Surfing The Channel

Archive for December, 2009

Singapore has many options for balmy night tours through the city.  One that is fun for the entire family is the Night Time Safari at the Singapore Zoo, which is a tour through the lives of the nocturnal animal’s world, and then followed up by some very fine cuisine.  Another option is the Clarke Quay night cruise which starts with a fine dining meal served by one of the finest of hotels in Singapore, The Raffles.  But one that grabbed my attention, and the one that we ended up taking was the nighttime tour of Chinatown, on a trishaw.

This was the perfect tour, as it was just the two us, and our guide pedalling along the streets of this ancient and beautiful neighborhood of Singapore.   We went through the Night Market of Chinatown, and had an incredibly delicious meal at one of the restaurants.  Soft shelled crabs, Kampong fried rice with prawns, a fish fillet with sweet and sour sauce, and mushroom soup…incredible.  Our driver even ate with us and told us stories of times past and the characters he has had in his trishaw before.

Then we headed to the docks of the Singapore river, where our tour continued down the river on a cargo boat, a very old cargo boat.  This was an amazing way to capture the spirit and the history of the city and of the people.  We experienced some of the master works of calligraphy at the Yong Gallery, and had our names scripted on red fans, that were given to us compliments of our hosts.  As we wandered through those narrow streets of Chinatown, we took in the vibe and nature of markets and the every night way of life for these talented Singaporean artists and artisans.  The hustle and bustle, the trishaw ride, our fabulous driver, and the colorful streets…this was our kind of tour, and one that we will never forget.

When the long winters start to get a little too long, people start to miss the pleasures of summer.  It’s impossible to change the weather, but it’s possible to daydream.  The memories of the summer that just passed is always the freshest, and it seems like the last fresh cut lawn is something you can even smell, if you think about it long enough.  Even if the lawn is now covered with snow and ice, those sweet days where the sunlight seemed to last forever are always still lingering.  Of course, living by the flow of the seasons means participating in the natural processes of life and nature, but there are always ways of making things a little bit sweeter.

With barbecue islands, and all the pleasures they have to offer on those long summer nights, there is another means of getting into the flow of things, and shaking things up a little.  You might be tempted to switch on the grill again, even in the middle of winter, to get a taste of the smells of summer.  But the truth is, you really can have a taste of summer in the middle of the coldest part of the year when you have an outdoor kitchen in your yard.  They’re a spectacular way to bring some new life to a long and cold season, and it certainly brightens up any meal.

The taste of freshly grilled food is always a pleasure, and it doesn’t just have to be reserved for one season.  With a little careful planning, you can hook it up so that your grill is available throughout the year.  Even in the coldest months, in the coldest parts of the country, it’s possible to add that fantastic grill flavor to any kind of meat or vegetable.  You don’t have to spend hours by the grill, and if you time it with a little care, it’s a matter of running out to flip it, which is much less time than you spend waiting for a bus.  The payoffs are obvious, and much the same as the payoffs during the summer.  Your guests will adore you in the summer, and in the winter, they might decide to make you a saint.

Bill wasn’t expecting to have such a great time in New York. It’s not that he wasn’t aware of some of the spectacular elements of the city, it’s just that he was accompanying his wife, Amy and her good friend Kim whom she hadn’t seen in a couple of years. He was expecting the two women to be completely preoccupied with each other and off on their own adventures and Bill was slightly anticipating spending a lot of alone time in a city of over nine million people. Poor guy, Amy accused him of pouting and feeling sorry for himself on the days leading up to the trip. At best Bill was anticipating getting to take care of the women and sort of being a taxi hailer or even a late night security force. He even had to stay in his own room in the USA hotel New York while the two women shared one.

So, everything looked like it was going to be going against Bill as they left the airport and headed to their resort. However, as he looked out at the city and all the people around him he began to forget all of the reasons he didn’t want to be there and was simply fascinated with an interested in what he saw. And as was expected, the two women were talking and laughing non stop. When they got to their room, Bill started looking through the brochures of Broadway plays and other local attractions. Kim suggested they see a performance of the musical Wicked. That was it, Bill decided, things were going down hill from there.

He reluctantly agreed to go with the woman and on the night of the performance the three off them sat in their seats at the Gershwin Theatre and immediately a major transformation occurred. It was almost as if Bill turned into a child right before the women’s eyes. He absolutely loved the musical and was caught up in all of the characters and the story. He couldn’t believe all of the detail behind the unknown back story of the Wizard of Oz. Bill loved the musical even more than the women and couldn’t stop talking about it all night. In fact, after that, he was one of the three and they all had a great time during the remainder of their stay.