You Know What? Pig Butt!

My laptop was operating at 12% power so I needed to run back to my hotel just now to grab an adapter.  How lucky I would be if, when operating below par, I could simply plug myself in and be back at 100%.  Stepping out into the cold, misty Paris morning I needed to shake myself a bit.  The wet air, wide boulevard and Western rhythm feel so familiar and yet so far away from my daily routine that it was as though I stepped out of one dream and into another.  My life has become a series of dreams with the brief moments in Hong Kong like those moments when your eyes open to a blurred world and then close again only to find yourself asleep again and  somewhere far away and magical.

A week of meetings is hardly the stuff of magic but the moments between the work, the space between the notes, is where I try to find the music.  I arrived early to Paris with the original intention that I would try to connect with a friend or loved one for a day of QT and croissant but, as things go, it didn’t pan out that way.  With many months of travel and visitors both done and on tap, it turned out that a day for Beana was just what the doctor ordered.  Wandering the blocks around my hotel in a haze of jet lag and hunger I stumbled into a brassiere for some salmon with béarnaise and a glass of wine.  One glass morphed into more as the locals and I waxed romantic over New York City and life, in general.  Like a pinball I bounced through the streets of the 9th with my new-old friends, finally unaware of my tired state.  First a tango bar, then some kind of rock and roll dive before hitting last call at some other spot that, if I’m honest, is a bit fuzzy around the edges.  The tango bar was seriously something out of a film…the women all in fishnets, hot pants and ballroom shoes.  It was so quiet and serious in there but also so perfectly Paris that I couldn’t help but smile big.  I didn’t dare to dance there but I may return some night this week to see if I can’t observe and learn a thing or two.

Sunday’s grand intentions circled the drain along with the last swig of mini-bar whiskey that I (thankfully) failed to consume and I spent the bulk of the day in bed.  This time the sleep was the dream and in those moments when my eyes opened and closed again I found no distinction between to the two states; it was a perfect day.  I planned to make it to the dinner party of a man named Jim Haynes but I opted instead for dinner and a movie with one of my new friends from the night before.  Frankly, I find it simply amazing that I even had those 2 options…

I forget the name of the restaurant we went to but I will never forget the good and bad things that occurred there.  Our waiter, an Israeli convinced he was French, thought he would help me have a truly ‘french’ experience by ensuring that I ordered the most delicious thing on the menu.  I wanted a Steak Au Poivre but Mr. AHole recommended a special french sausage for me instead.  By “sausage” he must have meant the “asshole of a pig” because that is what arrived.  My friend thought it was some kind of bias against ‘American girls’ that steered us down that path but I’m not so sure.  I plugged my nose to get the first bite down and then lost myself in laughter.  Entrails and pig butt are not for me.  My noble buddy graciously passed me his Confit Du Canard and subtly smelled the fresh-baked baguette prior to every piece of the ’sausage’ he ate.  It was comedy, to be sure, but I felt guilty and still kind of do since the duck was some of the most delicious duck I have had the pleasure to eat.

After dinner we walked to a cocktail bar with the hopes of finding some warmth from the cold night air hopeful that the winter wind would blow the smell of pig butt off of us.  It didn’t but the Mont Blanc and Pina Colada we consumed helped us to care less that we smelled like shit and duck fat.  A few more blocks and then we arrived at the cinema to see the 10pm showing of Brothers before I headed back ‘home’ for the night.  Seeing Sacred Heart lit up in the distance and winding through the quiet streets stumbling through French, German and English I laughed…

Now I find myself starring down the barrel of a big week booked with meetings and dinners and more meetings and more dinners.  I may try to steal one of the nights for myself again for some aimless wandering though, if not it’s okay as  I will blink and wake up this weekend in Austria for another series of dreams with my eyes open.

Sushi Do or Dai

The idea of stretching my mind all the way back to 3 weeks ago feels like an excersice in futility.  It’s a shame, really, since so much has happened since then.    I think I may have even promised you a detailed re-cap of Bangkok and I’m sure you’re curious about Japan…and yet, my mind is elsewhere.  I was talking to a friend the other day about how, though you may not believe it, even a life filled with new experiences everyday can feel as monotonus as that of somebody stationary and married to their routine.  Everything-new-all-the-time is it’s own form of “sameness” and can illict the same boredom and clausterphobia. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not bored.  I am not even remotely bored.  I am as far away from bored as I can be but I am a little weary of the constant awesome.  I wouldn’t change it and am doing what I can to pickle these moments so, like garlic dilly beans, I can enjoy them for years to come.  Whiskey has helped with the pickeling the last days and spilling some thoughts here once in a while also helps.  I guess it’s the fact that it’s already freakin’ February that has me wondering where the time went.  I mean, I moved to Hong Kong in October and it seems impossible that 5 months have passed.  That’s a lot when you are planning your geography 12 months at a time!  The realization woke me up and had me thinking…over Singapore Slings, Nasi Goreng, Raw Eel, Pad Thai and Sushi (a quick re-cap of my travel the last 3 months)…where am I?  Where and I going?  What am I doing?  How did all this happen?  And, most importantly, what do I want to happen next?

We all know, at least those of us who know, that I am a planner.  I once plastered a 13 month caeldar around my apartment counting down days until ‘lift off.’  I am deeply interested in maximizing my time and fitting in as much of what I want to do with it as possible – being a wearer of many hats, this is a rather long list.  In any case, I am rambling about this now because, as it happens, I am at a crossroads again.  Trying to figure out where I’m gonna be some months from now and if that’s the right call.  These are “nice problems” as a dear friend of mine would say but problems nonetheless.  I mean, I feel like I just got here!

Anyway, I will have more time in the air – literally – to consider my locale from (yet another) destination.  Saturday I will fly to Paris for some work and I am hopeful that the cold, winter air and plentiful red wine (after work, naturally) will drown the dumb ideas and let the kernels of sweet, sweet awesome float to the top so I can skim them off like cream.  If this is how it shakes out then it will be clear that I remain a pretty lucky Bean.  I’m not really doubting this fact but it doesn’t change the fact that I like to be reminded.

Speaking of lucky…imagine freezing your ass off for 3+ hours in the cold air of a death-trap fish market in Tokyo only to be rewarded with a sublime set of 7 pieces of heaven?  This is exactly what happened at Sushi Dai our last morning in Japan.  It was definitely *the best* sushi I have ever eaten and on the top 5 of “all time best” food experiences of my life.  That is saying something for a woman whose memory is punctuated more often by the dessert she at at whatever place or the epic meal from whenever thing than by anything else.  I LOVE food and the photo albums of Bangkok and Japan will just reaffirm this.  Food porn is a lifestyle and I’m living it.  In additon to the culinary delights that swept us from Tokyo to Osaka to Kyoto and back again we also crammed in some Guitarwolf in Ebisu, some shopping in Shinjuku, some Shinto shiz in the beautiful hills of Kyoto and enough sake to float the Titanic.  It was a glorious week away and, with a broken blackberry, probably the first ‘real’ holiday i’ve had since leaving Austria.

Bangkok was also crusted in gold and basil and good times and I still optimistic that I can feature some more stories and pictures here so that you (and my memory) will never forget watching the sun set behing Wat Arun, watching Jamie’s awe beneath the Reclining Buddah, scoring the most delicios street food of all time at the Market-Whose-Name-I-Forget not to mention the Wats and the Boats and the beers.  If you ever thought to yourself while reading the New York Times feature ”36 Hours in …” that 36 hours is not enough time to experience a place, well, you’re wrong.  It is a perfect amount of time for a get-away – not holiday – and it seems impossible that we saw as much as we did.  It was brilliant and makes me certain that revisiting Thailand should be a priority.

After Paris next week I am going to blow through Innsbruck for some hugs and snow and fun with my peeps there before making a triumphant return to HK.  There are still lots of visitors on tap for the rest of Feb and March but, with all the big planning that’s in my mind and on my plate, I am going to use the time to reconnect with my life here and catch my breath.  I’m sure I will need to by then.  My goal is to have my next play in mind for my b-day in April.  I think it would be the best gift that I can give myself and 2 months seems like a reasonable amount of time with which to sort it out.  We shall see….

Arigato Very Much

I’m mostly home from Japan and, after a very quiet day of chilling and laundry, I’m as ready as I can be to head back to work tomorrow.  The ‘Gods of Holiday’ smiled down on me and left me blackberry-less which was a great way to actually enjoy my vacation…though the reality of 6 days without reading emails could be something heavy to face tomorrow.  It’s a good thing I’m still brimming with sushi and good vibes from wonderful Japan.  I’m already a ways through the images and also managed to get Bangkok sorted so it shouldn’t be long before I can share some details.  I’m about to drift into sleep now but I’ll leave you with one quick pic from Osaka…old and new collide in Amerika Mura

Clip-on Wings

One week ago I was waking up in Thailand.  At this moment I am at home in Hong Kong while 48 hours ago I was falling asleep in China and tomorrow I’ll touch down in Japan.  2 short weeks later I’ll drink wine in Paris and breath the air in Austria’s Tyrolean Alps.  Even for a 21st Century nomad like myself, this is definitely a banner month.  The sheer volume of activity could quite possibly dilute the impact of each individual journey or locale but I am getting better at keeping body & soul in synch even when traversing oceans and continents and things.  Or so I thought anyway, but yesterday the words “profoundly tired” were used to describe me.  That doesn’t shock me, actually, but it’s not gonna stop me for a few more weeks.  March is the quiet light at the end of this warp speed worm hole where I can reconnect with the normalcy of stationary living.  But for now I clip wings to my heels, order the largest coffee available and roll…er, fly…

I hope that I’ll be able to share some more stories of Bangkok with you before I forget about all the chilie, lime, lemongrass goodness that I enjoyed there.  This blog is my memory, you know, so its in everybody’s interest that I dedicate a little time to that re-cap.  For now, enjoy a few more images…

While Mom Works - Patpong, Bangkok Thailand

Sweet Ice

Jamie at the Grand Palace - Bangkok, Thailand

Shrink Wrapped Zen

Back From Bangkok

Back from Bangkok….

Wat Pho - Bangkok, Thailand

Sorting through the images I am kind of in awe that I was only away for the weekend.  Without rising too early or cramming too much in we managed to kick Bangkok’s ass all over town.  Part culinary adventure, part sight-seeing, part photo tour and part chill-in-the-hot-tub I proved to myself (again) that it isn’t the length of the holiday but just the life you invest in the hours you have.  Some business travel this week to China could delay the rest of the album but I’m looking forward to sharing….

High Grade Fruit

Home alone for the last 2 days, I realize that the quasi-routine I had established pre-holidaze evaporated completely.  Today would be the day that I should hop back in with yoga, etc but with another dear friend en route to the other side of world and a sales meeting on tap for tomorrow, I have to acquiesce and let the HBO-coma linger a little longer.  Fingers are crossed that the “Officer & a Gentlemen” marathon will end shortly.  That song has ridiculous staying power.

I guess it was a week ago now that I headed out to Cheung Chau Island as a chaser from the previous weeks romp in Indonesia.  The New Year festivities in HK were as blinky as you would expect with epic pyrotechnics and some imported schnapps from Austria.   I was moving in slow motion tough so, though fun, the week was mellow.  Most notable about my time on Cheung Chau was the ridiculous and wonderful signage.  “High Grade Fruit” “I (heart) Stage” etc.  Here’s a few pix from the that stroll…

Cheung Chau Marina

The Inspired Streetart of Cheung Chau

The Unfunnest Beach in the World

If you want to peer through the fog to see more of this very small and very populated piece of Hong Kong, click here.

It could have been the pollution or a germ imported from afar but I caught some funk on the way back from Cheung Chau that still has me talking funny so the week was short on fun and heavy on work.  That ratio has encouraged the funk to remain  though I am beginning to feel better today (I might just be telling myself that).

Click to see a bigger version

Only news from this weekend would be a new camera joined that joined the family.  My Nikon Coolpix p&s starting wheezing and, though its not dead, it’s definitely not healthy so I opted to adopt a new baby.  A departure from my trusted relationships with Canon and Nikon I decided to try Sony.  There is a ’sweep’ effect that is so f-ing cool….prepare for more panoramic pix in the future.

Central Market - Hong Kong

So far li’l Sony is making me happy but the real test will come in the next couple weeks when it needs to perform in Japan and the mystery destination between now and then.

Gonna wrap up Sunday night with some work (yawn), some more tv and enjoy the quitetude.

Liberate Others

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Nelson Mandela

500 (with a bullet)

Unbelievable but this is my 500th post on 2beanornot2bean.  500 (and counting) shared moments of reflection, passing observations, unexpected inspirations, recollections of misadventures, soundtracks, photographs and insights into the complex and often ridiculous innerworkings of Beana Bern.  I raise my glass to the powerful medicine and theraputic value of story-telling.  I’m pretty sure it has saved my life on more than one occasion.   Thoughts gain momentum when they are born into words and words have the power to change everything.  Here’s to another 500!

It seems poetic that I would have a wonderful image to post on this momentus blog entry.  I never finished telling you about Bali but I think I shared enough of the juicy bits to tide you over and it won’t be long before I re-cap a short and foggy jaunt to Cheng Chau Island so it’s all good.  What’s most important is that you know that I am sucking the marrow out of my life as though I was at Blue Riboon at 4am with a bottle of rose chaampagne and a pile of toast points.

Go on and click here for Singapore.  Here for Singapore Street Art and Here for a hot minute in Indonesia.  Thanks to the Badman for sharing in the fun.

Part 3 – Choose Your Own Adventure

Duty calls and I told myself that I was going to take today and rock it but I am called back to Bali…called back to my adventure in Ubud and the thick, warm wind that insulated me from my life in Hong Kong and the over air-conditioned reality of my careful days.  It won’t be long before that dream is more like a whisper, dissipating into the past leaving only memories and photographs in its wake.  I think that part of my joy of traveling comes in moments like these.  Moments when I can reflect back on what happened to me and discover with surprise what artifacts stayed present and what is already sunken into my gray matter, only to reemerge in my dreams.

Day 2 began like Day 1.  Early afternoon ushered in enough light to motivate us out of bed and down to breakfast.  Looking out over Pura Tanah Lot while sipping some fresh guava juice, I decided that shooting the cliché and iconic Bali shot of that Temple in the sunset was how I would try to end my day.  Like Robert Frost said, ‘two paths diverged in the yellow wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’  In other words, my buddy and I opted for different itineraries so after breakfast we each headed out to choose our own adventure.  His was 18 holes on the world-renowned golf course at Le Meridian Nirwana and mine contained another driver named Wayan who also spoke no English.  I had 2 destinations in mind but no real plan aside from finding some pig in Ubud that both Mia and the New York Times insisted was worthy of waiting in line for.

Only 20 minutes into the ride, head out the window like an exuberant and easily amused Golden Retriever, I heard the sound of drums and bells in the distance.  I asked Wayan to stop and jumped out of the car to see if I could find the source.  At that moment, a parade of people walked out of a nearby temple and past where I was standing.  They smiled when I motioned asking if I could shoot a photo and I took that to mean yes.

I later learned that it was a funeral procession.  It was a beautiful display and I can only hope that, when it’s my time to go, that people are smiling and singing and rejoicing the way these people were.  I think that a life well-lived warrants a party when it’s over, happy tears, not mourning and sadness.  It was a lucky sighting in my opinion and a good start to my day.  As Wayan shuttled me along further I devoured the landscape around me with my eyes and had to let go of my desire to photograph everything.  I sometimes feel like everything I see is beautiful and something to savour with my camera but I managed to find a balance of just ‘being’ and letting the beauty wash over me.  I suppose that not everybody could find such joy in what appears to be a rather poverty-stricken lifestyle but I tend to find this way of living much more real than what I do…and, as a result, much more interesting.  Truth is always stranger than fiction and needing to make time to kill your chicken before you can eat is as true as anything can be.

After about an hour we landed at Pura Taman Ayun.  Aside from some cats that were dining on the Hindu offerings and a priest doing whatever it is that Hindu priests do, I was alone there and enjoyed the peace while wandering around.  Taman Ayun translates literally to “beautiful garden” and that is exactly what it is.  A moat of lillies and the most lush and expansive gardens of  trees and ponds surround the temple.  It was built in 1634 and is still a ‘working’ temple with odolan ceremonies occurring there every 210 days.  Religious monuments like this always strike me as ‘closer to god’ than Christian-style cathederals…here the rain falls on the shrines and everything is subject to nature as nature is – unprotected and naked – without any pretense that we’re somehow protected.

After an hour or so of wandering the temple I was thrilled to hop into my air-conditioned ride and continue North towards Ubud.  Every book on Bali talks about Ubud and every person that I know that has been to Bali put this place on their itinerary.  Maybe I was spoiled with our previous day in the lovely and remote rice terraces or perhaps the heat had me too worn out to appreciate it but, in my humble opinion, Ubud kind of sucks.  Motorcycles, traffic, aggressive hawkers and all the white people in Bali were concentrated there packed into non-existant sidewalks and shopping.  No doubt, there are some amazing galleries and some nature to boot but, generally speaking, I was turned off by the place and kept my visit there short.  The pig – this dream pig – was in my reach but something about the heat felt prohibitive and the last thing that I wanted to do was huddle under a tent with a thousand other people and let pork fat drip down my chin.  The smell was satisfying enough so I let the dream go and will just imagine how succulent and perfect it is and hope that my imagination can do it justice.  For the most part, I wandered the back streets and tried to stay away from the main zone where the people were.  Here is a peek at Ubud, beginning with the image that best captures the feeling there…

 

I fell prey to the skilled and slippery sales women and departed Ubud with some antique, leather puppets, a mask and a water painting.  Wayan offered to bring me to another monkey forest before heading back but after the experience the day before in a monkey forest with no people I was imagining what monkeys surrounded by tons of annoying tourists would be like and I declined.  We headed out-of-town and I could breathe again as the motor scooters faded into the distance and the calm of the countryside swallowed us. 

My adventure was timed perfectly as I arrived back to the hotel right as he had finished with the golf course.  We caught our breath, I packed my camera bag and then we swung by the bar to grab a cocktail for our sunset at Tanah Lot.  From the golf course we could see that there were a zillion people trying to have a romantic sunset with the temple and, as the sky appeared too tired to light up, we opted to hang on the gold course instead.  It wasn’t the iconic Bali sunset that we had the night before but it was perfect anyway.  We hung outside as the sky went from blue to lavender to black and then headed home for some room service before readying ourselves for Act III.

Did you know that Tennessee bourbon consumed in Bali tastes more like water than whiskey?  It was this night that I was introduced to the term ‘whiskey dent’ and also this night that saw me sing Bon Jovi’s Bed of Roses at full volume in the lounge with Tony & Nancy.  It turns out that our friends did their homework and came prepared to serenade us with Freebird and some other hits.  Our entrance to the bar – glittered and giddy – cleared everybody out fast so we had the full attention of the lounge singers and the bar to ourselves.  Mayhem ensued as did a series of photographs that you will most likely never see here.  Fun is an understatement and I imagine that they will be trying to extract the glitter from the piano for months to come.  We bid our new best friends goodnight and then headed out into torrential rain to enjoy our last night in the Nirwana pools.  A farewell slip down the water slide and a last soak in the hot tube were all I could muster as the lightning and wind were picking up and electrocution hardly seemed like the right exit strategy from such a fun trip.

Stay tuned for the Part 4…farewell Bali, hello Hong Kong!

Part 2 – Monkey Forests, Kopi Luwak & Night Markets

Reading back over the half-assed journal I kept in Bali I am convinced that a vacation requires only a few days and the will to depart from your routine enough to allow yourself to be surprised.  3 days and nights in Indonesia, in retrocpect, were so full and so fun that it’s shocking to me that it was so quick…

We landed in Bali around 11pm, hit the duty free and then hailed a taxi to our hotel in Southeast Bali, Tanah Lot.  The short ride from the airport made it clear that our intended plan for the following day – renting a motorcycle and heading North to Lovina – was a no-go since traffic patterns in Depensar are something like messy fractals ebbing and flowing with no rhyme or reason.  We were happy to chill in the back with Jack and let a local determine who had the right of way.

Check in was complete around 1am and after dropping our bags and notion of checking out the following morning we headed out to find the ocean.  The zillion pools beneath our balcony were closer and safer and just happened to have a large, unattended waterslide flowing so it was a no-brainer really.  This slide and these epic and abandoned pools would punctuate the end of everyday in Bali…

Arising at the crack of noon to hot wind blowing off the Indian Ocean we got our first glimpse of our digs.  The iconic Pura Tanah Lot loomed just over the cliff from where breakfast happened and ‘paradise,’ though awfully cliche, seems like the most appropriate choice of adjectives.

We hired a driver to shuttle us around an itinerary that neither of us were so sure about.  Monkey forest and rice terraces were the key elements but we were open to more.  Wayan’s english was worn out after he asked where we were from and I found myself to be one of those assholes who speaks louder when not understood in an effort to communicate – odd realization seeing as though so much of my life has been lived in places where communication is challenging.

Market – Kediri, Bali

Hindu Offerings

Wandering a market near Kediri we drank some fresh coconut water and began to get a feel for the place. We wound up and down through the hot jungle before reaching Jadi where the Pura Alas Kedaton houses a monkey forest and massive colony of fruit bats.  If I was telling this story to your ears instead of to your eyes, you would see the enormous smile on my face as I recollect the feeling of wonder and excitement I felt stepping out of the car and into this jungle.  The monkey’s totally captivated me and the colors of the lush forest and smell of the dank, thick jungle still linger in my nose.  We bought some peanuts to feed them and they were not shy (at all) about asking for snacks.  Feeling the touch of a monkey hand on my leg, pulling my pants in an effort to ask for a peanut was amazing.  It was hard to pull my camera from my face in the monkey forest…everything was so surreal and alive. After some more mingling with fruitbats it was time to head north towards Pacung.

Mother & Baby – Pura Alas Kedaton

Pura Alas Kedaton

Boss Monkey

The scenery was amazing, the destination unclear and the sky, now gray with rain, made us thirsty so we asked our driver to stop for some coffee.  A few minutes later we arrived at a coffee plantation.  Talk about being careful what you wish for.  Climbing the terraces, the ladies ran out to their little shed to pretend to roast coffee in an effort to teach us something before their effort to sell us something.  They were successful on both counts.  We sat down to a flight of coffee, among which, was the rare and expensive Kopi Luwak.  It was a complete surprise and yet one of my favorite parts of the afternoon.

Flight of Coffee

Kopi Luwak

Chilling Cow

The ride down was slow and our hunger was persistent.  Asking Wayan for a restaurant proved unsuccessful so I kept my eyes peeled for a street stand or market.  We found one somewhere around Pangkungperabir and hopped out to see what we could find.  Delicious chicken sate, strangely compressed rice and some fried banana were on the menu but we stayed a bit longer to play with the local kids who were happy to see their faces on the backside of my camera after each pose.  The girl in pink, I am convinced, had magic behind her eyes…

Bali Children

Night Market

Sunset Over Rice Terraces

The sky turned purple then every shade of pink as we coasted down the hill back to Nirwana.  Our fear & loathing the previous night managed to empty the bottle that had been keeping us company so we stopped in a grocery store to re-up and discovered our thrid surprise of the day…Balinese grocery stores are insane.  Complete with an indoor swimming pool, arcade and fullon clothing section, we rambled the whole place before spending too much on imported whiskey and heading home.

Bali Grocery Store aka wtf?

Room service, whiskey and Indonesian vanilla cigars seemed like a nice end to the day but, as expected with this power duo, the days would usually offer up one more surprise before  sputtering out and this night it was Nancy & Tony.  A brother-sister or cousin-cousin or something lounge act from Java, the two took to us like velcro and we sang along to some Whitney Houston and danced to some slow BeeGees before assigning them some homework (Freebird, anyone?) for the following nights entertainment.  Then it was time to hit the pool again and giggle under the waterfall while watching the moon rise over foggy, hot Bali.

Sleep came before the sun and I can say with utter certainty that the first 24 hours in Bali was dreamy….stay tuned for day two….

Part 1 – Chewing Gum in Singapore

It’s all a bit random how I managed to find myself in the ‘cleanest city on Earth’ this Christmas but I did.  I have a list a mile long of places I want to see and Singapore wasn’t on there but I like to think of myself as open-minded so I went with the flow and hopped a flight to ring in Christmas Eve and Christmas with a friend and fan of the island city-state.  I think I read a quote on Twitter somewhere that had to do with the abbreviation “X-Mas” sounding more EXTREME than regular Christmas and this adventure was definitely abbreviated.  The plan was simple:  fun.  The result was undeniable:  fun.  Mission accomplished.

XXX-Mas Eve - Singapore Style

Singapore from a Bumboat

Some Quay - Singapore

Dropping ones things in a posh room on top of the 4 Seasons is as good a start to any holiday as I can think of.  The a/c was delicious but we decided to head out into the hot night to see what Singaporeans do for X-mas eve.  Turns out the entertainment is attacking one another with aerosol cans of fake snow and then littering.  Most snow-jobbers were courteous enough to say, “Merry Christmas?” raising their voice at the end as if to ask if it was okay to litter you with chemical snow…others were more belligerent but all of them were harmless enough and just having fun. Navigating the long avenues under blinking decorations and foamy, white revelers I could pretend like I was in any Midwestern American suburb…nothing but the shades of the people who live there and the near equatorial heat & humidity make Singapore feel like it’s located in Asia.  It is like a big and very warm cosmopolitan suburb of somewhere trying to be both mainstream and cool.  A juxtaposition that can work for some but not for most…

Snow Job

Night Light

It shouldn’t (and didn’t) surprise me that our meandering landed us at a place that Wikipedia has dubbed “Four Floors of Whores“  aka Orchard Towers.  Turns out this smarmy corner of the city was the only one prepared to satiate our thirst for a Singapore Sling.  We double-downed at Harry’s and watched the drunken absurdity unfold.  Deciphering which women were ‘working’ and which were just dressed for a night out was a fun game until the bar closed and forced us to find a new venue and a new view.  The only country bar in Singapore drew us in and, after some whiskey and more hilarious people & televised rodeo watching, it was officially XXX-mas morning in Singapore and time for bed.  Hilarious…

Country Jamboree - X-Mas Eve

Christmas Eve - Orchard Towers

Late, late sleeping and room service might be the best start to X-mas I have ever tried.  Those of you who have not attempted this, I can say with certainty that it is much better than a dead tree and things you don’t need wrapped in ribbon your cat is bound to eat and eventually throw up.  Pure guava, a Club sandwich with a fried egg on it (brilliant!) and some epic ice cubes had us fueled and ready for exploring the jungle city.

X-Mas Morning - 4 Seasons

We walked to the Botanic Gardens and I sweltered around the Ginger Garden trying to summon the motivation to snap some photos while my friend went running.  We reconnected just after the torrential downpour began (monsoon anyone?) and enjoyed having the National Orchid Garden to ourselves while the hordes waited for the rain to stop.  Soggy with rain was clearly preferable to soggy with sweat so I think we lucked out.  We squished our way back to the 4 Seasons to dry out and chill, weaving our soaked selves between the party dresses and family portraits in the lobby.  Not the kind of guests the hotel is used to hosting, we always got an extra smile from the bell men when trudging through the front door.  More room service and then back out into the night for the Night Safari.

Botanic Gardens - Singapore

Swan Lake

The Singapore Zoo lies very close to the border of Malaysia and is the first in the world to offer a night safari.  The guides all speak ‘Singlish’ while a tram drives through a dimly lit park hoping to see nocturnal animals doing what they do.  Highlights for me were the leopard and the very vocal lions but the whole thing was otterly amazing! Sorry, I still get a kick out of all the otter references used to promote celebrating X-mas in a zoo.  Much like my thoughts about room service being an ideal start to the holiday, I can also state that Christmas evening goes great with glitter and wild animals.  Could very well get filed as the best Christmas on record.

Let Sleeping Leopards Lie

Fuel for the Night Safari

More 4 Seasons chillaxin, more late sleeping and room service before it was time to check out and do a little more exploration prior to bouncing to Bali for some more days of holiday and adventure.  We bumboated along a canal, scored the uncommon sight of Singapore street art, sat out the rain in the Fullerton and did a little shopping at Far East Plaza before heading out.

Bumboat Captain

Tea at The Fullerton

Street Art - Singapore

XXXXXXXL

I had nothing but fun while roaming Singapore so don’t misinterpret what I am about to share with you:  Singapore could very well be one of the lamest cities I have had the privilege of hanging out in.  Whitewashed and clean to a point of sterility, it is trying to emulate a mass market Western influence the same way Outback Steakhouse is trying to emulate Australia.  It felt superficial to me though with only 2+ days in its grips, perhaps I am being too hasty.  Any place where chewing gum (which I smacked secretly while there) is illegal makes me wonder.

Disco Christmas

We kissed Singapore farewell, thanked it for one of the most EXTREME X-mas’ ever and then headed South to Indonesia…Countdown to Bali!

Click here to see Singapore and here for a glimpse of some forbidden Street Art.