A Taste of Singapore - November 19th, 2023

The day was supposed to begin with a bike ride to a local market, but instead we used scooters. It was my first time on a scooter and let's just say, I loved the experience of scooting around town.

The market was full of vendors selling everything from fish, meat, tofu delicacies, a variety of eggs, flowers, dried fish, spices, and a number of vegetables that I have never seen before like Anglo Gourd and fruit called Mangosteen. In the raw meat section there were many cuts of meat including pork which the Chinese love, and a variety of chickens including a small black-skin chicken known as a Spring Chicken according to Pat.

There were many tables and chairs for people to gather and eat a hot cooked meal prepared by the surrounding vendors. Kind of like the indoor food courts in North American Shopping Plazas, but outside in the fresh air. I was intrigued with the vendor who sold hot food in a paper cone!!

This market is situated in the courtyard of public housing which is a very common way for people to live in Singapore and not run down at all. I have been told that every ethnicity has to be represented on each floor, so if a Hindu family were to move out for example then a Hindu family would then move in to the apartment. The belief is for all ethnicities to live together in harmony and not in their own culture bubble.

After breakfast, Pat and I headed out to a sketching activity where people gather with their portable chairs and sketching tools to sketch a particular site at a specified location. Apparently there are sketch groups in almost every city including Montreal. Who knew!!! Our exercise was to sketch a very interesting building called the Selegie Arts Centre. The shape of the building reminded me ever so slightly of the Flatiron Building in New York, US.

We sat on little fold up seats for gnomes that we brought with us. Pat graciously shared all of her sketching tools and colours with me, so that I could look professional while tapping into my hidden creativity in the art of sketching. Although I could see the roundness of the building in front of me, I was unable to sketch the depth perception. Let's just say that my sketch is sort of on the flat side. When the undirected session was over everyone gathered to marvel at the variety of sketches. The sketch pads were displayed and pictures were taken of everyone's work. It was fun to be part of this gathering of artists and experiencing a day in the life of the Singaporeans.

Pat and I entered the very building that we sketched to attend an art exhibit and meet some of the artists. There were a number of very impressive pieces. Later we meandered through the downtown core and walked up a pathway toward the Old Fort Canning which was once on high ground and used in battle. Now it is the backdrop to the law faculty and other departments of one of the Singapore University Campuses.

Fort Canning Hill, formerly Government Hill, Singapore Hill and Bukit Larangan, or simply known as Fort Canning, is a prominent hill, about 48 metres high, in the southeast portion of Singapore, within the Central Area that forms Singapore's central business district. On this hill there is a spice gallery and a beautiful park where many people gather with friends and family for picnics.

We ate lunch on the Riverwalk which is now very trendy. At one time all of the existing buildings were used as warehouses. The larger ships would unload their cargo onto smaller tugs that would enter the canal and unload the wares that would be brought into the warehouses at the shipping dock. Pat said that at one time you couldn't go near the canal because the water smelled so bad as it was used as a sewage dumping ground.

It has been a real treat to get a birds eye view of Singapore from the upper level of their double decker buses; especially, when seated in the front window seat above the driver. Pat and I descended the bus one block from her home in order for me to have my picture taken under the Frankel Avenue street sign. This was important for Pat to show me because Frankel Avenue has Jewish Roots. Frankel Avenue was named after its owners - a family of Ashkenazie Jews, who owned 400 acres of plantation land. Their holdings made up the bulk of Frankel Estate, which was named after them.

Often when a storyteller comes to visit, local storytellers usually gather to meet and greet. In my honour, Pat organized a potluck evening for the Singaporean storytellers to come and meet me. It was an amazing gathering and a huge treat to meet two tellers in person that I already knew from Zoom storytelling sessions during the pandemic. Meeting them and hugging them in person was simply icing on my slice of cake!!

What a fabulous evening of chit-chat, sharing stories, and eating all sorts of yummy dishes. Some of the tellers had to leave early, but a small group stayed to hear stories. I told two tales: "Ukko's Bread" and my signature story "The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch." Pat's daughter, Yvonne, jumped at the chance to regale a tale of her own. One story always sparks another.