Food Explorations

As many of you may or may not know, Singapore is a foodie haven. Unfortunately, as Jon and I are not quite as fluent in any Chinese languages as we would like to be (resulting in not quite knowing what is in the dishes we are ordering) and in a country that have things like "Pig Organ Soup" we have not been quite as adventurous in our culinary ventures as we would like. We were lucky enough, however, to find the latest copy of the Makansutra (a guide to hawker eating in Singapore) which comes complete with descriptions of the different dishes, and a rating of the best restaurants in the city. As the smoke in the air from Indonesia is currently making it very difficult to do much in the way of outdoor activities (it is the worst it has been since '96, and nearing dangerous levels where they might have had to shut the city down) we thought today would be a good day to make use of this guide and go on a Chinese gastronomic adventure!

First on our list of places to try was Lim Chee Guan, the city's expert in Chinese BBQ. Being our first venture into this new world, it was comforting to arrive and find a decent sized line outside the store. We knew we were looking for Bak Kwa, but watched everyone else none the less to find out what the most popular items for sale were. We ended up with BBQ beef (which was still hot off the smoker) and BBQ Chili Pork. They were both a bit sweet, with the BBQ having a more distinct smoky taste (which I personally preferred). So far, so good!

After wandering around Smith Street (which is essentially Chinese Food Street - not sure why they haven't given it some more authentic name. Ginger Beef Street perhaps?) for a while and stopping for a bowl of noodles at my favorite noodle place, we finally figured out that all the rest of the hawkers on our list were in fact located in the Chinatown Complex at the end of the street. This is a huge shopping area underneath an apartment complex, with the second floor containing the biggest hawker center in Chinatown. Having arrived at our destination, we made a bee line for a place which specializes in Ah Boling (dessert-like glutinous rice balls). The stand, Hai Seng Ah-Balling, makes theirs with 5 different fillings (we think they were yam, durian, sesame, red bean paste and peanut) and served them in a sweet peanut broth which tasted almost like a sweet, peanut tea. It was surprisingly good, with the durian ranking number one in my books and sesame number one in Jon's.

NOTE to Christine and Lance: These were very similar to those things you buy from superstore, but 100x better! Even Jon said "Your mom and dad would love these!"

Next, we had some Satay. We have had this before on a number of occasions, but it is a new favorite of ours (we have even been trying to make it at home with some success) so I thought, why not try some that is rated as "die, die, must try" in the Makansutra? It was excellent, easily the best we have had since we arrived on this continent (including the one we tried in the homeland of Satay - Malaysia). It was a bit smoky from being cooked over the fire, but wonderfully juicy. The sauce was served warm and had the perfect degree of spice to make you notice its presence. Sadly, I was too excited to remember to take a picture of the food itself, but should you find yourself in Singapore, please make your way to the Chinatown Complex level two and find Shi Xiang Satay.

By this point, we were really starting the feel the bloat from eating so much delightful, but heavy, Chinese food so we opted to cut our list of 12 new dishes to try down to 5 and save the rest for later. Number three on that list was Char Siew Bao from Hong Kong Mongkok Tim Sum, which many of you may have tried back home as part of a Dim Sum meal. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a bun made of very soft, fluffy dough which is stuffed with BBQ (pork in this case) and steamed to cook. The dough it slightly sweet, as is the pork. It makes an interesting taste sensation. I liked the dough, but was not such a fan of the degree of sweetness in the BBQ and would like it more if it was chicken of beef, I think. Jon disagreed with me and counts this dish as his favorite of the day. I think we both agreed it was something that we would consider having again for lunch and were gad we tried.

Last but not least, we ended our adventure with another dessert from 115 Tang Shui. We were very glad for the Makansutra in this instance because it is one of those scary places that has a name written only in Chinese letters, with bubbling vats on the front counter. We would never have been so brave to try anything from here had it not been for this trusty guide. As it were, the hot walnut cream (which is a specialty of the gentleman who runs the place) was amazing. Slightly sweet with an amazing creamy texture and an (excuse my gushing) almost fragrant walnut essence, it was my new Singapore addiction. Mmm, mmm!

It was a great day, one of my favorites we have had in Singapore itself so far, and nice to know that we are (if slowly and starting with sweets) branching out in our meals. Next time we are going to get into some of the most scary sounding stuff (Hor Mee, Sang Mee, Sa Kay Ma) and will update as we go!

Much love,

Kaela and Jon

Born-izzo Part tres: Bako madness

Here goes the final installment chronicling our week in Borneo, late as usual. After our time in the long house, we made our way by car, bus and river boat to the awesome Bako National Park.

Our adventure began quicker than we had expected on the river boat ride to the park. The South China Sea was a little stormy that day and before I knew it, I was soaked by spray from the quite large waves we were rolling over. Kaela, being on the leeward side of the boat, managed to make the journey completely dry. At least the water was warm. The boat ride finished, we pulled in to the park headquarters dock in the middle of a mangrove swamp surrounded by dramatic limestone cliffs and thick jungle.

The park headquarters consists of a mediocre cafeteria, a handful of chalet rooms and dorms and a fenced area for camping, all facing a long white sand beach with the jungle behind them. Within a couple of hours of arriving, we had already seen a wild bearded pig, a good sized monitor lizard, a huge troop of long-tailed macaques, and even a family of proboscis monkeys.

The proboscis monkeys were really cool to watch leaping through the trees and we managed to watched them for a while up close when they would move through some of the lower branches on the beach.

The macaques on the other hand, were fun to watch for about 2 minutes until we realized how much of a pain in the ass they really were. The people running the cafeteria had to spend all their waking hours guarding the guests and their food with slingshots. Not to be deterred though, the one of the sneakier monkeys managed to grab Kaela's muffin and toss her noodles all over the place in the process. After that, we stayed vigilant and always ate with a flip-flop in one hand to threaten the monkeys who would eye our food. We weren't even allowed to set up our tent until sunset, when the monkeys settle down for bed, because otherwise they have been known to explore people's tents with their claws and teeth.

Our first evening there was pretty uneventful, we went for a short walk before dinner and saw a couple of pit vipers sleeping in the trees and a flying lemur (colugo) which was pretty cool.

The next day our plan was to hike across the park (the map said 8 hrs), camp on the beach, then hike back the next day. In reality, it did not go so smooth.

The day started great, about 4 km in was a great waterfall that we stopped at for a while. We lounged around and let the sweat dry on our clothes.

Partly it was due to a late start and lots of breaks but mostly I think it was that we underestimated how tiring hiking in heat and humidity could be, especially with backpacks not made for backpacking, but at around 2 pm we hit our point of no return and decided that we would have to really really rush to make it to our beach before dark so we thought 'why not go instead to a closer beach just 20 min away and still have time to relax in the sun.' 20 minutes turned into an hour and it turned out that after a kilometer of steep, treacherous trail to get to the beach you had to navigate through some impenetrable mangrove that becomes flooded at high tide (and possibly crocodile infested). Needless to say, we didn't make it to the beach.

By this time it was too late to push on to our original destination, so we were forced to trudge back to park headquarters. We ended up getting back just before dark anyways and were super disappointed that our plans had failed so hard. After a week of lugging around our packs full of camping gear for that one night on the beach, we were not happy to be back at the headquarters. Upon waking the next morning to pouring rain, however, we realized that it may have been for the best that we didn't make it as the return trip would have been exponentially difficult had the paths been soggy.

Looking back, it was well worth it to go to Bako national park. It is a very interesting place, with so many different landscapes and environments, and all of them are filled with crazy and endangered animals.

Born-izzo Part 2: Tribal Life (with satellites)

Hello once again comrades,

Jonathan and I wanted to overload you with pictures and stories about our trip to Borneo, so we thought we would do a couple of different blog posts to maximize the media potential. The suspense is just tantalizing, isn't it? After our adventures

with the Orang Utans, we headed out of Kuching in a southerly direction to the Annah Rais Longhouse (a traditional longhouse where you have many families living all along a walkway, with each family having a room built off the walk way. And they almost all had satellite TV).

We were picked up by the very energetic Mr.Simon from our hostel in Kuching - The Three House B&B, for anyone who is interested; the owner, Bindi, was really great and the place was a decent value - at 8:00am, and arrived (after a few stops for jungle shoes and some cash) at the long house at approximately 10:00am. We were immediately loaded up with water, and sent out on our first hike. The guide (I am terrible - I can't remember his name for the life of me!) was amazing; along the way he told us incredible stories about the area. He told us that his uncle had shot the last leopard in the area some years before and showed us the spot it had happened (it had apparently attacked him), and about the week long trips into Kuching by boat his parents had made previous to the 1960's when missionaries built a road to the longhouse. He was so

knowledgeable about the areas history as well as the flora. He cut us down some wild ginger and young bamboo shoot to have the lady of the homestay make us for dinner, as well as a small snack of sugarcane when we were losing steam.

The hike itself was around 5km, but 3/4 of it was straight uphill, and the last 1/4 went right back down. It wasn't too difficult by any means (our guide had taken a 70 year old woman up a few weeks previous) but with the heat and humidity, it made it a little bit more tough that we had thought it was going to be. It was absolutely beautiful, walking through the dense jungle and over wooden bamboo bridges most of the way. It was sad to see some of the 'organic garden' areas (all slash and burn agriculture) but easy to see that there just are not a lot of other options for these villagers. Most of what is grown is consumed by the family that owns the plot, with the rest going into Kuching to be sold, and as such at the moment the chunks missing are not overwhelmingly large. It does make one think, though, about the importance of finding a more sustainable solution as a potential future thesis for those of us (me) who have an interest in environmental science. Less bitchin' more action! Am I right?

...Off my high horse and back to the story; 4 Litres of water later, we arrived at an amazing three tiered waterfall in the middle of the jungle. We immediately stripped down and hopped in as our guide (I still can't believe I can't remember his name) made us lunch.

The next morning, we woke once again to do a shorter walk (probably only around 2-3 km) to a natural hot spring in the area. We were led by Rambo, a quiet but very cool local guy, who, once again made us lunch as we went bathing in the springs.

He made us the local specialty, Bamboo Chicken. This chicken is thrown, along with a number of spices (wild ginger, pandan leaf, garlic etc.) and some water, into a piece of bamboo. A leaf is then stuffed into the end of the bamboo as a sort of lid, and it is thrown over an open fire for a while to cook. The chicken comes out succulent and delightfully spiced...served over bamboo rice (rice cooked in, you guessed it, bamboo!), it was an excellent meal. Probably the best we had in Sarawak.

After lunch, on our way back to the long house Rambo asked us if we wanted to cool off. Always up to an adventure (and sweating like pigs), we of course said yes, please! So off we went to a little swimming hole that was, miraculously, empty! We swung off of vines into the cool water, and Jon and Rambo both climbed up into the canopy (I was the fearless camera woman) for a little hang sesh.

While we were lazing about, Rambo told us about the band he is in; there are a couple of ethnic instruments that have been all but lost in the Bidayuh community, and there is a group of about seven musicians that are trying to bring them back into awareness. Rambo being one of these seven, as well as his uncle Arthur. He informed us that Arthur (the head of the band) was going to be giving us a private lesson on this instrument, the Pingasan'k (a type of bamboo zither). This lesson ended up being yet another highlight of our trip to the longhouse! He played a number of traditional songs for us, and then let us try our hand at the huge instrument. Never let it be said that we are musically inclined! It was a laugh sitting with him as he patiently explained to us again and again where exactly we were supposed to hit the instrument. We made some progress, and I think Arthur was proud in the end. We sat and spoke with him late into the evening as he told us about the near loss of the instrument, and how much effort he and the other players are putting into reviving it. He told us about their experience sharing techniques with musicians from around the world as they continue to try and improve this century old technology, while still staying true to the tradition in which it was born.