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Posts Tagged ‘travel’

The Road Home

July 10, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Singapore Airport has the best piece of public art. It is hundreds of silver tear drops, each suspended on a transparent thread and animated to move up and down in a variety of patterns. Very zen.

It was mesmerizing. We could have easily missed our plane while watching it.

Luckily, we tore ourselves away and made it back to Dubai safe and sound. Our plan for getting back to Fujairah from Dubai was a reverse of how we got there (taxi – bus – taxi). We fully expected to have a long wait in the heat waiting for the bus, however, we could not have timed it better if we tried. We arrived at the bus stop at 2:40 pm. A bus was waiting and it departed at 2:45 with us on it.

Posted in Dubai, Fujairah, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged public art, Singapore, travel | Leave a Comment »

Singapore: Days Twelve & Thirteen

July 7, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

With only two days to go and a long list of things we hadn’t done, I had to beg off for a bit of a rest, so most of day 12 was spent with my feet up. Then, it was time for dinner.

Our friend, Adrianna, guided us on our evening repast adventure. First we stopped for a snack of sashimi. Our final destination was a small Japanese restaurant (Restaurant Chako) in which it is best to call/email ahead to get your order in, because everything is prepared fresh, even the sauces. Therefore, dinner can take a few hours to complete. (We all forgot to take pictures of the appetizers – oops! We had edamame [soy beans], shishamo [small grilled fish], and maguro yamakake [raw tuna with yam sauce])

DaddyBird’s dinner was yosenabe (claypot soup with seafood, chicken, mushroom, and tofu).

Adrianna’s dinner was unatamaju (broiled eel on scrambled egg and rice).

I had the Chako set meal (mackerel, breaded chicken, breaded cuttlefish, rice, cabbage salad, potato salad, miso soup, etc.).

We added tempura moriawase (shrimp and vegetables). It was all very delicious. Everything was prepared fresh and it doesn’t get more authentic than this.

We capped it all off with several desserts. Above is coffee flavored gelatin, below is green tea ice cream. Not pictured – cappuccino ice cream and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame ice cream was really interesting – almost more savory than sweet.

Our plan for the last day was to go to the bird park, but when we woke up it was raining heavily, so change of plans. The Asian Civilizations Museum was within walking distance of our hotel and offered an escape from the rain.

The rain had let up briefly, so it was a pleasant walk down the riverside.

We joined a tour that was starting when we arrived. The subject was the influence and use of Chinese art and style in other cultures.

This elephant is Chinese porcelain that was then modified in Turkey with the addition of the metal parts changing it into a hookah base (shisha pipe).

The museum presents all cultures and religions of Asia.

This bowl was made in Iraq attempting to emulate Chinese porcelain, but instead creating a unique and beautiful piece with a style of it’s own.

We left with a long list of places we didn’t go and things we didn’t do, but we enjoyed Singapore very much and will probably go back again.

Posted in food, museum, restaurant, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged food, Japanese restaurant, museum, sashimi, Singapore, tempura, travel | Leave a Comment »

Singapore: Day Eleven

July 4, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

The day began with a metro train trip to Chinatown and pork buns.

These were not just steamed, but also seared for a crusty outside. Tasty!

These pigeons had found the motherlode in the food court and were eating as fast as they could.

DaddyBird chose his lunch based on the length of the line at this food booth without knowing exactly what he was going to get.

This is what he ended up with -soup with fish balls and tofu.

I got a similar soup with greens and noodles from a different food stall.

Our tourist activity of the day was to go to the top of the Marina Bay Sands Towers to the Skypark observation deck.

We purposely got there just before sunset so we could see it in daylight and night time.

The view straight down (Kris this one’s for you.)

This is what people think of the “Do Not Sit on the Deck” signs. Let me rant a bit here about how stupid it is to create a tourist attraction without places to sit down. It is really rude, in my opinion. Tourists are on their feet all day and deserve a place to rest, especially if you want them to stick around (and spend money).

The Singapore Flyer lit up at night.

The view across the bay.

Dinner included burgers.

They claim to be healthy, but the only clarification in the menu or signage was that they are not prepared ahead and kept under a heat lamp. No claims of organic or low fat ingredients. No whole grain buns. So, there is room to improve the “healthy” factor. (Correction: DaddyBird says that whole grain buns were an option listed in the menu.)

It looks more like a Dagwood sandwich than a burger. The patty was savory, which seems to be hard to come by in my burger experiences.

The chili cheese fries also beg the “healthy” factor. They tasted good, but the chili was not hot enough to melt the cheese.

Posted in food, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged burgers, chili cheese fries, food, Marina Bay Sands Towers, Marina Bay Skypark, Singapore, travel | 1 Comment »

Singapore: Day 10

July 3, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

We opted for an uncharacteristically touristy activity – riding the site seeing bus. Let’s face it, we’re getting old and walking everywhere in humid heat is a bit exhausting. This way, we got to sit in air conditioning, see the sights, and learn some details from the canned tour commentary that we wouldn’t have known otherwise.

We started on the Heritage route which took us through Little India, Chinatown, and other older parts of the city.

There is a lot of high density housing here. At least they try to make it attractive.

We hopped off at Suntec City Mall for lunch.

DaddyBird had the “white carrot cake” which is a big, spicy omelette with white radish and shrimp in it. I had char siew and roast duck.

In the absence of lime juice, I tried the delicious celery juice.

Our ticket also included rides on water taxis, so we took another ride on the river on one of these.

We got off at the Marina Bay Sands complex. The complex includes hotel, shopping mall, conference center, casino, and probably more.

There is even a canal with boat rides.

We were headed to the Art and Science Museum for the Harry Potter Exhibition. No photography was allowed, so you will have to imagine what we saw. I stood three feet from Snape’s costume, unfortunately Alan Rickman was not in it. It was a well designed exhibit, although it was aimed at a younger demographic than DaddyBird and I. The Sorting Hat sorted us – I am Ravenclaw and DaddyBird is Griffyndor.

By the time we finished the sun was down and we were exhausted from a long day of tourism, so it was off to Brewerkz again for dinner. Above is potato skins appetizer with cheese, bacon bits and dip.

DaddyBird opted for the Cowboy Burger – bacon, cheese, and BBQ sauce. I had the Bangers and Mash. I am certain that the sausages were good, but they were overshadowed by the cheesy mash potatoes and sauerkraut. I very nearly asked for additional sauerkraut. Yummy!

Below is the sign that is posted in the area where the brewery vats are visible. We found it amusing.

I think they mean business.

Posted in food, malls, signs, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged food, museum, shopping, signs, Singapore, tourist, travel, water taxi | 1 Comment »

Singapore: Day Five

June 28, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Yes, we are eating again. Every day, it seems. This is Indian food from a restaurant next door to our hotel. Chicken tikka, malai kofta, onion pakora, garlic naan, and butter naan. (Around $20.00 / $16 US)

We ventured out by way of metro train and our feet. I love the trees here. Lovely, old growth trees with ferns growing in their joints.

This bus stop was covered in red octopi. Apparently, Octo is the mascot for a bank.

Then we reached the motherlode – Kinokuniya Bookstore. I brought three books with me (actually four because one is two books bound together). They won’t last me the entire trip. I have already finished two. So, this necessitated the acquisition of MORE.

The fact that they separate Science Fiction from Fantasy makes me love this bookstore even more. Lumping these two genres together is just dumb.

Have I mentioned that I love the trees here?

Then, to Food Road Chinatown. Yes, I really did see a sign that said “Food Road Chinatown.” It is lined with restaurants and food booths. We had pork buns ($1.00 each).

Then we walked past this Buddhist temple, which, according to the map, is Buddha’s Tooth Relic Temple.

Have I mentioned the TREES? Behind these trees is the Maxwell Food Centre.

Food centers (or hawker centers) are roofed areas with many small food booths and most anything to eat or drink. This is where the best chicken and rice is, according to Adrianna and Anthony Bourdain (TV travel/food show host).

There was a long line, a good sign.

Here it is. It was cheaper than the chicken rice we had previously ($7.00 / $5.50 US for both servings). The soup, however, did not have peanuts and lotus root in it, just broth. It was not served with as many cucumbers, either. Tasted very good, but I did not see a significant difference from the previous meal.

We headed back to the hotel with our books for an early evening.

Posted in food, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged Buddhist temple, food, octopi, Singapore, travel, trees | 2 Comments »

Singapore: Day Three

June 26, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Well, we finally managed to get out and enjoy the day while the sun was up instead of jet lagged napping.

It began with breakfast at a restaurant just down the street from our hotel. “All day breakfast” is a good thing. The pancakes you may recognize. DaddyBird’s entree is scrambled paneer and toast.

This plus hot chocolate and masala tea set us back $19.40 ($15.18 US). Then we walked to the nearest metro train station and travelled by train.

As you can see, mid-weekday traffic is light.

We were tall enough that we had to buy tickets in order to ride.

They have tourist passes. We bought a three day pass for $30.00 ($10.00 of which is refundable upon return of the pass card). With this we can ride unlimitedly on bus or train. Very handy.

We took the train to Chinatown.

In the middle of Chinatown, we found an Austrian running a German sausage stand, of course. On our way back to the hotel we stopped and got some sausages to go. Yummy!

We stopped for some refreshing drinks – lime juice, Kickapoo Joy Juice, and barley water.

We stopped to enjoy the pigeons in the park.

There were many things for sale.

We stopped for a late afternoon meal of char shiew, roast pork, and roast duck. ($4 worth of duck, $10 worth of pork)

Kang kong (greens) – too spicy for me. DaddyBird had to eat these all himself.

Pork dumplings.

To wash it all down, a Jungle Beer Porter (brewed in Singapore) and a Stone Brewing Arrogant Bastard Ale (brewed in CA, DaddyBird’s home state).

Both from the Good Beer Company.

Then it was back through Chinatown to the metro, then through Little India to our hotel and sleep, sleep, sleep.

Posted in food, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged beer, Chinatown, dumplings, food, pork, Singapore, travel | 3 Comments »

Singapore: Day Two

June 25, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

We slept late and went to a little restaurant next door to our hotel for “breakfast” around 2pm. For those not familiar with Indian food, the white thing in the middle is called idly. It is a plain bread that has a little zip in the taste similar to sourdough. The four puddles at the top are sauces to be eaten with the idly. They are all too spicy for me. The bowl at the left is a soup called sambal. It was a little spicy, but mild enough that I could manage it.  The bowl at the right is curd rice (like rice and cottage cheese together) and as long as I pick out the pieces of chili pepper, I can eat this.

We also had coffee. The whole lunch was more expensive than we expected. We are spoiled with our Fujairah prices. Each piece of idly was $1.65 (Singaporean dollars, $1.29 US). The total for the lunch of 4 idly, 2 curd rice, and 2 coffees was $19.35 ($15.14 US).

This was followed by a shopping trip into the Mustafa Centre which is a humongous shopping centre across the street from our hotel. It is, in fact, multiple buildings connected by under the street passages. You can buy most anything there if you are hardy enough to find what you are looking for. Surprisingly, it was easier to find a book light than a hair brush.

The shopping trip was so exhausting that it was followed by napping.

Next on our agenda was a walk back to the Arab Street area and dinner at Kampong Glam Cafe (Malaysian food).

Lime Soda

Gado Gado – peanut sauce, hard boiled eggs, tofu, and miscellaneous other ingredients.

My non-spicy noodles (name of dish unknown) – noodles, chicken, garlic, and onions.

DaddyBird’s nasi goreng (rice) with spicy chicken.

This was followed by a taxi ride back to the hotel and much more sleeping. We will try to do something touristy, eventually.

Posted in food, Singapore | Tagged food, idly, Malaysian food, nasi goreng, Singapore, travel | 1 Comment »

Singapore: Day One

June 24, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

After checking into our hotel, we were off again to meet up with our friend, Adrianna, in Arab Street.

We had some lovely nachos at this Mexican bar, Piedra Negra.

There is a lovely bar covered in mosaic tile work and a large bird (condor? quetzal? Quetzalcoatl?)

And a nice little lizard clinging to the outside wall.

Then we were off to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, A.B. Ah Meng Kitchen.

Where we had

Salted egg prawn ball – prawn (shrimp) with corn coated in salted egg batter and deep fried. Very tasty!

Deep fried fish skin – just what it sounds like, fish skin lightly battered and fried until crisp. Tasty, but one of those things you know isn’t good for you in the long run. DaddyBird wants to go back for more.

Vegetable with Golden Mushrooms – which is not what I would have guessed by the looks of it. This was tasty also. (Tasty, my overused word of the day.)

And beer with ice cubes.

Here is the first of what will be many cat pictures.

Then we toddled off to our hotel and slept and slept and slept some more.

(Apologies for blurry pictures. My camera was on the wrong setting which has been rectified and the pictures will improve.)

Posted in cats, food, restaurant, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged food, Singapore, travel | 1 Comment »

Voyage, Not Particularly Bon

June 4, 2011

Posted by Kanga.

Oliver made his opinion about us packing baggage very clear. He did his best to get in the way and delay the inevitable.

We began our journey at the un-ostentatiously decorated DXB airport. The only frustration was the process required for paying an extra baggage fee for the third suitcase (because the website had stated clearly that we were allowed 2 each – LIE!). Instead of just being able to pay the person who was checking in our bags (as is done in any other airport) our boarding passes were carried to a different counter by a second person who turned it over to the staff of that counter. We then stood in line (too long) waiting for the first of the two people at this counter to match up our paperwork and ask us pointless questions. She then passed the paperwork to her coworker who actually took the money and gave us back our boarding passes. FOUR PEOPLE. Really, does it take four people to handle this transaction? No. It takes four people to delay you so that you stand in line saying, “we should have flown Emirates Airline.”

We proceeded to Heathrow Airport where getting to your connecting flight is so complex it requires a map.

And they give good advice.

It was not the best of trips. It was not the worst of trips. We really must stop this flying halfway around the Earth in one shot business.

Posted in cats, signs, travel adventures | Tagged cats, customer inconvenience, signs, travel | Leave a Comment »

I’m Not a Tourist Here

June 4, 2011

Posted by Kanga.

So, we have completed a marathon travel experience to reach North Carolina for our daughter’s one and only high school graduation.

It began like this…

[Dubai] At about 11 pm we dragged our suitcases out to the curb to begin the process of flagging down a taxi. DaddyBird remembers suddenly that he forgot the money that others have given him to buy a few things (iTunes cards and barbecue sauce), so he runs back to the apartment and I am left standing on the curb with three large suitcases and two smaller bags looking for a taxi.

A taxi pulls over almost immediately. The driver gets out and comes over to me. He begins telling me that it is a busy night. It is difficult to get into and out of the airport. I have a lot of bags. And then a sentence that I think was supposed to be along the lines of what was I willing to pay for this service, but ended with something along the lines of  “how much give to you?” I needed to stall anyway, until DaddyBird had time to return. So, I made this guy repeat his request several times, saying that I didn’t understand what he was asking, which technically is the truth since his grammar was all backwards. He gave up just as DaddyBird appeared around the corner, got in his taxi and went away.

We got in another taxi soon thereafter. There was no discussion. The driver helped get the bags into the car quickly and away we went. He got us to the airport quickly. We paid the fare and tipped him well. That is how it should be.

The first driver must have seen a white woman standing near a hotel with a ridiculous amount of luggage and thought “here’s a tourist I can scam.” Sorry buddy, I’m not a tourist here anymore. I know I don’t have to haggle for a taxi ride.

As for the rest of the trip, our first flight via British Airways to Heathrow Airport was a little taste of hell. There were no vents above the seats to blow cool air and it was horribly hot the entire flight. We desperately needed to sleep, but could not. Second leg of the flight from London to Raleigh/Durham North Carolina was better temperature-wise, but sleeping was not easy or very satisfactory due to the discomfort of economy class seats. This flight was operated by American Airlines and I will say that the food was good.

We changed our currency and ended up with quite a wad of bills because about half of what she gave us was in $5 bills. Thankfully, she didn’t resort to giving it to us in ones.

Anyway, we landed safely, although exhausted and a bit smelly. We checked into the hotel and went immediately to sleep.  It’s about 3 am local time now, so I should try to get a little more sleep and try to adjust to the new time zone. Jet lag is a cruel mistress.

Posted in Dubai, taxis, travel adventures, USA | Tagged taxi scam, tourist, travel | 5 Comments »

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