retrospect

about half of the office had to move due to renovations. it seems the in thing now is to break high walls and big space down by like a third each. more open plan, less open individual space. the latest wave of conformity to hit, although admittedly there is no way we can allow more people in without downsizing the cubicle spaces to be able to squeeze more people into the same floor area. so now it’s less storage, less privacy, but more rowdy company and more reason to just junk stuff when in doubt.

while moving my stuff about i chanced upon an old appointment diary. quite befitting actually as my work here has come full circle. it was from the first year i joined my current place and the first time i started scribbling in an appointment anything to keep track of work and other things. flipping through it i noticed that the diary was simple and my penciling neatly scripted, with some design scribblings here and then. work-wise, i actually had more items noted in it than i remembered. things seemed a lot slower then. i had actually been trying to recall some films i saw in that year, but without much avail. so it was also quite a nice surprise to see some record of that turn up suddenly.

nowadays i don’t do pen and paper much justice. the diary has gotten a little more fancy looking but the handwriting has gone out the window. i have my strength in my fingers to type all day long but not enough to write decently with a pen for a paper. such an irony – i used to always have a rather tight pen grip and paper pressure, so much so that certain fingers developed bumps in school.

so it begins and so it ends. moving cubicles has also proven an opportune time to not just junk stuff, but also pack up and be ready. some will stay where they are. for others the move is temporary because they will move again when renovations are done. they have little need to unpack. and neither do i. it will be a more permanent shift for me. it will be a nice round-up of my time here, to leave at about the same time i came in. it will be a strange sort of parting though: i will leave friends and the environment i know now, but yet i will not be considered as having left service. supposedly i am to return some day.

but in the meantime i will get a change of scene and pace. i will run briefly with the press, which will seem akin to a job introduction without the obligation. after that, the country club on a hill. meantime, there is much else to be done on the home front.

so much awaits.

bali 4 months on

more like almost 6 months on from my last entry but it doesn’t feel that long at all. just came back from bali and as expected, 3-4 days is simply not enough to get a good feel of it. more than expected, i’ve come to love it quite a bit. someone was right about spending 10 days there. so much has happened in the last 4 months since hanoi, not just for me but others around. there’s a tremendous anticipation of change in the air and somehow i’m almost relishing it. possibly moving on, moving out, moving up, better still if moving far and away. but that’s, well, still far and away. still, i’m more in my own zone than i thought. and while it’s good to enjoy that space it’s time to push the boundaries again. to feel the buzz of challenge, of change.

bali was a right good break. probably the best and most effective one i’ve had the whole year although it was a short one. it’s sad though that since the fist bombings in 2002, they’ve seen such a drop in singaporean visitors. we had different people tell us they hardly saw people like us anymore. one of our guides said he last encountered singaporean tourists back in april. that’s a long time for a neighbour.

me and my gf were almost torn between wanting to do a lot and not doing anything at all, yet we were more than happy with the balance we achieved. some ubud, uluwatu, jimbaran, nusa dua. some batik, metal work, wood carving, samplings of dance, mischievous monkeys. american breakfasts, local seafood, balinese meals, beachside tapas, italian dinner. some sun, sand, spa. balinese massage, lulur scrub, flower bath, pedicure all for blissful 3.5 hrs at only abt sgd45-50.

our guide couldn’t understand the porn bill the federal governement was trying to pass. they understand the beauty of nudity and know how to separate it from porn. sounds rather uncharateristically asian doesn’t it. but then again a porn bill which would ban bikinis on beaches would of course mean bali has a vested interest as well. never mind if it has anything to do with the difference between muslim and hundu sensibilities, or not.

even more senseless to him was the possibility that blue films kept at home for private viewing would be banned. i told him we’ve always had that ban and his incredulous look to it proved most amusing.

next it’s gonna be bintan for the second time. though not quite for holiday this round but for retreat. i’m amazed this would mean i’d have made 6 trips this yr, an average of one every other month. and i still haven’t begun to use up this year’s annual leave quota. think i should have more of this. heh. but somehow i have to be prepared that next year could be quite drastically different.

meantime i’m just finally taking some time out. soaking up latent interests especially.

travel with a T

originally i intended to write something more like a quickie for the last 4 months of travel. but i realised as i wrote about hanoi the paras really just poured on. so i’ve given that section its own chapter post. and so the T is followed by shorts.

hanoi and halong june

i’ve never been to vietnam before but the food in hanoi is actually not too far off from the fare i’m used to eating in a vietnamese cafe eastside. was very pleased with that which made me wanna eat even more. i realise their people seem to eat (oxymoronically) very much in moderation and do not appear to have much of a munchie-in-hand type of snacking culture outside of mealtimes. portions seem reasonable but I never find them filling enough. maybe that’s how they all stay slim, but then again for a country still as poor as theirs the moderate portion is an expected trade-off for the fact that they still have quite a culture of meat (more pork and beef on top of that) in their dishes.

hanoi looks something like singapore decades ago and stuck in time. every street corner has some street food vendor with low kiddy plastic stools for people to hover over their noodles or kick back a drink or beer with. there’s still women selling fruits, flowers, food off the back of bicycles and off the baskets balanced by pole on a shoulder. the streets are humid, dusty and downright noisy with incessant honking from dawn deep into dusk. kinda like in cairo except this is nowhere near any desert. scooters are aplenty almost like in taiwan since they are the cheapest form of motorised transport although that still means at least a minimum of US$1,800 to get one.

the cheapest cars are mostly of korean make and can start from about US$40,000. japanese cars are in a more pricey band with toyota SUVs easily costing double. Needless to say then for european brands which are rare on the road.

houses in hanoi are tall and skinny, literally. land is surprisingly so expensive that it can more than rival singapore easily. the cost of just a plot of land itself, and only about the size of a 4-room HDB flat, could set you back by the equivalent of a decent-sized condo in fairly good location: an easy US$2-3 million. no wonder they buy small plots and build upwards, so we thought. but there’s a catch: in (downtown) hanoi no building is allowed to be higher than the height of the ho chi minh mausoleum out of respect for their great leader, and that means a height cap of just 22m. this explains why they also don’t seem to be building any skyscrapers now that vietnam is supposed to be in developmental swing.

the shocking contrast really comes about when you hear just how much the average paycheck in hanoi is: US$40 a month. US$55 if you’re a government servant, US$80 if you work in the factories but only if you do 3 shifts of 20 hours a day. not surprising then that many people in Hanoi take on multiple jobs to earn more dough.

so we asked our local guide if everyone wants to work for the government. apparently if you have a degree and no connections you will have to pay a US$4,000 entrance fee. or wait up to 5 years. and even then you may only be hired to pretty much make coffee since existing staff are keen to protect their positions and feel threatened by bright young talent. now I can see why our guide seems to have an axe to grind with the government. correct, or “KHOR-rec!!”, as he would emphasise with a slight shake of the head and waggle of a finger. and he’s a relatively young, 70s beng-looking chap.

but if you get in life could be good. you start work at 9am officially but no one will bother if you happen to come in around 9.30 to put your bag down, sign yourself in, then hop out for coffee with friends at 10 on the pretext of having meetings. then it’s lunchtime which in hanoi is usually 2 hours anyway. by the time you get back in the office and wrap up any work it’s knock-off time, which in hanoi is usually at 4.30, but what the heck you could leave at 4 if you wanted to. not bad for US$55 a month for any real work. and when you retire you still get a pension.

the sense of exploitation gets even greater when you hear about the education system. the standard of english is not very good among the people because the bulkof the teachers that teach english used to teach russian when it was more de rigeur. they were simply retrained to teach english when it was deemed to be more important. they too have a tendency to have the same fear of bright young talent so students should listen and not speak or question, which also explains why many vietnamese can read and write basic english but find it hard to speak it such that they mask it with silent smiles.

our guide majored in english in the local university there and was taught russian before. even then his english was not very clear although we appreciated his efforts to explain to us best that he could. he said it was not uncommon to see 10-20,000 students applying for just about 200 university places. if you had money, and or connections again, you might stand a higher chance of getting in.

if that isn’t bleak enough, family life in hanoi is still quite traditional. parents are still expected to help their kids through school, settle their marriage costs and maybe boost their chances of getting a job – often enough in that order. it seems that once school is done it is not easy to look for a job outside of the countryside because transportation is a key issue, but for many this is the only hope for a better life. hence parents try to save up enough money to buy their kids a scooter so they can have the mobility to look for work in the cities. but once they do find work they’re often too busy to settle down so some families have taken to settling marriages first before work. often the parents are still farmers and even though agriculture seems thriving, many farmers are squeezed getting little compensation for their land that an mnc buys to build factories through the government as a middle man. usually these farmers have no idea how much their land is really worth or how much the mnc originally paid the state. if the mnc has some sense of corporate social responsibility, it may offer to train the farmer families to work in factories but usually with a stipend of only US$20 a month. many such people learn the skills then look for other better-paying factory work elsewhere.

by the time we’d heard enough of exploitation horros we reached halong bay, easily indentifiable as a tourist spot for the multitude of seaside hotels, roadside souvenir stands, and rows of reconstructed junks by the shoreline for bay trips.  an overnighter alone turned out to be not enough, 3d2n would have been superb. the junk sufficed well enough and its slow pace in the water kept everything in a lazy mode. once again food was great with lots of fresh seafood. the islands were like phi phi x10 or x100, all the rocky outcrop types with caves and shelterd coves. perfectly peaceful, quiet, clean, open, beautiful. brilliant contrast with the polluted noisy streets full of criss-crossing traffic that never obey rules and scooters of people in colourful helmets which make the roads look like they’re full of demonstrating crowds at rush-hour.

back in hanoi we learnt the art of crossing their streets too. and i finally saw a genuine water puppet performance, my only other encounter with it being a friend’s attempt to perform it for theatre studies. quite a delight to see the level of artistry and sophistication they put into their puppets and tricks. certainly a skill very much a long time in the making.

the only gripes i really have about this trip are the arrival hiccups on the first day, the mysteriously eaten fruit on the last night, someone else’s guide with the cheek to suggest we could switch to him if our guide wasn’t good, and only sparing 4 days to go there and back. oh and i need pho bo, spring rolls, and sweet and sour soup again.

travel shorts: bangkualatoho

not quite wearing your heart on your sleeve yet but i guess a minor round-up is all about i can manage for now. ideally i had wanted to write this to appear chronologically but hanoi was just taking up too much. maybe cos it’s the latest trip i had so everything’s still fresh. but i realise too that it’s been awhile since i’ve really visited a developing country. maybe that’s why the impressions are so stark.

but for now anyway…

bangkok march

my first trip there in more than 20 years and the first time i’d seen an old face in too long. lotsa eating, hanging loose, meeting people, some clubbing, some assisted yogassage.

the best meal was this place not far from the palace which serves simple traditional home-cooked fare of the everyday sort. like thai zhi char only better. humble family-run unassuming place with cheap but lovingly-prepared food worthy of its top mention in the bangkok post. it’s only known in thai and even when you cab there the driver may not know exactly where even after you show him the home-made namecard. one of the family used to cook in the royal kitchen too. none of your usual pineapple rice, coconut cream or curry in different colours even. this place makes those seem like the usual thai fare you know is just like singapore fried noodles in a chinatown overseas. instead it’s simple but wholesome tasty dishes, lots of them seafood or crab-based and so succulent and fresh. their grilled chicken wings need advanced orders, of up to a week i think or at least the day before if you’re lucky. for chicken wings!

club was a place that was intentionally designed inside and out to resemble a church. the stage for the live band to bang out linkin park and eminem is set in an alcove in the wall like an altar. best was going there with only cash and no id. i mean it’s bangkok right, who needs id? wrong. they all do. still managed to get in thanks to a good word and a nice bouncer, who said i should i remember to get out first if there’s a raid. or risk being hauled up.

everything was swell till past 1am when the music suddenly switched to cheesy romantic instumentals before turning softer and then silent completely. we were cursing but everyone else local seemed oblivious, like the din of their voices was enough. one of us went out porch-side to get a smoke. then i realised this could be a raid. we ran out to find the smoking one oblivious to the flashing police lights pulling up the driveway. too gone i think. we grabbed our johnnie walker bottle, grabbed him and strolled out just as more lights converged on the scene. everyone was calm and we just kept moving. the guys couldn’t believe it. all the times they’d been there and it had to take me for a raid. in a cab we saw that the whole stretch was being hit that night, everyone spilling out from the clubs onto the kerb. and we just laughed all the way home.

tohoku april

what can i say, japan never fails and everytime you go there it’s a certain familiar feeling even when you’re going to parts of it you’ve never been before. first time-ever i finally managed to see sakuras myself. in all gradations of pink and white, in all kinds of petal formations, sweeping off the trees like snow in the wind. so delicate, so transient, so lovely. no wonder it’s the metaphor of samurais.

tried 3 different onsen, the last being the best simply because it was in this quaint little place managed by just one helluva chef and his family. superb kaiseki which he plans from scratch everyday and applies the same dedication even when he’s making everyone the items for the breakfast buffet. i think i’d make a trip there again even if it’s just to eat his home-made yoghurt. he’s so skilled he makes tofu sculptures and does leaf cuts like paper cuts. horse oil shampoo was amazing for the hair when showering, no wonder horses have such lovely coats. and bathing ape (nothing related to baths) was just insufficient, especially when lots of the really lovely stuff was already sold out.

kl may

haven’t been here in 5 years since i last came with class friends. certainly owed my da jie a visit at least but was more surprised to find that kl’s expanded its number of malls and made them swankier than anything we’ve got. they even have the likes of paul frank up to bucherer and brioni, while pavilion makes klcc and taka look like the two are in the same slightly outdated league by comparison. kl’s definitely tripped up its happening factor.

da jie is, as always, her same self. i swear she’s even growing younger. the time spent with her over the bar was too short and too little, not to mention the slight unexpected interruption by an old chap in a red velvet shirt and matching red pin-striped suit with bling and smokes accompanied by 3 petite lithesome girls all in tight white. he nagged of how the best wine was always out when he came and was happy taking potshots at poor uptight singaporeans.

 

ill appreciation

after returning from kl the shock of just how horribly hot and clammy our weather has been is arguably even worse than when i returned from tohoku. at least for tohoku you would’ve come home expecting that great difference, but not when it’s just a matter of difference between kl and here. the same difference you would imagine but i came back to an oven-baked home, scorching days and an office full of flu-sticken people. then i remember that kl was just lovely air-conditioned hotels and malls all day everyday with mostly overcast skies.

so i came back with a slight sore throat from eating too much of all the good stuff in kl and forgetting to drink enough water in all the shopping excitement. by mid-week when i had to emcee a conference my voice was still holding up, till i lost it when i woke up the morning after… and started sneezing and blowing my nose non-stop along with it.  suddenly i was sick and i blamed it on the weather, the un-environmentally-friendly recycled air in the office, a busier than anticipated week, lack of rest, everything under the sun and, well, the sun itself. i really didn’t need another round of the “always sick after a holiday” theory my dad professes to, which wasn’t even true half the time. at least my voice recovered overnight, which is miraculous in itself since it’s never been so speedy with itself before. that just left the damn flu which i was convinced must have come from somewhere upon my return.

the only good thing about being sick now is that it has made me impervious to the maddening heat. intolerable has suddenly become immune. it’s bit like having a protective heat-resistant bubble around you while standing out in the sun. and for once, this has actually made me able to appreciate better our tropical and outdoor surroundings, though ironically sans heat. oh the lush green and the bright sunshine and the laidback enjoyment at bustling shophouse coffeeshops in tee and shorts… all without the cries of bloody blue murder for weather. for once it’s good to be sick, but i do need to get better quickly too. and for that i’ll know when i start feeling the heat again.

tsk tsk…

can’t believe things have been so much busier than i expected after coming back from japan. it’s been 3 weeks since and i still haevn’t even had a chance to sort the 600+ raw images i have, let alone upload any of them anywhere! appalling really. and i’m off again. short jaunt to see the capital neighbours only but i realise i haven’t set foot there in 5 years since e last time i went with a bunch of friends. can catch up with my da jie too, i haven’t seen her in just as long. and bunk at marriott of course, the epitome of cheap and good thanks to her. hahahahaha. this will be h’s first holiday in like about 2 years too. he really needs to stretch his legs. but for today it’s still busy at work and next week it’s looking like busier. think i’ll really enjoy a spa this weekend if i can get one…

maybe i should try to take a day off soon just to sort out things like travel photos and wardrobe and my room… but then again, knowing me, mum thinks i’ll need 2 days alone to just sort out the clothes in my cupboard. tsk tsk…

chatty cabby

harry flagged a cab by the kerb, gave me a lil peck and off i went home.

(the following is loosely translated from mandarin)

cabby: going where?

me: j—– s—–.

cabby: where is that?

me: near k—–.

cabby: actually lucky there’s you, if not tonight i dunno if i can even get a passenger. and you’re travelling so far (laughs).

i almost wanted to ask him if it was because it was sunday night or because it was also hungry ghost period. but then…

cabby: how come your boyfriend never send you home?

me (bit caught off guard, pauses): he has to wake up early tomorrow as well so it’s ok, i’ll just head home myself.

cabby: you studying right?

me (now this tickles): what makes you think i’m studying, uncle?

cabby (laughs): you young people… not studying then doing what?

cabby: your place have to exit p—– right?

me: ya.

cabby: wahh all the people who live there are rich.

me: not necessarily…

cabby (laughs): you were about to tell me that it’s your dad’s money right?

me: well true, my dad’s money is not my money.

cabby: but someday will still be yours right? all the same (laughs).

me: … … … …

he whistles, then turns up the radio full of old chinese songs as he drives… …

hk: city of contrasts

  

   

it’s been more than 10 years since i’ve gone to hong kong so going there again makes you feel like a revirginalised tourist. same for my wife. it felt good to get a chance to travel again although the trip almost didn’t happen since by the time we booked it most of the flights were full. we ended up paying slightly higher for an f&e package with jetstar budget flights when that would usually get us CX or UA easily. and she swears (again) that she will never fly budget airlines.

i had to put up with her cutesy pink pyjamas (the least cutesy set she brought along already) while she had to put up with my migraine. we both thought it might be a more leisurely trip of mostly eating and shopping but, although tiring, it was well worth running around more with friends while we were there.

some things are still very much the same like the old, grimy, clutters of apartment blocks along nathan road stretching from mong kok down past yau ma tei. food everywhere shops everywhere. but we kept saying that the contrasts in hk are even more stark than in spore. the rich and poor, new and old, gleaming and grimy, modern and traditional, colonial and chinese. contrasts that were stark from kowloon to hk island to lantau, far more so than crossing from spore from end to end. was even more telling when jennifer said that her mum didn’t allow her to go to mong kok when she was young ’cause the area was worse back then. she still doesn’t go there much now.

DAY 1, THU 26 JUL 07

i got up late. was supposed to be up before 5 so that i could get a cab by around 5.15 but only got up when sue ann called me at 5. rushed, and in the dimness of my porch i walked right into the bamboo blinds and scraped the corner of my left chin. we made it in good time but we didn’t have a chance to catch breakfast before the 6.40am flight so the result was spending S$29 on board for 2 rounds of chicken rice, 1 cup of tea, 1 cup of milo and 1 bottle of water. we almost balked at having chicken rice for breakfast but it was either that or nasi lemak or mutton curry. and they were out of nasi lemak. at least the chicken rice turned out better than i thought. even came with side veg and actual chicken rice chilli.

at least with the super early flight we were able to get to our hotel just about nice at midday in kowloon although by then the scratches on my face had reddened to make me look like an abuse victim. the room turned out less squeezy than i expected although strangely for an already small room it still had a separating wall between the bed area and the writing desk. lunch was at prince cafe round the corner where for about HK$60 you could get a western set including soup, a drink and garlic bread. the thing about the set is the humungous portion. i had grilled US chicken and there were 3 chunky slabs of it on my hot plate. sue ann’s steak was twice the size of a usual — and twice as thick.

after lunch was straight to shopping (heh). a nice lil shop just round the corner of our hotel caused me to part with HK$300 already, but for 4 pairs of shoes. we walked down the top end of nathan road till we hit past the mong kok mtr area and went ballistic at the sight of krispy kreme. doughnuts later we browsed around ladies’ market till we had to train down to central in hk island to meet kevin for dinner at jardine house.

gwen managed to catch up with me there and was dragging kelvin (not kevin) along who turned out to be a guy she was trying to hire for her team. but they turned out to be treasure trove of tips for where to go and what to do. even kevin started taking notes, and he’d been working in hk for awhile already. but then again we supposed investment bankers really had no time for anything else. after dinner around 9ish kevin went back to work and he probably wouldn’t get off again till 4 in the morning.

DAY 2, FRI 27 JUL 07

we tried our luck for yum char as brunch. apparently anywhere in wan chai was the place to go and walked into tack hsin restaurant (hmm almost like thaksin). yum char was half off before noon but surprisingly they didn’t have any egg tarts! supposedly the place is famous for its roasted pork though.

back in central we hit the orchard road-like shopping belt. i finally managed to step into the bape store and easily chalked up 300 again, this time in S$. the guy attending to us was not bad looking but after sue ann said i was looking for a t-shirt for my bf, he soon handed us over to his colleague manning the guy’s floor and went back up to his section for ladies. oh well.

at h&m we spent so long in there that we were holding back our pee till it was probably being reabsorbed into our system. the strangest thing about hk public toilets is that there are so few of them too. we wandered into a shopping arcade and saw one but it said on the door that it was for tenants only. nonetheless if you queue outside the locked door someone with a key comes around soon enough and everyone just follows in. good thing shop tenants in hk seem to make toilet trips pretty often.

back outside we kept trying to look for a g2000 outlet but couldn’t find it. we asked hongkongers on the street and they said just walk straight down. after doing that and not finding it we asked people again and they said walked straight back up and you can’t miss it. after repeating the routine a couple of times we figured there couldn’t be one after all although there were at least 2 giordano shops in between.

tired from shuffling our feet and lugging huge bags of shopping we headed to the peninsula (hk’s version of raffles hotel) for british afternoon tea. good thing tea lasts from 2 to 7pm everyday since we got there after 5 and had to queue. and had to be subjected to discreet hotel staff passing down the line to check that you’re following their dress code. luckily we didn’t get thrown out like some other girls (oooh bitch bitch) and we still managed to get a seat before 6. at HK$368 for 2 you really get what you pay for. mmmm…

the peninsula sits at the bottom end of nathan road and we walked upwards to see the shops, passing a white mosque along the way that sue ann refused to take a picture of due to concerns of islamic sensitivity. and then we went crazy seeing a huge g2000 outlet right next to it. thanks to summer sales you could get a business suit for under S$100. i got 2 of them, a blouse and 3 work shirts for guys that only cost about S$25 each. and all in designs and sizes i actually liked and could pick from. sue ann raked up a slightly bigger mountain.

kelvin nicely offered to carry all our shopping for us even as he and gwen took us around the cheap shops in the nearby areas. they were so sweet keeping us company after work and not even having dinner. after 10 we headed back to the hotel to change and return to central to meet jennifer for clubbing in lan kwai fong.

it really is the clubbing land of the ang mohs although i was wondering if they have many accidents with tipsy revellers toppling over on the winding and extremely steep slope full of pubs and clubs. thanks to jennifer and daniel, they got us into one of the latest exclusive hk clubs: privé. some of the liverpool team were in there too, including gerrard apparently. they were in town to play a friendly in hk. music was good, atmoshpere was tight and good-lookers were aplenty. outside when we left the club was on full-house.

after a supper of hk fishball noodles (very different from spore) it was back to bed at about 5am.

DAY 3, SAT 28 JUL 07

we woke at about 11 and made our way to central yet again, this time to take the ferry to lantau island. jennifer, simon and esther played our lovely guides for sightseeing. from climbing up to see the big buddha we had a nice vegetarian lunch included with our HK$23 ticket. down in tai po fishing village we saw old houses on stilts (like kelongs) and spotted pink dolphins on our boat ride.

apparently the weather that day was the hottest summer day ever in hk so far this year at a sweltering 34.8 degrees C. no wonder i came back with a migraine. back on hk island we cabbed to jennifer’s home on the peak where we hopped in her car (sue ann: why do you all drive BMs?) for a quick trip to the top for dinner at bubba gump. this was one of the latest themed restaurants modelled on forrest gump and bubba’s shrimping business. boy did they have really have cute shrimp. i even bought 2 as souvenirs. i’d never seen such pink, happy, soft toy, magnetic shrimp before. mum loved it so much she didn’t wanna stick it up on the fridge with all the other magnets we have.

stumbled back to hotel to nurse friggin’ migraine with 2 panadols. bloody noise on the train kept my brain banging in my skull. sue ann was nice to keep the lights dimmer and lower the tv volume.

DAY 4, SUN 29 JUL 07

we were supposed to meet jennifer for yum char at about midday in times square area and we got there early enough to browse the shops a bit. once up from the causeway bay mtr station sue ann and i were stuck in city super! looking at all the interesting knick knacks they had. they sold stuff from toys to electronic picture frames, doggy clothes to lomos. we spent all our time in just one shop and that was just in the basement of lane crawford mall. we didn’t get around to seeing anbything else! upstairs we crossed onto the street in front of times square and ducked into a small eatery for lunch.

the weather was blazing again, thankfully slightly less than the previous day but we didn’t last too long in the narrow winding alley stalls because of the stuffiness and oppressive heat. for the first time i saw lots of filipinos and muslim girls in headscarves — maids on their day off apparently.

giordano concepts was having a major sale and the crowd was thronging. after joining in and spending off what extra else we had changed in notes and/ or signing our cards out we cooled off with desserts. icy chilled walnut and almond cream mix for me, “boring” mango sago for sue ann and papaya dessert for jennifer.

the airport transfer from the hotel was supposed to pick us up at 4.50pm (although flight was only at 8.15pm) and we had to rush all the way back from causeway bay to prince edward mtr. we made it with just about 5 min to spare. apparently the transfer also picked up others departing the same day for other flights around the same time.

at the airport we couldn’t find the jetstar counter at first because either we were so early they hadn’t even opened proper or they were taking the meaning of “budget” to the max. after snaking queues for clearing customs we loaded up on lao po bing (wife biscuits) and tried to catch dinner before the flight.

we were cutting it close time-wise but fortunately the boarding time was delayed. unfortunately the flight was delayed till we only took off at 9. i realise 3.5 hrs on a budget flight is pretty difficult without suitable distraction and i couldn’t sleep at all on the way back. they didn’t even switch off all the lights. again, sue ann swore she wouldn’t fly budget anymore. but then again everytime she’s sworn, she’s still taken them.

instead of arriving in spore at 11.50pm we only got out at about 12.30am. and i had to work at 7.30. amazing i could even drag myself up.

a taiwanese christmas with an earth-shaking boxing day

yes so i’ve just gotten back from taiwan. spent xmas week there and on a family trip which is the sort of thing that hasn't happened in years. but then again neither has a 7.1 richter scale earthquake in taiwan. and according to them it was the biggest they’ve had in 100 years…

Sat 23 Dec 06, Day 1

left for taiwan today on a china airlines flight. been wondering how much the air ticket costs considering the tiny plane (1 aisle, 3 seats aside, 3 toilets for the whole plane, can’t remember what make it is… 737?), which turns out to be the same kind used by budget airlines like tiger. and the service wasn’t any greater either. also didn’t help harry told me china airlines has the worst flight safety record. no wonder the tour package was so cheap. guided tours are so not my thing anymore. and it’s a strange feelng being on one after travelling a lot more on my own the past few years. only saving grace was the illusionist. so simple really when you know you have but one objective in life… the illusionist and the duchess. 

check-in at changi didn’t leave a very good impression on anyone either. group check-in or no? who knows? messy, disorganised, off-putting already. and this continued when we landed. god knows where we were told to walk to get to our coach… we could just as easily gotten on to some other coach instead and gone who knows where. mum spotted cockroaches on the bus, i spotted mozzies, and 35 people altogether just seemed like too many. 

first stop was a night market but we were too hungry to care for walking much and eating only snacks. ended up at a pasta place for some filling food. about S$35 for 4 pastas and 2 coffees was ok. bought 4 cloth badges for NT500. not bad.

evergreen hotel is listed as a budget hotel in kaohsiung but it costs about S$150 a night and looks like something time forgot since the 70s or 80s. 

Sun 24 Dec 06, Day 2

xmas eve and we walked through the dragon’s mouth to exit through the tiger’s. saw an american lighthouse tower and fugu, the cat’s head and the hippy pig on a coconut truck at a park. missed go karting thanks to super not on folks. dad would rather look for coffee and bro would rather drive his integra. such dampers. coupe of guys in the tour group raced round like mad, one speeding all the way, the other trying to drift on corners. had a mega seafood dinner in kenting with lobster, crab, fish, shellfish and more. watched a club show that charged NT250 per pax for a group of 4 inclusive of 1 standard drink. that’s cheap. and you can stay till they close. watched 2 sets of 3 mini segments by a girl, a tranny and a guy who looked pretty gay. there was supposed to be pole dancing but in the end hardly any, and any of the little twiddling round was by the guy. felt bit cheated. but how they sabo-ed people for the night was fun enough. stripping them down, pouring ice in their boxers or taking bras off…

hotel like the previous day and doesn’t even have its shower stall separated in the bathroom. so when you bathe the water will just run all over the entire bathroom floor. 

then you hear the fireworks outside and suddenly it's xmas.

Mon 25 Dec 06, Day 3

love taiwanese yam cake. and the old street in tainan where the shop is on looks like something out of the 70s in 3 times. saw other shops that were selling toys from that era. amazing. Skipped salt mountain because people wanted to go strawberry picking instead which was funny cos getting your hands all dirty to pick em yourself when there weren’t many worth picking in the first place turned out to be more costly than buying beautiful, washed and pre-packed ones done by the same place. rode an old-fashioned open-aired train to a dairy farm. the wind was cold but the late afternoon sun was beautiful and the old music just made it even more like 3 times. milk custard at the farm was great. more milk, less sweet, perfect firmness. yum. dinner was more disappointing though. walked from the spa hotel in guanzteling up the mountain road some 200m in the night cold to another hotel for few dishes with not much food in them to go round. everyone wanted something more. some ordered roast chicken from the stall outside and sang karaoke with xiao zhuo while waiting. we walked down to a coffee shop for a drink. hardly anywhere was open. only the black mud hot spring in the hotel did any good. all 40.7 degrees of it. and so… merry xmas. 

Tue 26 Dec 06, Day 4

boxing day and jiji didn’t seem like much esp since it’s reconstructed. wu chang temple was much more interesting. so were the bananas. taiwan is peculiar to me in this, it’s temperate and yet it can yield tropical fruits like coconuts, bananas and jambu all year round. somehow i can’t reconcile the strangeness. saw fresh fo shou gua for the first time too. had lunch at a place cai shen jiang ate at before that’s renowned for its san bei ji. must agree it deserves its fame. all the food was pretty good and in plentiful amounts. think i ate the most of any meal on the trip. 3 heaped bowls of rice with loads of everything. 

hotel wasn’t too fab again. looks dated and the rooms were decked out in rosewood furniture. red red everywhere. walked out to find dinner and chance on a huo guo place. cheap for lots of good food. and it was sit-down style, but like the japanese with low tables and mats on the wood floor. happily tucking in i suddenly felt the entire table and floor shake. asked the guys if either was shaking their legs under the table. they said no. then i realised that couldn’t be possible anyhow cos the wood table was fixed to the wood floor. earthquake, i said. and for the next few god knows how many moments we all sat rooted to the floor which was shaking side to side. it was about 8.20 pm. then it stopped. the staff in the restaurant were calm, said they felt it too. but oh well xiao zhuo said taiwan gets 2000 quakes in total a year right? no sweat then. 

and the floor moves again. not as strong this time but it moves for longer. still, we didn’t see locals running in panic. so we just kept on eating. then we strolled outside for a awhile. had dessert at another shop then wandered over to a pachinko parlour. ironic that in all my time in japan i’ve never played in one before and it takes a trip a taiwan to get me oriented. we started off sharing NT1000 worth of tokens. suddenly mum strikes 999 and all the ball bearings keep sloshing out non-stop. might go on for 2 hours, the parlour guy says.  luckily it doesn’t or i’d have fallen asleep in there despite the blaring techno. they count the balls and convert the win to credit. NT2000 worth, not bad a double at all! but the credit only works for locals and you can’t take it out of the parlour with you. seeing we’re not locals, the parlour people were nice. they decided to convert the credit back to cash for us. bit of fumbling went on for a bit. guess it looked like they hadn’t had a winner in a long time if ever. 

by the time we reached back, some of our group were sitting in the lobby too afraid to to go to their rooms to sleep cos of the quake. they told us they heard it was a big one centred in the south. we had no idea. only when we switched on the tv news in our rooms did we see 7.1 on the richter scale off the southern tip with places like kenting and pindong hardest hit with 6.7 on land. us in taizhong some 200km away got it at abt 3 on the scale. and we just left the south one, two days ago. my phone was flat so i plugged in the charger. found a msg and 2 missed calls from harry about the quake. called him back immediately, idd rates be damned. he’d heard about the extent of the quake back home faster than i did in taiwan itself. ah well have to thank the calm locals who went about like normal. guess everyone just thought it was tremors until hearing the full extent. was too tired anyway to care much if the ceiling fell on me, esp when i already wasn’t gonna clock many rest hours as it was. but you could feel as if the damage it caused in the south happened like it was in your own backyard, even if you haven’t even been in that place for long.

Wed 27 Dec 06, Day 5

no reception for almost the whole day today. international land lines were down too. on hindsight it's a good thing i managed to call harry the night before when the reception was still up. for a bit i actually wonder if the lines will come back on  tomorrow since mod registrations start. haven’t told rad yet about what to sign me up for. in any case after strawberry-picking, it was now the tomatoes’ turn. i think people found it even more dismal than the strawberries cos everywhere you looked was just green green green. big, small, clustered, odd-shaped green. not a single red, orange or yellow in sight. bro said he spotted the mum and daughter duo chucking their basket somewhere amongst the plants cos there was just nothing to look at even. guess we missed the real harvest. 

saw a funeral procession getting ready nearby outside. think that’s the 2nd one i’d seen on this trip. the other one was unbelievable, they actually drove a typical ancient chinese coffin on the back of an open-aired ornate truck. the coffin was like something out of a chinese jiang si period piece.

first major stop of the morning was the 921 earthquake museum. seems so peculiar that we went through a quake the night before and found ourselves here now. so serene with a quietening calm, bit like nagasaki’s atom bomb peace museum although not as intense. loved the architecture they designed to sculpt the museum building in and around the quake rubble. order and beauty out of chaos and destruction. man and nature converge. 

any inner peace i acquired was almost ruined later at yingge cos there was just too little time to browse anything, let alone buy. and i was looking for some decent pottery. warmed up a bit at the stone hotpot lunch when they cooked a lovely thick rice dish with yam mashed into the stock to make it almost like gruel. or mui fun. 

bought a bag and 2 pairs of shoes in wufenpu. bit on the high side at NT3000 for both pairs after discount. but what the heck i sure didn’t see these 2 designs anywhere else the rest of the trip. shopped the whole time and raohe had too much smelly beancurd so only snacked. ate back in the hotel instead but food was cheap, good and service excellent.

Thu 28 Dec 06, Day 6

registration begins and i just about managed to sms rad in the morning before the reception failed again for most of the day. its turned rainy and lovers’ bridge stands desolate in the gusty cold shower. was good to warm up to some fishball soup and ah ge (say ‘ah gey’) afterward. the din tai fung-esqe counterpart opened by an ex-chef promised to be everything the same down to design and taste with a dessert favoured and approved by soong mei ling herself. lots of sun yat sen, chiang kai shek, taipei govt offices and taipei 101 the rest of the rainy day. and a mini pineapple tart castle. 

shihlin was disappointing, partly cos the folks were hardly keen to trying anything. the wanton soup was great though. white bitter gourd with honey was, well, still bitter. veg pau was forgettable. shopping was disappointing for the kind of quality on offer. although i must admit shihlin does attract a lot of japanese around there. saw some chio school girls. heh.

Fri 29 Dec 06, Day 7

first thing in the morning a visit to the street of all sorts of smelly beancurd. not sure if it's a blessing that it’s still so early in the morning hardly any of the stalls are open. then it’s up to windy winding jioufen for loads of snacks and knick knacks. i like this place. liked ye liu even more with the strong pacific gusts on the rocky shore formations. lunch nearby was rather cheaterbug. supposed to have lobster cold dish but was really slices of prawns disguised under rounds of salad cream. but the lady’s head at ye liu resembled a bit the profile of nefertiti's bust, beautifully slender. at least that was what you see is what you get. the sulphurous mists later were just bone-chilling as the wind blew with the rain up in the slopes. 

ximenting was more like the shopping area we’re used to. then again maybe cos it looks like a shopping street in tokyo or just that we’re more used to this sort of manifestation of commercialisation, somehow family warmed to it the most of all the night markets. past the pig inards mee sua we settled on the pasta bar later on. pretty decent stuff for about S$10 with pasta, soup, bread and drink. sure competes well with pastamania for my vote. 

Sat 30 Dec 06, Day 8

really about year-end, and the end of us in taiwan. we wake at 5 to leave at 6. reach a duty-free wholesale place next to the airport with complementary bowls of hot beehoon soup to go with our take-out boxes of hotel breakfast. geeeez. dad drinks his last rounds of tea with xiao zhuo. joseph arranges our seats. at the airport there's only about enough time for goodbyes… and not enough for getting rid of loose change. at least it’s a bigger plane this time from taipei though with a captain who takes forever to speak on the intercom. little red flowers and most of miami vice later, it’s home again. 

renaissance melaka

  

i think it's probably almost even 10 years since i've been back to malacca. i remember the days when we went there pretty often, driving up to spend couple of days. it should be no surprise that hardly anything's changed. but this sorta thing never fails to make me sit up and notice everytime i cross the causeway. the similarity of it all is astounding, like i cannot believe that nothing has moved in time. renaissance hotel still looks the same inside and out, pizza hut and the chicken rice ball place are still on the street corner. the familiar shops in jonker, along jalan tan cheng lock are all still there. the historical shophouses needless to say, since they've been gazetted. the dutch square, stadthuys, the maritime museum, the old fort… it was the first time tho that i've been there with a tour guide to provide background info on the places. learnt many things i never knew about malacca before. in the past it was just another quaint malaysian town to see. now i finally understand it better. 

it was a great trip. great company, good food, lovely guide and luxury tours (well that is the name of the tour agency anyhow), good timing (except for the windy rain when we first arrived). 

some of the history stories were familiar enough… parameswara, the mousedeer… but i didn't know the dutch word 'heeren' meant 'first rate gentleman' or something like that. 

and i didn't know that in the 1400s when malacca had good ties with china the then chinese emperor sent one of his daughters, hang li poh, to malacca to marry its sultan. the princess arrived with 500 handmaidens to attend her and they eventually settled in malacca, intermarrying with the locals. and so began the peranakans, the families formed and descended from these 500 handmaidens (or so said our guide, jedi das). no wonder the baba nonyas have such a prominent and illustrious history and position. and the rich and colourful old chinese influence is still strong in their designs.

apparently malacca has the largest chinese cemetary outside of china (so continues our guide) at a whopping more than 100 ha large with tombs dating back to the ming dynasty. the land sits on a hill and was originally given to the handmaidens when they arrived in malacca. over time the prominent piece of land became a notable cemetary and has since been gazetted and is no longer open for new burials. 

well one thing has noticeably changed. malacca isn't exactly great for shopping but now opposite mahkota parade is this spankingly huge new complex, dataran pahlawan, which hasn't fully opened. cantik if you like a shopping mall that feels bit like taka. and mahkota seems to be quieter and more run down now than years ago. had a good but short time in dataran picking up stuff from seed and a cheap pair of sandals to replace my rain-soaked flats. had more fun buying gula melaka (what else!), mee sua, goreng ikan bilis with kacang, preserved buddha's palm… but nothing beats the lovely pair of wayang kulit, fully functional with matching stands! only RM30 for both! so happy.