After a week of race-induced traffic delays (how's that for an oxymoron?) I was glad to read in the newspaper today that the government has just announced a new brisk walking campaign. I must confess that I have often been frustrated by slow moving mobs in malls, MRT stations, and other public places, and have been stumped as to how to make the pace less glacial. Great news, the government is on it.
However, I'm not sure how they are going to do it. It seems that they are encouraging the spread of brisk walking clubs whereby hundreds of people would walk briskly in groups as a form of exercise. The campaign kick-off allegedly attracted 10,000 people. I'm wondering just how briskly a mob of walkers can move--rather slowly, I suspect. Which will only make the problem worse, as I will now have mobs of brisk walkers in my path wherever I go!
This is not what I had in mind at all. I was hoping they would distribute cattle prods (low voltage, of course) so we fast walkers could encourage the slower ones to get a move on. As they say in exercise circles, "No pain, no gain!"
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
F1 Bottlenecks
The Singapore Formula One race is on. For the last several days, traffic jams and detours have plagued us regular drivers as roads are closed and reconfigured to accommodate the race drivers. It has been a huge inconvenience and waste of time for me and many others. Last year's race is said to have generated nearly $170 million in revenue. Divide that by the five million souls in Singapore, and it works out to about $35 per head. We have three heads in our family. I'm looking forward to receiving my check for $105, although it won't adequately compensate me for my trouble. Now that I think about it, I'm still waiting for last year's check.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Mooncake Madness
We took a short hike along the new nature trail off Dairy Farm Road the other day. As we were starting out, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was heading back. After we passed, Cherisse shouted "Was that really the Prime Minister?" PM Lee heard it, turned around and waved to her. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.
The ashes from the seventh month hungry ghost celebrations have been swept away, which portends the coming of the mooncake festival. So we went to Takashimaya Shopping Center for our annual mooncake walk. The main atrium is crammed full of booths representing the various mooncake purveyors, who ply the masses with samples. These samples are barely big enough to be run through with a toothpick, but after you stop at several dozen booths you get quite full. By that time I am no longer in the mood to buy any, but tradition dictates that I buy a box for my mother-in-law, plus we need some at home in case any visitors drop by, so we leave with a few boxes.
When I first tried mooncakes 12 years ago there were basically two kinds: red bean and lotus paste. Over the years hundreds of new varieties have come along. The high point in the evolution of these treats occurred several years ago, when Haagen Dazs introduced mooncakes made from ice cream. Very good, but not really mooncakes. This year's batch features many exotic combinations, such as champagne and truffles. My favorite so far this year: The Fullerton Hotel's Chocolate and Bailey's Irish Cream Snowskin mooncake.
The price of mooncakes has risen steadily over the years. For my money, I'd rather buy some rich chocolate cake and top it with Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Not very traditional, but that is what I call dessert.
The ashes from the seventh month hungry ghost celebrations have been swept away, which portends the coming of the mooncake festival. So we went to Takashimaya Shopping Center for our annual mooncake walk. The main atrium is crammed full of booths representing the various mooncake purveyors, who ply the masses with samples. These samples are barely big enough to be run through with a toothpick, but after you stop at several dozen booths you get quite full. By that time I am no longer in the mood to buy any, but tradition dictates that I buy a box for my mother-in-law, plus we need some at home in case any visitors drop by, so we leave with a few boxes.
When I first tried mooncakes 12 years ago there were basically two kinds: red bean and lotus paste. Over the years hundreds of new varieties have come along. The high point in the evolution of these treats occurred several years ago, when Haagen Dazs introduced mooncakes made from ice cream. Very good, but not really mooncakes. This year's batch features many exotic combinations, such as champagne and truffles. My favorite so far this year: The Fullerton Hotel's Chocolate and Bailey's Irish Cream Snowskin mooncake.
The price of mooncakes has risen steadily over the years. For my money, I'd rather buy some rich chocolate cake and top it with Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Not very traditional, but that is what I call dessert.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Rolling along
Kudos to the Singapore government. They have finally done something about transporting foreign workers. For decades the country has benefited from the contributions of foreign workers, who build homes, roads, MRT lines, buildings, and do all kinds of manual labor for a few dollars a day. Clearly, they are a big reason for the country’s prosperity. It would be very expensive to hire Singaporeans to do this work.
Typically, the workers are ferried between their homes (dormitories at best, metal shipping containers at worst) to their job sites by lorry. For my American readers, a lorry is like a pickup truck. The workers are packed onto the bed of these trucks and chauffeured about in grand style. When it rains, they huddle under a plastic tarp. If the lorry is involved in an accident, they are often thrown out and injured or killed. Fortunately, they are easily and cheaply replaced.
Now the government has decided that they deserve better, so they have mandated new regulations requiring a railing around the sides of the truck bed, and a metal canopy to protect the workers from the elements. What a great reform this is! Of course, it is being phased in gradually, to ease the financial burden on their employers.
A couple of years ago a student died after being thrown from his school bus, and the government mandated seat belts for school buses. Hey, here’s an idea: Why not require employers to use buses with seat belts for foreign workers? That would cost money. But these workers are paid so little, surely employers could spend a bit to treat them like human beings. But that would cost money!
The other day Cherisse and I took a bus. As we climbed aboard we noticed that it was a brand spanking new, clean, modern bus. Then I noticed that it had fewer seats than the older buses, but it had plenty of room to stand, and lots of hand grips hanging from above. In that regard it was a lot like the new carriages on the MRT. Why don’t they just do away with seats altogether so they can cram more people inside? Still, it beats sitting on the back of a lorry like cargo. Even with railings and a canopy.
Typically, the workers are ferried between their homes (dormitories at best, metal shipping containers at worst) to their job sites by lorry. For my American readers, a lorry is like a pickup truck. The workers are packed onto the bed of these trucks and chauffeured about in grand style. When it rains, they huddle under a plastic tarp. If the lorry is involved in an accident, they are often thrown out and injured or killed. Fortunately, they are easily and cheaply replaced.
Now the government has decided that they deserve better, so they have mandated new regulations requiring a railing around the sides of the truck bed, and a metal canopy to protect the workers from the elements. What a great reform this is! Of course, it is being phased in gradually, to ease the financial burden on their employers.
A couple of years ago a student died after being thrown from his school bus, and the government mandated seat belts for school buses. Hey, here’s an idea: Why not require employers to use buses with seat belts for foreign workers? That would cost money. But these workers are paid so little, surely employers could spend a bit to treat them like human beings. But that would cost money!
The other day Cherisse and I took a bus. As we climbed aboard we noticed that it was a brand spanking new, clean, modern bus. Then I noticed that it had fewer seats than the older buses, but it had plenty of room to stand, and lots of hand grips hanging from above. In that regard it was a lot like the new carriages on the MRT. Why don’t they just do away with seats altogether so they can cram more people inside? Still, it beats sitting on the back of a lorry like cargo. Even with railings and a canopy.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sushi at City Vibe
Went out for cheap sushi with the wife and kid Friday night, which is always a risky venture. Cheap sushi, that is. There are actually a few places that do pretty good 99 cents a plate sushi, but not all are created equal.
We had a flyer from this place in City Vibe and decided to try it. City Vibe sounds like a buzzing entertainment district, or at least a mid- to upscale mall like VivoCity and Velocity. In fact, it is just a slightly renovated and quite ordinary neighborhood mall trying to use a new name to lure in people who would ordinarily be wary of such places. A quick trip to the toilet (the quicker the better, believe you me) proved that the facility was well below par. Any mall trying to pass for upscale should at least have clean toilets.
The sushi joint was busy, but there was never more than three parties waiting to be seated, and for most of the time we were there (about 1½ hours) there was no queue at all. And clearly they were shorthanded on bus staff and sushi makers. Bus staff should not be a problem when there is no queue, but a shortage of sushi makers could be. And that conveyor belt looked like a ghost town. When there was sushi on it it was mostly egg or tuna salad in a bean curd wrapper. Aside from a few pieces of unagi (eel), we did not see a single piece of fish roll by until a solitary salmon specimen bade us farewell.
They do allow you to order from the waiters, but our order took over 40 minutes to arrive. Shorthanded or not, how long does it take to slap a piece of fish on a rice ball?
On the positive side, we did not get sick. And we learned that we should stick to our usual 99 cent sushi place, which is pretty good, despite its location in the Inland Revenue building. That building always gives me the creeps, but at least the toilets are clean.
We had a flyer from this place in City Vibe and decided to try it. City Vibe sounds like a buzzing entertainment district, or at least a mid- to upscale mall like VivoCity and Velocity. In fact, it is just a slightly renovated and quite ordinary neighborhood mall trying to use a new name to lure in people who would ordinarily be wary of such places. A quick trip to the toilet (the quicker the better, believe you me) proved that the facility was well below par. Any mall trying to pass for upscale should at least have clean toilets.
The sushi joint was busy, but there was never more than three parties waiting to be seated, and for most of the time we were there (about 1½ hours) there was no queue at all. And clearly they were shorthanded on bus staff and sushi makers. Bus staff should not be a problem when there is no queue, but a shortage of sushi makers could be. And that conveyor belt looked like a ghost town. When there was sushi on it it was mostly egg or tuna salad in a bean curd wrapper. Aside from a few pieces of unagi (eel), we did not see a single piece of fish roll by until a solitary salmon specimen bade us farewell.
They do allow you to order from the waiters, but our order took over 40 minutes to arrive. Shorthanded or not, how long does it take to slap a piece of fish on a rice ball?
On the positive side, we did not get sick. And we learned that we should stick to our usual 99 cent sushi place, which is pretty good, despite its location in the Inland Revenue building. That building always gives me the creeps, but at least the toilets are clean.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Going Mad
I was watching TV the other night and “Armageddon” was on for what seemed like the fourth time in the last year. Liv Tyler is cute, but she’s not that cute. Then there was “The Price is Right,” which not even Drew Carey can save, the PM’s National Day message in three languages, each with its own time slot, and “Don’t Forget the Lyrics,” which blurs the distinction between the casting couch and the psychiatrist’s couch. Where do they find these people? TV-land is truly a wasteland. And that’s just the ang moh channel.
The Chinese channel is even worse. The opening titles of their serial dramas feature a montage of one second clips drawn from virtually every scene in the entire series. Each clip depicts someone slapping, punching, strangling, or otherwise committing an act of violence upon the person of another. Cherisse loves it, much like I used to enjoy watching “The Three Stooges” as a kid.
One American show which I have heard about but not seen is “Mad Men,” which seems like a more sophisticated version of “Bewitched.” (Back in the 60s all the men were in advertising.) A throwback to a less enlightened but more elegant age. I hope the local media will pony up the dough to buy it.
The Chinese channel is even worse. The opening titles of their serial dramas feature a montage of one second clips drawn from virtually every scene in the entire series. Each clip depicts someone slapping, punching, strangling, or otherwise committing an act of violence upon the person of another. Cherisse loves it, much like I used to enjoy watching “The Three Stooges” as a kid.
One American show which I have heard about but not seen is “Mad Men,” which seems like a more sophisticated version of “Bewitched.” (Back in the 60s all the men were in advertising.) A throwback to a less enlightened but more elegant age. I hope the local media will pony up the dough to buy it. Until then, I found a website that lets you cast yourself in Mad Men style. Here I am. You get to choose your hair, features, clothes, etc. That’s scotch, by the way. I was clearly born a generation too late.
I have too much time on my hands now. I’d better get back to work.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
National Day weekend
On Saturday morning we joined the extended family in three cars for a weekend jaunt to Malaysia. It took a relatively short two hours to clear the checkpoints in both countries, only because a lot of people left town on Friday.
I won't mention the name of resort, in case we ever go back, though I hope we don't. We stayed in a four bedroom, four bath bungalow, so it wasn't too crowded. The golf course looked pretty nice, and had monitor lizards (two-foot-long dinosaurs) lazing about. We had one of the worst buffet lunches ever, then we bowled a game and went for a swim. For dinner we had BBQ on the patio--chicken wings, fish, squid, hot dogs without buns or ketchup, plus rice and bee hoon (stir fried vernicelli noodles)--in short, the usual Singaporean BBQ. The kids ran amok until the wee hours, most of the adults played cards, and I read Lewis Black (funny guy, check him out on YouTube).
On Sunday the bowling alley was booked so we hit the driving range. Between that and the previous day's bowling I became painfully aware of all kinds of muscles I didn't even know I had. Lunch was the same lousy buffet. We left early and had an easy time getting back, because most Singaporean holidaymakers were staying until Monday.
We got home early in the evening, in time to watch part of the National Day Parade on TV. We tuned in and after a few seconds of festivities, they cut to a newscaster announcing that a bomb had been found in one of the neighborhoods. After a few seconds I decided it was a bogus anti-terror exercise, when they cut to a live action shot of underwater divers dismantling a mine and emergency vehicles arriving at the stadium. But I'll bet a lot of people thought it was real. Fortunately, there were no reports of people jumping from the roofs of their HDB flats. Coming a day after a major regional terrorist leader was reportedly killed in a shootout with Indonesian police, the gag was in extremely poor taste. Even my wife, normally a stalwart government supporter, was put off. Showing off your anti-terror readiness is one thing, but didn't they learn anything from "War of the Worlds"?
I won't mention the name of resort, in case we ever go back, though I hope we don't. We stayed in a four bedroom, four bath bungalow, so it wasn't too crowded. The golf course looked pretty nice, and had monitor lizards (two-foot-long dinosaurs) lazing about. We had one of the worst buffet lunches ever, then we bowled a game and went for a swim. For dinner we had BBQ on the patio--chicken wings, fish, squid, hot dogs without buns or ketchup, plus rice and bee hoon (stir fried vernicelli noodles)--in short, the usual Singaporean BBQ. The kids ran amok until the wee hours, most of the adults played cards, and I read Lewis Black (funny guy, check him out on YouTube).
On Sunday the bowling alley was booked so we hit the driving range. Between that and the previous day's bowling I became painfully aware of all kinds of muscles I didn't even know I had. Lunch was the same lousy buffet. We left early and had an easy time getting back, because most Singaporean holidaymakers were staying until Monday.
We got home early in the evening, in time to watch part of the National Day Parade on TV. We tuned in and after a few seconds of festivities, they cut to a newscaster announcing that a bomb had been found in one of the neighborhoods. After a few seconds I decided it was a bogus anti-terror exercise, when they cut to a live action shot of underwater divers dismantling a mine and emergency vehicles arriving at the stadium. But I'll bet a lot of people thought it was real. Fortunately, there were no reports of people jumping from the roofs of their HDB flats. Coming a day after a major regional terrorist leader was reportedly killed in a shootout with Indonesian police, the gag was in extremely poor taste. Even my wife, normally a stalwart government supporter, was put off. Showing off your anti-terror readiness is one thing, but didn't they learn anything from "War of the Worlds"?
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