Looking after my sister!

My sister started work on Wednesday afternoon after her medical check-up earlier in the day. The agent said that she will be selling clothes but she ended up selling shoes instead! She did not mind that actually, they are quite the same. She works at the Ang Mo Kio MRT Station at a store called KIYO. I believed they have several branches all over the island as I remembered seeing them before. I text my sister to tell her that I will be picking her up as she is not sure how to take the train system in Singapore. I'll show her the way home and then the following day, she will have to do it all on her own.

That evening when I came home, I prepared some dinner for her before I went to pick her. Here's what the dinner looked like. My sister told me she is not quite used to the local food yet, so I'll just cook something up for the next few days until she knows what to eat. I know how it's like to be in a new country... in a new culture all alone. I've been through it all just over 2 years ago and it's no fun... so I'm going to make sure my sister's life here is better!

My sister works 6 days a week from 10am to 10pm with one day off. She chose to have Monday off every week. For this, she is paid SGD1,000 per month with a SGD200 living allowance. Better than what I get but then... I'm really happy with my job!

Wonderful healthy porridge!

Last night, I came home but decided not to have dinner. However, by 9pm I was starving and for some reason, another of my room mate was also starving. We decided to take a stroll out for dinner. Well the stroll turned out longer than expected. We took a train to Tanah Merah MRT and walked to Simpang Bedok where my friend knew of a good porridge stall.

While we eat a lot of porridge at home in China, I had never had the opportunity to have porridge here. Firstly I don't know where sells them and secondly, it's difficult to order for one person and I often eat alone. Also, it probably does not make economical sense for me to spend anything close to four or five dollars for my dinner. I don't eat much and usually a bowl of SGD2.50 noodle or rice will serve me well for almost a day.

In any case, we were really starving so we ordered three dishes and a soup and two bowls of porridge. It was wonderful, very refreshing and I would think, very healthy too as there was hardly any oil. The soup was good too... black chicken soup. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, we vowed to be back the next time there is reason to spend a couple of dollars more for dinner. The total bill for two came up to SGD8.50... costly (by my standard) but good and in my opinion, worth every cent!

Our family gathering!

While writing about my journey to Singapore, I'll intersperse my writing with posting of my current life back in China. This is so that you can read about my current situation as well. My journey to Singapore was already 2 years back in history. I hope to be able to submit enough articles so that my blog will catch with my current life... There's alot of catching up to do... and I'll probably take quite a few months before I can catch up to my current situation. Bear with me...

Last weekend was a special weekend for us. It was one of those rare weekends where my whole family was together; my sister, my brother and I, together with our parents. Living in the country side, most of us have to stay in the city during the weekdays to be closer to our workplace and as such, we don't see much of each other often. If not for mobile phones, we may not even hear from each other for a long time. Thanks to technology, we're able to keep in contact on a regular basis.

I love dumplings (饺子)!

Dumplings(饺子) is a favorite food in China and it is our family's favorite food too! We always make it on special occassions like these. My mother is good at making dumplings. They are always delicious and since young, she had taught me the art of making good dumplings (饺子)! So this weekend, we bought the necessary ingredients such as pork, vegetables and flour to make dumplings (饺子). Since there are only 5 of us and most of us can only eat about 10 dumplings each or thereabouts, it does not make sense for us to just make 50. We normally make several hundred and either give some to our neighbours and relatives or keep them in the refrigerator for future consumption. In the village, we are a close knit community and normally share what we make with others... and they share theirs with us too. We share the joy with each other too... like if my neighbour's children do well in school, we will all congratulate them... but often, we keep the sorrows to ourselves!

My brother caught a big fish (carp) in the nearby lake and so we had a good meal of dumplings, fish and rice for dinner! It's not just the food, but also the camaraderie... that I really enjoy! I personally had not experience such a family gathering for such a long time as I had been a way for 2 years and did not even have enough money to make it back for two Chinese New Year celebrations in 2009 and 2010.

I had a really great time...