Mid-Autumn Wanderings

I've been trying to keep busier during the weekdays, which is great for me, but unfortunately the blog suffers. I started spending sunny days down by the pool with a book and my ipod, which means when I lazily stumble back to the apartment, all I want is a soda and AC, and it doesn't make for good story fodder. However, my tan is coming along nicely, proving once and for all that anything you set your mind to can be accomplished. And before you freak out, mom, I'm wearing sunscreen and a hat, and I don't stay in the direct light for long. I'm not BROWN per se, but I am turning a nice golden color; makes a nice change from the blinding white I used to be. The only downside is the freckles on my shoulders are finally doing what I feared they would do for years, and joined together to make one large über-freckle. Sigh. But a lot has been going on in the mean time, so I'll try and sort through the highlights.

Mike is officially 30! Hooray! I have to say, he took it quite well. No tears, no tantrums, no denial of the fact that he's a year older; very impressive, especially since I plan on doing all those things when I turn 27. Instead, we went to a sort-of-Italian restaurant called Lenas and got a couple pizzas and some beer. I say "sort of" because while they have pepperoni pizza and bruschetta on the menu, they also had curry seafood pizza and cheese fries, neither of which I think qualify as Italian. I don't know for sure, I've never been.

We finally tried chili crab, which is one of Singapore's specialty dishes. We were down in Chinatown again, this time during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also called the Lantern Festival or the Mooncake Festival. Basically it's just a big Chinese harvest festival that involves a lot of lanterns and little cakes. Everywhere we go we see mooncakes for sale, they're little pastries shaped kind of like flowers filled with flavored lotus seed paste. The taste is very similar to fig newtons, they're just a little bigger.

Anyway, we went down to Chinatown to look at all the lanterns and wander around, and we met some friends at a seafood restaurant and ordered chili crab and black pepper crab. Both were very good, but I think the chili crab wins most delicious; it's a little spicy but also somewhat sweet, which worked really well with the sweetness of the crab. Plus, the extra chili sauce was great for pouring over fried rice. Look, you can see its little eyes staring at you all accusingly! Mmmmm.

We also made it over to East Coast Park, which is kind of like a boardwalk along the eastern shore. There's a bunch of shops and restaurants along the water, and long paths that people ride their bikes around. We even saw a few rollerbladers, which I didn't know still existed. Perhaps I should dust off my wrist guards, grab my Walkman and throw down like it's 1995. We went to a little bar along the water and got a pitcher of what passes for frozen margaritas in these parts. They weren't BAD, exactly, just not very flavorful and a bit too salty. Not as upsetting as the "nachos simpaticos," which turned out to be a few chips covered in cheese whiz and a few stray beans. WRONG. MALO. So instead of satiating my cravings, I was cruelly teased with off brand Tex Mex, which has only increased my longing. But the beer was fine, and Mike got to play Frisbee in the sand.

Still on the topic of food (because that's what we do here, eat) a couple we know through Mike's mom took us out to a place called Fatty's. I am immediately predisposed to like any place called Fatty's, and this restaurant is apparently some kind of Singapore landmark that's popular with expats and locals alike.

The food was really tasty, and I can see why expats like it: it tasted more like American Chinese food than anything else we've eaten here. It had that sort of greasy-noodle-in-a-take-out-box flavor that we know and love, and we had a ton of leftovers just like at home! Even though it was technically Asian food, it still made a nice change from our usual soup, noodle, and chicken rice diet. I think it would serve as a nice starting point for whoever wants to come visit first!