WoAi’s Indonesian Adventure

Okay so I’ve finally found some time to post about my recent new year break. After two miserable years of being stuck at home for new year, I was determined to make a break for warmer shores to remind myself what it feels like to have the sun on my skin. I settled for the Indonesian island of Lombok, which is right next to the more well know island of Bali.

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Almost there – on the boat to Trawangan after a long night

The first thing to say is that the journey was a painful one – 23 hours door to door including a 5 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur and a 3 hour flight from KL to Lombok, a 2 hour drive to the pier, a 30 minute ferry ride to the smaller island of Gili Trawangan and a horse drawn cart known locally as a Cimodo, for the final leg.

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Living area and jacuzzi inside the private villa @ Kokomo

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Posted in My Life, Travel | 15 Comments

Shanghai Restaurant Week 2013

I’m close to resuming blogging (I promise) but first, I have something fairly urgent to share with you all – it’s that time again : Shanghai restaurant week is upon us starting from 4th March and ending on 10th March.

You should know the drill by now, but basically there are two pricing tiers and participating restaurants will charge 78 RMB or 118 RMB for lunch and either 168 RMB or 248 RMB for a 3 course dinner.

Some of the popular venues are already fully booked : Sir Elly’s, El Willy, T8, M On The Bund, M1NT, Mr & Mrs Bund and Pelham’s (Waldorf Astoria). Places at the other venues are going fast, so if you’re keen on enjoying some excellent food at bargain prices, go to the site and secure your table now. My personal recommendation based on a lovely meal during the last restaurant week is Jumeirah Himalayas in Pudong. Some places will try to cut corners and make as much as they can from the event while the smarter places will use it as an opportunity to get new customers to try their food and hopefully return regularly.

To give you an idea of what’s on offer, this is the Jumeirah Himalayas dinner menu for next week:

Amuse Bouche -  Foie gras lollipop and sweet apple

Appetizer -  Antipasto buffet (Cold cuts, antipasti, salads, preserves and pickles) or pan seared scallops, broad beans, wasabi, tobiko, pea shoots or white tomato soup, Parmesan ravioli, dehydrated black olive powder or beef Carpaccio, pickled shimeji mushroom, pink peppercorn emulsion, shaved brie cheese.

Main course -  Pan roasted cod, herb crushed potatoes, broccoli, miso, caramelized egg yolk, caviar butter sauce or roast duck breast and confit leg, white bean cassoulet, baby carrots, spiced cherry jus or black truffle gnocchi, goats’ cheese, tomato, zucchini, red pepper and watercress or black Angus Rib Eye, triple cooked chips, green salad served with a choice of peppercorn, red wine, mushroom or béarnaise sauce.

Pre- dessert -  Champagne jelly with raspberry sorbet

Dessert -  Mandarin orange & chocolate cheese cake or banana and peanut spring rolls served with toasted apricots and warm chocolate sauce or “M&M” Mango & Mint terrine with honey comb crunch or vanilla panna cotta with fruit compote or fresh fruit platter.

Posted in Food | 8 Comments

WoAi Is (Almost) Back

Apologies for the long silence. I’m actually on a remote Indonesian island (no, not Bali) having a much needed (and much deserved) week long escape from Shanghai’s cold, polluted winter and understandably, updating the blog hasn’t been a priority.

However, I’m heading back to the Middle Kingdom tomorrow and have a lot of updates, including tales of near death underwater adventures and probably the most amazing hotel experience I’ve ever had.

So stay tuned for a mega update in a day or so. Oh and some amazing photos too!

Posted in My Life, Travel | 7 Comments

Chinese Love Their Fireworks

Clear Skies

Today is the last day of the year of the dragon. It was a beautiful day with rare blue skies, possibly helped by factories closing down for the new year holidays as many workers make the annual trip back to their home towns to spend the week with family.

In the wake of recent pollution issues, the government has urged citizens to go easy on the traditional firework celebrations that will start at midnight tonight and continue for 2 weeks. I don’t hold out much hope though. Telling the Chinese not to let off fireworks is like telling a dog not to bark. Or telling Americans to give up guns!

But let’s not dwell on that. If you’ve never been lucky enough to be in Shanghai for the lunar new year, it really is an amazing spectacle to see the entire city letting off fireworks for a good 20-30 minutes continuously.

Happy lunar new year dear readers and best wishes for the year of the snake!

Posted in Arrrrggghhh!, This is how we do it | Leave a comment

Space, The Final Frontier

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Lack of personal space – it’s a common complaint of foreigners in China, and a valid one. I was waiting for my flight back from Beijing the other day and chose a quiet part of the airport to sit and read my newspaper (oops, I mean work on my client presentation). There were literally hundreds of empty seats all around and then guess what happened? Two guys (pictured) decided the best place to come and have a loud discussion was RIGHT NEXT TO ME!

It reminds me of an amusing thing I saw on urinal etiquette a while ago (see how I skillfully managed to slot in a urine reference to days in a row!). You know how it works guys – if there are 3 urinals you never take the middle one. If there’s a guy on the far left, you leave a buffer and take the one on the far right.

So back to the airport. Can someone PLEASE explain this to me? I was furious and eventually stood up and moved to another seat. Luckily, they didn’t follow.

Posted in Arrrrggghhh!, This is how we do it, Travel | 5 Comments

Urinate Balls For Lunch

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It does seem to be the week for juvenile sniggering at unfortunate translations. I couldn’t resist the spicy and hot urinate beef balls which I had for lunch today along with my 6 inch Subway sandwich (is it just me who finds it’s never enough but a foot long is too long?).

I can confirm the beef balls were far tastier than the name suggested!

Posted in Amusing, Food, Language | 7 Comments

Mingr

Minger

Just a bit of juvenile Friday afternoon fun for British readers. If you’re not a Brit, a minger is let’s say, someone who fell out of the ugly tree at birth, hitting every branch along the way down! The word “munter” also means the same thing, if you’re one of those Americans fascinated with English slang.

Posted in Amusing | 10 Comments

Rampant Fare Dodgers

The other day on the subway, I watched in shock as two middle aged women repeatedly tried to run through the barriers without paying, by trying to follow closely behind a fare paying passenger. But each time they were too slow and the barriers closed before they could get past. It was quite comical. And I think they were caught out because it’s rare for stations in Shanghai to use barriers. Turnstiles are more common and with those it’s easy to simply duck and walk under them.

I’m glad I found this video to share with you so you can see just how rampant fare dodging is in this city!

Posted in Amusing, Arrrrggghhh!, This is how we do it | 15 Comments

Child Models In Bikinis At Auto Show

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This is actually from a few months ago but I thought it was worthy of a mention nonetheless. Young girls aged 4 and 5 were spotted in striking provocative sexy poses in skimpy bikinis at the Wuhan Automobile Exhibition. If you’ve visited a car show before, you’ll know that it’s common to use fully grown models but employing children is somewhat unusual. And disturbing!

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This kind of thing would never be allowed to happen in the UK or the United States. Or would it!

Posted in Arrrrggghhh!, Business, Entertainment, Sex in the city, This is how we do it | 3 Comments

The Future’s Grey

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My favourite cell phone provider back in England had a catchy slogan: the future’s bright, the future’s Orange. They obviously have never been to Beijing!

The pollution situation is starting to not be funny. Beijing seems to have the occasional clear day but otherwise it’s invariably off the air quality scale. Shanghai isn’t great either, but at least whatever terrible health catastrophe we face, our friends in Beijing will encounter it long before we do. I’m seriously considering giving up breathing.

WoAi’s hot investment tip – invest everything you have in face mask companies!

Posted in Arrrrggghhh!, Current Affairs | 9 Comments