1st Formula 1/visit from Sweden/black chicken/Indian lunch/10-year anniversary

I’ve never been to a high profile car race in my entire life; I’m from a small town in Sweden called Ulricehamn and the most extravagance in motor way have been racing on the ice of the lake Asunden. I however never dared to go driving on the actual lake. Hence the closest thing to an adventurous car episode in my life, was when I was allowed to drive my best friend’s car on a football field and spin using the handbrake. Before I had a license. I thought it was really outrageous and still do. Therefore you can imagine my expectations of the Formula 1 2011 International Midnight Race in Singapore. And it was awesome. In addition we met several new friends during that night; thank you all for making it a night (and early day..) to remember!

 

Little did we know when we first got down to the race that we’d be sitting on one of the balconies on the 30th something floor of this skyscraper at 06.00 AM on an after party.

 

This was very cool ;)

 

I am very proud of our ticket badges.

 

Survival kit = earplugs and rain cape.

 

The cars are fast; I tried to upload a short clip on them as well, but there was a 'conflict with the raw data'; I quote Homer Simpson: 'boooooring'.

 

My husband was very happy standing on the sidelines at Esplanade Drive Bridge by the Marina; the race is set through the city center of Singapore, so the scenary is quite awsome.

 

Part of the vintage car show next to the race. Really sweet rides.. I absolutely fell in love with the red one.

Then we had our first visit from Sweden! We were touristing around and it was really fun to introduce Singapore to others. Here are some of the places we squeezed in during the week, in between frequent visits to the pool and sundeck at our condo, shopping and taking strolls in the city.

 

Nettan and Robin at Raffles’ Long Bar.

 

And of course we needed to have Singapore Slings and throw peanut shells on the floor; my initial thought enetering was 'Has this place been cleaned by Stevie Wonder?'..

 

Me at Raffles’ Long Bar.

 

Raffles’ court yard with their outdoor restaurant and kitchen; very nice.

 

One of the nights was dedicated to the quays; we had chili crab at Jumbo Seafood on the way to Robertson Quay, drinks at Boat Quay and here more drinks, water pipes and dancing on Clarke Quay. 

 

Nettan at the open sky bar One Altitude on the 63rd floor with a 360 view over Singapore and glass walls. It takes almost a minute to take the elevator to the 62nd and compared to Gothenburg's Heaven 23 (which was the tallest building I'd been in before we came to Asia), it's almost three times as far up. The elevator is in addition made out of glass on one side and you really think you are there around floor 20. Then it's only 40 floors left ;)

 

And one evening I decided to try green beer; it was truly disgusting.

We also had to show off the Singaporean Botanical Gardens and the breathtaking orchids. This is so worth a visit and is only S$6; if you haven’t been, go. These pics are only taken with my phone, so I’m really looking forward revisiting with a proper camera. And I really couldn't decide which to take for this text so there's quite a few. But they are so beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Last week I was invited to a very traditional Chinese lunch, since our neighbors had heard I’d never seen, let alone eaten, black chicken before in my life. Therefore, black chicken soup it was. I was actually quite skeptical, since it still baffles me how an animal has white feathers but black skin and meat. I was even more skeptical when I was presented with a dish which looked like a little pot with roots and a whole black chicken leg sticking up out of it. It just looked nasty.

 
Mmmm…

However, I had not been taken to lunch to bail out, since Vikings obviously do not bail, so I dug in. And it was delicious. The texture was quite interesting as well. I was expecting it to be like chicken meat, but it was almost like smoked fish and quite dry, even though it was in a soup.

 
You gotta fight, for the right, to party.

We also had Drunk Chicken (cold boiled chicken breast with ginger paste), a fantastic fresh water fish that I can’t remember the name of (served cold with chili, garlic and leeks), spinach with sesame oil and numerous other little dishes.

 
The fish dish.

This kind of food is called Dim Sum and is a lot like tapas = many small dishes which everyone shares around the table. Thank you Charles and Shiela for taking me to one of the most amazing Chinese lunches ever!


Since we now have tennis rackets both of us, Jonas decided to challenge a colleague.

 
Jonas at the bottom and Jayaraj at the top; pic taken from their balcony.

I came along and we had an absolutely fantastic homemade Indian lunch. We also got our first proper Indian lessons in how to behave at the table. You eat with your right hand and make small balls from the rice and curry, do not under any circumstance lick your fingers since that means you are not full and think that there was not enough food. Also, if your Indian host says it’s spicy, prepare with a lot extra water, youghurt or coconut flakes. Thank you Jayaraj, Malarjayaraj and Jagajeeth for a great day!

 
View from our friends’ apartment overlooking a few of the public outdoor baths in the area.

 

Mother Malarjayaraj and son Jagajeeth; he wasn’t super keen being photographed, but rather wanted to play tennis with the boys. 

On Sunday the 9th of October we had been a couple for a whole decade! Hence the entire day was devoted to hang out and do nice things together: morning tennis, swimming, making a fabulous lunch together and having it on the balcony with chilled rose wine, watching a romantic movie while a tropical thunderstorm made the skies black, having dinner at our local hawker center and finishing off the evening with a spa treatment for two long hours. We are now officially embarking the next decade together ;) 

 

Lunch on the balcony: vegetable tortillas with vinaigrette tomatoes, rose wine and pineapple. 

 

My favorite dish at the local hawker center at Chuan Central: chicken and charcoal grilled pork with rice, soup and oyster sauced bok choy. 

During the week we were invited to a shop-warming-party at More Than Diamonds, run by our friends. It was a so much fun with some familiar, but also so many new faces. It was a really different and cool experience to have a party surrounded by several glass monters of sparkling jewelry. Thank you Sara and Chris for making it a wonderful night!


On the Saturday we were asked over to a super nice BBQ with absolutely fab food from The Butcher and homemade dishes. We also met new friends and had a lot of very tasty wine spiced with very interesting discussions and a lot of laughter. Thank you Anna, Mikael, Conny and Victoria for a truly great evening!  

Sentosa and 1st BBQ Springbloom

Since we like Singapore so much, find the people here really friendly and think the city itself is so clean, our outing became a choker. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the ‘paradise island’ Sentosa, but it’s probably the worst place in Singapore (minus Tanjong Beach Club, which was the only plus). We were there briefly when we were on the run from earthquakes and nuclear disasters in March, but were definitely too worked up to fully understand how much almost all of Sentosa sucks. (For the Swedes reading: basically, imagine Liseberg, Gothenburg on a salary-weekend when the weather is good, add big American-stylish-plastic-looking complexes and prices which are through the roof.) To make matters worse, we hadn’t gone there by the cable cars, which we decided would be smashing since we’re both scared of heights. Sometimes I think the joint intelligence in any marriage just becomes slightly paralyzed.

 

View from the cable car; the entire thing is made out of glass which doesn’t really help if you don’t like heights.

It was also hotter than hell and a national holiday = well beyond crowded = more or less how I picture an average purgatory.

 

Me on Palawan Beach which is seriously dirty (huge contrast to the rest of Singapore) and full of male participants who take pictures of everyone who’s in a bikini. We left after less than 5 mins.   

 

Japanese tourists seemed to be of the same understanding.

 

Entrance of the Robinson-alike island, which was not tasteful, practical nor fun.

Basically, you can go to Sentosa, but stay bloody far away from any of the beaches besides Tanjong Beach. Book a table at the beach club in advance, go directly there and only enter the ocean if you have to. Otherwise, just use the pool. Really, it’s the best option. And yes, we should have listened to our friends Claudia and David telling us just that.. 

 

Jonas at Tanjong Beach Club where fortunately the music was very good. Thank you DJ and friend Johnny!

We quite quickly took the first transportation towards the outstanding cable cars to just get us off the island. Unfortunately the only thing which came by was a parody of a too too train that merciless brawled out ‘TOOOT TOOOOT TOOOOOT’ at a volume that would make anyone not only go deaf, but both blind and mute in one go.

Since apparently the hits just had to keep on coming that day, we got on a bus to take us closer to our cable stop. That was exactly the same though that passed through the mind of the man with the largest problems with his intestines I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to have to endure. If his farts had been caught on an IR camera they’d been green. He could’ve killed a small cat with that smell. I’m not joking. THEN a man with the most foul body odor decided to enter the bus. J and I quickly threw ourselves towards the exit. Too late though, so we spent another 5 mins in the vicinity of a person smelling so strongly of sweat that my eyes were tearing when we finally got off. Jonas was almost green in the face and looked like he was gonna hurl any second. With a joint ‘Let’s just get the f*** off this island’-understanding we got on the cable cars and headed for civilization.

 

View from the cable cars; beautiful, but next time it’ll be straight to Tanjong Beach Club. 

We have now also quality tested the BBQ pits at Springbloom and they work just fine. The first round of BBQ guests were primarily Jonas colleagues; I spent the entire day before to plan and do the shopping. The menu included all kinds of salads, skewers, exotic fruits and drinks, so I started by heading to Little India.

 

Beginning of the main street Serangoon Road in Little India

 

It’s a bit tricky to find Mustafa Center where all the food is, but it’s just to follow the signs..

 

On the way one passes the absolutely gorgeous clothes section; it just goes on and on with row after row of fanatically beautiful and cheap clothes. I took a little detour here..

Well at home after a full day grocery shopping, I prepared all beans, peas and lentils for the following day. Might sound a bit out of place at a BBQ, but I had instructions there’d be a lot of Indians, and I know they are huge fans all kinds of legumes. And no one was leaving this party hungry.

The day of the BBQ I started early with boiling all the legumes; in the mean time I prepped the fruit and made grill packages.

 

 

 

Pineapples, dragon fruits, yellow and red water melons were all chopped and placed separately in the fridge to cool off

 

 

Tomatoes and mushrooms were chopped and placed in separate tin foil packages with oil, garlic, salt and white pepper 

Then it was time for one huge potato salad with creme fresh, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, capris, salt and black pepper + one green salad with all kinds of salad leaves, green/red spinach, all colors peppers, tomatoes, cucumber and squash. I also prepared a bean salad with white/black/red beans, chick peas, celery, red onions, green peppers and red cabbage. To this I made vinaigrette (lemon juice and mustard) and herb (vinegar, oregano, basil, rosmarin, thyme) dressings, based on oil, salt and pepper. Brilliant.

 

Start of the salads

Then it was time for the shaky part: the tiger shrimp skewers. I’ve not done them before, so I was a bit nervous they’d be really bad. At least I didn’t do the obvious beginner blunder of forgetting to damp the actual skewers in water before. It’d be really unfortunate if they’d just catch fire.. I had found a great recipe online where you just soak the whole thing (tiger shrimps, all colors peppers, onions and squash already on the skewer) in a marinade of soy sauce, oil, lemon, lime, garlic, ginger, red and green chili for an hour. They became a real hit, so I'll definitely keep them in mind for next time.

 

Preps for the marinade

Kitchen duty went really well besides one episode where I over enthusiastically manages to shove the very sharp Japanese knife straight into my ring finger. Needless to say there was blood everywhere. I don’t handle blood well. At all. After flipping over an entire chopping board of tomatoes by mistake as I was reaching for the kitchen bench so I wouldn’t pass out + sitting on the floor for about 20 mins with my head between my knees, I was fine though. It was however both cold and slimy unpleasant to sit flat arsed down in a pile of chopped tomatoes, but after a shower, three plasters and ‘Moves like Jagger‘ on full volume, I was back in the game.  

 

I was actually contemplating buying this and tell Jonas dessert was under control; they’re iPhone covers ;)  

The evening was really great and thank you all for making it so!

The Great Escape from Windows 7 and Braddell Heights

[So am now trying to write the first blog text on the our iMac OS X 10.6.8 and incorporate pics from my iPhone directly in the blog. I've never used a Mac before really. To make things more practical, our Swedish keyboard already passed away in Tokyo, so I now have a Japanese/Romanji (our alphabet) one. This means that the position on letters and signs are quite different and of course buttons to change the text into Japanese characters are present. I constantly seem to slide over them and become quite surprised when I look on the screen after a while and see: ティンgsw裏ってン印あヴェryst欄下和ｙ= ‘things written in a very strange way’.
It’s all part of The Great Escape from Windows 7 and the world of PC:s in general. I have decided not to give up. It shall work.]

I was asked not long ago about the surroundings and what Singapore looked like besides The Marina. This blog text is hence dedicated to the absolutely amazing houses in our hood, since I've frankly never seen anything like this in real life. It was a bit awkward to take pics due to security and of course if the owners were around, but I think you'll understand what I mean.

We have been taking walks the past few weeks in Braddell Heights Estates and the homes are totally stunning. As foreigners in Singapore you're not allowed to buy just any property due to restrictions on ownership of private residential. Basically it's almost impossible to buy a house, but you can rent almost anything for up to 99 years. Most of the following houses are however big enough for two families easily ;) 

This is my favourite (minus all the pillars), but for us it'd be enough with just the top floor cut in half ;)

This house had a sundeck which stretched all around the front with modern solar panels on parts of it; quite impressive overall with quite a few solar panel homes, since they're very unusual in e.g. Sweden. Might be for a reason though, considering we hardly see the sun 9 months out of 12.

 This was really cool with the funky palm tree in the front and all the over-the-top-looking cupola details; perfect for red wine n toga parties ;)

 This house was five floors and one of the bigger one-family houses I've ever seen; there were five luxury cars parked in the see-through garage. Considering one car is outrageously expensive in Singapore, I can hardly imagine how much five imported, highly modern cars are.

 

Here are four 'small' more modern villas with a lot of glass and steel work; I really like this style. Jonas think they look like shoe boxes.

 This was also absolutely huge and the base of it was a lot bigger than our apartment building in Tokyo. I was actually shocked to see this rather tasteful design being made completely ape sh*t by numerous stone lions in all shapes and form over the garden and walls. It was way worse than the garden gnomes in UK.

 One of my dream houses with a pool ranging all around the base of the house, almost like a moat. It'd hilarious to host foam parties at a place like this. To win plus points with the neighbors one could also add some Greek god statues spraying water from various body parts. Or not. Besides, that's already done by the city planners in Gothenburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_Milles_Poseidon_01.JPG). Hideous. 

 On the roof of this property was both BBQ pits, an outdoor gym and a club house; considering the amount of furniture they had outside and the fact that most of the gym equipment seemed to be running on electricity, it must be highly impractical when it rains.

The owners of this house had a breathtaking garden pouring out to the street with really amazing flowers and birds.

One of the more Europe-inspired architectures where the house was also huge. It does however remind a bit of Hansel and Gretel.

When we passed this it really didn't make sense at first, but it was undergoing renovation and up for rent. Would be fun to just see how much they would charge for it!

 An example of a somewhat not-really-thought-through-project: the bathroom is towards the road with glass walls. Look at the toilet in the bottom right corner..

Again a not really well planned, newly built house; I mean who'd want to sit in this display pool with people and cars passing by on the street? Or maybe that's exactly what you want to do if you have a house like this?

 I couldn't get a good pic of this property due to cameras and gates, but passing it by we were really in awe. It was situated almost like a small castle on a height, with a beautiful jasmine garden.

 Really cool terrace houses with smashing views; they had both lemon and avocado trees planted in several of the compartments.

One of Jonas' top ten with an enormous garden; looking at it I'm pretty sure our apartment in Tokyo would have fitted in one of their single garages. And there were three single garages.

Well, well, one can dream, but right now our cosy condo at The Springbloom is just right.

Interesting deliveries and installations

I was actually asked by two friends when we just came here, what I thought about delivery and installation services in Singapore. Since I was so used to Japan’s endless stream of papers in original, I thought Singsing was just marvelous.

Dear Singapore

I actually filled in 44 forms in original which had to be sent by snail mail before we came to Tokyo and about twice as many once we arrived; to get a university library card, I had to complete seven forms and bring five different sets of documentation, so I mean what could possibly be worse? My friends just smiled and said ‘well, just wait for the installation business to begin’. I now understand what they meant. Even if Japan was exaggerated on a whole different level, after all the papers they at least got it right almost all the time. 

Leaving Japan I have never had to shred so many papers in my life; this wasn’t even a fifth of my office..

Here, it really started with the initial IKEA delivery to our apartment. They begin by first arriving at 19.00 instead of 15.00 on a Saturday evening with our full furniture stash. At least so we thought. When the final piece is unloaded one of the guys, who seems completely stoned and has had his teeth on some sort of drying program in the front of his face, says: ‘Ehh, we don’t have the, you know, like, the bed. Ehh, like the outside is here. But you know like the bed, you know, ehh, isn’t. Can only come Monday you know? Ehh’. He then started giggling like a little girl.

Parts of the bed they initially delivered

It takes a few seconds to sink in, because I seriously did not see it coming. Considering the amount of furniture, you should be able to calculate with your ass and piece of chalk that it’s for an empty apartment. And then again, why the f*** would you deliver a bed frame and a mattress pad, but no mattress at late Saturday evening, when the delivery is closed on Sundays?

The giggling did however stop immediately when I said ‘Oh, that’s fine, I’ll just go ahead and call your boss to ask him to book us a hotel on his credit card until Monday. I mean, since you will not deliver a bed for us to sleep in until then, which we paid for. What’s his number please?’.

Would have been nice to be tucked away for a night or two at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel for instance

After looking very confused for at least 10 seconds he said: ‘But, like, it’s like probably lost. Like ‘til Monday, ehh, you know. Wasn’t there. Maybe someone taken it ehh?’. Jonas then smiled like an angel and replied ‘Well, then you better find it, ehh?’. After a very long sentence to his colleague in Malay, with probably quite a few strong words about retarded white people, he said: ‘’key, can, la, can, ‘key, but must sign’. I then smiled my sunniest smile and answered: ‘Of, course I will, when we have all the furniture’. Both guys looked like two astonished owls with big open mouths and even larger eyes. Jonas went on: ‘Thank you so much for your cooperation and we’ll see you again in about an hour then? Great stuff, see you in a bit!’ as he walked towards them and opened the front door. As soon as he closed it we burst out laughing. ‘You think we’ll ever see them again?’ I said. Neither of us was too sure, but we actually had the mattress in an hour, so I guess it wasn’t that lost after all..    

The final full set of the whole bed put together on our moving in day

It was equally entertaining when the cable guy came and ‘installed’ the wifi. He started off by casually calling me and asked about the address three times in a row. He then turns up about 2 h:s late with no explanation (maybe next time it’ll only be one hour) + comes in with muddy shoes and smelling like an ashtray. He’s thereafter (surprise, surprise) not capable of connecting the actual cables from the hub, because he has no tools. After borrowing ours, and almost an hour later, he sighs and says ‘Da best la it’ll geeet n it’ll be la much bit tricky la to accezzz da neeet n not OK now la, maybe must waieeeet’. I mean seriously? ‘It might be a bit tricky to use the internet we’ve just installed’?!

Sort of signals the way I felt

I take a quick look, knowing that connecting cables isn’t my strong side, but cannot help suggesting him to use the socket for the internet and TV, not the one labeled ’FM’. In my humble world, I’m somewhat under the impression that ‘FM’ is radio.. He’s then very happy that things seem to be sorted and says: ‘Ah, maaaaam, this fantastic la! Many times, never work la. Very much net now la! Good I fixed, but maaaaam should come work for me la; can, can!’. I’m just ever so thankful we finally have internet. 

Running internet on the TV

Finally we had a true trooper who was supposed to come and do service on our iMac. His Singlish was so thick on the phone, I heard: ‘You’ve da chainsaw in da Mac la?’. I answered: ‘Well, no, there are no chainsaws in our computer; it just won’t start up’. He tried again: ‘Aha, can, can; so no problem la wit’ da otha snails?’. By then I was really starting to wonder if he was drunk, but replied politely: ‘No, there’s been no troubles at all with the snails’. I thought it best to just keep a professional line and not ask him about tools or animals in or surrounding our Mac.

Would probably have been J’s reaction if he’d been there

Once he came, he thankfully didn’t persist asking about the chainsaws and possible snails in the computer; afterwards we agree that he might have been asking about ‘changes’, not ‘chain saws’, but regarding the snails, I still have no idea what he was on about. 

When I open the door, there’s a very small man outside with one missing eye and a huge smile with a scarce amount of teeth, arranged like a blizzard. The latter is probably adding to my difficulties of understanding him, but especially the one eye seems slightly unpractical. He constantly had to tilt his head towards the full field of vision of it. In addition, he was very reluctant to turn the computer around and obviously preferred to hang, rather acrobatically I must say, over the screen with his upper body, trying to see the power cords in the back with the eye and at the same time talking me through the process, while operating the mouse with one hand in front of the screen.

He also repeated everything twice, since he probably gathered I wasn’t really fluent in Singlish. Without thinking about it, I hence started answering everything twice. As he was leaving after all the polite phrases, he turned and shook his head. He was probably thinking ‘Ang Moh’, which exactly translates to ‘red haired’, but really means ‘f***ing foreigner(s)’. If this was the case, maybe I deserved it a bit! The main thing was really to get the computer sorted.

Us, the f***ing foreigners ;)

In the end, the above are of course only small curves on the Singaporean water of life. Wherever you go, there’ll be differences which are better here and worse there. Japan was for instance superior regarding the service and standard of e.g. food, but absolutely insane price wise.

Valentine Day dinner in Tokyo, with fantastic goods from Tsukiji fish market

Here and in for instance Spain, the level of service is lower, but I think this is the case leaving Japan going anywhere really. I mean, I was seriously chocked coming back to Sweden after a year in Tokyo, to see the attitude of people in some stores or other service occupations.

Comparing walking into HM in Ginza, Tokyo with HM in Nordstan, Gothenburg, is like being in two different worlds

Also, in Japan the focus seldom seems to be on the time something takes, but rather be central around the quality of the work, and it’s almost impossible to make Japanese people work faster if they don’t want to. In my experience, a stressed Japanese person is a sad Japanese person; Swedish people can sometimes allow themselves to be stressed beyond recognition and the levels of chronically stress related diseases in Scandinavia, have reached an all time high. In the U. K. and especially in Spain, people will almost laugh at you if you don’t go for AW of have a siesta at least a couple of times a week. In Denmark they literary have 37 hours working weeks, which is awesome, and they mostly stick to = many workplaces are empty at 16.00 on Fridays and there’s almost no way you’ll have people working weekends. Still, all countries are productive in different ways.

I gather these Torii gates in Inari were not built by workers on an average 37-hours week

Maybe most important, in Europe, I’d be very careful who I’d let in to my house if I was home alone, so home delivery is always clouded with caution; that never even crosses my mind in Singapore.

I had three strange men entering our home delivering e.g. the TV and not even once did I think of getting their ID:s

In addition, it’s always possible to reason about changing the protocol, menu or procedure both in Singapore and Sweden, while if it’s not according to regulations in Japan, it’ll just be ‘muzukashii desu’ (difficult). That means it’ll only happen when hell freezes over, so you might just as well make yourself comfortable. The Japanese can be just as stubborn as us Swedes. 

Me being stubborn in Kyoto, refusing to accept it was raining!