SINGAPORE SLING

The view from my hotel room here in Singapore. We went and had a Singapore Sling here tonight. The Singapore Sling was originally created by Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon for the Raffles Hotel, right around the corner from where I'm staying. The exact date is in question, with some people claiming it was in 1915, some 1913, while the hotel itself claims that it was created sometime prior to 1910. There is plenty of disagreement as to how closely the current version of this drink that is served at Raffles is to what was originally served. Apparently the original recipe was lost and forgotten sometime in the 1930's, and the drink that they currently serve at the hotel's Long Bar is based on memories of former bartenders, and some written notes that they were able to discover.

BEIJING HIGHWAY MADNESS

Anyone who has traveled to this part of the world knows that being in a car with a taxi driver or a local driver is....let's say an experience. I was more frightened on my taxi ride in from the Shanghai airport to the hotel than I was jumping off the Macau Tower, and I am not exaggerating. So I decided to take the hotel's car from my hotel in Beijing to the airport, figuring this would be the safest way to go.

Looking back on it now, my driver was driving sketchy from the start, but you tend to calibrate "sketchy" in different terms here. Additionally, it's amazing what the fear of missing the last flight of the day to Singapore does to your judgment. I decided to just put my head down and hope for the best.

So we are flying along the Airport express, six lanes of traffic, three in each direction (think I-95) in this beautiful Audi A-8, which is an enormously expensive car here in Beijing. All of a sudden, another A-8, very obviously another hotel car taking a passenger to the airport, starts to cut us off. We are in the center lane. I'm watching the whole thing from the back seat thinking "This dude sees him. How could he not?" I look at the dashboard - we are doing 85 kilometers per hour. Oh crap! How fast is that? It feels pretty fast! Who knows, I just hope he sees him. No way is this happening...Oh my gosh, we are going to .......

CRASH - I can still hear that hallow thud in my head! Our right front quarter panel hits his rear back quarter panel at relatively high speed, but we are allright. I still can not believe neither car spins out! We pull over to the side of the road.

Now mind you, these guys have great jobs driving extremely expensive cars for 4-5 star hotels, and they just traded paint and put very expensive dents in their cars. When they get out of the cars, I'm pretty sure everyone's gonna be Kung Fu Fighting, and I grab my camera in an effort to tell the story on my blog hit by hit! But they don't do anything like that. They hold a very civil conversation, like nothing happened. They looked like two dudes having afternoon tea! I couldn't believe it....but then it happened.

The passenger of the first car gets out - an Asian businessman in a suit. I'm thinking "OK, it's going down now! Your boy looks bent!" He closed the door, spun around, dropped trou, and proceeded to take a leak right there on the side of the road. Again, this is a very busy road - think I-95 at a busy time! I am sitting in the back seat cracking up, trying to hold the camera still, and not believing the surreal experience in front of me. Thank GOD I always carry my camera for perfect blog moments like this! A classic moment in China...

OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN

It won't be long until we are watching the summer games from Beijing. It will be interesting to see if they can fix their smog problems by then.

CHAIRMAN MAO'S PLACE

Directly behind me is Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. He is the only permanent resident of Tiananmen Square. The mausoleum is more than a tomb, it's an enormous tribute to the Chairman. There is a white marble armchair inside as you enter with a massive statue of Mao seated on it (Think Lincoln Memorial in DC.) Behind this statue a massive mural features the mountains and rivers of China. In the crypt right behind this room, you can find Mao's body lying in state on a bed covered in a crystal sarcophagus and surrounded by flowers. Like so many others in Beijing these days, Chairman Mao goes to work everyday travelling from by elevator to be on display for tourists. At night his body goes back down after the last visitors have left to lie in an earthquake-proof chamber deep in the bowels of Tiananmen Square.

Side Note: Please check out the saavy US traveler, with the Starbucks stain all over my jacket. You can take the boy out of Philaaaay......

SHANGHAI DREAMS

You are looking at the view from my hotel room here in Shanghai. This is a famous area in Shanghai known as The Bund. As beautiful as this looks, you should see it at night, when all the lights come on. It was hard to go to sleep!

I bought a small Mandarin phrase book before I left, so I could attempt to have a conversation with taxi drivers, etc... I thought it was perfect, because the book provides phoentic spellings. For example...Hello, what's new? Knee how? Cold/hot today, isn't it? Jing tee-en how yurr/larng?! I thought I'd be a hit!

I tried just about every phrase....How is your family; Thanks for your help; I need a dentist. Nothing worked. Until I finally found one phrase that I can articulate well enough that every Chinese person I try it on seems to understand - Yo mayo dar pie? which translates to Played any mahjong lately? It's not very useful, but it really cracks them up. Of course, I am not looking forward to the day that I meet an actual mahjong player. I'll have no follow up!

This portion of the Huangpu River, the most important shipping artery of Shanghai, seems almost as busy as the harbors in Sydney and Hong Kong. Cargo and tourist ships fly up and down the river day and night, and there is a dangerous bend to the right of this image. I can't believe you don't see more accidents, or ships sinking like this one, obvioulsy hauling too much cargo! This is a very common sight on the river.

Reason Number 1 why you should never walk around your hotel room naked. Not that I do that - I just want to inform my readers that if they like to do that, this could happen!