our Saturday night date

We went to a movie the other night.  We saw "The Iron Lady". We liked it, even if many scenes of sitting around table with her cabinet. I thought it showed the woman, the mother, the grocer's daughter, and she really was amazing- first female leader of the western world. She did some nasties (IRA), but it showed her courage to stand by why she thought right. Big deal of doing what is right, not what will get you elected next time. (Hello America) She hand wrote a letter to the family of every soldier lost in the Flaulklands. And of course Streep was wonderful.
The Academy Awards are this weekend. I have to figure out if I can watch them. It would be the first in years (ever?) that I would miss them.
But going to a movie. You buy your tickets ahead of time. On the internet. And you give your F.I.N number or passport number for the purchase. Who says Big brother is not watching. (FIN is foreign identification number- for Tim, his employment pass, for me my dependant's pass- that just wrankles a little). You have to pick the theatre and I don't know where any are so I just picked one. It was downtown. They put the cinema on the top floor of the mall. Strangest thing. And the escalators are not together so you circumnavigate the atrium of the mall each floor, of course past all the stores, to get to it. Then a sign says "Seating theatre #3 now", (like boarding the plane) and you go in. To tiny theatre, with huge seats, and the AC at about 20'. We have gone to two now, and froze both times. The reproduction on to the screen is like home movies. None of the digital, where you can count the pores on everyone's nose. What surprised me was how the audience "got" the little word plays, subtle humour, and quickly. I guess it was a young audience. Judging by the singlish I hear most places it surprised me. The stands outside for food offer popcorn (not bad) and hot dogs wrapped in bacon. We get a fruit smoothie. Mango, peach, strawberry, yum.
I headed off to the Post Office the other day, to get a parcel that they had attempted to deliver. My sister-in-law mailed an espresso pot. I managed to kill ours. (I put it on the stove without water below. I heard this clunk, and the handle had melted off.) I went on from the post office, along the same street by bus again, to find an electric heating pad at a mall. Luckily the bus kept on the same street and I made it. And found a pad. Things are not easy to find, or not for me, at least. But got on the bus to come back, straight along East Coast Road. The bus turned-on to another street, so I got off, walked back, and got on another bus on East Coast Road. It turned too. So I ascertained that it was gong to an MRT station, and I thought fine, I'll get a cab from there. Well at least 30 minutes later I got to the MRT and the lineup for a cab was 30 people long! It was a long trip home.
The bus routes are like spider webs. I wondered why I was having such  time getting my bearings. It's because Singapore is like London, a collection of small towns grown together. So you have these clumps of old town or village like communities strung together with more modern high rises that are huge. The roads that join them together wander around, change names many times. The MRT is pretty easy to manage but the buses are different story. Now I do have an app for buses. I just have to learn to use it!
We found our way to a new church last night. (Tim is in the sim this morning) I wasn't crazy about the feeling I got from the one we were going to. For Tim it doesn't matter. For me it does. I grew up protestant where a very important part of church was social. Join the choir, teach Sunday school, Join groups. I didn't get any feel for that. So we tried a new one. The churches are new, rise up off the ground one story, so there is parking on the street level under the church. The cars are packed in like I have never seen. I can not imagine getting out of that lot after mass. The congestion, the pollution. Oh my. But upstairs for the church. This one actually had big ornate doors at the entrance. But modern inside. An excellent choir. Asking for members. But I noticed none were over 30. hmmm. A very family oriented service, children withdrawn for teaching, and a homily that asked for some thought. I enjoyed it much better. And th eAC was only about 23'!
We went for wonderful vegetarian food after, where they do wonderful things with mushrooms. All those wonderful asian mushrooms- monkeys brains, oysters, many I can't remember.
I don't want this to be a story of my rehabilitation, as my dear twin pointed out. I appreciated the feed back, but what I do miss in my life here, is the chewing with friends about life and feed back from friends. So update. My wrists seem frozen in range of motion but much of the nerve pain is gone. So stretching, slowly oh so slowly. And much ice. At least I have the time for it.
A not very good photo of this pretty little area where we went for movie and supper. Old buildings restored with commercial below. It is called Katong. An old town.

So off to ice!

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