National Day

We celebrated Singapore's 55 birthday at home, like most Singaporeans this year.

In the morning we timed our morning swim in order to watch helicopters flying the Singapore flag along the coast. We spotted the jets zipping over the island for a few seconds too, but we should have been in a more open space to really see those. Festivities had been designed to keep crowds at bay and people close to home. Celebration are usually held in a giant open air stadium and include a military parade, parachuters, live performances, and end with a giant fireworks display - but not this year.

Instead these events had all been split into different locations and times across the island. There was a military parade around the perimeter of the island; parachuters did their show in the central island; and the usual huge fireworks display had been split into 10 locations chosen to maximize viewing from a distance. We couldn't see fireworks from our balcony on the south coast, but we could hear them. If we had gone up Mt. Faber, I'm sure we would have seen fireworks at a few of the locations in the distance.

Instead we watched the fireworks in the end of the "Evening Show" televised by Singapore. We watched the whole show through it's live YouTube showing as we don't have cable (It's just Netflix for us, while we eagerly await Disney Plus Singapore). You can watch the Evening Show here, if you're interested.

It was a 90 minute live theater special of dance, song, and music designed specifically to celebrate Singapore. There were a few interviews of Singaporeans and how COVID-19 has effected them. It was a beautiful show focusing on the strength and resilience of Singaporeans through out this difficult year. It was filmed in the a theater and the empty seats and social distancing were highlighted as part of the show too.

I found the focus on COVID this year sad; Last year was a more uplifting show. But the music was beautiful and us girls loved all the dance routines.

We also tried making a Singaporean treat: Dragon Fruit - Soursop Drinks. We picked up fresh dragon fruit and fresh soursop to do this. The soursop was more expensive than we were expecting. We got a smaller one about the size of a squished cantaloupe melon for $10, but many of the ones in the bin were $30. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of these odd looking fruits.

We tried two different approaches with the soursop. I tried blending the flesh with ice; and Jonathan tried making juice from the flesh first. Neither one worked very well. I had a typical migraine moment and exploded the blender (the bottom came off). I saved enough for the drinks and hopefully my blender is fine. Jonathan's juice was too watery to add to crushed ice, but okay to drink straight.

I think we'll be letting the hawker centre continue to make these for us.