Recently in Traveller's Log Category

Today I met my family at the Charles de Gaulle airport and drove them to Chablis. There was a big accident on the A6 highway because all cars stopped moving for 30 minutes, and people got out of the cars to see what was happening down the road. Soon, a few ambulances and rescue vehicles arrived and cleared the way.

Because of that, by the time we arrived in Chablis most restaurants were closed. We finally found a bistro. All they had left to offer us was a cheese platter with salad and bread, which we willingly agreed on, and some Chablis wine.

We drove on to Dijon, settled down quickly at the hotel and booked a table at a Michelin 1-star restaurant at the Hostellerie de Chapeau Rouge. I was surprised it was relatively easy to book a place on the day itself. We took a scenic walk through the historical part of town to get to the restaurant.

Overall, the food was good, but initially disappointing. As an Asian, I am not so easily impressed when presented with a row of maki (Japanese rice rolls) and what tasted like fried dough with Indian spices dipped in yoghurt sauce. My own starter was salmon in 3 ways. One tasted like a Vietnamese dumpling, with chopped salmon and mint leaves wrapped in a rice-based dumpling skin with a fish sauce dip. Another was like a wrap with guacamole. The final chunk of salmon was nicely done and I thought that was the most original. I thought it would’ve been fine to stick to French, or a less literal interpretation of ‘fusion’ food. The other starter was a simple rocket salad but nicely done, though I dare say it was nothing unusual.

The wine was excellent and together with the main courses, made up for the unimaginative Asian-style starters. My veal was tender and tasty even though the pieces were thick. The others had beef and swordfish, and the roast pigeon in could’ve been the best dish of all, because it was even more flavourful and succulent than my veal.

We ended the meal with two combinations of various desserts, either laid into one cup or plate. I tasted unsweetened ‘glace’ (ice cream) and it was actually refreshing. The sesame whipped cream was also unsweetened, and similarly easier on my conscience. So were the jelly cubes. Thus I thought the mains and desserts were worth it.

Tomorrow we head to Beaune, another town en route to Geneva.

Day 1: Arrived around 9pm at Larnaca airport. We were greeted with lots of H1N1 warning posters. After collecting my check-in bag, I was welcomed at the exit by D, the bride-to-be, who was using a high-tech phone to video my entrance. Had supper at D’s home, chose some slideshow photos with her and learnt more about her lovely family. Then we went to bed.

Day 2: Woke up mid-morning. D made me a sandwich with Cypriot ham and cheese. Headed off at 11am for a manicure and pedicure with D, and ran errands together. Had lunch at Le Cafe where many people were posing with their beautifully done-up hair, tanned bodies and sunglasses. D headed to the florist’s and photographer’s while I stayed on to shop at Debenham’s. I was annoyed with myself for forgetting to bring my sunglasses to Cyprus, of all sunny, cloudless places in the world to visit. Turned out well in the end as I found 2 lovely pairs of sunglasses and 1 pair for my housemate. All UV400 and between 8.95-9.95 Euros in price - and then a discount was given on top of that! I was terribly pleased with my finds.

Day 3: The wedding!! D only had 2 hours of sleep and was feeling unwell. Fortunately, after a hot shower and fervent prayers to God, she was revived and returned to her usual feisty self! Hallelujah! D and I headed to the hairdresser’s. I got myself into a funky hairdo to go with my traditional Chinese cheong sam. I was a bit doubtful, but everyone seemed to love how I looked, so that’s that!

Had lots of photo-taking and traditional ceremonies performed by family members and friends, at D’s apartment. There was also a lot of food, although I was so occupied observing everything that was going on and taking photos, that I hardly ate!

In the midst of it all, cars were honking downstairs and we learnt the groom had driven in from Limassol! He and his men circled the apartment twice, waving at us all. The bride was excited to see him. We headed to the church. Greek weddings are different from Western weddings. The groom and everyone else waits outside the church for the bride. She walks to the groom and everyone enters the church together. There is also no kissing!! :(

The ceremony was all Greek to me, i.e. I didn’t understand a word. There was a lot of singing by the priest(s) and the choir at the back. Then we threw flower petals and rice at the newly-wedded couple! I finally met the groom S. I was so happy for both of them and wish them a blessed lifetime together.

I hitched a ride from a couple of Bristol law juniors from Nicosia to Limassol where the wedding reception and dinner took place. Then Bristol law classmate A fetched me from a hotel and took me to his place. I was so happy to see his wife, who was also my law classmate H, and their baby Z! Together we went to the reception, then A, H and Z went home. I met more Bristolians during dinner, and they are now my Facebook friends ;-)

Cypriot/Greek wedding dinners start very late and end even later, with lots of dancing! It was a buffet, but each table took turns to take food so it was not a mad rush with a super long queue but quite manageable. The only thing I wasn’t comfortable with was the smoking in the air-conditioned hall. Apparently there are smoking laws but they are not well enforced, and Cypriots will smoke even in front of babies. So I was glad that baby Z was not at the same table. A fetched me home and it took me a while to pry out all the pins stuck in my hair. Finally I showered and slept. It was a long day and I was glad to have survived it!

Day 4: I finally had a long sleep as I drew the curtains so the summer sun didn’t wake me up. Had lunch and tried some local Keo Beer.

Late afternoon, H took me to see the ruins at Kourion. This is us in the car!

This is me, feeling well. Actually, it’s an ancient well but I didn’t feel ancient, just well.

Kourion was great, but more could be done to develop its tourism potential. We had a pamphlet that had a bit of information, but frankly I got more out of the Wikipedia entry. At many points we had no idea what ruin we were looking at. Location maps didn’t have a ‘You are here’ sign, so we had no idea where we were, or where to start walking. Also, relics on the map were numbered randomly, not in concentric or any other pattern. H noted that fake pillars used for a play at the amphitheatre were left abandoned on the side, not too far from the real ruins.

Went to town with H to buy dinner at a famous kebab place which is also a Guinness World Record holder for the longest kebab.

Day 5: Left for Cyprus, but made sure I got to see baby Z one last time! I enjoyed my stay in Cyprus and having friends to take me around definitely helped a lot. Goodbye, until we meet again in Singapore!

Over the last weekend I made a trip to Paris to boost the economy. This mission was completed with Louis Vuitton (LV) being the main beneficiary. After a short train ride and an even shorter metro ride, we found ourselves in the heart of Paris, and beheld one of the bastions of French luxury goods:

I experienced rude service in a previous visit to LV, but this time nothing bad happened. We were in fact fortunate that the LV employee who came up to assist us was a fellow Singaporean, as he gave us extra tips on what to see in Paris. He was also very good at recommending which bag/accessory would suit us better.

He also made expressos so we had the pleasure of sipping them in the middle of the shop, which was a luxury I didn’t experience in an earlier visit years ago. The main store was bustling, yet not as crazy as the branch at Ngee Ann City in Singapore, where I’ve seen a queue snaking round the corner, but it was definitely good business. Which begs the question: What recession?? The rich remain rich and those with a lot of savings are in fact probably benefiting from overall lower prices and discounts. It is a known fact that buying LV in Paris and getting tax rebates is a better deal than buying the same item back in Singapore.

Not surprisingly there were many Asian tourists snapping up LV goods, and a good proportion of the LV staff were Asians themselves. I think it helps the sale when your salesperson can speak the same language as you, and may also have come from the same culture. I noticed some customers who were speaking in a distinctly mainland Chinese accent. I think there were quite a few other groups of customers from neighbouring regions as well.

I am glad I finally got myself a good passport holder. The last one I had was a free gift that crumbled after some years of use and dirtied my passport and the bag holding it! As with many other things in my life I would prefer to pay a greater price for something I know would be longer-lasting. Unlike many other females, I don’t like shopping very much. I find it stressful to have to keep replacing things and matching exact shades of colour. Sometimes, however, there are impulses… such as this:

I needed a nice reddish bag to go with a dress I’m planning to wear to my dear Cypriot friend Demetra’s wedding this weekend. Also, I used this bag at the INSEAD Summer Ball (to be covered in my INSEAD blog…) because the theme was ‘A Touch of Gold’. I hope up to this point my female readers appreciate my description and photos ;-)

There was a jazz festival going on in Paris but I decided to give it a miss. Instead I bought some jazz CDs. There were some good discounts from stores like Virgin and even FNAC. Despite the weather report saying it should be sunny in Paris, I never believed it totally and sure enough, it drizzled for a while.

Anyway we went back tired but happy, just in time to rest and prepare ourselves for the Ball…

It’s been 3 weeks in France already and the food is great. I don’t miss Singapore food at all (Let’s see if this can last for 2 months). The breads, the cheeses, the wine, the champagne are all good. And the weather is lovely today. Clear skies (UV rays!!!), cool winds, better road manners. What more can I ask for - apart from the company of my dear R and my family, who will be arriving in June.

I realise that while I’ve been writing about living abroad, I wasn’t specific as to when I’ll be back in Singapore. I am in France for my final term at INSEAD, and will be back in Singapore in early July.

Up to then, there’s no point inviting me to any events back in Singapore. Thank you for keeping me on your list.

I and my housemate have settled down nicely in our little cottage in Samoreau, between a lake and the river Seine. Naturally if I ever waded into the river, you could rightfully call me ‘insane’.*

So far we’ve attended one house party in Barbizon (classmate GE’s birthday). Still contemplating the Masquerade. Definitely going for the Summer Ball which is a couple days before my birthday. Plan to head out to Paris at some point in time, though this weekend will be spent doing housework (laundry) and homework.

More action over at my INSEAD blog.

*that’s “In Seine” to those of you who didn’t get the pun.

Sunday, Day 2 - went to the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. Wonderful sights! I am uploading some photos to Flickr, so check that out later. Internet connection is patchy, even in this expensive 5 star hotel.

Day 3 - Real class began. Met 2 Government officials and 4 young enterprising men. We gave some ideas and I hope that the ones I gave can be implemented. It would be interesting to see if they work.

Off to dinner soon…

Legal, administrative stuff

Got my Indian visa and travel tickets. Mustafa’s services are amazing. Also changed my money there. I assume they should have the best rates for rupees, seeing how so many Indians use their services.

Trying to get my early hotel stay confirmed. Also had some issues with my Kingfisher internal flight - they said they had trouble processing my credit card.

Medical

Went for a Typhoid jab early last week. It takes about 2 weeks to be effective so it should be timed well for my India trip starting this weekend.

I will be bringing a small first aid kit and medication. This kit will also accompany me to Fonty. For India I may have to bring some pills for diarrhoea as well. At least some charcoal.

Bought my travel insurance for India.

Geeky and gadgety

Bought two 4GB SDHC cards from Mustafa at $16.50. It’s a long story. First I saw the cards going for S$14 at a counter in Mustafa. But I noticed that further up the same cards were going for S$16.50. I pointed out the discrepancy, at which point the salesmen said I had to pay the higher price. I said usually the price of memory goes down, not up! However they insisted on it. I was not happy with the principle of the matter and decided not to buy the cards from them that night. The next day I popped by Funan and learnt that the prices there were even higher and that I could not get normal-speed 4GB SD cards; they only had SDHC ones. So I went back to Mustafa, picked up the cards, changed my money and bought a few packets of spicy food (which will accompany me on my next trip to Fonty).

The high capacity cards will ensure that I will not run out of memory when I visit the Taj Mahal on Sunday. Also, as my dear iPhone 3G tends to die before the end of the day, I bought a $49 battery pack which seems to be working fine so far. At least if I’m stranded I can call for help.

Indian SIM card

My darling R has loaned me his Indian SIM card so I can use that to make local calls instead of paying international rates. Unfortunately my itchy fingers will not be able to access any 3G content on the fly, because India apparently doesn’t have that network yet. On the plus side this means I will have to totally concentrate on what my professor is saying.

OK time to sleep, even though I don’t feel like it.

In 2 days I’m going to Delhi, India for a study trip. CNN Weather says that that tonight is ‘dreary’ in Delhi. And it’s going to be hot. So hot that from Sunday, the ‘sunny’ icon makes way for a thermometer that’s gone off the charts.

This is so not comforting. Need to pack lots of cool clothes and bring sunblock. Maybe most of the time we’ll be indoors anyway, having classes, so it won’t hurt so much.

On the bright side, I probably won’t find Singapore weather that hot anymore…

Our internet connection has finally been restored after 2-3 days of sporadic availability. We’re going on tour today and I hope the persistent drizzle stops. Here’s a summary of our last few days since my previous post.

So far, we’ve played two rounds of golf. Considering this is my second and third time playing on a course, it wasn’t too bad although I need to be less erratic. My good drives went pretty far but I also became an expert getting out of bunkers. One of my best shots was from the bunker to within a few feet of the hole. My putting leaves much to be desired, especially on slopes. Need more practice there.

The food has been good. We have been enjoying lots of Vietnamese vegetables - so crunchy and tasty. The food is similar to Chinese food. Also if you’re a Francophile you will like it in Sofitel’s Dalat Palace hotel, which is the top place to stay in Dalat - if you can get a room. It was originally built for French royalty in the event that they visited Vietnam. Inside, it does feel like a palace. The receptionists say ‘Bonjour’ and there are a number of European (mostly French) and American guests.

The weather right now is drizzly like England but less cold. When the sun comes out it’s quite pretty. The locals ride motorcycles and love sounding their horns. It’s so noisy here. Even in our hotel room with the curtains drawn you will hear honking late into the night.

That’s all for now. More updates later!

We woke up at 5am and headed to the airport. It was a comfortable 2-hour flight to Ho Chi Minh City. However our connecting flight to Dalat required several hours’ wait, so we left the airport, took a short city tour, had a pho lunch and walked around the Ben Thanh market where we were accosted by lots of eager vendors who tried speaking to us in different languages. It was stuffy and uncomfortable, although the food section looked interesting.

Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City is just as crazy as ever, but we haven’t had any accidents crossing the road, touch wood, and I hope we never do. However, just when we thought that the multitude of motorcyclists were also fairly safe due to their relatively low speeds, we heard a crash and our van driver swerved to avoid hitting two riders who had collided on the road. I managed to whip out my camera and snap the scene just as we passed them:

Around Chinatown I spotted this pair of best friends walking down the street. Aww…

I was also kept amused when we drove down a very long road with my name in it - Vo Van Tan. Woohoo! I kept snapping so many photos of shop signs with my name. If you’re bored you can play the game and spot the Van Tans in each photo starting from the one below (similar to Where’s Wally). I like this photo the most because it incorporates Apple’s logo into the signage, and you know I love Apple, although ironically the shops here are advertising unlocking services!

We returned to the airport and took the connecting flight to Dalat. We took a shuttle from the gate to the steps of the plane. However just then it started to rain very heavily, and an airport ground services officer took out an umbrella to shield us one by one to the plane, but it didn’t make much difference as the wind blew the water into the vehicle and onto everyone.

The driver closed the doors for about a minute, reopened them and by then, amazingly, the winds had subsided. I had checked the CNN weather report earlier and learnt there would be thunderstorms for the next few days. Seeing the erratic weather made me think that our golf would be a washout as well :(

We got into the small plane with some pushing and shoving. I was a bit annoyed with a local woman who pushed me forward when there was already so little space to move. I glanced sharply at her and she took her hand off me. The plane ride was only about 45 minutes. However the turbulence and murky weather made me more apprehensive, especially when the small plane felt like a rollercoaster plunging up and down.

Then as we filed out of the plane, a beautiful scene awaited us. Cool air, too. It made the trip feel worth it.

We arrived at our hotel and I was happy to discover the free wireless provided in the room! However it is rather slow and I will probably not be chatting much online.

I went for a Vietnamese massage in our hotel and boy was it different from what I get in Singapore. Firstly, for 45 minutes we pay just over S$4! (At this point, some Singaporeans may sound like little birds going cheep cheep!) We were taken to a foot bath inside what felt like a sauna and my feet turned red. As it was crowded, we waited some time before any masseurs attended to us :( But what struck me was that the masseurs - all ladies - were wearing mini skirts! I was wondering if that was the norm in Vietnam as I haven’t had a massage here before.

Anyway, my masseur covered her skirt with a towel just before sitting down and I was a bit relieved because otherwise it could look a little obscene. But when she sat down the towel got caught on my toes, and another masseur laughed at her. Gabra! What made it more interesting was … after the regular leg massage the masseurs would climb onto your massage chair/footstool and click your knees and finger joints one by one! Finally, for the back massage they would climb BEHIND you as you’re sitting upright on the massage chair, and massage/pound your back! I’ve never had a massage so close up with any masseur before, clambering onto the same chair with me. It was a weird yet amusing experience and I was trying to keep myself from grinning. Oh well, if you’ve experienced this before, do let me know, and if you haven’t and want to check it out, I can give you the name of the hotel…. in private!!

I just showered and am going to bed now. Uploading more Flickr pics. Tomorrow we play our first family game of golf. I am apparently the 2nd best player in the family after my Dad (i.e. the only one with a PC), and so unfortunately I will not be given as much chance … I hope all that hanging around Annika Sorenstam will rub off on me!

We in Singapore should be thankful for having a relatively incident-free subway service. Of course, the London subway is much older and complex and so it is understandable that there would be more disruptions. We experienced line closures over the weekend for planned engineering works, but when this notice came up it shocked some of us.

Was it a suicide attempt? An accident? A joke? We never found out.

I used to marvel at the Harrods food hall in my younger days. Somehow, this time I wasn’t wowed very much. In fact, despite the sale the place was relatively empty. It was late morning. We managed to grab seats at the Japanese restaurant.

Check out the caviar! BTW these weren’t even the most expensive … I think the priciest bottle was going for over 3,000 quid.

We had tea at the Illy bar.

I highly recommend the Strawberry Cheesecake. It isn’t too sweet, and has a cookie base.

The price difference at M&S in London.

We had a brief stopover in Bangkok en route to London. We landed at Heathrow Airport. Unfortunately it was at the old terminal, which was fully showing its age. The red carpet we stood on was so worn out, that in some areas the underlying white threads were showing. The airport staff was as brusque as I last remembered them, telling off my sister for not standing exactly in single file.

As always, London is a melting pot of different cultures, and standing in the queue of what I call ‘the Others’ (i.e. those who are not UK/European Union citizens) made me realise this all the more. At a glance, there were Middle Eastern women hooded in black; many Indian women in saris or Punjabi suits, many Indian men in modern business suits, some Africans and mainland Chinese. Presumably we were all here for a holiday, to visit family or friends, or to find a better future for ourselves.

We quickly caught a London cab and had a good chat with our silver-haired driver. He told us that 3 months ago, Lewis Hamilton sat in his cab, and yesterday, he took Sharon Stone to the airport as she was returning to Los Angeles. He said both were nice people, particularly mentioning that Sharon Stone deserves more credit and shouldn’t be judged by some of the films she starred in! (When I heard Sharon Stone’s butt had touched the same seats we were sitting on, I wanted to criss-cross my legs but thankfully, decided not to.)

The weather in London was surprisingly lovely - sunny but not too warm or cold. It stayed that way through the evening. We had roast duck rice at Magic Wok. Mmm! (Note to seasoned Singaporean-Chinese Londoners, we had no choice because Mandarin Kitchen was already out of roast duck!)

Our executive serviced apartments at Hyde Park felt more like a one-person studio. It is in a central location, newly furnished with modern plumbing, but I don’t even think I could swing a cat in the room I’m sharing with my sister, unless I really hated cats and wanted to give one a concussion.

The bathroom is very new and clean, but similarly I don’t think I could swing a mouse in it. If I swung my arms about I would probably hit the walls, and I’m not a very lanky person. The size and layout is suitable for astronauts living in the confines of a spacecraft, I suppose.

And the bed. Some hotels have larger beds for single people than this. I am sharing the bed with my sister. Hopefully I don’t kick in my sleep and she wakes up on the floor. To be fair, the photos I’ve seen of the place on a booking website are accurate. Just that the photographer took it in a way that looked like the walls extended beyond the photos - but all that’s in the photographs are just about all there really is in the rooms. Large people, you have been warned.

As I’m typing this, I’ve applied my third bout of moisturiser to my skin. The cream has disappeared like water into desert sand. Goodnight.

[Note: This is a backdated post because I had sporadic internet connections throughout my trip. More posts to come…]

This is a quick post.

We’ve done the usual - duck rice at Four Seasons, shopping at Harrod’s, and today we visited the Emirates Stadium to pick up some gear. May go back for a proper tour on Sat if the timing’s right. If there’s time we will squeeze in a museum visit.

Tomorrow I head to Bristol.

Time to log off. People are queuing up to use the only ethernet cable available in the reception. Wireless has been down for days and nobody seems bothered to fix it.

My plan:

1. Take an early morning train to Bristol’s Temple Meads station, which is within walking distance of the city centre.
2. Walk down to the recently-renovated Broadmead for a spot of shopping and to grab lunch. Alternatively, check out the Bristol Food & Wine Fair which opens, happily, on the very day that I am in Bristol! It’s also within walking distance.
3. Walk up the hill to see my University. Take photos. Buy mementos.
4. Walk further up the hill to see my old residence, the Hawthorns. (If I have time and strength, I may visit my earlier residence, Clifton Hill House)
5. Cross the Clifton Suspension Bridge and walk all the way to Ashton Park, lie on the grass and relax.
6. Pop over to Clifton Village for a spot of tea. Take more photos.
7. Grab a cab back to Temple Meads and take the next train back to London. Ahh…

Along the way, if possible, I may do the following:

1. Ogle at the cool furniture at Habitat and take a catalogue, if they have any. I used to collect the annual catalogues religiously.
2. Buy a copy of The Big Issue to support homeless people who are trying to help themselves by doing honest work.

I am too early for the annual Balloon Festival.

This post may be updated as more things are discovered.

This Tuesday, I will be heading back to the UK for my sister’s graduation in Middlesex. We will base ourselves in London and make day trips.

As there are only enough tickets for parents to attend the graduation ceremony, I intend to spend that day alone in Bristol, my alma mater, land of Wallace & Gromit, Massive Attack and Portishead (which is the name of an area in Bristol).

The last time I was in Bristol, I wanted to stay a bit longer and explore old haunts, but couldn’t. This time, I have it all to myself.

We are also planning to watch a show back in London. I may also try catching up with friends while I’m there. So it should be a short but busy trip.

“I am a Berliner.” That was President Kennedy’s famous line.

Well, today I finally got to see what’s left of the Berlin Wall. I was a kid when it was knocked down, but it was a world event I was aware of.

Reminded me of Romeo and Juliet, while probably symbolising the yearning of the east and the west to meet once again.

This is the remains of the wall. I purposely took it like this, with the rim of a BMW car driving over it - showing how there’s been prosperity and progress since the wall was torn down.

Made it to Checkpoint Charlie with guard actors who were hilarious. Another guard pretended to check other tourists’ passports and declare them invalid.

As I explored the vicinity, I wondered how many people died trying to get to the other side. How times have changed. We should be thankful for it.

Clothes - mostly casual tees and jeans, because if I dressed too formally I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a blogger. Bringing a dress for the gala night, because I think Europeans will dress up nicely at such events. Will bring a light coat and a more heavy jacket for when the Berlin weather gets a bit cooler and rainier. Bringing a small brolly too.

Footwear - sneakers and a pair of shiny heels for the gala night.

Geek stuff - MacBook Pro, extra battery, power cables with travel adapter (prediction: if there’s a power supply it’s going to be like SXSW all over again - lots of geek with thirsty laptops and not enough power points). Camera. Memory card reader with XPressCard slot inside my MacBook Pro (saves space and doesn’t use up my limited USB ports). 80GB iPod for music and 16GB iPhone.

Hmm will it be funny to be seen blogging live about HP products using my MacBook Pro? Well … we shall see.

Vitamins, medication, moisturiser, electric toothbrush…

A good book to read. May buy a mag or two at Terminal 3 later.

Meeting Melvin at the airport, and looking forward to meeting Angus from Hong Kong as well.

Berlin, here I come!!!

I have exciting news to announce. Hewlett-Packard (HP) has invited me to Germany to cover their latest product launch!

So I will be heading to Berlin over the weekend and covering the event for a few days.

A big THANK YOU to the folks who’ve organised the trip, got our tickets and our nice hotel rooms. It’ll be my first visit to Germany and I can’t wait!

More info to come…

I’m back in LA for just a few hours. It’s 6.20pm in LA but 9.20am in Singapore, which is why I decided to get a latte at Starbucks so that I’ll stay awake a bit longer.

When I started on my trip, my luggage was 16.5kg. On my way back, it weighed 52 pounds, or about 23.6kg. The limit was 50 pounds but they decided to close one eye for me, else I’d pay overweight charges.

I’m only carrying things back for my family members and if possible, I will pick up something for my colleagues. My conference materials are very heavy and I have to bring them back to circulate at the workplace. Also, I wrapped up the Dell laptop (Wilson, hope you don’t mind me putting it in your new laptop bag for extra protection) and checked it in, because it’s seriously been a deadweight since it got hacked. These are the major contributors to the weight factor.

In LA I was glad to catch up with my relatives and especially see my pregnant cousin-in-law a month before she pops. In Austin I had 2 great roommates, Sarah and Sarah, whom I now call IT Goddess, and great hosts in Kristen and Mark. It was also good to see Katie. The family continually inspires me to get more exercise myself.

Kristen and Mark’s nearly 1-year old son Alexander was a wonderful playmate. When I arrived in Austin 2 weeks ago, I saw him crawl and walk a few steps. A week later, he started walking longer distances. Linguistically, he’s learning fast. With lovely weather and people around me, I accumulated a lot of photos and videos!

While in the US, I wanted to get the iPhone, but didn’t expect to buy a MacBook so soon, either! Two main factors leading me to buy it were the fact that my other laptop had died, and the exchange rate was too good to pass up. I tried to buy it online, then learnt that it might arrive after I leave the US, so I cancelled the order and bought one at the nearest Apple Store. However, as blogged earlier, I was given a model with matte instead of glossy screen so I went back one more time and exchanged it! So technically this is my second MacBook Pro, within the space of a week!

I have a separate post reflecting on SXSW itself… that one will take a longer time to write. It will definitely be my last SXSW, at least for a couple of years. I feel kind of sad, yet hopeful. I just have to hang in there for now.

OK, leaving Starbucks now to go to the International part of the airport. See you back in Singapore!

A quick note to say I’m leaving for Austin soon.

Last night I had a great dinner at Versaille in Los Angeles with my cousin and his wife, finally got to try out the wireless on my iPhone at their place, then headed back to pack my bags.

I really should be sleeping. There are umpteen things I haven’t done, like writing my bios for 2 talks I’m giving right after returning to Singapore, among others! But I must rest now.

I had a nutritious breakfast of steamed buns, broccoli and green tea. I never eat breakfast when I’m back in Singapore, I just have a juice and coffee. It’s only when I’m abroad that I somehow have an appetite.

We drove down south, shopped at a factory outlet near the Mexican border, and visited my uncles’ shop, Mondo Gelato in San Diego. Business in general seems pretty quiet, and lots of new residential buildings have no tenants.

On the way back to LA, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant and the lady owner also told us that many other shops around the area have closed down. It’s one thing hearing how the economy is doing badly; it’s another thing to see it happening.

Another big concern in the US is the rising price of gas. Last year I recall gas prices were still reasonable. Now the fear is that it’s approaching US$4 a gallon.

But would Singaporeans find this expensive?

According to Google Calculator, 1 gallon of gas is approximately 3.785 litres of petrol.

Looking at Singapore’s petrol rates today on petrolwatch.com.sg, it appears that 1 litre of petrol costs just over S$2. Based on today’s exchange rate at oanda.com, that equates to about US$1.48.

Thus, 3.785 litres of petrol (1 gallon) in Singapore will cost US$5.60. That’s way over the US$4 dollar mark that American drivers are dreading.

So if Singaporeans drivers had to pay US rates for petrol, we’d probably be pretty happy about it. Of course, we’re on such a tiny island that even a 20 minute drive is considered far.

I’m certainly enjoying the exchange rates with the weakened US dollar, although I also hope that the US will get back on its feet. Super Tuesday, part 2 is about to begin :)

My Singapore Airlines flight was great. Bigger seats, greater reclining angle … I slept like a baby, woken up only to be fed (by the stewardess) and entertained (by KrisWorld).

I watched Michael Clayton and American Gangster, and listened to Herbie Hancock’s Grammy award-winning album on Joni Mitchell songs. We had one of the smoothest landings ever, and arrived earlier than the stipulated time. However we had to wait for another plane to move off before we were towed along the runway.

Customs was smooth, staff were all friendly and helped us find the fastest-moving lines.

My aunt and uncle fetched me from the airport and took me to the Orange County where I did a bit of shopping. They have plenty of shops that you can’t find back in Singapore, which means it’s perfect for getting unusual gifts for people back home. I went to the Apple Store but alas, they were sold out of 16GB iPhones.

Later we had dinner at Ranchito’s, which was pretty crowded. I’ll be heading back to Los Angeles later tonight where I’m staying with my grand aunt and grand uncle.

I'm sure everyone who reads this blog - being intelligent, educated, outward-looking types ;-) - would know that China is developing fast. It goes without saying, but seeing is truly believing.

I've been to China at least 3 times before this, not counting Hong Kong, and every time things have improved. Back in the mid-90s, when we visited Beijing in the middle of winter, there were fewer tourists although I was fortunate to see the Great Wall, Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I recall little else on that trip apart from the fact that there was a lot of vinegar in Beijing food (which I don't mind, as I am a true-blue SCGS mee pok-loving girl).

Another time, I recalled eating rice that had grains of sand in it. The roadside toilets had no doors, and local women used umbrellas to partially shield themselves while peeing.

In 2002 and 2005, I went to Shanghai, which was by that time quite happening. As China developed, however, the pollution worsened. My last visual recollection of Shanghai was sitting in a taxi from the hotel to the airport and seeing smoke billow from the chimney of a factory, not too far away from the city centre.

This trip to China took me and my relatives to more remote villages in the South, as well as the main cities of the Cantonese, Teochews and Hokkiens. We also visited a Hakka village. I am sure many of you Singaporean readers belong to one of these groups so stay tuned for photos of your ancestors' hometowns! I also took photos of almost everything we ate.

Again, as with my Tuscan trip a few months ago, I will attempt to blog each daily account with photos (and videos if applicable). I hope I won't run out of steam this time!

And yes, Yesterday.SG will get a piece of the action when I get to the heritage part of my trip.

5 Jan 2008 (backdated post)

We arrived at the lovely Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, which is comparable to our own Changi Airport in terms of efficiency and modern facilities. We cleared immigration quickly... and then spent over half an hour waiting for our tour guide, who was at the wrong block and couldn't find us.

We told him off, thinking he was just late and pretending to have gotten lost. However, he took our criticisms in his stride. He told us his surname was Jin but we could call him James. He guided us back to the other side of the airport, making us port our luggage down an elevator, through a concourse and then back up another elevator which took ages to arrive.

Finally, we got onto the bus and had lunch. I thought the food was decent, but my relatives had paid the Singapore tour agent extra to give us better food, so they weren't too happy at what we were getting.

Suckling pig. Lukewarm, fatty but crunchy.

Crunchy long beans with pork. The usual hearty tourist fare...

Live seafood outside the restaurant

We visited the ancestral home where some of my mum's cousins were born. I'd think it would be a run-down place but it wasn't too bad. I can imagine it being quite grand in its heyday.

Inside the family compound, looking back at the main door

The main building, which we climbed up

A very old, large tree. Imagine playing Chinese chess in front of it, or sipping tea with friends!

On our way out, some officials entered the compound and started making some surveys on the land. Apparently they were contracted to restore the house. They mentioned our surname and we confirmed that this was our ancestral home. It was a generally friendly conversation.

Nearby was a grand-looking restaurant. I was told that the ruling officials had taken some of our ancestral home's wood and glass and used it to build this restaurant, specifically the staircase shown in this photo. Oh well.
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2192363825&size=m&context=set-72157603711182090

We then went to the Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, which was pretty interesting.

This is the front entrance.

Beyond that, is another section.

There were all sorts of folk art.

From sculptures...

Eating lychees

to embroidery...

(taken through glass)

to fans...

to opera masks...

Even the building itself was crafted in an artistic way.

I love taking perspective shots.

Outside, we had freshly-roasted chestnuts.

I will be in Southern China (Guangzhou and Xiamen) from 5-14 Jan. The first leg of the visit is with my mum and her relatives, as we tour Guangzhou where her ancestors came from.

My dad and sis will join us for the second leg of the visit to Xiamen where we will visit our ancestral village. We will be guided by one of Dick Lee's brothers who is a trained Chinese historian. It turns out our families are related, having shared a common ancestor 16 generations ago. How exciting!

I'm finishing up my packing even as I type this post. Man, I wish things could automatically sort themselves into my bag so I can get some sleep!

As with my Tuscan trip, I am not sure if I will get regular Internet access to update this blog, so keep an eye on my Twitter posts instead.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

My first morning in Tuscany! I woke up on my own while my other 2 roommates were still asleep. Joan's mother made us liang teh, which became a staple for us every morning until the day we sang at the wedding. As I tend to get 'heaty' I welcomed anything that would prevent me from getting a sore throat!

Eventually we had breakfast at the bride's family's quarters in another part of the villa, since they had arrived earlier and had already purchased some groceries. It was a joyful gathering with members of the bride's family, who came from different parts of the world.

The villa cat arrived and tried to charm some scraps out of us, but we refused to let him touch our food. In the end, he sat on a chair, looking like he was about to drink the groom's cup of coffee!

I tried to take a decent photo with my church friend Joan, the energetic bridesmaid, but all my photos with her tended to look like this! Ah well. I'll have lots of fodder for HER wedding!

After breakfast, we made our way to the town of Volterra, which is also rich in Etruscan history. We drove through the Tuscan countryside and I really got a taste of what 'rolling hills' looked like!

As we approached Volterra, we spotted this most unusual object. Does anyone have any idea what it's doing here?!

I'd like to buy a vowel, please!

The streets of Volterra were narrow, and it felt like we were walking in a valley of shophouses.

Soon it was time for lunch. As we were a pretty big group, we split up and I had lunch with a new friend, Wee Hoon. Now I really have to show you the Tuscan food!

This was minestrone soup. We didn't know it came with rice and green vegetables! It was hearty - a meal unto itself. I liked this one.

As it was the Porcini mushroom season, I had to try their parpadelle pasta (flat ribbon) with cream sauce and mushrooms. This was not bad.

I was also the beneficiary of Wee Hoon's seafood paella, which was quite filling and on the salty side. There was this yellow 'powder' sprinkled on the side, and it didn't taste like parmesan cheese. We had no idea what it was, but it was edible.

I was 'game' for some game, so I ordered the wild boar stew. It looked like beef rendang. And it tasted like beef rendang too - without the spice. It was OK, nothing to make me crave for more.

After lunch, I was a bit tired of the town area so we explored a nearby park. We discovered this cluster of very tall plants and started playing around with it!

Because it was autumn, the leaves formed lovely patches of colour - nature's quilt. I absolutely have to show you these pics:

Even the ground looked pretty!

After Volterra, we headed back to Siena to pick up some groceries. After getting a bit lost, we finally found a parking space near the Basilica, which has very high walls. I took a shot at a couple who were standing at the wall for a very long time. Later on when I uploaded my photos, I took a closer look and realised they were kissing! So here's my first romantic shot of Tuscany:

We split up again to do our own shopping, and met later for dinner. On our way to the restaurant, we saw this brilliantly lit square, Palazzo Salimbeni. In its centre was the statue of a man who looked like a pope. I thought he was one, initially. I later learnt that this man was the founder of the Library of Siena!

On our way, we passed by Nannini, the most famous cafe in Sienna. Later we realised our other friends were inside the cafe, buying pastries for tomorrow's breakfast! So we headed into Nannini for a breather.

They had lots of cakes, pastries and cookies. While we were there, a group of Italian schoolgirls gathered outside the sliding doors of the cafe and started singing songs in unison. They were there for a short while and we were wondering what they were up to!

We had dinner at Da Guido, another top Sienese restaurant listed in our various guidebooks. The food was good and the waiters were excellent - funny, responsive and charming. As we looked at the menus, our waiter shot us the question, "Are you ready?" and we said yes. He replied a little plaintively, "I'm not!" and dashed off to serve another table, promising to come back to us in 2 minutes' time. We laughed.

Da Guido was remembered by my travelling companions for its most excellent olive oil, which we ate with our bread along with some balsamic vinegar from Modena. For many days to come, my friends compared its olive oil to that of other Tuscan restaurants we dined in - that was how good it was.

On our way back, we chanced upon a large crowd of people. It turned out to be an Italian political rally. I did notice political advertisements at the airport and it occured to me that it must be local election time.

Driving back at night to the villa was not easy as the roads outside the city are not well lit. I really have to credit Sharon for driving a manual car on the other side of the road in a strange land, with no GPS system.

My log for Sunday 7 October to Monday 8 October 2007.

I left Singapore on Sunday night, feeling slightly anxious. As blogged previously, my initial plan was to travel with a group of girlfriends from Singapore to Rome and then take a train to Siena. I thought I had booked the same KLM flight as my friends, only to realise on Saturday evening that while my flight from Singapore to Amsterdam was the same as theirs, my flight from Amsterdam to Rome was two hours later. That meant I had to take the train with my bags all by myself! I am sure Rinaz knows how travelling alone to Italy feels like, though she had greater incentive! ;-)

Right after landing in Amsterdam, my friends dashed off to catch their connecting flight to Rome. I was on my own now. I explored the airport, then queued up for another security check. I am not sure if the black passengers in front of me were subject to longer questioning but it did appear that way.

I took an Alitalia flight from Amsterdam to Rome. From the airport, I managed to get directions to the train station that took me to Roma Termini. The Italian man at the information counter was so rude, even when I stood in front of him, he kept talking to his female colleague. I had to call him a few times before he stopped ignoring me. Fortunately he gave the right advice for me to purchase a ticket for a shuttle train ride from the airport to Roma Termini. From there, I already had a confirmed ticket that would take me all the way to the train station in Siena.

As I had a bit of time to spare, I explored the Roma Termini station which had some shops. It was very crowded, with locals and travellers pulling their suitcases along.

And then the gypsies came. As I stood outside a cafe, drinking something I bought just minutes ago, a woman came up to me, with hand outstretched. I shook my head. She smiled and walked away. The gypsies today, I was told in my earlier visit to Rome last month, no longer look like gypsies. She certainly looked like any other local on the street.

I walked to the edge of the station, facing another cluster of buildings. As I did so, a man who did look like a gypsy, motioned to a woman carrying a baby. Responding to his gesture, she headed very purposefully towards me. Knowing that she was probably going to throw the baby at me, causing me to drop my bags to catch it, I walked just as purposefully away from her.

Sensing that I was on to her, she decided not to pursue me, and walked off in another direction. I took a shot of the street scene outside the station right after that, with my little Ixus (May it Rest In Peace).

I had a first-class train ticket from Roma Termini to Chiusi station. Ironically, the first-class carriages were at the far end of the station! I kept on walking, pulling my suitcase along while the train station employees motioned for me to go further on. You would think they'd make people who paid more for their tickets walk the least!

Having said that, it was pleasant sitting in a private compartment. There were six seats in each compartment and it was generally cleaner. There were already three Italians when I entered my compartment. A young man was sitting in my seat, which was beside the window. After showing him my ticket, he agreed to give up his seat. He was actually the most friendly passenger and after a while we started chatting. He managed to speak some English. He was quite cute too! Every now and then he would hum a charming tune that made him seem a little eccentric, but he seemed pretty fun. I think he was younger than me by a few years.

My main bag was too large for me to carry up to the overhead storage compartment. Ironically (again) in the first-class carriages there was no generic storage area to place your luggage. So initially the senior gentleman sitting opposite me had to cramp his legs with my suitcase. Then the young man moved my luggage to an empty seat beside him and we thought the problem was solved. All was well until the train halted suddenly, and the bag fell forward onto the legs of the young Italian lady on the other side! I felt bad. The young man offered to put my bag outside our compartment. But every time the train stopped to pick up or drop off more people, I felt obliged to pull my bag back in so that the corridor would not get blocked.

At this point the white-haired gentleman, who was more heavily built than the handsome young man I was making conversation with, became more friendly as well. He asked in Italian whether the bag was really that heavy (at least, it sounded like he was asking that). I looked sheepish and gestured that it was probably not possible. Even though my luggage was 17+ kg and not a back-breaking 30kg, I did not want to make anyone lift it over their heads. But the senior man gave it a try anyway, and decided it was light enough for him. He hauled it up and the problem was solved!

We passed by a number of towns and because it was late afternoon and the sun was out, the sky was a lovely blue. I shot a photo using my Ixus and the handsome young man exclaimed that it was a great shot. (Bless its circuits)

So I let him play with my camera and he was bold enough to click through my other photos! Fortunately I had nothing incriminating in there. He laughed at a self-portrait I shot at the Roma Termini station.

A few stops later, the eccentric young man announced something in Italian which made the lady and older man look slightly surprised. Then he suddenly got up, left the carriage and didn't come back. I was a little sad not to have said goodbye.

Soon it was my turn to exit the train. The senior man had fallen asleep so I tiptoed to reach my bag on my own. As I tugged it down, another pair of hands came to help me lift it gently to the ground. It was the Italian girl! She smiled at me and I smiled back, thanking her. Every Italian in the carriage was pretty nice to me. I was glad.

I changed trains at Chiusi-Chiasciano Terme and waited a while for the next train to arrive. From here to Siena, my ticket was second-class. The seats there were of course smaller and less clean. One area smelt like piss. Another guy walked by reeking of alcohol. But it was fine. I spotted this very amusing set of 'love seats' which really gives a whole new meaning to the word. You can imagine the arrow pointing to someone's head, leaning against the train wall!

Soon after arriving at the Siena station, my friend Sharon and the father of the bride came to fetch me. It was great seeing them. I settled into my shared room in the Villa, and had dinner with the other guests who had arrived.

The peace of a quaint little Tuscan restuarant was suddenly disrupted as our troop of Singaporeans and guests of other nationalities descended upon it. I had a plate of of pici, which is a thick kind of home-made spaghetti. I had it in Rome last month as well. While I still prefer the normal spaghetti, the pici was unusual and, like one of my friend's mums pointed out, it was like udon.

We chatted to an old Norwegian professor sitting at the table beside us. He seemed quite decent but looked frequently at my table. When we got up to leave, he followed us. He announced that of all the ladies at my table, he liked me the best. I have no idea what I did. Being self-conscious of how noisy we Singaporeans were inside the restaurant, I was more reserved than my normal self, which could have unwittingly given a false impression of being demure and submissive. By that time, the old man had obviously drunk too much wine. His face was red.

He followed me and caught my elbow, squeezing it like some sexual massage. He asked what was my name. Knowing I would probably never see him again, I told him it was Vanessa. He said "No, that's a Christian name. What is your Chinese name?"

I told him my Chinese name but added that I would never answer to it, because nobody called me that. Nevertheless, he tried to pronounce it. By that time, the others realised he was hitting on me, and watched on with mirth. After a bit more conversation, I politely pried myself away from his squeezy hand and walked out of the restaurant.

I've heard of this type of white men before. They think Asian girls should be meek and answer only to oriental-sounding names. Theirs is an unrealistic fantasy. It makes me realise that they're friendly towards us due to a mistaken impression of what we're like.

For days after that, I was teased as being an 'uncle killer'. Sigh... Give me that Italian lad anytime!

To be continued...

Buon giorno! I spent the past week in Tuscany, based in a villa just outside the town of Siena. As Siena is centrally located, we made day trips to various towns, villages and fortresses, ate local foods and drank local wine. That is the life! Carpe diem.

If I have time I will give more detailed descriptions. I took probably a thousand photographs and videos on various people's cameras including my own. I will spend some time processing them and putting captions on the more interesting ones, so you know where we were.

The most important thing was that the wedding went well, and I was told our singing was great. We managed to coordinate our singing with the Italian harpist and violinist. It was beautiful hearing hymns like 'Amazing Grace' and 'Be Thou My Vision' played on strings, with the acoustics of a small cathedral. I wrote the score for the harpist for a contemporary Christian song, 'Still'. It was amazing hearing what I wrote being played on a real harp for an important ceremony!

Unfortunately, right after the church ceremony, I lent my Canon Ixus camera to another photographer while I helped out with other duties. The camera was later placed in a basket containing the teapot and cups from the Chinese tea ceremony which had just taken place. By accident, the teapot's contents were emptied onto my camera and it was completely submerged in a large bowl of tea. It all happened very quickly. I know it's not a fair comparison but it was like seeing your kid floating face down and motionless in a swimming pool.

I was pretty upset initially though nobody was 100% to blame. I was firstly concerned about losing all the valuable photos and videos I had taken during the wedding, especially as I was one of the designated (amateur) photographers. But praise God, my SD card, though drenched, was still working! The same could not be said for my poor little camera. After being left to dry for a day or two, it sputtered, gave me false hopes, and finally died. It extended its lens out and gave its final gasp. Whitish condensation built up underneath the lens and it looked like its single eye was staring, wide open, at me.

The next couple of days were spent looking at great photo opportunities and not taking photos :-/ and watching the happy Irish groom do some robo-moves on the dance floor, knowing I couldn't video him in action. For the remaining day trips, my friends kindly loaned me their cameras. However, I exhausted two cameras' batteries and had to rely on my HTC Touch's 2 megapixel camera!

Hopefully when everyone's back we'll get to pool our photos. More importantly, we had a great time together and made new friends. Next time we travel I'm seriously considering getting buying a GPS system and buying the maps of the places we're going to. It is not funny getting lost in the Tuscan countryside late at night with no street lighting and the occasional local cars speeding past you.

It's the first trip I've made with friends, and the first time I've roughed it out a bit more in Europe. The villa was lovely but you've got to make your own bed, look for your own breakfast, light your own matchsticks at the stove, boil water in a pot (no kettle), and toast bread on a pan (if your kitchen had no toaster or if it was broken down). The hot water can take a while to arrive through the piping. No hair dryers are provided. You also have to take out your trash, and if you've used up your roll of toilet paper, that's it. If you want to wash your dishes, you have to buy your own sponge and soap. We went to the supermarket to stock up on all sorts of things.

Also, don't count on getting an Internet connection in the countryside. Don't even hope for wireless. I didn't need to check emails, and didn't want to. I caught up on news on the way back. I saw the Rugby World Cup results in the Roma airport on the way back, reading off an Italian newspaper rack. It was good getting away from things. Now I have over 200 personal emails to clear, and tomorrow I'm back at work. Eep.

I'll be back in Italy tomorrow afternoon. My church friend and Alpha coursemate Jeanne is getting married in Tuscany, and I'm singing in the choir!

I was all revved up to go. We were practicing our singing for several weeks. I even bought something green to wear - green's the theme and I hardly had anything green in my wardrobe! However, I just had a nasty scare because I didn't read my flight details carefully.

I thought I was going to travel with 3 other church friends all the way. They had booked their tickets earlier than I had, but I managed to get the same flight leaving Singapore. The flight would stop at another European city, then fly down to Rome. From the Rome airport, we would take a shuttle to the train station, and from there, take the train to Siena.

Then I realised that we were on different flights leaving for Rome! I would arrive over 2 hours later than them. So I will now have to figure my own way from the Rome airport to the shuttle, then to the train station. I'm not entirely confident that I will overcome language problems, but I'll point at words in my travel documents.

What a bummer. It would be more fun sitting on the train for a few hours if my friends were with me. But it's not like I haven't done this many times before as a student , 10 years ago. I can do it again. I'm fine with being on my own as I can explore the place at my leisure. In any case, He is always with me and He's seen me through much more harrowing times. VanPod and a good book will keep me company.

This afternoon I'll try calling the airline office to see if they can bump me ahead for the earlier flight, so I can travel with my friends. I doubt they can do much.

Aww I'll stop moping. There's still much packing to be done. It's a storm in a teacup. Soon I'll be basking in the Tuscan sun!

Prior to this Mediterranean cruise, I've only been on Star Cruises covering Southeast Asia. As you can imagine I've seen enough of ugly Singaporeans and other Asians grabbing food at buffets and letting their kids run amok. You may be relieved to hear these behaviour traits are not entirely exclusive to us Asians. When things get desperate and people are tired, it's 'all hands on deck'.

I am in the very stylish Barcelona airport, waiting to catch my flight back to Singapore. It has been an exciting trip and frankly I didn´t miss the Internet. The need to get online was only motivated by worry - not being able to finish checking my emails in time. Beyond worry is fear about work I left behind, but with Superman Shaun around, I should have nothing to fear.

The Spanish keyboard is catching me off-key, literally. To do a backslash I need to press SHIFT 7. I can also type characters like Ç, ¿ and ¡ very easily but I can´t seem to figure out how to type the @ sign. I had to copy and paste it from another web page. Also, JavaScript messages displayed in IE are all in Spanish.

Wireless access on my laptop is not free, but fortunately there are 2 Dell desktops here in the lounge which have free access. Got to go, see you all back in Singapore!

Ola! from off the coast of Malta. It costs US$0.50 per minute to use the Internet, so here is a very quick one:

Barcelona was bustling. We stayed along La Rambla which is probably the most happening street in the city, with buskers everywhere. Spanish jamon (ham) is great, if a bit salty. Actually a lot of their food tends to be salty.

Fortunately we found ourselves a good restaurant in Rome two days ago and the food was, as can be expected, excellent. However, the gypsies are very crafty now, they use disguises. We were initially lost in Rome and a group of what looked like a family of Spanish tourists came up and were very friendly with us, which in itself was unusual because most of the time they keep to themselves as they can't speak English and we can't speak Spanish. As they tried to show us the directions, the man in the family groped my grandfather's pockets. We immediately pushed them off and walked away, while they tried to keep talking to us like they were helping us.

Anyway we saw the Vatican city in searing heat of possibly around 43 degrees Celcius. Before Rome, we were in Nice (France) and yesterday we were in Naples. After Malta we head to Palma, then back to Barcelona and for me, back to reality. That is all for now... money talks, fingers walk!

Oh, and as mentioned previously, I will Twitter when something interesting happens. So go there instead.

I'll be flying off tonight. Hope to get some Internet access on board the ship, but then again after basking in the Catalonian streets for a couple of days before that, I might very well just change my mind.

I might send a Twitter every now and then, so that might be a better bet. Until then, Adios, Ciao, Sayonara and Goodbye.

With the click of a mouse, I've become a wedding performer again. To be precise, this time I'm singing at a friend's wedding in Tuscany, Italy. I clicked the mouse to purchase my air ticket.

It was a conscience-laden week for me, deciding whether or not to go on holiday for a few days again. But the fact is, I've got leave rolled over from last year. This trip will be in October. I won't be staying extra days with other friends to go touring in the rest of Italy, so it's not like I've abandoned the office for too long. Of course, whatever I do, there'll still be work.

In any case, the thought of passing up a once-in-a-lifetime chance of going to a wedding in Italy and staying in a Tuscan villa would have been too hard to bear.

(Written 5.15pm, Tokyo time.)

We touched down in Tokyo’s Narita airport for a brief transit. We were led through another security scan before we could get back onto the plane.

Being bleary-eyed (it was past midnight, LA time, and about 2+am Austin time), I was about to place my bag on the conveyor belt until the helpful Japanese attendant asked me, “Do you have a Rap Top?”

As I'm Asian, I instantly knew she was referring to my laptop computer, which she correctly guessed I had in my bag.

I acknowledged that I had such a device, and was in the midst of taking it out and placing it onto a plastic tray, when the American man behind me overheard our conversation and shot the question, “What’s a Rap Top?”

Before the attendant could repeat what she told me, I quickly turned to him and said, “Laptop”. The attendant realised she had mispronounced the word and corrected herself in subsequent statements. I walked off, happy that I had done my tiny part in making the communication process a little clearer.

I'm now at the Los Angeles airport (LAX). The time is 9.30am (yes, I called my relatives in LA just to make sure I got my time zone right). My flight back to Singapore, via Tokyo, is at 2pm. Therefore, I have some time to kill. I just signed up for a 24-hour T-mobile internet account. So far, so good.

After what happened to me between LA and Austin, I had another scare this morning when I checked in at American Airlines. I tried to use the self-service check-in machine. Firstly, my travel agent had booked my tickets but had put my dialect name in front of my first name. As my passport puts my first name in front of my dialect name, the system hung. It told me to wait and someone would come over to help me.

So I waited. After 1-2 minutes nobody came to help me, even though I was only 2 metres away from an American Airlines ground staff who seemed busy helping everybody else. I decided to join the self-service queue, since I had already printed out my e-ticket receipt. However, the lady at the counter told me that somehow the system did not register that I had a ticket! She told me to join the standard queue. I was like, "What!?" She apologised, saying it didn't make sense but that's how the system worked.

So I had to queue up again - and this queue was much, much longer. I prayed to God because I had just over an hour before my plane flew off, and I feared I would once again miss the deadline for checking in my baggage. Missing a local flight is not so bad, but when it causes me to miss an international flight, it can be traumatic.

Suddenly, the airport ground staff (the one who was busy helping everybody else) decided to open a new line and channeled almost all the people in front of me, to that new line.

So I was moved up to the front. Thank God!! However, the lady at this counter also told me the same thing - somehow she could not issue me a boarding pass, and the system did not register that I had a ticket. She called for help and we learnt that an agent had cancelled my ticket from Austin to LA! This was because I had not taken the originally planned flight from LA to Austin but instead went indirectly from LA to Houston to Austin. But that didn't make sense - did they expect me to fly back to Houston to get to LA?

I protested that yesterday evening I had managed to log into the American Airlines website and the system had registered my choice of seat. I was just unable to print my boarding pass because the system told me that my account was linked to an international flight (which doesn't make sense to me either - I only wanted to print my American Airlines boarding pass, duh!).

Anyway, after more intense typing and staring at the screen, the lady managed to get me onto the flight, and assigned me the seat I wanted.

Phew!!!

Now I'm having trouble checking in at the Singapore Airlines website. Despite filling all my details in correctly, the system keeps telling me, "We apologise that we are unable to check you in. To ensure that you benefit from the true advantages of the check-in arrangement we have with our partner airlines, you will be through checked in onto your Singapore Airlines flight at the first point of embarkation."

What does that mean?? I'm already checked in? What's my seat number, then?

This is crazy, and I'm annoyed. This probably means I still have to queue up. I bet the good seats would have all been taken up by then. Not that I mind greatly about it - just that I actually feel handicapped depending on computer systems that are difficult to use.

It was my final SXSW panel. I had arrived early, and was sitting on my own. Suddenly, a lady moved into the row in front of me, and turned around. With a warm, happy smile, she said "Hi" and started sounded out some of her business ideas to me.

Being my usual curious self, I listened on and gave her my two cents' worth, which she appreciated. We introduced ourselves and I learnt her name was Diane. After the panel ended, she offered me a lift back to my hotel, which I accepted as it was raining and I was tired and hungry. This is Texas, and I have long heard of the famous Southern Hospitality, so I had a feeling they weren't planning to kidnap or murder me ;-)

Diane mentioned her husband owned a couple of restaurants, so I asked her what they were called. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was Magnolia Cafe! I like that place. Mark and Kristen took me to the main branch last year, with Lucian, for breakfast and it was a good experience. We got into the car and I met her husband, Kent. I gushed about how this month I had Googled for good Austin restaurants and Magnolia Cafe's name came up. They thanked me for my patronage.

Then I felt bad as I hadn't visited Magnolia Cafe this time! I told them so. On the spur of the moment, they decided to take me to the South branch for dinner! This was wonderful. This afternoon I was still nursing a sore throat, a recurrent fever and acheing joints. I just wanted to get home sheltered from the rain, and put a hot meal in my belly. Who'd expect two strangers to do exactly this for me! We took a photo:

We had a great conversation and I was impressed at how interested they were in learning new technologies and trends. I also answered their questions about Singapore. It appears that a lot of Americans agree with what we're doing, despite us being a 'fine' city.

My experience at SXSW this year (not including the actual panels) has definitely been much happier. Knowing more locals in Austin this time has taken me to interesting places. Also, I was able to spend more time with Kristen and the bump, Mark, Katie, Rosie and Bonnie. The only thing I'd have done differently, is to have gotten more sleep every day so I wouldn't have fallen ill. I dread the impending air travel starting tomorrow morning.

Technorati Tags: SXSW, SXSW Interactive, Magnolia Cafe

Today I roamed the streets of Austin, stopping by three museums and picking up some bottled water at a grocery store. The highlight however was visiting the Whole Foods Market with Kristen. The product range was astounding and employees were friendly and knowledgeable.

Whole Foods has been rated as the no. 5 best company to work for, by Fortune Magazine (see index). And when you walk through the market you can see a bounce in employees' steps. They benefit when the company does well, and they definitely looked very empowered and happy.

I picked up some foodstuffs including a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I thought it cost US$13.99 but I was charged US$27.99. I noticed it a bit too late, but managed to point it out to the guy at the checkout counter. He immediately called for a colleague to check on the price.

My checkout guy confidently told me that if they had mispriced the item, I'd get it for free! He walked me to the customer service booth where I was greeted by two cheerful ladies. By that time, his colleague had located the shelf and confirmed that I had taken the most expensive bottle by mistake. The packaging was for the more expensive bottle was exactly the same as the cheaper one, but for a number at the corner of the bottle's label.

I told them I'd like to exchange the US$27.99 bottle of vinegar (aged for 12 years) for the cheaper US$13.99 one (aged 6 years). They speedily processed my credit card to return US$14 back to me, and swapped bottles. I was very impressed with their service. I've been to shops all over the world and have never seen any group of employees looking so empowered and working together as a team. There was no fear or uncertainty, and no need to keep calling their supervisors for help.

This company puts a lot of TRUST in its employees, and it shows.

Technorati Tags: Whole+Foods

SXSW Music - Our top Singapore band, Electrico, will be playing at SXSW in Austin, Texas on 14 March! Another band, The Great Spy Experiment on 15 March. Thanks to Kristen for the heads up. Alas I will be leaving Austin on the morning of 14 March, so will not be able to support either band. View the full list of bands here.

Weblog Awards - Two Singapore blogs have been nominated for the 2007 Bloggies: Popagandhi and It's Raining Noodles (which won last year). Please let me know if I left out any other Singaporean blogs.

SXSW Web Awards - Jonathan Yuen has been nominated for best portfolio.

All the best to our SXSW "Team Singapore"!

Woke up at 5am this morning and my relatives drove me for breakfast, then to the airport. The only problem is the food took a little longer to arrive than expected, then the rush hour traffic piled up. Also, we thought 30 minutes was enough to get through but turns out I had to check in my luggage 45 minutes earlier instead.

As advised on the American Airlines website, which I visited the night before, I tried to do a curbside check-in but was told it was too late and I should go into the airport to get it done instead.

As I joined the queue to the self-service line, another man simply walked to the front of the queue and stood in front of me, pretending not to have seen me. Grr! Finally it got to my turn and I went to an empty booth. I tried a self check-in by swiping my credit card as requested by the machine.

It's likely that my travel agent booked my name differently (e.g. by putting my dialect name in front of my first name) as the system was first unable to find my profile. Then when I tried again, it hung! I waited for another 3-4 minutes then gave up. I went to the nearest airport official on duty. She looked at my boarding pass (which I had cleverly printed from my relatives' computer), wrote something on it, and asked me to join another line that was serviced by people. I asked her if I could check my bag in as my plane was leaving soon. She said it was too late and that I should re-join the queue to get reassigned to a later flight!

This queue was longer than the first one. I told the officer at the counter of my situation and she re-assigned me to another flight, an hour later, that would take me to Dallas, and then to Austin. I had no choice because the next direct flight to Austin would be in the early evening.

My bag was officially labelled for check-in. I was told to go to the security counter at the end of the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) to deposit my bag. Again, I joined another queue which was long but at least it was moving quickly. Finally, when it came to my turn, the security officer looked at my bag and said, "It's locked. Take your bag to the end." Turns out this was the queue for unlocked bags! There was a separate queue for people with locked bags.

I deposited my check-in luggage and went upstairs for the security check. I thought it would be less stringent as it was a domestic flight. I thought wrong again. The queue was long but gradually started moving. Then it stopped again. An officer shouted "Halt!" or something to that effect, and one of the X-Ray machines stopped running. There seemed to be some excitement in that area. Then a group of officers rushed up. The passengers were wondering what was happening! Then we learnt it was an officer's drill. Things went back to normal again.

I took out my laptop, jacket and Nike+ shoes and put them in a tray. Amazingly, those items passed the screening - even with a transmitter (turned off) in my left shoe! However, I forgot that bottled water was not allowed in my hand-carry luggage, so they removed it from my bag! At this point, my officer's supervisor came up to her and spoke sharply to her, like "What's wrong with you!?" My officer, a young lady, looked distraught and said she felt really bad about something. It was unnerving for me to hear personal issues being discussed by an officer during a security check! Anyway I asked her if I could at least drink the water she had confiscated from me (since she's going to throw it away). She smiled sweetly but said she couldn't do that. Fair enough. I shouldn't have given up my bottle but drunk it up then gave it to her! :P

Anyway, I made it inside but was thirsty and feeling slightly disrupted due to the fact that I would not be arriving in Austin in the early afternoon but late afternoon. I caught the plane to Dallas. It was an uneventful ride. When we touched town, the flight attendant announced the time in Dallas. I adjusted my watch and left the plane. I asked another officer which gate to go to, and she pointed me to it, saying I could walk as "I had lots of time".

Having only 2 hours of sleep that morning, I sat around at the gate, reading newspapers and eating my sandwich lunch. I had another 2 hours before my plane to Austin arrived, I thought. There was some fuss at my gate as an earlier flight to Philadelphia was delayed due to snow. All the announcements made were regarding that flight. I hadn't heard any announcements about my flight at 3.10pm. I got up and walked about for a while.

Then I looked at the airport screen and realised the time had just passed!!! Somehow my watch had not been updated and I had wandered around while my plane flew off!!!

So I rushed to the information counter and the lady there told me to take the Sky train to the other end of the airport where the next plane to Austin would take off. I did that. Naturally the gate that I wanted to go to, was the furthest of the stops (Murphy's Law!). I made it to the gate at early 4pm, and was put on the wait list for the 4.50pm flight to Austin. It was painful sitting around and actually hoping that there would be no-shows so I could go on board. There were 14 people including myself who were wait-listed. Fortunately I think all of us were able to get on board in the end.

And so, I finally made it to Austin.

But that's not the end of the story. I felt obliged to take an airport shuttle. However, there was no shuttle waiting in the designated area. I was so tired as I had been at three airports for half a day, that I took a taxi instead.

My taxi driver was a friendly man who kept talking to me throughout the ride. This is what transpired in a nutshell, during our taxi ride: I told him what SXSW Interactive was about. We discussed the future of gaming technologies. Then we moved into serious stuff - politics!

I asked which party he supported. He said he used to be Republican and supported the war at first, not because of any 'weapons of mass destruction' but because he said Iraq was giving incentives for suicide bombings. He doesn't think much of Bush, and believes the US education system is catering to the lowest common denominator instead of pushing up the brighter kids. He felt that hardworking people like Indians and us Singaporeans should have priority in migrating to America instead of illegal immigrants who cross the border, earn US$5 an hour, have four kids costing US$12,500 each to educate, with subsidised housing from the state. He feels child molesters should be given the death penalty instead of a 5 year sentence. And he totally agreed with the caning of Michael Faye, because that was more likely to ensure he'd never vandalise cars again. (He still sounds pretty much like a Republican, eh?) And he thinks all the Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls have, er, no hope.

Anyway... by that time we had arrived at the hotel. But it was the wrong hotel!!! He was so worked up by then, that he was concentrating on talking to me more than driving.

I pointed out that he had taken me to the Hyatt, not to one of the Hilton hotels which I had requested. So he turned back and finally I reached my destination. Altogether it was 5-6 hours later than planned.

Despite the screwups, I must admit that my terrible experience was made more tolerable thanks to the helpful and friendly staff at the airport.

What a day!!

Met my cousin Kevin W at UCLA for lunch at a Korean restaurant, then met my Aunt Emily (who is rather young for an auntie!) and her boyfriend. Went on a tour of Hollywood actors' homes and did some shopping.

I took more photos than on previous days, and have yet to label all of them. It's 1.20am right now, and I have to somehow finish packing my bags, sleep, and wake up at 5am and head off to the airport to Austin, Texas. Will have to work on this later. See ya...

Slept in late, then went to the Apple Store at Glendale Galleria just to get a feel of what it was like outside of Singapore. Let's say the service is better and the product range is greater. Went to Brookstone two doors away to look at more gadgets. Went back to my relatives' place to help the folks with some internet stuff.

Finally I went to Fry's in Burbank... because I can never stop looking at gadgets! They had this funky entrance with an alien spaceship. However, no photos were allowed inside. No bags were allowed either! However they didn't even have a proper locker system. Just a security guard standing around, with customers' bags on the floor, at his feet! Er, what if someone distracts him and snatches a bag away?? I put my bag in the car boot and went back into the building. I selected a few items but the queue at Fry's was so long, we're going back in the morning tomorrow to beat the crowd.

We had dinner at a Shanghainese restaurant, supposedly the best in the area, recommended by a top Chinese banker living here. Met up with one of my mum's best friends and her family. We go back a long way, which explains how we blatantly overate, made silly jokes and ended up back at their place, singing karaoke. It ended pretty neatly with me playing a duet with their daughter, Adela. We did Corcovado and Girl from Ipanema, me on piano and she on trumpet with some improvisation. Not bad for a Grade 9 girl (equivalent to Secondary 1 in Singapore)!

Erk! I've been sleeping at 2+am LA time every morning because I've had to update this blog, caption and upload new photos. Will be keeping my updates short because there are a lot of things I haven't done yet. Will write more, when I have the time.

I won't reply to emails either, especially if detailed answers are required. Will do my best to reply later.

Tomorrow will be laundry day, and meet-remaining-members-of-the-family day. It's also my last full day in LA before I head to Austin, Texas. Where did the time go?!?

Mm! This is a photo of me at Cafe Coyote, one of the best Mexican restaurants in the Old Town area of San Diego. Because there are so few Mexican restaurants in Singapore, I wanted to try as much Mexican food as possible while I was over here.

The other highlight was visiting my uncles' new Gelato shop. It's called Mondo Gelato. I'm not an ice-cream fan and the same generally goes for gelato. However when I tasted a few samples I knew these guys had something good going.

They have 38 flavours at the moment but can make up to 100 different types. If you're in San Diego, check it out at 435 Tenth Avenue. Here's their branch webpage. You can even befriend them on Myspace! Also check out customers' reviews on Yelp.

We also visited two factory outlets where I bought some new tops. Finally we had a massive dinner at Peppino's. Their portions were huge! Their meatballs are larger than tennis balls! We had to pack our main courses home.

I get the impression that American Italian food tends to involve generous dollops of generic tomato sauce, and portions are simply large. For me, the best Italian food is still in Italy. And within the US, the best Italian food I've had so far, is in New York.

My flight between Singapore and LA was uneventful. Watched a French movie, "The Great Meaulnes" which reminded me of The Great Gatsby as both stories are depressing. I watched the last quarter of Happy Feet, and re-watched Casino Royale which I still think has a kickass plot.

We had a short stopover in between, at Tokyo's Narita airport. Here's a shot of our plane through the window, as it re-fuelled and stocked up on food.

My relatives fetched me from the airport and we headed straight to Glendale, California for lunch at Porto's, a famous Cuban bakery and restaurant. Even though it was about 2pm, the queues were long and we could barely find an empty table. I saw one group of girls buying 4 large boxes of desserts. Anyway, we totally skipped desserts and filled ourselves up with their yummy house salad. I also had a steak fajita sandwich.

We then went to the Forest Lawn cemetery to visit my great-grandparents, who are buried there. Now that is a swell place to rest in - prime location with a wonderful view.

Sadly, where we parked our car, at the foot of the slope, a funeral was taking place. We couldn't see the people below us, but could hear a woman sobbing and asking why her loved one had to go.

We went home, rested for a while, then left for Club Singapura's Chinese New Year dinner. The Singaporean community, young and old, were there. There were many lucky draw prizes. I'm usually very unlucky and hardly ever win anything. However, this time I won a prize!!!

Ironically, the prize I won was a Uniquely Singapore monopoly board game. Considering that I am Singaporean, and am going back to Singapore in less than two weeks' time, I felt that someone else (i.e. a potential tourist) should have won this prize. I am probably going to give this away - I'm not lugging it to Austin, unless any of you SXSWers want to play it?

Anyway it is now past 2am Los Angeles time and we have to get up at 7+am because we're going to San Diego for sightseeing, shopping and visiting my uncle's new Gelato shoppe. I'm so excited. Will blog more tomorrow.

Typing this as I'm about to board the plane. Very full flight, long queues, tighter security restrictions e.g. we shouldn't be hand-carrying gels and liquids. Gotta go.

At the time of writing, Los Angeles is waking up to 8 degrees Celcius (CNN Weather). I'm still packing my bags but now I think I'll throw in a sweater.

Feeling sleepy, happy and high yet tired. Been running on 4 hours of sleep too often this week, rushing to complete as much work as possible, which is never really possible is it.

Looking forward to seeing Kristen and Mark and meeting new friends in Austin, Texas!

Hi folks, yes I was in Chiang Mai during this Chinese New Year. Belated greetings to my Chinese readers! I was so busy packing (several hours before the flight) and finishing up my work, I actually forgot to put a notice on my blog.

I took about 4 gigabytes of videos and photos and will be processing them over the next week or so.

In the midst of the madness while juggling as many projects as I have fingers, I thought there was at least one thing I could do in advance: Start preparing for SXSW 2007!

Since I may be liaising with the home office during my US trip, I've created a timesheet in Excel format, which tells me what time it is in Austin, Singapore and Los Angeles. It was interesting learning how to use a new formula to add a specific number of hours. I relied on Timeanddate.com for the time zone differences.

I checked my passport to make sure it hadn't expired yet. Out of curiosity I decided to find out exactly what needs to be done to renew a passport. This MFA web page has all the info. And I never knew that the system you use to apply for new Singapore passports, is called APPLEs! You have to give them some credit for making the letters fit the acronym :)

I looked up the list of SXSW Interactive registrants and discovered two other 'Tans' in the list! Hmm, maybe I should drop them a line and have a clan gathering in Austin. Gosh, there are so many registrants from Yahoo! There are many registrants working at Adaptive Path too. There are a handful of Microsoft registrants. My web heroes Jeffrey Zeldman (whose books and websites I read) and Shaun Inman (whose Mint I use) will be there, too. Absent so far are names like Scoble and Kottke. Still, there are 2,888 registrants and counting. It's time to upload a nice photo of myself.

I discovered that the Los Angeles airport (LAX), where I will be waiting for nearly 5 hours in between flights, has no free internet access. Darn! However, I am glad to hear that the crime rate in LAX has dropped by 6.4% between 2004 and 2006. There were only 2,520 crimes committed in 2006 compared to 2,694 in 2004, making LAX 'one of the safest airports in the world, and one of the safest areas in all of Southern California', according to their press release. That means there were only 6.9 crimes committed per day in that airport, in 2006. That's an average of 1 crime committed every 3.5 hours.

How long did I say I'd be in the airport, again?

We touched down at Changi Airport an hour ago. Over the weekend we drove about 500km - from Brisbane Airport to Byron Bay to fetch my sister, then to our hotel in the Gold Coast. We drove around and did some shopping. We bought a lot of dresses. Yes, friends, I actually have new dresses. AlI I need are nice occasions to wear them to.

The weather was generally good but it rained for most of Sunday. Which was a shame because it was my sister's birthday. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant which served bad oysters. It's the first time I've ever had bad oysters in Australia.

Fortunately Monday was much better and we had lunch at the multiple award-winning Omeros Bros Seafood Restaurant at Marina Mirage, followed by tea next door at the very opulent Palazzo Versace hotel, where almost everything, from the furniture to the crockery, carries the Versace label. (I went to the ladies but they didn't have any Versace toilet bowls).

The hotel's clientele also appeared rather exclusive - there were good-looking couples wearing designer sunglasses, sitting by the poolside. This vestige of quiet exclusivity, however, was shattered by the sudden arrival of a busload of Chinese tourists, pulling in their luggage.

At Pacific Fair, I bought a pair of Nike+ running shoes and the Nike+ Sport Kit. I was told that the kit and shoes are only sold in Australia and Japan, and not in other parts of Asia. That is so annoying. What if there are a bunch of health freaks who love iPods and Nike shoes in Singapore? In any case, I need to get myself a Nano now. Oh, what a chore :P

Harbour Town is worth visiting. It's a factory outlet with lots of good labels.

The only really weird thing that happened to me was that somehow I managed to tear off part of my fingernail yesterday. I have no idea what I could have been doing, nor did I feel any pain at any point in time. Anyway, it was bleeding under the loose flap of my fingernail so I swaddled it with antiseptic and yeah, I'm now blogging this with a plaster on my finger. Hardcore!

OK, time to catch some shuteye before I head off to work in the afternoon (yeah, you can say it again - "hardcore!").

I've been lazy. Here's my Sydney log, all in one post:

6-7 Sep 2006

Rushed home this afternoon to finish packing my bags. Had a light dinner at the lounge, then boarded the plane.

Watched 4 movies on the way to Sydney. Caught the tail end of X-men 3 and shed a tear when Wolverine made his final act to save Jean Grey from herself.

The Da Vinci Code was a riveting movie. I haven't had time to read the book, but heard it was better than the movie. I found hard to believe how easy it was for the 2 main characters to escape all the time.

As a Christian, I did not get offended. I took it as a story where people would inevitably ask questions about Jesus. People have a right to find out the truth for themselves.

Keeping Mum was diabolically good, though I expected Rowan Atkinson's character, the Vicar, to play a more leading role in the main storyline. I was actually glad to see him spice up his boring sermons with jokes and apply the Song of Songs (kind of like the Karma Sutra, but in the Bible) to his own marriage. Patrick Swayze overacted and was slightly annoying.

Finally, a gender-bender flick: Kinky Boots. Based on a true story, the movie shows how the young owner of a shoe factory revitalises his family's flagging business with the help of a gutsy female employee (romance!) and a transvestite turned shoe designer and model. The strongest secondary theme to me was a re-assessment of the male identity - turning societal norms upside down and realising that real men don't have to wear pants to do something courageous.

There were strong winds which shortened our flight time. However, after we landed in Sydney the winds got too strong. A solid metal trolley was overturned.

I bumped into my old schoolmate W at the Arrivals lounge. I was actually wondering if I'd see her, since I knew she was in Sydney, and lo and behold - she was fetching someone from the same flight as us! It was a happy coincidence.

We had breakfast. Waited for our rooms to be ready. Then I caught up on sleep.

Had lunch at Pyrmont's Steak & Seafood restaurant.

8 Sep 2006

Deposited grandma at Woolworth's, went to Kino with sister. We all met up for lunch at a fusion Jap-Australian restaurant at Old Queen Victoria building. Then spent another couple hours exploring the area.

Had a cruise tour around Sydney Harbour, then walked all the way back to Chinatown for a group dinner.

9 Sep 2006

Woke up really early & went to Blue Mountain. Along the way we visited the birds, Kangaroos & Koalas.

Had a satisfying lunch at a country club near Blue Mountain.

Sat on a really steep tram (250m deep) & saw the 3 sisters.

It was bloody cold out there. Steam was Coming out of our mouths. I bought a fluffy blue beanie to wrap around my head so my ears wouldn't fall off.

Had a huge dinner at Shangri-La.

10 Sep 2006

Woke up a bit later. Had breakfast, then went to Bondi for shopping. Spent most of the time walking about, getting lost. Bought some cheap CDs and many pairs of socks. Mundane, innit.

11 Sep 2006

Going to Hunter Valley.

As we entered vineyard territory, going past the last group of residential houses, a sign said "Please minimise noise", except that the "I" was scratched out and it now read "Please minimise nose".

Had lunch at Harrigan's Irish Pub and listened to Australian folk music. The performer asked where we came from, and we told him. He tried to think of a 'Singapore Song' to sing. I muttered audibly. ''Don't try too hard." Sure enough, he couldn't. We don't have a decent song that people around the world know how to sing.

12 Sep 2006

Caught the morning flight back to Singapore. Did lots of reading this time. Caught a bit of a French movie, and that was about it. Changi Airport was all geared for IMF visitors.

I spent the last week in Sydney. Of all times, it turned out to be the wettest week since 1883 (according to the papers).

We went on tour, met up with old family friends, took a harbour cruise, visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park and Blue Mountains, tasted wine and cheese in the Hunter Valley and braved the erratic weather conditions throughout our trip.

I kept a log on my PDA phone and will, in time, transfer everything to this blog.

Oh, I took about 700 photos too. Will be sorting them out and uploading the good shots to Flickr.

Already, my email inboxes are flooded and I have queries to handle. *grimace* Back to the grind.

I finally got my hands on a PC with an internet connection. The weather in Paris was more eccentric than what we know to be typical English weather. It was sunny, then suddenly cloudy and a torrential downpour, all in a matter of minutes. Fortunately the Louvre was excellent.

Madrid weather was brilliant, sunny and clear. Will report in more detail on these cities when I get back - my serviced apartment charges £2.50 per half hour!

London has been great. The entire nation was fixated on Wayne Rooney's foot. Latest report in the tabloids is that he will be playing for the World Cup in the final stage. Received mixed reports of Theo Walcott's performance, but generally sounds encouraging. Aaron Lennon's got a clear nod of approval from the media.

It's nearly midnight, GMT now ... goodnight from the Docklands.

I finally got my hands on a PC with an internet connection. The weather in Paris was more eccentric than what we know to be typical English weather. It was sunny, then suddenly cloudy and a torrential downpour, all in a matter of minutes. Fortunately the Louvre was excellent.

Madrid weather was brilliant, sunny and clear. Will report in more detail on these cities when I get back - my serviced apartment charges £2.50 per half hour!

London has been great. The entire nation was fixated on Wayne Rooney's foot. Latest report in the tabloids is that he will be playing for the World Cup in the final stage. Received mixed reports of Theo Walcott's performance, but generally sounds encouraging. Aaron Lennon's got a clear nod of approval from the media.

It's nearly midnight, GMT now ... goodnight from the Docklands.

We walked from the Champs-Elysees to L'Orangerie only to find out that it would not open till after noon. The morning was reserved only for tour groups. Dang!

So we went to Centre Pompidou to see modern art - only to find out that we were in the wrong queue (the library) and that this museum was also not open yet! It was a Sunday.

We walked on to the Musee Picasso and at least this time we got in at once, by showing our Museum Pass. It was pretty good, one of the better museums I visited in this Europe trip. I didn't realise Picasso used so many conventional objects, like gardening tools, to put together his sculptures. He also had a couple of political pieces - one in this museum and another in Madrid (the Reina Sofia museum, which I visited a few days later).

We headed back to the Centre Pompidou (photos). Its exhibits were different from the others in the sense that there were moving pieces and short flicks that looped continuously. The downside was that we were not allowed to take photos in most areas.

Anyway, the best example was a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling, attached to a mechanism that slowly raised and lowered the bulb. Around the bulb were many battery cages, from floor to ceiling. As the bulb moved the line shadows cast by the cages changed with a 3D effect. So simple and spartan, yet the movements were complex.

Another cool exhibit was the use of a wide goldfish tank that was lit from the bottom and a mirror at the side. That created multiple shadows of fish swimming about. The only thing was that the fish were gasping for air.

A screen displayed cut scenes from various Hollywood actresses like Grace Kelly, reacting to intruders in their homes.

On the floor shone a projection of a crowd of people trying to cross a busy road. We kept staring at the floor because it was so fascinating, like we were pedestrians from a distance, or people looking down from a building.

There were more 'usual' displays such as pop art and architecture models. It also had a funky bookshop and another store which sold interesting but expensive (and mostly unnecessary) household items and other knick-knacks.

I stayed in Paris from Saturday 20 - Tuesday 23 May 2006. Here is a day-by-day account with tips for potential visitors. Photos will be inserted after they've been uploaded.

• View Paris 2006 - The Louvre photos
• View Paris 2006 - d'Orsay and garden photos

We arrived in the early hours of the morning at Charles de Gaulle airport. From there we took a taxi to our service apartment along the Champs Elysees. The location was superb - that's the equivalent of staying along Orchard Road!

The weird thing was that when our porter opened our room door, a woman inside called out, "Who's there?" and we realised she had not checked out yet! There was a bug in the hotel software that hadn't been fixed for several days. The concierge apologised profusely. Since we had to wait several more hours before our room was ready, we decided to visit the museums.

A taxi was called for us and wonder of wonders, the driver was from Guangdong! Along the way, he gave us some tips in Cantonese, telling us there was no need to take a taxi between the Louvre and L'Orangerie museums as they were only separated by a large garden. Across the bridge was the Musee d'Orsay (photo). A bit of a walk but all destinations were in sight of each other.

There was a queue to get into the Louvre, then another queue to buy tickets. If you plan to stay in Paris for a few days to visit museums, then I suggest you buy the Paris Museum Pass, which gives you either a 2, 4 or 6 day pass to visit over 60 museums in and around the city. It is sold in various museums and other locations.

If you wish to buy this pass in the Louvre, do not join the main queues as they only sell tickets for their museum - we found out the long way. The information desk will direct you to another room at the back of the museum, where more well-informed tourists can purchase their 'season ticket'.

Of my entire journey from Paris to Madrid to London, the Louvre was the best in terms of content, presentation and crowd control. I felt the most comfortable in it, and left knowing there were still more things to see.

As you can expect, the Mona Lisa was the most popular exhibit. It was so crowded that I didn't bother taking photos of it - I couldn't get close enough! Besides it was encased in plastic and there would be reflections.

Later on as I passed the Museum shop I took a photo of a replica.

There were other notable sculptures, such as the Three Graces. I like this photo of their three butts.

We liked discovering the hidden courtyards with many statues from Greece/Rome, and another series with artefacts from the Middle East. The medieval church section was also comprehensive and beautifully displayed - crucifixes lit up on shelves, and tapestry draped over entire walls. There was stained glass too.

We visited Napoleon III's chambers. He was a small man, judging from the size of his bed (I guess he takes after grandpa). Also, his furniture was rather garish (the best word would be "obiang!" in Singlish). This was the only area I felt put off and didn't take much photos.

We explored an old part of the Louvre which actually had a moat.

We walked through the large garden and tried to get into L'Orangerie, but the queue was unimaginably long. Turns out that L'Orangerie was the most newly renovated museum, it had eight of the largest paintings by Monet, and it so happened that this weekend it was free entry for everyone. So our Museum Pass did not count. We decided to try again on Sunday.

We crossed a bridge over the river Seine, to the Orsay. We got in immediately because of our Museum Pass, bypassing the snaking queues of tourists and students. However, we still had to pay extra to see a special exhibit, so we decided to just look at the rest of the museum.

The downside was that we were not allowed to take photographs in many areas. I was disappointed to see that museum staff at the Orsay were less diligent than staff at the Louvre. Next to 'no photography' signs, people were flashing their cameras away at paintings and nobody gave a damn. Two museum employees were chatting to each other.

In other areas where photography was permitted, I found it rather boring and only took some photos of furniture.

I've got less than a day to go, and I've barely begun packing.

Passport? Check.
Air ticket? With mum.
Currency? I need to find a currency exchange booth soon. Unless I'm Richard Gere, who can use a credit card in an Indian market and get away with it.

What's the next most important thing? My iPod playlist, of course. Introducing my new playlists:

Paris Please

Madrid Moods

London Living

I have another playlist, Brit Rock, which covers almost everything - Blur, Coldplay, Oasis, Radiohead, The Cure, Suede, my favourite Tears For Fears. Finally I have a really old playlist called Bristol Memories which basically has all the music I listened to when I was in Bristol, like Jamiroquai, Robbie Williams, Stereo MCs and acid jazz artistes like Omar. That should be enough.

Next, I need to pack geek stuff. My O2 mini charger and USB cable, my Ixus camera charger.

Travel books on Paris and Madrid.

Umbrella. Sunglasses. Jacket.

This Friday evening my mum and I leave for Paris, then Madrid (where I'll be spending my birthday), and finally to London and a couple other English cities, including my alma mater Bristol.

I should be terribly excited about it, I suppose. I've been doing some research despite being a bit blase about the whole trip as I've already 'been there, done that' once in Madrid, three times in Paris, and numerous times in London. The only major difference is that we'll now be using Euros on the continent.

For some time, I felt a part of me was left behind in Bristol. As if I had departed too suddenly, distracted by the graduation ceremony, the massive packing and the hurried goodbyes. But I think I closed that chapter a while back because I don't miss it anymore. Still, it's changed a lot and I'm curious to see what's new.

In the capital cities we intend to see museums - historical and art. In Madrid we intend to drink good and affordable Spanish wine every night. In Paris we intend not to overspend on hyped-up dining but instead have light meals like baguettes et crossiants. Fortunately, we're not the sort who get cravings for Chinese food after two days and spend the rest of our trip looking for Chinatown/the nearest Chinese restaurant. So food-wise, we should be pretty adventurous. If we're in France, we'll eat French food. When we're in Spain, we'll eat Spanish food and um, Basque in the glory.

In London I will get my hands on The Guardian, my all-time favourite quality daily. I like it for its excellent reporting and lovely typography. Its website, when launched, was also ahead of its time.

Once you read British newspapers, you can't read the stuff back here in Singapore without feeling slightly critical. I can spot typos even in the Straits Times, our main quality daily. Not once in my three years did I spot a typo in the quality British newspapers (though there are quite a number popping up on the BBC website these days!). In any case, there is usually a wry, dry humour, ever present in the spoken and written word.

In London, I also hope to find a BBC Shop where I can buy certain comedies which I couldn't find at our local HMV. "All I need, is a smaaaaall aubergine..."

I will be bookmarking useful Paris, Madrid and London websites in Ma.gnolia. Stay tuned.

Somehow the flight back to Singapore felt less gruelling than my flight to the US. Maybe it was because I felt the worst was over and I had already gone through the two transits, so I knew what to expect. I also stopped counting down the hours, because a lot of hours are involved and you get depressed just thinking about it.

However there are some things I learnt from my trip:

It's eleven plus am, and as I'm packing (or making some attempt to do so), I'm listening to the news on TV. A fourplex in North Austin caught fire and 21 people are homeless. However, firemen prevented the fire from spreading to neighbouring units.

Another piece of news is that Cisco Systems is sponsoring a free wireless network for downtown Austin. Maybe when I next return to SXSW (what a tone of certainty I have!) I'll get to try out the service.

Back to packing... If the shopping at Highland Mall is good, I may not post anything new for a while. Ta ta!

I've been living in a hotel in Austin, Texas for a week now. And on some days, the tap water tastes weird. I thought the pipes were musty. However, sometimes the water tastes fine so I wasn't sure how exactly to complain to the hotel about this.

The weirdest thing was when I purposely tasted a mug full of water before popping an efferverscent Vitamin C tablet into it. The water tasted fine.

However I let the Vit-C water sit for a while as I was furiously blogging away on my laptop. Later I drank from the mug - and the musty taste returned!

The plot thickened. Then, on a whim, I Googled around and found that yes, Austin water does taste funny sometimes. It wasn't the plot that thickened, but the amount of dead algae.

In the summer, it's been reported, the Colorado river slows down, giving algae the opportunity to grow. When it dies, it releases an odour and taste. Warm weather is said to be another main factor causing the algae to flourish.

And locals here in Austin have mentioned that the weather has been hot lately.

Anyway, in 2004 the Austin Water Utility issued a statement assuring citizens that this grassy-tasting water is harmless.

Neighbouring towns in Texas also have the same problem - if you have hot weather, you'll have funny tasting water.

No wonder the hotel was trying to sell US$3 bottles of water in my room.

Lucian left for the airport this afternoon, so I hung around and started chatting with some other participants who were also not satisfied with the way our panel discussion was going. Then everybody packed the hall for sci-fi author Bruce Sterling who said lots of funny things about the world and America (think Michael Moore) and received the only standing ovation I've seen at SXSW.

Then I walked around town, taking photos of my last evening in Austin. I had dinner at the Rio Colorado (good, cheap Mexican food and burgers and really polite service), bought some souvenirs and took a cab back to the hotel.

Tomorrow I'm thinking of checking out at noon (the stipulated time), leaving my bags with the hotel, walking to the nearest Target (over 5km away)shopping centre for a look-see. Along the way I'll have lunch and walk back to the hotel. Then I'll catch a cab to the airport at 3pm, and fly at 6pm.

There doesn't seem to be much left for me to do in Austin.

My hotel room's high-speed internet connection didn't work when I got back past midnight today (we were at the uber cool Fray Cafe storytelling sessions - check out my pics in Flickr.com).

I called the helpline and it turns out there was a problem with the hotel's internet connection, not my laptop. Thank God. I didn't want to find out that I had damaged company property! So anyway, they said they'd tell the hotel about it and that I should keep on refreshing my browser because the connection could be restored at any time.

Another 15 minutes went by and still it wasn't working, so I gave up and went down to the lobby which has free Wi-fi. Uploaded my load of pics to Flickr. Now I'm done with that, done with this post and it's time to go to sleep. I'm attending some interesting panels tomorrow.

Argh, I'm running through the schedule, and there are too many good panels clashing at the same time.

I wish I had Hermione's Time-turner pendant. Then at least I could attend everything I want!

Update: I've made my choice.

I'm back, though of course I wish I could have stayed even longer!

We took it easy on Thursday and explored the hotel area and neighbouring casino. When the rest of the clan arrived on Friday, we went to Victoria market to look at clothes and foodstuffs. We also went to suburban shopping malls like Chadstone. We had our CNY eve dinner in Chinatown, where there were firecrackers being set off, and met my aunt's relatives there! What a small world.

We're going to Melbourne tomorrow. Time to start packing. Here's my geek checklist of things to do.

Check out the weather

Glance at a popular daily paper

While I'm at it, I might as well check out the official tourist guide

Watch the Australian Open (on TV). I hope Justine beats the shrieking Russian lass.

Make sure I've got the Melbourne subway map in my iPod. Just in case.

Ooh! A Food Festival.

We packed our bags and walked to Nam Pha, one of a chain of fine restaurants for lunch. Then it was off to the airport, and back to Singapore!

Visited mum's colleagues & chatted with a Viet Cong war heroine.

Went to Ben Thanh market to buy lacquer ware and Seasonal fruits. The fruit-seller travels 2 hours from the Mekong Delta every morning! She gave us some soft tapioca with coconut cream. Nicer than the tapioca they gave me in the Cuchi tunnels.

Then we bought tablecloths in another part of town. We learnt that takes about 2 months to embroider each cloth.

We had dinner at another lovely French restaurant (note to self: I am never going to order foie gras as a main course, ever again).

I spoke un petit peux de Francaise avec le Monsieur owner, an almost comical man with floppy hair. It started with him saying "Bon Apetit" to all of us, before walking off. I responded with a 'Merci". Five seconds later he walked back to the table, and asked if I had just spoken French.

I guess I was really asking for it when I replied, "Oui!" because he rattled off in his native tongue and I confessed I had lost him. Turns out he was telling me that the salt on our table was specially imported from France and I could try it except I should be warned that it is exceptionally salty (imagine it said with zee heavy accent).

We visited the main Cao Dai temple. Previously, this was a secretive religion until the Communists insisted that they open up. Now they even have an entrance for tourists!

However, Cao Daism is still very powerful and if you don't agree with this religion, you can't live in the area. There's a story that someone actually skipped his 'national service' in the army by becoming a disciple.

You have to take your shoes off when you enter the temple. The caretakers were mostly old folks. They seemed harmless enough, but I had a nagging feeling in my heart that something didn't make sense.

When we read the plaques at the entrance, we wondered how Sun Yat Sen and Victor Hugo became the disciples of Cao Dai's founder. And, as I mentioned previously, how can monotheistic faiths be combined with other religions?

The huge 'All-seeing eye' globe at the end of the temple was also unnerving. It reminded me of one of those old retro fantasy games I used to play - Xanth. And to see a statue of my Lord Jesus standing in line, with Confucius and other Asian figures made me feel creepy. Also, some religions like Islam strictly forbid any forms of idols - so how could the temple have so many figurines?

We had 'grass' for lunch - spring rolls. Then we crawled into the Cuchi tunnels.

The army guide was a pleasant Vietnamese Soldier. We posed for photographs besides dummy female Viet Kongs, then watched a video. It presented the opposite view of the war, portraying the Americans as meddlers who destroyed the peace, shooting everything, even the ground.

There was plenty of weaponry on display. Lots of shrapnel, missiles and bombs. There even used to be a firing range!

The tunnels were a cleverly complex maze designed to frustrate the enemy. They were so dark and narrow that some others nearly got stuck. And these tunnels had already been widened for tourists!

In one tunnel, a bat flew past us. I just let it fly by - no point making it panic. However, the local girls behind me squealed. I am sure the Vietnamese female warriors were made of sterner stuff than that!

We visited the Mekong River delta. The coach arrived late and the air was smoky as there were many other coaches lining the road. As we stood on the roadside waiting, another tourist near us was smoking! *double choke*

On our journey south, we passed by many shop houses on both sides of the road. Further on, the scenery became more rural, with huts and sheds.

Along both road shoulders, cyclists and motorcyclists headed in the opposite direction. About 20 minutes into the journey, our guide and driver stopped the coach to help a colleague of theirs, whose own coach had stalled on the roadside.

Our guide was knowledgeable, but I could not understand what he was saying sometimes. Funnily, even our own Vietnamese host, who was accompanying us for the trip (and spoke better English), couldn't totally understand him!

We got into a noisy motor boat and went past many floating houses and fish farms. You could smell the fish sauce that someone was making. The muddy waters looked rather fertile. 23m deep in some parts!

A monk used to live on one of these islands. He ate only coconuts and bathed using coconuts. He founded a coconut religion. We went to the coconut candy factory and sampled some fresh hot sticky candy. It tasted nice but the thought of so much saturated condensed fat put me off! We had lunch, then visited a bee farm to drink honey tea. We also listened to traditional Vietnamese music. Then we made our way back ... under a bridge that was so low (during high tide), that all of us had to duck when our sampans passed underneath it!

We had a pleasant two-hour flight into HCM City (aka Saigon). The ride into town was quite an experience. In Saigon, there's a gentle sort of organised chaos on the roads, where motorcyclists, cyclists, cars and pedestrians avoid each other by inches, and do it almost effortlessly. Their trick is to move slowly.

We passed by many quirky-looking buildings and tall, narrow shophouses. Even though Vietnam is still in its developmental phases, I could sense a quiet artistic beauty in its architecture, that allowed each building to look unique without sticking out like a sore thumb.

The hottest news in Saigon was that the statue of Mary in the Notre Dame Cathedral had wept tears. Apparently a lady having lunch beneath the statue felt droplets falling on her.

This prompted huge crowds to gather around the statue. We swung by to catch a glimpse of it.

We were told that the main religion in Vietnam, Cao Dai, is a mix of other world religions. I'm not quite sure how monotheistic faiths can be incorporated into the mix.

We had dinner at a local Brewery. Even on a week day, it was packed with locals and a few expats - 3 storeys high. Check out the food!

Hi all, I am posting this last message on my blog before we board the plane.

All I can say is - the SIA Business Class lounge rocks. Good selection of booze *hic*. I also had my fill of very well-cooked chicken.

Onwards!

We fly to Saigon today. I prefer to call the city the way its locals call it.

I consider myself a fairly seasoned traveller. The biggest dilemma for me is deciding whether or not to bring the newly-polished* VanPod II, as well as my digital camera charger.

My main bag will be small, because I don't need a wardrobe of clothes, and I don't like to shop.

I will bring a dainty backpack, but will keep it in front of me in crowded places so the pickpockets don't get me. A local will take us around, and I hope to see the Cuchi tunnels as well as some markets and art galleries. And to partake in fine cuisine. And take lots of photos.

*I bought iDrop, which was about all that AppleCentre Orchard had in terms of scratch removers. It removed one big scratch but another still remains. Lots of little scratches disappeared, poof. View the night-before and morning-after pictures.

I'm back from Kuala Lumpur after a 6 hour coach ride, through the 2nd Link. I heard that some friends in another coach had their chewing gum confiscated! Overall we had a lot of fun. I enjoyed the food but was careful not to overeat, and looked at a lot of shops, but as usual did not buy much.

I picked up a few tops and 3 Jazz CDs (Miles Davis and Gil Evan's Porgy and Bess, Bill Evans' Paris Concert, and a compilation of his works in the 'Quiet Now' series). They were about 35 ringgit only at Tower Records. Apart from that, almost everything was as expensive as in Singapore!

We painted the town red on the first night, going on a Hawker food crawl to eat the famous Hokkien noodles fried with absolutely sinful pork lard and black sauce, oyster omelette, fried mee hoon and fish noodle soup. At Suria KLCC we had a great lunch at Madam Kwan's, where you have to try the assam fish head curry. If you like Penang Laksa, you'll like the taste of this dish.

We did however experience two near-incidents of cheating. We foolishly lined up for taxis at Suria KLCC, not knowing that only bodoh tourists do that, singling us out to be 'ketoked' (cheated) with exorbitant fares.

Our first mistake was getting into the taxi before checking that 1) the driver was using his meter, and 2) that his meter was working in the first place. As he drove off, we noticed the meter wasn't activated, and asked about it. The driver said it was broken and it would cost 20 ringgit for a ride that, according to our tour guide, should only cost 3 ringgit.

We demanded him to send us back to the mall so we could take another taxi. So he did. But as he reached the taxi stand, he changed his mind and offered to take us to our hotel for 15 ringgit instead. We eventually settled at 10.

The next time we went to Suria KLCC we skipped the taxi stand, stood on the main road and caught a taxi using a meter. The price? Only 2.70 ringgit. And to the folks reading this in the States or UK or Japan, yes that's much less than the flag-down rate you probably pay back home. And you don't usually tip drivers in Malaysia. No surprise that some of them try to make more money by 'ketok'ing gullible tourists.

The next incident occurred when one of our travelling companions wanted to get a spare battery for her Casio Exilim camera. It's a squarish battery and she said it only costs S$10 back home. One shop in Suria KLCC offered to sell it to her for - get this - 300 ringgit! When we expressed our shock, the explanation was that it was a long-life battery. We walked out.

No, I did not spend all my shopping time at one mall (though I did have fun at the Petronas Exhibition, which has given me some ideas for my work). It was great as fathers got in free that weekend! We also took the Monorail to Sungei Wang and Lot 10. The trip was cheap, clean and efficient.

We also made a day trip to Bukit Tinggi, which is a total waste of time, because if you really want to see a French castle in a French town, you go to France, and if you want to see a nice Japanese garden with Koi fish, you go to Japan. If you want to see swans, go to Perth or some other nice temperate area where there are lots more of them. If you want to go to a nice part of Malaysia where the air is cooler, then just stick with Frasier's Hill or Genting Highlands!

At the mid point "French town" zone, where our coaches deposited us, we also got annoyed as nobody seemed to care about queueing up for the 'buggies' which would take us further up to the gardens. After missing a few buggies because hordes of people dashed in front of us, with officials standing by not doing a thing to regulate the crowds, we decided to do the same.

Overall, the trip was fun because the travelling companions were sporting, and our KL hosts were most gracious and knowledgeable. I'm simply logging down the less satisfying parts for your reference, so you know what to do.

I'm off to Kuala Lumpur for 4 days. See ya later.

An extremely long post on what I did in Shanghai, which then digresses into an analysis of Chinese population trends, the environment, health and brand positioning. You have been warned...

We're back. It was an amazing trip. We did the usual shopping rounds, went to a winery, the chocolate factory (just a nibble), the ice cream factory (just a lick), and got attacked by a mob of hungry swans, seagulls and ducks which we were trying to feed at a rather large pond.

Nothing else eventful happened, save for one thing. On the first day of Chinese New Year, we stepped out of our hotel lobby, only to see the main entrance lined out as if a VIP was arriving. We asked who it was. My mother said, maybe it's Sting! I said, maybe it's Kylie (both were due to perform in or near Perth)! The boy cousins perked up considerably at the mention of the name, 'Kylie'.

However, it was neither singer - the doorman told us it was Cherie Blair. Not too bad either (though the boys were disappointed)! She emerged, walking rapidly, with a few aides around her. A couple of us whipped out cameras, at which point she turned away from her car, and walked towards us!

We didn't expect the wife of the British PM to be so friendly and unassuming. She shook our hands, one by one, and did most of the chatting with my mum ("Oh, you're from Singapore! Good duty free shopping there!" - that's all the time she had during the stopover), while the youngsters were too shy to say anything. When I decided to break the silence by saying, "Nice to meet you, Mrs Blair!" as she shook my hand, she looked pleasantly surprised and chirped back, "Nice to meet you too!" and looked like she really meant it.

Of course she didn't hang around for long, so I never got to say the pretentious 'Ooh I studied law too in England' shite I had in mind should there be any more awkward silences. Thank God for that.

Now it's time for a good shower, and hopefully a little bash in the music room because now I'm really inspired to get something completed. Yeah.

I'll be in Perth the whole week, so Gong Xi Fa Cai in advance to my Chinese readers!

A belated pic of me at the Grand Canyon!

Photo taken by a kind gentleman called Steve, who lives near a very serene region in England called Heathrow Airport.

BTW if you think the rocks behind me are within reach, think again.

They're half a mile away.

ps. Anyone know of a great web-based photo management system? It should be fairly user-friendly, sort pics out by categories or date, convert pics to thumbnails (my server has Image Magick) and preferably have different access levels for outsiders and close friends/family. Of course, I could just use MT3.0, can't I? :)

I just flew in a helicopter to see the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon! The view was spectacular! Phweet!

[There is no way I can describe the experience without photographs. I took loads of them. Videos, too. However this hotel computer's CPU is bound, gagged and sealed underneath my table (don't ask why, it just is) and I don't think I can upload anything (although this is Las Vegas and you could do anything for the right price). Until I get home to upload my pics, just imagine a clear, deep blue sky, lots of desert rock, shrubbery, and suddenly a big lake right in the middle of it all... and then an unbelievably huge, rocky chasm.]

The next time you to go Vegas with some time (and lots of cash) to spare, I suggest you look up Sundance Helicopters. Priced at over US$300 a ride per person (meal included), it really isn't cheap, but another passenger told me there was another company that wanted to charge $500 per person! [If you book online, be careful - I had an error page after submitting my form, so I ended up calling them instead.]

My journey began this morning when I was picked up in a limo. Along the way more people came on board and we chatted to each other on the way to the helipad. I had a great conversation with an Aussie and a Londoner (who supports London football clubs in general). However the Aussie deliberately ignored us when we started talking about rugby :-B

Then they put us into groups, balancing us out according to our weight, we suspected. The others were asked to give their height and weight when they made their advance bookings. However they didn't ask me - they probably thought, "Oh, she's Singaporean - probably short and small." I shared the 'copter with two fun young couples from the North of England (they had Yorkshire accents methinks). Loads more tourists poured in from other vehicles. Almost everyone was from England!

We glided past the Hoover Dam, the helicopter deliberately tilting to both sides so we could all see it. Then we landed at a spot with a great view of the chasm below. We took photos and had brunch in a Survivor-like shelter.

Then it was time to go back! The other passengers asked me if I'd like to switch places so I could sit in front this time, which was really nice of them. No worries about motion sickness, we didn't have any as the weather was good. All in all it was an exhilarating experience. I'd certainly do it again if I went with friends or family.

The last few days have been amazing, I want to stay here for a few more months!

The first thing I did was pay respects to my great-grandparents, who are buried in Forest Lawn which is considered prime property for the dearly deceased. I laid flowers on both stones and attended a couple of museum talks. I watched the unveiling of The Last Supper in stained glass. The creepy part of the story was that the section with Judas Iscariot in it, broke 5 times before it was successfully completed.

The next day, I popped over to USC for a campus tour as well as to meet the good people at Annenberg for a talk. Did you know that the rivalry between UCLA and USC is so great, that people from UCLA even rented a helicopter so they could drop paint on top of USC's mascot, Tommy Trojan (who is a warrior statue with a great body)? His sword was also broken off and attached to inappropriate places.

And of course this being America, there were shopping malls galore. I just survived Ontario Mills Mall, which is huge, but not as big as Malls of America and Bluewater (in the UK), both of which I wasn't even able to cover on foot by the end of the day. I barely made it at Ontario.

Now when I shop, my thought cycle goes like this:

1. That's a nice looking ______ (insert item name here. Recent examples include a torchlight that uses kinetic energy not batteries, an ionizing hair dryer, spy cameras, various books and clothing items). It looks pretty useful.
2. Hang on - can I find it in Singapore? Is it much cheaper here? (quite unlikely)
3. OK, even if I can't find it in Singapore or if it's cheap, do I really need this thing? How many times am I going to use it?
4. How am I going to carry this thingummyjig in my dinky little trolley bag?
5. Etc etc

This thought process has saved me a lot of money. But before you shopaholics moan and groan and say 'Ohhhh nooo, that's the PURPOSE of going to wonderfully huge shopping malls in America where you can buy lots of cool things!!" let me assure you that I did my part to help the Californian economy: Health supplements, specialised music studio/production books, a few items with my name on it (yes it's VANS, egotistical little me).

Universal Studios was great as well. I hadn't been there in a decade or so. It's an interesting story: I was dropped off at the front entrance, and saw so many queues I didn't know where to start. I was also a bit stunned when I saw the price of a regular ticket. I griped silently to myself (and God, who usually listens to all my complaints and hasn't hit me with a thunderbolt - yet).

I wandered to the middle of all the queues and something just prompted me to stand in one particular line. They were all about the same length.

In front of me was a Hispanic family - a mother, daughter and grandmother. Nothing too unusual.

Suddenly the mother turned to me and says, "Excuse me, are you by yourself?" (or something to that effect)

Wondering if she was suddenly going to make friends with me, I said yes. She showed me a small paper slip.

"I have this coupon [she pronounced it as 'kew-pon'], it says buy one ticket, get the second one free... Would you like to share it with me?"

I said sure! So instead of getting ripped off US$50 each for a day ticket, we paid only $25 each. Her mother and daughter had a discount kew-pon too, but because there were three of them, she needed another person to split the costs with.

"I'm so glad I stood in your queue!" I exclaimed. The woman grinned.

Within minutes of entering the world of Make-believe, I came across a youth choir singing a very, very familiar tune: For The Beauty of The Earth, which was exactly the song I played for Brenda and YK's wedding march. I felt happy, and that my life was meaningful again :)

Early this morning, I will leave for Las Vegas. It's been a lovely summer spell here, and it feels a little too short now.

Greetings from Los Angeles. A few good things worthy of mention during my journey here:

Friendly airport staff (SG). I was greeted by the friendliest female security guard (who was incidentally of Amazonian proportions) and another ever-smiling official who inspected my check-in baggage.

The new Singapore Airlines carriers. I flew straight from Singapore to LA in just less than 16 hours. The economy seats are now more spacious, and come with the usual personal TV screen for watching shows and playing games. My arm rest also had a three-pin multiplug power adapter and internet port!!! :-D

Luxurious dining. Also to be commended was our gourmet meal of beef in red wine sauce with spinach and mashed potatoes, specially concocted by Gordon Ramsay. Mmm!

The only thing I didn't enjoy about the flight was the horrible turbulence. Now I've travelled by air all my life but this was pretty bad weather we were flying into, somewhere in the middle of the journey. I had that roller-coaster 'falling' feeling for perhaps 20 minutes as the plane dipped and swayed, and I even felt nauseus, which usually NEVER happens to me.

Decent treatment at LA airport. Contrary to what the Straits Times reported recently, there weren't any odious LA airport officials to grapple with. Almost everyone in my queue passed through smoothly save for a pair of attractive-looking Asian ladies who endured a long Q&A session with a stern-faced official who looked Hispanic.

I ended up having a friendly chat with a younger Hispanic official who asked me a few simple questions and wished me good luck with the casinos in Vegas! Customs let me through, but I had prepared for a rummage, having ziplocked all the contents of my suitcase just to be safe.

[Interestingly, almost everyone at Immigration was Asian / Hispanic. Hmm!]

Funky relatives.I was picked up at the airport by my grand aunt the doctor and my grand uncle who runs a small studio in Hollywood. We had dinner at a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown, took a drive through the Mexican zone, and then to their home.

They drive the new Toyota Prius*, a car I'm considering switching to myself. It is so high-tech that it comes with a computer touchscreen which can display the components of the car being used in real time. It is amazingly quiet as it is powered by batteries, only switching to gasoline at higher speeds. It is also very intelligent. There isn't a need for a key slot, as it can detect the key in the driver's pocket as he opens the car door. You can even control your garage gate with the Prius (note: before selling your car, delete all settings!).

They also showed me some devices which reduce the harmful effect of cellphone transmissions. One small device, stuck to the cellphone, absorbs radiation (tests were conducted at a conference they attended, which showed that less radiation was produced). Another device transmits what the person at the other end of the line says, into an FM frequency for the driver to tune in and listen to. He then replies to the other person through his cellphone's microphone. I guess it works the same way as my Belkin FM transmitter for the iPod.

For the environmentally conscious: I'm told a new ruling in California gives cars carrying two or more passengers the right to travel in the fast lane (extreme left) on highways. A lone woman driver contested the law when she was fined, saying she was pregnant and therefore there were two persons in the car. She won on the premise that an unborn child is considered a human being. I can imagine a lot of female drivers now telling police officers they're newly pregnant... Unless someone else can now contest the law and say that only foetuses aged xx weeks and above are considered human beings.

While accesing the internet here, I found to my delight that my funky grand aunt and uncle use Mozilla! Woo-hoo!

It's time for a shower and a small 'doze' of Melatonin... goodnight!

* Apparently it is pronounced 'Pree-us' not 'Pry-us' as I usually call it.

For ease of reference, I'm putting up some resource links on California / LA / Vegas as I find them.

Lonely Planet - Los Angeles
Lonely Planet - Las Vegas
Currency exchange rates (US$ to S$)

If you have any other good links please post them here. Thanks!

Note to those who subscribe to mailing lists: Don't even THINK of using an autoresponder for your emails while you're away, if you're subscribed to a newslist. I just realised, to my horror, that I was inadvertently responding to every mail sent to the Tears for Fears mailing group (which is international and probably has hundreds of readers).

While only a few emails were sent, I was still highly embarassed. I sent them an email titled ' A thousand apologies', and promptly deactivated my autoresponder. Eep!

OK people. I am going to be extremely busy tonight and tomorrow, so I may not be able to reply to emails or text messages. Thanks for your well wishes - I'll catch up with some of you in June when I get back from the States.

Until you hear from me (in Los Angeles, I hope), ta ta!

The weather is hotttt in sunny California. I have been warned of temperatures that even Singaporeans would melt under.

While having lunch today I thought of some new items for my packing list, which was residing as a Word document on my PC. I keyed the new entries into my Nokia phone.

When I got home, I beamed the file to my PC via Bluetooth. It was sent as a text file to my computer, which I can now copy and paste into my existing Word document.

*smirk*

And that's all I really wanted to say.

[Actually, there's more. After sending the text file to my PC, I collated my packing lists into one file, then beamed it back to my phone. I received the file via a text message, which has now been saved back into my Menu > Notes section.]

Our stay at Cebu has been great so far. It was bitingly hot at first, then it started to pour. It rained today again - from morning till evening. Fortunately like true Singaporeans we spent most of our day at a mall, then feasted at a seafood grill in Plantation Bay itself. Business is good - so good that we couldn't book a tour of the city.

My little cousins are looking over my shoulder as I'm typing this.

They still aren't going away.

Their names are Rachel, Stacey and Andrew, who can do the 'John Travolta'. They keep on giggling. All right, they're gone now. I'm in the queue for the pool table. Can't wait.

These are the buildings that survived the recent coup. [ Previously, I posted a joke that I was told about how the coup was like a Hollywood scene, but I realise it might cause offence and give a skewed impression of the people there. My sincerest apologies. ]

A Manila colleague dedicated a song to me the night we watched Barbie's Cradle. Now this band sounds like Frente and Sixpence None The Richer, because the female lead has a sweet but not overwhelmingly powerful voice. I thought they could do the Lisa Loeb song well. A while later, a dedication was read out - for Van from Singapore! And what other song could it be, but 'Stay'. Aww! Well I'm sorry to say that I couldn't, it's back to the daily grind for me. But I learnt as much as I came to teach. It was humbling to say the least, seeing how rapidly our neighbours are catching up with us. People with the same skills and talents are willing to work harder for less pay. [Side note: I got to meet the lead singer. Woo-hoo!]

I won't miss Manila for its disorder, but for its spontaneity. I won't miss the street beggars, the dusty old buildings, the lethargic plumbing system and the thick power cables dangling from every lamp post, but I will miss how the poor are treated, how people display their love for Jesus everywhere (Christian offices and vehicle decals aplenty), and how they can be happy without having to be particularly rich or successful.

And where else can I go around singing in public without getting stared at?

A quick note to let everyone know I'm still alive and kicking in Manila. The people here have been very kind, and I have done a lot of talking, typing, pointing, clicking. My captive audience has, in return, been nodding their heads, asking questions and going "Ohhh!" gratifyingly, at suitable points in time. My mind is a blank now, but it appears that the presentations I've made, have created their intended effect.

Last night, we went to the Tavern and watched Freestyle, a top Filipino band, perform. They do R&B, pop, acid jazz, that sort of thing. Cover versions and songs they've written themselves. Frankly if nobody told me who wrote them, I'd easily assume those were international chart-topping hits too. Really smashing. Tonight they're bringing us to catch another top act, Barbie's Cradle (no, it's not a new accessory from Mattel).

Compact discs are generally cheaper in Manila than Singapore. According to a colleague, CDs used to be more expensive, but due to rampant piracy, prices have been forced down. Much as I am an advocate of purchasing original CDs in support of my favourite artistes, I was thinking that if legitimate music CD prices have fallen to about S$15-17 for new titles, it probably means the recording companies could have afforded to sell the discs at lower prices in the first place.

Tomorrow I'll have a bit more time to go sight-seeing and bargain-hunting. Until then, take care. I'll write soon.

Better pack my brolly. I'll be leaving Singapore early tomorrow morning.

Woke up early. Mum went to see Vicki's teachers for a meet-the-parents session (not a good thing). Meanwhile, I made french toast. I haven't cooked in ages but I remembered exactly how I used to do it. Mum called to tell me she was on her way back from the school, and I reserved the last and best piece for her ... keeping it warm in my little pan until she pulled up along the driveway. And it was goood french toast. Mum's usually very frank with her criticism so I felt triumphant.

We packed our bags, checked out and went back to Hay Street for some last minute shopping. I bought this top I was eyeing for a couple of days, and mum bought some footwear. We had lunch at another swanky eatery (forgot the name, will check on it later) with excellent service and scrumptious food. Then we left for the airport.

Back at Changi Airport we discovered we had to fill in a health declaration form. A little untidy - they could've given that to us along with the immigration cards for non-Singaporeans, on the plane. After which, we were free to claim our baggage and depart.

Woke up late. Mum made eggs for breakfast. We packed up Vicki's bags and had lunch at Serai, a Thai-Asian restaurant (Vicki's last char kway teow and chicken rice for a long time to come). Yan, the dutiful niece from Ipoh who's been running the joint while the owners are under SARS quarantine back in Singapore, told us mischievously that the ang mohs here like eating char kway teow together with rice ... which was a phenomenon I experienced during Chinese New Year while dining at Clifton Hill House, my old boarding place in Bristol back in '98. They served the noodles mixed with rice, and that was all we had to eat. Oh well. I'm sure we've done strange things with Western food too.

We had dinner at the other Oyster Bar over at Mossman Bay, near Vicki's school (St Hilda's). I think Oyster Bar is officially Vicki's favourite non-Asian restaurant, and the oysters are so fresh and affordable you really have nothing to complain about. They even have happy hours every day from 5-6pm, where you can get a half dozen oysters and a pint of beer for only A$12. And on Tuesdays, a half dozen oysters go for just A$7.

Outside, we spotted a few glorious pelicans skimming the surface of the water. A man was canoing. It was lovely.

Back at the service apartment, on the telly: an Aussie comedian was poking fun at John Howard for essentially licking Dubya's boots. The news over here has been more or less, 'John Howard gets to sit in Air Force One!' ... 'John Howard tells Kofi Annan what the UN can do' ... 'John Howard gets invited to the Ranch' ... and so forth. I don't think we'll be hearing this sort of thing outside of Australia.

Shopping in Perth's CBD - along Hay Street. I went to two music stores on the same side of the road and picked up a few cool books, one of which was sheet music for Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which I've always wanted to learn. I wanted the sheet music for the Pianist soundtrack, particularly for Chopin's Nocturne, but alas it won't be out till a couple of weeks' time. If you see it selling at any music shops in Singapore, drop me a note!

We had lunch at Matsi Ri (again) to satisfy the inner cravings of my younger sister, who abhors boarding school food. Today I discovered that the restaurant's chicken teriyaki sucked big time. As in, starchy sauce that didn't taste like teriyaki, dry chicken meat, fat skin coming off the meat. Ugh. Their sashimi however is still very fresh and in generous portions. And it still is one of the most crowded Japanese restaurants in the city.

We then drove up to Guildford Road and beyond our puny little tourist map, along West Swan Drive, to buy grapes fresh from the farm. Only A$6 per kilo of succulent grapes! We bought a 10kg crate to bring home and share with the extended family.

Today's morning news featured Australia's latest scandal, involving a company called Pan Pharmaceuticals which was in breach of production standards, causing many customers to fall sick.

After lunch, we met up with Raphael and Beatrice Tan, two lovely Christians, and Raphael's coursemate at Bible school, Ai Mee. They all have children, mostly rowdy little boys, and it was like a little Singaporean community between the three of them. I played Raphael's piano and he taught me the basics of jazz improvisation.

He also taught the three of us to shoot a crossbow. That was exciting although the force of the release did jerk me out of place a little. I managed to hit the target board all three times, although I didn't make it to the inner rings. Vicki shot one arrow into the ground so deep that we couldn't even find it. Mum's last shot was a killer, almost a bullseye!

Then, Raphael took my mum, my sis and me on a drive to another plot of land they owned, which was mostly left untouched and had many large boulders, trees and lots of kangaroos bounding about everywhere! He then let me drive his vehicle and activated the four-wheel drive so I could feel the difference in the control of the car. That was another first for me.

By the time we got back from our drive it was dark and the trio persuaded us to stay for a very satisfactory dinner of chicken rice. Vicki and I plucked tapioca leaves, while mum helped debone the chicken. After dinner Raphael proceeded to jam with me on his guitar as I played a latin jazz piece I wrote back in '93 called 'Couldn't Believe It' (to the few of you who know, it's the tune that Gwen likes). It was mindblowing. I must jam more with people.

We spent the day with Vicki's old roommate Vanessa, and her mum and sister. We had lunch back at South Perth, and then went back to the main city area to watch a movie, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days - which everybody seemed excited about except me, since I wanted to watch X-Men 2. It was another of those unbelievable Hollywood flicks with the usual, predictable happy ending.

Finally we had dinner at Matsu Ri, which is a stylish urban Japanese restaurant. We had to queue for over half an hour because it was so popular. The sashimi sets were excellent, but they weren't that great for teriyaki meats. The interior reminded me a little of Budokan back in Bristol, which to me is still a little more funky (nostalgia creeps in).

We checked out at 10 a.m. and drove 600 kilometres along the Albany Highway. I did about two-thirds of that, since most of it involved going in a straight line and the only real challenge was not to fall asleep or get my right arm seared by the scorching sun.

We stopped over a few times, first at Kojunup for a lovely Country Kitchen sandwich lunch (we didn't have much choice because the only other two restaurants in that sleepy little town looked like Sloppy Joes). Mum took over the wheel for a while before we changed places at Williams, further up north. We stopped near Armadale where mum proceeded with the rest of the journey all the way into Perth.

We managed to do a little shopping at David Jones, and I bought two ... get this ... red shirts! I actually bought something red! (Good friends who have been bemoaning my black and blue wardrobe hereby have permission to do a mad dance around the room for one minute).

Needless to say, by the end of the day I was exhausted, and fell asleep very early this evening.

We survived the night in the old motel room, and departed in the late morning for Middleton Beach, which is probably the best place to go in Albany if you're looking for open skies and a bay that glitters under the sun in a few different shades of blue. It's really pretty.

[ Photos will be posted soon. ] Beyond these shores is Antartica!

Emu Beach, which we visited after that, was not quite as breathtaking. It was smaller and designed more for kids to play around in, what with the playground and bicycles aplenty.

We decided to drive back to Middleton Beach for lunch at a pub, then popped over to the Sandalwood Farm off the Albany Highway (Down Road).

Finally, in the town centre along York Street, we engaged in the Singapore tradition of ... SHOPPING! I finally bought clothes (mainly gymwear) and some fancy footwear at Rivers, an Australian brand specialising in comfort. They have a really well laid-out store at Albany.

We had dinner at the only Japanese restaurant at Emu Beach, and it was pretty good. Considering how the rest of the beach was utterly deserted, it was heartening to see the restaurant almost full, and the Japanese chef and waiters running about serving people.

Today we bid Margaret River a fond adieu. We drove down south to Augusta to see the lighthouse, where two oceans (Indian and South) meet. Then we headed to a vineyard at Pemberton for lunch. After which we stopped at Walpole to see the Valley of the Giants - an invigorating tree top walk, 40 metres in the air.

Here's a photo of a tree called 'Grandmother Tingle', estimated to be over 400 years old. Can you see her face? :-)

We drove through Denmark via the South Coast Hightway towards Albany, and that was when the sun went down. Here's a picture of the setting sun, brilliant pink, from the rear window of the car.

We continued the journey in darkness, guided only by the beams of our headlights, occasional signage and very sporadic street lighting. There were also a few dodgy-looking bush fires. One of them gave me the creeps because it was in the middle of nowhere and I could swear I saw three white robed figures, looking like that of a mother and two daughters, one being carried by the adult, facing the flames. *shudder*

We finally located our motel along the Albany Highway, and realised it wasn't quite as four-star as they claimed to be. It was very old, and our room had a rusty stove and a shower curtain that stuck onto itself. All in all, it was rather dodgy to me.

We had dinner at Kooka's, another Gold plate award-winning restaurant. My lamb balti was very tasty, and Vicki's laksa wasn't quite authentic what with the eggplant and peas, but she ate it all up anyway.

Margaret River, day four. It was a fine sunny morning and we left to visit Fonti Farm which is a cheese factory. Very lovely cheeses and yoghurt; somehow they taste nicer in Australia than back home.

Me and Vicki (left) outside the coffee processor's.

After that, we had a coffee tasting session. Most unfortunately, as I drove along the highway, keeping to the speed limit, I noticed a big, dead kangaroo lying crumpled on the side of the road. I felt a little ill. On the way back we passed another smaller kangaroo, also dead. I think it was only a baby.

Finally we went spelunking! I mean, cave exploring. In a 1.5 million year old cave. It was quite an eye-opener, but we didn't dare shout.

And I have to go now.

Today we visited another vineyard, a Lavendar farm, Brookland Estate (where we had lunch at Flutes, their restaurant), had some cake and hot cocoa at the Margaret River Chocolate Factory, toured an olive farm, and dined at Prideau�s which is a Gold Plate award winner. It was there that Vicki spotted a young girl taking orders in the restaurant and recognised her as Claire, an eighth-grader at St Hilda�s where she studies. Turns out the little lady is the daughter of Trevor, who owns and runs the restaurant with his wife.

The weather was lovely today, bright and sunny with cool winds.

[ This is a post-blog. ]

We visited our first winery, Voyager Estate, and had lunch at its restaurant. Then we checked out an art exhibition after emerging from the Tourist Information Office with a load of pamphlets. There is just so much to see at Margaret River! We had dinner at another restaurant called Fortes, located in the main town area. Food has been excellent so far.

Woke up at 8, had breakfast, packed up the rest of my stuff, helped sister with last-minute laundry, checked out. Left Perth for Margaret River. Had lunch a third of the way. Took over the wheels for the rest of the journey, which lasted over two hours. That was my inaugural drive into Australia. What was disturbing and heart-rendering at the same time, were the many little crosses marking the spots I presume where motorists and passengers were killed. I counted 9 in total. A grim reminder for us not to drive recklessly.

We eventually reached the Margaret River town area, dropped mum and sis to information centre only to find that it was closed since it was just past 5 o�clock in the afternoon (doh). Using a tourist map kindly provided by a nearby restaurant, Mum continued the journey at the wheel, and we drove and drove and got a little lost before eventually locating Margarets Beach Resort. We liked it for its size and modern furnishings, but did NOT like the fact that hair dryers were optional (by the time we realised that, the reception had � you guessed it � closed). Mum disliked the place because the service was unfriendly (in the stony, plastered faint-smile sort of way). Now my hair smells a little smoky tonight, but that�s fine, I�d rather not catch a cold, and the only alternative I have is to stick my head into the clothes dryer.

We drove all the way back to town for dinner at VAT, which was excellent, my mother declared that was the best lamb chops she�s ever had, period, and I wasn�t too far from disagreeing with her either. My sister even ate the bak choy that came with her crispy oriental Chicken dish, which is a breakthrough since she generally hates vegetables. And we we demolished their trademark toffee-vanilla cream covered walnut pudding with honeycombs. The restaurant offered accommodation a floor above, but it was fully booked this week. Mum complained to our waitress that we stayed really far away and the waitress looked surprised. �Not really�that�s only 10 kilometres�� which made me realise that distance is relative to the person and the country you�re living in. I think I drove twice the span of Singapore this afternoon, and it didn�t feel like much. We�re so tiny, I�m ashamed to admit.

After dinner, we got home and watched a movie on the telly, called Angst. An Australian production about three friends, a girl and two guys who stay together in an apartment. The characters are all pretty cool in the sense that they're charmingly flawed and get in and out of all sorts of trouble.

We went to Subiaco, had lunch at an open air food court with live music, watched a movie (Anger Management), browsed the eclectic mix of shops in the area. I hardly bought anything, even at the fruit market, but it was an eye-opener anyway.

Guards and airport officials were stationed ahead of the check in counters at Changi Airport, asking travellers if they displayed any SAR syndromes. Then we were each given a notice containing important contact information.

Before we got our passports tamped, we were scanned at the door by those amazingly newfangled machines that the Straits Times reported about. Fortunately, our body temperatures were fine and I admired the psychedelic colour outlines of each passing traveller on the screen. Mum and sis didn�t even notice they were being scanned. We met up with my friend Karen who works at the airport, and proceeded to buy up the entire store check out the DFS sale.

Terminal Two was fairly empty. The occasional traveller walked around, wearing a mask. Not many of them wore it properly. One man actually fidgeted with his mask, took it out and put it back on again. A big Middle Eastern man pulled the mask atop his head, making him look like he was wearing a ridiculous hairband. They might as well not have bothered wearing any at all!

The flight was uneventful, save for a white male passenger sitting in front of us who kept on coughing. I wondered how they let him through. I�m pleased, however, to report that when we landed in Perth there was no manic SARS witch hunt.

After claiming our baggage, I proceeded to the Green Zone by myself, as mum honestly decided to declare the mint sweets she had brought with her, and Vicki followed her. I stood in the queue, wondering what kind of questions they�d interrogate me with.

The Customs lady looked at my immigration card.

�A Web Designer, eh? We need a few of those!� She said jovially.

I smiled.

She proceeded to ask me a few simple questions about my health (Am I feeling well? Do I have a temperature?) and gave me another card with a 1800 toll-free number to call in case I started feeling unwell. And that was all!

We dashed out in the drizzle to the rented car, hauled our luggage in, and drove to South Perth. After checking in, we were told that there was late night shopping tonight, as tomorrow all the shops would be closed for ANZAC day. So off we went, to Westfield Carousel, to buy our groceries and browse the shops. It was very crowded.

On Saturday the real fun begins � We head on to Margaret River.

This photo was taken during a boat ride up the Bosphorus River last June. The weather was lovely. We weren't permitted to sail up any further but I was told that this river mouth led to the Black Sea.

Still, it is several hundred miles away from the frontlines.

My sister is living in a resort, I say. The food is great (while the parents are around anyway), the teachers are pleasant, the rooms are bright and new, and the pantry/lounge area looks like a service apartment, as you can see from the photo above.

It's like, the education is incidental. Heh.

We only had a few hours to go shopping, so all I bought myself was a pair of shoes, and a few goodies for my colleagues. Dad and I spent one morning at a driving range. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and met up with Vicki's guardians. And ... that was it for CNY in Perth.

I have some nice photos to put up but I'm too lazy to do an album. Funny how, two years ago, doing online photo galleries was a big part of my job. Anyway, if you know of a good PHP photo album I can easily install, please post a comment.

I'll be off to Perth in an hour's time and will be back on Feb 3. I don't think we'll be visiting any cybercafes. So until my next post: Have a Happy Chinese New Year! :-P

I'm back from Shanghai! The food was great, we toured neighbouring Suzhou and Hangzhou on day trips, and the other women in the family bought a lot of things. All I chose for myself were a bag, a keychain, tea leaves, and some sweets. I'm a terrible shopper.

Oh yes, my parents sent me and my sister to the tailor's to get measured for a cheong sam each. Mine's red and rather pretty and will most probably be worn during Chinese New Year.

I will be compiling my travel log, day by day, in the next few days.

Hangzhou is about 200 km from Shanghai. Population: 6 million. Looking through the van's window, the scenery outside became increasingly rural, with crops and dilapidated buildings aplenty. Ironically, painted on the side of an old building, was 'ISO9001'.

Raining again. I went for my final cheong sam fitting. And fitting it was! We had lunch at Lü Bo Lang which is supposed to be famous for their xiao long bao, but we didn't find it particularly outstanding. The other dishes were pretty good, however.

This morning my mother and I queued at the Shanghai Museum for ONE AND A HALF HOURS just to see a 5 metre-long, famous Chinese painting which was 900 years old.

In the morning, I went for my second cheong sam fitting. Then we went to No. 1 Department store, which was packed with locals. This was where the real shopping was done! There, I finally found something I liked - a classy leather bag to replace the free medical conference laptop carrier I've been using since I joined the company.

Suzhou was one of the cities covered in Marco Polo's travels. It has a population of 1.5 million but 2500 years of history. It has the best gardens in China as well as silk. We visited two famous gardens as well as the No. 1 Silk Mill where we bought silk duvets and bedsheets.

Silkworms are such adorable creatures - and smooth to the touch!

We arrived at the new Pudong Airport which is impressive and efficient [note: see final day's report]. The ride to the city, however, took over an hour.

Well folks, I'm leaving at dawn for Shanghai, China. The weather looks fine. I hear it's tolerably cool and very windy with some rain, which means it will be very much like Bristol.

I didn't have time to complete all my applications today so I will send the remaining documents when I get back in a week's time. I didn't have time to visit SITEX either, or even watch the new Harry Potter movie. I'm still packing my bags.

I'm going on a crash course with the Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai, which I will read on the plane (assuming I don't nod off to sleep or watch a movie instead). And hopefully, three CompactFlash cards will be enough for my digital camera. Trigger happy li'l ol' me.

I really have to run now.