1. The cosmopolitan city
I grew up in a city-state with 4.5million people cramped on a 700 square kilometre land area. I´m used to tall buildings, many people and just city-living in general. Stuttgart is really a small town in comparison, a countryside that has its own beauty but definitely nowhere near to the city-life that I´ve had for 23yrs. While at Esplanade today, I really felt that Singapore is SO beautiful at night! The Singapore river, hotels, business district and lights galore made me reminisce with a bit of sadness that I no longer live here anymore and can only have the luxury of coming back once a year.
2) Durians! I´ve always loved durians. My late mother and I shared a common bond of being durian-lovers and we could continue eating without stopping. Since she went home to be with the Lord, I felt sad that I didn´t have a "durian companion" anymore - weird as it may sound. Durians taste better when one eats it with a friend.
So I arranged to meet up with Yen - my DTS mate and fellow durian-lover to eat some durians at Geylang together. We did feel a bit ripped off with a "super good" durian at S$34 that tasted "ok only", compared to cheaper durians at S$10/piece that tasted much nicer!
Nevertheless, our amusement was to see my dear German hubby eating one durian after the other, as if it was a personal challenge to himself to see how many he could eat.
3. Having Summer-all-year-round (excluding the humidity...)
The beginning of our tree-top walk - A 3 -hour trek through the tropical rainforests of Singapore... not for the faint-hearted.
Anything to get a break! **Notice the butterfly imprint in the ground**?
Finally we reach our destination! A suspension bridge above the canopy of trees in the forest.
Oh, the heat! The forest was so abuzz with activity - the insects harmonizing in a chorus that sounded more like a constant "beeezzz". It is said that Singapore´s rainforests has more species in floral and fauna than the entire of North America!
Well, I really do miss being able to wear summer wear all year round. I guess humans are always wishing for something they don´t have. When I was younger, I wished that I would able to stay in a country with seasons. And now when I´m granted this wish AND know that on the other side of the world, its more often cold and windy than warm and nice, I´m beginning to think maybe it wasn´t so bad to have "hot and humid" all year round.
4) The food, glorious food!
The food above needs no introduction:- Laksa, Char Kway Teow (fried noodles), chicken wings, oyster omelette, stingray with lots of chilli.....yumm! Just to list a few of my favourite hawker centre food. At least I´m learning how to replicate some of the food, but some stuff simply taste better here...like having fresh oysters, stingray etc.
Any other things you miss about Singapore when you´re overseas?
7 comments:
Maybe your family and friends? ;)
Have the feeling that I'll have something like this next year when I'm hopefully moving back to Germany. There'll be lots of things that I will miss about London. However, at the moment it would be easier to name the things that I find annoying here, like rubbish everywhere, no recycling, no double-glazed windows, the state of the houses that you have to live in and pay ridiculously overpriced rents, the fact that it's always noisy, there's always people everywhere etc. etc.
Watch this space, you might want to keep this comment and remind me next year when I'm crying about not being in London... ;)
hey pris, for me definitely the food! I think that's number one on my list!!
Not sure about the humid weather though, for now I am still enjoying having seasons. I heard that it was 36deg back home last sunday?! gosh =O
p.s does stephan actually like durians? i always think durians are somewhat a "fear factor thing" for westerners heehee
Dear jie jie
Of course I´ll miss my family and friends. But I figured if I go down that road, I would not be able to end this blog entry! Oh, I´m pretty sure you´d miss London when you leave! Somehow I remember the best parts of Sg when I leave! But I think it helps when you and Holgar don´t have to have long-distance anymore! That´s the BIG bonus! heehee
Hey Bel! In my first year in Germany, it was DEFINITELY the food...boy, I had so many dreams of hawker centre food! But this wore off after a while. :) It really is VERY hot these past few days. But just when you think you can´t take the heat anymore, it rains and then you feel the breeze in your face and feel "Ahhh.., the world is nice again". Oh YES, Stephan likes durians...ok he said that durians are like very nice and they very quickly change to very bad...so he had to stop before it became bad...but not after he ate like quite a bit of it!
Wow, so envious that yr ang moh loves durians, unlike mine who can't bear to be in the same room when I'm having some !!!
Other aspects of Singapore I miss besides what you wrote about ?- SHOPPING ! the fact that shops r open EVERYDAY from 11am to 10pm and banks and post office etc not closed from 12noon to 2pm.
-Also being able to get food anytime 24 hours and how easy to tao bao without costing an arm and leg.
-Hawker centre fresh fruit juices for so cheap !
-Public Toilets everywhere in Singapore ;)
Hey Steph!
Exactly what I think. I love the shopping here. However, things aren´t exactly very much cheaper than in Europe! The prices have really gone up! The Swensen´s ice-cream increase in price EVERY time we come back! At least 20% in 3 years!
- And yes! Definitely cheap juices, I´ve been drinking mango juices all the time and toilets! Ahh...hardly use the toilets in Germany, I wld rather try not to pee than to search high and low for them.....
- Oh durians....as I said, I do feel its a personal challenge Stephan sets for himself to conquer to be "integrated" into the Sg culture. He still doesn´t "like" it, but he´s "ok" about it, hahah.
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