The body finally caved in today and told the mind to sleep in for once. Too many late nights and early mornings does this to you. On normal Sunday mornings, I would be at Tanjong Beach by 9am and paddling till about 11am, after which it’s lunch with my teammates either at Coastes or at Seah Im Food Centre. By the way, the Tiger Prawn Pizza and the Beef Burger at Coastes are really delicious. Chilling out there with some comfort food is a nice way to spend Sunday.
I was supposed to crawl out of bed at 7 this morning, but when the alarm went off, I didn’t seem to be able to move at all. I decided that the wise thing to do was to obey my body otherwise I would find myself really sick. A prompt sms was sent to my teammate to tell her I didn’t need a ride to Sentosa and I was back to dreamland, only to wake up three hours later. Nice.
This week has been rather hectic what with the early morning paddles and late nights. Wednesday night was dragon boat practice. Thursday night saw me partying at Fez Bar (at Boat Quay) with my teammates as part of a farewell get-together for one of the ladies who is one cool gal. She’s going to India to do volunteer work for three months, after which she’ll be heading to New Zealand to study viticulture, which is the art of grapegrowing and winemaking. After a short stay at Fez Bar, I hopped over to Wine Bar for another friend’s birthday celebration. I didn’t stay for long as I knew I had to get up early Friday morning. Got home by 12mn, washed up and was in bed by 12.30.
Alarm clock rings at 5am. I’m out of the house by 5.45 and in Sentosa by 6 for another morning paddle. I do my blister no favours by bursting it as I brushed my leg against the boat by accident. It pops, of course. Ouch. At night, I have dinner with three colleagues at the Hokkaido restaurant Azabu Sabo. I’m beginning to take a huge liking to this place. The food’s not too bad for the prices and I love the Japanese desserts. I had the cold ramen in sesame sauce and for dessert I had the soft ice cream with sweet potato and black sesame. Liked the cold ramen, except that all the pork strips that were inside were mostly fat strips! But I liked sauce and the springy texture of the noodles.
Saturday morning saw me out at the beach again and my boat paddled to Sisters Island and back. Then three other friends and I morphed into beach bums by going to KM8. We lay on the deck chairs with our drinks and soaked in the sun – whatever that was peering through the haze that still clouds over Singapore. The sun was strong enough to make me sunburnt. Ouch.
Left KM8 at 2.30, went home for a nap, and was out again to Vivo City to catch the Danish film The Green Butchers, one of the featured films in the European Film Festival. I caught a Hungarian film called Vagabond last Saturday but that was so lousy that my friend and I walked out after an hour. We didn’t get where the film was going.
The Green Butchers (De Gronne Slagtere) was, however, very quirky. It’s about this two men who start their own butcher shop after being fed up at working for their pompous boss. At first, business is slow if not non-existent. However, because of a secret ingredient, their business becomes a roaring success, but soon they find themselves running out of this secret ingredient. At the same time, a few people have become missing in the town they live in. Watch it to find out how they keep their supply going…