Singapore 2013 – Part 2

Apologies for the long time between updates! Summer session has started for me, which means less time for me to blog. But before I make this entire post about me apologizing, let me continue our journey to Singapore…

The Merlion statue looks a lot less terrifying in the morning. It’s directly across the 3 lane road in front of our hotel, which we had to cross to get to the theme park.

There were lots of cheery little sculptures in the resort plaza area. This is where one of the monorail stops were, and there were plenty of little booths selling touristy trinkets and batik sarongs (dresses that you wrap around) for visitors.

I was actually really thrilled to see that this fountain “Lake of Dreams” was still here. This was here since the FIRST TIME I visited Singapore, years and years ago, as just a little baby. I guess part of me was relieved that they weren’t just tearing down all the old stuff to make space for the new swanky attractions.

And here we are at Universal Studios Singapore! The entrance price was quite expensive, as most of them are nowadays, but you CAN get special discounts depending on the type of credit card you use, so be sure to ask. Also, sometimes they will have promotions with hotels, so definitely check ahead on that as well.

There are several “zones” in the theme park, this one being Hollywood. Some of the other zones include “Madagascar”, “The Lost World” (featuring Jurassic Park themed rides!), and something about robots. There was also a castle-themed area, with theme park workers dressed as the various characters from Shrek.

And yes, that IS Shrek’s outdoor loo in the left-hand corner.

As with all other Universal Studios, they had a Waterworld themed show, complete with people diving into the water from jet-skis and huge explosions. I saw the same show in the theme park in Japan, and it was basically identical.

And then there was this montrosity…I can’t actually remember what the ride itself was called, but it was based off Battlestar Galactica. You could choose to ride on either the blue (human) track, or the red (cylon) track. Normally I don’t get nauseous after riding these sort of things, but this one really got me good. The blue track had lots of flips and turns, so definitely not for the weak-hearted.

Oh em gee! It’s the Beach Boys!…not. But they were really good!

And one last photo of the Shrek castle from across the giant lake in the middle of the park.

Signing off,
Marie

Singapore 2013 – Part 1

While I was in Malaysia, my family decided to take me on a short 3-day break to Singapore. I’ve been to Singapore several times in the past before, it being so close to Malaysia and all, but I haven’t been there in a couple of years and I heard there were lots of new things, so I was anxious to see what had changed.

Here’s a picture from Tripadvisor of the wonderful Moevenpick Hotel we stayed in. The hotel used an older building that was already there on the Sentosa Island, and attached a very chic and modern looking building to the side of it. The older part of the hotel was used for dining and things like that, while the rooms were in the newer addition. I really like the interior decoration of the lobby; all sleek marble and corrugated metal mixed with giant log benches and an entire wall covered with (fake?) green foliage. If I had to pick one word to describe it all, ZEN.

We spent much of our first afternoon and evening at the Marina Bay Sands resort. The whole thing is comprised of a huge, mostly underground shopping mall, and a luxurious hotel, connected by an underground passage. It is considered the world’s most expensive casino property, at about 8 BILLION Singaporean dollars, and developed by the Las Vegas Sands company.

Although much of the complex’s income comes from the casinos (which hold the world’s record for the largest atrium casino), there are plenty of other things to do. There is an art gallery, which in our case, was showcasing Nathan Sawaya’s “Art of the Brick”. There’s plenty of shopping (though most of it is expensive) and eating to be done as well. If you have young children, you’ll be glad to find out that there is an artificial ice rink next to the food court as well. The whole mall complex is huge, and it took us several hours to walk around the whole thing.

Of course, no trip anywhere for me is complete without some sweet noms. And there were lots to be found at the SweetSpot, which is a dessert bar located in the main lobby of the hotel portion of the complex. Again, pricey, but decadent.

Pictured here is a delicious fruit tart, complete with little gold flakes, priced at S$10. Apart from the whole luxury thing of eating some real gold, the tart was REALLY good. Of course, I ended up getting yelled at for spending so much money on a tiny little cake, but oh well. Anything to satisfy my sweet tooth.

On our way back to our hotel, we were greeted by a startling sight…the Merlion statue, with its eyes and mouth all ablaze, staring at us from across the monorail tracks. Eek! But it was nice to see a familiar face; that Merlion statue had been there ever since we had first come to Singapore, more than a decade ago.

It’s fascinating to see how the Singaporeans are coming up with an ingenious solution to their problem of not having enough land. They’re basically increasing the size of their country by constantly piling dirt off into the ocean! To think that just a few years ago, that Merlion statue was facing off into the ocean. Now that area and much more beyond it is filled with hotels and high-end bungalows. Progress is sort of a scary thing.

Signing off,
Marie

Malaysian Munchies : Local Cuisine

In addition to having the best of international cuisine, there are lots of places that offer the traditional Malay foods. By traditional Malay foods, I’m referring to actual Malay foods; not Chinese Malay, and not Indian Malay. Most of these restaurants cater to the local population, so they’re a lot cheaper than other places as well.

The restaurant we went to didn’t really have a name, which is a practice that’s quite common in the kampung areas, or countrysides. The restaurant is an outside area, usually right in front of or next to the owner’s own home. We get to grab a plate, and basically put whatever we want on our plates, buffet-style.

Here, we have a plate of rice, sweet potato curry, seafood with coconut milk curry, and some vegetables. The vegetables were also a little spicy like the curries, so we were really thankful for our nice cool drinks at that point.

We also got the eggplant (again, a little spicy), some beanstalks, and the salty egg. Note salty, as opposed to salted. It’s probably about 70% salt, and 30% egg, so whenever you eat something like this, what you want to do is cut off a tiny little smidgeon, and have that simultaneously with a generous helping of rice.

There were a couple of little kittens sleeping in the sun around the restaurant. Adorable! Local restaurants like this usually have the occasional animal roaming around, so if you aren’t so keen on that, you’ve been warned.

Next time I’ll be blogging about my 3-day trip to Singapore!

Signing off,
Marie

Malaysian Munchies : Pasta and Sashimi Bentos

Like I said in my previous post, Malaysia has a wide variety of different cuisines, thanks to its status as an international city as well as its long and complicated history involving lots of different cultures. So today, we’re going to look at two different cuisines that can easily be found in Malaysia…Japanese and Italian.

The Italian ($$):

Behold, the amazing aglio et olio spaghettini with Shiitake mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, courtesy of DELIcious. I talked about this restaurant wayyy back in February of last year (here we go), and it’s a testament to its great tasting dishes that this was one of the first places I went to for lunch since I came back.

You can see that I wasn’t too happy about the service at this restaurant the last time I went. I’m glad to report however, that the service was MUCH better this time round. Thank goodness; I hate a good meal ruined by bad management.

The Japanese ($$$$):

There are so many incredible Japanese restaurants here in KL that it’s impossible to say which is the best. Two of the top contenders however, include Zipangu at the Shangri-La Hotel, and the Wasabi Bistro at the Mandarin Oriental, as I recently discovered. It was thanks to an old colleague of mine that I was introduced to this place, in the basement of the old but sumptuous hotel.

I have to say that Zipangu wins for overall presentation and meat dishes. However, the sashimi here is of a whole different caliber. I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s simply that the fish is much better in quality, or maybe it’s how the chef cut it, but the sashimi literally melts in your mouth. Drools.

If that doesn’t get your salivary glands going, then perhaps this will? Delicately fried matcha (green-tea) ice cream, served with a dollop of whipped cream. Normally I’m not too big of a fan of fried foods, but in this instance, all is forgiven.

Join me next time for more Malaysian Munchies…or I might just regale you with tales from my 3-day Singapore trip.

Signing off,
Marie

Malaysian Munchies : The Chicken Rice Shop

I decided I’m going to try something new and arrange posts by a new headline…Malaysian Munchies! A large part of what I love so much about coming back home is the wide variety of great tasting food. As an internationalized country, Malaysia has everything from local Malaysian cuisine, to top-notch Italian pastarias. And because there’s so much demand for the good stuff, well, most of it tastes really really good.

Today I’ll be introducing you to one of my all-time favourites, The Chicken Rice Shop. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this franchise:
“The Chicken Rice Shop (TCRS) is a chicken rice fast-food restaurant and Halal family restaurant chain in Malaysia…The Chicken Rice Shop serves what it calls “grandmother’s traditional Hainanese secret recipe chicken rice” and local Malaysian dishes.”

The branch we go to most often is the one located at Great Eastern Mall, which is a shopping mall + office space located not more than 5 minutes from my apartment. Apparently during the year that I was gone, the restaurant had undergone a change in interior design, but the menu was still all the same.

Pictured here is one single portion of chicken with rice and soup of the day (RM9.50), one cold Chinese tea (RM1.50), and a rainbow delight (RM1.80) for dessert. TCRS has three different ways that they cook their chicken, but the way I like mine is with the honey barbecue glaze. In total, this all cost me RM12.80, or approximately $4.25 in US dollars! So cheap, and so delicious.
Since I was there with my mother and we were feeling a little bit peckish, we decided to order a regular nyonya pai tee as well, for RM6.90, or $2.30. These taste a little bit like spring rolls, except not as crunchy. Also, be wary of using too much chili sauce because they really do have a strong bite to them!

Even if you aren’t in the Great Eastern Mall area, not to worry! TCRS has branches located everywhere in Malaysia, including Kuching and Penang, and they are even located overseas in Singapore, Jakarta, the Philippines, and Taipei!

Signing off,
Marie

Malaysia 2013 – Part 1, The Epic Journey

This is mostly going to be a text-based entry. Apologies, but airports and inside of planes aren’t really the most inspiring places to take photographs of.

So this may have been the most epic trip that I’ve ever been on. And I’m not exaggerating here; I may have set a new record for travel time. Whew.

My journey started in the Indianapolis International Airport. My wonderful and kind roommate drove me and two other friends of ours from Bloomington to the airport, where I had to endure a relatively short 2-hour wait before my flight. Thankfully, there was free wifi and Qdoba to keep me fairly well-occupied.

The flight from Indianapolis to Atlanta short. A mere 2 hours, including our slight delay when taking off! Now, I had a much longer wait time…a layover of 8 hours.

Flying always makes me peckish, so I wandered around the place, trying to get a feel for what they offered in terms of nourishment. I’d been at the airport before so I didn’t get too lost. It was hilarious listening in on this one guy’s phone conversation though. Apparently this was his first time on a plane, and he kept reiterating to the other person on the line “Dude, this airport is freakin’ HUGE. I mean it’s really big, man.” Kind of makes me sad how accustomed I’ve gotten to the wonders of aerial travel though. I don’t get to marvel at it anymore.

There was this restaurant called Ecco, and it looked pretty nice, so I decided to give it a shot. There were a lot of lone travelers, which was nice, because I didn’t feel too out of place. Unfortunately, for the price tag, the food and the service was a bit lack-luster. After my waiter’s rather long-winded and hardly comprehensible description of the dishes, I ordered the rather standard fare of spaghetti with some tomato sauce. Apparently the sauce was all made in the restaurant with gourmet this and that. What I got was a rather large plate with a small dollop of very over-cooked and sad looking pasta.

And I don’t usually refer to foods as “sad”. The taste was alright, but the texture was really off-putting. Way too squishy, and hardly “al dente”, as advertised.

Another problem I had with the restaurant was the service. Maybe it was just my waiter (at least, I’m hoping it was, because ratings on Yelp.com are great), but he mixed up my order of sparkling water with spring water, and when I corrected him, he started getting angry at me. When he did finally bring me my water though, he had forgotten the lemons that I asked for twice. Those lemons never actually did reach my table though, I’m sad to say.

In conclusion, I would give this place a C-. The best part of the meal was the complimentary bread that they served with butter. Sad face.

Ranting aside, at least I was able to burn about 2 hours sitting at the restaurant and waiting for my food to come out. Once those 2 hours were up, I still had approximately 4 hours to meander about before boarding started for my flight.

When at long last I did board my flight, it was a 15 hour flight to the Incheon International Airport. It actually ended up being a pretty productive flight though. I got through watching all the blockbusters that I had missed, like The Hobbit, Django Unchained (which I surprisingly enjoyed), and a bunch of documentaries (I’m a huge documentary nut). I was flying on Korean Airlines, which in my opinion has one of the best services, as well as best in-flight foods. Yum yum.

We landed in Incheon at approximately 4 in the morning. Nothing was open…except for the KAL Prestige Lounge! An absolute godsend. I have never felt this much affection for my member card before, but the free food, comfortable seating with free wifi, and free shower facilities really did miracles for my travel fatigue. Really, if you’re flying through the Incheon airport, do take advantage of the shower facilities. They are the best.

Once I was done recharging, I had tons to do. Every time I’m at the Incheon airport, I use my English and Spanish fluency to convince other people that I’m a foreigner, and so far it’s worked all the time. Which is great, because if you’re a tourist, you get to do free stuff at the Cultural Center. Yay! If you aren’t too much into arts and crafts, they also have free shows and demonstrations and whatnot.

Today’s crafty goodness decorating small wooden mirrors with abalone shell bits, a la the Korean traditional way. Since I had so much time to burn, I spent about an hour and a half doing this…and I’m pretty proud of it. By the end, I had a bunch of Japanese tourists standing over my shoulder, saying “Sugoi, sugoi!”

Soon, it was time to board my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. By this time, I had been travelling for 35+ hours, so 7 more hours really wasn’t anything daunting. More movies and documentaries were watched, and before I knew it, I had run out of flight time to finish watching The Prestige. Nooooooooooo!

But now I’m in Malaysia, and it’s so good to be home with my parents again. I’ve already been pigging out on all the delicious and various cuisine here, soon to come your way via this blog.

Signing off,
Marie

New York 2013 Spring Trip – Part 6

I’m terrible at being consistent at uploading. HOWEVER! I am in Malaysia now for a short 3-week holiday, so hopefully I will have a lot more free time and material to keep up a steady stream of updates. Hurrah! For now though, let us just wrap up with my trip to New York (how long ago that seems now!).

Those of you who are familiar with the dessert scene in NY would probably well acquainted with Serendipity3. For those of you who aren’t, here is a video that basically outlines what it’s all about:

Or for the more budget-conscious who don’t want to spend $1000 on a frozen dessert, the alternative is a wide array of still-delicious and wallet-friendly desserts, including the famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, “Big Apple” Pie, Creme DeLa Creme Cream Cheese Cake, and much more!

You might have to wait some time before you’re able to sit down here though; it’s always jam-packed, and there’s even a waiting list for people waiting outside. We were “fortunate enough” to only have had to wait 45 minutes or so. It’s very dark inside, but the interior is very quirkily decorated; there were plenty of dim stained glass lights, and it reminded me very much of Tim Burton’s remake of the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. They also had numerous dessert-related products on sale in the front half of the cafe (which was much better lit).


Speaking of desserts, another famous dessert place in NY is Laduree, a delicious and exorbitantly expensive macaron place, located on the Upper East side of Manhattan. Much like Serendipity3, there is a line outside Laduree, though since it’s not a sit-in-and-eat place, the line moves much more quickly.

An authentically French experience, even the workers there are French. Either that, or they have a really really convincing French accent. The clientele, however, is not; the majority of them are wealthy Asian tourists. Go figure. I felt a little conspicuous waiting in line among all the blinged out people, in my old black coat and bright red school-backpack that I carry around everywhere.

But the love of delicious desserts is universal! And the experience was lovely too. You got to even choose the colour of your little box; light pink or light green. Cute.

Next time, I’ll be uploading with some of my Malaysian experiences! I think my 40+ hour trip is worth talking about as well.

Signing off,
Marie