Super-market search

Date: 14 Dec 2005
Time: 1202 hrs
Place: Harbourfront

I'm outside Tower One, near the base of the escalator, two Malay men (probably Bruneians), both wearing caps, t-shirts and 3/4 pants, one in his 20s, another in his 30s and fatter, looking for a big electronics supermarket. I pointed them back to Harbourfront.

Mohamed... Mustafa...

Date: 07 Dec 2005
Time: 1818 hrs
Place: Farrer Park MRT

A young Indian man in a blue shirt and backpack at the escalator asked me how to get to Mustafa.

It's awl in the drawl

Date: 3 Dec 2005
Time: 0845 New York time
Place: New York hotel breakfast

(sorf) Extremely chatty waiter behind counter from Fort Worth, Texas. He thinks the two little old ladies gaping at the restaurant are also from Fort Worth. Meanwhile, eggs benedict.

Crappy cabbie

Date: 3 Dec 2005 (2 Dec 2005 New York Time)
Time: 1900 hrs New York Time
Place: New Jersey, somewhere on the way from Newark Airport

(sorf) Cabbie lost in Jersey trying to find the Lincoln Tunnel got asked for directions.

Globally plugged in

Date: 2 Dec 2005
Time: 1100 hrs
Place: Changi Airport T2 lounge

(sorf) Asian 30-something guy asked how to plug into broadband.

The place's renovated with lots of Playstations all over and he wants to check his email??

Why is everyone in a rush?

Date: 29 Nov 2005
Time: 1936 hrs
Place: Plaza Singapura

(both) A tall skinny Chinese girl wanted to cut our queue because she only had one item.

Three times

Date: 16 Nov 2005
Time: 1400 hrs
Place: The Factory

(sorf) Got asked for directions at my desk three times!

It's a kind of magic...

Date: 15 Nov 2005
Time: 2030 hrs
Place: National Library

(both) Lots of people hang out at Hans for the nice ambience, cheap food and free wifi. A couple of young nerdy male Chinese guys also hung out there to show people unsolicited magic tricks. They said that they were trying to publicise a magic workshop where for a small fee you could learn the tricks they just showed (some standard ones involving a deck of cards, and dice, and rubber bands, if I remember right, because it was quite a generic magic trick). We patiently sat through the trick (sorf was banging out some story on her laptop throughout the whole ordeal) and then we politely said no, we weren't interested. And they reacted as if it was unbelievable that we could be uninterested. "Derek SUM, IT Business consultant" even gave me his business card, but I don't think his was a real business considering he had a yahoo.com.sg email address, only a mobile number listed, and a Tanjong Pagar cubicle farm for his office address. They looked like they were really free and were doing these tricks over and over to unsuspecting passers-by.

To the Harbourfront

Date: 15 Nov 2005
Time: 1053 hrs
Place: near Sim Lim Square

Perhaps they were trying to get to Sentosa? I was crossing the road at the junction outside Sim Lim Square when two young Indian men, one wearing a brown shirt and spectacles, another with a shirt and jeans and backpack, approached me to ask where they could take a bus to Harbourfront. Ignoring the fact that they were overdressed, I took out my PDA and checked the bus guide that I had in there, but I couldn't find any direct bus that they could take. I told them to walk down a short distance to the Little India MRT station and take the train from there. They thanked me and shook my hand.

We don't own it anymore

Date: 10 Nov 2005
Time: 1907 hrs
Place: Near Raffles Hotel

(sorf) Young bearded (?) boy in bermuda shorts and backpack asking for Raffles Hotel. Don't think he's staying there...

Scary monster shopping carts

Date: 08 Nov 2005
Time: 1848 hrs
Place: Plaza Singapura

I'm at the place where the shopping carts are parked outside of Carrefour when a little bespectacled Indian boy wearing a "Scary Monster" t-shirt comes up to me and asks "Can you help me?" He couldn't figure out how to take out the one dollar coin deposit that was in his cart. I told him "you just put the thing in", and he quickly managed to figure it out himself, and then he ran off, embarassed.

Something tells me he's not going to be asking for any more help or directions from strangers after this...

perhaps it's for his drunken prawns?

Date: 04 Nov 2005
Time: 1732 hrs
Place: Plaza Singapura

(both) We are waiting in line at the Carrefour with a substantial amount of groceries when some guy in a chef's uniform comes by, cutting the queue, with a single can of Carlsberg, asking us to let him go first because he is in a rush to go to work, and then later he says that he's "fang gong liao" (just finished work). Liar.

To market to market

Date: 02 Nov 2005
Time: 1204 hrs
Place: near Newton Circus

I was making my way back to Little India and didn't feel like taking the train all the way down to Dhoby Ghaut in order to change to the Northeast Line back up again, and so I decided to try taking a bus. Getting off at Newton MRT, I was jaywalking to cross the road to get to the bus stop. As I was crossing, there was an late-middle aged Sikh couple waiting to cross to, but obviously somewhat bewildered by the heavy flow of vehicles towards the circus. He was wearing a light blue turban, white shirt and singlet and brown pants, and the lady had a veil over her head, wearing a cream dress, walking quite slowly. They wanted to know if there was a market around here, which they've heard was a very large one. I couldn't think of any markets in the area so I suggested that perhaps they were looking for the Tekka market. I told them it was quite a ways and perhaps they should take a cab but they seemed to have (well, at least he seemed to have, because he was talking in his heavily accented English to me and his wife was keeping quiet) some irrational fear of dishonest taxi drivers. So he asked if they could walk and I said it was quite far away to walk and probably not a good idea given the hot weather, and they could take a bus, so they walked with me to the bus stop. When we reached there they were discussing something, probably in the Sikh language, and then abruptly decided to walk, but walking in the opposite direction. Strange.

The return of the Tai-Tai

Date: 6 Oct 2005
Time: About 1600 Moscow time
Place: Red Square, Moscow

(sorf) A middle aged lady, the Russian equivalent of a tai-tai, asked for her photo to be taken. Aren't that many Asian looking people walking about Moscow, yet tourists will be tourists.

Do I look Russian to you?

Date: 5 Oct 2005
Time: 1108 hrs Moscow Time
Place: Outside Kievskaya Station, Moscow

(sorf) Fifty-something man with mustache and purple plastic bag and his twenty-something blonde son asked for directions. In Russian. Doesn't wielding a camera make one a tourist?

Cubicles, part two

Date: 15 Sep 2005
Time: 1128 hrs
Place: "The Factory"

(sorf) Again I get asked for directions to other people's cubicles...

"I read your face, it says you're a sucker..."

Date: 11 Sep 2005
Time: 0955 hrs
Place: Table no. 9, a HDB market

(both of us) A man in a polo t-shirt, hand carrying a bag, comes up to us and asks if we want our faces read and to tell us our fortunes.

Do they have upsidedown lifts down under?

Date: 09 Sep 2005
Time: 1824 hrs
Place: Shaw Towers

Three Aussie Tai-Tai tourists got into the lift to try to get to the cinemas, but I told them to go back to the first floor, past the McDonalds, and to take the other lift.

Hubba hubba

Date: 31 Aug 2005
Time: 1039 hrs
Place: HDB Hub

(sorf) A little old man, dressed in shorts and slippers, anxiously waving his letter with the address. He needed to go to the Central CDC office, stating so in Cantonese. I answered in my very wobbly Teochew, then took him up the wrong lift lobby. Had to go check the map and get to the right one.

I not American

Date: 17 Aug 2005
Time: 2046 hrs
Place: Earshot store, The Arts House

Middle aged female tourist from the States with sort of white-ish hair asking where to buy "I Not Stupid" cos she watched the show and really enjoyed it and wanted to buy back copies for her friends. Told her to go to Dhoby Ghaut via MRT and buy it from the cheap VCD/DVD shops at Plaza Singapura.

Adjustable fitness

Date: 25 Jul 2005
Time: 1930 hrs
Place: Fitness First

I'm at the gym and someone asked me how to adjust the bike seat.

Indian stitches

Date: 25 Jul 2005
Time: 1747 hrs
Place: somewhere in Orchard Road

(sorf) Nice middle aged Indian lady asked me where to buy cross stitch materials.

No, it doesn't matter how busy you look

Date: 22 Jul 2005
Time: 1840 hrs
Place: Near HDB Hub

(sorf) Got accosted by a guy trying to do a survey on skin care while trying to find the cinema while on the phone, sms-ing.

Do we look hungry?

Date: 06 Jul 2005
Time: 1708hrs Bangkok Time
Place: In a cab on our way to Sirocco

(both of us) Sweet Chinese lady offered us food outside of a Hindu temple. Do we look hungry? Maybe we just look curious. Just boggled by the idea that they were giving out free food, even to tourists passing through in a cab.

Sour or Sweet?

Date: 06 Jul 2005
Time: 1447 Bangkok Time
Place: Tops Supermarket, MBK basement

(both of us) Some thirty-something woman asked us, in English, if the mangoes were sour or sweet. Er, like how would we know unless we've taken a bite into them??

Unmarketable

Date: 14 Jun 2005
Time: 1358 hrs
Place: The Factory

(sorf) Again I get asked for directions in my cubicle! White haired dude asking where Mag Lum sits. And Pau Lin. And Ah Yoke. And he turns out to be from marketing!

passage through little india

Date: 11 Jun 2005
Time: 2340 hrs
Place: Junction of Kitchener Road and Serangoon Road

(both of us) It was just a couple of seconds, standing at the corner, waiting for the traffic lights to change. I was looking forward, and sorf was looking back, just briefly. Without any distinguishing reason (I mean we weren't the only people on the street that busy Saturday night, with all the Mustafa traffic and lonely construction workers on their day off), two Indian men in colourful short-sleeved polo t-shirts and jeans came right at us, pounced on us from behind, and asked "How to get to Lau Pa Sat?" I was stumped, for the first thing I wondered was if these people were seriously wanting to *walk* there. "By?" I asked, and he said "Taxi." That was sorf's turn to go "Huh?", because why would you need directions if you were going to take a cab? I pointed in the direction of Jalan Besar and off they went happily with a "thank you very much" and leaving a puff of smoke.

boon lay boondocks

Date: 7 Jun 2005
Time: 1404 hrs
Place: In front of Swenson's Crown Prince Hotel

(sorf) A soft spoken white-haired Asian lady with an ang-moh accent, dressed like a Japanese tourist with a white shirt over a coloured t-shirt, hat and shades, asking how to take the MRT to Boon Lay Interchange. It's surprising that tourists still want to go visit the Bird Park in this kind of heat.

This happened just minutes after being stopped by some Citibank salesperson after half a dozen people walked past him. What exactly goes through their tiny sale-person minds as they filter through the crowds that throng past them? hmm...

personal space

Date: 31 May 2005
Time: 1056 hrs
Place: SPH office

(sorf) I'm the only one plugged into headphones out of 4 people and I get asked directions to Judith Tan's desk!

what do you call pregnant bimbos?

Date: 25 May 2005
Time: 1735 hrs
Place: Paragon Shopping Center

(sorf) I think this unsolicited accosting on the street is getting way out of hand. Three times in the space of minutes. Twice by survey girls who went out of their way to stop her and once by some guy selling postcards.

Moments before, in the lift coming down, a couple of bimbo ah-lians got on at the 3rd floor to get off at the 2nd. That short journey was sufficiently long enough to overhear a declaration that if she's pregnant she won't wear maternity clothes but sexy things.

I think the headlines for the week were about educated women choosing abortion as their choice of birth control...

a crow, defiant

Date: 22 May 2005
Time: 1113 hrs
Place: Outside Farrer Park MRT

I was trying to find where my favorite prawn noodle stall at the Race Course Road kopitiam had moved to, so I was walking up and down Rangoon Road and Kitchener Road, in vain. There was a crow, standing his ground on top of a metal drain cover, enjoying shade from a nearby tree filled with noisy crows, and generally oblivious to the passers-by. I had passed it twice already in my noodle quest. So I started disturbing it, touching its beak with the bottom of my slipper, when another crow-like creature came out of the MRT exit and (it seems, almost) made a bee-line towards me.

He was a long-haired middle-aged Malay man, dressed rocker-mat style, with a dirty sling bag and his hair flowing out from under his cap. "Where is the Mustafa?" he asked, the article "the" being quite appropriate actually. I pointed him down the road and to the right and off he went, leaving me to wonder what exactly he was looking to buy from "the" Mustafa, and whether he'll be wearing rock t-shirt and jeans for the rest of his life.

(Later I asked the angry Putien stall matriach and she feigned ignorance without uttering a word, perhaps she'd gotten a sore throat screaming at her teenage rebellious daughters. The drinks stall auntie was much more helpful, even explaining why she did not go "support" the stall, among other things. I think people should talk to her more.)

What's interchange in Mandarin?

Date: 12 May 2005
Time: 1803 hrs
Place: Braddell MRT

I was waiting for sorf to join her on the train, at the Braddell MRT southbound platform, when a female Chinese national and her son asked me how to get to "Wen Li" (Boon Lay?) and mumbled something about IMM. I explained to her as best I could about changing trains but I wasn't sure how to say "interchange" in Mandarin. They got on the next train and left.

Machine trouble

Date: 07 May 2005
Time: 2345 hrs
Place: Near Upper Boon Keng

(sorf) At one of the ATM machines, there was a foreman and his Thai worker who asked for help regarding his wonky ATM card.

It's never too far

Date: 30 Apr 2005
Time: 1417 hrs
Place: Le Meridien bus stop

(both) We had just gotten off the bus 167 together when two teenage Malaysian girls asked sorf in Mandarin "which way to Plaza Sing?", and "is it far?"

French dog

Date: 14 Apr 2005
Time: 1609 hrs
Place: Cannes

(sorf) A sweet little old French lady walking her dog stopped to introduce me to her pet. He's called Pearl. Hee hee

Take me to Taka

Date: 30 Mar 2005
Time: 1505 hrs
Place: Orchard Boulevard

An Indian national asked me at the traffic light, "Where is Taka?"

film buffs everywhere

Date: 19 Mar 2005
Time: 1829 hrs
Place: In the MRT train between City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut

Thirty-something Chinese man. Yuppie? Groupie? Tapped me on the shoulder and asked me where I got the SIFF catalogue from. Told him it was actually a short films brochure (shown at the temporary history museum) and offered him the SIFF website URL instead.

Geographically misplaced

Date: 18 Mar 2005
Time: 1103 hrs
Place: Club Street Carpark

Five schoolgirls wearing Geography Club and Computer Club t-shirts asked me "Where is Far East Square?"

maybe he needs money for shampoo?

Date: 9 Mar 2005
Time: 1435 hrs
Place: Plaza Singapura outside Giordano

(sorf) Balding man asked for directions to POSB.

ribbons

Date: 9 Mar 2005
Time: 1123 hrs
Place: Spotlight, Plaza Singapura

(sorf) Girl, pregnant, from China, asking for advice, in Chinese, with some English thrown in, about ribbons.

Well, maybe arts and crafts will be the universal language one day. For crafty girls at least. :)

Where the young men go...

Date: 02 Mar 2005
Time: 1655 hrs
Place: Outside the Old Parliament House

(sorf) There was a fashion show going on outside the Art House, and a couple asked how to get to YMCA.

it's holiday time

Date: 1 Feb 2004
Time: 1215 hrs
Place: Kinokuniya, KLCC, KL

Caucasian Tourist in bermudas and sunglasses in his hair asked me the time. Looks like he might have gotten stood up on holiday. Does he not have a handphone to tell him the time?

cos that's where the money is

Date: 12 Jan 2005
Time: 1210 hrs
Place: City Hall MRT

(sorf) Someone asked for directions to the bank queue.

people lie

Date: 4 Jan 2005
Time: 1839 hrs
Place: Outram Park MRT, NE Line

She was short and 50, the target audience of public transport. She asked me how to get to City Hall MRT, and I was about to give her the complicated way to get there, when she then revealed she was going to Pasir Ris MRT. Why didn't she just say that upfront? I told her to follow the green East-West line signs.

you need a laptop, ma'am

Date: 4 Jan 2005
Time: 1700 hrs
Place: Starbucks, Plaza Singapura

(sorf) Asked by some woman how to surf the net.