Veged

I survived my first vegetarian day. It wasn't as tough as it seems as I didn't exclude dairy from my diet.

Breakfast - cereal and coffee. I should really cut down on dairy since I want to be healthier. I should have orange juice instead. Since the vitamin c in the juice will help in the absorption of the iron in the cereal. I just had some buns for lunch. Wassants from Provence! Tsk tsk, I do really need to put in more effort for my lunch. I have a vegetarian pasta for dinner, with plenty and plenty of mushrooms. No cream, just a little olive oil, mustard and lemon zest. Extremely healthy. On top of that, we had a huge bowl of green salad. Thank goodness I am a mushroon convert, I don't think I am go vegetarian without it. Musrooms have this earthy taste with a meaty texture, makes you feel "filled up" and the meal more substantial.

The husband has been encouraging and was vegetarian for most of the day too, albeit not a very healthy one. I borrowed a book from the library called "The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook." There are quite a few recipes in there that I will be trying for the next few weeks ( I will gladly pass the chickpea burger recipe though ), and offers an interesting little chapter on nutrition as well. I guess, when I get older, I get a lot more careful with my eating. I can't eat like how I used to a decade ago. Have to be more careful, and also, more responsible now.

Going vegetarian is going to be pretty exciting, and I shall see how well this turns out. For a start, it has been positive and motivating. Just don't show me bak gwa and kong bak pao on my veggie days!

Art

Paid a visit to the SAM on saturday for the Xu Beihong exhibit. I have (AHEM!) very cultured friends you see....

After having a cup of morning java and a hearty breakfast in Dome, we made our way up to the galleries. The first thing that we saw, was this weird looking dog-like creature, that has features that are disturbingly human, dressed like a court jester, with a huge penis. It looked scary and well, distasful to me.

That got us into a discussion - when is art art? When is it not? Is there such a thing as bad art? (I flunk Arts in school, til this day, I maintained that it was perhaps too avant garde for the people trying to grade my work. No, correction, my masterpiece!) Art in Chinese is "mei shu". "Mei" means beautiful, and really, I don't see even 1/1000 of a milligram of that in that weird looking sculpture that the artist wants to pass of as art. There might be some people out there who might be able to see something in it that I don't. Art is very subjective. Art is about pushing the limits and being controversial, getting reactions out of people, be it negative and positive. Art gives us a way to be creative and expressive. Art allows us to form our own opinions and thoughts.

There has been so much talk about controversial art these days, from Abortion Girl to the artist who called starving a dog art. I do not know how, trying to self-inseminate yourself and then, eating some herbs to self abort has anything to do with art. I don't see the connection at all. The starving dog stunt, it seems, might be a hoax. According to the artist, Guillermo Habacuc Vargas intended the work to be a stunt to show how a starving dog suddenly becomes the centre of attention when it is in a gallery, but not when it is on the street. The work was intended to expose people for what they really are - "hyprocritical sheep". He said that in order for the work to be valid, he and the gallery had to give the impression that the dog was genuinely starving to death and that it died.

Remember how many many years ago, someone started trimming off his own pubic hair in Parkway Parade and called that art? Drinking your own pee? Eating a Corgi in protest of the royal family of England? What about advertising for a dying person to be displayed in his last few moments in this world, for everyone to see? The photographs of naked Chinese opera actors?

Like poems, sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes, after reading and re-reading, it becomes painfully clear and personal. So what is art? We will know it when we see it. Let's not complicate matters by trying to define art.

No Pigs Tuesdays

A friend of mine has been vegetarian for about a month now. He did for some religious reasons. Sort of, but not really. He has inspired me to be one too. Plus the fact that we have numerous fresh spring rolls for dinner ( post HCMC hangover ), I think I had like 8 - it has further encouraged me to be one, at least a once-in-a-week vegetarian. The dinner left me feeling good, none of that queasy feeling I would have when I had a too oily or rich meal.

I had food coma though, from overeating. But that is besides the point.

It will be more like a lifestyle choice. I adore animals on their webbed feet, hooves, trotters as much as I love them on my dinner plate. I don't really feel sad for the animals that I consume, unless I see a suckling pig. It isn't for the love of animals, but for me to be a healthier person. I might pull my husband into it as well! I will still allow dairy products but no seafood.

Let's see how this will go and maybe I can slowly cut down on my meat intake. I can't totally cut that out, I love my meat too much! The vegetarian day will be on Tuesdays. Since I can't possibly want to be left out in all the glorious makaning action happening on the weekends!

Paid Holiday

How much did I get for my GST offset package and growth dividends?

Five hundred Singapore dollars! The husband has $450. In all, that will be $950.

Heli-hike in Franz Joesf Glacier - $360 times 2 is $720

A night's stay in FJ - $120

Total - $840.

Leaving us with $110 for breakfast lunch and dinner!

Travel Guides

There is the often discussed to death issue on which guidebook is the best - Lonely Planet or Rough Guides.
Personally I prefer Lonely Planet. It is more organised and more detailed. More options on accommodations and food are given. Personally though, I don't trust the food section too much. It is easier to find out how to get to one place to another using LP. Maps are more detailed and better too. Rough Guides are, like the name implies, a rough guide. Not enough details and all too brief descriptions of well, everything.

Apart from that, there are Frommers, Moon, Footprints, the very atas Luxe, Bradt, Timeout, AA Travel guides and Insight. Not forgetting photography books. There are some Japanese and Taiwanese guide in Kinokuniya. Full of colour, a lot of details that some of the ang mo guides might have left out and so cute! We can though, forget completely about ahchi pariah Let's Go..Those guides suck. Did I miss out anyone?

That said, I don't rely just on guide books when I travel. I go through travel and food forums to sniff out the best deals, the out of the way places where locals go to eat (admittedly, not often since I am always too lazy unless I am with fellow foodies, it is a solely food trip or I have a local friend to bring me around.) I drill friends who have been to the places that I want to visit. (Great annoyance much to their dismay) Sometimes I read the online local paper to get a feel of the place. I have a habit of buying the local paper to read when I travel. The English ones of course! I can't possibly read Le Monde or La Republica can't I? Hello, I have problem even reading Lian He Zao Bao already!

Apart from that, now that I have a new found interest in history, I might read up about the history and culture of the country. In comes the history books. I might read famous authors from the country I will be visiting, or books inspired or set in place. I read Passage to India while I was in Chennai. I read Oscar Wilde in UK. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway before going to Paris. In some ways, this is to get me to read more, since, although I adore books, I still do get lazy when it comes to reading. There are travel books too, like Bill Bryson's. I have not read any of his books, but they are quite light to read, having flipped a couple before. Even Ewan Mcgregor has a book on his biking round the world adventure.

Then of course, there are films. I intend to make it a point to watch all three Lord of the Rings movie closer to my trip to New Zealand. Bless my husband. Actually, our first movie date was the second LOTR movie - The Two Towers.

In the end, guide books are well, just guide books. Giving you a general picture of the place with very general information. Go to a large bookstore like Borders or Kinokuniya, grab as many as you can, browse through them and decide which is the best and most comfortable for you. If you want to know a country more intimately, lose the guide book and get lost. That is the best way to get acquainted with a country!

HCMC

It was an unplanned trip with 2 friends up to visit another friend of ours. I only had like half and hour to decide if I wanted to go or not! Nothing was planned and we didn't do much reading up, except of course, where to get the best pho.

It was suppose to be that historical trip for us, but alas, Ken can't make it. But I guess it might be a good thing for him. We were shopping so much, it would have driven him up the wall. There is always always another time I suppose.

Right. The shopping. The amount of fabric available in HCMC is mind boggling. ( I mean compared to Singapore) We had a field day buying up fabric. I cannot imagine if we were to go up to Hoi An, we will be tripping all over ourselves. Mon bought some bed side lamps and we manage to haul everything back. I think we are the only ones who went over to shop. I didn't really had the intention to shop, not knowing there are so much to buy. I thought all the fabric was in Hoi An, and all the handicraft things are up north!
Elaine bought more fabric than anything (and anyone) else. I bought some embroidery stuff for home, some fabric, and coffee of course.

We had only pho twice. Twice! I thought it would be more than that. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of time and also fortunately, so many other things to eat. The first thing daing said was, there was a cholera outbreak in the city. Immediately, I thought of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. I have always been wanting to read that book, after A Hundred Years of Solitude That sure dampened our mood a little. We were told not to take ice and avoid street food. It turned out to be easier than we thought. The street food look too scary for us to even consider consuming it.


So what did we do in Ho Chi Minh other than shopping?

Eating! And drinking iced coffee!

Yes, there was the war museum that we were all pretty keen on, but, it seems a little too depressing. We did consider going on a day trip, either to the Mekong delta or the cuchi tunnels. Nope, didn't quite make it so far. I am guess a day trip will cost a lot less than a day shopping. The only touristy sights were the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office. Mon wanted to go for the Sunday mass, but guess what, we all overslept and then we spent the rest of the day shopping that she kind of forgotten about going!

That pretty much sums up our trip. Eat, drink and shop. We are doing what we always do in Singapore but in another country!