with the weather this scorching, i've been ordering more deserts after my meals recently.
most of the time, i go with my personal favourite: chendol, unless i'm feeling like getting something more fanciful. but sometime back, i thought i'd get a ice kachang - perhaps singapore's most well-known icy treat.
i've never really loved ice kachang though - i find it too sweet, too colourful, too much of an assault on the senses for me. the more unique taste, the more nondescript presentation and the idiosyncratic green jelly of chendol is my choice of poison.
but ice kachang i chose because, in a way, it is special. i remember my dad always getting ice kachangs for my family, 2 ice kachangs for the four of us, and he would get 2 empty bowls too, and divide the 2 hills of ice equally, because if he did not, my sister and i, in our eagerness would topple the tall heap of ice. 1 bowl of ice kachang to share between 2, 1 atap seed for each, and plenty of colours and jellies and red beans. that was my impression of ice kachang:to be shared.
and as time went by, i learned to gradually eat ice kachang by the side and when i dad lost his job in the '98 recession, we ate out less. and i discovered the charms of chendol.
still, the memories remained and it was the most compelling reason why i decided to get a ice kachang that day, for old times sake (you know that you're approaching 20 when you say that).
the ice kachang was as imposing a chunk of ice as ever and as colourful as ever.
i began gathering the ice from the sides (as i always do now, even in a race to find the atap seeds) but before long i came to acknowledge what i've always known - that ice kachang is meant to be shared; it was too much for me, and i grew weary of the taste of it soon and the joy of finding the atap seed was empty.
today, i went and got a chendol.
later in the day, i walked past some swings. i paused for a moment reminiscing about the past times, and then i walked past the swings to the chin-up bar and did some chin-ups till the blisters on the pads of my hands nearly tore.