The land of the shiny green suit...

Earlier this month I was in Hong Kong for a quick visit. Hong Kong is perhaps one of my all-time fave cities (although maybe Shanghai has overtaken in…), so it’s always great to go back. The weather was quite cool at this time of year (at least for the first few days), so it was also nice to escape the heat of Singapore! The flight itslf is only three and a bit hours, so its a fast hop (for anyone who wants to visit next time they're in Singapore...)


When I first arrived, my colleague form HK was feeling a little under the weather, so I had a whole Sunday night to kill. I remembered that the walk along Nathan Road was quite a nice one, and as it was around 5pm when I set off, I figured that if I started at one end, by the time I reached the Causeway it would be dark, giving me a nice view of Hong Kong Island at night. I took the MTR to Prince Edward, thinking it was a short walk to the causeway. Wrong. I had underestimated the length of Nathan Road, and ended up pretty damn far from where I wanted to be. Nonetheless, it was a nice (but tiring) walk that night, finished off with some Sichuan noodles with bubble tea (left). Not sure how Sichuan the noodles were (they seemed to be mostly carrots), but nice enough.

Next day I was off to Lan Kwai Fong in the evening. I was pretty beat after work, but I figured I should venture out a little to soak up the nightlife. Being a Monday night, LKF was a little empty, but was still as I remembered it, the hang-out for expats and local businessmen. Full of bars and pubs, it looked like an ideal place to have a beer after work. Only I was too tired. I wanted to eat, and sleep. So I found a neat little noodle bar in Central and had some beef noodles. Some of the best noodles I’ve ever had, although maybe a little too much tenderiser in the beef. I had a Tsingtao beer as well (well, I’m in China, right?). Apparently the chef made noodles in Macao for years, and even knocked up a bowl for the Portuguese president some time ago. Now, this sounds good in theory. But it’s a bit like saying that m fish and chips are great because I cooked them for the Japanese premier once. How is the Portuguese president to tell good noodles from bad? Maybe he does, and I’m doing him a disservice. All I’m saying is that if he had made noodles for the Chinese premier, I’d have been impressed…;-). Anyway, they were good. The couple in front of me took a pic, so I thought I would as well.




Left: Lan Kwai Fong
Far left: Beef Noodles & Beer






Tuesday night I had dinner on the Peak, which was lovely. It’s so much cooler up there than down at sea level, you can see why the rich and famous make their homes in the clouds.

Then, time to come home. And buy duty free at Changi Airport. This is a ritual that all locals (and foreigners who live here) partake of, give that booze is so damn expensive here. The staff at duty free are very helpful (I think they’re on commission), so the whole experience is very easy (and costly, if you buy the regulation 3 bottles of beer, one bottle of spirits, one bottle of wine).

The one thing that strikes you after visiting HK for a few days from Singapore is that you have just used two of the best airports in the world. Seriously. You can tell the organisation and thought that went into them, and their design. The airport train from Lantau Island to Hong Kong Island is wonderful, the airport itself in HK is beautiful – and shopping is not bad either. But Changi is great, with the efficiency that it prides itself on. Which one is better? I’m not sure. But I do know that they are more enjoyable and relaxing than Heathrow!

Colbar

I didn’t get around to posting about one of our new favourite places to go makan – the Wessex Estate and OneNorth in Singapore. The whole estate is very close to the new Biopolis that has been developed in Singapore. Biopolis was developed to attract genetics engineers and scientists to Singapore, and I think that the chap who cloned Dolly the Sheep might even have been here at one point. The whole estate felt very much like the Little Kent area we have visited before – lots of colonial bungalows (many named after outposts of the British Empire, or major battles in the history of the Empire). Some of these bungalows have been converted to allow space for small business to grow, giving the whole estate quite a relaxed and quirky feel. Therew as a lot of redevelopment going on, and it would seem as though the Estate is getting quite a makeover. Nonetheless, there were quite a few classic cars around, lending a feel of Enid Blyton-esque Britishness.

However, the real standout was Colbar. An old bar frequented by expats for years, it was almost pulled down for good recently, when a new highway was built. However, a petition was gathered, and the bar was actually relocated (brick by brick) to its current location. The food here is absolutely fabulous (think old English pub foods, real brown sauce & ketchup, and vinegar…), and there is even a bring and borrow library there as well. You’ll see from the pics that I had the fish n chips – best on the Island. The bar also sold other pub favourites (sausage & chips, burger & chips - you get the idea), and pickled eggs. Not sure how popular they were, but there they were on the counter. The bar also stocked a decent selection of British real ales in the chiller. All in all, a great place.



Far Left: Bungalow with suitably exotic name
Left: Me on Woking Rd









Far Left: Research Lab
Left: Colbar





Colbar
9A Whitchurch Road, Wessex Estate Tel: 6779-4859
Opening hours: 11am-10pm; closed on Mondays

Back to the grind...

The dust is settling following the wedding (and so is my stomach after all that food!), and things are getting back to normal. We had a wonderful Brazilian dinner last night with a few friends from the wedding that helped us during the day, and our wedding photographer was in attendance to capture some of the happy moments. Too much meat has left me feeling slightly peaky today, but I should be right as rain tomorrow.

As for the CFA study, I am in week two now, having looked at Ethics last week. Ethics provide to be a little tricky, but not too challenging. Most seemed to be almost common sense, but there are parts where a candidate needs to learn to think like the CFA Institute wants you to, not as you might intuitively think. Nonetheless, Ethics accounts for quite a large chunk of Level I, and I need to make sure I get it licked to stand any chance of passing the exam.

I started on quants yesterday, only to find that my shiny new calculator kept giving me rather odd answers. The Stalla guide is fairly idiot-proof, and I was following the key strokes to calculate annuity payment, but was getting vastly different answers to those that the book was suggesting. Them, I just got a few error messages. So, quick as a flash, I switched to Economics (micro) to make the bets use if the remaining day. I sat the mock exam I have on CD, thinking that, given that I used to LECTURE micro-economics, I should be okay.

No such luck.

No study or revision, and I managed a measly 57% on the multiple choice. But several of the questions were fairly ambiguous, and given that my calculator wasn’t working I estimated many calculations involving elasticity and marginal product/revenue/cost et cetera. I’ll hit the books again tonight, and try to remember some of the formulas for elasticity.

Just as a final sign-off, if you need a laugh on a Monday, tale a look at this article. I should stress that the subject matter is not funny – but look at the author of the piece…

As a final note, I see that we are under 5 months from Christmas.

How much?

So Singapore is the 14th most expensive place on earth to live (up from 17th last year). Mercer's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey for 2007 has shown that Moscow is the most expensive city, and Algiers (in Algeria) is the cheapest. I could have told you that. How do I know? Well, paying anything like what we do for booze is unseemly. But, interestingly, there are comparisons of objects that are seemingly incomparable.

One such ranking is for coffee. The Mercer survey tells us that a cup of coffee in London had an average price of £2. £2!?! And what exactly do they mean by an average cup? Do they man a cup that is neither good nor bad, decidedly average in fact, will cost you £2? Or do they mean that the mean cost of a cup of coffee (taking into account all cups of coffee available in London) is £2?

Moreover, how valid is this as a comparator? Are they comparing Lattes from Starbucks globally (probably not, given the £2 quote for London), which in any case might not be comparable? Or are they comparing different types of coffee from different outlets of different chains?

Nonetheless, here are the coffee shorts (espresso facts, if you like):

Moscow: £3.14
Tokyo £2.33
Copenhagen: £2.55
Dublin: £2.00
New York: £1.93
Beijing: £2.32
Sydney: £1.41
Vancouver: £1.42
Johannesburg: £0.98
Buenos Aires: £0.91

Source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting

All well and good, but is the coffee in Buenos Aires any good?

Highlander - They may take our lives, but they will NEVER take our FREEDOM!

Or was that Braveheart? Apologies to Maris for confusing my movies (Highlander, Braveheart, same thing, right?).

For our anniversary Elena and I went to a new Scottish bar/restaurant (called Highlander, if you needed prodding) for some makan. We’d seen reviews of it as being rather decent, and I had hoped for something a little like Lock Fyne in Nottingham. When we got there, there were some rather confusing conversations about beer (We've run out of beer. No we have some, but it is warm. Shall I make it cold for you?), and were ushered to the furthest corner in the place. Did I small that bad? It was after a long day at work, I guess. We did manage to negotiate a window table in the end.

Anyway, the place looked quite decent, and there was a healthy smattering of ex-pats there for the beer (that which they did have) and the food. But what was the food like...

I had the Highlander Game Pie (a mixture of game meat in season in a rich red wine sauce topped with puff pastry and served with chive mashed potato), whilst Elena had Smoked Kippers (fresh herring smoked over smouldering oak chips; the result of which is a delicately flavoured, thick, fleshy fish). We shared some Tattie Scones (potato scones with a melted cheddar cheese dip), which were excellent, and reminded me of Irish potato cakes. Did my grandmother make them for me when I was younger? I think so, but I might be delusional. My game pie was fabulous, although the butter content in the pastry was rather high, and Elena's kippers were commendable. Beer was not bad, including an array of exotic Scottish ales.

Please please someone find out if my grandmother did make potato cakes for me in the past - if so, maybe she can bring some more over when she comes, along with the carrot cake (hehehe)...

Highlander. Bar + Restaurant
Block 3B. The Foundry
#01-11 Clarke Quay
River Valley Road
Singapore 179021

t: 6235 9528
w: http://www.highlanderasia.com

Click here for the menu.


Far left: Maybe I did smell

Left: Tattie Scones


Far left: Smoked Kippers

Left: Game Pie

Island Creamery

Recently, I posted about the donut craze that has hit Singapore. People are still queuing for those donuts, and there is even a new donut shop in Vivocity that is attracting similar queues - even though the donuts look pretty bog-standard to us. And now, time to post about ice-cream. Do we do anything other than test deserts? Yes, of course. Are they as much fun? No, probably not. That's why you hear about ice-cream and donuts, and not about other more mundane aspects of life...

Anyway, the Island Creamery is a fantastic place to scoop some ice-cream. Flavours include the usual suspects including Reverso (chocolate with chocolate chunks, mmm), Very Berry and Cookies and Cream, as well as more local twists, including Pulot Hitam, Teh Tarik, Tiger Beer sorbet, Horlicks and Chendol. We tried teh tarik, chendol, horlicks, a praline-type flavour, and another one that I can't remember. All were fantastic.

The store has a self-service water dispenser for customers (some places charge), and a bluetooth photo printer for printing pics you took at the shop. Well worth a trip, and the prices are quite reasonable as well - $2.50 a scoop and $4 for a double scoop, I think.

Island Creamery
10 Jln Serene #01-05
Singapore 258748
258748
Singapore

t: 64688859

mmmmmmmmmmmm, donuts.....

Every now and again something bits Singapore that causes a mild wave of excitement, and frenzied queuing. Such a thing has landed, and its name is the Donut Factory.

Started by a chap called Gunter Rahim, 44, a businessman of German-Pakistani descent, this donut shop opened at the back-end of last year to very long queues. Queues so long, you could actually queue, and take it in turns to go and have a sit-down three course meal whilst your friend waits, and then switch roles. And you would still be in the queue. We decided that we would wait it out, and that the queues would die off in a few months. Well, it’s May now and the queues were still going strong.

Our friend Jane kindly queued for us last Saturday. This was above and beyond the call of duty, but what do you expect from a Liverpool fan? Jane was in the queue for around 4 hours, and we are very grateful. Even more grateful when we tried the donuts. They were certainly worth the wait, and were absolutely delicious. There were quite a few varieties to choose form, including the standard double-chocolate, strawberry, blueberry, and the not-so-standard-but-actually-quiet-good wasabi and cheese. Now, I know that queuing is a British art form, so when the family comes overt in June, you can perhaps take it in turns to queue early in the morning, and keep us in supply of donuts – just a thought…

Donut Factory
B1 - 61 Raffles City Shopping Centre
250 North Bridge Road
Singapore 179101
T +65 6337 6268
info@donutfactory.com.sg

Sausages? Sausages? Sausages!

Success to speak of. Yesterday was a bit of a double-whammy, and getting it our of the way ahs been a weight off of my mind.

First, I resubmitted my revised PhD thesis. This had taken three months to revise, based on suggestions I was given at the February Viva. Many of these were pretty minor, although some represented a reasonable amount of work. Hopefully the corrections will be okay, and that I can finally put the thing to bed.

But the big news?

I’ve passed my driving theory test. As a foreigner here, if I wish to convert my driving license to a Singapore license, I have to sit the basic theory test which serves to introduce me to local traffic rules and Singapore's Highway Code pertaining to traffic related issues peculiar to Singapore. When I originally applied (in February) I was fairly nonchalant about passing, and considered that if I could drive on the UK for years, I should be fine. I put the book to one side, and metaphorically laid back and waited for the test. However, I met up with some friends recently, and one chap’s wife (American) was most concerned, and suggested that it might be very hard actually, and that I may have an out of date book, and that I had better get studying.

Cue panic.

Not enough panic to make me actually buy the new book, but enough to make me wonder if I would pass. Nonetheless, the day came and I swotted up in the car on the way to work, and at the test centre, only to find that the test was, actually, as difficult as beating Chelsea in the semi-final of a cup competition. In fact, quite easy.

So, we celebrated in the only way we know, and went off to eat German sausages, and drink German beer (I had a Paulaner Weissbeer). The place we chose was a fairly new German beer-cellar type place at our favour shopping mall. The beer was reasonable ($13-ish for a half-litre), and the platter of sausages you can see below was around $30. The pretzel was $2.50. Overall, smashing fun. The sausages were top-class (I recommend the lamb), and the sauerkraut was commendable.

Far Left: Me with comedy Pretzel beer goggles

Left: Me with beer

Far Left: Our lovely Pretzel

Left: Our lovely sausages

Christmas turkey...

We had our postponed Christmas dinner on New Year ’s Eve here. Elena and I (and you will know who the emphasis is on) cooked up a treat in the kitchen, having scoured the island for turkey (we brought a pre-cooked one t hint end, for a third of the price), stuffing mix, potatoes, bread sauce (cooked from scratch),and so on. We even produced a puff-pastry apple pie for pudds (that’s us on the left watching the pie cook in the oven).

Again, thanks to all who sent us cards, and a happy new year to all.

Far left: Dinner; near left: pie

肉骨茶

Today we had Bah Kut Teh. This is one of my all-time favourite dishes in Singapore. It's a kind of pork dish, served in a soup with rice and other vegetables. There's also a kind of fried dough that you can dunk in the soup. The soup itself is quite peppery, and herbal (unfortunately, I can't think of anything in the UK to compare it to, except a peppery kind of meat broth soup. Sorry!). It's meant to be quite good for you, and usually does wonders for my newby flu. Alas, I am still struggling today. But the Bah Kut Teh was good, as always.

The Youtiao (fried dough) is a popular kind of breakfast dish in different parts of Asia, and we used to have it in China quite a lot for a snack (served with warm soy milk). Its's also popular in Hong Kong, where I think I had the biggest (and most unhealthy) version I can remember for breakfast. I was full for nearly a day after that!!

Brownies!

Went to our favourite deli today, we just can't get enough of the brownies there. The nice man was even kind enough to let us take a picture.


Elena had the Brownie (although I helped quite a lot!!).


And, for me, the sticky date fruitcake. I guess that you just can't escape your nationality.


It's hard to describe the Brownie; melt in your mouth gooey, and the kind of richness that makes you wish you had a bigger mouth. But there are Brownies elsewhere, and half of the fun is doing Brownie research. I think that that can be a recurring theme of the blog; the quest for the perfect Brownie. Watch this space!