Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Top 10 News 2011 (Singapore Version) (Part II)

After doing a Top 5 List, I realised that there were possibly 5 other news that I could add to this list to make it a Top 10. But I'm separating them into Part I and Part II, because  Part II concerns news that involve a tinge of incredulity. Click here for Part I.

6) H&M, A&F
Singaporeans are really good at four things- eating, shopping, complaining and queuing. So when Swedish high street fashion label H&M opened in Singapore (3 September 2011), 1500 people braved the rain and wind to enter the shop. Some even started camping the afternoon before.


(photo credit: cnngo.com)

As for Abercombie and Fitch, the 30 shirtless greeters caused quite a stir, attracting all kinds of people to take photos with these guys, like how Winnie the Pooh gets attracted to honey.


(photo credit: The Straits Times, Desmond Lim)

7) Night Safari cancels Halloween Horrors
At the Night Safari every year, there is a Halloween Horrors event. But, this year it was cancelled despite the 7 months preparation by the Singapore Polytechnic students. Reason given by Isabella Loh, Director & Group CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore?

"We are now staging a festival centered around Deepavali in October in our parks. This is a multi-cultural family event for all Singaporeans and tourists to join in. With our focus on Asian festivities, we have therefore decided to cancel Halloween in view of the clash in dates. 


(photocredit: 8flo lifestyle)

8) Occupy Raffles Place
With the Occupy movement all around the world, it is no surprise that it has landed on our shores. So, it was called Occupy Raffles Place, Raffles Place being the centre of Singapore's commercial activity. It was organised by a group called Occupy Singapore.

And here's the turnout.


 (photo credit: theonlinecitzen.com)

9) Curry Day 
A family, who had just moved here from China, had resorted to mediation because they could not stand the smell of curry that their Singaporean Indian neighbours would often cook. The Indian family, who were mindful of their neighbour’s aversion, had already taken to closing their doors and windows whenever they cooked the dish, but this was not enough.

“They said: ‘Can you please do something? Can you don’t cook curry? Can you don’t eat curry?’,” said Madam Marcellina Giam, a Community Mediation Centre mediator. But the Indian family stood firm. In the end, Mdm Giam got the Indian family to agree to cook curry only when the Chinese family was not home. In return, they wanted their Chinese neighbours to at least give their dish a try.

(quoted from Today)

This sparked off Cook A Pot of Curry, a facebook event where people from all walks of life in Singapore were invited to participate, and to cook a pot of curry. This spread beyond our shores and people from other countries indicated their attendance as well.

Here's a video by famous satirist blogger mrbrown.


10) McDonald's runs out of Curry Sauce 
Just another case in point on how much Singaporeans value our curry- when people discovered that there was no curry sauce in McDonald's outlets, it was as though life.is.now.over.


(photo credit: stomp.com.sg)

But later McDonald's updated on its Facebook page:
We know many of you have come to love our signature curry sauce, and are sorry that it is temporarily unavailable. This is due to unforeseen supply issues, and we expect new stocks of curry sauce to arrive from the US by the end of next week. To all our valued customers and curry sauce lovers in Singapore, we sincerely apologise and thank you for your patience!


This statement mended a few broken hearts. The good news? The new curry sauce does not contain peanuts, allowing people with peanut allergy to dip happily into this sauce. The bad news? It apparently tastes different, in a bad way.


(photo credit: stomp.com.sg)

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