easter morning

the picturesque Singapore Botanic Garden in Cluny Road..

Happy easter world!

My routine's changed;  back home, i usually sleep really late and i mean 9 p.m. is an early time to doze off then wake up almost lunchtime. now, i wake up as early as 6 or 7am, read early morning news courtesy of Twitter whilst sipping hot coffee i brewed myself. 

what i love most living here in sg is that people cannot live without wi-fi and it would be weird for one household not to have wi-fi access as it's usually bundled with cable tv (they have here singtel, starhub etc). my e71 is so useful here because i need not have monthly subscription to have mobile data access.

anways, moving on, had a long day yesterday. my sister and i went to sg botanic garden and yeah the info we gathered online wasn't helpful as always. according to the instruction we need to alight at aft peirson and yeah we WALKED far including crossing overpass decked out in jeans and our backpacks just to found out that the botanic garden was literally a park and everyone else wore comfy clothing while we drench ourselves in sweat. haiizz. damn.

the botanic garden wasn't as promising. yeah, what do you expect from parks on a saturday right? the park was vast that you really need to be decked out in comfortable clothes like shorts and sleeveless to endure the heat. the greeneries was refreshing and the view of the lake made me just wanna sit back and read a book hadn't for the heat of the sun which left me more sunburnt. i don't think i'd ever regain my original color so long as we're here in sg because you need to endure a lot of walking and if streetdirectory.com says the place you're looking for is just nearby, trust me, they have a different definition of what 'nearby' means because for them it can be as near as 200 meters! oh good lord. i had hotdog sandwich with beef sauce paired with bottled orange juice at the botanic garden for total 9sgd and boy i was stuffed that i needed to walk a few more.

the ever busy Orchard Road..

afterwards, we headed off to tanglin mall where we checked out little shops (majority of which are for children like toy stores, kids clothing etc) and of course the mall's food court where my sister had some chicken rice thai version (deep fried chicken with sweet chillies) which she found really delectable for $4 while i suit myself with some blueberry shakes cuz i was still stuffed when we got to the mall.

while my sister is having lunch and myself sipping the brain freezing blueberry, i can't help but notice how our skin color has changed from fair to really bronze although it looked really classic and very malayan. a lot of local men were staring at me and my sister maybe it's cuz they coudn't figure if we're malaysians or singaporeans and their adorning eyes made me really think if our suntanned skin worked to our advantage hehe.

the busy Chinatown

here in s'pore, malaysians usually decked out fully covered from head to toe like the typical

muslims you see in quiapo (a place in manila predominantly populated by muslims since it houses one of their mosques), while singaporeans are the typical chinese you see everywhere else. so, if you're pinoy, unless you're a muslim, you can wear any clothes you want in this country which makes it obvious that you're not malaysian if you don't have cloth covering your head and you sport western clothing like jeans, tee, skirt and so on.

this is what i love about being a catholic, that, we are not bound and compelled with strict religious practices. we are free to wear and eat anything we want as long as it's not holy week because it's a practice for catholics to refrain from eating meat (as much as possible although not strictly imposed) during holy week as a form of abstinence/sacrifice.

hmm..i'm fleeting away again. so, going back, after tanglin we headed then to orchard road by

foot and we discovered that if you walk straight ahead from tanglin then turn right you'll be walking the streets of orchard road. we alighted at the dhoby gaut interchange towards harbourfront from orchart station to reach chinatown. we took the wrong exit but fortunately upon strolling around saw this small shop in the people's park complex that sells souvenir items. we bought 12pcs. of keychains for $10 and 4 for $10 fridge magnets.

my sister and i collect magnets for fridge by the way as a hobby

and so far we have collected one from boracay, puerto gallera, vigan, bohol and the singapore fridge magnet will add to our collection. we're looking to travel across asia to purchase more ;)

chinatown is the best place to shop for eccentric and eclectic souvenir items although they're quite pricey. yeah, what do you expect right? singapore is a tourist spot. i heard one caucasian lady as she left one of the stalls around murmuring "it's too expensive for an earring." i thought the philippines still sells cheaper souvenir items compared here because we don't have bucks :D

we had some pork satay (which tasted like bbq except for the sauce) and again mango pudding ;)

my sister complained that her feet ached and i can't deny mine ached as well (but it was tolerable though). overall, i had a great time. we're all set and prob'ly ready to go home to our homeland in few weeks since we have purchased pasalubongs (souvenir items) already!

what's on my list hmmm...rest for a week while i get my final pay check from my former workplace, go on a short vacation to baguio then possibly fly to malaysia..let's see ;)