well-wishing is all about getting big-better-best grades, property, cars, holidays, look, stature in quantifiable measures and each annual gathering is the time to measure up and be found wanting. there is an enormous pressure to look good and make looking good look easy.

it does not help that chinese variety shows host the most imbecile and demeaning programmes. a few days ago i chanced upon a taiwanese variety lunar new year show that puts celebrities through challenges for entertainment. that is quite the standard template, however this one challenge required of a female celebrity – without any pants – to hold a pair of red panties and repeatedly pull up the undies to her waist and strip them off again and again till she attained a certain number of “stripping” which was then retardedly cheered and applauded.

is it supposed to be symbolic of getting some in the year of the dragon?

perhaps these lucky panties selling at $1.99 each at Giant Hypermart will usher in some luck down south…

…which will then hopefully result in conceiving a dragon baby which will – according to popular belief – be the embodiment of all that is good and successful. It doesn’t matter that these babies born to asian societies will ironically face tremendous competition and consequently the attendant scarcity of resources simply due to the sheer spike of peers in their batch.

but many seem to be in denial of such cause-and-effect than not. with such a predictable phenomenon, businesses cash-in on this opportunity, for example: clearblue.

a large chunk of chinese culture is kitsch and commercial.

i think it is really up to the individual to mine chinese new year for authenticity and meaning if chinese new year is supposed to mean quality time with friends and family and sincere greetings. no doubt, it is easy to find good food, but as we grow older, it is harder to find genuinely good company to share it with. and the truth is, in singapore, good food can be found everywhere everyday.

i define genuinely good company to be people who matter and who can skip the small talk. true, we need to start somewhere, and small talk might be the beginnings of deeper relationships, however, i don’t think chinese new year should be the place and time to scratch at the surface of superficiality. the relationship should be cultivated through the year and chinese new year would then be the time to reaffirm these ties and the opportunity to put aside the time and effort to prepare something extra special. this is in the context of singapore where we do not need to fly inter-state to meet each other.

and there is the unique situation that the chinese people have as the largest ethnic group in the world because we form about a fifth of the entire human population. this situation i think is more interesting as an overseas chinese or with the chinese diaspora because then maintaining tradition and family (read: racial) ties strengthens the identity of the community over food and and well, more food. also, the definition of family changes from blood relations to simply friends from all over the world practicing a similar understanding of customs although hailing from different countries of origin – almost like religion.

in singapore however, where the majority of the population are chinese, i don’t feel the same inclination to partake with the same level of chinese customs as i did living in melbourne.

however, what i did experience during chinese new year this year makes it hard to top because i spent most of it with genuinely good company. reunion dinner has always been a small affair and the smallness in the number (about 10) makes it less necessary to fill awkward pauses with banter. we had both steamboat and the stir-fry electric pot to cook on the spot. cooking on the spot makes eating very active, as in, you need to decide what to cook, when the pieces of food are ready and if the food has disappeared into the bottom of the steamboat or fished out by someone else. you snooze, you lose.

it actually isn’t all that competitive because there is usually a mountain of food left over and we’ll be stuff to the brim.

the real madness begins the next day when a few large families descend upon my home (5 room HDB flat) to pay their chinese new year respects to my grandmother, the oldest living matriarch in the order of hierarchy. the kitchen will work at factory-like pace and efficiency to churn out food for about 40 people who will visit over a span of three hours. i don’t really help out at the kitchen, at most i offer chinese new year snacks and refill the drinks. and because i’m so disinclined at small talk, i don’t.

my niece and nephew however, are good subjects to photograph to keep me looking engaged with the festivities.

to escape from the claustrophobia, i furtively made my way to the geek’s. after watching a bit of hilarious wipeout, we had a walk in the wide open spaces of bishan park even though the drizzle began to develop into a light rain. it was really refreshing and liberating.

about 2km into the walk, we stopped by the spanking new mccafe in the middle of the park for a hot beverage by the alfresco dining area. the light rain continued, but my mood was anything but dampened.

the geek had hot chocolate and for good measure, the barista’s coffee art handiwork was the chinese character “ji” for auspiciousness. the geek was particularly pleased about this. i think it was cute and i do appreciate its thoughtful aptness.

that night, we returned to my home for a small dinner with my immediate family. the spread was very different and i think even better than the steamboat the previous night because of the rich savoriness of the variety – beef rendang (simmered over night), buah keluak with pork ribs, mee goreng, left over beef strips stir-fried like bulgogi, and home made cheng tng for dessert sprinkled with an abundance of tender, loving care.

again, i loved the smallness of the dinner party and fun the geek and i had watching the quon dynasty marathon on cable. i kept pointing out how my mom is a worrywart like amy. geek time and genuinely good company ftw!

almost like wearing a cape, my latest sports bag acquisition fits snugly in all the right places. it is essentially a large waist pouch that has detachable a “harness.” i first spotted this design on a deuter a while back and had a mind to get something like that for my walks because firstly, i don’t need to carry much around, secondly, it has minimum contact with my back so heat does not build up and thirdly, the ends of straps near the arms stray less i.e. i get less annoyed.

i got this for $45 from the mecca of sporting goods in singapore, queensway shopping centre, at cliffhanger connection. the brand of the bag is “one polar” which does not seem to have a navigable website, in any case, they do their bags better than they do their website.

other gear i recommend – waterproof trekking shoes from northface, shown in picture above; cheaper at queensway shopping centre too. and the platypus softbottle – a foldable hydration pack that is very lightweight and space saving, also available at cliffhanger connection. in this picture, my 1 litre platypus softbottle is filled to about 600ml, folded in half and stored in the bag. no more concern about the shape and size of bags to accommodate a fixed size waterbottle.

this picture was taken around the 3km mark of the 8.58km walk.

typically, we begin near the central library building of nus, walk along science park drive and continue heading south (of singapore) towards mount faber and then make the steep descent down the steps of marang trail and emerge at habourfront mrt station.

when we do walk, we usually walk on friday evenings when kp knocks off at 5.30pm at nus. the hours of dusk are the best time to walk because it is much cooler then and being a weekday, the southern ridges is not crowded with people. also we’ll get to vivocity in time for dinner!

i’m very glad that there are healthy and off-the-beaten-mall options in singapore to begin the weekends. who says there is nothing to do!

other pictures along the southern ridges from my previous walks.

the full seven day trip takes into account travel and transfer, so excluding all that and meal and rest times, we kayaked three and half days and in addition, spent one morning trekking up the sibayak volcano. that being said, every moment of the trip was very fun and enriching, on water or on land. a full day of kayaking typically covers 20km.

the group was made up of a very comfortable number of seven participants. huey said that his previous group had twenty people and he wouldn’t accommodate much more than that. i was very happy with the cozy number of seven for mobility and dynamics.

the first day was spent getting ourselves from changi airport to the the township of silalahi of lake toba. this includes the pre-flight two hours at terminal two, an hour on the plane, six hours on in a mini-bus and two hours for meal and break times. one of the break times was spent at the look out point of sipiso-piso waterfall. from this vantage point, we could see the the township of tongging – the northern most point of lake toba. on our second night, we would be staying at the base of this waterfall, but more about that later.

before nightfall, we arrived at our first accommodation – sopo morina in the township of silalahi. it is a spacious and well maintained lake side accommodation that is a near a fishing village and a little on the rustic side. it is also closely surrounded by tall hill top ridges of lake toba’s crater rim.

the next morning, we geared up and prepared our kayaks for the water on the grounds of sopo morina. the kayaks were a mix of the inflatable gumotex and assembled feather crafts. pl and i used a gumotex. my last experience with kayaking at east coast park was with the heavy and clunky hardshell kayaks. the gumotex in comparison is a quantum leap in comfort and lightness. the inflatable seats and backrest provided me with sufficient back support too.

after the first round trip to a nearby waterfall to get acquainted with the equipment, we returned to sopo morina for lunch by the lake. huey avoids kayaking in the hottest hours of noon to two in the afternoon, so each day we broke up our time on the lake accordingly. that gave us a lot of time to rest.

although it might seem from the pictures that we had fair weather and calm waters all the time, it was not so. we had our share of choppy waters, some rain and even strong waves at a point of time. those were periods of time to paddle harder and not whip out the camera.

one such point in time was towards the end of the first day of paddling. we were nearing our destination for the night but since it was past sunset, we couldn’t really make it out from a distance much less in the rain. in fact we still would not be able to in full day light because sibayak guest house was nestled by a brook up a river. this river was the base of the sipiso-piso waterfall we saw the previous day. so in the darkness, we parked our kayaks by the stoney brook and groped around very slippery rocks to climb up the river bank. within a few metres however, we were in the midst of a resort chalet!

it was only the next morning that we could really see it for what it was; tranquil, serene, and breathtakingly beautiful.

with a full day of paddling ahead of us, we traversed from the township of tongging to haraggaol. our accommodation at sigumba gumba cottage at haraggaol isn’t as luxurious as sibayak guest house, but it was charming in its own way. sigumba gumba cottage is a lot more spartan but it does have a beautiful unobstructed view of the hilly ridges in a bay that we were in.

from spartan to indulgent, we cut across from the outer edges of lake toba to the island inside the lake – samosir island and spent the next night at thieza in the district of ambarita. thieza’s compound is pretty large and it houses guest rooms on two-story buildings. it also has ample lake side lounge areas.

it was in ambarita that we spent the pre-lunch hours at the local batak museum called, ‘the stone chair of king siallagan‘ in full. it was serendipitous that what our english speaking local guide was any siallagan. her surname should be a give away to her kinship with the place. in fact, the current king of the siallagan kingdom is her cousin. with the advent of the modern indonesian body politic, the traditional kingdoms of the batak people relinquish its political agency. however, to honour tradition, the 600 households of the siallagan kingdom in ambarita still recognises the royal family. around indonesia, there are 10 million people of batak origin.

above is the batak house that the king will reside when he visits or returns to ambarita. where is the king now? he is working in a bank in jakarta. he is now in his thirties. besides recognition from the batak people in ambarita, the royal family does not receive royal treatment. the king does not receive any tributaries or even a special welcome with fanfare. everyone has to earn their keep. the kingship is passed on from father to son and if there is no son, then from king to his next brother.

the batak people typically have big families. the number ’3′ is an auspicious numeral. an interesting nugget of information that any siallagan told us is that upon marriage, the newly weds will receive blessings from the community to specifically have 17 sons and 16 daughters to make up the total number of ’33′ offspring. as large as they can get however, families do not realistically beget 33 children.

it has to be clarified that this batak museum is in fact a real residence for some batak families. only one of the batak houses has been converted into a viewing gallery. any siallagan herself lives here, albeit in a more modern dwelling with concrete painted walls just behind the row of traditional batak houses. any siallagan has only returned to ambarita about two years ago and will leave ambarita again in time to come.

you are not wrong to think that convex bowls in the above picture on the left resemble breasts. they are in fact meant to symbolise breasts to signify that this batak house houses girls. a few families live together in a batak house until the adolescent boys and girls reach the age of 14. after which, they move to a girls’ house and a boys’ house respectively. the moving away from the family unit also indicates that they are ready to start families of their own.

we were also told of the traditions of the batak people and in particular, the rule of law of the siallagan kindgom. the batak people were known to practice cannibalism, but any siallagan explains that they do not hunt to eat human flesh. the eating of another person only takes place as part of the death sentencing of a criminal. because upon conviction, the status of the criminal is lowered to that of an animal, the consumption of the criminal’s heart by the king is symbolic of the lowering of the status of the criminal from human to animal. the corpse of the criminal is left to the disposal of the rest of the community – according to their wishes, they can either eat it or discard it. the decapitated head of the criminal would then be hung outside the kingdom walls as a warning to enemies. however, with the christianisation of the batak people, such practices have been abandoned.

after the very educational visit to the batak museum, we returned to thieza for lunch and packed up to complete our final leg of the kayaking. the journey from ambarita to tuk tuk – another township at samosir island was short, however, it was also the journey in which we met with the heaviest rainfall and strongest current. fortunately for us, the currents moved in our favour.

along the way, we passed numerous chalets and lake side resorts. huey didn’t exactly tell us which was our next accommodation and kept us guessing. just as the sky cleared and the waters calmed, huey docked his kayak at a very lavish lake side resort and said that this was it! it was the samosir villa resort – in relative terms, the most opulent accommodation of our trip. the place even has wifi! it was indeed a deserving end to our journey kayak-wise. by the lake, we deflated our kayaks and packed up the rest of our gear.

yes, that is a merlion you see before you. i’m not sure if such a commercial construct is worth appropriating, water sprouting and all. although arriving at samosir villa resort marks the end of our travel by kayak, we were not done with the trip just yet. the next day, we left samosir island by the hourly ferry and transferred to a mini bus back to berastagi where we were to rest that night at hotel internasional and prepare for a morning climb up sibayak volcano. this would be our final day in indonesia.

from the point where the mini bus dropped us off, the ascent to sibayak volcano took about 1 hour 30 minutes. it was relatively well trodden, although not consistently well paved. to add to the challenge, we faced the aftermath of a landside obstructing our way which we readily bashed through.

nearing the peak of the volcano, we heard a windy sound that increased in volume as we approached. it sounded like a plane taking off and flying directly above but doesn’t move away. what was actually causing the sound were the fumaroles of the volcano indicating some volcanic activity. this was my first encounter with such a geological phenomenon. the smell of sulfur was tangible but was not too unbearable because the strong winds blew them away.

a bigger concern for me was the state of my track shoes. the shoes were already pretty worn out and during the climb i noticed that the soles were beginning to fall apart. fortunately, the guys helped to look out for random pieces of string or raffia along the walk for me to secure the soles to the shoes. miraculously, with the help of the additional tying, the shoes survived the ascent and descent and finally gave up its ghost when we returned.

it was my intention to use the shoes on this trip for a final time and discard them. however, i didn’t take into account that they might outlive their usefulness before i was ready to throw them away. back home, i have a new pair of northface gortex sitting pretty in my shoe cabinet. lesson learnt – although bulky, it maybe useful to lug along appropriate gear because it can make or break your day.

view the rest of the photos here.

i’ve been to shots. cafe a few times and might have featured it in this blog before. but i think it deserves another mention here because it is at shots. cafe that i’ve had the most interesting coffee art served in my coffee. usually, heart and leaf shaped coffee art are the most common sorts. what i didn’t expect however, is a profile of a face staring back at me. i think it is pretty cool.

located at the higher gradient of ann siang hill, it is highly likely to feel hot and sticky in humid singapore by the time you get there. this is where shots. cafe comes to the rescue with its cool air-conditioning and welcoming seating area to kickback a bit.

there isn’t much on the menu food wise, some cakes, but there is a huge coffee machine proudly displayed along the corridor-like space of the cafe.

the plain by comparison is smaller than shots. cafe but is more upbeat in its decor and furnishings. there is larger range of food choices at the plain, however i find the portions on the small side and the offerings to be not the most memorable. the poached eggs resemble more half boiled and the bread can be quite dry the last time i had a meal there. in short, the food isn’t quite satisfying.

the service staff are very attentive and perky and there is a nice vibe to the place, however i do not find the plain cozy enough to want to hang out there for an extended period of time.

just around the corner from the plain is group therapy. like the name suggests, it can accommodate groups, perhaps for a therapeutic tête-à-tête. group therapy takes the space of the second floor of the converted shop houses and i think as a result is quite successful in incorporating an old world charm into its rustic ambiance. it has a comforting blend of natural sunlight and yellowish indoor lighting.

i visited group therapy for coffee after lunch so i did not, this time, sample the wider range of food in the menu. from what i gather from reviews and four square check-ins, the food is decent and on a more generous side compared to the plain. but the proof is in the pudding. i have to say though, that group therapy’s setting is itself a draw.

an advantage that group therapy has over the plain and shots. cafe is that many tables are situated near walls. this creates a more intimate setting and the cozy feeling of having a corner seat.

unfortunately for most working people, these cafes close early on weekdays. weekends however, are still an option, but i do imagine them to be more crowded. all things considered, it takes a very brave, committed and entrepreneurial mind to forge into the food and beverage scene in sinagapore especially with high overheads and start up costs. and so for that, i will make an effort to check them out.

we were there on a weekday afternoon so there wasn’t much of a crowd. the service was prompt and attentive and setting comfortable. we ordered the mixed meat platter for two persons (parrillada) to have an experience with the range of meats. it smelled really good but the taste was on the salty side. i tend to have a higher tolerance for salty food so it is fine with me but the salt can be toned down for a more wholesome taste.

according to the menu, the platter consists of “short ribs, beef skirt, chicken, black hog pork, mixed sausage, lamb rack, vegetables & potatoes.” of all the meats, i think the beef steak was done the best. the other meats were a tad tough and the pork a little dry.

the only side we ordered was the sweet potato fries that i came across on online reviews. i think the sweetness of the sweet potato fries helped to balance the saltiness of the meats. the outside texture is like banana fritters but the sweet potato chunks were crunchy and pipping hot when broken.

salta was not a bad experience and for its price, the quality of the food is pretty decent. however, there are several other places also with good meats i would like to try before coming back here.

after lunch, we made our way to maison ikkoku, a cafe located in the premise of kampong glam at 20 kandahar street. the name of the cafe is taken from a japanese manga and other than the very very softly japanese music played in the background there wasn’t much else that seems japanese about the place. i’m not complaining though. i like it the way it is. perhaps another thing japanese is one of the food items, the mi musubi (japanese rice with spam luncheon meat) that we did not try. maison ikkoku means house of the moment in japanese.

according to augustman.com, maison ikkoku is operated by two pairs of husband & wife couples – Thomas Ho & Janice Ong, and Franz Chua & Shanie Teoh.

the set up of the cafe is spacious yet cozy and can accommodate groups larger than two or four. the rustic charm is engendered by old cupboards installed in the ceiling and the conversion of old doors as tables. there is also a tinge of steam punk decor that exudes from the industrial light bulbs that are lined against the white washed brick wall.

the service is very warm and friendly. we were offered to try from the syphon – a single origin with a very long name of Costa Rica Los Angeles Finca La Bisunga. the name begins with the country of origin, its district, and then the name of the plantation. the ice mocha i had came in a honey-jar mug that was thick and refreshing. although milky, it still retained the distinctive kick and taste of coffee.

maison ikkoku is more accessible than loysel’s toy, larger than kith cafe, and i think has better coffee than forty hands. also, unlike most coffee places, maison ikkoku opens on mondays! definitely coming back here with friends.