Chewing the Fat

According to the Urban Dictionary, "Chewing the Fat" means, "A verb, used in general conversation, in informal conversation. It refers to the act of talking, often rubbish, merely to pass time." This is what a gathering of my kitty friends do on a weekly basis in the vicinity of the Fullerton Hotel on Boat Quay (pronounced key...I don't know why...).
We meet near the bronze sculpture of a mama cat and her kittens called "Kucinta Cats" located on the Cavenagh Bridge. The bridge connects the Fullerton to the Asian Cultures Museum.  

The six of us meet at around noon on Tuesdays to discuss what is going on in our lives. There is a certain amount of embellishment in our stories but it is all in fun. When one of us goes overboard we all relish in making fun of them and then try to outdo them with our own stories.
Here are my kitty friends:

Sheila is rather quiet and probably the smartest of all of us. She listens intently to our stories and then calmly tells us if we get out of hand or if our yarns are completely unbelievable.

Jade is the most beautiful of all of us and she knows it. She constantly grooms herself and poses for pictures. Look at how she jumped on this green chair because it showed off her matching green eyes.

Jack is the most adventurous of the group and can't stand still. His stories are the most exciting ones and I tend to believe most of them. He has no fear and gets in lots of fights as evidenced by his broken tail.

Scoot sleeps a lot. He is an outdoor kitty but is well taken care of. His adventures always involve motor scooter rides he takes with his dad on an oversized scooter. He doesn't wear a helmet, which troubles me, but he tells us his dad is having trouble finding him the right size.

Mao Mao is the most pampered of us all. She claims she has a tiara and knowing her personality, we believe her!
She says she is an empress who loves South Korean rap videos and has a crush on G-Dragon.

This is me (Purrla) and I know, you know a lot about me. By the way...all of my stories are true although my "friends" only believe about half of them.

Memories at Old Ford Factory

Today my adventures took me to an interesting but disturbing place. As always I randomly selected a bus for my venture and ended up at a the lush green Bukit Timah Nature Park. I wandered around the eastern edges of the park and came across a building with a sign that said "No Pets Allowed". I was annoyed at the thought that anyone would want to keep ME out of their establishment. As I passed the main entrance, a scholarly looking Siamese cat  appeared and asked me what my name was. His name was Simon (yes...Simon the Siamese) and asked me if I wanted to enter the building. I told him, "Yes I want to but the sign says No Pets Allowed!"
Simon replied, " You didn't look at the sign very closely did you? Look at the picture on the sign...You don't look like a dog to me."
He was right of course so in we went. The building is called "Memories at Old Ford Factory" and Simon told me he is the docent for curious kitties.
The building was originally built in October 1941as the first Ford factory in Southeast Asia. A few months later the British started to use the facility to put together military aircraft that had been shipped to Singapore in crates. All the aircraft were subsequently flown out when things started to look bleak for the allies as the Japanese were swiftly taking over all of Malaysia



On 15 Feb 1942, in this plant, Lt General Percival signed surrender paperwork and handed it over to Lt General Tomoyuki (AKA Tiger of Malaya) of the Japanese Army. The day became known as Black Sunday. 130,000 allied troops and 3000 civilians were imprisoned for 44 Months and subjected to horrible treatment. One of the civilians, William Haxworth, secretly drew 300 cartoons depicting life under imprisonment to help improve moral. However as time passed the pictures of the prisoners slowly started to show the malnutrition they were being subjected to.
After WWII General Percival retired but the Tiger of Malaya was tried and executed for war atrocities in 1945.
In 1947 the building was turned back into a Ford factory and was used to assemble cars until 1980. It was turned into a museum in 2006.
Simon taught me a lot but I was really bummed out after my visit. "War is Hell". I was so pleased to notice a sculpture in front of the museum as I was leaving entitled "Peace".