The Black Knights celebrate SG50!

I’ve always been a fan of the Black Knights, Singapore’s very own aerial display team. Became even more of an avid follower after realising an acquaintance flies for them! Check out the awesome livery for this jubilee year
(most photographs in this post taken from news sources) –

So beautiful and patriotic! They performed today and people turned up to watch despite being drenched in a torrential rain –

(my dad took this. omg omg omg fangirling because they look startlingly close!)

Here’s what’s planned for this weekend leading up to the grand Jubilee –

And here’s the super exciting special formation that I’ve watched over several rehearsals –

20 planes in salute to this young 50 year old nation! My breath is taken away whenever I watch it. So proud of the Black Knights!!!

Much Beloved Singapore Buildings and Monuments

I visited one man’s passion project for Singapore today and was enthralled by it. Teo Yu Siang, a designer and an accountant, decided that he didn’t like the self-congratulatory tone of many a government-initiated SG50 project, and decided to create his own birthday card(s) to Singapore.

Here are my personal, sentimental favourites from his website, Building Singapore.

You may want to check out my post on Bukit Brown.

I spent a lovely holiday interning as a docent at the Old Supreme Court before it was shut for renovations. It is now the National Gallery – many local works of art have been transferred here from the collection of the Singapore Art Museum. I loved exploring the Old Supreme Court with my colleagues then – we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves during breaks, and we explored various nooks and crannies, including the dome! The National Gallery opens this year on 24th November and I am looking forward to seeing both the art and the conserved building.

Well, the Esplanade. I guess I chose this for sentimental reasons – the greatest love of my life my ex and I took a walk along the Esplanade waterfront on our first date together. Yes, a complete cliche, and now a bittersweet memory.

But enough of me, now. Do head over to see all the buildings that Teo Yu Siang has painstakingly drawn! The drawings are also available for sale as postcards – this sounds like an interesting gift!

SG50 Celebrations at Promontory@Marina Bay

Mummy, Daddy and myself headed downtown to watch the fireworks for the national day rehearsal.

The city was awash in Red and White for the occasion. Check out the Sands –

There were people giving out badge pins –

Quite lovely, huh?
‘Majulah Singapura’ is Malay for ‘Onward Singapore!’

Hello, August and SG50!

I still have some stuff to post about my trip to Xinjiang but hey, it’s August, and I’m going to take a break from posting about China and spend the month celebrating SG50!
(photographs in this post do not belong to me.)

Singapore in a nutshell for non-Singaporean readers:

Singapore is an independent country and NOT part of China (sorry not sorry, had to get that FAQ out of the way).

We are an island city-state located in Southeast Asia, between Malaysia and Thailand to the north and Indonesia in the south.

We once were a British colony (thus the prevalent use of English) but we earned our independence from them in 1963. Thereafter, we merged with Malaya to form modern Malaysia, and there belonged a mere two years until we got kicked out in 1965.

This year, on 9th August 2015, we will celebrate 50 years of independence.

There is much worth celebrating (see the Singapore skyline above), and much more to work on, so hang around for more!

The Blue Moon

As seen on a late night at work.

Xinjiang: Flirting on the Nalati Prairie

Meet Azhatae, my horseman and guide for his home, the Nalati Grassland.

I’m laughing hard here because my horseman was using some incredibly cheesy pick-up lines as he snapped away.

“Stay here with me; you can ride my horse every day!”
(I couldn’t tell whether that was a true innuendo because he sounded so earnest and he is keenly passionate about his six horses…)

Originally, we trotted along a well-trodden path. Then, slowly but certainly, we trotted away into grass plains.

He then asked, “Do you trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“I want you to trust me.”
“Why?”
“Hold tight.”
And with a kick, the horse leapt into a quick gallop and I squealed across the plains.

(Then he completely spoilt it with more lame ‘pick-up lines’)
“Was I good?”
“Yea!!!”
“Come over tonight and I’ll show you just how good I am.”
“Umm…I’ll pass…”
“Come! I’ll take you to my home now!”
“Nonononono.”

And he took me safely back to base at the end of two hours. Haha.

Xinjiang: Nalati Prairie

This is the Nalati Grassland near the Sino-Kazakhstan border. This was my favourite place on the whole trip – it’s not difficult to see why.

Visitors to Nalati on a group tour have a few options to while away the time with… there are a couple of hiking routes, but as I didn’t try them out, I can’t give any recommendations or say how safe/well-labelled they are. Here’s the start of one trail though –

There’s also a sight-seeing jeep of sorts that takes you up to various scenic-viewing platforms. But the city girl has to opt for horseback-riding, right? What a rare chance – I was so excited!

The owner, Azhatae, let me take the reins for a bit after he taught me the basic commands…unfortunately I was not firm enough and the horse kept going to munch on juicy grass.

The experience costs RMB160 for two hours. They take you up a tourist trail to a spot where there’s a break in the trees and you see the endless grassland before you, and a trek back. (more about this in an upcoming post!)

These Kazakh men start riding at the age of 5, and the ladies by the age of 9, frequently earlier. I watched some teenagers race each other on a mud track – it was beautiful and thrilling to see it so up-close! More next time!

What is Arcadia, anyway?

From Ben Okri’s In Arcadia

“Arcadia is our secular Eden…A place of dreaming, and songs, an oasis, a refuge from the corrupting cities, a semi-ideal landscape, a qualified paradise. A place with the quietly troubling presence of death, and exile, and stony mountains, and suicide, and sinister shadows, a place that cannot be dwelt in for ever. Then, with the passing of centuries, something happened to Virgil’s Arcadia. It became transformed into a terrain of the mind, a terrestrial paradise, a place of tranquility and rural calm, the domain of the yearning spirit.”

* * * * *

The images that the phrases ‘terrain of the mind’ and ‘a place of tranquility’ suggest to me is that of church, followed closely by the sea, and then, quite oddly, a hotel room. Prayer and meditation sometimes bring peace – i am no stranger to kneeling in a pew and crying to God in desperation and loneliness. The seaside always feels romantic and relaxing; there’s something about the swish of the water that brings balm to the troubled soul. The hotel room, well, I love staycations. I live with a lot of clutter, and a hotel stay is a reprieve from my mess, even if just for a day.

What is your earthly Eden, your secular Arcadia?

Xinjiang: The Bayanbulak Swan Lake (with no swans)

Grazing animals are lovely to watch.

China has a thing about fencing up natural wonders and charging (exorbitant ticket prices) for them. They do so for lakes, and prairies, and mountains… I understand charging a fee for landscaped parks and historical wonders, collecting donations for museums and places of worship, but charging for natural wonders is simply being opportunistic. Paying for services is acceptable, as is paying a fee for maintenance upkeep, but for a view…? Perhaps I am merely being naive and miserly.

(The descriptions in English can be read if you enlarge the photographs.)

Here, we were given some time to take a walk (uphill) to see a meandering river.

I was super cold, and luckily there were coats for rent (100RMB, 50RMB refunded on return of the coat). The domestic Chinese tourists had some good-natured fun teasing me, a foreigner, for wearing the Red Army coat.

Yes, I do look warm enough to hike the Himalayas, not some highland lake. Ignore my messy hair and check out the curvey river behind!

Given that there were no real swans around…are swans migratory? Or is ‘The Swan Lake’ merely a description of the graceful arches of the river?

Xinjiang: Just one of the Chinese-Russian borders

So the tour I booked saw us staying one night in Yining city, Yili region, with a little evening tour of the ‘minority ethnic streets’. Yes, evening – this is broad daylight at 8pm or so because all of China follows Beijing time (GMT+8) even when we are at the far west border.

We sat in decorated horse-drawn carts – the cart could sit 6 comfortably, including the driver. Mostly I was wondering whether we were too heavy for the horses but the cart-driver told me not to underestimate the horse.

Around the neighbourhood we went, and visited several house-shops. Some owners of well-maintained houses open up portions of their homes for view – the garden and dining area, the living room, and in one case, the prayer room.

Here’s a dining room with Uigher & Russian influences which the owner claims he designed. Apparently, many of these owners have, at some point in their lives, lived in Russia (and also have Russian blood somewhere in their ancestry). The merchandise available in these house shops (usually laid out in a spare room) tend to be scarves or little trinkets out of Aladdin.

And of course there’s the classic little cultural performance that all tours include –

Mostly amateur but still entertaining. There was this really cute 70+ year old man who did a lively balance-a-flower-pot-on-head dance and received the loudest cheers.