on the Go with Bo!

The epitome of Britishness ... High-Tea

It's been a long time since I've gone for high-tea.  Actually, the last time was at the Raffles Hotel in Siem Reap nearly a year ago.

And then within a week, we were invited to two.  When it rains, it pours!

Fullerton Hotel:

It was with great pleasure that we accepted a friend's invitation for high-tea at the Fullerton Hotel the other day.

What a delightful little soiree that turned out to be!  Eating all the little scones and cucumber sandwiches while sipping Geisha Peach tea is definitely delightful.  Add to that the champagne version of high-tea that we chose ... and you can imagine that after a few hours of sitting in the beautiful courtyard of the Fullerton, we were giddy!

Shangri-La Hotel:

A friend who has two kids heard that the Shangri-La Hotel will have a fantastic Lion Dance on the first day of Chinese New Year, and since she wanted her eldest daughter who is 2 to see her first Lion Dance, she thought why not combine it with high-tea at the Rose Veranda.  The Rose Veranda is newly renovated and is known for it's high-tea ... being able to boast of it's incredible selection of teas.  To be more precise, it has 120 premium blends on its menu.  If you don't find a blend that you like ...

So there you go ... 1 week ... 2 high-tea's ... Fantastique!!

Dou Hua Chinese Restaurant

It's the eve of Chinese New Year (or CNY) so a dim sum lunch was in order.  Some friends came over from Hong Kong and one of them, who is Singaporean, recommended we go to Dou Hua Chinese Restaurant on the 60th floor of the UOB Plaza building smack in the centre of the CBD.

I'm always a sucker for views ... and I wasn't disappointed.  Nor was I disappointed with the food.

The Chinese culture is full of rich and colourful traditions, and at this time of the year that is especially evident: the lion dance, red lanterns, Chinese mandarins, ang pau, ...

But the one tradition I had forgotten about is the noodle toss.  And I was so happy when we started our dim sum lunch today with the noodle toss.  The waitress comes with a big round plate and all the ingredients separately.  Oil, honey, cinnamon, pepper, red and green noodles, some sort of crackers and much more.  Each ingredient symbolizes either money, health, prosperity and is stirred together in a mini-ceremony.  As we were all stirring the noodles with our chopsticks, the goal is to toss them higher and higher.  The point of it is to bring you prosperity in the new year.

What I didn't know is that this is a very Singaporean tradition and is not practiced in China and Hong Kong.

After we finished the noodle toss we proceeded with a delicious dim sum meal:  wasabe prawns, dumplings, spicy noodles ... yummy!

What a brilliant way to end the year of the rat ... and with a wonderful group of friends.

So ... have an OX-picious new year!

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Peranakan Museum

You know how sometimes you dread going to museums for you know that you will be stuck there for hours ... and although you would have loved to see that specific painting that you recollect from a newspaper article, you just don't feel like seeing the 70 other paintings that are part of the series.

Welcome to the concept of a boutique museum.  I saw this word as I was reading the back of the Peranakan Museum brochure that I had picked up at the entrance to the museum on Armenion Street.  So why boutique?  For we were done in 90 minutes, had a terrific cultural experience and learnt something new and wonderful about the culture in Singapore.

I've come across the word Peranakan several times and I'm only now getting a grasp of its meaning.  As I understand it, Peranakan refers to inter-marriages.  When the settlers from China came to the area spanning from Penang, down to Malacca and Singapore and married the local (mainly) Malay girls, Pearnakan culture was born.  It was a fusion of the ancestral Chinese culture of the male settlers and the very rich indigenous Malay culture of the women that lived in this area.

The museum takes you through three floors of displays on Peranakan origins, religion, public life, food and more.  Moreover, the newly renovated building is an artefact in itself.

As a bonus, the museum had an exhibition called 'Serenity in Stone' which displayed stunning Buddha and Bodhisattva statues from the Quinzhou region in China.  When you see the faces of these buddhas, you will understand why the collection is referred to as Serenity in Stone.  What's also remarkable is that several of the statues still have traces of paint and gold leaf which is very unique.

And isn't the whole point of going to a museum to learn something completely new?  Here it comes ... all the statues had dates written with an acronym that I had never noticed before.  For example 'A Pensive Figure - 550 - 77 CE'  I've heard of BC and AD ... but what is CE???  After my enquiry with a guide there, she told me that CE stood for Common Era and BCE for Before Common Era.  Given that BC has a Christian connotation, using the more generic CE is more appropriate for a region that is characterized by multiple religions.

Ecoparadise antioxidant treatment

I've heard of antioxidants ... but what are they really?

When a friend told me that I had to try this antioxidant treatment in Tampines I first understood it as an oxygen treatment.  I was imagining myself reclining in a room filled with enriched oxygen that would be oxidizing my blood.  Perhaps it would make me live forever!!!

Well, it was nothing close to that.  First of all, telling the taxi driver where I wanted to go ... I stumbled on the whole pronunciation of Tampines, a district in Singapore right next to Changi Airport.  Is it pronounced Tam-pines?  Tamp-INes?  No ... it actually has the same ending as 'Japanese' ... so 'Tampines' ... you nearly have to add an additional -e at the end for it to make sense :-)

Eco-paradise is located right next to the Swimming Complex in the heart of Tampines and is an antioxidant rejuvenation therapy centre.  Their borchure says that 'antioxidants  benefit us by neutralizing the free radicals that are released from a process known as oxidation which damages the cells in our bodies.  Free radicals are present in our environment because of pollution and we absorb them through the skin, the air we breathe and the food we eat.'  So it has nothing to do with breathing rich oxygen as I had expected.

Instead, the therapy centre uses antioxidant products from Japan (ceramic tiles for the floors, plastic pales and water containers for the drinks) that continously discharge antioxidants that benefit your health.  You're basically spending 40 minutes in an environment that has been treated with antioxidant products.

The whole treatment encompasses you lying on a tiled hot floor in a dry sauna for up to 40 minutes.  The temperature is around 43 degrees and the relative humidity about 21%.  They serve you water and fermented juices that have been specially prepared in plastic containers that are made out of plastic treated with antioxidant products.  This treatment is supposed to help with improving blood circulation, increasing your metabolism, reducing blood sugar levels, strengthening your immune system, etc.

What is interesting is that they have on display scrambled eggs and cheese that has been left on plates for weeks, if not months.  And since the air inside the therapy centre has been treated with antioxidants, the eggs and cheese have not gone bad.  They're not decomposing and rotting away.  They're just stale.  Very interesting!  Especially if this is how the treatment will effect your body ... no more ageing :-)

Basically it goes like this:  If you don't believe in this ... then think of it as sweating out your toxins in a dry sauna for 40 minutes.  And sweat you do!  If you believe in the antioxidant treatment concept ... then all the better for you may have a slew of additional benefits that can only improve your health and lifestyle.

Women's Shoes for The Red Carpet

OK, I don't usually write about this ... but this store has been a tremendous success with all my female friends.  Yes ... I'm talking about shoes!!!

So ... every time I have visitors in town I take them to Chinatown for a walk-around ... and to eat on Smith Street.  Invariably, we take a stroll down Club Street and that's where I stumbled across this really funky shoe store for women called Red Carpet.  I was first there with friends from Slovenia and Shanghai ... and they loved it.  The shoes are hip, very stylish, incredibly inexpensive ... and the store is glam-glam!

If I'm with female friends ... I always take them there if in Chinatown ... and I'm yet to walk out of the store without someone having bought something.  I'm still waiting for the commission though!!

A fantastic shoe discovery ... alas not for me!

Cable Car ride to Sentosa

Whenever I go to Sentosa, I always take the monorail from Vivo City, or if I'm totally lazy, i just take a cab.  But since my in-laws are in town ... we thought we would do a scenic tour to Sentosa Island, hence we took the cable car from Mt. Faber.  To make it a day, we started our Sunday with a brunch at the Sapphire restaurant at the newly refurbished Jewel Box on Mt. Faber.  They've done a brilliant job renovating the place.  Sitting on the outdoor deck, overlooking the southern part of Singapore gives you a sense of relaxing on some hilltop station ... which given the relative 'flatness' of Singapore is quite unique.  The restaurant is not quite entirely up to par yet, but given its relative newness, I will give it the benefit of the doubt.

Once we finished lunch, we took the cable car across to Sentosa Island.  What's different is that first you go over the jungle-like bushes and Black & White Houses that are on the flank of Mt. Faber.  Crossing over the AYE highway you start flying over Harbour Front shopping mall and Vivo City.  The mid-point station is in the highrise tower of Harbour Front, and when you come out on the other side, you start crossing the narrow strait to Sentosa Island.  We went over two cruise ships ... literally above the pool and the jacuzzi ... over the massive construction site that will soon be the Sentosa Resort ... and to the end station at Cable Car Plaza.

What's different about taking the cable car vs. the monorail is that the monorail takes you straight to the Palawan end station by Siloso and Palawan Beach, while with the cable car you need to walk past the almost 50 stories high Tiger Observatory Deck, past the Merlion and down the Gaudi-esque lane of mosaiced tiles and fountains ... where all the kids are playing in the water fountains ... to get to the beach.

It's always great to break away from the routine and discover a new way of reaching the same destination :-)

Malaysia - Malacca

What a perfect weekend getaway from Singapore.

We've travelled a lot from Singapore, but always by plane. This was the first time we ventured across the border by bus ... and it was very simple and convenient.

Malacca is a UNESCO designated World Heritage City, rich with local Peranakan culture and Portugese and Dutch influence, located about 220 km from Singapore.  Read on ...