Or in other parts of the world, Eid Mubarak works too.
For those who thought the Geylang bazaar was quiet, well, it wasn’t. At least not for the 17th since it would have closed on the 18th. Slashed prices. Kueh on sale. Everything had to go.
This year’s trend for outfits is Arabian style. Plus stalls doing henna designs on your hands and eyebrow threading besides the usual stalls of food, decorations and clothes.
The most unlikely to be at the bazaar appearance was…
Falun dafa riding on a bus. In a band. Going through Geylang Serai. It was like, the most random thing ever.
Here, have a little video of them passing through. The next surprising appearance was Upin & Ipin mascots at a photobooth. They’re cartoon characters from Malaysia and are quite popular too. For some reason, they had the mascots there for any photoshoots you like? I didn’t stick around much but I think it was a paid thing.
Also that established restaurants like Seoul Garden, Fish & Co etc have their own stalls too at the food section. Very interesting. Like more “professionals” in the food section instead of the usual bazaar food fare.
Let’s skip to Hari Raya itself. Or at least the food that you might usually see.
Food! From Hari Raya itself. Featuring pulut kuning which is yellow glutinous rice, very sticky, slightly sweet and I liiiike it. We have the usual ketupat too which is boiled rice cakes. In the third pic though is the instant ketupat which comes from a plastic bag that you boil in.
It’s softer than the regular ketupat and I do like the texture too. Usually goes with serunding (coconut), beef rendang and sambal goreng which is fried long beans, prawns, tofu and what have you depending on which style you like.
There’s one more that is called lemang, a white glutinous rice cake with nuts inside. It goes really well with the side dishes too.
Kueh! I guess you might call them sugary treats or tidbits but they don’t have the same meaning as “kueh”. We don’t bake them although other families do. For us, we just order or buy them.
Some kueh-kueh from the bottles! Pineapple tarts, kueh Dahlia (the bottle said that was the name) which is like a sweet biscuit and kek kukus or steamed cake.
It is more like fruit cake and it is rather addictive to eat.
For this day or month of visiting relatives/ friends, one also asks to be forgiven for any past wrong doing whether or purpose or not. To start anew!
Thus to all of you, selamat hari raya, maaf zahir dan batin.
Ps. That was the untranslated version of the paragraph above if you can’t tell. Heh. Till next week’s post then!
