- We began with satay (both beef and chicken). Not the flat slices we’re accustomed to. Wasn’t sure if it was just tender chunks of meat or meat that had been ground and formed into tiny meatballs. The sauce was a sweet chili sauce (not much bite) with some peanut nibs, rather than a smooth peanut sauce as you’d get in the U.S. Other dishes:
- Steamed whole fish (white-fleshed, mild, can’t say much more about it) with a thick garlic sauce
- Same fish, fried whole, with a sweet chili sauce
- Greens (maybe bok choy leaves or something on that order) in a nice sauce
- Mussels in a different sweet chili sauce, this one with a bit of a bite to it (really, no two sauces were the same)
- Tom yum, with prawns (whole, head on, peel your own), mussels, baby octopus, etc.)—highlight of an excellent meal
- Rice
- Fresh squeezed orange juice by the pitcherful
- And the pièce de résistance: on the drive into Malaysia from Singapore in the afternoon, our hostess on the ride initiated a conversation about durian, which I knew from seeing it in NYC Chinatown fruit stands but had never tasted. Tina had not heard of it. I knew it only as something with such a powerful stench that it is not permitted on NYC subways. We passed a roadside stall piled high with the stuff. Well, she brought one to dinner and had the kitchen split it open for us. The inside consists of chambers (six?) running the length of the fruit, filled with large seeds (an inch in diameter, roughly spherical), each of which is coated in a thick layer of sweet yellow paste. Grab a seed, suck off the paste, savor, swallow. Rinse and repeat. There’s really not a lot of food in that huge fruit, when all is said and done. But it’s tasty.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Dinner in Johor Bahru
We were taken out for Thai food in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. But this was definitely a Malaysian take on Thai.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Best coffee in Australia
I like my caffeine. What I do not like is bitter, reflux-inducing coffee. I like a medium roast coffee made in a drip coffeemaker. Under duress, in need of a fix, I’ll drink espresso if I can dilute it sufficiently with water or ice. But even that is unsatisfying.
Unfortunately, the Italians seem to have brought their form of coffee to Australia before we Americans did. Or perhaps they just overtook us. But having now spent three weeks in Australia’s largest cities, I can report with confidence that drip coffee is hard to find. Hotels serve some sort of percolated or drip coffee at conference breaks, but as the chefs don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, they make it badly. Otherwise, everything comes out of an espresso machine. I’ve learned to order a long black, which has some water added, and then to add icewater to that to make it drinkable.
In Perth, though, walking through an arcade, I discovered the real thing. The place is Low Down Espresso, and they don’t even advertise their drip coffee. But there’s the machine, big as life, on the back counter; and these guys know how to use it. They even make proper iced coffee. Best I’ve had in a long time. If any coffee in Australia deserves a plug from an American traveler, this is the place.
Unfortunately, the Italians seem to have brought their form of coffee to Australia before we Americans did. Or perhaps they just overtook us. But having now spent three weeks in Australia’s largest cities, I can report with confidence that drip coffee is hard to find. Hotels serve some sort of percolated or drip coffee at conference breaks, but as the chefs don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, they make it badly. Otherwise, everything comes out of an espresso machine. I’ve learned to order a long black, which has some water added, and then to add icewater to that to make it drinkable.
In Perth, though, walking through an arcade, I discovered the real thing. The place is Low Down Espresso, and they don’t even advertise their drip coffee. But there’s the machine, big as life, on the back counter; and these guys know how to use it. They even make proper iced coffee. Best I’ve had in a long time. If any coffee in Australia deserves a plug from an American traveler, this is the place.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Let's see, where was I?
After Brisbane, we headed to Sydney for a few days (itinerary determined by speaking schedule, not by geographic logic).
In Sydney we stayed in the World Square area of the CBD. Our block, including the large indoor mall adjacent to the hotel, seemed to be the center of Japanese and Korean cuisine. Chinatown was a block up from us. The block to the left was mostly Spanish restaurants. So much good food, so little time. Sushi was everywhere, it seemed. Several restaurants offered freshly made plates of sushi on a conveyor belt that surrounded the chefs. Plates were priced according to what color the china was, totted up when it was time to leave. We had dinner one night, though, in a restaurant called Tokyo Ria. The menu was closer to the wide variety of food we had in Japan two years ago than any of the sushi lunch places had or than we typically see in the U.S. Their ordering system consisted of a jukebox-like touch screen display in each booth. The photo menu went on for many pages of thumbnails. Touch to open a full-screen photo and description. Order immediately or cancel. Click another button to call a server to the table for help. Each dish was prepared immediately upon ordering and delivered when it was ready. So there’s a bit of an art to ordering things in the order you want to eat them. The food was excellent.
The next day we took a bus down to Circular Quay and walked to the Sydney Opera House. We took the one-hour tour (not the two-hour backstage tour) and enjoyed that very much. We had lunch at one of the Opera House cafés. Then we walked along the water, under the Sydney Harbor Bridge, over to Darlington Harbor (a bit of a hike). We both watched the people traversing the top of the bridge while we were eating lunch and decided that was a little too high and too scary for us. (It was odd to see, a couple of days later, that a fellow had caused a stir by climbing the bridge and hanging a protest banner, considering that hundreds of people a day climb almost to where he stood.) We had a light dinner at Darlington Harbor (shared some appetizers and some grilled kangaroo loin), then walked the last few blocks back to the hotel.
Early the next morning we flew to Perth. There’s a bit of the Wild West about Western Australia that expresses itself in terms of the jocular disdain the residents have for what they lump together as the “Eastern States,” to the dismay of the residents of those states. Perth’s CBD is a lot less glitzy and glossy than those in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. There are plenty of unpretentious small shops of all sorts that are not chain stores catering to the rich and famous.
After a day in Perth capped by dinner at a home in the hills on the north side of the city, we drove south yesterday in a rented car, to a rented house in Prevelly, a surfers’ beach community near Margaret River. This is a major wine region, and the main tourist activity is winery tours. But that doesn’t interest us particularly. For one thing, we’re getting on a plane to Singapore Monday and can’t exactly take a case of wine with us. So we skipped the tours in favor of hanging out at the beach. It’s fall here, cool and overcast, but I couldn’t be this close to the Indian Ocean and not take at least a brief swim.
Driving in Australia is always a challenge, as it’s on the wrong side of the road (well, it’s the right side of the road here, but it’s the wrong side for an American driver). Our solution to the safe driving problem is that I drive, and Tina sits in the passenger seat constantly reminding me what lane I’m supposed to be in. It works out better than it sounds. We also try to avoid driving at night if we can.
In Sydney we stayed in the World Square area of the CBD. Our block, including the large indoor mall adjacent to the hotel, seemed to be the center of Japanese and Korean cuisine. Chinatown was a block up from us. The block to the left was mostly Spanish restaurants. So much good food, so little time. Sushi was everywhere, it seemed. Several restaurants offered freshly made plates of sushi on a conveyor belt that surrounded the chefs. Plates were priced according to what color the china was, totted up when it was time to leave. We had dinner one night, though, in a restaurant called Tokyo Ria. The menu was closer to the wide variety of food we had in Japan two years ago than any of the sushi lunch places had or than we typically see in the U.S. Their ordering system consisted of a jukebox-like touch screen display in each booth. The photo menu went on for many pages of thumbnails. Touch to open a full-screen photo and description. Order immediately or cancel. Click another button to call a server to the table for help. Each dish was prepared immediately upon ordering and delivered when it was ready. So there’s a bit of an art to ordering things in the order you want to eat them. The food was excellent.
The next day we took a bus down to Circular Quay and walked to the Sydney Opera House. We took the one-hour tour (not the two-hour backstage tour) and enjoyed that very much. We had lunch at one of the Opera House cafés. Then we walked along the water, under the Sydney Harbor Bridge, over to Darlington Harbor (a bit of a hike). We both watched the people traversing the top of the bridge while we were eating lunch and decided that was a little too high and too scary for us. (It was odd to see, a couple of days later, that a fellow had caused a stir by climbing the bridge and hanging a protest banner, considering that hundreds of people a day climb almost to where he stood.) We had a light dinner at Darlington Harbor (shared some appetizers and some grilled kangaroo loin), then walked the last few blocks back to the hotel.
Early the next morning we flew to Perth. There’s a bit of the Wild West about Western Australia that expresses itself in terms of the jocular disdain the residents have for what they lump together as the “Eastern States,” to the dismay of the residents of those states. Perth’s CBD is a lot less glitzy and glossy than those in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. There are plenty of unpretentious small shops of all sorts that are not chain stores catering to the rich and famous.
After a day in Perth capped by dinner at a home in the hills on the north side of the city, we drove south yesterday in a rented car, to a rented house in Prevelly, a surfers’ beach community near Margaret River. This is a major wine region, and the main tourist activity is winery tours. But that doesn’t interest us particularly. For one thing, we’re getting on a plane to Singapore Monday and can’t exactly take a case of wine with us. So we skipped the tours in favor of hanging out at the beach. It’s fall here, cool and overcast, but I couldn’t be this close to the Indian Ocean and not take at least a brief swim.
Driving in Australia is always a challenge, as it’s on the wrong side of the road (well, it’s the right side of the road here, but it’s the wrong side for an American driver). Our solution to the safe driving problem is that I drive, and Tina sits in the passenger seat constantly reminding me what lane I’m supposed to be in. It works out better than it sounds. We also try to avoid driving at night if we can.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Barristers to the left of me, barristers to the right of me
Just travel notes, mostly for my own benefit…
We’re in a hotel on the edge of the central business district (written and pronounced CBD in Australian English, never spelled out, even on first use) in Brisbane. The CBD borders the Brisbane River and it includes various state buildings as well as commercial offices, stores, and hotels. Some years ago, the downtown waterfront, as in many cities, was entirely industrial and inaccessible to pedestrians.
I haven’t researched the political process that led to the current situation. I imagine there was conflict in Brisbane as there is conflict everywhere when planners and developers want to displace businesses in favor of tourism. However, as a tourist, I can say that the effort paid off in spectacular results.
The CBD is chock full of the sorts of building architects mostly dream up for competitions in the U.S., with no thought of ever being allowed to actually build them. Public spaces, including those in front of commercial buildings, are showcases for large, modern public sculptures, the result of a requirement that 0.25% of construction budgets be spent on public art. In the U.S., the one percent for art movement has not done nearly so much.
Pedestrian bridges seem to be a special art form in Australia. Here’s one that connects South Wharf and North Wharf in Melbourne (an area that includes a discount mall, a convention center, some casinos, and some pleasant walking paths along the shores but not much else to hold one’s interest).
Here’s one of a much larger pedestrian bridge across the Brisbane River, a block from the hotel, although the photo does not really convey the dramatic design, I’m unhappy to report.
Because the museums here are state-owned, admission is free. The one I spent the most time in, the Gallery of Modern Art, mounts a heck of a show. It is what the other end of the bridge connects to.
Walking around the Brisbane CBD, I came across a large weekly farmers’ market and spent a pleasant hour or so talking with growers. This is fall, so the stalls were full, mostly with familiar produce at unfamiliarly high prices, typically double what I’d pay at a farmers’ market in the States and three or four times what I’d pay at a supermarket. However, there was a grower of mushrooms, with spectacular-looking goods, whose prices were less than half of U.S. supermarket mushroom prices. I asked the woman whose company runs the market why she thought that might be the case. She answered, “because he doesn’t know how to price his goods.” (I immediately thought of a number of conversations on editing lists about pricing services.)
Prices in general, at least in the CBD, are higher than I’m used to. Espresso shops are everywhere, and they are everywhere more expensive that Starbucks at home, by quite a bit. Coffee of the non-espresso type is virtually unobtainable. I’ve learned to order “black iced coffee,” which consists of a great deal of espresso, ice, and additional water to make the stuff drinkable. “Iced coffee,” in Australia, is a dessert drink consisting of two scoops of vanilla ice cream, milk or cream, and a little coffee. Not the same thing at all.
Yesterday I toured the botanic gardens (42 acres, ten full-time gardening staff). The point of botanic gardens, as opposed to other sorts of gardens, was historically to have a place to test the suitability and economic viability of various plant species, both native, such as the still extant tree that produced the world’s first commercial crop of macadamia nuts, and alien, such as date palm and tamarind tree. The botanic gardens here date to the mid-nineteenth century. Many of the native plants on exhibit have common names similar to Northern Hemisphere plants but they are botanically unrelated or only distantly related. It is always interesting to see how biological niches get filled, though, one way or the other.
On the way back from the garden to the hotel, I passed three or four barristers at the end of their day in court. They had on the starched white collar-type thingies that cross on the chest, the white dress shirt, and the lightweight black robes; they were dragging their large, wheeled briefcases behind them. They were a rumpled, bedraggled lot. Hard day in court, I guess. This morning, I chanced upon a couple of barristers on their way to court. They were freshly pressed and starched, their hair was kempt, there was a spring in their step, and they were carrying their wigs in hand. I got the impression they have several changes of their court attire and afford the nearby dry cleaners a nice livelihood.
We’re in a hotel on the edge of the central business district (written and pronounced CBD in Australian English, never spelled out, even on first use) in Brisbane. The CBD borders the Brisbane River and it includes various state buildings as well as commercial offices, stores, and hotels. Some years ago, the downtown waterfront, as in many cities, was entirely industrial and inaccessible to pedestrians.
I haven’t researched the political process that led to the current situation. I imagine there was conflict in Brisbane as there is conflict everywhere when planners and developers want to displace businesses in favor of tourism. However, as a tourist, I can say that the effort paid off in spectacular results.
The CBD is chock full of the sorts of building architects mostly dream up for competitions in the U.S., with no thought of ever being allowed to actually build them. Public spaces, including those in front of commercial buildings, are showcases for large, modern public sculptures, the result of a requirement that 0.25% of construction budgets be spent on public art. In the U.S., the one percent for art movement has not done nearly so much.
Pedestrian bridges seem to be a special art form in Australia. Here’s one that connects South Wharf and North Wharf in Melbourne (an area that includes a discount mall, a convention center, some casinos, and some pleasant walking paths along the shores but not much else to hold one’s interest).
Here’s one of a much larger pedestrian bridge across the Brisbane River, a block from the hotel, although the photo does not really convey the dramatic design, I’m unhappy to report.
Because the museums here are state-owned, admission is free. The one I spent the most time in, the Gallery of Modern Art, mounts a heck of a show. It is what the other end of the bridge connects to.
Walking around the Brisbane CBD, I came across a large weekly farmers’ market and spent a pleasant hour or so talking with growers. This is fall, so the stalls were full, mostly with familiar produce at unfamiliarly high prices, typically double what I’d pay at a farmers’ market in the States and three or four times what I’d pay at a supermarket. However, there was a grower of mushrooms, with spectacular-looking goods, whose prices were less than half of U.S. supermarket mushroom prices. I asked the woman whose company runs the market why she thought that might be the case. She answered, “because he doesn’t know how to price his goods.” (I immediately thought of a number of conversations on editing lists about pricing services.)
Prices in general, at least in the CBD, are higher than I’m used to. Espresso shops are everywhere, and they are everywhere more expensive that Starbucks at home, by quite a bit. Coffee of the non-espresso type is virtually unobtainable. I’ve learned to order “black iced coffee,” which consists of a great deal of espresso, ice, and additional water to make the stuff drinkable. “Iced coffee,” in Australia, is a dessert drink consisting of two scoops of vanilla ice cream, milk or cream, and a little coffee. Not the same thing at all.
Yesterday I toured the botanic gardens (42 acres, ten full-time gardening staff). The point of botanic gardens, as opposed to other sorts of gardens, was historically to have a place to test the suitability and economic viability of various plant species, both native, such as the still extant tree that produced the world’s first commercial crop of macadamia nuts, and alien, such as date palm and tamarind tree. The botanic gardens here date to the mid-nineteenth century. Many of the native plants on exhibit have common names similar to Northern Hemisphere plants but they are botanically unrelated or only distantly related. It is always interesting to see how biological niches get filled, though, one way or the other.
On the way back from the garden to the hotel, I passed three or four barristers at the end of their day in court. They had on the starched white collar-type thingies that cross on the chest, the white dress shirt, and the lightweight black robes; they were dragging their large, wheeled briefcases behind them. They were a rumpled, bedraggled lot. Hard day in court, I guess. This morning, I chanced upon a couple of barristers on their way to court. They were freshly pressed and starched, their hair was kempt, there was a spring in their step, and they were carrying their wigs in hand. I got the impression they have several changes of their court attire and afford the nearby dry cleaners a nice livelihood.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The wombat zone
Saturday (yesterday here, probably today where you are) was the birthday of a colleague of Tina’s who lives in Melbourne. Lisa and her husband, Maury, picked us up at the hotel in the morning, and we went to the Healesville Sanctuary, part of the Victoria Zoos system, about an hour’s drive northeast of Melbourne, in the Yarra River area.
A zoo is a zoo, you may think, and why spend precious tourist hours visiting one, especially sans grandchildren. But many of Australia’s native species are not easily seen in American zoos, and so it was an interesting excursion. I had never seen a platypus other than on tv and no idea how small they are in real life, for example. Nor did I have a clear mental image of what a wombat looks like. And although I’ve been to Tasmania, this was the first time I’d seen a Tasmanian devil in the flesh.
After a few hours there, we drove back through wine country and stopped at an elegant winery bistro for tea (the time of day, not the beverage). It is fall here, harvest time (think Halloween), which explains why pumpkin is featured on so many menus and in so many interesting dishes, none of which bear any remote resemblance to pumpkin pie. And no, there are no outdoor decorations of pumpkins, gourds, and cornstalks to be seen anywhere. The American fruit has been adopted but not the kitsch that goes with it.
I was struck, on our drive, by the difference between public works in Australia and those in the U.S. This is a place where architects and artists are allowed—perhaps encouraged—to play. Everything from highway sound barriers to tunnel entrances to bridges of all types to train stations to customs houses is a work of public art, not just a utilitarian structure devoid of personality or attitude, as seems to be the only permissible style in the U.S. At home it’s considered wondrous that a government entity can ram a cable stay bridge through the approval process. Here, there is a sense of exuberance. Cable stay bridges are merely a starting point for beautiful and varied ways to move people from one side of a river to another. In fact, the tunnel we went through yesterday was built to get beneath a mountain stream that was thought important enough not to disturb with a bridge over it.
A zoo is a zoo, you may think, and why spend precious tourist hours visiting one, especially sans grandchildren. But many of Australia’s native species are not easily seen in American zoos, and so it was an interesting excursion. I had never seen a platypus other than on tv and no idea how small they are in real life, for example. Nor did I have a clear mental image of what a wombat looks like. And although I’ve been to Tasmania, this was the first time I’d seen a Tasmanian devil in the flesh.
After a few hours there, we drove back through wine country and stopped at an elegant winery bistro for tea (the time of day, not the beverage). It is fall here, harvest time (think Halloween), which explains why pumpkin is featured on so many menus and in so many interesting dishes, none of which bear any remote resemblance to pumpkin pie. And no, there are no outdoor decorations of pumpkins, gourds, and cornstalks to be seen anywhere. The American fruit has been adopted but not the kitsch that goes with it.
I was struck, on our drive, by the difference between public works in Australia and those in the U.S. This is a place where architects and artists are allowed—perhaps encouraged—to play. Everything from highway sound barriers to tunnel entrances to bridges of all types to train stations to customs houses is a work of public art, not just a utilitarian structure devoid of personality or attitude, as seems to be the only permissible style in the U.S. At home it’s considered wondrous that a government entity can ram a cable stay bridge through the approval process. Here, there is a sense of exuberance. Cable stay bridges are merely a starting point for beautiful and varied ways to move people from one side of a river to another. In fact, the tunnel we went through yesterday was built to get beneath a mountain stream that was thought important enough not to disturb with a bridge over it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Around the world in 52 days
If you are old enough to remember Cinerama, you may recall Around the World in Eighty Days, with David Niven as Phileas Fogg and Cantinflas as Passepartout in the 1956 film adaptation of the Jules Verne novel. The movie poster featured the two of them in a balloon.
This morning, eating breakfast in the executive lounge at the Hilton South Wharf in Melbourne, my wife and I looked out the window and saw five balloons rising over the harbor. The hostess explained that this is a daily occurrence, organized by commercial balloon excursion companies for people who want to pay ridiculous sums to then have to rise at three or four in the morning in order to get to the launch site in time for their adventure. I guess we’ll be passing on that experience, although we were up well before then today, having just arrive in Melbourne yesterday morning local time and not having adjusted completely to the time shift yet.
In any case, the blog will be given over to a travel journal for the next few weeks. If this bores you to tears, feel free to stop back mid-June, when it will return to the regular mishmash of more professional observations.
The occasion for this junket is a series of speaking engagements Tina arranged for herself in such a way that we end up circumnavigating the globe. This is something airlines like to encourage people to do, and so they offer deals. In particular, Star Alliance (owned by Lufthansa but participated in by many airlines) offers two plans, one about half the price of the other. If you can limit your itinerary to five stops (stops quite loosely defined, so that you can land in one city and take off from another, arranging your own transportation between them) and you can make the trip in less than 26,000 air miles, then you can take advantage of the lower-priced deal. Tina, in addition to being the sort of person who gets invited to speak all over the world, is also a savvy travel planner; she gets the credit for making this trip possible.
We also have a pretty good deal with Hilton that makes it possible for us to hole up for free in luxury hotels from time to time and eat free in the executive lounge. That cuts way down on daily expenditures as we go along, even as it embarrassingly intensifies the sense that we’ve become the kind of tourists we mocked in our youth.
Eat your heart out, United
The domestic airline whose mileage program we participate in is United, a Star Alliance member. Tina accumulates enough miles to qualify for a variety of privileges that I, as her spouse, get to enjoy as well. The occasional upgrade out of cattle class is one.
The first two legs of our trip were a short flight from Hartford to Washington followed by a cross-country flight to San Francisco, where Tina grew up and still has friends. We flew first class on both planes. This is not particularly special. While there are only two seats on either side of the aisle, rather than three, it is the space between seats that is wider, not the space between the armrests. In fact, in economy class, in most rows, you can raise the armrests between seats, providing a little extra hip room. In first class, the armrests are wide and filled with gadgetry, but they cannot be raised, so the seat is effectively narrower than an economy seat. There is slightly more legroom, but the tray tables extend only so far, making it a tight squeeze for someone my size, and the distance to the seat in front is not quite enough to comfortably open up a laptop. So much for plan A. Meanwhile, the entertainment, such as it is, is on an overhead monitor, not a seatback monitor, so you have no choice in what to watch. The only personal option is to not bother putting on your headphones; that’s the one I exercised, as the programs on offer were not suitable for anyone over the age of 13. There was a meal, but it was nothing memorable.
After a few days in the bay area, during which I was treated to lunch by a client and had drinks and light meal with some editing colleagues, it was off to Melbourne by way of Auckland, on Air New Zealand. We had to check out of our San Francisco hotel at 3:00 in the afternoon, but we couldn’t check in for our flight until 6:15. A good part of the interval between was spent in slapstick comedy as we chased between terminal buildings trying to track down a lost passport that wasn’t lost at all, just in the wrong person’s possession. Let’s just say that one of us was (accidentally) holding both of our passports and neither of us realized that. By the time we found it, it was time to get in line to check our bags. Then we were finally able to navigate unencumbered. We headed through security and on to the lounge.
Traveling as Star Alliance gold members, we have access to airport lounges. We had the choice of United’s Red Carpet Club or the Eva Airways Evergreen Club lounge shared by several of the international carriers. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. Well, we know what Red Carpet Club offers—cookies and crackers, mini-slices of plastic-encased processed cheese, underripe fruit, and soft drinks. Anything else that might be on offer, such as beer or mediocre wine, comes at a steep price. Let’s try the other one. Lovely trays of charcuterie, interesting New Zealand cheeses, sliced fresh fruit, New Zealand wines (quite nice), and more. All free. Not a hard choice.
We had paid for an upgrade to Economy Premium for the fifteen-hour flight to Auckland. Now on United, there is something called Economy Plus, which is the first several rows in the economy cabin. It gets you five inches additional knee room, thus preventing permanent injury, but is otherwise identical to regular cattle class. On Air New Zealand, though, it entails a substantial array of perks. On board, we learned that Economy Premium is its own seating area. Leg room is comparable to United’s first class seating. The tray tables push away several inches further than in United’s first class, making it possible for me to sit up and eat like a normal human. A large storage locker on the window side holds a large, heavy duvet to supplement the standard-issue airplane blanket. Service includes complimentary beer or red, white, or sparkling New Zealand wine and the sorts of amenities, such as hot washcloths before meals, that United provides in Business Class. The supper menu started with cured and seared tuna with salad ratatouille and lobster dressing over mesclun greens. For the entree we had a choice of New Zealand lamb lin with yellow bell pepper salsa, lyonnaise potatoes, and broccolini with lemon; pan-seared cod with lemon caper sauce, baby potatoes, spinach, and caramelized shallots; or wood-roasted chicken breast with soft herb mash, zucchini, mushrooms, and red onion. We both had the lamb. A basket of various interesting warm breads was passed with dinner. Dessert was a berry almond sponge cake with a dollop of cinnamon cream on the side. There was an after-dinner plate of New Zealand cheeses with grapes and apricots, but neither of us had room to consider even looking at it.
Breakfast began with a fruit plate, yogurt, croissants (warm) with New Zealand butter and fruit conserves. Cereal was available but we passed. There was a further choice of cheddar and chive scrambled egg served with chicken sausage, mushroom ragout, and cherry tomatoes; or Belgian waffles, strawberries, manuka honey apple syrup, and freshly whipped banana cream. Tina had the eggs. I had neither, as I was still full from dinner.
The menu for those traveling the other direction, Auckland to California, is entirely different for both meals, featuring more fresh New Zealand ingredients, but of the same quality. While I don’t know what the choices were in regular economy, I note that this is the Premium Economy menu I’m talking about, not the same menu as is offered in business class or in first class, and yet it is quite elegant, and the food lives up to the description.
The onboard entertainment system on many international carriers consists of individually controlled seatback monitors. The Air New Zealand system, in addition to whatever musical offerings, informational pages about destinations, and television episodes it had, offered a choice of seventy movies—many more than I’ve seen offered on any other airline. I generally don’t bother unwrapping the headphones. There were the expected kids’ movies, romantic comedies, and recent action flicks. There were extensive selections in Japanese and Chinese. And there were classics. On the transpacific flight I saw Elmer Gantry and almost all of The Misfits, neither of which I’d ever seen. So that was pretty cool. On the Auckland to Melbourne flight, I saw Buena Vista Social Club, another I had missed.
About an hour before breakfast, we were awakened by a PA announcement requesting the assistance of a doctor or registered nurse. Tina turned out to be the only doctor who volunteered, and her major contribution was to be present so that the aircraft’s medical kit could legally be opened. The medical problem was one that the nurses who volunteered were much more qualified to treat than Tina was. Nonetheless, the crew were quite grateful for her stepping forward. As a consequence, on our Auckland to Melbourne flight, we were upgraded from the regular economy seats we had booked (I can tolerate tight knee room for three hours) to business class.
In Auckland we did a little airport shopping and proceeded to the Air New Zealand lounge for our second breakfast of the morning. (Really, we ate little, but there was a nice buffet spread that included scrambled eggs, pancakes, a selection of breads and pastries, fresh fruit, and more.)
Business class was interesting. Maybe you’ve seen ads for business class seats that recline into full-length individual beds. That was the arrangement. Each pod included a comfortable seat (wider, finally, than any of the other seats so far), an ottoman that doubled as a guest seat (it had a seatbelt) and a large table (normally stowed) that is adequate for two people to eat facing each other, which is how we had our third breakfast yesterday. Service began with a choice of water, juice, sparkling wine, or a banana-honey smoothie. This was followed by a sliced fruit plate, assorted cereals, bircher muesli, and yogurt. The passed bread basket included croissants, muffins, Vogel’s (a New Zealand brand of dense, whole grain bread), or fruit toast, served with New Zealand butter and fruit conserves. This was followed by a choice of smoked chicken pesto and parmesan omelette with slow-roasted tomato and chicken sausage; or corned beef and root vegetable cakes with grilled field mushroom (actually, it was half a portobello), leaf spinach, blistered vine tomato, and tarragon mustard mayonnaise. The breakfast entrees were credited to, respectively, chef Geoff Scott of Vinnies Restaurant, Auckland, and Rex Morgan, Boulcott Street Bistro, Wellington.( A third chef pictured in the menu did not have a dish listed on this version.) The corned beef was a minor and subtle ingredient in an almost latke-like cake of shredded vegetables—not what either of was expecting, but much lighter and more subtle.
As a further gesture, when we were about to land, the plane’s concierge stopped by to speak with Tina and handed her a bottle of one of New Zealand’s better Cabernet Sauvignons.
United Airlines is the U.S. flag carrier. We’ve flown their D.C. to Paris route, once, by mistake. In comparison with any other Star Alliance carrier we’ve been on, they are an embarrassment to their flag. The food is barely edible, even by American standards. Service is generally polite but never warm, regardless of class. On the Paris flight, there were perhaps two members of the cabin crew who spoke French. Every other flag carrier we’ve traveled on has been superior on all counts and in all travel classes.
This morning, eating breakfast in the executive lounge at the Hilton South Wharf in Melbourne, my wife and I looked out the window and saw five balloons rising over the harbor. The hostess explained that this is a daily occurrence, organized by commercial balloon excursion companies for people who want to pay ridiculous sums to then have to rise at three or four in the morning in order to get to the launch site in time for their adventure. I guess we’ll be passing on that experience, although we were up well before then today, having just arrive in Melbourne yesterday morning local time and not having adjusted completely to the time shift yet.
In any case, the blog will be given over to a travel journal for the next few weeks. If this bores you to tears, feel free to stop back mid-June, when it will return to the regular mishmash of more professional observations.
The occasion for this junket is a series of speaking engagements Tina arranged for herself in such a way that we end up circumnavigating the globe. This is something airlines like to encourage people to do, and so they offer deals. In particular, Star Alliance (owned by Lufthansa but participated in by many airlines) offers two plans, one about half the price of the other. If you can limit your itinerary to five stops (stops quite loosely defined, so that you can land in one city and take off from another, arranging your own transportation between them) and you can make the trip in less than 26,000 air miles, then you can take advantage of the lower-priced deal. Tina, in addition to being the sort of person who gets invited to speak all over the world, is also a savvy travel planner; she gets the credit for making this trip possible.
We also have a pretty good deal with Hilton that makes it possible for us to hole up for free in luxury hotels from time to time and eat free in the executive lounge. That cuts way down on daily expenditures as we go along, even as it embarrassingly intensifies the sense that we’ve become the kind of tourists we mocked in our youth.
Eat your heart out, United
The domestic airline whose mileage program we participate in is United, a Star Alliance member. Tina accumulates enough miles to qualify for a variety of privileges that I, as her spouse, get to enjoy as well. The occasional upgrade out of cattle class is one.
The first two legs of our trip were a short flight from Hartford to Washington followed by a cross-country flight to San Francisco, where Tina grew up and still has friends. We flew first class on both planes. This is not particularly special. While there are only two seats on either side of the aisle, rather than three, it is the space between seats that is wider, not the space between the armrests. In fact, in economy class, in most rows, you can raise the armrests between seats, providing a little extra hip room. In first class, the armrests are wide and filled with gadgetry, but they cannot be raised, so the seat is effectively narrower than an economy seat. There is slightly more legroom, but the tray tables extend only so far, making it a tight squeeze for someone my size, and the distance to the seat in front is not quite enough to comfortably open up a laptop. So much for plan A. Meanwhile, the entertainment, such as it is, is on an overhead monitor, not a seatback monitor, so you have no choice in what to watch. The only personal option is to not bother putting on your headphones; that’s the one I exercised, as the programs on offer were not suitable for anyone over the age of 13. There was a meal, but it was nothing memorable.
After a few days in the bay area, during which I was treated to lunch by a client and had drinks and light meal with some editing colleagues, it was off to Melbourne by way of Auckland, on Air New Zealand. We had to check out of our San Francisco hotel at 3:00 in the afternoon, but we couldn’t check in for our flight until 6:15. A good part of the interval between was spent in slapstick comedy as we chased between terminal buildings trying to track down a lost passport that wasn’t lost at all, just in the wrong person’s possession. Let’s just say that one of us was (accidentally) holding both of our passports and neither of us realized that. By the time we found it, it was time to get in line to check our bags. Then we were finally able to navigate unencumbered. We headed through security and on to the lounge.
Traveling as Star Alliance gold members, we have access to airport lounges. We had the choice of United’s Red Carpet Club or the Eva Airways Evergreen Club lounge shared by several of the international carriers. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. Well, we know what Red Carpet Club offers—cookies and crackers, mini-slices of plastic-encased processed cheese, underripe fruit, and soft drinks. Anything else that might be on offer, such as beer or mediocre wine, comes at a steep price. Let’s try the other one. Lovely trays of charcuterie, interesting New Zealand cheeses, sliced fresh fruit, New Zealand wines (quite nice), and more. All free. Not a hard choice.
We had paid for an upgrade to Economy Premium for the fifteen-hour flight to Auckland. Now on United, there is something called Economy Plus, which is the first several rows in the economy cabin. It gets you five inches additional knee room, thus preventing permanent injury, but is otherwise identical to regular cattle class. On Air New Zealand, though, it entails a substantial array of perks. On board, we learned that Economy Premium is its own seating area. Leg room is comparable to United’s first class seating. The tray tables push away several inches further than in United’s first class, making it possible for me to sit up and eat like a normal human. A large storage locker on the window side holds a large, heavy duvet to supplement the standard-issue airplane blanket. Service includes complimentary beer or red, white, or sparkling New Zealand wine and the sorts of amenities, such as hot washcloths before meals, that United provides in Business Class. The supper menu started with cured and seared tuna with salad ratatouille and lobster dressing over mesclun greens. For the entree we had a choice of New Zealand lamb lin with yellow bell pepper salsa, lyonnaise potatoes, and broccolini with lemon; pan-seared cod with lemon caper sauce, baby potatoes, spinach, and caramelized shallots; or wood-roasted chicken breast with soft herb mash, zucchini, mushrooms, and red onion. We both had the lamb. A basket of various interesting warm breads was passed with dinner. Dessert was a berry almond sponge cake with a dollop of cinnamon cream on the side. There was an after-dinner plate of New Zealand cheeses with grapes and apricots, but neither of us had room to consider even looking at it.
Breakfast began with a fruit plate, yogurt, croissants (warm) with New Zealand butter and fruit conserves. Cereal was available but we passed. There was a further choice of cheddar and chive scrambled egg served with chicken sausage, mushroom ragout, and cherry tomatoes; or Belgian waffles, strawberries, manuka honey apple syrup, and freshly whipped banana cream. Tina had the eggs. I had neither, as I was still full from dinner.
The menu for those traveling the other direction, Auckland to California, is entirely different for both meals, featuring more fresh New Zealand ingredients, but of the same quality. While I don’t know what the choices were in regular economy, I note that this is the Premium Economy menu I’m talking about, not the same menu as is offered in business class or in first class, and yet it is quite elegant, and the food lives up to the description.
The onboard entertainment system on many international carriers consists of individually controlled seatback monitors. The Air New Zealand system, in addition to whatever musical offerings, informational pages about destinations, and television episodes it had, offered a choice of seventy movies—many more than I’ve seen offered on any other airline. I generally don’t bother unwrapping the headphones. There were the expected kids’ movies, romantic comedies, and recent action flicks. There were extensive selections in Japanese and Chinese. And there were classics. On the transpacific flight I saw Elmer Gantry and almost all of The Misfits, neither of which I’d ever seen. So that was pretty cool. On the Auckland to Melbourne flight, I saw Buena Vista Social Club, another I had missed.
About an hour before breakfast, we were awakened by a PA announcement requesting the assistance of a doctor or registered nurse. Tina turned out to be the only doctor who volunteered, and her major contribution was to be present so that the aircraft’s medical kit could legally be opened. The medical problem was one that the nurses who volunteered were much more qualified to treat than Tina was. Nonetheless, the crew were quite grateful for her stepping forward. As a consequence, on our Auckland to Melbourne flight, we were upgraded from the regular economy seats we had booked (I can tolerate tight knee room for three hours) to business class.
In Auckland we did a little airport shopping and proceeded to the Air New Zealand lounge for our second breakfast of the morning. (Really, we ate little, but there was a nice buffet spread that included scrambled eggs, pancakes, a selection of breads and pastries, fresh fruit, and more.)
Business class was interesting. Maybe you’ve seen ads for business class seats that recline into full-length individual beds. That was the arrangement. Each pod included a comfortable seat (wider, finally, than any of the other seats so far), an ottoman that doubled as a guest seat (it had a seatbelt) and a large table (normally stowed) that is adequate for two people to eat facing each other, which is how we had our third breakfast yesterday. Service began with a choice of water, juice, sparkling wine, or a banana-honey smoothie. This was followed by a sliced fruit plate, assorted cereals, bircher muesli, and yogurt. The passed bread basket included croissants, muffins, Vogel’s (a New Zealand brand of dense, whole grain bread), or fruit toast, served with New Zealand butter and fruit conserves. This was followed by a choice of smoked chicken pesto and parmesan omelette with slow-roasted tomato and chicken sausage; or corned beef and root vegetable cakes with grilled field mushroom (actually, it was half a portobello), leaf spinach, blistered vine tomato, and tarragon mustard mayonnaise. The breakfast entrees were credited to, respectively, chef Geoff Scott of Vinnies Restaurant, Auckland, and Rex Morgan, Boulcott Street Bistro, Wellington.( A third chef pictured in the menu did not have a dish listed on this version.) The corned beef was a minor and subtle ingredient in an almost latke-like cake of shredded vegetables—not what either of was expecting, but much lighter and more subtle.
As a further gesture, when we were about to land, the plane’s concierge stopped by to speak with Tina and handed her a bottle of one of New Zealand’s better Cabernet Sauvignons.
United Airlines is the U.S. flag carrier. We’ve flown their D.C. to Paris route, once, by mistake. In comparison with any other Star Alliance carrier we’ve been on, they are an embarrassment to their flag. The food is barely edible, even by American standards. Service is generally polite but never warm, regardless of class. On the Paris flight, there were perhaps two members of the cabin crew who spoke French. Every other flag carrier we’ve traveled on has been superior on all counts and in all travel classes.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Noted in passing: become becomes obsolete
Language changes. The rate at which a given language changes is something linguists can measure and write papers about and draw conclusions about, and I’m not a linguist. So I’ll leave all that to the experts.
But we all recognize that certain phrases and words and usages rise or fall in popularity within our lifetimes. So linguistic change is not always glacial.
For some reason, the word become popped into my head Saturday night. Not the intransitive verb become, as in “a caterpillar becomes a butterfly,” but the transitive verb become, as in “that outfit becomes you” or the gerund (I think I have that right) “that outfit is very becoming.”
This was a common locution in my childhood. My mother would say it to my sister, as she would say to me “that behavior is unbecoming a young gentleman.”
Sunday morning, my wife and I had brunch with her daughter and son-in-law. My wife remarked to my stepdaughter, “Is that jacket new? It looks cute on you.” Driving home, I asked her if her mother, like mine, would instead have said “that jacket is very becoming.” We agreed that neither of us had heard anyone use the word in recent memory—certainly no one of our generation or those after.
So I did a cursory corpus search, using Google’s new Ngram viewer. It seems the use of the word unbecoming, at least in printed works, peaked around 1710 at 20 times its current frequency, and related phrases that I tried have similarly declined. The decline has been about fifty percent since the 1950s. There has been a slight uptick in the last few years of “unbecoming a young lady,” apparently in Christian behavior manuals. Otherwise, this sense of the word become seems to be quite moribund, although dictionaries treat it as current and unremarkable.
So let me ask you: if you are under forty, is this a word you hear or use in speech? Other than in nineteenth-century and earlier literature or in the title Morning Becomes Electra, are you familiar with it in writing? Did you even know the word before reading this post?
But we all recognize that certain phrases and words and usages rise or fall in popularity within our lifetimes. So linguistic change is not always glacial.
For some reason, the word become popped into my head Saturday night. Not the intransitive verb become, as in “a caterpillar becomes a butterfly,” but the transitive verb become, as in “that outfit becomes you” or the gerund (I think I have that right) “that outfit is very becoming.”
This was a common locution in my childhood. My mother would say it to my sister, as she would say to me “that behavior is unbecoming a young gentleman.”
Sunday morning, my wife and I had brunch with her daughter and son-in-law. My wife remarked to my stepdaughter, “Is that jacket new? It looks cute on you.” Driving home, I asked her if her mother, like mine, would instead have said “that jacket is very becoming.” We agreed that neither of us had heard anyone use the word in recent memory—certainly no one of our generation or those after.
So I did a cursory corpus search, using Google’s new Ngram viewer. It seems the use of the word unbecoming, at least in printed works, peaked around 1710 at 20 times its current frequency, and related phrases that I tried have similarly declined. The decline has been about fifty percent since the 1950s. There has been a slight uptick in the last few years of “unbecoming a young lady,” apparently in Christian behavior manuals. Otherwise, this sense of the word become seems to be quite moribund, although dictionaries treat it as current and unremarkable.
So let me ask you: if you are under forty, is this a word you hear or use in speech? Other than in nineteenth-century and earlier literature or in the title Morning Becomes Electra, are you familiar with it in writing? Did you even know the word before reading this post?
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