Here comes summer

Yesterday was the longest day in the UK, a day I  used to look forward to with great excitement when I lived there.  When I lived in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland, the summer solstice was particularly special.  Aberdeen is further north than Moscow so the summer days are long (if not always warm!) and the favourite way to celebrate was to climb a local mountain, Bennachie, in time for sunset (some time after 10 pm) and party till sunrise, at about 4 am.  Why is it that staying up all night is the thing to do when you are young?  It was fun though, and much easier than staying up all night would be in Singapore, at any time of year, since we have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness throughout the year.  That said, I will be up jolly early tomorrow, as I am taking the train to Malaysia at 4.30 am. 


Now the 4.30 train was not my first choice, but these next few days are the last opportunity to take the train from the wonderful art deco railway station at Tanjong Pagar. Although the station is situated in Singapore, the land on which is sits is owned by the Malaysian railway operator and it was agreed last year that the station will cease to operate from the end of this month and train services will be transferred to the north of Singapore, near the checkpoint for the crossing into Malaysia.  Despite never having taken the train before (the journey to Kuala Lumpur takes about 6 hours, compared to one hour by air), I wanted to make sure I made a journey from the station before the close.  Alas, the whole of Singapore seems to be thinking the same thing, so I had to queue for a ticket and the only service not sold out for tomorrow was the 4.30 am.   


The station building will be preserved, and is in desperate need of some care and attention, but it is a real shame to see it go.  I'll add some pictures to the next post, if my iPhone delivers the goods.

Woo hoo!

The title of this post indicates a special double bill - the Wailers' gig last week and Lola's and my attendance at doggy training classes.  Woo hoo, or a rough approximation of same, is the noise Lola makes when she is excited about something, which happens a lot and it's pretty much the cry I found myself emitting last Saturday night to express my appreciation of the Wailers.  I was particularly appreciative of one of the two lead singers - the one in the picture on the left, who looks like a Jamaican Javier Bardem.  Yum! 


The venue was the Hard Rock Hotel on Sentosa, part of the  integrated resort/casino complex that opened there last year.  My regular readers may remember the description of our first trip there, in the post contributed by the lovely Chris entitled "Casino banal".   Suffice to say we were mightily disappointed.  However, this time was quite different, partly because I was above ground, but also because the place is really quite amazing.   I started the evening at the Palio restaurant which is part of the hotel Michael, one of six hotels in the complex. Each of the hotels has a different feel; the Michael is very much the hotel for art lovers.  Its name is a  tribute to Michael Graves, the American architect who designed Resorts World, and the Michael is probably the hotel I would choose to stay in if I went on a mini-break a la Bridget Jones.

Boy with dreadlocks on his hat

The Palio is an Italian restaurant - one of its many plus points.  In fact the only downside as far as I was concerned was that it was rather full, especially of noisy children, but then again, I'm all for introducing kids to the delights of Italian cuisine at an early age, so what can you do?  What I did was to sample their wonderful wood fired pizza, which came close to a 10 on the Doverty register of deliciousness and was the perfect pre-cursor to a night of leaping up and down in front of the Wailers.  And when I say in front, I mean it, as I managed to get a place in the second row from the stage.  This was a standing event and it's been a while since I did one of those, but it couldn't have been any other way.  The crowd was really into it, although one or two of the older members of the audience (not me obviously - I'm still 33 in my mind and can woo hoo with the best of them) looked a little uncomfortable, as if they didn't quite know how to get with the vibe.  The guy next to me was really into the whole Jamaican thing; he had on a red gold and green hat with little dreadlocks attached, which you can just see in the photo on the right. 

I could have done with that hat a couple of Sundays ago, which was Lola's first doggy obedience class.  It was also the day that the rain came down so hard that it flooded the Tanglin Mall (that's rain in the photo, not an indoor waterfall!).  The class itself was under cover, but it was almost impossible to get a taxi home, as TLC was in France and I did not want to drive there myself.  I'm a bit funny about driving in Singapore, but that's probably the subject of a whole post on its own, so I'm not going to go there.  The first class was theory, which Lola didn't really take to as her reading skills are not up to much, but last Sunday was the first practical class.  I would love to say that she excelled, but it would be a lie.  Frankly, the two words "Lola" and "obedience" do not often occur in the same sentence, as those of you who have met her can confirm, but I live in hope, inspired by one of the demonstration dogs - a beautiful Siberian husky.  He was a rescue dog who had suffered abuse for several years, but is now both incredibly obedient and affectionate.  TLC is worried that Lola will lose her joie de vivre if she becomes obedient to our commands, but she has so much of the stuff she could probably share hers with all the dogs in Singapore and still have plenty left over.  I'll keep you posted on progress (hopefully there will be some to report!).  

Chinatown

Having just published my Laos post a couple of days ago, I thought I would wait a little before offering up this next one.  My mind was changed for me by a mosquito that decided to dive-bomb me in bed at 6 am on Saturday and the alternative to hunkering down under the sheet and toughing it out was to get up and do something.  It's a funny thing about mosquitoes.  I've been bitten many times and it's itchy and annoying, but no more than that really, so why is it that the high pitched-drone of a mosquito intent on its next meal at my expense should engender such horror?  I'd be happy to come to an arrangement whereby I stick out an arm, have it snack on that, rub on some anti-histamine ointment and get back to sleep, but oh no, that's not how Ms Mosquito works.  Small digression here: did you know that it's the females (bitches!) who do the bloodsucking?  Apparently the male mosquito typically feeds on nectar and plant juices, but the wifie mosquito needs a blood meal in order to produce eggs.  Perhaps the answer is to keep a stash of black pudding by the bed? 


Moving on to the original subject of this post, the lovely AnnMarie (my fish spa partner) and I hadn't seen each other for a while so we decided to meet up for lunch and fit in a walk beforehand.  Singapore is full of jungle walks, but we agreed on an urban adventure this time and headed for Chinatown.  The Chinatown of today has evolved from the area that was set up as part of Sir Stamford Raffles' master plan in the early 19th century and, although it is bounded on one side by the skyscrapers of the CBD, its character and appeal remain, as do the wonderful street names like Sago street, Pagoda street and Nankin street.  Chinatown is crazy busy and wonderfully decorated in the run-up to Lunar New Year as  Singaporeans  shop till they drop for all the New Year goodies, and strangely dead at the weekend.  Our outing was on a Friday, so it was quiet when we started out but busied up for the lunchtime rush.

Dried goji berries

We had no real master plan in mind, apart from looking up a couple of things in our guidebook, so it was a very pleasant wander that brought us first of all to a traditional Chinese medicine shop.  AnnMarie was in the market for some Goji berries, aka wolfberries, which are supposed to do wonders for - among other things - the liver and the eyes.  I'm always up for trying new alternative therapies in the quest for physical perfection (no giggling please), so I bought some too and off we trotted.  Our next stopping off point was the Yixing Xuan Teahouse, the first visit to a teahouse for both of us.  Of course I couldn't wait to sample the goji berries and thought they would go nicely with my lovely cup of white tea.  I sampled one, liked the initial sweet taste and offered one to my trusting companion.   Unfortunately, as she popped hers into her mouth, I got the aftertaste - not sweet at all, in fact very bitter.   It reminded me of the time I bit into an unripe persimmon, without peeling it (the first time I'd ever tried said fruit, so how was I to know?) To be fair, the persimmon incident was much worse - it dried up all my saliva and felt like I had eaten a mouthful of bitter-tasting, heavy duty underarm deodorant which stayed in my mouth and wouldn't go away.  Yukky.  So AnnMarie and I are sitting there, wondering how we are ever going to be able to eat these blessed things.  We're both Scottish, so perhaps the answer is to coat them in a nice sweet batter and deep fry them?  Maybe not.  All alternative ideas welcome.


Continuing with the food theme, our next stop was The Screening Room - "where food meets film".  Despite having lived in Singapore for almost 4 years, I have not visited here for either food or film, never mind the two in combination, but that's about to change.  The Screening Room is a great concept.  There are 5 separate floors, with a bistro on the bottom and a rooftop bar on the top and a malt vault, studio and film theatre in between.  Heaven!  

I tasted a bit of heaven earlier this week in The French Kitchen  restaurant.  If you live in Singapore, or come for a visit, this place is most definitely worth a try.  The set lunch is a steal, in my view - one of the best to be had in Singapore.  The room itself is beautiful and there is proper linen on the table and beautiful glassware.  The chef, the lovely Jean-Charles, came out to welcome me and we had a wee chat in French before my dining companion arrived.  We were served with home-made bread and salmon rillettes, then an amuse-bouche before the first course arrived.  We had both chosen the same dishes - fromage de chèvre chaud with spinach salad and walnut bread, confit de canard with truffled mash and marinated cherries and dark chocolate crème brûlée.     It was all delicious, although if I was being picky I would have liked the duck to be more willing to fall off the bone, rather than having to be persuaded to leave it behind.  

And finally, a movie review of London Boulevard, which  I saw at the weekend.  This is not a film that the lovely Chris would have wanted to see, so I took advantage of his temporary absence to go on my own.  The film stars Keira Knightley as a reclusive film star and Colin Farrell as a recently released  criminal.  Colin plays a blinder, and David Thewlis is fantastic as Keira's manager.  It's not for the squeamish, especially in the final scenes, and I did have to put my fingers in my ears a couple of times, so be warned.  Here the haiku:


London gangsters tale
No good deed goes unpunished
Colin Farrell rocks

Lovely Laos

The lovely Chris and I have recently returned from a short visit to Laos, a first for both of us.  I had meant to write this post from there, but quite frankly, we were too wrapped up in pursuit of hedonistic pleasure.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Unfortunately there are no direct flights from Singapore to Laos, so we went via Bangkok, a pretty smooth journey which featured a most extraordinary incident on the travellator on the way to baggage reclaim.  There was a group of Eastern European guys just in front of us, built like front row forwards for the Vladivostok Vandals who suddenly started howling out loud and then jumped over the hand rail, off the moving carpet and set off in hot, still howling pursuit of a couple of blonde air hostesses on their way to board their plane.  Weird!

On arrival in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we realized we had to get (by 'get' I mean purchase, for the bargain price of USD 36 dollars each) an entry visa.  Only greenbacks would do, no other currency and no credit cards.  Well, it's one way of guaranteeing a steady stream of hard currency I suppose.  The cost of the visa would have been a mere 35 dollars, but we had no photograph.  Fortunately, this serious security issue could be overcome by the payment of one more US dollar.  At one level I can understand the desire of the government to attract dollars, but Chris and I were amazed at how little resentment there seems to be on the part of the people of Laos of what the Americans did to their country during the years of the Vietnam war, the legacy of which remains in thousands of unexploded cluster bombs in the countryside (what monster allowed the manufacture of this abomination?) which are still claiming the lives and limbs of innocent people.  If you visit Vientiane, I urge you to spend some time, and some money at COPE - the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise.  While clearly not your normal tourist venue, this visit is eye-opening and intensely humbling.  You can read more about it on tripadvisor; just follow the link below:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293950-d1092459-Reviews-Cooperative_Orthotic_and_Prosthetic_Enterprise_COPE-Vientiane.html

The Laotian currency is the charmingly named Kip, of which there are 12,000 to the pound.  Just for fun, we bought a million, and you can see TLC posing with them above.  We took dozens of photos, but even my most faithful readers are bound to have a limited tolerance for pictures of temples so I have sprinkled in a few other views throughout this particular post.  


We stayed in Vientiane first, the capital, which was nice, but not a patch  on Luang Prabang, which was where we spent most of the time - in the most gorgeous boutique hotel which had been recently converted from its previous use as a detention centre.  As we commented in the visotors' book before leaving, we plan to re-offend in the very near future!  The hotel had just 23 rooms and we were the sole occupants most of the time, as we went during the low season .  We never had to share the pool, the bar or the spa, which was not great news for the hotel, but rather lovely for us.  And talking of the spa.........
Stoned 

The pool at the Settha Palace

My regular readers will have shared what I call my "nook and    cranny" experiences since moving to Asia, where the normal observation of the client's modesty that prevails in the UK during massage therapy does not seem to apply here.  I had already decided that I was going to try and work my way through the entire menu of spa offerings over a couple of days ( and I managed all but one - pretty, good, huh?).  The lovely Chris was persuaded to join me for some of the treatments (our joint favourite over the two days was the hot stone massage) and so we padded off on our first morning to meet our therapists, who turned out to be a young man, for Chris, and a young woman for me.  All very fine, apart from the fact that the sessions took place in the same room.  Now, beautiful and light and airy as this room was, the massage beds were side by side, separated by no more than eighteen inches and all we were wearing was a pair of knicks.  No matter how deft my lassie's holding up of the sheet as I was lying down and turning round,  it all felt a little exposed, but hey, it's just one more for the nooks and crannies list.   Slightly more worrying was my therapist's declaration of love for me on the first afternoon.  Charming as she was, not to mention married with two children, I did not feel able to reciprocate.  

One of the many Buddhas we
saw in Vientiane

I'm conscious that I have been writing for some time and have not yet mentioned food - not at all like me - and there is plenty to write about Laotian cuisine.  Our favourite meals were probably the simplest, most notable of which was the lettuce wraps we ate on our first night in Luang Prabang.  I'm really tempted to try to replicate them with a different twist for one of my upcoming dinners with friends.  I'll keep you posted on the results. 

The other notable food moments were pizza for breakfast overlooking the Mekong and morning alms, both on our last day in Laos.  We  had heard good things about the Saffron cafe and were keen to spend some time by the river, which is particularly beautiful at that point.  Since I had been up since 5.30 in order to participate in the morning alms procession, I felt that pizza could be, on this occasion, a breakfast food.  TLC was more circumspect and had a banana muffin (and very yummy it was too).  The Saffron sells some of the best coffee I have ever tasted and the story of the coffee is fascinating.  Its genesis is the outlawing of opium cultivation by the Lao government which meant that the hill tribes whose livelihood depended on the opium crop were forced to engage in slash-and-burn agriculture in order to survive. This meant that entire mountainsides were cleared of vegetation and burned off.  The fields were planted for one season and then abandoned as a new mountainside was cleared - clearly not a sustainable solution for the farmers and barely enough to solve the short-term problem of feeding their families.  Enter David Dale, an American living in Laos, who discovered that Arabica coffee would  grow on the hillsides and Saffron Coffee was born.  He partnered with local tribes and created a coffee tree nursery, sending the little wee coffee trees to over 300 mountain farmers in more than ten different villages with the right land for planting coffee and purchasing all their coffee when it is harvested.  Talk about a virtuous circle!

Morning alms in Luang Prabang

I felt quite virtuous myself at the morning alms ceremony.  Shortly after dawn, hundreds of Buddhist monks leave their temples and walk along the main street to collect their morning alms - mainly sticky rice, supplemented by biscuits and fruit.  I had arranged with the hotel to join in, and it was another pretty humbling experience, but also a joyful one.  

Let me leave you with a view of the marvellous Mekong river and an exhortation to visit the beauties of Laos if you find yourself in this part of the world.  We will most definitely be going again, to see Luang Prabang and to explore new places.  My next post features the lovely AnnMarie, my fish spa chum, and  takes us back to Singapore, so watch out for "Chinatown", coming to your PC soon.