review

Here and There

| pinaymama@sg

Here’s what I’ve been up to recently.

1) We celebrated the Hub’s birthday.

My surprise Cameo video for the Hub worked out! He and I are both yuuge fans of the LOTR movies, especially the first. We used to re-watch The Fellowship of the Ring all the time; it was our top choice for “movie-in-the-background” – times when we were busy with other stuff but wanted something interesting on TV that we could passively listen to. The Hub and I agreed Sam was the real MVP of the saga. One Valentine’s Day, the Hub even signed off his card to me as “Your Sam” (does that make me Frodo in that scenario?!).

Anyway, when I saw Sean Astin was on Cameo I grabbed my chance. The Hub never guessed!

A screengrab from the Hub’s Cameo message.

I highly recommend Sean if you’re thinking of getting a Cameo (provided you’re a fan, of course). He started off with a Marilyn Monroe-esque ‘Happy Birthday’ song which was pretty funny. You could tell he took the time to personalise each birthday message a bit. I only wrote Cameo a sentence or two about the Hub and Sean was able to build on that for a 5-minute-long video. He even managed to squeeze in his iconic “Po-tay-toes” line at the end. Sulit.

Other things we did on the Hub’s birthday: a nice omakase lunch at one of our favourite Japanese places capped off with drinks at Raffles Hotel. We both wanted to try the original Singapore Sling at the Long Bar but found out the bar was temporarily closed; the hotel was serving cocktails at the Raffles Courtyard instead.

We were seated and comfortable when I opened the menu and found out that an Original Singapore Sling costs S$35 (around Php1,300 or US$26). I reasoned to myself this was the first and probably the last time I’ll be trying it so… okay. Fine.

According to the menu, a Singapore Sling consists of Widges London Dry Gin, Bénédictine, Raffles Signature Grenadine, Luxardo Cherry Sangue Morlacco, Ferrand Dry Curaçao, pineapple juice, fresh lime juice, and Scrappy’s Aromatic Bitters.

Our drinks came with the obligatory tray of peanuts. (Traditionally, the peanut shells are thrown on the Long Bar’s tiled floor.) It was good, but was it worth S$35? The jury’s still out on that one.

2) I realised parts of the old Sentosa monorail tracks haven’t been demolished.

One of my most enduring childhood memories was a short trip my family took to Singapore in the ’90s. It probably got stuck in my head because the trip happened during a school week. I felt like I was playing hooky from school the whole time, and it felt good.

We had a day out in Sentosa Island. Back then, VivoCity was non-existent and the distance was wider between the main island and Singapore. There was no Boardwalk to cross. The Mount Faber Line cable cars were already around, but we took a ferry to the island.

I remember the breeze on our faces as we rode a monorail in Sentosa. Unlike today’s Sentosa Express which only stops at four stations – VivoCity, Resorts World (where Universal Studios is), Imbiah (for the nature walk), and Beach station – the monorail in my memory looped around the island. I even recall passing the giant “Sentosa” logo while on the train. The monorail ride experience and the rest of that day – a visit to a SeaWorld aquarium, a wax museum, musical fountains in the evening – is probably one of my core Joy memories haha.

The old Sentosa monorail, decommissioned in 2005. (Source)

Imagine my delight then, when I discovered while walking on the Imbiah trail the other weekend that parts of the old monorail tracks were still there! I don’t know why I never noticed it before.

Does anyone know why some parts of the track weren’t demolished?

3) We walked some more.

We had dinner at Robertson Quay in one of our favourite Middle Eastern restaurants (so far it’s the only place we found with kebab koobideh that approximates our beloved Alounak).

It was a balmy evening and it seemed everyone was out and about. So, we took the opportunity to walk from Robertson Quay all the way to Clarke Quay.

The Old Hill Street Police Station on Clarke Quay

We finally reached Boat Quay where we caught the bus home.

Think critically dear readers,

Lockdown and The Last Dance

| pinaymama@sg
Image credit: Netflix

It was a sign of how far we’ve come since the 1990s when, after finishing the first two episodes of The Last Dance – a much-anticipated Netflix/ESPN limited TV series about Michael Jordan’s last season with the Chicago Bulls – I told my husband, “O, i-play mo na yung susunod” (Play the next episode) and he replied, “Walang susunod, next week pa” (There’s no next episode, wait until next week), I was momentarily taken aback.

What? In this age of Netflix’s autoplay-the-next-episode and real-time news feeds, they’re making us wait*?

But wait we did. It evoked faint memories of other, small intervals of anticipation:

… minutes, for Donita Rose to play my request on MTV Most Wanted (there was no YouTube replay option back then, I either heard the song or didn’t),

… hours, for my favourite cable channel cartoons those early Saturday mornings (no alarm clock needed!),

… years, for the next Harry Potter book to emerge from J.K. Rowling’s imagination (excruciating, when I devoured the latest instalment in mere days).

*

I’m not a basketball fan, by the way. Unlike my husband, a.k.a. Hub, who watched the series like it was a ‘greatest hits’ reel. The Shot, The Flu Game, The Shrug, The Last Shot – he’d seen them all before.

But The Last Dance remained a compelling watch, especially for me seeing most of the behind-the-scenes dynamics and winning shots with fresh eyes. Jordan’s career followed the classic storytelling arc – a solid beginning (a hungry and talented athlete eager to win the NBA championships), crises in the middle (Jordan’s father’s murder, his alleged gambling controversies, tensions with Krause as team GM), and the final redemption (winning his last NBA season proving all the naysayers wrong).

There were moments in the series that left me emotional – that scene where Jordan bawled on the floor after winning a Father’s Day game following his dad’s death felt so raw, I felt like I — along with the rest of the world — shouldn’t be watching. It felt so personal.

All the elements of a good TV drama, right?

*

The Last Dance, for me, will forever be linked to our early days in partial ‘lockdown’ here in Singapore. The last episode aired two weeks shy of the circuit breaker period ending.

We couldn’t step outside. Working from home and managing home-based learning for our kid blended the days and weeks into each other, though I recognise the privilege of having these options.

Hub and I needed a break and The Last Dance was a welcome distraction. It was a good feeling to have something to look forward to every Monday that was not related to what was going on in the ‘real’ world.

The world the series inhabited couldn’t be further apart from today – the 1990s vs. the 2020s – and the nostalgia of looking at images from my childhood was jarring, to say the least. I can’t think of anyone nowadays who can unite people across cultures the way Michael Jordan did in his heyday (maybe Tom Hanks?).

These days the world seems to be breaking apart at the seams, with no redemption arc in sight.

Photo by Howard Chai on Unsplash

Think critically dear readers,

* Strange as it may be, I’ve only ever consumed TV series once all the episodes are out. Game of Thrones, WestWorld, The Wire – you name it, I only watched when the season was done. Not a good strategy if you want to avoid spoilers though.