Visit to the Monkey God Tree

Went to Jurong West St 42 with Slug after dinner to check out the Monkey God appartition on the tree, which had been making headlines in the newspapers lately. Out of curiosity, really. I thought it would be a quiet affair, just a night walk along that street, but we were shocked to see a noisy crowd surrounding the trees.

As we jostled our way through the crowd, we came face-to-face with nothing more than a wrinkly hump on the tree bark. The so-called 'smiling Monkey God'. Bunches of joss sticks were stuck into the ground beneath it, and fresh chrysanthemums, flower garlands and bananas were strewn all over the ground.

Monkey God imprisoned in this tree?

They are practically making a shrine out of this!

The uncles were lighting more joss sticks and praying furiously. The aunties were crowded around another tree, trying to appreciate an imaginary Guan Yin portrait (on its flaking tree bark) like stuck-up connoisseurs. The Indians were fascinated with their Elephant God on another tree. The youngsters were snapping away on their camera phones, Singapore-style. Me no exception. The rest were just standing there, arms folded, and murmuring away.

As I was staring rudely at the Monkey God pop-up from the tree with the glow of the candles slowly roasting my chin, suddenly, a man pushed me aside and without any qualms, pushed a banana right into the 'Monkey God's' face. His pampering of the Monkey God was bordering on the senselessness. (I had a phobia of bananas and I quickly slid my way out of the crowd.)

Feeding time?

After a while, we grew bored and left. I know this tree had brought some 4D punters a small fortune, but are Singaporeans too superstitious or too money-obssessed to the extent of being silly?

National Inter-School Chess Competition

Was assigned to lead the school's chess team (comprising of 5 Sec 2 boys) to this National Inter-schools Chess Competition held at a primary school in Clementi. I was grumbling because it was the September holidays and I had to wake up early in the morning just for this!

19 schools (including JC) participated in this annual event

So I took those boys there, made some small chat with them along the way and sat them down at their respective table. Wow, they were playing against big names like RGS, Chinese High, ACS, Nanyang Girls, Catholic High etc. Seemed like we were the only neighbourhood school around, together with Bedok South Sec. And unfortunately for them, their first match was against RGS.

It was a swift defeat

Of course, they lost, and they were deeply demoralised. I couldn't blame them, because these boys did not receive any professional training in chess. There isn't even a Chess Club in the school! I did not have high hopes that they would win any awards. I just felt that this would be good exposure (and fun) for them.

Apparently the RGS girls proved to be too serious and shrewd to them. One of the boys complained that those girls could play mind games, like taunting them haughtily, "You cannot make this move, don't you KNOW the rules of the game?" Wow.

I was staring into space most of the time, waiting for each round to end. How interesting could chess be? I was staring in jealousy at a teacher who whiled her time away playing her PSP.

As the game progressed, the boys did win some of the other teams, much to my surprise, and that helped boost their confidence. Finally, it was 4pm and the last round of the competition. The boys were pitting against TKS, and if they won, they would be the champion for the East Zone. They were incredibly nervous, and I just told them not to take it too seriously and give themselves so much pressure.

Unfortunately, they lost and they were visibly disappointed. Nevertheless they came in 3rd in the East Zone (and got bronze medals for that), and came in 14th overall. That was considerably remarkable given that they were not trained in chess, and I do have to admit I am really proud of them.

After that, I sent the boys back to the MRT station, and I was glad I came to support these boys. It was a fruitful day.

Trip to Giant Supermarket

Went shopping with Slug at IMM Giant for groceries. Finally one rare occasion where we could get to cook dinner together! The newly-revamped IMM now boasts more shops and restaurants (even Ajisen and Fish & Co) than before, besides the existing furniture shops and bridal boutiques!

At the supermarket, we swept the biggest and freshest-looking prawns off the tray, grabbed two packs of tofu from the shelves and chose the least bloody pork ribs from amongst the bloody meats. Then came the instant noodles, bittergourd (yucks) and eggs. We side-tracked by buying a bunch of useless tidbits and some towels, pillows and bolsters that were on promotion.

Slug creeping aimlessly amongst the veggies

Our dinner for tonight (no, not all the eggs!)

Trying to be seductive (ha!)

I absolutely hate the queues at Giant. The cashiers are freaking slow (mainly the BLACK society people) and I could not understand why the idiots ahead of us had to pile up their trolleys with so many things (from burger fillets to toilet paper). It took us a good 15-minute wait in that constipated queue for our turn to pay up.

Left Slug to do the cooking while I watched TV, hoho! What a happy day.