The Taste of Family

July 23, 2011 5 Comments

“The best thing in life may not be the most expensive one. Like the animation “Ratatouille”, it is the reminiscing of one’s fondest memory that completes the perfect taste of that signature dish. It is not made up of the best and most expensive ingredients but it consists the “taste of pure love” which touches our hearts.”

That was what I wrote back in 2008 (See blog) after a CNY lunch at my old auntie’s house. Over the past 5 years, I travelled a lot and been to many great restuarants. But nothing come close to the taste in my heart. I miss those home-cooked dishes that my late granny and mother used to serve at home. There are 2 particular dishes which I have so much craving – my granny’s“Mee Swa Kor” (Ah Mah Mee) and my mum’s “Mushroom Yam Rice”. This trip, I specially came back home to learn these 2 dishes from my mum. (I tried my best to remember the steps – mum was super fast in the kitchen!) These are not the expensive dishes you find in the restaurants but there are something in the taste that brings back the fond memories of my good old family days in Singapore.

Filed under Family, Jo's Thoughts, Life in Singapore

My First and Last Singapore-Malaysia Railway Walk

July 22, 2011 1 Comment

The last train left on 30th June 2011 – This week, I managed to find time to fly back to Singapore to take my first & last heritage railway walk before the 38km-track is removed by the end of the year. Currently known as the “Green Corridor” of Singapore, this stretch of railway was owned by Malaysia. Singapore finally won back this stretch of land after many years of shaky negotiations. Already, many portions of the old Singapore-Malaysia railway track have been barricaded and dismantled.

This afternoon, we hopped on a cab and told the taxi-driver to drive us to the railway track. The driver gave me a blank look and said all tracks are barricaded. We decided to try our luck at the 79-year-old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station – hopefully to find a way to “sneak inside”. When our cab arrived at the station, there was clearly no way we can sneak into the station. I started to search on Google for recent blogs and news. Unfortunately, many of the links didn’t reveal “access point” to the tracks. Out of desperation, I scanned the Google Map to trace the railway track – and I managed to recall an access point at Rifle Range Road. And I was right.

It was Friday afternoon and we were surprise to see a lot of people at the track. We saw 2 big groups of students and many young couples strolling along the track. It was pretty hot today but the dense vegetation shaded us from the baking sun. It was quite a cooling walk. Like us, many were here to experience their first and last railway walk. Some even marked their names on the 100-year-old bridge.

We saw many “casualties” on the track. Not road-kills but discarded soles from famous sport brands. Guess the graveled-track proved too strenuous/deadly for the common sports shoes. The rocky path was indeed difficult to walk. But it is worth preserving the “Green Corridor” for our next generation as it is part of our heritage. Along the track, I spotted many species of butterflies, bugs and wild fungus. It was an extraordinary hike for both of us.  We covered only 2km (50mins) and exit at Bukit Timah Reserve.

Filed under Life in Singapore, Travel

Beach Pool at Singapore HardRock Hotel

July 22, 2011 Leave a comment

A man-made sandy beach pool at Sentosa’s HardRock Hotel, this is possibly Singapore’s cleanest, whitest beach. Fine sand bed and crystal-clear water, this is one great beach to swim and relax!

Filed under Family, Life in Singapore, Travel

On Red-eye Flight

June 12, 2011 Leave a comment

(Photo Taken: On flight A380, Red-Eye to Sydney. It was fun in the beginning until Elkan landed his foot on my face in the middle of the night…Sigh!)

Filed under Family, Life in Singapore, Travel, Wahbiang

Sleeping with the Sharks

June 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Elkan was very upset with me for not bringing him to our Kenting adventure last December. I promised him lots of adventures for his June vacation. Since then, he has been pestering me to bring him to camping, hiking, caving, diving and rock climbing. Come this Friday, I will be bringing them downunder to Australia for a cool winter escapade (together with my buddies Meijie and Tracy). For the past 3 weeks, Elkan has been checking everything about Australia. Felicia decided to give him a “warming-up” treat last weekend – Camping overnight at Underwater World.

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BLOG BY FELICIA TAM (6th June 2011)



It’s the June school holidays! Woooo hoooo for the kids! But headache for parents. Lots of planning and searching for fun and meaningful programmes for kids. I found one! And a scary one, sleeping with the sharks!! Dun worry, we didn’t become the sharks’ meal.

Underwater World at Sentosa organised a sleepover event for family with kids. We gathered in the evening greeted by the friendly staff who introduced basic knowledge of the fishes at Underwater World. I was surprised that lots of 5-6 year old kids has so much knowledge about marine life. Some even know the scientific names of some species or differentiate different types of shark! Zebra shark, nurse shark??

After a buffet dinner, we explored Underwater World (which was closed to the public by 8pm). The kids started to make friends and form their own little groups and they had the whole place all to themselves. There were tiny crabs and giant crabs at 3.7m long! Bright yellow seahorses, angel-like jelly fish, goldfish, stingrays, sharks, corals, fossils exhibits, etc. The favorite exhibit was the touch pool. Some boys caught cockroaches and held them by the feelers above the pool to see how the Archer fish literally shoot their preys down with water droplets from their mouths. While the girls would hold a rubber band above the water and wait for the Archer fish to do the same stunt! Some parents tried to stop the kids, most of them got wet in the end. Elkan touched the star fish and stingray!

Later in the night, we were divided into teams and challenged one another in a quiz. Kids tug their parents all over the place to look for answers. It was a fun and educational session. We were not the top scorers but we had a great time!

The most excited part of the evening has arrived!! Time to sleep! Sleeping bags were distributed and we lay them beside the travelator in the long underwater tunnel. It could fit all 30 participants. The view was magical. Lying on the sleeping bag and you see small schools of fishes and large sharks and stingrays gliding gracefully above you. And the bubbling sound of water does make you feel dreamy & comfortable. Probably like babies in their mothers’ womb kind of feeling. The kids were hiding in one another sleeping bags giggling away. Older kids were walking around taking pictures of everyone with their camera. While some were running round and round the tunnel! What a nightmare for the adults. I think most parents’ heads were spinning by then.

Lights out means torches out! There were colourful torches from the kids shining up into the dark tunnel. “Mummy! Shark, shark!”, “There there!”, “Over here”, “Eeewwww…. The fish poo poo!” The kids went on and on… noise echoed through the tunnel after for 2 loooooong hours… zzzzzzzzzzzzz……. (certainly not a romantic experience for young dating couples)

A great experience sleeping indoors in sleeping bags under the sharks and giant sting rays! It was a mesmerizing display of marine creatures. For a change, maybe counting the fish could help insomnia. Except for the hard flooring… my body ached badly the next day …….ooooouchhh….. Some complained about hearing loud snores rattling through the tunnel. Many parents woke up looking tired. The programme has yet to end. Our final stop was at the dolphin pool. We took pictures with the fur seals and watched them perform. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much of the famous pink dolphin as it was their mating season. So cannot disturb them. Shhhh…………

Filed under Family, Life in Singapore

Taxi Problems in Singapore

May 27, 2011 6 Comments

The availability of taxis in Singapore is becoming a big problem. For someone like me who has been away for a while, I could tell the difference. There is simply no “Comfort” in our taxis anymore. Getting from point A to point B can be frustrating  and confusing. Not just for the locals but also for tourists who rely on our taxis to get around. To make things worst, there are new rules regulating where passengers can alight from a cab. Taking a cab to CBD is like taking a bus – the passenger can only alight at designated taxi stands. This is the stupidest rule someone in the authority came up with. If it is to prevent taxis from jamming the traffic and endangering other motorists, we can always introduce inlets or special lanes for taxi to stop. To create standard taxi stand for all flag-downs is fair and good, but to restrict where a passenger can alight is absolutely senseless. It hinders the convenience of taking a cab, especially on a rainy day.

One of the most common problems is our call-in system and the “mystery of disappearance and appearance of taxis at specific hours”. Any taxi driver with common sense would figure out that it is less-profitable to pick up any passengers 30 minutes before the “peak hours” (example: midnight). Why pick up flag-down passenger when there is a call-in mechanic that will earn them more money? Of course, there is no rule to restrict how our taxi-drivers should do their business. It is simply a “work smart and not hard” policy. But this is the root of the problem as many cab drivers are capitalising on the call-in “bonus cash”. Seriously, our cab companies must look into this as this is becoming a black spot in our “near perfect” tourism image. Profit mongering activities should never be encouraged.

Another confusion is the different tiers of surcharge for different types of taxis. I welcome the newer and bigger cabs but I totally detest the confusing “creative” charges (peak hours, CBD, ERP, midnight, special cabs). At some point, I gave up trying to understand when and how my meter fare ran. Gone were the days when things were simpler and straight-forward. If these are the things we have to compromise for comfort and bigger space, I rather go back to old days when we had decent clean taxis but a standard fare. Surely, what’s the point of having more bigger and newer taxis when more and more of them aren’t available?

When I was in Shanghai, taxi drivers gave discounts for midnight fare. And in Hong Kong, many taxi drivers give discounts if you do special booking. Getting a taxi in Hong Kong is relatively easy (just like how we saw it in those typical Hong Kong drama series). Strangely, Hong Kong is even more congested than Singapore but I don’t see much jams that justify ERPs or peak hour charges. In Singapore, we implemented so many tolls and surcharge to smoother traffics but I don’t see much improvements to the jams in CTE or Orchard Road during the peak hours.

Seriously, if Singapore wants to attract and bring in more tourists, we have to fix this problem. Taxi is one of the most important means of transport for our foreign guests. Taxis are the first point of contact for our visitors. And for these poor tourists, they have to start paying surcharge the minute they leave the airport – not to mention paying the additional peak hours and ERP charges if they landed during the wrong hours. Soon, the same group of tourists may find themselves stranded out there during peak hours (and they are not familiar with our bus or MRT network). It can be a frustrating and painful experience for them. Perhaps our new transport minister should get out of his cozy sedan and spend more time trying to get a taxi (or listening to the repetitive background music of our taxi hotline) in CBD during a freaking hot or wet weather.

Filed under Jo's Thoughts, Life in Singapore, Travel

Happy Ethan and Tracy Day!

May 16, 2011 Leave a comment

This year, Ethan and Tracy celebrated their birthdays in Singapore. Still remember their birthday celebrations last year, we went dolphin watching. It is never wise to joint-celebrate an adult’s birthday with a small kid. The poor kid will have extra candles on his birthday cake. And the poor adult will never get a chance to blow the candles and cut the cake. Hope no one fights for the presents this year. (Above: Father Hong Fei decorated this cake for his son and buddy Baybay)

Filed under Life in Singapore, Wahbiang

Golden Straits of Pulau Ubin

May 13, 2011 Leave a comment

(Photo Taken by my iPhone: Sunset view from the Air, Singapore – Pulau Ubin is the island in the middle.)

Filed under Life in Singapore, Travel

Fast Food Indeed

May 13, 2011 Leave a comment

(Photo Taken: Raffles City, Singapore – We were chasing for our fried egg. I guess they did got our order right.)

Filed under Life in Singapore

Fate Brings Family Together

May 13, 2011 2 Comments

It was strange how Fate brought family together. On my last day in Singapore, I was messaging my Cousin Bin that I couldn’t meet up with him. He replied and informed me that my Canadian uncle and auntie were in town. I told him I was heading back to Hong Kong and may not meet up with them – perhaps when they come to Hong Kong end of May. 4 hours later, Elkan was pestering me to bring him to the airport. I gave in to his request and we walked to the taxi stand – there, I saw them at the taxi queue! What a sweet, happy surprise! They were very surprised to see me and we will meet again end of May in Hong Kong. Thanks to Elkan, we were at the perfect place at the perfect time. (Photo taken by Elkan)

Filed under Family, Life in Singapore

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