Good-bye pasar malam!

The pasar malam or street market's last day at Sengkang was Saturday. Was there for 12 days. Business was poor, I was told and also judging by the small crowd everyday and night.
I spent about $100 on food, the camera stand as well as the selfie stick. The telescopic camera stand was sold to me a bargain price of $20 (usual price is $29) and the selfie stick at $5.
In the above photo, I was testing out the selfie stick before buying it. In the background was the vendor.

I bought another 5 more (eaten one already) tapai ubi or fermented tapioca at the pasar malam today.
I had 2 yesterday and they were so good.

I also had a packet of mee goreng at the same night market. Don't be deceived by the presentation of the mee goreng or fried noodles because it was really fantastic. My wife ate it too and were impressed with the taste.

Chicken kebab at pasar malam

I was at the pasar malam and bumped into this stall selling chicken kebab. I've not eaten kebabs for a long time and decided to have a bite. The Q was quite long and it was a sign that the kebabs must be delicious. I ordered one piece ($4) and took it home for my lunch. It was yummy and later in the evening, I bought one for my wife and she liked it too.
This hawker has stopped selling lamb and beef kebabs as they were not popular with the Chinese which is the majority race in SG.

Sayorana Pasar Malam, see you again next year

The pasar malam stalls will be moving out to another place by tomorrow. We are gonna miss them especially the food they are selling. Yesterday, my wife bought a small hand bag from one of the stalls. We also bought fish and prawn balls and takoyaki (ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special moulded pan) for our afternoon tea.
Heard that a small stall cost the stall operator anywhere from $150 to $200 a day in rental. Some are even charged at $500 per day especially for those popular stalls selling burgers. Wonder how these hawkers make money with such high rents.

Woke up early, Car wash and Pasar Malam visit

Got up early this morning around 6 am. It is not unusual for me to wake up early. As a kid, I used to wake up as early as 5am. I would scout around my kampong and picked the fruits that had dropped overnight. Fruits that were overripe would drop with the slight breeze. They were very sweet. The fruits I am talking about were jambu or rose apples, mangosteens , guava, rambutans etc.
The other thing I would do was to pick hens' eggs and later sold them to the provision shop owner for 10 cent each. Collecting 2 to 3 eggs a day was a norm for me. The money from the sale of the eggs would enable me to spend freely in the school tuck shop.
Perhaps, waking up early is a habit I've picked up as a kid or I am one guy who does not require much sleep. For me, 6 hours of sleep is sufficient.
When I was younger, I would go out and jogged in the early morning before going to the office or morning flights. These days with age catching up, I have given up jogging and settled for brisk walking. My legs do give trouble if I walk too much or too long. I've a friend 2 years younger than me and had recently gone for a kneecap replacement. He told me he had suffered for 10 years and decided to have the surgery which is by no means a fun thing. Nevertheless, when he fully recovers sometime in January next year, he will enjoy walking again.


         
A Bangla's first day as a car washer in Johor Baru

A visit to a Pasar Malam (night market)

Although this is known as a "night market" it starts its operation before dusk around 5pm. The night market will go full steam from about 7pm and last until late.
The night markets are not as popular as say 20 or 30 years ago when there were less shopping malls in Singapore. The mere mention of the word would excite me when I was a kid. The night markets would be set up in many places and they would move around the island. These days, we have air conditioned shopping malls and centers which offer better quality stuff than the night markets.