As you start traveling through the tourist hotspots of South East Asia, at some point you’re bound to get that niggling suspicion, then a certainly, that the “handicrafts” you are buying are getting crafted by the hands in China. How is it that street stalls from Phuket to Bali sell the same ware as Chinatown in Singapore, you wonder? And when you see the same batik-print Sarong far out in Janpath, New Delhi, then you …[Read more]
There is nothing one can’t do with friends, music and some pizza thrown in. Or so I discovered over a weekend when I had the mammoth task of restoring the teak day bed which adorns our balcony. I decided to do it myself, after I got quotes of a few hundred dollars when I checked with some of the professional furniture restoration companies in Singapore. Given our day bed had suffered the rigours of wind and weather so much that it looked …[Read more]
#under50dollars is our creative twist to #SG50, to commemorate the 50th birth-year of Singapore. It is a challenge devised for our readers to appreciate the inherent value of things used and old. All you will need is a good eye, some minor touch up or upcycling… and $50 in your pocket! The challenge: How it works? – Spend SG$ 50 to buy preloved/secondhand home decor items. – Just use the item as-is, or upcycle/recycle it to spruce up your home or a …[Read more]
The first thing that struck me when our boat touched the sand bank of Nikoi Island was disbelief. Here I was, merely half an hour on a boat ride from Bintan, but the grey seas from the beginning of my journey had nothing in common with the palette of waters I now gently rocked over. I was surrounded by sparkling greens in the midst of deep blues, the colors calmly revealing live corals hidden beneath. …[Read more]