Geylang Bazaar Outing!

Who knew that at this point of time, Hari Raya is 9 days away! Not that I'm looking forward to visits, change of outfits, and all the merry get together stuffs because I basically celebrate it with my own small family unit only. In the past yes...but well, our family is always of a different kind! haha.

So one of our family thing to do every year pre Raya is to visit the bazaars and the last one we went to was the Woodlands Bazaar situated right outside the Woodlands MRT station. It looks like a typical Pasar Malam, which I believe you're not a true blue Singaporean if you haven't been to one before, but if you enter and go past the food kiosks, they have stuffs you can buy for Raya. They even have a carpet auction and I don't know but is carpet auctions an 'in' thing to do now? I've been to this bazaar, the Geylang one and even at a recent Halal food expo and they have this auction thing going on too.

While the food choices are pretty much same same every time, you gotta be selective and not greedy over your choices because they can cause a stomach upset like me the other time. So now I'm a bit more careful. I still think because I ate some food that were spoilt by the time we reached home. I watched how they cooked the Ramlee Burger which is a popular bazaar and Pasar Malam food. Basically you either choose beef or chicken patty and they'll fry cook it on the spot, bath it in all sorts of sauces and then wrap them up in a freshly made omelette. Here's an article telling you more about this popular Pasar Malam or Night Market and an interesting fact that the actual Ramly patty is banned in Singapore so it's not really authentic. They're locally made patties. I don't mind, coming from Singapore who had a stomach flu after her visit to Kuala Lumpur eating a myriad of food..haha.

Most of the fry cooks make the Ramly burgers like an assembly line and they're so much into this line, special orders can be a bit tricky. So if you don't eat certain things like the chilli sauce, you can go to those with much lesser people, which isn't difficult to find because so many are selling them, and get them omitted. They may look at you funny but who cares. The one I went to buy at the Geylang bazaar had the burgers slathered heavily with this Planta margarine I believe..like seriously, heaps and heaps of it. So much so I had to buy one and share with my brother. Scary stuff.

Besides the burger, I bought a new top! This tradition is more for me. You can get a decent nice top for less than $20 and if you can bargain the price, you can get it slightly cheaper at let's say, one or two dollars off. The one I got was $16.00. It's free size (that's what they all say..) but it's stretchable too so I guess I can fit in it. Yah, I haven't try it out yet. Normally my mum is very enthusiastic about me trying on new clothes if she's around when I buy it but I guess she was too tired yesterday..haha. No picture but from the pictures below, you can see the displays of clothes and they're pretty...but some can be gawdy looking too. I don't know..I'm quite particular about the design of clothes and the materials. I like mine simple with clean lines and not with weird baubles and other additional unnecessary things. Oh, and I don't believe in paying so much for something so simple.

Another highlight of our trip is to buy some small cheap bottles of kuihs or Hari Raya biscuits for our consumption. Yes, we're a sad little family with no visitors..haha. We just buy for the thrill of being in da mood but we only spend slightly over $20 for 3 kinds of biscuits. My mum still makes some cookies so we would rather spend a little bit more on buying the baking ingredients. Her chocolate chip cookies are da bomb! We ain't buying these from outside.

And yes, what is Geylang Bazaar without the lights, eh? They're pretty but somehow not interesting enough. You'll probably miss it quite easily..ha.

Crowd wise? Funny enough, it's crowded but not that bad like there's still some space for walking even though it's a Sunday night. I guess people would rather stay home and rest than go out if they have work the following day. I can't say for this coming weekend though. People would be rushing like mad to get their decorations ready for Hari Raya because by then it will be mere days only.

Enjoy the pics and do zoom in for a closer look!