Dinner at Claire & Antoine's

It's been a while since we've had a soiree with Mathilde's colleagues from the CIV, so we were quite delighted to receive a dinner invitation to join Antoine and Claire over in Carros this particular Saturday evening.

We prepared a Banoffeee pie (a very "light" English desert made from bananas,  cream and toffee from boiled condensed milk, on a bed of crumbled biscuits),  for the occasion (well, Mathilde did - while I was pretending to be all manly and changed the battery in my parents' Scenic!). As usual, we had a fabulous time eating, as always, superb food prepared by our hosts as well as the other guests (the usual suspects, that is to say Sarah, Aurelien and Julie).

Plenty of wine was naturally drank too, as we enjoyed the view from Antoine and Claire's rather panoramic terrace... All in all, pretty much the perfect way to spend a warm Saturday evening, then!

Merci Claire & Antoine ;-)

(Not so much) glamour and glitz in Cannes

That time of the year again - when the traffic jams are about as bad as ever, and the weather gets rainy. Yes, the Cannes film festival is wrapping up, and the Monaco Grand Prix takes place at the same time. (the traffic jams I can understand, but not sure why the weather tends to be bad this particular weekend...).

As usual, we decided to head out to Cannes, to check out the Quinzaines des realisateurs (one of the three main festivals taking place in Cannes). This being the last day of the festival, they were showing select highlight films. Before heading off to see our film, we had our usual stroll around Cannes (being thankful for the glorious sunshine!), checking out if any celebrities were out and about on the Croisette (there weren't any - not even the Bogdanoff brothers whom we've spotted on two different years already).

Having failed at celebrity-spotting, we went to see our chosen film - Les Combattants, a rather odd love story between Madelaine (a young lady who's preparing for doomsday by training up to deal with, well, the end of the world) and Arnaud (a young guy with simpler pleasures in life, who's taken over the family business together with his brother after the passing away of their father). A pretty interesting film - not what I would call a classic, but definitely more interesting than your average Hollywood romantic comedy...

After a bit of more strolling about in Cannes (actually the place was pretty dead - today was the day of the closing ceremony so no more film showings), we jumped on the train and headed back home...

A fantastic birthday present!

Me and Mathilde have a nice tradition of organizing surprise weekends for each others for our birthdays. So I was really looking forward to where we were headed this time around.

We jumped in the car early-ish morning, and headed Eastwards on the Motorday. Italy, I was thinking, nice, very nice indeed. And Italy it was indeed - Alba as it turned out. Alba is the capital of the famous Langhe region, famous for its red wines like Barolo and Barbaresco, located in Piedmont (not far from Turin). Mathilde had booked us a fantastic little bed & breakfast just outside the old town (they have a very nice concept with breakfast made from strictly local produce, very nicely decorated rooms - and the host and hostess are both very nice too).

After checking in, we headed into town. Alba is your typically picturesque Italian medieval town, with cobble-stone streets, churches and cozy little squares. Turns out that there was another big birthday celebration in Alba this weekend - Nutella (which originates from Alba) was turning 50 years! So the whole town had a bit of a carnival feel to it - and best of all, they were serving free nutella toasts at one of the town squares ;-).

Turns out my main birthday present was a rather special meal at a place called Piazza Duomo - often considered one of the very best restaurants in all of Italy. It also happens to have Three Michelin Stars. So needless to say, to say I was delighted would be an understatement! We both decided to go for the "Evasione e Territorio" menu - and were in for quite a marathon. We ended up spending 4 and a half hour in the restaurant in total - and I can assure you we weren't bored for a single moment!

Every dish, every appetizer (there were plenty!) was a delight, and often very surprising (as you'd expect at a restaurant like this, of course...). And I don't believe I've seen such amazing presentation anywhere apart from in Japan (unsurprisingly, perhaps, the chef has operated a restaurant in Japan for a few years). The dishes often combine ingredients in very surprising ways. (for example, one of the deserts, a fruit salad,  contained carrots). Meat is also used quite sparingly - a lot the dishes is inventive salad-based fare... (a fact that didn't put a dedicated carnivore like myself off in the least...)
 
Now, naturally, the bill wasn't easy on the wallet - but I dare say the meal was worth every penny of it. A culinary adventure is the best way to describe what we experienced.

So we walked back to the hotel, our stomachs filled to the brim, and most satisfied... The next day (after a fantastic breakfast at our BnB), we decided to explore some of the local villages, before heading back home-wards. Our first stop was Guarene (I think so, anyway!), a pretty little village with some pretty nice views over the surrounding countryside. Nothing much to see as such, apart from the castle overlooking town, which we didn't visit.

Neive was even more picturesque (it's considered one of the most picturesque towns in Italy, apparently), if a bit touristy. We had a pleasant stroll around town, and also came across a rather curious sight - a Greek Orthodox church (quite unusual to find non-catholic churches in small Italian towns...).

We also made a brief stop at Barbaresco - a place famous mostly because of its world-renowned red-wine (one of the local churches has actually been converted into a wine museum/shop - that's how seriously they take their wines in this part of the world!).

And then it was time to head back towards France. We stopped for lunch at Fossano, between Alba and Cuneo. Our first impression of the town wasn't great - and the meal we had rather paled in comparison to what we had the night before. But our impression improved as we found the impressive cathedral (count on each Italian town having at least an impressive cathedral...) - we were even treated to a guided tour (good chance to practice my Italian!). The historic part of town, located around the cathedral, was pretty nice to stroll around as well. And as the city sits on a hilltop, there are quite nice views over the surrounding Alps as well....

And then back to France it was, after a fantastic trip. Thank you my darling for an unforgettable birthday present!

Mother's Day in Finland

Time to visit Finland, to celebrate my mother's name day. Unfortunately, my dear mum is not in very good shape at the moment, so it felt somewhat wistful to go, but life isn't always easy, they say.

Due to these circumstances, it was a case of spending time with family. Not that the rather grey weather particularly put me into a mood to walk around town, either. I did meet up with Janne and Katja for lunch on the Friday, in a nice little, modern eatery where local hipsters were having lunch. A pretty cool place - and not expensive.

In the evening we had a rather long board-game session, joined by Rasse. Dominion & Puerto Rico was the order of the day. Katja came out on top in Puerto Rico, and also won one of the games of Dominion we played (which I was just slightly bitter about, considering how much I've practised Dominion...)..

Saturday was our early Mother's day celebration. The whole family was there - Janne, Katja, dad, Tomi, Leena and their children (and grand children!). No expenses were spared for this occasion - we got some catering delivered from Muru, the superb restaurant located just down-stairs from my parents' flat. But anyway, what was most important was to all be united with my dear mum. As they say in Swedish: "Mor lilla mor, vem är väl som du – Ingen i hela världen".

It was a really great day - music, great food, great company. And the little grandchildren brought a bit of festive spirit to the proceedings too!

The next day, it felt sad to leave. Still, it was important to go, and experience this wonderful family reunion. Fight on, mum!

A couple of days more in Singapore

So back in Singapore for a few days. Singapore seemed somehow serene compared to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. This time around, we were staying in Little India, quite different compared to where we stayed on our first visit. Little India is quite an atmospheric part of town, showing a much more traditional side of Singapore, that we hadn't seen that much of during our last sting in SG (with the exception of Chinatown). Plenty of traditional shophouses still
standing in this part of town...

After a short walk around the area near our hotel, we made our way to a nearby food court to grab some food. Again, excellent value for money, even if it wasn't one of the better meals we'd had in Singapore so far. Having filled our stomachs, we continued our stroll around the neighbourhood, soaking up the Indian atmosphere (even if it's a different sort of India compared to say Delhi - "India Light" probably describes it pretty well).

Since it'd been nearly 24 hours since our last visit to a temple, we decided to check out a few in the area. In the temples (and the mosque) we visited, one does get a pretty authentic Indian experience... The most famous one is Sri Veeramakaliamma, a temple dedicated to Khali. But I prefered a smaller temple further up the same road - mostly due to the fact that there was a Hindhu ceremony taking place there when we were there.

Our next stop was Mustafa centre - a rather famous shopping centre in Little India. A bit like an Indian version of Macy's in New York, if you can imagine it. The food department is pretty cool - a bit different from your average Carrefour. And what's best - the place is open 24 hours a day!

For dinner, we decided to head over to Arab Street, just next to Little India. As the name suggests, it's the Arab part of town - dominated by the Grand Mosque of Singapore. Following a recommendation in our Lonely Planet guide, we decided to try a Murtabak (a kind of stuffed pancake - delicious!) at Zam Zam, just across the road from the grand mosque. An excellent choice (one of those places where you come for the food, not the atmosphere or the decor)! After dinner, we had a nice stroll around this atmospheric part of town, quite lively nighttime actually...

The next day, we decided to get all sporty and opted for a jungle hike in downtown Singapore. Yes, that's the great thing about Singapore, you can take the metro downtown, and find yourself just at the footsteps for a healthy slice of rainforest - at Southern Ridges. It's a really cool thing place - with its clearly marked footpaths and distinct sections showing different habitats. 

We started off with the Forest walk, an elevated walkway at canopy level - pretty cool. After the Forest Walk, there's the impressive Henderson Waves - a bridge showcasing some really cool organic modern architecture which connects two part of the national parks. On the other side, the highlight is probably the Canopy walk - a shortish elevated footpath really taking you up to the treetops. There's also an interesting museum describing the disastrous British military defeat against the Japanese during Second World War...

After all that hiking around in the humid heat, it was surely time for a spot of lunch. Again, following advice in our Lonely Planet, we decided to try some Peranakan cuisine. Peranakans are the descendants of early Chinese immigrants who settled down in Malaysia and Singapore, and mixed up their genes with the locals. So the culture, like the cuisine, is a fascinating mixture of Chinese and Malay. The restaurant, unfortunately, was sort of hidden away in the middle of nowhere, in a golf club (not obvious to tell on the poor map we had). The food was rather good, but they actually forgot to bring our desert, which was a bit of a letdown. Oh well... 

We spent the afternoon walking around some more in Little India, and doing a bit of shopping. One cool place we came across rather by accident was Parkview Square. It's a modern building, built in 2002, but is heavily inspired by the art nouveau sky scrapers of New York. One could really imaging being in New York, standing at the foot of the impressive structure (if it wasn't for the surrounding tropical vegetation and the humid heat, that is). We were rather impressed by the place - interestingly it gets very little mention in tourist guides (apparently for security reasons - the places houses several embassies).

For the evening, we decided to head out to one of the most emblematic places in Singapore - Marina Bay. Marina Bay, just by downtown Singapore, is what one could call a showpiece of modern architecture. It's a pretty impressive area. The focal point is Marina Bay Sands, a ridiculously over-the-top but undeniably impressive "integrated resort". Integrated means pretty much everything you need is on offer. It's a huge hotel (made up of 3 55-story towers, with 2561 luxury rooms and apartments... There's also a 150 meter "vanishing pool" (look it up on google!), a casino, just to mention some of the services available.

After checking out the impressive light show (where images, light beams & videos are projected on water jets), we headed to Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands - which is without doubt the most ridiculously over-the-top shopping complex I've ever been to in my life. With 800,000 square feet of retail space, it's a shopper's dream (just to be clear about this - I'm not a shopper!). And we're not talking about any old shops here - think Gucci, Versace, Armani & Louis Vuitton (including a floating shop outside - that's just ridiculous!). There are also a rather impressive collection of restaurants, some canals with gondolas (why not?) and even an ice skating rink (that's veering into the ridiculous again). 

We decided to have dinner at our favourite Chinese Dumplings restaurant - Din Tai Fung. (yep there are several in Singapore). And yep, I confirm it, the food was just as delicious as it was the last time. This place is quite simply amazing. Our apetites sated, we walked around Marina Bay a bit more (unfortunately, I wasn't well dressed well enough to be admitted to the Marina Bay Sands hotel rootfop bar - that's a darn pity). Anyway, we left Marina Bay feeling pretty impressed by the place.

The next day was sadly our last day in Singapore. Since we had a very late flight, we decided to leave our bags at the airport in the morning and then head off to nearby Pulau Ubin (a tropical island). So off we went to Changi (yes Changi as in where the notorious Changi prison used to be located), from where we took a gumboat to Pulau Ubin.

The way to explore Pulau Ubin is to rent a bike, so that's what we did, heading off to explore the island. It's a pretty nice place to cycle around, and a nice way to see what Singapore must've been like before the financial boom transformed this place into the economic crossroads it is today. Our first destination was a curious shrine dedicated to a German girl. The girl died after having disappeared in 1918, and strangely enough became a deity for the locals over the years (especially gamblers worship her, apparently...)

After a rather indifferent lunch in the main village, we headed towards the Eastern part of the island, pedalling deeper and deeper into the jungle. We made our way to Chek Jawa, a wetlands "natural reserve", where there's a raised footpath following the coastline. It's a pretty nice walk, but probably more interesting during low tide (when there's plenty of marine life to be seen, apparently). There was a pretty cool mangrove walk as well, culminating in a watchtower, from where there were pretty stunning views across the South China sea and the island.

On the way back to where we left our bikes, we were treated to quite a spectacle, as a bunch of stray dogs got into a very loud argument with a bunch of wild boars. Some monkeys checking out the spectacle up in the trees also joined in - it all made for quite an entertaining and noisy show!

Then it was, unfortunately, time to head back to Changi and onwards to the airport. We still had plenty of time to kill at the airport, so decided to spend it chilling out at the swimming pool.

Singapore airport is for sure the coolest airport I've ever been to - there are gardens, a swimming pool, free foot massage and naturally superb shopping and eating.

We were rather sad to head back to Europe. Singapore was quite a positive surprise, I must say. People who say Singapore is only about shopping and eating are definitely wrong - there's plenty of stuff to do for just about everybody. With it's ethnic and cultural diversity it's also an ideal introduction to Asia - even if there is a ring of truth to the label "Asia Light" Singapore sometimes gets.