Another leisure day

Tuesday, October 28th

Anita made us Cha Sew Ba for breakfast.  Breakfast meaning after 11am.  We then packed all our stuff that we were going to ship back home that afternoon.  We were still lugging around our friend's fisherman pants and decided to send more stuff home.  At around 12 we went to meet Linda, Wilson and their Dad for lunch at a Chinese place.

Steph's uncle (Linda and Wilson's dad) was extremely nice and intelligent.  He is in the rubber business and have a great sense of the commodity business.  It was interesting to hear his perspective of the economy.  From what we're hearing, it seems to be the general consensus that 2009 is not going to be a good year for business.  Yeah - feel bad for the unemployed girls that need to look for a job in January.

After lunch Steph and I shopped around to get some new clothes, and any new items we wanted to send home.  Surprisingly the malls were actually cheaper than the bargain stores in Chinatown.  How strange.  Both Steph and I made some purchases and then rushed to the post office to mail our stuff home.  Hopefully this will lighten our bags by a few pounds.  A 19kg wall-e is just impossible to lug around in Australia.  We also got some flowers for Auntie Young and Linda for their generosity.  They treated us to all our meals.

Right before dinner with Auntie Young's family we went to the botanical gardens, Singapore's Central Park.  It was extremely lush and beautiful.  Very clean and not so crowded, which we heart.  There were all these funky trees there and an orchid garden that we had to pay to get in...so we decided not to go in.  After 20mins of walking, we decided it was best to leave the park so we wouldn't be late for dinner.  We randomly exited somewhere and started walking away from the park, but realized it wasn't really possible.  Instead we got lost and just started walking besides the park instead.  Basically we were probably better off staying inside the park and retracing our steps instead of making a big loop outside the park. It took us 15mins to get out of the park, and another 20mins to get back to Auntie Young's place.  We thought the second stretch was only going to take us 5-10mins (since the car ride seems pretty short), but we totally underestimated the big hills and the long walk.  Good thing we are good at taking quick showers.

Auntie Young took us out to a nice Yakatori Japanese restaurant by Robinson Keys by the river.  Auntie Young said the river used to be really dirty and brown because of all the warehouses.  But the last five years the government took ownership of it and cleaned it up.  What shocked us the most was that the government paid peanuts to reclaim the warehouse land.  So we came up with the theory it was called robinson keys because it was like robin hood, rob from the rich and give to the poor.  The good thing about it was the government ensured the preservation of the warehouse buildings.  Most of them converted to restaurants.

The dinner party was so much fun.  We were sitting amongst many intelligent people.  The conversation about the finance crisis was intellectually stimulating.  Steph and I walked away thinking we need to read up on the Economist.  It was also inspiring to see their family was so close.  I need to try to keep better touch with my relatives now.

Auntie Young's family is already a few generations of educated family members.  I am still the first generation, the first college graduate, so it gives me hope one day my descendants could have a family conversation like the one we had that night too.  You always want the next generation to have it better than you did.  I wondered if my dad wasn't a product of the chinese cultural reform what would he be today.  He claims he was a smart kid in school, but was pulled out of school and the city to go farm.  That was the turning point of his life, and it's amazing how little he complains about it and how much he has accomplished since.  He is by far always my hero, my inspiration.

After our wonderful Yakatori meal with chicken wings, black pig balls, yams, scallops, salads, homemade ice cream and more, Auntie Young walked us to check out the river before heading back to the house and finish packing our packs for our departure the next morning.