The Best Bits

In the time honoured fashion, as the end of another year approaches, writers look back and reflect on the year that has gone, so here are some of our best bits from 2007.

• Burns Night. Our first in Singapore, and the first ever in my experience to feature tinned haggis. Canned entrails notwithstanding, we had a fantastic party, aided and abetted no doubt by several wee drams, including my favourite, the Macallan Elegancia, which spawned the following - really poncy sounding to me now - description in my Burns Night post: "It's like drinking vanilla flavoured brioche smeared with the finest honey". What was I thinking?????
• Chinese New Year. Our first in Asia, although we have long celebrated the occasion at our favourite Chinese restaurant, the Lotus Garden in Earls Court. 2009 will be the year of the ox, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming it. For those of you who are not already familiar with the details of Chinese New Year (why have you not read my post on the subject?), let me enlighten you. The Chinese zodiac is based on a 12 year cycle, with each year of the cycle named after Each year of the 12 year cycle is named after one of the original 12 animals. Each animal has a different personality and different characteristics. The animal is believed to be the main factor in each person's life that gives them their traits, success, and happiness in their lifetime. It is said that those who are born in the yof the ox are patient, do not say much, but inspire confidence in others. They tend to be eccentric, and they anger easily, apparently. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. They are mentally and physically alert. While they are generally easy-going, they can be very stubborn, and do not like to be opposed. Me, I'm a snake!
• Great movies. Dan In Real Life, Lust, Caution, Stardust, Wall-E, Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis and a team outing to Mamma Mia, to name but a few. Singapore is a little lacking in the art house movie culture, but does run several film festivals during the year which goes some way to making up for this cinematic deficiency. I went to most of the films that the Singapore French Film Festival showed this year, and was reminded how utterly different French cinema is from most of what the U.S. produces. French films are introspective, with plots that typically revolve around individual or familial angst or even neuroticism. Tragedy and joy are small scale and personal, but probably closer to universal truths about life than whatever messages are contained in most blockbusters. The occasional American film - My Life Without Me for example - seeks to prove me wrong, but otherwise, as my friend Steve would say, "Je reste ma valise".
• The Singapore marathon. Sponsored by Standard Chartered, this was my first ever sortie into group running. Not that I ran the marathon of course, but I did briskly walk the 10K! I finished ahead of 1500 competitors (the positive spin), but since there were 7500 people in the race, I guess that means that I was beaten by 6000 others. It all depends on your point of view. Since I had done no training whatsoever, I don't feel too bad, and there's always next year...........
• Corduroy Mansions. Alexander McCall Smith's new online novel. Nothing to do with Singapore, apart from the fact that I can access it here daily through the Internet. For those of you who have not been turned on to him, he writes the most wonderful novels - The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and the Sunday Philosophy Club, featuring the wonderful Isabel Dalhousie are but two examples. Corduroy Mansions is his first (free) online novel, available through the daily Telegraph online. Log on now and you can read, or listen to, the chapters to date.
• Bali. We went there in March and had a wonderful time. Super relaxing, daily massages, wonderful restaurants; if you are thinking of a trip there, email me for recommendations.
• Learning to dive. This was one of the highlights of the year. While it was just the teensiest bit scary from time to time, it was also the most amazing experience. Read my post "Down under" if you have not already done so, for full details.
• Massage. I have not yet got used to being asked if I would like "medium pleasure" or "deep pleasure" when I go for a massage (think about it) but it is always a pleasure. While massage has been available wherever I have lived, it is super available here, and has become a weekly treat.
• Friends visiting. We have had some fabulous moments with friends who have come to stay. Highlights are the invitation from one of Singapore's principle restaurateurs to arrange a more or less immediate Masonic induction, fireworks at Clarke Quay with Saffron, an amazing dinner at Senso and brunch at the Four Seasons with Kerry, massage (I know!) with Caitlin, the Black Eyed Peas with Alison and so on and on...........

I would like to thank all of my readers for staying tuned, and to encourage you to keep reading. 2009 promises lots more adventure. If you're up for it, come and join in. If not, then just keep reading..............................

Embrace the scum

Once again, dear readers, I am using a provocative headline to tempt you in to my blog. This is not a plea to hug a villain, but the essence of an article in Singapore's "Today" freesheet which extols the virtues of the froth that occurs when one is making soup. According to "Today", soup scum contains nutrients - largely protein and fat, it would appear - and can be consumed without concern. Hmmm, it still looks yucky though.


It strikes me that it's been a while since I've written on the subject of food, so it's probably time to give it another go, given the importance of the subject to most Singaporeans. Hawker centres are a big thing here. They are open-air food complexes, basically a collection of individual stalls, where the stall-holders ply their wares - anything from carrot cake (not what you're thinking, but a savoury dish bearing no resemblance to dessert) through curry puffs ( a personal favourite) and pig's organ soup (most decidedly not a personal favourite), in a no-frills setting. The Newton hawker centre is a short drive from where we live - to be fair, not that long a walk, but this is Singapore - and one of the stalls there has the best curry puffs in town. Strangely, its only real competition in my opinion is the version sold by Ikea - just as well really, since it's the only way I can ever get Chris to go there!


Another feature of the Singapore food scene is the wet market. These are very popular here - basically open markets that sell pretty much everything, from fresh fruit to live chickens. Imagine a supermarket, then imagine something nothing like a supermarket in terms of layout, presentation, lighting, flooring (they are wet, as a result of regular washing down - remember what I said about live animals?), and you pretty much have a wet market. The one we go to from time to time (for honey mangoes rather then hens), is the Tekka market in Little India.

I was in Little India yesterday, as it happens, in search of a sari. Why a sari, you ask? Well, I had been invited to an Indian themed party and decided that a sari was the way to go. I was recommended to go to Hanifa's on Dunlop Street by the lady who sold me my Indian sandals, so off I went. I had envisaged a decent range, but not the tens of thousands on display. Now, a sari is basically a (very long) length of cloth, so how difficult can it be to choose? Very, actually. First, the material - cotton, silk crepe, heavy silk, then the design - plain, with a border, embroidered, sequined, jewelled - you get the picture, and finally colour, or colours. I settled for a beautifully flowing silk crepe in pale green blending into pale coffee, with embroidered flowers on the border. If I say so myself, it is absolutely beautiful!

Once I got it home, though, I encountered a wee problem. The shop forgot to give me the instructions on how to tie it, so I looked it up on the Internet, only to discover that I needed a petticoat. You tuck the material into the petticoat as a first step, as the base for the rest of the folding and winding, so, petticoatless, I was in something of a pickle. Necessity being the mother of invention, I decided to cut the feet off a pair of cream coloured opaque tights and tuck the material into that instead. It worked like a charm. I must say, I felt really elegant, having accessorised with kohl, the gold sandals, a jewelled bindi and the longest (and heaviest) earrings I have ever worn. No photo unfortunately, but I'll be wearing it again, so definitely the next time..........

Further under

I promised you more of my sub-sea adventures, and here they are- complete with some more pix. The one above shows me with Viki (if you've been paying attention, you will know that she was my diving instructor). And no, she is not checking my measurements, but practising key skills with me on the sea floor. Actually, when I look at this photo I can't remember what the skill was (it does look spookily like "guess the cup size of the trainee", doesn't it?). Since I came back, I bought some fins, and I've been practising my swimming in the pool here at Ardmore. It looks a bit odd, I must say, and feels incredibly strange when I take them off, as if my feet have lost weight.

The sporty theme continues, as I have signed up for the 10K race (or stroll, in my case) that is part of the Standard Chartered sponsored Singapore Marathon on December 7th. Most of our team at work is going in for it in one way or another - the half, or the 10K mainly - so it's just as well that the day after is a public holiday, to enable us to recuperate. The team is coming round to our place after the race for lunch, which will feature a gigantic stuffed fillet of beef for the hungry runners. This means getting up at 5.30 am to work on the stuffing, as we have to be at the starting line for 7.30. Heigh ho!

I promised some more pictures from my diving trip, so here are a couple that give a sense of the wonders of the deep. The one on the right is what we expect tropical fish to look like, so I thought I'd even things up a bit for the aesthetically challenged of the undersea world, with the other photo. Although it looks like a (rather ugly) fish head mounted on a wall of coral, the body is actually there too, in a crevice. It probably has a sweet personality and loves its mother.

Iz down under

Not Australia, but the Andaman Sea - the body of water to the west of Thailand, that forms part of the Indian Ocean and played host to me this week as I learned to dive. I am now a PADI qualified Open Water diver! Learning to dive is something I've been thinking about for some while and, as I'm not getting any younger (funny, that), I figured that now was as good a time as any. Living in Singapore means that lots of warm water dive sites are within easy reach, and the fact that Chris's eldest daughter Saffron runs a dive centre in Ko Lanta in Thailand (check it out at http://www.scuba-fish.com/) made the choice of where to learn very simple without having to do any of that research malarkey.

So, what was I expecting, and what was it like? Well, it was hard work for a start - physically and mentally. Physically, because doing anything underwater is hard work given the relative density of water and air, and mentally, because there is a fair amount of theory to get to grips with about stuff like the effects of compression on the body to make sure you dive safely. It's a while since I've taken an exam but thankfully, I passed, largely due to great one-one-one tuition from the lovely Viki, with whom I bonded instantly because she too, is Scottish. There are some pictures of the dive sprinkled throughout this and future posts - the one top right is me going into the sea for the first time. I know it's looks as if I'm being pushed, but I really did jump! The one below unfortunately makes me look as if I have borrowed Graucho Marx's nose for the day, but, hey, everything looks bigger underwater, and nobody ever said that divewear was flattering. In my case the neoprene wetsuit was not only unflattering, it also produced an (extremely rare, but who wants to be special in a case like this) allergic reaction after my first open water dive.

A big group of us were going out for dinner that evening and as I was getting ready, I started to itch. At first, I thought I had been bitten by a troop of hungry mosquitoes, but then - literally as I watched - my skin got redder and redder and broke out in a series of welts - everywhere (and, dear readers, I do mean everywhere) that the wetsuit had touched. It took me a while to work out what it was, but when I was able to pause momentarily from scratching every nook and cranny (the crannies were the worst) and view the pattern of the reaction, it came to me. By this point my ears had gone bright red and had swelled up on the inside and Chris was having to physically restrain me from scratching myself bloody. Fortunately someone at the dive centre had some amazing cream - thank you Glaxo SmithKline - which, coupled with a double dose of antihistamine tablets - seemed to do the trick overnight.

The dinner was at a local restaurant and karaoke club, where those of you who know my predilection for the microphone will doubtless have been expecting me a rendition of my theme tune, Girls Just Want To Have Fun. Well, I would have done, had it been on the song list. Fair enough, you're thinking, no Cyndi Lauper, why didn't I just go for a spot of Abba, or that karaoke staple - I Will Survive? Who can imagine a karaoke list without Dancing Queen or Gloria Gaynor? Well I can, now, because all the songs were Thai classics. To be fair, there was a list of 13 English songs, from an album entitled "Michael Sings Rock". Unfortunately, none of us had ever heard of this particular Michael or any of his songs, which didn't stop Chris getting up and singing one of them - very loudly and tunefully - although not necessarily to the tune that Michael had in mind.

While the Ang Mo population may have been constrained by the list, not so the Thais in our group, who were giving it the welly as soon as they sat down. A great time was had by all; we had masses of delicious Thai food and a fair few beers, for the bargain price of GBP 80.00 for 28 of us. A night to remember.

Garden soup

My regular readers may remember me waxing lyrical about the Botanic Gardens in a previous post. We were there again last night, having a picnic and watching a film called Tortilla Soup. The open-air cinema experience was part of the Singapore Sun Festival - described as a "celebration of the art of living well". There's lots going on - music, arts, literature, food, wine - and film. The alfresco films are all food-themed, Eat Drink Man Woman and Big Night were the other two. If you've never seen them, make sure you put it right.

We got to the gardens early to make sure of a good seat, but there was barely any need. While any open-air event in London usually attracts hordes of people, last night it was all very relaxed, with lots of space. The film stars Hector Alizondo - whom you may remember as Barney Thompson, the hotel manager in Pretty Woman. He is a master chef, widower and father to three daughters who all get fixed up romantically during the course of the film - as does he, right at the end. Feelgood stuff.

We have a long weekend for Diwali (or Deepavali as it is known here in Singapore), the Hindu Festival of Lights. Little India is decorated with lights and flower garlands and absolutely milling with people. We were there yesterday, at one of Singapore's institutions - Mustafa's. Mustafa's, or Mustafa Centre to give it its full name, and an amazing place. Open 24/7, it sells everything from Italian leather briefcases and gold jewellery to electronics and groceries as well as most things in between. Not for the claustrophobic (think Oxford Street on the last Saturday before Christmas, throw in a few hundred more determined shoppers, and you begin to get the picture), Mustafa's is a far cry from most of Singapore's other shopping malls, but it's probably the best known. Apart from the Italian leather briefcase, we were in search of a small cool box for our picnic. I finally tracked it down - in the crockery department for some reason - only to discover that the ice packs to put inside it were to be found 4 levels down, in the sports department. Very odd.

Singapore continues to puzzle and to delight, in more or less equal measure, and I think we have barely scratched the surface. I'll do my best to keep digging and reporting back, so please do your bit and keep reading.

Hot and wet

No, not the sequel to the Vagina Monologues mentioned in the last edition of Izinsing, but a description of the Singapore climate. I know I've mentioned the weather before, but this reference is more by way of a whimsical musing on the effects of the climate on the individual - in this case, the lovely Chris and myself.

First, the good news. The humidity keeps your skin soft, even if - like me - you are not someone who slathers on body lotion every day. However, the bad news about the good news is that, as soon as you go back to the UK, you feel like a crisp.

The heat also helps with any little rheumaticky twinges that begin to develop with the advance of the years, you can wear summer clothes all year round, swim outdoors every day and never have to worry about the central heating. I have no scientific proof of this next advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your point of view), but I am sure that the tropical climate has the same effect on hair and nails as it does on the lush greenery that surrounds us here.

My hair seems to grow much more quickly here than it did in London, and the same is true of Chris's toenails (probably too much information, that last piece?). Having come to Singapore with short hair, I have now let it grow long enough to do up in a french plait (or pleat, for the Scots among my readership). There comes a point in a woman's life when long hair is just wrong, but I have decided I'm some way off that point, and will continue to ignore the passing of the years as long as it suits me.

Hot and wet could also be a description of some of the movies I have seen over the last week during the Singapore French Film Festival. Most of them will probably never come your way, but it is definitely worth trying to see "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" if you get the chance. It is absolutely hilarious - the story of a French postal manager from the south of France who is trying to get a transfer to the Riviera to help his wife's depression. Things go wrong, and he ends up getting transferred to the far north of France instead - the land of the "Ch'tis" of the film's title. When he tells his friends where he is going, they are shocked and sympathetic - believing that he is going to a cold, dark, miserable, hell, full of disused coal mines and drunken inhabitants who speak an incomprehensible dialect. When he gets there of course, it turns out to be somewhat different. I read somewhere that Hollywood is planning to make a US version of the film. Oh dear.

The humour of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis was not typical of the other festival offerings, alas, and one of them - Le dernier des fous - was just about the saddest film I have ever seen. Unless you are entertained by the progressive collapse of a troubled family culminating in the shooting of mum, dad and grandma by the 10 year old son, I would say this is definitely one to avoid.

Vroom vroom!

This time last week, Chris and I were getting ready to go the Singapore Grand Prix - the first I'd ever been to, the first one ever held in Singapore and the first ever GP night race. Before we went, I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, but I found myself completely caught up in the excitement of the race. What I hadn't anticipated was the noise. The people who were entertaining us had provided earplugs, which was just as well as the noise would have been deafening without them. It wasn't just the noise, it was the vibration too; I was sitting outside drinking water from a plastic glass, and the rim of the glass started to rattle against my teeth as the cars went past. If you click on the link below, you'll see some great pictures, of the race, and of Singapore looking absolutely stunning.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_singapore_grand_prix.html.

Bringing F1 to Singapore is just one of a number of changes going on here. When we first arrived, just over a year ago, I couldn't imagine hearing the the C word used in a public performance, but last week that's exactly what happened at Singapore's staging of The Vagina Monologues. And it didn't stop with the actress, she had the whole audience chanting along with her. It was a great night, at one of the theatres I'd not been to before - the Drama Centre theatre - which is inside the National Library. The National Library is a stunning building, with two outdoor gardens inside (if that makes sense) ; one of them is pictured at the top right. The National Library traces its history back to the establishment of the first public library, suggested by Sir Stamford Raffles himself, the founder of modern Singapore.

Singapore is really serious about the business of reading. When Singapore gained its independence from Malaysia in 1965 and the country's population spread into the suburbs, libraries were established in the new towns built by the Housing and Development Board (HDB). The HDB is responsible for public housing in Singapore, a big responsibility since almost 90% of the population lives in HDB housing, largely in "new towns" like Woodlands and Tampines. These townships are self-contained entities, with shops, restaurants and other services included as part of the build. The government, through the HDB, uses public housing to promote social cohesion by ensuring that no particular racial group concentrates together in townships or estates. While living in public housing is seen as a stigma in some countries, this is not true of Singapore, where most of the residential housing developments are publicly built. There seems, in fact, to be very little poverty in Singapore, and very little crime also. Doubtless, the two are connected.

Cheesecake

You are probably wondering why the subject of cheesecake deserves a post of its own. Unless you are my sister, of course, who will understand perfectly. She and I are big fans of cheesecake - the New York, baked variety, so imagine our surprise - and delight - when we arrived in Singapore to find that it is ubiquitous - and occurs in so many different varieties that it could almost be thought of as the national dessert (unless durian pudding has already claimed that title).

So where is it to be found? Well, for a start, most of the big hotels have a patisserie which both serves cake and sells it on a takeaway basis. You can buy a single slice, or a whole cake, and you can choose from plain, Oreo, chocolate, chocolate walnut, chocolate chip, chocolate mocha marble, blueberry, orange macadamia, apple nut, strawberry, mango almond, tutti frutti, toffee, to name but a few - honestly!

My favourite so far is a seasonal cheesecake - made only for Chinese New Year. It is tangerine flavoured, as tangerines and oranges play a big part in the new year celebrations and are passed out freely during the festival ( because the words for tangerine and orange sound like luck and wealth, respectively). It is decorated with mini tangerines, made - I think - of white chocolate and both looks and tastes gorgeous.

The availability and variety of cheesecake in Singapore stand in sharp contrast to my early experiences. I spent almost 17 years in Aberdeen during the 70s and 80s, and it was not possible to get some of the foods that we now take for granted - pitta bread and cheesecake to name but two. Having fallen in love with pitta bread on a holiday in Greece, I found a recipe and made it at home. Tasted fine, but a bit of a palaver, quite frankly. My friend Lins and I were gutted when M&S stopped making their American cheesecake, and spent some of the best years of our twenties in pursuit of the ultimate cheesecake recipe, and the ultimate pair of black trousers. Because we had very limited success with the former, we were able to fit into the latter when we managed to locate them!

I'm still composing the review of the Oktoberfest, so keep reading.......

The expat weekend

It is Saturday, 20th September 2008, the end of one of the most surreal weeks in the financial industry. For those of you who have not been following the press, recents events have been described variously as "the end of investment banking", "the latest terrifying phase of the credit crunch" and "massive humiliation for Wall Street" (there are many who would say this last one is no bad thing). However, I am no financial journalist, and this blog was never meant to be a running commentary on the financial markets, so I will leave it there.

One of the best things about our life here in Singapore is the weekend. Because we have live-in help, in the form of the lovely Ding (real name Ester, but she has been called Ding ever since she was a child), we don't have to spend the weekend doing chores - luxury! A typical weekend involves a lie-in, since I normally get up pretty early, a visit to the gym, a movie or two, eating out on Sunday, which is Ding's day off - perhaps brunch (see previous post "War on Buffet" from April) at one of the many fabulous bruncherias on the island, or a visit to one of Singapore's many festivals, like the Singapore River Festival which starts this weekend. This is a first for Singapore - but it sounds a lot of fun - so I hope it becomes an annual event.

The festival is set along the Singapore river, and its various events will celebrate the elements of water and Singapore's heritage. There will be lots of music, outdoor parties, and of course, eating opportunities, many of which will take place at Clarke Quay. I'm not sure if I've written about Ckarke Quay before, but it's one of the first places I encountered on my very first trip to Singapore - when I came here for my interview in early 2007 - as my hotel was just around the corner.

Clarke Quay is Singapore's premier entertainment district; it's full of clubs, bars, restaurants and nightspots and really comes alive when the sun goes down. It's located near the mouth of the Singapore river and was the centre of commerce during the late 19th century - although obviously lacking the clubs, bars, nightspots etc., which are situated in a number of different blocks, based on the "godowns" of yesteryear (a godown was a dockside warehouse or storage area). Many of the restaurants are housed in old shophouses - an architectural form unique to South East Asia and a wonderful piece of Singapore's heritage.

A shophouse - there's a clue in the name - consists of a shop on the ground floor and residential accommodation upstairs. They were typically built in longish terraces - sometimes a whole street's worth and have narrow fronts and very deep rears (as it were). The residential part was meant to house one or more families, who may or may not have been connected to the commerce beneath. Many old shophouses have been converted into business premises, but many have become modern-day dwellings. There are lots of shophouses on Boat Quay, which is very close to where I work - and is host to Harry's Bar, where Nick Leeson used to hang out. The picture at the top is Boat Quay, with the CBD (central business district) in the background. I often have lunch on Boat Quay, and never fail to think how fortunate I am, to be living and working here.

This weekend started on a cultural note - with a visit to the launch of a book of poems by a friend of ours - Hsien Min Toh. You can see him if you follow the link below. He was launching and reading from his latest collection, called Means To An End, and I bought two copies, one for me and one for my friend Steve, who will, I think, appreciate both the sentiments and the language of the work. Let me know what you think, Steve. It's on its way.

http://home.pacific.net.sg/~hsienmin/

Tonight's outing is to the Oktoberfest night at the Swiss Club, with a couple of Singapore friends. Oktoberfest in September I hear you ask? Good question, but the real thing in Munich starts in September and runs for 16 days into October apparently. I'm really looking forward to it, which is quite strange as I'm not the biggest fan of beer, or bratwurst, so I'll probably spend the evening with a sauerkraut sandwich and a glass of dry white wine. With any luck there will be singing and group dances - heaven for the extravert in me, since I never seem to find anyone to go out to play at a Karaoke club with me.

Just another meltdown Monday

Who would have thought? I am posting this on Tuesday 16th September, the day after Lehman Brothers went to the wall. Two of my dearest friends work there, and my heart goes out to them. It feels to me as if we are seeing history in the making - a financial services equivalent of the tearing down of the Berlin wall. I have worked in HR in the financial markets for 21 years and I don't believe I have ever seen anything like it. So what happens next? Damned if I know, but I'll keep you posted as I work it out.

One year in.......

Dear readers (I can say readers with confidence, because a number of you have taken me to task for not posting anything recently), I am back at the keyboard and brimful of reflections, so sit back and get reading.

It has been just over a year since we first came to Singapore - the end of July, 2007 - and what a year it has been. There was little notion of the impending turmoil in the financial markets, Bear Sterns was alive and kicking and my friends at Lehman Brothers were hard at work for one of Wall Street's most prestigious firms. I feel immensely fortunate to be working in the Asian markets at this time, in a growing business, but, as my CEO is wont to observe, there is no room for complacency.

We returned to Singapore from a holiday at our house in France last week. It was a delicious break, and some friends came over to join us in surprise (early) birthday celebration, which began with dinner at the Domaine d'Auriac (pictured, - no, that's not a picture of our house) - and ended with a firework display on the hill behind our house. We had been to the restaurant before with a group of some of the same friends for my 40th, which just seems like yesterday but appears, in reality, to have been xxxxxxx years ago! How did that happen? At moments like this I am tempted to quote T.S Eliot's lines from The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

if only I knew what he meant. Re-reading the poem just now brings back memories of secondary school - probably in 4th or 5th year - and studying that particular piece. I don't think I got what he was talking about at all, but 30 something years on, it strikes a chord. In case you're feeling poetic, here's some more:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Talking of poetry, I am sure you have been missing my haiku film reviews. That said, I do not think that I could convey the necessary level of enthusiasm for my latest two recommendations in a mere 17 syllables. We have just returned from seeing Wall-E (recommended by my friend Steve, who has great taste in movies, food and friends) and it was a complete delight. A robot love story - strangely touching - and possibly a political commentary on our disposable society (less sure about this) but one of my must see recommendations. At the gritty end of the scale is In Bruges, which I saw on the flight back from London. It's the story of two hit men - one played by Colin Farrell - who have to spend some time in Bruges after a hit goes wrong. It is by turns very funny, dramatic and sad, and absolutely made me want to visit Bruges at Christmas time.

So what does it feel like to be in our second year as expats in Singapore? Well, some things have become completely familiar, yet we are still discovering the new also. Singapore is full of traditions, as I have said before, and this is the season of the mooncake festival.

Mooncakes are Chinese pastries traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are typically round or rectangular and measure about 10 cm in diameter and are quite thick. The filling is thick too - and very rich. There are modern versions, but the traditional mooncake filling is made from lotus seed paste and contains whole egg yolks. They are rich, heavy, and very dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries and are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea. An acquired taste for the Western palate, I think.

National Day

We won't be in Singapore for this year's National Day, which is a shame really, as it's a big event. I've mentioned before in the blog how much I think Singapore punches above its weight, and it's a fiercely proud nation/city/island/country - take your pick. This pride is much in evidence on National Day, and the effort that goes into rehearsal. National Day is celebrated on 9th August, the date Singapore gained its independence from Malaysia in 1965.

The National Day Parade is the grandest national event in Singapore. The celebrations finish with an amazing firework display and feature all sorts of exhibitions, including Singapore's equivalent of the Red Arrows, who practice their stuff for months in advance of the parade - mostly outside the windows of our apartment block it would appear.

For those of you who are regular readers, here are some facts about Singapore:

Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometres. The USA is about 15,000 times bigger.

Apart from Monaco, Singapore is the most densely populated country in the world.

The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore contains more species of trees than the entire North American continent.

The largest fountain in the world is located in Singapore at Suntec City. It cost an estimated US$6 million to build in 1997 (and it is very ugly, by the way!).

In 2003, Singapore's Changi Airport won the award for "Best Airport Worldwide" for the 16th consecutive year from the UK/Europe edition of the Business Traveller magazine.

The record for the biggest ever game of pass-the-parcel was set in Singapore on 28 February 1998. It involved 3,918 students removing 2,200 wrappers from a 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.5 m parcel.

British pop violinist Vanessa Mae Nicholson was born in Singapore and moved to England when she was four.

The most common Chinese surnames in Singapore are Tan, Lim and Lee.

8 in 10 people in Singapore own cell phones. In fact, telecom companies issue new numbers at the rate of 30,000 to 40,000 per month.

Singapore's best showing in the Olympic Games ever was a silver medal won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang in Rome in 1960. Maybe they will have better luck in Beijing!

Shanghai'd

Just back from Shanghai - my second visit there since we moved to Singapore - and I was blown away. Funny really, since the first time I went, in August last year, it barely made an impression. What was different this time was that I had the chance to spend some time outside of offices and hotels, and have a look round the older part of Shanghai - called Puxi (pronounced Pusee). In fact, the newer part of Shanghai - Pudong - is very new indeed. What is now a thriving commercial centre, with state of the art buildings, was farmland 15 years ago. Since it now looks like this (above), it's hard to believe the transformation.


Whenever I travel to places like China, I tend to be a bit challenged by the food (those of you who have read my post on "slippy food" will know what I mean). I'm sure this means I miss out on some amazing culinary opportunities, but there you have it. Walking through the French Concession in Puxi (the area of Shanghai originally designed for the French, and full of lovely old buildings as well as being the home of Shanghai's cafe society and club scene),) I came across a restaurant in a small park (or large garden, depending on your point of view - make up your own mind from the picture below).



Luckily for me, there were plenty of prawn dishes as well as the restaurant specialities of marinated turnip skin, mustard marinated jellyfish and sliced whelk.


Back in Singapore, we are experiencing relatively poor weather, although I am loving the unusual sensation of feeling cool for a change. I'm sure it won't last. We are heading for France in August, and hosting a Langedocienne dinner for some of our Singapore friends just before we go, so next Friday Chris will be cooking duck confit with cassoulet and serving up goat's cheese with honey. If you're going to be in the neighbourhood, just let us know!

A gold class movie experience

Last night, we went to see The Incredible Hulk. Definitely a movie, rather than "cinema", but a fun experience nevertheless. Much of the fun came from the fact that we went to one of Singapore's Gold Class cinemas to watch the big green man in action. I'm not sure if these exist in UK multiplexes, but they are definitely the way to go for the ultimate movie experience unless, like my friend Eddie, you have your own cinema in the basement of your house, of course.


The tickets are about 3 times the price of a normal ticket in Singapore (therefore about the same as an ordinary ticket in London). For that, you get entry to the Gold Class lounge, where you can have something to eat or drink, or order it to be served at your table in the cinema while you are watching the movie. The cinema seats are in pairs, with a little table in between, and the seats recline almost fully, like really good business class seats in an aircraft. You are provided with a blanket, in case the air con is too much for you (or if you just fancy a ziz I suppose).


If I were to review the movie in the Haiku style I would say the following:

Lovely Liv Tyler
excels as always. Edward
Norton good and green.

Musings on a Sunday morning

There is no particular subject for this post, it's just a collection of reflections on life in this part of the world. Like having to keep almost everything in the fridge because of the heat. In Singapore keeping bananas in the fridge (normally a big no-no) means they spoil less quickly than if you keep them on the work surface. I learned this from my sister Alison - one of my regular readers - who lives in Oz, where fruit faces similar climactic challenges. Thanks, Ali.

Staying with the fruit theme, we are now in durian season. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the delights (or horrors, depending on your point of view) of the durian. I found this great piece written by a Singapore expat, in which he describes his love affair with the durian. http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tonym/durian.html. I do not share his enthusiasm, I'm afraid, having so far been put off by the smell. The durian is banned from all forms of public transport, for good reason. My Singapore friends keep encouraging me to try it in dessert or cake form, but I'm still not convinced.

Last night we went out to eat at Halia, one of the restaurants in the Botanic Gardens. It is set quite far inside the gardens, and the walk from the entrance is full of atmosphere and romance. It is up a wide path, bordered by trees and beautifully lit. There is a picture of the restaurant at the top of the post.

Unfortunately, the food was not as great as the place. The first course of black pepper soft shell crab was delicious (although the black pepper was a bit subtle for my palate, which is used to fierce amounts of chilli), but the lobster and mushroom risotto was really disappointing. There was no depth of flavour; it tasted as if the rice and stock had not spent all their life in the same pan, growing together and gradually becoming one, but more as if they had been introduced to each other halfway through the process. If that sounds a bit poncy I apologise, but those of you who cook will know what I am talking about. The restaurant made the mistake of leaving one of those happy sheets with the bill, the little card that asks for your comments on the meal. Wrong table to choose!

That said, as we walked back through the gardens to the car, we sat down on one of the wooden benches overlooking the lake and reflected again on how fortunate we are to be living here. This thought strikes me every day that I spend here, for one reason or another, but never more so than when I am travelling in other parts of Asia. People say that Singapore is "Asia 101" - the Asian experience for beginners. It is clean and prosperous, everything works, there is very little crime and none of its citizens seem (to me at least) to be living in poverty. The same cannot be said of much of the rest of the continent, and travelling in India, for example, really brings home to me the lottery that is the accident of birth. If the cost of rice goes up a few percent, it is still a very inexpensive commodity to us, but it becomes an unaffordable staple for some.

When I last wrote about India, the post featured a piece on mangoes. I have recently learned that mangoes are considered a "heatie" food, in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. Heatie (yang) foods, like ginger, red and green peppers, chicken, cherries, coconut, coffee, eel (yes, eel), garlic and of course mangoes, are said to create "hot" energy in the body, while "cooling" (yin) foods, like bananas, crab, grapefruit, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber, pears, radishes and yoghurt create cold energy. As with so much of life, it's all about balance, and eating the right balance of yin and yang foods for your own particular circumstances - taking into account metabolism and lifestyle for example - is apparently the thing to do. I wonder whether pizza is yin or yang..........

An apple a day

Strange as it may seem to my gadget loving friends - Eddie and Steve, you know who you are - I have never owned an MP3 player, until a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure why, when I think about it, but there it is. So I decided to open the door and now I can't believe what I was missing. Now the proud possessor of a mint green iPod nano, I listen to it all the time and have to remember not to sing out loud and dance along when I'm in public places - or at work early in the morning. Then again, what the hell!

Chris is not an MP3 sort of a guy, but he has been seduced by the MacBook Air (http://www.apple.com/macbookair/) - Apple's latest laptop which is as thin as a New York socialite, and just possibly slightly lighter at under 1.5 kilos.


As it happens, I am writing this post listening to music on my PC - another revelation! Current favourite is Duffy. I had forgotten what a powerful influence music is on mood, and on memory. Listening to some songs brings back the moments that I associate with them so strongly that I feel as if I am right back there in the moment. I can't listen to Paul Simon singing "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes", Roberta Flack singing "The first time ever I saw your face" or Everything but the girl singing "Tougher than the rest" without being transported back in time. Magic.

Other favourites: anything from the dance scenes in Dirty Dancing, Peter Gabriel "The book of love", the Corries and the Proclaimers. You can take the girl out of Scotland...........................................

Why not share your favourites? All you have to do is leave a comment.

Mercifully, I took the iPod with me to Malacca last weekend. I say "mercifully" because the trip - all of 290 km - took almost 6 hours each way. Almost half the time was spent in the queue for border controls - out of Singapore and into Malaysia. So, was it worth it? Just about. Malacca is both a town and a state - one of the oldest in Malaysia. It was originally a sultanate (as some of the Malaysian states still are) and a very prosperous trading port. Malacca was ruled by the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries and many of the public buildings were built during this time. We stayed in a small hotel in the historic heart, close to Chinatown, which had been converted from an original Peranakan house. Regular readers may remember previous references to the Peranakan culture in the blog - Peranakans are the descendants of the very early Chinese immigrants to Malaysia. At the time, it was illegal for Chinese women to leave China which meant that male emigrants had to marry non-Chinese women and so Peranakans were born.

Another connection to a previous post (the one about mangoes) is Alfonso de Albuquerque, who was there in the early 16th century. Malacca seems to have spent much of its past being occupied by one European nation or another; we were a greedy lot in those days, weren't we?

This weekend we are resting up, catching up and - in my case - listening to music. Have a good one.

Not all mangoes are created equal

I'm not that big a fan of the mango to tell the truth; I'm more of a papaya person, so the vexed question of which is the best variety of mango has largely passed me by - until last week that is. I was in Chennai (aka Madras for those of you missed the reclaiming of the traditional name) and in Mumbai (Bombay as was) last week, and found myself drawn into a heated debate about mangoes. Who would have thought?

It turns out that the Alphonso mango (named after Alfonso De Albuquerque, a 15th century Portuguese nobleman) - see picture on the right - is deemed by most mango lovers in India to be the daddy. It is orange skinned and fleshed, and tastes - to my palate - like sweet toffee flavoured soap. My vote goes to the honey mango, shaped like a large teardrop, with pale yellow skin and flesh, which tastes like toffee pure and simple, without the soap.

Those of you who are regular readers will know that I found my first trip to India (Delhi and Agra last year) pretty challenging. This trip was quite different, and I can see myself being seduced by India over time, although I would like that seduction to take place in luxury hotels please!

Time for a short history lesson: Mumbai is the commercial capital of India and the second biggest city in the world. Its original name "Bombay" emerged from the Portuguese term "Bom Bahai" meaning "good bay "or "harbour". My hotel room overlooked the harbour and the Gateway to India - a ceremonial arch built in 1927 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. The Gateway holds historical significance as the last of the British troops leaving the newly independent independent India by sea, marched through its portals.

It's been a while since my last film review, but last weekend we saw "The Notebook " at the Tanglin Club. It was released in 2005, but it never crossed my path till now, and it was both delightful and heart-rending - a great combination for a movie. My friend Steve (who introduced me to blogging - check out his blog at blogfromthebarn.blogspot.com) has taken to writing movie reviews in the form of haikus - 17 sylable 3 line poems - so here goes with ours for The Notebook. This is Chris's:

Young love thwarted, thrives
Mem'ry fades but not passion
Oh, my aching heart

and mine:

Young lovers grown old
She cannot remember but
His love is enough

Just in case the haiku was not enough detail, here's the story:

The film is a love story which centres around a man in his seventies (James Garner) who reads aloud to a woman (whom we later discover is suffering from Alzheimers). From a faded notebook, his words bring to life the story about a young couple separated by her parents (she is posh, he is not) and then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths in life. It sounds sad, and it is, but really worth seeing. This weekend it's a bit of Sex in the City and Indiana Jones, so watch out for more movie reviews.......

Sleepless in Singapore

It's not like me to have difficulty sleeping, but tonight was an exception, so you find me sharing my thoughts with you at 5am Sing time on Sunday morning. That's 10 pm and 5 pm on Saturday for my UK and US readers respectively, and 8 am on Sunday for my sister in Oz.

Perhaps it was the excitement of last night's Murder Mystery Dinner at the Tanglin Club (it was Rupert, the long-lost son who dunnit) or the effect of dessert (the largest creme brulee I have ever seen) giving me a sugar buzz, but being awake with time on my hands gives me the opportunity to tell you about the Great Singapore Sale. This is an annual event and for two months from the end of May to the end of July (it's not called "great" for nothing) there are bargains to be had island-wide.

I have shared with you before the Singaporeans' love of shopping, so you can imagine the effect on the national psyche of discounts of up to 70 per cent on just about anything. The sale is actually organised by the Singapore tourist board in order to promote tourism, and visitors get special privileges on shopping, dining and various tourist attractions.

The sale begins with the Great Singapore Shopping Challenge - an event which seeks to elevate shopping to the status of a sport. This activity, now in its 5th year, involves teams of two (27 in total, with only a third of them from Singapore, so it's clearly an international sport), each of which is given S$1,000 and three hours to bag the best bargains from selected categories. The winning team is the one that manages to achieve the biggest savings in the time, and they get to keep their purchases as well as trousering a bucketload of shopping vouchers. Hmm, I wonder if my friend Kerry fancies entering next year...........

Neat things about Singapore

Chris and I were chatting the other night and thought it would be fun to share with you some of the really neat things about Singapore - the things that make living here really easy and fun.

Travel

Lots of the really neat things fall into this category, and we should definitely start with Changi airport - absolutely the best airport in the world. If you have not had the good fortune to pass through Changi (more like "glide through" really, since it's so easy), think of the horror that is JFK, then its complete opposite, and that is Changi. The staff are charming, everything works smoothly and efficiently, they have wonderful shops, restaurants and public spaces, you get through immigration in a matter of minutes - in and out of the country - and by the (short) time you get from the aircraft to the baggage hall, your luggage is waiting for you. Class!

Moving on to cars. All cars that you buy in Singapore are fitted with am IU - an in-car unit, which is equipped with a smart card, which you load with cash and from which money is automatically deducted when you pass into the ERP (electronic road pricing) zone. The ERP is a form of congestion charging, but better in my view (differential pricing according to time of day; hence three or four times as much during rush hours). The result is that, for the most part, the roads are remarkably quiet and free flowing. The smart card also works in virtually all car parks, so the appropriate amount of money (a pittance by UK standards) is deducted at the leaving barrier. Clever stuff. Car parks themselves are pretty clever: there are signs at the entrance telling you how many spaces are available on each level, and in some car parks, a green or red light above the actual space will indicate whether it is occupied or not, so cruising for an available spot is made easy.

We have a car here, although I have decided not to drive in Singapore, so I have the pleasure of being driven to work and picked up most days by the lovely Chris. Now that is one of the really neat things for me about living in Singapore! When we get back to the apartment block, there is an LCD sign next to the security barrier that lights up with the words "Welcome home SGV 7085" (the number plate). I smile every time I see it.

And we drive on the left

And taxis are a fraction of the prices in London

Anf plugs are the same as in the UK

Leisure

It's fair to say that leisure opportunities are limited somewhat by Singapore's size, but it punches above its weight in this department, as in many others. Worth a special mention are the Botanic Gardens (http://www.sbg.org.sg/) which are centrally situated (within walking distance for us, although it's a half hour walk and if we attempted it most days in the heat of Singapore we'd be little more than a puddle of sweat by the time we got there), extensive, and free. You can see individuals and groups doing Tai Chi (and line dancing, bizarrely, on weekends), there is a concert stage set on the water and two fabulous restaurants inside.

Worth an extra special mention is the orchid garden set within the Botanic Gardens. It is absolutely amazing, and all the visitors we have taken to see it have been blown away. They began an orchid breeding programme in 1928 and today there are over 1000 species and 2,000 hybrids in the collection, displayed in the most beautiful tropical setting. Did you know that there are two basic types of orchid - terrestrial and epiphyte? The terrestrial grows on the ground, naturally enough, and the epiphyte establishes itself on trees. Just thought I'd let you know.


If that's not enough outside space for you, how about the MacRitchie reservoir? Named after James MacRitchie, one of the engineers involved in its construction, this was Singapore's first reservoir and today, as well as fulfilling its water catchment role, it has more than one square kilometre of primary forest that includes rubber trees dating back to the 19th century, acres of secondary forest, turtles in abundance, frolicking baby monkeys and a tree top walk which gives stunning views of the island.

If you're into music, you can have the indoor stadium experience minus all the hassle of getting to and getting from a venue like Wembley. Singapore Indoor Stadium is a 15 minute drive for us and while it's obviously a whole lot smaller than the big UK venues, it's just the right size for Singapore and you can get into and out of the car park in 10 minutes flat.

Sticking with the cultural side of life,the Singapore Arts Festival starts this weekend and we went to the launch event last night, which was an amazing piece of water theatre on the Singapore river. The picture below gives the teensiest flavour of what was going on. It's a show called Water Fools, by a French street theatre company, and the "plot" begins with a man driving a mini and towing a caravan (on the water). His car breaks down, so he gets out and reads a newspaper (not clear whether he was waiting for the AA to arrive in a speedboat). A cyclist passes by and sprays water into the man's face and then his head bursts into flames.

Surrounding this activity, there is a woman in a big red frock (she of the piccy below) sat atop a giant hamster wheel being driven around the river by a (seriously perspiring, I imagine) young man. Fireworks are going off, there's a giant four poster bed occupied by a young woman with pigtails (don't ask) a woman with a bicycle and coloured balloons and all manner of strange goings on. Ah, the whimsical French.....

And finally - the prices. Apart from housing, cars and cheese (no cows on Singapore), pretty much everything here costs less than a half of its UK equivalent. Hot lunch at a hawker centre can be had for a couple of quid and the taxi ride from Changi airport (about the same distance as Heathrow to the West End) is about 20% of the price of a black cab. Go figure.

Skiing in Dubai

It's a natural high!

A couple of months ago, I set myself the target of having at least one new experience every month. Last month was the trip to Bali, which included some new experiencettes, like having lunch at the rim of a volcano, but this month is set to wipe the floor with March. First up, dune bashing in the desert. For those of you who are new to this sport(?), it is the name given to a roller coaster ride up and down the sand dunes in Dubai in a 4 x 4. It was great fun - although best undertaken on an empty stomach, especially if you are sitting in the back seat! Apparently you can also engage in a spot of sandboarding on the dunes, but that will have to wait for the next trip. I also fitted in a camel ride - more of a lurch really - and saw the palest sunset I have ever experienced. It was so white, it was like watching the moon set.

But the piece de resistance was the skiing. My friend Steve - he of the super cheffing skills - is also a huge fan of taking your life in your hands on the powdery white stuff, but has never been able to persuade me that this was a sensible use of my limbs. How wrong I was! Now you are probably wondering if the Dubai I was camel riding in is the same Dubai I went skiing in. Can there be two Dubais, one existing in a parallel universe, as cold as the other is hot? Not quite, but close, since the ski slopes (there are 5 of them) exist in a huge shopping mall - the Mall of the Emirates - and I consider all giant shopping malls to be part of a parallel universe. But enough of my shopping prejudices and on to the skiing.....

My only previous experience of skiing was on the nursery slopes at Aviemore, in north east Scotland one rainy February many moons ago. In fact, I never actually got to ski, although I did do a fair bit of falling over. I had to borrow the skiing instructor's skis because they had run out of skis the right length for me, the nursery slopes had almost no snow on them (remember, I did say that this was a rainy February) and the instructor was an impatient sort, with no gift whatsoever for teaching beginners. Not the perfect mix of ingredients you will admit, for an inspiring introduction to the sport. Suffice to say that after falling over a few times I did actually manage to ski a few yards downhill, but not to stop. Fortunately (my opinion, not shared by Mr Nasty who was more worried about his skis than me - imagine!), there was a picket fence at the bottom of the slope, with gaps the width of a ski between the fence posts and my skis, swiftly followed by my legs, slid through and stopped when I sat down on my (by now extremely damp) bottom. So, not a great start. After that, I gave up and have never really fancied trying again, but there was something so surreal about the thought of snow skiing in the desert that I had to give it a go.

There was a group of us, several of whom were beginners, and we had two really great instructors. I managed to get the hang of the snow plough (the action that makes you slow down and stop) early on, and after that there was no stopping me. I came flying down the hill (well maybe I had not entirely mastered the snow plough) screaming and laughing and didn't fall over once. Magic!

I really thought the trip couldn't get any better, but a couple of days later I learned African drumming as part of a team building event. It was totally and absolutely the business! I have attached the drumming and skiing links so that you can see for yourself. Next month's new experience is Tai Chi, and I'm hoping to persuade Chris to come along, since he has a bit of catching up to do.

http://www.dubaidrums.com/about.html

http://www.skidxb.com/English/default.aspx

War on Buffet (geddit?)

Not a mis-spelt reference to the sage of Omaha, but a comment on the prevalence of buffet deals in Singapore restaurants. I don't know about you, but buffets are generally anathema to me ( I will make an exception for the Sunday Champagne brunch at the Four Seasons and my sister would insist that I exclude the chocolate buffet at the Fullerton), but the attraction of the all-you-can-eat offerings so beloved of Singaporeans passes me by. That said, I think you would like to hear about some of the more exotic buffet choices on offer - at pretty knockdown prices by comparison with most UK dining opportunities. So here goes:

Sunday brunch (a favourite pastime here) first. How about a Taiwan Porridge Buffet? This is rice porridge, of course, not hot oatmeal as eaten by men in kilts, and comes with a variety of "toppings", I suppose you would call them - like sweet potato (atop the rice in the picture to the left), roast chicken, duck, silverfish ( a sort of teeny weeny whitebait), carrot cake (it's carrot cake, but not as we know it), fried wontons, fish cake, mushrooms, stewed peanuts (yes, really), bamboo shoots and black fungus, to name a few. I'd like to say that the black fungus tastes better than it sounds, but since I have never plucked up the necessary courage to put any in my mouth, I'm afraid I can offer no opinion. I am sorry to say that this is true of many of the items considered a delicacy in Asia, and quite frankly, I blame my upbringing. This has nothing to do with my mother's cooking; she hated cooking as it happens, but that's beside the point. It has to do with custard. Now I am sure you must be asking yourself the question, "How so? How can an innocent substance like custard be responsible for my culinary cowardliness?" Allow me to enlighten you.

Those of you who know me well may already have encountered my aversion to "slippy pudding", by which I mean anything sweet and gelatinous, like cold custard, tapioca, blancmange and jelly, for example. This aversion also extends to savoury slippiness, like aspic jelly and gravy, and emanates from a meal I ate about 45 years ago, every detail of which I remember as if it were yesterday. It was a weekend lunch, and pudding was tinned peaches (slippiness epitomised) and custard, which started out hot and therefore not too slippy, but when cold and congealed was gag inducingly so. It became cold and congealed because I refused to eat it - because of the slippy peaches - and I was made to sit at the table when everyone else had left until I did. Of course, every time I tried to get it past my throat, I would gag. To this day I come close to hyperventilating whenever I come across a tin of Bird's custard powder, and since many Asian dishes are fairly slippy (innately so, like shark's fin soup and some of the fungi, or made so, like many of the sauces), I tend to interrogate the waiting staff and insist on "dry" food, whenever I go out. But enough of my phobias; back to buffets. There are seafood buffets, dim sum buffets, high tea buffets, Thai buffets, Japanese buffets, and Indian champagne brunch buffets (the food is Indian and the champagne, fortunately, French).

I mentioned the chocolate buffet at the Fullerton Hotel earlier, which is served from 8 to 11 pm on week nights. Just the thing for a stressed chocolate lover after a hard day at work.

Movie news

I'm conscious of the fact that I haven't contributed any movie reviews to the blog recently, so let's rectify that right away. First up, "The Other Boleyn Girl". I saw this yesterday, having read the book when we were in Bali, and I am in two minds, If I'd not read the book, the film would probably have impressed me more, and to be fair, I was mightily impressed by Eric Bana as Henry (yum!), but because the book was able to develop several plot lines by virtue of its being a book, and a pretty long one at that, the film seemed rather superficial by comparison. That said, definitely worth seeing, if it's just to wonder how they managed to disappear Scarlett Johansson's bosom in those frocks.

A book that I have not read is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which has now been made into a film of the same name. It describes the life of the writer - Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke when he was 43, which left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome - completely paralysed apart from the ability to blink his left eyelid. He managed to dictate his book by dint of blinking his eyelid when the relevant letter of the alaphet had been reached. The film makes for quite harrowing viewing, but it is quite brilliant.

Beautiful Bali

I don't know about you, but Bali is one of those places that I wish I had visited years ago - the first time I heard about it. In my case, it was when I was about 17, and I met an Australian bloke called Kerry, who I thought was incredibly cool (or I would have thought that if the word "cool" had been in my vocabulary at the time). Bear in mind, I met him in Motherwell in the early 70s, so it probably didn't take much too look cool in those circumstances, but he did have long, blond, surfer-dude hair and a beard. Kerry was the son of a friend of a friend of my parents, who was backpacking around the world, and had started his travels in Bali. The way he described it made it sound so laid back and hippy, yet glamorous at the same time, that I wanted to pack my bag there and then and set off.

The reason for this trip down memory lane is that we have just returned from a trip to Bali, and I was wondering what it would have been like all those years ago. It's a busy place nowadays, especially the stretch by Kuta beach, which is probably where Kerry would have stayed all those years ago. We had a lovely villa in Seminyak, near to Kuta, but much less busy, and close to some fantastic restaurants. I can particularly recommend Ku De Ta, mainly for the most amazing beachfront location, although the food was good too (good, rather than great).

One of the best meals we had was the mutant lobster we ate on Jimbaran beach. I say mutant because while it clearly was a lobster, it was the meatiest (if a shellfish can be said to be meaty) lobster I have ever encountered. We chose it ourselves, and on the outside it looked like a normal lobster, but there was something of the Tardis about this beastie, and it just kept on giving. It was barbecued over coconut husks and served very simply, but will remain in my memory, and has probably spoiled me for all other lobsters from now on.

Our villa was set inside a small, but perfectly formed, courtyard garden, with its own swimming pool. It was like living inside one of the exhibits at the Chelsea Flower Show, but without the cast of thousands of visitors obviously. I am always amazed at and humbled by what people with imagination and creative flair can do with a small space; this garden was full of lovely touches - a statue of Buddha set into a little alcove in the wall, the swimming pool tiled with stone so that it looked like a pond at one with the garden, clever use of concealed lighting, and no fewer than 3 fountains. It was particularly beautiful in the evening, with the lights shining in and on the water.

It would have been very tempting to stay put, but there is lots to see apart from the sea, so we hired a car and a driver a couple of times and set off armed with our Rough Guide. One of the things that Western visitors to Bali really notice is how inexpensive most things seem, especially after the traditional bargaining dance has been performed. We had some hilarious moments, especially with young kids, who develop a strong commercial instinct early on. I am now the proud possessor of several fans and bunches of brightly coloured fish-topped pencils, which I am sure will come in handy one day. The children are sometimes in pairs, and so it's really hard to buy from one and not the other, at least it was for me. Our guide was great; he told us what the "local" price was, and then looked on as we bargained down to a mere 2 or 3 times that figure.

Bali has some spectacular scenery - lush greenery, dormant volcanoes, spectacular waterfalls and terraced paddy fields of the most vivid emerald green - as well as beautiful stretches of beach. It was pretty busy when we were there, but it has taken a long time to recover from the effects of the terrorist bombing in 2002, which put many people out of business, as well as claiming, and ruining, hundreds of lives. What a terrible, pointless waste. The Balinese have a great spirit, though, and they are proud of their beautiful island. We will visit again, I am sure, and probably weave some more tales from this trip into future posts, so keep reading.

It's a fair cop

Dear readers,

I have just been taken to task - very gently it must be said - by one of my oldest and dearest friends for not having posted anything for some time, so I plan to rectify that right away. Sorry Eddie!

A quick update on matters familial first, I think, for my regulars, who will know that my sister has been staying with us in Singapore for the last few months. She was my tennis partner - until she thoughtlessly developed tendonitis and had to stop playing - style guru, and partner in movie going, and she has just gone back home to Australia. She was with us for 6 months, so it takes a bit of getting used to, but next week's holiday in Bali should help me get over it! I booked this a few months ago, on the basis that I was bound to be absolutely knackered after year end, and I was right. The photo above is where we will be staying, and if you fancy having a look at more pics, the link is attached at the bottom of this post.

I have never been to Bali before, and I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'm certainly looking forward to some serious rest and relaxation. On that subject, work/life balance is something that I have never really mastered, despite the best efforts of my friend Steve to lead me to the light. That said, I think I owe it to my team to be a better role model, so there it is - my 3rd and last resolution for 2008.

Now, what to do with the time not spent at work, that's the question. Culturally, Singapore has a fair amount to offer, but it's complicated and somewhat idiosyncratic. I've shared with you before (in the post that featured a mention of the film "Lust, Caution") the issue of censorship of the arts, but you're going to love this one. We had planned to attend a performance of the Singapore Complaints Choir which was scheduled for last month. For those of you who are new to the idea of Complaints Choirs, it's an idea that got started in Helsinki a few years ago, based on the premise of transforming the energy that people put into complaining into something else.

The performance scheduled for Singapore did not take place, however, since the authorities did not want non Singaporeans in the choir complaining about Singapore. Apparently, the complaints are mostly about daily irritations like "People put on fake accents to sound posh", with the odd political complaint thrown in, but it was not to be. You can't help admiring the national pride that motivates such a decision, while simultaneously wanting to give the decision makers a good slap!

All in all, I love living in Singapore, despite - or perhaps in part because of - its idiosyncrasies. Most people know about the chewing gum rules - not allowed in public, and spitting it out entails a hefty fine. You can't buy chewing gum in Singapore in fact. This has never been something I have missed, but when our HR team went to Bintan in Indonesia for an offsite, no sooner had we docked than almost everyone in the team was stocking up with cartons of the stuff! I'm not sure whether it's because they really love chewing gum or if it's because it was a shopping opportunity that they can't experience at home, and I have written before about how much Singaporeans love shopping.......

I've also said before that Singapore really punches above its weight, economically speaking. Much of this is down to Lee Kwan Yu, who was Singapore's prime minister from 1959 to 1990. He ran Singapore with a firm but masterfully entrepreneurial hand, and turned this tiny city state into the “Lion of Asia.” He is still a huge presence in the region, and writes regularly for the daily free sheet "Today", giving his views on everything from homosexuality to democracy. He is quite some guy.

http://www.balivillaex.com/

All the best till the report from Bali!