Singapore Day 14

Hey guys!

So, instead of a summary of today, I'm going to give you a sum up of last night since today just started.

Boyfriend and I went out to Clarke Quay which is, apparently, the nice and touristy spot in Singapore.  The prices sure reflected that, but in my opinion, it was worth it.  We walked around for a bit looking for a place to eat and eventually stopped at a bar/café type place called The Connoisseurs Concerto.  It's small, a little dark, but beautiful.  The some of the light fixtures were made to look like vinyl albums and there were paintings and prints of different musical artists up on the walls.  The service was so nice and patient.  And the food was delicious.  I ordered bourbon beef with a side of, what was supposed to be a stuffed portobello mushroom cap, but I guess our server misheard me because I ended up with an omelette with potatoes and tomatoes in it.  Still very tasty.  I have no complaints.  The beef was so soft and the flavour was incredibly rich, yet not overwhelming in the least.  It was wonderful.  Expensive, but wonderful. The atmosphere, the service, the food, all beautiful to the point where I could legitimately justify the prices.  If we had a place like this at home, I would be there every once in a while for a treat.

Now, something I didn't tell you all was that I'm not a night life person in the least.  I don't do bars, alcohol, clubs, dancing.  None of that.  But, I've gotten curious lately.  I don't know what things are really like inside bars at all.  My only experience of bars, really, is what I've seen on television.  Knowing this, Boyfriend set out to bring me to one last night.  Completely unexpected for me since, with all the moving, we've never gone out for dinner without Boyfriend's mom.  Before you take it the wrong way, that isn't a complaint at all.  It's just been somewhat expected because we've all been in these two small spaces moving things around, packing, and unpacking for the past two weeks.  When he told me what we were doing, I must say, I was pretty excited.  It was something I haven't even seen at home before.

On top of it already being out of character for me to be a part of night life and visiting a bar, I also got an alcoholic beverage.  For those who know me, this is not something one would ever expect of me.  I didn't get a wine or a beer, though.  I got a Bailey's toffee flavoured coffee.  At this point, it's been years since I've tasted alcohol not being cooked into food.  As Boyfriend put it when he tasted it,
"It tastes like alcohol."  It did, but after stirring the whipped cream into the drink and licking the spoon, you taste more of the coffee mixed in on the spoon.  The flavours, I found, complimented each other pretty well.  I'm still not much of a fan of alcohol at all, but I do have a growing fondness for coffee and I have been curious to taste what alcohol and coffee taste like together.  It was interesting to say the least.  I didn't hate it, but the final third of the drink was definitely tasting more and more of Bailey's; a taste that was getting a touch more difficult for me to handle as we finished the drink.  Again, I didn't hate it, but I did spend some time trying to analyse the taste in my mouth as it was different from the wines and beers my family has let me sip.  It's not a taste I would go out of the way for, to paraphrase Boyfriend, but it was a fascinating experience.  Now, if I go back, the next one will probably be the Irish Cream coffee.  That was always one I've been curious about.

Boyfriend, being the thoughtful guy he is, changed his order from an Oreo coffee drink to a plain coffee in case I didn't like the one I ordered.  It was so sweet of him.  Turns out, it was not a change he would ever regret.  His coffee came and when we tasted it, it was like no other.  It was literally the best plain coffee I have ever tasted.  And truly, I can say, never have I ever had plain black coffee until last night.  The closest would be a cappuccino with no added sugar.  Last night,  even I felt needed nothing to be added.  It was wonderful and somewhat sweet.  Not bitter at all like most hot brewed coffees.  I have to say, it's experiences like this that make me want to learn to make good coffees and espresso-based beverages more.

After dinner, we walked around the area which was wonderfully lit and music was playing in different sections of the space.  Although not our usual choice in music, we had a great time walking and listening to it.  It turns out, so did this one older man who was dancing to it with a younger lady.  Boyfriend and I were thoroughly enjoying seeing this man have fun.  It just goes to show that fun doesn't die with age.

After a while, we both decided that we wanted ice cream.  Me, being the type that I am, decided to go local and had a durian flavoured ice cream sandwich.  It was basically a block of durian ice cream that I got a slice of and wrapped in a bakery style slice of bread.  For those of you who don't know, Asian bakery breads are generally sweeter than something like Dempsters, so as strange as this dessert might sound, it was quite nice.  Boyfriend, being Boyfriend, doesn't like the smell of durian at all, but somehow ended up becoming curious enough to actually try my ice cream.  If I can explain his willingness to try it at all, then, his curiosity probably got the better of him like mine did with bars and night life.  He still doesn't like durian, but he can't say he hasn't tried it now.  I can't say I haven't tried durian before, but durian flavoured ice cream, I never touched until last night and it was exactly as you'd expect.  Since it's cold, though, the flavour isn't as strong.  Believe me when I say that it's much stronger than it tastes.  As it warms up a bit in your hands, it does begin to taste stronger and those around you might not appreciate your breath too much, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world.

When we finally got home, we spent a couple of hours watching Pulp Fiction.  But what came afterwards, neither of us were prepared for.  I was going into the bathroom to fill the kettle because we still do not have faucets installed, and I found a cockroach on the floor just chilling out.  I have seen two here prior to this, but neither have I really had to deal with.  This one was IN OUR LIVING SPACE.  What was I supposed to do?!  I called Boyfriend over and that's when chaos ensued.  We spent much longer than either of us care to admit trying to kill it.  When we finally did and got it out of the space, sleep was difficult to come by.  I would go into detail on how we got rid of the cockroach, but neither of us are particularly willing to let that information out at the moment.  Something you need to know is that where I come from, bugs, including cockroaches, are not that big because of winter--which I now appreciate even more--so, this experience was truly harrowing for me.  After at least a half hour of bringing ourselves back down from this adrenaline rush, we finally decided to sleep.  And so ended a good and crazy night of firsts.