On The Move…

Sorry for the hiatus in blog posts…  For the past couple of weeks practically every free moment I have has been spent trying to arrange details for the Dins’ stop in Singapore from Aug 5-8.  It’s going to be an exciting, performance-packed stop, I think.

The Dins will perform two concerts at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 8 Aug 2006 (Tuesday) at 7pm and 9pm.  Tickets will go on sale via Sistic on 26 July, and are quite limited, so be sure to book early!  One night only!!  🙂

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Anyway, greetings from Kyoto, Japan, the 13th stop on the Dins World Tour 2006.  I’ve only been here about 12 hours, but already I absolutely *love* Japan.  The culture of such exacting manners and neatness, technology-fuelled efficiency and convenience, as well as a passion for high-quality fashion all appeal strongly to my sensibilities.

Incidentally, in Prague I managed to get my lugagge replaced with very little hassle, curtesy of Lufthansa.  I brought in my ruined suitcase to an authorised repair shop, the woman there looked at it and then gave me a brand new Samsonite bag that was approximately the same as my original (though a touch smaller).  Problem solved.  Praise God!

I liked Prague a lot.  Such a charming, romantic city.  And such beautiful people and postcards too.

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We just arrived today in Kyoto from Shanghai, China.  I’d never been to Shanghai before, and boy was that an eye-opener.  The city was truly a marvel of frenzied construction and booming prosperity.  Yet everything seemed so incredibly cheap to our Zurich-jaded wallets (where a small bottle of water was 4 CHF, about 3 USD).  A fair number in the group caught the men’s fashion bug (I’m so proud! :)) and were ecstatic over the pretty fine tailoring that was available for so little…  I had two shirts made just to try it out, and they both turned out really well.  Especially considering that they cost less than US$9 each.  I also went to the tailor Uncle Soon Lee recommended (also named “Jason”, which was confusing), and ordered a piped jacket (in the style of a boating-jacket).  I have to say that I was quite impressed overall at the quality of the work (although I had to push a little, which is normal, to get exactly what I wanted, finicky details and all).  And the price was unbeatable, truly.  In all, the other Dins who went to the same tailor on my recommendation bought something like 2 overcoats, 4 sportscoats and 6 suits made.  It was fun to watch other Dins be excited about shopping, for once 🙂

A big special thank you to Uncle Soon Lee who fed me (and other Dins) well and pointed the way to good, cheap shopping and tailoring.  Thank you!

It was also a hugely happy revelation to myself that I can actually speak Mandarin quite decently, at least enough to communicate fairly efficiently, and to even write stuff down.  Looks like those years and years of slogging over Chinese (which was really the only subject I recall always studying for) have actually resulted in a useful skill.  Yay!!

Have I mentioned that the Europe-leg of the tour has piqued (for the first time, ever) my interest in learning German?  I’m actually quite excited at the prospect.

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Again, I’m currently blogging both here and also on the Dins’ World Tour 2006 blog which can be accessed online at http://dins06.blogspot.com  Go check out the handful of pictures I’ve posted there, which are also on my regular Flickr photostream.

Alright, time to venture out into Kyoto in search of contact lens solution…  at 12.30am.  In the rain.  (Life is so hard!)

PS:  I’ll explain the “Life is so hard” Din-game some other time

Today is the one month mark on the Dins’ World Tour.

While we were chatting late one Monday night at the really wonderful Taj Mahal club in Athens, I pointed out to Evan that our conversations with people we meet must sound so horribly obnoxious, since they all go along the lines of: “And then when we were chauffered to the castle in Belgium we were taken to the all-night party in Luxembourg by the Swiss It girls who drove us to a fabulous free, five-star meal at the museum where there was a private party hosted by the ambassador in the nightclub by the pool at the summer villa with the huge Warhol canvasses…”  and we can keep going like this for several hours.

It’s been pretty amazing, truly.  I should load pictures!  🙂

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But for those people who would prefer to hear about how the trip isn’t perfect, you may like to know that when I got off the plane in Prague this afternoon I was quickly alerted by other Dins to the fact that my almost-new Samsonite luggage had been violently smashed in transit, probably somewhere between our layover in Munich and our arrival.  And this after I was somehow mistakenly left behind at our residence in Rome and had to make my own way to the airport.  On the upside, it seems possible that Lufthansa will make good on the damage with either free repairs or a replacement bag, although I wish my luggage (which I bought at Selfridges in London last summer!) could have made it through Tour unscathed.  Right now it’s entirely missing a wheel structure (making the other wheel fairly useless), and has serious looking rips up the side.  I’m not terribly hopeful that it can be repaired economically.

Ok, time to go do other things now, like try and make some progress on the first and shamefully still first book I’m reading for the summer, as well as maybe watch the DVD Ming gave me just before tour started.

Ciao!

 PS:  Seriously, anyone who wants postcards should email me their mailing address.  My email is on this blog under “contact details” on the sidebar.  I’ve already posted possibly two to three dozen postacards so don’t feel like it would be any kind of bother for me – I love sending them!  🙂

I just realised that sometimes World Tour feels a lot like a pure vacation.  Like when I wandered about Dublin in the middle of the night or when I spent a leisurely day in London.  Yet at other times it feels a lot like travelling for work, or business.  Like when I’m dealing with the Singapore-related emails or when we have to rush from airport to concert venues.

Belgium has been wonderful.  I’m quite impressed with the 25 year old Prince Simon de Merode whose castle at Westerlo was the venue for the Havard Club of Belgium’s casino night.  The Prince also showed up at the concert we had tonight at the official residence of the Deputy Head of Mission of the American Embassy in Brussels.

The food has been fantastic here in Belgium.  I would love to live here (or really in most places in Western Europe) and work for a while, I think.  The scampi, ribs and beer at Wieren in Leuven was memorably good.  Leuven in general is very pleasant and interestingly quaint, yet bustling with the energy of a University town.

I’ve enjoyed my homestay here a lot.  While Patti White’s stunning townhouse flat in the tony part of London (Holland Park) was arguably more luxe–wait till you see the pictures of the colossal guest bathroom covered in trompe l’oeil murals on the walls and ceiling–I think Professor Paul Verlin’s recently renovated (and not quite finished) house here in a leafy neighborhood in Leuven has been exceptionally comfortable.  The house boasts custom hand-carved artisanal staircases, an AGA stove in the kitchen and a raindance shower rose in the guest bathroom (really a guest apartment on the top floor).  Staying here has been like staying in a really fabulous spa in Sweden.  Very restful, calming and rejeuvenating.  I’ve also really enjoyed spending time with the Verlins and chatting with Paul, Ann-Marie, Charlotte and Emily on all sorts of things.

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It’s sad that Dublin will get narry a mention here on the blog, nor will London, though I will say that it was fantastic to have Laurel and Kenneth in the audience at the Christchurch concert, and I trully loved the time I spent in Oxford with wonderful company (really makes me wish I’d gone to uni there, and certainly tempts me to consider graduate work there).  There’s just too much to say, particularly because I’m constantly busy either doing things that really should be journalled about eventually to preserve them for posterity, or sleeping to recover from the exertion of said activity.  On the upside I’ve been pretty meticulous about keeping a photo-record of the trip thus far (save for the last 36 hours when all my camera batteries aggravatingly died on me).  The pictures will just have to do in place of actual written records.

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Je suis ravie d’avoir l’opportunité de parler français à la Belgique 🙂

Tomorrow, Luxembourg.  Off to pack again!

Here I am in Dublin, and I’m going to try and make this quick so I can minimise the amount of time I spend sitting in this Internet cafe and go hit the streets to look around.

Aside from the ginormously painful, expensive affair that move-out was (I even had to miss the first 7am call/gig entirely), things have been going fairly smoothly.  I was completely knocked-out on the flight to Frankfurt, where we had a four hour layover; I’m a little annoyed at having slept through dinner on the flight, but I made up for it with many bags of Haribo candy 🙂

Earlier today we sang our first gig of the tour, at a very strange interfaith peace conference of some description, and between the jet lag, sore limbs (too much hand-carry luggage!!) and complete lack of warming-up, I think we sounded a little weak.  On the way back to the Dublin university residences that we’re staying at, I noted that so far the trip still feels like just another Din roadtrip to Connecticut or Maine…  I was looking out the window at the Dublin suburb we were going through and thinking, “I can’t wait to get back to Quincy; Is this Allston, MA?”

The Irish accent is both really pretty, and also often indecipherable 🙂

IMPORTANT:  There is a great little group blog that’s been set up for the Dins and they’re loved ones.  Bookmark the page: Dins v. The World

In Bangkok, less than 500 baht (20 SGD, 12.50 USD) will get you two hours at a five-storey mega salon with up to five stylists fawning over your ‘do.  Nice.  I brought a series of lookbook pictures from one of my favourite F/W ’05 runway shows and I think I got exactly what I asked for.

As expected, one of my sisters finds my new mop hilarious at best, while the other has surprisingly decided it has its merits.  Pictures to come.  S, I’d expect you to disapprove 🙂

I read all of 30 pages of Rawls during the trip.  Embarrassing.

Ah, bliss 🙂

Day 1
Lunch:  Chicken tomyam kuay teow (flat rice noodles) at BKK airport; cost: 100THB (4 SGD, 2.50 USD)
Dinner: Japanese ‘Sakira’ steak set and sauteed clams with vegetables; cost: 250THB (10 SGD, 6.25 USD)

Day 2
Lunch: Thai style fried chicken, roast pork slices, whole fried fish, green mango salad, sticky rice and Thai milk tea; cost: 150 THB (6 SGD, 3.75 USD)
Dinner: Family style Thai-Chinese dinner with eight dishes including roast duck, fried grouper, minced pork with basil, seafood tomyam soup etc.; cost: 140THB (5.75 SGD, 3.20 USD)

The immense benefit of travelling with someone who’s lived in Bangkok for nearly two years is the consistently high quality and authenticity of the places we eat at.

And I am still hopeful of returning from Thailand wonderfully detoxed and closer to my formerly svelte-ness.

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As usual, my favorite Thai, Mr Pinky, was quite merciless:

“The way you stand makes your thighs look bigger.  There’s nothing I can do about that.  And your behind sticks out a lot more than most people.”

*mortification*  (In fact, this section may well dissappear at a later date when I’m feeling more self-conscious.)

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I have been informed that Thais have a very commonly-used word that refers to the other people that an already-attached person is dating.  The word is “gig”. 

Example:  “Tonight I’m not going out with my boyfriend, I’m going out with my gig.” or “I’m meeting Gig One at 10pm and then Gig Two at midnight.”

Of course, this being Thailand, the term is gender-neutral, and can be used in a pinch even for people who don’t have an official significant other.

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The new pair of aviator-style sunglasses I bought at MBK (160THB, 6.40 SGD, 4 USD) came in very handy on my high-speed motorbike ride to the restaurant tonight to shield my eyes from the smoggy wind.

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I’m building up my armour for the coming Fall.  I have high hopes and quite some excitement quietly growing.

Number of kilograms of baggage allowance:  about 30
Kilograms of candy/confectionery/miscellaneous consumables to pack: about 8

The arithmetic is really not in my favour.

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I leave for Bangkok tomorrow and I’ll be back on Monday.  See you there or see you then.

Oh, and my tablet pc is being looked at, so all those pictures I painstakingly edited are going to have to wait.

My annual wardrobe maintenance is now underway.  A year’s worth of fallen buttons, ripped seams and stained fabrics are being attended to, while another season’s worth of purchases await their turn to be altered, reconstructed or even made up from scratch to fit perfectly.  Meanwhile, I’m having to edit the contents of my luggage more and more mercilessly if I even hope to fit on the non-stop flight to Newark in less than a month’s time.

This is almost my favorite time of year.

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I’ve been pretty lazy with editing and cataloging my pictures.  I just downloaded the hundreds of pictures on my digicam that cover Kew, the various London museums and so on.  Expect to see a couple of selected shots eventually.

In other news, I’ve decided not to go to Tokyo as planned.  It just seemed like too much trouble, and in the end I simply couldn’t think of very much I wanted to see or do in that city.  I’m essentially shopped-out and travelled-out for the summer.  Never thought you’d hear me say that, did you?  🙂

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Edit: I know it can feel claustrophobic to some, but when you’re only back in town for a couple of weeks a year it’s wonderful to be able to bump into people everywhere you go.  While out to see Crash with Terence today at Marina (such an intense, well-edited, incredibly-scripted/acted film – go see it!), we were spotted by none other than Cyndi at Rice Table at Suntec City (Rijsttafel, mmmmn), and later Terence spotted Cailin in the Swissotel lobby on our way out.  It was really lovely to get to see each of these two (three if you include Terence) former classmates, and made for quite an eventful night.

Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 was a shockingly bad experience.  Who would have guessed that an international terminal at the main London airport could be so decrepit and ill-designed?  It was cramped, noisy and unpleasant to navigate.  Everything looked old and unwashed.  The staff were mostly understandably surly.  *shudder*  I’m starting to appreciate the (smoky) Frankfurt airport a lot more now.

I am at least thankful for the fact that I managed to get on the plane with my over 70kg of luggage without a) collapsing, b) paying excess baggage charges.  Actually it was closer to 80kg, I think.  (That’s some 200 pounds for the non-metric-minded.)  Yes, that *is* considerably heavier than I weigh, and three to four times more than what’s allowed.

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And now I am back in time for National Day, as I had hoped 🙂  The extended family went for an early morning walk along the boardwalk at Changi, which was nice, and much needed-exercise.  Following that we all hit the Changi Village hawker centre, noted for excellent mee siam, mee rubus, longtong, nasi lemak etc. etc.  Yum.

As a result of having slept six hours on Friday night, zero hours on Saturday night, one hour in the departure lounge at Heathrow, one hour on the 14-hour flight, one hour at home and eight hours last night, I am not jet-lagged.  I am, however, very panda-eyed and constantly ready for a nap.

Maybe I’ll take one now.

It’s actually kind of scary how much remains to be done before I leave.  Almost least of my worries is the ton of packing I have to do.  More worrying is all the cleaning and tidying I intend to complete before I leave the house.

Today was lovely – I spent most of the day at Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, finally.  Ted was pleasant company too, and I finished up my final day in London with a final hour at the National Gallery (not enough at all, yet again) followed by a quick trip to Selfridges to process my VAT refund (which amounted to just over a substantial 125GBP).

Ok, no more time to spare.  Back to packing.  See you in Singapore.