Gourmet Asia Facts

Welcome to the Wandering GourmAidan factoid restaurant! We have a table available for whatever number of you there are. We'll start with a mild appetizer of Hong Kong-brand factoid, then branch out into some Asian dishes for the main course.

Course One: Hong Kong Appetizer

Mandarin is the more well-known variant of Chinese. However, when Hong-Kongers speak Chinese, they use the Cantonese dialect. All of the symbols (in Chinese, each word has a symbol) in Cantonese are the same as Mandarin, but they are pronounced so differently that an expert Mandarin speaker wouldn't understand a Cantonese speaker.

Course Two: Singaporean Main Course

This is one of our specials, brought fresh from Singapore.

Singaporean citizens speak perfect English, as the language is required learning in school. However, they speak it with an accent that makes it seem like they are inexperienced unless you listen carefully. This language mixture is colloquially referred to as "Singlish".

Course Three: Balinese Main Course

This is one of our specials, fresh out of Bali and seasoned with Hong Kong and Singapore sauce.

In Hong Kong, citizens drive on the left side of the road, as Hong Kong was once a British colony. In Singapore, citizens also drive on the left side of the road, as Singapore was once a British colony. Balinese citizens also drive on the left… but they were once a Dutch colony, and the people of the Netherlands (Nethanderthals?) drive on the right. Perhaps left-side driving is some sort of fad.

Dessert: Hong Kong Finisher

I mentioned earlier that Cantonese is the Chinese of choice when in Hong Kong. However, Mandarin is catching on, so people in Hong Kong will constantly say they speak Mandarin even though few actually do.

Thank you for visiting. We hope you come again soon.

Biking Through Bali

Today did not start well.

Luckily for me, that was quickly sorted out by a fantastic view of an extinct volcano, a huge coffee and fruit farm, and a long downhill bike ride through a village. After the several hours of driving, of course.

First up was the (completely unannounced beforehand) stop at the coffee farm. They make a... special... kind of coffee in which the coffee cherries used to make the coffee are put through the digestive system of a cat-sized animal called a luwak before being brewed.

The coffee cherry...

... And the luwak. Aww!

The plantation grew many other fruits

This is a passion fruit, in case you were wondering. Apparently, you can carve a message into one.

Grinding cacao.

The famed luwak coffee, or "catpoochino". Think about it. You'll get it eventually.

This is the volcano area that I mentioned earlier.

See that big hill in the distance? That would be a volcano. You can see some hardened lava encrusting the volcano. If you think that's big, take a look at the ring of land around it- part of which we are standing on. It's the rim of a former volcano, out of which the small one has more recently sprouted.

That's quite a view for a former lava-spewing, erupting mound of rock and dirt.

Much more of the hardened lava is visible here.

Just like in Thailand, the streets were littered with canines.

After our stop at the volcano, we started the biking portion.

These are rice terraces, rice fields carved out from a hill.

That's it from Bali. Thanks for reading.

Bonus Photo!

That'll take forever to get to...

Singapore Finale

Hello again, readers of my spectacular blog! Today I will bring you up to speed on what we've been up to for the past three days.

The first day in the trilogy was occupied by a visit to "Universal Studios" on Sentosa. There is not much to report, aside from an interesting special effects show. We were placed in a small building- a boathouse looking out on New York- during a category 5 hurricane. We watched a newscast on the boathouse TV about the storm, in which a sign was ripped off of a building. Shortly afterwards, a sign crashed right through the roof of the cozy boathouse and started a huge fire. It was (obviously) quite the show.

We stopped here solely for the AC and the water.

Can you name this "Dreamworks" house?

When in doubt at an Asian food court, just get the white rice. Never fails.

After that, we went skydiving. Indoors, thankfully. We hovered over a huge fan underneath us in a huge glass capsule to simulate skydiving. Plus, I got a chance to look awesome in a jumpsuit.

The diver in the black helmet is Dad, and I'm wearing a red helmet. The one standing on the bottom is our instructor.

On our third go, our instructor lifted into the air with us and spiraled up to the upper widows.

That's the end of day one. Day two is up next.

On day two, our last day in Singapore, we rode the MRT to the Gardens by the Bay, a huge botanical collection located, as the name implies, close to the ocean. There were several examples of traditional gardens from several cultures, including a Chinese garden, an Indian garden, and a colonial garden. Arguably the most spectacular of the attractions were the "Super Trees", towering tree-like structures with plants growing all up the sides. There were even themed Super Tree gardens, named the silver and golden gardens, each having a particular color scheme of plants that reflects its name.

We took a tram tour to explore the gardens with more narrative and comfort.

This is called the cannonball tree. Its fruits explode and scatter their seeds on impact.

For our last Singaporean destination, we chose the Cat Café, a café that serves your food in the presence of adorable rescue cats.

Baloo here went and took his nap in a different spot when I sat down next to him. He's a maine coon-ragdoll hybrid, by the way.

This is Kai Kai. Apparently, he purrs like a cooing pigeon.

This is what happens to unattended bags at the Cat Café.

These two- Brown Monkey and Luna- started fighting once they were done with our bag.

Jia Jia, Kai Kai's sister.

Little Miss Muffet, Baloo's sister.

Skittles, the genius of the group. Supposedly, she comes when you call her name, and was the first to figure out a puzzle toy given to the café cats. Too bad she was asleep for the whole time we were there, except for this picture.

I'm not sure what Robbie here was looking at (for quite some time) up on the windowsill. He may have been stalking a piece of fuzz, but it's hard to say for sure.

By the end of our time at the café, nearly all of the cats were asleep. There are five cats in this picture- Luna is taking a nap in the highest cave. She had to jump clean over Kai Kai to get to it.

With our remaining time that day, we caught a flight into Bali, and that's where we are now. Day three, today, was spent entirely at the beach, the pool, and the hotel. What a hard life we have. See you next time.

Next up: Biking in Bali!