Lost in ME: #LeoMonkeyAmberAlert Updates

Anonymous sources have reported sightings of Leo and Monkey across the Middle East. Photos confirm they are unharmed, but their official status is still "missing." If you have any leads, please support the search on Instagram with #LeoMonkeyAmberAlert.

Tour & safari group leaders are currently being interrogated. 

Photo taken at Mall of Emirates, found in an unmarked envelope in our PO box.

Request reader assistance to determine specific Starbucks location

Caught crashing a pre-opening event of a little popcorn shop.
Video and photos taken at the event are under review for more leads.

AT in ADE: Music Brings the People Together

A few months ago, I wrote a jingle about Garrett. Tonight, I convinced a group of near-strangers in Abu Dhabi to sing it with me. My heart is full, and my work here is complete.

AT in ME: Makin' It Rain

Before I left Chicago, I bragged about the sunny warm weather I'd enjoy in the Middle East in November.

Since I arrived, it has almost exclusively rained. It seems that the rain follows me wherever I go. In Kuwait, there were flash floods, the mall drainage system became a geyser, office building ceilings caved in, and people went tubing in the streets. Neither the structure nor the people here are made for rain.

In Dubai, I actually watched a rain cloud follow me into the sunny side of the city. Just call me Storm.

#LeoMonkeyAmberAlert

There is a new crisis in the Middle East. Two puppet friends, Leo and Monkey, are missing. The last time they were seen together was in Dubai at the Burj Khalifa. Simone reported them missing in Kuwait on Tuesday, and officials have been searching 24/7 since. At this time, there seem to be no signs of foul play, but there are no solid leads yet.

Last seen on Sunday, November 17

Background Information
Simone, Monkey, and Leo have been traveling companions since August 2012. The three friends met at Lollapalooza in Chicago and became best friends immediately. They supported each other through it all, despite their different backgrounds.

Simone grew up in Paris as part of a traveling circus. When she's not doing tricks for peanuts, she enjoys reading literature by her namesake, Simone de Beauvoir. Friends describe her as caring and sensitive, though she may appear thick skinned.

Leo was a Late Bloomer, but he had the last laugh when he published a very successful semi-autobiographical children's book about his trials as a cub. Though he's grown up to be a strapping young lion, he loves to spend time in his den with a cup of tea and his good friend Daniel.

Monkey eats bananas.

If you have any leads on the whereabouts of Leo and Monkey, please report to Instagram with #LeoMonkeyAmberAlert.

Reported on Friday, November 21 at 15:15.

Updated November 22 at 01:23:
Simone is staying optimistic with the support of her Trunk-to-Tail Prayer Circle. When asked to share her thoughts on friends Leo and Monkey, she responds with a simple "An elephant never forgets."

Support the Search: #LeoMonkeyAmberAlert

AT in KW: To the Beat of His Own Oil Drummer

When I returned from Kuwait to Dubai, my colleague asked me to sum up my Kuwaiti experience in one sentence.  I told him, "Kuwait runs on its own system."

Here's more than one sentence to sum up my one sentence.

Everything is western.
I ate at Potbelly and Dean & Deluca, and there were moments when T.G.I.Friday's seemed like the best choice of fine, casual dining. I think I saw Arabic bread once while in Kuwait.

It's also interesting that there's such a western influence that many locals sound American when they speak. My British colleague described it as a "fake American accent."  I was so relieved when he said this because I could finally let my hair down and pronounce my r's like l's the way I'm supposed to.

YOLO - You're in Kuwait.
There seems to be a general sense of entitlement which leads to recklessness. For example, if it rains and the streets flood, this probably means that you're supposed to go tubing in the streets. Safety isn't an issue; money can buy that.

The Radisson is the only hotel worth knowing.
I planned to take a taxi from the airport to my hotel, a seemingly easy task. I was kindly escorted by a nice lady to the taxi line where she told the scheduler, "The Radisson."

I said, "No, The Palms."

She said, "Right, The Palms."

The taxi driver approaches. "Radisson?"

"No, The Palms."

"The Palms?"

"Yes. Palms."

"Radisson?"

"Palms. Do you know it?"

At this point, 3 taxis gather to discuss the location of this elusive Palms Hotel. Unconcerned, I get in the taxi and just wait for them to figure it out.  He gets in the taxi too.  He says he knows it now.

We drive off and listen to his favorite American top 40 radio station, Triple 8 Marina.

After a long stretch of nothing, we reach some civilization.

"This is the Regency," he says to me.

"Yes, it is."

He points to a few more things. "Radisson. Starbucks. Movenpick."

After a couple times of confirming that he is in fact pointing to these things, I realize that he's actually asking me if I'm going to any of these places.  He slows down at the T.G.I.Friday's.  "Here?"

"No, that's a T.G.I.Friday's."

"Here?"

"No, that's a beauty salon."

"Radisson?"

"No, The Palms."

Maybe he didn't know where The Palms was. But he did let me wear his hat, so I still consider his ride a win.

AT in UAE: Lexicon Meets Vernacular

Everyone speaks English in the UAE. But similar to Singapore, I'm not sure everyone speaks the same language.

On top of that, I am less familiar with local names for things, so my context clues are off. So far I have learned that souk means market, and that the first letter of the Arabic alphabet looks like an exclamation point. That's how they get kids excited to learn.

Most of the time, this is fine. If it's a personal story, I just smile and say, "That's funny," or whatever star word adjective comes to mind first. If it's for work, then I listen until I can find a phrase to repeat back for comprehension. Or I pretend my hearing is really bad.

What's tricky is when there's a question that requires an actual answer. My colleague asked me, "Do you like gold souk?" 

I immediately responded with a heartfelt "Yes!" because I heard, "Do you like goat soup?" and I do love soup.

But after he talked for a little longer, I realized what he meant and there was no way to politely turn down his offer to take me to the souk because I thought he actually meant a pot of boiled things.

We saw the souk.  Coincidentally, we also had soup.

Gold Souk Goat Soup

AT's Traveling 1-2-3

This is my third international trip for work. Like a pro, I knew exactly the travel essentials to bring this time.

1. Blankey, especially important for super mornings
2. Insulated tea tumbler, so I can have hot water wherever I go
3. Shakira, lives a double life as an exotic dancer and plane pillow

Please note that I did not pack a toothbrush.

Here we are ready to take on all of the Middle East.

Yee-haw! To the Middle East, Shakira!

AT on HET

I play with a taiko group called Ho Etsu Taiko.  We're a little group with big drums and big dreams.

We learn all of our pieces through a method called kuchi shoga.  (I like to call it kuchi coo. <3)  This means that all of our music is learned by repeating phonetic sounds that imitate the sound of the taiko.  So a written version of our piece as said with kuchi shoga may look something like:

Don tsuku don tsuku don kon ka don
Don don don don don kon ka don

Very clear, yes?  We don't keep any written music for this reason.

We also like to get creative when talking about the musicality of our pieces.  Though we all have musical backgrounds, we choose to speak in non-music theory terms to explain our musical intentions.  During practice today, we talked about how to build while repeating a pattern, and Pac-Man stormed into our practice!  And he brought his posse of tiny Pac-Men with him!

We put taiko on hold and played arcade games for the rest of practice.

AT in JP: New Friends in New Places

I've learned that talking to strangers can be a good thing. All of the strangers I met in Japan were especially nice and helpful, even when I asked them questions and knew I wouldn't understand the answers. I think the Imperial Palace used to have another name. I think that word means humidity. Yes, I would like chopsticks.  Oh I guess I actually meant ice.

Some of the strangers I met became friends. 

Playground Pals

My childhood best friend and I started our friendship with a simple question: Can I play?

Much like this, I made a friend on my way to Japan in the airport.  I am going to Japan too!  It is also my first time!  Let’s meet up and go on adventures!  I also love to eat and convenience stores delight me too!

We went to Kamakura together and ventured up towards a temple her friend recommended.  Between the two of us, we overshot the temple we meant to visit and ended up at Kenchoji Temple instead.  It was a beautiful mistake though, and it felt like we were years away from busy Tokyo.

We forgot to take a picture together, so I drew one instead.

Strangers with Offal

My last night in Narita City, I decided to visit the tiny bar next to the train station because it was standing room only and there were no signs in English.

After some charades and creative Japanese, I ordered a couple steak skewers.  They were charred, salty and delicious.  Then the man next to me ordered something that looked like a stewed plate of offal.  I asked him what it was called, and he offered to let me have some.  I said, “Honto?” because I’d heard someone else say that earlier in the day in a similar situation.  He said, “Honto!” back so I guess it was appropriate.

It was awesome, and among my favorite things I ate while in Japan.  He showed me to add shichimi to make it extra tasty, and then we talked in broken Japanese and English.  I was not a United flight attendant.  Popcorn?  With a three hour wait?  People are crazy.  Narita is famous for its delicious melons.  He threw back his head to mimic the way I proclaimed “WA-termelon!” when I finally figured out what he was saying.  We exchanged meishi, business cards.  Maybe I will email him now.

Family Mart R Friends

I frequented Family Mart a lot.  I still catch myself singing the song that plays when you enter and exit.  My favorite Family Mart snack was the negi toro onigiri.  My favorite Family Mart friends were these.  Notice how diligently everyone held their poses through all 3 photos.

AT in JP: One-Way Triumph

My hotel is connected to a mall, which is connected to a train station.  On my last day of work, I finally figured out how to navigate this connection.  I texted my sister.

“Finally on the last day I figured out the fastest way to get to the train.”

At the next stop, I got off the train, crossed the platform, and boarded another train.  I texted her again.

“Well it’s not that fast if you get on the train going the wrong direction.”

AT in JP: Last Name First

Our Japanese colleagues let us call them by their first name vs the traditional way of addressing everyone by last name + san or some other respective ending.  I suppose it is their way of respecting us as Americans.  

I knew this was atypical for them, but I didn’t realize how strange it made them feel.  From what I gather, addressing someone by first name only is like calling them their pet name “Banana Booboo Buns” in public.

I had a meeting with another group my colleagues work with.  They tried to introduce themselves to me as Americans would. But every time they did, they turned to that person to quickly add, “Oh excuse me! Haha! I am sorry!” and bow a lot.  After the 3^rd or 4^th round of apologizing and bowing, I told them that it was fine for us to use last names.  Everyone felt a lot better after that.

In another instance, I sought out a friend’s friend at a local establishment.  I found a person who matched the description and I asked him if his name was Daisuke.  He stopped what he was doing and gave me a suspicious glance.  “Why do you ask?  And how do you know my name is Banana Booboo Buns?”

I learned a new vocabulary word that night: odorokimashita – surprised.

AT in JP: Nihongo sukoshi by sukoshi

I wish we could remember learning how to speak our first languages.  Life must have been terribly exciting then.  I made some noises and they understood me!

Today was a day of noise-making triumphs.

Triumph #1: Takushi ride
This was basically a 2 line conversation.  But he understood me the first time.

Triumph #2: Birdie birdie
I needed to get inside the outlet, but they have the entrance blocked before opening.  In my head, I thoughtfully explained to her that I was a manager and I needed to get inside. (I can't actually say most of that).  She made some bird noises back at me. So I repeated the exact same thing to her again.  Oddly enough, she repeated the same bird noises to me again.  I bet she's really into yakitori.

Triumph #3: Walk the line
I mustered up some courage to ask a lady how long she waited in the line.  She prattled off more information than I could process.  At the end, I excitedly chanted at her, "2 hours! Half? Half! 2 hours half! Thank you!"

She was nice.

Triumph #4: Meet in the middle
A nice colleague gave me a ride home.  His English is not so bad, and my Japanese is not so good.  We managed to have a pretty good conversation with a lot of inquisitive noises.  This picture summarizes our conversation.  It's a scary eel from Narita who is wearing a cast.

AT in JP: Building a Memory Pagoda

I recently learned about the method of building memory palaces to memorize anything and everything.  The general idea is that you assign each thing you want to memorize a specific physical place in a space that is very familiar to you.  Then, when you want to recall that thing, you simply visualize that space to remember where you put it.  “Aha!  Now I remember that Hans likes pudding cups because there he is – sitting in a giant pudding cup next to my living room coffee table.”

Or something like that.  Real memory athletes might say that my example reflects my poor memorization skills.

And they are probably right.  For the last 4 weeks, I have been trying to shove as much Japanese into my little brain as possible, and the construction of my Japanese memory palace is very behind schedule.  Perhaps it will become a richer habitat for information to dwell, but right now it just kind of looks like this.  The GM is updating his resume.

So basically, you can walk through my pagoda to eat, like, and go to/for/of/in the best popcorn in/to/for/of Japan.  Incidentally, that may be all I am supposed to do here.

Love and Apple Butter

Today, one of my best friends got married. It was lovely and I feel loved in their love.

AT in SG: Just My Asian Luck

Before you visit Singapore, there are a couple things you should know:

Taxis consider being flagged down like an invitation to dinner.

“No thank you!”

“Busy!”

“I am washing my hair!”

Don’t take it personally.  

Everyone’s speaking English, but everyone’s speaking a different language.

“I need this signed immediately.”

“Can.”

“Thank you. Please sign here.”

“No-lah! I cannot sign! 3 days for processing.”

“But you said you can sign.”

“Can.” 

It's home to the world’s worst website.

Have you ever heard of a website that is only open from 8 am to 8 pm, has a 10 page application yet does not let you navigate to a specific page, does not generate automatic error messages, does not process applications in the order they are received, and does not validate credit card information to process payment?  I know.  I am also impressed. 

Singapore hates you.

If you want it, they don’t have it.  If you need it, it doesn’t exist.  And then it will rain. 

It’s OK to feel like a Loopy Nut in Singapore.

AT in SG: A Quest for Kaya Toast

Kaya is coconut and pandan jam.  See that goopy green stuff she’s pouring into the bucket?  That’s kaya.

For kaya toast, they cut a piece of bread in half, spread kaya on it, then place thick pats of butter on top of the kaya for a crispy and creamy bite of joy.

I wanted it and I wanted to know which one was the best. In my limited time, I tried three popular chain’s kaya toasts.  I regret not trying Wang Something’s kaya toast in the airport.  Now I’ll never know how theirs ranks. 

Toast Box

Toast Box adds honey to their kaya.  In my opinion, the honey overpowers the coconut and pandan flavors and it just tastes like honey toast.  It was satisfying, but not exactly what I was looking for.  The peanut butter toast was fun.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast

Since Time Out Singapore listed this one as a top pick for kaya toast and since it’s named after kaya toast, I expected this one to be the best.  I was a little disappointed.  There wasn’t enough kaya in the toast for me to tell what the kaya itself actually tasted like.  I guess I should have expected this, the way you can be disappointed when “Quality Computers” are not very high quality after all.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy it.  The soft boiled eggs were very good. 

Coffee and Toast

Another establishment named after toast, this one was my favorite.  The toast is thin and crisp, they give a generous spread of coconutty kaya, and the butter plops round out the combination nicely.  I went back to Coffee and Toast for one last hurrah to solidify that it was the actual winner.  It was. 

AT in HK: Week Stew-ve Got a Friend in Me

If you've ever wondered if making bad puns is a marketable skill, the answer is yes.

Before I left, my mother said, “It will be nice for you to have the support of your Hong Kong colleagues over there.”  Rather than tell her the truth that I would actually have no colleagues, office, internet, or resources, I responded with “Yes.”

But I can’t say that I've been lonely though I have been alone.  I would like to dedicate Week Stew to finding friends in unexpected places and my love for soup evolving towards clay pot stews.

When my boss came to visit, he asked if I’d been lonely.  I told him no because I had The Soup Man (see previous post).  Besides, when I visit The Soup Man I get to dine with some of Hong Kong’s finest and we have a lot of great conversations about how great our table manners are in between slurping bites and spitting bones directly onto the table.

I stumbled upon this place in Wanchai for lunch.  There is only one man who directs the crowds.  Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, he sends groups of hungry diners to several different corners of the restaurant at once.  Note: If you order the “beef brisket soup” and expect beef brisket, you will be disappointed when you receive pork feet.  I intentionally ordered beef brisket for the pork feet though.

I met a very nice man named Yossi who owns a pastry shop called 126 grammes.  They specialize in choux.  I chatted with him for a long time, and we had such a good time talking that I forgot to pay for my pistachio crème and cherry confit choux.  It was delicious.  For the record, I ran back up the hill to pay him when I realized that I’d just become a thief of 18 HKD.

This is a pretty kitty with a merciless heart.  She nearly successfully pounced on a bird mid-flight.  I could tell she was going for the kill, and I like that about her. 

My Hong Kong obsession with food in clay pots began after a trip to Yau Mau Tei with a friend to enjoy some 煲仔飯.  Then I remembered everything tastes better in a clay pot because it makes and keeps your food super hot.  As in, this-food-is-only-for-looking-and-not-for-eating hot.  The result is a nice crispy char on your rice and a really happy Alexa with yet another burned tongue.  

This group of friends seemed to be having a really great time.  They kept yelling “Squid!” in Mandarin and laughing.  I didn’t really understand the punch line, but I went ahead and laughed with them.

Cafe O is actually run by a little old lady who loves milkshakes.  She is there when Cafe O opens and closes.

Every day, a little hunchback lady comes into ifc mall to clean herself in the washroom.  She mutters as she wipes down her face, arms, and legs with the paper towels and nobody bothers her. 

This taxi made fun of me when I said “I want to go here” in Mandarin and then handed him an address card.  He said, “No! Read it!”  It felt a lot like I was in Chinese school again, especially when I filled in the words I didn’t know with “something, something” and he finished the phrase for me.  Then he made me practice saying numbers in Cantonese when we got to the apartments.

This taxi was the nicest taxi I’d ever met.  I needed to visit a storage warehouse far away in Kai Chung, and when he wasn’t exactly sure how to get there he called the number and asked for directions.  He told me how he believed Taiwanese people have the best-sounding Mandarin, how people from the PRC are rude, and how impressed he was that my Chinese didn’t even have an accent.   He was probably flattering me for extra tips, but I didn’t fall for it.  I believe in China thriftiness even if this is a Special Administrative Region.

I met some relatives I didn’t know I had.  The little one got restless at lunch and went outside with their nanny.  He returned with an entire bunch of balloons and a huge smile.  Watch the video to see what the older one named me. I think I’ll officially adopt this name when I have the chance.

Here, the little one is concentrating on pooping.

I was shaky-hungry one day and decided to try a place I’d read about.  I ordered laksa, a vegetable, and some tea.  I was served laksa, a vegetable, and some very medicinal-smelling herbal bone soup.  When he first put it down, I clapped and thought, “Soup!” but then I wondered out loud if I had actually ordered this.  The nice girls who had just sat down at my table figured it out for me – it turns out that Mandarin for “tea” sounds a lot like “bone soup” in Cantonese.  They were really hungry from just running 12K, and they also ordered a lot of food (though intentional).  We decided to share our feast as new friends, and the waiter laughed at our greedy Canadian-American appetites. 

This is a clay pot stew of pork knuckles.  I think my neighbors may have been a little disgusted at how quickly I inhaled this.  I was hungry.

My cousin I’d never met invited me to hike with her and some friends.  We went out to the new territories to Yuen Long, a place I could never figure out how to get to on my own.  Her friends also ordered a feast of dim sum for us followed by many tasty and local desserts. 

For my last Hong Kong dinner, I chose one more fish ball clay pot stew.  It was awesome.

This is Kitty Ting Ting and Sweet Sweet the Rabbit.  They love to talk about pockets.  I learned a lot about friendship and self-worth from reading this book.  Thanks for the life lesson, Tin Hau library!