Weekend Update - Plus

This weekend was rather slow. Kind of a nice change of pace from how busy Penang was.

On Friday I went and saw Singapore's famous Chingay parade. It is the national parade and features huge floats that promote everything from Coca Cola to multi-cultural tolerance and diversity. It was a great night with lots of colors and exciting costumes. Unfortunately, we were standing a ways away so it was a little difficult to see. The best part was at the end when two giant dragon floats came through. One was made entirely of Chinese lanterns, the other a 4 story high pole with people all the way up, holding the body of the dragon.

Saturday, I went out with a Canadian friend, Shawn, and saw the Lamborghini dealership. Being a car lover, this was awesome. We saw 5 different Lamborghinis. All of them were sold. I also got to see four different Lotus' and three Ferraris. We talked with one of the salesman who is a driver with Lotus and does the promotional driving for the Lotus and Lamborghini. I want his job. He told us that the Lamborghini cost $1.3 Million (Murcielago convertible with paddle shifters). Later on, we stopped by the Raffles Hotel and I saw a Maybach. Very impressive! It was a good day for car sight seeing.

Sunday was a fairly quiet day. I did nothing in the morning, then went to the pool around 2pm. I swam a little then met up with a fellow from France who asked if I wanted to play squash. We went and played squash for about 2 hours. The courts were sheltered and had fans but there was no air conditioning and they were open to the air. It was so hot and humid. We were all completely soaked with sweat by the end of the match.

Monday, which is technically not the weekend but I'll include in anyhow, I went to work. However, after work we had a company dinner. Everybody went to a nice restaurant at that overlooks the Singapore river. After consulting with the waiter and then somebody from the kitchen, I learned that I could eat 8 of the 10 courses that would be served. I was ecstatic.

Unfortunately, the first course had peanuts. It's also a special course where everybody around the table (there were about 9 people to a table) picks up the food with their chopsticks and drops it back on the plate. It's a thing of good luck and everybody makes a lot of noise while the “salad” (a mix of vegetables, noodles, salmon, and peanuts) gets mixed up. It was great to see, and I got to watch everybody since I was not participating. Later on the meal there were lucky draws. A total of 66 prizes were given out, enough for about 1 in every 3 people. The top prizes were: 1) S$888 HongBao (Red packet filled with money (8 is good luck)) 2) A S$600 travel voucher 3) A 20GB iPod. The cheapest prize was a $50 gift certificate.

Food that we had (that I can remember)
1) Salmon Salad - with noodles, vegetables and peanuts (I abstained).
2) Shark Fin Soup - very good, has pieces of seafood in it.
3) Braised Abalone and Sea cucumber - Very slimy, but good.
4) Sea Oysters with black stringy stuff- Average at best.
5) Roast Chicken with Spicy Sesame Sauce - Chilies are served with every meal.
6) Some Kind of Fish - in Superior Sauce - Very Bland, good thing it was the superior sauce.
7) Steamed Rice with Seafood on a Lotus Leaf - Not bad.
8) Garlic Prawns - So good.
9) White Fungis with Red Date and Lotus Seed - very sweet broth and the white fungus had an interesting texture. Nothing like mushrooms.
10) Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake - I was told I shouldn't eat this, but it looked good.