Oriental Cuisines

Singapore is well known for its local cuisines. In fact, the Hawker Culture is listed as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage in year 2020. It is indisputable that the food in hawker centres is cheap yet delicious (just like most local dishes sold in most food courts in South East Asia).

We pampered outselve to Japanese food at Mizuya @ Cavan during Chinese New Year, courtesy of CY and Kevin. It serves a variety of freshly cooked Sushi/Sashimi, and costs of eye-popping $200++ per person. The entire course took us over 2 hours.

The food was good. It came in small portion, being served one at a time. 

It was a good experience to have the food serve immediately to us by the chef. Will we go there for again? Probably not, unless it is for special occasion.

We have heard a lot about Mookata, a type of Thai BBQ. We finally made a trip to Siam Square Mookata @ Toa Payoh Central last week. We ordered ala carte dishes - the total bill cost about $160 for a group of 5 persons. It was certainly more economical than Japanese cuisine @ Mizuya. It was not bad at all!

Our other favourite is Ding Tai Feng .. particularly its dumpling, fried rice, drunken chicken, spicy Mala soup. We didn't try it during Chinese New Year though.

Ding Tai Feng @ MacPherson

Mouth watering dumplings

Lunar New Year outings

CY was finally able to fly back from Melbourne to Singapore via Vaccination Travel Lane (VTL) this year. It has been two years since CY was back home in Singapore. This time round, she brought Kevin along with her. 

There are several rules to be adhered to during travelling via VTL - specifically, pre-departure Antigen Rapid Test ART (for COVID) in Melbourne, and on arrival nasopharyngeal PCR test at Changi Airport, followed by daily ART for next 6 days (two of which have to be done under supervision at dedicated centres). And lastly, pray hard that there is no last minute change to the flight schedule because of unforseen circumstances (e.g. manpower crunch).

Apart from family gathering, catching up on lost face to face meeting/chit-chating due to COVID pandemic, the highlight for the trip is local cuisine and sightseeing.

CY and Kevin had a field day gobbling down local food delights - fried oysters, prawn noodles, laksa, mee siam, Hainanese chicken rice, LorMEE, satay, kopi (local coffee) and teh (milk-tea), and not forgetting LoHei 捞鱼生 (a traditional festive dish well-known among Chinese in Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia). We ordered black pepper crab and Chilli crab for dinner, before both of them flew back to Melbourne.

We brought them to several touristic spots -

1. Morning hike from Telok Blangah Nature Park to Faber Hill

Hiking towards Henderson Wave Bridge

View of Reflection @ Keppel from Henderson Wave Bridge

Walk passed Henderson Wave Bridge to Faber Hill

Hiked up the slope for a view of the wishing bells

At the peak of Faber Hill

2. Drive pass Chinatown, viewing the light decors for Chinese New Year (didn't stop for photo taking)

3. A stroll @ Marina Bay (and Marina Bay Sands) and Marina Bay Barage

4. Explore the Light to Night light decors, and a brief visit to Fullerton Hotel.

City Hall light decor

Victoria Concert Hall

Fullerton Hotel

Inside Fullerton Hotel

School of Koi Fish in Fullerton Hotel

5. Morning hike from Mac Ritchie Reservoir to Tree Top (a grueling 5km walk)

All of us were visibly exhausted when we walked out from the Tree Top. We decided to take a shorter walking trail to Windsor Natural Park (~3.5km) and took a Gojek ride to our car @ Mt Alvernia Hospital (we parked our car there).

6. A visit to Haw Par Villa and Labrador Park

The iconic arch at the entrance

                                   Various artistic statues depicting characters from Chinese folklores

Monkey God's 花果山

Romance of Three Kingdom 桃园结义

八仙过海

Entrance to Haw Par Villa is free. It is a good place to get to know some of the ancient Chinese folklores and appreciate the colourful statues. 

The 18 Level of Hell which depicts various punishments leveled on past misdeed before death is now housed in a museum - the entrance ticket costs $18 per person. It used to be free in early days many years ago. It can be quite a scary experience for young impressionable children (be warned!). We did not visit the museum.... it was closed at 5pm. Furthermore, we didn't it was worth the price to visit the place (since we have seen it before).

A short walk @ Labrodor Park, enjoying the view from the waterfront.

7. A visit to the last fishing village in Singapore

Fishing village

                             

Yishun Dam

Rower's Bay Park

Rower's Bay Park

8. A visit to the Hives aka Dim Sum Building @ National Technology University (NTU)

Waterfall at Nantah Lake

Yunnan Garden

      Hearsay that the Hives is the obligatory photo stop for tourists visiting NTU.

The Hives

Interior view of the HIVES

And of course, there was traditional visits to relatives on the first and 2nd day of Chinese New Year. 

Overall, it is a good time for family gathering! I am glad that Kevin could come along with CY to spend Lunar New Year here.

COVID vaccine.. To vaccinate or not

With Covid continuing to play havoc, and waves after waves of major outbreak continue to plague various continents (akin to kids playing musical chairs), various countries are taking one step forward then two steps backward when making plans to "live" with the virus.

Strategies such as circuit breaker / lock-down /hightened alert state (akin to medical profession attributing the term SPECTRUM to medical condition that comes with different grades of severity), followed by gradual easing of control, come and go in full circle after several months.

COVID vaccination was touted as the ultimate tool to get us out of the predicament.

But, instead of a single dose of COVID vaccination, a booster dose was recommended --> but that was not going to be the end of it... some countries are now advocating 4th booster doses (at interval of 4-6 months)! Inevitaby, COVID vaccination may need to be given every 6 months, akin to that of influenza vaccination.

It is irrefutable that COVID vaccination helps to prevent severe infection/minimise risk of deaths. But it carries some adverse reactions (myocarditis, clotting problems, immune-mediated neurological disorders, anaphylaxis etc). But in the phase of COVID pandemic, the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risk!

To make matter worse, there was fear/doubts of mRNA used to make COVID vaccines being incorporated into our body, and might lead to some genetic alteration to our body in the future (though this has been refuted by relevant scientific authorities).

And various posts in the social media by anti-Vaxxer casting doubts in the mind of general public re: potential harms / effectiveness of the vaccines, make the water even more murky.

My take is - 

1. COVID is here to stay,  2. We should support the drive for COVID vaccination - to protect ourselves, and our family, 3. Follow guidance from relevant authorities on whether booster dose is needed, and when should it be given

It has been 2 years since COVID ravages the world. Hope it will fade away soon, and life can go back to normal again!

Hopefully rainbow will bring along with it good fortune, and signify the impending end of COVID pandemic

We need to extinguish the "fire" brought by the COVID pandemic...