Singapore
In early April we made one of our longer trips -- Singapore followed immediately by Australia. We were in Singapore for only a bit over two days, with Chuck meeting with the Singapore Defense Science and Technology Agency, faculty members of the National University of Singapore and being given a tour of the port of Singapore's huge container terminal -- as possible background for some work he may be asked to do back at the Naval Postgraduate School.
We were escorted by a former NPS student of Chuck's from Singapore, Ivan Ng. He couldn't have been kinder -- met us at the airport, took us all over the city, took Chuck to each of his business appointments, escorted us to dinner and took us back to the airport; hospitality of the highest order.
Ivan introduced us to several of the culinary treats for which Singapore is famous. At a riverfront seafood restaurant we had both black-pepper crab and chilli crab. These are really large crabs from the local waters -- not like Alaska king crabs but more like the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, but many times the size. Both versions are spicy, very tasty and very messy to eat! We ate dinner the next night at one of Singapore's famous "hawker" malls, made up of a bewildering array of stalls vending a tremendous variety of Chinese, Malay and Indian food.
At a dim-sum restaurant for lunch, we got to sample a wide variety of Chinese and Singaporean specialties under Ivan's expert guidance. Have you had frog porridge? Well, now we have, along with several other things that took a little less fortitude to try. You may think this is too much about food, but even our guide book pointed out that in Singapore shopping is the national obsession and food the national treasure.
Other great memories include a visit to the Singapore zoo at night for the famous Night Safari and a stroll through the beautiful, large botanical garden located in the heart of the city -- again with Ivan guiding and explaining. Kathi also spent a good part of one of the days strolling along the famous-for-shopping Orchard Road, which is lined for a mile or more with every kind of shop, store or restaurant you can imagine -- most of them pretty up-scale.
We did get some nice pictures, but unfortunately, when we went to Australia right after Singapore and Chuck was experimenting with our new digital camera he unintentionally deleted all the photos in the camera's memory. So we can't show you Ivan's smiling face or any of the beautiful sights of Singapore. Chuck is now required to have adult supervision when he uses the camera.
We were escorted by a former NPS student of Chuck's from Singapore, Ivan Ng. He couldn't have been kinder -- met us at the airport, took us all over the city, took Chuck to each of his business appointments, escorted us to dinner and took us back to the airport; hospitality of the highest order.
Ivan introduced us to several of the culinary treats for which Singapore is famous. At a riverfront seafood restaurant we had both black-pepper crab and chilli crab. These are really large crabs from the local waters -- not like Alaska king crabs but more like the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, but many times the size. Both versions are spicy, very tasty and very messy to eat! We ate dinner the next night at one of Singapore's famous "hawker" malls, made up of a bewildering array of stalls vending a tremendous variety of Chinese, Malay and Indian food.
At a dim-sum restaurant for lunch, we got to sample a wide variety of Chinese and Singaporean specialties under Ivan's expert guidance. Have you had frog porridge? Well, now we have, along with several other things that took a little less fortitude to try. You may think this is too much about food, but even our guide book pointed out that in Singapore shopping is the national obsession and food the national treasure.
Other great memories include a visit to the Singapore zoo at night for the famous Night Safari and a stroll through the beautiful, large botanical garden located in the heart of the city -- again with Ivan guiding and explaining. Kathi also spent a good part of one of the days strolling along the famous-for-shopping Orchard Road, which is lined for a mile or more with every kind of shop, store or restaurant you can imagine -- most of them pretty up-scale.
We did get some nice pictures, but unfortunately, when we went to Australia right after Singapore and Chuck was experimenting with our new digital camera he unintentionally deleted all the photos in the camera's memory. So we can't show you Ivan's smiling face or any of the beautiful sights of Singapore. Chuck is now required to have adult supervision when he uses the camera.
posted by Chuck and Kathi Calvano @ 6:51 PM
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