💾 Archived View for rawtext.club › ~jmq › news › 2015-01-01-mockingjay.gmi captured on 2023-04-26 at 13:47:53. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Last night I chose a regular bedtime over an irregular dinnertime, despite Nassim Nicholas Taleb's contention that the body actually benefits from a bit of randomness in its refueling schedule. The exhaustion from a full day of activity helped me sleep soundly until 3:45 this morning. By that time, the dinner that Mom and Papa had left out for me had already been sitting at room temperature for at least six hours, and even before that it had undergone one heating and cooling cycle. I would not have been surprised at a high toxin and pathogen count if a microscope had been aimed at the plate of food I ended up calling breakfast.
Chasing after squash balls in attempts to return Papa's tactically-placed shots could only further agitate a stomach that was trying to digest a partially-poison breakfast. I felt a wave of nausea that forced me to quit after only two games. I went upstairs, took a shower, and tried to resist any vigorous activity for at least a few hours.
In contrast to New Year's Eve, which is still a regular business day in this workaholic country, today we could expect to encounter crowds wherever we went once we left the flat. Staying inside the rest of the morning gave us time to be more deliberate in our choice of where to go.
My suggestion to see Mockingjay Part I on the big screen was met with enthusiasm, thanks to the interest piqued by our recent rental of the Catching Fire DVD. There would be a 3:20 showing of the film at the Orchard Road Cathay cineplex, which Papa said lies within easy walking distance of Fort Canning Park. Our ten-year-old Singapore map made it seem as if that vacation's trip to the Asian Civilizations Museum would have taken us right past Fort Canning, but Papa insisted that we never climbed to the summit. So at 1 p.m. we set out down the hill of Clementi Woods to catch our first bus of the new year.
The 143 route held no surprises for me until we passed St. Teresa's church, at which point I was now being introduced to new streetscapes. Papa pointed out the apartment where Katherine had made her first home, as well as the storefronts and street markets of Chinatown.
We alighted the bus near the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station and strolled to Orchard Road, ducking into the Hawpar Centre to avoid what would turn out to be the only real rain on another relatively dry day. The Cathay cineplex closest to Dhoby Ghaut station actually wasn't showing Mockingjay, but the box officer suggested we try the other Cathay cineplex deeper inside the Orchard Road shopping district. Papa knew which direction she meant, so we took an unplanned walk past the presidential palace and found the cineplex right next to Uncle John's hotel.
The unplanned walk had given us an appetite, so after buying movie tickets we stopped at a Japanese restaurant for snacks and cold drinks. The restaurant's seating and plentiful natural light gave me the opportunity to continue reading the Tracy Chevalier novel that I had started after our last visit to the Clementi library.
The seats available when we bought tickets did not include three together at a comfortable viewing distance, so we had to sit apart as we enjoyed the movie. Despite the warning in one of the reviews Papa read, the movie didn't seem to end on a cliffhanger. None of the main characters' lives was up in the balance, and the exchanges of violence had come to a temporary standstill while each side reassessed its position. There were plenty of more suspenseful places to end the movie, but then the director would have been taunting the audience just as Katniss had sent Buttercup scampering after the moving spot illuminated by a flashlight.
After the movie we retraced our steps back to Fort Canning and explored the non-restricted parts of the hill. We descended the hill onto the street where Mom and I had visited the Peranakan museum, only this time the lack of rain gave the street a more cheerful color.
Papa navigated us toward the Singapore River via the Armenian Church, beside which I popped open the can of pork floss that he had bought for us on Orchard Road. Not wanting another repeat of yesterday's irregular dinnertime, we stopped at the Indochine restaurant on the waterfront for a tasty, refreshing meal.