Gamma Garden

 Dale and his gamma irradiated flowers.

Sculpted by Choi Jeong-Hwa.

Singapore Vice

Near the dome. I kept waiting for Crockett and Tubbs to whiz by in the Ferrari.

Slick

As with many Happy Hours or for that matter, any occasions involving alcohol consumption, conversations tend to bob and weave to topics that no one can remember how they started.  This photo stems from a conversation we had about cooking with grape seed oil.

Fascinating.  Just Fascinating.

Below is info from ever reliable wiki.  Cooking with Grape Seed Oil

Grape seed oil is extracted from grape seeds and has a relatively high smoke point, approximately 420 °F (216 °C), so it can be safely used to cook at high temperature. Grape seed oil can be used for stir-fries, sautéing and fondue. In addition to its high smoking point, grape seed oil has other positive attributes in relation to cooking. It has a clean, light taste that has been described as 'nutty'. Because of its 'neutral' taste, grape seed oil is often used as an ingredient in salad dressings or as a base for infusing or flavoring with garlic, rosemary, or other herbs or spices. It is also used as an ingredient in homemade mayonnaise.

The metabolic energy density of grape seed oil is comparable to that of other oils: about 120 kcal pertablespoon (34 kJ/ml).^{[citation needed]} However, because less oil is needed for cooking, it can be used within alow-fat diet especially when combined with good frying techniques (such as using enough oil, not overcrowding the pan, and having the oil at the correct temperature) which reduces the amount of absorbedoil.

1 Degree North of the Equator

1 degree north of the equator is Singapore.  One of the most humid places on the planet.

And this is Shannon at the Daily Happy Hour. 

Docked

The Daily Happy Hour (with Shannon and Dale)

blue train

In the tunnels of the Singapore Metro.

Sunday, Sunday (Alt Take)

Sunday, Sunday...

Singapore. Last Day. Last day of vacation.  This photo was taken 

@ Wild Rocket. Highlights: I remembered I would like this photo (I do), 

and they serve a really big uncut fresh sausage platter with toast (right Shannon?). 

Have A Very Humid Christmas

Near the Raffles Hotel.  Singapore loves Xmas. 

hawker bends

Singamore

Singapore -  same day as the last posting-   we had two specific destinations in Little India: Haji Lane and the Tekka Centre.  Now Haji Lane is a tiny and warm strip of LES boutique shops that I still wish we would had spent more time on.  We arrived a bit too early, but the few shops that we went into had featured local designers with many items that you'd be hard pressed to find outside of Singapore. And the craftsmanship on many of the shirts was impeccable.  Meanwhile... at the core of the Tekka Centre it was a giant cauldron of Curry and Sri Lanka crabs.  Slurping and steam swirled about.  And so did storm clouds outside.  In order to avoid a soaked walkabout we made a quick exit to get to our next destination- Orchard Street.

We made a mad dash to the underground metro of Singapore and were off to a more metropolitan side of Singapore.  --->>>> A side note on the public transit systems of Tokyo, Taiwan, and Singapore- they make NYC's defunct system look like something out of the dark ages.  The trains are clean, always on schedule, the communication is clear (in English), library quiet, and people automatically move to the center of the car.  The center of the car. Yes, the center of the car.  Not in the middle of the doorway we're people enter and exit.  It's an amazing concept.  No graffiti. No unidentifiable sticky liquids spilled and oozing across the car floors to leap over. No fragrant vagrants. No mariachi bands. No on board gymnast.  It's train heaven.  And we were welcomed through those heavenly gates without being crushed by any early closing doors.

Orchard Road - picture what it might look like if Rodeo Drive and 5th Avenue gave birth to a child.  A orgy of department stores and designer chains all smattered in holiday decor.    Shopping. What can I say about shopping? It was more people watching than any shopping. And you know something... people watching makes one hungry-  we settled on a resting spot in a food court beneath the surface dwellers-  Din Tai Fung.  An establishment known worldwide by dumpling enthusiast  as one of the daily freshest.  Pork and shrimp dumplings, with an even better lightly fried rice. Then in a cab back to the dome for a swim and sleep. 

Starpower

sambal buah keluak

The Dome and Beyond

Singapore.  We landed in Singapore at 1am and headed to meet Yen's family-  Dale and Shannon. For the next three years they'll live in an expats universe that reminded me of Logan's Run dome city in so many ways. From the swimming pools to the architectural design, the Singaporean Domed universe was something like this image:

http://www.willhines.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/logans.jpg . It's truly an ideal locale for visitors on an extended tour.

Dale and Shannon... brilliant and down to earth.  Warm and welcoming. There aren't enough kind words in any language to aptly describe these two very special people. Any who... that's for another blog, for some other day. 

I started the next day a little ahead of the rest of the team by visiting Aikido Shinju-Kai and taking a 9am class.  One word- FUN!  A welcoming group of Aikidoka that made me feel like I was at the home dojo throwing in Carroll Gardens with the rest of the gang. After class I headed back to the dome where I met a hungry trio that were ready for some legendary Singaporean street hawking bites. 

BIG D's was the first stop.  And in all honesty our finest stop culinary stop in all of Singapore.   The food lab of the intense and impassioned Mr. Damien D'Silva a former aeronautical engineer who shifted careers to what else, chef.  Studying technique in the molecular food capital, San Sebastian, Damien now runs Big D's @ 46 Holland Drive.  Big D's serves up one of the best fish and chips I've ever tasted, a surprisingly tasty anchovy pasta, and one of my top three favorite dishes of the entire journey- sambal buah keluak  -a Perankan plate of minced pork and ground buah keluak.  Buah Keluak, a potentially lethal indonesian nut,  must be buried for 40 days in layers of ash and banana leaves. This burial process extracts the prussic acid that would otherwise be rather poisonous to ingest.  Worth the burial wait-  indescribable and DELICIOUS.  

Big D's = 1 Michelin Star.  And goes into the hall of eats as one of the top three plates in the trips entirety.  

From there we roamed.  Roamed and roamed.  

  

60cm Per Day

The Fried Chicken Fox

Black Friday continued... That morning there was a little bit of gastronomic hanky panky on one particular travelers part.  You'll see in this photo the suspect, Yen, is scouting the parameter to make sure that our original Chiang Mai fried chicken couple doesn't apprehend  her sampling the local competition.  Thankfully she wasn't nabbed.  However, later that same day, before we left for Singapore we did stop by to see the originals and ask for forgiveness, and snatch a couple inflight leg and breast to gnaw on.

Gridlock (Alt Take)

Gridlock

Black Friday in Chiang Mai

Black Friday in Chiang Mai.  We rose as early as humanly possible to get the best deals at the markets.  We found great holiday savings on the the latest sticky rices, fried chickens, fresh cut pineapples, and fried asian bananas. If every Black Friday were like this I'd beg for more than one a year.

Company Merger (Alt Take II)

Company Merger (Alt Take)

Company Merger

Thaiducken

Curbside Service (alt take)

(-) Tryptophan (+/-) MSG

Thanksgiving Dinner.  Chiang Mai's Chinatown.  On the sidewalks of Chiang Mai's Chinatown are a slew of food slingers cookin' up wholesome goodness. Behind a porous wall of bungee chorded cardboard boxes and thin wood paneling we dined at a makeshift curb only restaurant. Set up with tiny plastic stools and wobbly weather dinged up and down foldable metal tables we feasted on sausages, noodles, curries, and a lone can of Beer Chang (with straw). 

5,000 kg

Asian Elephants on Parade (Reprise)

The next day, Thanksgiving Day, we decided to be tourist.  Genuine tourist... so we jumped into a van with other tourist in Chiang Mai and headed to an Elephant Camp.  A motley crew of French Arabs, UKs with their new young Thai brides, saucy Aussies, boring Germans, and another endless chatter box New Yorker were packed into the van with us.  Then we rode elephants through the jungle, watched one elephant named suda paint an elephant, and fed several of the mammoths for the duration of our time at the Camp.  Fed them whole bananas and logs of sugar cane.  The crunch an elephant makes when they bite into a log of the sugar cane is an audio mind blitz-  like a bulldozer treading over freshly fallen forrest tree limbs.   I couldn't help but post the last photo in this grouping.  How many times in my life can I say I mounted and rode an elephant through the jungle?  

The answer to date = 1.

The Luck Boat

A Path

Hands Free Zatoichi

A bit more on our visit to the Thai Massage Conservation Club of Chiang Mai (Branch 2).  This is a club that provides services by experienced blind masseurs.  Traditional Thai Massage for one hour-  100 Baht if memory serves correctly. 


A few of the masseuse were sleeping on the beds as they waited for customers.  Eight empty massage tables in an open and unlit room . My masseuse was a stout and tough looking Thai woman and ready to crush bone to powder with her bare hands.  


As bone crusher began her massage I watched her move her hands up and down my arms searching for points of relief and at that moment I began to realize how special this experience was. This woman, she was using her sense of touch and reacting to the way my body felt to apply the appropriate pressures at exact points to relieve pains.  My eyes welled up.  I had tears running down my cheeks. I was so overwhelmed with pure awe.  And then...  AND THEN... 
her mobile rang.  Her mobile phone ... which she answered.  Stunned, I looked over to Yen who was receiving a massage on the table next to me and she's looking right at me with a surprised and giggle-filled smile on her face.  The masseuse has me twisted at the hips while she worked my legs with her knees and is massaging me hands free so she can hold her mobile and chat away about from what I could tell... nothing in particular.  No emergency, no bad news. Just a Chatty Cathy call.  I lied there listening to her five minute phone prattle and Yen smirking at me the entire time.  Stripped a bit of it's moment for me, it was still all-in-all, a good massage.  I never thought I'd recommend someone to get a Bluetooth, but in this case I think if bone crusher is going to continue taking calls during her sessions it would be beneficial to both parties.  

Rise Thugee! RISE!

Liberation

At a random temple on our customized WSJ walk we passed a temple under renovations.  With buckets and buckets of white paint several painted splattered Buddhist Monk students were painting the exterior walls of the grounds.  


One student smiling broadly approached us and the following conversation took place:


Student:  Hello.
Me:  Hello.
Student: (Smiling excitedly)  Where are you from?
Me:  USA.  New York City.
Student:  USA. New York City (Much more smiling as he strolled away looking at us over his shoulder)  
Me to Yen: I wanted to talk to him more. 
Yen to me:  He's practicing english.   
Me to Yen:  We could had practiced more. 
Yen to me:  That's all he knows. 

Roots

Chariot

The Giving Tree

Beggars, Buddhas, and the Blind

The following morning we woke to the aforementioned in-concert monks (at least I did) and the cuckooing of what I believed to be a very time zoned challenged rooster. Some mornings he sounded off. And others he was either sound asleep or off to a slaughterhouse.  Any who... We started off early and did our best to track the suggested trail of Wall Street Journal travel writer, Robyn Eckhardt.  Here's a brief on the walk and a link to Eckhardt's Chiang Mai article. 

Out of the gate:  A curried breakfast of fish and chickens at Somphet Market located at the Thanon Moon Muang Soi 6.  There we met THE Chiang Mai beggar of 2009 and I'm sure 2010 unless she continues to lie in the paths of oncoming vehicles the way she does.  A dirty golden mutt who could con you out of your shorts if she wanted to.  She ate a third of our meal and demanded spicier curry with her portions. 











After we jammed enough sticky rice into our greedy little gullets we breezed by the suggested Wat Umong Mahathen down a what I remember to be unpaved path to Wat Duang Di Monastery. Translated it means Good Luck Monastery.





From there we visited Wat Phan Tao and the epic Indiana Jones-esque Wat Chedi Luang temples.  Aaaannnnnd... we're hungry...  onto 112 Thanon Ratchamanka to snack at northern Thailand cuisine specialist Huen Phen.  Laab Khua, Jaw Pakkat, Saa Makhya and more sticky rice.

The next location was lost to wrong turns and a blinding sun.  We searched for Tai-Lue Princess at Samlam Soi 1 where they sell multicolored cottonpatoong.  We searched for 40 minutes and then stumbled onto the Thai Massage Conservation Club of Chiang Mai providing services by experienced blind masseurs!  Zatoichi!  And in we walked.  

end walk.  

Life's Powerball

We ate at a diner on our first night in Chiang Mai. The people's diner.  This place had the vibe of a midwest diner serving up Thailand's comfort food.  In walked a kind and gentle soul selling Thailand's lottery ... We bought tickets from him.  He smiled so true and warm. Though he'd been born with a severe birth defect that is unnecessary to go into detail about on this log, his smile was radiant.  Due to the lack of access to prescreening throughout Thailand we'd see people who were birthed with serious defects.  The welling up this would cause in me... overwhelming. 

That night, watching this man hawking lottery tickets...  the way he smiled... oh that smile...  this put things into a monumental perspective for me. From the joy of life to the disgust for people with self-entitlement.  His daily trials unfathomable to so many.  I wanted to thank him for this realization, but it was ten minutes later I realized this.  I kept our tickets as a reminder of that night.  

4am Wake Up Call

A 200 year old Tamarind Tree shaded our village in Chiang Mai.  From Tokyo to Kyoto, from Tapei to Bangkok, and Chiang Mai onto Singapore... The Tamirand Village was a true standout.  Greeted with the traditional Thai greeting and a sweet warm honey tea, it was here that I  felt absolute tranquility.  Nearby was a Buddhist temple where the monks swooned the town at all hours with soothing ohms.  And by all hours, I do mean all hours-  they began at 4am.  And though occasionally it would awaken me, how could you be upset to awaken to such a holy harmony?