Year you were born

SINGAPORE: About 150 baby turtles were hatched last year at Singapore's first and only hatchery for these marine creatures, the National Parks Board (NParks) said on Wednesday (Aug 21), nearly a year since its official launch in September 2018. The turtle hatchery at Sisters’ Islands Marine Park was built as part of efforts to provide a safe space for incubating eggs, which faces threats caused by human traffic, light pollution and predators such as monitor lizards. Singapore is home to two species of turtles: the hawksbill turtle and the green turtle, both of which are critically endangered. The turtles visit various shores around Singapore to lay eggs during the nesting season from May to October. Each nest contains between 100 and 200 eggs. When CNA visited a hawksbill turtle nest along East Coast Beach on Wednesday morning, a clutch of 152 eggs were recorded. Of those, 98 eggs were relocated to NParks's hatchery on Small Sister's Island. The rest of the eggs were … [Read more...] about 150 hatchlings born last year at Singapore’s only turtle hatchery: NParks

BANGKOK: A giant pot is brimming with beef – a melt-in-your-mouth selection of cuts that have been stewed for more than 8 hours, with fresh coriander roots and a bag of secret ingredients. The smell is sweet and rich. Star anise. Cinnamon. Black peppercorns. Garlic. Nearly ten kinds of aromatic Chinese herbs and spices soaked in the dark soup that has been simmering here for more than 40 years. It is probably the oldest beef soup in the Thai capital Bangkok, with the Wattana Panich restaurant serving countless bowls for three generations. Despite new eateries cropping up on every side, the business has managed to maintain its spot in the city’s competitive food scene with a long history of dedication, consistency and precision. “We keep tasting. There is no recipe,” said Chinese-Thai owner Nattapong Kaweenuntawong. The 40-year-old works every day, filling bowl after bowl with his family’s legacy – different cuts of beef cooked to perfect tenderness, noodles, garlic oil … [Read more...] about Beef noodle soup that’s been simmering for 40 years delivers a taste of old Thailand

SINGAPORE: When Ms Vanessa Chea sat for an exam in Temasek Polytechnic where she studied till a year ago, a lecturer asked if she needed extra time to complete the paper. It was tempting for her to grab the advantage, but Ms Chea who is hard of hearing , declined. “I just see myself like anybody else," she told CNA. Her hearing difficulties do not affect her ability to think, something she feels not everyone knows. “I noticed that people tend to associate hearing loss with intellectual disability,” she said. People also tend to think they needed to shout if someone cannot hear well, but this just hampers her ability to lip-read, she said. While she has mastered lip-reading, she said: "When you shout, the lip shape is very different from what you are saying, and that makes reading very difficult." Even if they do not have such misconceptions, they may not empathise with her condition. Ms Chea recalled having a lecturer who refused to use a device that would help … [Read more...] about ‘I just see myself like anybody else’: 22-year-old Vanessa Chea says her hearing loss doesn’t make her different

PHILIPPINES: What was supposed to be a two-year trip to the Philippines to do good, turned into more than three decades of serving others . But in doing so, Lily Ang and her husband, Toh Nee Lim, sacrificed precious time with family, missed their daughter’s graduation and – most distressingly for her – wasn’t there when her father died. “I felt like I was a hypocrite loving strangers, and I couldn't be at the death-bed of my dad,” she said with emotion. “By the time I arrived home, he’d passed on, and I felt so guilty… I thought that I’d failed him because my dad didn't want me to come here as a missionary, but he loved me so much.” There were also “derogatory” remarks from relatives to deal with, including about the couple’s children growing up in a foreign land. “Many of them were not supportive, they were very insulting. They looked down on my children and said, ‘Your kids are so stupid… they don’t even know how to speak Mandarin’,” Ang told the programme On The Red … [Read more...] about For 33 years, Singaporean couple helped a ‘forgotten’ people – at a personal cost

WHEN Saffron Drewitt-Barlow feels her skin is lacking a bit of glow, she knows exactly what to do – get online and book a first-class plane ticket for her favourite beauty therapist. Money is no object for the 21-year-old, which is why she’s able to splash $10,000 a time arranging for her number one facialist to fly from her home in Brighton to Saffron’s family mansion in Florida. Far from being a rarity, it’s something Saffron does every month or so (Covid permitting)… and it’s just the beginning of her mammoth beauty spend. The daughter of Britain’s first gay dads, ex-couple and multi-millionaires Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow, also forks out over $12,000 a year to keep her hair extensions looking good, has a make-up artist on her books for whenever she needs him and gets her lashes and nails down every couple of weeks. It’s all part of Saffron’s Absolutely Fabulous life , which she’s detailing in her new Fabulous column. She’s already touched on the unusual family … [Read more...] about I spend $200k a year on beauty – I never wash my own hair, jet my facialist in from UK & spend 4 hours a day on make-up