This year’s Singapore Garden Festival was held from 15 to 22 July. This is my second year visiting, and while I enjoy seeing the exhibits and admiring what people can come up with, I never like having to squeeze with the crowd. It’s pretty unavoidable when you go during the weekend though, and since the festival lasts for only a week, the weekend crowd doesn’t get spread out over a few weeks. With such a huge crowd there, and most of the people coming to take photos, it’s really not easy to take shots without people appearing inside. Especially when some people just don’t seem to be very considerate and take their own sweet time to hog the area in front of the exhibits. >< I really liked some of the exhibits, but I feel that they still can't top one of the exhibits displayed last year, which has an underwater theme. The few that I liked more are shown below (I will probably post some of the other photos in my tumblr).

Went for a casual dinner at Tampopo (Liang Court) last night. I first noticed the restaurant some time ago, when I was at Liang Court and noticed the long queue outside. And hearing positive reviews of the place, I wanted to try the food there some time.

Shio ramen

The boyfriend and I had our own Hokkaido ramen, and later shared a kurobuta tonkatsu between us. The place serves Hakata (Kyushuu) ramen as well, which differs from Hokkaido ramen in that Hakata ramen is thinner and harder, while Hokkaido ramen is thicker and more chewy.

I had my usual choice of Shio ramen (my usual preference is Shio, Shoyu and then Miso), and I like the soup base that was used. The noodles weren’t particularly remarkable, but still good. For ramen of this price range, I would prefer Aoba slightly more though (I usually go to their branch at Ion). They have more ingredients in their ramen, whereas for Tampopo, you need to pay extra for additional toppings. In any case, when it comes to ramen, practically every other restaurant is better than Ajisen.

Top grade loin cutlet

As for the tonkatsu, it’s special in that it’s made from black pork, which has tastier meat. I don’t eat tonkatsu often, but I thought that the one we had was nicely done, and the meat wasn’t too tough as well. It’s pretty pricy though, but once in a long while is fine I guess.

If you intend to go there during the weekend, it would certainly be good to go early. We reached around 6, and while there wasn’t a queue outside yet, quite a number of seats were already filled. And by the time we left, quite a sizable crowd was waiting outside.

Overall, taking into consideration the portion size, I would say that their food is slight on the pricy side. But it would be worth trying their food at least once, because it might very well suit your taste.

The weather was absolutely terrible this morning. It was only 8.30am, but the sky was so dark that it felt like it was 8.30pm instead. Rainwater had accumulated along the sheltered walkway, and by the time I had gotten to the bus stop, my feet were already wet. It was no better when I was waiting for the bus. The roads were somewhat flooded, and whenever a vehicle drove past, water would splash extremely close to the bus stop, where a lot of people were standing. And when the bus came, the water on the road would spill over onto the pavement, soaking everyone’s feet in the process. It’s been raining really heavily for the past couple of days, but this is the first time I’ve had to travel out in such bad weather. Thankfully the rain had lightened up by the time I reached my workplace, and I didn’t have to go to work soaking wet despite carrying an umbrella. Sunny days are still the best!

It takes me about an hour to travel between home and work, but just within the span of a trip back today, I saw quite a number of interesting things.

• I stopped by Breadtalk to get some bread, and while queueing up to make payment, I noticed a young girl and her maid just in font of me. When the cashier rang up their purchase, the maid took out a note, and a whole pile of 5 cent coins to pay for the bread. There were at least 20 coins in the pile that the maid placed on the counter, and it was obvious that she was going to need some time to count how many coins she needed, so the cashier calculated my bill while waiting. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone try to pay for something with so many 5 cent coins!
• After alighting from the MRT, while walking back home, I saw a female somewhere around my age walking towards me. She was looking down the whole time, and when she got nearer, I realised that she was clipping her nails while walking! I’ve seen people clip their nails on the bus or MRT (which really shouldn’t be done), but this is another first. Will your nails turn out nice if you cut them like that? And isn’t it dangerous because you’re focusing on your nails the whole time, and not where you are walking?
• The third encouter came when I was just a couple of blocks away from home. Some kids were riding their bicycles at one of the void decks I was cutting through, and when one of the boys was coming into my path, he didn’t ring the bell on his bicycle (actually, I can’t remember if he had one), but instead made a “beep beep” sound with his mouth.

My trips to and from work are usually pretty uneventful, so I wonder if there’s anything special about today, seeing that I’ve encountered all these things.

On to something less interesting, I haven’t been all that well for the past couple of days. My nose had decided to rebel, and it’s terribly blocked now. It’s fine when the surroundings are warm, but if there’s a fan or air con switched on, and the environment becomes cooler, it either gets blocked or starts running. It’s really bothersome when I have to work, but at the same time, there’s no reason to go on MC since it’s not serious to the extent that I’m dysfunctional. When it comes to things like that, no one really cares anyway. I just hope it goes away soon! Sucks to not be able to smell anything, nor taste your food. Some TLC and a lot of rest would be good now.

One of the things I enjoy doing is to have a nice chat with a friend, over a meal or a cup of tea. Sitting there and catching up with each other while not having to worry about the time… that’s something that many of us cannot really afford to do now, since we’re busy with work. How I long to spend a long, relaxing afternoon like that some time soon!