Saccharine

Pronounced as \ˈsa-k(ə-)rən. It is used to describe something that resembles the taste of sweetness or something that is overly, sickeningly sweet. Of course, I steer clear from the latter definition and would very much prefer the former one.

To celebrate the end of the first week of the semester and one of the few four-day weekends that we have, Bregitt, Rick and I decided to make a trip to town to get some good food on Friday. Over the dinner table at Thursday we laid out plans on how to spend this Friday together and what we did was to dismiss and laugh at each other’s silly ideas. Rick piped up, we should go Genting!. Bregitt suggested that we could go skating when Rick retorted, but it would rain in the afternoon (and he was bloody right).

It was only on Friday morning that we decided to go to this place somewhere near my junior college, from which I graduated two years ago, that serves really great Thai food. I took me awhile to figure out that they were talking about Thai Noodle House – the place where my classmates and I used to hang out after school especially after being brain dead from all the studying and tutorials.

At Thai Noodle House

Bregitt ordered olive rice while Rick settled for a bowl of tomyam seafood soup and a bowl of rice. I decided to have my all-time favourite, tomyam seafood noodles. It has been two years since I last dined at Thai Noodle House but the aroma of the soup immediately remind me of the times when our class scampered out of school during breaks for a taste of outside food.

I apologize for the lack of photos from Thai Noodle House because we were all furiously gulping down the amazing food and before I knew it, I’ve polished off the last noodle from the bowl – even when Rick tasted my soup, which I’ve requested to be not as spicy as usual, commented that it tasted like plain water. I’m so used to people poking fun at my low spiciness threshold anyway, hah.

A sweet-sour Thai lunch made us crave for ice cream even more. We walked over to Island Creamery for dessert. That’s when I took a photo which I named this post after:

Coloured rice and very berry ice cream.

Saccharine. Very berry ice cream with a generous topping of coloured rice. Now that’s one photo opportunity that no decent photographer would want to give a pass. The ice cream cup was placed on a wooden table and was naturally-lit from the floor-to-ceiling window to the right. Perfect.

One thing I love about Island Creamery is how they really took great lengths to make you feel at home – from the earthy-toned interiors to the walls full of photos taken by patrons, the place exudes this unique warmth of snuggling in the comfort of your own home – with the luxury of enjoying home-made ice creams at the same time. We took a photo of ourselves at the outlet before bringing it for print. I dropped the photo in a tiny plastic box where the staff would help us paste it on their wall. Looks like we’ve got a lot of searching to be done during the next trip to Island Creamery again because we will have to find our faces in a sea of photos. Ooooof.

Our group photo at Island Creamery.

Posing with our printed photo. Ready to go onto the wall!

Since we were already in the Bukit Timah area and the Botanic Gardens is within reach, it didn’t take us too long to decide that having a short afternoon walk in the garden isn’t half bad. It drizzled sporadically throughout the afternoon during our visit to the Botanic Gardens, and we find ourselves constantly ducking from a few miserable raindrops only to discover shortly after that the rain had stopped yet again. It’s like playing hide and seek with the rain.

Gazebo at the Botanic Gardens.

We also visited the heritage tree, which was featured on the back of the Singapore $5 note. There were a group of teenagers underneath the tree so we took a breather on the lawn instead. In the distance, kids frolicked under the cloudy sky and on the endless carpet of grass stretching over the hills and into the woods. A group of four kids were having spaghetti – I couldn’t help but to stare with great envy when my stomach starting growling again.

On the lawn, in the setting sun.

On the low-lying branch of the heritage tree.

We left the Botanic Gardens and headed to town for finger food before deciding on where to have dinner. We alighted the bus at ION Orchard and headed straight for the food hall. Bregitt and Rick bought takoyaki¹ but I didn’t fancy the amount of mayonnaise added, so I gave it a pass.

Takoyaki madness!

Before we leave for cheaper food in the outskirts of the town, we had fried chicken from 4fingers. After tasting their wonderful delicacy I told myself that KFC is nothing compared to 4fingers. You should really give it a try if you drop by the ION Food Hall in the future!

4fingers chicken

We foolishly decided to take bus instead of train back to the university campus, and we ended up failing to find any bus services that would bring us there – and I later realized that we were boarding the bus from the other side of the road, which explains our frustrated attempts to get on one. So, we took a long detour from town to the northern part of the island, and then immediately hopping onto another bus which whizzed past army camps, jungles and grave yards. As the bus zipped through the empty traffic light junctions I started to wonder whether we were still in Singapore, where bumper-to-bumper traffic is a common scene on a Friday evening.

I reached my room late at night, collapsed in a heap and drifted off into my dreams.