A heaviness hangs on me like a load has been slapped on me uninvited.
It's the first semblance of Monday Blues, a term, when conjured, reinforces the sense of feeling encumbered rather than suppresses it. Really it was hard getting to the office today.
Was at the Hokkaido fair at Tampines Mall yesterday, and was treated to a spread of exotic nibbles. I say nibbles because most of what I ate, came from the generous samplings that the stallholders offered. Seaweed, squid, cheesecake, soup, crackers, chips. I say nibbles because at the price the food was going at, you can't really afford a decent meal there, well at least not to get full on it.
Maybe that's why the Japanese are so darn healthy. Excessive portioning is reined in by food prices. Come on, admit it. Getting fat is not about eating unhealthy food, it's more of eating too much food.
I look at everything that was sold there and wonder about the disparity between their value and their cost. Granted some foods need imported ingredients like seafood ($12.80 for a small King Crab pastry...), but Hokkaido icecream? Red bean pastry? At a time when our globalised foodscapes converge so loosely, the widespread availability of tacos in China and dumplings in America should translate even better in our meltpot of a culture called Singapore. The price tag is justified little by the cost, but rather, by another tag called "the other". "The other" refers to the momentary sensation of being un-native, of being transported without physical displacement to a place of exoticism and cultural fascination.
I left with one of the cheaper alternatives - a snow crab bun that came at a whooping discount. As I walked out of the mall, the heat of the Singaporean sun hit me. Suddenly, my bun looked just like any other kom ba pau I could get from a nearby, grimy kopitiam.
It's the first semblance of Monday Blues, a term, when conjured, reinforces the sense of feeling encumbered rather than suppresses it. Really it was hard getting to the office today.
Was at the Hokkaido fair at Tampines Mall yesterday, and was treated to a spread of exotic nibbles. I say nibbles because most of what I ate, came from the generous samplings that the stallholders offered. Seaweed, squid, cheesecake, soup, crackers, chips. I say nibbles because at the price the food was going at, you can't really afford a decent meal there, well at least not to get full on it.
Maybe that's why the Japanese are so darn healthy. Excessive portioning is reined in by food prices. Come on, admit it. Getting fat is not about eating unhealthy food, it's more of eating too much food.
I look at everything that was sold there and wonder about the disparity between their value and their cost. Granted some foods need imported ingredients like seafood ($12.80 for a small King Crab pastry...), but Hokkaido icecream? Red bean pastry? At a time when our globalised foodscapes converge so loosely, the widespread availability of tacos in China and dumplings in America should translate even better in our meltpot of a culture called Singapore. The price tag is justified little by the cost, but rather, by another tag called "the other". "The other" refers to the momentary sensation of being un-native, of being transported without physical displacement to a place of exoticism and cultural fascination.
I left with one of the cheaper alternatives - a snow crab bun that came at a whooping discount. As I walked out of the mall, the heat of the Singaporean sun hit me. Suddenly, my bun looked just like any other kom ba pau I could get from a nearby, grimy kopitiam.