....and *GET* to you

Readers: remember how just last post I was talking about not knowing the room number? Well, imagine shopping in Singapore (the main thing to do here) and forgetting the exchange rate - while shopping at Hermes! (for those who care, turns out there is a HUGE difference between 7.7:1 - the rate in HongKongDollars to US that I had in mind and 1: .72, the SingaporeDollar to USD, actually close to a 10X difference). Ouch, oh well live and learn.

When you are in Singapore, you have to go to Orchard Road and shop at both The Paragon Shopping center and, my favorite, Takashimaya across the street. Takashimaya is both the center and a department store (like in Tokyo, again one of my favs) where there are loads of boutiques outside in the 'mall' area as well as the gigantic department store.

After you work up an appetite, head downstairs to the basement where there are two floors of food. Well, one and a half (the 'half' is a KFC and McD's on the one floor) the main floor I am writing about is B2. Its a veritable Japanese Harrod's, except that it has a Harrod's food shop too! And a Fortnum & Mason and a whole SLEW of other specialty food stores.

If you like food, donuts, baked goods, teas, coffees or anything else you consume for fun or nourishment - its here. Like vegan soups? Its here. Want sliced and grilled star shaped bacon? Yup, here too. Deep fried ham and cheese mini-sandwiches? Ding. Gelato or Ice Cream? Check. Much of it Asian inspired (of course) but a cornucopia of dining to feast on. And cheap to...

Trust me on this - for both shopping and eating Singapore is great, and this area of Orchard Road is the best. After a day of nibbling and shopping, save room for a real dinner over at Raffles Hotel - eat at the Long Bar Steak house. And trust me on this: order the sauteed spinach with your steak and don't bother sharing.

Last tip: the escalators on the MRT run fast - and I mean fast. Prepare when you step on to 'hang on' and jump off. But otherwise the MRT is a great, cheap, easy way to get around and best of all - its Air Conditioned.

Traveling can get to you...

...and I don't just mean missing the family - which is the single most wretched thing about business travel: you don't get to come home and be greeted by your lovely, beautiful, sexy wife and two wonderful little tramps of white fuzziness of loving dogs.

No, the second hardest part is figuring out where and when the heck you are at. Am I on the eighth floor or was that this morning's hotel back in (wherever the heck I just was this morning)? Was it room 15 or is it 13? Eventually you give up trying to remember and just keep the little card they give you at check in with the number written down for you.

I used to not carry that, what if someone found my key? Then they have my wallet and I am in a world of hurt anyhow. Of course it isn't smart but how the heck are you supposed to remember when you've been in 5 hotel rooms in four days?! (for those techies out there: check out in the AM at hotel 1, check in to hotel 2 same day, rinse repeat and you get to X hotel rooms in Y days where Y=X-1)

Phew, its remarkable I can even get that straight considering when I woke up this morning it was ... 4:30am in Queensland, I flew to Sydney (3 hour flight) where it was an hour ahead and then after two hours in the airport flew to Singapore (8 hour flight) where it was three hours behind Sydney. So now its 11pm local time and I have been up for 22 hours and can't sleep...

...I am thinking/wishing/dreaming of being home with my lovely and those two furries of ours. They'd keep my straight on the wheres and whens I can tell you that much.

Perspective and the news delay when your half a world away

So for me on my Saturday, I heard on skynews (fox in Australia and I don't mean the equivalent but actually the same company) that Tiger Wood's winning streak was on the rocks. He shot a 70 for the day and was way down on the leaderboard.

You see, in the states the headline would have been 'expect a (Yet another) comeback' but here, it was less resolved, more doubt. I don't know if that is the American thing - expect big things - or simply what you expect from someone so far ahead of everyone else's talent but I found that twist a little strange. "Toothless Tiger at Arnie's Invitational" said one headline.

Then I am sitting in Sydney waiting for the flight to Singapore and lo and behold, I see a clip on Sky News with Tiger sinking the 20+' putt for the win by one stroke, then he threw down his hat after a pumping of his fist. They showed this clip twice - IN A ROW. Not sure why they only showed his emotional outburt - perhaps because he is generally reserved...? I dunno but they seemed to be saying that it was a remarkable victory.

They must not get Tiger Woods news down here very often. The man is magic and purely so. I heard on a morning show the other day that Tiger played a backyard tennis match against Roddick. Tiger played on clay, barefoot - and won. One of the talking heads at the desk said that something like 'well, it was a friendly game, I am sure Roddick eased up' (clearly not understanding the world of competitive sports).

The other talking head got it right: "Perhaps Roddick should play barefoot from now on...", now that is more the American Spirit. Can't wait to get back home and spoon up that American optimism.

The beauty of data, part II

Came across this blog post in a blog I read via google reader (which is a handy way to read blogs like mine without having to check if there are new posts, this reader does that for you).

Anyhow, I digress. I read a blog called 'Strange Maps' and its all about different data (ways and means) to which a map can represent a visual for said data-sets. This post shows that others out there love data like I do, even to an extreme of 'geekiness'.

Someone listening to some 'rap' about the *ahem* prowess to which they are able to collect 'friends' in various area codes, displays the apparent travels of said rapper in a map form. I love that someone took this public data and produced a somewhat interesting data set.

As you can see from the map, Ludacris favors the south along with the eastern seaboard for his 'hoes' (his words, not mine or the mappers). So while the data set itself is not particularly 'beautiful' the idea of mapping the data set over the geographical equivalent is cool, at least to me. To each his own I suppose.

Other interesting 'maps' of recent past on this blog: Sauces of the South and Country Music's Favorite States (where someone took the mention of states from country song lyrics and mapped the 'importance' of each state proportionally). Of course some post are simply celebrating the art of cartography and others silly (like the previous three examples) and some are political (see: America's Religious locals).

So don't just take my word for it - add Strange Maps to your Google Reader for Blogs today. (And mine too :-P)