Singapore/Malaysia Day 7: Rainforest and Batu Caves

November 27, 2010
Malaysia Day 7: Rainforest and Batu Caves

What a first night in Malaysia last night! That was amazing. We got up pretty early to get going and get rollin' on our first full day. I had a shower in the fancy sliding shower and it was pretty sweet. The headed down for the included breakfast buffet - it was AMAZING!! They started with our own coffee pot, and then I took off to go investigate the food. TripAdvisor had recommended that you make sure your room price included the breakfast buffet (it was only maybe $8 each more per night)... and it was GLORIOUS. I got some tiny glasses of smoothies, mango juice, STARFRUIT JUICE (?!), a mango smoothie, yoghurt, cheese plate, prunes and apricots with cloves, fish, smoked salmon and more. There were some order-your-own omelets that I didn't try. There was a grilled tomato with shiitake mushrooms and cheese, a "stringy beef brisket" which was like beef bacon but a bit too strong, there were hash browns, Indian curry (for breakfast?!), funny Japanese breakfast options, Malaysian desserts, a raspberry and custard mini-turnover (that was SO good!), nice and thick french toast (also, SO good!), more kinds of "energizing smoothies" and more. It was absolutely awesome.

We finished up, got our day packs, and headed off to the Suria KLCC mall. It was super hot so Matt bought some Hush Puppies shorts and I got cool white, beige, purple, orange New Balance casual shoes for $30. Good price! We then headed off to KL Sentral station and got on the KTM commuter train line. We were *definitely* the only tourists there.

Unfortunately we missed a train by only 2 min so we yapped for a bit while we waited for the next one about 20 min later. We got on the train to Kepong - that must be Malay for "middle of nowhere" :) As we got out of the station, it was immediately clear that the glam and shimmer of downtown KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) did not extend out of the city, and this was less showy and more "real". There were a lot of "shanty-style" poorer houses. Matt mentioned it reminded him of Cuba, as there were a lot of half-built houses. It reminded me a bit of the villages outside of JoBurg in South Africa. Interesting. This was a heck of a contrast to the fancy downtown area.

We jumped into a "Teksi" to FRIM (Forest Research Institute of Malaysia). It took about 20 min and was only 10RM ($3). FRIM is a research facility rainforest that was set up by the British in 1929. We were really psyched to check it out despite that it was getting hotter and humid outside. There was a really cool canopy walk that we wanted to try which was supposed to close at 1:30. We made it just in time but as it turns out you need to register by 12:00! Bah!

Turns out that wasn't a big deal at all because you can do most of the walk anyway, just not the 30m high canopy walk part, but you can walk under it. We walked up the hill and it was amazing in there but very hot and humid. Crazy! We took lots of breaks and met a few other travelers along the way. We got to the top and I was soooo hot and sweaty but it was totally worth it. We walked back down the other side of the hill and saw some monkeys and large ants. We then got back to the main park information, and asked for a tea place. There were also lots of cute but stray cats running around. He pointed us towards the "canteen" but it seemed boring and more like a cafeteria rather than a cool tea place. So we skipped that and kept following signs on the winding park road towards a place called "Malay Tea House." It was a LONG walk, and just as we were about to give up and walk back, there was another "Malay Tea House" sign! Man! So we kept trekking for it and figured it would ultimately be worth it.

30 min later, we arrived at the Malay Tea House, which looked so cool! It was set up in a very typical fashion and we loved the architecture. This place turned out to be an adventure in itself. I got a cold guava leaf tea which was amazing, and a hot teh tarik. We got a few Malaysian desserts which were interesting, and Matt tried some gluten rice. We then had even more tea and I bought some Emas Cotek (Mistletoe Fig) tea. It was hard to tell but it seemed like the Mistletoe Fig tea was the one they used in the Teh Tarik (which was amazing), so I got that one.

And then... we just wanted to leave. This is when it got, uh, interesting.

The clouds outside had finally had enough of the humidity and it was about to POUR. We asked the lady, "Can you please call us a teksi?" Her response? "No teksi." Uhhhhh....???

We asked several times, hoping that maybe they had just misunderstood us. But it seemed they were dodging our question and request for help. That suuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccked!! I was getting really nervous because at this point I had NO idea what to do, and it was seriously monsooning outside. It was really coming down like crazy. I was really nervous about how to get out of there. Stupid Lonely Planet told us to get dropped off by a taxi at FRIM and then "ask them to come back a couple of hours later"?! We figured that would be ridiculous so we thought that reasonably, someone would call us a taxi when we were ready to head out. I guess not!

I asked the lady again and asked if they could call and say we'd give an extra tip. She then said, "Taxis don't come in here when it's raining" - ?!?!?!!!! What the?!?!? It was pretty clear we were wasting our time trying to get help from the useless servers at the restaurant and so we asked around some of the fellow customers. There were a couple of Indian Folks and we explained our problem - at first they seemed apprehensive: "are there only 2 of you?" but they agreed to take us to the subway station if we waited for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, an older man had been listening in to our entire conversation and had overheard our struggle. He came up to us and offered to drive us right away!!!! Amazing. The waitresses were friggin' useless and not helpful, and didn't seem to care about us at all. That sucked but my faith in the decency of humankind was kindly renewed by the older man. :)

As I was chatting with the older man, it turned out that he and his wife studied at Cornell, and I think he said he also studied at McGill and had been to Canada before. Very cool. He was unfamiliar with the area and he asked the waitresses where the train station was and they were totally not helpful to him too! He said instead he could drop us at a main road where taxis are, and we were super happy to go for that plan.

I was in the old man's car, waiting for Matt and getting ready to get dropped off at the main road... and then... a TAXI ARRIVED. WHAT!!!!!!!!! It turned out that the taxi was there and arrived to pick up a delivery/dishes from the Malay Tea House. What the hell!??!!!!!! This was insane as the waitresses had glasses ready for the taxi driver and clearly knew he was coming. I have no idea why they didn't tell us. This was way past a cultural misunderstanding, I am pretty sure the ladies there were just jerks. Matt talked to the cab driver and secured us a 10 RM fare to Batu Caves. I offered the old man 10 RM for all of his trouble but he wouldn't take it. I said thank you a million times because I was so relieved to get out of there. It seemed like we'd been trapped for hours. (It was probably only 45 min, but it was rough!) We got in the cab, and were out of there, finally. WOW. I told Matt later I had irrational thoughts in my head like we were never going to be able to leave there and we'd have to give up our jobs in the US and become "Chai Wallas" - tea servers - for the rest of our lives at the Malay Tea House. That was INSANE. Well, at least it makes a good story! :)

After that commotion we headed to Batu Caves, which was AMAZING. The huge Hindu "Cave Temple" consisted of a huge statue of Murugan and 272 steps up to an amazing cave temple. We walked up the steps and admired the artwork on the top of the entrances. There were some cheeky monkeys on the steps on our way up, which was hilarious. At the top of the stairs there was some unexpected touristy stuff, like you could get your photo taken with a snake. We walked by the souvenirs and into the big cave with a really huge ceiling. There were some crazy stalactites. I also kept hearing a rooster cock-a-doodle-doo-ing and I thought it was a tape recording for some reason. Then I turned around and there was a rooster and a hen just walking around!! haha!!!

There was a really amazing view from up there and we wandered around some more of the temples inside the cave. There were several shrines and temples in there. We then headed back down the stairs and got a taxi. I "bargained" a price of 40 RM back to the city to 35 RM and was soooo proud of myself. Matt laughed as I probably should have bargained it down to 15 RM :) We got back to our hotel, the Trader's Inn in KLCC. I had a much-needed relax and shower. After that I wanted to explore around downtown a bit and Matt was keen to just chill out in the hotel. After much debate I decided to head back to the Suria KLCC mall to hang out there for a bit.

It was cool, lots of interesting stores like Billabong, RipCurl, Nike, Adidas, similar stuff to Australia. It turned out that in the food court there was a McDonald's and the McD's in Singapore was sadly not very unusual. I really love McDonald's in foreign countries and it's always fun and hilarious to see how they have customized their menu to foreign tastes. I decided to get the most Malaysian-y thing on the menu and I ended up getting the Ayam Goreng McD (spicy) meal with cold Milo! You got some sort of BBQ flavouring and a shaker bag for fries which was fun.

After my random (and actually quite tasty) dinner, I did some more wandering. There was more stuff here to see than the Singapore malls generally as it was much more accessible than the malls we'd seen on Orchard Road by this point. Zara looked pretty good but was pretty expensive. I found a Quiksilver and got an awesome KL Malaysia Quiksilver shirt. Awesome!! Then I picked up some chocolate and drinks and water to take back to the hotel.

When I got back, Matt was tired and sleeping so I sat at the desk and finished off my journal catchup. Whew!! What a day!! I was really tired too. Tomorrow we'll try to go up the Petronas Towers, go the markets and back to Singapore.

After a long, crazy, insane, humid day, I went to sleep with the window shades open to our beautiful view of the Petronas Towers. Traders Hotel was SUCH a good choice!

Petronas Towers and humidity through our hotel windows

Petronas Towers

Suria KLCC mall

"Sweet chaise, man"

Cool bathroom lighting

Fancy shower door

Awesome marble sink lit from underneath

Fancy

Amazing breakfast restaurant

Omelette Bar and more awesome stuff

Super excited at the first round - "breakfast pizza", grilled tomato, mini-quiches, Malaysian dessert, coffee, freshly squeezed juices

Round 2 - beef "floss" (like a thin beef bacon-style, it was weird), french toast with mango, cheese, fresh papaya, more squeezed juices and smoothies

Matt, cracking an egg (or shaking some salt?)

Me, super excited for this awesome breakfast

In the taxi on the way to FRIM rainforest

At the rainforest, it was hot there!!

Cars with their wipers up

Huge leaf. Matt for scale comparison.

Sooo rainforesty!!!

Weird, a rubber tree!

At the top of the hike

Durian tree?

The canopy walkway that was closed when we got there, but we were hoping to walk on it.

Turns out it looked a little treacherous anyway

Matt as it started to rain in the rainforest

After the hike we found a random fenced-in area with a whole bunch of chemicals labeled "Toxik" and so on. Weird. The fence around it looked like it had eroded a bit and the smell was weird and off-putting. No idea why this was in the rainforest?! Needless to say, we didn't stick around!

Back near the information area

A cat and the Malaysian flag

And, one of my favourite photos of the trip! A perfectly placed orange cat, and the Malaysian flag.

Then the cats took off cause we were too noisy.

Malay desserts once we got to the Malay Tea House

Some excellent cold tea

Tea that really hit the spot after we'd cooled down

Then it started to "Monsoon" outside, it was pouring!!

View from the front door

Arriving at Batu Caves

The statue of Murugan from the front gate

Ganesh and other awesome sculptures

Close-up of the sculptures

Murugan statue

Awesome

Ready to walk up the stairs into the cave temple!

Really excited to see the cave temple

At the base of the Murugan statue

Monkeys!

More monkeys as we were climbing the stairs

Matt inside the cave

Me inside the cave

Temple at the top of the stairs

How did these chickens get here! Chickens on the move!

This rooster was loud

More cool sculptures

Writing on the cave walls

A fire that was burning at the 2nd cave level

Flower wreaths that people were buying to give as an offering at the temple

Haha, I'd been trying to get a photo of this sign - there is a town called Ipoh, and earlier we'd seen food called Ipoh Chicken. Of course, from then on, I kept asking Matt if he wanted to get iPod Chicken for dinner.

Matt exhausted from a super busy day of exploring, heat and humidity

Then I went to the mall and got a cool KL shirt from Quicksilver (see my purchases in the reflection from the window)

Kinect MotionBuilder realtime motion capture device

Siiiiiiiiick! This guy connected an XBox Kinect camera to MotionBuilder. Super awesome!!


(Via CMogk)

Candace Bailey Visits Skywalker Ranch

Great video from Skywalker Ranch just posted on G4. Nice work, Dave!! Hilarious.

Wii Games - E3 2011 - LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

Siiiiiiiiick Mtn Biking vids

Been meaning to post these for ages. Absurdly sick video from British Mtn Biking legend, Chris Akrigg. Also a crazy one here from Danny MacAskill, some REALLY crazy stuff. Great editing too.

Chris Akrigg TEOCALI.0 from chris akrigg on Vimeo.

Tea and Toast, hilarious


This is insane!

1979 Muppet Movie Tests

Some real comedy gold in here, definitely worth watch through these:

My new all-in-one photo printer

In addition to a whole lot of chatting, advice getting, seeing friends, catching up with old buddies, playing some awesome wrestling games on Nintendo Wii over New Years, and eating tons of Jutan family cooking, I also managed to plan the flights and accommodation for almost our entire upcoming Europe trip as well as research and buy a new printer. :) Good vacation!!

My old HP DeskJet dried up and has been printing in pink only for the last 6 months, and my old Canon CanoScan scanner is from 2001 in Newcastle, Australia. Needless to say, there are no drivers for 64-bit Windows 7!

As such, it was time for one of those famed "All-in-One" printers. I thought they might suck cause they are trying to do too much at once, but really they are pretty amazing now. I wanted to switch away from HP and it looked like either Canon or Lexmark (or HP) had high marks on the CNet ratings. I ended up going with the "Canon PIXMA MG5220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One" - long word, but awesome printer.

It was only $89 on Amazon which is pretty solid, and seemed the best bang for the buck. I was also looking a couple models up at the Canon PIXMA MG8120 ($220) and sideways at the Canon PIXMA MX870 ($140).

The MX870 is an "Office InkJet" meaning it has an auto-feeder which is cool, but it's a bit larger and heavier. It also has a fax which is utterly useless since I don't have a landline and I'll be sad that I can't send any faxes.

The MG8120 is the fancied-up version of the MG5220, and it's essentially the same as the MG5220 except it's (slightly) faster to print, has a higher-res scanner, has a dedicated grey ink added to the CMYK+extra black, and comes with a film negative scanner plate (which actually I was considering using). Given that I'm probably going to eventually send my 100+ rolls of old negatives to ScanCafe or a similar service, I decided to save the extra $150 (difference between the MG5220 and the MG8120) and I'll spend it on getting someone else to automatically scan my 100,000,000 negatives for me. Good choice I think.

So after all that, why stick with the $89 MG5220? Well, it's the cheapest model that still has all the features I wanted: duplex-printing, the separated C, M, Y colour cartridges (rather than having only 1 dedicated colour cartridge), fast print speed, a nice pretty high-res flatbed scanner, and, of course, the automatic open/close printer output tray!! Haha that is so cool and awesome, it's going to be much smaller and less of a space hog compared to my old HP DeskJet.

Due to the magic of Amazon, I can order it now and have it show up when I get home which is just so cool. Hooray!! Looking forward to being able to print reasonable stuff at home again and having a scanner connected to my main computer is going to make things so much less annoying. Right now I've got to get out my old scanner and somehow attach it to my old laptop which is currently attached to my TV as a media center. Then I have to sit on the floor and use the wireless mouse on the TV to scan the images. Then I have to email them to myself so I can pick them up on my main computer. Definitely pretty bad workflow :) So the new printer/scanner is gonna be sweet, and the distinctly missing fax feature won't make me sad that I can't send a fax because I don't have a landline.

Sincerely, your favourite shopping/researching badass,
Jutan

Skype Video Chat for iPhone

Heeeeeeeeeeeeck yessssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-mobile/download/iphone-for-skype/?intcmp=ch1-iphone

Now I'm just waiting for the rumoured Verizon iPhone...

iPod Touch digitizer replacement... oy

When I was in Singapore the humidity and possibly AC blasting like crazy got the better of my poor old iPod Touch 2nd Gen. I finally had a chance to go to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store today and the guy said it's out of warranty (that's what I figured) and Apple charges a standard fee of $200 for fixes. WHAT!!!!!!!!! That's what I'd heard, but pretty crazy since a new iPhone 4 costs the same price. :)

The guy kindly suggested there were "alternative solutions online", though he mentioned the iPod Touch 2nd Gen screen was a bit harder than others to remove.

I looked into it and it looks like you can buy some "prying tools" for about $4 on Ebay made specifically for iPod screen removal. Sweet. You have to do it carefully as there is some ribbon cable attached that you will rip if you do it too quickly.

After that you remove the screen and digitizer (that, apparently is what is busted in my iPod). You then attach the new one, snap it back together somehow and voila, new iPod.

This sounds a little nerve-wracking and they said you can crack the glass when you open it, but the replacement part comes with glass and the digitizer together which is pretty sweet.

Given that the replacement part is as cheap as about $15 online, and the tools are $5, I think I am going to at least try this out and see if I can get it to work. Pretty nuts but it's worth a shot.

Singapore/Malaysia Day 6: Videos: SkyBar club

An awesome night out at SkyBar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Great view of the Petronas Towers, good tunes, and a fiery beverage - Absinthe prepared Bohemian style.

Singapore/Malaysia Day 6: Laksa is gross / Off to Kuala Lumpur

November 26, 2010
Malaysia Day 6: Off to Kuala Lumpur

Breakfast was great this morning, I got to try dragonfruit for the first time! After the eyeball-curry extravaganza last night I wanted to stick with "safe" foods (at least for this morning). The dragonfruit sure looked crazy (it looked like a sliced Hershey's Cookies and Creme chocolate bar) but it was on the fruit table next to the kiwis, so I knew I was safe and it wasn't reindeer intestines or something.

Matt and I headed to work and got Kopi at the same place as yesterday, that stuff is so good. We had quite a busy day at work, took part in a goodbye photo for Tad (he rocks) who is sadly leaving next week and went down to the Hawker center below the office building for some good Indian Food. I got a freshly squeezed Mango/Grape/Orange juice and it rocked. We found a snack store which sells a lot of Australian/Britishy candy, so I was excited for that. There was Cadbury Dairy Milk, as well as Fruitips fruit pastilles in weird flavours (Mango, Litchi). Sweet.

After work we took the MRT train only 1 stop to the airport! Amazing!! It was so quick. We checked in and headed to go find some pre-flight dinner. We found "Chicken Laksa" - a sort of chicken variant of the famed Laksa soup. There were lots of Halal logos everywhere and although it often has pork or shellfish in it, it appeared I could finally try the Laksa. Or so we thought! As it turns out, Laksa smells like smelly socked feet.

A quick disclaimer: this *was* in the Chiangi airport low-cost terminal food court, but that shouldn't be a good excuse as to why the Laksa smelled like a punch to the face. The food at Crystal Jade in the other terminal is some of the best Chinese food I ever had. Ergo: Laksa is gross.

Matt spotted the potential gross-ness of my food choice and lined up at a fried chicken place called "Texas Chicken". As he was lined up, I asked him to secure me a backup plan in case the soup was terrible and tasted as bad as it smelled (it did). I just got a small combo of Chicken and Fries... and Matt said, "That's it?" with a very correct presumption that I would be eating the backup plan in its entirety. It turns out that was a great call. "This smells like Laksa!" would become our catch-phrase any time we walked by something rank. Sorry Singapore - we like that you like Laksa, but we can't handle it.

We arrived in KL pretty quickly. The flight was only 45 min and we got to the LCCT (Low-Cost Carrier Terminal), and walked off one of those funny staircases onto the tarmac. Our plan was to take the KLIA express train as-per Lonely Planet's instructions but we were not at the main terminal, so that was not an option. We asked around for some information and a Muslim couple gave us the details re: catching a 1hr bus instead. We headed for the bus and it was a super cheap option, only 9 RM - approx $3!! That kind of airport transfer bus would have been $30 in Toronto!! We spent about 1 hr on the bus, and it started raining for a few minutes on the way into the center of Kuala Lumpur.

We got to KL Sentral station and then headed to the Subway to go to KLCC. We got out at the Suria KLCC mall - most things were closed but it looked pretty awesome. We then walked to Trader's Hotel, and asked someone for directions: "Turn over there, go straight and... huhhh!" the man said as he flung his arm upwards. The "huhhh!" meant, "It's a schlep". We were carrying only our hand-luggage so that wasn't too bad but it was still quite warm outside. We ended up going a very strange, backwards way to the hotel, through some construction zone action and finally arrived there about 30 min later. We got into the hotel and it looked REALLY fancy and awesome. This was a good choice (thanks, TripAdvisor!) We'd researched this in advance and it was #2 on the recommended list of 100+ hotels in KL on TripAdvisor, and we were totally psyched.

Up we went to the 18th floor, checked into our sick room, and it was great. Thankfully everything we requested worked out - high floor number, 2 beds, PETRONAS TOWERS VIEW!!!! This was perfect. It was so sick. The hotel was really fancy and well set-up, there was a marble bathroom, a cool sliding glass door shower, a "chaise", a loungey couch thing, etc.

We headed up to the SkyBar which we'd heard was a popular spot... and it was only a change-from-shorts-to-long-pants and an elevator ride away from our room. And it turns out it WAS AMAZING!!!!!!! There was a pool in the middle of the room which was super slick (and a bit hazardous, if you think about it!) but lots of non-slip mats around the pool :) It gave a great ambiance and there were lounge couches everywhere, even in the window-wells with a view of the Petronas Towers. It was soooo baller. I got a fancy Mojito and a moment later a waiter came up to us and said, "Do you guys want a seat?" They led us to a couch with a great view, and there was certainly a lot of people-watching to be done as well. :)

There were tons of people there, as we were chillin', a whole bunch of people wandered by, dancing and having a great time. The music was AWESOME. Really great DJ, awesome ambiance and view of the KLCC and the pool really added to the mystique of the place. Very cool. Great club music, perfect for the setting. There was an astonishingly large amount of beautiful people there, and everyone was dressed up to the nines. No wonder they said no shorts allowed, and thank goodness Matt had an extra pair of jeans I could borrow! It was also very multicultural there, which was neat. I heard some British accents, and saw lots of Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, African people. Amazing! Everyone was really well dressed and it was such a cool and classy place. I was so glad we went.

The drinks were pretty expensive but fancy, and we wanted to prolong the night a bit because it was super fun there and the view and music were amazing. They had a 52% and a 68% Absinthe on the menu which sounded cool, you could get "French or Bohemian-style"?! I had no idea what that meant so I asked the waiter which one was the most popular. This turned out to be the equivalent of ordering a Bananas Foster dessert in California. The waiter prepared it "Bohemian Style" which involves a sugar cube lit on fire and then he repeatedly lit the drink in the cup on fire. It was very cool! I guess Absinthe has a weird rep from when it was bootlegged years and years ago and made a whole bunch of French poets crazy or something. But nowaways it's just a regular drink and I've even seen it at the LCBO in Canada. The lighting-on-fire-ness of the preparation was really cool and elicited some attention from people around us, "What is that?!" the guy beside us asked. That was funny.

After the excitement at the 32nd floor SkyBar, we had a quick wander outside in KLCC park. It was dark but I was driven to find a Campus Pizza-style pizza vendor selling late night Pizza and garlic-parmesan sauce. Matt reminded me that this was not Waterloo, Ontario, and we'd probably be better off getting some room service instead. We headed back to the room for 2:30am ish and checked the room service menu - it was so cheap! The most affordable room service I've ever seen. I ordered an excellent Fish and Chips meal for only $10, including taxes and service fees. Crazy. This included the regular 10% tax and 5% service fee, but there was no "late night $20 surcharge" like in Scottsdale, Arizona at the Maya Developers Conference. :)

The food was super good and we were asleep by about 3:45am. We knew exactly what time it was because there was a HUGE LED clock building right outside our window - like a huge alarm clock. We slept with the window shades open so we could admire the glorious view of Kuala Lumpur. A great start to an exciting weekend!

Urrggh, Chicken Laksa from the airport! We were told that this was one of the favourite dishes of Singapore. Maybe it was just because it was from the Low-Cost Terminal, but it smelled like socked feet!

SkyBar on top of the Traders' Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. View of the Petronas Towerrrrss!!

So siiiiiiiiick!!! KL!!!!!!!!!

Matt and Me at the SkyBar in KL

What a sick view!!

The party was REALLY bumpin' up there and we were wondering why it was so packed. Turns out it was a special event - "Africa Night". So awesome!!

Then we took a wander looking for Campus Pizza-like Pizza or something tasty for a late night. We found only an abandoned city park and no people. :) Oh yeah, and the sweet Petronas Towers.

We gave up on a food search and walked back to the hotel - and then realized that room service was really cheap!! Cabernet rockin' some Pad Thai.

I got a super good fish and chips meal for like $10!

Introducing Word Lens

Wooohhoaaaaaa

Singapore/Malaysia Day 5: Fish Head Curry

November 25, 2010
Singapore Day 5: Fish Head Curry

I was up at 5am again this morning and was totally awake so I just got up and checked email and Facebook. I was so awake that it wasn't worth going back to sleep, so I got up and started taking photos of the Singapore skyline. I headed down to breakfast early and laughed for the 100th time at the overenthusiastic elevator in our hotel that said, "Door... ooopening!" every time the doors opened. Absolutely hilarious.

My time zone is still pretty off but it's working out well for getting into work at a good time. We headed to work and got some Kopi on the way - it is SO sweet. This is the Singaporean-style coffee, and it has a LOT of condensed milk in it. Super good. It also came with a hilarious plastic bag handle, which I laughed about for like the entire day. At work in the morning it was Roti Prata day, which was soooo good too. There was some nice spicy Fish Curry sauce and you poured that onto the flat naan-like pancakes, which you had just "chopped up" by using a pair of scissors! Funny. I had a great chat with Malcolm and we enjoyed the awesome breakfast food.

After the morning of work, we headed for lunch with Nigel to a place called Old Town, which is famous for their white coffee and "3-in-1" coffee (a to-go pack which contains instant coffee, milk, and sugar - you just add water). I got "Nasi lemak" which is a variant of Chicken Rice (which, I found out, is just chicken with rice!) It was really good and quite spicy, it came with lots of chili sauce and Nigel was impressed that I ate all of the sauce with the rice. It was a sort of fried chicken, with coconut rice and also with small dried anchovies and roasted peanuts on the side. I also got a very sweet Rose float, and tried my first Teh Tarek!! This is "pulled tea", and is very famous in Singapore. (From Wikipedia: "Its name is derived from the pouring process of "pulling" the drink during preparation. It is made from black tea and condensed milk.") It was very good, and was a bit like a Tea made out of coffee! It was very strongly brewed but sweet from the condensed milk. I loved it. It was SO good!! Nigel also got us some Kaya Butter toast to try - Nigel had brought us some Kaya to SF when he last came to visit, but it tasted different in the Singaporean style with butter on brown toast. Nigel said it was important that the toast was crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. It was great.

We got back for a busy afternoon at work and then... rain!!!!!! We finished off the day and went to go meet Charissa and Ian and I was SO jetlagged that I couldn't form a sentence. Everyone laughed, I must have sounded super crazy. WuiYi, Nigel, Matt and I walked to WuiYi's car and they kindly drove us to the restaurant. Matt and I were WAY super hyperactive due to the jetlag and lack of sleep, and we were acting super crazy in the car. I'm glad Nigel and WuiYi have a good sense of humour and are patient people :) We were NUTS!! We drove to an area near Orchard for Indian Food, and the place looked amazing.

We sat down at the restaurant and they had Banana Leaf placemats! I've never seen this before, and it was a great sign that we were about to try something very authentic. I saw an Indian couple on the way in, scooping up rice in their hands and dipping naan into their curry with their hands and it seemed oh-so authentic! Very cool. We got the rice first and they poured it right onto our placemats... awesome! Then out came the Naan and it was very interesting and SO good - I tried a "Chili Naan" which was unbelievably awesome, I've never tried any Naan like it ever before. So good!!!!!!!!! Then out came all the curries - Brinjul (Eggplant), Chicken Tikka, Chicken Curry, Mutton, and even Squid (Matt tried that one and said it was "very different"). I ordered a Lime juice (which was very good) and Matt got a coconut to drink! Haha!!

And then, the piece de resistance... Fish Head Curry (*ack!*). The curry itself was very good but incredibly spicy - I dipped my Naan in there and it was a spicy one. The Fish Head was literally in the bowl of curry and was pretty amazingly gross. Hah. I was enticed by Andy to try the cheek part, "it's the most tender part" - and it was quite good. The sauce with vegetables was nice and VERY spicy.

And then came the eyeballs. Ahh!!!!!!!! For some reason I was particularly grossed out but some people at the table were totally fearless!! Charissa ate one instantly, no problem, and Andy too!! Wow!!!!!! They were totally fearless and I was amazed. Ed even said that he enjoyed the eyeballs and there was a limit on them - one Fish Head curry, only 2 eyeballs! So he said if everyone else didn't want one, then he would have wanted one! Wow. This was definitely an experience to remember :) I "turned the colour of the lime juice" (turned green/yellow, haha) when Nigel suggested I eat one, but then Matt saved the day by saying, "I'll eat it!" He said it was Jello-y and it sounded soo grooosss!!! haha!! Wow. I hope I was good entertainment for the locals who were very comfortable with the idea of eyeballs, and I hope they were amused by how nervous I was, haha. :) Andy summed it up well, "It's all in your head" - I think that's probably why I was so worked up. It was truly amazing that the local Singapore folks ate the eyeballs with such ease! Also, Matt is crazy! Quite an evening, indeed.

After that we joked about the curry and started calling it "Eyeball curry" instead of "Fish Head curry". Our kind Singapore hosts drove us back to our hotel and we had a quick dessert of cheesecake and I did some laundry and wound-down for the night. I tried the TV for the first night but found only some random movies like "The House Bunny" - interesting choice for export from the US!

And off to bed, to dream of flying fish...

I woke up at 5am, so instead of going back to bed, I took photos of the Singapore skyline. :)

Quiet streets

The Merlion awakes!

More people up too early like me

The view from our balcony area

Cool building near our hotel with a Star of David on it

Kopi coffee with a HILARIOUS plastic bag handle, and Roti Prata for breakfast (mmm)

Friends at breakfast time

Chocolossus!!!!!! You are a champ.

The most Australian grin, ever. :)

Nigel excited for lunch

Me and a huge Rose float

Dinnertime at the Indian Restaurant which will now be famous for the "eyeball curry incident"

Excited for dinner

Lime Juice was a good choice!

Ian being super crazy!!

Me rockin' the banana-leaf placemats

"Wait, is this a napkin?"

Here comes the tasty curry!

Andy showing off all the different tasty curry options

Chicken Curries, and notice the rice directly on our banana-leaf placemats!

A squiddy/squid-ink curry

Nigel stirring the pot... of Fish Head Curry!!!!!!! Right after this, everyone started eating the eyeballs. Then I turned green. Then Matt ate an eyeball... and history was made.

Matt going for it!!!!!!

Matt not sure about the eyeball...

Matt contemplating his decision to eat an eyeball - "That's sortof the point of Fish Head curry!"

Singapore/Malaysia Day 4: Chinese Food and Orchard Road

November 24, 2010
Singapore Day 4: Chinese Food and Orchard Road

The jetlag woke me up again early, but this time only at 6:30 which was pretty sweet. I went down for breakfast and caught up on my journal. Across the road is a 24-hr bakery called Hanis Cafe and Bakery, but from the dining room at the hotel it looks like it says "Hanks". Upstairs at the building which houses Hanis Bakery is a Kaplan Learning Center, but from the view across the road I could sware they have a large-sized rectangular Toy Story 3 Colourscript on the wall. :) So Matt and I started joking that Pixar's (well, non-existent) Singapore office was across the road and we started calling the bakery "Tom Hanks" (get it, he's in Toy Story) instead of "Hanis." Yes, this is how a jet-lagged computer scientist's brain works. Don't ask me, I just work here. :)

And off to work! We are teaching a lot of classes here and the classes started today, which was awesome. After the morning of discussions/emails/work, we met up with Nigel and Chris and took off to Chiangi Airport for some amazing Chinese food. We got "Drunken" chicken, eggs in different styles, a fish & tofu with chili (which was AMAZING!!) and a Beef and Mushrooms dish (SO GOOD!!!!!!!) This was really great food and it's so funny it was at the airport! Not like SFO - where you might find a Starbucks if you're lucky and you will definitely find a $12 sandwich with brown lettuce and gross bread. :) So that was totally amazing!

We got back to work and found a Wall's Ice Cream guy outside of the office! Yes!! I was going to have my chance to try the Durian Ice Cream "Sandwich" that Matt had talked about! Instead of putting your ice cream in a cup or a cone, you can choose wafers (boring) or a sort of food colouring-infused Neopolitan Bread, which they fold in half and put your Ice Cream in between! The guy sliced a huge rectangle of Ice Cream and laughed at me when I excitedly ordered the Durian flavour. They had some "normal" kinds too like Coffee, Mint Chocolate, and... uh... Yam (?!) but I wanted to get Durian for sure. The first half was good, it was awesome to have Ice Cream on a hot day, and it was so weird that it was on a slice of white bread. So weird! But about halfway through, the Durian flavour started to get the upper-hand, and it started taking on a distinct flavour of Thanksgiving dinner, and Onions. Gross, and awesome!!

We got back inside to work and Charissa told us she was planning a dinner for us for tomorrow night. Matt is obsessed with the Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings (or "XLB" for short), so Charissa gave us a great recommendation for dinner. She recommended "Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao" in Ngee Ann City/Takashimaya Mall at Orchard Road.

After a great first day of teaching, we headed to Orchard Road after work. This is an INSANE shopping area, with lots of beautiful lights. But... it's a lot like Union Square in some ways - Tiffany's, Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, etc. Our first impression was that there was a LOT of High End stuff only. We saw like 1,000 Coach and Louis Vuitton stores. There are only so many high-fashion handbags that we needed to purchase (haha) so we took off from the really fancy area and wandered around a bit. Eventually we found a Marks and Spencer and got some British candy. Then in the sea of pricey stuff... Uni Qlo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, Uni Qlo!!!!!!! This was the so-called "Asian Gap" that I loved in Japan last year and was trying to find at the Narita Airport. So awesome!! I was really excited to see it. We took a quick look but we were tired and they were closing up at about 10pm so we decided to head back to Dhoby Ghaut. The weather was a little cooler today, maybe even a bit less humid. (Still 26 C though!)

On the way home, I got a few juices for the hotel room (they had Ribena! So British!) We got back to the hotel rooms early and I called Mom for her Birthday with my iPod Touch, external microphone and Skype. Fancy!

After a long day of excitement and humidity and food, it was time for a good sleep. This time, to bed by 12! Good stuff.

Out for Chinese Food at Chiangi Airport, Terminal 3!

"Drunken Chicken" - it was good

Ice Cream "Sandwich" cart guy!! This was amazing. You could get an Ice Cream (literal) "Sandwich" - see the stack of food colouring-infused bread on top of the plastic bin? They cut a rectangular block of Ice Cream and then fold it up in the bread! Amazing.

Matt, Me, and a foggy lens

Re-touched to remove some of the fogginess. This is me eating a Durian Ice Cream "Sandwich" - literally a rectangular block of Durian-flavoured Ice Cream inside of a folded piece of bread. Oh, Singapore.

At this point through the Durian Ice Cream Sandwich, I was still happy to be eating Ice Cream on a warm, humid day. A moment later, the Durian turned on me and it started tasting less like Ice Cream and more like a Thanksgiving Turkey dinner with Onions. Gross. But I still ate it all. It rocked.

We took Charissa's recommendation and went to a Chinese Food restaurant specializing in Xiao Long Bao (Chinese Pork Soupy Dumplings) since Matt loved them.

I couldn't try the Xiao Long Bao (or "XLB" for short), but there was some amazing beef, veggie dumplings, and lots of other great stuff.

Wandering around Orchard Road

Matt liked the Christmas lights

More Christmas lights

"Live in harmony with one another"