Yesterday we had our first proper Sunday since I got here. Matt slept until 11 and then we went to the wet market near our house. Matt got a great haircut from a Chinese man who spoke about three words of English. It really looks good! Then our friend Christian came over and had brunch and with him and Matt's other friend, Boon Yian, got to play Settlers of Catan, which if you know me is my favorite thing in the world to do.
Boon Yian grew up here, so between her and Christian (who has spent a lot of time here), they were able to take me and Matt on a great food tour of the Katong area, which is about a five minute drive towards town from our apartment. We ate Laksa at a place that was apparently written up by the NY Times (though I can't find the article). Laksa is a sort of soup which tastes a bit like plain soup, a bit like curry, and definitely has tastes of coconut. It also has hot chili in it, which clearly made me cough like an American eating spicy Asian food. It also has noodles and shrimp, and sometimes bloody mussel type things (we didn't get those). We sat down and didn't know we ordered, and then the Laksa and some fish paste stuff in banana leaves appeared in front of us. Luckily it was good. We also tried lime juice, which seems to be the juice of choice here. It's a sweet, light, super refreshing juice.
After our hors d’œuvre (which I didn't know wasn't our whole meal), we went down the street for chicken rice. They make rice in chicken broth, so it's tasty, and the chicken was also super tasty. Matt had deep fried tofu with chicken rice. Chicken and rice, which includes the chicken rice, is another meal of choice here. Matt tried barley juice at this place - who knew you could drink your grains? (other than beer, of course...)
Today I joined the Bedok Community Center, which has a bunch of classes. I think I will take a Conversational Mandarin class as well as a kick-boxing class. I wandered slowly through the supermarket, as I like to do, and I walked all over our area. I ended up eating lunch at the hawkers by our house, which I don't love as much, since they only seem to have Chinese food, which to me isn't as tasty as the Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian flavors that also exist here. I also found a tailor and some cheese, which are both exciting events.
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