Historic.... for now

I am currently in Toronto, actually leaving for Penang tonight, and have been indulging my exercise gene not in the gym (perish the thought) rather from taking long walks in this very pleasant autumn weather here. It's a great way to get to know a neighborhood and today was no different.

My goal was a pea meal bacon sandwich at St. Lawrence Market which is between Jarvis and Church on Front Street, pardon the geography lesson but there is a point to it.

To get there on foot from where I am, you can either walk down Bay Street or go east to the various north/south streets which the map shows quite well. Even the map calls it 'Old Toronto', I wasn't aware of that but did note on many street signs the comment 'Historic Queen Street East', so let's then call it 'historic'.

The definition of historic is 'something that will be important for a very long time'. That isn't my definition, it is what I found on the internet but it is appropriate in this context for historic means something that will be important for a very long time. Examples include important buildings and one thing that you can say about the Toronto city planners is that I am starting to notice quite a few more plaques noting a historic building, so and so lived here and all the rest of it. Sadly however they are not attached to any building for such and such historic building was demolished in the last 20 or so years so that a 60 storey glass building could sit on its 'historic' spot. These plaques are on little pedestals that people can read about.

I cannot imagine what these 2 storey 'historic' buildings looked like because they are no longer there.

Throughout my stroll down to the market I walked past many of these old presumably 'historic' buildings... and to be fair, many are pretty scuzzy ... and endlessly they were shuttered and had a sign up announcing the intent to build a 65 storey something or other on this spot.

Just how many of these will need to have been built to make this area no longer 'historic'? I do wonder about all this building. I receive regular updates from realtors wanting to be my friend and help me either sell or buy a condo and apparently despite the amount of new building, there is still a shortage. It is quite difficult to believe. From my window alone I can count more than 20 new towers under construction.

Having just walked around New York a bit, I am taken with the notion that New York planners have got the mix right. You can walk 20 yards off a major north/south or east/west road and be in a treed residential zone which is just lovely. In Toronto you have endless glass buildings. What makes New York interesting is the fact that both old and new co-exist. I get the feeling that planners in Toronto will knock down anything they can.

I do hope I am wrong.

24 hours in the Big Apple

Every year for some time now around this time I go to the Big Apple for meetings. It's a great excuse to visit this wonderful vibrant city and if I have time I do try to go out and visit something new. So I planned the trip to arrive in New York on the Monday, de-jetlag and then be ready for the meetings that start on the Wednesday. This year was a little different in that Viv and I had been in Sri Lanka for 10 days immediately prior to my leaving (we returned to Penang on the Sunday!) so I basically got off one plane and rose at 4 am the following day for my hideously long but early start flight to JFK. In all it took 29 hours including layovers and the usual messing around at the beginning and end of the journey.

I am usually OK on long flights. I don't usually sleep that well but I know that and usually have a nap when I get in and am pretty much up for things immediately afterwards. Not this time and I put it down to my new neck pillow.

It is a very nice neck pillow and really does allow you to get your head in a comfortable position from where you can actually sleep a bit. So I think I did sleep a bit. Of course this would have been in between getting woken up by the flight attendants to eat or drink something (I don't usually eat or drink much on long flights as it makes me uncomfortable) which always happens at the most inconvenient times so any sleep that I did get was broken up. Still it was more than usual so I thought I'd readjust easily.

That didn't work this time as for some reason I have been consistently waking up around 3 am every morning (a week later still the same) and around 3 pm each day I have felt incredibly sleepy. It is bugging me I can tell you. But for the purpose of this post it did mean that on my one day at leisure in the Big Apple I was up with the larks, probably before them actually, wondering what I should do for my day's adventures.

Luckily it was sunny so whilst brisk it was a great day to walk the streets. But first breakfast.

Now I love corned beef hash so a proper New York Jewish deli had to be the way to go and luckily courtesy of Mr. Google I chose Sarge's at 548 3rd Avenue, a great midtown diner.

I expected a normal person sized helping but did note in passing it came with 3 fried eggs and home fries. It was a huge bucket load of really fantastic corned beef hash, so much that I couldn't eat again for the rest of the day... except of course that I did so should really say that I shouldn't have eaten for the rest of the day rather than couldn't. Go there. Sarge's is wonderful. Ridiculous portion sizes though so be warned.

I had some shopping to do, tennis related, so thought I'd see if I could find the tennis shop belonging to a guy I'd met a few years ago at a tennis camp, Woody. He had a couple of shops, one on 35th near Macy's and the other at Flushing Meadows, the home of the US Open. His shop is called NYC Racquet Sports (website: www.nycracquetsports.com so do visit) and is well stocked. Woody was there as well busily stringing racquets. Lots of them with people coming in all the time to get him to do theirs.

Woody told me though that his business and by association all of retail is being seriously harmed by the internet. As I had just ordered some tennis shoes from Tennis Warehouse and am an enthusiastic shopper on Amazon, I really didn't feel I could say much and did feel rather abashed about the fact that my shopping choices were adversely impacting my buddy's business.

It did make me think about the rights and wrongs about this and it is a tricky one for small businesses like Woody's cannot hope to compete on price and choice with the likes of the big internet retailers and I'll focus on Tennis Warehouse for now. Every piece of inventory that Woody holds he has to pay for out of his precious cash flow and it cannot be as large. It is simply too much money. Tennis Warehouse has hundreds of pages of stuff with dozens of different suppliers. Not everything they advertise is in stock so for those items they have to go out and source them before sending it off to the buyer. We the buyer are OK with that if it is the specific thing we want and we ... important point here ... do not blame them for not holding that particular item in stock. But if we do go to a small retailer like Woody and he does not have that specific item, we roll our eyes and go somewhere else. The likelihood of us returning as a result of this is lower too. We have been disappointed once so why try again when there are alternatives? So we the buyer now have double standards when dealing with the small retailer and that is before considering price. Really difficult for the small business to compete which is really tough as what they do provide is service and advice. You don't get that from an internet retailer. When I was in Woody's shop, probably a dozen people came in with racquets and he discussed with them each time their requirements. One particular lady hadn't played in some years and told him she wanted string tension to be 59 pounds. Apologies to non-tennis players here but for the racquet she had, recommended tension by the manufacturer is 54-55 pounds but regular players would chose 52-53 pounds tension. 59 pounds is like playing with a piece of wood. Woody calmly and quietly said all this and put her right. If she starts playing again she will thank Woody for his advice... or rather should but in all probability will not which is a shame. This is what you pay that little bit extra for.

I left Woody with the intent on changing my buying behavior immediately in favor of the small business. Then I went and bought coffee from Starbucks. Grrr.

The day really was glorious and for some reason I suddenly realized that the UN HQ is only a few blocks away from my hotel.  It is down by the East River and is probably a thriving place bubbling over with interesting stuff. So I walked the few blocks until I found the building and looked for the ticket office opposite.

I was surprised for the UN is one of the most important global organizations bar none and one would have thought that there'd be oceans of visitors. It was virtually empty. No lines. I was greeted by the security guard who had a nice chat with me... oh nice, Bermuda, eh. That's great. Love to go... all that sort of thing before he ushered me through the door into the ticket office. Sorry deserted ticket office. I joined the line, or rather would have done had there been a line but there were those line divider things in expectation for the crowds. Just in case. The lady behind the counter called out "Next" and I went up to the counter.

She asked me how many, I said one. She asked for my ID and I provided my Bermuda drivers license. She didn't know where or what Bermuda was so I explained. She entered my details into her 'system'... yes the bloody 'system' again ... and told me that Bermuda was not one of the options in her pull down menu. I said in that case why not just put in Great Britain as Bermuda was a colony still. She said she couldn't do that because I gave her a Bermuda ID, not a GB one. I didn't have my passport. So she went over to a colleague who gave her a book and I must say I was very surprised that such a book should exist for it was a book alphabetized by country showing all types of acceptable ID. I was looking at it upside down but it looked like it had drivers licenses, passports, social security cards, and a bunch of others. She couldn't find Bermuda. Mind you I think part of that was due to her inability to figure out that Bermuda would come after Belgium in alphabetic order. I tried to point it out but instead she called for a supervisor. He looked at my ID and said 'yeah Bermuda, well that's OK'. He'd never been there either but had heard of it and most importantly he was able to find it in the book once he figured out the alphabetic thing. In fact the picture they had on the page was a Bermuda drivers license very similar to the one from me that he was holding.

In all this took around 20 minutes to complete and at conclusion there was still nobody else in line. I just cannot imagine what would happen on a busy day.

I don't know why but I still thought that there'd be others jamming up the public parts of the UN building but I was welcomed through the outer gates, personally greeted through security and made my way pretty much alone still into the main hall where I nearly jumped out of my skin as I thought they had a statue of Johnny Barnes right in front welcoming all and sundry. I was wrong of course for on closer looking it was Nelson Mandela. The main meeting room was also less than half empty and it looked like not much was going on.

And I have to say that was my experience of the UN HQ building. It was all rather disappointing that on the one hand nothing much appeared to be going on, debate wise, and on the other that there were not crowds of people visiting one of the most important buildings in the world. It made me rather wonder if the UN really is becoming something of a nothing really and running that thought further along whether being Special Ambassador to the UN was actually a positive career move. During the Soviet era, I think it was probably a bit more important, but now? Well I don't know.

All in all though it was still a great day to be strolling the streets of this wonderful city. And yes by 3pm I was really dragging my feet!

OK on replay they don't look the same but they do both have their arms outstretched to greet you! Sorry guys.

Visitors

We had our first visitor recently in Penang. It was Debbie our long time friend from Bermuda who now lives in England. It was great to see her and that she was our first.

Viv and I realised that we really haven't done all that much sight seeing in Penang so this was a chance for us to do just that. It has been great, a real eye opener for us as well, so where to start?

1. Circumnavigation

On a couple of occasions I tried to but a street map of the island of Penang. You can find small ones in various tourist brochures but never a proper map. I like maps and discovered to my dismay that no bookshops stocked them. The main tourist office said I should find a Lonely Planet guide and use the map in that as they had none too. So in our defence we hadn't really pushed the envelope in looking around much and decided that Debbie was our perfect chance.

The island is pretty big. Certainly large enough to hold nearly 800,000 inhabitants and it appears that most live in right hand side which includes Georgetown and the urban suburbs.  The middle is largely mountainous and jungle and the left hand side is actually pretty sparsely populated. However there is the Tropical Fruit Farm there.

2. Fruit Farm

The fruit in Penang is marvellous, so different to where we had been before, and the Fruit Farm is all about that. Sadly it is not main season for most fruit (that is April to June) so no durian (gulp), mangoes, and lots of other fruits. However the all year round favourites were there as was a very knowledgeable guide who was able to walk us through the various orchards, avoid most of the mosquito swamps (it has been raining a lot here) and generally keep us alive as this island is a constant reminder that much of it is still primal jungle.

The view from the fruit farm down to the coast in the distance. It is built on the side of hills

The fruit that was there was very delicious too. Very worth while visit.

3. The Bottom Left

This part is rather unpopulated and its villages are very poor looking and extremely rural. At the end of one road... and it was the end... it seemed as though everything just ended. Then all of a sudden, we came into a very wide and impressive highway going from somewhere to somewhere else... we had no map so could not be sure where we were. Except definitely bottom left.

4. Cocktails

As I have mentioned before we have known Debbie for quite some time. 1985 to be precise. One of Debbie's rather endearing traits is the 5 o'clock cocktail and I had forgotten this and I think so had Viv but on our first day of exploration around late afternoonish, Debbie's demeanour changed. Not for the worst of course but she did pointedly start a conversation about this tradition of hers and we finally noticed that it was well past this point. And when one considered things all in all, we felt that this was one tradition that was well worth keeping up in Penang.

We'd started Debbie's holiday with a rooftop cocktail overlooking the entire island and at home thereafter would continue with a themed cocktail du jour depending on what we all felt like. Limes and fresh mint are readily available so once I'd sourced some Bacardi... mojito's. That's how it went.

We had been recommended Red Garden in Georgetown as a good people watching spot and as we had never visited decided that would be the place on our first day of exploration... and found it to be a sort of Octoberfest location. Big bandstage in the centre. Hawker stands all around the periphery. Tables set out in the middle serving buckets of 6 beers at a time to thirsty frequenters and revellers. Just perfect for us in fact after a hard days circumnavigating (we didn't discover that we had barely 'done' half of the island later on when we looked at Google Maps!).

5. A Tale of Two Bridges

Once we discovered our oversight in completing the job on Day 1, we decided to complete things but including both bridges and some shopping in our itinerary (Debbie is a keen shopper). Hence our two bridges tour.

This was simply heading to the Design Village on the mainland for the retail therapy part and both bridges there and back. Still fun to see even though the Design Village is still pretty much someone's field of dreams... build it and they will come.

6. Massage Therapy in Georgetown

Everyone's favorite relaxer ... I should say pre-5.01 relaxer, just to cement the place of the cocktail in the daily calendar, is a massage which are great in Penang. Personally I love foot massages and Viv had found a recommended one in Georgetown proper so we could combine it with some heritage.

7. Georgetown's Heritage

Until we began, we didn't quite realize just how much of it there is. In some cities we had visited there were a few things slung around but in Georgetown it is vast and with such diversity too. British colonial is what we thought but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Add in Chinese shophouses, wonderful clan houses, Perankan mansions, the jetties and then the different parts of town: Little India, Chinatown, Armenian Street... Fully discovering and marveling in this town will take more than the few days that we had with Debbie so we gave her a break and just hit some high points.

8. Street Food

You cannot visit Penang without sampling street food. There are all manner of restaurants for sure but to experience it fully, you just have to hit the hawker stands.

Typical hawker stand

9. Penang Hill

We'd not visited the hill so thought we'd take Debbie. People will tell you that you shouldn't go if it's cloudy as you won't see anything which is true enough but it is always cloudy. It was sunny at sea level this day but the clouds were everywhere at the top... whatever. And rainy. With threats of thunderstorms. So we chose to visit the Heritage Centre which is basically an eco conscious enclave boasting some pretty neat things and most importantly had a shuttle to take us the couple of kilometers from the cable car railhead.

Backing up, the hill is one of those wonderful British colonial inventions. Take over a really hot and sticky country and you can chose to either suffer at low levels and probably contract typhus and die at age 23 (check the graveyards) or far better find the nearest high ground, hills are good but low mountains are the best, and build some residences in this 'hill station' from where you can enjoy life rather better and maybe even avoid typhus or some other fell disease. Hence the Penang Hill. It was residences, hotels and hospitals from the outset... and remember the entire island was unoccupied when the British acquired it in 1786, only a few fishermen had temporary shacks at water level, so this was entirely a British colonial construct.

The Heritage is built on top of a hotel and the really high walkway they've built was on top of an old tennis court. However it was really cloudy and the rumored thunderstorms came in so we had to abandon the really high spots. So we really only scratched the surface and will return.

A break in the clouds just before we had to run for it

As a post script I mentioned our visit to a tennis friend who is also a bit of a nature enthusiast and he was scathing about the Heritage centre blaming its construction of footpaths with cheap materials for the 19 landslides that took place last year during the heavy rains that caused deaths and so much damage down below. Now I definitely don't know what to think!

So it was a frenetic time for Debbie with us and for us both a joy to have her visit as well as a wonderful opportunity to learn just a little more of this wonderful island.

Road Trip in SE Asia Part 1

This is a very densely populated part of the world but one where many people are continuously on the move which is being enabled by a vast improvement in infrastructure, mainly roads. This means that driving say from Penang to Hat Yai in Thailand to play tennis for a few days isn't a massive task. Rather one where you just start up at 8.30 am and reach your destination around tea time.

Doesn't look far on the map as I have noted our start/end points.

Sounds like a long while but if you count an hour or more for lunch, a lengthy stop at the duty free shop on the border to pick up your duty free wine (or other spirit of your choice), some interesting getting into and out of the bus at the various immigration points and a number of pit stops to care for the personal needs of many of we oldies on the bus, then it boils down to not very long at all.

I was chatting with someone who didn't come on this brief weekend sojourn only today who told me that Hat Yai is the place where people go every 3 months to get their passports chopped (aka stamped). Why would this be, I asked? They issue 3 month tourist visas and some people who live here in Malaysia from as innocent as a spouse of a Malay who never bothered to get a visa in their own right to illegal workers (and they do exist, coming in from Myanmar and Indonesia primarily or so I am told) head there and get restamped.

It is quite a palaver actually. On the way out isn't an issue from the Malay perspective but it is on the Thai side. The organizer told me that Thailand is the only country in the world to charge you when you go through Immigration for the privilege of getting a stamp. However this isn't certain as there are signs everywhere saying "no charge for passing through Immigration... during regular hours." Apparently they justify the charge by saying it is for "overtime".

We didn't pay anything or at least don't think we did and as we chose to go out on a Friday and back on a Monday, the crowds weren't too bad. So the delay wasn't that onerous.

Coming back though was the reverse. The Thai authorities ushered us through in no time but the Malay side was a bit of a pain. Nor from the immigration perspective but from customs. Being a muslim country, Malaysia is pathologically concerned with alcohol and making sure that nobody ... and I do mean nobody... has more than 1 liter of the stuff per person.

I don't know what else they are looking for as they took great pains to examine our bags for booze and stopped a couple from our party who had in addition to their allowance the remnants of a bottle of wine with no more than 2 inches left at the bottom of the bottle and hassled them. This after they had 'cleared' things with the supervisor at the outset.

Some more serious things they look out for at the border: human trafficking and ivory

However the real reason for going to Hat Yai was to stay at a sports resort just out of town where there were 4 indoor tennis courts. Very good they were too and apparently very useful as it rains an awful lot in Thailand (and for that matter Malaysia too). The entire thing was a nice idea having in addition to tennis courts, 5 badminton courts, a big gym and a Muay Thai complex as that sport (Thai kick boxing) is hugely popular.

The town itself is meant to be the largest in southern Thailand with over 200,000 inhabitants. It is located in Songkhla Province more of which later. Only further south is the separatist insurgency! Thankfully. We saw no sight of it but there were certainly tons of police and armed forces lurking around all the time.

Tuk Tuk is the best way to get around

The big reason to come here other than as noted in the guide book is food and shopping. One big shopping mall takes care of the latter but the food is everywhere. You simply cannot avoid eating and being with a bunch of Malays from Penang meant that nobody wanted to. You can scratch the surface of even the grumpiest Penangite by asking where his/her favorite chicken rice stall is and that lets loose a fountain of information (always different from someone else) and you have broken the ice. Voila!!



We had some great food, so much so that I have resurrected my other blog "Grey Nomad Eats" -- you can find it here -- to wax lyrical in the way it should be done.  But my goodness the food was simply fabulous. It is great in Penang and so it is in Hat Yai too.

Unfortunately we stayed at the Lee Gardens Hotel right in the middle of town for one night and it was totally and utterly a dump. I was OK with it for one night but the following day we got stories from every member of the party regarding their experiences. I know that we slept with our bags on the bed with us!

The Western Saloon was pretty good fun... and had the band

Nightlife was fun though. And it was a pleasant surprise that there was no reluctance to serve booze of all sorts. We even found good cocktails as well as craft beer.. and of course a bar that had a house band playing classic rock. Guitarist was very decent too.

Cocktails at Homeless, also a restaurant 

One thing though is the language barrier. One on one, it is OK as most Thais I think know some English but street signs, shop fronts, etc. are simply impossible as they are mostly in Thai script without translation. Google Maps was very helpful.

Sometimes even Google gets confused

Highlight for me was lunch on the 3rd day when we went on a longish drive after leaving the tennis resort and before checking into the Lee Gardens in Hat Yai. The last little while was next to a large body of water on the way to Songkhla proper (we never made it to the town just stopped at the restaurant to eat).

View from the restaurant of the fish farms and the water

Did I say the food was great?

All sea food from the waters next to the restaurant

And here is the itinerary in full. Thanks Track My Tour creator Chris! You can find the full story here.