Tiny tidbits from Paris...

Breakfast at the Jardin des Tuileries: created in 1564, (redesigned and) opened to the public in 1667, and still going strong. I just love the sense of history and permanence in Paris and other old European cities; it makes me feel safe, and part of the chain of humanity.

 

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Paris? I had almost forgotten myself, until we spent two very touristy and busy days there now in July, before flying further to Stockholm (and Seattle, for part of the family). Luckily, my girls, especially my cosmopolitan and artistic oldest, loved the city too with a passion, so I can hopefully look forward to some wonderful trips there when in Stockholm again - I can't believe it will be only 2.5 hours away then...

 

More from the Tuileries, designed by André Le Nôtre in 1664, with the enormous vases and now quite wildly planted "plate-bandes" that are parts of the majestically formal design.

View towards the Musée du Louvre; Parisians and tourists alike relax on the chairs generously strewn everywhere in the park.

 

Actually, my first memory of Paris involves getting lost in the Louvre. My siblings and I ran off from our parents without telling them where, eager to see the Mona Lisa (I was about ten years old then). Grown in a very small town as we were, we didn't quite grasp how enormous the old museum was - it would probably fill the whole city center of Turku. Of course, our parents panicked and were understandably upset and angry, when they found us two hours later, tired and scared, sitting in front of the famous painting and not knowing what to do or whom to ask for help.

 

Later, I travelled to Paris quite often during my years as a "business woman". As the Nordic Marketing Manager, I reported the European Director seated at the European headquarters at La Defense (the "business phase" of my life went over pretty fast, but I still smile at the memories of me and my laptop, traipsing around Europe and US trying to look very professional...). The best things from that time was that whenever possible, I saved the company money and "sacrificed" my free time by staying over the weekend in Paris - in those good old days, flight tickets were cheaper that way, not a bad way to be thrifty... And I can't ever forget a weeklong trip to Paris with my Art History professors; a full week of listening to their amazing stories about pretty much everything within art, history and architecture while walking through the streets and museums is one of my fondest memories of my years at the Stockholm University...

 

Musée du quai Branly on the edge of the Quai Branly and the Seine, and only hundred meters from the Eiffel Tower, has one of the lushest wall gardens on its façade.

The 200 meters long and 12 meter high green wall on the exterior of the museum was designed and planted by Gilles Clément and Patrick Blanch, masters of the vertical gardening. I do love it, but it looks at the same time... quite hirsute???

 

This time, I really wasn't on a garden trip, but have a couple of photos that I took along the way. Paris is extremely beautiful, even when we only got to the busy and most "tourist-affected" areas (we were tourists, too, I don't mean to be judgmental here...). What you need in these old European cities is time; time to walk, time to enjoy, time to find your own little sweet spots and haunts... the little cafes and special park benches, winding streets and surprising views. So even if I love Asia too, I really can't wait to be back in "good old Europe" at some stage, hopefully not all to far in the future, again.

What I love about Paris (and Stockholm, and many, many other old European cities) is the scale; four to six floors, almost no skyscrapers towering over the horizon and dwarfing the human beings. Also, I love the alleys, the parks and the plantings... and the way people make nests of their homes, with beautiful greenery flowing over (of course, this is the world of the lucky ones, but let me be a bit naïve for just a moment...). That's were I would like to live, in that apartment with the blooming balcony... Not likely, but at least I'll be able to visit more often from Stockholm.

 

Flower fields at Nyckelviken

The mid-18th century gazebo at Nyckelviken would be the perfect place for romantic meetings - I'm sure that the young members of the owning families sneaked out here for little tête-à-têtes every now and then...

Nyckelviken is one of my favorites, a small 18th century manor house just 10 minutes outside the city center (yes, despite trying to be so cool, Stockholm is that small). Arriving through the gravel drive through the forest, and walking down the long alley flanked by old lindens transfers you back in time to the countryside, despite being so near to the bustle of the modern world.

 

First glimpse of the vegetable gardens from the linden alley.

The manor house, now serving as a café and a restaurant...

The cute little billiard wing, which was also used for dinner dances. Please, can I be "transferred" to a 18th century dance party here, just for once?

 

Stora Nyckelviken, the yellow-painted main house, was built by Swedish East India Company director Herman Peterson around 1746, and has since then been owned by many nobilities and well-known personalities of the Swedish history. The original form of the building, including the color that was supposed to imitate sandstone from Italy, is still beautifully preserved, even if it is now somewhat "degraded" and serves as a café and a restaurant. There are two additional, red-painted wings, a billiard wing (also used for dinner dances in the olden days), a beautiful gazebo and several barns together with other utility buildings, some of which now house rabbits, chicken, pigs, ponies and other cute animals for kids to pet. In summer, the cliffs by the sea are excellent for swimming, and in wintertime, the long hills leading to the cliffs by the sea are perfect for sledding. There are even outdoor fire pits and sitting places where everyone can barbeque their home-brought sausages. Not surprisingly, Nyckelviken is popular among families living in the area, including mine; I have many fond memories of my girls with red cheeks and frozen little fingers, waiting impatiently for their hotdogs and hot cordial after a couple of hours in the snow.

 

One of the small, red-painted wings, now a tiny local museum...

 The central axis leading via the gardens from the manor to the gazebo; it is so good to see that the baroque style and elements have been preserved even when the garden styles have changed during the centuries.

 Flower fields in the old vegetable gardens; only part of them now grow edibles.

 

The old gardens still have their central baroque axis leading from the manor to the gazebo, and old lilac hedges separate the wings and the "garden proper" from the vegetable gardens. The many owners of Nyckelviken used to grow vegetables for the household both for the manor and for their houses in the city, but today, the gardens are mainly for show and for testing different gardening practices and for education - some lucky local school kids get to help harvesting the produce in the autumn. And of course, as "fika"(having a coffee, preferable with a cinnamon bun) is somewhat of a national sport in Sweden, there is an excellent café that serves delicious concoctions - many of which are baked with the fruits an berries from the gardens - for the hungry wanderer. Absolutely lovely, and well worth a detour if you are in the area.

 

 Beans and peonies in the kitchen garden... 

 

 Rows and rows of flowers in the cutting garden...

  ...and a final picture from the cutting garden, with the unusual orangery (nearly no glass panes - what kind of orangery is that?) in the background.

 

Back from a 'workcation' at Bredablick...

A well-needed break from my frenetic garden projects at Bredablick....

 

Everyone has probably heard about 'staycations', the type of holidays where you stay put instead of spending your well-earned holiday on a far-away beach or a trendy city destination. But what do you call it when you fly half around the world, in order to cut back loads of unruly saplings, furiously clean up weeds, and prune back shrubs (in addition to cleaning up & mending your house after some badly behaved rental guests...)? Maybe 'workcation' could be the right world, if it just didn't sound so ugly.

 

Anyway, we are back in Singapore, after four weeks of hard work, and hard play - and as you can guess, I'm still quite exhausted, even if I don't know from which of them the most. We started our tour with a couple of days in Paris (I had almost forgotten how much I love good old Europe), then the rest of the family flew over to Seattle, and I directly to Stockholm to take care of our house and garden (and later also to Turku, my old hometown for a couple of days, but that's another story).

 

The flowerbed by the entrance - with a surprising amount of survivors, from several peonies (they really can take a beating...) to hostas, boxwood balls (now hidden under the perennials) and other toughies...

A Japanese anemone and a bugbane (Actaea racemosa "Brunette") saying hello to me - sadly, I won't be there enjoying the amazing scent of the Brunette this year either...

 

I thought I would just take it over from the last people renting, little did I guess they had had some very eccentric ideas about how to hang curtains (drill tens of holes into the ceilings, and preferably try several times so that you really get it "right"...), try their skills with electrical installations (who cares if it short-circuits half the house), or knock off sinks (there's a drain in the floor for the overflowing water, you see - no problem...?). Getting professional handymen in place in the middle of July is a challenge in Scandinavia, but in the end, most things were repaired before we left. And all the anger I felt was probably good, as I made some serious progress in the garden, weeding, pruning and shoveling things back to shape.

 

Another flowerbed by the steps to the entrance; the hydrangeas had been damaged by the huge drifts of snow last winter, but were coming back with many new shoots from the base. Otherwise, the alchemillas and hostas desperately need dividing, but I didn't have time now for the huge project. At least I'll have a wheelbarrow load of plants in the future after doing so...

More of the front yard, with a huge old boxwood to the left, a couple of old oaks and a lot of lawn... Our house is on a dead-end street (on the left, not in picture) and we only have one neighbor; these two sides of the land are surrounded by a 4 meter high old lilac hedge, which will soon need cutting down for rejuvenation. In the spring, the lawn is full of porcelain scillas, crocuses, snowdrops, winter aconites, grape hyacinths and other tiny wonders that have been spreading there freely for decades. I don't think I'll ever have the energy to convert this part of the garden to much else than lawn - that would take way too much maintenance and watering, as the oaks drink up a lot. I mow what grows, and even if not perfect, the lawn rolls nicely together with the soft rounded cliffs (on the left). The only thing I've been thinking of is planting some old-fashioned peonies (my favorite...) in front of the huge rounded boxwood, towards the entrance door.

A picture taken from the 'seaside' of the house... the front meadow is also gone from all mowing, but will come back fast when I let it grow wild again. In the front left, there is an old pimpinellifolia rose that flowers only once, but spreads then its smell to the whole garden with the sea breeze. And the old oaks definitely need pruning back, the branches are hitting the roof and the façade of the house. We are probably the only people in Saltsjöbaden with an oak in the middle of the sea view...

 

 Hello Daddy Deer - a family with two kids had taken over the garden, constantly staring at us like we were some rude intruders... again, they were here first, so I need to adjust whatever I plant to them, not the other way around.

 

I was quite taken by the garden itself. I'd been thinking most of my darlings would be gone - as they say, it takes five years of neglect to erase a garden - but that wasn't the case. Even if some things had died, many of my favorite plants were still there, battling on, in some cases actually quite successfully. I felt that with some editing and some light-handed additions, we'll be back on track together as soon as I get back. And it feels like all these years - five already, and counting - my plans have simplified, and I really appreciate the site as the gorgeous patch of land it is, and don't see it as project for improvement, as I sadly did earlier. Now I  see the vanity in my plans with all those magnificent plant combinations; instead of showing off my 'creativity' and my 'gardening skills' (sad, but true...) everywhere in the garden, I now feel like I can just let it be, provide a comfortable bench and let the land and nature talk for themselves. Quite relaxing, actually, and definitely something to look forward to.

Another view from the seaside... Yes, the oak is growing directly into the house, but I can't bear the thought of taking it out as it gives such a lovely shade, no curtains needed. Under the oak there are several wild roses, and I've added some semi-wild rugosa hybrids that the deer won't eat, so the group blooms in white and shell pink tones in the early summer. The cliffs leading to the sea are full of wild lily-of-the-valleys, thousands of them growing in large drifts. And I was thinking of planting something here... how silly. On the other hand, the wooden deck (on the right side of the house in the picture) that functions as our outdoor dining area isn't a beauty exactly, so I might concentrate my efforts on "improving" it instead. Something in white would go well together with the house, but needs so much maintenance... and I would love to have a greenhouse, but the winds from the sea can be hard, and would probably be dangerous for the class panes.

View from the deck. This part of the garden dries almost completely every summer, so its usually kept as a dry meadow. The only problem is that tics love long grass; they don't thrive on anything mown, as they sit on the tops of the grass straws and prey for passing animals to attach themselves on. With two children and now a dog that is a real problem, but then, kids and dogs play everywhere and are likely to get some tics despite any preventive actions...Otherwise, lily-of-the-valleys and heathers thrive here together with wild roses and quite surprisingly given the dry soil, even wild raspberries.

Give me a power tool and I'll be happy for hours... Not really, but sometimes just basic things like blasting off five years worth of dirt from the outdoor furniture can be quite meditative.

 

This is what I mean with "providing a comfortable bench and letting the land and nature talk for themselves"... sometimes, that really is enough. I've placed a weathered bench (bought while we lived in Melbourne) on an old stone paving in the lower part of our garden, just before the high cliffs drop down to the sea (you can see the tall pines just disappearing, the tops barely showing on the right, but it is the cliffs that drop suddenly). This is a perfect spot for contemplating life in all its complexities... or for just lazy meditations. "Bredablick" is the name of our land, meaning "Wide View".

 

 

Back from Bali, and soon holiday times...

Rice terraces in Tegallalang at Bali.

I feel a bit unfair for not having posted for a while, even if the haze in Singapore cleared out for almost two weeks ago. I've been busy having fun, first by escaping the hazardous levels of smoke that floated here from Sumatra by taking a last minute flight to Bali with my two girls, and then by entertaining some very good friends who visited from Melbourne. 

 

We are soon leaving for our yearly trip "home" (even if we increasingly ask ourselves where that "home" really is) both to Sweden and Finland, and the rest of the family will even fly to Seattle to meet our friends there. A bit complicated, yes, but the way our life goes, for the moment. Before printing the travel documents and preparing for packing, I'm posting here a couple of pictures from Bali. It was just as beautiful and culturally interesting as I'd expected, but at the same time, even more touristy than expected too - three million visitors in a small island make a huge impact. Still, talking to people in the small village of Abangan near Tegallalang, I felt that the tight culture revolving around their religion (a Balinese version of Hinduism) with its many rituals and celebrations keeps the extended families together, and that it will be the glue that saves the culture by holding the families together. Would I go again? Maybe, but not certainly; there are so many less trodden paths to explore...

 

Now, a blog silence for a while. I'll be back again in August.

 

A 'tractor' for tending the wet fields..

Cages for roosters that are kept for cockfighting - poor things. But I would love to have these as springtime protection for all tender shoots from the hungry deer in my garden in Sweden.

 

The beautifully decorated entrance to the local temple at Abangan. Those rods are made of bamboo and palm leaves, and built as high as possible so that they can reach the gods in the skies...

The local temple at Abangan, preparing to celebrate the full moon festival.

Beautiful baskets full of food offerings to the gods - with this kinds of gifts, I would definitely listen if I would be one of them.

Village kids and elders waiting outside the temple for the celebrations to begin.

A small temple and waterfalls on the way to the Tirtha Empul.

More families offering to the gods on the way to the holy water temple...

Some of their offerings, which are handmade with palm leaves and flowers, plus some extra candy to please the sweet teeth of the gods - the time spent in devotion while making them is as important as the end results.

Pura Saraswati in central Ubud, with large lotus ponds and a bridge leading to the main temple.

 Temples by the sea at Tanah Lot, facing the huge waves rolling in from the south western seas.


 

Not so good just now...

No, the situation is not so good for the moment - I very seldom write about the bad parts of life on this blog, but obviously, it would be cheating to pretend things are well - just now, the haze in Singapore is considered hazardous for breathing (what can you do, if you can't breath???). So no updates until things clear out - we didn't get masks from the stores early enough (optimist, as ever) - so are confined indoors for some time to come. Anyway, Happy Summer Solstice for those celebrating....! 

Pounding away Peranakan spice pastes...

Fresh ginger, galangal, turmeric, coriander seeds, dried and fresh red chillies, garlic and shallots are all used for the spice paste for the Perakan dish of Acar Awak, kind of spicy chili pickles. I'm quite obsessed with them, and snack them directly from the jar while waiting for the dinner...  

 

I'm not aspiring to be a food blogger, even if I have loved to cook ever since I was able to hold the spatula; there are enough awe-inspiringly creative food writers out there already, many of whom also are stunningly talented gardeners (actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some ambitious scientist would figure out that the genes ruling our love for these two areas are closely connected...) But I just wanted to post some pictures of my newest fancy, which is pounding my own spice pastes for the Peranakan dishes I've started to love since we moved to Singapore.

 

Candlenuts and blanchan, a dried shrimp paste that needs to be toasted before using, are two other necessities for the Acar Awak spice paste, here on small traditional Peranakan dish decorated with peonies and phoenixes (two motifs loved by the Peranakan for their auspicious symbolism) for serving condiments at the dining table.

 

I'd been in several Asian countries, inclusive Singapore and Malaysia, long before last year's move, but I'd only skimmed the surface what comes to the local cuisines. Being a multicultural country, the dishes here are as manifold as the people making and eating them: people of Chinese origin form the majority here, but there are even large populations of Malay, Indian and Eurasian decent. The Peranakan subculture has strong and living roots here, and the cuisine is proudly prepared in families and served by many local restaurants and food stalls (as I wrote in my previous post, these middle class professionals and wealthy merchants were descendants of Chinese, Indian and even European immigrants who married native girls from the Malay Archipelago -  the Malay term ‘peranakan’ means literally ‘locally born’; these intermarriages occurred as early as in the 14th and 15th centuries when trading between the different areas started to develop).

 

After some vigorous pounding, the paste starts to take form in the mortar (it took me almost 45 minutes to get to this stage... at least I'm getting good muscles from these "heritage projects"!).

 

"Sunning" the vegetables for a couple of hours is an important phase in the cooking process - they develop more taste and become more crunchy.

 

The thing is, when you develop a love for the local dishes, from the coconut-scented laksa soup to nonya and all other types of curries, you realize that pastes from the supermarkets don't get you even near to how the dishes really should taste. And while food processors are fast, only pounding by hand really brings out the deeper aromas of the ingredients like galangal, turmeric, ginger, coriander seeds, garlic, dried and fresh chillies and little shallots to mention just a few.  Luckily, when I was browsing through some of the junk/antique shops in the backstreets of Singapore, I bought a huge old stone mortar with a pestle, almost too heavy to handle, but wonderful when you need to prepare larger amounts of spices. And it hasn't been idle in the back of the storage room; I've been pounding away all kinds of pastes several times a week, sometimes with tears running from the large amounts of chili and shallots often required in the recipes. So even if not quite keeping to the subject of my blog, here are some pictures from my latest food adventures among the local cuisine of Singapore.

 

The completely addictive end results of Acar Awak (unfortunately, in a Japanese bowl, I might need to go back to my junk shop and buy a Peranakan porcelain one to be even more authentic...where does it end?)

 

Joo Chiat - a heritage gem at the East Coast

The corner of Joo Chiat Road and East Coast Road has row of typical Singaporean shophouses that has been preserved within the Joo Chiat Heritage Town area. Shops filled the first floor at the street level, and the owners lived above their businesses. Rumah Bebe, a shop selling traditional Peranakan embroidered clothing, beaded shoes, ceramics and cakes is housed in the turquoise part of the row, and Kim Choo Kueh Chang, my favorite Peranakan dumpling and kueh provider to the left of it. The shophouses are typically very ornamental - with plaster decorations and colorful tiles, and many other rich elements loaned from both European and Chinese building traditions.

Brave, bold and bright as they might be, Singapore's real charm does not lie in its newest and most media-touted attractions. Instead, the city's true gems are best found by digging past its shiny surface. One of them is the quiet enclave of Joo Chiat on the East Coast, a bit further east from Katong where I live for the moment. Joo Chiat fills all my requirements for a charming neighborhood: it is perfectly walkable, has a great mixture of cultures and ethnicities, loads of beautiful architecture - much of it in form of colorful Singaporean shophouses - and last but not least, great food and cafés.

 

This vibrant little enclave came into being a bit over century ago, when  the raising land values made nutmeg, gambier and pepper plantations and coconut groves of these eastern coastal areas give way for Singapore's growing middle class who sought out from the increasingly hectic (and then dirty) inner city. The area was named after one of the most successful plantation owners and traders of the area, Hokkien Chinese Chew Joo Chiat (also called 'King of Katong'), to whom large parts of the land belonged until early 20th century.

 

While having a great mix of cultures from Eurasian and Indian to Malay and beyond, Joo Chiat and Katong have traditionally been the preserve of the Peranakans. These middle class locals and wealthy merchants were descendants of Chinese, Indian and even European immigrants who married native girls from the Malay Archipelago (the Malay term ‘peranakan’ means literally ‘locally born’; these intermarriages occurred as early as in the 14th and 15th centuries when trading between the different areas started to develop). Peranakans settled in many parts throughout Singapore - Emerald Hill is another well-known Chinese Peranakan area and Little India housed Peranakans of Indian decent - but today, the Chinese Peranakan living heritage can probably be best experienced in the Joo Chiat district.

Food was and still is an important part of the Peranakan traditions, so it comes as no surprise that some of Singapore's best eateries can be found in Joo Chiat, with many stalls dating back to the 1940s. Many of them still sell traditional Nyonya dishes from kuehs like onde onde to pandan-wrapped dumplings, or specialize on other classics as Singapore chilli crab, wanton mee, Teochew porridge and of course, Katong laksa, a spicy coconut broth filled with rice noodles, prawns, sprouts and herbs (one of my favorites, I've even learned to make it myself from scratch, pounding the spice paste by hand...).

 

After a dip into the brink of sleaze in the late 1900s, Joo Chiat has today reclaimed its proud heritage with help of several grassroot organizations. First, was granted first Conservation area status in 1993, and then nominated Singapore's first Heritage Town in 2011. To date, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has listed for protection 928 buildings and 15 bungalows in Joo Chiat alone, which makes a stroll through the colorful streets a great deal more relaxing in this city where old buildings all too often come down in a dust cloud, feverish development goes on from 7 to 10 six days a week and the sound of jackhammers is never distant.

As often is the case, the security provided by the high protection status of Joo Chiat has led to gentrification of the area (which some locals disapprove of),  and Joo Chiat seems to be evolving into a favorite for both locals as well as foreigners, often working in different creative professions, who seek more from their neighborhoods and abodes than just off-the-rack modern design and conveniences. Hopefully things don't get all too trendy though so the mix of small businesses from bakeries to eateries, hardware shops to funeral supplies, antique houses to interior designers prevails, as it is exactly what makes Joo Chiat so lively and special.  

 

More restaurants from Joo Chiat Road - most of them Chinese or Peranakan, but even Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese... and the occasional steak house and pizzeria.

"The five-foot way" - Sir Stamford Raffles wrote in his famous Ordinances from 1822 that all houses on both sides of the streets in Singapore were to have a continuous walkway with the minimum width of 5 feet to provide pedestrians both shade and shelter from rain. Very clever - I'm still thankful for him every time I walk under their cover!
 

Decorative ceramic tiles are very typical for Singaporean shophouses, the type that was commonly used to surround fireplaces in Victorian England. The floral and natural motifs of them appealed to the Chinese who build the houses, and were used to decorate the exteriors in this warm climate.

 

This shophouse in the corner of Joo Chiat Road and Lane was built just before the Crash of 1929... It combines classical elements from both Rococo and Barock with Chinese animal and plant motifs, like the huge Dragons on the top of the front.

  

 Tin Yeang Restaurant is one of our favorite fish restaurants at Joo Chiat Road - their steamed fish dishes are deliciously fragrant and spicy.

 

  Shophouses without shops - a well-preserved and quiet residential row at Koon Seng Road. According to history books here, this house type has its roots in the Chinese building tradition, but I can't help thinking of the Victorian terrace houses when I see them... Either way, they are extremely charming, and it is very lucky that this area has been preserved for the delight of future generations.

 

Saloon-type doors were a regular feature, they provided privacy while letting the breeze through the houses - here, intricately carved wooden doors at Tembeling Road.

Chang Pow Joss-paper trading is a rare survivor from the past - they make supplies for Buddhist funerals. Everything handmade using thin bamboo sticks that are tied together and covered with colorful paper to form palatial buildings, cars, bicycles and anything else imaginable to be burned at funerals to provide the dead with better life on the "other side".

 

Cars and bicycles, and huge mansions - all to make the dead family members and ancestors happy in the afterlife... Unfortunately, no-one spoke English, and did not want to tell me how much these amazing works were worth (I was actually curious enough to ask...)

There are many bicycle and mechanical repair places and hardware shops and the smell of motor oil fills the hot air when walking past. 

I'm not entirely sure if Katong Antique House on East Coast Road is a small museum or a little shop full of old Peranakan treasures from porcelain to beadworks - the old lady did not speak English, and didn't want to sell anything.

 

Maintaining good relations with the gods and ancestors (and of course, older generations still living) is important in the Chinese culture - I know too little to be able to tell which gods there little shrines are dedicated to, but they are a typical sight in the Joo Chiat area.

A row of smaller heritage houses off East Coast Road - all painted in individual colors according to the owners tastes...Very charming, I think.

Time for lunch... walking makes one hungry, and the fresh Calamansi lime juice available in most places is so refreshing in the heat.

One of the oldest houses, probably from the times the area was covered with coconut plantations... the second storey loggia has a wonderful collection of orchids, I would love to get a closer look at them! Loggias were practical as they sheltered the buildings from direct sun, and so kept the temperatures inside lower. 

 

Joo Chiat has several places of worship - Christian churches, Hindu and Buddhist temples and probably many others... Tthe Kuan Im Tng Temple can be found at Tembeling Road, and it upholds a unique three in one combination consisting of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, consolidating the essence of these three religions into “Xian Tian Sect.”

If you are interested in reading more about the Singaporean shophouses, there is a beautiful book called "Singapore Shophouse" by historian Julian Davison, with wonderful photos by Luca Invernizzi Tettoni - highly recommended!