An evening with Gary... Mabbutt

Saturday December 12 2009

Keith: It's been many years since I went for a drink on my own on a Saturday night, but with Courtney in San Francisco and every friend in Singapore mysteriously busy washing their hair, I found myself in a pub at Clarke Quay just before Christmas, alone aside from 100-odd members of the Singapore Spurs Supporters Club. We were there to meet the great Gary Mabbutt, former England centre half, Tottenham captain and the longest-serving Spurs player of his generation. Fresh from working on South Africa's 2010 World Cup bid (I know, I know, he's from Bristol - but his wife's South African) he was in town to promote a Spurs youth training program in Singapore - and also to watch a live feed of Spurs' home match against Wolves.

Super Gal walked into the bar to rapturous Spurs chants - which still sound a little odd delivered with a mild Chinese accent - and immediately shook hands with three Americans who'd pitched up for a quiet drink and had no clue who he was. To my surprise, he then turned to shake hands with me, at which point two decades of journalism experience kicked in and I uttered the most penetrating question I could think of ("Hi Gary, how are you?).

Gary proceeded to answer a bunch of questions, beginning with the short and pithy "Which knee was it, Gary?" a reference to the infamous own goal that lost us the 1987 Cup Final. There followed numerous anecdotes, including:

• He wouldn't name the worst player he'd turned out with, but did confirm what we all thought about Christian Gross as a manager. Apparently, Swiss-born Gross waltzed into the video room at the club early on in his (short) stint in charge and announced that no German team would let a lead slip the way Spurs had done on the previous match day. Result: the players marched out to the next training session whistling the Dambusters theme. (American readers - this refers to British heroics during World War Two when the RAF developed a 'bouncing bomb' and destroyed the Ruhr dams, shortly before the US single-handedly won the war and invented the concept of 'Freedom')
• Although he wouldn't name the worst player, he let slip how he was repeatedly kept out of the first team in his last season by Christian Gross's "love child" Ramon Vega...
• His favorite team-mates were Erik Thorstvedt, Jurgen Klinsmann and Gary Lineker
• Mysteriously, he doesn't think former Spurs center back Sol Campbell is a Judas b**tard who should be subsumed in the fires of eternal damnation for the way he deserted to the Ar*enal. Apparently Sol's also a good friend - still - and while Gary expected him to get stick for making the move, he didn't expect him to suffer the horrendous abuse he's endured from some fans since yadda yadda yadda
• He predicted Spurs would beat Wolves 3-1. Even at half-time, when we were 1-0 down. [Final score: 1-0 to Wolves]

The evening ended with a quiz, where I rightly shouted out the name of the Wimbledon player who fractured Gary's eye socket, but lost the prize to someone nearer the front who seemed to have a very fast Google connection on his mobile phone. But I did get Gary to sign my shirt afterwards.

As an aside, many of the questions were asked by a guy who turned out to be a presenter for an ESPN soccer show. I got chatting to him about Joe Morrisson, who presents the rival football channel on Singapore's Starhub cable service alongside expert soccer pundits such as, er, Carlton Palmer. Turns out Joe is actually based in Dubai, which did answer one question that's been bugging me all year - who the hell would pay Carlton Palmer to come all the way to Singapore to talk shite on TV? Now I'm just left trying to work out who the hell would pay Carlton Palmer to go all the way to Dubai to talk shite....

Hong Kong

Staying on the Spurs theme and plugging another hole in our not-so-comprehensive travel blog this year, here are some pics of the weekend Courtney and I flew to Hong Kong in August to join supporters from around Asia to watch Spurs' friendly match with South China, a top HK team. It was a great chance to spend time with Eric Mallia, an old friend from the Two Brewers pub near White Hart Lane, who helped arrange many of the festivities. Highlights included:

• Commandeering two trams, draping them in flags, and singing our way across Hong Kong city center on the Friday night. Turned out this enhanced Courtney's professional reputation no end: one of her HK work colleagues told her a few days later that she'd seen her on the top deck of a tram next to some gray-haired guy singing raucous songs and waving a beer can. I've told her to be more careful about the company she keeps
• Singing manically throughout the entire game, despite Spurs being shite, and much to the bemusement of the locals. The Sun (Britain's best-selling tabloid newspaper) caught us on camera - you can see me on the left of the picture about to pour a pint of beer over Courtney's head, with Eric on my right
• Sitting in the afternoon heat of the stadium, wondering why Hong Kong felt hotter than Singapore, and discovering afterwards it was 36/97 degrees. Courtney says it's the first time she's sat sweating through her shirt watching Spurs, which suggests she missed most of our relegation battles under Ramos
• Watching a warm-up game before the main fixture and booing a Thai team wearing the Ars*nal strip. A reasonable decision, as it happens - turns out they're a feeder club for the Gooners
• Spurs' manager Harry Redknapp waving at us and Jamie O'Hara coming over to clap us at the end of the game. Good to know the support is appreciated, given that supporters had flown in from all over Asia, as well as the UK. Sadly, Tom Huddlestone completely ignored us - maybe the ungrateful bastard was focusing all his attention on losing some weight.

All in all, a great weekend, only marginally impacted by the fact that South China scored more goals than we did.

A Little Bit of Culture, A Whole Lot of Malls

Courtney: When you live in a foreign country, it's important to get in the spirit of some of the local customs. There are some big cultural moments, like Chinese New Year, that have been an important part of our expat experience, but what really brings the place alive are the small serendipitous discoveries that bring a smile to your face (and your phone/camera out of your pocket).

The Hungry Ghosts Festival. Known to expats as that couple of weeks when you're likely to stumble upon metal barrels of billowing flames and smoke in the middle of the sidewalk. Known to the fire department as that couple of weeks when you say regular prayers that all fire extinguishers on the island have easy to understand Chinese language instructions on them.

The Chinese believe that every year, usually around September, the souls of the dead are freed from Hell and roam the earth. They put tables of food and sticks of incense out on the street and light fires to show their respect and ward off evil spirits. (Certain pockets of New Englanders have practiced something similar over the years as the Red Sox enter their usual fall death spiral, but this ritual was finally put to rest in 2004.)

This year I saw offerings ranging from bowls of Lucky Charms cereal to full feasts that would feed, well, a small island nation. On my walk home from work one day I was lucky enough to encounter this extravagance. You can't really see it well in this pic from my Blackberry, but that is a whole roast pig on the left hand side of the table. Should go nicely with the case of Australian Shiraz on the right.

The Opening of a New Mall. There's a buzz in the air as the opening date of a new real estate extravaganza approaches. This year it's for the new ION Mall on Orchard Road. Is it really true that the condos on top are going to sell for $1 million per square meter?? Is it really true that the grocery store on the 4th floor will sell truffle salt for $100 a jar? (I really miss my truffle salt - had to bequeath it to Aurelie when I left SF.) And most importantly, will Singapore finally break the global record for the largest number of Prada, Vuitton, and Cartier stores in 1 square mile?

Thanks to my time in Singapore I now know far more about clever mall design strategy than I ever dreamed possible. These malls are where most Singapore residents spend most of their free time and money, so they're a centerpiece of the economy and social life here. Let's take a look at the design of ION:

• There are 8 levels of shopping. You walk in off Orchard Road, past the water show with cool colored lasers, into an oasis of gorgeous marble floors, 30 foot ceilings, even an art gallery in there somewhere. But wait...not everyone gets the marble.
• 4 of the 8 shopping levels are below street level. They're for regular people and are therefore most easily accessible from the adjacent subway station. These look like any old American mall -- you half expect to see a JC Penney around the corner. Oh wait -- there's Dunkin Donuts!!!
• The mall's parking garage is located above the top 4 levels of super high end designer shopping, which forces people who are wealthy enough to own a car in Singapore (note that cars in Singapore cost 2x or more than the same models in the US, and that's before the high fees to put them on the road) to walk down to street level while being seduced by Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Chloe, and more. Brilliant!!

Here's a shot of the velvet rope and bouncer outside of the new Vuitton store in ION to keep the rowdy folks in the queue under control. All in all, a casual visitor to Singapore strolling around malls on Orchard Road would conclude that 1) Singapore isn't nearly as congested as one would think for a tiny island housing nearly 5 million people and 2) everyone here dresses in high fashion labels because there doesn't seem to be anything else available.

Hint: take your closest escalator down and discover the hordes teeming beneath the streets. We're all eating donuts and wearing flip flops.

Sundays in Singapore

Monday September 14th 2009

Keith: Several people have asked just how different a typical weekend is in Singapore compared to San Francisco. This Sunday provided a few pointers:

Midnight Sat/Sun: Invite friends back home for drinks after dinner, and turn on TV to watch final 30 minutes of Arsenal losing to Manchester City. Suspect I may have erred with choice of entertainment when Shawn leaves abruptly at 00.10am in order to "spend more time with my new bathrobe"

00.15: Question wisdom of choice of full English Breakfast plus baked beans for dinner

00.31am: Celebrate when Spurs take unlikely lead against Manchester United. Spend next 89 minutes trying to refrain from deploying 'f' and 'c' words in polite company as United score three.

2.20am: Go to bed

8.00am: Use up entire backlog of 'f' and 'c' words after being woken by sound of hammering from Temple next door. Point out to everyone within 100-yard radius that if I wanted to get woken by construction every Sunday morning I'd have bought a f***ing tent and parked it on the f***ing Bay Bridge.

11am: Better rested, able to politely admire sound of drums, trumpets and song wafting in from second Temple on the other side of apartment

Noon: Finalize plans for my own non-denominational religious ceremony, beginning at 5am every morning with 15 cannons and an F-14 fly-past

1pm: Cater for newly-acquired love of salmon and tuna sushi, but remain suspicious of merits of accompanying shaves of ginger

4 - 4.30pm: Apply insect repellent and sunscreen; locate umbrella; change into synthetic clothing; hike 100 yards to Starbucks

8.00pm: Meet neighbor's smelly dog in elevator, hold breath for five floors

8.01-9.00pm: Enjoy impromptu sauna while losing to Courtney at tennis

9.30pm: Mourn the loss of Larry the baby Lizard, whose brief life comes to an untimely end after he hides next to the hinges on the inside of the bathroom door, failing to anticipate what will happen when the door closes. Muse on general lack of spatial awareness among inhabitants of Asia

9.31pm: Agree with Courtney that a squashed lizard stuck to the doorframe does indeed look disgusting

9.32pm: Point out to Courtney that since she shut the door - albeit unaware of Larry's presence - she should clear up the mess. Dig out 'trailing spouse' contract to reference absence of clauses relating to handling of reptile carcasses

9.40: Eat fabulous spaghetti meatballs, accompanied by surprisingly modest quantities of wine

12.30-2am: Watch US Open.

As you can see, it really is a unique tropical experience...

Glass three quarters full

Saturday June 20th, 2009

Keith: As everyone knows, God created the world in six days. On the seventh day, while taking a well-earned rest, no doubt He or She basked for a moment in the warm glow of satisfaction that comes from a job well done. And why not? Light, sea, earth, fruit-bearing trees, birds and fish and mammals, the tragically-flawed Adam and the comically over-credulous Eve - pretty bloody impressive stuff in anyone's book. Certainly a shit-load more than I've ever created in a week - although in fairness, I don't think He ever had to set aside time to deal with the Internal Revenue Service or Comcast.

I wonder though, whether there was also the odd regret on that first Sunday. Did He weigh up how he'd built the penguin and think - let's be honest, I got the aerodynamics arse about tit on that one? Did He look at the cockroach, the bed bug and those fancy little poodles with the shaved body and frizzed up heads and think - nope, they don't really add much value, do they? Did He ever actually taste Marmite? And did He have an inkling - just an inkling - that the French would turn out to be a wee bit difficult?

And what about the things He didn't create? I don't want to be critical, but if I was designing the human body today I'd make a few functionality adjustments. Body odor would be out, for starters. The knee could do with a complete redesign. And wouldn't it be great if you could wake up in the morning, tweak your left nipple and instantly cure a hangover? Small things, I know - but my point is that even great ideas can be improved.

And similar sentiments apply - albeit via a rather circuitous route - to Singapore. While it burst onto the scene in its present incarnation in slightly less spectacular fashion than, say, the creation of 50 million species and the Pacific Ocean, it nonetheless represents a pretty impressive achievement. It's the safest place to live in Asia. It's (arguably) the world's busiest port. It's got some of the best healthcare on the planet. Despite being in the tropics, it's virtually eradicated killer diseases such as malaria. It's got the widest choice of food in the region. It's been voted the best place in the world to do business. And it shows every single English Premiership game, the entire Twenty20 cricket championship and all the rugby internationals. You can even get chocolate digestives. What's not to like?

Well, a couple of things actually. Of course, it's not for us as guests of a country to talk about how we'd run things differently, but after my experiences over the last few days I have a few humble requests:

1. Introduce a minimum walking speed in shopping malls. If you've ever walked around in a hot Asian country you'll know phrases like 'high speed', 'sense of purpose', 'straight line' and 'respect for personal space' don't exactly pepper the conversation. Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to dawdle in the midday sun - but no-one seems to have worked out that you can touch speeds of 3-4 mph in aircon without breaking into a sweat. And better still, you get there quicker.

2. Ban building work on a Saturday. When it comes to its passion for construction, Singapore puts Donald Trump and the entire US fiscal stimulus package to shame. My ideal Saturday morning is a long lie-in after a hard week's work, with breakfast in bed and a copy of the New York Times - not getting woken up at 8am by a jack hammer as the guys next door start rebuilding their temple.

3. Finally - and a tall order this one - any chance you can do something about the humidity? There may well come a time in my old age when biological inadequacies force me to spend my entire life wringing out my underpants - I really don't see the need to start practising now.

Langkawi

Langkawi retrospective, June 11th

Keith: And finally, with the speed of a tortoise on Prozac, the elegance of a hippopotamus on roller blades, the single-mindedness of a goldfish with ADD and the heart-wrenching pointlessness of a skunk marketing roll-on deodorant, we present a selection of photos from our not-so-recent weekend in Langkawi. 

For those unfamiliar with the geography of South-East Asia - and frankly, I count myself among you - Langkawi is a small, beautiful tropical island off the coast of northern Malaysia/Southern Thailand, little more than an hour's flight from Singapore. After our city trips to Hong Kong, Tokyo, and in Courtney's case, Beijing, it was our first beach weekend away since we arrived in Asia. In fact, it marked many firsts in our seven years together:

• First time we've made weekend breakfast two mornings in a row
• First time we've sat in a hotel room at night hearing something hammering at the balcony doors, laughed at the thought that it might be a wild monkey, then gagged at the realization that it's a flying cockroach
• First time that my generalized anxiety about the sky falling on my head has mutated into a more specific fear about coconuts falling from palm trees

So the photo on the right shows the fabulous view from our hotel room - and below are a few more.

And a special bonus - here are Courtney's pics from the Singapore Jurong Bird Park, where we spent a splendid Sunday afternoon before I flew to San Francisco. Among the flamingoes, tropical rainforest inhabitants, owls, storks, cranes and American Bald Eagle, our favorite bit was the dinosaur descendants section. Best bird of the lot - the huge and comical cassowary. The shoebill crane is pretty wacky looking too.

We also got friendly with the emus.

More updates coming soon from San Francisco and Taipei...

Tropical Storms

April 2nd 2009

Keith: How many people in Singapore are made of rubber? I only ask after watching another lightning storm roll in earlier this week and seeing our neighbors carry on swimming with their kids, clearly oblivious to the fact that the two things you really don't want to see in a swimming pool are children peeing and electricity. 

It was a similar story when Courtney and I got caught in a spectacular storm over brunch at Dempsey Road two weeks ago. In an hour of deafening thunder, with sheets of rain bouncing off the street and a black sky lit by fork lightning from multiple directions, most people took cover - but one or two donned their rubber flipflops and took their lives into their hands.

Given that Singapore boasts one of the world's highest rates of lightning, with thunder 171 days each year, chances are reasonably high that we'll see someone getting fried while we're here. It's a potent mix: small island, densely populated, penchant for tropical storms, attracts the kinds of expats who see a python in the local park and decide to take their pet chihuahua for a closer look. So in the interests of public safety - and happy to try anything to ward off that unmistakeable stench of burning hair - I'm hoping the following might help: 

Tropical Storms: Six hints and tips

1. Avoid tall trees. Not only does lightning tend to hit the tallest thing first and fry everything around it, but you'll also get hit by falling debris. To survive a lightning strike but then be killed by a smack on the head from a coconut is going to make for some very conflicted eulogies at your memorial service. 

2. Being in water is a no-no. Bear in mind that swimming pool water tends to be flat, so anything sticking out of it - like your head - will be the tallest thing in the vicinity and a potential target. Water's also a good conductor of electricity - so even if the person next to you has a bigger head and gets fried first, you'll still get the side flash. 

3. Your flip-flops will not protect you. Trust me. This stuff's come a long way down and it's on a mission.

4. When you take cover indoors, try to stay away from anything plugged into external grids, including the electric power supply and telephone. The US National Weather Service tells the story of Cheryl, who was hit by lightning at home while calling her husband on a fixed line phone - to warn him about the coming storm. Aside from the seizures she's suffered ever since, what's particularly unfortunate is that being an American she has no grasp of irony and can't therefore appreciate the true beauty of her own story. 

5. The USNWS also recommends that you stay away from plumbing and water. I'm not entirely sure how lightning gets round the u-bend but this would imply that while you sit out the storm, you do need to make some sensible decisions about what it is you actually sit on.

6. Finally, if you find safe shelter and the storm lasts more than ten minutes, do not succumb to boredom and make a run for it under the cover of your golf umbrella. Sure, the odds of getting hit by lightning are small - but if you think about it, standing in open ground holding a metal rod above your head does raise the stakes somewhat. It's a bit like walking into a bar in Buenos Aires during Maradona's 'difficult' years and loudly declaring that he's a cheating little cokehead with bad hair and an ego twice the size of the Falkland Islands. It's quite possible that you won't get punched in the face - but why would you take the risk?

Next week: The benefits of keeping your eyes open while driving

Channeling Gordon Ramsay

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Courtney: During the cultural training course we attended before leaving the US, we were warned that our honeymoon period with our new home would end after about 2 months, leaving us desperate for fresh tomatoes, affordable French wine and fog.  At that point, we would, we were told, start being critical of everything about our new city and culture and comparing it ruthlessly and unfairly with everything back home.  Not us -- we were ruthless in our criticism and our feelings of superiority right from the start. 

What's the top universally expat-maddening thing in Singapore, you ask?  Customer service, especially at restaurants.  Admittedly, we hail from a foodie city, and we've been fortunate to dine at many of its best restaurants, where both the food and the service are world-class.  (Though we still haven't made it to the French Laundry, where they believe that "service should feel like a ballet," train their waiters in professional dance techniques to teach them grace and balance, and calculate the optimal distance to stand from a dining patron -- variable, of course, depending on the height of the server and the girth of the customer. Fortunately most American tourists in the Bay Area don't make it any further north than Fisherman's Wharf.)  But I like to think we're quite reasonable in our expectations of service, particularly when these places are clearly trying to attract expats who are married to people who don't like Asian food and happily charge top dollar for providing an alternative to hawker center fare.  

You'd think Gordon Ramsay would have shown up by now to try to make his next millions on restaurant makeovers here...but given that it's considered very unseemly to get loud or swear, he might not be the right cultural fit.  So let me channel him, F-bomb free, for this post, with advice for restaurant and cafe owners island-wide.  (Please note that this list has been extensively researched, aided by the fact that we were stuck in corporate housing for a month and had to eat out nearly every night.  Each recommendation is based on experiencing the problem at at least 3 different restaurants and confirming with at least 2 other expats that they have been similarly tormented.)

1. Don't teach your servers to earnestly repeat the customer's order out loud after taking it down...and then forget to reinforce the part of the lesson about actually getting the order right.

2.  Don't close the kitchen without asking us if we want dessert or coffee or both.  Keith tried to challenge this system one evening at one of Singapore's nicer Italian restaurants, standing on principle to demand a cheese plate after the kitchen staff were all at home asleep in bed.  The result was a platter of functional cheese -- a hunk of parmesan, a block of pecorino romano, and mound of something like ricotta -- that the waiter had desperately thrown together to prevent an encounter with the side of Keith's personality that's usually only on display when the homeless guys come in and start hassling the bartender chick at the Hyde Out.  

3. Don't hire 20 servers and think that this represents a visible commitment to providing excellent customer service.  Trust us -- we're way more likely to get annoyed when we see 20 20-something waiters gabbing together at the cash register than we are if there's only 2 supremely harried but generally well-meaning and hard-working servers.  

4. Don't offer "starters" and "main courses" if you're actually planning to deliver the plates to various people at the table at random moments throughout a 45 minute period.  Just call it tapas and embrace the fact that maybe timing isn't one of the core competencies of your kitchen staff.  

5. Don't avoid giving the customer disappointing news. (Note: this is tendency we've seen in much of our Asia travels, and you can imagine that in arenas other than food -- like, say, health care -- it might cause real problems.)  If you've run out of tomatoes for a BLT, please don't show up with a bacon and lettuce sandwich and then ask if we want more lettuce to make up for the fact that there's no tomatoes.  Or, in an all time classic, don't think you can, without telling us, substitute squid ink pasta for regular pasta in a pasta dish that's been ordered out of desperation/frustration/starvation because you've managed to screw up our steak three times.  It's not the same.  Really.  Just give us a cheese plate.

4 Things They Don't Tell You in the Relocation Manuals

March 18, 2009

Courtney:  When it comes to culture shock, it's not one big thing that gets you.  It's the accumulation of LOTS of small things.

1. Hot water is optional.  Apparently it's quite common for kitchens in Singapore to have no hot water from the tap.  In our nest of expat comfort, we have a button on the kitchen wall labeled "water heater," and about 15-20 minutes after you turn it on, you can get some fairly warm water.  This is perfectly logical once you experience the joy of a breezeless 34 degree (C) day -- after all, there are very few days when you actually want your shower or coffee to be steaming hot -- but it's utterly illogical when you're faced with a pile of greasy pots and pans.  Maybe this is part of a grand government plot to spur economic vitality either by 1) encouraging expats to employ a domestic worker to scrub those pots and pans or 2) encouraging us to go out to eat more often so as to avoid the whole washing up mess altogether.  

2. You will eat strange things nearly every time you have to go out for a work-related meal.  The relocation guides did cover this a bit, but it was mostly under the "how to avoid food poisoning" section, where they coach you on how to avoid alienating broad swathes of colleagues/customers/countries when you just say no to that sheep's foot soup.  But I understimated just how many strange things one can encounter in a relatively Westernized place like Singapore.  So far I've managed to join in the fun on the stingray (like many other flat white fish), jellyfish (oddly like boiled onions in texture), cockles (man, I miss the mussels at Plouf in SF), boiled peanuts (why??!)...but skipped the slices of unidentifiable duck organ (when the locals can't identify it, steer clear). 

(Related note: I've finally stopped being startled by the most dramatic tea-pouring I've ever seen: this is high-speed, long-distance Chinese teacup-filling action where there's some combination of gymnastic skill, liquid physics, and sheer determination that sends tea into your cup in a stream the width of a phone cable and the intensity of a fire hose.)  

3.  Thirsty Hippos.  You know those little packets of crystals that sometimes come tucked inside consumer electronics packaging?  The ones that your mom always told you not to mess with?  If you live in a reasonable climate, they probably haven't played much of a role in your life.  Little would you figure, then, that when you're 85 miles from the equator, they can make the difference between having a closet full of nice clothes...and then one day not.  The humidity here is the stealth killer of cloth and leather.  Things can literally rot from the inside out while you're off enjoying a beach in Thailand or working another 80 hour week.  One day you're thinking, "Boy, I wish it were cold enough to get some use out of my Cole Haan fabulous black leather boots," and then the next day you're wondering what that random white festering-looking stuff is all over them.  (This is not a real example, thank goodness.)  Enter the Thirsty Hippo.  It's a small plastic box of aforementioned crystals that sucks the moisture out of the air in your closets, where A/C typically doesn't reach.  Fortunately we learned about these before we lost our entire wardrobe...we would have really appreciated this tip over the "where expat wives can get manicures" section in the relocation guide.  

4.  If you think US TV is hopeless and yields nothing decent to watch, just wait until you're halfway around the world and IP-blocked from most decent (and legal) music and TV content on the web. The talent of whoever is doing the TV-buying for the cable carriers here is the spiritual equivalent of whoever does the "women's everydaywear" buying at K-Mart. Rather shapeless. Mostly pastel, with the oddly selected stroke of fuchsia or too-bright, too-earnest blue.  Never too revealing.  Think Canadian cooking shows.  Except for HBO.  Thank goodness, again, for so many reasons, for HBO.  And thank goodness the Cricket Channel will consume all those hours we have left after we get sick of the Football Channel.

Animal Magic

Friday March 13th 2009

Keith: Nine observations about Singapore wildlife:

1. The small black stain at the foot of the wall in our living room wasn't a scuff mark from the movers, a dead insect or a random bit of dirt. It was lizard poop. Honestly. 

2. The perpetrator of said wall-soiling was Larry the Lizard, a three-inch long beige reptile that scuttled across the sitting room floor on our return from dinner one night. I guess we must have disturbed his daily ablutions. We chased him down the hallway but he was way too quick, disappearing into hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the spare bathroom. It's a bit freaky to have to share your home with a lizard, but we got used to the idea pretty quickly. In fact, I'd forgotten all about him until a small beige head peered round the bathroom door 30 minutes later and asked where we keep the spare toilet roll.

3. I was always under the impression that lizards carry salmonella, and that every so often a pet reptile's germs kill a baby. But when I asked my doctor about it he said this only applies to iguanas, and Larry was in fact as healthy as, well, Larry. Mind you, this was the same doctor who said I didn't need to wear mosquite repellant while dining outside in Singapore, which proved to be somewhat pisspoor advice last night (see #8).

4. The other three-inch creature attached to the kitchen window early on Tuesday morning was not, as I initially suspected, Larry patiently waiting for his turn in the bathroom. It was a giant grasshopper. It stayed on the window immobile for a couple of hours and then suddenly disappeared. I don't know who ate it, but a day later Larry had doubled in size, built himself a sandpit and seemed to be in serious training for the 2012 Olympics triple jump team.

5. Courtney shared an elevator with a cockroach on Wednesday. There really shouldn't have been any cause for alarm - it was traveling to the eighth floor and we live on the fifth. I don't want to be critical of my wife, but normal etiquette when someone joins you in an elevator is to ask what floor they want and press the appropriate button, not kick the crap out of them and boot them down the elevator shaft. Must be an East Coast thing.

6. According to my friend Nick, who's lived in Singapore and Thailand for over a decade, you shouldn't stamp on cockroaches. This spreads their eggs and the smell attracts their mate, and before you know it you're got the entire extended family and 300 hangers on camped out in your front room. A similar experience to getting Sarah Palin's daughter up the duff during an election campaign, I imagine. Anyway, best approach is to reason with them and politely ask them to leave, or nuke them with an aerosol. The cockroaches, that is - not the Palins.

7. Nick also informs me that Singapore is a safe haven compared to where he lives in Southern Thailand, where he has to contend with translucent venomous snakes, malaria-carrying mosquitos, flying cockroaches that bite on impact and a frog that blinds you if it pees on your face. I'm curious as to what circumstances would arise where you'd have a frog peeing on your face. I mean, sure, there was that girl I met in a dive bar in the East End of London fifteen years who suggested.... well, whatever.

 

8.  When you spot an insect on your arm at dinner, don't point at it and ask your wife 'Is that one of those dengue fever-carrying mosquitos?' Kill it before it bites you a second time, then describe what it looked like. You'll get the answer "No" whether she sees it dead or alive. After all, this is a woman who's lived with your Generalized Anxiety Disorder for seven years and knows there are certain buttons that are really best not pressed.

9. The presence of so much wildlife might suggest to the casual observer that the monthly fumigation carried out across our apartment complex is ineffective. Not so. While it's true that the sickly-smelling, thick poisonous smoke that swirled around the building on the first Tuesday of the month didn't eradicate Larry the Lizard and friends, it did a marvellous job fumigating my boxer shorts, which I'd inadvertently left drying on the balcony after our weekly wash. I'm pleased to report that there is now no life form of any description in my underpants - something that Courtney was able to vouch for only last night.

Singapore Spurs

Monday March 2nd 2009

Keith: Sunday night/Monday morning saw Courtney and I joining 100+ Tottenham supporters in a hotel bar for the highlight of the English footballing calendar, the Carling Cup Final. Given that everyone in Asia is supposed to support Manchester United - the only football club in the world where the sole criteria for being a supporter is to certify that you've never been within 100 miles of the ground on match day - it was a real encouragement to see so many Spurs supporters in one place. There was beer, big screens, the token Pub Bore reminiscing about great matches of the 1970s, an unusually varied selection of mixed nuts, and lots of singing - all you could ask for, in fact, aside from actually being at Wembley. Oh, and winning, of course. 

It was great to hear 'Come on you Spurs' sung with such gusto in a combination of Indian, Singaporean and North London accents - frankly, an altogether more tuneful version than anything I get from Mat or John at White Hart Lane. Courtney managed to refrain from chipping in with her own unique chant of 'Go Spurs' - and I avoided any rendition of "My old man, said be an Arsenal fan", primarily for fear that my more restrained Singaporean brethren may not appreciate the deep satire and witty juxtapositions of the next line ("I said f*** off, b*ll***s, you're a c***")

As you may know, Spurs lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after Jamie O'Hara drove one shot down the goalkeeper's throat and David Bentley further enhanced his reputation for precision passing by missing the goal altogether. Highlight of the game, though, was seeing that cheating bastard Ronaldo booked for diving when the replay showed he had in fact been tripped by a Spurs player in the penalty area, thus confirming that (a) there is indeed a God and (b) with a sense of irony like that, He or She definitely isn't American, which leaves the state of Utah with a certain amount of explaining to do.

So at the top is a picture that Courtney took on her phone, showing me in my new 'Singapore Spurs' shirt at half time. Next year we'll put a flash on the camera. Plenty more pics on the Singapore Spurs site - the crowd believing, Courtney sharing the disappointment, the penalties, and a guy hearing the latest odds on Arsenal or Chelsea winning the Premiership.

And here's a big thanks to Eric, once a drinking companion at the Two Brewers at White Hart Lane in London and now a fellow expat. It was Eric who told me about Singapore Spurs when we met up in Hong Kong last month - he's actually set up a similar group there. Just as Obama's path to the presidency was founded on a combination of old-fashioned grassroots campaigning and ground-breaking use of the internet, so the expat Spurs crew will deploy a combination of traditional tools (beer) and more modern devices (mixed nuts) to win over Asian hearts and minds, one misguided Manchester United supporter at a time....

Beijing By the Numbers

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Courtney: A couple of weeks ago a work trip took me to Beijing for a few days...

Hours in Beijing: 60

Taxi rides: 5
Taxi rides that included a near collision* with a bus: 4
Taxi rides that included a near collision* with a cyclist: 5
Taxi rides with functioning seat belts: 0
* "near collision" = margin of 6 inches or less

Peking ducks eaten: 1.5
Cups of chrysanthemum tea drunk: 5
Unidentifiable foodstuffs eaten: 6
Mini Snickers bars from the Google mini-kitchens eaten: 8

Days since last rainfall in Beijing: 110

Rainfall during my second day in Beijing: 6 inches

Taxis available when I needed to leave the office that day: 0

Googlers stranded at the office with me: 2 (that I knew of)

Times I called my hotel hoping they could send their car service to get us: 3

Times I thought I'd have to sleep in the office that night: 8

Cost of renting an umbrella from the restaurant where we ate dinner: dunno because I didn't pay, but what a brilliant idea

Minutes spent wandering in the rain at 9pm until we found a taxi: 45

Cost of 35 minute taxi ride to drop off 2 other Googlers and me: US$4.82

Tokyo highlights

Wednesday, February 11th 2009

Keith: After five fabulous days in Tokyo, Courtney has gone to Beijing and I've stopped off in Hong Kong, awaiting her arrival on Friday. Here are the highlights of our trip so far:

1. Courtney ate whale in a Tokyo sushi bar. Apparently, it was fairly tasteless - the food, I mean, rather than the act of eating an endangered species. I guess we should be thankful she didn't choke on the harpoon.

2. I discovered - and please ensure you're seated before you read on - that I like sushi. We were taken to two great local sushi bars, first by Courtney's friend Jon and then on Monday night by one of her colleagues, Yoshi. The first was at the local fish market and served food on a conveyor belt - you just grab what you want as it goes by. Somewhat surreally, amid the raw fish and vegetables, a plate of strawberries and cream circulated the entire time we were there... I ate raw mackerel, salmon, herring, sardine, and fatty tuna. I was even a fan of the seaweed soup. It's all just wrong, frankly.

3. We visited the Imperial Gardens. They were shut.

4. Our hotel toilet has a built in bidet, butt/bottom spray, seat warmer - and an artificial noise machine to disguise indiscreet sounds. Intriguingly, the noise machine only works for the first two seconds after you sit on the seat, which does somewhat put the pressure on you to perform. Either that or end you end up trying to do the business between star jumps. Regardless, it was a delightful experience. Had they piped in Premiership football, delivered the New York Times and served tea on the hour I'd happily have sat in there for the entire five days.

5. We found a whole district of small hotels offering short-term rest breaks, a few hours at a time. My first assumption about their purpose proved to be entirely wrong.

6. We successfully navigated the metro system, even though everything's in Japanese. We were helped by the fact that they number the stations consecutively and have an electronic map on the train telling you exactly where you are. And we only went one stop. But still, it's an achievement.

7. Despite the fact that I can't sing, we went to a karaoke bar and sang the Kells anthem 'Wonderwall', and our wedding anthem 'The first, my last, my everything'. The picture shows Courtney and Linda - an Aussie fluent in Japanese - in full flow. I'd excused myself by this time and was busy douching myself on a piping hot toilet seat.

8. Face masks are de rigeur for anyone with a cold: it's a very selfless way of trying to stop spreading your own germs. As one of Courtney's colleagues pointed out, if Americans wore face masks they'd do it for exactly the opposite reason i.e. to avoid picking anything up. It makes me even more embarrassed about the time in the Singapore shopping mall when I got a twitch in my nose, turned away from Courtney and promptly sneezed all over a little old Chinese lady. I tried to tell her it was a sign of good luck in the year of the ox, but I'm not sure she understood me.

9. We saw the most expensive real estate in the world (Ginza shopping street) and the world's busiest 'scramble' crossing, a huge junction where all the traffic stops simultaneously and several thousand Japanese pedestrians fight it out to get across the street. Hours of entertainment for the idle passer-by. Coming from Britain, I was amazed and somewhat disappointed to see that no-one threw a punch.

10. The highlight of the trip was definitely the food - not least because people here have been incredibly hospitable in showing us around. Given that my wife has a slightly more refined palate than mine, I shall leave her to explain the finer points.

Tokyo highlights, for those with refined palates

Wednesday, February 11.

Courtney: Culinary highlights from Tokyo:

1. Whale sushi. All in all, not worth the karmic penalty I'm sure I'll have to pay. (See: Beijing taxis.) It was a lovely deep crimson in color so was expecting something like a carpaccio, or a heftier tuna-type taste...and got a mouthful of something vaguely sushi-feeling, along with a pile of minced chives and ginger. Apparently different cuts of the whale have different texture and depth of flavor so am guessing I got the flank steak instead of the filet mignon. So maybe I should just look at it as an experience with a Japanese interpretation of steak fajitas...

2. Macadamia nuts, interesting applications of. We went to an underground cave for Australian food. It was a narrow passageway of a basement restaurant with beautifully textured beige walls that made it feel like a hiding place from real life -- and especially from the youthful neon chaos of Shibuya. I'm not exactly sure what "Australian" food is unless it says "Sauvignon Blanc" or "kangaroo burger." But it seems to be about fresh ingredients and simple recipes done well (not unlike California cuisine), and in this case I discovered a fantastic way to eat macadamia nuts: liquefied in a cream-based sauce for pasta, served with chicken.

3. Global brands, appreciation for. The Starbucks at Shibuya crossing in Tokyo is apparently the highest-revenue Starbucks in the world. We popped in for a taste of home, and I discovered the magic that can happen when a global brand customizes products to suit local tastes. The first example of this was my Honey Orange Latte...yum! The second example of this was the unbelievable efficiency of this incredibly busy outpost -- it puts 9am Midtown NYC baristas to shame. From the English language menu they hand you when you set foot inside, to the friendly greeter who takes your receipt and listens for your coffee to be ready so they can get it into your hands (and you into a chair or out the door) as fast as possible -- these guys give you a glimpse of just how simple and smooth the world should be. If only the coffee shops in Singapore could get the "best practices" playbook from this place...

4. Most exciting realization of this, my second trip to Tokyo. I will not starve here, even if I don't speak Japanese. I used to envision a doom of endless lunches and dinners in McDonalds and TGIFridays, with the best food options locked up behind the language barrier. Even though there are signs in English letters and plenty of plastic food models, it's not really a country where I want to just guess and pray (especially since I'm married to someone with a food allergy). But I've discovered that more places than you'd expect have English menus -- there's even an English-language Japanese magazine called Metropolis which often states in restaurant reviews that a place has an English menu. I am also becoming a Google Translate addict (shameless product plug alert).

Speaking Japanese: An Englishman's Guide

Monday February 9th 2009

Keith: If you ever wind up here in Tokyo, I found the following language guide indispensable:

At the Sushi Bar
Smile, bow head, pause, bow head =
Good afternoon. Table for two, no smoking please.

Follow waiter to table, smile, bow head =
No worries, the smoking table's just fine.

Smile, bow head twice =
Sure, we're ready to order. I'm allergic to shellfish - are there any dishes I should avoid?

Smile, bow head twice =
Are you positive I can eat that? It looks like lobster to me.

Smile, bow head twice =
No mate, I know a crab when I see one. Here, I'll try some of that sushi instead.

Smile, bow head twice =
Is that thing still alive?

Smile, bow head twice =
What are you talking about? It's walking across the f***ing plate.

Smile, bow head twice =
It looks like a cockroach on steroids. With a club foot.

Smile, bow head twice =
Hang on, I think it's making a run for it.

Smile, bow head frantically =
Waiter, waiter - kindly apprehend that crustacean!! Yes, that one - the one with the limp.

Smile, bow profusely, hands clasped as if in prayer =
Oh thank you madam, thank you - very well caught. And may I say you show a remarkable turn of speed for someone wearing such a dainty kimono?

Smile, bow head twice =
What the...? Noooooo - don't put it in your mouth!!!

Smile, bow head twice =
I'm feeling slightly nauseous: can you show me to the bathroom?

Next week: In the emergency room

Golden Showers

Sunday January 25 2009

Keith: I've never yet managed to find a taxi on New Year's Eve in London, San Francisco or Sevilla, so it was probably expecting a bit too much to find one at 5pm on Chinese New Year's Eve in Singapore. Which is why you'd have seen the two of us looking a little less than chirpy outside a newly-discovered French deli in Dempsey Road today.

What upset Courtney was the fact that we'd already hiked for an hour through the city to get to the Botanical Gardens up the road, and faced the same trek back - this in a climate where a ten-minute walk to the subway is considered excessive. What bothered me was that I'd just invested S$50 at the deli in a loaf of rosemary focaccia and some of the store's finest brie, stilton and gouda - and after ten minutes in the heat much of it was already starting to resemble fondue. Only those who've lunched on nothing but bread and cheese for the last 20-odd years could appreciate my bitter frustration. It was the culinary equivalent of meeting Jenna Jameson in a bar, spending $200 on dinner, persuading her to come back to your place and then discovering she's a practising Roman Catholic.

Still, the trip to the Botanical Gardens was worth it. It's not the world's biggest park, but it boasts a small swathe of really cool rainforest and some amazing orchid collections. We wanted to take some pics, but there was so much to see we weren't sure where to start. Thankfully, the park authorities came to our rescue:

I've included pictures of a few of my favorite orchids, including the aptly-named 'Golden Shower'.  An amazing sight: see how it explodes in a burst of yellow spray, saturating everything around it in a frenzy of pent-up release. I wish I could describe the aroma - vaguely familiar, sort of pungent...

There was also an orchid named after Margaret Thatcher in honor of her visit to the park in 1985, back in the days when people actually cared what she was up to and she actually remembered who she was. Tellingly, it seems to be wilting a little - I guess 24 years of hard-nosed monetarism and a weekly blue rinse does that to you.

And there was a really cool plant that entices insects in and then snaps its lid shut, a bit like a Venus fly trap. I'm thinking of buying one to add to my anti-mosquito armory.

Top Ten Surprises

Monday January 19th 2008

Keith: Two weeks gone, 76 to go. Not that I'm counting, you understand. Every day's an eye-opener. Every evening's a bottle-opener.

It would be an exaggeration to say that our senses have been bombarded with new sights, smells, sounds and touches in Singapore - particularly the touches, given the preventive measures I'm taking against SARS, bird flu and Hepatitis B. But there have been a lot of surprises. Here are our Top Ten.

1. It's not as hot or humid as we expected. In fact, I sweated more in New York last summer. On the other hand, this is what passes for winter.

2. I haven't died yet. No sign at all of Dengue Fever, Hepatitis A/B/C, cholera, malaria or typhoid. In fact, it appears I can't even get the last three in Singapore. Even the water's safe to drink.

3. They deliver McDonalds to your home. We met the delivery guy in the elevator yesterday. Can you imagine, as much lard as you want without having to stretch down to put your shoes on or do that long walk from the parking lot to the fast-food counter. What a country.

4. Despite (3) above, most Asians do not have large arses.

5. You can get American and European brands just as cheap as at home - like Laughing Cow cheese, Skippy peanut butter and Ariel non-biological washing powder for sensitive skin (leaves behind a pleasant sensation of almond milk and honey freshness).

6. The bread oxymoron. On the one hand, the bread tastes like shite because they pump it full of preservatives. On the other, it goes mouldy within two days. That's a national tragedy.

7. Alcohol is eye-poppingly expensive. My first pint out cost S$15 - about US$10 or GBP7. Last time I paid that much for a beer I got a free lapdance.

8. Every new apartment has a bomb shelter. Is there something they didn't tell us?

9. When you buy a 40" TV at S$200 off the list price, they throw a S$600 home entertainment system in free of charge. But you still have to pay S$20 for delivery and S$6 for the cables.

10. Spurs are just as crap here as they were when I watched them in San Francisco. Yet whenever I go to London they win the Carling Cup. How does that work?

The commuter lifestyle

9pm, Saturday, January 17, 2009

Courtney: Guess what I miss the least about life in SF? My clock radio issuing gentle hits of the 80s (or, from Thanksgiving onward, Christmas muzak) at 6:15am to rouse me for the trudge down 101. Guess what's entertained me most this week (apart from reading Keith's blogposts)? The commuting idiosyncracies of our new island hosts.

(First, insert applause/back-pats here for my valiant efforts to go local and get a pre-paid commuter pass for the trains AND then actually use it most mornings and evenings this week. When taxis to the office are less than US$5 and I really want to wear high heels and long clothing that protects me from the Arctic temperatures in the generously AC-ed office, it's reeeeeally tempting to skip the warm 10 minute walk to the MRT (subway) and head straight for the taxi stand.)

The commute is probably most notable for what it lacks in comparison to commutes I've experienced in New York, London, and San Francisco.

• No homeless guys!!! Absolutely no need to exercise my SF-honed skills for recognizing the breath-holding radius for avoiding various biological odors.
• No frantic dashes up or down staircases or tunnels in the event that you're JUST ABOUT TO MISS THE TRAIN even though you're still about half a mile away and couldn't really tell anyway. When the trains come every 2 minutes and you're sure to get on, there's really no point rushing. (Oh, and did we mention it's hot?)
• No noise. Seriously. In the stations, on the platforms, in the trains...just the gentle patter of feet.
• Any chaos of any description. People literally stand in orderly lines up and down the length of the train cars. The etiquette is to face the windows in the direction of the station platform (as opposed to the wall of the tunnel). I initially resisted this because it's just weird, but then Friday evening I discovered with some alarm that I had fallen into the pattern unthinkingly. So that's how it happens...wonder what else is going to happen to us that way...

Innovations I wish we could import to the US:

• Cleanliness and air conditioning as far as the eye can see!
• Station attendants who guide us along the platform so the trains will be evenly distributed with passengers.
• Painted lines/arrows on the platforms in front of each set of subway car doors showing where you should allow passengers to exit. People really do line up where they're supposed to!

My type A, super efficient, east coast Virgo self swells with affection for my new home...