Stone Forest - Yunnan

This is my favourite shot taken in the Stone Forest, though I must admit that it doesn't do justice at all to the magnificent and natural stone formations in this very popular and crowded tourist attraction.
We were trekking up and down through the narrow paths that run between the tall stone formations when it opened into an expanse of flat terrain. The light was brilliant and brought out the richness of the yellow leaves on the tree on my left. On the right was a bicycle - heavens know who it belonged to or how it got there - parked at an incline with the front wheel pointed in the direction of the narrow path, as if saying, "Ride me, please. I'm yours."

All the elements added up to a great picture, so I paused momentarily and triggered my shutter. I had to stop anybody and everybody behind me so they didn't appear in the picture - what arrogance, they must have thought, a photographer with the temerity to halt their natural progress through the Stone Forest?
I shot, thanked them - some were from my group - and moved on to marvel at my good luck: the light changed to a dismal overcast immediately after this. So, it was my good fortune, wouldn't you agree?

Opportunity Comes But Once

This photograph aptly demonstrates once again that rest stops can often provide not only the opportunity to recharge ourselves with the long-awaited stretch of our limbs, the call of nature or even a drink and snack, but also the precise moment to capture the all-evasive shot especially when the lighting is smack-on.

We had stopped in the middle of nowhere for the group to unwind after being cooped up for two hours or more in the coach. With my Nikon in hand, I had alighted and noticed that just across the road on the top of a knoll, a magnificent scene was bursting at its seams and inviting me to capture it. Capture it, I did, with a reduction of a 0.7 stop in the exposure compensation and spot metering since the scene was backlighted. As is my habit, I shot several frames using different exposures.

I like the way the tall weeds are highlighted against the darkened sky. The diagonal, silhouetted slope and trees adds an enigmatic touch to give it a perfect finishing. Wow!

Barren But Not Empty

This is a grab-shot taken from my coach as we headed for Shangrila, Yunnan in December 2007. We were high up on a mountain road and the weather was balmy but chilly.

The coach had slowed and I had strapped myself down illegally in a single seat right next to the entrance meant for the coach attendant. It wasn't the most comfortable seat, I can tell you; but there I was with my Nikon D200 and my Sony video-cam, alternating between the two, taking in the scenery that unfolded before me. The rest of the tour group were either asleep because it was an extremely long journey, or chatting with the curtains drawn since the sun and the UV rays were playing havoc with our skin.

I noticed the long shadows on the surface of the road and the barren trees framing the road. "It has to be an evocative shot," I told myself and fired away. The lightly-tinted windscreen gave it a welcome colour cast that enhanced the picture while the low-angle of the sun's rays added an elaborate flare to put the finishing touches to nature's brilliant work of art.

A Toast To Roast

Ms Tan Hsueh Yun, The Sunday Times columnist has more than a couple tips for those who would venture into roasting their own chicken. Read on ...

1 Tuck some fresh thyme into the cavity of the chicken together with a cut-up lemon.

2 For something really fancy - slip sliced truffles and butter between the skin and breast meat.

3 Season the chicken with Maldon salt, available in some Cold Storage and Market Place superkmarkets and a few turns from one of those mixed spice blends that come in disposable grinders.

4 Paprika gives the roast chicken a great colour.

5 Two important points to note:
Get a good chicken - the larger NTUC supermarkets stock Sakura chickens from Malaysia, which are not injected with growth hormone or given anti-biotics. Instead, they are fed a srain of probiotic called Sakura lactobacillus which keeps them healthy. The chicken is larger and stays juicy no matter what - perfect for roasting!

Secondly, make sure the bird is at room temperature when it goes into the oven; this is crucial, or the chicken will be pink or red in the middle. The trick is to rinse it under running water then leave it to drain for at least 30 minutes or until the chicken is at room temperature. Pat it very dry with paper towels before proceeding.

6 A stainless steel roasting pan from Ikea is ideal. One chicken can fit snugly in it and the pan can go from oven to stove without buckling or warping. The drippings don't burn as the pan isn't larger than the bird itself and they stay brown and is a good foundation for the sauce.

7 Pour some wine into the pan, bring it to boil, scrape up the brown bits and let it all reduce a bit. Then in goes a knob of cold butter which melts into the wine to create a quick sauce. It's more tangy than gravy but you can fix that with some sugar.

8 Buy one of those mini bottles of wine available from the wine section of many supermarkets.

9 The skin isn't going to stay crispy forever, so after resting the chicken for 15 minutes, eat it.

Make Your Own Roast Chicken

Ingredients:
1 Sakura chicken about 1.5 kg - available at NTUC
1 large or 2 medium onions, cut roughly into chunks
1 large carrot peeled and cut crosswise into 6-7 equal pieces
30 gm salted butter, softened
2 tsp pepper, paprika or other spice seasoning
1 lemon
180 ml white wine or chicken stock
20 gm salted butter, cold

Method:
1 Preheat oven to 200 deg C
2 Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut off the neck and feet of the chicken. Discard or use to make
stock. Rinse chicken thoroughly and leave to drain until it gets to room temperature.
3 Sit carrots in the middle of a roasting pan. Scatter onions around the pan.
4 Pat chicken very dry with paper towels. Gently separate the skin from the breast meat using your fingers or the blunt end of a wooden spoon. Do not tear the chicken skin.
5 Slip half the softened butter in between breast meat and the skin. Massage to spread the butter over the whole breast area.
6 Mix salt and spice seasoning together in a small bowl. Rub half all over the cavity of the chicken and the other half over the outside. Cut lemon in half and put into the cavity. Rub the rest of the softened butter all over the chicken, then sit the bird on the carrots, breast side up.
7 Roast about 1 hr and 10 mins until chicken is golden brown. Check after 1 hr. Wriggle the drumstick. If it moves easily, the chicken is done. Or pierce the thickest part of the thigh. If the juices run clear, the bird is ready. If roasting a smaller bird, check after 50 mins.
8 Remove roasting pan from oven, move chicken onto a large plate and set aside to rest 10-15 mins. Add the carrots to stock pot if making stock.
9 Place the roasting pan with the onions on the stove over medium high heat. Pour in the wine or stock and bring to a boil. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up brown bits on the bottom of the pan. When the sauce has reduced slightly, add cold butter. Swirl it around the pan, stirring constantly to make sure the sauce comes together. When all the butter has been incorporated, taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed. If the sauce is too tart, add a little sugar. Pour into a bowl.
10 Carve chicken and stir any acumulated juices into the sauce. Serve chicken with sauce on the side.

Serves 3-4 persons.

Courtesy of Ms Tan Hsueh Yun, The Sunday Times, 20 July 2008

Cook Your Own Crab Bee Hoon

Chef-owner Jason Tan of Ya Kwang Dai Pai Dong in Geylang, shares his recipe:

For the chicken stock:
1 chicken carcass, cleaned and chopped
2 tbs dried soybeans
4 tbs ikan bilis
5 rice-bowls of water
Place all the ingredients in a pot and boil for 2 hours.

For the noodles:
2 tbs oil
6 slices of ginger
4 cloves of chopped garlic
1 medium-sized yellow onion, sliced
800 gm Sri Lanka crab cleaned and chopped into pieces
3 tbs Hua Diao wine
1/2 tbs fish sauce
2 1/2 rice bowls chicken stock
500 gm dry bee hoon, soaked
1 tsp powdered dried sole fish
salt and pepper to taste
1 stalk spring onion, chopped
1 stalk coriander, chopped

Method:
1 Add oil to a heated wok and fry the ginger, garlic and onions till brown, over high heat
2 Add the crab and Hua Diao wine. Stir till the wine evaporates.
3 Add the fish sauce, chicken stock, bee hoon and powdered dried sole. Stir well and cover. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes.
4 Lift the lid and add salt and pepper to taste.
5 Stir in the spring onions and coriander and serve.

Serves 2 or 3 persons.

courtesy of The Sunday Times, 27 April 2008

Crab Beehoon

Here's a list of different types of crab beehoon available in Singapore:

XO Crab Beehoon
Long Beach
Where: 25 Dempsey Road, Tel: 63232222
Open: 11 am-3 pm; 5.30 pm-1.30 am daily
Price: $30 for a claypot with a 550 gm yellow roe crab
What: The deep yellow hue of the soup is as appetising as it looks. Unlike most soup versions which use thick beehoon, this dish is cooked with thin vermicelli, making it seem more refined.

37 Heng Kee House of Steamed Fish
Where: 671 Geylang Road, Tel: 67474840
Open: 5 pm-1 am daily
Price: $40 per kg, no additional charge for noodles
What: The soup might be slightly translucent but it does not contain evaporated milk. The colour comes from the ham, old hen and pig's stomach that are used to make the stock.

Steamed Crab Beehoon:
Lam's Prawn Noodle
Where: 137 Rangoon Road, Tel: 63963289
Open: 9.30 am-9.30 pm daily
Price: $10 for a 250-300 gm Sri Lankan crab, no extra charge for noodles.
What: The lightest in flavour of the lot. The crab is naturally sweet and there's no mistaking the fried, shredded ginger slices used in the marinade for the noodles.

Black Pepper Braised Crab Beehoon:
Mellben Seafood
Where: Blk 211 Toa Payoh, Lorong 8, #01-11-15, Tel: 63533120; Blk 232 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3, #01-1222, Tel: 62856762; Blk 440 Pasir Ris Drive 4, #01-13, Tel: 65820297; Uncle Leong's Blk 233 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3, #01-1194, Tel: 65543453
Open: 4.30-10.30 pm daily
Price: $35 and $38 per kg for Sri Lankan crab depending on the outlet. No additonal charge for noodles.
What: This saucy, black pepper version packs a savoury punch with its spice. The crab meat, however, retains its delicate freshness.

Don Your Personal Pie Club
Where: 20 Cross Street, #01-34/36, Tel: 63274344
Open: 8 am-9 pm daily
Price: $16 for a 400-500 gm Sri Lankan crab. No extra charge for noodles.
What: Served in a claypot, the fine vermicelli which has absorbed the black pepper gravy, packs a wallop.

Crab Beehoon Soup:
Tian Jin Hai
Where: Marina Country Club, 600 Punggol Seventeenth Avenue, Tel: 63857831
Open: 11 am-11 pm daily
Price: $40 per kg for Sri Lankan crab. No extra charge for noodles
What: The noodles are plump from the flavourful broth and there are solid chunks of crab in the dish.

Melben Seafood
Where: refer above
Price: refer above
What: Fans of this soup version love how the stock is luscious and aromatic without compromising the crab's natural sweetness.

No. 3 Crab Delicacy Seafood Restaurant
Where: 265/267 Outram Road, Tel: 63272148
Open: 11.30 am-2.30 pm; 5-11.30 pm daily
Price: $35 per kg for crabs from Vietnam and Sri Lanka. No additonal charge for noodles
What: The stock, made with 13 ingredients, including Hua Diao wine and fish gravy, is tryly soup for the soul.

Braised Crab Bee Hoon:

New Ubin Seafood Restaurant
Where: Blk 27 Sin Ming Road, Tel: 64669558
Open: 11.30 am-2.30 pm; 5.30 pm-10.30 pm daily
Price: $38 per kg for Sri Lanka crab if its total weight is less than 1.5 kg, otherwise, $45 per kg. Noodles cost $2-$8
What: The 18 ingredients used in the stock lend it a robust quality and the Chinese herbs flavour the noodles with a comforting note.

Sin Huat Seafood Restaurant
Where: 659-661 Geylang Road
Open: 6.30 pm- 1 am daily
Price: $40 per kg for Sri Lanka crab. No charge for noodles.
What: The springy noodles are coated in a savoury sauce that is so tasty that it threatens to steal the limelight from the crab.

Ya Kwang Dai Pai Dong
Where: 709 Geylang Road, Tel: 67476631
Open: 11 am-11 pm daily
Price: $28 per plate with a 800-900 gm Sri Lanka crab
What: The taste of the crab is so delightfully pronounced, you almost feel the sea waves wash in the back of your throat. The noodles are also cooked al dente.

courtesy of The Sunday Times, 27 April 2008

Memories of Singapore - the old Singapore, of course

Check out these oohs and aarhs:
http://www.nowhere.per.sg/?p=215

Here's a link that promises an avalanche of oohs and aarhs for those who have lived through the days of Hock Lam Street, Haw Par Villa, Clifford Pier and so on ... click on the link and let your nostalgic memories run wild. For the others, it's an excellent reference point of where we came from and how we got here. Frankly, those were the days ... so, relax and reminisce the good times.

Memories of Singapore

Check out this link:
http://www.singas.co.uk/index.html

The pictorial efforts are by our British Forces friends who served here before the bases were shut down by Britain's 'East of the Suez' policy - that was probably completed in 1971.

I remember the NAAFI (Navy, Army, Air Force) personnel and their vehicles, the air-conditioned convenience stores much like the 7-Eleven store but with a touch of Britain. I remember the cinema at Gillman Barracks, Alexandra Road, where I caught a few movies. I remember the barber and tailor shops next to Capitol Cinema which served the British servicemen - the tailor was the father of a classmate. I remember Wessex and Sussex Estates and Changi where the servicemen and their families were housed. Then again, there were the black-and-white bungalows and apartments occupied by these servicemen. I lived in one such ground-floor apartment at Sloane Court at Ayer Rajah Road back in 1972 or '73 after the British withdrawal from Singapore.

Singapore was much different then but I do miss those days :-)

Fast Food Culture

I had an interesting water-cooler chat with a colleague this afternoon. Comfortably enthroned in our seats and in air-conditioned comfort, we started off chatting about courtesy, good manners and etiquette. I shared my earlier encounter with a discourteous person - not rude, though - and we agreed that this traditional and conservative (read: old and outdated) value is now so scarcely practised in our society.
Our lively chat took us to the fast-food culture in MacDonald's and KFC - not that it doesn't occur at Long John Silver or other fast-food outlets. I shared that many diners in Singapore do not deposit their leftovers in the bins provided nor return the trays to their assigned locations. I noted that there were letters in the Straits Times forum highlighting this anomaly, and that in western countries, the fast-food culture expects that the diners do their part; they do, of course.

My colleague shared that she used to return the tray and deposit the leftovers in the bin but stopped this practice when a family member told her that this was a bad practice because, if everyone of us did what the westerns did in their fast-food outlets, MacDonald's and KFC would employ fewer workers, and as a result, less people would find employment. Good-naturedly, we laughed. She asked whether patrons at hawker centres or food courts should therefore return their plates, utensils and leftovers to the proper receptacles?

To this, I explained that Singapore's food courts have a very different culture: there are no quick-deposit bins or tray centres but an army of lowly-paid cleaners diligently scour the endless rows of tables and systematically clear the crockery and utensils, and wiping the table 'clean' with a piece of dirty rag.

So, really, is there a need for us to clear our leftovers and table then?

However, my point is, when dining in a fast-food outlet, it is expected that we should return our trays and leftovers where they belong.

Won Over By Telco With Better Service

David Wong, vented his frustrations in the Forum Page of The Sunday Times on 6 July 2008.

He said, "After reading last Sunday's letter by Ms Pauline Quek, 'Indifferent local sales staff drove her to shop elsewhere', I would like to share my experience in dealing with two telcos.

I had been a SingTel mobile line user for 10 years, but as true number portability is now available, I wanted to shop around for the best deals. I visited a SingTel shop at Tampines Mall recently and was served by a young customer service officer.

Our exchange which lasted 30 seconds, went thus:

My question: "When is my contract due for renewal?"
Answer: "Already due."
Answer: "Is there any special discount or rate that you can offer your loyal customers?"
Answer: "No, the rates are all reflected here (in the leaflet). We do not have any loyalty programme."

Professional but cold service. I left and went to a Starhub shop in the same building.

In contrast, its service officer was very friendly He greeted me with a big smile, apologised for the long queue, and explained to me the rate plans and hubbing service very patiently. He even advised me not to switch operators if my contract was not due for renewal. I greatly appreciated his personal touch, so I made the switch to Starhub.

Companies must remember that, all other things (such as rate plans and coverage) being equal, good customer service can give them an edge over their competitors. Starhub won me over with its great customer service. I am sure I will be a loyal customer for many years to come."

Now, let me give you my take on what happened at a newly-opened Starhub retail outlet at Marina Square.

There was a short queue outside the shop because of its offers and special number promotion. I joined the queue and a young male service officer with a funny hairstyle - must be a part-timer, perhaps a poly student - approached me with flyers in hand. I explained that I was eyeing an special number and he asked me for the one in particular. When I asked if it was available, he told me I had to ask at the counter. I asked why he he had wasted my time asking and even circling the number in the flyer when he knew I had to ask at the counter? He walked away. Another young girl approached and asked which model of phone I was interested in. I pointed it out in the flyer and asked if it was still available. Yes, you've guessed it - she said I had to check with the counter staff!

I left the premises and walked back to the Starhub Roadshow at Basement 1, Raffles City. Here, a young male service officer in a Starhub t-shirt, patiently explained their Mobile Broadband services to me. I indicated that I was interested but in the next moment, he refered me to a scruffy-looking young man who was not in uniform, explaining that the administrative work would be handled by him. My protestations fell on deaf ears.

The second chap got me to verify my particulars and told me to sign at the relevant spots. Then he pushed the contract agreement and coldly told me to read it before signing. I thought this was stupid and mentioned it to him. A young girl in uniform then took over and with her broad smile, tried to defuse the situation. When she got me to verify the plan I wanted I discovered that they had recorded the wrong plan in my application form. I had already told the first service officer that he should not hand over my application to another chap, for, despite his briefing to the latter, I knew there would be mistakes. Indeed, it happened!

But she was different and more efficient - she ticked off 3 salient rules in the Agreement and explained these to me. She said that the others were not that important to take note of.

Well, she got my mobile plan rectified, and, with that broad smile on her face, she handed me my hardware - a Huawei mobile modem. The encounter must have taken 20-25 minutes in all.

My point is, are all Starhub's counter staff properly briefed and are they knowledgeable in the products and services offered. Why are there staff who are not in uniform?

Well, finally ...

You know what I did yesterday? I was down at Raffles City where the Starhub Roadshow was at its height. They occupied a hastily-builtup space next to Gloria Jeans Coffee, which by the way, offers a wide range of glorious coffee flavours and aromas for the soul. But that's not my point.

A couple of days prior, Jason Yek had met up with me for a late-evening coffee at a kopitiam near his place of abode. Poor chap had been working hard - who doesn't - and he wolfed down his $4 sambal fried rice while surfing my blog on his 6-month old NEC laptop and a Starhub Huawei mobile modem plugged into a USB port. That was my first encounter with mobile net-surfing using this device although I've had several opportunities surfing with my Wireless@SG account at their hotspots.

There were some minor snags when he tried to log on to the internet but once that was done, the process of downloading my blog became agonisingly slow - but of course, I had my coffee and he had time for his sambal fried rice. As we ranted and raved about mobile surfing - and in between spoonfuls of rice - Jason managed to add a few comments in my blog.

It must have been insidious because I was already sold on the mobile device long before I even reached home.

At Raffles City the next day, I signed up for Starhub's Mobile Surfing 2-year package at 50% off the normal price of $76 but this was because I subscribed to three of their services - viz., mobile phone, cable TV and broadband. I only had time to try out the device from 2pm today - it worked marvellously once the drivers were loaded and installed. So, I thought I should do justice to my new piece of technological wonder by writing about it. Besides, my first three pieces of writing have been obliterated and pushed to the bottom of the pile in my blog by the tonnes of pictures I had published.

Given the time, I would like to capture my thoughts, reflections and responses to everyday situations either at home or on the move. Technology is nothing short of a miracle; we should embrace it, not shun or fear it.