As the title above says, these are the sights which caught my eye. Above you see the food stall outside Zouk nightclub selling hot snacks.

On one of the nights after dinner at home, my cousins took me out to walk about. And one of our stops was the ABC Shop at Bugis. It’s kinda like the $2 shops we get here in Australia. The way they arrange products by price was fascinating to me.

And I shall end this series with shots of one of my loves: colonial-era peranakan buildings, sometimes called shophouses.

Above are some shophouses on Emerald Hill Road turned into upmarket bars and restaurants. It’s an interesting mix of old and new. I love it.

This is around the Arab Street area. It may look like some are still being used as actual houses but with the area being remade for entertainment (food, bars and sheesha), I doubt it.

This is the scene in front of where we partook in our smoking. If one does live around there, they probably won’t get much sleep.

This ends my photoblogging of the part of my holidays that I’d spent in Singapore. Next up, Guangzhou, China.

The day that I got back from my holiday, I had a surprise package waiting for me. It was a box of Glaceau Vitamin Water courtesy of Zing PR. Inside it were 2 bottles each of the following flavours: energy, revive and triple-x.

energy is citrus-y in flavour, while both revive and triple-x had more of a berry-punch flavour. These drinks are not fortified juices but are water infused with flavours, vitamins (B3, B5, B6, B12, C), and caffeine + guarana (energy) and antioxidants (triple-x).

They all tasted very nice and refreshing. But to the more interesting part: how did I feel after drinking them? As an energy drink fan, the first one that I gravitated to was “energy”. It contained slightly more caffeine than a standard can of Redbull, and has about 3-4 times the amount of vitamins than the other two variants.

I felt a buzz but it was not a strong one like the usual energy drinks – it felt very gradual and lasted about an hour or so. About 3 hours after the buzz ended, I thought I’d try out “revive”. The result?

I don’t know if I had imagined it but I felt “revive” picking me up once more and it felt even stronger than “energy”. Though I suspect it’s probably the loading up of B vitamins that gave me the boost.

The variant with the hardcore name of “triple-x” was actually the tamest – there was no feeling from drinking it. You’re probably meant to take their words for it when they claim that it’s full of anti-oxidants and is meant to be good for your body.

Speaking of which, here’s a comparison to put it in perspective. A can of Coca-Cola has 675kJ and 40g of sugar, while a bottle of Vitamin Water has 469kJ and 27g of sugar (as printed on the products). So, it’s definitely not something that should be drank like water.

And I’m trying to figure out the target market of the drink. At $3.70 retail, it’s not going to convert energy drink lovers (both Redbull and Mother sell for $3.00 per can) because it’s more expensive and it doesn’t have as strong a buzz. So I’m thinking they are trying to get the people who’d normally buy bottled water. But compared to a normal 600mL of water which costs half as much depending on the brand, it’s a significant price hike.

By trying to cater to two distinct group of consumers, it isn’t going to satisfy either, especially with the much higher price. To be at least competitive, I think the price should be par with Redbull or Mother. It can’t possibly cost more to make than a 500mL of Mother, which incidentally is bottled by the same company in Australia (Coca-Cola Amatil), because Mother has just as long a list of ingredients.

In summary: tastes great and refreshing, “energy” and “revive” has decent buzz, “triple-x” could be just water with sugar (it’d be easier to claim to have anti-oxidants if it was a tea-based drink), but all is moot because I feel that the retail price is too high. “energy” would be the best value based on the listed amount of additives, and will probably be the best-seller out of all the varieties, but at $3.70 it’s still expensive compared with similar products on the market.

Hoegaarden beer is about as Western as my diet was whilst I was in Singapore. When I’m in Asia, I generally stay away from foods that I get back in Australia. And one of the type of foods that I absolutely love in Singapore/Malaysia is the traditional breakfast foods: local coffee, kaya toast, buttered toast with sugar, and half-boiled eggs. I can have them at any time of the day and a couple of chains in the region: ToastBox and Yakun have sprung up in recent years to cater to palettes like mine. Cheap and nostalgic!

During my stay there, my cousins took me out to an Indian restaurant near Boat Quay. The food, although good was quite expensive.

It was probably because it was on a rooftop of a building and we were paying for a view like this. It didn’t rain and the night was cool and breezy which made it all worthwhile even if it wasn’t cheap.

Another place which they took me to was called Boon Tong Kee for their chicken rice and stewed pork.

You can’t really tell from the photos but the pork and chicken were so tender, they break apart in your mouth. Mmm. And you notice the crowd waiting in front of the restaurant? This is a common thing in a lot of eateries in Singapore as you’d see in the next few photos.

So I’d mentioned my ex-housemate June and her hubby, plus her dad taking me to a bah kut teh stall. Notice the queue?

The Singaporean version has less herbs than the Malaysian one, and is less hearty. But with a rich broth and strong peppery flavour, it was just as satisfying.

When I met up with my uni friend Suen, he took me to a nasi padang stall. That’s him in the white shirt.

Nasi Padang is basically rice with a wide-selection of dishes including stir-fry and curries which you pick to have. Kinda like Subway but instead of bread, it’s rice.

And the catching up over food continues …

When I caught up with Nadia and Lee, I asked for Japanese ramen. Good ramen is something that I haven’t found yet in Perth. The tonkatsu ramen (ramen in thick pork broth) that I had at the Tampopo restaurant in Liang Court, Clarke Quay was fabulous.

I remembered how good the fish hot-pot was at Xin Yuan Ji in Bugis from the last time, that I specifically requested for it when I caught up with my high school mates Robert, Vincent and his cousin Boon. Yes, there was more queuing involved.

But it didn’t dissapoint.

On my final night in Singapore, my friend Kitty decided to go a hawker centre called Chomp Chomp in Serangoon Gardens to order take-away to bring back to her place.

You can’t tell from the photos but it was stiflingly hot and humid due to the low ceilings and the heat from all the kitchens. And there were queues again with the more popular stalls.

Here’s Kitty in yellow tee waiting in line to order sambal sting-ray. We waited almost 45 minutes for it.

But it was worth it, even if I’d needed another shower after dinner to wash away the hawker centre smells.

Ok so that’s it for the foodie post in this series. The last in the Singapore series would be about the interesting things and buildings that I like.

Singapore is now a fixture of my annual holidays. There’s the easy public transport and cheap taxis, my friends and relatives living there, and of course the food. But more about that later. I’m gonna start off showing you the people that I’ve seen and met up first.

Singapore island is about 707.1 km² in size, or about 13% the size of the Perth metropolitan area which is about 5386 km² (source: Wikipedia), but it has 3 times the population. So as you can imagine, there’s people …

and people …

and people everywhere.

This trip, I stayed at my cousins Shane and Su Fern’s place. Yes, she’s a bit camera-shy.

Simon and Wendy were there too and our days there overlapped a little so I also caught up with them for a bit. You can get the boy out of Australia but you can’t get the Australia out of the boy. Hah!

But since we can see each other here in Perth, I only caught up with them once. My priority was on the people whom I only get to see once a year, or twice max. I’d caught up with Nadia and Lee for drinks and ramen, both of whom I’d met through blogging. Yes, she made a special request for the Mother drink when she saw me blogged about it.

I’d also caught up with my Perth high school friends: Rob, Vincent and Vincent’s cousin Boon. We caught up over food (of course) and after that, sheesha in Arab Street.

Check out this awesome photo that Boon’s friend Rick shot using his stupendously fancy DSLR. And yes, smoking that stuff is delightful.

And finally, I’d also caught up with two of my housemates from 2001-2002: Min and June. This trip I was lucky to have caught up with June twice, who along with her husband JZ took me to try Singapore bah kut teh, a kind of pork stew soup served with rice. Shots of that will come in the next post.

Other people whom I’d met on this trip but didn’t have proper photos of include Suen, a friend from uni and my clubbing compatriot / good friend Kitty who had went home for her holidays.

Next up, the food. :9~~~

My parents and I landed in Perth 7am this morning from a 6-hour Air Asia X flight from KL. We had trouble getting a good stretch of sleeping, so all of us felt hazy and lazy and more than a little bit grumpy at each other.

When we got home, I unpacked my dirty clothes, freshened up a little and then drove to the boarding kennels to pick up Snoop. Seeing our house, driving my car on Australian roads and playing with Snoop again was a little bit surreal.

I always feel that way after a long holiday. In the past 14 days I’ve been in Singapore, China and Malaysia experiencing a different way of life, eating different foods (lots of it) and encountering and meeting up with different people. And now I’m back in good old Perth which is stinking hot at the moment with a maximum temp of 36° today. I’ll blog about my trip over the coming few days and weeks, whilst interspersing them with posts about my “normal” life.

Oh, I was also greeted by two surprises at home. The kind folks at Zing PR sent me a package of Glaceau Vitamin Water to try out. I will write my review later this week once I’ve tasted the three varieties that they’d sent.

The other surprise was that bees decided to set up a hive in the family’s BBQ. My brother had called the pest controller and that was taken care of this afternoon. Watching a guy in full bee suit clearing out the bees in my backyard was bizarre.

All of which, plus the fatigue, the heat and the jarring sense of having to fit back into my normal routine added to the sense of surrealism that is “home sweet home”. Bitter sweet feeling for sure.