Local Fun

Tasting Jelly in Market

Frog Porridge

Learning to Use Chopsticks

All Chinese Menu

Group

Honey Tea

The start of chinese new year's festivities begin about a week or so before the actual date. In Singapore it is a national holiday and everyone has vacation for February 3rd and 4th. This means that shopping for food/clothes/any necessities must be done before tuesday. We found out today that literally everything will be closed except Canadian Pizza which prides itself as being open 365 days a year... In China the Chinese New Year is a two week national holiday so I think I can survive for two days. A few days ago my hall held a midnight fiesta to get ready for chinese new year. My roommate and I decided it would be a good way to meet some new people and it was only 2 sing (abbreviation for 2 singapore dollars). We boarded the coach bus at 10 pm and headed out to chinatown. The ride from campus takes about 25 minutes and everyone was chatting away with their friends. Kara and I were a tad nervous then that we wouldn't be meeting anyone because they were not being too friendly. I arrived into chinatown for my first time and I was so awe struck. Everywhere I looked there were red chinese new year lanterns, pineapples, waving kitties, and anything sparkly that says prosper, luck, or health in chinese. I was informed by my hall fellow that wearing or displaying red increases your chances of bringing luck to the new year. This explains why all the decorations are always that bright color. The pineapples, willow branches, and varied fruits all help have a more prosperous and healthy new year. We wandered through all of the local markets set along the streets. A wonderful malay named Charlotte accepted Kara and I into her group of friends and showed us around. Once all of the friends warmed up they were eager to answer all of our questions, since everything was so strange to us. A common chinese new year food was small packets of fruit flavored jello. Shop vendors would eagerly hand us free samples I found the peach to be actually quite good. We then moved to a restaurant that was the groups favorite spot to eat in the area. It was known for its different flavored porridges, the most popular was frog leg porridge! Of course after hearing the word frog I instantly tried avoiding the building as much as possible, but charlotte assured me the frogs are in a tank in back and I would not see them "jumping around". Porridge is a similar consistency to oatmeal but it is rice that is soaked instead of oats. They had other appetizing menu options such as fish heads, internal organs and chickens feet. I kindly sampled Charlotte's boyfriends porridge and decided it was not my cup of tea. After the lovely snack we got back on the bus and headed to another area of Singapore called Geylang. Previously Geylang was known as a red light district but luckily is much changed and offers some very authentic food. We headed out with the group again and passed some large fruit stands where I smelt a very particular smell that was not very appealing. One of the girls told me that it was the smell of a durian fruit, and to 50% of people it is the most amazing delicacy and to the other 50% it is absolutely repulsive. I decided I would figure that out another night because I did not want to ruin my appetite. The next stop was a hole in the wall restaurant named 126, very creative because its address was 126 Geylang Avenue. We sat outside pretty much in the streets on plastic chairs in a large group. The menu's came and they were entirely in chinese with absolutely no subtitles. Our new friends graciously helped us decipher the menu and help us order. Since this restaurant was known for dim sum that is exactly what we got. We started off with some sticky white rice, prawn dumplings, pork dim sum, and prawn dim sum rolls. I sampled everything and it was all so different and great. I loved the pork dim sum it was so perfectly cooked and fresh. Dim sum means that the meal is cooked in steamer baskets and normally small individual portions. We washed down the meal with some honey tea out of a pint plastic container. The tea was great and refreshing but it had little chunks of some sort of jelly like the chinese new year ones I sampled earlier. Everything was really great but still very new to me. Kara and I have plans to return to 126, but we have to bring a group of natives in order to make sure we can order! My hall is made up of 5 different 8 story coed dorms. In all of these rooms Kara and I are the only white students. We had a great time answering everyones questions and hearing all of their generalizations of Americans. We definitely made some new friends, and became less daunting and scary to our native hall mates. The one thing we stressed is that we tend to be louder than the locals but we are not mean or anything to be scared of. Most Singaporeans tend to be more reserved and prefer silence to chatting, but after the ice is broken they all are great. I am so happy I got to experience this new culture with a large group of locals! Until next time...

xoxo

Leah