meeting karsten

i met up with karsten for a quick tan and lunch yesterday.

karsten is a good friend of mine. he is an expatriate who had worked in south east asia for the last 15 years (or more). i must have known him for hmmm, 8? 10? or maybe more years. ok, ok using bee as the reference point, i should have known karsten for easily 10 years. when i first know him, he resided in singapore. and since 6 years ago (i think it is 6), he had moved over to malaysia given his job commitments. we have kept in contact on and off over the years. and interestingly, despite having relocated to malaysia, he would come over to singapore weekly to keep himself updated with his countrymen and to keep himself sane. well, i said sane becos he feels strongly that jb is quite backward in terms of the variety of stuff he can get and the lifestyle that he has been so used to...

anyway, we met up for a tan at the pool (that i used to tan) before lunching. he had this crave for laksa (a peranakan coconut-based curry noodle dish), and we went to the famous katong laksa store for lunch. heh heh... being ang mo ("red haired" / local lingo for "caucasian") and despite all these years in singapore/ malaysia, he is still not used to very spicy food. so, while he enjoyed the laksa tremendously, just like a local, he has not gone further to the extend of adding additional sambal (chilli paste) into the soup like what most of us would do. as for me, it was the usual laksa with additional serving of cockles and extra dollops of sambal! and of cos, it was man-oogling time throughout lunch! after that it was bitching session over a cuppa at the shopping center. 

heh heh... it was a good day out indeed. well, the thing about good old friends is that we do not meet often, but when we meet, the conversation just flows and there is almost no taboo topics between us.  and it was just bitch bitch bitch... too bad bee was not able to join us.

:-)

picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa