This dream is a follow-up to the one I had before.
A big outdoor tent dinner has been planned and I am now going there to check if things are running smoothly.
Buntings have been hung up from nearby street lamps. The whole place reminds me a well-landscaped industrial park with gentle grass knolls and quiet streets.
For this assignment, I have been given a nearby and smallish studio flat to stay in. It has some kind of water issue at the place.
The shower with shower head is in the living room (that shows how small the place) and so I move the mattress I sleep on to a raised platform to avoid getting it wet.
I also take care not to wet a pile of my everyday clothes nearby, especially my underwear which appears to be of an expensive brand (haha).
(This 'do-not-wet' theme was in my original dream too!)
Outside it has just rained and now the streets are rather cold, wet-shiny.
Next, I am on my way back from checking the dinner event site. Across the road is a nondescript office building. The office on the ground floor has glass walls all round. Inside is a state-of-the-art photocopier.
I then take the lift up upstairs and end up in an office where people are preparing to print the dinner reservations. An older woman appears to be in charge and giving orders. She peers out from a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. We exchange an acknowlegdement and that's that. All around, tables are littered with cut paper sheets and such.
I look for an empty space at one of the long tables and sit down for a while. A while later I exit this workroom to go to the rooftop. The walls all round appears to be really grey and boring.
Back on the street I notice a black MPV parked by the road. Inside is a father and his kids.
I approach to invite them to the aforementioned dinner as they appear to be tourists and I wanted to do the hospitable thing. But half way there, I change my mind. Meanwhile, their car has started up at the same time and making a u-turn to get back onto the main road.
So be it, I say to myself.
It has been a wet day but I am confident that by evening everything would be dry. The sky, though grey, appear to be clearing. It feels like dusk at about 6 pm.
I meet some older members of the Association at the dinner and we chat. An assistant arrives - a big chap who reminds me of an NPCC (cadet corp) schoolmate I once knew. Can it be that we have organised some big event in school before and this is what this dream is all about?
The End
I have never dreamed myself in a sandwich shop before, which is kind of unusual. It is not as if I've never been in one before. But in Sg we never had a "make it yourself" sandwich shop. I think people here are too "kiasu" for such a concept to succeed. Folks would simply waste food (stuffing their sandwich) to make their money's worth.
That notwithstanding, I would love to see the kind of falafel sandwich stalls one sees in Amsterdam. Man, those pita pockets are delicious! And you get to fill them up yourself. More greens? No prob. More falafel balls? Well, on certain days you can.
Despite all that, I do remember a sandwich place in the business district of Shenton Way. I am not sure if they are still here. It was a two-joint establishment: one side a small morning-coffee cafe for standing customers only; the other, a shop space with see-thru fridges filled with a variety of prepacked sandwiches like those sold by 7-Eleven convenience store. Great for "grab and go" hungry office folks. The idea works well during lunch time too where folks could eat a sandwich, have a cuppa and catch up with some reading at a huddle cocktail table.
The sandwich shop I was in in my dream last night is a small one. It reminds me of a similarly tight-spaced Japanese noodle stall I once patronised in Tokyo. There is room enough only for a single-line queue. There's no way anyone can overtake to move faster or jump queue. Everybody filled their sandwich as if they shuffled along like in a slow-moving conveyor queue!
You start with toast bread and top it up with food bits along the queue. The food bits (i.e. fillings for the sandwich) are all contained in small stainless steel bins hanging off the wall rails like some Ikea concept. There are two rows of food: the hanging small food bins and below, the bigger stainless trays with the messier stuff such as baked beans. I note that the beans are warm and steamy. As often is in such a buffet place, the counter top is messy with spilled bits of food everywhere. Otherwise the stainless steel rails and bins do look very clean.
I proceed to top up my toast with beans and lettuce and other stuff.
In the next scene, I am done buying my sandwich and seem glad to stagger out of the shop. A late afternoon sun blinds me and I shield my eyes from it. I am also trying to balance my baked bean drenched sandwich in one hand and and a stainless steel cup of coffee in the other. The cup seems to be clothed in some heat-resistant black polyurethane material. The coffee does not spill as the cup has a screw-on lid.
Like everybody else, I start to look for a place to sit to eat my sandwich.
There is none. And as I am in a side street, I simply sit in the middle and proceed to munch my sandwich. No sooner have I sat down, a car comes and I have to get up. I place my sandwich on top of my coffee cup and put it aside. Baked beans drip down from its sides. That's the lingering image I have of that scene: Coffee cup on the tarmac with some baked beans dripping down the side of a sandwich. Hmm...
After the car passes, I pick up my coffee and kick whatever spilled beans on the road to one side, trying to tidy up. I then join a crowd that's also looking for a place to eat their sandwich. Someone from the shop suggested a nearby place and we all head in that direction.
This new place is quite 'jazzy' and on its walls are life-sized Art Deco-style charcoal sketches of popular figures. There's even one of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister. He is smiling and dressed in a club-like kind of suit (a white one which I think I've seen him wear before).
We all look around the place some more and eventually find some 1960s sofa chairs to sit in. They have vinyl seats and slim rounded legs that taper, very classic designs from that era. The coffee tables come with matching formica tops too.
The End
