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.