Get Your Geek On!

I knew my plans were set when I saw the ad for the Gaming and Electronics Fair coming to Singapore this weekend. Deanna was stuck in statistics class all day, so I was free to fully get my geek on.



The Suntec Convention Center has 6 floors of exhibition and convention halls. The gaming fair was on the 6th floor. For any convention-planning readers who might value these things, it is the largest column-free meeting area in Asia.

Despite the large size and absence of internal columns, the fair still was packed - mostly with boys but also a few girls here and there - all kids about half my age.



Some were quietly playing collectable trading card games. The more aggressive of the crowd (again, mostly boys) were battling each other in the latest mass-networked computer games. I wanted to play too, but I’m not all up on the moves and secret codes required to compete in the newest games. In fact, I was actually hoping to find some older games on sale.

The newest games typically to require too much memory, computing power, or dedicated graphics processing chips to run on my 2 year-old laptop. But I can usually get older games to run okay, so long as they are not too graphic intensive.



I couldn’t find any old games I wanted enough to buy, but I did get to spend a lot of time watching these younger and geekier versions of myself playing the cool new games that I’ll never be able run on my computer.

I also got to spend some time checking out some of the latest gaming hardware.

Now that almost everyone has a high definition flat panel TV, it is pretty standard to have it all connected up to play your X-box, Playstation, and home theater sound system. Gaming now has become so mainstream that its taken over your typical middle-class living room.

You’re almost not a geek anymore: guys, you’re playing on the same setup your mum and dad use for watching American Idol!



Being that I’m probably as old as some of these kids’ mums and dads, it was time for me to move on.

On the way out of the gaming convention, I noticed that there was an early-childhood education convention going on directly below the gaming convention.

Their convention has a cheerful manga-eyed mascot to greet the kids. I didn’t initially realize this was a different convention. I thought it was just another computer character from some new Japanese game being promoted upstairs.



I also discovered a universal truth on my way out: even in an economic downturn precipitated by falling real estate prices, and even at a gaming convention populated mostly with 20-something boys, you can still find some guy pushing dodgy real estate investments.



Having satisfied my inner geek at the game fair, and skipping the chance to make 28.98% return in London real estate, I took the escalators down to the ground floor of the Suntec mall. There was another event in Suntec I needed to find - the Carrefour International Wine Fair.

We’ve lived in California all of our lives within a short drive to some of the world’s best wine regions: Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Marin County, Monterey County, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, etc. So we’ve come to expect great wine at reasonable prices. Once we moved to Singapore, however, we discovered neither.

Singaporeans are not big wine drinkers. And when they do, they don’t typically import their wine from California. They look for nearby regions like New Zealand or Australia. Or even France.



Not that you can’t find good wines from France. They’re just not as good as the ones from California. And when you add in the shipping costs and the Singapore import duties on alcoholic beverages, they’re never reasonably priced here.

Fortunately, the wine fair solved two problems. One: they had plenty of wines from all over the world. And two: they had free samples!

What more needs to be said. The wine fair was a hit! I accepted as many samples as they offered. And took liberal advantage of the sample stations set out for me to pour my own.



Alas, I couldn’t stay long enough to finish all the open bottles - I had to meet Deanna after she finished with her statistics class. Thank goodness for Singapore’s public transportation. A couple drinks in the US, and you’re stranded by blood-alcohol. In Singapore you just hop on the train, swipe your ez-link card, and you’re off to the next party.

But as I wobbled out of the wine fair, I thought about the real estate salesmen stuck upstairs in the gaming convention. They might have found a more receptive customer had they have pitched their booth in front of the wine fair instead.

Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, Spain

We took a day trip from Barcelona to go wine tasting in Spain's Cava region. It felt good to be in a wine-growing region. It reminded us of back home in California.

Cava, we learned, is Spanish sparkling wine, produced mainly in the Penedès region in Catalonia, Spain. This region is an easy day trip from Barcelona, just inland and south west. It was a relaxing tour bus ride through the Spanish countryside.

From the bus, we saw the massive rock formation that makes up the jagged Montserrat mountain. We didn't get to visit Montserrat, but I'm curious, because it is supposed to be one of the possible locations of the Holy Grail from the legends of Kind Authur.

We did see the village of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia and the surrounding area, which produces nearly 95% of Spain's total Cava output. This is where the most famous (or most prolific) Spanish Cava is produced by the winery Freixenet.

Even though I've become big fan of Champagne and Prosecco and other sparkling wines, we didn't go for the Cava this time. For this trip, we went after the Spanish reds. After drinking our share of the local reds, we each bought a couple of bottles to take home -- but not too many bottles, mind you, because Singapore has very strict limits and very high import duties on wine and spirits.

Then we both took a well-earned nap on the bus on the way back to Barcelona.

As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again

You'll never be hungry in Singapore.

The food is fresh and plentiful. Singapore has hawker stands, food courts, and restaurants everywhere. You can get any kind of food you want, Asian, Indian, European, Western. Anything. Anywhere. If you stay away from the touristy spots, you can get your food cheap or at least very reasonably priced. And best of all, they make it for you fresh on the spot.



You need a lot of places to eat when you need to feed nearly 5 million people every day. To compare that to California, if you combine all the cities in Santa Clara County, it comes to about 2 million people in 1,300 square miles. Singapore has less than 300 square miles for almost 5 million people. That’s less than a quarter the area for more than double the population. It works out to about twelve times the population per square mile. So I figure Singapore needs about twelve times the number of restaurants per square mile. And that means a lot of places to eat.



And that how it is. You can find something to eat everywhere. The only thing you can't find (a least not at a reasonable prices) is a good beer or glass of wine. Singapore has very high tariffs on alcohol, so you have to pay a premium for your drink. To make matters worse, you can't find good California wines here. There's some OK Australian and New Zealand wines and a few decent bottles from France. But nothing compares to our great California wines, and there's almost none here. It’s terribly sobering.



Are you coming to visit from California soon? Singapore allows you to bring in 1 liter of wine duty free with each adult. If you are wondering what to bring us in Singapore, please stop by your local Trader Joe's and pick me up a good bottle of California wine. (If you forget the wine, Singapore also allows you to bring in any amount of currency.)

Eating in Singapore can also be a surprise. We've been eating fish every day. Not intentionally. See, there are all kinds of pastry shops that sell perfectly normal-looking breads, donuts, and pastries. Some of them are indeed perfectly normal, filled with chocolate or custard or cream or something else appropriately sweet. Others only appear normal. When you bite into them however, you find your doughnut is filled with fish or pork and some greasy secret sauce inconsistent with your anticipated donut experience.



The other thing about eating in Singapore is you have to bring your own napkins. Not in the expensive restaurants catering to westerners--they have all the usual western amenities. But in normal restaurants where the locals go, everyone carries their own little tissue packs and napkins with them.



More importantly, if you eat to the hawker stands or indoor or outdoor food courts, you need your little pack of tissues to reserve a seat. Due to the other 5 million people trying to find a place to eating at the same time as you, there aren't enough tables in all 300 square miles for everyone to sit. So before you order, you have to reserve an empty seat. If you skip this step, you'll end up holding a tray of food with nowhere to put it down. You reserve your table by leaving your little tissue pack on the table. Only then can you go order. When its really crowded here (uh, all the time), you'll see people hovering over likely tables to be first to claim them when the current occupants are finished.

I suppose you could claim a table with your umbrella, or cell phone, or shoulder bag, or anything else, but you'll be less disappointed to loose my tissue pack if it turns out that the Singaporeans are bit less "law and order" than they say.