Santa Finally Brought my Luggage!!


I'm now in Coimbra, Portugal, where it's kinda rainy and everything's shut down for Xmas ... well, ALMOST everything. Fortunately this one restaurant was open for lunch and Hedy and I had the best cod ever.

It was simply done...a huge honkin' piece of fish, battered and then surrounded by a light broth, with boiled potatoes all around it. It tastes better than it sounds. Lots.

In Lisbon we went to a little restaurant called Fidalgo in Bairro Alto. I had a dish called Black Pork and Hedy had Rabbit in Red Wine. And some really good fries. Earlier that day we'd gone to a little restaurant in Alfama where no one spoke English, so we basically pointed at drawings on the menu. Hedy went to the kitchen with the owner and she came back saying "I ordered Octopus and some fish. I don't know what fish it was but it had two eyes and a tail and it looked fine to me." (Rough translation from Cantonese. My Cantonese has been steadily regressing since I left New York.)

Tasted fine too. Octopus with boiled potatoes and cabbage; fried fish with fries and salad. And little old ladies at the next table wondering where these two Chinese girls came from.

Went to Xmas mass this morning. In Portuguese. Then walked around this old university town. It's now 8pm - hardly anything's open still, I swear. There's a Spanish girl surfing the web next to me and an Aussie kid just asked for paper at the reception. It's for his art homework.

And Santa had a special delivery. After four days in Portugal, my luggage finally arrived. In the meantime, THANK GOODNESS for Zara and H&M.

Floating on the Mekong
Two days floating on the Mekong...no Blackberry access, no cell signal, no phones whatsoever - just a vast expanse of green hills ("on your right is Thailand, on your left is Laos"), very fast-moving brown water and outcrops of rocks. And every few kilometers a village on stilts on the hills.

It was a really weird feeling to get used to. My friends came to visit me from NY and we decided to go to Luang Prabang in Laos. And not the fast, direct way by plane. Nope - we decided to go to the Thai/ Lao border in Chiang Rai and take a slow boat down - going South, and then East.

http://www.asian-oasis.com/Luang.html

At first I felt really restless. Two days on the boat? What was I thinking when I booked it? (Overnight in one of the Luang Say hotels - but still, no phone signal whatsoever) I was really looking forward to getting back on land - going to Luang Prabang, a National Heritage Site where there'd actually be things to DO. But as I got used to it - sittin' on the chaise longue or a chair on the boat, talking to the other, very cool, very interesting passengers, the wind blowing in our faces, and all that open space around us ... that turned out to be the best part of the trip.

At Luang Prabang we alternated between visiting temples (14th century), and visiting rural villages.. Our itinerary included visiting a waterfall in the countryside - lush green vegetation punctuated by brilliant red flowers, and crystal clear, blue/green water. Hard to reconcile the quiet tranquility of the place with the violence and turmoil of the seventies there, and the extreme poverty there today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1154621.stm

Back in Singapore now... last night. Ian McKellen and Royal Shakespeare Company performed King Lear to a full house at the Esplanade. The scene in which the Earl of Gloucester's eyes are violently gouged out brings a collective gasp from the audience. My first thought - thank goodness we're not living in the 1500s.

But later, I was thinking...who am I kidding - sixteenth century...twentieth century...greed and lust for power are still very much part of our make-up. We haven't gotten any wiser, merely more technologically advanced.

Moving Right Along...



Three days in Raleigh, NC; two days in NY; one in Singapore, and then three in Seoul.

The two days in NY were my first two vacation days of the year. Didn't see as many galleries and museums as I would have liked to. Mostly I went from one part of Manhattan to another meeting my friends.

Saw McCoy Tyner and Joe Lovano play at Blue Note last Friday. (WOW. Yeah, Blue Note is ridiculously expensive but they bring in some really cool stuff.) And on Saturday Terry, Bim, Mark and I went to MOMA for the Richard Serra exhibit. These are HUGE metal sculptures that you look at from the inside, outside, from around. Serra's work was some of the first that I saw when I'd first moved to NY in 2001. At that time it was an exhibition in Chelsea and we could actually touch them. His sculptures are so richly textured you just want to. But at the MOMA, the guards will come and lecture you because it really can damage the metal.

After that we had lunch at The Modern. Great service, great decor, great food - just the right portions. Had this great cocktail with rose petals called Coming Up Roses (it sounded so sissy I was thinking...how strong could it actually be!) But took three sips and had to give it to one of the guys. The room was turning clockwise. Bim's foie gras was excellent, Terry's duck was great, my oysters/ caviar was great. The pannacotta was kinda icky and runny. But man- everything else! Even the loos. Really good way to cap off a morning of art.

Also made it to the ICP. http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.1196903/k.692/Current_Exhibitions.htm

Saw a Stephen Shore exhibit called Biographical Landscape. Landscapes are not usually my "thing". But Shore's bare, stark images of American towns and cities, shot b/t '69 and '79, felt like frozen slivers of an era. It was almost impossible not to pause at the large format images - mostly absent of people - and think about the invisible lives behind them: an empty highway, a despondent looking car next to a kerb. Totally worth a visit.

This is Not a Food Blog, But...

My cousin Peng sent me an email saying he's just landed in Chicago and he's there for a cancer conference. So, being the sucker for foodie hype that I am, I googled a Ken Hom column that I saw in the FT a couple of days ago in whichHom mentioned a Singapore chef who's all the rage in Chicago right now. So, at some point, Peng'll be having dinner at Shanghai Terrace at the Peninsula Hotel.

I've been having some incredible food lately.

A week ago my friends and I stumbled into Yanqing's Shanghainese kitchen cuz the tables at Sun Japanese Restaurant next door were all filled. (No reservations on a Friday night? What was I SMOKING!) The service wasn't so hot. I think one of their gas burners was down so the food took forever. We were there for almost TWO HOURS. But the food was really, REALLY good. The xiaolong bao was soupy and delicate, and not oily. The steamed/ fried buns were fluffy, and the black pepper beef - which I used to think was a guai lo dish was really tender.

Then I spent most of last week in Beijing, where we had some really good food in Made In China at the Hyatt. it's kinda modern Chinese cuisine, with these semi-open kitchens. Kinda looked like Mezza9 at the Singapore Hyatt, but the food was 20 times better, at the same prices. Our favourite was the Beijing Duck.

My other favourite BJ Duck place in Beijing is Da Dong. My friend Yvonne took me there and we could only get into the 5 30pm slot. ("As long as you're out by 6 30pm"). I confess I haven't been to Chuan Ju De - which even the cab drivers were telling me about, but Da Dong had the best pancakes I've ever had...and a really crispy, yummy duck skin.

And finally, for dinner last Wednesday, we went to the Courtyard restaurant right next to Forbidden City. If you get a table next to the window, you can actually look into the moat surrounding the Forbideen City. My Filipino reporter told our waiter, in Mandarin, that he looked like Yao Ning. Our waiter responded in English that other diners have told him the same thing.

I also bumped into my friend Christina there. We worked together 10 years ago in Singapore, then she moved to HK and then to NY. Last time I saw her, in NY, we went to Gramercy Tavern. Christina now lives in NY but goes to BJ a lot.

So, I'm back home and I decided to cook my own lunch Saturday. There were chicken legs in the fridge, so I marinated them with five spice powder, salt and pepper. Then I fried an onion and some garlic, and fennel in an oven proof pan. Fried the chicken, skin on, on moderately high heat. After the skin browned, I added some sun dried tomatoes and baby asparaus. Put the entire thing into the oven at almost max heat for twenty minutes. It was actually quite yummy.

And now I've gotta go to the dishes. But first, there's some lychee martini ice cream from Daily Scoop calling my name.

Busy in Beijing

Been to Beijing twice since my last post. (Yes, I know it's been a while)

It's only on this most recent trip that I've been able to see more than just conference rooms and airports. And I'm getting close to changing my mind that Shanghai is the way cooler of the two.

Shanghai's overt. In your face. Shanghai is Jessica Rabbit in a cheongsam at a smoke-filled bar. Beijing's the quieter, more intellectual older sister that you've got to spend time to get to know. (I still prefer Shanghainese food. Also, Shanghainese guys dress better.)

So...I'm with a bunch of reporters from Asean and we've just had dinner around Hou Hai. So I get into the cab with them and tell the cabbie, in Mandarin, that I want to go to the Hyatt. I'm pretty sure I said jun yue jiu dian. But he's like going on and on about directions and stuff and says the address on the Hyatt card is too small for him to read, so I ring up the Hyatt on my cell and pass him the receptionist.

The cabbie's hangs up after speaking to her for a while and he's like "You mean JUN YUE. You said JIN YUAN. And now you're taking me out of my way and I'll never get a fare at the Hyatt at this time of evening." And on and on. I'm pretty sure I said jun yue...but anyway...we're talking and talking (and I'm trying to prove that I'm not really a banana and that I do speak half decent Chinese...) And he says to me I've got a Southern Chinese accent. Uh...OK...and when I tell him I'm Cantonese...that clinches it. Definitely a flawed Mandarin accent. Er...Ok. Whatever. So anyway, by the time we get to the hotel I feel so bad I gave him 30 kuai instead of 15.

The next day one of the reporters and I, after work, go on a hutong tour. OK so it's really touristy but it was the COOLEST non-work part of the trip. One of the hutong owners was of Manchurian descent. And he's turned his hutong into a B&B. Pretty cool. Think I'll stay there the next time I'm there with a free weekend. Later we went to a larger one and were told how traditionally, the oldest son got the choice East-facing bedroom, the younger son got the West facing one (harsh afternoon sun - what else). And the girls? Well...uh...they had the smaller back rooms with the flat roofs. They were only girls, after all.

One of the reporters summed the hutong visit this way, "I'd rather see the hutongs than the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City will still be around the next time I visit Beijing. But I'm not so sure about the hutongs."

Saturday at Starbucks

I'm sitting at Starbucks logging to free nationwide wireless. OK, it's only 11Mbps but I think I'll live. I just won't be downloading any HEROES off iTunes in the next hour or so. If the sun weren't blazing away outside I could easily think I were in some other country. There's a mixture of skin and hair colours and accents in here - and lots of laptops.

A guy in a Delta Kappa Epsilon T shirt just walked in, reminding me that I haven't seen anyone in a frat T shirt for a long time. I can't believe I used to cover fraternities and sororities for the university newspaper. A little foreign girl, fresh off the plane, with fewer prejudices than the rest of the reporters at the Bruin maybe? But uh...I had just seen Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. I was definitely on the nerds' side. And probably on the nerdy side as well. Yep, that was me in California.

This morning I woke up listening to Terry Gross on Fresh Air played off my iPod. A couple of hours later I felt like I should have been on my way to the Tarrytown train station to catch the Metro North into Manhattan.

My ex roommate in California. Fahti, who now lives in Menlo Park, just had a birthday this week. I sent her an e-card telling I've just been back from a hectic India two-cities-in-two-days work trip, and I added "we've been friends for TWENTY years can you believe it?" And she replied and said it's been MORE than 20 years. She expects me...the only Asian in a college remedial math class...to know how to count?)

And by the way, she said, her daughter's first grade teacher also likes this Persian chicken/ pomegranate rice dish called Fessenjoon that Fahti cooked for me the last time I saw her. I miss Fahti a lot. She was soooo part of my growing up. She was was there through my first apartment, my first boyfriend, my first major heartbreak (different guy). OK, she warned me, I never listened.

When we were teenagers we used to joke about babysitting each other's kids one day.

In her email last week Fahti said she sometimes envies my travelling. I told her I envy her having her two beautiful kids.

Saturday Morning in Siem Reap

Saturday morning and I'm at the Blue Pumpkin at the Old Market area. Breakfast is a croissant, toast, marmalade with HUGE chunks orange peel, a small cup of coffee.

There's wireless, and upstairs is white, modern, minimalist. People with laptops, people with backpacks (expensive ones), people caffeinating. There's a N American couple next to me with a Lonely Planet Vietnam guidebook. next stop Saigon? Taiwanese couples on the table behind, with their guide. In front of me a Western guy, my age, hops on a motorbike with a takeaway cup of coffee and a bag of Blue Pumpkin pastries. Their breads and pastries are as good as any I've had in NY and better than many places at home.

Last night I took a tuk tuk back after dinner and there was this old couple getting off the tuk tuk behind me. The guy was trying to pay the driver 1USD instead of 2. It's like DUDE! If you can afford to stay at the Grand Angkor - you can afford the extra buck.

Next door at the high-end craft store Kokoon there's handmade soap for three bucks a pop, place-mat sets for 12, silk handbags and scarves for a lot more; across the street the storekeeper's sweeping. In the front of the dark, narrow store, is a dusty glass cabinet with detergent, anti-perspirant, and stacks and stacks of film. Who uses film anymore?

A guy with no legs is on a "bike" he's peddling with his hands. He goes to the table next to mine and holds out a card to ask for money. I stare, more intently, at the Gish Jen novel I've been carrying around. He leaves, and goes to the next restaurant.

Indochina ... with a difference

We're in Cambodia for a regional meeting. After our meeting this morning we all went to do volunteer work at a village school as a team building event.

Cuz of my broken foot, I went to the reading room to read to the kids while my colleagues built a fence with concrete poles and barbed wire.

The kids were like - shoving at each other to get to me and they kept bringing books to read to them. The books were seriously-old, English language kiddie books. Many of the kids didn't understand anything beyond "Hi" and 1-10 and maybe the first third of the alphabet.

But they totally wanted to just hang out and repeat what I was reading to them. One of the boys ... he was, maybe 7...was trying to hand gesture "hot" and started fanning me with a book. Broke my heart. I almost started crying. A kid in a developed country would be too busy watching TV or playing X Box to want to do anything like that.

Life as a Klutz

Three broken metatarsals, Christmas Eve, DEFINITELY no alcohol involved. Although I do remember there was lots of sugar. Christmas cake from all over and macaroons from Paris.

Anyway, it was 2 30 in the morning and I slipped on a wet sidewalk going to my car. Carrie comes and picks me up, takes me to A&E at East Shore Hospital where I expect to see a bunch of drunk people but no, I'm the only idiot there.

I'm in a backslab for 10 days - that's like half a cast and lots of bandages; the doc removes it, which makes me really happy and hopeful even though I'm still on crutches, and when I see him a week later, he says the bones aren't healing and puts me back on them again. Lemme tell ya - hobbling on crutches, showering with a plastic Kinokuniya bag up to your knee, and depending on everyone else except yourself for transport and everything else is no walk in the park. In fact, there's no walking involved at all. it's mostly hobbling.

Anyway, six weeks later and the backslab's been off for like...two weeks now. I'm still on crutches although less and less. I can drive. My foot is slowly starting to look normal again. Until recently it looked like I had elephantisis. Last weekend I was able to buy a pair of closed toe shoes - OF THE SAME SIZE! Now THAT is a major milestone. This weekend I was able to hobble around DKNY. Except the shoes cost like $400 Sing and up so that's out. Next week Ferragamo? Looking only...no buying.

So...since the gym and the running track have been pretty much off limits for me, I decided to take an online writing class from UCLA Extension. It's a TON of fun. Been reading a bunch of short stories for the class - Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, Eudora Welty, and I mean really, really reading - and discussing plot and character and all.

I figured taking a class would beat Mike's suggestion of taking up competitive eating. Less damage to my wardrobe that way.

And yes Gene, I did travel. Was in Tokyo for work. Try hobbling around Ropponggi and Chiyoda on crutches. I dare you.