Foodie SIN

I'm finishing up almost 24 hours here in Singapore on my way between Tokyo and Delhi. Somebody asked what I was going to do here and I think I said "I don't know; eat", which was pretty accurate. I arrived quite late (1am) and leave quite late (2a next day) and mostly walked, ate, and slept. (OK, I did spend a chunk of the afternoon at the Asian Civilisations Museum, taking a tour of the gallery ... under the theory that educational growth is important too.)

Some highlights:

• My distaste for seafood is as usual limiting - there have been a bunch of things that look like they'd be tasty to others that I've passed on ... but it wasn't a total bust. Freshly-made almond soya milk with chewy tapioca balls, tropical fruit, and variety of dim sum pieces for breakfast. Oh, and chilled green tea- I think I'm addicted after a week in Japan, though it felt odd not to buy it from a vending machine on the street.

• Late afternoon snacks at the food hawker center near my hotel was a heaping plate of Satay. And I do mean heaping - I think I made the equivalent of a beginner's mistake at Dim Sum.... I ordered so much from the first stall that it was hard to get much from subsequent places. However, it was quite pleasent to sit under a covered roof as the rain poured and eat some hot and smoky chicken and beef satay, cucumber/onion, and rice cake meal.

When "Automated" isn't 24/7

So I'm in Tokyo for the week on business. My flight into Narita landed a bit later than planned and so ran to catch the bus to the hotel. Knowing there was a post office/ international ATM near the hotel, I didn't worry about having no Yen with me.

Why the post office? Most of the ATMs in Japan only take domestically issued ATM cards, but the post office is also a bank, and has ATMs. But here's the rub: the ATM closed at 17:00. Silly American, why would you assume an automated banking machine would be open 24/7?

Fortunately I still had a few hundred Yen on my PASMO, and so could take the train to a bank a few stops away...but really.

Fourth of July

So while many were celebrating our nation's independence from the Brits, Jonathan and I were enslaved to our home. He (with help from Josh) worked on removing clay from our new planting areas... who knew we could make pottery from the "dirt" out back?!

Always in need of my own project, at some point this spring I proclaimed that we were going to repaint the downstairs bathroom. I've had about all I can take of realtor beige. So, with help from Carrie, the downstairs bathroom is now blue (with white ceiling), a new mirror and light fixture. I also opted not to hang the door on the upper cabinet (reflected in the mirror) -- it's a cute "spa" look....

Not bad for a weekend's work, eh?

More on the patio

Okay, so Jonathan's feeling sheepish that the patio is "messy" but (shhh -- don't tell him I said this) even messy it's so much better than the Swiss Cheese that used to be there -- it looks great. So, in an effort to share (even messy) views of the work we've done, I'm including some photos here.



Below is the view you have after stepping out of the sliding doors (from the kitchen). Beyond the table (note new umbrella!) is a big planting area that is Jonathan's Purple Plot.


In case you're interested, here's the detail of the pavers.

Jasmine, Eggplant, Zucchini, Lavender, and Pavers

Wow, it's been awhile since we've posted anything...

We've undertaken several home improvement projects this summer. One closest to completion has been our backyard, which many of you may remember was previously our rotting wood deck; that's now gone, and has been replaced by concrete pavers, landscaping, and drip irrigation.

It's still a work in progress, but the infrastructure is in and I've done a bit of transplanting. Here are a few updates:

Our Japanese eggplant is growing nicely, and--since protecting it with Sluggo--seems to be safe from the snails. Chiu-Ki gave us some of her extra Zucchini seeds, and we're batting 0.660 in terms of seedlings. We've named them "right" and "left", but through a catastrophic turn of events, and the usual degree of obfuscation, the plant on the left is actually "right".

In a nod to downtown Palo Alto parking, we've named this region the "purple zone", with a variety of flowering plants, including our recently transplanted lavender and jasmine:


Set your expectations appropriately since you know how frequently we update this blog, but additional garden details, photos and tracking can be found on (you guessed it) the web's latest Gardening 2.0 adventure: MyFolia. Check it out.

Short stay in Paris to wind down...

My Spring '08 world tour is winding down after almost a week here in Paris. Work was quite productive here with with colleagues, partners, and customers, but fortunately I had a little time to wander around the city and and enjoy a brisk early spring here. I love to explore cities by just walking...though obviously much more fun with Katz around. It's been almost five years since were were last here ... and I had almost forgotten how beautifully the historic buildings are lit, so that was a real treat. And as a bonus, in most places at night there weren't too many tourists -- the Marais and even the Ill de la Cite were surprisingly peaceful.

Our office is near Trocadero by the Eiffel Tower, and I so was quite surprised by the hordes of tourists even in 8-12 degree weather. On Tuesday evening I thought I might try to blend into the crowd and take the elevator to the top for a view of the city at dusk ... but the queue was so long and I wasn't terribly patient, so I decided to go for two other tourist activities instead -- avoiding sidewalk landmines, and having a warm crepe fromage from a street-side vendor.

Other than going for evening strolls, I haven't had much time to explore the city on this trip. But I have had a few wonderful meals. On Wednesday night I went to a lovely restaurant in the western part of the city: Les Jardins de Camille with lovely food, good company, and a wonderful glass wall with a view of La Defense and the Eiffel Tower. I guess I can say I've never gone to the top, but have seen the twinkly strobe lights at the top of several hours...

For my last full meal in Paris, I was in an intimate bistro in St. Germain called "Au 35", located on 35 rue Jacob. This was fitting end to the trip - a salad with duck confit, a sublime chicken pastilla with a spiced honey sauce, and an assortment of cheeses for dessert. Very tasty food, with reasonable prices in a convenient location.

Asia Travel Update

I guess it's been a few days since I last blogged. I spent most of the week in Tokyo for business. I did make some time to do a little sightseeing, and also got to go out and eat some good Japanese food. I had tried to go to Sen, but unfortunately the owner is sick and they're only doing lunch at the moment, and the reservations are booked through April...so we went to Nagamine instead which was great.

On Thursday morning before I left Japan, I went to the auction and fish market at Tsukiji at 4:45. It was an interesting experience to see huge numbers of marlin, tuna, etc, auctioned off to a growing crowd of fishmongers...but I actually had a lot more fun wandering around the warehouses of vegetables and fruit. (This may be related to the fact that I don't eat seafood. Though in general the market didn't smell too much.) While walking around I ran into two friends who were taking a nap:

I arrived into Hong Kong on Friday for a meeting with one of our customers, and went to dinner with a colleague afterwards. I'm staying on the Kowloon side, which is a first for me, but has been pretty convenient, even though I spent most of my day on Hong Kong island today. I started early and took the express bus to Stanley to try to beat the crowds, and found a really nice (blue; surprise) shirt for about 80HKD. I enjoy treasure hunting at Stanley, but it's always hit-or-miss, so I also picked up a few shirts from my tailor while I was in town here.

I guess today's theme was, fittingly, dim sum. Based upon Chiu-Ki and Francois' suggestion last month I went for dim sum at Maxim's above city hall. When they suggested it initially I was quite puzzled, because I didn't understand that "City Hall" is not a government building as it would be at home. It's a municipal building that has performance venues, and other meeting places...with a number of shops and restaurants above. Maxim's is on the second floor with a wide swath of windows with a view of the harbor. At least where I was seated, I didn't get much of the view ... that would've meant I couldn't see the carts going around. The food was very good -- classic dim sum items...most of which I can visually identify, though only about three or four by name (Char Siu Bao; Siu Mai; Har Gow). Dim sum really needs a large crowd such that one can sample variety, so going alone today limited my options.

I wandered around Hong Kong a bit longer after lunch and then came back to Kowloon to go to two museums: the science museum and the Hong Kong history museum. The science museum had a bunch of interactive exhibits about E&M, energy efficiency, and a number of other topics focussed on life in Hong Kong. One interesting thing was how the energy efficiency exhibit talked about advances in appliances...and right up there with air conditioners and washing machines was "rice cookers"; induction-based cookers are much more efficient than stovetop cooking.

Without a doubt my favorite part of the museum was a little room that showed a bunch of "process" videos. For example, there was a five minute video showing a tour of an instant noodle factory, going through mixing the dough, steaming, frying, weighing for quality control etc. A number of other region-focussed videos too: making bean curd and soya milk, making moon cakes, as well as making ice cream and a bunch of other ones.

These brought back memories of my childhood. I loved sesame street and PBS (and as y'all can attest, still do) but one of my favorite segments was the crayon video. This was a fifteen minute tour of Crayola -- starting with a girl drawing with crayons and then staring at a peach colored one. The video of making crayons is actually on YouTube! And it turns out it isn't fifteen minutes long, but barely two--which shows what my attention span was. Anyway, I may no longer be doing engineering work, but I've always been an engineer at heart.

I spent a few hours in the HK history museum, seeing how the government presents the history of the opium wars, British occupation, etc, and then went back to Hong Kong island for dinner. I went to what I think was Marah and my favorite restaurant here -- I think this is my fourth time now? I'm a little embarrassed by the name-- it really is called "Dim Sum", and is located at 63 Sing Woo Road in Happy Valley. But the food is that good. In fact, it was featured on a recent episode of the PBS show "Gourmet Diary of a Foodie". Their char siu bao also includes bits of roast duck, and their pak choi/mushroom dumplings are tasty with an good/interesting mixture of textures that I haven't been able to find in California (yet).

Anyway, that's an update from here in Asia. Tomorrow I fly on to New Delhi for business.

Contrasts during a Sunday in Tokyo

I had a wonderful Sunday in Tokyo. I woke up a bit early - about 5:30 here, and called home to California for a bit; did some online banking; tried unsuccessfully to fall back asleep; and then finally decided to shower and head out. The default jetlagged-tourist event here is to head to Tsukuji, the wholesale fish market, but it isn't open on Sundays, so I had to come up with my own plan.

Breakfast was a bit of a scavenger hunt. To start I had a lovely hot bowl of udon at the Ebisu train station. It's a great little haunt where one gets to choose from a set of doughy fried vegetables and other toppings for a bowl of hot noodles. My favorite this morning was the bundle of fried shimeji mushrooms. I think I might go slurp there again tomorrow on the way to the office. I then went north on the Yamanote line to Harajuku, where on the first Sunday of the month at the Togo Shrine is a flea market. Not quite Portobello Road or Stanley Market, but a small little place where locals have brought arts, crafts, and dated music records. I got to wander around a bit and skip the mostly closed shops on Takeshita-Dori on a nice, brisk, sunny Tokyo morning.

After that I decided to wander around a bit. I think I walked about 8km this morning, heading via Aoyama Cemetaryon to Roppongi Hills, and then eventually back to Ebisu via Sengakuji near Shinagawa station. (I will admit the last part of the walk was not quite as planned, but I got distracted and then a bit lost on the way back to Ebisu and didn't have a detailed map of the area and couldn't read the Kanji describing the chome I was in...but it was fun.)

I happened to wander by the Prada building in Tokyo while walking this morning. The Herzog /de Meuron building was something that has been on "my list" for a number of years, but finding it this morning was really serendipity. When I walked by at 9:46, it was pretty quiet and the store wasn't open. The building has sets of flat, convex, and concave diamonds of glass that undulate in the light and offer almost "funhouse mirror" reflections of the area. I spent maybe 10-15 minutes just wandering around the building looking at the different light and reflections. I'm not quite sure why, but I was almost endlessly amused watching this woman go back and forth polishing the glass.

I spent the afternoon with Fuji-san and his wife Chiko-san. We went to the Tokyo-Edo museum to get a feel for the city history of Tokyo since 1603. It was interesting to see the development of the city as a view of Japanese culture and expansion. In some ways it was similar to the Barcelona city history museum that Marah and I visited last October--the museum showed progressive maps of the city, with depictions of the reclamation of Tokyo Bay. We had a tour guide for a bit and a young couple from eastern India joined us. The guy from India clearly had studied Japanese history quite a bit, and offered several comments and opinions during the tour. They did note many customs-like taking shoes off before entering a home, and keeping a small shrine inside one's house- transcended cultures and countries.

The couple had an interesting point about Japan (esp. juxtaposed with India), though without an accurate quote this may not convey the nuance. "You rely on electricity a lot," said the young woman. I really was not sure what she meant nor how to respond. She clarified, that in India they would rely upon stairs in buildings but here in Japan they have elevators and escalators for everything. (I didn't really interject about this transcending Japan, US, EU, ...) Chiko-san and I were both puzzled.

After the museum we headed over to the Senso temple, and then went in search of a Tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlet) restaurant he had heard great things about. When we found it, there was a sign that indicated it was closed due to renovations ... which reminded me of the sign that I recently saw at my favorite Columbus Bakery in NYC. (For those of you without the history, it was a tasty place on 82nd/Columbus with a cool "Toasty Man" logo. Unfortunately, the silly people didn't appear to be upfront about so-called renovations, and have since closed/changed ownership.)

Oh, but I digress. We went to find another Tonkatsu place, and had a tasty dinner. They're both lovely people, and I had a great time with them in the afternoon. Meanwhile, it's just about nine o'clock here and I think I'm going to try to stay awake for a few more hours such that I can make it through my day at work tomorrow.

Around the world in 22 days...

Here's the start of another round-the-world business trip. On "Leap Day" I hopped on a United flight from SFO to Tokyo. The rest of the trip will take me to Hong Kong, New Delhi, Singapore (briefly), and then on to Europe.

The flight to Tokyo was pretty decent, and oddly enough, I actually enjoyed the meal. I was a bit scared, since it was one of the "designed by Charlie Trotter" menu items--in past experience the big T logo means "Truly disgusting"...but it was an apricot curry braised lamb shoulder, with Israeli couscous and spinach. We didn't take off on time since the folks on the ground decided to hold out for 20 passengers connecting from Denver, but we made up for it and arrived roughly on schedule at 15:30 on Saturday March 1.

Downtown Tokyo is 60+ km away from the Narita airport. Last time I took the "Narita Express" train, which while speedy required a change either at Tokyo or Shinagawa...and with baggage is really a stupid thing to do at rushhour since the trains are packed. So instead I took the "limo bus", which brought me straight to the Westin. Very easy, but took two hours. That's on par with what the train would've taken, but after a 10 hour flight (in first), it's not terribly fun to sit on a bus and get motion sick while reading two months of old NYTimes dining sections.

More details later.

Strawberry Daikon

We're currently "boxsitting"; our friends who have a subscription to a weekly organic produce box are away, and so we offered to prevent the veggies from going to waste. The contents are unknown to us prior to pickup, so it's a bit of organic russian roulette. (We lost the bet last week and cooked with some form of ___nip to disastrous results, but have since found some happy freecycling south Palo Alto people who are wiling to take surplus turnips and fennel.)

According to the description accompanying this week's box, we inherited several strawberry daikon. We weren't quite sure why these green and white things were called strawberry daikon, since I've only seen long white daikon before. I figured it was simply the shape. But as I decided to make a daikon slaw with the slice-twelve-fingers-mandolin tonight, it immediately became clear: they're a beautiful bright pink hue inside. And no, any pinkness you see on the unopened daikon to the right is simply the light reflecting in the photograph.

So, perhaps this blog entry will float to the top of Google Image results for the next hapless strawberry daikon soul...

Yo ho ho...

Supposedly I'm making a lot of progress. Until today I'm not sure I would have agreed.

Saturday (procedure +1): Recall in above post - it was really rough being outside. Even with my eyes closed and sunglasses on, the daylight felt way too bright. My eyes were dry, and it was a bit tough to read. As expected, it was an ordeal to have Marah add the cocktail of drops to my eyes.

Sunday (procedure +2): We generally took it easy here, and it was kind of a repeat of Saturday for me. While I could certainly "see", my vision was getting blurrier - it was uncomfortable to watch TV, impossible to read, and generally pretty frustrating. I'd even say boring. In the late morning, one of my eyes was in significant pain. The cocktail certainly helped, and eventually we figured out the appropriate "comfort" order to insert the drops into my eyes. To get out of the house mid-afternoon, we made some returns at the local bevy of home improvement stores.

Anyway, I think we went to bed around eight o'clock, which wasn't such a good move. I wasn't tired, and tried to read, but my vision was really bad. Substantially worse than my eyesight prior to surgery. I couldn't figure out what the right level of light was to read printed material, nor could I figure out the appropriate distance. And, since I went to sleep so early, I was up for several hours in the middle of the night, panicking over my eyesight ... wondering if I was going to be in the minority of people who end up with poor results in this non-guaranteed process.

Monday (procedure +3):

After the regimen of drops upon waking, we headed over for a checkup with the doctor. My epithelial cells are healing well and making good progress. Epithelial cells in my left eye have basically healed over and it looks like a "zipper" as they try to reconnect in-line. My right eye is healing a little more slowly, and there is still a central area without the cells. This at least explains my blurry vision. The plan is to go back first thing on Wednesday morning to have the contact lenses taken out, since my eyes will have sufficiently healed. The word from the doctor is "it will get better every day", so presumably my anxiety is unfounded, and my hopes were a bit unrealistic.

I decided to work from home on Monday rather than sit and sleep the day away ... a mix of being on the phone with colleagues, and occaisionally trying to read the computer screen for email. Concentrating on text on the computer was really tough. My eyes seem to be doing better overall - I was able to skip the optional "comfort" (pain-killing) drops today. By bedtime, I was able to read under the right lighting conditions, but opted for a large-print [it's all relative] book of Roz Chast cartoons.

Tuesday (procedure +4):
I forget if it was this morning or just before bed realized that the blurriness and frustration was likely due to the asymmetrical healing of my eyes. If I closed my right eye, I could see small text at a distance quite well. I guess my brain is trying to interpret the good-left eye along with the bad-right eye data, which is causing some of the mental focus and straining that I'm doing. Anyway, this was a great confidence booster this morning, and I hope augurs well for recovery post-contacts tomorrow. Meantime, I've considered fashioning an eye patch and finding a parrot to sit on my shoulder as I rule the high seas...

When it rains it pours...

OK, so Friday was the scary day. Yes, I've been preparing for the eye "procedure" for a bit - 1000mg of Vitiman C since January 1st, and started my six-day regiment of Methylprednisolone on Thursday. I was preparing for it to be simply a day of working in the morning, the "procedure", and then recovery. However, when it rains it pours.

You see, on Wednesday, the *counter people* called - they decided to come between 8 and 10 on Friday to install the new countertops, backsplash, sink, and bar. Of course, they arrived closer to ten and well, they just finished up around 3:15! Ugh. Well, fortunately, "Phase One" of the kitchen is almost complete.

But throughout this I was pretty anxious. The eye appointment was for 4:00, with a 3:30 arrival and prep. I took a valium at 2pm per instructions, which was probably good for the guys installing the counters :) I would claim the drug didn't do too much for me, but Marah said it appeared to loosen me up - as if I'd had a glass (or three) of wine.

Dr Volpicelli came in shortly before four to recheck my eyes, and then we were ready to go. We paraded out of the office, and I followed him into what I thought was the laser room. Not quite. He was stopping briefly for a drink in the coffee room. :) In my defense, I didn't have glasses on, and it seemed at the time it "could" have been the procedure room.

Anyway, the procedure was pretty quick, though I was quite anxious to steadily focus on on the eye-tracking blinking light. The anesthetics took care of numbing me to pain and pressure, but they don't really cover temperature receptors. There were a few times a cold liquid was used - I was staring at a few bright lights, and then this really cold liquid was squirted all over my eyes. Pretty bad "cold headache" - as if I ate too much ice cream or had a really cold drink quickly. Anyway, afterwards clear "bandage" contact lenses were inserted into my eyes. The original plan was for "LASEK" - doing treatment on the surface of the eye. Very similar to PRK, except in PRK the topmost epithelial cells are pushed back into place after the procedure and in LASEK they are discarded. During treatment Dr Volpicelli decided to discard the cells, so I had PRK after all.

After the procedure, we went back to the examination room, and there was a poster on the wall with graphical portions that previously had appeared to be a yellow blob when my glasses were off. Literally right after surgery, I could easily recognize that they were a face with two eyes and a nose. Marah commented that I was actually looking at her in the eye when talking to her (as opposed to generically at her face). So vision clearly had improved...though reading was a bit of a strain.

We headed home afterwards, and I curled up on the couch, had some food and fell asleep listening to NPR for almost two hours. After that, while my eyes were a bit dry, I wasn't in too much pain, and listened to some news on the TV until about nine o'clock. We went upstairs, I preemptively took a vicodin and had plastic goggles taped onto my face such that my eyes wouldn't be too disturbed while I slept. Silly photo:

I slept pretty well - I remember waking up a bit and my eyes felt dry, but I was too tired to deal with removing the goggle things to put in drops. Today I've been taking it easy. I had a follow up appointment with Dr Vopicelli in the morning. I can see reasonably well, but I wouldn't want to drive for a
few days. I can read but often there's haze and double vision -- the eye chart often had a few letter Os and Vs but they looked like an infinity and a W. But I certainly have functional vision and feel comfortable reading.

My eyes are still very dry- it's "hard" to keep my eyelids completely open. Though some of the four types of drops (painkillers, antibiotic, anti inflammitory, ...) sting a bit I'm not really in much discomfort. I am quite sensitive to light - as if my pupils have been dilated, but a bit
worse. Even if I close my eyes and wear the sunglasses I was given, being outside hurts a bit. And so there are some negatives to our house being filled with natural light.

Anyway, back to taking it easy. Today Marah will try to install the plumbing for the new sink , reinstall the garbage disposal, etc, such that we have a functional kitchen again.

Oh, finally for those who want the really gory details ... here are two cell phone videos Marah took of the procedure. Evidently they had a closed-circuit TV in the waiting room. I love the juxtaposition with the toys to the left of the TV. I'm sure young children would love to watch these procedures live. Note that there's no sound from the procedure itself; merely Marah wincing in the waiting room.

Right Eye (done first):



Left Eye (done second):

The Template Man Cometh

He came, he saw, he templated.

Jorge the template guy showed up around 830 this morning and quickly got to work. We were expecting him to bring sheets of balsa wood to make full-sized templates, but instead he brought strips that he uses to essentially outline the counters, the bar, the backsplash, etc. On the whole everything is sufficiently level -- more or less -- and plumb, except for the area behind the sink. There, I may have been a bit overzealous with the joint compound... and now there's a charming bulge... I knew it was there, I was just hopeful it'd go on a diet and disappear before this morning. I wasn't so lucky, so I'll be sanding a bit tonight and over the weekend to thin it down.

Jorge said it'd probably be about 2 weeks until installation, which would take about 3 hours given the size of our kitchen. (I'm glad we have a small kitchen!) I'm hopeful it can happen while Jonathan's home next week... but we'll see.