Checking In

A week after I wrote about my belated resolutions, I am so happy to report that I finally got off my arse and walked the 3.8 km home one day after work in 35 minutes and went back to yoga today after a 5 month hiatus. I am pretty sure my wrists were bruised from all the downward dogs I had to do because holding up my weight with my twig-thin wrists (my arms are disproportionately thin compared to the rest of me) for all that prolonged time was no easy feat. However, I did survive the 90 minutes and had such a great sweat detox I felt so good after.

I also made 3 micro loans on www.kiva.org and helping others to help themselves is a fantastic feeling. We have so much and so many people have so little. We spend $50 on a meal and that could be a month's salary for many living in abject poverty. We can all do more, and be content with much less at the same time.

And I also went back to my bread-making, with this cranberry and walnut loaf baked in my brand new Valencia orange Le Creuset dutch oven.

My life is finally moving back to a good and calm track.

Belated New Year's Resolutions

And suddenly it is March, the first quarter of 2012 is almost over. The first quarter of this year has been even crazier than ever. It has also reinforced once again that "Man proposes, God disposes". Now I know better than to fight life too much, things happen for a reason and everything will turn out ok. All cliches but all so true. So after a flurry of activities, things have settled down to a new calm at work. As such, I want to take advantage of the changes on the work front and start doing some other stuff in life like:-

1. More social responsibility and giving back to society. I have a proposal which I will post in more detail once things are firmed up. I am pretty excited about this one. And maybe also make some microfinance loans on Kiva for some underprivileged women in developing countries.

2. Somewhat related to 1 above, I want to do some volunteer work except in the area of arts and heritage. I used to be a volunteer museum guide, but since I relocated to Sydney, I had been on a leave of absence and had not resumed my guiding upon my return. I think I might be over it and am now thinking of volunteering to conduct heritage walking tours to marry my interests in heritage, architecture, design together wtih volunteerism and also getting some exercise in the process.

3. Which leads me to point 3 which is getting more exercise including walking home from work 2 times a week and a weekly swim. And going back to yoga.

So this looks like a belated New Year's Resolutions list. Whatever it is, I am going to try my darnedest to achieve all that. Oh and bake more bread.

Almost Like A Sydney Saturday

It almost felt like Saturday brekkie in a Sydney cafe when I was at Toby's Estate this Saturday. Sitting at a bench with my flat white in the cool airconditioning, facing the river by Robertson Quay, I could almost imagine I am back in Sydney. The fact that the cafe and the alfresco dining area outside were full of caucasian faces is another factor which could lull someone into a mistaken reality.

I like the interior of the cafe with the exposed brickwork, high ceilings, industrial lighting and stainless steel pipes and funnels. The coffee however was better than the average Singaporean coffee standard which isn't saying very much. The choice of toast was either white bread (I think) and brioche. Hopefully they would offer Turkish bread or sourdough soon. And real jam instead of jelly, I know it would be asking too much to ask for Jam Lady's jams from Victoria so any real jam or compote would be better than jelly. But all things considered, it was a nice ambience to have Saturday breakfast and read a book in companionable silence.

Pre-Christmas In/Out Trip To Sydney

So unexpectedly I was called away to my favourite business trip destination in the week leading up to Christmas, actually 5 days to Christmas actually. If it were anywhere else, I would have to be dragged up the aerobridge kicking and screaming. But seeing as it was Sydney, and I get to go during summer and see (some of) my mates, I acted like I were a long-suffering employee who still had to work so hard during the quiet festive period, packed my bag and hopped on business class on Singapore Airlines.

This trip I decided I would give the Amora hotel across from the office a miss seeing as Westin was offering very similar rates and was well-located at Martin Place. In fact it was in the same building as the General Post Office building and the old post boxes are still in use. How lovely.

The Christmas light-up in Sydney was unlike the Orchard Road light-up in Singapore. Theirs was a much more sophisticated affair, a wondrous display of light aesthetics, artfully projected on buildings like the Town Hall and St Mary's Cathedral. We stood in front of the Cathedral for ages, oohing and aahing over each change of pattern and mused about how perfectly projected each dove was perched on the ledge, the bars and curlicues matched the windows.

Sydney means coffee and cafes to me. On my first day, I had 3 soy flat whites by lunch time. I had to exercise restraint. I ogled the lovely pastries in the bakery cases. My restraint was admirable in this area. I had a macaron and a lemon tea cake by way of dessert during my trip. Oh and I did have a mini picnic bar to curb hunger pangs one evening in the hotel room.

I had a lovely lunch in the old Surry Hills neighbourhood. The cafe was new, the vibe was familiar, the dining companions were faces I was happy to see. It was a lovely, short in and out trip and I had a quick round up of some of my favourite things in Sydney. I'm sure I will be back again sometime soon.

My Old Neighbourhood

If you squint at this and imagine it in black and white, you could almost bring yourself back in time to when the alley was paved with cobble stones and the rank and vile smell of poor sanitation permeated this neighbourhood. A working class area, where the original Chinatown used to be, with the head of the legendary dragon at one of the streets and even today you still see headquarters for the Australian Chinese newspapers and a few other Chinese associations still stand, where poor immigrants lived in squalor, and sickness and poverty was rampant.

Now a hundred plus years fast forward, this area is hip and happening, you can feel its vibe when you walk down the same streets. Gentrification is everywhere. Expensive apartments and refurbished Victorian terrace houses co-exist with the houses that time has forgotten. In time, these forgotten houses will be taken over by the monied.

How I miss this area.

Heritage Walking Tour of Kuala Lumpur

I have been to Kuala Lumpur (KL) umpteen times but usually these trips were for business which mean hotel-meetings-hotel or to eat/shop/visit relatives. This is the first time I've done a Heritage Walk and this was the highlight of my recent trip. This walking tour took 1.5 hours and led us through the meandering streets and alleys of KL city around the Central Market which is where the tour started.

The first photos is of an old Chinese/Hainanese restaurant which still operates today. However in the colonial days, it used to be an upmarket restaurant for the British who used to work in the government building across from this old dame. Today it serves traditional Hainanese fare like chicken rice and pork chop rice. I would have loved to have eaten my lunch there but unfortunately did not get the chance to.

This old shop has a concrete bell on the roof top. The story is fascinating. In the olden days when most people were illiterate, they could not read the signboards of the shops. As such, the clever folks devised symbols for the common folks to associate trades with. A bell makes a "dong dong" or "dang dang" sound (depending if you say it in Cantonese or Mandarin) and this is a homonym for "pawn". Hence the shop is trading as a pawnshop. Is this clever or what?

This mosque "Masjid Jemek" is the oldest mosque in KL and showcases Moorish architecture. It is gorgeous and very serene.

This is another old building, built in 1914. According to the tour guide, Malaysia has not passed laws on conservation of these old heritage buildings. As such, this is left to the responsibility and whims of individual building owners. Many of them have sold their property to developers who have bulldozed these old beauties to build modern, spanking structures to maximise the use of the land.

I hope that these lovely old dames receive the rightful protection and love they deserve. Heritage is something we need to protect, we all have our memories of the past and they give us our identity. Collective memory gives us a national identity. Hopefully, the conservation laws won't come too late for these lovely old buildings.

Peking Duck Restaurant In A Hutong

This is in the famous Peking duck restaurant "Liqun" in a Beijing hutong. Hutongs are very interesting, and showcase traditional living quarters in modern times. It is pretty amazing how even Western tourists manage to find their way through the maze to this restaurant where I am sure no one speaks any English. The ambience is just so authentic, and that also can mean quite grotty. So one needs to shut one's eyes to certain things, and more importantly, make sure that one's bio needs are taken care of before coming to the restaurant because the loos are outhouses located some distance away from the restaurant.

I particularly like this photo which I think has captured the essence of the place, contrasting the delicious ducks with the humble surroundings, and the blaze of light creating an atmospheric quality.