The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Beijing, the forbidden food???

Just next to my hotel was WangFuJing Street, a large pedestrian only shopping area. While Oriental Plaza was filled with expensive high-class international brands, WangFuJing has the large local departmental stores selling more affordable fashion and local food items. Other than the large high rise buildings, I spotted this little side-alley that looked interesting...

It was lined with food stalls displaying skewered meats ready for grilling.

On closer inspection... well... Even though I am normally quite adventurous when it comes to trying food while travelling, I couldn't bring myself to try this one. I wasn't sure what the meat was either, but I heard that dog's meat was common here.

Did you spot the scorpions and seahorses too?

The starfish looked really pretty though. I wonder what they taste like! Next time if I come with a more experienced friend, maybe I won't be so afraid to try it. Maybe...

The Travel Bug: Beijing, the Forbidden City

Can you believe I've never gone to China for leisure before? (unless you count Hong Kong...) Been there a few times for work before, but usually spending only a few (waking) hours in each City. My previous time in Beijing was a hurried 3 hour private tour of the Forbidden City and Tianamen while en route back to Singapore from Dalian... This time round though, I would be there for a conference with free time in the evenings to meet up with people and explore Beijing a little more.

The Grand Hyatt hotel was a pretty good place to be at for a conference. It's at the "old" financial district smack in the center of town, with easy access to the Forbidden City, Tianamen Square as well as the shopping district. The "new" financial area however is a good 40minutes away. One thing I learnt when I was there.. Beijing is BIG.

I mostly had time in the evenings only, so one day while waiting for a dinner appointment, I decided to take a walk "only 2 blocks down" to the Forbidden Palace. It looked really near on the map, but turned out to be a cold (but enjoyabe) 20minute walk. Again, a reminder that Beijing is BIG.

Everything was of course closed by the time I got there around 6 plus. Was ok with me since I had already visited it before, so I just stood around joining the other camera-totting tourists (Chinese and otherwise) taking photos of the guards in front.

Tianamen Square was just across the road, but I was a little too cold to bother looking for the underpass to cross over.

Headed back after that, to the safety of Oriental Plaza, the huge shopping / hotel / office complex linked to the hotel. With sub-zero temperatures, there's a limit to how long you can spend outdoors!

Pathetic...

Isn't it bad enough that we only gave US$50k to Haiti? Must we now make a public admission that donations depend on "the nature of our relations with the affected country..." and are "not intended to match the scale of a disaster"??

Sure of course Singapore government can't very well go around donating large sums of money each and every time a natural disaster happens, but a miserable US$50k???!!!

As one reader on Mr Brown's website points out, US$50k is exactly the same amount Cambodia donated! (Coincidentally Cambodia is one of the recipients MFA explicitly mentions having supported last year in their letter of excuses...)

Me thinks it would have been wiser to
a) shut up totally about the donation; and
b) not responded to all the comments / criticism

End-Hol Report Card (2009)

Was way too busy with work in Dec to do much blogging, and for a period of time I was afraid I wouldn't get to enjoy the annual office holiday shut down. Luckily I still managed to, and then I was too busy having fun to be blogging.

Here are the results:

General
# of calendar days not working: 11 (including 2 weekends)
# of leave days taken: 3 (phew!)
# of minutes on blackberry: <1 min per day (just to make sure nothing urgent)

Food & the like
# of ice-cream tubs purchased: 8, for the...
# of parties attended: 5, of which...
# of parties thrown: 3, for which...
# of roasts cooked: 4 (2 beef, 1 chicken, 1 pork) , and...
# of other meals out with friends: 6

Entertainment
# of movies watched: 2
# of hours at massage/spa: 4

Enjo Party!

*Shinta and I did something very domestic (and probably uncool amongst under 30s?). We hosted an Enjo party...

A WHAT?!?!

Well basically it works like a Tupperware party.
Hosts hold a gathering to "show off" the goods to friends and neighbours, who then become so awed by how much easier their lives would be if they had the items, that they buy lots of products. The key differences were
1) Enjo not Tupperware
2) The Hosts did not own any Enjo products themselves (yet)
3) "Showing off" was done by a professional demo

Basically how this started was that while visiting a friend, we found out that she was using what I called a "magic cloth"... it requires no soap to be used while washing oily greasy plates. We didn't believe the plates would be sufficiently clean at first, and insisted on testing it ourselves. It was only when we managed to easily produce the squeaky clean sound that we were finally convinced of its effectiveness.

So we did what our generation always does and googled for the Enjo contact, arranged for a demo to be done at our place (Enjo only sells through "direct marketing"), and invited a few friends over. I must admit we had an ulterior motive, secretly hoping our house would be cleaned in the process of the demo...

Well as the 1hour presentation/demo came to a close, all of us ended up placing orders for various products in the different Enjo ranges. Since *Shinta and I don't normally clean the place ourselves, we decided to stick to the kitchen related items, which we would use more of. It should be interesting testing them out once the goods arrive!

48 red roses!

My vote is for sale...

So I was innocently having a coffee at Toast Box with a friend, when this young lady approached us and asked if we could help them with a survey. Spying a stack of vouchers in her hand, we decided to let her talk more about it rather than just waving her away.

Turns out that in conjunection with Toast Box running for the Singapore Promising Brand Award, they are conducting a survey and asking customers to vote for them in exchange for a nice free coffee/tea voucher. When we asked if we could just get the voucher for just doing the survey, she looked a little paiseh when she explained that she would have to walk us through the voting procedure on our handphones and only then we could get the voucher.

So basically it comes down to 20 cents SMS for a $1.50 drink.

I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand they're effectively bribing us for our vote (something the lady couldn't deny when we pointed it out). On the other hand, they're taking the initiative to garner votes in a way that promotes their products.

Hm.. time to find out who else is running and see if they will "bribe" me to vote for them as well...