Hey folks, I’ve just started travel tweeting (ugh I hattte that word — Birds and I don’t mix! A story for another time.). Check out my mutterings on the top right panel if you like.
Entries from November 2009
Everywhere But Here: Royal Scones
November 20, 2009 · 1 Comment
I am bummed you can’t read the words on the plate in this picture. It says, “The Orangery at Kensington Palace.” And that’s where I had my first taste of English scones with clotted cream. Like a cross between bread and cake, they are the best scones I have ever tasted. Sooo fragrant, sooo rich, soooo good! All I can say is, YUUUUMZ!! (I am aware that I should never be a food critic) Because of them, I no longer eat the bits of rock masquerading as scones that are sold everywhere else.
In case you’re wondering where you too can taste these pieces of heaven, they’re in London, exactly where the plate says. Afternoon tea is served at 3-6pm from March to October and at 2.30-5pm from November to February. There was a long line when I was there in May, so get there early if you want a seat. They don’t take reservations.
I’m actually going back to that city next week over the Thanksgiving break and will bring you more stories when I get back. okBYE.
-photo courtesy of Li Yirong
Categories: Seen and Heard · Travel Stories
Tagged: english scones and clotted cream, english tea, kensington palace, london, the orangery
A Budgetary Diet
November 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment
I’m basically broke for the rest of the year because of a snowboarding trip I’ll be taking in December. To cut costs til then, I’ve decided to live on whatever’s in my fridge, freezer and pantry for as long as I can without going to the grocery store.
Unfortunately, that means scraping together really weird meals. Like, today I will have two small peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some edamame, if I’m still hungry. I’ll let you know how long this budgetary diet lasts.
-Edamame photo courtesy of iLoveButter
Everywhere But Here: Bike Tours
November 16, 2009 · 4 Comments
Another column I thought I’d start is “Everywhere But Here,” which will consist of more informative posts about my travels (as opposed to pure observationals like this one). So, here I go…
The best way to see a city, especially if you have a limited amount of time is to get on a bike tour. Somehow, that extra bit of participation you have to put in by riding about (which is really fun) makes you listen harder to the guide. I’ve been on many bus tours without having taken anything away but a good nap (I suppose those lousy sound systems could be to blame). Also, I think it lets you navigate the city better and bypass lots of traffic so you get to see up-close spots a giant tour bus can’t take you to. Best of all, it’s environmentally-friendly!
My best friend Karen and I have been on three bike tours so far in New York, London and Paris (in that order). We’ve decided our favourite is the one we did in New York with Bike The Big Apple. >> Read more
Categories: Travel Stories
Tagged: big apple tours, bike tours, fattire bikes, london, paris
From East to West: Cooking For 1
November 12, 2009 · 2 Comments
Continuing with the series I started here, I thought I’d also talk about my first experiences in cooking for myself (which unfortunately aren’t too different from today actually).
Never having lifted so much as a spatula til the ripe old age of 25 (I kid, I’ve at least made spaghetti before), cooking was a science I had not figured out yet. Especially when it came to satisfying my craving for food from home.
I tried in vain to replicate some of the simpler dishes that mostly consisted of chucking rice and toppings or noodles and toppings together in a frying pan. I think eventually I just got used to my extremely watered down versions of food from home. It didn’t taste that bad and kept my belly full but I wouldn’t have offered it to anyone else.
My skills haven’t progressed very far. But I recently realised that my problem is not so much my natural inability to put together something that’s actually appetizing to anyone other than myself, rather, it’s that I’ve unwittingly adopted what I will call the “pasta mentality.” And that is, that an all-in-one sauce is all you need for a good dish.
It works when you’re making a quick pasta dish — boil the pasta, pour your store-bought tomato basil, marinara or alfresco sauce over it. If you want something a little fancier, just cook your toppings in the sauce for a bit first.
But there are no shortcuts to cooking a chinese meal with gravy. There is no all-in-one sauce. In fact the barest minimum of sauces is 3 — light and dark soya sauce and oyster sauce. I learnt that the hard way when I poured this “stir fry sauce” from Lee Kum Kee all over my chicken and broccoli. It tasted sooo bad, I had to rinse it out and drown it with regular soya sauce to save it.
Ah well, at least I’m learning!
-Photo credit: Petr Kratochvil
Categories: From East to West · Life · Travel Stories
Tagged: chinese cooking, cooking for 1, Lee Kum Kee, oyster sauce, pasta sauce, soya sauce
Union Square, San Francisco: My Hood For a Week
November 10, 2009 · 1 Comment
I was fortunate enough to visit San Fran twice this year. Both times were to cover conferences though, so they weren’t actual vacations. But I still got to walk around a bit and satisfy my cravings for quality Asian food.
My hotel was in Union Square so that got to be my hood for a week. Here are some of my observations (yes, I had more fun in Picnik!):
On my first day there I noticed this pigeon checking itself out in a shiney street corner wall. Maybe it’d been hanging out a lot at the FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) a couple of blocks away.
Crossing the street was a bit of a panicked affair for me. The count down on traffic lights only gave you 10 seconds to finish getting to the other side whereas the ones in DC give you anywhere from 43 to 26 seconds. Then again, the “white man” (why isn’t he green?) to signal it’s alright to cross also stays on longer in SF than DC. Also, everybody seemed very obedient to traffic signals, staying on the curb until they were given the go-ahead. Maybe they weren’t locals. In New York, there might as well not be traffic signals for pedestrians where as long as there’s room to walk, people are on the streets fighting with the cars for their right of way.
I saw this sign for Hotel Virginia nearby and thought it was funny that I could never get far away enough from Virginia (ok, it’s more of a tourist thing than actually funny). Also, the multi-story carpark behind it made me think about how I’m always wondering why DC doesn’t have more of those. Doesn’t it just make sense space-wise?
And here’s one of those famous San Francisco Trolleys. This one starts a couple of blocks from my hotel and is strictly for sightseeing I think. It annoyed me one night when I was having dinner along its route in a quiet residential area that I couldn’t just hop on it for a ride home. Grr.
Oh and I found Tony Bennet’s heart in Union Square Park.
Finally, I just thought this pair of fire hydrants was cute. They also remind me of E.T. (the very first movie I saw)…
Categories: Life · Travel Stories
Tagged: fire hydrants, Pigeons, San Francisco, Tony Bennett, Trolley, Union Square
I’m Sorry Poody!!
November 9, 2009 · 1 Comment
Leah sent me the video below today. It made me sad about leaving Poody at home in Singapore so I could run off to pursue my dreams in America.
Poody’s my dog. Yes, he’s a Poodle but he doesn’t look like one! (I say defensively). And I didn’t name him. He followed me home one day and insisted on being let into the house. My sis and I walked him around the neighbourhood hoping he’d recognize his house but he didn’t. So we put posters up all over the neighbourhood to say that we’d found him.
It didn’t take long for us to fall in love with him but his owners finally showed up after two weeks to collect him. So we had to give him back.
In a turn of events, they called us a few days later to tell us we could have him since we loved him so much. They had five dogs and couldn’t take care of him well enough. And that’s how he got to be ours.
He came at a time I needed him most and that made me feel like he and I were meant to be. I was down a lot and he was there as silent comfort. Even if he had absolutely no understanding of what was going on, his expression always seemed sympathetic and he let me hug him as tight as I wanted.
Some days I miss him terribly and feel awful about not being at home with him, playing with him and taking him for walks. Then again, he’s being well taken care of at my grandma’s house and he probably doesn’t miss me as much as I miss him. Sigh!
Anyway, here’s the video. Ye dog lovers out there will appreciate it:
Categories: Life · Travel Stories
Tagged: dogs, pets, poodles
Forget Caffeine
November 5, 2009 · 2 Comments
While covering a conference in San Francisco last week, I discovered the magic food for keeping one not only awake but super alert– wasabi peas! Forget caffeine, which gives me heart palpitations more than anything else. Popping a couple of wasabe peas will have every useful neuron in your brain shooting “wake-up” messages and bring you to a level of consciousness you’ve never been before. Try it when you’re sleepy.
P.S: Happy Birthday Sesame Street! And thank you for teaching me most everything I know!
Categories: Life
Tagged: keeping awake, sesame street, wasabi peas
From East to West: Arriving in Chicago Part 2
November 4, 2009 · 2 Comments
So as I was saying, coming to America from Singapore felt like I’d gone backwards in time. I’m going to sound like a spoilt Singaporean for the rest of this post and admittedly, I probably was at the time of the experience but please know this post isn’t a rant, it’s just a description of my initial impressions when settling into my new temporary home in Chicago.
I felt like I’d walked onto a 60s era movie set when I first saw my dorm room. I pictured my dad living there in his youth with the exact same furniture. The room was in an old building, a rarity in Singapore where a structure is torn down every 2 minutes to be replaced by a flashy new one, and if not torn down, it’s completely refurbished. Even the historical buildings look new. I exaggerate of course but it’s pretty close to the truth. A friend recently remarked that there are no gritty parts left in Singapore, everything is so clean, new and plastic. A real pity, but I digress.
Perhaps a shinier example of my culture-shock can be illustrated in the contrast between public transportation systems in the two cities. Here’s the train I was used to riding in Singapore (Photo credit to Onitsuka Yusof):
And here’s the train I had to rely on in Chicago:
If it’s not clear from the photos, the Chicago el was dirty, slow and broke down often. 
This was pretty much the opposite of the Singapore MRT trains. But like I said, all these experiences were just a matter of fitting into the glove, so to speak. And fit, I did.
Categories: From East to West · Travel Stories
Tagged: America, Chicago, CTA, el, MRT, singapore, trains
From East to West: Arriving in Chicago
November 2, 2009 · 3 Comments
So I’ve decided to do a series on how I’ve adapted to life in gigantic America since leaving the tiny Island of Singapore. They will only be as detailed as my foggy memory will allow but hopefully still entertaining.
To start off, here’s a picture of me back in March of 2005 as a FOP (Fresh Off the Plane) in search of great teaching at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The top three things that come to mind in adjusting to my new life in Chicago are:
1. The cold
2. Explaining why I speak English “so well” and …
3. Feeling like I’d gone backwards in time.
The cold. When I first got to Chicago I was constantly converting the giant Fahrenheit figures on Yahoo Weather to more reasonable Centigrade numbers so I would know I wasn’t imagining things when my fingers went numb. Going from 80-90F weather everyday of my life (except on holidays away from home) to 30-40F temperatures was no joke. I’ve since learnt to layer like crazy while avoiding too much static shock. And while I LOVE the snow, I still hate the cold. Ah, impossible wants!
My proficiency in the English Language. The first thing Americans would say to me (and still do) when they heard I was from Singapore was, “Wow! You speak such good English!”
Ugh!
A common misconception among people who don’t know a thing about Singapore is that we’re a homogenous nation of Chinese ethnics and therefore have some relation to China and by extension speak mainly Mandarin. To set the record straight, we’re in Southeast Asia, quite a distance from China and our national language is actually MALAY. That’s pronounced more like “mer-lay,” not at all like “may-lay.” The historical reason for that is, way back when Singapore was only a little fishing village, the natives were…Malay! (Also, we used to be a part of Malaysia) Anyway, our official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay (the last three to represent the major races in Singapore, the first is thanks to our ex-colonial masters, the British).
At School, English is our first language and everything is taught in English. All my friends and I speak it at home, to each other and basically all the time. Of course, that’s only half the story and I’ll have to elaborate another time. But for now, don’t be surprised if you meet a Singaporean and they can speak “proper” English and say “cute” things like “lift” instead of “elevator.”
I’ll continue my third point in my next post. So stay tuned folks!
Categories: From East to West · Travel Stories
Tagged: Chicago, Medill, Northwestern, singapore
