Singapore, Part Two

Singapore, November 5, 2014

I mentioned that much has changed in Singapore in the past five years and yesterday we enjoyed one of the great surprises of this building boom.  When Singapore gave permission for the construction of the casino and the three hotel towers, it also made a decision to use a good chunk of the money that would be generated by the casino revenues to build public parks.  One of these ventures is directly behind the casino and it is called the Gardens by the Bay.

It is a two hundred acre park that is filled with some of the most spectacular gardens you can imagine.  There is a grove of what they called Supertrees, which are made of metal and are very artistic –and at night are all lit up in different colors and visible for miles.  The gardens are anchored by two large domes, one housing flowers and trees, the other a Cloud Forest.  These domes are climate controlled; in fact they are microclimate controlled in that they can reproduce any climate they wish by controlling the water, heat, amount of sunlight and even the airflow.  In the Flower Dome there are no fewer than twelve microclimates ranging from desert to subtropical orchid gardens.  You can wander and wander around this vast dome and never know what will be around the next corner.

Cindy’s comments:  I forgot the camera and can hardly forgive myself!  We hoped to find some photos or postcards in the gift shop but there were none that captured the best flowers (although the link has a few good photos).  They had sculpted animals out of flowers or leaves – with help from chicken wire – including a life-sized elephant with water flowing through its trunk onto a baby elephant.  The best of all were two white peacocks; the birds were formed from feathers (with chicken wire) and their bodies tapered and flowed into a blanket of white orchids that formed the rest their tails.  Beautiful – and so clever.  Over to William …

The Cloud Forest features a seven-story cloud mountain with a hundred foot waterfall, which provides welcome moisture from the heat outside.  You take an elevator to the very top of the mountain and begin your walk down, passing through different flora typical of a tropical mountain range.  Needless to say, we had a ball walking around this moist mountain and marveling at all of the breath-taking flora.  This link will give you all the information you might like to have on Gardens by the Bay.

Last night we were royally wined and dined by Scott and Maz at their lovely apartment about 20 minutes from the hotel.  It was pleasant to be able to sit outside in the breeze and watch the traffic below and to get out of the hotel and into a neighborhood.  We started with a warm clam dip that Scott’s mom taught him how to make and it was divine. This was followed by a wide assortment of grilled vegetables, a green salad with blueberries and perfectly grilled Wagyu steaks.  I had heard of these famous steaks from Japan but never ate one, and my oh my, they live up to their reputation. 

On my walk this morning I noticed that the ArtScience Museum had an exhibition of Da Vinci featuring original masterpieces for the first time in Southeast Asia.  Over breakfast I suggested we go to the museum and Cindy almost fell off her chair.  We headed over the Helix Bridge to the museum filled with excitement - only to discover that I had failed to notice the small print which said that the exhibit opened on November 15^th so we were ten days early!  Since we were there we did visit the current exhibit on photography called an Ocean of Possibilities, which as the name implies was a bunch of pictures from various photographers from around the world.  It was rather intense and almost too much to take in in 90 minutes, but we managed.

It is now raining to beat the band. Thunder, lightning and all the good effects of a tropical downpour, which is sure to clear the air!  Off to Chiang Mai in Thailand tomorrow; stay tuned.  Cindy and Wm

Singapore, November 2, 2014

Singapore November 2, 2014

We arrived yesterday after a twenty-six hour journey from Tokyo Narita.  Did I mention these are tickets purchased with miles?  You are at the mercy of the airlines that decide when and how they will carry you.  Eva Air, otherwise known as the Hello Kitty Carrier, took us from Narita to Taipei, and after a two-hour layover, to Hong Kong. It was all done well and certainly everything was most comfortable but oh my gosh, the Hello Kitty theme wore thin quickly.  Everything has the pink little Hello Kitty logo; I mean everything from the paint job on the plane to the pink aprons on the flight attendants.  There is a big picture of Hello Kitty on every bulkhead wall as well as on the barf bags, toilet paper, coasters, glassware - even on the food, where there was a picture of Hello Kitty on cubes of tofu.  Really, stamped on tofu in pink.

We had to overnight in Hong Kong at the Regal Hotel, which is connected to Terminal One, since it would have been too late to get to Singapore.  The room was fine but since it is an airport hotel, there was a lot of noise and Cindy didn’t get any sleep. I kept assuring her that she would be able to sleep the entire way to Singapore since I had gotten us a business class ticket on Cathay Pacific using miles.  I further assured here that it was going to be a new Airbus 330 with lay flat beds and she would sleep like a baby for three hours.  Imagine my surprise upon entering the plane to discover that it was an old 777 and that Cindy had a middle seat (which we traded with someone so that we could sit next to each other) that certainly didn’t recline 180 degrees. Seems that they had more passengers than expected and they swapped planes to handle the load without notifying anyone. There were several other couples that were in the same situation, finding themselves seated apart from one another.

We are in Singapore to visit with our friend Scott who is the General Manager of the Pan Pacific Hotel. I’ve known Scott for more than 25 years, having met him when he was the GM at the Oriental Hotel, where I had complained about something or other and he personally came to apologize and invited me for a drink. That had never happened to me before and I was rather impressed to say the least, so impressed that I made it a point to always stay wherever he was GM and thus a friendship developed. (from Cindy:  He means he had never gotten personal attention from the GM before, not that he had never complained before.  Ha!  Scott just loves to tell the story and of course he goes on and on about how picky the complaint was; not true but it’s certainly good for a laugh.)  Under his guidance this hotel has become a shining star in the constellation of hotels in Singapore.  Having just completed a 100 million dollar renovation, it is spectacular; nothing over the top, just tastefully appointed public areas and thoughtfully designed rooms.  After our orientation to our room - it takes awhile to get used to all the AV, electronics and control panels - I told Cindy that she needed to take a nap while I met Scott for a drink.

After that, we met a friend who teaches here in Singapore for drinks and dinner, and since needed to get to work the next morning, we were able to get to bed early and we slept ever so comfortably.  Refreshed and energized we hit the streets of Singapore at about eight in the morning and the heat and humidity hit us like a brick.  There is also a horrible haze, the result of uncontrolled burning in Indonesia, which detracts from the real beauty of Singapore.  This island city/state has always been known as the Switzerland of Asia, clean, green, safe, and wealthy.  However, I was not prepared for how much has really changed in the past six years.  There seem to be twice as many skyscrapers, malls and hotels. One of these, the Marina Bay Sands, is actually three buildings, which support a huge outdoor garden at the top of the buildings. At the base there is an enormous high-end shopping mall with a canal and gondolas ala Venice.  There is also a casino, which is the second highest moneymaker in Asia after Macau.  We’ve a lot to see and so goodbye for now.  Cindy and Wm

 

Narita City

Narita City, Japan

Our three-week odyssey started well. Our driver to Dulles was on time - and unlike many, he actually knew how to drive.  He had been an interpreter for the US in Afghanistan so it was an interesting ride to chat with him.  This trip was planned partly so that we could use the last of some US Air miles that I had accumulated over the working years.  I had just enough for two Business Class tickets from Dulles to Hong Kong and back, but free tickets come with a price. The routing was, shall be say, not direct – and you will read more about our routing on this trip as I continue to describe how we used additional free miles.

We took a US Air flight from Dulles to Charlotte and then to Chicago O’Hare. The flights were comfortable and staffed with very intelligent and helpful attendants but it took most of the day just to get to Chicago.  We spent the night at the ever-modern Hilton, (I think the Wright brothers stayed there after a flight from Dayton) whose only good feature is being connected to Terminal One without having to take any transportation other than your feet.  I never realized it was possible to spend $100 eating sandwiches at a bar, but with each glass of wine costing 12 bucks, things added up.

Our flight to Narita the next morning was with All Nippon Airways (ANA) and it was simply super.  The new configuration of their Boeing 777 has what is called staggered seating, 1-2-1, which means everyone has access to an aisle and no seats are aligned next to each other. (Compare that to 8 across on a United 777.) The seats are huge and there is a lot of storage space so you never feel cramped, a stark contrast to our more recent flights to and from Europe in coach. The service was flawless and the food, especially the Japanese meals, was spectacular and certainly something we could not afford once in Japan.  The seats lay flat which was a godsend on such a long fight (13 hours) and we both got some sleep after eating and watching the movie Chef.  It’s new this year and we are amazed we had never heard of it – it is a fabulous movie starring Jon Favreau (never had heard of him, but we have now – he also directed it).

We landed at 1 pm local time, which meant having to stay awake for another eight hours in order to try to force ourselves into Japanese time.  By about 8 pm we found this almost impossible to do but nevertheless managed to stay upright until 10 pm. When we finally hit the pillows we were out for the count and woke up to a beautiful sun-filled morning. We took our usual morning walk, had a nice breakfast, and then took the complimentary hotel bus to Narita City for a visit to the lovely Shinshoji temples and the grounds that surround them. It was an absolutely flawless day and perfect for our long walk.  The city is famous for things other than the temple, such as roasted sweet potatoes, macaroon cookies and above all, grilled eel, unagi. On the way to the temple we watched one of the chefs prepare the live fish for grilling, not something for the squeamish!  The other time we visited this temple (back in February 2013) it was a holiday in Japan and the grounds were thronged with people.  This visit was much simpler and in fact longer because we took our time to wander through the forest rather than taking the most direct route up to the main temple.  On the way out we passed a spectacular display of mums and dahlias in pots.  They were all labeled but we never figured out if it was a horticultural display of some sort or a contest; in any case, the flowers were beautiful, all lined up under long awnings erected to shelter the blooms.

For dinner that night we decided try a very small restaurant a few steps from the hotel that specialized in tappanyaki - including okonomiyaki, which is a cabbage omelet prepared at the hot grill in front of you, that we had tried on our last visit and wanted to try again.  We walked into the empty restaurant that looked like it could seat about 20 people and, as Cindy commented, the owner looked at us as if he thought he had locked the door and wondered how we got in!  He was flummoxed at first but recovered; most likely this isn’t a hot spot for tourists.  We sat at the grill, ordered a beer for me and wine for Cindy and then ordered our dinner and watched the show.  I had the sobayaki, noodles and vegetables grilled together, and Cindy had the okonomiyaki.  The food was almost as good as the experience of just being there. As we were preparing to leave, in came a very drunk party of about seven young Japanese, all but one of them men.  They ordered lots of beer and the owner – who expected them, unlike us - presented them with two very large bottles of sake.  On our way out, they greeted us with smiles and victory signs, which seems the thing all Japanese do when they have a picture taken.  It was grand fun and a perfect way to cap a lovely day in Japan.

Happy Halloween, Cindy and Wm

Milano/Malaga Part Two

Milano/Malaga Part Twobyxbee@mail.sdsu.edu

About a year ago we ended a cruise in Malaga and spent two days there.  We loved it so much that we decided to rent an apartment there for a week to really explore and enjoy this marvelous city.  We flew from Milano to Madrid, waited a bit and then on to Malaga, so it was a long travel day since we didn’t arrive in Malaga until after 7 pm.  Cindy had done a lot of research and found us a very inexpensive apartment right in the old town.  Our hostess was there to let us in, gave us a quick tour and the keys, and she was gone by 8 pm.

The apartment was fine for our one-week stay, although the kitchen was almost useless for cooking. It didn’t have an oven but did have an old microwave, which neither of us really knows how to use. I could stand in the middle of the very small kitchen and touch both walls.  Luckily we weren’t there to cook gourmet meals and the bed was comfortable and the apartment had lots of light and two little Juliette balconies.  We unpacked, killed a few ants, then killed a few more ants and then headed out to explore.  It being Spain, we were rather early for dinner at 9 pm.

We wandered about getting familiar with Malaga again and had a few tapas and glasses of wine at two different little hole-in-the-wall bars.  Mucho fun. Slept well until 3:30 am when the young men in the next apartment came home to continue partying.  Finally back to sleep at 5 or so and awake due to an alarm that had been set for 7:55 on the bedside clock in the apartment. I was in favor of throwing it across the room but Cindy elected to press some buttons and it stopped beeping.  We then set off for a morning run for Cindy, walk for me, arranging to meet at 9 am under the clock of the hotel we stayed in last year. Malaga has a magnificent harbor filled with grand yachts on one side and working ferries and freighters on the other.  There were a couple of cruise ships in port and it was a delight to just wander for an hour around the active and attractive harbor.

Coffee was in the Mercado, a huge covered market that was filled with fresh meat, fish, vegetables, pickled things, nuts and dried fruits and loud merchants beckoning shoppers to their stalls.  Our first Spanish cortados, short, strong espresso with warm milk, hit the spot and set the tone for the rest of the day.  We wandered about the market for a little while longer buying some fresh figs, tomatoes, garlic and nuts before heading back to the apartment.  It was now about 10 am and things were just starting to open up in the old town, which is a large pedestrian-only area.  In order to get the goods to the shops, they have to be transported from large trucks that park in an open plaza near the apartment. To accomplish this, hordes of men with various carts, hand trucks, and dollies must navigate the cobblestone street directly under our windows.  Not one of these devices seemed to have rubber wheels since the noise was absolutely deafening. This went on every day from 9:30 to 2 at which time there was a break for lunch until five when it started up again until about 8:30 pm.  Hadn’t expected that!

In going over Cindy’s notes I see a very definite pattern to our six days.  Up, exercise, meet for coffee, clean up, walk for a few hours, tapas, walk, nap, walk, tapas, walk, nightcap somewhere, walk, bed.  We found swell places to eat and drink and truly enjoyed the difference between Italian and Spanish cuisine.  There was one rather curious event that happened to me sometime between tapa hops one night. We were going to end the evening at a place we had sampled earlier that had really creative food and seemed to be run by a women’s coop.  We were sipping Cava and looking at the menu when Cindy began to stare at my head.  She reached over with a paper napkin and touched a spot that looked funny to her and sure enough I was bleeding. We don’t know if a meteorite came streaking out of the skies and hit me, or if someone had thrown something off a balcony but it was definitely bleeding, and it required a trip to the bathroom and lots of cold water to stop it.  Needless to say, I then needed to replenish the valuable bodily fluids I had just lost!

I must admit that neither of us can really adjust to the Spanish clock for dining.  We just don’t have it in us anymore to dine at 10:30, so we accepted the fact that most of the good folks of Malaga regarded us the way we regard the early birds of Florida.  It really didn’t matter much since we only had one real dinner in Malaga, a return to Meson Mariano.  If you are going to have only one meal in Malaga and you want the real Cocina Malagueña this is the spot.  It is fantastic and it is still a place for the locals, as opposed to the larger restaurants that cater to tourists. Mariano is always there and always a character, making sure that everyone is happy and everything is fresh and to his standards.  We were sitting at the very small bar enjoying glasses of wine while talking with the bartender/waiter. Mariano came over to say something to the barman and noticed that I was fishing out some cork from my now half empty glass of wine. He practically jumped over to me, whisked my glass away, got a clean glass and poured a very healthy ration of wine, all with apologies as if he had placed the cork in the glass himself.  A very nice touch and truly appreciated.

Proving the fact that locals frequent the restaurant was the appearance of our landlady with 3 of her friends.  We greeted with kisses and then I sent a bottle of sparkling Cava to their table.  They were most impressed and got two more glasses so that they could share it with us, and of course came over to our table for toasts. Always nice to feel like a local!

Dinner was spectacular, as we knew it would be. The tapas they had been giving us at the bar were more than enough to get our appetites working and since we knew the portions to come, we didn’t start with any appetizers even though we were sorely tempted.  We both had baby goat, the specialty of the house.  Cindy opted for the delicate little chops, while I went for the roasted shoulder. They were both tender, smothered in garlic with a bit of lemon and olive oil and served with mounds of garlic-roasted potatoes. We were in heaven!  We split an order of Leche Frita and Mariano came by with rather large glasses of a Spanish brandy named 1866, which was truly marvelous.  Luckily it was a lovely evening and still early, 10pm, so we took the long way home to work off the meal.

We were up the next morning at 7am, which seemed to come much earlier than expected, and off to the airport for our long trip home via Paris.  All and all it was a great trip that got off to a rocky start but finished with a culinary crescendo in Malaga.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm.

Milano/Malaga Part One

Milano/Malaga Part One

It has been several weeks since our return from Milan and Malaga and it dawned on me that I’ve not written a word about the trip. Part of that was due to the fact that we decided to try and carry only an iPad and although it has a Bluetooth keyboard, I just couldn’t get into typing on a tablet. Good lesson since we are off soon for three weeks in Asia and I know now that I’ll be carrying my Apple Air.

Our flight from Dulles to Paris on Air France was in Premium Economy, which cost more but isn’t worth it.  Another lesson learned.  On other Premium Economy services with other airlines the service is much more like business.  On AF they give you basic economy food and drink but you get it first.

AF went on strike the day we departed and I had spent four hours working with them to get us from Paris to Milan since they had cancelled our non-stop.  Once in Paris we went to the connecting desk and they did absolutely nothing for us. Didn’t even offer us a bottle of water. We had to wait at the airport for six hours and then fly to AMSTERDAM, which for those of you that are geographically challenged, is in the opposite direction!  Once in AMS we had to wait another three hours before getting a flight to Milan, arriving there at ten PM, a mere nine hours late.  And those expensive Premium Economy seats we purchased don’t exist on the flights we were on, so they gave us window and middle seats in the back of the very full bus.

We finally got to our hotel at eleven PM and of course the bar and restaurant were closed, but we were in Italy.  They knew about our delays and the manager opened the bar and prepared us a plate of cheese and meats and wonderful bread and above all, an ice cold bottle of crisp white wine.  We were saved.

For the next week or so we just enjoyed Italy.  There were street fairs, markets, restaurants, shopping and playing with our friends Bob and Mary that made the four days in Milan flash by.  Our next four days were spent in Crema, chosen by me for the fact that in the entire city there is but ONE MUSEUM!  Crema turned out to be a delight in every way.  We would walk for hours, sometimes along the river, sometimes around the old walled town and sometimes in one of the many parks. We quickly became regulars at the closest bar to our hotel and enjoyed the magnificent open air market and relaxed vibe of the town.

The ONE MUSEUM almost undid all the fun we were having.  It is a combination history museum and art museum and in order to see anything you have to see everything.  Now that part I would have been okay with since as a youth I once managed to see the Louvre in twenty minutes. However, the 95-year-old guide pounced upon us owing to the fact that I’m sure we were the first two customers in many days.  He then proceeded to walk us though every room and comment on every artifact, in what I assume was perfect Italian, but since I only understood one in every seven words, what do I know? If it hadn’t been for the lunch break that he couldn’t wait to take, we might have been there for four hours, but we escaped in two. At one point he began to read Dante’s Inferno to us, page by page, since Dante had lived there at some point.  I got major points from Cindy!

More later, Cindy and William

Quiet Summer in Charles Town

It has been a quiet summer here at Casa Embee. For the first time in many years we did not make any travel plans for the entire season.  Cindy’s daily efforts in her large garden have recently been paying off with lots of herbs and tomatoes - and soon, sweet potatoes.  We have the healthiest basil in the state and every morning I can hear the plants chanting, Pesto, Pesto, Pesto!  We’ll be having a nice pesto processing party this weekend.  Cindy’s flowers are really starting to come into their own and we have fresh flowers for the house every day, not to mention being able to sit on the deck with a cocktail while watching the birds and bees and butterflies playing among the colorful blossoms. (We also have a million Japanese beetles but we’ll not discuss them.)

We have had a few fun weekends with Colin and Meagan who returned from three years in New Zealand in late May and who are gradually getting settled in to their new lives in the USA.  Colin is well into his MBA at William and Mary and Meagan is involved in continuing Department of State training and looking forward to a few years here in America.  We also had a lovely weekend when daughter Megan visited us with her husband David and son Blake (they live in North Port, FL).

I’ve had the time to get back into the sky as a private pilot, having spent the past few weeks studying, taking exams and successfully passing my bi-annual check ride.  I must say it feels really good to be flying again and yesterday I took up a Cessna just to tour the area around our house.  I was a bit amazed at how much more expensive it has become to fly.  Three years ago you could rent a Cessna for $89 an hour and today it is $129.  At those prices I think I’ll limit myself to one hour or so per month.

We did have one trip this summer, which wasn’t planned but was necessary.  Cindy’s mom sold her lake home in Alexandria, MN and we flew up there to help with all the paperwork associated with the closing and helping to move all of her stuff out.  Most of it went to Habitat for Humanity, who I must say seem to be the most organized outfit I’ve ever worked with.  We spent five days making sure everything was done right and trying to take as much work off of Cindy’s sister’s plate.  Camilla really did a heck of a job getting everything ready for the big final push.

I continue to enjoy cooking, especially now that there are so many options for getting lots of fresh vegetables and fruits.  We have implemented Cindy’s new “rainbow” rule for our meals:  Every meal must have five different fruits or vegetables, each of them a different color.  We can of course go over the five-color rule but never below.  I must say, it has made our meals much more colorful as well as a bit healthier.  I have an online photo album with pictures of all the meals.  (Did I mention we have stayed home all summer?!)

Cindy has decided not to teach online during the Fall Semester, which is all I needed to start planning travel.  We shall effectively be gone from September 7^th to January 23, with only a few brief visits to Charles Town.  We’ll be in Italy and Spain in September, then three weeks in Asia in October and November.  Back here for Thanksgiving with Cindy’s mom and sister and then off to France. We have rented an apartment in Nice for six weeks and will celebrate my birthday, Christmas and New Years in the south of France. This is something we have always talked about and we are finally going to give it a try.

(We won’t be able to use our time-share in La Jolla from 5-12 December so if any of you are interested in it, give us a shout.)

With best wishes,  Cindy and William