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.

Rambling on the decline of America

I couldn't sleep very much on Friday night so decided to watch the four Charlie Rose shows I brought along courtesy of Tivo-To-Go. It was an interesting mix from late September/October mostly devoted to the current crisis.: Howard Stringer on the business of Sony, Floyd Norris and Alan (twitch) Blinder on the economy, Bob Nardelli on Chrysler, and Tom Friedman on energy policy.

(OK, the recording of Friedman was from earlier this summer when he was promoting his new book, but I didn't watch it until now and the juxtaposition was interesting.)

One of Friedman's points is that due to economic policy, energy policy, etc, America is now on a slow decline. And that's one of the very scary things in this election cycle because slow declines aren't really noticeable day by day and it's very hard to galvinize people for change. You simply wake up in 20 years look back and say WTF?

In retrospect, my depression in listening to these shows was exacerbated by my final day in Tokyo. I went to Odaiba to see Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. I'm sure I looked like most of the little kids wandering around exploring robots, climate change, and chemistry ... except that the four year olds understand substantially more Japanese then I do. But here is a culture that places a high value on science education, and has a proud engineering heritage.

When I left the museum, I decided to walk back to the train station by way of a large shopping mall to kill some time before I had to catch the (long) bus ride back to Narita. And on the way ran into a Toyota showcase. They literally had dozens of different Toyota models on display - most were unique to the Japan market, but some like the Crown appeared to be the Japan market version of the Camry - where it really is closer in feel to an American Buick. It was a blast to wander around and sit in the various cars. But I thought back Nardelli's appearance on Charlie Ros, and to my recent experiences renting cars at home that were Chrysler-designed. Most of the American cars are not aspirational vehicles for me ... but in general the "quality" that I could "feel" on the plethora of Toyota cars was substantially better. Switches, compartments, etc, just felt right. They really know how engineer cars well - with the exception of a certain 2002 Blue Camry...

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.