I don't like labels but...

This is me to a tee

http://www.annabash.com/blog/introvert

Friday night amusements

Friday, 22:41.

The girl sitting next to me on this train is waaaaaasted.

She can't sit still. Her head is drooped but her body keep shifting from leaning on her back to leaning on her legs with her arms.

Good thing she's got a bottle of water to keep it all down. For now. 

And the dude next to me is falling asleep - his head bobbing while slowly leaning towards me, 'cause I'm "downwind" (referring to the direction of the train). 

And I'm a bit tipsy.

And nearly missed my stop writing this post.

It's definitely Friday. 

Gluttons in the City

(I was going through my blog post list to see if I had any unpublished drafts and found this astonishing little travel-entry, thought I'd post it for amusement's sake, and, well, since I did spent time writing it so, might as well publish it)

Singapore slinging stuffing 

Singapore: 10 - 11 Jan 2015

By about 11am on Saturday, we were already on our third meal.

By 5pm, we've had five separate food events.

(Apologies for the poor photo quality...I was using my old Samsung and was rushing to take the pics so we could eat)

If you're Asian, you probably wouldn't bat an eyelid. This is what we do. Ok maybe it was slightly over the top, but...I'd argue that this was quite reasonable given we were a group of 5, we were in Singapore for less than 48 hours, and, well, this is Singapore - what else is there to do? There might be a couple things that the Singaporeans have built, but really that's just an excuse to give you something to occupy your time while you digest, so that you can eat again soon.

I had collected a handful of recommendations as well as revisited some places from my previous SG trips. I was the designated trip-planner, and so it's really no surprise that everything in our itinerary was food. Luckily Singapore is quite small, and we were able to walk or MRT to most places.

First stop, Tanjong Pagar for Nasi Lemak as prescribed by Dawn. It was also listed on some blog for having the best Nasi Lemak, and lo and behold, there was a queue there even though we arrived before 10am. So we queued. And the sauce and drumsticks were definitely worth however long we queued (probably only about 10 minutes).





We then walked (for efficient digestion) to our next stop (ok less than 10 minutes away) to Tong Ah Eating House - which one of the google results told me was one of the top kaya toast places. Of course it was nothing more than a humble (but spacious) hole in the wall, a stall by the door and round tables of all sorts of sizes underneath white fluorescent lights. After sitting and looking lost for a while, someone tossed us a menu - there was set A, B or C. Tea, tea with milk, or tea with milk and sugar, or coffee, coffee with milk, or coffee with milk and sugar. Thin toast, thick toast or steamed bread. 3 sets of thin toast for 5 tourists please. Butter & kaya wedged between slices of small thin toast. 5 minutes gone. 5 tourists utterly satisfied.

Another short walk took us to Maxwell Food Centre, by then it was nearly 11am and started to get busy. There was already a queue at Tian Tian Chicken Rice. But the queue went fast, and so did our two chicken rices.


Digestion break - wandered into a Buddhist temple, around China town, down the metro and around the malls on Orchard road blah blah blah

One of the icons of Orchard Road was the ice-cream sandwich stalls. We got 3, sat on the steps of a glossy mall, and passed around ice-creams wrapped in bread of psychedelic colours. Simple amazing pleasures.

The shiny commercial world that is Orchard Road got dull after about 20 minutes, so we dove underground again and tunneled our way on the MRT to Little India for some watch-shopping in Mustafa Centre. On our way out and still pondering our next food-move, it started to rain and we found refuge in an Indian cafe, and before we knew it we were tucking into a few roti pratas and teh tarik. The cheese prata was exceptionally good - the cheese was probably a cheap cheese, but somehow still very aromatic and worked really well with the thin not-overly-oily pratas.

We took 15 minutes of a digestion walk - to our next eating destination, Ng Ah Sio at Rangoon Road for bak kut teh. Chunks of pork and pork bone in peppery, flavourful, beautiful clear soup. With rice and deep fried dough sticks and vegetables of course. At this point we were starting to get full. I think.

Another digestion break - we did the tourist thing and saw the Mer-lion, the view of Marina Bay Sands at the sea front, etcetera etcetera, walked over to Clark Quay for drinks...which then created another appetite for our grand finale - Newton Food Centre. A bit touristy but it's got everything anyone can ever need. EVER. We ordered sambal stingray, chow kuay teow, carrot cake (law bak go), fuzhou noodles, chicken wings, vegetables, Milo dinosaur...and finally - and I do mean finally - we were completely utterly defeated. Done. Towels thrown. Mic dropped. Out.

But we were also champs considering how much food we ate. How much GOOD food we ate. Just about everything was made in about 3-5 minutes and tasted wonderful, diverse, satisfying - a rock concert for the senses.


Sunday was, I'd say, a bit less intense. A bit


My faithful friend and guide Google told me that the nearest Ya Kun Kaya Toast was on China Street. The toast here was slightly more dense than Tong Ah but still very thin and crisp and more generous with the spread, so this is still my favourite.

During our digestion-walks, I realised how green and spacious this little city felt, even though - according to Wikipedia - Singapore's population density is actually higher than Hong Kong's (but Hong Kong does have a lot of unused space). Here in Singapore, roads and pavements were wider, trees felt greener and taller, there was actually space for grass in the urban areas, and what my favourite is: how they've kept a lot more of the old colonial-era buildings, and the urban Southeast Asian shophouses which I think has so much character and diversity (you still see a lot of them in Vietnam or Malaysia or Taiwan, but they've knocked 99.99% of them down in Hong Kong). And they keep the surviving ones in Singapore relatively well - they've got really hipster cafes and bars in some of them, while some still house mom-n-pop kaya toast shops or grandma noodle shops.




Anyway, back to our main topic. I don't even remember how I found out about Jalan Berseh's Sungei Road laksa (probably google), but it was good. It was also conveniently located just a few minutes from where our 6th member of the group was staying, whom we picked up and taxied to Purvis Street's famous Chin Chin Eating House for some legit Hainan Chicken Rice, and a bunch of other stuff.



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We then headed to Gardens By The Bay for a few hours to walk around and look at flora and fauna, admire a man-made 35m waterfall, take lots and lots of selfies (because someone brought a selfie stick with a remote and made the mistake of giving me the remote), and of course, digest.

Before heading back to the airport, we hit Maxwell hawker centre again for a last ditch attempt of filling more Singaporean food into our bellies, but a lot of the stalls were closed for the mid-afternoon.

The trip ended with us eating kaya toast while simultaneously getting free foot massages at a massage-chair in the airport. No wonder this is the best airport in the world.

Context: I was moving from Hong Kong to Tokyo, and was expecting to have much less access to Southeast Asian and Chinese food from Tokyo, which is why -
1. I was made food-and-trip planner for this trip...because it was essentially my farewell trip
2. We ate so much - because I wanted to eat everything, and I have incredibly kind and tolerant and quota-less friends.

Slowness

I am undoubtedly a very rushed person - what can I say? I grew up in Hong Kong, one of the most rushed most crowded and (inevitably) most efficient cities in the world. It has to be efficient to cope with all the people, and to compete with the likes of Singapore New York etc.  

Similarly for myself, I strive to achieve efficiency in my life - I fill every waking hour with chores or friends or things to or do or buy, otherwise I'd feel like I'm wasting time. Snap it. Eat it. Speak it. See it. Buy it. Move on and do all those things again elsewhere. I'm a bit like this when I travel as well (my recent trip to Sri Lanka was nothing short of a whirlwind tour - more later). 

But as I step into 2016, and looking back at 2015, which was one big rush of a year, I'm reminded and thus very tempted to try and slow down this year. While it doesn't help that I already have  (at least) 5 trips planned for the next 5 months (for both work and leisure), and not to mention the hordes of potential visitors that I'll be getting again this year (whom I welcome very much! Please come!), this year I'm going to try to "live slow". Our culture isn't going to like it. My boss and colleagues are probably not going to like it - but I think there are ways to be efficient to but not rushed. Just gotta figure out how. 

Wait...But why live slow? Won't we "live" more by seeing more, going to more places, meeting more people?

I'm never going to explain it more eloquently so read this:

What slowing down teaches you that rushing never will 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/amyjuliabecker/2014/april/what-slowing-down-teaches-you-that-rushing-never-will.html#bmb=1

Winter ponderings

While I am much more of a summer / hot weather person and the thought of winter approaching does vex my subtropical-born blood vessels with fears of death-by-freezing, I managed to find some consolation from an ad on the train, which reminded me that Japan is an archipelago of volcanic activity, which also means I am never far away from an onsen (hot spring). This, and on the other side of the spectrum mother nature has also blessed or cursed this country with lots of mountains and an uncomfortable proximity to Russia, which means there are plenty of places where idiots like myself, for whatever reason should choose to do so, can strap sticks or planks onto our feet, get our freezing selves to the peak of said mountains, and attempt to get back down in one relatively unharmed piece. 

These two things - onsen and snowboarding - are the two out of three things that may have a chance of plucking me out of my shelter of warmth as I wait for summer to resume. 

The third thing is a combination of good food (preferably piping hot) and good company. 

Good food is easy to obtain anywhere in this country. The challenge is deciding where to go. The other challenge is finding said "good company" to share this good food with. 

Since moving to Tokyo 7 months ago, I have made a small handful of friends, but not yet  enough in this city of madness. 

Thus I am conflicted. On one hand I want to make full use of my undecidedly limited time in Japan and experience as much as possible this country has to offer - the hot springs, the frozen mountains, the countryside, the metropolises...but on the other hand, I want to invest in knowing Tokyo, in knowing people, because human connections last longer than experiences. 

I guess the challenge will be to find that balance. Or find a way to stretch time...

--
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Food, glorious Okinawan food

Three and a half days of rain during a visit to Okinawa meant a lot more time for food.

Okinawan Soba - simple, delicious, and completely different from soba from mainland Japan. Okinawan soba is made up of thick white noodles, stodgy soup and spare ribs. Mainland soba has thin grey buckwheat noodles, clearer soup and no pork (usually plain). I definitely prefer the Okinawan version - and this 'guidebook noodle shop' served the perfect bowl of this culinary wonder. So simple but so tasty.

Okinawa is by the sea, thus famous for its seafood. At one of the 'michi no eki' (rest stops) we found shellfish covered in sea-urchin sauce (actually it was more like sea-urchin flavoured mayo).

Mango + pineapple + passion fruit shaved ice. Nuff said.

Black pork shabu-shabu. I'm not sure if black pig is natively Okinawan (it seems to be more well-known as a Kagoshima thing) but who cares - it was mouthwatering.

The nearest cafe our GPS found us served surprisingly good coffee.  Coffee standards are generally pretty low in Japan, despite how much coffee is drunk in this nation. 

Tacos and tortillas are easy to find around Okinawa due to the large American presence and influence in Okinawa.

"Can fish smell bread?"

Okinawa day 4

The sky looked a bit brighter than the previous days but there were still patches of clouds about. We set out early for Cape Maeda, back to the dive shop we went to two days before, to try our luck on this very last day for snorkeling at the famous Blue Cave. On the way there the dive shop girl called and basically said we had to hurry 'cause the winds were coming in again - so pedal went down and resumed 'Tokyo speed' (Okinawans drive noticeably slower than Tokyoites - typical).

We quickly changed into wetsuits, the sky quickly changed into a shade of grey, and the winds quickly picked up even more. The sky was starting to spit with rain. But we pressed on!

We were quickly driven out to the pier and was rushed onto the boat by Miss A (dive shop girl). The boat ride out was ridiculously bumpy, and I got pretty soaked by the waves splashing in my face. We got near the cliff, the sea was very choppy. There were a couple of other boats around, bobbing around violently.

It was a bit daunting at first to jump into the very choppy water, but it wasn't too bad once we got in the water, and we had a round floaty thing to cling onto as we all swam towards the cave.

The water was very clear, and the coral was beautiful, and saw lots of fish and a few divers on the sea bed below.

The cave was a short swim away. Inside the cave, the water was very calm, no wind, very quiet. The light from outside shone in, and it looked like a swimming pool lit up at night - and no exaggerations about the cave being blue. I gotta say Miss A is a better diver than a photographer, but still happy that she took her waterproof camera and took photos for us. She said that in the summer, there's sometimes a queue to get into this cave, and it could get really crowded. But on this day we had the cave all to ourselves - thanks to the awful weather. There was no coral inside the cave (as there's not a lot of light) but there were still small groups of fish.

Miss A also somehow managed to sneak in some bread, and as soon as we started feeding the fish, more and more came and were literally eating off our hands.

Can fish smell bread in the water? It literally took seconds from the bread hitting the water to us being surrounded by hordes of fish. It wasn't scary though. Kinda cute actually.

The sun came out once we were done with snorkeling.

After showering and changing and getting our CD of photos, we left the dive shop and headed to the American Village for tacos and an afternoon on the beach, stopping by a lighthouse on a cliff for some scenery. The beach was a little boring - we thought there'd be fish or whatever to see but there wasn't. But we were too tired to care. I found 2 x 100 yen coins in the public shower facilities which charged 100 yen for 3 minutes - so my 6 minute shower was free.

The long journey home involved driving back to Naha for a final bowl of Okinawan soba, returning the rental car, airport, aeroplane, airport, train, train, home.

Planning my next trip back to Okinawa

I will definitely need to come back for the diving - probably do it in the winter to avoid the crowds. And I'd come back for the food too.

Which reminds me - I will do a post on Okinawan food. Later.