Superstar invasion

I recently had my first experience in Singapore of truly feeling like a foreigner.

One of the best things about Singapore is that English is the main language. Although Singapore actually has Mandarin, Tamil and Bahasa Malay as other official languages, I don't really notice these outside of MRT stations, language specific newspapers and also specific language TV.

For this night, however, I had to recruit a translator (thanks Michelle!) as I went along to the filming of the female finals of Project Superstar. One of my friends is the friend of one of the two finalists (Carrie), so invited a bunch of us along.

Carrie sang really well. As her one English song she sang 'Can't take my eyes off of you', and I thought she did a great job. Her third song (second Chinese song) recevied huge applause and a very high score by the judges. Of course I joined in screaming and cheering despite not being able to understand the song, the judge's comments or even pronounce Carrie's chinese name correctly.

Diya, the other finalist, sang well. Her English song was Guy Sebastian's 'Angles brought me here', ripped straight from the one and only Australian Idol.

My friend thinks Diya will probably win, but I think Carrie deserves it more.

And no, despite being a novelty (only white person in the room), I did not get on Singapore TV. Maybe next time!

Update: This post was drafted a while ago - Divya won, but Carrie is still a star!

Hong Kong Review

My project is spread across Hong kong and Singapore. So far I've always been working in Singapore. Many people on the project go back and forth and I work with quite a number of guys from Hong Kong (I discovered that 'Honkies', used affectionately in Australia, is not so welcome a term here).

Eventually, my time came. I had 1.5 weeks of meetings in Hong Kong to attend. Unfortunately, this was at the last minute and I had my second youngest brother planned to visit me. So what could have been a two week stint was a three day one, followed by a week of phone conferences.

I made the most of it, working crazy hours, eating lots of good food, and doing a little bit of sight-seeing.

Highlights:

• Authentic Dim Sum and Hot Pot: my favourite meals of the weekend. The Dim Sum was tasty without feeling like I was eating too much lard (I know I probably was). The Hot Pot soup was great and I met a lot of locals who were all really friendly.


• Skyline: What an amazing place - I liked the size and the business of the city. I stayed at Kowloon and had a small view of the shore of Hong Kong island to gaze at.


• Cold Peak: I took the old tram up to the peak when I got my (onlu) chance. It was foggy and visibility was low. I did walk around the paths though, getting a taste for what exploring some the great hikes in HK would be like.

I was a little disappointed by the shopping, but I did only give it 2 hours!

Here's hoping I find another excuse to spend some time there.