Morning Walk Series [8]

Found this cute little Buddha statue amongst the rooftop garden bushes one day.  Looks so serene and peaceful...

Morning Walk Series [7]

After a long long long break, the Morning Walk Series is back with this very common, yet very eye-catching flower, which is also the national flower of Malaysia

Common name: Chinese Hibiscus
Binomial Name: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Chinese Hibiscus

Mr Lee Kuan Yew (1923 - 2015)

In the early hours of 23 Mar 2015, Mr Lee Kuan Yew passed away peacefully at the Singapore General Hospital.   Just hours after the passing of Singapore's first Prime Minister, his son, the current Prime Minister, appeared on live national television to address the nation.

It was heart wrenching to watch... being a political figure, a public figure, a leader, he had to face the whole nation to talk about the death of father, and yet still maintain composure.  If he were any other normal person, he would have been able to mourn in peace and private until he was ready to face the outside world, but he wasn't.  This, I suppose is the burden of being the eldest son of such a prominent political figure.

The death of Mr Lee Kuan Yew affected me more than I thought it would.  As I watched the news about his passing, emotions welled up and a knot formed in my throat.  While I never bothered much about politics as a child or even as a young adult, I do believe that the reason why Singapore is what it is today is due to the vision and hard work of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the Old Guards.  How else could a small island country with no natural resources evolve into the vibrant city it is now?

I remember taking the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train for the first time when the North-South and East-West lines started running.  Oh, the excitement!  My brother and I took the MRT from one end to the other, noting down the colours of each station, the number of our cabin, then popping out of the then very secluded Marina Bay station.  There was nothing around the station, a far cry from what the area is now.

I remember waiting quite long for trams or trains in Melbourne, Australia many years later.  Suddenly, I appreciated the MRT trains that came at 2-3 minute intervals.  Boy did I take that for granted!

While I do gripe about some aspects of Singapore once in a while, I still think the pros of living here outweigh the cons.  Thank you, Mr Lee Kuan Yew!  Rest in peace.

Morning Walk Series [3]

While I was out walking with Little One, look who else brought their kid out for a walk too!

Grasshoppers out for a walk

Morning Walk Series [2]

Continuing with the Morning Walk Series, here's a plant that my mum used to plant in our apartment.  However, this is the first time I've seen Aloe vera flowers.  Very pretty!

Common name: Aloe vera
Binomial name: Aloe vera

Aloe vera

Morning Walk Series [1]

I've been bringing Little One for daily morning walks for about a year.  Our place is slightly away from the train station and shopping centre, making it a rather serene area.  Even though I've been staying here for many years, it was only through these walks that I realised that there is so much to see in the rooftop garden!  Here are some pretty flowers to start off the "Morning Walk" series:

Desert Rose

Desert Rose

Common name: Desert Rose
Binomial Name: Adenium obesum

Saving Water

Singapore is a tiny island with few natural resources.  Where does our water come from?

1. Malaysia - Singapore has been importing its water from Malaysia under two bilateral agreements.  However, one agreement has already expired in August 2011, and the other is due to expire in 2061.
2. Local Catchment - Rainwater is collected in reservoirs, ponds, drains, canals and rivers
3. NEWater - Water reclaimed from treated used water
4. Desalination - Desalinating sea water

Given the importance of water as well as the possibility of lack of water in the future, shouldn't we try to save water as much as we can?  While preparing meals, I realised that quite a bit of water is used to wash rice and vegetables.  Instead of dumping all this water down the sink, I now collect it in a pail for watering my plants.  One - water is not wasted, and two - there's some good stuff in the water that the plants will love.  Win-win!

Water saved from washing rice and vegetables

Homemade Kaya

For those unfamiliar with "kaya", it is a spread made from eggs, sugar and coconut milk, also known as coconut egg jam.  In Singapore, this is often spread on bread or toast together with butter.  Kaya in the bottled form is easily available in supermarkets and, depending on the brand, ranges from green to brown in colour.

When I was younger, my Mum would make homemade kaya once in a while.  According to her, my grandmother's recipe was: 1 bunch of pandan leaves, 1 bowl of eggs, 1 bowl of sugar, and 1 bowl of fresh coconut milk.  These simple ingredients will then be mixed together in the upper tier of a double boiler.  The ONE skill you need to make perfect homemade kaya -- PATIENCE.  While the kaya cooks in the double boiler, you have to keep stirring it so that it doesn't curdle and you get the perfect texture.

I wanted to make my own kaya, but I didn't have the time to make it the traditional way.  In steps my best internet friend -- Google... I decided to make kaya using my bread machine!  I made a watered-down version:

Bread Machine Kaya

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup raw sugar

1 cup eggs (approximately 4 medium sized eggs)

1. Mix coconut milk and sugar in bread machine pan.  Add eggs to the pan through a sift.
2. Start the "Jam" function on the bread machine.
3. At the end of the "Jam" cycle, the mixture will appear lumpy.  Pour the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour into glass jars and keep refrigerated.

This is my lazy version where I used packet coconut milk instead of fresh and also skipped the pandan leaves.

Bread Machine Kaya (Coconut Egg Jam)

Treasure the Blue Sky

This is not the bluest of skies I've ever seen BUT it's blue enough for many people in Singapore.  Blue enough to take an outdoor morning walk.  Blue enough for many Facebook contacts to post photographs of the bluest skies they've seen in the past week and celebrate and appreciate what we take for granted every day - the blue skies that we don't even look at in our daily rush.

Over the past week or so, Singapore was affected by the worst bout of haze in history, with the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hitting a high of 401 on 21 Jun 2013 - hazardous level.  While such haze episodes affect Singapore every year, this was the worst, surpassing unhealthy levels in the 1997/1998 haze episode.

Image from NASA - This image shows the pollution over Indonesia and the Indian Ocean on October 22, 1997. White represents the aerosols (smoke) that remained in the vicinity of the fires. Green, yellow, and red pixels represent increasing amounts of tropospheric ozone

This current haze episode saddened me... some businesses marked up the prices of N95 masks as people scrambled to get masks to protect their families.  Some took the chance to add oil to fire, fanning popular but hostile opinions about everything and anything that they were unhappy about. If in a simple crisis like this, people can't band together to make things better for each other, what hope do we have when worse things happen?  It's crisis time, THE time to help each other and try to collectively make things better first, we can all complain and apportion blame when the crisis is over!

Luckily, there's always a silver lining... Friends shared their stash of masks. Families got together to make sure everyone was alright.  Lots of Wastapp-ing for those overseas to try to bring some masks back (apparently Singapore was not the only place that's out of N95 masks... supply was also short in Turkey with all the protests going on there).

White Fungus Dessert

My mum told me that white fungus is good for the lungs, that it's the poor man's bird's nest alternative.  With the haze getting really bad in Singapore with a PSI in the hazardous region, I quickly whipped up a pot of this simple dessert in hope that it'll save our lungs from the thick haze.

White fungus dessert

Ingredients:
dried red dates
dried longans
dried wolfberries
dried white fungus
sugar

1) Wash all ingredients and drain.
2) Soak white fungus in water until soft, then cut into small pieces
3) Add all ingredients except sugar to a pot of boiling water and boil for about 20-30 minutes
4) Add sugar to taste and serve either hot or cold.

Archaeology in Singapore

Ever since primary school, we were told that Sir Stamford Raffles was the founder of modern Singapore in 1819.  Even though 1819 seems like a long way back, I've never thought of Singapore as an old country.  And being so young, I've never thought about archaeology in Singapore.  Looking around, what I see is an urban jungle.  How can there be anything "old" to find?

I'm currently taking a course on Coursera -- Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets.  This was meant to be a fun course, meaning that I'll view the video lectures IF I have the time and most probably not  touch the assignments.  Purely for interests sake.  But after viewing the first lecture, I was hooked!

So this led me to reading up a little about archaeology in Singapore and I was surprised that an array of artifacts were found in a test site on the Padang: indigenously made earthenware, imported Chinese trade ceramics, Tang, Song and even Jin Dynasty coinages, to metal slag and glass beads and bangles!  Check out the Southeast Asian Archaeology website for more information.

Composting

What do I do with my kitchen scraps?  Why do I freeze them?  Here's where my frozen kitchen scraps go: into a flower pot with some soil!

Kitchen scraps in pot

Why??  This is my tiny little effort at composting, a tiny little effort to reduce the amount of rubbish that I throw into the rubbish bin.  I first attempted composting in a closed container under the kitchen sink.  As it was a closed system, I had to open it up and stir it every day to avoid anaerobic decomposition.  Then I got lazy and didn't stir it for 1 week..... URGHHHH..... stink stink stink!!  So the closed compost bin was banished from the house!

Eventually I started the more current system of adding kitchen scraps to a pot of soil.  Initial problems of having flies was solved by burying the scraps instead of leaving them on top, like this:

Kitchen scraps buried

How about trying out composting?  You reduce the amount of rubbish and get some fertiliser at the same time!