breakfast with shamini
on day 2 of my retirement

my former colleague from balestier hill secondary, who retired at the same time, kept asking me how i was going to spend the first day of my retirement. i did not look upon this first day as a momentous day. to me, it was just like any other day. i got up early, at 5.30 a.m., and after lay bee had left for school, i went for a walk around the estate.

coming back from the walk, i did what i routinely do on a weekend or during the school holidays. i watered the plants, swept and mopped the floor, cleared the trash and cleaned up the dog's mess. did some marketing at ntuc because i was cooking lunch and dinner. drove ida to holland village in the evening.

on day 2, i met up with shamini for breakfast. picked her from her place at blk 153 bishan st 13. took her to this coffee shop at blk 21 sin ming drive. this coffee shop is also home to an award winning hainanese chicken rice stall. had two plain pratas with fish curry.

she had to be at admiralty at 11.30 a.m. to help out with the primary one pupils. as it was still too early for her, decided to show her some of the nature spots in that area. drove past lower peirce and headed for upper peirce. she vaguely remember having been there many years ago.

she was so fascinated by the long tailed macaques, especially the tiny ones clinging to their mothers. took some pictures of them with her mobile phone. in spite of all the exhortations, people are still feeding the monkeys. we saw a number of them eating oranges. the fruit could not have come from our forests.