Today is a sad day for me - LEE Kuan Yew

Singapore - Today is a sad day for me as I shed of tears for my first Prime Minister and founding father of modern Singapore.   Every where I drive around Singapore is a tribute to the vision and determination of this man that lead his capable ministers and people through the tough and challenging early years of Singapore to what it is today.

Our annual per capita income at the time of independence in 1965 was $500 to roughly $ 55,000 today.

You have brought Singapore to first world in one generation and I thank you so much.

May you rest in peace.

“I saw the British people as they were. They treated you as colonials and I resented that. I saw no reason why they should be governing me — they’re not superior.

“I decided, when I got back, I was going to put an end to this.” Lee Kuan Yew

Laurent - Australia famous pastry store

Melbourne - Lesley was finding for this pastry store up and down the street - Laurent.   Famous no doubt as the store was immaculate in design and look upmarket.

Store front

My cappuccino

Our waiting number is 14, our table is 4 - seems like Lesley favourite number.

Lygon Street

Melbourne - We walked from Queen Victoria market to Lygon street and it was a distance.  But worth the stroll on a cool Melbourne night.   You hardly will break a sweat as the weather is around 15-17 degrees.

Stop at Mercadante restaurant - an Italian restaurant serving Pizza and Pasta.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

This was Lesley's order and he commented that there is an unfamiliar taste to this dish.   I tried a fork full, and indeed there was an unfamiliar taste but could not put a finger on what to make out of that taste.  Lesley finish his dish clean without a single strand of the spaghetti.  He must be really hungry.

Spaghetti Vongole

This Spaghetti Vongole should have been called 'Spaghetti Seafood' as it has lots of squid too.  I prefer olive oil and garlic stir fried lightly with Vongole 'clams'.   It was a big portion and could only finish slightly more than half.

Still hankering for desert, we got ourselves each a scoop of Italian Gelato from the famous Gelatissimo.   We walked from Lygon Street all the way back to our Hotel - a good exercise.

Melbourne 'Pasar Malam'

Melbourne - Today is the 2nd day of Cisco Live Melbourne 2015, after it closes at 7:30pm. We took the tram back to the Hotel, changed to go to The Queen Victoria Market.  We have to catch before it closes tonight at 10pm.   Every Summer, they call it 'Summer Night Market' attract more than 25,000 people every Wednesday  from November till March.   The Night Market showcases some of Melbourne's finest artisans, as well as Hawker style global food and some of Melbourne's best live entertainment acts.

The Queen Victoria Market was officially opened on 20 March 1878 and is located at the north-western edge of Melbourne's central business district.  This market has been the heart and soul of Melbourne for more than a century.  A historic, vibrant and bustling landmark spread over two city block and is easily access via the city trams.

It was very crowded but the market is huge.   We walked around the whole market to catch the festivities.   There were many hawker stalls offering dishes from various countries but did not try as some queue was too long.

But I manage to buy Lechon - Cebu famous BBQ pork.   This stall sell it at A$12 per small box - very expensive.

Roasting the pig over the fire

Escape Room Melbourne

Melbourne -  As we were walking back to our hotel, we decided to test our minds to escape from the latest craze Escape Room.   This is a Malaysian franchise brought over to Australia and the person managing the shop is a lady from Penang.

The laughable 'Winners'

It was our first time but in fact we took too long and could not escape within the allocated time.   Had great fun for 45 minutes - need a good night rest.

I did a google search in Singapore and found out that there are more than 15 of such operators there.  Wow! scary and crazy people...

Steakhouse - The European restaurant

Melbourne - We went to one of Australia's steak house so named ' The European Restaurant'.   From our Hotel it was a short walk down Bourke Street towards Elizabeth Street till you hit Spring Street; then turn left.

There is nothing European about this restaurant which was oozing all Australian character from the menu, waitress to decor.

The steak I chose was black pepper steak around 250g it was medium well done and it tasted really good.  Lesley had the trout fish char cook and it look char burnt.  For appetizers, I had 1/2 dozen of fresh oysters @ A$4 each - expensive by any standard and it turned out disappointing for being small. I just came back from Tokyo and the Oysters I had was big and so succulent.    A good restaurant would have indicated the origin and type of the Oysters they offered us.

The meal was simple, below expectation and expensive.

Address: 161 Spring Street,   

Williamstown - Port and first city of Victoria

Melbourne -  Lesley and myself took a taxi from our hotel to Williamtowns which is a 15 minutes drive to catch the 2:15pm free Heritage Walking Tour.   We arrived at the Hobsons Bay Visitor Information Centre and registered ourselves.   This small city still has the character of early British grand old houses.   The first streets started off as William's Town and were laid out in 1837, making it Melbourne's earliest settlement.

Hobsons Bay Visitor Information Centre

John was our guide for the heritage tour and he was very friendly and gave a good understanding of this town.

Rev Wilkinson drinking fountain

Reverend Wilkinson commission the building of this drinking fountain for seafarers to quench their thirst with water instead of beers at the pubs to reduce the number of drunk sailors. Crossing the road and walking down was came across the Custom Wharf.

Custom Wharf

Directly across was one of Williamstown oldest hotel unfortunately it is no longer a hotel but a male only public housing.

Old Hotel built in 1852

The most interesting was the Williamstown morgue which we went around and the guide open the door to show the inside of this defunct morgue.

Willaimstown Morgue

The morgue was built entirely of blue stone by convict labourers.   Walking into the morgue was surreal with dummy dead bodies hung from the ceiling to prevent rats from eating at the corpses.  The city also runs a night ghost trail leading to this Williamstown Morgue...so scary!

Walking down the street there is a bit of American history of this battleship Shenandoah.   This was the Confederates battleship that came to Williamstown for ship repair and return to US to sink more Northern ships.   It seems Australia was pulled into the conspiracy that they helped the South in the American Civil War.

Telegraph Hotel

The Salvation  Army House

Unique design of this corner restaurant

Mutsukari restaurant

Tokyo - Terry brought Larry and myself to this classy Japanese restaurant - Mutsukari.  The food was creatively serve.  It was a 10 course meal.

Terry sharing a delightful moment

Juvenile conger and URUI wild plants

Sesame TOFU with WASABI

Soup with HAMAGURI clam and Bamboo shoot

Hand-rolled sushi - Firefly cuttlefish

Charcoal grilled SAKURA-MASU (cherry salmon)

Sea bream, big-fin leaf squid

Deserts - KIWI fruits sorbet

Thank you Terry for a delicious meal - Oishi desu

Dassai 39 Junmai Daiginjo - True Sake drink

Tokyo - I had a great dinner with business partners today and drank a very delicious sake - Dassai 39. The taste was light and very smooth, The 39 in its name means the rice was milled down to 39% of its original size.  That is premium sake very rare to find in Japan.

Even really cheap sake has some of the outer core of rice polished away for efficient brewing, because the starch in sake rice is concentrated in the center, but really cheap sake might have a ratio of 90%.

 Premium sake starts at 70%. The definition of Ginjo sake is that it is polished to at least 60%. There are noticeable changes at this level; ginjo sake is usually lighter and more aromatic. Daiginjo means a sake that has been polished to at least 50%. Daiginjo literally means “big ginjo”
Every bottle of premium sake lists the polishing ratio on it as a percentage. The number actually means the amount of the inner core of the rice that remains. In other words, if a bottle says 39% polishing ratio (“seimaibuai” in Japanese), then 61% of each grain has been polished away. That 39, by the way, would be a very high-end sake, unusual to see in a restaurant in Japan.

Dassai 39

Adding to this premium Sake was the food, our Japanese host was very gracious and hospitable.

Our dinner

That was our platter of fresh seafood and vegetables to be cooked to our liking.   It was a wonderful evening.