Monday, April 27, 2009

Singapore Day 2009

It's a lazy, lazy day because summer's gone, and I've done all the most procrastinating things I can think of. A nap will be next on the agenda I suspect, as soon I've written about Singapore Day.

So the Singapore govt's reportedly spent many dollars in a time when we're all stretching our last ones to bring a little piece of the city-state to the several thousand Singaporeans (and friends) in the UK. They couldn't've picked a better or cheaper time to host the event, actually, especially since the Sing' dollar appears hell bent on destroying my spending power when I go home.

They set up a formidable array of tents, stalls, and a massive stage a little ways from Hampton Court Palace, and then filled it with free food and more freebies than you could reasonably carry. Does our gahmen know us or what?

At first, I didn't really understand why we were being handed silicone breast implants at the entrance (apparently you can use them as heating pads when it gets cold), and then laughed at the ERP gantry that went 'boop' everytime someone passed (I should really check my bank account), and saw the shiny white tents, the colourful stalls, the rows of barricades, and my patriotism only skyrocketed from there.

Our goodie bags were so practical: wet wipes, a picnic mat, a rain mac, toys, muruku. The food on offer was insane: hokkien mee, laksa, ikan bakar, chwee kueh, carrot cake, chicken rice, prata, kway chap, char kway teow, nasi lemak, rojak, muah chee. If you weren't constantly thinking about your stomach and in the queue for food, you could also go around collecting all the other free things at the various booths: army rations, frisbees, bottles of satay sauce, soya bean milk, bottles of mineral water, t-shirts, personal planners, Mindef caps, and more toys.

The acts were great, of what I could understand and what I watched when I wasn't chasing the next craving. The porta-loos were spotless and there were enough of them, and there was none of the mud you'd expect from hosting something in a giant field with lots of generated waste. Phwoar, how did they do it?!

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