Cooking and science
If you love cooking, science, and would like to learn about the science of food, this video is for you:
Memorial Day
In the US, Memorial Day marks both, the memory of soldiers, who fell in various wars starting from the Civil War, and the beginning of the summer season. In the last few years I formed an impression that it was more about the latter. Every time I heard about Memorial Day, it was in the context of a BBQ. I understood the constellation of typically good weather and long weekend, but I could not understand how that was related to remembering the dead.
In other places I lived, memory of the fallen soldiers was always treated with great respect. In Israel, for example, an entire day is dedicated to mourning. There is sad Hebrew music on the radio, there are numerous memorial events in school and community centers, and there is a siren for which the entire country literally freezes. I have similar memories from Russia, where the dead of the WW2 were treated with great respect. In Russia, however, I remember it usually being marked together with celebrations of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as it is named in Russian. So, I was really puzzled by hearing about only BBQs when in the US.
This year it was different. For the first time in now almost five years I saw parades of veterans, ceremonies in public parks near memorials, and I saw many people visiting cemeteries on that day. It felt very different. Less cognitive dissonance.
Here is a parade we accidentally stumbled upon when driving through Dryden, NY.
Lots of US flags
The Mayor
Everybody is marching
We agreed that all of Dryden were there.. Here are a couple of videos, so that you could get the atmosphere. This is the beginning of the procession; seeing the older veterans, who could barely walk, but insisted on marching was kind of touching (note the man on the right, who is leaning on his rifle).
And here is the marching band.
Buzz
Buzz is dangerous...beware of editing tricks :)
(inspired by: http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1267)
There’s no place like home
There's nothing like coming home from five months in a tropical weather and finding out that your house looks like this:
Safety first!
As we are counting our last days in Singapore, we are also trying to catch up on capturing the various observations we had during our stay here. One of those is actually our first observation, which we had on our way from the airport to the hotel just an hour or so after we landed (and it took me only five months to write it down :)
We have heard about Singapore as this super-organized and uber-safe place. So, you can imagine our surprise when we note that side-by-side with our shuttle we notice a group of people seating in the back of a small truck. It seemed so out of place. On the one hand, you have clean, new, and shiny cars. On the other hand, you see people, who seem to be manual workers, sitting in the back of a truck with no safety features. It simply did not fit.
The blue car in front is actually carrying people, covered with black plastic bags from rain, in the cargo deck
Over our stay though, we have seen more and more of people traveling in the back of small tracks. We have also learned that this is a perfectly legal and even regulated way of transporting workers in Singapore. In fact, just a few days after we came to Singapore, the cover page article in the main local newspaper, Straits Times, was about new regulations of that means of transportation, lorries.
Traveling with comfort
When we first got to Singapore there were only a few requirements for transporting people in the back of a truck were. Each person had to have at least 0.37 sq m (around 4 sq ft) to himself, could not be seated higher that 3.2 m (about 10.5 ft) from the ground, and only the light lorries were required to have railing of at least 0.55 m (1.8 ft). However, all those rules as well as the 60 kmph speed limit for lorries carrying people (around 37 mph) did not prevent 210 injured or killed during 2008, which in turn caused the government to introduce new safety measures.
Communicating the new regulations
As of September 1 last year, new regulations went in power. Those included a couple of minor adjustments like basically banning the chairs on the cargo deck, because no part of the rider could extend further than 1.1 m (3.6 ft) above the deck, and requiring to seat people in the cabin and only when that is filled, send others to the cargo deck. Other measures were primarily about harsher fines and more safety education. More changes are coming up. New lorries carrying people registered this year will have to have safety railings and canopies and by 2012 all the lorries will have to have those; also each worker will get more space, 0.74 sq m (almost 8 sq ft).
Canopies - soon for everyone
There are about 200,000 construction workers in Singapore, and according to Simon Lee of the Singapore Constructors' Association, the public transportation system cannot absorb an instant flux of that magnitude. So, there is no substantive change in the foreseeable future and construction workers will continue riding the back of the trucks, which in my view will remain one of the paradoxes of Singapore.
I read you…
If you've seen "Avatar", you may have noticed the way they used the phrase "I see you" to convey a deeper meaning than simply observing a person. Since we got to Singapore, there were many things that caught our attention, primarily because they did not fit our established perceptions of how things should be or should work. Some of the conversations we had with our local and our expat friends helped to make sense. But in order to really better understand Singapore and the way it works, it took some reading. So paraphrasing from "Avatar," I think I managed to read Singapore, even if to only some limited extent.
The book I read was "Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation" by Cherian George, a former editor of The Straits Time, the main Singaporean daily. In one of my first posts from Singapore, I've noticed the centrality of the air conditioning in the way this city-state functions. Apparently, I was right on spot. George refers to a quote from Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister and the main figure in Singapore history, who claimed that the air-conditioner should be named the greatest invention of the 20th century, and uses it as a metaphor for the Singaporean politics. He describes Singapore as:
"... the Air-conditioned Nation - a society with a unique blend of comfort an central control, where people have mastered their environment, but at the cost of individual autonomy, and at the risk of unsustainability."
I've learned a lot through reading this book and it helped me to better understand the logic of Singapore and the way it functions. From the prominence of consumerism, through regulation of culture, and to the struggles around political activism, I think the book does a very good job describing the period between 1990 and 2000 and explaining the complexity of the Singaporean politics and political thought. There is an explicit attempt by the author to demonstrate that things are not just black and white as we sometimes perceive them from the outside. The book is about all those shades of gray that constitute Singaporean history and its present.
I was particularly fascinated by the chapter on media, especially since Singapore has this image of a censorship state. First, it was interesting to see how the government views the media as part of the nation-building effort and how it asserts a need to be guarded from the media (elected government vs. unelected media). Second, George tells an interesting story about the way the journalists themselves are viewing their role as part of the national effort (perhaps not the journalists as much as the editors), which fits well with the role the government assigns to the media. Third, the control mechanisms. There are legal means for the government to pressure the media, but those means are rarely exercised; instead, the government relies more on licensing and economic mechanisms.
Overall the book is well written, interesting, and definitely thought provoking. On the one hand it explains the Singaporean practices and decisions, but on the other hand, it also criticizes some of them in a rather open manner. As I wrote, it really helped me better understand Singapore and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who got puzzled by this city-state.
If you are looking for additional readings on Singapore, I heard that "Men in White" should be good (I've only read the comics version of it in the store :), but it is not available outside of Singapore yet. Also, I think a couple of memoirs of Le Kuan Yew himself can be an interesting (though potentially exhaustive) read. One is called "From Third World to First" and the other, a more recent one, "The Singapore Story." If you get to read any of those or have other books to recommend, please share your thoughts and ideas!
More on food…
First, there is a new post in the Culinary Travels about our recent experience of having traditional Chinese tea. We really liked it and wanted to share.
Second, I would like to have another take on Veronica's post about our culinary experiences in Singapore. I would call it "our culinary achievements" :) Those are the things we (or at least one of us) have tried for the first time in our lives since we came to Singapore (in no particular order):
- Chilly crab
- Black pepper crab
- Frog legs
- Laksa
- Sugar cane juice
- Watermelon juice
- Chicken rice
- Pork organs soup
- Durian candy
- Durian pudding
- Pineapple rice
- Shark fin soup
- Black chicken soup
- Snake-head fish soup
- Jellyfish
- Fish head curry
- Black sesame seeds ice cream
- Ais kacang (a shaved ice desert)
There are few more things that I personally would like try out of interest (like sea cucumber and ants pancake), but I am not sure we will have time for that.
Peace on Earth
We were always told that holidays are a time of miracles. Now we got proof!
While Obama was receiving his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, in Singapore a chain of bakeries, BreadTalk, was making the real progress towards Peace on Earth. They are finally done. Here it is... ready for everybody to enjoy... and all that for only 46 Singaporean dollars. Enjoy!
Happy holidays everybody!
To Africa by foot
A few weeks ago I walked from Asia to Africa by foot... Well, I am almost certain I did, because I am not sure whether Sinai Peninsula is actually in Africa or it is still in Asia (the online sources I consulted are split on that question and they call it a "bridge" from Asia to Africa). The reason I went to Sinai was for the Fourth Internet Governance Forum, but this post is not about the meeting; it is about the little adventures on the way there and back.
Unlike most of the attendees, who flew into Sharm el-Shekh, I traveled there by land from Israel. Luckily, on the way there I was not alone, Guy came along, which made the entire trip more enjoyable. But first things first...
Going through Taba
To optimize our time and our finances, Guy and I took the midnight bus from Tel-Aviv to Eilat. This turned out to be quite convenient - you fall asleep in Tel-Aviv at midnight and you wake up at 5AM in Eilat. The Eilat central bus station reminded me a little bit of Thailand, because the moment we stepped off the bus, we were attacked by numerous people trying to sell us rides and places to stay in the city (compared to Thailand though, this was relatively gentle). For those of you reading this who don't know, Eilat is the most southern tip of Israel, lying on the shore of the Red Sea and bordering both Egypt and Jordan. It is built primarily on tourism and sea transportation, and should be a great place to dive.
We decided not to wait for a bus that goes to the border and took a cab, which brought us to the Taba crossing in about ten minutes. As you may know, Israel has some tensions with its various neighbors and although there is peace agreement with Egypt, there is a long standing warning for Israelis against traveling to Sinai. I think this warning has been in force since the terror attacks, which started in mid 2000s and both Guy's and my parents were actually very worried about us going there. So, with this preamble, imagine our feeling when as we entered the border crossing on the Israeli side, we heard a very loud message coming out of the speakers stating that there is a severe terror alert and strong advisory not to travel to Sinai. Great start for the trip... :)
Passing the border was in fact where we walked from Asia to Africa by foot. It went rather smoothly. After all, there are not many crazy people crossing the border at 5:30 in the morning. This was in fact a relief, because I have spent the last few months visiting the Egyptian embassy in Singapore and calling them quite often, to figure out whether I need a visa to go Sharm. Their final answer was that they can't give me a visa (thought they insisted I need one), but as it eventually turned out I didn't need one. In fact, I think any one can enter the strip of sea-shore between Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh without a visa for a 15 days period.
As you cross the border, there is a really noticeable change of scenery. First, there are fewer buildings and practically only one road. Second, the fashion is completely different - instead of pants, shirts, and t-shirts, you see mostly men in uniform or in thawbs, carrying plastic bags (with lunch? change of clothes?) or flat breads. Finally, and that one takes some time to notice, there are no women - we have not seen a single woman during our relatively short stay in Taba.
Transportation
Any source of information about traveling through Taba mentions the cab drivers that are waiting near the border crossing. Indeed, the moment you step out of the border crossing gate, you are attacked by a group of men in thawbs and keffiyehs trying to convince you to get a ride with them. At 5:30 in the morning there were not many of them, but I understand that as the day goes on, there are more and more of them waiting there. The cabs are regular white minivans and the prices of travel are highly negotiable - there is a bus stop down the road and with each step you take towards that bus stop, the price of the ride goes down significantly.
There are only so many ways one can get from Taba to Sharm. Following the security warnings, Guy and I have initially opted out for the bus option. The East Delta Bus Company is supposedly running two buses a day from Taba to Sharm. It is a longer, but cheaper and potentially safer option of traveling through the peninsula. We were ready to bare with the longer ride and also with the waiting time (a couple of hours), but that was our first encounter with peculiarities of Egyptian service (a note of political correctness - I have never been anywhere else in Egypt, but Sinai, so this is all my observations refer to). We were told that "maybe" there will be a bus, depending on how many people will show up. One of the bedouin drivers actually followed us to the bus station and waited for us. He was right... around 8:00 AM we told: "No people, no bus." We were back to the cab option.
Camels eating garbage at the bus station in Taba
We headed back to the border crossing hoping to find other people to split a cab with us to Sharm. On the way there a car pulled over, two men got out of it, and urged us to get in. Inside was a very picturesque bedouin man smiling at us with mouth that has not seen a dentist ever. With all the paranoia in the air, this was not the best marketing strategy. However, eventually, after the two men left and after quite a bit of bargaining and catching two other foreigners who were heading in our direction, we got in the van.
On the way to Taba
Our driver, Abu Soliman El Koreny, turned out to be a really nice man (if you are heading to Taba and need a ride, just give him a call at +20-104958753). On the way to Sharm not only he bought us a lunch, but he also asked Guy to sit in the front seat "to talk, so it wouldn't be boring." Pretty quickly, we have also figured the main reason for the state of Abu Soleiman's teeth, as he was chain smoking practically for the entire 4 hours of our ride. In fact, smoking was probably one of the most annoying aspects of this trip. It seems like Egyptians smoke a lot and they smoke everywhere. I think during those 6 days I have passively smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes and really came to appreciate the fact that people do not smoke indoors and in public places in most places I've visited to far.
There are two more towns, Dahab and Nueba, on the road between Taba and Sharm. Each town has police checkpoints at the entrance and at the exit. These are real road blocks with concrete barriers, spikes, and men with machine guns standing behind (bullet-proof?) shields. Only on the way back I realized that Abu Soleiman had very good relationships with the police. On the way back, the driver from Sharm was really scared of the police and indeed they have interrogated him much more compared to Abu Soleiman and at some point even made him promise that he will bring them food on the way back.
Nueba
Also, the police is getting free rides from the cab drivers everywhere between Taba and Sharm. We stopped quite a lot on the way and picked up various people (only one woman through the entire trip). I didn't see Abu Soleiman taking money from any of them. I don't know if he knew any of them, but the only people whom he did charge, were a couple of tourists he picked up on the way.
Sharm cabs and hotel security
As it turned out, Abu Soleiman couldn't enter Sharm. I guess because of the security measures the cabs cannot move freely around the peninsula. When I was going back, the Sharm cab driver had to ask for permission to leave the town at the check point and, as far as I could understand, told them when approximately he will be back (also see my comment above about the harassment the poor guy was subjected to on the way to Taba).
The cabs in Sharm are regular cars (contrary to the minivans) and the drivers all seem to behave similarly: they would stop near you even if they are driving at 100 km/h and would back up even on the highway; their English is usually limited to "my friend," "where are you from," and numbers; they would usually ask for a price that is 60%-70% higher than the actual price they are willing to accept; and they drive really fast. In fact, the bargaining part with the cab drivers becomes tiring after a while, but it is somewhat inevitable, especially if you are traveling on a budget. One of the conference participants, surveyed how much people had paid for their ride from the airport to the conference hotel; the prices ranged from 1 Euro to 35 Euros (yes, they prefer being paid in Euros).
The hotel itself reminds a bit of a military base in terms of security - it has two layers of gates and people who are supposed to check whether you are staying at the hotel. Moreover, at the entrance to the main buildings of all the hotels that I've seen, there was a metal detection device and sometimes even a machine like the one you have in the airports for screening the luggage. Despite the presence of security devices and at least two security people operating each on of them, the execution of security measures was somewhat "flexible." It seemed that as long as you looked foreign, it was enough to get you through even if the metal detector was screaming.
Things changed slightly when the actual conference started. There were road block posts and each conference hotel had an armed police unit stationed before the first gate to the hotel compound. In our hotel they have even built a dirt bump across the road to slow down the cars that were entering. I think the view of men with machine guns has intimidated some of the delegates, but all in all things were fine.
View of the Red Sea from the hotel room
Food and soccer
One of the most enjoyable parts of being in Egypt was the food. I think I've missed some of the Mediterranean cuisine and I was indulging every piece of pita bread with hummus. But the range of fanciness of the food in these few days was rather wide. On the one hand, we had pita bread with hummus, falafel, and salad. On the other hand, we had a five course meal with seafood and local drinks (I can't recall its name, but it was basically liquid liquorice.
One of the evenings I was out for dinner with Guy and some colleagues from Europe. We went to Naama Bay, which is one of the more touristy districts of Sharm. It is basically a street full of souvenir shops and very colorfully lit restaurants. We picked one that had the most interesting food in our view and were greeted by waiters wearing thawbs and were escorted into something that I think was supposed to resemble a bedouin tent. Our waiter spoke really good English and as it turned out he had a degree in English and German (which really resonated with the fact that he was waiting tables rather far away from his hometown).
Most of the people in the restaurant actually didn't have food, but only drinks and we noticed that the restaurant didn't actually have a kitchen. In fact, all our food orders were brought from the outside, which led us to conclude that the cooking was actually outsourced. That's quite an interesting idea though and I wonder if that was the case for all the restaurants on that street. If that was the case, it would really not matter which one we would end up at, because we would eventually get the same food.
The people in the restaurant didn't have any food primarily because they all were watching soccer. As it turned out that night was the night of a big game between Egypt and Algeria - if Egypt would have won by a 3 point difference it would have made it to the World Cup. According to our waiter, it was "a dream of 80 million people for over 10 years" and we had a chance to witness that he was right.
People watching the Egypt-Algeria soccer match
Egypt won that game, but only by 2 points difference, which implied an additional game later that week. Nevertheless, the moment the game was over, dozens of people literally poured out to the streets, shouting, waving flags, and burning something sprayable. That was quite a spectacle, parts of which Guy has captured on video. The celebrations continued on the main road as well, where we saw people driving, honking, and waving flags from their cars.
Particularly expressive fan
Fire and flags on the streets
Going back
On the way back, I had a chance to experience more of the peculiarities of the local service. I booked a rather expansive car from the hotel to take me to Taba. I was given a discount, because there was another person heading in the same direction, but about an hour and a half after I placed my booking, the concierge showed on my footstep announcing that the other person is not going and I will have to pay more. Not having much chance at that point, I agreed, but half an hour later the concierge was there again with the manager of the hotel limousine company, announcing that they have no small cars for tomorrow and I will have to pay even more. The total difference in price between my booking and the final price they asked for, was 70%.
I opted out and contacted one of the cab drivers I talked about this option before. We agreed on the price, the time, and the place of picking me up and I felt relieved. He was not there at the scheduled time, which was not that surprising (same would have happened in Israel for example), and told me he will be there in 10 minutes. When I called again 15 minutes later, he told me that he will be another 10 minutes late. Another 5 minutes later he called and told me that the price we agreed on is too low and asked for almost 50% more. There seemed to be a pattern... Feeling cheated, I stopped a random cab on the street and he agreed to take me to Taba for the original price.
The only road between Taba and Sharm
The cab driver on the way back did not speak English or Hebrew and my Arabic was not enough to sustain a conversation (it is poorer than the English of the cab drivers in Sharm). So, we ended up listening to the local music all the way back to Taba. Somehow, the combination of the long, crying sounds with the scenery of desert mountains worked really well - they simply matched each other and the practically empty road and the occasional camels and bedouin tents on the sides of the road only added to the pastoral feeling. I really enjoyed that ride back to the border.
Alternative means of transportation
To Asia by foot
Crossing back to Israel went as smoothly as crossing to Egypt. What caught my attention though, was the sudden change of pace and again, the change of scenery. From rather empty and apparently moving on a slow pace Egyptian side of the border, passing through the gate made everything much more urban and dynamic and the lengthily sounds of songs in Arabic in the cab were replaced with up beat pop music in English in the bus on my way back.
All in all, I am really glad I had a chance to make this trip and to make it by land. Frankly, I would really love to visit other parts of Egypt some day (luckily, my mom can't read English :). Even though I will always remember the peculiarities of the Egyptian service, I will also remember the very different atmosphere and the fact that I have not actually seen the "real" Egypt. I also have an idea for a little start-up to help the Bedouin cab drivers at the peninsula, so drop me a note if you are into it :)
Sunset over the Read Sea
(F) One more to the list
I think I am adding one more sport to the list of sports that it is better look on TV than in real life. This time it is Formula One. Veronica, Tracy, and I went to watch the F-1 race that took place in Singapore at the end of September. All in all it was OK and I think we got our money worth of experience, but I unless we've missed something (which is quite possible), it was just OK.
The city was buzzing about the race since we got here. Ads on the MRT and newspapers, promotion booths on streets, etc. - it was difficult not to notice that F-1 is coming to Singapore. The ticket went on sale online, ranging from something like SGD 30-40 for practice session to a few thousand for the final race in VIP settings.
An actual F-1 car in a promotion booth near the ION mall
A couple of weeks before the race, the city started changing physically as well. Because this is a city race, they have actually erased concrete barriers along some main streets and for a few days you could actually drive or ride a cab on an actual F-1 race. In fact, there is something to be said for the quality of the Singaporean roads if they can host an F-1 race on city streets (even though some drivers later complained that it was bumpy).
F-1 ready actual city road with some seats in the background
F-1 taxi and F-1 Duck Tour :)
There were three days of the race itself. In fact, the first day held just the training sessions, the second day held the qualifying, and only the third day held the actual race. People started pouring into the city a few days in advance and the local sex-service industry had to call for reinforcement from some relatively neighboring countries.
We went during the second day armed with the simplest tickets for the "walk about" area. The "walk about" simply means that there are no seats, but there is a lot of entertainment including performances by some relatively famous music groups like the Backstreet Boys and tons of things for sale and give-away.
A long line of people waiting to get a free tatoo at F-1
Walking entertainment
There were actually two qualifying races on that day. One for the Porsche and the other one for F-1, but it is very difficult to actually see something. The cars are indeed colorful, shiny and fast, but as a result all you get is a glimpse on the them passing by and some very good exercise for your neck. What you don't have trouble with is hearing the cars - these things are loud!
Here are the highlights of what we saw compiled in one minute. You can judge if the TV gives you a better experience or not.
Oh, and in case you wondered what is the other sport that is better in my view to watch on TV, it is soccer. Although the last time I went to a game was a really long time ago, I remember it as pretty boring (compared to hockey for example). But then again, maybe I am missing something.
