A birthday, durian & the national crab obsession

Its been a while since I last saw my second sister. Either I'm too busy working, or she is away working. As an air stewardess, you can correctly assume we don't meet up much. So, I'm wracked with guilt because last night was her birthday and I totally forgot about it, so engrossed was I with work. And to top off the guilt riddled night, she gave ME a present for MY birthday last month! Talk about double layered guilt! Have you ever kept reminding yourself ok ok, so and so's birthday is in X days, and you keep remembering right up til the day itself and you forget! Yup, one of those times..


We asked the maid to take some shots for us, but being inexperienced with the camera, her hands kept shaking, haha, so in the end I resorted to the timer. As you can see, its a v incomplete family photo, with 2 other sisters still overseas, and with an aunt, grandma and a cousin instead. And my mum. And my maid. And thats me, the only thorn among the roses (extremely dubious description of aforementioned family members).



It has been asked of me, "eh Alex, how come, you and your sister look so different wan? I mean..one so pretty and the other so.. ahh..umm..ehh..nvm..."

Thanks la beb.

Anyway, it was a strange combination of a birthday..we had a cake and...

Durians?!

Which was quite nice actually..nothing comes to mind as quite so appropriate for the term, acquired taste. As we were leaving the restaurant after dinner, the sellers in their vans badgered and harassed us no end..

Here boss! What you want? You want sweet or bitter? D24? XO? We got FIVE different types...outside sell 18, we sell u 14RM. Come and try boss!

Wow...since when did durians evolve into 5 versions, plus got XO one some more?! What the hell does XO mean anyway!?


So we went to Fatty Crab for dinner. Well, that place is supposed to be good right? Well first of all. Bad service. Second of all. Pricey as hell. Third of all. Only 4 choices of food to choose from.

So whats with the national obsession with crabs? Personally, I'm totally neutral. In fact, I lean towards the negative side. Because, there is so much trouble involved for some tiny pieces of tasteless white meat. So whats the point? And the crab is so bloody lan c. Have to go through such lengths for a taste of its meat. Never! So, obviously, I'm not such a big crab fan. Nevertheless, to entertain the sister who came back for a few days on break from her stewardess job, I tagged along and fake smiled through a mouthful of tasteless white crab meat. Still don't understand why so many people were sitting there, sweating, hammering away, using the clamp to break shells, sucking, digging, fighting, for a few pieces of meat here and there. Such heavy investment for so low returns. Where's the joy?

Ok. Still coughing like a madman...it sucks that everyone else is clearing leave, on holiday, etc, and HERE I AM stuck going back to work. Life IS fair!