von slid into town for 12 days during which…

on day 1:

– a visit to bedok with inadequate gps directions, where every street we find ourselves on keeps turning out to be bedok north ave 3.

– coffee with a gammy-legged su-lin and juls at the very pleasant but smaller-than-expected percolate, which also cold-brews quite delicious black teas.

– when someone with as quintessentially teochew a name as ‘heng’ is unable to have her name correctly taken down over the phone, doubts creep upon one concerning the authenticity of a teochew restaurant. chin lee, for many years a stalwart family choice, serves up a forgettable meal. perhaps there are no teochews left in the kitchen.

– on the way to the restaurant, a large graceful vase by a roadside ceramic stand. i think of the dragon kilns and the pottery jungle. there is no time to go.

on day 2:

– a visit to grey projects, the personal library and gallery space of the erudite and friendly jason wee (writer, art critic, curator.) he turns out to be a close friend and associate of darryl w and had been at the harvard gsd not so long ago. i dislike talking about my harvard days, and break off midconversation with a loud squeak catching sight of calasso’s tiepolo pink on his shelves. (humbly: “i have no self-control when it comes to other people’s books.“) in the library, book shelves cut at angles to create the sense of movement. me to von: will you make me some like that? v: ha! ha! ha!

– before that korean dakgalbi at big mama where the eponymous chef and owner to my dismay was nowhere in sight for her usual stream of warm, table-side garrulity and asian-aunt solicitude (on whom my embassy-honed charm translates frequently into expansive portions or complimentary dishes.) a temporary taste-glitch during which von becomes intrigued by clumsy korean lady detectives on tv. we leave.

– a quest for authentic ice-jelly (non-agar) that ended in tiong bahru market: a slow saunter through most of the neighbourhood. art deco old walk-ups, narrow streets, overgrown allamanda tumbling out of someone’s third floor window. a yellow flower plummets and lands at my feet, too heavy for an elegant drifting fall. better be a bougainvillea.

– books actually, naturally.

– a midday crashing of julian’s office to further impede the progress of science together with attiio r, who was on campus and introduced to the two at one fell swoop. rain prevented a coffee expedition to everton park; the university cafe sufficed.

on day 9:

– an abruptly aborted chinese tea-buying excursion (where someone ordered extra raw garlic in the lunch popiah, crippling my sense of taste and smell until the following morning.

– disgruntled tea-drinking at chayuan to, as it were, the sound of qin.

– also some singularly unhelpful old crones at peksinchun who declined to give us a buyer’s welcome or customary tea tasting, nor yet sell a yellow bowl von had taken to (“very very opaque glaze but spread very very thin”) this is not the generosity of japanese potters, the tale of which will be linked here in due course.

– chinatown market (‘with great restraint i have left one piece of siobak and charsiew for you — the taste of my childhood’) and other von memories.

– a visit to kots selection (one can never get enough of shophouses) with the intimidating yixin (v: a man of strongly held and particular opinions. i approve) where i tasted many wines (and took greatly to one) but was more interested in the aged cougar gold cheese which hails, it would seem, from washington state university’s famous creamery — the crunchy bits, i am informed, are amino acid crystals)

on day 11:

– three hour dimsum lunch with joel and fengyuan, less bibulous than advertised, but at which delicious things were drunk. a long-hoarded bottle of korean wild grape wine on which tentative hopes were shakily pinned saw same hopes definitively dashed. vaughn accuses me of having a tapeworm for lavish ordering, but dimsum generally does not fill one. someone at the restaurant is well-connected, its signboard was the work of the calligrapher tan swie hian, whose poetry the transparent hummingbird first lifted her name from.

– the smooth-talking of our way into a preview of a soon-opening photography exhibition at the objectifs centre. admittedly (v points out afterwards) the work was derivative of andreas gursky, but nevertheless to me valuable in its own right for the area it documents.) the rootop was fantastic: i would love to come back for an evening exhibition. i think to myself also how much i like the arab quarter, especially haji and bali lane.

{–aside– we could possibly be a pair of conmen, i do think, if we went in for that sort of thing. von provides just enough technical knowledge on most given subjects on the spur and can confidently and competently natter in same vein to show we’re not idle passersby and have genuine interest; i project a kind of hopeful but apologetic sincerity that tells people we’re benign and easily disappointed.)

– a quick stop at the independent archive and resource centre, a self-funding library and archive for singapore arts materials. alex y, the manager (surprisingly young) shows us around the pieces. we leave, as usual, before the event proper begins.

– perhaps it was buying the last stale roll before a two-day closure, perhaps it was hauling it about in the singapore sun. the final assessment: an “unspeakably vile” swiss roll from the much vaunted rich and good cake shop on kandahar street. maison ikkoku, three doors down, was closed for renovation.

– a vain attempt to visit kato art duo (early closing) ostensibly to see the kukoku tamura exhibition but really to name-drop our connection to addy for a view of their shinoda stash); the raffles hotel layout got us trapped in a garden, for a time.

– v’s unabashed accosting and tickling of a completely indifferent ginger striped cat outside symmetry, and the subsequent attraction of a lot of unamused (but not yet openly hostile)stares from other patrons. he says he remembers the cat from last february, we had been going in the opposite diretion. the green painted doors of symmetry, the same shade as green window glass, give me great pleasure as always.