haute / hawker

one of the things i admire most in the mister is his incredible ability to enjoy life at all levels. he's as content slurping our hawker centre breakfast as he is cruising the south china sea. and to me that's the beauty of singapore - there's something to be appreciated at every budget. we've little interest in the pseudo-atas cafes that are mushrooming around the island. as with most things, some are better than others and not to be hating but i don't understand why people complain about a 10cent increase in cheong fan price but the same people spend S$20 on two poached eggs and juice at a 'western' cafe. we're big fans of hawker centres and during our brief visits home, we'll pick beo crescent hokkien mee over les*amis any day (please don't let that stop you from inviting us to les*amis, we'll be there in a heartbeat!) but the fascination with fancy western (again) food is lost on us.   

and so it was that on my first morning back in singers, i sprung awake at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep. usually better with jetlag but my mind was in overdrive with our wedding emcee duties. and the mister, bless him, not only let me wake him up (chatter chatter chatter) but took me to commonwealth market for a local breakfast fix (above). after two satisfying plates of cheong fun and a bowl of chok,  we moseyed over to the next coffee shop for some prata and char siew noodles. we got choice seats facing the car park and marveled how only in singers would you have chinese, indian and malay sitting in a row, speaking english and reading the new paper. the way the various stalls were grouped together was familiar and comforting. the prata man next to the noodle aunty and the malay man running the drink stalll.

we road tripped to muar a few years ago and there was no such integration / assimilation. the chinese patrons and hawkers had one hawker centre, the malays had another and ne'er the twain shall meet. singers boleh and we'd such a lovely morning people watching from our seats as the sun rose and kids started going to school.

oh and after the wedding we went boating. it also reminded me of a post from a few years ago. so much and nothing has changed :)