Fieldtrips

Fieldtrip 1:

1) IMM.
Where it resembles Malaysia cos of the chapalang shops.
Where in Giordano, swallowapple expressed explicitly that yellow was not for geognut.
Where all of us were tempted by the colours of Giordano.

2) Sungei Buloh.
Where we spotted crabs on trees.
Where the water stinks.. (blame Malaysia?)
Where we almost got preyed upon by buayas (huge monitor lizards)!
Where we tried to spot the (common) birds with our ears.
Where we discovered that the white birds often spotted at NIE are egrets, not herons.

3) Kranji War Memorial
Where we lay on the carpet grass in front of Benjamin Sheares' tomb.
Where we reflected upon serious stuff in the serenity of the place.

4) Sime (Si Mi) river
Where we chanced upon a 'stream'.
Where we trekked and possibly disturbed the flow of the river.
Where we observed the confluence, meander and point bars (?) of the river.
Where we met uncommon monkeys and were glad we had our visa cards with us.

5) Labrador Park
Where it is interesting during low tide when the seagrass and other identifiable stuff are revealed.
Where we spotted bedding plains, joints, notches, etc.
Where we observed a snail showing off its bottom.
Where we filmed a worm on geognut's finger.
Where we caught a glance at a starfish.
Where the Gents is designed in such a way that the public can see the guys pee through an opague screen.
Where Charlie Chaplin and the angels were spotted.
Where the orh-bit First Choice umbrella was broken.
Where there's a carpark specially reserved for hanky panky couples.

6) Xi Hu restaurant
Where the kong ba pau made our day.
Where the uniform resembles some PE attire in school.


Field Trip 2:

1) Thomson Plaza
Where it resembles Malaysia cos of orh-bit clothes, orh-bit music, etc.
Where BK's whoooper burger can be "zao3 can1, wu3 can1, wan3 can1"!
Where the doggie statue gave swallowapple a fright.
Where water splashing in the toilet emerges into the public.

2) Venus Drive river.
Where the river is easily spotted.
Where the meanders are pronounced with sea cliffs and slip-off slopes.
Where the erosional and depositional processes are clear.
Where tapiocas grow rampantly.
Where people can make a spoof or a home-made movie of "Chu Lu" during the Japanese Occupation.
Where hermits can live and survive on tapioca, bananas, fish and rear a cow for banana milkshake.
Where mean uncles go there to trap poor birdies.
Where you can imagine rolling hills of England.

3) Lower Peirce Reservoir and Canal.
Where there's a pub. (read: Public Utilities Board)
Where a little sidetrack off the main path leads you through an interesting path then to a clearing.
Where you can spot families of monkeys.
Where monitor lizards do not prey on you like in SUngei Buloh.
Where turtles are either overturned to sun-tan, or tightly snucked up some hole in the canal.
Where geognut and myself surveyed the canal and jogged in the canal.
Where despite our bestest efforts to free the turtle from the hole, we failed.
Where poor geognut injured his hands in the process, but he likes pain, so... Hee.
Where we saved the overturned turtle instead.
Where we were all drenched in the pouring rain.
Where swallowapple and chouchou did unglam things in the toilette.

4) Upper Peirce Reservoir
Where there are no dustbins.
Where a wedding photographer went "Ni ai lao po mah?" while getting the couple to pose.
Where the scenery resembles some place in France.

5) Seletar Bottled Tree Club?
Where a police car jia4 zhua2 nearby.
Where you see the sea upfront.
Where geognut will bring his future (part-time?) girlfren to pat-tuo.

6) Sembawang Solo...
Where you can 'corn' yourself into thinking you are in Aussie cos of Canberra.
Where you jump out of your dream cos there's no Bengawan Solo in Aussie.
Where it also resembles Malaysia.

If everywhere in Singapore other than town resembles Malaysia... isn't that very sad?
But I'm glad we managed to discover so many interesting places, albeit kampong-ish, and had so many adventures!
It's fun to play with people of the same interests and dun go "xiao ah!"or ignore you when you suggest something out of the ordinary.
Looking forward to creating more memories despite the end of Friday Geog lessons...

Agricultural game

Agricultural Game

Subsistence farming's the best. Survived and even made some profit despite the 4 kids which 'God' gave me with his tool (calculator). Thanks to the bankers who decided to work with me cos i was less of a threat than the cooperatives! Thanks to the Bo Lui Bo Berng cooperative who sold me rice during the famine. No thanks to the cocky cooperative who wanted to sell me 1kg of rice for 1 ha of land! Hmph! Doing good is better than doing evil... see what happened to that miserable cooperative in the end? Hee. And worthy of mention is chouchou who refused to let her daughters marry my sons cos she thought them too poor... but afterward during the famine, she was willing to GIVE me her daughters! See how the human mind works in times of distress?

But I discovered that you cun really stay subsistence or hermity when you are plugged into the national system and be subjected to taxes and compulsory education. But hor, acting alone served its purpose too. I was conveniently forgotten for those years which needed taxation! Hee. (But I did set aside monies for them... honest me. Haha!) Shows how many tribal slash-and-burn or other subsistence farmers can easily escape the regulations set by the government. These minorities might not even be considered citizens in some sense. But at least they dun have to worry about taxes!

Give me my simple life and leave me alone! Leave me with my banana plantation, some veggies and several chickens and mebbe a horse/donkey.I dun wanna be corrupted by all the conspiracies, cheating, bargaining, arguing, etc. Too much for little teeny weeny innocent me. Precisely why I chose teaching. A 'safe' school environment, away from all the greedy, scheming, profit-seeking, power-hungry creatures! Ew.

Food and saga seed

A conversation that took place in a car last nite.

Number of snails "killed'' by someone who is apparently too light to effectively squash them.
New theory: Snails become slugs when they lose their shell, and can find another shell to continue living.
Which led to...

The topic of exotic "fear factor" food.
1) Escargot (Local vs French) vs River snails (Vietnam)
The difference between the escargot and the river snail is that the former is probably well-fed with nutrients and vitamins for all we know... and the latter just jia4 sai4. Hee.
For the french escargot, go "Bonjour!" and eat it, then finish off with an "Ooh lala!" (The supposed French way of eating escargots... haha!)
2) "Gong3 gong3", "la1 la1" and "zu4 zu4" which can be found in normal BBQ seafood stalls
3) Rabbit meat. (The cute ones are more yummy. Use the fur to make your handbag.)
4) Frog meat.
How to kill a frog? Jenny suggests using a wooden plank and walloping it.
Frog dish: chouchou's 'favourite'. Frog porridge, with frog still in whole form, in the pot of porridge. (This image has stayed in my mind ever since it was mentioned and chouchou just reinforces it from time to time! Heh.
5) Lizard tongue.
Lizard tongue is supposed to be long right? Since it needs it to catch its prey. But Luke Luke chomped on his prey... without using his tongue. What a nimble one he is! =) Yeah, so lizard tongue, curled up like a ball of noodles was suggested. With dead flies as its garnishing.
6) Live octopus tentacles from Korea.
They stick to your tongue right? So imagine your friend is sitting beside you and you open your mouth... such that the tentacles pop out and whack his/her face.

The next part of the conversation stemmed from news that in China, they are tattooing pigs as part of art. So as not to waste the pig skin.... some suggestions of further uses have been made. Hee. Synthesis. Some other suggestions for uses of pig skin other than for consumption include pig skin bag and pig skin mat/rug. Especially the roasted pork skin. Crispy bag you'll have! With cool and artistic texture. Could have pork floss as decoration... like laces on the outside or to lay the inside of the bag. And when you are hungry, just eat your bag. How cool is that? =)

K enuff of this. Dinner time soon.

Let me proceed on to talk about a particular saga seed.
Origin: Fort Siloso, Sentosa
It was taken out of a wallet and reintroduced to the world again. This time not in some nature area on an offshore island, but on mainland Singapore, in an ice-cream cafe. I think it really fulfilled its purpose in life last nite (other than reproduce?) when it provided much joy for a couple of people. Saga Seed took on various roles. First as a mini finger soccer ball, which chouchou tried 'cheem' moves with... but of cos... still missed the goalie! Haha! Second as a gor3 li4 to be popped into the cup when the cup was moving. Third Saga Seed almost ended up as topping for ice-cream. All in all, it must have had such an exciting time that it must feel so accomplished. That is, assuming it isn't suffering from serious concussion and paralysis from the frequent falls, jumps and bounces it underwent!
Final resting place: In chouchou's hands. For better or for worse? Hmmm...

10 ppl went to Tiong Bahru for dinner. Tiong Bahru is a historical site man! It was like a history field trip! The housing, the restaurant's setting, the fans, the verandas, the streets, the backlanes, etc. Where we sat, it felt like we were transported back into time where ppl used to hold their wedding dinners in the open. And then some drunks would come and make trouble... and then the violent breaking of the beer-bottles scenario would take place, followed by a clash of the parangs in the backlanes. But that aside, dinner was fun and refreshing after a long week.

Just some interesting snippets from dinner.
- The youngest of us all is getting married! Wow!
- It's cheap to get married. Only $20 for certification.
- The slim girls rule at rice consumption!
- A 'fort' built around a certain special someone to prevent her from falling off her chair. =)
- Someone who had an "invisible" boyfriend and someone looking for a part-time girlfriend were "paired" up.
- No one dares to eat the last piece of food left on the plate.


Now for the next part of the story.
3 girls entered a particular restroom and waited outside 3 cubicles. They stood there for a whole 5 minutes chatting happily... while a stranger stood in line behind them. Suddenly one of them wondered aloud, "Why is it taking so long?" and subsequently gave the cubicle door a slight push. And lo and behold! It pushed opened! The cubicle was EMPTY! And you know what? ALL 3 cubicles were EMPTY! =)) They all denied that they were teachers-to-be.

Afterward they proceeded to the playground with a friend. They hopped onto the flying-fox-like swings and started on their ride. Alas, it was too slow for their liking. No loss to the 1 girl who wore a skirt. And one particular law of physics was proved wrong! Bigger size does not translate into faster speed on the swing! =) Then they tried entertaining themselves on obstacle-like balancing beams and certain wooden-stools... and even tried to fling each other off some swingy thingy and some jostling table-like thing. NIE trainees. 1 girl wanted to climb the spider-web, but resisted the temptation, cos her friend was in skirt. Hee.

Next pit stop was MacDonald's. This was educational. We watched a live nature 'documentary'. We observed how a particular lizard planned its attack strategy and preyed on a fly. We saw how it tried various techniques and finally ingeniously hopped near the fly and happily chomped it up. It was a cute light-coloured lizard with pretty "fingers" (fingerlings?) and toes. I think I shall name it Luke. Dunno why too. But we did launch into a little discussion about how you can't kill lizards and how their tails drop and they are freaky. But Luke Luke was cute. =)

To end the whole episode, we toured Singapore in Mr Zhuai's (nah, he's not THAT zhuai...) car and boy, is he a good tourguide! We went "Singapore-Malaysia-Malaysia-Singapore" when we crossed a railway track. We even entered Malaysia-like environment in unfamiliar territory! Had our feel of the built-up environment and the somewhat rustic feel of Singapore. Singapore might be small, but there is so much we don't know about!

Oh well, it was an interesting episode. I hope there are more to come!

I like my Geog class. A lot. Especially my classmates... who are now friends.
They make NIE seem worth it when you question what all this is for.
I am going to treasure these times while we are still a class, before it's over. I wanna look back and reminisce on all the fun times we had. With my friends by my side.
This is a strange, out-of-the-blue posting.
But I am gonna post it anyway. =)