Month: July 2009

Cart and I were hosting my friends Lynn and Francesco for dinner last night. We were showing them around the house – the bedroom, the study room, the balcony et al.

I forgot to take a picture of Lynn and Francesco, so I’ll put this pic of me instead 😛

It was when we were in the kitchen that they were curious to see the laundry room. Francesco almost opened the door before Cart stopped him.

I was horrified. Because beyond the door was of unspeakable nature. It was something that must never be seen by a mortal.

It was the clutter monster lurking.

It so cluttered with newspapers, empty bottles and plastic bags that I was so embarassed. Fortunately, they did not go on further.

The next day, I could not hold my procrastination to tidy the laundry room any longer. I decided to face the clutter monster.

It daunting. It was a long and tedious battle – Clearing and folding all those plastic bags. But several hours later, the clutter monster left and all was relatively peaceful in the kingdom of Laundria again.

But that really made me wonder. How was it that we had so many plastic bags in the first place?

Cart and I, as with most people, have develop the habit of saving the plastic bags, mostly to use it to throw rubbish in before sending it to the main bins outside the house.

Here in Italy, rubbish bins are colour coded according to the type of material.

It seems like for every time that we used one to throw rubbish in, 4 new plastic bags comes in.

If P is for incoming plastic bag and p is for outgoing plastic bags, then P = 4p hence P/p = 4 meaning they are directly proportional. And eventually we will be chased out of our home.

What is interesting in Italy is that, shoppers would have to pay for their plastic bags. Whereas in Singapore, you could get it for free normally or 5 cents each bag once a month when Fairprice does their Bring-your-own-bag scheme.

In any case, you could choose between a regular plastic bag or the more expensive biodegradable one.

Cart and I found out that the biodegradable one isn’t very strong though. We put a couple of bottles in it and the bag broke. So, ironically, people would buy the cheaper and stronger plastic anyway.

But what is stranger to me is how we are so willing to pay for plastic bags. I think I’d rather carry a large shopping bag. More for controlling the clutter monster rather than anything else.

Much better!

By the way, here is a video on how to fold your plastic bags into triangles

And thus, here ends today’s blog post of the exciting life of me

I’ve always loved flowers. I’ve always dreamed about having a garden full of beautiful and colourful flowers. I was thrilled when my classmate gave me this as a house warming party

What a lovely little flower. So bright!

But after about a month, cobwebs started to form on the flowers. The flowers itself started to shrivel.

I thought it was best to chop the flowers off. The plant seems to be doing ok, but it looks so sad now!

And some while back, I bought for myself a nice pot of Begonias

It was so pretty. I loved looking at the yellows and greens. They were so cheerful looking.

But for some reason, its not doing too well either. Its starting to be brown and its wilting!

What am I doing wrong?!?!

Did I water too much? Did I water too little? Did I give it too much sun? Did I not give it enough sun? Its seems more complicated than taking care of kittens!

I seem to be an accidental plant killer!

So far in Italy, there are a couple of Asian foodstuff that I could get, such as Thai rice, star anise, coconut milk and others. These are sold in kiosks. There will always be one or two in each market.

Lemongrass and Pandan leaves are among the basic ingredients for Malay food. To me, Nasi Lemak and Ayam Masak Merah doesn’t taste complete without them. And as of now, I have yet to find them here in Rome.

Through friends, Cart found out that there could be a possibility of getting the stuff that we need from a place called Mercato Esquillino.

As Cart and I were a little concerned about searching for parking for the car, we decided to take the subway instead.

A couple of the subways here are interesting. They were painted with so much graffiti that it even looks like an artwork! We dropped down to the Termini station and had a walk.

Going down the street, it is an interesting looking, but rather rough looking area here. A couple of the buildings look dilapilated and just sad. It made me wonder why anyone would live there.

We also passed by quite a number of chinese owned shops selling bags, shoes and clothes.

At length we reached Mercato Esquillino. It was a large place. that was divided into two areas. One for foodstuff and the other was for apparels.

When we entered, I was really surprised at what was in front of me.

I didn’t feel like I was in Rome as I found so many different kiosks with owners of different nationalities selling various types of foodstuff – Items from Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, Africa and others.

I found an Indian man selling Indian spices. I could detect him talking in Tamil to his customers. There were a Chinese lady speaking Italian-accented Mandarin. This was a very interesting place indeed and it was almost ironic that there were only a handful of Caucasian sellers.

After going a few rounds the market, asking for Pandan Leaves and Lemongrass, we were faced with the unfortunate news that there were none. We were advised to try our luck the next time by going there again very early.

We then headed to the other part of the mercato where there were bales of bling cloths, waiting to be made. This reminded me of Geylang and Sultan Mosque Street. Back in Singapore, my seamstress Mum and I would be there every now and then to buy cloth to be made into Baju Kurong.

I felt sad as this will be the first year that I’d be celebrating Hari Raya without the family.

After exploring the market, walking out, one of the first thing that I spotted was this :

As I love Indian food, I nudged Cart to enter. We were both very hungry from our recce. We ordered a plate of rice each with gravy and a couple of fried snacks.

Granted that it was not really what you’d get in Little India in Singapore, it was still decent. It eased the feeling of homesickness a little bit.

Esquilino is an interesting place. Its a bit far for Cart and I to be doing our weekly grocery shopping, but I think that we’ll visit again.

For our quest in search of Lemongrass and Pandan Leaves.