12/15/13 - Western Weekend in the Pulau (Penang)

Busy season is upon us folks and that meant some additional late nights and a Saturday in the office. The good news is, flights were cheap from Singapore to the Pulau and I found myself with a roommate for the weekend.  On a scale of hibernating to climbing Mt. Everest, we found ourselves on the low end of activity, but sometimes you need to recharge the batteries that way.  What we did do (is that even proper English?) is pay a visit to our 3 favorite Western joints on the island.... once we of course had had some dumplings on Thursday.

Marshall's - the new kid on the block.  How I Met Your Mother has been my favorite TV show for going on 7 years.  So much so that we made sure we had the proper TV connections and internet apparatus to be able watch it over here.  Especially because we finally get to meet the mother this season.  As usual, I digress.  In one episode, Marshall is on the hunt to try and re-find the best burger in New York City.  He found it once, but was new to the city, got lost, and could not find his way back. Even Regis gets involved trying to find this burger.  Apparently there are two people on this island who love HIMYM because one guy named his burger restaurant after this specific episode of the show.

Normally, we consider OK food here to be good and good food to be great, more on that in a minute.  In this case, this is a pretty good burger that you would even consider to be a good burger back home.  The names crack you up - if you order the "Bison" you get two patties and bacon and cheese.  You can use your imagination for the chicken burger names (everything is a burger here - even if its really a sandwich).  I was hemming and hawing as to whether or not I really needed 'dos patties' but it took minimal prodding to add it to our order.  Just an extra little slice of burger heaven in the tropics.

Campbell House - I've written about this place before, but its like coming home when you walk through the door.  In fact, its kind of like being Norm on Cheers - everyone knows your name.  It had been a few months, but we settled right into our usual table, the usual drinks appeared without having to order them and the next 2 hours could have been at any Italian joint on the planet.  The Christmas music was a nice touch, I had completely forgotten where I was as Bing Crosby sang White Christmas to me while digging into my ice cream dessert. I almost expected to see little snow flakes drifting past the window outside.  Then I caught a food cart out the window and a stray cat walking by - right back to the present day.  Didn't matter, the food was great as always - the peppercorn steak I had would have been outstanding anywhere in the world.  We followed it up with the annual viewing of Love Actually.  In a moment of desperation my acquiescence to watching it yearly was given as a Christmas present.  Oops - another year down - dozens more to follow.

Berlinz - you know if there is a Z in the name of the place it must be good.  The better example is if there is a #, but this will have to work for Asia.  Its kind of like my theory on how hand claps in a song equal excellence (see Mellencamp, John "Jack and Diane" or Boston "More than a Feeling).  A combination German/European Bistro that I have to admit, does have the best tap beer on the island and the service is rapidly moving up the list as well.  The usual Cesar salad, potato wedges and Hawaiian pizza were ordered. If you think that combination sounds odd, well, the couple from Chicago/London sitting next to us would agree with you.  Nice folks, funny how you meet people from relatively close to home all over the world.

Only one more week and then the family adventures continue - from the islands of Penang/Singapore to the island of Phuket.  Relatively live updates have been requested.  My guess is, the level of frequency will be directly correlated to the amount of Singha that is pushed in my direction - likely with diminishing returns at some point.  I'll ask Mr. Whittington to graph it out at a later date.  Feel free to send donations towards to cause, Thai Baht are cheap when paying in US dollars.

Until Thailand......

12/9/2013 - Interview with an Expat

I recently sat down with an avid reader of the blog for a brief one on one to catch up on the past month. And by avid reader I mean he's read it once, but has "considered" reading it on multiple occasions.  He offered me a mystery box prize for 30 minutes of my time, so I decided why not.  We'll call him Mr. X for short.

Mr. X: Good to be here Dan.  So you call yourself a blogger.... don't you actually have to write something new every now and then to claim that label?  Where have you been hiding?

Me: Thanks: Thanks - why do I already I regret doing this and have the feeling the mystery box doesn't even exist?

Mr. X: Oh its real, there are a pair of gym socks in it, thanks for ruining the surprise.  You're welcome by the way.

Me: Who do I look like, Danny Noonan?  Anyway, we've been on a few 9,000 mile flights in the past month and spent the past week resetting the body clocks. Thanksgiving in Singapore was fun last year, but sometimes you just need to stop in for some family, friends, food and football.  So we did the 20 hour flight from Singapore to Minneapolis in the back of the bus, folded up like accordions.

Mr. X: How was the travel this time?  Were there more screaming babies or more people who sounded like they were trying to cough up multiple lungs?

Me: Surprisingly little external distractions, the noise cancelling headphones helped, I highly recommend them.  On one flight I woke up to the person behind me having an IV bag hooked up to them and on the next flight one guy was wandering around the cabin with a glass of scotch in his hand like a cross between Ron Burgundy and Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids.  Apparently neither of them learned the two glasses of wine with dinner and then sleep the rest of the way trick.  Not, two glasses of wine with dinner and then as many little mini bottles as you can get your hands on until you need medical attention or an additional restraint beyond your seat belt.  Speaking of sleep, I stayed up the night before we left for the States and slept, even in coach, almost the whole way to Minneapolis.  Add that to the travel toolbox.  Our other new travel tip is order the vegetarian meal on the flight.  Your food comes first and you aren't exposed to mystery meat X.....much like the mystery box.


Mr. X: Is that a dig at me?

Dan: I'll let you be the judge of that....these socks don't fit by the way.

Mr. X: I'm not surprised, I bought them off of my taxi driver.  He may have been wearing them.  How did you spend your time at home? Cowering from the cold and dreaming about dumplings?

Dan: I think the word you are looking for is "hibernate" and yes, I went into full on bear mode for a solid week.  Wake up from my cave, i.e. pitch black bedroom with no windows, walk to the window, ponder the growing ice on the lake and decide to stay inside and get some work done.  At some point during the day I was treated to delicious comfort food, would get sleepy from a full stomach and the process would repeat itself.  Bears have a good life.  I did venture out on occasion, usually football related. Found a Bloody Mary that would have constituted a meal for me in Singapore.

Mr. X: So you didn't miss anything about SE Asia?

Dan: Now now, I didn't say that.  When we got off the plane, hot and humid never felt so good in my entire life.  I could almost see my skin re-hydrating.  Two days later I was eating ramen and dumplings in Penang and was starting to slide back in the groove.  The real kick came this past weekend.  Both of us were still craving Asian food so we hunkered down at Maxwell Food Centre for a few hours and tore into fried noodles and chicken rice from the highest ranked place in Singapore.  Honestly though, we still prefer our Farrer Road Chicken Rice - that guy rocks.

The highlight of the afternoon was the new discovery - sweet potato dumplings!  I can't remember what the stall was named, but you can't miss it.  All they do is sell sweet potato dumplings and have a giant vat of oil that is constantly churning, frying sweet potato dough and looks like a Shakespearean play prop.  It just needs a witch churning the cauldron instead of a mechanical arm.  The plain ones are only 60 cents each, but you can buy dumplings with coconut, vegetables and red beans in them.  Yes, those are in order of "I would absolute try that to don't get that red bean stuff anywhere near me."  Just a hot, gooey, sweet potato pie in a donut hole shape - sweet!

Mr. X: Well that's about the length of my attention span - welcome back to Singapore.  Try not to be so lazy the next month and write something every now and then. I may actually read it.

Dan: I'm back! If you need a last minute Christmas present, I can give you a good deal on some socks.

11/10/2013 - Last MBA Party

We should have seen it coming this time.  The last MBA get together we had attended snuck up on us and somehow we were walking into our apartment when the sun was coming up.  Not quite the case this time, but we still found ourselves bouncing all over the town until later in the evening.  School is officially over at the end of this week and since a lot of students are travelling right away, the end of the semester party was this weekend.  The party planners had come through again and rented out the 'Wine Mansion' for the evening.  It seemed like Keong Saik road, the street it was on, should be renamed 'Wine Street.'  While waiting to get in we noticed there were wine bars and shops surrounding the Wine Mansion on both sides of the road. Not sure how we had not made this discovery ourselves in the past year and a half, we seriously must be slipping. As the night progressed, we really felt like we should have known about this place already as the waiters made sure to refill your glass every time it seemed like you were getting low. That type of services is definitely not the norm here.  The food spread of pizza, bruschetta, spring rolls and french fries was a little eclectic, but hey, it was an international group and as previously mentioned too many times to count, spring rolls go great with anything.

We were supposed to leave at 10, but they were nice enough to let people start sampling other bottles of wine and stay until midnight.  Now of course, is when we start to veer off topic a bit.  People wanted to head to Holland Village which was perfect, close to home for the two of us.  First though, we needed a snack to complement the previous assortment consumed.  No food carts sitting around here so the local advice was to hop into two taxis to get some prata and curry at Spize. Unfortunately, after leaving the friendly confines of the mansion, the service ground to a halt again and what my buddies at the Prata Hut in Empress Market can crank out in 30 seconds took about 20 minutes.  The food finally arrived and while tasty, didn't totally cut it..... we needed more.

Luckily we had somehow landed on late night food row and our Singaporean guide walked us 100 meters down the street.  Aha, one of the most famous chicken rice restaurants on the island.  This was turning into a late night taste of Singapore.  All we had ever had was chicken rice at the hawker centers so we were pretty excited.  He asked us how hungry we were and everyone kind of nodded, so the full chicken order went in.  Turns out when he said full chicken he actually meant, 1 whole chicken. Our eyes had of course been bigger than our stomachs, the pork and prawns didn't help either, but we gave it a pretty valiant effort and polished off most of the food.  It was hard not to, the rice was sweeter and the chicken a little more flavorful.  Hopefully our local Farrer Road Chicken Rice stand won't take offense to us branching out in other directions.  Totally stuffed, and feeling like we were in training for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, we threw in the towel.  We even made it home this time with significant hours to spare before the neighborhood rooster started crowing.  Its probably a good thing these MBA excursions don't happen that frequently and are coming to a close, at some point we may have found ourselves in Indonesia or Malaysia before the evening was over.

11/3/2013 - First Official Durian Experience

I have a vivid memory of sitting on a bench in the Wisconsin Business School about ten years ago, reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about a fruit I had never heard of before.  I can still envision the little black and white dot matrix photo that the Journal was so well known for, this time not of a titan of industry, but of a spiky fruit that looked like it should be on the end of a medieval weapon.  The article was on the front page and spilled into the middle of the newspaper, discussing the varying prices, types, where to get it, etc.  Of course it centered around a tiny island nation in Southeast Asia that I knew next to nothing about, but lo and behold, 10 years later, here we are.

The signs for durian in Singapore are everywhere.  Not trying to sell it, but saying don't bring it in here. Instead of no smoking signs, the hotels have no durian signs with the circle and a line drawn through it.  Same on the MRT, same on airplanes.  The reason, of course, is the smell is simply overpowering.  You get a wide range of descriptions from people, but my favorite and what I consider to be most accurate, is a pair of used gym socks that have been hidden in the locker room for a few weeks.  The taste of course, is supposed to be way better than the smell, but why anyone would have tried something that smells like that in the first place is beyond me.

A few months ago, one of the $1 ice cream vendors had gotten a smear of durian ice cream on my chocolate ice cream and the taste of that was more than enough to make me wary of ever trying it before we moved home. However, recently visitors from the US were here and were bound and determined to have this distinctly Southeast Asian experience.  Given I had first read about them in the Wall Street Journal, it was fitting that a work outing had us split into two taxis, close to midnight, hoping the durian stalls on Balestier Road were still open.  If nothing else, our taxi drivers had a good laugh about what we were trying to accomplish.

We were in luck, I guess, and within a few seconds the hawker had taken his machete and cracked the fruit open.  The point of no return crossed, I gingerly reached out and grabbed a piece the size of a mandarin orange.  The smell wasn't as strong as some of the other times we had caught a whiff and trying to forget about the ice cream I had previously had, down the hatch it went.  The final verdict, a cross between a sweet onion and garlic with the consistency of a ripe avocado.  I had one more bite and decided I didn't need to smell like this for the next 48 hours and stopped.  On the way home, our taxi driver was nice enough to not make any comments, but others had them roll down the windows and I think we could all still taste it the following afternoon.  Until the next batch of tourists rolls through town......

10/27/13 - Chicken Up - Korean Fried Chicken (The real KFC)

Believe it or not, last weekends festivities came courtesy of more inspiration obtained from hours of time spent in an airplane.  At some point and through some publication that I can't remember, it was either the Economist, The Straits Times or the Silkair in-flight magazine (talk about a disparate group) I had happened across an article about Korean Fried Chicken.  In the past 10 years I've probably eaten fried chicken less than 10 times, but a rather unhealthy obsession developed after reading this article.  Apparently the difference in style is the chicken is fried twice, leaving a very crispy skin and tender, moist meat inside.  It is then accompanied by Korean beer and you get to chuck your bones in a little garbage cans at the table, sounded like fun and meant to be a social, group activity.

I figured there had to be a place like this in Singapore and after doing a little research, stumbled across Chicken Up.  The reviews sounded good, but we had Sarah confirm first with one of her Singaporean classmates.  He's turned into my go to 'stamp of approval' for all things Singapore.  Once it was confirmed with two thumbs up the only issue was finding a time that worked for everyone interested.  Last Saturday it all came together and that was how we found ourselves winding our way through a street full of restaurants and convenience stores displaying the South Korean flag.  Turns out there's a Little Korea in Singapore.

We had heard there was an all you could eat buffet with beer option for a reasonable price so we all signed up and 10 minutes later a plate full of wings with soya sauce and large beers with tiny glasses appeared on the table.  Reinforced the whole "feeling like a giant in Singapore" complex I occasionally get.  We began making a mess pretty quickly so it was a little tough to document the endeavor.  I did grab a pic of the little empty trash bin, post chicken carnage.  I think it got filled up at least 5 times.  We cycled through soya wings, kind of a sweet and sour chicken, popcorn chicken and chicken stew.  Even though it was a "buffet" everything is made to order fresh, so as long as you keep ordering the food keeps coming.  Someone (I may have played a role) had the bright idea of ordering some more wings and fries and it was at that point a few of us started experiencing a case of the good old fashioned meat sweats.  Pretty rare here, but at least we were in Singapore so its pretty easy to pass it off as just "regular sweats."

The final plus/negative is they blast Korean pop on the stereo with the music videos being shown on the TV's.  Think Gangnam Style for 2+ hours, the unintentional comedy is simply off the charts.  It seemed like each progressive video had a group with more people in it, from 3 girls to 6 to 9, to hmmm, I think they have enough out there to play a game of 5 on 5 basketball against each other.  Oh wait, they all have NBA jerseys on?  Perfect.  The jokes really just wrote themselves, if the music didn't slowly drive you insane and we had to leave after 2 hours, you probably could have sat there all night coming up with entertaining quips.

All in all a great evening although we all seemed to pay the price the next day.  Could have been the salt, could have been the grease, could have been the cheap Korean beer.  Likely a combination of the 3. Reminded me of Ted and Marshall paying the price for a Gazolas pizza in Chicago.  My bet is, we don't learn our lesson either and make a return trip at some point in the next year.

10/17/2013 - Borobudur Birthday

A few months back I had asked Sarah what she wanted for her birthday and received the usual response “Something good.”  At that point in time we already had some fun trips lined up and given the limited space in our living quarters we have not been accumulating too many new toys so this was becoming a sticky wicket.  Inspiration struck though, when we found out Tiger Airways was starting Friday evening flights from Singapore to Yogyakarta.  Temples and the opportunity to get more use out of the camera was too good of an opportunity to pass up.


We arrived at the airport a little earlier than normal and after clearing immigration I was reminded that there was a Tiffany’s in the airport and it did offer duty free shopping.  Hmmm, we ultimately bypassed that shop and settled in for a birthday donut instead.   It was a good thing we had that little birthday snack beforehand because getting through the Yogyakarta airport reminded us with a slap in the face how lucky we are to travel through Singapore so often.  First there was a line for your visa, then there was a line with 3 people working in it for immigration with a final line in place to have your luggage scanned again.  The entire process took a least an hour and stomachs rumbling, we hoped our driver would still be waiting for us.  Little should we have worried as Yano, our friend and guide for the next 48 hours, was grinning from ear to ear and whisked us away into the infamous Indonesian traffic.


The first question he had for us was “Do you like mushrooms?” This seemed a bit odd, but yes we did, so we started winding through first city streets, then jungle roads, to finally little village roads to arrive at a famous mushroom restaurant for dinner.  We thought that each dish we had was going to feature mushrooms, we didn’t realize that 90% of each dish would be mushrooms.  Mushroom satay, deep fried sweet and sour mushrooms, mushroom curry – we were impressed.  Full of fungus, we hopped back into the car to continue on to the Saraswati hotel.  It was Sarah’s birthday after all, where else would we stay.

Apparently it was low season so we nearly had the hotel to ourselves.  This didn't really matter as Yano would be back to pick us up in the morning at, gulp, 4 AM, so we could get to Borobudur temple for sunrise.  Luckily we were only a 10 minute walk from the temple, so if he overslept we would have been fine, but there he was the next day, looking just as tired as us and joking how he was going to take another nap while we went on the tour.  I had to admit, at 4 AM, even I was questioning our sanity.

Tickets in hand and fully garbed up in required sarongs, we traded Yano for a new guide and began following the army of flashlights to the top of Borobudur.  It was still quite dark when we reached the top, but wasn't long before the black turned a shade of grey and various roosters throughout the valley had a competition to see who could be the loudest.  15 minutes later, Mount Merapi became visible and you hoped that since the sleeping giant blew its top 3 years ago it would be OK keeping a lid on in it for the rest of the weekend.   Suddenly the red orb started poking its head over the mountain range and everyone became silent, even the roosters seemed to comply.


Too many pictures later, we began our descent down the hillside while learning about the history of the temple.  Earthquakes had destroyed much of it before being painstakingly restored through the help of UNESCO.  Even good old Mr. Raffles had stumbled upon it in his exploring days before making his way to Singapore and having a hotel named after him where we now have the pleasure of being able to purchase overpriced Singapore Slings.

At the bottom, we recharged with coffee and banana fritters for breakfast before heading to Prambanam Temple and switching from Buddhists to Hindus.  This temple had been completely destroyed by an earthquake and the work to restore it is still ongoing.  You could walk up the stairs and into the temples for Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, however, to see Sivas home you had to put on a hard hat.  Upon closer examination, the sign claimed that it was relatively stable and safe to explore.  Relatively seemed like pretty loose terminology, but if it is good enough to communicate safety then I think I’m going to start working it into my daily vocabulary, like “that food was relatively good, the house is relatively clean or my work is relatively complete.”  Even after taking our lives into our own hands, we survived and celebrated with some coconut juice.

The ride back to the hotel was a replay of the prior week with a lot of head bobbing and nodding off.  At this point we had been up and roaming about for 12 hours and were pretty beat, but reached down deep for some final shopping energy.  Our persistence was rewarded when we found the exact souvenir we were looking for at a local stone shop and procured a miniature lava stone stupa for 75,000 rupiah.  This also qualified as a new birthday record as how often does anyone give you a present that costs 75k of something?  A nap by the pool, followed by some local Indonesian treats for dinner capped off the day, another Asian birthday success story in the books.

10/13/2013 - Borneo Bound

Kuching, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, is only an hour and 15 minute flight from Singapore, perfect for a weekend trip.  After a nice relaxing break in the Maldives, a jungle adventure seemed to be the perfect jolt to bring the energy levels back up.  We woke up early Saturday morning with a full day spread out before us.  First stop would be the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre to get up close and personal with the local orang-utans with the rest of the day being spent kayaking down a jungle river.

After winding through the Chinese quarter to pick up our fellow adventures for the day (from Hong Kong and Australia) we spent another 30 minutes driving out to the reserve.  Once there, we applied copious amounts of bug spray hoping that that the legendary mosquitoes of Borneo had not encountered Deep Woods Off before.  Free advertising for SC Johnson, it worked.   The only instructions we received from our guide was “be quiet and don’t make sudden movements” and then a gesture towards the path that was winding its way through the jungle.  Not entirely sure what we had gotten ourselves into, we followed the herd of people with cameras and started picking our way slowly over rocks and roots, necks craned skyward.

Two hundred meters later, 8 people were looking way up in the trees and pointing.  A brief flash of reddish orange hair contrasted against the green foliage and then it was off and moving.  Thick, ships rigging ropes had been hung in the tops of the trees and as we continued walking, we saw that they all led to one place – a natural amphitheatre with a large platform and hundreds of bananas on it.  The orang-utans are in their natural environment, but the park rangers have two daily feedings to draw them out.  Personally, if I could play in the trees all day and knew where food would be morning and night, I wouldn't leave either.  For the next hour we watched them cartwheel down the ropes to the ranger, grab a few bananas and then clamber halfway up to eat before repeating the process.  The little baby hanging onto and climbing over its mother to grab a snack was easily the highlight.

Eventually the food was gone and the big apes went swinging off to where they had come, probably for a banana induced nap.  We earthbound creatures followed the path back to the van to gear up for round 2 of our excursion.  30 minutes later we reached a local Dayak village, one of the indigenous groups of Borneo, to meet our guide and carry our kayaks down to the river.  

Within 30 seconds you had the Survivor theme song alternating with Indiana Jones music ringing in your ears as your mind couldn't make up its own mind about which one was more appropriate.  You didn't know if an au naturale Richard was going to roll down the hillside into the water or if an overhanging tree was going to dump a serpentine present into your vessel.  Personally, I thought a mini snake would have been fun, if only because I had at least 3 different lines ready to go with, with the leading contender being “snakes, why did it have to be snakes?"

The 11 kilometre river journey took us over some ‘mini-rapids’ past soaring limestone cliffs, up a back creek to a waterfall and a stop for lunch at a local village.  After eating about 4 coconut pancakes with palm sugar in the middle for dessert, I have a new rival to peanut pancakes as my go to Asian Pastry.  I had 3 pieces of pink dragon fruit too though, so that balanced out the sugar.  Near the end of the voyage we came to a natural sandbar where we went swimming in the surprisingly cold water and up into a natural cave on the other side of the river.  Feeling refreshed and glad to give our tired shoulders a break, we had the energy to finish strong and once again haul our gear up a steep escarpment.   At that point the day finally caught up with us and the entire group passed out hard on the trip back to Kuching.  No easy feat given the winding, bumpy road.   A nap in the car turned into a nap in the hotel, followed by a pretty early bed time.  We may have survived 1 day of adventures in Borneo, but 39 days with Jeff Probst watching on would have likely done us in.

10/6/2013 - Living is easy in the Maldives

We have been lucky enough to see some amazing places in the past year.  Southeast Asia truly has a lot to offer and we still have a lot of locales to visit.  The Maldives, however, had been on our list from the moment we knew we were moving to Singapore.  So from the time we had booked our flight last April until last week it was always in the back of our mind.  The multiple flights to and from Penang as well as some trans-Pacific flights paid off and we cashed in miles for a free flight.  Much like the rest of the trip, the landing into the Maldives was its own experience.  None of the islands are very large so the airport is actually its own island.  When you start to descend its just, blue water, blue water, lighter blue water, sand, boom, you're suddenly on the ground.  You get to the end of the runway.....and the plane just does a U-Turn and goes back to the "gate" and you exit on the tarmac.  Loved it.

After grabbing our luggage we walked to the other side of the airport and got in line for the next leg of our journey - 35 minute speed boat ride to our hotel.  Some hotels are far enough away you actually need to take a float plane to them, but one of the reasons we had picked the Anantara was to avoid that extra hurdle.  If the water was going to look this incredible at the airport, we couldn't wait to get out to the island.  The ride was a little bumpy, but not too bad and before you knew it the boat was turning into the channel in our own private lagoon and reef to drop us off.  A welcoming committee playing on some bongo drums was waiting on the dock and another lemon grass scented cold towel was provided to cool down with.  Cold towels might be a tradition we import back to the States, nothing better than one on a hot day and after this trip, bongo drums may prompt a Pavlovian response in me signalling its time to relax.  It helped we heard them each day when new arrival showed up.

Check in was a breeze - it was helpful that were coming in the low season and throughout our stay we often felt like we had our own deserted island.  Next stop, our over the water bungalow that would be home for the next 4 nights.  Surprise surprise, waiting for us was a bottle of champagne and some chocolate covered strawberries as an anniversary present.  We didn't remember even telling them that, but we certainly weren't going to turn them down.  Not that we had had any doubts, but sitting there on our deck, enjoying our champagne, watching the fish swimming by (whoa was that a shark?) yes, the trip was going to be awesome!

We were on a mission to relax so the rest of the week slipped by pretty quickly, so just a few high points.

1) The sunrises and sunsets were incredible, to the point that they almost look fake.  We might need to go into the postcard business after this trip.  The 3 hour time difference worked in our favor so even the late risers that we are got to see a few sunrises and we of course took advantage of sunset happy hour before dinner each night.

2) We had been a little concerned that for all our meals we were effectively stuck at the hotel.  No walking down the street or taking a tuk-tuk to a cheap $4 dinner anywhere.  Of course that had been a needless worry as well.  Breakfast by the water every morning was a pretty easy way to start each day.  I alternated between eggs one day and crepes the next and finished off with a fruit and cheese plate each day - the combo of the food I love most about Singapore (fresh tropical fruit) and an item a Wisconsin guy misses the most (access to good, reasonably priced cheese).  I'm treating this 2 year stint as if its graduate level training in breakfast buffets so that I can be prepared to teach a course when we return.  Think about it, it really is valuable information everyone should have.

Dinner was then similar to breakfast - out by the water either at our hotel or a 2 minute pontoon boat ride to the other side of the lagoon and the sister resort.  Floodlights lit up the water for about 20 meters so you could see everything swimming by at night as well.  We took a tip and on the last night ate later as apparently the sharks show up around 9 PM.  Sure enough, starting around 9 until the time our wine ran out one baby black tipped shark after another cruised by our table.  Were we the immature couple humming the theme from Jaws each time this happened? Guilty, but you know you would have done it too.  I found out I have a little Dr. Evil in me as all I wanted was for one to eat another fish, but they seemed content to swim laps instead, even with the theme music motivation.


3) Snorkeling was like becoming a cartoon character in Finding Nemo.  Whether it was climbing down the steps of your room and seeing different types of clown fish, lion fish or the occasional shark or going further out and seeing monster sting rays swim past. One day we did an excursion to another reef and on your right was layers of coral and fish and on your left was a massive drop off that turned into a blue abyss.  Off in the distance a school of manta rays swam by, much like a flock of geese.  We weren't quite quick enough to catch up to the turtle that was further ahead but the eels we did see were like ribbons cutting through the water. If there was ever a time to get scuba certified, this was probably it, but the silver medal for snorkeling was a worthy consolation prize.

Hopefully global warming turns out to be false and this incredible place doesn't disappear back under the ocean in our lifetime.  As 3rd anniversaries go it was perfect - maybe we can make a return trip for our 30th.

9/29/2013 - Sultan Jazz Club

The island hop from Penang to Singapore is relatively short, a little more than an hour down peninsular Malaysia and next to the Straight of Malacca.  What to do to occupy your time during the trip is always a bit of a mystery.  The flight isn't really long enough to take anything electronic out, by the time you have your laptop fired up you're already descending.  There's always the ever popular nap option, but you know those SilkAir flight attendants are going to wake you up at some point and offer you food you have about a 2% chance of eating.  This past week I opted for my copy of the Singapore Straits Times to catch up with what was going on in the little red dot.  Due to the size of the country, this is always a hit or miss item as well given the dearth of national news. For a change I hit paydirt, not in terms of a newsworthy item, but for a fun new weekend activity - Sultan Jazz Club in the Arab Street area.

We had been to Arab Street once before and had come away pretty impressed with the atmosphere.  Much like Little India, you suddenly feel like you have left mainstream Singapore behind. Carpet shops, hookahs, Middle Eastern cuisine - it just has a good vibe to it.  We decided to try out dinner at the Beirut Grill before the show started.  The one drawback to the Sultan Jazz Club on Sunday is the music doesn't start until 9 PM.... or keeping with jazz musicians laid back vibe, closer to 9:45 as we would later find out.  Our prior experience on Arab Street had involved an inadvertent 2 1/2 hour meal due to the speed of service.  Thinking we better arrive early, we erred on the other side only to see our hummus, grilled lamb and chicken come flying out of the kitchen.  The food was outstanding, probably because it was so fresh, so it didn't last long on our plates.  Even our second pot of mint tea couldn't cause us to linger longer, so we decided to wander down some alleyways in search of dessert.

I can honestly say, of all the places I had considered setting foot in on this Sunday evening, the Fika Cafe, a Halal Swedish bakery was so far down the list it might as well have been in Sweden.  This turned out to be great find #2 for the evening.  Huge cappuccinos (which yes, did keep me up too late) really dense coconut covered chocolate balls, kind of like no bake cookies, and chocolate brownies with ice cream were our reward.  I half expected the Swedish Chef to come running out so we could thank him, it is quite difficult to find a good cookie in this town that isn't horribly dry.


Sufficiently wired and sugared up, it was off to find the Sultan Hotel.  A block of Chinese Shop Houses had been converted and quasi merged into one building to create the hotel.  This left a lot of open, airy walk ways throughout the place that fit in well with the neighborhood.  The jazz club itself was on the 2nd floor, so up the stairs we went, only to be greeted by a wonderful little whisky bar.  It really did seem like it was going to be our lucky night.  We cozied into our seats at the back of the room and waited for the Marrakesh Express to show up - with a name like that, you're either a kicking jazz band or Nolan Ryan's cousin from a different continent. Once they did get started the trio was quite good and for over an hour they kept bringing up a variety of local talent to play with them.  We left after the first set since it was a 'school night,' but with new restaurant finds and a fun new Sunday hangout with free music, I'm sure we'll end up in this neighborhood again.

9/21/2013 - And then there were 3 - Adventures in Thailand

For the past week, the family had been occupying an entire row of 6 airline seats, now we were down to just 3.  Tim and Caitlin had to go back to Wisconsin and Sarah had to continue her internship.  It was now just up me to play tour guide for the next few days in Thailand.  The success of this would be interesting, I had already been made fun of the night before while sprawled on the floor, trying to map out the week.  If it looked like I was trying to read a map in a foreign language, its because I was.  Its possible we could end up in a Thai prison or hopelessly lost in the streets of Bangkok, but I would put the chance of that at less than 10%.  

Unfortunately we were arriving in Bangkok on a Monday, so the weekend market was not open.  The next best option seemed to be the MBS mall, which turned out to essentially be a vertical, 7 floor market.  Not quite the selection of the weekend market, but still plenty of trinkets to keep you happy. We could have gotten a good deal on a slightly used cell phone, but no carved elephant end tables, which is what we were really after.  Looks like Bangkok will be on the return trip city list again.

After shopping and a quick stop back at the hotel, we grabbed a taxi to head out to dinner.  We had found a little hole in the wall place on our last visit to the city and I was looking forward to dining again at the P Kitchen.  Unfortunately, Bangkok's winding streets proved to be more formidable than our taxi's driving skills and it took almost an hour to get there.  I had though it was closer to the hotel, but given I'm constantly lost in Bangkok, I gave him our 150 baht and hopped out.  Fried noodles, spring rolls, spicy beef salad, fried rice and steamed vegetables had us feeling pretty good and happy that we had made the trek over.  The fact that the bill was somehow only $12, was even crazier.  A taxi was close at hand outside and offered to take us back for 100 baht.  I thought we had found another good deal given that it was cheaper than our trip over.  Of course, I should have known better, 2 turns and 5 minutes later we were back at the hotel.  I don't know what our first guy was thinking, either he was horribly lost or that was another Thailand donation from the Court family.

We spent the next day at the Royal Palace, the Reclining Buddha temple and having lunch overlooking the Chao Phraya River.  I had never been to the Reclining Buddha temple and was shocked at how large it was, it would barely fit on a basketball court. Totally worth the sweaty walk over from the Royal Palace.

Although it would have been nice to have blue skies for our photos, the overcast sky kept us from being too sweaty and smelly on the flight that evening to Phuket.  The domestic flight for $30 was quite the treat, we zipped right out of the airport, avoided the independent taxis with the promise of a 'same same' taxi fare, trust me, its never 'same same'  its always, little bit different, and found what turned out to be our race car for the evening.  The windy drive from the airport to the beach was completed in record time.  The speed limit was 80 KPH and he was doing at least 140 KPH, using all three lanes of the road for his banked turns.  Somehow we had found a Thai Ricky Bobby who abided by the "If you're not first, you're last rule."  At least we made it to the hotel quite quickly and in one piece, so consider us first.

It was low season so they upgraded us to a rather large suite for the few days we were there, almost bigger than our current apartment.  To celebrate this bit of good luck we wandered over to the open air lobby bar for a late night happy hour before calling it a day.  Our bartender for the evening, Sunny, turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.  He turned the late night happy hour into the late night 'happy hour as long as you are here.'  After showing him pictures of snow in Minnesota and complaining about Singha prices in Singapore, we were becoming fast friends.  He left us with a little nugget for the evening, "Don't drink Chang beer (the other Thai beer).  You wake up in the morning feeling like the elephant on the bottle is kicking you in the head."  We laughed and called it a night, promising to see him the next day.  Sadly, that was the last of Sunny for the trip, we wondered if the elephant may have won a few battles with him and kept him from his post.

Speaking of elephants, the final hurrah of the trip was an elephant trek through the hills of Phuket.  One poor elephant got the two large male Americans on his back while the other lucked out with my mother.  As you can imagine, after coming in first in the taxi to the hotel, we came in dead last on the trek.  We lucked out as most of our time in Phuket it rained off and on, but it held off long enough to ride an elephant, learn about rubber, curry and coconuts and top it off with a dinner cruise..... which made it about half way out of the harbor before the rain started dumping again.  We certainly owed the hotel for giving us a better set-up to at least sit on the patio, enjoy the greenery and relax.  Great contrast to the hustle and bustle of the week before.

Well - we've reached the end of the two week trip.  We had a few last nights in Singapore that gave everyone the opportunity to get a little more of their favorites - $1 ice cream sandwiches, sugar cane juice and dumplings. The last stop at the market had my fruit guy asking if my father and I were brothers.... this guy should be teaching marketing at Sarah's MBA program.  We even had dinner on Satay street where the least likely of the 4 of us ate more satay than anyone.  Who would have thought that satay and fried rice could become a staple diet?

Stay tuned - the adventures continue in the Maldives next week, its F1 weekend right now and we swung through Arab Street and a turn back the clock jazz club last weekend that all deserve some air time.  Plus, before you know it, the Muller Family Journey Through Asia (rumor has it I get to tag along if I promise to behave) is rapidly approaching.

9/14/2013 - Mid Trip Breather in Singapore

I think I have about 2 Court Family Trip posts left in me and then we'll be officially caught up to present day time.  Which is probably good as we have some upcoming trips of our own in the near future (Maldives, Indonesia & Malaysia) that will deserve their own air time.

We landed back in Singapore on Saturday afternoon and breathed a little sigh of relief.  In the Singapore to Cambodia to Vietnam to Singapore airport relays there had been no customs or immigration issues. All the flights we had booked months prior were still actually flying on their routes.  Turbulence was relatively mild the entire time and none of the landings had resulted in the overhead bins opening on impact.  Yes, that does happen here more often than I tended to see it back home.  We did have plenty of people trying to get their carry on bags out of the overhead bins while still taxiing to the jet way, which is always entertaining.

So what did we load up on over the next few days while we had the chance?  Western food!  First stop when we got back into town was finding a suitable dinner location.  We had not yet been to our usual haunt of Holland Village, and assuming no one was really going to want our version of BBQ or Mexican food, we went to Crust Pizza.  At least its Australian so not something you would see in the U.S.  It was here we discovered the key to getting my younger brother to expand his food horizons..... just put anything that may look a little different than usual on pizza crust.  He tried and ate more than all of us, including prosciutto potato pizza and peri-peri chicken pizza.  I will absolutely lock this one away for future use and reference.  Afterwards some dessert was in order and conveniently enough, keeping with our Western theme, a Wendy's was close at hand.  Anyone that wanted a Frosty for dessert had to go order on their own, forcing them to nudge out of their comfort zone one last time.  We only had two takers, but for those who have been following along, you can probably figure out who they were.

The next day started extremely early, had to get two people headed to the airport at 3 AM.  Later in the day, at a more reasonably time, my parents and Sarah and I continued with the Western theme and had high tea at the Fullerton Hotel.  We hadn't been back since the rainy afternoon we found shelter in their airy atrium, but this time may have been even more fun.  With 4 people you double the amount of tea you can try.... you also don't feel as self conscious about ordering enough macaroons that if put in your mouth at once would make you look like Chip or Dale.  I think our two favorite teas were Happy Birthday, Napoleon and Moroccan Mint.  Clearly 'tea namer' must be one of the top 5 jobs in the world.  After going to the TWG Tea Company store later and seeing the hundreds of types of tea you can purchase, yes, yes, I would like to be a tea namer in a future life.  Judging by the price of the tea, it seems to be a lucrative profession as well.

After all that liquid and all those snacks, we were pretty full, so a light dinner at our favorite French restaurant, 'La Petite Cuisine' seemed in order.  Al fresco dining with steaks, confit de canard and pasta and French wine were a great way to close the day.  The portions are the right size as well so we didn't have to roll back to the MRT, just shuffle a little slower.  The hidden gem of this is we were able to finagle my father into both a British and French establishment in one day.  Perhaps the next Court family adventure will be a tour through the Continent?  Those were thoughts for another time though, Bangkok and its temples and Phuket and its beaches were calling.  Flight to Thailand on deck.

9/8/2013 - 24 Hours in Hanoi

3 1/2 hours later, multiple water buffalo, rice paddies and death defying car passings, we were deposited back at the curb of the Essence Hotel in Hanoi.  It had only been 2 days, but it seemed like a lifetime ago that we were on this same street, getting ready to head to Halong Bay.  We were not flying back to Singapore until the following day, so we had a little less than 24 hours to kill prior to that.  Unlike the planning of the past 7 days, we were now improvising with minimal to do's ahead.

First stop - lunch!  We hadn't eaten anything since the breakfast on the boat and suddenly no one was bringing us food anymore.  The decision for what we wanted to eat was easy, finding the right location was a different question completely.  We had been in Vietnam for 72 hours and had had plenty of pho, but no banh mi sandwiches. Our hotel receptionist was helpful enough to point us in the right direction and we were off, weaving our way through the old quarter of Hanoi, avoiding motorbikes and crossing streets with no regard to crosswalks.  Did we get lost?  Yep.  Did we eventually stumble into a tiny little shop with chairs that would be better suited for a child's tea place set vs. 6 Americans having lunch?  Yep.  Everyone ate at least half of their sandwiches full of pork, pickled vegetables, spices and of course someone's favorite, liver pate.  Not as good as the banh mi we had in Ho Chi Minh City, but I would still walk 10 miles through a hot, sticky jungle for the bread the sandwich came on.

Re-energized, we split up.  The shoppers went one direction, the historians went another direction. Our goal, find the Hanoi Hilton.  Unfortunately most of the museums were already closed, but we thought we could at least see the famous prison.  What is really incredible is its right in the middle of the city.  On top of that, it just looks like a random yellow building.  If there weren't signs out front, you would never even know what it was.  60 seconds of staring and taking a few photos, it was back to dodging traffic, sidewalks and turn signals both being optional and back to the hotel for a refreshing cold drink before dinner.

Dinner was at a teaching restaurant for disadvantaged children. This had the double advantage of money going towards a good cause and they served some western food so certain individuals could order a panini if they so chose.  The taxi ride over was of course an adventure in and of itself.  We needed a 'big' taxi to fit us all in which turned out to be something slightly larger than a Mini Cooper with a 3rd row of seats in the trunk.  Somehow the driver was able to honk the horn, talk on his phone, shift, listen to music and signal for turns when he felt like it the whole way there.  My conclusion, he had to have a friend on his lap that was lending him a pair of arms to help pull this feat off.  Either that, or a Hindu deity was our Vietnamese cabbie for dinner.  The food was excellent, mango cheesecake and chocolate ice cream for dessert, and we even walked away with a hat as a souvenir.  I was instructed to add one to the tab if it was less than $10.... $4.80 fit the bill quite nicely.  So keep on the lookout for a KOTO black cap in Minnesota (Know One Teach One) that may look like its 10,000 miles from home.

Before heading to the airport the next day we had to make one final shopping excursion.  After dinner we had sat up having a few drinks and learned about the cheap spices, coffee and other items we had missed out on.  Walking down the twisting, winding roads our resourceful guide (Sarah) somehow found the spice shop they had been at the afternoon before.  15 minutes later we had our cinnamon and Vietnamese coffee (which lasted about 4 days when we got home, it was delicious) and were off in search of a duffel bag.  Too many souvenirs had resulted in a lack of space for the flight back.  The first shop we stopped at had just opened and offered to sell us a 'North Face' bag.  I can confirm it was a North Face bag because sure enough, it said North Face on it.  Who cares if they only wanted $35 for it?  We shrugged our shoulders and then a 'Nike' bag came flying in on a frozen rope from left field..... or from grandma on the 2nd floor of the shop house, it was a multi-generational family operation.  This one was a little more expensive and larger, not what we needed  We went back to the North Face and started negotiating, meaning the calculator came out. What started off around $35 (700,000 Vietnamese Dong) ended up being around $15.  Given there were smiles all around, I'm sure we got ripped off, but then again, we did score a North Face bag on the cheap, wink wink.

Goodies and bag in tow it was back to the hotel for one last round of chocolate croissants before flying back to Singapore.  Successful first week touring around Asia, 99% complete.