Indonesia

After working so hard for so long, the boss gave me Friday off. Top bloke, the boss. Understanding, appreciative, witty. Great to work for. Sure, he keeps trying to touch me and making lewd, sexually suggestive comments, but who could blame him, what, with my chiselled Roman-Greco physique?

Anyhow, after giving myself the day off (get it now?) I decided to pop over to Indonesia. Two main Indonesian islands are apparently visited from Singapore: Pulaus Bintan and Batam. I understand Pulau Bintan is more for lazing around on the beach and playing golf. Batam is meant to have more stuff to do. This is a dubious claim.

Should you go to Pulau Batam, at all costs avoid the Penguin Ferry Services one-day tour. It was after two extremely brief stops at places that can only aspire to the term "tourist trap" (a really crap Chinese temple and a go-carting place) and several stops at stores selling local produce that I realised what was going on. You know those coaches that go to all the discount stores in town, loaded with women in tracksuits carrying a million shopping bags? I was on one of them. And these shops were nothing special. A Ralph Loren store, a dodgy department store, a street store selling Indonesian groceries, and a souvenir shop with prices in Singapore dollars. With the exception of the souvenir shop these places wouldn't even dream of aspiring to Tourist Trap status.

Batam is seriously third world and if you throw yourself in you'll probabaly find that it rocks. But from a coach full of dried fish and local handicrafts, all it does it make you appreciate, a week after you've done everything in Singapore, that Singapore is a great place.

On my daytrip to Indonesia I was befriended by a bunch of Philipinas. Over lunch they were talking about me in front of me, but in Philipino. I may not speak Philipino, but it seems some words don't translate. One of them, whose name I can't remember (call her Rosa for the sake of the story), was clearly keen on me and saying stuff like "yabba yabba yabba Nick yabba yabba Standard Chartered yabba yabba yabba yabba unlimited expense account yabba yabba yabba ha ha ha." No jokes.

Naturally, I failed to stick around after the tour.

Next night I'm on my way home after gorging myself at dinner when I bump into Rosa and her friend from the day before. So I get talking with her friend, who wasn't at all scary to look at, and we all trooped off to a club for a drink and dance.

So the friend (whose name I couldn't remember either) makes herself scarce while Rosa is trying her damnedest. I remember thinking: you'll regret it. DON'T. I only stayed in the bar as long as I did because I was checking out some sensational Chinese girls dancing in front of my seat. Finally the pressure got too much, I muttered an excuse, and I ran. I've never actively run from a girl before, but I seriously sprinted home. Urghhh.

Sing 4. Animatronics

I went to Fort Canning the other day where you can see the Battle Box, the underground command bunker used by the British and ANZAC forces in WWII. A great experience, complete with animatronic dummies and stilted voice overs. It seems that the Fort Canning people blew the budget on the latest and greatest plastic, moving men. This only left S$15.47 to hire the actors to do the voice overs. Let's just say that the voices perfectly matched the robotic, plastic and thoroughly unconvincing look of the dummies.

But you know, something was missing. For mine, an animatronics display just isn't complete without an animatronic beaver. Or at least little animatronic children in national costumes singing "It's a small world afterall". Is that too much to expect? I'm sure they had beavers in the war. Surely they could work one into the story...

Sing 3. Nick's Food Tour of Asia, Parts 2-4

Part II:

I'm a big believer in exploring all the local flavours in foreign countries. So, being in Singapore, and out with a bunch of poms in the boonies, it seemed only natural to go the pizza. But not any old pizza. One I've only seen in Singapore: Norwegian pizza. This is basically a cheese pizza with a hint of smoked salmon. Not bad, but not more than 2/5 on a good day.

Part III: Fish head curry.

Ben, my main man at Standard Chartered, offered to take me and Rob out for a fish-head curry. I'm game for anything, but Rob, being a typical conservative Englishman, was having none of it. "There is no way I'm eating fish head. I'll have to tell Ben a story. I've thought about it and can't do it." Luckily for him, he left before the Big Day.

The Big Day was actually pretty good. Three guys from the bank and I went up to the Civil Service Club and ate off banana leaves. The fish head was pretty sizeable and included a fair chunk of what would be the neck, if fish had necks. Basically all the flesh falls off and it's just like eating any other fish curry. Except any other fish curry doesn't have an over cooked eye staring up at you.

So of course Ben points out that eyes are a delicacy. What he actually said was "Nick, the eyes are a real delicacy here" but what he meant was "Nick, we want to see what you're made of. Eat the eyes or lose a lot of face."

I dropped the first one on the table.

The second one came with a great bit of cartilage, so I had to suck it down and couldn't savour the texture. Not that that was a major problem.

The brain is the other delicacy. Luckily I'd gained my share of face and didn't want to look greedy. Navith was more than keen to get his teeth into the skull, though, so we all let him.

All up, I give the fish head curry at the Civil Service Club a big 4 out of 5. Apparently it's peculiar to Singapore, so I guess you have to come here to have it. Just don't try it for dinner because the curry can go off during the day.

Part IV:

Saturday's plan was to wander down to Boat Quay for dinner, but I took a turn through Chijmes on the way. Well, there was a Philippino Mariachi band playing outside the Spanish restaurant. And I'm just a sucker for Philippino Mariachi bands, so that was that: dinner at Octo. I'd always wondered how many flamenco songs there were, and when the band started cranking out Up Town Girl, I found out: not that many.

The food, for the record, was vegetable paella. Pretty good, but nothing to write home about, even though I am. 3/5.

(Note: Chijmes is a big complex of bars and restaurants in an old convent, and everyone pronounces it "chimes", ie, with a silent J. But I reckon this is a cop-out. Adding mysterious silent letters make Hangman and Scrabble wholy different games, and seems a little pretentious. "It's spelt 'Sir Raymond Luxury Yacht' but it's pronounced 'stoat gobbler throat warbler'." But it's a good place. If you come to Sxingapore, make sure you ask the cabbie to take you to Chidgmees.)

Happy eating. Stay tuned for further gastronomic tales.

Sing 2. The Touristy Stuff

Okay, so what's been happening in Singapore?

After getting in late on Saturday night, I went watch-hunting on Sunday. Just a simple dive watch, nothing too flash. Duty-free prices in Melbourne were around the $300 mark, so when the first place I went offered something at $260, things were looking good. I was prepared to pay that, if only I could look around a bit, first. But $260 was too high, only a fool would pay that, kind sir, and only a fool would waste his time looking elsewhere. $200. That's a much more reasonable price. What do you mean its suspiciously low? Are you serious sir? $150. International warrantee. I'm making a loss, but I want to see if you're serious, I don't think so, you're not serious about buying, yes we take Visa.

So then it was work for the afternoon, sitting in the well-air conditioned hotel bar. The air conditioning in this country is something else. Cryogenic preservation, to be exact. Let's just say that by the end of the briefing session I couldn't feel my feet. In Standard Chartered's offices it's even worse. Fancy needing a jumper 1° from the Equator!

On Sunday we (Rob the project leader and I) went to Boat Quay, kind of like Southbank, but more lively. This was followed by rickshaw-chicken, a game involving an old rickshaw driver complete with tired rickshaw, two expats, and lots of traffic, all going the other way. Then Monday was the Singapore Zoo Night Safari, one of the few places were you can see animals trying to sleep in the dark.

On Wednesday, Rob left for the UK, leaving me all alone with my first ever audit. Quite an experience. But enough about work.

The weekend was an exercise in refined culture, starting with sailing on Saturday out near the airport. It's quite exhilarating seeing jumbo jets coming in to land that close to the airport, but not as exhilarating as dodging the container ships and barges. Whilst sail has right of way, might is right when it takes several miles to stop.

Anyhow, that night I took a quick turn through one of the clubs at Chijmes. They had a cover band. How good was it, you ask? Well, let's just say they'd be a suitable band for Brisbane's Royal Exchange Hotel. But then I'm ordered to order a beer. All I caught was "cover charge ... have to buy a drink ... have to leave" How gay is that? I'll tell you. It's gayer than a black Lycra singlet and the greased-up, buffed-up, gold-jewellery-wearing guy wearing said singlet down Chapel Street. (I had a whole lot more, but I thought I'd keep it clean).

That's how gay it was.

So Sunday it was back to high culture: Rodin exhibition in the morning (much better sculptures than the Precious Moments dead-baby figurines on sale in the mall), Raffles after lunch for a drink, then a couple of temples with Kim, the Texan I met drinking at Raffles, (and she was ALL class).

Nothing else to report. I've got a tonne of work and a fast approaching deadline. So there.

Singapore 1. Nick's Food Tour of Asia, Part 1: Flying To Singapore

The flight over to Singapore (six week business trip) was an exercise in indulgence. I hadn't even sat down and they were asking me what I'd like to drink, Mr Lander. Being only 4:00p.m., I thought it was a bit early for anything alcoholic. Then, before we'd even finished taxiing, they'd cleared up my orange juice and asked if I'd like anything a little stronger, Mr Lander. How about a newspaper, sir? Well, it was 4:10 by now and my will was broken, so it was The Strait Times, vodka-tonic, champagne, another VAT, then around 5:00 it was dinner time (a regular nursing home, is Singapore Airlines) and a beer to wash down all three courses. Quick nap, couple of dodgy movies, then "refreshments" (turkey sandwich and a side of salad) and there I was, in Singapore at last: bloated, barely sober and feeling very happy with myself. I've decided Economy Class just isn't worth it. My new rule of thumb is: anything over 6 hours (well, anything international) should be Business Class. Am I getting soft?