Cris Crisps

I didn't know I was so big in Singapore. Where are my royalties?!?

??? Slurrps...we'll never know!

Singapore Sling at the Long Bar

Famous for the invention of the Singapore Sling ($25 SGD for a Hawaiian Punch with some rum in it), it's also now famous for the most miserable peanuts ever served to humans. I'm surprised these didn't get rejected even for making peanut butter.

Ghee, Glorious Ghee

This is at Mustafa's megastore in Little India in Singapore. I have never seen so much cholesterol on one grocery aisle, and I hope to never again.

Singapore Chili Crab

The culmination of an incredible 10-course meal at Roland's for Christmas dinner. They told me the secret there - I now know how to make this from scratch! Instructions: use tomato paste, chilies, egg, and crab. Yup, that's it. Apparently that should have been enough info to replicate it. I would stake a Saints Superbowl win that there are some ingredients they left out.

4 Slurrps

Electric Kite Wonderland

Very cool hobby here in Singapore is the building and stunt flying of electric kites. These are basically sheets of kevlar with a single lightweight propeller attached to the front, and a small reciever to control speed and flaps. A full-on kit costs about $500 SGD.

Singapore at Night

This port city was beautiful at night. See visual proof above.

Singapore Food

When you want fashion, go to Milan. When you want to party, go to Brazil. When you want to see a movie, get your butt to Hollywood. Ah, but if you want to eat, you must go to Singapore. Fabulous food fusion in a town where people are passionate about their cultural contributions to my stomach (and their own stomachs as well).




What is shown here is one of the many of hundreds of food centres throughout Singapore. Some are more reknown than others. Some larger, some smaller. Some indoors, some out. Some crowded beyond capacity, some quietly awaiting the dinner zoo. One thing in common is that you can always find dozens of differnet types of food in one place - all of it delicious, and no dish more than $5 SGD. The hard part is choosing what to eat...I personally recommend starting with some Katong Laksa on East Coast Road.

Beware: Merlions Be Here

The famous Singapore Merlion - half mermaid, half lion. *shrug*

Gems of Japan

1) If any aspiring clowns out there need practice for the clown car trick, come ride the commuter trains here.
2) There are other cuisines here besides sushi. yakkitori, tachoyaki, soba, udon, etc., and they're all delicious. Hint hint: okonomi yaki
3) Tokyo is densely populated, sure, but it's also at least three hours from one end to the other (five if driving), so it's not that dense. Exceptions apply; see Gem #1

Okonomiyaki

While I'm starting to be self-conscious about all the food posts (I've gotten a comment or two about the relative ratio of food posts to any other subject matter), I couldn't leave this out; it was such a fun (and delicious) experience. Okonomiyaki is a traditional Japanese working man's meal. It's basically a savory pancake with various meats and vegetables. The one I had included minced cooked pork, octopus, dried shrimp, green onions, an egg, and batter to hold it all together. It's finished with a sweet soy glaze and some shredded dried seaweed. To eat, you cut a few bite-sized pieces with the spatula (I recommend Spatula World for all your spatula needs.) and transfer them to your serving plate, keeping the remainder warm on the tabletop griddle. An entertaining, enlightening, and slurrpilicious experience all wrapped up into one. Goes great with Sapporo draft.

LudiCris Rating 4
5 Slurrps

Coffin Hotel

The view from inside the Riverside Capsule Hotel. Not the most restful night I've ever had, but I did manage to make it out alive *cough*.

Note: My coffin was the one on the far bottom left.

Warning: Macabre Content

The World Drum Museum is an amazing place. There are hundreds of drums from around the world and through time on display. Here's the incredible part: you can play most of them! The drum pictured here is made of a human skull, and the drumheads are made of human skin. *shiver* This one was not playable.

Octopus Balls

Mmm, tachoyaki. Little round balls of savory-seasoned batter stuffed with a piece of octopus tentacle. Originally from Osaka, it was so popular it's spread everywhere. Good for me since I got to eat these tasty morsels.

3 Slurrps

Toilet

Now here's a post you don't see every day. I knew they had nice toilets in Japan, but this was a surprise discovery in a McDonald's! It included choice of music (I could not find the thrash metal), choice of water sprays (no worries, there was TP as well), heat settings, air vent control, and I think some of the space station controls.

Mt Takao

Shrine on the top of Mt. Takao. One of the most sacred places in Japan outside of Mt. Fuji. I saw some sacred feces-throwing, herpes-laced monkeys on the way up as well.

Tokyo

I'm sorry, but this picture of Tachikawa is the best one I have of the stereotypical downtown hustle, bustle, and neon. If you want a better one, I suggest you take it yourself. Or just Google image it (but that's not quite as fun now, is it?)

Vending machines

You can get anything out of a vending machine here. Cute toys, restaurant menu items, candy, canned drinks, fountain drinks, coffee, tea, hotel rooms, venue admission tickets, popcorn, bread, newspapers, porn(!), panties(?), and beer!

Observations on Australia

1) Every beach town that isn't already overly developed claims to be the 'best kept secret beach in all of Australia'. This just means that it'll only take you two hours to find parking instead of three.
2) Every town that doesn't have a beach claims to be the friendliest town in all of whatever region it happens to be in. It is mandatory for the town council to advertise this on a billboard for each and every road leading into town.
3) Everything her will kill you, given the chance. Tht includes the locals when they spot a tourist trying to navigate through a roundabout.
4) Kangaroos are tasty.
5) Drinking here is the national pasttime. Sport is just something to watch in the background between pints. Just to make my point, consider that beer is priced by alcohol content, not taste.

Fish and Chips

And you, curious reader, thought I was in Australia. Little did you know I hopped on my private jet to London to satisfy a fish 'n' chips craving. These were actually surprisingly good. Fresh barrimundi filet, very lightly battered. I was expecting something more greasy, but it can't be famously popular with the surfers here at Manly Beach and all along the coast if it was the greasepile I had envisioned.

3 Slurrps

Sydney

What a beautiful city. There is no bad time of day or angle of shot for a view or picture of the Opera House or Harbour Bridge. This was actually taken from on the bridge as I walked across.

Sale!

Nothing, and I mean nothing in this entire store is over $39.95. I mean nothing. Except for everything that's over $39.95. Except for those.

Pie 'n' Peas

Here's an Aussie beef pie topped with mashed peas from Harry's Café de Wheels, a famous pie cart on the wharf. I threw on some mint sauce on top for good measure.

3 Slurrps
LudiCris Rating of 3

Dead Guy

Here's a dead guy in a tux Rob, Susie, and myself found on the streets on the way home from the pubs. Notice the death grip clutch on the soft drink (pun intended).

And here's Rob performing some sort of Aussie CPR on the poor bloke.
(Yes, we did check to make sure he was breathing. We weren't that drunk or heartless. Ok, that heartless.)

Fun with Beads

Here's a couple of brand new mates, Rob and Susie, who picked me up at the Sydney Opera House performance of ''Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)''. They were both celebrating birthdays, so we all went out for a pint or two afterwards. As you can see, we had a racous good time. As for the beads, they were just randomly near the entrance of one of the bars. They really weren't part of the motif, or an art installation or something. They were just there... so we used them.

Earth

Here is the largest scale model of our solar system on the planet. The big white dome in the back is supposed to be the sun. I saw all of the other planets over the course of about an hour's drive. It's a new installation - only about a month old or so, I think - so I didn't have the heart to tell them they needed to take down Pluto.

Aussie burger with the lot

Don't read the description if you're prone to heart attacks. The flavor combination was wonderful (beetroot rocks), although I do have to say the burger patty itself was less than delicious.

A disappointing...2 Slurrps

Roswell, NSW

I was freaking out for a moment here. Maybe I was abducted, maybe I just stepped into another dimension - who knows? Somehow I got from the Penrith Regional Art Gallery to Roswell, NM without ever leaving Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. Then I realized that one of the guys who had helped to set up parts of the International UFO Museum had also installed this exhibit. Of course, after seeing all the evidence of sightings and abductions in the area, I came to the conclusion I'd probably been adbucted anyway.

Snags on the barbie

Found these gems in a butcher in Leura (Lee-ra). One was 'regular', whatever that meant, and one was rosemary and mint. The former I did up with some homemade pasta sauce and some cheese, and the latter I just added some good mustard and sauteed onions. They were no Oyama, but it was the best meal I've had on this trip yet!

4 Slurrps

Vanilla Slice

Fervently recommended by Lynette, this is vanilla custard between two pieces of flaky pastry dough and topped with a passionfruit icing. Pretty difficult to eat, as the custard tends to give way before the pastry, but I seemed to manage. For Lynette, you know.

3 Slurrps

Van with a view

This is the view of the Grand Canyon in Blue Mountain National Park from inside my campervan as I prepped dinner and my day pack for the next day's bushwalk.

*Yawn*

Ho-hum, more fataly dangerous animals. This one's a red-bellied snake, and he didn't even blink as I passed. Guess he know's who's boss in them there parts. Probably because he makes the list too.

LudiCris Rating of 3

Lynette

I'm introducing so many locals here, I might just be gettin' to be one myself. To any Australians reading this, I kid, I kid.Apparently I was camped right next to Lynette (she's the one on the right) at Warrumbungle National Park for a couple of days, parked right next to her at the national Observatory the next day; she saw me in town about 50 km away later that day, and then noticed as I pulled into Coolah Tops National Park in the evening. In typical Aussie fashion, she came up to introduce herself by taking a piss (making fun of) and asking why I had been following her for the last few days. We hit it off and started talking, and pretty soon we had the whole campground (that's the rest of them on the left) joined in our merry banter.

Manual shredder

If you've been searching for the easiest method to get paper cuts, boy have I got a breakthrough for you. This is all of my credit card receipts from Cairns 'til now. I miss technology!

Kangaroo spotting

Aha! I think we're on to something here.
Oh boy, there's one!

And another!

Uh-oh, I think it' time to retreat...

Lamington

Sponge cake dipped in some sort of chocolate sauce and covered with micro-shaving of coconut + 'iced coffee-flavoured milk' = healthy lunch?

3 Slurrps

Brisbane

Hello Brisbane! This is from the top of Mt. Coot-tha in the morning going west out of town and into the interior.

'Tis the silliest of seasons

Well, I s'pose it's that time of year, or at least getting pretty close. This is Brisbane's official Christmas tree. Happy Silly Season to everyone!

LudiCris Rating of 3