7/17/2013 - Singapore Shopping Shenanigans

We spent the weekend getting ready for the Court family adventure in Asia.  The apartment is clean, the laundry is done, food and drinks are purchased.  The one item eluding us is what is turning into my white whale in Singapore.  My Moby Dick if you will.  For over 6 months now I have been trying to track down a Singapore national team soccer jersey as a present.  I failed at Christmas, I failed in the spring, I was determined to not fail again this time.  You wouldn't think it would be that hard, what other national teams are there here?  I don't see anyone walking around in Singapore Slammers basketball gear.  I found a Malaysia soccer jersey in Penang the first time I looked.  Alas, call me Ishmael.

We knew Sunday was going to be a big day, so we started it off right, coffee and fruit at home and then breakfast at what may now be our favorite breakfast place on the island.  "Hatched' is all things eggs in Holland Village and actually has reasonable prices.  Even better, its an all day breakfast so showing up for brunch at 1:30 is not frowned upon..... its welcomed.  After a cappuccino and corned beef hash eggs benedict, I was feeling good.  First stop afterwards, Queensway Shopping Centre.  Apparently this is the place to go if you need sporting goods in the area.  8 stores later and feeling like we were wandering through a flea market vs. a mall, we left dejected and empty handed.

Back on the bus we pulled out the iPhones and started doing some more shopping research.  All signs pointed to Orchard Road, Singapore's high end shopping district, which we had really been hoping to avoid. Any day that area is a little crazy, but when the maids have the day off and want to hang out somewhere, all bets are off.  When tracking the unattainable beast, however, sometimes you have to steer the ship into rough waters.

The first nugget of information we had turned up directed us to the Wisma Atria mall.  Upon arrival we consulted the mall directory, but no Nike store was to be found.  Since all the malls are connected underground we moved next door to Ion Orchard as rumors had it there may be a Nike store there (Nike is the team sponsor). There was not a Nike store, but there was an Adidas, Converse and Puma store.  Perhaps our source was confused?  Finally, we got lucky.  In mall #3, there was a Nike store.  Our pace quickening, we rode up the escalator thinking we had finally hit paydirt.  Sadly, when we rounded the corner, the entire store could have fit into a Nike shoebox...... and it only sold basketball, tennis and running gear.  Almost out of hope, the store clerk directed us to one more Nike shop down the street.

At this point we were hot, tired, slightly cranky, but at least there was hope.  Also, there was ice cream!  In yet another one of those Singapore pardaoxes, there are ice cream vendors on the street selling ice cream sandwiches for $1.  Yes, $1.  I don't know how its that cheap, I don't even care if its real ice cream or not. That. Is. Awesome.  Refueled and refreshed we had the energy for store #4, but would it even exist?  Yes!  Larger than the last one and even looking like an actual retail outlet, we thought that our persistence was about to be rewarded.  We scoured the soccer racks, but didn't see what we had come to purchase.  Upon asking the store clerk he gave us the incredulous "Why we would have one of those here?" statements.  Hmmm, unkind words about the previous store's clerk popped into my head that I muttered under my breath.

Defeated.... for now.... we headed home. At least there was ice cream though, so it was a minor win for the day.  Major adventures to come beginning Sunday.... and likely, more ice cream.

7/14/2013 - 4th of July on the Island

"What's more American than Corn Flakes, the 4th of July and Uncle Sam?"  A song from my elementary school years kept ringing in my head last weekend when we spent the afternoon at Smokey's BBQ last weekend celebrating the 4th of July with 120 of our new best friends.  We are now 2 for 2 with our major American holidays here, Thanksgiving and 4th of July. It seemed like every American in Singapore (as well as a few Canadians and Singaporeans) had gotten word that a BBQ joint had been rented out for the evening and if they were lucky enough to score a ticket they could have all the BBQ they could eat as well as some American beer.

We arrived a few hours early to the sight of red white and blue banners, Maverick and Goose in flight suits and flip flops, stick on tattoos and plenty of red white and blue beads and necklaces (likely made in China). Prior to the food, the beer options were Budweiser or the local Singapore microbrew, Archipelago, which is actually pretty tasty.  At this, I was torn.  Being a native son of Wisconsin, we do not like to stray far from our Miller roots.  In fact, at school in Madison I think you can actually get expelled for making that faux pas.  However, being an American in a strange land, it seemed safer to choose something from 1,000 miles away from where I grew up instead of 10,000 miles away. Luckily, we had come prepared and I came up with what I consider to be a reasonable compromise.  Besides, wearing my Wisconsin football jersey, its red and white after all, gave me the additional cover I needed.

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long before the food came out because the smell was enough to make you want to make a run for the kitchen and see if you could steal some ribs without anyone noticing.  Chicken, ribs, pulled pork, coleslaw, mac and cheese (mac and cheese!) corn on the cob and venison chili nachos.  Wow, after months of your stomach shrinking and conforming to Asian portions we did our best to stretch it right back out again.  Seconds were had and come to think of it, I'm pretty sure thirds were as well.  We had been to Smokey's once before, but hadn't been back since we discovered the Pit practically in our backyard.  I think this convinced us it was worth the extra effort to head across town every now and then.

After dinner it was normal backyard cookout conversation, sports, politics, travel plans, etc.  If there hadn't been people in the apartments across the street staring at everyone the entire evening (I think a week later they are still trying to figure out exactly what was going on) we could have been at any bar, backyard or lake in the US.  The moral of the story as always, "If you build it, people will come" or in this case, "if you grill it, people will come."

7/4/2013 - Lau Pa Sat - Satay Street

Our previous attempt at having dinner at Satay Street was foiled by the haze that enveloped the city for the better part of a week.  This week, by a stroke of good fortune, we were both in the central business district and in need of dinner as our pantry had not been restocked over the weekend.  Stopping by Lau Pa Sat seemed like a logical and delicious solution.  Pretty fancy, right?  Plus, the smoke this time was from the food grilling and not burning peat somewhere in Indonesia.

I had been to this hawker centre a few times and it is much larger than our local Empress Market.  Kind of like a big city vs. small town restaurant.  Prices are a little higher too, but its all relative when you're talking $1.70 for sugar cane juice vs. $1.20 or $5 for a large bowl of rice and chicken vs. $4.  We were not on the hunt for standard food though, we were looking for grilled meat on sticks.  Each night around 7 PM they shut down the road next to the hawker centre and set up tables and chairs in the street.  You then have your choice of about 10 different stalls to buy satay from, all of whom seemed to be selling essentially the same thing.  You can buy a variety of rice and vegetables as well, but we went with the strictly cave man style meal.

At first they tried to sell us the set special for $48.  My brain was a little sluggish from work so the math didn't immediately pop into my head, but I knew that each stick was 60 cents and that sounded like a lot.  "How many is that?" I asked - the proprietor responded with "Only 80, but they are not that large."  I'm not sure if he didn't have his glasses on and was seeing double, but there were only 2 of us sitting at the table.  We had our work clothes on too, so should have looked like locals, but we probably had sucker written somewhere on our forwards as well.  Anyway, we went with 30 - 10 chicken, 10 beef and 10 mutton to be on the safe side.  They had turkey and duck as well some other meats that came from interesting parts of animals.  Pretty happy we stayed on the safe side this time, although the duck sounded intriguing.

10 minutes later a plate piled high with a good variety of meat magically appeared.  Each one had its own distinct flavor and the peanut dipping sauce was outstanding.  We destroyed the plate pretty quickly, I won 16 to 14, but its possible I stole one.  Needless to say we might still be sitting there if 80 had shown up in front of us.  Rumor is there is grilled stingray somewhere on the street, so its highly likely we will making a return trip, probably as soon as we forget to buy groceries again.

Happy 4th of July to our fellow Americans.  We are currently celebrating with drinks on the porch and listening to country music.  Pretty excited for the BBQ party this weekend for some of the Americans on the island to celebrate the right way.  Too bad the sparklers probably didn't make it through customs.

6/30/2013 - Birthday Weekend Thai Breaker

Day two of the birthday weekend on Kata Noi Beach followed a pretty similar path to day 1.  The biggest difference was the time was extended and the company was better.  We woke up at 8:30, relatively early for us on vacation, and after a hearty breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon (bacon! 1 more point for Thailand over other Southeast Asian countries - pork products) and local fruit, it was straight down to the beach to claim our chairs for the day.

Morning turned to noon relatively quickly and just when we were getting ready to vacate our chairs for the beach bar we found out our two new Thai buddies would order lunch for us.  Inertia is an amazing concept, given we hadn't moved in a few hours, why start now?  With the promise of springs rolls, pizza and Singha (a winning combination if I ever heard one) we settled back in to our lounge chairs and continued staring at the turquoise water and waves rolling in.

You can probably see where this is going.  Even with the regular re-application of sun screen and hiding in the shade of the umbrella your skin starts to take on a bit of a pink hue and your energy level moves at an inverse rate of sun absorbed.  Body surfing in the water for an hour or two probably didn't help matters.  By the time the sun was going down, the energy to hop a taxi to town to listen to an '80s cover band was waning.  Instead, we got cleaned up, walked 100 feet to a local Thai restaurant and re-charged on cashew chicken, massaman curry, pineapple fried rice and more spring rolls.  Are you even paying attention, did you think we would make it through a meal without them?  I would smuggle some back to Singapore if I didn't think the customs people would stop me.  I'll settle for a bottle of duty free Tangqueray instead I guess.


On the brief walk back to the hotel we noticed a little mini-mart on the corner.  Thinking it wise to re-hydrate we stopped in a for a large bottle of water.  Right next to the large bottle of water were some large bottles of Singha..... which then caused us to remember the nice little porch we had back at our room, so we loaded up a plastic grocery bag for a nightcap.  In summation, the weekend seemed to end the same way all birthday weekends for me have.  Start out like a ball of fire, play through the day, have big intentions for the evening, but ultimately end up crashed on a chair outside at a reasonable hour, listening to music and contemplating life with your best friends.  I guess I didn't break the thai from day 1 - so we'll have to reexamine next year.  All are invited for the sequel on a beach TBD in Southeast Asia 12 months from now.


FYI - we think we saw the Green Lake Monster's cousin.  Less hair, a little bit older, but an uncanny resemblance.  Gotta love Thailand.