Category Archives: Travel

Cena a Seborga

We walked down to the village for a late dinner. Il Principe, the restaurant Lobo and I remember from previous visits, has closed down for some reason. Sabina recommended Marcellino’s, but it wasn’t open. There was an incomprehensible sign purporting to give the hours, but that was unhelpful, and the place was clearly closed, so we went to the one remaining restaurant, which didn’t appear to have a name.

The waitress/owner/dueña spoke no English, and none of us speak Italian, so we communicated using mangled French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, English, and arm-flailing. We all got ravioli, but Lobo and Alcalde got salads, whereas I got rabbit and french fries. So apparently that’s what we ordered. There was also wine, Wasser mit und ohne gas, and some limoncino* shots.

*Or limoncello, if you prefer.

Meandering to Nice

Lobo showed surprising maturity by not waking me up by blowing the bugle. I slept for over eleven hours, so it must have been a struggle for him. He did it right away after I got up.

We had to pick up Alcalde at 2:40 PM, so we set off around 9:30, thinking that we could get some breakfast at an Italian bakery or something, and maybe stop at a supermarket to get some basics for later in the week. We drove through some Italian towns on the coast, getting lost repeatedly, partly due to the uselessness of Lobo’s GPS and partly due to our own ineptitude. At one point, Lobo saw a bakery and got out and ran in while I drove around the block and he got back with some breakfast. Only it wasn’t a bakery, it was a butcher shop, and it was sort of a quiche thing that was pretty good, but he only got one and there was only one fork. And we didn’t find a market. But other than that it was a success and we drove on to Nice.

Lobo’s ancient GPS continued to be useless, constantly recalibrating and sending us in weird directions, but we found a parking garage in spite of it, and from there wandered around downtown Nice and had lunch and strolled along the promenade.

It was pleasant, but eventually we had to pick up Alcalde. We drove to the airport and went to terminal 2, which is where I had come in, so that made sense. After parking and walking in, we found that his plane had come into terminal 1. He had texted me to say that he was at the gate, so I asked him if he was at terminal 1, and he didn’t know. So we headed to terminal 1, which was not as simple as simply walking from one terminal to the next. No, we had to drive in circles and up ramps and Alcalde texted me to say that he was terminal 2. So we looped back around to go to terminal 2, even though the flight had come into terminal 1, so how did he get to terminal 2? Anyway, we went there and drove into something called “Kiss and Fly”, which was some sort of departure area and Lobo got out to look for him and then Alcalde sent another text: “Uh-oh. I think I’m at terminal 1.” Okay, so back to terminal 1 and the Kiss and Fly there, which was laid out differently, and this time Lobo was able to find him and drag him back to the car.

We stopped at a Starbucks so Lobo could get a Nice mug, then at a market in Ventimiglia (which Alcalde found with no trouble, using Google Maps) to get groceries. The market did not include bags, although you could buy them for a nominal fee. But Lobo was too cheap to buy one, and we had to carry everything out in our arms. And there was a lot of stuff to carry.

But we made it back to Seborga and had some IPA (Italian Pale Ale) as the sun went down.

See also: Saluti de Seborga, Nice, and Seborga Sunrise.

Arrival in Seborga

Onward to Seborga and points Europeward.

After fitful sleeping on the Delta/KLM flight to Amsterdam, I spent an hour having a leisurely lunch in the Amsterdam airport. There’s a huge mall in the center with a fairly good food court and I could charge my phone while I waited. Then I went to check the gate for my next flight and learned that it was the very farthest gate away from where I was. The walking time was listed as 24 minutes. I had 20 minutes before they began boarding. So I sort of scamper-walked and made it in almost exactly 20 minutes. Then I got on the plane and immediately fell asleep. The flight attendant had to wake me up to tell me to fasten my seat belt. At least I wasn’t drooling.

I landed in Nice and got through passport control in about five minutes, with no customs declarations needed at all. Really, is every country easier than the US? Anyway, I found the rental car desk with no trouble, and there was Lobo. He actually found the right place and got there on time without supervision.

We got the car and took a stupid selfie, which Lobo dubbed a stupie.

We drove to Seborga and found the place with no difficulty, thanks to Lobo’s ancient and quirky GPS device, which I think was a cheaper one even back in whatever decade it came from. But it worked well enough and we got there and the place is spectacular. It’s situated on a hill above Seborga.

The landlady, Sabina, speaks perfect English, and I’m pretty sure she was the same person that my mom and I talked to in the Seborga restaurant in December of 2000.

Early Morning on the Singapore River

Notes on Singapore

Singapore is the most food-intensive place I have ever seen. More than San Francisco, more than Paris, more than Hong Kong, more than Fremont…more than just about anywhere. All cuisines and budgets seem to be represented. And there are a surprising number of tapas bars.
It’s humid, but not as humid as I was expecting. It’s been mostly around 80%, which is not as bad as Ohio in August. Of course, the humidity goes up during thunderstorms.
Most restrooms don’t have paper towels. What they usually have instead is a big roll of toilet paper near the sinks. Have you ever tried to dry your hands on toilet paper?
Napkins are also nonexistent. Tissues are sometimes available to purchase. I mostly just used my pants.
Cousin Mosquito is still around.

There are four official languages — English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil — but English is officialer than the others. A lot of signs have multiple languages, but if a single language is used, it’s always English. Even in the multi-lingual sign below, the words “notice” and “SBS Transit” are only in English.

Oh, yeah, man. Free Flow Kimchi is awesome. I saw them open for Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Photos are available on Flickr.

Heading Home

Butterflies and Condiment Confiscation

Singapore airport has a butterfly garden. No apparent reason; it’s just there. It’s a nice one, though. I would even go so far as to say that it’s the nicest airport-based butterfly garden that I have ever seen.

But things took a dark turn when I went through security and they spotted the kaya spread that I had bought as a gift. It was larger than the allowable size, and thus had to be confiscated, presumably to eliminate the threat of explosives made from spreadable condiments.

I’m now in the Taipei airport with five hours to kill. I was going to take the train into the city and go to the night market, but that would require filling out an entry form and going through customs and passport control in both directions and then security again, and all of that sounds like much more trouble than it’s worth. I’d rather just sit here in the food court.

Pigsy

In case you were wondering, this character, first viewed in an earlier post, is named Pigsy.

Clarke Quay

After dinner I went wandering along the River Walk toward Clarke Quay.

Clarke Quay is a more upscale and touristy area than Boat Quay, which is where I had dinner.

There’s some bungy ride, but after four beers, I figured that was contraindicated.

I got some coconut ice cream and wandered around for a while, then went back to the hotel.

Searching for Ganesh

This morning I went to Little India to find a statue of Ganesh. I’m not Hindu, but I used to work with Ganesh in the Silicon Valley and he was a pretty nice guy, so I figured a statue of him* would be a nice souvenir of Singapore.

Little India is full of cut-rate clothing shops, goldsmiths, phone card kiosks, tailors with sewing machines on the sidewalks, tiny restaurants, fruit stands, and the occasional temple. Incense is everywhere.

I found only two places that sold decent Ganesh statues. There were others, but they were either cheap tourist junk or gold-plated things that looked like cheap tourist junk, even though they were expensive. Seriously, gold-plated Ganesh is just tacky.**

The place I found had multiple Ganeshae in different sizes and materials. They cost more than I expected, so I had to go down in size, but I got a nice brass one for SG$95. I would have preferred this larger one, but at SG$12,500, it was out of my price range by a couple orders of magnitude. And Customs might have had some issues.

Anyway, yadda yadda, it’s now evening, and I am once again having satay and beer on Boat Quay. It’s at a different place, though. The first place was quick to bring me beer, but for some reason wouldn’t take my order. So I left some money on the table and went to a different place, where they seem happy to bring me satay. And I drank the peanut sauce again.

* I’m not 100% sure it’s the same Ganesh, but he could have had a nose job.
** I’m pretty sure I saw Gold-Plated Ganesh open for REO Speedwagon.