Sydney

The Land of OZ
Do you come from the land down under? Upon arrival on the red eye from Singapore, I am questioned by the customs agent about bringing cash, fruits, vegetables…oh and am I convicted felon? “Isn’t this where we are supposed to come?” I ask.

The amount of hot young guys in my neighborhood at 6:30am, just returning from the clubs, is amazing….then I realize that I am in the gay part of town…not that there is anything wrong with that. I am staying at a stylish boutique hotel at King’s Cross called the Diamante. The staff are all very good-looking gay men, but bitchier than the women that live to watch Oprah.

The host makes it seem like my room is just about ready at 7am – why don’t you grab breakfast. An hour later they are still working on it. I inquired again – just 5 more mins….half an hour passes…they are just checking on the room. Half an hour later he disappears long enough to get boofed. When he returns, it is back to 5 mins. Finally at 11am, I give up on my room and take off into the city. This starts my bad relationship with this queen.

It is a blustery Winnie the Pooh day in Sydney. Just perfect for having lunch with a friend and wandering Georges Street to start my Christmas Shopping between down pours. The city has a very similar feel to SF and London combined. King’s Cross, where I am staying, is a center point between the Castro, Tenderloin, North Beach and the Marina. What this means to those of you not from SF – gays, heroin addicts, nudie joints, the trendy spots for dining and night clubs. Very cosmopolitan.

That evening, by recommendation of my friend Megan on the ANZA cycling team, I hang at the ‘place to be’ on Friday nights in Sydney. A bar called Ivy, upon multiple levels en plein air of posh yuppie population. Here I meet other visitors from London and Perth who are in town on business.


Maybe the Dingo ate ‘cha shoe.
The next morning, the storms cleared and I set out to walk the city in my cool green shoes, which are soon to become the victim of a shoe fetish. I walked from Kings Cross through Hyde Park to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Sydney Opera House, the Rocks and down to Circular Quay to take a ferry to Manly.



The ferry to Manly offers stellar views of the Harbor Bridge, Opera House and upon arrival; Manly is similar to Berkeley, if it had a nice beach. Christmas in the summer is hard to image, but all of the holiday fair vendors line the pedestrian walkways to the beach.

In the evening I met up with a girl from Washington, DC who has been traveling for 3 months on her own. We went to try one of the trendy bars and restaurants in Potts Point, Lotus, known not only for their outstanding cocktails with creative names, but stellar cuisine. She has just finished traveling Fiji and New Zealand, much like the trip I took two years ago.

The next morning is beach day. I travel to Bondi beach, which is the LA of Australia, known for Bondi Rescue on Australian TV, equivalent to Bay Watch. From there, I hiked a costal walk across multiple shorelines and cliffs to Coogee Beach. I baked on the beach, just long enough for me to realize there is no ozone layer in Australia.

My last morning, I awoke at 6am to take a BodyPump class down the street. This is the exact same class I have done for the 3 rd day in a row and multiple times in Singapore. Les Mills is an idiot for introducing these pathetic monotamous aerobic classes to the world, but I need some arm work since I’ll be sitting on planes all day.

When I left, my other 2 pairs of shoes were neatly places in my closet shelf, like every anal architect would do. Upon my return, one, only one, of my favorite green platform sandals remained. Disappeared! Poof, into thin air. This is my favorite pair of travel shoes purchased in NYC. I never get blisters in them. Now the queen I am having problems with during my stay at Diamante is working the desk, saw me leave for the gym, and I had to trade him my key for the pass. Either he is trying to make me crazy or has a shoe fetish. I hope he doesn’t stick the shoe anywhere intimate, especially since I walked through all kinds of dung in India with them.

When in the land of OZ….there is no place like home….
The last day is the most beautiful and I have to spend it on planes all day. I flew first to Perth to get a birds eye vies of the Outback. The coast is beautiful. The land between cities is desolate. The people are friendly, but rival the Americans for being obnoxious, especially while traveling.


Before leaving for OZ, I had another embarrassing moment in an Asia massage parlor. No happy ending, no yogurt, but this time I fainted and puked. I blame it on a combination of dehydration from cycling 60k prior in the middle of the day, not eating enough and then having a deep tissue massage, releasing toxins into my body. I felt my temperature raise, nausea hit, a loud music went through my head and I tried to open my eyes, but everything was dark.

Next thing I know I wake up on the floor with two Chinese girls washing me down with cool towels. My body was covered in sweat and when I gained consciousness, I tossed my cookies. Once I got water down I was able to walk, but still could not hold down food.

BOLLYWOOD!

Friday I organized Singapore’s first Biopharmaceutical Symposium at the Biopolis Matrix Auditorium. I had hoped to get 100-200 students to attend. I reserved a theater that held 480, out of convenience and location. 674 students registered and at least 600 showed up. I hoped it would be similar to the US where students sign up to get out of classes and take an early weekend. Kids were sitting in the aisles, but the event was a success set to become a yearly conference.

Bollywood
The next day I took off for Mumbai. Bombay. Bollywood! I flew in around 10pm to the Grand Hyatt Mumbai. It is a fortressed complex with the slums along the perimeter of the premises, but once inside, it is a modern-day palace. It is Saturday night and I ask the concierge if there are any nightclubs nearby. Well, coincidence has it that the Hyatt houses the China Room – Mumbai’s premiere club where the Bollywood stars hang. I waited until midnight to check it out and was quickly escorted to the front of the line – one of the benefits of being blonde in India! However, once inside the posh spread of a glowing bar surrounded by expensive rooms to rent by the hour, well stocked with liquor, I realize that I am the only Caucasian in the bar and feel again like a piece of meat. I made friends with two Indian Airline Stewardesses who could pass for Bollywood’s finest, but I couldn’t recognize one of the stars if they were looking me in the eyes. Now I know some of you are asking yourselves ‘why the hell did she go back to India?’ after my last visit under the curse of Shiva and the six weeks, six medications, and ten pounds I lost in a most unhealthy way. I LOVE INDIA! I am also speaking at the International Bioprocess Conference and seeing the more Westernized side of the country, but not before I jet down to the beaches of Goa.

Going to Goa
The 45-minute drive from the airport to Baga Beach, I was living on a prayer. The taxi driver had no regard for cars coming in the opposite direction as he enjoyed playing chicken with trucks and cattle. However, what I have learned is that the makeshift shrine on his dashboard will save us from any accidents. I just need to hold on and enjoy the ride. What is strange in Goa though is the fact that the shrine is actually Jesus – no Shiva or monkey gods looking me in the eyes – it is actually the Son of God. Christian Indians? Who’d a thunk? And by the number of churches and crosses on the side of the road, I realize this is not the India I know.

The Portuguese settled Goa and the people are Jesus freaks! Sunday on the beach hosted the Indian techies who have driven in from the internal Silicon Valleys to enjoy the waves in their business attire, un-stealthfully snapping photos of me on their phone cameras. Some are actually bold enough to ask to have their photo taken with me…as I wonder how many are referring to me now as their ‘girlfriend.’ Sunset brought a break in the crowds of young men, allowing me the chance to do yoga under the stars in peace. The beaches are beautiful, strolling for miles with a gentle slope down to the Arabian Sea. Fishing villages and restaurants line the shore.

The next day, I have my own beach hut where the Indian boys protect me from the passers by, cursing them in Hindi if they even glance my way. This is their beach and I am their Betty! I did homework, watching the sunset at a beachside café, listening to the Thriller album. read a Sedaris book and started my term papers. I don’t mind the smell of India anymore. Now that I expect it, I just enjoy the stench as part of my adventures. The slums outside of my boutique hotel are actually beautiful in a way to me, as well as the beautiful little girls in their colorful saris waving at me as I pass.
Fashion Week
Bombay’s Lamke Fashion Week – where the Bollywood stars walk the runways in the newest Indian mode. The morning I flew from Goa back to Mumbai, I was mistaken for an Eastern European model at the airline luggage belt. A nicely dressed gentleman who had been riding in first class inquired on my presence at Fashion Week. Unfortunately, I am here to speak for a Bioprocess conference. As we waited for the bags, he gave me the lowdown on the Indian fashion industry and all the parties that would revolve around it. “Please come tonight as my guest when you are done with your meetings.” as he passed me his business card. Executive VP of marketing for India’s largest media company.

After sitting through a day of technology transfer, IP legislation and biological guru talks, it was time to see the real Mumbai. I Google his company to make sure he was legit and emailed the man. Within seconds, I had directions to the premiere event in town along with tickets to two fashion shows. As I pondered my suitcase, I realized, oh shit, what does one wear to Bombay Fashion Week? All I have is business attire and beach clothes. What would Carry Bradshaw wear? I picked up a black bathing suit cover up I bought for 150 rupees (~$4). It is sheer, black and sequenced up – together with a black mini-skirt; I was ready for the catwalk. I walked down to the foyer to grab a cab and was informed that I cannot get through Mumbai due to the riots in progress.

RIOTS? Raj, a politician, was imprisoned and now the riots have started to demand his release. I knew there were problems at the airport this morning and cabs were hard to come by, but I cannot miss my only opportunity to see the Bollywood stars on the runway. I went to street level to try negotiating with taxis, rickshaws and limousine drivers and no one would dare enter the riot areas, until I met Bala, my bodyguard. Bala knew all the back roads and was not afraid of the media’s scare on Mumbai and as he promised me, it was a situation blown out of proportion and the ride to Fashion Week was without traffic, congestion or Indians setting cars on fire. Tuhin met me at the door of the auditorium , which is the Indian equivalent to Christmas next week.

As we wander from designer showcases and trunk shows, stopping in the private lounges sponsored by Chivas and Skoda for drinks along the way, I realize he is purposely making me walk a good 3-4 steps behind him and I feel like a paid escort. The runway shows were amazing with the fabrics and saris clad over the most beautiful women in the world and concluding each show with a Bollywood start to showoff the premiere creation. I catch him staring at me often and rubbing my leg with his hand. He is relatively a nice man, successful and interesting, but way too paternalistic for me to ever to consider as a mate.

As the last show closed, we headed to a party at the Taj with my bodyguard trailing behind us. The parties would go on until dawn and I had to present at 9am. While Tuhin was trying to get me to go home with him, I had a good excuse to exit stage left.

My presentation was well received by the International community and Germans, Swedes, Indians, and Englishmen all approached me after the talk to find out more about our modular project in Singapore. It is a revolutionary process design in SE Asia and it was rewarding to know how influential the project I spent the last 18 months on was to the rest of the world.

An overnight flight from Mumbai back to Singapore to Raphael’s to find out the Singapore position did not come through for him and he will be returning to Germany at the end of November. This is where our story ends. He is going back to the Black Forest and me to California. I have to say I have learned a lot from this relationship and wish it had worked logistically. The next morning, I boarded a plane to SF via Korea. The next morning to Atlanta via Denver to visit Samantha. The next to Boca Raton via Charolette for an International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers Convention. Fifteen Flights in one week.

Free Bird
The night at the Bombay fashion shows, I was approached by a man who unsolicitedly read my palm. It is scary he revealed almost the same information to me that the little Chinese lady did a few months ago, however, he extrapolated more than the fire inside, the stubborness, the two loves and hard worker in me – he says that I am a ‘Free Bird’ and I do not want to be tied down by anything….also that I am looking for something specific and I will not stop until I find it.

Phuck It

Phuket – pronounced ‘poo-kay’
Saw a man drown in the sea off the coast Nai Harn beach this weekend. It was very disturbing with no sense of urgency. A drunken Thai kid got caught in the rip tide and while it took four guys to find his body that was submerged for a good 20-30 minutes, when they got him to shore there was no ambulance, no resuscitation efforts, nobody with this boy who cared that he died. Instead, each holding one of his limp limbs, they threw him in the back of a tsunami rescue SUV.

So the first day in Phuket, we relaxed at the pool, had lunch on the beach watching the kite surfers, played a little tennis and had an $8 Thai massage, which felt more like a power yoga class. The woman contorted my body into formations I never though possible. That evening we rented a scooter and drove an hour at dusk to Patong Beach to walk the streets of sex shows, man ladies, old, perverted men and drunk Aussies.

The second day we took the scooter all over the island, visiting beaches and marinas along the way and window-shopped the knock-off designer stalls.

The third day we thought we would bike the National Park preserve, but we only got about 2 km before the monsoon downpour. We took cover in an abandoned restaurant for an hour with a Thai family. When the heavy rain subsided, we rode through the wet streets back to the Indigo Pearl for a day of sports. First I got another pretzel massage, then Raphael and I played some ping pong, followed by Mui Thai boxing, billiards while watching the Berlin marathon, the gym and then an evening of watching the Formula 1 race in Singapore.

Raphael is very competitive and a black belt in karate. He was not impressed with my boxing skills and was rather annoyed that I would not do exactly as he, the master, says. He showed no mercy in beating me up and then he punched me in the nose and knocked the wind out of me, telling me I did not move fast enough. I have finally met my match. He is stronger, faster, smarter, more anal (yes, even more anal than Carl and I put together!) and I am finding it difficult to keep up.

Cohabitation can teach you a lot about someone. My new roommate follows me around with a vacuum to get those blonde hairs and cookie crumbs sucked up, does the laundry EVERY day, irons his socks, underwear and Tshirts, AND has four closets organized like a Banana Republic….10 white shirts, 10 blue shirts, 10 blue shirts with stripes, 10 dark blue shirts, 10 dark blue shirts with stripes, 10 pairs of khakis, 10 Armani suits, 3 black and 3 brown pairs of Pradas, Italian gym shoes that cost $300 and look like what grandpa wore in 1985, a collection of D&G leather belts, 10 watches ranging from $5K-$25K ea in a humidity-controlled chamber, and countless other European designer fashions of whom I can not pronounce or spell the names.

Kelly Raw – TMI (too much information, as usual)
Most of you know that I can be very vulgar in speaking of bodily functions, so if you are a bit prudish or do not wish to hear about my personal issues, stop reading now. NOW I SAY! I have already shared my diaper rash problem from biking long distances in sweaty spandex. Combine that with a Brazilian (the people in the next room must have thought I was suffering from Tourettes syndrome when I had it), not seeing your boyfriend for 3 weeks, being dehydrated for three days after a 200km ride in the Orient, you have the perfect storm for a fungal infection.

Now granted I pride myself for getting to be 37 years old without suffering from a yeast infection, I still am not keen on going to see a doctor, especially in Thailand. Instead, I consulted Google for symptoms, prescriptions and home remedies. Since it is difficult to find Monistat 7 in the 7-Elevens of Thailand, I raided the yogurt from the hotel breakfast bar. Most of the websites recommend yogurt as the cure all for yeast infections and can offer handy tips on how to get it up there. I was not about to make yogurt popsicles to stick up my couchie.

Now all was good until after I got rained on during the ride and went straight for a Thai massage. Usually I wear my undies during massages, but I did not wear any with my spandex, which was now soaked from the rain. Therefore, I was getting my contortionist massage in the buff. All was fine until the little Thai woman started walking all over my back, putting pressure on my stomach and, of course, squeezing the yogurt out. Now the masseuse must of though that whitey wide-eyes was either really excited by the massage, or she is suffering from some really bad STD. On Seinfeld, you might get that from riding the tractor with no undies....

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Phooey -
(wasn't this atom ant or secret squirrel's sidekick?) Just returned from my third home leave back to California where it was as hot as Singapore but without the humidity. On the way back, I took a 36-hour layover in Hong Kong and experienced an amazing time in the city. It is very easy to explore from the airport and I would encourage everyone flying through to take the extra day or two to see it. Contrary to what others have told me, I found the city extremely cosmopolitan with cutting-edge architecture, easy to navigate, clean, and the people were very friendly. Maybe it was a face for the Olympics. It reminded me of a mix between Singapore and the Bay Area, with wonderful hills with hiking galore.

In my first eight hours I took planes, limousines, shuttles, MTRs, an alpine gondola, a ferry and a taxi ride throughout the city. Landed at sunrise and did not stop sightseeing until sunset, when jetlag began to take me down.

The gondola takes you through the hills to the base of the largest outdoor Buddha statue with a killer staircase to reach him. Around his backside is the Wisdom Path where someone cut trees in half and performed calligraphy on them. Maybe it was the aliens. Then there is a path up to a peak, but I turned back on since I was in my urban hiking stilettos and had no sunscreen. I did peddle a black cowboy hat off a Chinese man on my way down to protect my face.

I thought Singapore was the shopping mecca of the world, then I was proven wrong upon my visit to Dubai. Well, there is somewhere in the world where malls and designer clothes are even sacred – Hong Kong! It is not only sport, a pass time, and the point where almost all merchandise passes through en route to every other mall in the world, but you are literally forced to shop everywhere you go! And the prices are not cheap, as one blonde girl would have thunk. It is very cool to take the ferry from the mall in Hong Kong to the mall in Kowloon. It is the best view of the skyline one can have, especially at night! I spent my evening exploring the streets then settling in an Internet karaoke bar to do my homework.

Wow, that was interesting. The next morning I walked the entire town on foot again through the financial district with thousands of Filipino maids who had the day off and picnic in the plazas in their sausage casing tight jeans and t-stirts with sparklely writing on them, up to the botanical gardens and zoo, where I got to see monkeys in cages. I walked so much that the bottoms of my feet were blistered.


The Kuwaiti Ambassador is a PRICK! (or at least his driver is...)
This week I moved out of my serviced apartment as my project is beginning to end and I am now classified as a business traveler. Instead of living in hotels, I have moved into Raphael’s house in Novena for the next six weeks. His stay in Germany was extended and he was nice enough to let me use his SUV to move my stuff over to his place. Yey, I got to drive on the wrong side of the road! The driving I had no problem with, except I kept turning the windshield wipers on every time I wanted to make a turn. The parking was a different story. The garages are very tight in Singapore and granted I have television cameras on the bumper, I still parked kind of funky.

I was told the car I was juxtaposed next to belonged to the new Kuwaiti Ambassador, a black Mercedes. I filled Raphael's vehicle with my stuff before running off to my meetings. When I returned, the Mercedes was gone. Someone had keyed the entire drivers-side of Raphael’s car, probably because of my un-orthogonal placement of the vehicle, that was still within the lines. I have filed a complaint against him and hope he will not send the Taliban after me.

After all the jokes last night about trying to drive on the correct side of the road, Raphael still thinks I have made this whole story up! He doesn’t believe his car is keyed. Well, he is in for a rude awakening upon his return from Schnitzeland. It is long, deep and was definitely intentional.

After I realized that my apartment complex was not going to interfere with a case against the ambassador (they are refusing to release the CCTV tapes to me), I went to file a police report. It took an insane amount of time to do the paperwork and I missed my yoga class. I ended up walking through rush hour traffic. At a stoplight, a taxi next to me rolled down the window and my friend Joe yelled out, "hey Kelly, are you on your way to the ambassador's party?" Not the Kuwaiti ambassador, but the Irish ambassador. Now in the past 6 months, I have been to 3 parties at the Irishman's house and met him at the European film festival and I don't even know where the US ambassador lives.

Cycling Malaysia

Diaper Rash
You know you have become a bike Nazi when you discover adult onset of diaper rash. Eight hours in that sweaty bike schammy and weird things being growing between your thighs as the layer of skin chafes against your seat from the motion of your legs. My couchie is on fire. I used to laugh at Raphael when he would grease up his nards with some Swiss cream before a ride, but now I know, the schnitzel is always right.

Just short of 200km, and I cannot move from the couch with the jar of nutella. Right now I feel sorry for those of you who have to diet, cause I can’t eat enough, fast enough to match my calories burned. We left this morning at 6am from the Longhouse in the setting full moon, over the causeway into Malaysia, through the rolling palm fields, waving at little girls in veils on the side of the road and dodging monitor lizards the size of alligators.

Nine of us in total lead by a crazy Frenchman, Jean-Francois, who does not believe in stopping at red lights. Two guys from Ireland, two Aussies, an Dutchman pushing maximum density, Christina, the German, a Brit, and me, the lone American, who J-F thinks is Canadian since most Americans can not speak French. This is my first bike ride I have had to take my passport on.

The Palm Reader
Have you ever been freaked out by someone who knows nothing about you but can tell you everything about your personality by looking at your hands? It is kind of scary. Raphael told me a story about going to this palm reader with a coworker and in 20 minutes she was able to unfold their lives with good accuracy. For fun, we went to Chinatown to give it a try. Her observations:

I am a very hard worker, often working harder for others approval than for myself (hmm, kinda sounds like that #3). She says there is a fire inside me which burns, driving me to achieve and that I do not have to work so hard. I am harder on myself and go above and beyond what others expect me to do. In fact, she says I don’t have to work. (Just when I was thinking of taking my own sabbatical if the Roche deal goes through.)

She looked at my thumb and could tell I am stubborn. “Um,hmm.” Raphael uttered in unison.

She can’t tell if I am right-handed or left-handed, because it looks like I do things with both hands. (I am ambidextrous, but I do write with my left-hand.)

Not knowing my profession, she proclaimed to me, ‘Start being more like woman. Wear more make-up, dress sexy, be a woman among women, not a woman among men.’

When I asked her if she could tell what industry I worked in, she said ‘healthcare.’ Now, although I am not a truly a medical professional, I do work for a major biotechnology corporation and teach fitness classes, so, in the big picture, she was right, I do work in healthcare.

Ping Pong

I remember watching endless footage of the Olympics in the US – 24 hours a day each summer for two weeks, every four years…and one summer, I ate so many free Big Macs because the Americans won so many Gold metals. Here in Singapore, the main footage is PING PONG. And they keep playing the same winning matches OVER & OVER! No footage of the 8 gold metals in swimming, only the sports that Singaporeans are good at are covered. I didn’t even know badmitton was an Olympic sport! I guess Singapore has not won a metal in over 45 years, so they are VERY proud of their silver in ping pong.

<- Olypmic Gas Pump Pushing

Bintan and Batam, Indonesia

Bintan and Batam are Indonesian Islands off the coast of Singapore. Each is only a 50-minute ferry ride away. Two weekends ago, Raphael and I spent on the white sand beaches of Bintan at the Banyan Tree
http://www.banyantree.com/bintan/index.html

and last weekend, we rode 150km with the ANZA team in Batam over 6 bridges.

http://www.kutu.com/indo/riau/6bridges.htm
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/522322


Burned over 5,000 Calories and probably ate about 10,000 back after the ride. This weekend I am trying a 200km to Malaysia over the causeway and loop around back into Singapore.
This what I love about Singapore- every weekend you can get away from it all.

This month, I learned how to use a bidet and Muslim toilet. I lived in France for years, yet I was always afraid to use the extra bowl that I thought was to clean dogs. The Muslim way has no TP, but a sprayer that looks like the nozzle on a sink that Americans use to clean lettuce.

So one day at the jobsite after doing my duties, I realize that the TP is out, but yey, there is still this Muslim cleaning apparatus. I gave it a try, but a blast of h2o almost shot my asshole out and soaked the back of my clothes. I was so embarrassed walking through the office with my wet backside.

Roche
My life is even more unpredictable now that Swiss pharmaceutical giants, Roche, have bid to buy out the remaining shares of Genentech. Today the board rejected it, but the bid war is expected to continue. One more reason to start learning German. If this deal goes through, it will be the largest financial deal in Switzerland.

Dubai and Beirut

Dubai - Vegas meets Lawrence of Arabia.

On the plane flying into Dubai, Arabs flock to the restrooms prior to landing to change into their burquas and white robes with tablecloths on their heads, ready to rock the Kasbah. As I walk through the airport, hundreds of black-veiled women are shooting me disapproving looks at my western attire, but yet one stops me to ask where I bought my dress. Some veils have slits where all you can see are their sexy eyes.

The women distinguish themselves from the rest of the black-clad women by wearing the most expensive Paris Hilton Sunglasses and big, gaudy, expensive bags. I think most of these Saudi girls are more spoiled than our hotel heiress. Currently I am reading the Girls of Ridayah, acclaimed as the Middle-Eastern Sex and the City, which is opening my eyes to the hypocrisy and tyranny of this culture.

I met with Raphael’s friends in Dubai – Martin, Sarah and their two boys – Peter and Luke, who is Raphael’s godson. Martin is the director of an architecture firm there and they took me on an amazing tour of the city. He moved out there in 1997 to work on Emirates Towers and has not left since. They dropped me off at the Emirates Mall to Ski Dubai, where you can take a pain-stakingly slow chairlift for 15 minutes to ski down a 30 second slope that smaller than a sled hill.

For dinner, I went to the Burj Al Arab, the hotel that looks like a sailboat to see on the menu the world’s most expensive cocktail. $27,321 AED for 55-year-old scotch served in an 18 karat gold cup. The view at sunset over on of the three Palm Islands is beautiful. The architecture itself may look opulent from afar, but is of relatively poor quality, much like Vegas.

Dubai is a giant construction site. Everything is under construction and playa dust is in the air. 20% of the world’s cranes are in this city alone. I had an impromptu interview in the gym with a PM group and the next day with Martin’s company. Both companies need help on projects pronto, but I am afraid it is too hot for me there, I am too blonde and too female to succeed there in construction and they cannot afford me. Even though both companies are UK-based, I still think it would be hard for me to break through the gender barriers.

Lebanon
A family that belly dances together….a.) stays together, b.) is hell of a lot of fun, c.) is it wrong for cousins to dirty dance? Not in Lebanon! I am in a mountain town near Beirut visiting my brother’s fiancé’s family, prior to their wedding this weekend.

Nancy’s family here should be cast for TV programming. They are all beautiful people, from Grandma’s flawless skin, to the high-school boys with their stunning good looks that would make up a good boy band, to the adorable children running around being bad in French. Uncle Elias keeps wanting me to drink Arak and dance on tables, Grandpa wants to marry me off to a nice Lebanese boy, and 14-year old Mejd wants to marry me for a green card to the U.S. Since cousins can marry here, we are trying to match up which ones will make the best combination for supermodel babies.

Kelly’s Lebanese Boy Band – Babaganoush ->

We are speaking an mélange of French, English, Arabic, and now Spanish that friends from Venezuela have shown up. The food is amazing. The tabouli, babaganoush, lammwurst, homemade hummus, kibbeh, schwarma, kafta, fatoosh, and numerous other dishes keep coming our way and the eating is endless. Most dinners last until 1am followed by Arabic dancing.

My daily walk with Brian in the mountains is not much different scenery-wise from my view in the Oakland Hills, except every fourth home is bombed and gutted, covered in bullet holes or I am passing (hot) Lebanese Militia Men heavily equipped with tanks and machine guns. It does not scare me though and feels completely safe here in the hills of Bhamdoun, where Nancy’s family’s summer home is located. The people and cars here are from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Many Saudi women come here to get their nose jobs and are wandering the streets in bandages.

In Byblos, we visited the medieval town and the beach with infinity pools emptying into the azul waters of the Mediterranean, followed again by a feast. Friday we took an excursion out to Beit Eddine near Beyrouth to the Palais Emir Bachir Chahabi where we were able to see some amazing scenery, the palace and Turkish baths. The scariest part of the trip though is Jimmy the Camel. He is the dirty old man from the hotel who offered to drive us there in his Land Rover, playing the Pet Shop Boys.

The ride there was very educational, but as the trip progressed, he became increasingly sure that I was to be his next wife and was ready to negotiate with my brother for me over another Lebanese feast. Luckily the fact that I am left-handed cancelled all-bets on me, as I am no longer worth ANY camels now, maybe because I am eating hummus with the same hand I am supposed to wipe my arse with. Jimmy drank and entire karaf of Arak (the Arabic equivalent to Ouzo) and was in no shape to be driving us home on the mountain roads. We tried to escape him in one town when he stopped to buy peaches but he got irate with us and we realized there were no taxis for miles and finished Mr. Toad’s wild ride. The rest of the ride was in silence.

Another Hanna-Haber family tradition is the Hubbly Bubbly, aka hookah, at every dinner table. This is basically a giant bong with flavored tobacco smoked. Uncle Elias is always offering to bring down his home-grown stash for the hubbly-bubbly, if that will help get me to dance on the tables.

Friday afternoon after the Arak ride from hell, we encounter another bad driver in our taxi to Beirut. Not only did the driver get lost in his ancient Mercedes with no AC in the blistering heat, but also his car broke down on the Avenue de Paris, a main thoroughfare along the shoreline of Beirut. Then he tried to rip us off and caused a commotion when he left us off in the middle of the street in rush hour traffic.

Clubbing in Beirut
There is no club in Beirut that a blonde girl cannot get into. It is amazing to think there was fighting here as recent as two months ago, but the town is in business, Buddha Bar has reopened despite the protests across the street, and it is safe to walk anywhere at night. We are clubbing with Nancy’s 17-24 year old cousins until 4am. I love this town where the 20-something year old boys are ALL good looking with glassy-blue eyes and think I am their age. One guy asked me to go home with him and when I asked his age and told him I was old enough to be his mother, he had the rebuttal, “But you can be like Demi Moore…”

Reema and Lilia are fun to dance with. They both just graduated from high school and are close to six feet tall and look like supermodels. One club we went into, the entire club gathered around us in the center to bellydance. It was fun because I actually knew this particular arabic music since I used it in a bellydancing class I taught in California (you didn’t know I taught bellydancing, right? I don’t, but I faked it pretty well in Berkeley and in Beirut where the music is catchy.) I threw in some of my Bollywood moves, like screwing in my light bulbs and petting my goats. Nancy is an amazing bellydancer and actually knows the correct way to do it.

Nancy’s Big Fat Lebanese Wedding
Is this an MTV production? There are 10 people following the bride and groom around with cameras and flood lights. They have equipped the Intercontinental Phoenicia with the Dance Fever set and a man is wailing on the violin a tune that puts the Devil went down to Georgia to shame. The reception starts with the Dancing, then you eat through the block-long table, then dance, then pyrotechnics, then dance some more, then many men with cakes and sparklers emerge onto the dance floor were the bride and groom are to sever the six-foot cake with a sword, then they dance, then the bouquet and garder throws, then the cousins perform strip teases for each other. Wow.

The 700 year old church where the ceremony was held is tucked up into the hills with an amazing view as well. What could have been a quaint ceremony, is making my brother melt with the amount of lighting and cameras imposed on the structure and the sound system is having a bit of difficulty as it belts out Toccata, Dracula’s music, at high decibels.

We were able to do a live video cast for our relatives back in the US who could not make it to the wedding and skyped my parents into the reception hall. This is a Jetson world.

DOHa
Am I playing the Amazing Race all alone? My trip ended with an unfortunate, stranded Kelly in Qatar. I questioned my 30-minute layover in Doha numerous times from the reservation process all the way to the morning check–in and notifying the crew on my flight of my quick connection. Unfortunately, Qatar airways still chose to sell my seat to someone else. This stranded me in Doha and caused me to miss my Singapore Air connection in Dubai. Not only was there no customer service, but I had to buy one way tickets home. All flights to Singapore from Dubai and Doha were sold out, so I ended up in Kuala Lumpur the next day. Raphael helped me with flights over the phone as I stood in lines for over 3 hours at the airport to find my luggage and get someone to help me.

Overall, it was one of the most culturally amazing trips of my life. I love my new family in Beirut and when I am old and scraggly, someday I hope to return for my boy toys. Nancy did an amazing job on the wedding planning!

San Francisco and Raphael

Just returned from my home leave back to San Francisco where it was amazing to catch up with friends, garden my yard watching Kelly’s sunsets, teach my old aerobic classes and put out forest fires friends start in Yosemite. I was only gone for ten days, but it was apparent that I now have two lives on each side of the globe along with a portion of it traveling through Europe right now.

Two weeks after the trip to India, I met Raphael, yes he is named after a Ninja turtle, at the cycling team’s jersey release. He is a very handsome, athletic, successful German who speaks six languages, including Japanese, lives down the street from me in Singapore, trains with the ANZA team, and is a member of the gym I teach at. We had five dates in five days in Singapore before I left for Hanoi and he for Frankfurt, where he will be until I return back from the Middle East in July.

After three weeks of long distance communication he joked about flying to San Francisco for the weekend to visit. Four days later, I picked him up at SFO to spend 48 hours together. What an amazing weekend. We were able to spend a day mountain biking Mt. Tam above the fog and the other in San Francisco hanging in North Beach and the Presidio.


A Jetset Girl living in a Jetson World
So the new communication mean we are using is Skype. The Jetson age has come! I am talking to a guy in a tapas bar in Mallorca, Spain with flamenco music in the background, while I sit in my living room in Singapore or I get a tour of Raphael's childhood home in the Black Forest while I sit at my desk at work in SSF. Not only can we hear each other over the internet, but we can see instant video.

I am getting ready to leave for Dubai on Friday where I will meet up with a couple of Raphael's friends, including one who is the director of an architecture firm there. On the 6th, I'll head to Beirut for a week to attend Brian and Nancy's wedding.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Good Morning Vietnam!
My flight got in late Thursday night, so I woke up early and headed to the lake to go for a run. Vietnam wakes up at the crack of dawn in Hanoi and whole city is exercising between 6-7am around Hoan Kiem lake. The streets around the perimeter are transformed into badmitton courts, the plaza has over 100 people worshiping Jane Fonda aerobicizing, one area is lined with muscle heads who brought their own weights and benches, old people moving in slow motion in their tai chi stances, soccer in any turn large enough to kick a ball, and hoards of people shuffling their feet in the Asian-style run counter clockwise around the lake. I, of course, am running against the grain. Music is pumped into the city through loud speakers, but some people are practicing their karaoke in the park.

The architecture is very French and I am speaking more French than English this weekend. The cathedral looks like Notre Dame, stripped of all of its décor and French cafes line the major streets. Each street is focused on selling a different item. All shoes are on one street, silks on another, hardware, bicycle parts, furniture, art, and of course streets of food and ladies carrying baskets balanced across their shoulders. I had to buy a bottle of snake wine, which, in fact, has a full cobra preserved inside of the bottle.


Ha Long Bay
3 hours outside of Hanoi is a beautiful World Heritage Site featuring thousands of limestone karsts, or islands. ‘Junk’ boats troll tourists through the cliff hanging islands, some containing enormous grottos lit by discotheque lighting. A sound system would make this cave a great place for a rave.




I am hanging with 2 French girls, a couple from Wales, an Aussie and a Thia-French family on a boat for the weekend. The crew makes amazing food, the views are spectacular, and the weather superb. We embarked on a sunset Kayaking trip into floating villages where believe it or not, they had cable TV run by generators and a floating bank with an ATM! No monks at this one though.


When the sun went down, we opened a bottle of Bordeaux on the roof of the junker and watched the stars emerge through the sky. I was the only one to spend the night up there under the stars and in the middle of the night, I awoke to the moon lighting up the islands around me and I was covered in dew.

Back in Singapore, the Genentech brigade is invading the island. For 6 months I was the only FTE from SSF. 5 expats arrived in January, and now over 50 temporary employees will migrate from SSF to the Genentech dorm at Orchard Scotts, my serviced apartment. Makes it a little odd to hang at the pool in my bikini.

You also probably never thought I would return to India so soon, but this week a colleague and I were invited to present in Mumbai at the International BioProcess Conference in October.

Indi(an)a Kelly and the Nightmare-sicle of Doom

Spent 8 days in India, ate one full meal, it was on average 115 degrees, and I am on 6 medications now. This is the most beautiful, yet polluted, place I have ever seen. My gum is crunchy, my phlegm tastes like dirt, the kids look like pig pen, and when I blow my nose at night, looks like I have been sitting next to a campfire way too long.

The Cow Yogi?
Yes, India is the land where the cows are even happier than they are in California and Wisconsin. That is because they are holy here. Where else in the world can you walk through a major city and have cows by your side, even in a restaurant? People even play with their patties to form little hamburger-sized pellets to cook and clean with! They do not have green pastures of grass, but garbage does suffice their four stomach chambers. This is a great place to play What Scat is that? Cow? Camel? Dog? Monkey? Elephant? Goat? All these animals walk the streets of major cities and even the people poo in the streets. I actually broke down crying after stepping in a holy load of dung in my flip flops.

Varanasi
We started our trip in Varanasi – “The Oldest Continuous City in the World” (Taj Ganges wait staff, 2008). It is the City of Shiva – the holiest place in the Hindi culture to wash away your sins and the crossing grounds between the physical and spiritual world where people send their dead to be burned into the Ganges River in a cremation ceremony. Steps, or Ghats as they are called, line the Ganges in this town where 60,000 people a day bathe in the same area as others burn their dead and 30 large sewers discharge into the river. 400 million people live along the basin of the Ganges. There are 1.5 million faecaleoliform per 100ml of water. To be safe to bathe in, it should have no more than 500 (Lonely Planet 2007).

Varanasi is has 2000 year old architecture through the maze of streets which make up their Old City inspired by Buddhists, Hindis, and Muslims. Puja happens every night at dusk, where people gather for the ceremonies along the ghats. Sitars and music play through the loud speakers which also distribute prayer calls, as little boys and girls pester you to buy post cards and candles. They LOVE Goldie Hawn here and want to know if we know her in California.

Bodies wrapped in colorful silks are being burned along the shoreline. The air smells of spices, urine baked in the sun, barnyard animals and burning flesh.

The Nightmare-sicle
Of course the first day of the trip in the extreme heat, when I see an ice cream man selling dreamcicles for 10 rupees (about 25 cents), I am ecstatic and run to get in line. As I enjoy my yummy Popsicle and ask Craig if he wants a bite, I notice his look of disgust.
“I’m not eating a home-made popsicle!”
“It’s home-made?” I inquire as I notice the recycled stick inserted crooked. Of course I walk back to inspect the packaging of my ‘dreamsicle’ and the FDA would probably not approve this operation, but I finish it anyways.

Shiva Shits
My India welcome package came today! Complete with draining my plumbing, projectile vomit, dehydration, and body aches. It is 115 degrees and I have goose bumps. I am confined to a beautiful room in a medieval mansion along the shore of Assi Ghat, decorated in antiques, colorful silks, beautiful light fixtures and a four-post bed with a trippy god painted above it which makes for great fever hallucinations. It hurt to even sit up in bed.

Considering I had perfect attendance in school and have only taken two real sick days (one for a sprained ankle and the other because I was slipped a ruffie at a local bar) this sitting home sick thing is horrible, especially when on vacation. Craig kept me alive and found a doctor in town to get some medication and electrolytes. Fever broke the next morning in time to see the sunrise over the Ganges.
About 10 km from Varanasi and dating back to 290 BC is Saranath, the Monastery of the Turning Wheel of the Dharma.”. This is where the Buddha gave his first sermon. We spent the day here before flying to Udaipur in Rajasthan, North India.

Octopussy
Many of you would know Udaipur from 007’s 1984 adventure in Octopussy. Most of the movie was filmed here and every rooftop terrace in town plays it at 7:30pm. The Monsoon Palace sits above a hill in the horizon and the floating palace is literally right in front of hotel room view, which is good since Shiva has struck again and I am confined to the room for the morning.


During the afternoon, while the temperatures soar over one hundred degrees again, we went to tour the City Palace with beautiful mirrored mosaics which made some of the rooms feel like you were inside a disco ball. Other rooms of the palace reminded me of Jeannie’s bottle.


In the afternoon, I had to return to a silk shop, since I was so rude to some girls that tried to sell me a sari while nauseated. They were surprised to see me come back and began wrapping me in two meters of fabric. I knew I could never dress myself alone this way and asked if they had something more modern like the girls on the streets wear. The teenagers took me up to their room and opened their closets to try on their clothes, while showing me their school photos, pictures of their boyfriends and the shrines to their gods.

After the fashion plate session, I ended up clad in a Mother Theresa veil with a dress in the international colors of McDonalds, but it fit, it was authentic and I paid some Indian girl 500 rupees to steal clothes from her closet. They stuck a dot on my head, tried to henna my hands, and placed rings on my toes.

Our second day in Udaipur, Craig rented a motorbike and we tried to head in the direction of a fort 85km out in Rajasthan, but after going in circles for a couple of hours, we decided ride through the desert and explore the lakes around Udaipur, stopping in hill tribes, the TB hospital, and finally finding the Monsoon Palace and wildlife preserve, which we deemed to expensive for what it was worth. In one village, my Blackberry was the highlight – all the village kids came out to see the magic phone.

Our last day, we ventured almost 200km out to the massive and majestic Chittorgarh Fort situated on a hilltop in Rajasthan I don’t even have the energy to climb the stairs of the bell tower (and you know how much I love Stairmaster), but after seeing Craig’s photos, I wish I could have made it. I stayed on the ground while the monkeys and children terrorized me. Again, I was a tourist attraction in this town as families wanted their pictures taken with me. What am I, a freak of nature?




Taj
That evening, we hopped a plane to Delhi and a train to Agar, home of the Taj Mahal. Train stations in India are the dirtiest, grimiest, most polluted endroits. Of course the stomach cramps and vomiting started again for the three hour ride from hell where I was either in the fetal position or throwing up into a squatter in which no one has made it into the hole, including me.

I can not go to India a without seeing the Taj, so at sunrise, I forced myself out of bed to join Craig to the mausoleum before the bus loads of overweight tourists can get into our pictures. The structure is beautiful white marble which is great to moonwalk in the shoe covers they make you wear. It is hard to enjoy when you feel like crapola and are dehydrated, but outside the walls, I find the dentist/doctor/veterinarian to prescribe me medication that I can not find in town.

Tried to lay low during the afternoon to sleep in late and relax on the roof terrace with a view of the Taj compound, however, I didn’t close the main door to the stairwell and accidentally let a band of monkeys into the hotel who raised havoc and got chased out by the manager with his rifle.

To stay out of the sun, we visited a boutique hotel that costs $1,200/ night then headed to see a Bollywood film. I was excited to see a McDonalds and after not holding a meal down for six days, I was curious to see if my Bali-Belly cure would solve Shiva’s revenge, but WHAT?!?!? No Big Macs or hamburgers at McDonalds!?!?!? What the? That is like having the News without Huey Lewis! I guess in India it would be equivalent to having the body of Christ on a bun.

To end, I would just like to share with you the biggest news stories in India:

‘Stray Cattle are still a big problem in Delhi,’ –but they still can not do anything about it.
‘The Dalai Lama doesn’t have horns.’ - ?
‘Man-eating Leopard is loose in Dhaurahra’ – he has already eaten six people.
‘Housewives are forced to have unnatural sex’ along with a whole page dedicated to molested children. And the largest story which made the news every day was the fury over the scantly clad cricket cheerleaders in Bangladesh, who happen to make the front page of the papers every day. As one of the put it, “wouldn’t a sari be hard to kick in?”

Namaste.