Busyness, Green Card, and the Forbidden Fruit

It has been a while since I last posted. The past several weeks have been incredibly busy for me at work.

And so I neglected my blog postings. But things are a little calmer now, and I hope to be back out exploring the city and sharing my thoughts here.

A couple of interesting things did happen these past few weeks though. For one, I received my Employment Pass (or work permit/visa). I can now work in Singapore! See the photo on this page. It is a little green card with my name on it that I keep with my passport. Beyond allowing me to work in Singapore, this little card also allows me to sign up for utilities, phone service, and internet in my apartment (an unusual arrangement with my housing agent allowed me to have running water and lights up till now!).

I also had an interesting experience with some local food last week. There is a fruit here in Singapore called 'durian'. It is well known as a controversial fruit. It seems to please the Asian palate, but is renowned for being disliked (detested, hated??) by westerners. It has a very powerful odor and taste. I heard many ominous rumors about the durian in my first weeks here. Some said it smelled and tasted like rotten meat. Others said it was like “lamb soaked in detergent”. Indeed for its odor, it is not permitted on the subway or buses around the city (note the photo of the "NO DURIAN" signs on the MRT (mass rapid transit) ).

Well, I tried some durian the other night. I had an American colleague, Dave, in town for a business meeting last week. We spent the greater part of the week toiling away on a project presentation to a potential client. There were a couple of work sessions running to midnight and a lot of long days. But we did get the chance to take a day off before he left and we did some sight seeing together. For dinner in the evening, we met a couple of friends I had recently made, Ave and Nirwan.

We ate some ‘smashed’ chicken, beef, and bean curd from an Indonesian restaurant in a shopping centre called ‘Lucky Plaza’ on Orchard Road. We then had some Turkish ice cream from a shop nearby. Over dessert we were discussing different Singaporean and Asian customs and foods. Of course the infamous durian question came up. We then decided that Dave and I had to try durian. So we took a bus to a food plaza in another part of town. There we found a small stand selling various fruits – including durain. We bought one large fruit for $7 SGD.

So what is durain? What does it look like? It is a largish, green-skinned fruit – about the size of an American football and covered in short spines. Inside is a soft, creamy, yellow flesh surrounding 8-10 large brown seeds. You crack open the durain with a knife (as did our fruit vendor) and then pull out the seeds, which are covered in the creamy yellow flesh.

And so I ate it…

Durian does have a strong odor. And an ‘interesting’ taste. It was not at all what I expected. I neither liked it nor strongly disliked it. It had sort of a spicy flavor. There was definitely something unpleasant about it. But it did not taste like rotted meat. The worst part was the lingering aftertaste… the fruit was with me the rest of the evening.

It was a fun experience and I am satisfied at having tried durian. Though, I see no need to go back for seconds!

(We've got some photos of the durian event that I'll try to post in a couple of days)