In honor of World Shutdown Day, Jeremy and I removed our permanently bent fingertips from our laptop keyboards for a full 24 hours and went out and did some “real life” living – so no blog post yesterday. Thankfully, we used the time to relearn how to talk to each other using our mouths instead of IMing each other from across the room.
Edda had her birthday party at her school today. She fell asleep during the first part, but perked up when the cake appeared.
There were 6 birthdays in Edda’s and Vince’s class this month and thank goodness we are through with all of them. I’m am totally birthday-ed out – no more wrapping of gifts or eating of delicious cake at 10 in the morning.
I also made good on my promise to eat durian before I left Singapore. Durian is a tropical fruit that smells totally disgusting – it’s not allowed in public buildings or on the subway, but many people swear it’s their favorite thing in the world. I’ve smelled it many times, but I’ve never tasted it. Someone said it’s like a taste of heaven in the middle of an open sewer. Some of Edda’s teachers said that they looooooooovvvvvveee durian, so last night I went to the neighborhood durian stand and asked the uncle for the most expensive one. I spent $15S on a 1.5 kilo durian.
I brought it home and Jeremy wouldn’t allow it in the house. It spent the night suspended on a bicycle handlebar on the patio. By morning, our patio (which is open air) did smell like an open sewer.
After Edda’s birthday party, Jeremy and the kids high-tailed it to McDonald’s and we gathered a bunch of teachers (outside near the playground) – including the principal and the vice principal to gather around and eat a lobe of this fruit.
So what does it taste like? Really, really awful. Terrible. It’s creamy and nutty and caramel-ly and also kind of seaweed-y. All this while smelling incredibly awful, but people around me were complementing the wonderful aroma. I could really only eat one bite, and the rest I gave to all the folks around me who were in ecstasy. They kept trying to get me to eat more because they felt like they were being too greedy with their portions. No thank you! Really, you can have the rest!
Then you are suppose to drink saltwater from the rind to get rid of the heaty-ness. Whatever that is. You can’t get too heaty around here.
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Scientific name: Samanea saman
Common name: Rain Tree
Location: Singapore
I did not kno0w I was not supposed to be on my computer the other day. Loved the blog about Durian. Sounds great. Can you send me some?!
Oh man. I’m getting chills just thinking about durian. Nasty nasty stuff. I bet the durian connosieurs will say that durian has to be fresh to be it’s best. 🙂
Have you tasted Jack Fruit? Compare with that, Durian (smell) is nothing!!
No, no jack fruit yet. I’ll have to go hunting for it (using my nose I suppose!)