Bangkok View from Sukhumvit

Where We Stayed in Bangkok

Neighborhood: Sukhumvit Also Called: Nana Pros: There are always people out, so it feels quite safe. There are both a regular subway (MRT) stop and Skytrain (BTS) stops nearby, making transit easier. (That said, neither of those goes everywhere you’d want to go as a tourist.) Cons: We had trouble finding local food. The variety was great:…

Little India

What We Saw in Singapore

We were in Singapore for two weeks and a few days. Most people were shocked that we were staying so long, but we found plenty to do, and we thought we got a good feel for the city. Haw Par Villa: I don’t know why Wikipedia calls this a theme park, since there are no…

Tropics Art Exhibit

Our Favorite Modern Art Museum

I am not a fan of modern art. One of my earlier experiences with it was going to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago at the age of twelve. I recall walking into one museum room and seeing a faded orange rag. This was the sort of cloth we might put in a rag pile and use for cleaning, and here…

Beef Noodle Soup

What We Ate in Singapore

It seems like we ate all the food in the world in Singapore. All the Hawker Centres: Described elsewhere, this is where we ate the majority of our meals. Everything was cheap, with one full meal and one drink coming to $4-$5 together. The selection is broad, though it does skew to being ‘fast food lite,’…

Upstate NY Winter

Reverse Culture Shock

I’m back in the US for just two weeks, and here are the top 10 things I find myself surprised by, ‘back home:’ Driving on the right. I keep checking if I’m on the correct side of the road or not! This is something unique to cold places in the US: people wearing t-shirts in -5 degree Celsius weather.…

Popiah

What Is Singaporean Food, Anyway?

Singaporean cuisine is a fusion of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and similar cuisines. That means that biryani (Indian spiced rice) is just as much a local food as pig’s organ soup (Chinese and exactly what it sounds like). One thing that local dishes have in common – especially the kind found at hawker centres – is the use of a lot of oil.…

Every Hawker Centre in Singapore

We didn’t set out to do it, but we’ve been on an inadvertent tour of Singapore’s hawker centres. A hawker centre is a grouping of many food stalls in an area with tables and benches or chairs. It looks like a US high school cafeteria, but with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of cuisine options.…