Cup Fever

This week I have mostly been entertaining visitors from home. Mike and Ange were on their way home, while Paul was heading off to Germany to join the throng of band wagon jumping Aussie soccer fans. In preperation for this we took our guests to the local drinking holes in Emerald Hill where we took on a couple of Yagermeister Red Bull bombs. Local watering hole "Number 5's" is having a special promotion where if you drink 7 Yagermeisters you get a free soccer ball. We only ordered 5 but when the bar staff pointed out that if I were to purchase 2 more of these little monsters in a glass I would get a free ball, I had no choice but to eagerly take him up on his offer.
Thinking about this later, which I obviously wasn't at the time, giving a soccer ball to people who have consumed several Yager Bombs is a silly thing. Emerald Hill became a socccer pitch as we dribbled down the street, we also kicked the ball. In fact we kicked it into the Alley Bar where Mike, one of the visiting stunt drinkers loudly announced to the bar staff that Reidy and I were engaged. This prompted the barman to create a three tiered drink that involved fire. Impressive stuff especially as the fire lighting bit failed because the air con was blowing too hard so they had to send another flaming shot down the construction.
So then it was on to Orchard Road where once more a soccer game broke out, Mike has a wicked slice, belting the ball into the middle of the road twice. Pretty crazy stuff for Singapore and with the ever increasing threat of being hit with a stick or hung we crossed the road to try and compensate for Mike's slice. Unfortunately this meant the ball went sailing into the closed and strangely named "Free Banana" bar. Ange showed terrific courage to chase the ball but in retrospect also terrific foolishness as she went for an inelegant but spectacular face plant into the Free Banana.
We finished the night at an almost deserted night club 5 minutes from home half time into the England Sweden game. Obviously due to the effects of the fall Ange developed severe temporary Parkinson's disease and dropped her beer, so we called a long night to a close and headed home surprisingly still with soccer ball.
Fortunately I had the day off, which was very handy considering it was now only Wednesday so work would have been a nightmare. I found Mike and Ange in the pool and was going to report Mike to the cops for abusing his girlfriend. But then it came flooding back, 6 months in the wilds of South America unscathed and Ange ends up battered and bruised from just one night in supposedly safe Singapore. Swollen black eye, bruised hip and shoulder and a damaged knee were the results of the Free Banana tumble. As much as she would like to claim the headache was concussion I think there was some alcohol involved.
We played the perfect hosts and went to Chinatown in a brave attempt to eat and at least show our guests another part of Singapore other than a pub and our lounge room. Not a huge amount of enthusiasm there so we retired to the lounge for the afternoon. We had planned a quiet BBQ that night and did a reasonable job of holding it together long enough to feed and water people. I crashed at 1:00 thinking that the others weren't far behind, but it was a particularly close thunder storm at 4:00am that sent Andy and Nic home and the others to bed. Impressive effort from Andy as he was due at work in 4 hours, but he didn't quite make it.
Thursday was pretty much a copy of Wednesday battling hangovers and injuries except we all had to get to the airport. Mike and Ange went back home while Reidy and I tootled off to Koh Samui, but that is another story....

Discount Pork

This week I have mostly not been shopping, unlike the rest of Singapore who have been shopping. The Great Singapore Sale started last Friday combining two of your average Singaporean's favourite occupations; shopping and getting a discount. Singaporeans would walk 42 kilometres over hot coals made of broken glass for a discount and they have descended on Orchard Rd in their droves. Even Ben Cheng Hian, local purveyors of strange pink meats, are in on the act, offering 20% on sliced pork.
In an effort to avoid the crowds last Sunday, they swell to twice with the maids' day off, we went to a Singaporean expat institution; The Sunday Brunch. The rules are fairly simple eat as much as you can and call the drinks waiter over every 5 minutes to top up your champagne in a 4 hour super session. Any time that a drink made up of a martini, a comspolitan, and champagne topped with a shot of milk seems even vaguely palatable, you know it's time to go 10 pin bowling.
The locals tend to take bowling quite seriously, so we were a noisy exception. We thought we were about to be thrown out when a woman from the centre approached us. Turned out she was the drinks waitress, which was fortunate because we needed a drink. Highlights of two frames of quality bowling included one unassisted fall, some stunt bowling from the seat and a late release that saw an 8lb ball hit the pins on the second bounce.
Bored with wrecking the bowling alley we decided we should be hungry and thirsty again we headed to the Wine Garage for a spot of dinner. We managed to make it there in time for a spectacular sunset, but not before stopping to stare in surprise at a promotion on the way out of the mall. A whole floor dedicated to visiting Canberra. Weird. According to the promotional bunting one of the highlights of visiting Canberra is apparently shopping. There are going to be some disappointed Singaporeans wandering through Australia's national capital. Driving into Canberra on a Saturday afternoon often leaves first timers thinking they had stumbled through a post apocalyptic movie set.
Speaking of Aussie eye wool pulling; the previously reported Aussie basketball export to Singapore have finally been christined; The Slingers> lot of thought went into that. I didn't know this had happened such is the excitement this team has generated here. No I had to find out by way of freelance sports reporter and semi professional drinker Matt Cleary. It is unlikely we will in fact learn the team song, nor wear face paint as he suggested and will in fact behave like every other castaway on this island and ignore them. If the strange quote on Channel News Asia web site is anything to go by this is going to be a brilliant piece of strategy by the NBA.
Said Ben Knight, Singapore Slingers forward, "We have got a fair bit of experience in our team already, then with the coaching stuff, I think playoff for us. I think if we are not in the top six or seven, top eight, I will be very disappointed during our first season. I expect the finals in the first year."