Category: Overseas Travel

The Majestic and the Yue Hwa Building, Eu Tong Sen Street, Singapore. Shot with a Ricoh GR Digital

After five interesting days without broadband access for my trusty MacBook, I’m back in the US.
It’s a bit far to travel for broadband, I know, but a flashpacker’s gotta do what a flashpacker’s gotta do! Ha ha.
I flew back to LAX via TPE on SQ. All I gotta say is that a 16 hour flight never went so quickly. Of course being able to watch Training Day, The Godfather Part 2, Jasmine Woman and bits of other flicks on the flight back made the time go faster. Along with being fed to death. SQ is the only airline I know of so far where you can gain weight on the flight if you finish all the meals that they give you.
Of course 6 or 7 Singapore Slings help that along too (!).
Because of my extended absence from the net, blog updates will be an exercise in time travel. I’ll be posting pre-dated entries. Look on the “Recent Updates” column on the left for new stuff.
Now back to the grind. Sigh.

My flight back to LAX wasn’t the kick-ass “Premium Economy” non-stop. Instead, it was a connecting flight through Chiang Kai-Shek Airport, Taipei. Four hours to CKS, then another 11 or so to LAX.
Since the Taipei leg of my journey left SIN at 1700, once we were airborne, it was time for dinner!

This was the Asian course…
And don’t forget the “SQ ice cream cup” after each meal!

Apparently, the selection of ice cream cup varies depending on destination
When we landed at CKS, we had to do the security hokey-pokey because a bunch of us were continuing on to the US. This consisted of:
Get off the plane.
Go through security.
Walk upstairs to Depature Wing
Go through security. Dispose of gels and liquids
Get back on plane.
If nothing else, I was able to fart around the airport for a little while under the guise of “stretching my legs”. The people I met on the way were generally pleasant and this part (Second Wing) of CKS reminded me of Tokyo Narita.

Could it be because of the vending machines?
The duty free shops were well stocked and well manned. They had a lot of native Taiwan items like tea and tea liquour. I sampled the latter. Potent!

Well, they did have this kind of conventional refreshment too! How many of these bottles do YOU have?
Johnnie Walker is doing a promotion with the McLaren F1 team. So CKS gets a car for promotion!

This would definitely be “oversized baggage”.
On the way to the gate was a really long hallway because, naturally, my plane was at the very end. I passed this on the way. I like!

you could smell this down the entire wing of CKS!

Wednesday evening, I get on that “steel tube with wings” for the slog to LAX via CKS.

Yes, this is steel tube with wings…
I’ve never connected through Taipei; wonder what kind of facilities (food) they got? Of course, since I AM flying Singapore Airlines, I’ll probably be all full and won’t even need to partake of the fine airport fare that CKS has to offer. But I digress…
Last night (the night before tonight), I met up with Xuan for a nightcap. This being Singapore, it rained, so our initial plans of visiting Loof went “poof”. Instead, we ducked into a hotel bar for sapphire-tonics and sharing stories about life, travel and Texas and South Dakota in the winter. Charming!

I….think I need to lose some weight there….
And speaking of rain, about 0400, the mother of all thunderstorms blew through. Woke up everyone in the dorm as it was a light and sound show of magnificent proportions. It was neat except for the mess in the bathroom afterwards because someone left the window open (not me!!). Best of all, I fell asleep (I usually have problems sleeping shortly before a long flight) to the sound of rain. Nice.

Ever since I heard that there was a Din Tai Fung in the US, it’s become a minor obsession with me to try the place out. Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese chain that is known for the quality of their dumplings, especially with their xiaolongbao, which I really REALLY like! The problem is that there’s only one location in the entire US (Arcadia, CA) and the queues each day/night approach ridiculous. That means a really long wait. I’ve been told that none of the other locations match up to the original Taipei location, which means I’ve gotta try it when I’m out there…
But wait a minute! I’m in Singapore! There are FOUR locations here. That means that the chances are four times greater I’ll actually get to try this place out! Waaaaah! So I dragged out a fellow backpacker from Inn Crowd (the hostel of choice in Singapore) to Paragon to eat lunch.

The chefs at work, making sure each dumpling has the proper amount of folds in them
Din Tai Fung is in the basement food court area (along with HSBC and Citibank ATMs). The wait was, like, three minutes. Seated and ordered in ten. We got here around 1300 so we just missed the lunch crunch. You gotta begin with an order of xiaolongbao. In fellow backpacker’s words, “if they can’t get the basics right, forget about the rest of the menu!” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Did they get it right?

Quick, count the folds!
Yup, they got it right. The skins were just the right thickness and the soup inside was at just the right temperature. There were even instructions on how to eat these with vinegar and bamboo shoots ginger provided. How thoughtful!

Fellow backpacker had some kind of noodle soup with a light broth and tofu. Good!

I had the braised beef noodle soup. That’s fellow backpacker’s spoon
The braised beef noodle soup was more of a cold weather dish. It felt kind of heavy in the Singapore heat. Both soup dishes were very good. The noodles were firm, not soggy and cooked just right. The beef was more on the lean side than the fatty but the broth made up for that. It was good! Will go back again!

fellow backpacker taking pix of her food for her blog
Din Tai Fung
290 Orchard Road, B1-03/06
Paragon Shopping Centre
Singapore 238859
6836 8336