The World is Her Chew Toy

As I’m now back in M.B., I wanted to provide some quick thoughts on the newest member of the Carey family: Fiona

She’s definitely adorable and an absolute ball of energy. She goes full speed for half the day and then crashes (on the verge of hibernation -- see pictures below) for the other half due to all of the energy that she expends.










Fiona is great with people and is the consummate companion. Unless she’s absolutely exhausted, she always wants to be by your side. If you go up the stairs, she goes up the stairs. If you go down the stairs, she goes down the stairs. She basically just wants to be a member of the pack, so to speak.

I’m pretty sure that she already has more toys than I had over the course of my entire childhood. Stuffed animals, squeak toys, nylabones, tennis balls of all sizes…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She also likes miscellaneous household items – a giant bolt (her chew toy in the picture below) being the most notable. Our house basically looks like a truck full of puppy toys blew up in the living room and puppy toy shrapnel simply dispersed from there.

Fiona is fairly obedient -- at least to the extent that a puppy of her age can be. She’s able to sit and is (thankfully) fairly well housetrained. She’s also pretty much mastered the art of retrieving…unless she gets distracted, of course. That said, when she gets really keyed up she turns into a jumping machine and likes to play bite with her razor sharp puppy teeth.

She also loves water and has a borderline obsession with the shower and sleeping on the shower mat. This is probably one of her two stark contrasts with Murphy, who absolutely hated water (the other contrast being her love of the vacuum, which Murphy hated as well). I’m pretty she’s going to go nuts when she’s able to jump in her first pool.

Fiona is definitely mischievous and likes to explore. She likes closets and the areas under beds in particular. She also likes to explore the world through chewing and has already left some permanent artistic contributions to the Carey household. But she means well, so you can’t get mad.










Well, that’s it for now. My next post probably won’t be until next year.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. All the best in 2010...

Heading Home

Tomorrow I fly home for Christmas and New Years. It’s hard to believe, but this will be my first trip home since my move to Switzerland in June. I’m not looking forward to the 12 hour flight from Zurich to Los Angeles, though. Unlike with my recent flights of similar length to/from Asia for work, I’ll be back in coach where I belong for this flight.

Parting Thoughts / Flight to Switzerland

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Singapore and wish that I’d had more time to actually visit and explore the city state. My only real complaint would be that at times it felt a bit too sterile and manufactured – almost like a giant shopping mall. I’m sure that I missed out on a lot of the authentic local aspects of Singapore, but I have the feeling that this impression must somewhat reflect reality.

I think that I may have set the record for most movies watched on my return flight from Singapore to Zurich. In the span of 12 hours I watched: Public Enemies, The Hangover, 3:10 to Yuma, District 9, Coco Avant Chanel and GI Joe. I liked all of them except for GI Joe – unless you’re on a 12 hour flight and desperate for entertainment, I don’t think that I’d recommend it. District 9 was a bit weird, but still somewhat interesting.

Exploring Singapore...

As today was my only full day in Singapore, I did my best to make the most of it. I started off the day with a walk along the Singapore River and then through the Fort Canning Park.

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The weather was absolutely beautiful, so it made for a nice morning outside. It was definitely hot, though, and apparently is more or less like this all year long given Singapore’s position on the equator.

For lunch I met up with one of my friends from business school who is from Singapore. She lives in New York City now, but was back in Singapore for a wedding during my visit as luck would have it. We went to a typical Singaporean food court and the food was absolutely incredible. Some of my favorite dishes were hokkien mee (prawn noodles), beef satay and roti prata (an indian flatbread).

After lunch we walked along Orchard Road, which is one of the main shopping areas in Singapore.





















I then went down by the harbor to see the colonial area. There were a number of old buildings that had been really well preserved.




























For dinner I went to the Newton Hawker Center at the recommendation of my friend. The whole experience was one of my favorites in Singapore and I would recommend it to any future visitors. For background, a hawker center is a large food complex that’s very traditional to Singapore where a large number of vendors (hawkers) sell their food. Here are a couple of pictures to give you a feel for what it’s like.



















When I arrived at the hawker center I had absolutely no clue which vendor to order from (there were probably close to 100). After walking around for awhile (window shopping if you will) and brushing aside some of the most aggressive vendors (they each try hard to sell you on their food), I ultimately settled on a stall that had a long line. I figured that if others liked it, I probably couldn’t go wrong.

I decided to go with chicken fried rice, black pepper beef and a bottle of Tiger beer (Singapore’s local brand). Everything was great – you can't necessarily tell from the picture, but this was definitely one of the tastiest meals that I’ve had in a long time.

For dessert I decided to push the boundaries of my palette by trying a local delicacy: Durian. Here are a couple of interesting quotes regarding its taste:

“Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother” – Anthony Bourdain

“...its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” – Richard Sterling

Pretty appealing, right? Well, here are the pictures and they probably speak for themselves.

Indonesia to Singapore

Before leaving Indonesia I committed a bit of a faux pas in a security line. There were actually two lines and when one of them completely opened up I went over to it and raised my arms, etc. in preparation for my screening. What I didn’t notice beforehand was that the two lines were segregated into strictly “male” and “female” due to cultural / religious reasons. It got a bit awkward for a second (the female screener got really embarrassed), but all present recognized my ignorance and weren’t offended.

As a final parting thought on Indonesia, I really enjoyed the food. There seemed to be a broad Asian influence and pretty much everything that I tried tasted very good. One of my favorite things was a coconut milk-based, homemade ice-cream with chunks of mango. Some of the drinks were a bit much, though, as there were a lot of sweet juices and teas, but for the most part I enjoyed them as well.

*** Singapore ***

Tonight we arrived in Singapore. It turns out that Singapore takes drug trafficking very seriously as well, as noted on their customs form:

“Warning: Death for Drug Trafficking Under Singapore Law”

After a quick work-related dinner / tour of the city I was finished with my work obligations and free for the weekend. Since it was already somewhat late, I decided to walk around the Clarke Quay area along the Singapore River as it was very close to the hotel where I was staying.

The area had an active nightlife full of restaurants, shops, bars and clubs. Compared to Hong Kong, my initial impression is that Singapore has much more of a Western feel. Without question it’s definitely a very clean and orderly place. Our cab driver from the airport joked that Singapore is known for being a “fine city”…due to all the fines for doing anything wrong whatsoever.

Indonesia

Before entering Indonesia, you receive a customs form that includes the following:

“Warning: Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers under Indonesian Law”

Immediately I had flashbacks to a Claire Danes movie that I’d seen which took place in Thailand and involved her getting falsely arrested for drug smuggling because someone stashed heroin in her bag. I’m not going to lie...a little paranoia definitely set in and I gave a quick scan through my carry-on luggage.

Since we arrived in Surabaya well after dark, there wasn’t much to see on our ride from the airport to the hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel, however, there was definitely something that I took notice of: the security. As a result of the bombings over the past five years at various tourist locations, they definitely take security very seriously. The entrance to our hotel felt more like a military checkpoint. But I will say this: I definitely felt safe.

Waking up in the morning wasn’t a problem as by 6am it was brighter than a summer day in Switzerland and the temperature was already well over 80F (even though the A/C was on you could definitely feel the heat radiating through the window).

For breakfast we had some fruit, but not your standard Western faire as seen in the picture below. The hairy one is appropriately named the “hair fruit”.

Despite being in Indonesia for work, I feel like I got exposed to a good deal of the local culture. My overall impression is that the people are very nice and that the common Western perception that Indonesia’s status as the largest Muslim country in the world makes it de facto anti-American is flat out wrong.

In a lot of ways, Indonesia reminds me of a developing Central American country (e.g., in terms of the economy, the public infrastructure, the overall U.S. / Western influence). The streets are very crowded with people and full of activity. There is also an interesting (and very active) level of entrepreneurship. My favorite example was a gentleman who sat alongside a busy intersection and – for a nominal fee – singlehandedly blocked traffic for cars that wanted to turn during rush hour.

An ever present aspect of Indonesia is the motorbike. Everywhere you go you see them by the hundreds zipping around the streets. And they’re not just for one (or two) people. A number of times I saw whole families delicately balancing on these tiny bikes while darting in and out of traffic. It was actually pretty amazing that there were no accidents, but people just seem to understand the rules of the road.

Speaking of the rules of the road, one of the most interesting things that I witnessed in Indonesia was the manner in which people crossed the streets. Regardless of how busy a street was (or where you chose to cross for that matter – no crosswalk needed), the proper protocol was to simply raise one hand straight up over your head and proceed across the street at a constant pace. No hesitation…no waiting for the right time…just go! It’s simply a way of life and traffic adapts accordingly.

I’m convinced that the Indonesian language is by far the most efficient one that I’ve ever come across. There are no tenses, verbs aren’t conjugated and nouns / adjectives don’t have gender. Also, there’s no such thing as “plural” – if you want to refer to something in plural form, you just say the word twice. And there are even a number of words that are simply phonetic versions of their English counterparts (e.g., business: “bisnis”; taxi: “taksi”; electric: “elektrik”).

During a brief break from work we were able to take a tour of the colonial buildings in Surabaya. Unfortunately, very few original buildings from the Dutch period remain and those that do haven’t been very well maintained. That said, we did get to see some that were very nice.




















Here's a statue that I found interesting:

We also saw a monument related to Indonesian Independence I believe. As seen in one of the photographs, the views towards the allies during WWII weren’t overly favorable.

Dim Sum in Kowloon

Since I’m in Hong Kong for work my ability to actually sightsee has been rather limited. However, today for lunch I got to experience some local flavor by going to Kowloon for dim sum.

If you like to eat, then dim sum is the way to go. The selection is huge and it feels like an endless supply of bite-size delicacies.










For the most part I had eaten similar items when I’d gone to dim sum in San Francisco and New York, but there was one item they served that was a true first for me: chicken feet.

While I had seen chicken feet as a menu item before, I had never had the courage to try them. Using a “when in Rome” line of reasoning, however, I decided to go for it this time and in all honesty can say they’re not bad.











The gross part was sucking the skin (?) off the bones and having different bits and pieces of who-knows-what disintegrating in your mouth (my technique was poor to say the least). If nothing else, the locals that I was sitting with seemed to be proud of me.

In closing, here’s a shot of a local Hong Kong resident. Something tells me that he didn’t dress himself…

Hong Kong

The flight to Hong Kong from Zurich was indeed a long one. After watching the movie Julie and Julia (pretty good overall, though I found the Julia Childs portion of the movie much more interesting than the rest), I fell asleep and woke up eight hours later. I think this was the first time that I’ve ever legitimately slept on a plane. The only problem was that when we arrived it was late afternoon, so I’m sure jet lag is going to hit me hard in the next day or so.

My initial impressions of Hong Kong are very positive. The views on the drive in from the airport to the hotel were very beautiful. I particularly liked how the steep, lush green hills rise up so vertically behind the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island. The hotel is very nice as well (we’re staying at the Island Shangri-La) and the service level is incredible.

Downtown Hong Kong definitely rivals New York City in terms of population density. The number of people living in such a small geographic space was pretty astonishing. It felt like there’s effectively zero personal space. It is also worth noting the state of some of the apartment buildings downtown. For being such an expensive property market, I didn’t expect for so many of the buildings to look like they’re literally on the verge of crumbling.

For dinner we headed across the harbor to Kowloon and ate at a very nice restaurant in a high-rise the overlooks the skyline on Hong Kong Island. The pictures aren’t the highest of quality since I took them through a window at night without a flash, but you can nonetheless get a feel for what the view was like.











The dinner itself was amazing and consisted of crisp asparagus; vegetable spring rolls; boneless lamb ribs (perhaps the most tender I’ve ever had); beef tenderloin; and chicken fried rice.

Barcelona - Day III

I’m now at the airport getting ready for a quick flight to Zurich before an 11 hour flight to Hong Kong. I’m not looking forward to the next 14 or so hours of travel, but at least my departure flight isn’t until after 8pm so I was able to have a full Sunday to further explore the Barcelona.

Today we continued our cultural enlightenment by visiting the Museo Picasso and the Fundació Joan Miró (pictured).

While both museums were interesting, I feel like I was able to appreciate Picasso’s work more. In general, Miró’s work was a little beyond my artistic comprehension. That said, I really liked a work of his called “Landscape” – it’s a large blank canvas with one tiny dot. If you’re an artist and you can get to the point where you’re able to sell something like that for good money, you’re definitely doing something right.

For lunch we stopped at a tiny local place not far from the Museo Picasso and had an unbelievable meal. We started with pan y tomate (which tasted incredible despite basically being bread and tomato) followed by grilled gambas (shrimp), Spanish tortilla (effectively an egg and potato omelet-like concoction that I also had in Madrid) and seafood paella. Five years ago I would have only eaten such a meal to be polite (a meal with no meat?), but now I’m able to see the light.

After lunch we spent the afternoon walking around Parc Güell, which apparently began as a real estate venture between Gaudi and a wealthy patron but was never completed and eventually became a public park. Overall, I really liked it and found the views of the city to be remarkable.