We've been trying to do morning walks recently. Not long ones, because there's no time. But at least they keep me away from my desk for just a little while longer.

Our neighbourhood provides rough shelter for a fair number of homeless people. Singly, they usually sleep on benches or near the path by the river. In groups, they gather on the various pedestrian bridges. They're never threatening. They may well be illegal, so they don't want to attract attention.

Near the monorail line, some blocks that formerly offered office space have been converted into dormitories. From outside, you can see the flimsy partitions and mattresses, the towels hanging up to dry.

The area by the river also houses a number of cat families. Someone seems to distribute food, as you often find them chomping their way through little slag-heaps of Go-Cat. Two lucky puddies were wrestling with some real meat this morning.

These guys tend to be camera-shy, so here, by way of compensation, is a very superior, local food-court cat:



Our river is very much an urban river. It has been canalized. But it's still quite pretty. And people still fish in it. Nigel says the rivery smell that emanates from the little waterfalls is the same rivery smell he remembers from the river in Newark when he was a kid.

The other day, we went a little further along the banks than we usually do, to the point where the grassiness gives way to litter-strewn wasteland, and came across a group of people doing Tai Chi. Alongside the soapy-looking water. Under the rumbling LRT line. The sacred in the city.

It's mostly Chinese sacrality in this little strip of streets. There are little temples, still gated at this morning hour. There are little shrines, backing onto flower-studded trees.

Of course, there are also plenty of temples to commerce. Prominent in our neighbourhood are motorcycle repair shops, and pemborong, or wholesalers. The latter seem to function as retailers as well, but I guess the wholesale epithet is a kind of advert for their low prices. Shoes, clothes, toys: you name it, it can be pemboronged. Most are still shut at this time of day. But we recently came across a fruit wholesaler dealing with a whole pile of mouldy papaya. I wonder whether there's a profitable answer to mouldy papaya...

And inherent in the religion of commerce is its iconography. Here's a classic piece of pro-car cant:



Needless to say, little walks are also ways of sussing out new eating opportunities. So, having relocated the Hyderabad, we ate there last Sunday (good kheema biryani; a nice, thick vegetable dish; and Hyderabad naan, the secret of whose orange exterior I have not yet been able to penetrate). The Lahore became a breakfast destination the other day: spicy spinach; eggs and chickpeas; dhal; and the tenderest beef ever, all accompanied by a TV channel broadcasting gentle but rhythmic Islamic music.

It's not the rice-fields. But it has its own very real charm.