Thursday, October 23, 2008

Sentosa Island

Sentosa is a short cable-car ride away. It hosts a number of things to do, of which I can name the aquarium, a butterfly museum, several beaches, and what you see below: The Merlion.

For a fee (nothing is free) you can go inside the Merlion (air-conditioned!), watch a historical cartoon, then take an elevator to its head and mouth for views of Singapore's harbor towards Indonesia.


WERE YOU AWARE THAT SINGAPORE
IS THE WORLD'S SECOND LARGEST PORT?







The girls on the cable car (they LOVED it).





(since you missed the movie)




SOME OF MY FAVORITE RECENT PICTURES



Carmen and Tatum at a reception at school, October 16.




Sunday, October 12, 2008

TRIP TO THE WET MARKET

This chronicles my first visit to the wet market, which happened to be in Little India (the floors are routinely sprayed and washed with water—to the extent of flooding it at frequent intervals—hence the name "wet market"). People go to the wet market to find the freshest vegetables, seafood, poultry, meat, fruit, herbs, dried fish and various other food products, some of which I had no previous knowledge. Most of the meat/fish/seafood can be cleaned/gutted or butchered on the premises. This trip is not for the faint of heart or for those extremely visually or olfactorily sensitive, as in some areas the smell of fresh, raw chicken for example or mutton (barf) is so penetrating I had to hold my breath. The upsides? Food is about as fresh as you can find it, without living on a farm and slaughtering the animal with one's own hands or pulling the vegetables from the earth. Prices can be up to 5x cheaper than supermarkets. There is a certain romantic ideal related to procuring one's food as close to the source as possible. The downsides? Tramping through slippery, wet, smelly stalls, smushed up against the throng of humanity. Getting propositioned to buy from every vocal seller as you pass by. Lugging a week's worth of unrefrigerated food home in 15 plastic bags....



1. Mackerel?
2. Trays and trays of different sizes and varieties of prawns.
3. Pretty fish.




1. Me with my bag of fresh, grated coconut and the coconut seller.
2. The Lamb Guy.





1. My most artistic picture of live, blue? crabs.
2. A red basket of crabs scurrying to escape.





1. Dried fish, beans and nuts.
2. DRIED CHILI PEPPERS!
3. Dried anchovies.







4. The green squiggly things are called "cendol" and get their color and taste from the pandan leaf; these sweet noodles are used in an Indonesian dessert with palm sugar, coconut milk and ice. It is OK but not my favorite.
5. I think this is a bean stall with tofu, bean curd, fresh bean sprouts and the like.
6. EGGS. I tried the "salted eggs" at a buffet breakfast in Indonesia. YUCKY. Tastes like a hard boiled egg that has been soaking in salt water for a week.



ALTHOUGH I CONSIDER MYSELF TO BE
AN ADVENTUROUS EATER,
THESE THINGS WILL NEVER CROSS
MY PALATE, EVER.

1. CHICKEN FEET:
(definition from Wikipedia: "chicken feet...are eaten in Chinese
and South African cuisine.
The majority of the edible meat on
the feet consist of skin and tendons, without much muscle.
This gives the feet a distinct texture different from the rest
of chicken's meat [oh really]...
Some folk medicine traditions
claim that chicken feet can prevent or treat wrinkles,
due to their high collagen content.")


2. MUTTON:
(I had my share of mutton chops in 1980, living in Loah, Utah.
Paul Felton is my alibi on this one.)



3. COW CHEEKS:
I read that "cattle cheeks are a very muscular piece of meat
that when properly cooked melt into a pool of meaty morsels.
For those meat-minded people, few cuts of meat offer
as much flavor packed bang for your buck."



4. BLACK CHICKEN:
An Asian delicacy, as many believe that soup made from black chicken
has medicinal properties that are especially helpful to women.


Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Carmen's ART SHOW



FEATURING ORIGINAL ARTWORK & PHOTOGRAPHY

BY CARMEN J. CAPITANI
SEPTEMBER 2008


*double click pictures to enlarge



"SUPERHERO PUPPY"























PHOTOGRAPHY:

1. "STINKY BEAR"
2. "BLACK PEN"
3. "THE ARTIST'S PLATE"





"SNOWFLAKE"

"SUNSHINE'S PANDA BEARS"

"EFFIE"


1. "CONFUSED LADY"
2. "BEARS EATING FISH"




"STRONG HEART"


"THE HANDSOME SUN WITH A MUSTACHE"


"THE INDIAN"





"LEMONS IN A GLASS"

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Fall in Athens... I mean Singapore

To initiate the faithful, we had our first try at entertaining with our neighbors the Connellys, who live one floor below us and more importantly like football (however, they are Arizona fans). No problem!

Kick-off was scheduled for 10:30am on Sunday at the Capitanis, watching the game through Tivo through Slingbox (Singapore is 12 hours ahead of EST). Thank God for Slingbox. After the Dawgs gave ASU a thorough beating, we headed down to the Connelly's for the Arizona/UCLA match-up (dare I say Go Cats?)... No tailgating is complete without a couple of bloody marys, beers, plenty of cheese dip, pigs in a blankets & buffalo chicken dip. No, it was not football as we know it, but it was the best damn football in Singapore, believe us!



Tiffany & Carol... the Georgia game begins... Kevin, Kevin & Tiffany.



The Connellys have 4: Carmen with Aidan, then Ian & Carmen, then Caitlin & Bridgett.




Kevin and Tiffany have been in Singapore 2+ years, hailing from Tucson, Arizona and Southern California. Besides letting us invade their lives as they knew it, they have saved us at least six months of trial and error, sharing their wisdom and stories concerning the best-kept and most useful secrets of Singapore (which is not limited to: finding the best local bar, how to get the best reception on your TV through Slingbox, or where to go food shopping, drop your dry cleaning (have it picked up) & have a great meal. Our girls get along well with their boys and ride the bus together to school.


PICS FROM THE POOL:
We just had a 3 day weekend. Tatum takes lessons on Fridays, and shortly thereafter we had some pizza down at the pool (another Connelly find: the best delivery pizza in Singapore).


Tatum with her teacher Louis:




and having some lunch on a day off from school:





AND THE BEST NEWS OF THE WEEKEND: CARMEN GOT HER CAST OFF ON SATURDAY!!!