MOON CAKES & MALAYSIA

When mid-August festival rolls around, it can only mean one thing. Yes, you guessed it, MOONCAKES of course !!! I had heard about these unique creations before coming here and was really looking forward to trying them out.

The most traditional moon cakes are filled with lotus-bean paste and sometimes a cooked egg yolk in the centre. These days, everyone tries to out do each other by coming up with new and interesting fillings. The daily newspaper had a full-colour, eight-page special insert announcing all of the various up-scale moon cakes available from the major hotels this year. What ever the filling, it tends to be very thick and pasty, slightly sweet, dense and incredibly rich. Though one cake will fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, they are so rich that it's difficult to eat more than one at a sitting.

I started with the traditional baked moon cake, purchased from a tiny little bakery around the corner from my apartment that has been making them in the old-fashioned way for decades. This little assortment of 8 (an auspicious number for the Chinese) cost $13.80 and were all delicious, with the exeption of the coffee-flavoured one. Bleagh !I also wanted to try Snowskin Moon Cakes from one of the big hotels. These are an unbaked cake and are wrapped in paste similar to marzipan, but mostly tasteless. I asked Justin, a Chinese friend and self-confessed moon cake junkie, which hotel he thought did the best snow skin cake. Without hesitation, he replied, "Raffles". Though Raffles did introduce a durian filled cake this year (shudder), I opted for the the champagne and white chocolate ganache.
A box of these pristine-white beauties costs $60, but OMG what a mouthful. Click the link below for a review from a local blogger who has had more moon cake experience than I....

http://sparklette.net/food/raffles-hotel-mooncake/

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I decided it was time to start taking advantage of the corner of the world I'm living in, so on a whim, I booked myself an overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur (or "KL" as it's referred to here) for my day off. A mere one-hour flight and something different from the beach on my beloved Bintan.

Why can't all airports be designed like Changi in Singapore?

The city centre of KL reminded me a lot of parts of New York City. Masses of people, traffic, noise, stink, blinding lights, hookers, tourists and a great, glorious chaos that first overwhelms then intoxicates you.

Through the Internet, I stumbled across a fantastic little boutique hotel on a quiet(ish) street just a few blocks from city center. Only 18 very lovely rooms surrounding a central courtyard, with an outdoor, rooftop breakfast/bar area. My stunning mini-suite with private balcony and hand-carved teak furniture cost 600 Malaysian Ringgit for the night. A fortune to the average Malaysian. Just under $200 Canadian.

Since my time was limited, I stayed away from the usual tourist sights and opted instead to just 'live' in the city. I walked, ....a lot. I ate, (delicious Nasi Lemak & Thai Laksa )shopped, had a massage, napped, and spent a huge amount of time people watching and drinking in the manic energy of the place.

Old KL

New KL
Inside a massive luxury shopping mall

This place gives new meaning to the words
Cocktail Lounge

Bet'cha didn't know they made THIS flavour
(And, F.Y.I., they're disgusting)

Bet'cha didn't know they made THIS flavour either

I love breakfast in a tropical country

My cup of blast-off-Americano-style coffee automatically comes with
fresh fruits and a glass of fresh mango juice.

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My apartment in Singapore is very near The National Museum and The Singapore Art Museum. These two institutions have created an annual event called Voyage Night Festival during which they throw open their doors late into the night allowing free entry. The park on the well-manicured grounds of The Singapore Management University which separates the two institutions becomes the fairground and is filled with live music, food stalls and events large and small. One of the star attractions this year is a performance art piece, Corazon de Angeles in Paradise by a group from Belgium called Theater Tol. The piece involved actors, dancers, singers and musicians, lots of white helium balloons, mountains of glitter, songs in a myriad of languages and two gigantic cranes that lifted the performers high into the night sky. Though the story line was sometimes hard to follow, riffing on themes of cross-cultural marriage and love, the show was evocative and visually stunning and included some heart-rendingly beautiful music.

On an ordinary night, we wouldn't have been able to see the performance because we'd still be doing our own show, but a heavy rain pushed the show back by a few hours. The videos below will give you a small taste of the experience.

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LION KING SINGAPORE TURNS 200 !!

HELLO MICHAEL, GOODBYE GIUSEPPE

Michael finally made the long, loooong journey to this side of world for a whirl-wind visit, which included a week spent on his own in Malaysia where he got his SCUBA certification.

Though we only had a short time together in Singapore, we made the most of it. I dragged him, willingly, along to all my favourite neighborhoods and haunts. Shopping, eating, sight-seeing, eating, drinking, eating, lounging, drinking, eating....it was exhausting and so much fun.

Michael shopping at a "departmental store"

Wild Boar Ham with Pecorino

Beer break in The Arab Quarter

Fresh taglitelle with Marsala sauce and truffles

Sunset Cocktails

Michael's new favourite breakfast from Wild Honey
Mango-stuffed French Toast

The furniture room of the Dali exhibit
at The Art Science Museum, Marina Bay Sands

Natalie Wood joined for dinner at Graze

Michael is back home now, slowly recovering from the jet-lag and the massive food and alcohol intake.


Our dear Head of Wigs & Make-up, Giuseppe, has left us. He is now in London starting his new job as Head of Wigs & Make-up for The National Theatre. On his last day, there was a small pot-luck dinner for him in the make-up room between shows.

Lou & Giuseppe using wig lace to dust the pavlova with icing sugar.
How's that for ingenuity?
Lou makes the best pavlova on the planet. I devoured a huge piece just before my big solo number in Act I. Not the smartest decision, but certainly the tastiest.

Rowena's cake masterpiece

Lyall put together a fantastic farewell video for Giuseppe. He spent days collecting photos and taking videos of people saying their goodbyes. He then spent the entire weekend editing in the dressing room between scenes.

The tissue in the ear is to keep the earphone from getting covered in blue make-up!

Ciao Giuseppe
We will miss his antics almost as much as we will miss his plentiful opinions.

Even with Giuseppe's departure, and the various other comings and goings of people on vacation or away from the show due to injury or illness, backstage life continues to be a never-ending circus.

Jamie (Timon) has gone soccer-mad and the outside of his dressing room is starting to look like a sports bar.


I found a pair of sunglasses on Rowena's make-up table and decided they'd be useful for a bit of Sunday night silliness backstage.

I couldn't resist this pic of the ever-useful backstage shopping cart.

Emma, our physio, has this pic on the wall in her treatment room.
Lion cub sleeps with meerkat.

As well as the backstage entertainment, Singapore continues to entertain me in all kinds of ways. There's a 'bird man' who sometimes hangs out on the mall in front of a Bhuddist temple near my house. He usually has love-birds and small parrots who happily sit on top of thier cages chattering at pedestrians.


Always remember, Singapore is the land of "NO". No smoking, no jaywalking, no spitting, no durian-eating and, in the case of the universal bar sign below, a very specific "NO".

SUPER-HYPER-MEGA-POST

I have a folder on my desktop into which I dump data that I think might make an interesting blog post. Every now and then, I dig through it and see if there's enough raw material there from which to mine some gold. Often, while digging, I think, "Well, that may have been interesting to me, but who the hell else cares?" On the other hand, I do sometimes pass things over but keep them in the file for later use. I decided it was time to clean out my iPhone and my blog folder, so this post is really a smorgasbord, a collage of people, places and events that could answer the question, "So, what else is going on?"

Here they are in no particular order...

Though it's not always particularly funny to me, there are people that think it's hilarious that I can't go for a pee in my costume. Though the designers did put zippers in what would, technically, be considered to be in the right places, the geography simply doesn't work. (I'll spare you the details of the mess I've made perched over the toilet like a confused giraffe at a watering hole). I've learned that I have to hydrate all day and then ration my water during the show.

Thomas (stage management) and Vero (wardrobe) found it unbearably funny that I would sometimes need to pee through the whole of Act 1, and began making all sorts of jokes about getting me some incontinence underwear. They would appear in the wings waving toilet paper at me and squeezing their knees together. One night, I came into the dressing room and the ceiling was full of disposable underwear hanging from the acoustic tiles (and they're still there). On another night, I found mini-me on a mountain of toilet paper.

Scar & Zazu normally preside over our shared counter space..

I arrived one night to find Scar sitting on his throne...

I, of course, fought back, unravelling an entire roll of toilet paper into Thomas' backpack. Thomas retaliated by leaving me a plastic training-potty for kiddies. Green. And shaped like a seal. I plotted my revenge which will be revealed below.

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We have several people from Paris working on the production. I was feeling the need to cook so I invited some of the Frenchies for dinner, promising them an authentic Coq au Vin. This meant that I had to shop for coq. (Please begin with all double-entredres now because it's only going to get worse). True Coq au Vin is usually made from old coq, which is why it needs to soak in wine and cook slowly. I asked my current make-up artist, Ramya, who is Tamil, if the wet market at Tekka would be a good place to find a coq. She said that it would, and that it would be fresh.

The problem, as always, comes down to language. The Indian butchers didn't understand the word "coq", and "rooster" drew similar blank stares and rapid conversations in languages I don't understand. The only thing that made sense to them was "boy chicken". (Again, feel free to indulge in one-liners). I eventually got what I was looking for and, though I was assured that it was fresh, it's age remains a mystery.

If you ever want to make a group of French people happy, just serve them some French country cooking and finish the meal with a huge platter of stinky cheese. I have never seen people's eyes get so wide with delight. "Stinky cheese", they cried in accented unison as they descended on the platter like starving wolves.

The French Mafia for dinner
Vero, Thomas, Charlie and me

Oh, and the aforementioned revenge? I used the kiddie-training-pottie as an olive boat.

The French word for seal is 'phoque'. Have at it...

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I may have mentioned our weekly "Thursty Thursday", a chance to have a drink and hang out after the show, which is held at South Coast, a hip, up-scale restaurant/bar at Marina Bay Sands. The owner, Kate, and her manager, Aaron, have been incredibly welcoming and treat us like royalty whenever we go there.

Kati & I (possibly drunk)

The food is delicious and the atmosphere is chilled and welcoming. When I have the time and the inclination, it is one of my favourite places to sit and watch the world go by.

It's also a great place to take visitors, allowing them to meet the company socially and introduce them to 'the life' here. Pictured below are my surprise visitors from Canada, who happened to be on tour in Asia with a show from Nova Scotia's Mermaid Theatre.

Kate and I joke that her bar is becoming the unoffical theatre bar of Singapore.

A while back, Kate & Aaron thought that our company morale was getting a bit low so they decided to throw us a special Thursty Thursday. On a normal Thursday, there is usually plenty of free pizza going around, but on this Thursday, they upped the ante with things like Jell-O Shooters and Beer Pong in the hope of helping us find our way back to 'fabulous'.

Whether our morale was lifted or not is unsure. (It's hard to measure through a hang-over). But South Coast's generosity, open arms and party-spirit came through loud and clear.

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Last week we had a few birthdays in the company. It's rare that a week goes by without at least one birthday in a company of over 100 people. Joilson was one of the birthdays last week. Now, I believe in celebrating my birthday all week long, but this guy makes me look like an amateur. There was a party every night, culminating with a blow-out at Movida, a local salsa club.

Birthday boy in the middle

Lavina (Shenzi) takes the stage to do a number with the band
(As a group, we know how to take over)

Important gossip

All of this birthday merriment, which my reports tell me didn't end until 6 a.m., was followed by a pool party at Aaron's (of South Coast) condo. A lovely way to waste a Monday. Tons of great food, beer, wine, miles of swimming pools, and the few, brave souls who didn't totally destroy themselves the night before.

Pool antics

Relaxed (or drunk) (or hungover)

Drunk driving incident with the food trolley

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The first available time for me to take a vacation away from The Pridelands turned out to be the final week of October. Which also happens to be just after my birthday. As Margaret says, the past few years would indicate that I seem to be making it a habit to celebrate my birthdays away from home.

Looking to discover someplace new in this corner of the world, I settled on the Thai island of Koh Samui. Also, being a snob, I immediately started looking for something OTHER than the resorts and hotels where the normals stay. I found a villa owned by a TV commercial producer in Los Angeles. Given that the end of October is low-season in Thailand, the price was similar to what one would pay in a resort over-populated with the mewling spawn of apathetic couples and puffy, white business men on the hunt for lady-boys. Presenting, Villa Sampresada. Happy Birthday to me.

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A graffiti artist with a sense of humour


Please put my picture next to this
definition on Wikipedia.