Author: Anita Martinez Beijer

Singapore III

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This year 2015 Singapore celebrates 50 years of independence. And it’s also been acclaimed as the world’s best country to visit due to it’s excellent shopping, rich cultural life and food culture. I skipped the shopping on Orchard road completely to focus on for me a much more important thing – the food, which was fantastic. Eating out is everyone’s favourite pastime here. Singapore is a hotpot of cuisines. Influences from the Chinese, Malayan and Indian cuisine of course as well as other Asian countries, the Middle East cuisine and pretty much from all over the world as a result from the country’s history with immigrants from many countries. There is an endless variety to choose from. From really good and affordable street food found in the hawker food stalls, food courts to high end restaurants. My first night I went to a hawker food court just up the road and sought out the stall which had the most customers and had a big bowl of tasty soup for nearly nothing. As I’m a soup …

Singapore part II

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Of course I had to visit Raffles Hotel. Not only to sample the obligatory Singapore Sling, which I did. But the building of this iconic hotel is truly beautiful. Now it’s surrounded on all sides by the modern life of high-rises and busy roads. But it also sits in a garden that somehow keeps the outside world at bay giving it a serene splendour. This however is slightly taken away by the fact that it’s also swarming with tourists, well that’s includes me too I guess. On a spur I felt like I wanted to have afternoon tea here but that was a no go as one has to book that one week in advance! You get the picture. Oh well there’s always a place in the bar so I went there and had a Singapore Sling instead. This classic cocktail was invented by the bartender Ngiam Tong Boon in 1915. At this time women were not allowed to consume alcohol in public. But he cleverly thought out a way to create a cocktail that …

Singapore part I

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Singapore is a city, an island and a country. Small in size but with a population of 5 million people. I found Singapore very green, humid and…unfortunately very hazy. But also with striking architecture, old colonial houses and the sometimes surreal new buildings and stunning structures such as the Supertree Grove in the Gardens by the Bay. As the haze was so prominent during my visit I have to mention this issue. I stayed at first with Joe and his friends and his flat that has this amazing view over looking the Gardens by the Bay. This huge recreational park area created from a vision Singapore had, to transit from “A city with a garden” to become “A garden with a city” opened in 2011. I had envisioned sitting on the balcony looking out over all this splendour, but unfortunately the haze was so bad that most days we couldn’t even have the doors to the balcony open. The haze is seasonal apparently and is the smoke that drifts in from, mostly illegal, slash-and-burn fires …

Hong Kong part III

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Hong Kong is not only a city. It’s a archipelago too. One day I gave myself a mini break and decided to make a trip out to an island to find a beach. I went to the quay and found myself a ferry that would take me to the island of Lantau where I had read about a nice beach. It was so refreshing to be on the water and to see the city from this vantage point. And it was nice to leave the bustling and noisy masses of cars, buildings and people behind me for a while. On Lantau Island I found a bus that took me to the pristine beaches of Cheung Sha. It was quite amazing that only a short ferry and bus ride away was this beautiful beach nearly devoid of people. Only me, myself and the warm waves of the South China Sea. Pure bliss! Of course Hong Kong is about food!  One favourite restaurant was Crystal Jade. Oh the number of delicious dishes I had here! The Dim Sun was spectacularly good here and …

Hong Kong part II

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I moved to another part of Hong Kong, to a studio on the 31st floor of a high-rise with it’s own private rooftop terrace. I have always been interested small space living and this studio is a perfect example of this. The cleverly designed solutions worked very well and despite the limited floor space it didn’t feel cramped at all. I believe that the spectacular views on the three sides were a part of this but that the calm colour setting also contributed. Samuel who this home belongs to was currently working in Shanghai and therefore I could stay here. I really enjoyed living here. I liked the design and the views. And it’s location too. Not to mention the private roof terrace! How cool wasn’t that! I managed during the photo shoot on the rooftop, to crouch on the edge of the roof in order to take a shot downwards towards the street way below. It was seriously scary, as I have a fear of heights. Also as it was a seriously hot and humid day, working on the rooftop left me totally faint and drenched in sweat. But …

Hong Kong part I

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Arriving to Hong Kong straight from Shanghai, my first impression was – that it felt small! Who would have thought this? It’s also an extremely vertical city. Densely populated and confined in a relatively small area, makes this a necessity. It’s actually one of the world’s most densely populated metropolises. Also the fact that it’s surrounded by green hills and water makes it a very beautiful place. I also found Hong Kong very clean, orderly and well organised. Many pavements are raised above the streets, with roofs and glazed walls that provided both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain. Also they make a very efficient passage for the many business people who hurries through them morning, noon and night. Hong Kong is one of the world’s leading financial centres and many of the tallest skyscrapers are the homes of various banks and financial institutes. In Hong Kong rules the principle of ”one country, two systems”. Meaning that although a part of China since 1997 when it was returned to Chinese sovereignty, it retains it’s own capitalist economic and political systems. It was such a relief that the taxi drivers, at …

Shanghai part III

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  I met the talented artist Xi one day and she took me to her recent installation, Check-in on Nanchang Road. Up one floor on creaky wooden stairs to a small apartment in an old Shanghai building she has created a totally white room filled with white objects and foam balls. It was a quite extraordinary feeling being there. Her intention is for people to rent it for 24 hours, to disconnect from the outside world and just experience being in this space, filled with whiteness. There is a bed to sleep in and odd pieces of old furniture standing topsy-turvy around the room, half buried in the foam balls. All white or painted white. She is very interested in how environments affect people. “This is art-rental, you rent a space with unlimited possibilities. It will not exist for long, so that no one can possess it permanently”, she explained. Xi is currently designing her next project that is going to be about furniture that doesn’t have a function. Sounds intriguing! Another great experience was …

Shanghai part II

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The famous Yonkang road or Yonkang Lu in Chinese with it’s many watering holes, has a informal and rowdy spirit. This is were you go to have a beer or two or after-work drinks with your buddys. Tianzifang market is a whole area of very old houses between Taking road and Jianguo Road. It’s a permanent market with products like leather goods, clothes and trinkets. Found a cafe called Bohemia so of course I had to pay a tribute by stopping and having afternoon tea there. I loved walking around the wet markets with its live fish in tanks and vegetables in abundance. Finding vegetables and fish that I have never seen before. And I also liked that one can buy vegetables and fruit almost everywhere on the streets, very fresh and available. Displayed very neat and orderly inside in the wet market, more haphazardly and creative outside the shops, spilling out into the street. This is taken just around the corner from where I stayed. However I would find soon enough that’s not always the case elsewhere in Asia. The bullfrog though is an exotic food ingredient I …

Shanghai part I

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At last my travels have started. And what an amazing beginning it has been. But due to poor access to Internet in China and a very busy time in Asia, I have been unable to blog about my experiences. So here is a short recap of my time in Shanghai. My home for the first week was a ground floor studio in a cute little lane house, nestled away down an alleyway in Jingan. A slice of genuine Shanghai, a place where I perceived folks were going about their daily lives pretty much the same way as they have done for decades. Hanging their washing in the lanes, drying their chillies outside their kitchen doors. I didn’t see many other westerners around there. My little lane house was inherited to my landlady Annie, who was very sweet and immensely helpful, from her parents. She has redecorated it into a really comfy and snug little place. I loved staying here. It consists of only one room, that used to be two smaller rooms, a shower room and toilet and at the back a kitchen …

Apps and other preparations

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To make a trip around the world like I’m about to do takes som serious organization skills. There are some ways though to make this process easier. Apart from the standard but functional Excel spreadsheets I have found a couple of really nifty apps that I would like to share with you. But first and formost my smartest move was to realize that letting people who are professionals at what they do, are the ones that get the job done best. So thank you Eleonore at Kilroy for helping me make all the flight bookings! She knew of course of all the ins and outs of getting the best tickets at the best prices and also the better travel routes to to take. Her help has saved me precious time as well. Time to focus on contacting people who I want to visit, of getting the paperwork done etc. In this process I found some apps that have been really helpful. My best friend right now is Evernote, the Organizer with a capital O. Keeping all the nitty gritty details in one place thus giving me a pretty good …