My trip back to visit my parents always feels way too short. Every time I return to visit, I see my parents and the lovely women who nannied and housekept for my family getting older and frailer. It always leaves a terribly bittersweet taste in in my mouth. I must make more of an effort to return more often. Even a short trip is better than nothing. Perhaps next time I will visit on my own, without offspring, so that I am not limited by school holidays.
A traditional whetstone for sharpening knives.
I saw this old whetstone lying on the kitchen bench before I left this afternoon. I can’t believe how worn down it is. It’s lost more than half its height over the last 40+ years of use. My family never used to eat out much. There would always be a hot lunch and dinner, with cooked traditional snacks in between for afternoon tea or supper. The preferred kitchen tool is, of course, the giant cleaver. I prefer to use one in my own kitchen too. I’ve never taken to a chef’s knife.
View ahead of us
View behind us
It’s a dreadful ordeal getting across the Malaysia-Singapore border by land. To my dying day, I will never understand why no one has yet managed to solve the issue of the massive traffic jams at both checkpoints. It was a problem when I was a primary school kid FORTY YEARS ago. 4 decades on, it hasn’t improved; if anything it’s gotten worse. I swear it would be faster to take a domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru, even with the check-in times and procedures. It took me THREE hours to get from our JB house to the CBD of Singapore. If it wasn’t for those ridiculous white-elephant high-rises mentioned in my previous post, I can SEE Singapore from my home.
It would be faster to swim across the 1 km wide Johor Strait, if it wasn’t for the dodgy quality of the water, sea snakes, crocodiles and of course, my woeful swimming skills.
St Regis, Orchard
Anth booked us into a rather swanky hotel. Even the lobby bathrooms were impressive.
A very phallic-looking ice kacang
My very Anglophile children declined our invitations to wander into Orchard Road’s food courts, preferring to remain in the hotel for room service and endless rounds of chips. So we left them to it.
Of course, I had to refresh myself with one of my favourite desserts. I am not sure why their ice shaving machine produced a shape strangely reminiscent of a phallus, albeit a rainbow-coloured one. But it still tasted good. It did draw a few strange looks from neighbouring tables. Ah well.
