could say that it would be nice to be attached. I'd agree.

But in the meanwhile, if you ain't, use that time on doing all the awesome shit-ass things you'd love to do. Cos after all,

there ain't no strings attached, and I can go have my cake and eat it too! No need to consider someone else's feelings, just do it baby!


*okok, its the first week of school and I'm still not feeling the crunch. And also all the amazing fun I've had recently, and the rosy look of the future, of CNY and parties and friends and laughter and hangouts and... May the awesome feeling of freedom just last!*

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Today. Haha. Was totally unpredictable. Hilarious.



On another note...
STUMPIE PHUA!!! I MUST TALK TO YOU!

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Am back.

After 3 weeks in Nepal, I'm finally 'home'. Strange how home doesn't feel so familiar anymore, even though its only been just three weeks. Just. But it feels like years have passed, like an eternity has transpired and a million lifetimes have been lived. Maybe time is measured not by numbers or figures or statistics, but by the events that fill them. And I've seen so much, felt and learnt and experienced a multitude of scenes, emotions, situations and stories. So many it floods my mind now, and to recall and note down all that I experience is a task that terrifies.

How could I possibly capture, what happened then, now?

Maybe that was why the expedition leaders gave us all notebooks, and told us it would be a good idea to journalise your experiences as you go. And journalise I did. I tried to write all that happened to me, maybe I captured only 40%. After all, in the harshness of village/wilderness living, there is barely strength or time to write.

There is so much I could say about what I did there, and all the things I feel. But somehow, maybe if you asked me in person, it'll be so much easier.

Cos right now, my body's back in Singapore, but my mind is half in Nepal, and walking around this clean, civilised, structured city feels.... odd. It feels 'off'. Like I'm not really here. Even my bed feels foreign, it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. And I awake each day with images of Kathmandu still lingering in my head, and walk around and imagine the rocky, stone-gravelly roads that runs through all of Nepal, the narrow side streets adorned with tourist-y shops and selling head-warmers of all colours. Of wearing thick layers of clothes and jackets and trekking shoes, and breathing clouds of smoke. Of waking up to snow-capped mountains every single day, and heart-wrenchingly beautiful sunsets and sunrises that I take for granted, of walking around unaided at night, without any form of articifial light in a pitch black village because the moon has never shone so bright that it becomes the night light. Of playing soccer at 2am in the night in a stone courtyard, with the only light being the moon.

Of running of a cliff to commit a certain suicide before we get airborne in a parachute, of doing acrobatic stunts up in the air and spinning faster and faster in circles towards the earth. Cork-screwing free-form airborne roller coaster. Of learning another language and talking to locals and trying my darndest to integrate and blend in with the locals so I will not get ripped off. Of learning how to be street-wise and street-smart and indepedent by being thrown into the deep end of the pool, of doing most of the recreational organisation on my own for the group. Of waking up to continental breakfasts and cold, cold marble floors.

Of walking down thousands and thousands of stone steps, and walking up thousands and thousands of stone steps in thinning air, of not being able to breathe and wheezing and feeling like you're pushing your physical limit to the max as you wrestle with both illness and the mountain, but still you keep pace with the guide despite collapsing twice thrice along the ascent, and still you summit 15-20 minutes before everyone reaches. Of sitting at the highest point of the earth you've ever been, in your thick layers with the clouds below your feet and the mountains rising enormously and so closely all around you. Of watching egg-yolk sunrises and now, now that I'm back here, I know I'll never see such beauty in this lowland of a country. Of watching sunrises in complete silence, of standing at cliff edges and bounding down steep rocks like a mountain goat would. Of changing from a teetering, tottering, scared and 'cautious' Singaporean to an integrated local Nepali who jump with boldness and abandon amidst the rocks and a 1000m drop.

Of creating the biggest piece of art I've ever done, of truly leaving my 'mark' in Nepal. Of being tempted to paint my name forever onto the wall. Of scaling rickety, bamboo ladders that are falling apart to draw a certain sun on a certain wall a 1000 m up on a hill, facing the sunrise, of mobilising my army of painters to create exactly what I envisioned.

Of learning so much about human nature and tolerance.

So much more, so much more, I could blog on forever.... even the illegal bits of my trip. But I guess there's something special about putting pen to paper and writing under torch light, as we journalised back in the village. Even now, technology seems so... impersonal. I don't need my daily fix of computer time as much. I rather read the banned book which I smuggled back. I rather go out and meet the important people in my life, to remind me of home and bring my 60% Nepali mind back to where it truly belongs. To anchor me home once again.

So that I can remind myself once more, ma singapuri kur.