the thing i love most in living here in singapore (as opposed to europe) is that it’s almost like being in pinas. it’s warm the whole year round; shorts and flip-flops are staple to everyone’s wardrobe. i love the local fruits and we’ve taken to eating longgans, lanzones, mangosteens and mangoes instead of the boring apple, which used to be our staple fruit back in germany. while i do miss picking apples and plums (by this time, we would have gone on our yearly picking expedition had we still been in germany), and none of the different mango varieties i’ve tried is up to par with the philippine carabao mango, we just love the variety of tropical fruits available here. altho if we so wanted, cherries, kiwis, plums, peaches, figs, fresh dates and other bounty from temperate regions are also available.

when i cook pinoy dishes (the few that i know), they also look more authentic. tinola with real green papaya and chili leaves (as opposed to improvising with kohlrabi and spinach). kangkong looks more like the kangkong i’ve always known, and not the spindly malnourished, refrigerated versions i used to get at the asian stores in germsland. funny, but i’ve also gotten back to eating my lumpiang gulay dipped in garlic-vinegar, instead of the sweet-and-sour sauce the asian restos seem to have taught the germans to eat it with. along with cookies and juice, jan has discovered novel snacks: boiled kamote dipped in sugar, boiled sweet corn, and fried saba bananas. typical pinoy promdi merienda, hehe.

and the absolute give-away that there’s a pinoy in the house: the filipino channel. i just follow a handful of programs, really. unfortunately i caught the just the tail end of the claudine-piolo series, but am now a follower of pangarap na bituin, hehe. i’ve been following papa piolo on asap (g, yung cd ko!), and find vhong navarro really entertaining. am not interested in lastikman, really, and feel sad that it has launched as that means i probably wouldn’t see vhong dance during guestings anymore. sigh. and though i sometimes find ruffa almost intolerable, the buzz completes my weekends. showbiz!

hm, i guess, being back in asia, my true colors are starting to show. am not just pinoy. jologs pa. haha!

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