the annual geylang serai 'pilgrimage'

after the tanjong katong parking lot incident (previous entree), we proceed to the geylang serai ramadhan bazaar. it was my virgin trip there this year.

so.. how's geylang serai this year?

hmmm light-up decoration not as bad as last year, which looked kinda cheap. this year it was pretty ok, simple, pleasant but nothing special. i've seen this every single year, so there was hardly a surprise there.

what made me more excited? THE FOOD... haaa just now i broke fast at circuit road, eating vegetarian nasi lemak. the plan was to eat something light before going to geylang serai food sweep.

unique huh? i'm sure nobody else ever broke fast with a vegetarian nasi lemak before. it was nice, the sambal was just.. divine.

so makan part 2 would be in geylang serai. the reason why i didn't break fast in geylang in the first place, was because you need to make prior reservation, or else you'd end up eating beside the drain. and that was just too sad to bear.

as usual, there lots and lots of food in geylang serai on ramadhan nights. i expect we could feed the whole somalia with those food spread.

only that i was not very enticed. i didn't feel like eating those sliced bbq meat, fried mee, fried kuey teow, kebab, roti john etc etc. what i wanted? fried cempedak. i don't know why i had a crave for fried cempedak. so i bought 2 dollar (that abang gave me an extra piece, so i got 5 pieces!), and ate standing by the roadside.

there were lots of stalls selling raya shirts, raya curtains, raya cookies, raya cars, raya money.. i mean, raya money envelop.. what a large crown turned-out, it was as if we were walking towards a rock concert show entrance. shoulders rubbed all the time, i felt like we were in a mass orgy or someting.

i wanted to buy the monica lapis legit cake that i always buy every year. the layered cake is nice and cheap but last night, it was sold at 11 dollars, 1 dollar more than the usual price. what a blood sucker. so i didn't buy.

we made rounds after rounds of the many stalls. actually i was hoping to get me a new raya baju melayu, the traditional malay wear that we always wear on the first day of hari raya festival.

but then, the baju melayu dan baju kurung/kebaya (for females) sold in this lion city were.. well.. too glamorous. too modern! for the female's, there were glittering patterns here and there, with body-hugging cutting that gives zero tolerance to coughs or sneezes. very sexy, you could walk in grammy's red carpet in that but to my grandpa's malay village in rembau, malaysia? you'd get stoned for sure (ok this was an expression, haha.. of course we no longer stone people).

even for the men's, mostly the fashions were too daring. the last thing i wanted to do was being looked at as a lost-caused singapore guy in my grandpa's village. really.


so in the end i chose this simple but yet modern, golden-coloured ensemble (SGD52). i matched it with a golden-thread sampin, which is to be worn like a kilt (ok this sounded weird when i wrote it like this, i guess you have to see it actually worn to appreciate) (SGD40).

so one thing done for my hari raya 2008 checklist.


ok 2 things done. because by this, i have done my annual geylang serai ramadhan bazaar 'pilgrimage' too...




...ed