It is partially in reference to me eating my father's birthday cake last night, tongue-in-cheek. Given actually this Friday (his actual birth date) my father has to go for a bowling tournament and in view of my classes tomorrow and Thursday, the family, or rather my father cut the cake earlier. It was no surprise a durian cake was being bought.
It's not that I don't like it (I'm okay with it), but I rather go for maybe chocolate, coffee or a Black Forest cake. I know I am biased but, the three are among my most favourites, especially the Black Forest one. I had it as my birthday cake last year.
If there is one thing which will never change in the Singapore society, it's that we do like to travel. Other than eating and shopping, that is. If there are travel fairs (like the one being held recently by Natas - National Association of Travel Agents Singapore), you can guarantee the crowds will be there and it's more than just checking out the latest travel deals. Try to book for that next holiday destination weeks before the June holidays, tough luck. The situation had cropped up before (it even made its way into a newspaper report once). We are really that kiasu (afraid to lose), even when it comes to travelling!
Let's face it. Singapore is an island nation in the beginning. We were being brought up to that fact (the one thing I can never change about my birthplace). If you want to explore the world, travelling is the best thing. But try telling travel-conscious Singaporeans to stop travelling for the sake of saving the environment. Yeah, when you board a plane, there's bound to be emissions, no matter how near or far you are going. Except that okay, travelling to nearer destinations has lesser emission. In Germany some time ago, this was raised by the politicians.
Okay. I know climate change has become quite a big issue in recent times, with various ways on 'going green'. But cutting out on travelling? Excuse me, countries like Thailand do depend on the tourism dollar to boost their GDP (gross domestic product) growth. Telling us Singaporeans not to travel...it's almost unthinkable. And for crying out loud, I had never boarded a plane before in my life yet (how pathetic, huh). I am thinking, when politicians need to meet their counterparts from another country, how are they are going to travel.
It's like it's a good time to follow the German national football team recently in their Euro 2008 qualifiers. And for me, I had been following them since the World Cup. So don't say I am a glory hunter or something given I read that Germany's footballing great Franz Beckbenbauer is saying the national side is 'number one in Europe at the moment'. Aha! But really, if I speak from a viewpoint of just a normal football fan, I will still be impress at how Germany's being doing lately.
From the matches I had been seeing, it's nice football. And for some weird reasons (I am only revealing this now), I'm always 'stressful' watching England in action and not so for the case of Germany. The pattern kind of showed up during last year's World Cup itself in front of me.
And you know something must had happened to the papers here when the ST (Straits Times) Sports section is starting to talk about Germany all over again in terms of football. In the usual 'Wild Weekend' column which summarises some of the happenings in football over each weekend, this week's edition (which is today) is a case of comparing the two bitter football rivalries and how their luck had been running since the World Cup ended and it boils down to having the right mentor. *pretending to be sarcastic* - Horrors! The England-minded ST is talking about Germany now! What has the world come into? But then again, they did the same thing too when host nation Germany was starting to pick up paces last year. The attacking mentality which all started with the ex-national coach Juergen Klinsmann (and how I miss the good and happier times now, thinking about it).
Since then, there has been a change of hands in the coaching department but the attacking mentality still remains. After all, I still remembered very well that the moment former assistant-turn-national coach Joachim Loew took over the hotseat after his friend stepped down, one of those things he had set out to do is to continue what Klinsmann had left off. And one of the first things he had said after becoming the national coach is that he want to make Germany the best in Europe (after all, his contract last till the end of Euro 2008). It more or less materialised when the Euro 2008 qualifiers came kicking in. It made me like the German national team even more, knowing that they will still continue in my faith over them which started in the World Cup last year. So when the rest of Singapore can talk about how England is doing in their qualifiers (which is starting to go...downhill), I at least still have Germany to cheer about.
My younger brother can tease at his elder sister for supporting Germany for all he cares. My father has already let it out that that I am a Germany supporter during the Chinese New Year visits to one of our relatives when we were talking about football. There is nothing to hide for me.
It's actually very funny and weird. But then again, I don't know. The papers do acknowledged Germany's style of playing all along. We had been following England given the EPL is on here. The irony of it all, the Bundesliga is not shown here in the beginning. I recently read an interview of Fulham's German defender Moritz Volz on the Guardian website or something on the popularity of his country's domestic league internationally and it's not really there like the EPL.
Now you know why of the first two sentences I brought up in the previous paragraph.
