I never get tired of photographing one of the most photographed places in the world.
Photo taken Saturday on our way to wine tasting gulping sipping in Napa.
What a glorious sunny day!
Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right corner of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.
Most everyone has heard tell of this fruit they have in Southeast Asia that is really stinky. Most people will give you some sort of description of what they think it smells like including rotting flesh, pee and other unpleasant adjectives.
And of course all of these people who think they know a little something, when pressed, will admit they haven’t ever actually tried the thing.
So on a sultry Tuesday night in Singapore while drinking too much in a brew pub in the Boat Quay district, I was chatting with a coworker and native Singaporean.
He was asking me what were the things I wanted to see and try while I was in town.
I ran down a short list. Then he said to me, “so…do you like fruit?”
I grinned. “Yeah…are you talking about….?”
And he nodded.
Plans were made to get this American girl a taste of the stinky one, the King of Fruits, the Durian.
Thursday was the scheduled rendezvous and a group of us loaded up and headed for the Geylang District of Singapore, also sometimes called the Red Light District.
Despite being heavy on the laws and penalties, Singapore does actually allow prostitution. It’s just one of the many dichotomies of that fabulous city that intrigue me.
But I digress.
After a real hard work week, some coworkers and The Good Man and I found ourselves wandering what I could only describe as the old town of Singapore. The ungentrified part of a very gentrified city. I said to The Good Man “I’ve been looking for the soul of Singapore and I think I just found it.”
For among the clean streets and new glass and metal high rise buildings and a western sensibility in an Asian community, the Geylang showed me something different. A little more dirty. A little more dangerous. A lot more fascinating.
Dinner was an outside affair in a honest to goodness alleyway. The waitress told the ladies to watch their purses and anticipation for the meal ran high.
In addition to Durian, my Singaporean friend wanted me to try bullfrog porridge. I said ok.
We started with some Carlsberg beer to up the courage and soon the plates began flowing out of the open air kitchen.
We started with an oyster omelette (which The Good Man pointed out was like a Hangtown Fry without the bacon) and some beautiful sliced venison cooked in soy sauce and green onions.
I had to take a photo just so I could remember
While the chopsticks got to working and we discussed just where in the densely populated Singapore would actual wild deer be found, the main event landed on our table.
In two pots, one containing rice congee and the other chopped up chunks of bullfrog. I took some of the spicy variety and dug in.
Very tasty. Tender and quite mild like a very fresh scallop. No, it didn’t taste like chicken and by the way this is not the first time I’ve eaten frog. The congee gave a nice backer to the spicy frog meat.
As we ate, even more food came out including grilled calamari, stingray (the second time I had this), prawns and a heaping plate of clams.
It was a feast and the company was great, the surroundings gritty (but good) and the weather was about as steamy as you can imagine.
In short, one of the most perfect meals ever in my little life and a memory that will linger with me for years.
After we stuffed ourselves silly then cleaned up with the aid of several tissue packs, it was time to take a walk.
Dessert lay ahead and we were ready.
Across a very busy road and in an open air stand backed only with hanging tarps, we found our destination.
The prickly Durian fruit, piled high, odor filling the air.
I don’t know what the spray painted colors mean
My Singaporean friend went over to the vendor, a guy with a short, sturdy knife in hand, and began speaking in local dialect. He told us later he assured the guy that he wouldn’t pay for the fruit if it was bad, he needed to see inside, they haggled over price, and so on.
A fruit was chosen, the guy hacked it with precision and it was presented to the rest of us who were seated at another plastic table in a Geylang alleyway.
Each of those long strips has three sections to it
First impressions: It doesn’t smell that bad. It probably helped that we were outside and I understand some varieties of Durian smell more than others.
For me, it wasn’t the smell I struggled with, it was the texture. The fruit itself is like a custard inside a thin skin. You grab a section of the fruit (it pulls apart easily as there is a large pit inside each section) and just bite in. First bite my mouth registered “this is not a fruit” because it tasted kind of, well, savory.
But as I chewed and swallowed, on the back of my tongue, I tasted sweetness. The second bite I tried tasted sweet. Not big time sweet, just a nice mellow custardy sweet.
The more I ate, the more I liked it. I found after two sections, I was done. It was strangely satisfying and quite good.
Someone at our table popped up and went over to the vendors and negotiated for a plastic bag full of another fruit, this time the Queen of Fruits, Mangosteen. Less stinky and easier to open, the fruit inside looked like garlic cloves but tasted tangy and sweet. It was an interesting counter balance to the Durian. I understand they are often served together.
After a few sections of Mangosteen and another bit of Durian I was done. Topped up. Full to the gills and supremely satisfied.
What an amazing meal. What an amazing night.
By experiencing truly local food with the guidance of a resident “fixer”, I found the soul of Singapore.
It sang to the soul of me.
We are forever friends.
All photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right hand column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.
It sure is.
The San Francisco Giants 2012 baseball season begins tomorrow at 4:10 Pacific time.
With 162 games stretched out in front of us, hope is something I have heavily stocked up.
Oh yeah. I have hope.
Welcome back baseball, my love. Oh how I’ve missed you.
Top image of AT&T Park is Copyright 2011, Karen Fayeth, and subject to Creative Commons, found in the far right column of this page.
Bottom image is from the MLB Facebook feed and all rights belong to Major League Baseball and Mr Bud Selig.
Today’s Theme Thursday is: Hope
Yesterday I wrote about my mind bending, artifying, very inspiring trip to the museum. To prove I’m no snobby snobberson, let me tell you about the other thing I did this weekend.
Roller Derby.
Yeah. I know! Roller Derby!!
To be precise, I took in an event featuring the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls, a flat track league comprised of five teams.
On this night, the match was the San Francisco ShEvil Dead versus the Berkeley Resistance.
The event went down at the Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
Tamales were served.
It was AWESOME!
Of course I toted along my camera gear so I could catch all the action.
Indoors, crap florescent light, and people moving very fast.
My exposure triangle collapsed under its own weight.
I don’t know much about derby, but what I know is this: there is one lady designated as the jammer. She is the only one who can put points on the board. Her goal is to lap the opposing team. Her teammates assist by keeping the opposing team from blocking her progress and they also help try to hold back the opposing jammer.
It’s a lot of knees and elbows and flying females.
In other words: AWESOME!
You know who the jammer is by the star on her helmet.
Like this:
The jammer for San Francisco goes by the name Trixie Pixie. She must be about 90 pounds soaking wet. There would be a big clump of women duking it out, and then *boop* Trixie would pop out from the mass and go flying around the track.
By the end of the night she was my favorite player by far as the ShEvil Dead soundly beat the Resistance.
I came home with about 150 pretty useless photos. That blurry, noisy, streaky photo above is among the best of what I could get.
It may not look like much to you, but to me it’s a happy reminder of AWESOME!
Yeah, ok. I caved to the masses.
I’m quite suggestible you know.
I come from a family that enjoys trips to Vegas and the occasional Indian casino. My family loves to gamble (responsibly) and I do too.
So today I threw two one dollar bills into the toilet and bought Mega Millions tickets.
Every news outlet, radio talk show, and coworker is talking about the half billion potential payoff.
Yesterday on All Things Considered, they had some whiz bang mathematician guy who chastised all of us in describing the impossible odds.
I think that’s when I decided to throw my hard won dollars in the ring.
I know the odds are ridiculous. I know it’s a waste of money. I know, I know.
But for a moment, a little moment, it’s fun to think about what if?
I think the concept of what if is a powerful one.
There are those in the ranks of woo-woo and esoteric who would say that what if is a good thing. It’s an order placed to the universe.
I think what if gives you a chance to see what you can accomplish.
When you pull out a road map, you look at where you are today. You look at where you want to go (what if) and then you map the highways, byways and dirt roads that it will take to get there.
Do you get lost sometimes? Sure.
Take a wrong road because it looks interesting? Of course.
Run out of gas? Absolutely.
And then, sometimes, with a little luck and a little diligence, you arrive at your destination.
So for me, the what if daydreaming is simply me being the cartographer of my life.
What if’ing about half a billion dollars might be ridiculous to some. To me, it’s a nice way to end a crazy busy day at work. My mind is too tired to parse this spreadsheet in front of me. Instead I’ll gaze out the window and daydream. For just a few moments.
And then, because it’s the last work day of the month, I’ll collect my regular paycheck, pay my rent and then go home to The Good Man (my odds of finding him were pretty sparse too, but I must have drawn that map pretty gosh darn well).
So ok. That’s worth at least $2
This week’s Theme Thursday is: moment.