DAY TRIP TO ANOTHER WORLD

On my overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur, I picked up a copy of Silk Air's in-flight magazine. Listed in the back were a selection of easy getaways from Singapore. In an effort to continue to discover as much as possible on this side of the planet while I'm here, I combed through the suggestions for anything that was two hours away or less - which is how I found myself crawling out of bed a six a.m. on a Monday morning to hail a taxi in the pouring rain to take me to the airport for a flight bound for Phnom Penh in The Kingdom of Cambodia.

THE GOOD

Foremost, I looooved my hotel, The Blue Lime. The all-cement theme might be a bit too austere for some, and those not used to a tropical climate might find the mold stains off-putting but I was terrifically impressed with everything. My room, with private swimming pool, cost $75US for the night, a  kind of luxury unattainable in most western countries. The whole place is immaculately clean, the staff are extremely friendly and very helpful. (Oooo...and fresh passion fruit juice for breakfast !)

Instructions in Khmer, emailed to me by the hotel

in case the taxi driver didn't know the address.

Welcome tray

All cement room

Private pool

Enjoying private pool

The Cambodian people are lovely. Their smile is wide, honest, engaging and comes quickly and easily. The smiles I received were the exact opposite of the glassy-eyed, open-mouthed stares I witness from service staff in Singapore. I felt that when the Cambodians said, "Thank you, sir", they expressed actual gratitude. Those same words spoken in Singapore sound meaningless and false by comparison.

There is a new Cambodia emerging, barely. Scattered here and there are shiny new government buildings and the odd office tower. These structures seem cold and lifeless next to the many temples who's elegant, golden spires reach to touch heaven. The new buildings hide their people. The temples embrace them and teem with the wild, joyful chaos of life. Solemnity is reserved for business. 

 The National Museum

The Royal Palace which I was unceremonious hustled out of after

a brief tour, because the King needed to pray before

the national holiday the next day.

I thought, "Well, it's his house, after all."

Some random observations...

-All dogs in Phnom Penh have fleas. There are a lot of dogs.

-Horn honking is a second (or third) language. It is rarely aggressive though. It usually means, "Hi, I'm here beside you. Don't change lanes or we'll both die".

 Airport transportation

-Traffic lights are merely a suggestion. There are only a few, after all. If the coast looks clear, please feel free to charge on through.

-Crosswalks are nonexistent. On the smaller streets, this is not a problem, but the wide, busy avenues require you so summon your pedestrian courage and step bravely into the road, timing every step and weaving through the traffic with millimeters to spare. Or, you could wait for the Cambodians, who tend to cross in groups (safety in numbers) and hide behind them.

-It's hard not to stand out as a tourist. The white skin is kind of a dead give away. Children and adults alike will wave at you and say "Hello". Even passing by on their motorcycles they will shout a greeting.

I found this sign so incongruous that I couldn't resist photographing it

-Three on a motorcycle is not uncommon. In fact it is almost as common as two on a motorcycle. Or two and a kid on the handlebars. Or two and a basket of chickens (dead or alive). Or two with a 12-year-old driving.

-If you see a young Cambodian woman in high heels and a tight dress, she's a hooker. Unless she's wearing flip-flops and tight shorts, in which case she is also a hooker.

THE BAD

Perhaps because I've been living in squeaky-clean, rule-bound Singapore for so long, I found the profusion of garbage, dog shit and stink more than just a little overwhelming at first. My survival instinct told me to hide in my hotel room, but I pushed myself into the streets, determined to discover what lay beyond the filth.

As the stand-out-in-the-crowd-white-guy, you are at the mercy of the touts. The tuk-tuk drivers are the worst. Step one foot outside the hotel and you are surrounded by shouts of, "Tuk? Tuk?". And a walk down any street is constantly interrupted by random motorcycle drivers pulling over to ask if you want them to drive you somewhere. 

The Cambodian Riel is, literally, not worth the paper it is printed on. $1US = 4,000KHR. American dollars are the preferred currency, but no coins are used if change is given. Instead, you will be given the equivalent in Riels. I tipped my breakfast servers 19,000KHR ($4.60US) just to get rid of the wad of Cambodian bills.

THE UGLY

I had many offers from tuk-tuk drivers to take me to the infamous "Killing Fields", the site of Pol Pot's brutal executions carried out by his Khmer Rouge. I admit that I had to think long and hard about whether I should go and what I might gain from being there, other than just to say that I was there. In the end, I realized that I did not want to feel the pain of this country's past in a place where the bones of 10,000 dead still push themselves to the surface after a rainfall. Instead, I wanted to live the resilience of the place by being among the living.

The soul of this place has been beaten and crushed and almost defeated. But, phoenix-like, it is being reborn. It expresses the anguish of it's growing pains in the shit and filth of poverty, but it also expresses it's joy and energy in the sparkling eyes and disarming smiles of it's people. For what is a country? It is not a place, it is the people who inhabit it.

Phnom Penh changed me in a way I can't describe. I'm larger somehow, as though when I opened up to it, it gave me part of itself. It is not a place for everyone, but it does have something to offer to anyone. Something unique. Something beyond words. Something given, as a gift, to those who are willing to step into it's arms.

THE EFFING F1

Singapore's Formula One racing event is upon us. This is a massive event and crews have been busy building barricades for weeks with the worst of the road closures going into effect as of yesterday. Since a huge chunk of The Central Business District actually becomes the race circuit, traffic has become an even more snarled mess than usual as drivers try to navigate their way around the blockades and detours. Being a pedestrian is also much like being a rat in a maze since crosswalks are closed and bus stops are unusable. Guests of the Ritz-Carlton, which is right in the heart of the track, must enter the hotel through the underground car park of the hotel next door !

Since our theatre is a mere stone's throw from the grandstand, we are practically in the heart of the chaos and getting to and from work has become a grand adventure. In the evenings, after the show, I quite enjoy the walk around Marina Bay Lagoon or, as we call it, 'the long way', but in the afternoons, I just want to get to work already. You'd think the locals, who have dealt with this for three years already, would have a game plan, but not so. I was very entertained last night as everyone stood outside the stage door trying to figure out how to get home or figure out where their bus stop had been moved to. 

 Marina Bay Sands lit with a racing motif

It's not only a challenge for us to get to the theatre, our audiences will also have to  find a way in. I'm pretty certain that as the week goes on and we draw nearer to the big race on Sunday, our curtain will be going up exponentially later with every performance. We are, as yet, unsure about the sound-proofing of the theatre. It's a definite possibility that the constant buzz and drone of speeding cars will seep into the Savannah. 

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The Mid-August festival and my new-found love affair with mooncakes, have come and gone. One of the dressers, Justin, took me to the huge, annual mooncake bazaar at Takashimaya dept. store. 

He is a self-confessed mooncake junkie and it was fascinating to have him lead me around the various stalls explaining the different regions and ethnic styles of mooncakes. 

After dozens of samples, we eventually settled on our choices. I decided on a very traditional baked mooncake filled with black sesame paste. Justin opted for a mixed box of snowskin style cakes comprised of two green tea flavour and two chrysanthemum flavour. To our surprise, they made the snowskin cakes right there as we waited.

 The flavoured paste is first rolled into a ball

then wrapped in snowskin

 The ball is then pressed into a wooden mould 

and banged out onto the counter

Happy shoppers

Part of the mooncake allure is the beautiful packaging

 We traded with each other 

(just like baseball cards)

so that we could both have one cake of each flavour

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Ramya, my Tamil makeup artist, has been passing along her knowledge of Indian cooking to me. I've attempted my first home-made lime pickle. Not a 'pickle' in the traditional sense, as in vinegar, but a preserve using salt, spices and oil. 

The tiny limes have to be quartered, salted 

and sat in the sun in a jar for around two weeks.

Then the spices are added, and the jar is

put back in the sun for a few days.

The final step is to cook mustard seeds in mustard oil, mix the whole mess together and put it back in the sun for another week or so. Problem is, we've had an endless series of cloudy, rainy days here, so my whole pickle schedule keeps getting pushed back. Sadness.

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Claudia, in make up, knows that I have an intense aversion to all things 'cute', so she insists on lining up her 'adorable' stuffed toys on her mirror. She even went so far as to move the cutsie circus onto Ramya's mirror so that I could 'enjoy' it more fully. Of course, I could not let this flagrant assault on my sensibilities go unpunished, so I took some of her stuffed family out on a day trip and sent the photos to her phone.

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Singlish just never stops being entertaining

...FACE THE FINAL CURTAIN....

Or, to quote another well known tune, "...its the fiinal countdown ". We received official notice yesterday that Lion King Singapore will give it's final performance on October 30. By that point we will have done 285 performances and played to over 300,000 people. We have set the record for the longest running show in Singapore history and changed the theatrical landscape forever. But now, it's time to go.

Though there is certainly a melancholy that comes with the announcement, the spirits of the company are high as people start to think about the idea of "home" and returning to all that is familiar.

Six weeks to go...

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".