So we found the escalators...

Wowzers! There actually are escalators that go up the hills!

The Central-Mid-Levels escalators go from near the waterfront all the way up past SoHo (a trendy restaurant and bar area that popped up due to the easy access from the escalators going by). In the pic, you can see me about to get on near the bottom of the hill where moving walkways will bring me up the first part, but when it gets steeper, escalators prevail.

The whole series of escalators are reversible: they go down during morning rush hour and then up for the rest of the day until midnight when they stop. What a neat way to move people around the city!

Dumplings with Ivana

Due to some small amount of fortune, we managed to meet up with Ivana
in Singapore on our way back to Hong Kong. It was nice to see a
familiar face after four weeks on the road. We proceeded to take her
on a mini-culinary tour of the Orchard road food courts. With three
people we could share/eat more. The first stop was Ambush, my
favourite Italian-Asia fusion restaurant/booth, in the basement of
Takashimaya (try the wild salmon with thai basil tomato sauce). We
moved on to banana leaf rice wraps, asia carrot cake (made of neither
carrot nor cake), and a pizza cone. Yes, a pizza cone, it tastes just
like it sounds. Since Takashimaya was closing, we went across the
street to the new Paragon mall for some fantastic dumplings. These are
hand made on site by an army of white clad chefs (you can see one here
in the background).

Where is the escalator?

When we visited Hong Kong during our 8 hour layover on the way over,
we realize now we were actually taken into Kowloon to look at the view
of the hilly Hong Kong Island. Now we are staying on that hilly
island, and to find our hotel, we used the method of steepest ascent
(we actually overshot our hotel and had to descend a bit down a side
road...thank goodness for the gps on our iPhones so we could check our
navigation).

The stairs just go on and on. Residents must be fit.

Dragonboating in Singapore

During the club crews, the manager from the dragon boat club of the
Canadian Association of Singapore invited all Canadian team members to
come dragon boat with them in Singapore. Although we made our
Singapore plans last minute and had only one night available in
Singapore, we were super lucky and that turned out to be their
alternate practice day for people who had to miss one of the other 2
weekly practices.

The team there is a fun, multi-national team. In fact, we were the
only Canadians out, of the 11 of us paddling. The other 9 represented
8 different countries, and we were told that the full team had members
from 21 countries, and just over 10% of the team is Canadian.

The team practices until dusk, then hauls their BuK boat back out of
the water and pulls out the ice chest full of beer and water. We got a
group photo at this point, but I haven't got it off my camera yet.
Instead, here is Aaron at the boat shed pre-paddle. Notice the maple
leaf on the non-CSA-approved life vest.

Nothing to declare

As I walk through the customs green lanes, I always imagine scenarios
where someone has slipped drugs into my bag or I have accidentally
bought something made of crocodile and sea turtle. Then I'd wonder
how I would deal with getting caught (I worried about this even before
Bridget Jones). Singapore has the death penalty for drug trafficking,
and my nerves are always on high alert through customs there.

We flew into Singapore from Thailand, and given the free wifi in their
fabulous airport, we poked around a bit in the terminal before going
to fetch our luggage. The carousal was almost empty by the time we got
there, and my bag was lying on the floor at the end while Aaron's
continued to circle.

Having other thoughts in my mind, I actually didn't think about this
or the worries of the green lane, and so of course this time I was
pulled over, before even starting through it. The customs officer
asked me if I had anything to declare (no) and then took my bag for x-
ray. Three officers were now involved, not that there was anybody else
around for them to inspect, and they asked what I had that was metal
and circular in the top of my bag. I could only think of my funnel and
they asked me to show them.

The crappy headlamp we bought (and didn't need) for viewing the Borneo
bat-dung caves was (as always) turned on, so that a red glow filtered
through the top of my bag. It must scare the baggage handlers a bit
when a bag suddenly has LED lights go on. I pulled out my little
electronics bag to turn it off, but the agents took the bag from me to
xray separately. As I fumbled around looking for my funnel, worrying
that they thought I was hiding a bomb, they were very interested in
the contents of that bag and started pulling out my battery charger,
iPhone USB charger, and various cables. They got more excited as they
neared the bottom and pulled out... my three bronze medals.

I breathed a sigh of relief. One asked "olympics?". I guess that they
thought they might be Olympic Medals and therefore valuable. They were
all smiling though when I said they were from the dragon boat world
championships and one asked "what country?" Then they congratulated
and apologized to Aaron (!) and we left.

So, the medals catch even the eyes of customs officers. :)

a pretty girl and her pancakes

One of the great things about Asia are the roadside vendors selling exotic fried/bbqed/burnt/boiled/raw foodstuffs. Most of which you wouldn't dare eat. However a safe bet are the crepe stands, which I imagine are a result of some French-Vietnam influence on the area. Here is Megan waiting in line for for a nutella and banana stuffed crepe (60 baht, or 2 CAD).

Phuket, thailand

Sorry for the length between blog posts. We've been on Thailand time,
where nothing ever gets done. In the photo is the light and sound
fountain show in the courtyard of Patong Beach's (on Phuket Island)
shiny new mall. The flower is being projected onto the misting water.

The fountain show reminded me of Vegas, and in many ways, Patong Beach
is like Las Vegas. There is a veneer of carefree vacationing painted
over a seedier party zone atmosphere.

We were ready to leave Asia and come home after our diving trip, but
our tickets are set for the 29th from Singapore to Hong Kong and the
5th from Hong Kong home. We tried changing the dates, but Cathay is
super busy and all booked up through mid sept. For some reason, there
are a bunch of Canadians in China right now who want to come home ;).

So, given that we blew our accommodation budget at the dive resort, we
thought of the cheap hotels in Thailand and right away made plans for
a week of beach sitting there. Our hotel was cheaper than expected
($20/night with ensuite, hot water, satelite tv, and a comfy bed)
since it is the low (monsoon) season in Phuket now. That was a nice
change from the high season we've seen everywhere else, but it did
rain almost everyday.

We were still able to get in some body surfing and sitting under an
umbrella on the beach reading trashy books. There was a couple minutes
of huddling under the umbrella trying not to get wet, and although
many people scampered away, we rode it out and were rewarded with a
second umbrella, which was good for addad sun protection when the rain
stopped.

In the day, the beach is the focal point if the town, but at night,
there are scores of bars and nightclubs that open. We were pretty
creeped out by the number of fat old white guys walking around with
young Thai "girlfriends" and the "massage parlours" with women outside
who didn't look strong enough to give a Thai massage. There were some
places where the women did look like they could give massages all day,
so you could tell the difference. The pharmacies offered a prominent
shelf with an array of condoms and pregnancy tests.

We didn't try any of the bars and we were happy that the low season
kept it relatively quiet where we were at the end of the strip. I can
imagine I would have been in heaven here when I was 19, but although
we did some excellent eating and relaxing, I would likely try a
different beach if I were to go back to Thailand again.