Back from vacation

Touched down sometime past midnight yesterday morning, slept a couple of hours, then headed straight back to the grindstone.

I don't think I can remember taking a vacation that didn't leave me exhausted after its conclusion. Maybe I only remember the tiring ones?

I guess getting my seat kicked and my hair pulled by the screaming kid seated behind me on the flight back didn't help, any more than the sudden bouts of extreme turbulence that the fighter-jockey pilot happily pushed us through in the middle of dinner did.

As with most family trips I ended up in the pathfinder role, mapping out routes and transportation options, and part-timed as a really inept restaurant-menu-translator and general-direction-asker with my wonky Japanese from Osaka to Kyoto to Tokyo. We made it through somehow though!

A couple of things I learned from this trip about traveling in Japan:

To open those tightly closed lacquered soup bowls, hold the bowl firmly along the lip on opposing sides, then squeeze gently inwards as if forcing the circular lip into an oval.

Anything bigger than a trolley bag is too big for the shinkansen - unless you're willing to sacrifice leg space!

Avoid buying guide books published more than 15 years ago (doh).

Took a whole crapload of crap photos, and as usual I need to find some time (and maybe some good Mac software) to go through them all. Coming up soon!

Centre stage

Every once in a while, it's nice to shoot a wedding that doesn't follow the traditional Chinese wedding mold. More garden weddings, please!

Glass pebbles and rose petals

A wedding is a tiring affair for all those involved in its execution, however rewarding.

Yesterday's was no exception. In all I'd estimate that the on-site preparations took about six hours to complete, involving furniture placement, sound testing, decorations and sorting out last-minute details, from the night before to the following morning prior to the ceremony.

Rain in the morning threatened to dampen the mood, but the weather cleared up briefly to throw a blazing noonday spotlight on the whole procession, muting down to overcast after lunch.

I'm still experiencing fatigue and body aches even after a good night's sleep. I wonder how those full-time photographers take it? Perhaps efficiency of motion comes with experience, and with it, instinctive energy conservation?

To bloom

Some flowers to be used in tomorrow's wedding.

Pipe way

One of the many things we take for granted daily. What would we do without taps and plumbing?

Long weekend food quips

Peach Garden at Eastwood Centre, Saturday lunch. The roast pork was oily. Yecch. Their seafood hor fun, in contrast, was done pretty well. Verdict: Standard dropped.

Outback Steak at Millenia Walk, Saturday dinner for a party of 14. I'd rate the service we had at 2 of 5. Had a half-rack of ribs which were just decent. Their Chocolate Thunder From Down Under arrived with the ice-cream half melted, but at least the brownie part of it was rich and sinful. (I just had to try one to see what it was like after this comic strip. Yes, I'm a glutton.) Verdict: So-so.

Spring Court at Upper Cross Street near Hotel 81, Sunday lunch for a party of seven. Boy, was this a disaster! This restaurant moved in recent years from East Coast Road to where it is now. We were aiming for the 76¢ Peking Duck offer - valid with food orders totalling at least $76 - but the pushy female captain (short, bespectacled.. sounds familiar maybe? I wonder..) kept trying to upsell their expensive seafood, even though we'd already ordered quite a lot. Took a bit of doing to keep shaking our heads.

It took more than 40 minutes after the last food dish was cleared from the table, and after a whole lot of chasing, for them to serve the sliced meat from the Peking Duck. At which point our stomachs had already settled, and none of us could eat any more. We ended up bringing the duck meat home. The final bill? Definitely much more than $76! Food wasn't great, I'd give it an average or below expectation. Verdict: Not going back there!

Michelangelo's at Chip Bee Gardens, Monday (May day holiday) lunch for a party of four. Sistina Pizzeria - its sister restaurant next door - wasn't open for lunch, but her pizzas were available at Michelangelo's! The calamari was decent if a little too dry, and its accompanying wasabi tartar sauce dip too mild. The pizza - Sistina's Pizza - was fabulous despite the long-ish wait, loaded with toppings, a little cheese, and served on a gorgeous crust. It sure was dark in there though:



Verdict: Pricy but gooood.

Lei Garden at CHIJMES, Monday dinner for five. In an effort to make up for the poor showing at Spring Court above, we had another (far better) round of Peking Duck, double-boiled soup, another braised duck dish, claypot garoupa and fried string beans. The fish was great and the duck dishes were pretty good; everything else fared par for the course (expectations being much higher anyway). Verdict: Reliable but pricy.

Now you guys know why I opted for salad at tea today.

Tomorrow's dinner is probably going to be at Lee Kui (Ah Hoi). I can hear the cold crab and yam paste calling already... somebody save me!

Green valley walk

We woke up fairly early this morning to head for breakfast, and after that to try out the much-hyped TreeTop Walk at MacRitchie.



Chickening out of the long walk through the reservoir park, we ended up driving up to the club's carpark. From there, the hike was considerably shorter.

There was a fair crowd along the trail today, to be expected since it's a holiday. Mostly families with children or groups of teens-to-twenties. (Why some people dress in ankle-length jeans, elbow-sleeved tops and strappy sandals in this hot weather, and bring baby strollers along for the hike, is quite beyond me.)

The queue to get onto the treetop walkway proper was thankfully moving quite smoothly, but there seemed to be far more than 30 people on the walkway while we were crossing it, moving along in the inchworm-like catchup game more commonly associated with caterpillar legs and traffic jams.



J almost became giddy from the rolling motion of the walkway as people trudged across it, left feet following right, the sum of which was causing the entire bridge to sway rhythmically left, right, left, right. The heat didn't help one bit.

I didn't think there was very much to see, but then again, we did make a fairly hurried crossing. With so many people on the bridge and more waiting to get on, stopping to take in the scenery didn't seem like such a good idea, so we moved as quickly as balance and other stoppages out front would allow.



Clear! But little did we know that the trail back to the club's carpark would be longer than the trek leading up to the walkway. A good workout for a lazy bum like mine.