Singapore Sling

My parents arrived safely last night – and what better way to settle in than to head straight to the Raffles Hotel to enjoy our first Singapore Slings :-) We’re heading back to Raffles this evening for a birthday dinner. Thanks for all the birthday cards and messages – I will reply at some point! (And Sharon / Maria – no, it’s not the same without you!)

We’ve spent the day seeing the sights around the colonial and central business districts. I’ve enjoyed actually seeing something of Singapore (did I mention that I’d been working quite hard for the last few weeks – well when I’ve not been on jaunts to KL…). The buildings are impressive and unlike HK there are still loads of older buildings as well. There are some great sculptures on the streets – my favourite is the kids jumping into the Singapore River. The spiky building in the photo is the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay: kind of their version of the Sydney Opera House – and what a marvellous complex.

So we’re now having a rest (me as well as the olds!) before heading out... My Godmother sent a birthday cake out with my parents (along with the obligatory “9 Today” badge) – so a big thank you to Aunt Retta…

Don't panic, don't panic!!

I’ve now experienced my first earthquake! I was working away (NB working!) when the building began to sway a little… then the blinds and loose objects in the office began to rattle… It was a very strange experience… and to quote my colleague Joseph, it left my head spinning for quite a while afterwards – like the swaying feeling you have once you’re back on dry land after a long boat journey. The earthquake epicentre was off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia – and so what we experienced in Singapore was pretty mild given we’re 580km away. Fortunately, because of where it was centred, the earthquake doesn’t appear to have caused any damage.

The funniest thing from my perspective was the response in our building... about 5 minutes after the tremor, by which time everyone was just getting on with their work – albeit with their heads still spinning - a tannoy announcement came on… “Please remain calm!” Up until that point it hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind not to remain calm - Lance-Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army’s calls of “Don’t panic, don’t panic!” crossed my mind... It was another hour before the tannoy confidently told us that the structural inspections had confirmed that the building was still sound and that we wouldn’t need to evacuate after all!



I did more exploring on my second day in KL – I followed one of the Lonely Planet walking tours which are a great way of finding fascinating places that you would otherwise just walk past. The tour took me through Chinatown – and I saw some amazing temples and markets – including the fish & meat market (not for the faint hearted!). Before heading to the airport I rested my extremely tired and aching feet at the hotel pool and enjoyed the late afternoon sun… it really is a hard life!

Popping over to KL for the weekend...!

It seems surreal to be popping over to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend! But it’s actually so close to Singapore it seemed a shame not to take the opportunity to visit my third fabulous Asian city in the course of a week. I did think of coming by train given it was so close (not least to slightly atone for my atrocious carbon footprint so far this year…) but the quickest journey seemed to be 7 hours – the flight was 40 minutes.

For accommodation I used some Hilton points – and I have to say this is one of the most luxurious hotels I’ve stayed in. The room is magnificent – top floor but one – with marvellous views of the city and plenty of gadgets to play with. I’ll leave you to work out what the controls in the photo do… The night time photo of KL (Petronas Tower in the background) is taken from my bath!!!



With all the luxury of the hotel I was very tempted not to venture out… but I’m glad I did as KL is a fascinating place – a mixture of old colonial and modern – with a bombardment of smells (good and bad) and plenty of hustle and bustle. Thanks to Roslyn (who now has the pleasure of being Sir Fred’s support manager) for her KL travel tips. Rather than abandon the opportunity for a long lie, I decided not to rush to the Petronas Towers to try and get one of the limited tickets for the Skybridge – and decided that I’d get my city views from the Menarka KL (the 421m tall TV tower in the above photo from the bathroom) – Roslyn, I presume that’s the “other tower with the name you can’t remember” :-)

The 452m Petronas Towers are pretty spectacular - although for some reason it's hard to believe they were, for a time, the tallest buildings in the world. It's maybe to do with their geography - they're set fairly low down compared to the Menarka KL which is set on a hill.

Not sure what I’ll do tomorrow… but I have all day as my flight’s not until 9.30. I’ll get a chance to explore Singapore next weekend when my parents arrive at the outset of their own Far East adventure – one of the few parts of the globe they’ve not yet explored... I’m taking Friday off and will have until late Sunday evening with them before I fly off to Tokyo...

Another city, another view...

I flew down to Singapore from Hong Kong on Monday morning. Singapore is very different to Hong Kong – similar in a way to Africa – with its wide streets, slightly slower pace, and above all - warmth. It was wonderful to get off the plane and experience the wall of heat… HK had been suffering its coldest spell on record (so I’m told) and even I was finding it cold at times.

Some of you’ll be glad to know that I’ve been working long hours! One of the areas we’re auditing works European hours – so we can only begin to work with them when most normal folk are heading home… So I’ve not really had a chance to explore yet – other than to grab some food at Boat Quay and Clarke Quay where the food is superb. I didn’t get a chance to share with you another of my culinary adventures in HK at the end of last week. My colleagues, impressed by my daring efforts with the chicken feet, decided that we should visit the snake restaurant... tastes a little bit like chicken. And last night, Jon and I (see photo below) decided to try some fish eyes – tastes like fish!

Here’s where the main Singapore RBS office is (in a tower imaginatively called One George Street – I’ll let you work out why!) and some views. The flying saucer like building on the left of the middle photo is the new Supreme Court building designed by Sir Norman Foster. The photo on the right shows my hotel (with the red roof) – so I have a nice leisurely stroll to the office.

The folk in the team photo (including some guys out from the UK - whereas I am in the privileged position of being an expat member of the local team – an important distinction!) are L to R: Joseph, Liz, me, Matt & Jon.

Fantasia!

I've certainly timed my trip to Asia well... Firstly I had the New Year celebrations to enjoy - and last night was the RBS Hong Kong annual ball - which was... fantastic! There were over 500 staff there and we were entertained by dancers (of various varieties - tap, salsa, flamenco), trapeze artists, opera singers, bands, as well as having random fairies and elves running around from time to time! The 7 course meal was... fantastic - and let's just say it wasn't an early night!

Here's some photos...



The second photo is the HK based audit team. From L to R: me, Johnson, Jiann (who heads up the Asia Pacific Audit Team), Joseph and Jon... lucky they allowed me to join the team without a name like Jeremy or Joshua!

Chicken feet and the Symphony of Lights

I’m usually quite adventurous with food – and today was no exception when the team went out for lunch at a local dim sum restaurant – one of the specialities being chicken’s feet. (Tastes just like chicken!)

I ventured back over to Kowloon on Tuesday night to experience the Symphony of Lights. Now I have to say that this nightly event is frankly bizarre – but manages to attract hundreds of tourists! It was strangely reminiscent of Waltzing Waters in Newtonmore (which I know some of you have had the misfortune of visiting!). The show is 20 minutes of flashing lights and lasers set to music – the video will give you a flavour :-)



The view over to Hong Kong Island is, however, spectacular (don’t worry about the lop-sided skyscrapers in the photo – that’s more to do with the angle I was standing at and where I've had to join the photos rather than a sign of any strange seismic activity…).



Today’s HK trivia: the distance between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon on the mainland has shrunk from 2km to 1km as a result of all the land reclamations. Kowloon (or Kau Lung or 九龍) means “nine dragons” – but the story of how it got its name is quite sad (and comes with a PG rating). In 1279 the Mongols were advancing on the last of the Southern Song Dynasty emperors, Emperor Bing, who was only 7 years old. It was believed he would be safe if he sheltered in a place with nine dragons. When the young emperor arrived on the Kowloon peninsula he counted eight hills ("dragons") – but a servant pointed out that the emperor himself was a dragon – and so they had found their nine dragons. Alas, the protection of the nine dragons was not successful and when the last battle was lost to the Mongols an official took the young emperor and jumped from a cliff into the sea.

Making time for work...!

A recurring theme in messages I’ve been receiving is that it looks like I’m not doing any work! In order to keep any RBS shareholders, employees, or (charge paying!) customers who might be reading from being too concerned, I’d like to reassure you that I have been to the office (when I’ve not been celebrating New Year...) and I am actually doing some work. You’ll also be relieved to know that the office was ritually cleansed of bad spirits yesterday when a lion chased them all away… (I love the guy on the left of the photo below - who's carrying on working as if nothing unusual is happening at all!)





I’ve also been asked if I’m missing anything about my previous role or feeling powerless as I no longer work for Scotland’s most powerful person (according to The Scotsman). I do miss having an office, my very comfortable leather chair, the fabulous views over the Pentlands and the Gogarburn campus (of course, I never had time to enjoy the view – it was just nice to know it was there!). And no, I'm not feeling powerless at all - I'm the man who chose to leave Scotland's most powerful man to go and do bigger and better things!

And finally some of you seem to like the HK trivia... So here's another piece of useless (though possibly pub quiz winning - DSS members take note!) trivia. Hong Kong (or more accurately Heung Gong - and even more accurately 香港) means "fragrant harbour". Well I guess the harbour was maybe fragrant before the populaiton grew to 7m...

Big Buddha!

I decided to escape from the busyness of Hong Kong Island on Saturday and head over to one of the outlying islands: Lantau, where I planned to visit the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha (officially known as Tian Tan Buddha). The ferry journey takes about 40 minutes and you get fantastic views as you sail west from the harbour and past Kowloon. This was followed by a 50 minute bus journey along winding mountain roads up to the monastery. The scenery on Lantau couldn’t be more different to central HK - with beaches, mountains and green parkland. The monastery is very grand – and, like Man Mo, was busy due to the New Year celebrations. The Big Buddha was pretty impressive – consecrated in 1993 it’s 34m high and 250 tonnes (about the same as jumbo jet!) – and worth the 268 steps to the top to see it close up and enjoy the views.



Before I left the UK, quite a few folk were extremely frustrated that I didn't appear to be excited about coming to the Far East! One friend hit the nail exactly on the head when she could see from my eyes (she's known me for a long time!) that I didn't think the trip was real! Like many things it's only when you actually experience the real thing that you can get excited and begin to enjoy it... and that's exactly where I'm at with Hong Kong. I’m extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to be out here for so long – and loving the experience!

New Year Fireworks... the Video!

New Year Fireworks!

Even though I come from a city that prides itself in its firework displays, I have to admit that these were pretty impressive! And huge crowds - I've no idea how many hundreds of thousands of people were there...

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

... which I'm reliably informed is the traditional New Year greeting in Chinese - “congratulations and be prosperous”... if it's not I dread to think what I've been saying to folk! So, welcome to the year of the Rat (which was also the year I was born) - I particularly liked Google’s banner to celebrate…



This evening I headed over to Kowloon for the New Year Parade… it was certainly colourful and noisy! Lots of dragons and rats – and all led off by a pipe band! Some photos down at the bottom…

Before heading off, I went to see the Man Mo Temple, which is right next to my apartment – Hong Kong’s oldest dating back to 1847 (the temple - not my apartment!). The photo shows coils of incense – all lit – and together with the incense sticks lit by all the worshippers (New Year’s day is one of the busiest) the aroma was quite overwhelming!



I hope you’re enjoying the blog! I’ve had some requests for things to include… and will try to oblige over the next few days! In closing may I wish you all a prosperous year of the rat!