Props to Nicolas Le Restaurant

Despite being foodies and happy to shell out for a Michelin-starred meal, we haven't really tried much fine cuisine since arriving here.  The city-state is not covered by Michelin, true, but there are sundry sources that we could have used for guidance to make our way through the long list of choices.  It has been sort of a conscious decision to sample all the local hawker foods before spending money on something we could easily get back home.

Well, my company is trimming costs and through a series of unfortunate events my desk has been relocated to the outer borough of Tampines.  This is to central Singapore as Jersey City is to Manhattan.  So, to mourn my departure from working life at the Central Business District (CBD) I invited my wife to lunch at a spot nearby that is dolling out fine food - Nicolas Le Restaurant.  I don't remember what search (google, hungrygowhere, etc) led me to a review of Nicolas but the description (small, intimate, chef-run) and the location made it an obvious choice.

The restaurant is located at the ground floor of a Chinatown heritage shophouse building, a few blocks from Connie's office and my old office building - I've moved 3 desks already since arriving a year or so back.  It's a small place with an open kitchen design.  You are either sitting at the kitchen on a bar stool, or just at the foot of it in one of a few 2- and 4-person tables.  You can see the chef, Nicolas, and his staff executing calmly but efficiently as you sip your drink and tuck in.  The ambience is muted, but not uptight.  During our lunchtime visit, there were other couples, businessmen on business lunches, and expats that seemed to have just gathered to enjoy a good meal together while catching up.

The host and waitstaff are all courteous and seem to be well-versed in the wine and food menus - not a major achievement as the food menu is not very complicated.  You have the option of a changing 3-course meal or a 5-course meal.  Either way, your choices per course are limited, which makes sense for the space and size of the kitchen.  And as I said, the sympathetic simplicity was one of the attractions.

We had the 3-course meal with an addition of foie gras.  Since it wasn't guaranteed to be on the menu I asked in advance (reservation by email, free-form) if Connie and I could have some seared for the occasion.  The reservationist replied that we could and we just reminded the waiter when we made our choices: Shrimp bisque and braised veal for Connie, half-boiled egg with smoked eel and ribeye steak for me.  For amuse bouches they gave us smallish portions of our starters reversed (I got a soup, Connie an egg), which was for me the one of two hiccups in the meal - it seemed contrived.

The other hiccup was the steak.  Not sure what's going on, but I've never had a dry ribeye in the states, and I can't seem to get a proper juicy one here.

Otherwise, the food was fantastic.  The egg on itself was simple enough, but the eel and condiment it came along with were unique and delicious and made for a perfect contrast to the egg.  I could have that again.  The bisque had a hearty ocean quality, and came with a batter-fried prawn.  I could have used more of the prawn against the soup, but the flavors and textures worked well.  The braised veal was tender and the sauce appropriately formidable and complex, layered with all sorts of goodness.  The foie gras was seared nicely, lots of fat and salt bursting from each bite.

Connie didn't get dessert - a plate of three seemingly unrelated treats: creme caramel, chocolate fondant/lava cake, and a scoop of ice cream.  They were all well-made, and for Connie's sake I could weave a story together about going from the hale, hot cocoa through the lighter creme to emerge on the other side with a spoonful of ethereal gelato.  Either way, they went well with a nice cappuccino and the check, a pretty good value considering.

Currently, this is my favorite restaurant in Singapore, and hopefully a place to go back to soon, after the necessary comparisons to Les Amis and Iggy's, of course.  The moratorium on "Western Food" has been officially lifted!

Driving to Malaysia (from Singapore) - A Newcomer's Guide

Not all new residents of Singapore opt to have a car, and of those, not everyone attempts a crossing to neighboring Malaysia.  As soon as I leased our car, I was just itching to drive over the Singapore/Johor Strait, off of tiny little Singapore and into relatively gigantic peninsular Malaysia (can't drive to Borneo).  Our first trip was a catastrophe and put us off repeating a similar venture for a long period.  But now, after a year of monthly if not weekly crossings we feel like old hacks and my wife has been pestering me to share the gained knowledge with anyone seeking such guidance on the internet.  The top hits on a simple google search are quite useless as they do not contain the most pertinent information.

One general thing to remember is that every time you cross from Singapore to Malaysia you have to cross 2 borders - first to exit Singapore, then to enter Malaysia.  And vice versa on your return.  So you need to prepare for both.

The Vehicle (Car or Motorcycle)


If you own your car, you would have your certificate of ownership and registration, as well as insurance.  I assume your insurance covers Malaysia.  If you are renting or "leasing" (really, just a long-term rental; there is no leasing, in the American sense of the term, in Singapore) make sure your insurance covers Malaysia at the time the rental company draws up your contract, as it may vary.  We have been doing a 1-year lease and our insurance covers Malaysia, but the deductible is higher if the claim is for a Malaysian incident in comparison with a Singaporean one.  The company I "lease" my car from is called Express Car  and I happily recommend it.

The day before a planned drive to Malaysia I do three things to the car:

1. Fill up gas tank - cars have to be 3/4 full at crossing time to avoid a fine.  The two governments are trying to avoid a market distortion since gas, like everything else, is about twice as expensive in Singapore.  Note also that Singaporean drivers are supposed to fill up only 8000-grade (the finest) petrol, but this is not tightly enforced as far as I can tell.  Unlike Singapore, Malaysian gas pumps are usually not fully attended and you can pretty much do whatever you want.
2. Check tire pressure - most gas stations in Singapore provide free usage of an air pump with automatic pressure gauge (set to 220 pa for standard tires).  I'm already at the gas station, so might as well.  An unnecessary breakdown in Malaysia should be avoided at all costs to avoid getting stranded - my roadside assistance number is for Singapore only...
3. Remove any unneeded valuables - I usually have things like golf clubs, tent, and other non-essentials in the trunk.  In Singapore, I don't mind leaving them in my car, unlocked.  In Malaysia I would rather not tempt anyone even with an armed theft alarm.  This is not a slight against Malaysians, but there is an economic and culture gap between the two countries.

Both Singapore and Malaysia recognize foreign driver licenses. However, if you plan on staying in either for more than a year, you will be forced to convert. The process is not too difficult provided you convert in the first 12 months of residency.

The Route

If you are driving anywhere east (Pontian, Melaka) or central (Kuala Lumpur) it is better to cross at the more relaxed Tuas/Second Link border.  Otherwise, for nearby Johor Bahru or points east (Kota Tinggi, Desaru) use Woodlands.  If this is your first drive, I recommend using Tuas and driving either to Melaka or nearby Pontian/Kukup.

Some obvious locations for driving (6 hours or less): 

• 1-hour Trips
• Pontian/Kukup - Seaside villages on the west coast , 
• Kota Tinggi Waterfalls - Small resort with nice falls/tubing/picnic areas
• I like to combine hike on Gunung Panti with Waterfalls for day trips
• 2-hour Trips
• Melaka - Good food, night market, Chinese-Malay culture, some historical sites of old empire 
• Desaru - Beaches & Eco-Tours (Fireflies boat ride, fruit farm, ostrich farm, alligator farm)
• There's a newly opened highway (E22) that can be used to get there faster now.  It crosses over the Johor River, instead of having to go up Route 3 all the way up to Kota Tinggi and then back down on 92.
• Further Afield
• Kuala Lumpur - Malay capital, Batu caves
• Mersing - go there to catch a ferry to Tioman islands (no cars)
• Cherating - Club Med beach resort and turtle sanctuary

Most GPS's available for purchase in Singapore will have Malaysia maps installed by default.  My crappy Holux brand model did, and the maps/POIs have been satisfactory, even in Borneo (East Malaysia).  

Essential Miscellany

Absolutely Need To Bring:

1. Your passport (and travel visa if you're not automatically welcome)
2. Your Employment/Dependent pass.  
3. Prepaid Singapore Cash Card (for payments at border crossings)

You should also bring some ringgits along as well (for the best rate, albeit only marginally so, we go to the last money changer in Change Alley - closest to Shenton Rd).  I would bring 100 or more depending on your stay and what you plan to do.  At a minimum you have to pay to cross (at Woodlands) or for road tolls (immediately outside Tuas). 

Malaysian White Immigration Entry Form

This is the trickiest thing about crossing to Malaysia in my opinion.  You need to have this document prepared before getting to an immigration officer booth on the Malay side, but in Woodlands there is no place to get this ahead of time.  In Tuas, if it's within business hours (~8am-8pm) you can get this at the info hut just before the immigration center, which is why I recommend Tuas for the first crossing.  If you reach a booth without this card or without this card filled, you will be admonished and then you will be asked to park your car nearby, walk to the central immigration office, pick up the forms, fill them out, and then walk up to the drive-through booth to complete the crossing.  On a busy day, this is tantamount to breaking one of the ten commandments.

Another thing, they won't give you extras for next time!  What we've been doing is we either take turns going out to the info hut at Tuas to get 4-5 forms at a time (they won't give more), or we pick some up at the Malaysian tourism office.  Since our first few road trips, we've also been flying to Malaysia for some our holidays (Borneo, Penang) and we either ask the stewardesses for extras or we look for packets at the arrival halls.  We now have enough for the next year or two ;)

We've understood that you can bribe guards to get extra forms, but on my last crossing (yesterday) I noticed a small post-it on the window of the immigration booth I drove up to at Woodlands that said "No White Entry Forms Available".

If you or one of your party are on a temporary visa in Singapore the crossings will involve a Singapore entry card as well. Make sure to bring the portion left from your last entry to Singapore. While crossing out of Singapore ask for a new one for your return trip.

When to Cross

On weekends, my general advice is to cross before 7am or late at night.  Return is hit or miss.  4-7pm seems like the rush hour back.  If it's a national holiday on either side, avoid crossing altogether or try to be extra early/late.  I have had 2 horrendous experiences with long delays at crossing:

• Hari Raya Puasa: I left home at about ~11am or so and arrived at the Tuas border at ~12pm.  The Singapore crossing was empty so I thought I was smart to avoid the early morning rush.  Shortly after the crossing I realized my mistake.  The 3-mile drive was entirely backed up and it took around 4 hours to complete the crossing.  Leaving us just enough time to get dinner and drive back home!
• Around Christmas: Driving back from Kota Tinggi in mid-December on a Sunday evening I hit a nasty jam on the Malay side and the crossing took close to 2 hours (5-7pm) if you include the traffic jam leading up to Woodlands.

First Trip 

Again, I would like to recommend that you use Tuas on your first trip.  There are several reasons:

1. The info Hut just outside the Malay border where you can get White Immigration Entry Form
2.  Easier to get a Touch N' Go Cash Card - manned booths at first toll area 
1. At Woodlands, you need to have a prepaid Touch N' Go card to enter through the Malay border - the payment is a mere ~$1 or 2 MYR, but the payment method has to be a Touch N' Go cash card.  Only one booth out of the tens there is manned with someone that can perform a cash for Touch N' Go transaction.  That's the right most window in the right most zone.  I believe it's Zone 1, Window 8.  Reminder: bring ringgits/MYR. 
2. At Tuas, there is no payment on the Malay border, but you need to pay toll immediately after crossing.  You can purchase a Touch N' Go at a couple of windows in any of the toll stations and it is les stressful.  My first crossing we didn't bring any ringgits and while we got fleeced on the exchange rate, the toll attendants were good enough to take SGD in exchange for the prepaid cash card. Ther's a money changer immediately after the toll station at the R&R rest area
3. More relaxed, open atmosphere.  Woodlands is claustrophobic and disorienting.  Tuas is open and calm by comparison.

Here's a simulation of your first Tuas crossing:

1. You drive up towards the last exit on the AYE going west.  You start seeing blue signs about filling up your gas tank to 3/4, and prepaying your cash card.  If you forgot either, get off at the one to last exit to do so.
2. You follow the signs for car/motorcycle to immigration.  You will drive towards a bank of booths and play some game (which you are bound to lose, Murphy's laws) to figure out the fastest line.  The Singapore immigration officer at the booth will ask for your passport and EP/DP.  They will want to see all the passengers and may ask you to roll down windows and drive up a bit.
3. You will insert your cash card into the machine that collects border payment and select your vehicle type.
4. After collecting your passports and EP/DPs, drive off to the bridge and enjoy the view of the Singapore/Johor Strait.  Eventually you will arrive at another immigration center on the Malaysian side.  
5. Stop off at the Information Hut just before the banks of immigration officer booths to collect some White Immigration Entry Forms.  If there are several persons in the vehicle take turns going up and asking for 4-5 cards each for your next crossings... Fill out the forms before proceeding.
6. At an immigration booth you just need to provide your passports (not EP/DPs) and the White Immigration Entry Forms, pre-filled.  Your passport will be stamped, and so will a portion of the White Immigration Entry Form, which should be kept inside the passport to provide when exiting Malaysia.
7. Once you're off with your returned documents, proceed to the E3 toll booth.  Go towards the left to lanes not marked TnG or TAG.  Pay cash toll or prepay a new Touch N' Go card (recommended). 
8. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

On the way back to Singapore:

1. Give Malaysian immigration officer your passports, along with the remaining portion of the White Immigration Entry Forms.  
2. Collect passports and proceed to Singapore border
3. Provide immigration officer with passports and EP/DPs
4. Collect and proceed to Customs Check
5. You will be asked to stop your car and open the trunk.  If it doesn't open on its own, get out of the vehicle and open it.
6. After inspection close your trunk and drive off back home.
7. Congratulations!  You drove to Malaysia and back.  You should feel a sense of accomplishment and a higher self-worth :)

Penang - meh...

Originally, we were going to fly to the nearest US territory, Guam, for the 4th of July, but flying out to the middle of the Pacific appears to be complicated and expensive; we'd have to fly through Manilla with an inconvenient layover. Long story short, we ended up in nearby Penang, Malaysia.

Our expectations may have been inappropriate, but we were generally disappointed with Penang.  Lots of traffic, run-down neighborhoods, and relatively crappy beaches.  We stayed at a convenient but shabby hotel on Batu Ferringhi.  On the first day, we drove around the old city, visited the Peranakan Mansion (more because of it was showcased in the Amazing Race than anything else), a glitzy new mall, and the sprawling Kek Lok Si Temple.  We earned a lot of merit there by buying roof shingles for the newly constructed old people home.  We saw the over-crowded turtle pond, bought some souvenirs, and drove up to the Guan Yi statue.  For dinner we had a nice seafood feast.

The next day we visited the butterfly park, which was nice.  It has garden filled with lots of flowers for the butterflies to hang out, good for lots of good photo opportunities.  There is also a small theater showing random critter shorts, and a pretty good display of insects, snakes and lizards.  We spent a good one and half hours there exercising the camera's muscles, rocked back and forth on the "love butterfly" swing chair, watched a short cartoon about a "green" spider, and had a popsicle to complete the fun.

After the butterfly garden we chartered a small boat to take us to Monkey Beach.  The beach was a bit nicer than the ones at Batu Ferringhi, but not much and there were too many boats going in and out, making the experience a bit unnerving.  Add to that stress a bunch of monkeys constantly attacking our food supply.  There was a tire swing that you could jump off into the surf.  I tried.  It wasn't pretty, and my glasses fell off into the murky waters.  Amazingly, a lady from a small group wading next to us was able to extract them!  We paid her off with a banana boat ride.  We also dug a crab out of the sand.  We were just a digging a big hole and all of a sudden it came out from a side pocket.

In summary: lemonade from lemons...

Melaka & Johor Waterfalls

My dad went back to Australia and we went along with my mom for another weekend in Peninsular Malaysia.  We woke up later than planned, but we made it ok across Woodlands immigration point.  I used this site to pick out a waterfall - Taka Melor - on the way to Melaka.  Of course, the site failed to mention that the road to the waterfall had been washed away during a flood a few months back.  After stopping to ask for directions in the nearby town's cafe we started driving towards a dangerous sink hole, but luckily we noticed a nice couple on their motorbike chasing us and signaling for us to turn back.  They showed us how to get as far as the broken road could take us and we paid them to watch our car while we walked the rest of the way.  The fall is very small, and despite being completely unreachable by motor vehicles, the tiny park around it was filthy with debris.  Shame, shame, shame on you Malaysians.  Still we made the best of it and had a nice dip in the cool waters.

By the time we had gotten back the wife had abandoned her man and he was sitting patiently next to the car waiting for us to finish our frolicking.  We paid him and offered to take him home which was just off the main road where they had started following us.  He invited us into his home, but we politely declined and continued on our way.  He reminded me that there was a hot springs in the town as well, and we managed to find it.  The water was super-duper hot.  Too hot.  Lizzy and I spent the hour there playing in a decrepit playground that was part of the complex.  We especially enjoyed hiding and crawling through the large cement pipes.  Not so much the cement slide... ouch!

Cool waterfall dip, hot spring bath, and we were done for the day.  On to Melaka and our hotel, which was a bit rundown but cozy for the price.  We had dinner at Tandoor, which was a small restaurant with tables laid out on the parking lot it faces.  Despite the environs it got packed while we were there.  The waiters were brisk but efficient.  The menu was not extensive, but the food was great.  Constant flow of tandoori chicken (succulent, spicy goodness on a stick), naan and yellow daal (lentils).  Lizzy suffered bravely through the spicy affair.  My mom was fairing better.  Connie and I just kept licking our fingers, and ordering more and more chicken.  After dinner we drove to Jonkers market and enjoyed the street market with its bustling trade.  We bought some wooden stools, a hello kitty umbrella, a sesame snack, and firecrackers.  What a day!

Lazy walk through central Melaka - climb up to St. Paul's cathedral, down to museum row, and the park/playground.  Lizzy and I had ice cream on the swings waiting for Connie and my mom who went to visit the Enduring Beauty museum which looked anything but from the outside...

We spent the rest of the day in the car going from one wild goose chase to another.  When you're winging it, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  On this particular afternoon, it did not work at all...  For dinner, we went back to Jonkers market and tried to get a seat at Teo Soon Loong Chan but it was all reserved for the night, and we settled for Famosa Chicken Rice Balls.  Not bad, but we need to get back to Malacca to try the famous TSL before long...

A nice break.  Second time in Malacca was way better.  It's a small place, but you need to appreciate specific bits of it - last time we were only there during the day and missed out on Jonkers night market.  That is really the highlight of the place.

Bali - Candi Dasa, Tulamben, Amed, Besakih/Agong

From Mt. Batur to Candi Dasa was about a 2-hour drive.  It was slow going because of bad road conditions and a heavy rainstorm.  Candi Dasa is a pretty small coastal town dotted with restaurants and small mom & pop style resorts and inns.   The beach has eroded, so there are now villas for rent right on the water with good swimming and some snorkeling right off the backyard, when the tide is low and the water calm (~4-10pm).  We had rented one of these - Villa Kaniksa - for the rest of our stay in Bali.

The villa is structured like a compound in the sense that there are four independent ensuite bedrooms that can be closed off, but the rest of the house is completely open to the elements, with a nice koi pond/garden, dining area, and a living room that spills into the back yard, pool with jacuzzi, and a small sitting area/hut (bale) right next to the water.  Lizzy immediately took to the open space and started rearranging the rocks in the backyard, splashing up some water, and running around barefoot on the well-trimmed grass.  In no time we all got into our bathing suits and got into the pool.

We loved our stay at the villa. We felt like rock stars, pampered and constantly excited with the different possibilities the space offered. However, the one issue we did immediately have with the place was that it was staffed 24/7 so there was very little privacy, and the kitchen was basically off limits to us. It's nice to have the help, but we would have rather had the place all to ourselves. Next time we know what to ask for.

The following day, we enjoyed the sunny, drier (than Singapore) weather by the pool and then took a drive to the Tirta Gangga water palace of Amed.  We were actually looking for a suppsedly white sand beach, but ended up at Tirta Gangga.  Connie and Lizzy dozed in the car so I took my parents to visit the grounds.  The place is fairly well-preserved and climbing the many steps up the hill to its back afforded one a great view of the coast.  We didn't find the beach on this day, but we arranged for Lizzy and my parents to be taken there by boat the following day, while Connie and I went scuba diving.  We had a nice lunch at a small resort next door to the villa, where we went online for the first time since we arrived in Bali - and shared a unique celebratory moment after reading that Bin Laden had been killed in a US-led operation in Pakistan.  For dinner we had an anniversary dinner for my parents with a whole suckling pig carved table-side, the skin getting a further fry treatment that turned it into crispy, fatty pork rinds.  I shared the snout with Lizzy...

In the morning, Connie and I bid Lizzy and the grandparents adieu and went on a half-day diving trip at Tulamben.  This dive site boasts a 120m-long shipwreck (USS Liberty) just a few meters offshore (super-easy access) with different depth profiles and all sorts of  marine life.  We did two dives - one around the perimeter of the wreck and one in through portions of the hull - with sightings of stingrays, bee shrimp, a clownfish inside an anemone, a moorish idol, a big school of swirling jackfish, and loads beautiful coral. This was Connie's first dive after certification and the best dive site I've visited.  We drove back home towards late afternoon and shared stories with my parents who had a day on the water in a small pontoon boat, with a short stay on the "white-sand" beach nearby.

The following day we drove up Mt. Agung to Besakih Mothe Temple, Bali's largest.  Bali has a majority Hindu population (in a country that is largely muslim) and they practice a version of Hindu that is very ritualistic.  People spend a lot of their daytime in preparation of offerings (woven coconut leaf baskets with flowers and fruit), giving offering, and cleaning up after old, used offerings... There is at least one shrine in every home that provides protection and good fortune to the household, and this shrine is partially covered in a black and white cloth symbolizing good/bad or dark/light.  The Mother Temple at Besakih is built on the mountain side and consists of many leveled terraces, statues, shrines and indoor temples for specific castes and functions. The place is quite touristy but the temple grounds themselves are marvelous.  Lizzy was bit tired and gave us an excuse to cut the visit a bit short, avoiding the climb to the final levels of the temple.  We were told we had to wear sarongs to enter the complex, so we were all walking around with these skirts tied at our waist.  On the way down Lizzy started nagging us about ice cream, and we luckily found a vendor selling vanilla in cones from the back of his motorbike.

We stopped for lunch on the way down the mountain next to a rice terrace.  The restaurant was quaint, the food mediocre, but the service was excellent.  Further down the mountain we stopped to buy and eat a durian in one of the many stalls that lined the road.  We picked a small one, enough for just two people to gobble up the meaty interior hiding in several pockets.  It was delicious.  On the way back we bought a large fish from a lady sitting by the side of the road.  It was a huge fish and my mom instructed the culinary team back home to prepare from it ceviche, fish head soup, and grilled fillets.  It was a great dinner.

Towards evening Connie snorkeled and hunted some sea urchins in the waters just off the back of the villa.  But we were too scared to handle and open the urchins for the fresh delicacy inside, so we threw them back into the water.  On our last evening at the villa we managed to successfully launch a Kongming sky lantern off into the sky over the ocean.  Spectators spending a quiet evening on the wave breakers nearby cheered and clapped.  We sat and ate fresh tropical fruit in the bale, splashed in the pool - by this point of our stay Lizzy took to pretty much running around naked all over the house from pool to jacuzzi to bale to grass to rocks to rooms to beach chairs to pool and back again, having the wildest time of her young life.

We also visited the Goa Lawah temple, with its cave filled with fruit bats.  It was interesting but you could only stand outside and see the bats at the mouth of the cave.  We had some other minor adventures, and some crazy driving experiences, but the gist of the trip was to relax around and enjoy the exotic island, and that is mostly what we did.  This was an amazing, adventurous, and luxurious holiday.  We'd love to go back to Bali to explore more of the North and West of the island, and I think we will create an opportunity next year sometime if not sooner.

Bali - Ubud, Elephant Safari Park, Batur

One of the best if not the absolute best vacations I've taken.
It is hard to express in words what is so attractive about the island and its inhabitants but we were constantly awed by the beauty of our surroundings, and the exotic feel of the places visited and the people we met.  I can't wait to go back and see some more of the place before it is ruined by development.  We visited the less touristy/resort-oriented areas of Central and East Bali.  The big resorts and the nice white-sand beaches are all in the South, but we decided to skip those and do something different.  Everyone (our party consisted of ages ranging from 2 to 61-years-old) was really happy all week, so I think we made out ok with this choice.

In Central Bali, Ubud is a bustling town with 2-3 long main streets of fashionable shops, galleries, restaurants, artisan studios, an ancient palace and a few temples.  Despite being overrun with tourists, the place still manages to feel backwards and remote, with motorcycle riders heading against traffic on narrow streets, lots of bicycles, and monkeys running amok.  Our hotel, Champlung Sari, was situated on the outskirts of the Monkey Forest, a small macaque reserve/city park.  We arrived at ~midnight and were then woken up at 6am to what sounded like furniture moving in the rooms above us.  On closer inspection we realized we were on the top floor, and that the sounds were made by a horde of apes storming the hotel grounds.  They all left within fifteen minutes or so of this display of chaos and energy.


We had our rental car delivered to the hotel in the morning, a good thing because it would have been dangerous, if not impossible, to find our way at night from the airport to the hotel.  As popular a destination as Bali is, most of the country's road network is in disrepair.  Some of it can be accurately and honestly described as a pile of rocks placed in some sort of a logical path.  However, despite the dangers of driving here, rental companies are happy to let you take their fleet off their hands for a minimal payment, without any forms of identification or credit card information in lieu of potential damages.  Notably, I found car rental to be the best value and hassle-free service on the island.  We rented a Toyota Avanza - a very common SUV on the island.  Anything closer to the ground would have likely not survived the trip...


Anxious to get out and about, and having no formal plans for the day - explore Ubud and its surroundings - we got into the car with the idea of driving north to the Elephant Safari Park, an attraction my father picked out form a tourist map in the hotel.  We got the car in gear and headed north - we made sure to get a GPS with the car, which was at least helpful as a compass.  The narow streets of Ubud quickly gave way to the narrow streets of the rest of Central Bali.  We drove through more interior decor workshops than I have ever seen in my life - woodworks, stonemasonry, glass, you name it.  Then, all of a sudden, a valley opened up on our right-hand side with amazing view of rice terraces, a scenic anomaly common in this area.


We continued north and uphill and we had not noticed any gas stations along the way.  The rental car man had mentioned "premium" when discussing the particulars of operations, and we had noticed many shops lining the road with signs of the same.  So we stopped at one convenient for its parking area large enough for a car - not as common as one might suspect on this major artery leading from Ubud to Mt. Batur and to the North.  These "premium" shops generally boast a wall of shelves carrying glass bottles  of either 1 or 2L capacity filled with gasoline.  The shopkeeper, a young mother, assured us that this was the correct fluid for the car and we bought 5L worth, which she then promptly tipped one by one into a funnel inserted into the gas tank that my dad was holding in place for her.  This was comical and we could not help but to laugh and take pictures of this operation.  We later discovered that there are also normal gas stations, that those generally charge less than the "premium" road-side shops, that we had missed one on the way, and that they are not nearly as much fun...


 We almost missed the unassuming turnoff to Taro village and the Elephant Safari Park.  The road got less straight and less flat and we started getting a closer glimpse into the lifestyle of the common Balinese family.  The elephant park itself was easy to find and it proved to be a tourist trap, but Lizzy liked the ride and we got to feed a few elephants up close - their skin is softer than one imagines, but still pretty rough and tough.  After the visit, we were quite hungry, especially after a detour along a wrong road that was cut short when the road turned into a pile of large rubble.  On the way back we bought some roadside snacks and a hot soup from a young vendor.  Still quite famished we stopped at a store/restaurant/gas station run by one friendly woman.  We got some fish curries, chayote soup, rice and long beans.  The shopkeeper cum restauranteur entertained my dad in the kitchen (a bunch of pots over an open range in the back of the store) letting him dip his fingers into the various boiling sauces.  We also bought some gasoline from her - 20L poured from a proper jerry can this time.  Looked pretty heavy, too...


On the way back to the hotel we stopped for a visit at the Monkey Forest, where we bought bananas and fed soe feral monkeys against the rules of the park.  I think there had been some accidents with aggressive monkeys and there are now lots of monkey/tourist rangers keeping the peace.  This park/garden has some pretty sone sculptures, and a really nice bridge with stone parapets carves to look like snakes/dragons with scales all along the sides, ending with heads and tails on either end.  The bridge is also a staircase leading into a lower garden area and it passes through a Banyan tree whose roots are hanging in midair all over the lower level.  A beautiful scene right out of a fantasy novel.  Small and tourist-filled yet I would still recommend a twilight stroll through Monkey Forest.  We finished our day with a dinner at Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck) restaurant, where we had crispy duck, spareribs, satay, rice and veggies (meh).  My mom got sick (Bali belly?) from lunch...


We were awoken again at 6am by the monkey horde.  This time we fed them.  There is a fruit basket in the hotel rooms, and I assume that the macaques are performing this wake-up call ritual with the bananas from from the fruit bowls in mind.  We shared ours.  We checked out and drove out north from Ubud towards Mt Batur - a volcano that blew its top not too long ago.  It has a lake (Lake Batur) on its Western side with a bunch of natural spring spas/resorts popping up along it.  On the way we bought some of the best fresh fruit we've ever had - mangosteens, mandarins, rambutans, tomatoes - from various roadside vendors, some that looked young enough to be ten or even less.  Something about the volcanic rock farmland is yielding super-fruits.

At a milestone T along the way, we got pulled over by official-looking gentlemen demanding that we pay an entrance fee to the Batur region.  It was a symbolic sum, but the racket was not appreciated.  We drove down a fairly steep road to the lake taking in the beautiful scenery with the towering Mt Batur rising from the Eastern edge of the water, its peak shrouded in mist.  We found a nice resort with natural spring-fed pools and a nice restaurant, where we polished off lunch in the rain (under the safety of thatched roof).  Lizzy pretty much fainted after a few spoon fulls of rice and slept on two chairs while we ate.   Serene.


After lunch we drove through the mountainous region east towards the coast.  Following our GPS we ended up driving through what may have been the most direct route, but one seriously lacking in concrete.  At some point we stopped to ask for directions from a man sitting in a hut by the side of the road in a remote location, only to be promptly surrounded by urchins of various ages knocking on the windows and trying to sell hand-made baskets in what appeared to be an overly aggressive manner.  It was getting a little traumatic, so we declined and drove off while the knocking intensified.  A little girl from this group ran after our car for what seemed like a very long stretch down a rocky mountain road, and we fell into an uncomfortable silence as we drove on, wishing that scene had gone very differently.  Not long after that we merged with the better-paved coastal highway, as we closed in on our destination at the village of Candi Dasa.  To be continued...

Desaru Eco Tour & Beach Holiday

Johor state in Malaysia, on Singapore's doorstep, is proving to be my new favorite playground.  After two weekends of hiking near Kota Tinggi on Gunung Panti, I took the family on an eco-tour of Desaru.  Throw in a beach resort, and you have a perfect mix of fun and adventure.

Our itinerary included a fruit farm, an ostrich farm, an alligator farm, a firefly cruise, water park, sand play and wading at the beach, as well as two dinners at an amazing seafood restaurant in a local fishing village.   The basic research for the trip was mostly gathered from this resourceful site.  And we stayed two nights at the Lotus Desaru Beach Resort.

The Desaru Fruit Farm was awesome.  Although most fruits were not in season, there were plenty of blossoms and young fruit on their way to ripening.  The tour guide was quite knowledgable about the horticulture and about the many health-related uses of fruits and herbs - the perfect fruit saleslady.  Lizzy was especially enthralled with the large snails that we spotted on some banana tree leaves.  She kept pointing at the snails and saying "that's not poop...."  There was also a mini-zoo where we fed rabbits and goats and saw some monkeys and chickens.  We then sat through a seminar about wild bees and the many exulted benefits of their related products - pollen, honey, somecrapolis, you-name-it these bees produced it and it cured you-name-it again.  We ended up buying 3 large bottles of wild bee honey that we are still taking on a daily basis as a cure-all elixir.  It's yummy and Lizzy likes to scoop it with a tiny little spoon.

The Ostrich Show Farm was not nearly as exciting, but we learned some interesting things about ostriches - like that females are carrying more than 10 of those huge eggs inside them at any one time.  That those eggs have more protein per unit of egg than the chicken variety.  That Lulu has a 4-carat diamond ring inside of her and cutting her up was more expensive than paying off the irate ring-owner... We ate ostrich egg omelet, ostrich satay, ostrich steak, and ostrich tendon soup.

The crocodile farm is a bit of a bore with its tens of pools of crocodiles just doing their thing - lying around lazily.  However, the feeding that was going on while we were there definitely made for a fun visit.  The "farmer" wheelbarrowed around a bunch of chickens and kept taunting the crocodiles and throwing them a carcass to either fight over (young ones) or devour in one gulp (isolated adults).  We got two teeth as souvenirs.

The firefly cruise was neat.  Basically, you get on a boat after dark and cruise along the mangrove lined river looking out for fireflies.  The boatsmen have a trick to getting the fireflies to light up and so you get to see a lot of them.

The hotel is well-positioned and boasts a really nice beach.  Pretty good amenities.  Rooms are outdated, but the real problem is that the housekeeping staff is clueless and ineffective.  The water park is dangerous - Lizzy got her first nosebleed shooting out of a water slide at top speed and hurtling at mommy's jaw-slacked mouth.  4+ I'd say.

Sungai Rengit is a tiny fishing village with many good seafood restaurants.  We went to Crystal Garden the first night, and had such a good time we returned to the same place for a second night.  Why risk it when you've found the perfect spot.  Bamboo clams, mini lobsters, clams, steamed fish, fried tofu, vegetables - all perfectly prepared.  Yum.  Can't wait to go back. 

This was a really nice and easy vacation to the near-abroad.  Days were fun-filled and adventure-packed.  Food was great.  And we experienced some new things and had no dull moments in-between.  I'd recommend a Desaru weekend to anyone with a car in Singapore.

Gunung Panti & Kota Tinggi - Mission Accomplished

I could not let Gunung Panti defeat me, so went back on the same trip as last week - Gunung Panti hike plus Kota Tinggi Waterfalls.  This time with another colleague from work.  After trekking through the thick of it last week and studying the terrain map on Google, I knew where we had to go and pushed Deepak to jump across the muddy creek to the correct ridge.  We quickly found the right trail and took it directly up the Western face.


Other than fighting a wave of exhaustion the climb up was fairly uneventful.  One bonus to not going up an actual trek last week was that we didn't see human trash all over the place.  That was annoying today.  When we got near the peak the mountain turned into a rock wall.  Luckily there were ropes positioned in good spots to help one climb.  We were rewarded for our rock climbing by a magnificent view and the sound of illegal logging...

The waterfalls are still awesome, and this time I found more spots on top of the lower waterfalls where the pools are deeper.

Toddler Jeopardy

A few weeks back we spent a quiet afternoon at the East Coast Park beach with Lizzy, getting her ready for that week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" lightning round:

Gunung Panti & Kota Tinggi

Rainforest Trek

This week I organized a hiking trip with some of my colleagues at work to Gunung Panti - the nearest mountain in the neighboring state of Johor, Malaysia.  There was very limited information about trails in this area, but we found an enthusiast's guide with GPS waypoints so we thought it was something we could do.  With GPS and compass in hand (and passports, visas and employee passes) we travelled by car from Singapore to the nearby town of Kota Tinggi.  There were only four of us - a colleague and his wife, and a junior member of the team who I am mentoring.  Connie and Lizzy had tickets to Ugly Duckling.

Besides hike organizer, I was also the driver for this trip, so I woke up at ~5am in order to get to the first pickup point at 5:40am, and to the second one by 5:55am. We were across to Malaysia by 6:15am.  This was the first time I drove through the Woodlands link - there are only 2 bridges from Singapore to Malaysia and I've taken the other one twice.  They are really similar and I am not sure why the so-called Second Link is favored (Google maps refuses to give directions via Woodlands).  I can understand taking the out-of-the-way Second Link to Kuala Lumpur or Penang, but not to central or Eastern Johor.  The main thing is to get to these border crossings before 6:30am and avoid them altogether during public holidays...

We were at the outskirts of the Gunung Panti Forest Reserve around 8am.  The dirt road that led to the trailhead had some very big weak spots, so we ended up parking next to the guardhouse just outside a nearby hotel - I tipped the guard to watch the car, mostly to make sure no monkeys attack it, like they did in Thailand.  The trail we followed leading from a makeshift camp opened out to a nearby farm or kampong.  It then picked up again wherever we chose to climb over the farm's fence...  A simple study of the terrain ahead of time, and a closer look at a compass would have saved us an hour and a lot of stress.  As organizer I take full responsibility for not being better prepared.  Trying to find the main trail, we fought the thick rainforest full with leeches, mosquitoes, and very sharp brambles only to get ~100m or so, elevation-wise, short of the peak when I decided to give up and start heading back - I was not very confident of my trekking skill by this point, and it was getting close to noon.  I wanted to play it safe given that I was leading the way and there was a lady present.


View Gunung Panti - April 2, 2011 in a larger map

On the way down, we lost the trail again.  And again.  We somehow got to the damned farm again... and again - the third time was not my fault, except maybe that I did not sufficiently fight the rest of the group about which way to go. We made it back down by ~2pm.  We were all bleeding from leech bites along our sock lines.  Some of us ran out of water.  I had a crazy cramp in my left calf.  As soon as we made it down I vowed to return within two month's time for a do-over.  The GPS died near the peak, not that the piece of shit really helped.  Switching to a mechanical compass (don't trust your iPhones!) was the way to go.  It made me fairly sure of my bearings and direction of travel (other than down).  It was the first time I trekked without following a well-marked trail and a hiking map.  We were also the ONLY people on the mountain - that was a new experience for me, and I came out a better trekker and more sure of my general survival skills.

Leeches

As I noted above, we were all attacked by leeches on this trek.  This was my first experience with the suckers (pun intended).  They look like worms, and once attached to your skin they swell up in size from the blood intake.  If you try to rip them off your skin, it will cause minor injury.  The approved way to get rid of the leech is to sprinkle salt on it - we came prepared.  It will then contract and lose contact at which point you can flick it off.  It will also eventually get off of you once it had its fill.  After my first leech attack, I raised my socks as far as they could go.  I was wearing really thick wool socks and this kept the leeches from getting to my skin through the sock - something that happened to others in my party.  Every 15 minutes or so I would check my boots and flick off any leeches climbing toward the sock line.  This seemed to work.  When we got back t the car there were some on my socks inside the boots, but they never made contact after the first one.

Cold Bath

After the stressful hike, we drove 5 minutes north to the Kota Tinggi Waterfalls Resort.  I really didn't know what to expect, but we were already there, so we paid the 10RM fee per person and parked the car.  The resort is quite dinky, no doubt.  We washed our hike off in a small pool by the hotel reception.  Then we walked to the waterfalls (despite aching limbs).  In short, the waterfalls are awesome.  The water is cold and refreshing, and the cascading terrain has created small pools for those brave enough to climb the slippery rocks to get a nice perch and a "massage."  We spent an hour enjoying ourselves and taking pictures.  We even got to see a snake swallowing another snake whole.

This was my third and best trip to Malaysia to this point.  I suspect I will be back in Kota Tinggi very soon!

Bangkok

Early Flights - Savings With Penalties

If you want to try to avoid extra days off from work, or if you wish to lower your transportation costs by getting a cheap, unpopular flight you can pick ones in the early morning or late at night.  But this seems to defeat either the purpose of cost-reduction, or the purpose of the trip - to explore and/or relax.  We took a very early morning flight to Bangkok.  It was quite cheap, saved us from taking Friday off, but it also ruined our first day in Thailand.  We were too tired to do anything as a group (us, and Connie's aunt and uncle).

Our hotel would not let us checkin before 11am, so we decided to drop our bags and start exploring/relaxing.  We found the pool and toured the grounds, then went outside to look for breakfast - a street vendor who fried an egg over rice on-demand.  We found a nearby 7-11 for some sundry items, and got oriented (found the nearest Skytrain station, and the main artery that is Silom road).  After this, Connie, Lizzy and Uncle were done for the day.  Auntie and I went for a walk to the nearest bank of the Chao Phraya river for some boat gazing, ducking in and out of street markets along the way.


Bangkok is a very developed city and it is undergoing some modern urbanization projects (like establishing a mass transit system).  In areas along the newly-built Skytrain there are wires everywhere above and along the sidewalks, and some look downright exposed and dangerous.  There are street vendors everywhere, selling drinks, fruits, mango salads, satay meats, and all manner of stuff.  Near hotels and tourist attractions there are many tuk-tuk drivers bothering everyone to take their cab.

In the evening we met ex-Bloomberg colleagues of ours who are now stationed there - the husband, John, works for the State Department.  We had a Chinese banquet meal at Paragon mall.  This is one of the nicest malls I've ever been to, and Singapore has its fair share.  Lizzy really enjoyed the company of their 5-year-old daughter, Heather, and spent the rest of the trip and some of the following days begging us to reunite them.  As I'm writing this, two weeks later, she has just woken up from sleep screaming that she wants to go to Thailand...

What's a Wat?

The following day we woke up early to fill up on breakfast buffet and take a semi-guided tour of three of the city's many and varied Wats or Temples.  The first was Wat Traimit, an old Chinatown temple complex with a brand, new shrine built to house a Buddha statue made of 5.5-tons of gold - the world's most valuable sacred object.  Lizzy and Connie earned merit by getting a monk to splash them with sticks dipped in holy water, buy some flowers and incense as offerings, ring bells, and throw money into a large urn.

Next we visited Wat Pho (also know as Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Ratchaworamahawihan, but why?).  It holds a huge reclining Buddha and a mind-boggling attraction made of buckets where you can throw in fake money you buy with real money - ie earn merit.  The buckets are lined against the wall, and the coins are dropped one by one in a long procession, and when lots of people are playing this game, this holy temple sounds like the winingest casino in Vegas... Lizzy liked it.  I am still trying to find out the meaning of it all.  The vast temple grounds are also really interesting, with loads of Buddhist statues and symbols, and beautiful tombs as well.

Finally, we walked through the well-kept grounds of Wat Benchamabophit - the Marble Temple.  I'm not sure we earned any merit here.  We played the collection of drums in the courtyard nearby, which I think counts...

We also managed to go on a short canal tour - off the Chao Phraya.  The canals wind around people's backyards, where some have setup shop to sell this and that.  We saw a small crocodile on one house's fence, and we bought some bread from one of the sellers to feed catfish congregated just for this purpose in the canal in front of their home.

After a short rest back in the hotel we went out to see Siam Niramit - a cultural/historical/fantasy extravaganza.  The production quality left something to be desired, and the story-line was not at all clear or educational.  But the staging was nice, some bits like an underwater scene were even spectacular, and it had something for everyone.  One part (a scene depicting hell) was a bit scary for Lizzy, but after each act and curtain drop she demanded more - "there's another one... another one..."

This was a very full day.

Shopping

We spent half the following day at MBK mall for some bargain-shopping.  We did not bring a stroller with us and by mid-midday Lizzy was going crazy (as was I)...  We had a nice lunch (tom yum, satay, rice and vegetables), waited out a rainstorm, and headed back to the hotel.  We spent the afternoon soaking sun pool-side.  We met Heather and her family for dinner again, and the girls spent some time at a kiddie arcade together.  Lizzy liked whack-a-mole.

Ascott - Travel 2 Cents

The Ascott Group is a Singapore-based chain of serviced apartment properties with locations all over South East Asia.  We first stayed at one for our temporary stay through my company when we moved to Singapore.  For our last two trips (4 adults, 1 child) we've booked 2-BR apartments instead of getting 2 rooms in a hotel.  This comes out a lot cheaper and you get a proper living room, dining room and kitchen.  We highly recommend serviced-apartments as a primary choice for families travelling in this region.  We plan to continue travelling this way ourselves.

We spent the last hours of our trip in the lap of luxury that is breakfast at the Bangkok Sathorn Ascott, and chilled in the swimming pool, readying ourselves for the short flight back.  And the following workday...

Malacca & Kuala Lumpur

Over the weekend we braved crossing the Singapore/Johor Strait into Malaysia again.  Last time we did this we got stuck in traffic for 4 hours over the Second Link bridge in-between the two immigration stations, so we had been traumatized from that experience.  This time, we picked a non-holiday weekend and left home at 6am.  We cleared both sides in no time, and the total drive time from our home to the historic town of Malacca took about 3 hours, as advertised by Google.


Malacca / Melaka

Both spellings are officially correct.  Malay is written with the basic Latin alphabet, like English, and Melaka is the way it is written in Malay.  The origin of the name Malacca is fanciful and includes a story about a mouse deer.  It has nothing to do with Greek, though... Malacca can refer to a Malay Sultanate dynasty which ruled the region, the current county/state in Malaysia, or our subject matter, its capital city.  It sits on the narrowest point in the Straits of Malacca - which is why it was historically significant.  It lost this significance due to a self-ransacking, and the rise of Singapore & Kuala Lumpur.

The town is quaint and has an interesting mix of architecture styles as it was ruled by the Malay, Portuguese, Dutch and British empires over the years.  The A Famosa fort, which was completely destroyed by the Brits when they left it in early 1800's (if we can't have it, no one will!), is the center of the historical district.  There are old dutch churches and state houses that now house several museums, and a little park.  There is some antiquing in the Jonker street quarter, and lots of restaurants selling Chicken Rice Balls.  I don't get the source of the excitement about this local cuisine, but basically it's rice cooked in chicken broth and mushed into two-bite-sized balls.  You get ~8 per person and a cut-up boiled chicken to share.  That was lunch.


After a brief walking tour of both these areas, and lunch, we drove off to Kuala Lumpur - another hour or so.  Driving in Malaysia is mostly comfortable, but drivers are very aggressive.  Speeding on the highway seems to be a national pastime and in the cities, if you're not aggressive yourself, you may get stuck at some turns for a very long time.


Kuala Lumpur


Entering the Malay capital we noted the urban sprawl and we passed through some nice-looking developments on a hilly terrain.  We followed our GPS through a criss-crossing, meandering and very confusing set of highways that loop around the city and its main business district - the City Centre.  Some parts felt like a roller coaster (big elevation changes combined with nasty turns).  At some point both the KL Tower and the KLCC/Petronas Towers became visible and dominated the skyline and our attention.  Traffic was bad on the main roads but opened up once we entered the smaller streets of the city centre.  We checked in to our hotel for 1 night just as it started to rain.


We chilled out waiting for the rain to stop, but it was getting late in the afternoon while still coming down hard, so we decided to drive the 500 meters to the convention centre, which houses an aquarium.  It was surprisingly nice.  The entrance has a small Piranha exhibit and we were sorry to have missed the feeding time.  There is also a small hands-on display where you can touch a small shark and a sea cucumber, and hold a horseshoe crab.  The rest is well-designed and houses all sorts of underwater and over-water creatures and was rated high as a plan B by our group.


The convention center has lots of eateries but we made our way by underground tunnels to the Suria shopping center and Madam Kwan's restaurant to sample some Malay cuisine.  By the time we finished the rain had let up and we walked around KLCC Park snapping photos.  We had an idea to drive around town for a bit, but after being stuck in traffic for 20 minutes and getting nowhere we decided to head back to the hotel and call it an evening.

The traffic had not let up by morning, and our trip to Merdeka Square was hampered by some army celebration that closed the area down to motorists.  On the way over we saw 7 paratroopers making their way down into the scene.  We ended up parking in Chinatown, did some knockoff shopping and wandered about.  We made our way by foot to Merdeka Square eventually, but the sun was beating down hard on the open space and we were squinting about the commotion of the army's event.  By this point we were all drenched and exhausted (Elizabeth had a bad morning as well), so we decided to call it quits.


Kuala Lumpur seems very interesting.  I need to figure out a better way or time to get about, as we are sure to return to see and eat some more of it.  Other than the immigration checkpoint (getting back was just as easy this time), the trip time/distance is about the same as NY-Boston.

Sun Wooy/Xin Hui - Guangdong, China

We flew to China for a week over the Lunar New Year holiday to spend some quality time with those of  Connie's family who have not moved to NYC or Toronto.  We didn't do too many normal touristy things, because this was a family-oriented vacation - meaning a lot of seating around living rooms, accepting tea, rejecting salty prunes, and making sure Lizzy doesn't embarrass herself and us too much.  These are a few bits and pieces strewn together thematically in an attempt to make some sense of it all:

Home-Coming
This was Connie's first trip back home in over 15 years, and according to her she could hardly recognize the place.  She complained things looked smaller and more crowded than they had used to, but she was generally in awe when visiting the places of her childhood: the rickety-old building where she grew up, the elementary school and its swimming pool where she practiced for meets, the old and disused ancestral home in the rural Banyan Tree Village... We met old neighbors who recognized her on the street, old school mates who took us out for dinner, and lots and lots of family and their families.

We have a fairly unique family unit (each of us born in a wildly different place - Israel, China, and the USA), so it's nice when we get a chance to share our roots with one another.  This is my first trip to China after Connie has been with me to Israel several times.  My perspective is quite different, but it was nice to try and experience it through the lens of its local inhabitants.  Connie's family were gracious hosts and we were spoiled rotten by the end of the trip.

First Impressions of a Foreigner

This was a very localized trip so my impressions are only or mainly of the Xinhui city district in the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen, which is in the southern province of Guangdong.  When we got off the bus from Shenzhen bus terminal (after a cab ride from HK international airport), the main thing I noticed was Xinhui's poor air quality.  I'd characterize it as dusty with a hint of burning coal, paper money, and incense.  We were met by almost all of Connie's family and, in a convoy, we drove a short distance from the bus stop to one of her cousin's recently-purchased, 8th-floor duplex penthouse apartment in the city center.  It was under slight renovation but genrally ready-to-live-in with a modern finish.  It is actually close to being placed on the market as a rental unit.  It looked like any modern apartment would in any other country - minus one bathroom that still had a squat toilet.  Most of the apartments and houses we visited were livable if not posh - on par with Brooklyn standards, at least.

Xinhui has a decent amount of traffic.  Not the clogged nightmare that is Beijing or NYC, but not Jackson Hole either.  For a relatively small city district (population: 735,000) it still felt bustling.  Motorcycles zoomed back and forth like so many mosquitoes after rain.  These were truly a nuisance.  For lack of parking space, they are stacked side-by-side on already-teeming sidewalks and motorists are not at all sensitive to pedestrians or fellow drivers.  They roll their beasts of burden straight into your walking path, take a seat, kick down the starter, blowing some of that fine exhaust in your face, and zoom off into the road often cutting off other vehicles.  They drive through closed-off promenades, and the honking never stops as they whiz by cars, buses, auto-riksaws and only the occasional bicycle, which is now very much out of fashion with the Chinese middle class.

One final thought I'll share is that at least in the swathes of Guangdong that I drove through, there was a lot of urban, commercial and industrial development but it was mixed with all sorts of agricultural plots - sugarcane fields, palm trees, fish ponds, lotus root ponds, citrus groves, etc.  Side-by-side.  It made me think of this new trend in America for eating locally-grown foods.  At least in Guangdong, this does not require any active efforts from community-supported agriculture (CSA) activism and coops.  It's just the way things are.


Sights
Xinhui boasts a fair number of tourist attractions and we didn't even explore them all but here are the highlights:

• Guifeng Mountain - I went there twice.  Once with everybody and we drove half-way up to the Yutai Temple complex.  Lizzy was in a terrible mood, so I walked down hundreds of steps with Connie's aunt after some picture-snapping.  The second time it was new year's day and the place was overrun with visitors, hawkers, beggars, etc.  I brushed past all of these all the way up to the 440-meter peak together with Connie's first cousin, Siupang.
• Yamen Battle Memorial - this is a park and observatory that may have stood on the site of a small royal palace that may have served as a temporary home of the last emperor of the Song dynasty - maybe.  The Battle of Yamen was also possibly the largest naval battle in history in terms of casualties (in the 100's of thousands).
• The Birds' Paradise is a park and in its center is a big, half-submerged, ~400-year-old Banyan tree that is home to thousands of birds.  There is a morning and evening ritual of bird migration to and from this tree that is supposedly magnificent to watch.  I think we missed the evening one by ~10-15 minutes.  So we need to come back for that some day...
• Jade Lake Park - A small urban park with a nice lake, a pagoda, pedal boats, etc.
• Bridges of Guangdong Museum - it was free...

Further Afield

• XiangJiang Safari Park - This enormous zoo just outside of Guangzhou (capital of Guangdong ~45 minutes north of Xinhui) was packed with tigers and pandas in preparation for the city's hosting of the 2010 Asian Games.  There is a strange feeding policy in this zoo.  You can buy raw meat to throw at the tigers, bananas to toss over to the elephants, and leafy branches to hand out from a platform to giraffes.  We opted to feed a giraffe and it nearly yanked Lizzy into its habitat along with the branch.  The animal shows (we saw the elephants) are spectacular and there is a tiger cub club for the lil ones, complete with baby feline nursery and claw-on playground.  The pandas were amazing, too.  They're a lazy bunch, but those eyes are haunting.  Well worth the drive and hefty highway tolls.

Food

We love Cantonese cuisine.  Our feasting started the evening we arrived at a local seafood restaurant where we had a banquet meal consisting of a herbal chicken, a sublime clam & winter melon soup, local sauteed greens, mixed veggies with mushrooms and fungi, local crayfish, eel, a steamed fish, and all sorts of pork offal cold cuts.  When we first arrived at the restaurant thee was a plate of worms set on the table that was especially prepared for us and I was asked to partake while everyone looked at my reaction.  I don't mind the idea of eating worms, but these didn't taste that good.  No one else at the table seemed to like them either.  Not sure why they were prepared for us... 


My favorite meals were steam boat affairs.  We had 3 different kinds:

• Gum Long Beef Canteen: Beef in these parts was some sort of water buffalo by default.  It is just a little leaner and gamier than your average USDA meat.  This establishment only had tables outdoors, and the kitchen seemed to be outdoors as well.  A large soup pot is brought over with the common broth and large chunks of shoulder and tail meat on the bone.  We also ordered some tripe, brisket and meatballs along with green veggies.  The sauce was a simple soy, oil, ginger, garlic concoction.  The bones that came with the broth were amazing - covered in tender meat and cartilage.
• Chengdu Hot Pot: This place was at the bottom floor of the apartment building where we were staying.  If we weren't obliged to eat ll our meals with family I'd have come back here at least once more.  For 88 renminbi (~$15) you get a the pot of clear soup and a plate each of: sliced beef, lamb and fish as well as a whole chicken cut up and some veggies.  Here you make your own sauce and, as this was a Chengdu hotpot place, the sauce tray consisted of hot chillies as well as dried, ground-up capsicum berries - tingly, yummy dip!
• No-Rice Congee Hot Pot: Here you get a big bowl of congee to serve as your hot pot, except they filter out the rice grains from the gruel - hence No-Rice Congee.  This was a very different from what we're used to and has some pros and cons with respect to traditional hot pot.  The main appeal is that you get to enjoy a flavorful congee with each bite - the clams were especially good.  The big letdown is that congee doesn't go well with all the ingredients - especially the varied greens.  This place also served some really awesome side dishes -  spicy-salty fried fish bits were amazing.  Before we started eating a mouse fell dead from the ceiling straight into my plate.  We got a private room, 2 free dishes, and %15 off the bill :)

We actually ended up trying a whole bunch of other Chinese cooking while in Guangdong (Sichuan/Chengdu, Hunanese, etc).  One amazing foodie adventure was a stroll through a visiting Xinjian/Uighur street food fair.  The food ranged from oysters grilled in the halfshell to sauteed swallows.  We ate a little bit of eveything that looked good, including lamb shish kebabs, fish cakes, stinky tofu, and loads of oysters and the little birds.