A Sunday evning with a bit of hangover from yesterdays activities is always a very quiet event where food is not something I’ve cooked in the kitchen for hours.
This evning we’re going for Indian and with take away being reasonable priced in Singapore I though that “Dail-A-Curry” was worth a try. Just the slogan “You Curry – We Hurry” makes me want to try it. Lets see how the food is – it’ll be here in approx. 1 hour…..

EDIT

The food arrived after 1 hour and was very good. Classic North Indian food – enough for two days. Most definetly not the last time we’ve used Dial A Curry

Most gadgets I buy I’ve heard about before and being a bit technical interested/minded I not that easily impressed. But with my latest gadget this is different. In fact its not because its complicated – on the contrary – the simplicity is what amazes me.
I’m talking about the Slingbox – a small ½ shoebox sized device that you connect to a TV-signal and to the internet where after it sends the TV signal out on the internet. Hereafter you can receive this signal from anywhere in the world using a computer and a small program that comes along with the box. Sounds complicated? Actually its not. Its more or less plug and play and for me this means I have full access to all Danish TV channels since my Slingbox physically is located in Denmark. For Danish football matches or other “important” programs its quite cool to be able to watch these live here from Singapore
See more here if you’re interested.

We are celebrating Chinese New Year (CNY) these days, which for us primarily means three extra days of holiday. However there are a few traditions that we follow with interest. The first one is the gifts in the form of mandarins that you give to everybody you visit during CNY. They represent gold and prosperity. The second tradition is “Ang Paw” which are red envelopes with an equal amount of 2 dollar bills in. These are given to all children and unmarried relatives as a sign of good fortune. The third tradition that is quite interesting is the lion dance which is performed by a professional group. The lion dance also represents good luck and fortune and is quite a show.

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone (Happy New Year) and all the best for the new year of the rat.

We went to the Police concert on Monday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. I was a bit afraid of the sound, both from a quality but also from a volume point of view. But luckily it was very well balanced. Maybe the three “old” guys on stage have realised that high volume doesn’t necessarily equal high quality. Anyways, my ears are thankful.
We were only 11,000 people at the concert so it was a pretty intimate affair with a good view of the stage and the three guys. The music itself was also very nice. I must admit I’m not a Police expert of fan for that matter in any way so I’m the last to tell you if they strung the right cords or played the songs in the right “police manner”. But all the hits were there and even I managed to sing along to some of lyrics. All in all a very nice and comforting concert. Not the biggest rock´n roll affair I’ve attended but in its own quite way very pleasing. See here for a few pictures from the concert.

Its been quite a while since my last post mainly due to Christmas Holidays in Denmark and the beginning of my new job on Jan. 1st 08. Christmas was very nice but also a bit stressful. Its of course nice that everyone wants you to visit then, but without a base anywhere (we lived in a suitcase – staying with family) it is not the same kind of holiday. However we enjoyed Denmark, the traditional dinners and the weather (!!) – but – it was also nice to return home to the warm sunny weather of Singapore and without a suitcase to carry around.
Starting Jan. 1st 08 I have also started in my new job – now working entirely for the Singapore division. Its been a busy start with a lot of new challenges, which don’t seem to end any time soon. Together with my new job I’ve also signed a new contract, which means that Karina and I will stay in Singapore for additional 2 years.

I attended a company party this weekend with Movies as a theme. The 80ies being so popular these days I decided to go as Don Johnson aka Sonny Crocket from Miami Vice. Too bad most Singaporeans didn’t know the series too well – They all thought I was Crocodile Dundee because of my croc. (go figure!)

During this week I’ve been out traveling quite a bit. For the ones of you who know my current job quite well this won’t come as a surprise. However this trip is worth mentioning. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting South Africa and Brazil for some work related tasks. Two days in Pretoria (a city close to Johannesburg) and 3 days in Sao Paulo. I’ve never been in any of the two countries (or continents – for that matter!) so it was very interesting to see and experience cultures outside of Europe/Asia.
My first stop from Singapore (10hours flight) was Pretoria, which was a very laid back and positive experience. Very much like Adelaide in Australia – with its low rise buildings, big cars and HUGE portions of primarily Western food. The weather was quite cool – which for me – is a good thing considering my all year 30 degrees Celsius. South Africa has a very bad reputation for sky rocketing crime rates and unfortunately most South Africans I met had experienced some kind of assault – either personally or in the close family. Fortunately I didn’t experience any problems and as my hotel was a quite well protected place the visit proved to be a very positive experience. I managed to spend a full day as a tourist around Pretoria where I visited a site called “The Cradle of Humankind” and a park with lots of African animals. Visit my Album page to see a few pictures.
After another 10 hours in a plane I arrived at Sao Paulo in Brazil in the middle of the week. Here everything was business releated, so I didn’t have too much time to see anything much. I did manage however to try some of the amazingly good food that Sao Paulo has to offer. The two things that stood out were Moqueca and the famous Brazilian Churrasco. A very exiting place and with 20 million people living there I hope I’ll have the time to return.
Currently I’m sitting in Johannesburg Airport after a 10 hour flight from Sao Paulo. Its morning and within 3 hours I’ll be having another 10 hour flight back home to Singapore where it will be morning – again. And that brings me to the last topic of this post – EXHAUSTION! I don’t think I’ve ever tried to be so time confused as on this trip. When I’m back in Singapore tomorrow morning I’m most likely going to sleep all day until Monday morning where I’m going to be very hungry and my body tells me to eat – dinner !

Wow! What a trip! I was excited and looking forward to our Cambodia trip, but I hadn’t expected it to be that good. We flew from Singapore to Siem Reap, which is a two hour flight and arrived at our hotel “Bopha Angkor Hotel” (EVERYTHING is Angkor-something in Siem Reap!) I actually found the hotel on tripadvisor where it had gotten pretty nice reviews. We initially looked at some more up-market hotels like Meridien or Raffles, but settled on Bopha Angkor. The price was one thing, but most importantly was the fact the up-market hotels all look alike. We could just as well have stayed at the Meridien in Singapore and wouldn’t have noticed much difference.
Upon arrival at Siem Reap we landed at what must be the tiniest “international” airport I have ever seen. More resembling a large two-family house than an airport it proved to be a very good picture of what the Siem Reap area actually was – namely very small, very non-big-city like (which is a definite plus in my book) and very down to earth. The same was true about the hotel, which was very Cambodian in style and with staff being very friendly and forthcoming (as all Cambodians actually).
The rest of the week went with Angkor site visits, relaxing at the pool during the hot hours around noon and eating/drinking some of the very good food available. Both the Khmer (Cambodian) food, which seen from an European point of view tastes similar to Thai/Vietnamese and the other options (Indian, Italian) were great and with draft beer prices of 1 USD it was hard to complain.

While we didn’t complain the Cambodians unfortunately were/are not so well off. With around 35% of Cambodians living for less than 0,5 USD per day according to the World Bank everyday life cannot be anything else than a struggle. Our Moto-driver explained that most people live from growing rice, picking fire wood (which they sell) and for the few fortunate around Siem Reap – earn a bit of cash from the tourists around Angkor. As Danes most of the rural area we saw looked like Denmark 100 + years back. This was also part of our holiday and as depressing as it might sound it was good to be reminded that a lot of people are less fortunate compared to (especially) Denmark or Singapore. We did see a “SOS Børnebyerne” in Siem Reap and looking at these data from Unicef it looks like it is very much needed. Feel free to do something about it for very little money.

Good or bad – we really enjoyed this holiday. Please visit this page to see pictures from our trip. For an explanation on the different sites/names please read here

During the Danish summer holiday pretty much all of Denmark switches down to 2nd gear. When you’re working for a Danish company this means that its damn hard to get any work done that requires input from them. Therefore Karina and I decided to have a small holiday in the same period. We initially talked about Vietnam, but decided to go for Cambodia and visit the famous Angkor Khmer Empire. We’ve been reading a bit about the country, its history and what to expect and quite honestly – it isn’t really fun reading! It will be a very different experience from Singapore and we’re really looking forward to the trip.
One very positive experience when doing our planning was the ordering of our tourist visa. The Cambodian government has automated this process on the internet where you fill out an application form, upload a picture of yourself and pay the 20USD it costs. 3 hours later I had a mail in my inbox with a PDF file and a E-visa – as they call it. They have even included a visa-blog where you can comment on the process and suggest ways for them to improve. Now thats what I call service – and I bet none of you were thinking of Cambodia when talking about government e-services.

Ohh – by the way here’s a link to the Danish way of doing things

During this week I spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a work related seminar. Karina joined me and we spend the weekend doing normal tourist stuff. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton hotel, which served English High Tea. We actually never got to try this out in Singapore, so it seemed a perfect occasion. We also wanted to visit the Petronas Twin Towers, but the tickets were sold out – much to my disappointment and Karinas joy.