This time tomorrow by the Kinks

This time tomorrow where will we be?
On a spaceship somewhere sailing across an empty sea
This time tomorrow what will we know
Well we still be here watching an in-flight movie show

I'll leave the sun behind me and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
Seven miles below me I can see the world and it ain't so big at all

This time tomorrow what will we see?
Fields full of houses, endless rows of crowded streets
I don't where I'm going, I don't want to see
I feel the world below me looking up at me!

Leave the sun behind me, and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
And I'm in perpetual motion and the world below doesn't matter much to me

This time tomorrow where will we be
On a spaceship somewhere sailing across any empty sea
This time tomorrow, this time tomorrow...

Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh - Singapore food

I had dinner at the food court at Raffles Hospital - near Golden Landmark. The food there is pretty good, cheap, and hygienic (important if you're just recovering from a flu).

With about a pound of Nasi Briyani and Roti Prata in me, I confess to being a little hesistant when my friend asked me out for Bak Kut Teh (Pork Rib Soup).

But ah well, what the heck, I'm only in Singapore for a month so I said yes.

Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh, 321 Beach Road, is located near the junction of Sultan Gate road.

The service was great and the food was really good. The pork ribs were well cooked, ok lah quality. Best part - the soup. It wasn't filled with pepper. And it had a nice Chinese herbal taste about it. I think I would have liked it more if I wasn't so full.

I give it a B+ grade.

The place is also near Kampong Glam which had a few popular Malay restaurants that looked quite happening. Pretty nice crowd there.

My friend mentioned we should make a visit there. I agreed.

Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh - Singapore food

I had dinner at the food court at Raffles Hospital - near Golden Landmark. The food there is pretty good, cheap, and hygienic (important if you're just recovering from a flu).

With about a pound of Nasi Briyani and Roti Prata in me, I confess to being a little hesistant when my friend asked me out for Bak Kut Teh (Pork Rib Soup).

But ah well, what the heck, I'm only in Singapore for a month so I said yes.

Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh, 321 Beach Road, is located near the junction of Sultan Gate road.

The service was great and the food was really good. The pork ribs were well cooked, ok lah quality. Best part - the soup. It wasn't filled with pepper. And it had a nice Chinese herbal taste about it. I think I would have liked it more if I wasn't so full.

I give it a B+ grade.

The place is also near Kampong Glam which had a few popular Malay restaurants that looked quite happening. Pretty nice crowd there.

My friend mentioned we should make a visit there. I agreed.

How to Bake an Orange Cake

Ingredients

125g Butter
1/4 cup Milk
1/4 cup Orange Juice
2 eggs
3/4 cup Caster Sugar
1.5 cups Self Raising Flour
1+ Tablespoon Orange Rind
Pinch of Salt
Droplet of Vanilla Essence

Preliminary
Put the Waxing/Baking Paper into the tin. Lightly butter the insides of paper/tin by using the wrapping paper of the butter.

Make sure the ingredients are at room temperature - otherwise they don't gel so well. This applies esp to the butter. If the butter is stone cold - it will take forever for it to be mixed in with sugar.

Step 1.
Make sure Butter is at room temp - soft to the touch; if not microwave it for 5 seconds or something. Cream the Butter and the Sugar ONLY. Stir them around til the Sugar is fully mixed in with the butter and you get that lovely yellow texture look. Don't stir for too long (like 30 minutes) to avoid the butter changing back to oil. Throw in a pinch of salt too.

Step 2.
Add Eggs and Stir that in well. Turn on and Preheat the Oven to 180C.

Step 3.
Add the Milk now. Stir well. You can also add in a small teardrop of vanilla essence. Or if you want you can do this when you pour the flour in.

Step 4
Sift the SR Flour and add it in. Once you have added the flour don't stir it around too much. I recommend you do this manually by hand not by machine. As you stir it - add in the *half cup of orange juice (OJ)* and the *orange rind* - you can add in 1 tablespoon or 2. I like to add in a sliced mandarin skin on top of that.

Try and not mix the milk and the orange juice together because the OJ makes the milk curdle.

Note on Orange Rind - do yourself a favor and get a nice hand held Orange Zester that can really scrub away at the orange skin. I bought mine from Kmart - a Swiss made one that cost $10. Fantastic! I'll write the name of it down later. The trick is to remove the orange part of the skin without taking too much of the white stuff which like the seed makes it bitter.

I also like to throw in one Mandarin skin as well but I make sure I remove as much of the white part of the skin as possible. Remove all seeds - they make it bitter.)

(Note on OJ - I don't like adding the milk together with the OJ on account of the juice causing the milk to curdle. So I like to add the OJ and rind last as I'm stiring the flour in.

If you don't have Orange Juice or Rind - I guess you can use Orange Marmalade - the type that has bits of peel inside. About 4??? tablespoons of OM should be ok (I'm really not sure). You should need to be careful adding that sort of stuff as the more liquid/sugar you put inside - the wetter the cake will be etc..)

Pour the mix into the tin lined with paper. Make sure its flattens out a bit by jiggling it. And put it into the centre of the oven - if most of the heat is coming from the bottom - you can put the cake at a higher spot to avoid the bottom getting burnt.

(I clean and wipe up now. Don't leave the flour sieve sitting in the kitchen sink)

Take the cake out when ready - this is about 30 - 40 minutes depending on your oven.

You can tell it is ready by poking a skewer into the cake and seeing if any of the mix sticks onto the stick. But do this only at the 30 minute mark. If it does stick like small chunks of uncooked mix, leave it in for another 5 minutes.

Take it out of the tin now. Carefully. But only after you are really sure the thing is cooked inside - otherwise it will break apart.

Usually I sandwich the tin with two plates and flip it over. Carefully. The tin is pretty hot so I wear gloves.

Let it sit for about 5 minutes and serve with Hot Earl Grey Tea and decorate it with fresh lavender! I love using my vintage Noritake Arlene set for this sort of occasion.

PS. I find it easier to double the amounts and bake two cakes because in my supermarket, the butter is sold in 250g blocks.

Similan Dive Trip in 1st week of March 2008

My friend Spencer is organizing a dive trip to Similan which he considers the next best thing to Eden.

If you're interested - read on.

Similan Islands!

Read more about Similans here and see pictures here. It is consistently rated as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world according to the Guardian newspaper. March is considered primetime for diving in the Similans and that's the time we are going.

Non divers FYI - Spencer is coordinating open water for a friend at Pulau Hantu to go on this trip, let him know if you are keen to join. But it will be a murky sort of dive yeah as its Monsoon season and all.

Date:

Depart SG: 3rd March 2010 @8.35pm

Return SG:7th March 2010 @12:00 midnite

Airline: JetStar - flight details to be confirmed as numbers firm up

Schedule

3rd March. Day 0: Stay overnight at Tony's lodge at Khao Lak upon arriving at Phuket Intl airport

4th March. Day 1: Transfer to Live on Board at 8am and start diving

5th March. Day 2: Diving

6th March. Day 3: Diving. EOD transfer to Little Buddha Inn at Phuket to chill (i.e alcohol)

7th March. Day 4: Chilling at Phuket and transfer to Phuket Intl airport

Estimated Cost

Liveonboard inclu diving and accomodation and food: SGD$722+. Click here for pricing

Tony Lodge stay 1 nite about SGD$30+. Click here for pricing

Little Buddha stay 1 nite about SGD$10+. Click here for pricing

Airfare: Currently airfares are at SGD$100 round trip exclu surcharges and taxes

Total Estimated Cost: SGD$862++

Notes on cost

-Pay your own way, No 3rd party operator fee involved

-Air ticket pricing may change the closer we get to March

-Inclu airfare, diving, food and accomodation on the live on board, 2 nites accomodation at Phuket and Khaolak

-Exclu land transfers, diving equipment rental, food and drinks outside of the live on board

-USD$1 = SGD$1.4

Please let Spencer know about your interest as soon as possible. And be prepared to make payment shortly after. Remember February is the shortest month in the year so make your decision quickly.

Call Spencer on Singapore.

Postscript:

We went for the trip and didn't like it. The dive boat was too packed with day trippers and the toilets kept on breaking down. The diving except for the 1st day wasn't all that wonderful because there were too many Thai fishing boats around fishing out the damn marine park when no one was looking.

Inglourious Basterds

Rating:	★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

I couldn't sleep last night due to the heat. So I watched "Inglourious Basterds", the Tarantino war flick. Its really a homage to the silly war movies of the 1960s and 1970s/80s, ie the "Dirty Dozen", "Inglorious Bastards etc.. If you're into pretty women getting shot, strangled and explicit autopsy type of violence, then this film is for you. If you prefer not to have the mental image of a beautiful blonde woman getting strangled by a homo nazi, then I suggest you look away.

Its a Tarantino movie so there's a lot of dialogue but the man has lost his touch. The dialogue in his films has lost its charm - compared with Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs even Jackie Brown. Now his films seem to be too stylized - its like someone pretending to be too clever or too Tarantino. I found them a bit boring, like a long joke that's taking the Uncle half an hour to tell it and the punch line falls a bit flat.

Nonetheless it did have some magic moments and some good acting. I liked the British actor. And Diane Kruger aka Bridget von Hammersmark had quite a few choice lines.

Lt Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt): "I want to get into that cinema..."
Bridget (Diana Kruger): "In case its escaped your attention, my leg has a bullet in it, your men can't speak German and there's a pile of dead Nazis in the next room."
Lt Aldo Raine: "Well I can speak some Eye-talin (italian)."
Bridget: "Yeah, probably as well as your German; is there any language you stupid Americans can speak apart from English?"
Aldo: "No, we speak Americann, lady."

(Or something to that effect)

Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich (1973)

Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15228

(Commentary: I don't think this is a great poem about diving. But it does contain evocative images and descriptions which are pretty good; they ring true. And I'll try and use them in my scuba poems.