The World is My Oyster

S (Singaporean) no.1: So are you coming with us to dinner tonight?

Me: Where are you guys going?

S no.1: Bedok market. There are some good stuff over there. There’s this famous Yong Tau Foo.

S no.2: I’m gonna eat the chicken wings.

Me: Is it famous?

S no.2: Yea it’s quite famous.

Me: Cos I only eat famous food.

S no.2: It IS famous! Are you going? (asking S no.3)

S no.3: No I’m not. *half whispering to me, shaking his head* It’s really not that famous..

Me: Like B-list celebrity..

Culture note: If you live in Singapore, you’d know by now that people queue for the food stalls and restaurants that have become known by words of mouth, with no advertisement. It can be a stall that’s tucked away in the farthest hawker center or the end of the world, it really doesn’t matter. It can be cooked by uncle in sweaty singlet or German chef, it’s irrelevant. Service may suck bad, waiting and queuing time goes for hours, food tastes so-so, expensive some more, and you gotta eat standing with one foot in the middle of rain at open space field (okay, maybe not the last one). Bottom line is if it’s FAMOUS people will go :)

I know only one Swedish and I’m guessing not many people in Asia or Australia know even one person. So unless you’ve been there before, the things you know about Sweden is probably the fact that it’s located in Europe and they eat the kind of food you found at Ikea.

Hence this conversation occurred when our Swedish friend were about to go back to his country for holiday:

RC (Random Colleague) no.1: So you can’t wait to go back hey? Do you miss all those Swedish food?

Swedish-man: Yup yup. Can’t wait. Will spend 2 weeks over there in Summer time. Really miss the food.

Me: Yea you can eat meatballs every day (thinking about Ikea meatballs)

RC no.2: Oh but you don’t eat meat! (he eats fish though)

Me: O yea! Oh that’s too bad..

RC no.3: So what are you gonna eat?

Me: You can eat the pickled herrings.

RC no.4: And fish paste.

RC no.5: Oh you should bring some fish paste back to Singapore for us.

Swedish-man: Yes.. Absolutely..

Somehow I have a feeling that in our mind Sweden is just the giant version of Ikea. Like land of meatballs and herrings, probably with a touch of pretty furnitures.

On a side note, I totally love Ikea meatballs. I sometimes just go there to eat at their cafeteria and nothing else. Have to post the food sometimes :)

While I’m talking about interesting conversation, I had this just a couple of days ago with my Korean colleague. Boy I’m on the roll! :D

Me: I saw a queue in front of Louis Vuitton store at Paragon just a few days ago. I wonder why people were queuing (really, it’s not like those bags are anything close to even expensive bag.. they’re super expensive!)

LV girl (carrying a Louis Vuitton bag): Really?

Me: Yea, they may have had discounts or something *shrug*

LV girl: Mm LV never has discount ever.

Me: Woo really? (Seriously, what’s with LV bags?!) I have a Korean housemate whose sister asked him to buy an LV bag in Singapore to bring back to Korea, cost him around 3000 dollars, and after that he didn’t have much money to buy anything else. You know, since the sister only returned back the money after he got back in Korea.

LV girl: Yea 3000 dollars is quite a lot. I bought mine for around 1000 bucks.

Me: So you like bags do you?

LV girl: No, I don’t like bags.

Me: What!? (If you buy a 1000 dollars bag, don’t you at least have to like bags?)

[We're laughing together here.. She's really not the snob type, she's such a sweet girl.. :)]

LV girl: I bought this bag because my cousin said it’s the bag which I can carry my whole life in it. I was looking for that kind of bag. The kind which I can carry my whole life in. So after I bought this bag, I just use it all the time, I don’t really buy other bags.

Woah that’s a pretty good way of talking someone into buying it :D

The “carry my whole life in it” thing was really what she’s trying to say. I asked a couple of times to make sure I didn’t hear it wrong. It’s so cute. I wonder if she just direct translated it from Korean, because it sounds a bit weird in English. Anyway, I know LV is so popular and all, but Koreans may have a special soft spot for LV, because so far I knew only Koreans spent so much for the bags (with the certain level of earning, not sure about the more high class people).

Ah well but what do I know about bags. I carry around a cat bag…

I had this conversation with 2 friends a while ago (names, places, and exact time are not revealed to protect the innocents :)

west-girl (living in the very West of Singapore): I can’t remember the last time I saw sunset. It’s been a while…

central-guy (living in the central of Singapore): But you stay in the West, then you should be able to see the sunset.

west-girl: O yea you’re right, I’m 40km closer to the sun, that’s why the sunset is bigger in the West. Looks more beautiful too.

central-guy: Well yea you’re closer to the West what.

Then west-girl spent about 10 more minutes explaining why it doesn’t matter whether you stay in the central or west of Singapore, you’d still be able to see sunrise or sunset, and the sunset is not bigger in the West of Singapore, while I started laughing uncontrollably.

[silent here]

central-guy: (looking at me with puzzled look) ….. I still don’t understand why it’s funny…..