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the mrbrown show: Kim Huat goes to Nanjing

Youtube link: http://mrbrwn.co/141sAB2

Kim Huat goes to China, where the air is clean and where emperors ruled.

Semarang 2013: Anything for a plane ride

My Facebook feed is filled with photos of friends off to some faraway land. It is that time of the year again, when families go on their June vacations and the head of the household has to figure out where to take the brood.

After a few clicks, checking airline and hotel websites (and complaints from the kids that they always ended up in Malaysia), I decided to take the the kids, the wife and my mom to Semarang in Indonesia.

I had NO idea what was in Semarang, but hey, the kids wanted to be on an aeroplane so it seemed like a good place as any. It was cheaper than Isaac's suggestion ("New York!") and Joy's ("Paris, Papa!").

My biggest apprehension was Faith. This was a longer flight that the previous one to Bandung so I was worried that the experience may overwhelm her autistic senses. But we made it! Faith was mostly calm throughout the flight and didn't fuss even when we had to clear the long immigration and customs queue at the tiny Semarang airport that probably was not used to large crowds.

After a quick lunch at the KFC at the airport (the kids were famished because we were training them not to order overpriced food on budget flights), we grabbed a cab to our hotel in town (which had a pool, a very important travel criteria for kid-friendly vacations, and free wifi, very important to Papa).

Here, the kids learned a few new lessons, like:

1. Sometimes, the Cartoon Network is in broadcast in the local language;

2. The hotel minibar snacks are off-limits, and;

3. How air-conditioning works.

Wife: "Why is the hotel room so cold? The windows are all fogged up already! Wait, who set the aircon to 19°C?"

Joy (age 7, wearing two sweaters, one of which is my mother's): "Sorry Mommy! I thought the lower the number, the weaker the aircon."

Nanjing 2013: A short break

Ryan and I are in Nanjing, courtesy of Scoot, who flew us on their inaugural flight there. Thanks Scoot! It was nice to fly direct to Nanjing, unlike the last time, when I had to change planes in Hong Kong.

We are staying at the Sheraton. It is located on Hanzhong Road which is very central and it is a pretty decent hotel. My only complaint is that the China woman in the hotel room next door to mine talking so loudly on the phone, I can hear her whole sad love story through the walls. Nanjing Love Story sial.

Cherry season is apparently in, because every mother-son is selling cherries, some vendors even venturing into the subway station to hawk their wares.

Nanjing is a really nice city to (re)visit. It is as cosmopolitan as the biggest cities in China but the people here are more polite, more laid back, and more cultured.

The city is clean and you hardly see graffiti. Ok, sometimes.

I have remember not to do the Singaporean thing of using my iPhone while walking. There are only two kinds of pedestrians in China: the ones who use their smartphones while crossing the street, and the ones who are still alive.

We visited the Chaotian Palace (Nanjing City Museum) because I am a museum geek. It wasn't too bad. Very importantly, the aircon was strong.

This must have been the quiet season because the staff were playing badminton inside the courtyard. We have a good time posing next to important figures in the exhibits.

I am appreciating the MRT lines here in Nanjing, except they play Kenny G music in the Nanjing subway station. The Chinese are truly knowledgable in the ancient ways of torture. At least it's not Richard Clayderman.

Every street corner, we see food stalls selling red lobsters, with the same poster. It's like the Universal Lobster Photo From Flickr they are all using.

And we see 兰州拉面 a lot too. It makes us giggle because the Cantonese pronunciation of it is Lan Zhao Lai Meen.

I also think it sucks to be a duck in Nanjing. They eat every part of you. Your legs, your tongue, even your blood. I am surprised the ducks haven't rioted yet.

We have also gotten used to seeing shrink-wrapped bowls and plates in some of the restaurants we visit. It is a symbol of hygiene in a Chinese restaurant. You open it by ramming your chopsticks through it.

Finally, I'd like to say that Nanjing has many 美女 (chiobu). This is purely an anthropological observation.

the mrbrown show: Kim Huat goes to Bondi Beach

Youtube link: http://mrbrwn.co/18rxASV

Kim Huat thinks he has what it takes to make it in Australia.

Vivid Sydney 2013: Beach boys

We made our way to Bondi for our lunch at the Icebergs Dining Room and Bar. I have to say this is dining with quite a great view.

Here we ordered seafood like scallops and grilled king prawns because hey, we are in Sydney, mate.

Below, we could see people swimming in the pool by the beach. It is quite a famous pool, this Bondi Baths. You need to pay to swim here but I am sure it is quite a unique experience. It was windy and the waves were big that day so we decided not to show the world our chiseled bodies in swimming trunks.

After the rather filling and long lunch, we decided to walk it off along the beach. Bondi is smaller than I expected. Maybe the photos and shows always make a place bigger than it seems.

People were jogging at the beach and some skateboarding at the skate park. A few hardier ones were surfing. We didn't surf because, er, those waves looked like they could eat us alive.

We went back to look at some more of the lighting installations at Vivid. I quite liked the James Nachtwey photo exhibition even though it didn't have fancy lights.

Then it was off to Uccello's for dinner. We felt a little underdressed here but what the hexk, the Italian food was great.

As you can see, I had a very healthy fish. Which I washed down with some very healthy wine.

Vivid Sydney 2013: You gotta hand it to them

This hand at my Sydney hotel room door freaks me out whenever I walk by.

Sometimes I stare at it expecting it to reach out and grab me. This feeling happens when I've had one too many coffees or glasses of fine Australian wine.

I like the avant garde nature of the QT Sydney but some of the art takes some getting used to.

Vivid Sydney 2013: Playing with light

Ryan and I arrived in Sydney at 8am in the morning, feeling a little zombie-fied because we took the redeye flight from Singapore. It was made worse by the fact that Singapore is two hours behind so really, we were stumbling out of the plane at 5am.

Still, we were both excited to come here for Vivid and this time we are staying at the QT Sydney, a hip hotel at Market Street, courtesy of Destination NSW.

The rooms are nice and fancy, and we even went for a massage at spaQ, the five-star health spa in the hotel. I think I fell asleep a bit at the massage table. (That's my purple cabin bag at the corner, part of my experiment to start traveling with less stuff. I will share more about my One-bag travel goal another time.)

Our next activity was to take a My Sydney Detour, a private tour conducted by Richard Graham in his beautifully restored 1964 EH Holden Premier. There are only five of these iconic cars left in this condition in Australia, Richard proudly tells me.

We were driven to see the sights that a regular tourist doesn't see, and had lunch at Ella's, a lovely cafe in Redfern.

Redfern was home to many Aboriginals and it has since become increasingly gentrified. It is now a very diverse neighbourhood and is rich in culture and (sometimes troubled) history.

Our tour took us to Bronte Beach, Dover Heights (where the rich live) and Bondi too.

This is the most awesome view of Sydney, in my opinion. There is even a private beach in front of palatial homes in this spot.

Then night fell and we took a walk to see a preview of Vivid. As you can see, it is quite a sight. This is

The Customs House was transformed into a canvas of light that you can influence by dancing at the control stage. It was fun to see the young and old dance to make the building "move".

Intel bladers dressed like Tron bladed their way through the installations and drew quite a crowd of photographers.

Children also played at this installation, making the sticks move. I made sure I was standing far away so as not to hurt my tender bits when the light sticks swung back.

We ended our evening at this installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The music, together with the light show, was mesmerizing.

Then we had dinner at The Woods at the Four Seasons and crashed in our beds soon after. I think we are not young anymore.

Little bags of money

This was probably a very unhealthy thing to do but I just HAD to organize my foreign currency drawer. A tad obsessive, I know.

The little zip lock bags are from Daiso and the labels from my Brother P-Touch PT-1290 labeller.

France 2013: Roure

We sat in our Turin hotel in Italy and wondered, just before bedtime, where next? We had our Hertz rental car, our Bike Friday Tikit and Moulton foldies in the car, and no plans for the next few days. Looking at the map of north Italy, I spied a mountain range… in France.

Just above the seaside city of Nice, was the Mercantour National Park, one of the nine National Parks of France. About 45km from Nice, was little mountain town of Roure, in south-east France.

"Let's go there! We can hike in France!"

So off we drove, making a stop at the Italian factory outlet stores near Turin to look for presents for our families, before reaching Roure. Crossing the French border was painless but we did encounter some challenging driving up the mountain roads, especially when it got higher and the road narrowed to one lane. Yes, you do have to be careful going up a winding mountain single-lane road. Also it was raining.

But the drive was worth it. We reached there before the sky got dark and settled into our lodge, a place called Auberge le Robur, run by Pauline and Christoph Billau. And oh my goodness, the VIEW.

Even in the rain and the fog, the view was stupendous. And we were in time for dinner (it is also a well-regarded restaurant).

So, with a three-course set menu of home-made French cuisine, and a killer view of the foggy mountains, Ryan and I tucked in. This is the asparagus starter, and below is the main course of veal confit.

We went for a walk after that and it felt like we were walking in an old French movie.

In the morning, the view was even better.

We hiked around a bit, then when the rain got a little heavier, we drove for an hour to the next town, St Martin Vésubie, to have some late lunch.

I think this was the coldest part of the trip, with temperatures reaching single digit degrees Celsius. We came prepared with warm clothing so it was totally manageable.

We must have been the only Chinese fellas for miles around. Plus it was off-peak season so there were not many tourists. Pauline told us over breakfast (French toast and awesome cheeses anyone?) last year, she had a Singapore couple who got lost in the mountain roads trying to drive to her place and it was almost midnight. So she got them a place nearer where they were by calling another innkeeper because she didn't want them driving in unlit mountain roads late at night.

I guess we have to thank our capable GPS for getting us there safely. We also made sure we gave ourselves sufficient time to drive there from Italy, so we would reach Roure before nightfall. Always a wise thing to do when you are driving on unfamiliar roads in a foreign country.

Italy 2013: Campione d'Italia, Lugano and Turin

One of the nice things about self-drive trips is the sheer random possibilities. Ryan and I were still deciding on our last night in Milan, where we should go next. As he poured over Google maps on his iPad, he exclaimed, "Hey, there is a little Italy inside Switzerland!"

I looked at where he pointed and it was a place called Campione d'Italia. Turns out that Campione d'Italia is a small Italian municipality under the Province of Como in the Lombardy region, within the Swiss canton of Ticino. By some twist of historical fate, Campione d'Italia chose to remain a part of Italy and the residents are Italian citizens even though it is separated from the rest of Italy by Lake Lugano and the mountains.

We thought Lake Lugano may not be a bad place to visit, so we drove our Hertz rental car towards the Swiss border, to Campione d'Italia to have a look-see. It is indeed a beautiful place but it looks like the main economic centre of the town is the casino.

Our drive across the Swiss border was fairly painless but it did cost €35 because you have to pay for a Swiss toll fee. We got a little taken by surprise by this fee and at first we were thinking, "Wah, Switzerland so expensive ah? Even their toll is €35 for one time ah?"

Then we found out that it is valid for a whole year. You stick the expensive sticker on your windscreen and it lets you drive around Switzerland's tolled highways for "free" after that. ORRRRRRH.

Switzerland IS expensive though. Our next stop after Campione d'Italia was Lugano (see the lovely flowers in the photo below). The city is by the lake by the same name and it is really pretty, except things there are twice the price of things in Italy. And you pay in Swiss francs (it's about 120 Francs to 100 Euros).

We cycled through the park by the lake and around the town area and really enjoyed it but we still had other places to go. So we loaded our bicycles into the spacious back of our Hertz car and drove towards Turin (or Torino, as the Italians call it).

We decided to spend the night at Turin. It is the home of the Torino and Juventus football clubs and it is a city rich with history and culture. The baroque, neo-classical, and Art Nouveau architecture here is awesome, and when you cycle through its generous city squares, you feel like you are riding through another time period.

We also visited the stadium where Torino was to face off with Juventus in a match, thinking we would be able to buy tickets on the spot. You watch Italian Serie A matches on tv and the stadiums are usually not full, so we thought it would be fine. We kind of picked a wrong time to go because the whole city of Turin seemed to be there for the match. I guess we should have known it would happen because a match like this means all the supporters of both Turin-based football clubs would show up to watch the match. All we could do was hear the cheers and atmosphere from outside the stadium as we walked back to our car, stepping on broken beer bottles and past large groups of riot police out in force.

Ah well.

Italy 2013: Riding around Milan

I think this is going to one of those trips where the driving is epic. Our next stop is Milan, city of fashion and finance. Turns out that Milan is more bicycle friendly than Rome, and we were inspired by the number of riders there. Also the drivers seemed more civilized.

They have a bicycle sharing scheme here, like Paris, but since we had our own wheels, we didn't need to use it. If you ever come to Milan, you should certainly grab a bicycle and ride.

We rode all around town, and of course, went to see Duomo, the largest cathedral I have seen so far. The square is filled with tourists and touts (this time Africans selling pieces of colored string and pigeon food).

Nearby, is a place Singaporeans are familiar with, Giant Shopping Centre. Except this one is way fancier than anything we have. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is the oldest mall in Milan. It looked like a nice place to sit and sip coffee and people watch too, but we didn't want to sell a kidney to buy a cappuccino there.

Cycling around Milan, we stumbled across some pretty nice stops, like canals and parks.

Of course, you cannot visit Milan without visiting the San Siro Stadium, if you are a football fan. Especially if you are a fan of AC Milan or Inter Milan. We made our pilgrimage there by bike too.

Our final stop for the day was Parco Sempione ("Simplon Park") a large city park that was established in 1888. It is huge, lovely to chill at, and has a castle next to it. We spent a quiet time watching some blokes play football on the grass and wished we had brought some wine on our bikes too. Next time, we might pack a nice Chardonnay, maybe.

Italy 2013: on the road to Milan

I always enjoy road trips. Sure, it takes more time than hopping on a plane between cities, but I love the journey itself. We left Rome for Milan and hit the Autostrada, racking up €38 in tolls and €70 in diesel costs, but our five hour drive was very satisfying.

People are always in such a hurry when they are on vacation. I find the long drives therapeutic. There is time to think, time to talk, time to listen to music or podcasts you enjoy, and time to just look out the window and see the countryside.

And we stop when we feel like stopping. Go when we feel like it. In fact, the truth is, we don't know where we are going next. We didn't plan very much before we embarked on this cycling/driving road trip. It's really a daily discussion as to which city we want to visit next. This is our Nissan EV200 Hertz rental. It is pretty big and can seat up to seven but it swallows our two unfolded folding bicycles AND our luggage. It isn't very sexy but it's pretty awesome in the functionality department.

By the way, I have concluded that Milan drivers are way more civilized than Rome drivers. It's like San Francisco vs New York. Perhaps it is true what they say about the northerners being more conservative than the uninhibited carefree southerners. Nevertheless, I feel safer here in my car and on my bicycle.

Italy 2013: More of Rome

Ryan and I are preparing to leave Rome for Milan in our Hertz rental car (it is a massive Nissan EV200 van). We also added the Glass and Tires coverage (we like to insure ourselves to the max), the NeverLost GPS (it is a new TomTom model and a road trip lifesaver) and a Hertz Mobile Wifi package. Yes, we have a unlimited 3G 21.6Mbps daily with a Huawei 3G wifi router that can be shared with more than one device. It saved us the trouble of getting prepaid simcards for both our phones and we now have internet in the vehicle and everywhere else.

In fact, I am typing and uploading this on the highway now. Don't worry, Ryan is driving, not me.

But before leaving for Milan, I thought I'd share some more thoughts and photos on Rome.

After a day of riding around Rome, I have come to develop a strong sense of survival. The drivers mostly treat traffic lights and traffic rules like opinions and the pedestrians are the same.

You know why no one walks and uses smartphones on the streets of Rome? They have all been run over by Roman cars and scooters already. As a friend said, there are only two kinds of pedestrians in Rome: the Quick and the Dead.

The driving here is best described in Hokkien terms as Boh Hew and Gar Gar Lai.

We prepared our Moulton and Bike Friday bicycles in the room and rode out in the slight drizzle. No one seemed to be affected by the rain, gamely queuing to get into attractions like Vatican City.

From what I can surmise, Rome's economy is driven mainly by Bangladeshis selling souvenirs and ponchos/umbrellas when it rains. The hardworking fellows were everywhere, peddling their wares to all and sundry. One fellow I saw offered to shield an irate elderly gentleman with his huge umbrella while trying to persuade him to buy one of his fine mini-umbrellas.

People here smoke a lot. Shopkeepers smoke, young people smoke, and even the cops nonchalantly light up on duty.

Still, despite the smoking and the chaos, it is a beautiful city full of old buildings and history, and streets made of cobblestones that can throw you and your bicycle into the air if you are not careful.

We spent quite a bit of time walking too, to soak in the sights, the sounds and sometimes, the smells. We decided to try the subway here, to get to the Colosseum. You pay a flat rate of €1,50 for a ticket to take the subway in one direction for up to 100 minutes. The turnstiles don't take the ticket back when you exit so I am not sure how this is enforced. Maybe there are random inspections.

You can also pay €6 for an all-day subway pass.

This is the obligatory photo of the Colosseum, or Colosseo, as the Italians call it. Carved on some of the walls nearby, I saw a few maps that showed the extent of the Roman Empire. The Romans certainly owned quite a bit of Europe back in the day.

The neighboring area around the Colosseo is quite pleasant to walk around. We walked into a coffee place and when the barista asked if we were taking away or having here, and we said, having here (it was raining outside).

We should have suspected something when the waiter offered us the cafe wifi password without us asking. "The service very good hor?" we told each other.

Then our coffees came. "The caffè latte very nice to drink hor?" we said, impressed by the taste and the service.

Our lattes cost us €18 total. That's almost S$30. Ouch.

I will leave you with something I read in a travel forum as I was searching for hotels to book:

HEAVEN is:
Where the mechanics are German
the policemen are English
the cooks are French
the lovers are Italian
and everything is run by the Swiss.

HELL is:
Where the mechanics are French
the policemen are German
the cooks are English
the lovers are Swiss
and everything is run by the Italians.

Italy 2013: Cycling Rome

We are finally on our bikes and riding in Rome. The weather was a cool but it started to drizzle so we took the Moulton and Bike Friday into this nice sheltered area with many people queuing.

Seems like a popular place. I wonder what it's called.

Anyway the rain gave me time to send this blog update. Now to hunt for lunch!

IFA 2013 GPC: Katie Melua sings for us

Yes. Katie. Melua.

At. Our. Gala. Dinner.

She is a Goddess of Song.

IFA 2013 GPC: A sneak peak at some products

The key messages that the IFA Global Press Conference in Sardinia, Italy, wanted us to take away, in a nutshell, seems to be:

1. Yes the economy in South Europe is pretty bad but they are optimistic that things will pick up provided the European economic crisis is resolved by 2014, China and India continue to grow, and there are no new military conflicts (Kim Jong-Un, are you listening?).

2. Messe Berlin will be able to cope with a bigger show by 2014 when new buildings are completed at the fairgrounds.

3. The European IFA is a better Consumer Electronics Show than that American upstart, CES in Las Vegas.

Anyways, that didn't stop me from checking out some of the booths set up for the event. It was not very big but we got to see a few products (I guess everyone is holding back for the actual IFA in Berlin, in September).

Of course, I had to try the new Samsung S4 for a bit. Then gestured like a silly person in front of the Samsung Smart TVs that can do gesture and voice control. That's an upgrade kit for their TVs, the Evolution Kit, in my hands, meant to ensure your TV, or UHD TV doesn't get obsolete so fast.

I popped over to the Philips booth to try their award-winning Philips Fidelio M1 headphones. Very nice, I have to say, for the money. The tone was balanced and the bass was weighty without being in your face. I thought the bass needed a little more punch though. Sound stage was decent and controlled, and the cans were comfy to wear too. The M1 doesn't fold.

I even found myself interested in the fancy Miele household products from Germany. Their line of microwave and coffee maker looked really nice with their iPhone/Android user interface. I had a nice Macchiato from their machine, my I-have-lost-count cup of Italian coffee since this morning.

Then I tried out the Loewe docks and looked at their high end TV. I still fumble over the German name of this premium TV brand to this day.

I spotted the Panasonic GF6 camera on display at the Panasonic booth and gave it a go. It has wifi built in and takes my (now very large) collection of Micro Four Thirds lenses. It's biggest feature seems to be the new 180° tilt-able 1,040,000-dot screen that is perfect for the zipai camwhore.

The GF6 has the same 16-megapixel sensor from the GX-1 and the Venus processing engine from the new Lumix GH3. The auto-focus is supposed to be faster, especially with low light, but I couldn't switch off the lights at the event hall so I couldn't test that part. Seemed nippy in regular light though.

I wished there were more products to see but hey, that's what the IFA in Berlin in September is for, I suppose.

Italy 2013: Pula, Sardinia

We visited the small town of Pula on Sardinia, and the mayor really pulled out all the stops to make us IFA 2013 Global Press Conference journos feel welcome. We had a blast eating everything offered at the town square. They even had opera singers performing.

Firemen on standy.

The bread sold here was lovely.

I had gelato here. TWICE. It was THAT good.

I also enjoyed exploring the rest of the town on foot, away from the festivities. Here are some photos from our little walk.

I felt like the Pied Piper of Pula in this Instagram taken by a friend…

But I do hope I will have a bit of time to do what this fellow did at the beach back at the resort…

IFA 2013 GPC: Can't stop drinking the Italian coffee

We are well into the IFA 2013 Global Press Conference in Sardinia, Italy and so far, I have attended quite a few of the "power briefings". Of course, you will remember some things more than others, like Miss IFA, the redhead "mascot" of the European consumer electronics show.

Briefings by the likes of BSH Bosch Und Siemens Hausgerate, Kobo, Samsung and Philips were happening all morning after an epic breakfast in Forte Village Resort. Some revealed new product (like the Kobo Aura HD eReader and Samsung's UHD Smart TVs) and other spoke of future plans.

But the highlight so far has to be drinking the coffee from the premium more-than-€1000 Delonghi PrimaDonna XS coffee machines outside the meeting rooms, served by lovely Sardinian ladies.

I mean the coffee very good to drink, of course

Italy 2013: Look, it's the Swiss Alps!

I thought you may like this iPhone photo I took as we flew over the Swiss Alps en route to Milan from Amsterdam.

It was a long flight but we finally reached Cagliari, an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, Italy. The flight took more than 20 hours from Singapore to Amsterdam to Milan to Cagliari, but the destination was worth it.

I shall post more photos as I wander around our resort.

Italy 2013: Sardinia and Rome, here we come!

Ryan and I are heading to Italy for the European consumer electronics show, IFA Global Press Conference 2013 in Sardinia, Italy, courtesy of the Singaporean-German Chamber of Industry
and Commerce (SGC).

We are also heading to Rome after that for a road trip and cycling trip.

Big thanks to Hertz for sponsoring our car for the Rome leg, and My Bike Shop and onesport for sponsoring our Bike Friday Tikit and Moulton folding bicycles!

Stay tuned as we bring you tech and travel updates from Italy (and a few other European cities)!