CNY Break

Chinese New Year is a giant celebration in any Chinese-populated nations, and the festival is spread out over the month preceeding and through the weeks that follow it. The old aunties are practically trembling with excitement because all their relatives visit for reunion meals, give auspicious gifts and generally promote prosperity through traditional irrational superstitions.

But with the holiday comes hordes of people, turning high-energy but completely managable Singapore into a clusterfuck of endless queues, more people in the way than ever before, and enough traffic to make my daily commute to Starbucks more treacherous than Frogger. To escape such antics, I joined five friends on a CNY break to Tioman Island, Malaysia, where the only evidence of the New Year is in the room rates the resort has managed to inflate for the big night.

Amigos on the 4-day vacance-bleu, from L to R: Anisha (UVA), Myra (UPenn), Erfaan (UVA), Jonas (Norway), moi, and Paresh (UVA).

So geographically, Singapore is at the tip of Malaysia, and the two are connected via highway. Tioman is a three-hour drive from the border, then 90 minutes by ferry off Malaysia's East coast. In preparation for the taxi voyage, we went out to Cafe Iguana, the favorite bar with 1/2 off happy hour and giant pitchers of everything, until the wee hours, savored just over an hour of shut-eye, and met up with the crew in town. The cab ride was supposed to be 2 hours but actually took 4. The fault was mutual as we were an hour late for our cab (Malaysia's are the world's oldest cabs in use, I swear)--obligatory McDonald's stop--but the cab driver's nasty habit of falling asleep with his eyes open at the wheel somewhat hindered our progress because he sacrificed his concept of speed when he hit REM in Johor Bahru. Once we got to the Mersing jetty, we waited impatiently in line for the 11:30 ferry which arrived promptly...at 1:15. Mersing doesn't fail to meet Asia's characteristic dirtiness specification, which has become quite comfortable and even pleasant to me now. Shops are poorly kept, in disarray, coated with scum...people smell badly and stare often, but are incredibly kind and take pains to help you find your way.

At the jetty, unsure of which end of the line was the front, we greedily edged further and further toward the suspected gate, only to find out that the entrance was in fact behind us, and the boat was full anyway. Damn. Enough bitching, we got on a boat eventually, it was packed, and the water became bluer and bluer as we came closer to Tioman.

We stayed at the Berjaya Resort, a 5-star golf course resort, because it was available and actually reasonably priced at $40/person. Berjaya monopolizes the beach near the town of Tekek, so it really doesn't have to do anything very well to get the business it needs. The pool was beautiful, the beach was lovely, the room was comfortable, the landscaping was well-done, and the surroundings indeed tropical, all of which more than made up for the lame food and disinterested service. Or maybe they were pissed that we made personal investments in Jack Daniels and juice from local shops down the road.



During the days, we had buffet breakfast, sat at the beach or by the pool, walked into town, or took a boat taxi to other parts of the island for snorkeling. I passed up a jungle trek (why oh WHY would I do that??) but had a hilarious day with Myra, so no real loss. At night, we played hours of Never Have I Ever which morphed into Truth or Dare, drank more, dipped skinnily, or took a boat taxi to other towns for bars and hookahs. I haven't been so relaxed or stagnant for months.

I loved the weekend and the trip, especially the people, but resort life inspires sloth-like instincts to emerge. Now that I'm back, I've dedicated the coming weeks to physical activity and buffet avoidance. As I type, I'm in my PADI scuba certification class (we're on break, worry not), and will return to Malaysia next weekend for open water dives.

Rock on. Back to class, Beer out.

Extraordinary Selections from the Mundane Collection

As the title implies, this post is dedicated to the day-to-day activities of Beer in Asia, not the infinitely exciting adventure that I've been chronicling. And not because the mundane is particularly (contradictory) exciting, but because I'm not leaving for another trip until this weekend. Woe. Is. Me.

As the digital clock reminiscent of a scoreboard counts the seconds to 10:10 am, I am seated behind a curved lecture table that frames the seminar rooms (or networked seminar rooms, or classrooms, all of which are numbered #.#, ensuring exchange students' tardiness for weeks) in my Portfolio Management course. Today is presentation day, during which 7 groups will present their strategies for replicating the S & P 500 using 5 stocks as dictated by our prof for the StockTrak trading simulation project. This presentation markets the commencement of active trading on StockTrak, and is a relatively short (10 minute) explanation of our technique used to produce a market-tracking portfolio. But being Singapore, we are all in at least business-casual attire with gorgeous Powerpoints and pages upon pages of complex Excel spreaksheets.

Our group did rather well in terms of working smart, not hard: we chose a simple technique that required minimal work for our results. Our presentation was simple but concise, and as it happens, our portfolio correlates well with the S & P compared to those of other groups. Not the best, but we're content. And the prof abstained from cut-ya'll-down questions, or instructing certain spreadsheet alterations that disclose enormous calculation errors to the class, all of our mouths watering, hungry for the fresh meat of public incompetence. Schadenfreude, anyone?

Portfolio Management is a particularly fun class because the prof is sarcastic, no-bullshit, and openly derisive when necessary. I find great pleasure in watching/being the target of such roasting, and it mixes up The Reading of the Powerpoint, a national holiday celebrated semi-weekly by my Equities Analysis prof.

Other daily filler: I am a regular at Starbucks. They know my drink, my name, and have taken my picture. It is somewhat embarrassing, but (not so) secretly I love it. What's really embarrassing though is that I average 2 trips to the restroom per visit, which involves exiting Starbucks, walking down outdoor stairs into a seafood buffet restaurant, turning into a dirty cooridoor occupied by the same dirty restaurant staff, and using the loo in what seems to double as teenage girl bathroom smokers headquarters. When I return to Starbucks, I request a brief but invasive full-body scrub with hot water and espresso-machine cleaning agent to remove the scum film that has laminated me. Tasty.

Oh, what else? Ah yes, my most recent pleasurable activity was taking a nice hot walk in the sun to a friend's ritzy flat, about a 50-minute stroll away (speed-walk if you know me). He happens to have a lovely pool and some fellow int'l students and I enjoyed it for a while, went to the supermarket, and enjoyed a pool-side barbeque with more friends. What was going to be yet another night at the venerable Cafe Iguana (happy hour after midnight, half-priced margs and tequila!) resulted in The March of the Penguins with a side of vodka-cran. Nice touch. The night after, we went to watch the 6 Nations Tournament, France v. Ireland rugby match, at Muddy Murphy's pub. France pulled it off in the last few seconds, which is great because they're better looking anyway. I definitely prefer rugby to American football any day. And if they start fighting, better yet. Regardless, the Irish are a rowdy crew, and pubs with cultural leanings overcharge on the beer.

Class is over, so I'm out. Cheers to sunshine and raw food, besos y pesos.

Oh What a World

In advance (like always), I should give notice that this post is influenced by mood-perfect music, beautiful weather, post-trip nostalgia, a completed Kerouac, and notice of two class cancellations for tomorrow. So if it seems too sweet to be candy, it may be...but dried fruit at very least, and I prefer that anyway. I did, however, finish the post the following day when I had returned to my usual mild sarcasm. Read on.

What's the word for when some stimulus transforms your state of being at one point into immediate contentment? Contenting, maybe. Regardless, the most "contenting" element in my life is music, in terms of ease and frequency of such a transformation. For example, following a morning flight, a minibus ride and a brief stroll to my bungalow in Thailand on Friday, I left to explore town while my hut was readied. After walking 150 m down the road, a sunny cafe on the corner was playing Jack Johnson (Walk Alone--my favorite), offering a set breakfast for 99 Baht, or about $2.25. I sat down with one of those softish zen grins, tapping my toes to Jack telling me about the man I think I'm in love with--because who's to say he's not the gifted one? All he ever does is walk alone, but man can only walk so far. All he ever does is look inside, but he don't need no will to hide.

To match the music, the espresso was sweet, the milk light, and the sugar raw. I've never had sweeter pineapple, and if I have, I've already forgot about it because this pineapple was perfect. And the Thai are wonderful. I fancy my experience as genuine because there's a difference between a tourist's handshake and a traveler's. I hope mine is the latter, but if it's the former, I guess no one would really tell me because I'd be more likely to buy some chintzy dime-a-dozen street item from them, so I guess it's a crap-shoot...but I digress.

I spent a considerable amount of time in my five days with arms outstretched for prolonged periods seeking neat little rock holes for which to poke my fingers and support myself against a cliff. As it happens, those holes are hard to come by; but getting used to this, I became (and still am) rather quite thrilled about the prospect of scaling a face of rock in search of good-enough crags and edges to support a limb on the way up. Yes, I went rock climbing. In fact, I went rock climbing in Railay, Thailand, as mentioned before in an entry. It was fabulous, I loved it, the guides are strong, hilarious, resourceful Thai men, I loved them, we drank beer, and went to bed happy. To our respective beds, that is. Really, it was quite the little vacation.

I must add that I prefer the Thai food in the States. The curry and tom yam is better in Thailand, but the Americans have done a helluva job giving pad Thai just the right amount of spice, peanut and slipperiness to be puurrrrrrfect. And spring rolls, contrary to my earlier belief, are only Thai if they're fried. Eeewww. Next destination: apparently Vietnam. Again, I digress.

My bungalow, the Laughing Gecko in Ao Nang, was excellent. A Thai-Canadian couple has run the place for 8 years: the Thai man graduated from law school, lived in Germany for 15 years, has run 2 prior bungalows, and speaks fluent Thai, English, German, Swedish, and a few others. Patricia, his wife, grew up in Toronto, became a hairdresser, and met Nui while traveling when she stayed in his bungalow. They have two awesome kids with huge energy: Nayana (9) and Charlie (4). So much fun! The accomodation was extremely simple, but every night all the guests ate a beautiful Thai meal prepared by Nui, drank beer and exchanged stories like family.

Spring break is coming up in a few weeks. This would usually be a good thing, but because Singaporeans have a strange penchant to study (Canadians even call it Reading Week. What the hell?), all my profs have the expectation that I, too, am studious. While this is a complete falsity (and I waited too damn long to book any flights/hotels/trips so it's all sold out), I will be fulfilling those expectations by spending most of the week in ol' Singapore. Tassja and I might take a few jaunts to Bintan and Batam in Indonesia because they're only an hour away by ferry, but otherwise I'll be a-workin.'

More later as things happen...