Wink Wink! Living life with Meaning and Inspiration
There is something about the last showers of rain that refreshes me. The moment when the light peeks through the clouds with the promise of a hope and sometimes, along comes a rainbow.
Rainy days are not that bad after all especially when we are able to appreciate the beauty that it brings.
牛车水, or otherwise known as ‘Bullock Carts Water’ (direct translation). The chinese name for Singapore’s Chinatown came about when people living in Chinatown in the past, depended on bullock carts for the transportation of water.
Chinatown these days, hardly retained any glimpses of the ‘old Chinatown’ that our grandparents could have remembered of the place.
What the children saw when were walked down the streets of Chinatown were brightly colored shophouses, plenty of stalls selling generic-looking china-made souvenirs, affordable Cheong Sums and Samfoos. And ‘I love Singapore’ and ‘Singapore is a ‘Fine’ City’ T-shirts and porcelain mugs depicting the things that you will be fined for in Singapore.
The closest view that the children got to the medical shops in Chinatown were the pre-package chinese medicine and herbs drying outside the shops. The strong smelling whiff of herbs, spices and other exotic ingredients which emitted from the medical shops was enough to turn them off the interest of further exploring the medical shops.
Walking down the streets of Chinatown will bring out the consumerism in any child :P. The kids were enamored by the gaudy tacky looking wind chimes, touristy magnets and little knick knacks and was looking out for the moment that the moms will say “Yes, we can buy this for you!.”
We continued our walkabout down Temple Street, passed the Sri Mariamman Temple, walked towards South Bridge Road to view the architecture and exterior aesthetics of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.
We experienced a not-so-authentic glimpse of our chinese culture in Singapore walking down the streets of Chinatown. Nevertheless, from our same visit, we found a place hidden in a nook of a restored shop-house which uncovered many stories of old Chinatown that we could share with our children.
What was it? Read on to next part of this post.
His satisfied grin when he showed me something he spotted in this magazine…
He flipped the magazine to the last page and showed me,
His first photo of himself in a magazine!
I recalled that moment when he requested that I take a photo of him, his magazines and his artwork, in the hope that the publisher might want to feature his photo. I told him that we needed to send in the copy of his artwork instead, as this photo looked too minimalistic, and there was little chance that his photo will be featured in the magazine.
I told him. “We try ok. Don’t be too disappointed if your photo don’t get selected.”
Despite looking really minimalistic next to the photo of another boy on the left, who posed next to his sofa-filled with copies of the magazine, his photo was published.
As I tucked him into bed that night, he snuggled closed to me and he whispered contentedly, “Thank you Mommy, for sending in the photo for me.”
