Food, glorious food
My sister announced mid-last year that she was hitching herself to a tall Australian who likes to take her fishing at silly o’clock in the morning, and does stuff like buy her flowers, and tell her she is wonderful. This is excellent, as my sister is lovely and historically has had a tendency to go out with guys that are a bit shit.
So, now that I have a job I can afford (for ‘afford’, read ‘get further into debt by being able to say I can pay off a loan’) to go to Australia to be present, wear a dress, get drunk, fall off things and embarass the family - although by the sounds of things, I may yet be outdone by some of the groom’s more interesting relatives.
Anyway, on the way, Gordon and I are stopping off in Singapore. This is mainly so that he can do the second leg of the journey in the Airbus A380. The larger that passenger planes are, the more they alarm me, so I naturally think this is a marvellous idea, and can’t wait for the experience. ‘A flying metal coffin with three times as many people in it as normal! Woo!’, I will say, as I down my diazepam and bloody mary combo, and try not to imagine the headlines.
We are extremely excited about this three day jaunt, and have made extensive plans, which we have annotated and marked on corresponding maps. Not an hour is unaccounted for. And it was this process that made me appreciate once again that I’ve found someone who is perfect for me; the process for selecting our activities went thus:
1. Work out exactly how many meals we had to eat between landing and taking off again.
2. Go through the ‘food’ section of the guidebook, marking off restaurants that we like the sound of.
3. Repeat, eliminating surplus eateries with the equation “priority = cost x distance from sites of interest - hawker centre interest rating”.
4. Work out list of bars in which to drink after dinner drinks with views of the harbour.
5. Mark on map.
6. Write list, with favoured dishes annotated (e.g. curried soft-shell crab; hainan chicken rice; banana leaf curry)
7. Salivate until forced to over indulge on cheese.
And I wonder why I’m not losing any weight.
April 10th, 2008 at 12:16 am
A couple of ideas for Singapore. For food, I’d recommend the East Coast Seafood Center, if only for the experience. Check the prices before you order though as it can be a little pricey. Next, for a snapshot of the seedier side of life, check out the bars and the clubs at the Orchard Towers where you can play that most interesting game - “Which ones are women, which are men dressed as women and which are now women but were once men?”.
On a more civilized note, the Marriott hotel on Orchard Street has a rather excellent open air bar on the corner of a couple of busy shopping streets that makes for simply excellent people watching.
I look forward to hearing how you get on! :o)
April 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Ooh - thanks Nat. I will let you know (no doubt I will force Gordon to spend mucho time in an internet cafe so I can blog. The bug is back).
April 10th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I agree, it is excellent
I didn’t have a chance to go round the Singapore restaurants last time I was there (I only had a few hours at the airport unfortunately)
I only hope that the food and weather here puts up a good show too
xxx
April 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hi Rachie, I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of months now and I was really glad when you recently started blogging again. I too have had that feeling of being so lost, completely adrift that I never thought that I could enjoy life the ways other people seem to. I decided that the best thing to do was to keep moving, keep searching out a new adventure but this didn’t work because I had the same feelings, just a different location and ever more reasons to feel bad and beat myself up.
I’ve been treated for depression on and off for about 9 years, with anti-ds, psychiatrists, counsellors…some of which helped a little but never significantly. I came across a book entitled ‘Eat to Live’ by Joel Furhman which advocates cutting out all processed food from your diet and going back to basics, initally it’s hard work but it made me feel so much better physically which in turn had a real impact on my mental well being. After all, the brain is just another organ that needs to be nourished.
I recently had my bloods tested for something unrelated to the depression and they came back with debilitatingly low vitamin B12, I’ve been researching this vitamin and there’s a really strong link between mental health and vitamin B12. I’m now being treated for this with B12 injections but large doses of a supplement is an alternative also. Just thought I’d mention it as in 9 years of being ‘treated’ for depression with numerous different doctors in different countries, nobody had ever considered testing me for B12 deficiency.
Sinead
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 am
Sinead, hello and welcome! Thanks so much for your comment - it was really useful. I had blood tests recently too, and discovered I’ve got a benign liver condition, so that all contributes I guess! I’ll give the VB12 a go as well, as it’s supposed to be a Good Thing.