Sledding down the Uetliberg

When Azrael and I went to the Uetliberg for dinner at the end of January, we discovered the existence of a sledding trail starting just by the Uetliberg train station.

I managed to buy a sled yesterday and we'd planned to test it out right away. Azrael called the "sled path hotline" and was told that the trail was open, there was snow, but to be careful as it was a little icy mid-trail.

It was my first time riding tandem on a sled, and actually only my second time on a sled, ever! Once we sorted out our sitting and driving positions, it was really great fun!!! Until we hit the icy patch.....

I was happily riding pillion, without a care in the world, when suddenly I noticed that Azrael was starting to use his hands to try to slow us down. It was then that I realised that we were slightly out of control and that I should also assist in trying to stop the sled! The patch was incredibly icy, and the next thing we knew, we had spun 180 degrees and were then travelling backwards down the icy patch. I decided to ditch the sled, and proceeded to "throw" myself off the sled.

I thought I would try to walk down, but the minute I stood up, I slipped on the ice and fell and was dragged a couple of meters down the slope!! Thankfully I did not slide down very far and managed to get some traction to steer myself to the side. Ouch! It hurts just thinking about it! Thankfully I have quite enough "cushioning" on my hips. Nevertheless, I am sure a big fat bruise will manifest itself by tomorrow.

On the ground, I turned to look for Azrael and watched in horror as I saw him continue to slide down sideways with his body on the sled. Thankfully he also managed to get some traction to steer himself to the side, away from the ice. How scary!

Not surprisingly, we caught up with a bunch of sledders walking and dragging their sleds along after that icy patch. Once we cleared that section, we got back on the sled and carried on.

It really was good fun, but the icy patches were just too scary. It took us about 40 minutes to get down the 3.1km trail. Given the icy conditions, we decided we would not have another go rightaway, but instead will save it for another day when the conditions are better.

Below is a pic of the sled-path, exactly where we wiped-out!

Back to school

The reason for the slight delay in my posts is that I started German school last Monday, 16th Feb. The first week can only be described as tough and challenging!

During my search for German schools, I had to take multiple German assessment tests as each school had their own set of tests. All the tests showed my proficiency at Level 2 beginner. However, I was placed in a Level 3 intermediate class at school. It did not bother me initially as I accepted it as a challenge and thought that I would be able to make up for all the Level 2 lessons in my own time.

Unfortunately, the first thing I learned on Monday morning was that we were going to have a Level 2 test that very Wednesday, my third day of school. I had a mighty task at hand as I had to revise and self-study the entire Level 1 and 2 syllabus within 2 days!!! I spent all of Monday and Tuesday doing nothing but studying. Unfortunately, I was still unable to complete the syllabus. Not surprisingly, I failed the test by 2%. Thankfully, I was allowed to progress since I was a new student and had only recently taken the entrance test.

Nevertheless, I will still need to go back and study all the material for Level 2, just to make sure that I will progress smoothly in my class. The last thing I want is to continue being the idiot who does not know which preposition to use in a sentence! Oh... and by the way, I only found out this week, what a "preposition" is!!!

Valentines Weekend Pig-Out in Geneva

Most of you will know that I do not do Valentine's Day. It is not just because I do not have too many romantic bones in my body, but because I truly believe it to be nothing more than a cash-generating commercial event.

Nevertheless, Azrael and I wanted to do something for the weekend. Our initial plan was to go skiing during the day, and to go out for a meal in the evening. We had planned to have an Asian meal on Saturday night for two reasons. Firstly, the Thai restaurant we had in mind is not a place one would consider "romantic", hence we could expect to dine at normal prices, with the normal menu, without a reservation. Secondly, due to our Alcohol Ban, Asian food works best for us as we would not feel the need to order some wine to go with the meal.

As the weekend drew nearer, it seemed that skiing would be unlikely as the weather forecast was not promising. It was then that Azrael came up with the brilliant idea of popping over to Geneva.

Almost immediately, my mind started racing with all the dining possibilities!! My mom had told me about a Malaysian restaurant, Jeck's Place, which had been featured in the Malaysian newspapers and I was keen to check it out. Azrael on the other hand, needed to get his Dim Sum fix. The quest was on! I immediately got down to finding the best restaurants in Geneva.

We were all set, with restaurant reservations for Saturday tea (z'vieri), Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch.

It was only when Azrael sent me a link to the fancy hotel where we would be staying that it struck me that this was his idea of celebrating Valentine's Day! My old friend Ainelle wisely advised me that if he wants to make a gesture, just let him do it and accept graciously. So I did not make a fuss, graciously accepted and hoped that he would not buy me a Valentines Day present as I certainly was not going to get him one!

When we arrived in Geneva, we walked around the old town in search for a light lunch as we were saving ourselves for the z'vieri. I was hungry and starting to get grumpy when we stumbled upon a small farmers market. We saw a stall selling hand-sliced Serrano and Pata Negra ham and decided to have that with some bread.

We had our nice little lunch by the lake. It was delightful, but extremely cold! Hence our next stop was a cute little French tea-house cum patisserie, where we enjoyed pots of tea and shared a delicious chocolate-praline cake.

The old town of Geneva was very cute, quaint and reminded me of the quieter streets of Paris.

We then headed to our z'vieri appointment at a teeny-tiny Chinese tea house called Le Thé. It was in a very quiet part of town. It must have been the business district. The shop is so discreet that you would not notice it if you were not looking for it. They had tons of little Chinese tea sets and hundreds of variations of Chinese tea! Most importantly, they had homemade Dim Sum which were supposed to be good! We had a pot of tea each and tucked into some lovely dumplings. The food was pretty good. We were quite impressed.

Later that evening, we went to Jeck's Place for dinner. The restaurant was packed and they even had to turn away some customers. We had an incredible meal there, and the kangkung belacan was the best I have ever had outside of Malaysia! It was that good!

After dinner, we made our way to Gab's Music Lounge, which is a new-ish jazz piano lounge. We were just lucky enough to nab two seats by the bar as we were very nearly turned away since we did not have a reservation! Doctor Gabs was the pianist and the party was just getting started when we arrived. We were impressed with the lounge as a whole and the pianist himself was just awesome. His repertoire encompasses jazz, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, but you name it, he plays it. And he sings too! We had a great time at the lounge, even if only with our overpriced fake fruit juice mocktails and Cola!

The next morning, we had only one mission at hand, which was to have a proper yum-cha Dim Sum brunch at Hung Wan, a popular Chinese restaurant just by the lake. I encountered some difficulty ordering the dishes as the Dim Sum "checklist" menu only came in French and Chinese, neither of which I can read! Thankfully, I managed to get a waitress who could help me out in Cantonese. Unfortunately, this meant we could only order the stuff we knew. There could have been many other interesting dishes on the menu.

The Dim Sum certainly did not disappoint, and the prices were very reasonable. They even refilled the teapot with hot water free of charge! What a rare find in Switzerland! I would definitely consider making an occasional day trip to Geneva for yum-cha, especially now that the train journey only takes 2 hours 45 minutes!

With our full bellies in tow, we headed for the train station to make an early-ish start back to Zurich.

I had a lovely weekend away with Azrael and I am making a note-to-self to do this more often. Since we have the GA, train travel does not cost us anything in Switzerland. Just a couple of hours on the train and we can find ourselves in a totally different city, where they speak a different language, have a different demographic of people and it feels like a whole different country out there.

Next stop...... Ascona.

P/s: Full review of the restaurants and photos will be posted shortly on http://spicyzwergli.wordpress.com

Surviving Teetotal February

More about our Alcohol-Ban....

At the initiation of the Ban, I had made some silent rules. I call the rules "silent" because these rules should never have to come into play should everything go well. These are not so much rules, but penalties, in the event that either of us decided to break the Ban.

I thought up many variations of penalties, most of them based around Ban extensions. My first thought was to extend the Ban by a day, for every day we broke the Ban. However, there was a serious flaw in this penalty system, as it meant that we could drink everyday and be perpetually in a Banned state! Besides, breaking such a huge Ban requires heavier punishments. I then thought of various compositions, such as an extension of one week, or one month, for every day broken.

I finally settled on an extension of one day, for every single unit of alcohol consumed. This system seemed fair and apt. Having just one beer or just one glass of champagne should not carry the same penalty as having a whole bottle of wine! Besides, should we decide to break the Ban, having a blanket penalty system would only drive us to go all out since we were paying the price anyway!

Last weekend, Azrael and I took a quick jaunt to Geneva. More about the trip later, I just wanted to touch on the Ban in this post.

It was a chilly but bright and sunny Saturday afternoon when we arrived. It was the perfect day to sit by the lake and enjoy a glass of wine! We were clearly asking for it.... being on a weekend break in a beautiful pseudo-French city! Within an hour of our arrival in Geneva, we started negotiating with each other as to what the rules and penalties of the Ban were! We must have spent at least an hour discussing these! Finally, we settled that the rules and penalties would remain and agreed that it would not be soooooooo bad if we were to have just one drink, perhaps for apéro.

As we walked around the city, we passed by wine bar after wine bar. It was lunch time and everyone was having wine with their lunch. It all started to get a little bit too much when we walked into a tapas bar looking for food, only to find that it was a wine bar serving some tiny little tapas, like bread and olives to accompany the wine! By this time, we were absolutely convinced that the Ban would be broken by the end of the evening.

Miraculously, we got through the afternoon, and the all-important 6pm apéro hour unscathed! This was strongly aided by a visit to a French tea house after lunch, and a visit to a Chinese tea house for z'vieri.

Dinner time was not at all a problem as we had dinner in a Singaporean restaurant and certainly did not feel the need for wine as an accompaniment to the meal.

One would think that the most difficult part would be after dinner, when we headed off to a jazz bar. Au contraire, it did not pose much of a challenge. It started off with us ordering a couple of mocktails, which were followed by some Cola and San Bitter.

It is actually only the physical act of ordering a non-alcoholic drink that is challenging. I am of the opinion that once the drink is in hand, the actual drink itself makes very little difference.

So here we are, and I am very proud to announce that as of today, the 18th, we are still tee-total and going strong!

P/s: We dined with a group of 10 other people tonight and were very successful in graciously declining their offer of wine.

Alcohol-Free February

After the over-indulgences of Christmas and New Year, we decided to have another go at having an alcohol-free February. We attempted this last year, but failed miserably. If I recall correctly, I only managed a week before caving!

At the time of planning, we'd already had a dinner party planned at our home on 6 February. We could not contemplate the idea of throwing a dinner party sans Prosecco for apéro and some delectable wine for dinner. Therefore, we agreed that we would create an exception and lift the ban for this dinner party.

I am doing well thus far. I thought it would be tough when I met a friend at a bar for dinner and drinks. She had a couple glasses of wine whilst I stuck with Cola Light. It was weird, but it wasn't too bad.

The only real "problem" I face is when I go out to bars. I seriously object to paying CHF 5 for a soft drink, when a beer costs only CHF 0.20 more, and a glass of wine may cost CHF 6.50. The mark-up for soft drinks in Switzerland is really incredulous!

As this is my only issue, I believe I will make it through February 2009 as a Teetotaler.

Vietnam, here we come!

We'd been planning a trip to Vietnam to visit my cousin, Willet, who had moved to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We have also had Angkor Wat on our list of places to visit, so last summer, we decided that we would incorporate the trip into our next pilgrimage to Malaysia, which is to take place over the Easter period in 2009. Although we had the dates blocked out, we had not made any bookings or travel arrangements as some extensive research needed to be done.

Planning the trip to Vietnam and Angkor became one of my projects to do during my time off. I spent a good part of the last 3 weeks painstakingly researching the destinations to create the ideal itinerary, and making travel arrangements, including flights and hotels.

To add to the challenge, my mom and aunt would be joining us for the first week, and my old friend, Feather and her husband would be joining us for the second week. I therefore had the task of coordinating the logistics of each couples' travel arrangements.

After weeks of research, reading travel guides, travel blogs, hotel reviews, destination reviews, travel forums, and whatever else I could find, I have more or less finalised the itinerary and travel arrangements.

Anyone who has ever planned a trip with me will know that I am stickler for the best quality hotel at the lowest price. I troll the internet like a hawk, making sure that I get the best deal available out there.

One thing I discovered about hotels in Vietnam is that the best deal to be had is the one made directly with the hotels. So the booking process involved many emails to and fro in order to finalise the reservations. Another interesting thing about hotels and travel agents in Vietnam is that most of them are available online to chat! This tool also proved to be invaluable during the booking process.

The final piece of the itinerary which I struggled with was the Halong Bay junk cruise. This is supposed to be the highlight of our trip as we planned to charter the entire junk, so that we could dictate the itinerary of our cruise, and just chill out without screaming kids on the boat.

Upon my initial search, it was looking like it would cost us upwards of USD 400 per person for a 3D/2N private cruise. Although Azrael and Feather and her husband had ok'd the cost, I still found this to be incredibly steep, so I continued the hunt for the perfect junk at the perfect price. I can now definitely call myself an expert in the Halong Bay private junk cruise department.

Bearing in mind what I'd learned from the hotel booking process, I proceeded to look for the owners of the boats I had shortlisted, and emailed them directly. If the hotel owners gave me the best deal, then surely the boat owners would be in the position to give me the best deal as well! Alas, I managed to secure the Lagoon Explorer for USD 350 per person, compared to USD 430 I was previously quoted.

Today, I had my biggest success yet. I had found another 2-cabin junk called the Petit White Dolphin which is pretty new. I managed to catch the the sales person to chat online and we discussed my requirements and she answered my many questions. I have just received a quote for USD 248 per person which we are definitely going to take!!! WOOOOHOOOOO!!! AND.... it is a much nicer boat than the Lagoon Explorer! You can check out the pics here http://baitulongjunk.com/photos/

I am so pleased with the final itinerary for the trip and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process from the research, to the coordination, bookings and negotiations. Perhaps my true calling is to be a Travel Agent!

Lost in Laax

We went skiing with Sydney and her partner Syd last Sunday in Flims/Laax. As there were four of us, we decided to be lazy and booked a Mobility car for the trip. Definitely a good idea as the drive from Zurich to Flims was an impressive 1 hour 20 mins, compared to 2 hours 20 mins by public transport!

It was extremely cold, about -7, when we left Zürich about 8am, but we were full of hope for brilliant weather, especially when the sun starting to break through as we approached Chur. The signs at the ticket counter all indicated that it was perfect weather for skiing.

We started off pretty well. Sydney had convinced me that we were at the same level and that I would not be holding anyone back. We did a pretty good warm up on a nice and easy blue slope and I was ready to hone my new skills which I'd learned recently, during my private ski lesson at Oberiberg.

However, I still did not feel ready or confident enough to take on the red slopes. So whilst the others skied down a red slope from Crap Masegn to the intermittent gondola stop to Vorab, I decided to take the gondola directly.

From my birds-eye viewpoint, comfortably in the gondola, I could see them on the piste. I felt so nervous for Sydney as she looked like she was struggling at the top of the slope, whilst the boys had shot off! I was thinking to myself "How could the boys just leave her behind!?!?!?! She's just a beginner!!", and of course "Thank God I decided to take the gondola!". I continued watching them for as long as I could, switching views from the boys to Sydney and back. The next time I saw Sydney, I gasped in disbelief as I watched her tuck her poles under and crouch down low in a racing position to get down the slope to catch up with the boys. It was then that I realised that Sydney and I were most certainly not at the same level. She is a brave, fearless, dare-devil!

With that realisation in mind, we met up again at Vorab and decided to take the T-bar lift up to the top of the glacier, Vorab Gletscher. At 3018m, this is the highest point in the Flims/Laax resort. The slope coming down from the glacier is a nice blue slope, and we were told that the piste was really wide and pretty flat... just my kind of slope!

Just as we were a third of the way up the lift, a humongous gust of wind hit and the snow started pelting at us. Visibility decreased drastically and before long, we could only just about see two t-bars ahead of us. Everything was white and I could not see the contours of the ground!!! It was incredibly scary and I really wanted to just get off the lift. Unfortunately, we could not even make out the path of the lift, and could not determine if there was a safe break to ditch the t-bar. We had no choice but to grit our teeth and get to the top of the glacier. When we got there, our faces were covered in snow, complete with white eyebrows and white beard (for the men). I had never before felt so cold, ever in my entire life!

I then had to face the daunting prospect of skiing down the glacier with the wind hitting hard. Judging by the lift, I was sure the slope was pretty flat, but I was totally petrified as I just could not see! The fear, combined with appalling visibility, my slight altitude sickness and the snow hitting hard on my face, felt like I was drowning in a sea of snow.

After what felt like an age, I managed to pull myself together and told myself that there was only one way to get out of the situation, which was to ski down, come hell or high water. I managed to pluck up the courage to do so, but kept falling over at every turn. Thankfully, the snow was a deep powder, so the falling was not a problem at all. It was the getting up that proved to be a problem as I would fall so deep into the snow that I could hardly get any leverage to push myself back up. It also did not help that I could not see where we were going. I kept trying to look out for the sign-poles, but they would "disappear" in the fog/snow as soon as I spotted them.

The falling and getting back up continued for quite some time, until a man coming up on the T-bar lift spotted us and yelled at us in Swiss German to ski further away from the lift path. After getting up for the umpteenth time, I turned around and spotted Azrael climbing uphill. I was puzzled!! We were supposed to go down the glacier, not further up!!! It was then that the visibility cleared up for a second and I made out the piste!!! Azrael was climbing up towards the piste!! So this whole time, we had been skiing off-piste on a glacier in bad weather!!!! What a bunch of muppets!!! Is it any wonder that we were skiing in deep powder!?!?

Finally we managed to climb up to the piste and the man who had yelled at us came to join us. It turned out he was the SOS Piste Controller, and he was making the final checks on the glacier as they were closing it "due to bad weather". Uh-huh! No shit, Sherlock!! Although we were off-piste, I am glad we were close to the lift. He might not have found us otherwise.

Once we were on the piste, it was a pretty nice and flat path down the glacier. There were many piste-marker-poles, making it much easier to navigate. Having said that, I still could not see the contours of the ground either side of me. Not knowing how wide the piste was, I did not dare stray from the narrow path Azrael was making ahead of me. I did not dare to make any turns for fear that I might steer myself off-piste again. So you guessed it right.... I pretty much had to snow-plough all the way down! Ouch! My knees hurt just thinking about it!

After a well-deserved lunch break, I got a second wind and was up for doing some nice and easy blue slopes further down the mountain, where visibility was fine. We took the easy blue from Vorab to Scansinas. It turned out to be a pretty tiring blue as it was too flat (even for me!), so the boys sneaked in little bits of red along the way. I was psyched after this run and was looking forward to the next, so up we went again.

This time the boys were up for more of a challenge and chose a blue beginning to join up to two red slopes. I was rather apprehensive but was assured that it would be fine and that I was doing great. It started off pretty well but these guys were all skiing rather fast, so we decided to let Sydney and Syd go ahead, just to ease the pressure off me. I managed quite well with my slow and steady pace, until we got to a very steep drop. It must have been the intersection between piste 13 and 16 (I have to note this down for future reference so that I do not ever go there again!). In my mind, it seemed like a 70 degree slope, but I am sure Azrael will tell you that I am exaggerating. Nevertheless it was just too steep for me to manage.

Once again, I stood at the top of the slope and panicked for a good 10-15 minutes, considering all my options, although I knew there were none. Two kids approached the slope and gasped. I watched the 5-year-old boy tumble down the slope and the heard the 7-year-old girl scream all the way down. That did not help the nerves.

Finally I psyched myself up and attempted to slide down the slope. I was very focused. "Do not look downhill, do not look uphill, look only at the skis". I was doing pretty well, until my skis dug up too much snow and one ski got stuck. In the next instant, I was tumbling down the slope like a mini avalanche. When I came to a halt, my first reaction was to the snow that covered my face. It felt as though my face was frozen and the cold was simply indescribable. Azrael came right up and cleaned the snow from my face and I recovered soon after to continue skiing down. It was quite a spectacular fall but it certainly got me down that slope quickly!!

That was the last run for the day. After an eventful day of "drowning" in snow, snow-ploughing all the way down the glacier, a spectacular fall down the red slope, and using every muscle and joint in my body to keep up on the red slopes, I was shattered.

Do not get me wrong. I still do enjoy skiing, but I will most definitely be sticking to the blue slopes for now. There is simply no point pushing myself to do any more at this stage. There is no prize at the end of the slope, and I would like to just ENJOY the skiing.

P/S: For those of you who are interested, here is the link to the piste map for Laax. http://www.laax.ch/flash/index.php?l=de#/de/skigebiet/skigebiet_pisten_anlagen