[SG Day 1] Itinerary: Live Like a Local

05/30/16

This time in coming to SG, I told Mark we should be like that airbnb ad, live like the local.

But before any thing else, let me have my chicken rice & kopi. This has became some sort of my ritual upon arriving in SG, the very first thing we do is to get down a train station w/ Anana's (it's like a fastfood for chicken rice, kopi, and some streetfood-ish kind of fingerfoods.). It's a way of getting into the Singapore vibes: hearing the hard-to-get accent of the staff, adjusting the tastebuds (the 1st time I got here, their food made me realized how "american" our taste can be), & getting a "price" benchmark for your spending splurge.

Get another drink from that usual SG juice store, "tambay" at the bus station just to soak yourself more into the new place. #char

The sunset was kinda pretty when we rode down to the Macritchie area, where we we're staying for few nights. I love that area because of trees. I don't know what part oF SG is that place.

After unloading all our stuff, I now thought that officially we'd now act live like local SG. 

So first thing we did was find a grocery because we're going to have our breakfast at "home" because we're "local." (On hindsight, I think "hawker" is probably how local actually do their breakfast.)

The first grocery store we chanced upon was Cold Storage.

And the first few things that greeted me were:

Bananas and mangoes from Philippines. @.@ Talking about being local.

The bananas and mangoes were kinda giving me some cognitive dissonance. Aside from the price, actually more than their prices, they kinda look sad. They're kinda pale and anemic; not the usual so loudly yellow sunshiny back at home. I mean do locals here really pay that price for these sad looking bananas and mangoes?!? Because definitely back in Cebu, I'm not even going to pay attention to it. 

Deciding to be local for the bananas and mangoes was HARD like choosing a PH president hard. But char lang. I can actually just afford 1 tomato (the left bottom ones); no, not even that one.

I texted Mark's cousin-in-law living here, who happens to be my grader schoolmate, and complained about the bananas. And she replied that it's because I went to Cold Storage, which is like Rustan's back at home. Ooooppsss, I cannot afford to be burgis local in SG. @.@

So we ended up buying fake fruits, the jams, just like how we are: fake locals. @.@