Thursday, September 29, 2005

giant sotong

read on internet news about Japanese marine biologists managing to capture first-ever live footage of Giant Squid in deep sea. They even got a live sample of the arm of a squid when the arm broke off while tackling the bait.

Clyde Roper, who works on the Giant Squid, visited RMBR in 2003 and gave a public talk in NUS. I attended the talk which was very well attended by NUS undergrads, students and interested members of the public.

I came across his display of the Giant Squid in the Smithsonian (middle pic) when I visited DC in 2004. I recognised the display from Clyde's slides from the lecture. There was a huge pickled specimen of the squid on display (above). You can imagine how big the animal was when alive and kicking!

lest you're wondering about the typical Singaporean question: can eat or not? unfortunately there might not be Giant Calamari rings or Sambal Giant Sotong, Clyde told us during the Q&A (yes, someone got ask!) that Giant Squid is inedible due to the strong ammonia smell in the tissue.

Monday, September 19, 2005

ode to the moon

last night the moon did not co-operate for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the moon was hidden behind a veil of murky clouds. however, the moon was bright and round on saturday night.

as a subject, the moon has been harped on by poets and balladeers since time memorial but nothing beats Su Dongpo's poem written in 1076.

苏轼『水调歌头』

明月几时有?把酒问清天。不知天上宫阙,今夕是何年。我欲乘风归去。惟恐琼楼玉宇,高处不胜寒,起舞弄清影,何似在人间。

转朱阁,低绮户,照无眠。不应有恨,何事长向别时圆?人有悲欢离合,月有阴晴圆缺,此事古难全。但愿人长久,千里共婵娟。


"Thinking of You"

When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky.
I don't know what season it would be in the heavens on this night.
I'd like to ride the wind to fly home.
Yet I fear the crystal and jade mansions are much too high and cold for me.
Dancing with my moon-lit shadow
It does not seem like the human world
The moon rounds the red mansion Stoops to silk-pad doors
Shines upon the sleepless Bearing no grudge
Why does the moon tend to be full when people are apart?
People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart
The moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane
This has been going on since the beginning of time
May we all be blessed with longevity Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.

- Poem written during the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival of
1076 by Su Tung Po (Translated by Shun-Yi Lee in 1998)

check out faye wong's ethereal rendition of the Song dynasty poet's masterpiece.

here's to indigestion from eating too many mooncakes!

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Sally under the weather

sally has been out of sorts since we came back from Shanghai (while Sally had her own vacation at the dog farm). Apparently, Sally has been kept with a bunch of Collie (as in Lassie) puppies since she was in heat.
Sally mopping while waiting for her dinner. she is not really sick but has a slight LS.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

a glimpse of Shanghai


Robina and I was in Shanghai for a couple of days. we took it easy, in between a typhoon and resting time for Robina. Discovered that Coffee Bean and Breadtalk outlets were very common here in SH. There was a "Kopi Bean" in Parkson Mall near our hotel. It was very convenient to lug my iBook down to Kopi Bean for its free wireless after our lunch and dinners at Parkson.
walked into Raffles City mall in downtown SH. pleasantly surprised that it was a well designed singapore-style mall (S'pore developers what!) down to its food court. many China mega-malls are simply too huge to be customer friendly once u get over the novelty of their acres of space. plus there's a Singapore restaurant (Crossroads) at the food court, got soursop juice too! (a tad sweet tho...). there large presence of Singaporeans (and probably Malaysians too) could be seen from the numbers of S'pore/M'sian restaurants in SH. In Parkson (a M'sian shopping centre) there are two S'pore restaurants (Crossroads and Chinatown) and Kyros kebab from KL.

We often hear S'pore accents and Singlish conversations when we wander around our hotel area. Robina and I exchanged arched eyebrows when we heard two (obviously) Singaporean guys walking towards our hotel. one was dressed in bermudas, waist pouch and sandals: the uniform of kopi tiam uncles. Bemused (and cheeky), I shouted:"kopi siu dai!" in their direction. Robina asked me what I was shouting. I told her that was Shanghainese dialect for "coffee less sugar". Robina actually bought it, since she was quite charmed by the soothing Shanghainese language. When I realised that she acually believed me (I wasn;t trying to con her in the first place), I came clean and told her it was kopi tiam Hock Chew lingo.
During one of our free afternoons, we strolled to the spralling Nanjing Road pedestrain mall. nice place to rub shoulders with literally millions of local Shanghainese and Chinese tourists. being jaded tourists, we didn't even made it to the Bund (keep for next trip!). our Huang Pu River cruise did not happen bcos of the incoming typhoon (lucky didn't book early!).
no more touristy roamings until our last day. we hopped down to the "old" part of SH; actually it's more like refurbished for tourists. Cheng Huang Temple area, next to Yuyuan Gardens, is now totally commercialised with tourists shops (or tourist traps). although if u venture off the main tourist areas, u can still catch glimpse of old SH (aka crowded, grimy and spitting) which tourists find quaint...
we came across local residents making full use of the tourist spot. at the nearby garden we saw local uncles and aunties doing social ballroom dancing (u can see this is any Chinese parks in mornings and evening). here we spotted senior citizens practising their Peking Opera, providing free entertainment for gawking tourists.
we topo'ed our way to Nan Xiang restaurant that serves "xiao long bao" dumplings. there's a price differential as u proceed up the three floors. ground floor is the take-away section: cheapest. most tourists crowd into the second floor. third floor most ex (but most tables available). here we saw the workers skilfully "de-crabbing" the hairy crabs. the meat goes into the delectable dumplings.
more workers delicately kneading the dough with the meat filling.
we were keen to compare the xiao long bao from Din Tai Feng and Nan Xiang. there are Din Tai Feng branches in Taipei, Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai. we found the Taiwanese re-introduction to the "homeland" of xiao long bao more refined. our driver had told us that "old SH" stuff were better, Shanghai-nistic pride! Din Tai feng's products are smaller and more dainty. but the "soup' inside the Nan Xiang baos were sweeter and more delicious probably due to the abundance of fresh crab meat. on the whole, we found DTF was better!

Monday, September 12, 2005

dodging typhoon

seems like Robina has attracted another typhoon. she had an encounter with Haitang in Taipei and now there was a typhoon that hit near Shanghai. last night, there was driving rain that pelted against our hotel window. but thankfully, it was largely clear tonight.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

slacking in Shanghai

posting this from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf from SH. our hotel's internet access costs RMB120 (about S$24) a day. one thing that I'm glad of is there are Coffe Bean outlets in SH. there don seem to be any in Beijing!

Robina is with me as well. we went around downtown Shanghai yesterday and strolled around their Nanjing Road pedestrain street. checked out Raffles City Mall (built by Capitaland). It was a typical singapore style mall with a food court. tried out soursop juice, mee rebus (quite sad!) and bo bo cha cha.

am now at Parkson Shopping Ctr near our hotel. had lunch at Kyros Kebab (yes, the same one from KL), their kebabs quite good! and now chilling out and checking mail at Coffee Bean.

so far, we found SH more pleasant and liveable compared to Beijing. their weather is much like S'pore and there are more greenery (unlike dreary grey Beijing). there are many small shops and restaurants which makes it quite convenient to stay for extended periods.

Friday, September 02, 2005

New Orleans?

Iraq? Beirut? or post-Tsunami Aceh? I watched CNN in disbelief as the footage of the storm ravaged city of New Orleans with its refugees struggling to survive without food, water, medicine and proper sanitation.

what irony as the stretched authorities deployed national guard troops, fresh off the plane from Iraq, to maintain law and order.

Brian Mollerie holds his dog Rocky Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005 in Waveland, Miss., about how he swam with Rocky from second story window in his family's store to escape Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Thursday, September 01, 2005

scatological specialists?

was on the road just now and saw this huge green signboard fronting a major road in Beijing: XXX Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease.

wooooah! I think that they meant GI tract specialist (or piles, maybe?) from the chinese name: 肛肠病医院. the perils of direct translation!

maybe it's NOT a good place to open a kway chap stall! actually there's a Beijing dish that's like kway chap, called "lu chu" meaning stewed, but tastes totally different, even though largely same ingredients of innards and intestines.

Name:
Alvin's spiel

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