Wonderful is brief

Well, the Swedih saying that underbart e kort, or wonderful is brief, will unfortunately apply to my quick second stunt here in the blogging world.

I have found an amazing job that enables me to write stuff more or less all the time, and now my creativity is much more keen on going out to paraglide, dance or just hike around some random jungle. Sitting in front of the computer looses its charm in comparison.

Sorry about the communication halt, but please do stay in touch all wonderful people that replied me and keep me posted on your own activities! And let's not forget to Skype, What's app, text, call or meet up in real life. IRL is by far still my favorite. :-)

Much love to you all!
Peace & Sunshine

PS. I just have to say this, I googled quickly for images around "underbart e kort", which could also be directly translated to Wonderful is Short", and on top of my Google image search came lots and lots of Swedish dwarfs. I LOVE Sweden. We are one humorous nation that (most of the time) respects all people on all levels. Big Up! :D

Biking at Pulau Ubin

Boat uncle

Back in 2007 it was something of an adventure to go to Pukau Ubin. We started early in the morning, and after riding the MRT almost to the end, and then taking the bus another 26 stops, we reached something that was supposed to be a ferry terminal. There we had to wait for an eternity until the boat (or "floating vehicle" might be a better description) took us over to a tiny little island with a proper Kampong village life.
 

Hanna kamponging

Kampong is how Singaporeans lived back in the days, with wooden houses on pillars, no MRT or EPR (road toll). At Pulau Ubin, back in 2007, there was nothing to eat, see or do, but one could hassle with the locals to rent bikes and cycle around the island for a couple of hours.

Now we have entered the new and commercialized era of Singapore's history and probably also a new more comfortable level of living in my on personal history. Therefore The Pulau Ubin Adventure started with a comfortable taxi ride to the ferry terminal, that now really do looks like a ferry terminal. The boat was still a bit questionable, but that made the whole experience a bit more genuine. There was also absolutely no waiting time as there was lots of people everywhere. 

Sometimes knowing how to ride a bike is NOT something you remember your entire life.

Lots of people were also everywhere on the tiny little island. Forget about cycling around in no-mans-land. This is proper Singaporean park adventure: there are signs on where to go and what to do. For example what to take photographs of and  where to stop and look at the view. This is totally fine by me. Nature stays on it's on end, I get to enjoy my urbanized environment and we are somehow happily co-excisting.

Major minus on the island was the mad number of killer mosquitoes that was out in broad daylight. All blood suckers, including mosquito and vampires can only come out at night, that's a fact, so I don't know what was wrong with these little buggers. 

Messy food

Consu's first chili crab

Major plus on the island was an incredible seafood lunch. At a whopping $25/person we feasted on fresher than super fresh chili crab and pepper crab, fried baby squids, seafood fried rice and chicken noodles, oyster omelette, beers and more. And then we had ice cream before a relaxing fish reflexology session. 

Coming back to mainland we had ice-cream again, or well, some of us did, before heading off to do some sportswear outlet shopping (we all saw a need for this after sweating like mad for the entire day). Finally the entire gang had dinner at Cafe le Caire on Arab Street before heading home.

A great day, filled with everything you need; best friends, comfortable exercising, outdoorsy activities, excellent food, several ice-creams and some shopping on sale. 

Consu, Julia, Farhana, Alan, Hanna (photographer: Nima)

Girl's weekend in Bangkok

8 girls, with very varied background and personalities decided to do a weekend in Bangkok together. It could have been complete mayhem, but turned out really awesome.

Arriving Friday night after a long busy week at work, we started out in a relaxed manner at Clouds, a cozy outdoor bar close to our service apartment. Sipping on fruity cocktails it felt GOOD to be on vacation in Thailand.

In no particular preference of order, we all decided that in 48 hours we should do Thai massage, shop at the market, go clubbing, eat a Thai tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, shop at a mall carrying local designer brands, discover some wicked bars, get a mani-pedi, try the pool, relax, ride a tuktuk, try the street food and the local ice-cream (yes, that last one was suggested by me). After that we figured we could just see what happens.

 

Getting ready for clubbing.

Tuktuk for two? Surely six of us can fit. 

Shopping at the market

Local coconut ice-cream. YUM!

We really reall really wanted to steel it.

Successful shopping results

Got only a little bit tired towards the end...

All in all, Bangkok was fantastic! The fancy Thai dinner was incredible with exotic flavor bursts and creative combinations of known and unknown food. Clubbing was sweaty and sweet (free shots at the rooftop bar!). Thai massage was, well, it was painful and not exactly relaxing, but it was really really good. Mani-pedi, pool and relaxation was done at convenient time slots in between shopping and umbrella-drink sipping.

I'm allready excited about going back. Bangkok rocks!

Self inflicted pain

In Chinatown you can get a Chinese massage for the outstanding price of $50 for 60 minutes. Perfect!
If it wasn't for the pain caused.

Imagine a really small room in the middle of bustling Chinatown, and then place five plush armchairs (sitting comfortably during your foot reflexology is important), three back massage chairs, two bench-beds for full-body massage, and then a couple of flexible armchairs that can be turned into whatever you need them for. Fully booked this little SPA palace looks more like a wet market with a random mix of people piled up high and low wherever there is room.

Fully dressed and with a towel as a blanket I was placed on an improvised full body massage chair/table. Lowering my face down into that little hole I had to make a very conscious effort to breath only with my mouth. The chair/table smelled like hell and it didn't take long until I figured out why. The massage was seriously freaking painful. I was sweating stress- and anxiety hormones like crazy. It felt like I was the cattle next up in a butchery. Amazed by the masseur-uncle's ability just pinpoint the spots along my back that clearly were very unrelaxed, I was counting down the minutes doing breathing exercises to distract myself.

About 15 minutes into the massage the uncle politely asked "Mam', you pain?" I managed to squeal out a "yes, pain, pain-pain", underscoring that I was in a lot of pain. This was happily excepted with an "okay", and the massage went on. When I curled up backwards and almost fell of the bad because I was trying to balance out a finger that was poking my lower ribs out, the uncle laughed a little to himself and said something in Chinese that I can only assume was something like "wimp". They are supposed to be really good these deep, pressure point massages, and I did stick it out the entire hour.

Thankfully my massage was interrupted a number of times when people climbed over me to reach the washroom. I also had someone sitting down at my bed by my feet for a little while. And at some point my massage-uncle explained something that was happening along my spine by "drawing" and pointing at random places along my back and vividly discussing in Chinese with someone else.

Next time I'm doing a Swedish massage. For sure. Or maybe I should give it one more go... Maybe one gets used to the pain?

Hip hip HOORAY!

On April 23, 1988, my life got twice as good. I probably wasn't aware of it back then, but thing have become more and more clear as time goes by. My younger brother is the World's Best Brother!

My first and only sibling was supposed to arrive at the same time as the crocus that me and mum had planted when the baby was still baking inside the tummy. It was a great plan by my mother, with the exception that the flowers popped out way earlier than my brother, so in my view Filip was late. Turns out Filip was and still is a very relaxed person that likes to take his time.

I don't remember much of my brother as a baby, but once he learned how to move around a little and then later communicate it was starting to become fun. I took him out for walks on a leach (if you don't get a puppy you have to make due with what's available), introduced my dolls and stuffed animals to his action figures and stuffed animals, taught him how to make huts out of blankets and furniture as well as showed him how to bake chocolate balls. All of life's essentials.

In direct contrast to myself, Filip went straight from crawling to running. He was never ever ever still as a kid, and one of the most frequent phrases used was "Diddi also come along!" Diddi was Filip's own pronunciation of Filip, and it has sticked as a nick name. Turns out diddi actually means younger brother in Chinese, so in a way he was really ahead of his time. Filip also goes by the name of Filten, Filé, Fille, Janson, Pläden, Koalan and more.

Here in Asia, the most impressive thing about Filip is not his excellent poker skills ("owning" luck is serious shit in this part of the world) or his gastronomic interest (what Singaporean does not connect with another foodie?). Standing tall at just under 2 meters, he is about one head taller than me and I often get the question, "Wow, he's really tall, huh. How?" I'm not entirely sure if this is just a way to appreciate and give a compliment or if there is an honest question hidden in there, where the urge to be at least over 160cm takes over reason and when finding someone tall, you just have to ask - how did it happen.

Happy birthday Filip! Wish you were here and hope I get to see you soon!

Pre-work holiday in Bali

I have been to Bali twice. I'm not likely to go back.

There is nothing wrong with the little Australian Summer Paradise, it was just so darn dirty when I last visited. Kuta beach is know for surfing, hardcore haggling beach vendors and magic mushrooms. When I decided to spend a little vacation time in Indonesia, it was mainly my goal to get some surfing done that drove me to Bali. A mission that failed.

I land around 10pm, and take a cab to the hotel in Seminyak, the more upscale and quiet area just north of Kuta. Turns out it's new year's eve. Yes, once again it's a new year celebration. Bali does not follow the Western, Chinese or Persian calendar, they celebrates new year in March apparently. That meant that on my first day on vacation, it was strictly forbidden to leave the hotel compound. According to legend, the people of Bali scared the evil spirits away on new year's eve, and then hid themselves on the first day of the new year - tricking the evil spirits into thinking Bali was a deserted island. So on this day you are supposed to be still, quiet and not eat. Meditate and start the new year on a clean slate I guess. 

I spent half the day struggling with power adapters, computer dilemmas and lousy internet connection (sort of the opposite of meditation). The second half of the day I was happily sunbathing by the pool, making sure I did not miss last chance for food at 5.30 pm. TV was completely shut off this day and as it turned out most electricity as well. When the sun had set I went in to my villa and decided to read a book. Only a few pages into the story I get a call from the reception. 

"Sorry Miss, your room very bright, can you close the lights?"

"Yes, of course! Sorry, very sorry!"

"Thank you"

I switch off the lights. It was 7.30 pm and I went to bed.  

Next day we were all allowed outside and so I made full use of the opportunity and rented a car with a driver for the day. Cruising around the island we saw a volcano, a lake, many many temples, stopped for some sightseeing (art gallery and coffee that is) in Ubud, and checked out the impressive new-year statues and sculptures built out of papier-mache. These scary looking and often huge papier-mache monsters were made by the local boys and paraded through town on New Year's eve. 

According to a British guy that was traveling the world attending carnivals this particular event was entertaining but horribly bad organized. One could never be really sure of when those boys would be going around town, and therefor he had spent the entire day drinking bear looking at the street life that was now and then interrupted by a sporadic parade. He concluded that generally speaking the street life in Bali is not very exciting, the local bear taste better and better the more you drink and when locals say that something is local - it means it's local. 

Moving from Seminyak to Kuta for my last days on Bali I was hoping for some action. First stop: the beach. It took a long time and a minor sandstorm before I could successfully negotiate myself into a reasonable priced sunbed. Two garbage collecting trucks where going up and down the beach in a vain attempt to rid our sun-kissed view of cigarette buts, picnic left overs and other trash. So far so good. Minus the sandstorm. Then I hit the water. And then I get straight back up. I had plastic bags around my legs, empty bottles hitting my waist and all kinds of general shit floating around ALL OVER. It was like going for a swim in a sewage. Yuk. Bye-bye surfing plans.

Action is now instead sourced at night. Trying my luck, ehrm, at the pubs and disco's around town, I quickly realized why magic mushrooms are legal. You need them to survive the crappy nightlife. To be fair I am probably around ten years too old, alternatively 30 years too young, to fit the target audience of Bali-lovers. Well, it just wasn't a lot of fun. Plus the ice-cream places were not that good as well.

'Nuff said. Next holiday: New York. *fingers crossed* or maybe Thailand. 

Russians and Tarzan

On my second week at work, the company took me and most of the other people in our office, including the sales teams around South East Asia to Pattaya in Thailand. The plan was to host a product launch and a sales conference as well as enjoying an internal gala dinner and some teambuilding. My prior knowledge of what one can find in Pattaya was limited to strippers and drunken Scandinavians. So I found Pattaya to be an interesting choice of location for a company event.

Arriving in Pattaya I spent 98,5% of my time within the compound of the very nice hotel (busy organizing the different events), and it is therefor difficult to accurately comment on the availability of strippers and drunken Scandinavians. However we did drive through town on one occasion, and passing by some sort of hawker center (food center), I noticed that each table had a stripper pole, complete with a lady and all. In conclusion I think it is fare to say that the strippers are definitely easily available.

Drunken Scandinavian encounters was limited to a single meeting which surprisingly took place in my own hotel room. I had just got back to my room after a long, hard working day. Stepping out of my clothes and getting ready for bed I headed for the loo when a tipsy and haggard looking Scandinavian suddenly seams to come out of the bathroom at the same time as I try to go inside. I stop completely and immediately, thinking with a growing panic, that I have entered and got undressed in the wrong room! The other person, thankfully a girl, seem to be going though the exact same thought process and surprise. And so I realize the bathroom door is a full size mirror. The cleaning lady had closed the door, and in my weary state of mind I kind of missed the mirror and thought it was just another corner of the room.

Magic Howard entertaining at Gala Dinner

If Scandinavians were absent, that is the least one can say about Russians. Them pale maffiosos were all over the place. Most of them speaking to me, in Russian naturally, and when I say speak I mean having long conversations with me - completely ignoring my "I'm sorry, I'm not... I don't actually..." "Not Russian. No understand...." etc. They were also doing interesting lap-dances in the pool and staring each other down on the beach. Coming from Europe (trendy) and Asia (somewhat modest), I also found the Russian fashion display outstanding! Tackiness hit new levels and when seriously fat men in zebra striped, minimal, swimming trunks walked by, I had to intensively control my urge to snap a picture.

Highlight of the Pattaya trip was with no doubt Flight of the Gibbon. A zipline canopy tour through the jungle of Thailand. With 24 stations we zipped between trees high, high, and very very high up in the air. Twice we also zipped vertically straight down, which was more scary but cool. The last zipline was over 300 meters long and really nice, especially due to special effects by the windy weather. Interesting to notice was that even if the special sound effects mainly came from the younger female members, the general fear of heights and extended tree-hugging sessions at the different platforms mainly hit our older male members. Us inbetweeners, age-wise in between that is, happily throw ourselves out in the jungle roof with the same ease and graze as Tarzan & Jane.