ana – sin to lax via nrt

That’s a lot of acronyms. For the uninitiated that’s All Nippon Airways – Singapore to Los Angeles via Narita (Tokyo).

I took ANA on my home since they had a good deal going for holiday flights. I had 3 meals coming in and going out. Before we jump into the food some musings and takeaways:

1. The planes are nice and the staff is friendly.

2. The movie selection is just ho-hum. Maybe I’ve been traveling too much lately but I had seen most of the movies already.

3. The requisite airplane snack comes right before the meal. It goes snack + drink followed immediately after by food + drink then tea then coffee then tea. It’s like a food ambush.

4. They don’t have ginger ale. What the heck?

5. You have to pay extra for other snacks outside of mealtime.

6. The connecting schedules are awesome – 1.5 hours or so. Just enough time to stretch you legs, pop into a store, run to the bathroom, and then be on your way.

Now on to meal 1.

yay! we’re in dublin!

I’m using the royal WE so you can live vicariously through me.

This is your Dublin intro post. A leisurely walk through my first few days in the Dubs. It involves the mall, French stuff, and fried fish.

I landed around midday in Dublin so I had to power through and stay up until atleast 8pm to try and shake off the jetlag. To make sure those hours melted away as fast as can be I headed to the mall (shocking) where I rifled throug the H&M racks and acquainted myself with Penney’s. I also indulged in some mall food.

Pizza, of course. Toppings were ok, the crust was meh. At least the cheese wasn’t weird like it often is in Asian pizzas. Cheese is not a strong point for Southeast Asia. Sorry.

Since I was doing so good whippin’ jet lag’ butt, I treated myself to some pistachio ice cream from an Aussie chain. It was alright but not particularly memorable.

siam paragon = sensory overload

When the homies came to visit two months ago I took them to the basement of Takashimaya which is one of my favorite places in Singapore. While moseying around deciding between more yakitori or an omelette made of yakisoba Jeff said, “Have you been to the basement of Siam Paragon in Bangkok? I think you would like it.”

This my friends is how I ended up asking Muk to take me to Siam Paragon on my last trip to Bangkok. As luck would have it our hotel (the Grand Hyatt Erawan) is conveniently located within walking distance to Paragon so we had no trouble walking the concrete above ground maze that connects a handful of Bangkok’s finest shopping establishments.

Let’s talk about this mall right quick. It has a BMW dealership. It’s not even on the first floor. It’s, like, on the 3rd floor something crazy like that. Now tell me: how do they even get those cars up there? Do they have a special elevators or something? How often do they switch it up? Does not compute. The rest of the mall is equally impressive with international brands and lots of high end things that neither you nor I can afford even on a good day.

Luckily the basement eats do not require a black credit card of any kind.

I did not know what to do with myself once we got there.

jones the grocer, singapore

Yah, this post is totally about Dempsey Hill again.

Before we got into the eats, let’s talk about my arduous journey to get there. I live on the East side of the island which I heart very much. One of the things that I do not heart is that I live on a road that is often closed off and used for marathons, races, and other annoying fitness related activities that I do not care to partake in. When I say ‘closed off’ I mean that they turn off the bus service that feeds into and out of my area. Take the MRT you say? Yah, there is no MRT where I live.

This means during these marathons and races and whatsits I’m pretty much trapped. Not cool. The only way out is by taxi and everyone is scrambling for them so you’re best bet is to call for one. Total taxi fare from my humble abode to Dempsey Hill: SGD17. Ouch.

Whatevs though. I’m getting my darn pancakes – raceathon be damned.