Yamato

Whenever I visit Singapore I will never fail to have roti-prata at Tanglin Halt Market For me this is perfect breakfast ttps://i.imgur.com/3dB95el.jpg[/img] Another breakfast I like is lormee and carrot cake there

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thais-warned-against-becoming-foreigners-nominees-in-businesses-reserved-for-thai-nationals/ Thais warned against becoming foreigners’ nominees in businesses reserved for Thai nationals January 15, 2023 Thai people who allow their names to be used by foreigners as nominees to open businesses reserved for Thai nationals may face prison terms of three years and/or a fine of between 100,000 baht and a million baht, said Thosapone Dansuputra, director-general of Business Development Department, today. He said that foreigners are not allowed to open businesses selling food or drinks, as he responded to reports that Chinese businessmen had purchased a number of food shops in the Chinatown area. He explained that foreigners who want to open a food shop must get a permission from the Business Development Department, adding that Thai people who co-invest with foreign partners in such business must show their bank accounts, to prove that they have the financial resources to invest and are not just acting as a nominee. To take legal action against foreign businessmen who uses Thais as their nominees, he said that there must be clear evidence that their Thai partners deliberately allowed themselves to be used as nominees and concealed the fact to help the foreigners. Thosapone said that his department has cooperated with the Labour Ministry in checking businesses which have foreigners as partners or shareholders, to find out if the businesses were properly registered.

One of the mornings went to Tiong Bahru market for the famous lormee and jweekueh Love this lormee Jweekueh Then there is this curry rice shop Long queue Best

In Singapore had this wonderful dinner with a few friends at Holy Crab restaurant in Capitol We started with lo-hei Lo-hei with abalone My favourite dish there - bitter gourd in salted egg sauce Deep fried goby Burnt beehoon - another once of my favourite there Black tofu seafood Green chili crab - 1.4kg Crab fried rice Had a great time with great food there

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2479769/panel-seeks-unesco-listing-for-late-king Panel seeks Unesco listing for late king PUBLISHED : 11 JAN 2023 AT 04:00 NEWSPAPER SECTION: NEWS WRITER: POST REPORTERS The Education Ministry has set up a committee tasked with collecting all of the papers Unesco would require to add His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great to the list of the world's eminent personalities,... Atthapol Sangkhawasi, the permanent secretary at the Education Ministry, said yesterday the ministry had agreed to establish a committee to oversee the collection of all relevant royal projects before... Unesco will then send letters of consideration to all of its member countries. Any revisions must be made before the second quarter of 2025 so that the proposal can be presented at Unesco's General Conference...

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-China-s-elderly-pay-ultimate-price-for-COVID-missteps?utm_campaign=GL_china_up_close&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NA_newsletter&utm_content=article_link&del_type=9&pub_date=20230112213007&seq_num=4&si=44594# Senior citizens are dying at an unprecedented pace after President Xi Jinping's administration abandoned the zero-COVID policy. (Nikkei montage/Reuters) Analysis: China's elderly pay ultimate price for COVID missteps Senior citizens die at unprecedented pace, leaving families devastated KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writerJanuary 12, 2023 04:01 JST Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize. In China, young people do not hesitate to offer their seats to the elderly in trains and buses. The Confucian culture has always had, and continues to have, a tradition of respecting senior citizens. But as COVID-19 tears through China's 1.4 billion people, the 200 million senior citizens are bearing the brunt, being driven into a corner. The number of elderly people who die per day has been at unprecedented levels since late December, perhaps earlier. The pandemic has taken the lives of some of China's best brains, such as the prestigious members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering in their 80s and older. While the death rate is low among young people and many more are taking to the streets again in big cities, the fact that so many of the elderly are dying has raised questions over the humanitarian aspect of the government's missteps. "Save the elderly." Lawyers in various parts of the country have signed and sent petitions to central government departments with this message, calling on them to take immediate steps, such as importing mass quantities of effective medicines from abroad and producing whatever possible at home. The administration does not release figures that accurately portray the situation. But local work units, known as danwei, do keep track and announce credible information of individual deaths. Those added together show extraordinarily high numbers. Workers push a casket outside a crematorium in Beijing on Dec. 31. The number of cremations per day at funeral halls in an area of Fujian Province has surged five- to six-fold, compared with an average year, since the turn of the year. © AP Notices about many individuals' deaths are posted on university bulletin boards. Some individuals' deaths are announced on internet sites. The central government cannot hide the scale of the tragedy. The deaths of 25 retired professors, teachers and other faculty members were announced on Jan. 3 by a university in the northeastern city of Dalian. An expert who has long analyzed social trends in China calculates that the number of retiree deaths recently announced by universities across China are at least three- to sixfold compared with the previous years. Since the beginning of the year, the number of daily funeral hall cremations in an area of Fujian Province has surged five- to sixfold, compared with an average year. The deaths of teachers and other staff, primarily retirees and their family members, at universities in Fujian are said to be nearly 10 times what might have been expected before last year. The death cause is usually not mentioned, out of a consideration for the central government. But there is little question that they were COVID-related. Patients lie on beds in the emergency department of a hospital on Jan. 5 in Shanghai. © Reuters Even officials at the World Health Organization, who were sympathetic to China in the early days of COVID, are now critical of the discrepancies between China's official COVID-related death numbers and the realities on the ground. Yet, Beijing shows no sign of changing its stance. China's leaders did not highlight the issue of elderly deaths in their New Year messages. All they did was to reiterate slogans such as "Let the country prosper and its people live in peace." Meanwhile on the ground, the situation is dire. Fever-fighting drugs have sold out at pharmacies across China. With many of its staff ill with COVID, hospitals have not been able to examine new patients. Black marketeers are selling Paxlovid - a Beijing-approved COVID treatment developed by U.S. drug giant Pfizer -- at inflated prices of more than 10,000 yuan ($1,477) per box. Empty shelves are seen in a pharmacy as customers tries to find medicine to prepare for a wave of COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing on Dec. 13, 2022. © AP When an earthquake devastated Sichuan in 2008, nongovernmental organizations stepped in to distribute medicines and conduct relief operations. At the time, these fledgling NGOs gave hope to the people that civil society was beginning to work in China. Fifteen years on, the situation has regressed. Since era of President Xi Jinping, NGOs have not been allowed to freely conduct activities because they typically have Chinese Communist Party cells in them. "There are almost no volunteer relief operations amid the current explosion of infections," one observer said. "Clearly, civil society is retrogressing." China has 200 million seniors who are 65 or older, equivalent to the entire populations of Japan and the U.K. combined, and the coronavirus is inflicting more damage on them than other age groups. According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, the country had 10.14 million deaths in 2021. The number of deaths in 2022 will be announced sooner or later, making clear how high the human cost of COVID-19 is -- even if the causes of death are vague. At a certain point, questions will arise over the mishandling of COVID. Bad policies have had consequences in China before. Mao Zedong's disastrous decisions to proceed with the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) caused upheavals so vast they distorted the nation's population pyramid, later research proved. This time around, there was a way to prevent such levels of death. China might have been able to save many of the elderly if it had introduced mRNA vaccines from the West and mass-produced them at home. Although the situation is grim, there are some bright signs. The current wave of infections is presumed to have peaked in some big cities, including Beijing, around late December. People are returning to the streets, and calm is being restored. Children wearing face masks ride on their scooter with Chinese Year of the Rabbit decoration passing by residents shop for Chinese Lunar New Year decorations at a pavement stores on Jan. 7 in Beijing. © AP In China, infected people are called "sheep." That is because the Chinese word for "testing positive" includes the character yang, which has the same pronunciation as character for sheep. "Have you become a sheep?" is the fashionable greeting when friends meet on the street. Most of the people taking to the streets are sheep, having had COVID at least once. The long Chinese New Year holiday period that begins later this month will unleash a torrent of travelers. If more than 1 billion people return home on a cumulative basis to spend time with family after almost three years of being restricted, infections will spread further across the country. The central government's best-case scenario is to bring infections under control by late February, achieve de facto herd immunity and then hold the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, in early March. It would be a good debut stage for No. 2 Li Qiang, who is expected to succeed Li Keqiang as premier at the session. But this optimistic scenario is full of pitfalls. As countries across the globe have experienced, a first wave of infections is usually followed by second and third waves of mutant viruses. The zero-COVID policy was not going to work against the highly infectious omicron variant. The writing was on the wall before the government abandoned it. Passengers from China take a higher-sensitivity COVID-19 antigen test at Narita airport on Jan. 8. (Photo by Mayumi Tsumita) What hammered the final nail into the zero-COVID coffin were the "white paper" protests. The movement broke out either simultaneously or in a chain reaction at more than 160 universities and other locations. It is believed to have begun at a university in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, with students holding blank sheets of paper during a protest against the zero-COVID policy. Young people vented their pent-up frustration while communicating with each other through various means. What the Chinese government should have been doing is to administer an effective vaccine to the public multiple times, primarily to the elderly, and to prepare large amounts of medicines such as fever reducers. Instead, it was busy declaring victory in the fight against COVID, trying to make the government's response look good. After wasting precious time, the Chinese government was forced to abandon the zero-COVID policy, abruptly. Looking back, two Japanese prime ministers -- Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga -- resigned, partly due to strong public discontent over their poor handling of the COVID-19 scourge. On the surface, it looks like Xi will have no such worries with no democratic elections. Nevertheless, if many Chinese families continue to lose their elderly members, all amid an economic slump, that may change. If people begin to see this mess as a human-made disaster caused by policy mistakes, it will slowly hurt like a body blow to the Xi regime. Such anger could lead to the next white paper protest.

The view of the Gardens By The Bay from the top of Marina Bay Sands is also very beautiful especially at night. Was up there for dinner one night Daylight Dinner was served Night view More wine Dessert

Visiting the Gardens by the Bay's Supertree for the first time, it was actually pretty good https://i.imgur.com/CI49hAP.jpg[/img] View was really nice I did enjoy it so I decided I'd come again soon

Visited the Singapore Airlines lounge in Suvarnabhumi Airport last Friday while waiting for TG flight to Singapore. I always like this lounge because its got very good food. The bar Cheese platter Delicious chicken porridge Nasi lemak and eggs Condiments for nasi lemak My nasi lemak breakfast Pork ribs Bolognaise Spaghetti Seafood tomyam Brocolli with mushrooms Singapore style chicken rice Chicken rice Thai desserts

Woke up this morning saw the kitchen still have left over rice so decided to make breakfast - Egg Fried Rice with Gravy Yummy breakfast (brunbch)

I recently saw this near my home. Dangerous? But I guess not much of choice for them. Wish them safe

Coming back this time I found that there are many of this coffee shop around - Bacha [img]https://i.imgur.com/QQL3SUW.jpg[/img] So I thought I try - this is at Takashimaya basement 1 My coffee The sugar so beautiful Nice For her Our pasteries

I visited Singapore last week and had a great time there here are some of the meals I had Had lunch on the second day there at ION foodcourt My goodness I have not eaten this for so many years Fishball noodles and fried stuffs Love the chili sauce

Now this is "peasant" food I just had for lunch today with 2 colleagues Our Thai lunch at a countryside shop Yam pla kapong - sardines Thai salad Khana moo - kale stir fry with sliced pork Krapow moo sup - minced pork stir fry with Thai basil Khai jeow moo sup - minced pork omelette Tomyam kung - shrimp tomyam soup My rice with egg

Nathong Terrace Bar and Restaurant heres the google map link - https://goo.gl/maps/1tGGaQDgVcre8WWu8

Visited a rebuild restaurant in Bangkok known as Nathong. Over the Covid period the owners too the opportunity of shutdown to rebuild the entire restaurant. Like to share some photos here It is now known as Nathong Terrace Bar and Restaurant heres the google map link - https://goo.gl/maps/1tGGaQDgVcre8WWu8 Starter - Miang Kham Bean salad Grouper tomyam Fried omlette oysters Inside is big and fresh oysters and beansprouts Seabass deep fried with fish sauce Grilled giant river prawns Seabass baked in salt Thai dessert Mango sticky rice dessert

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Tea-Leaves/In-Thailand-there-is-life-beyond-the-capital?utm_campaign=GL_asia_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NA_newsletter&utm_content=article_link&del_type=1&pub_date=20221123123000&seq_num=23&si=44594 In Thailand, there is life beyond the capital In an over-centralized country, not all roads should lead to Bangkok A garden with a green wall tucked into forested hills some 80 kilometers southeast of Bangkok. (Photo by Dominic Faulder) DOMINIC FAULDERNovember 23, 2022 11:00 JST When I unexpectedly got stuck in Bangkok during the failed April Fool's Day coup of 1981, it was still the only real city in Thailand -- a kingdom of villages. Chiang Mai, the "rose of the north," ranked second, but was really no more than a large, sleepy provincial town. In Thai, the capital has the world's longest place name, according to Guinness World Records, beginning Krung Thep Maha Nakhon. It was not just the seat of government, but the nation's industrial and business hub and main port. Oil refineries were close to the port, and refined petrochemicals were transported upcountry by rail -- a disruptive feature of this fascinating but dysfunctional city of some 15 million that continues to this day. The Thai capital, a tawdry "Venice of the East," had its charms but was essentially a sleepy backwater afflicted by a plague of heat-absorbing concrete shophouses, and virtually bereft of libraries and bookshops. The American travel writer Paul Theroux, visiting at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, described it unkindly as a "flattened anthill." That has changed. Bangkok has become rich and sophisticated, and has been spared permanent gridlock by the most spectacular and ingenious mass transit infrastructure in Southeast Asia. But the city remains frenetic and dysfunctional. Some middle-class families virtually live in their cars doing school runs. About 10 years ago, my wife and I decided to quit the city for forested hills some 80 kilometers along the Gulf of Thailand. With no buildings in sight, the main view across our field is a small, wooded hill that is home to hundreds of exceptionally promiscuous macaques. In the drier periods of the year, the monkeys descend in tribes upon our village and shred unguarded plastic rubbish bags. Top: Bangkok is famous for some of the longest traffic lights in the world. Bottom: Much quieter scenes can be found surprisingly close to the capital. (Photos by Dominic Faulder) There are snakes of every kind in the undergrowth, including cobras. One night I returned late to find a 3-meter reticulated python draped along the front gate. It eyeballed me through the windscreen for 15 minutes before doubling back on itself and departing noiselessly along the garden wall. But this life is not really as "jungly" as it sounds. Anyone who has lived in Bangkok will have tales of pythons in the laundry and various lizards in the cupboards. Our home sits in the heart of Chonburi province and is connected to Bangkok by two motorways built to service the Eastern Seaboard, Thailand's industrial heartland. That was developed in the 1980s to drag the economy beyond commodities and tourism, and is integral to what has long been the largest conurbation in Southeast Asia. Larger visitors to the garden sometimes need to be taken in hand. (Photo by Dominic Faulder) Chonburi is a full employment province, and home to Laem Chabang, the country's biggest port, with refineries close by. Further down the coast in Rayong province, there is further industrialization at Map Ta Phut. This whole stretch is the gateway to the Eastern Economic Corridor, essentially a 21st-century version of the Eastern Seaboard. Some foreign missionaries and artists used to reside upcountry. A few intrepid souls enrobed in remote monasteries, and there is a dwindling residue of U.S. Vietnam War veterans who married locally and never went home. But the number of foreigners living outside Bangkok used to be minuscule before Thailand started to appear in global lists of the best countries in the world to consider for retirement, before its highway capacity doubled in the 1990s, before its health care system improved exponentially, and before the retail revolution of the 1990s started wiping out obsolescent mom and pop stores with breathtaking ranges of local and imported produce. Top: One never need feel lonely in the Thai countryside. Bottom: Mowing the lawn takes on a whole new meaning. (Photos by Dominic Faulder) Today, I can get to central Bangkok in under 90 minutes when necessary, and to the main airport in just half that time. My regular trips into the business district are quicker than those for many Bangkok residents. A high-speed rail link is under construction down the Eastern Seaboard that will bind together all the main population centers, ports and airports. So life in Thailand's supposed boondocks is in many respects far more livable and efficient than in choked Bangkok with its questionable air quality. Country living should be promoted, but successive Thai governments, mired in essentially 19th-century thinking, continue to see decentralization as a threat, and deny all but one of the country's 77 provinces (Bangkok) the right to elect their own governors. As long as all roads lead to Bangkok, so will the kingdom's problems. Dominic Faulder is a Nikkei Asia associate editor.

So this is Taiwan's HSR (High Speed Rail). We were taking this train back to Tao Yuan Station and then off to Tao Yuan Airport Comfortable and spacious Serving drinks and snacks So the above are the last photos of this trip. Hope you like them.

My last meal with my suppliers was on Wednesday afternoon lunch. We went to a chicken restaurant located in a secluded place and a tiny lane, easy to miss it if not for this sign But it looks new The inside The 7 of us booked a private room Chicken glutinous rice (has to pre order one day in advance) Simply heavenly with all the sesame oil and rice wine used in the cooking (I must learn now to do this) Garlic chicken with chinese herbs Meesua (rice fine noodle) in chicken brooth Local green mushrooms Fried chicken with salted egg Palm flower Tofu fried The spread Fried fish Very traditional Taiwanese village food

So this the breakfast that I have been dining at past 3 mornings. Overly huge spread this hotel's breakfast it has everything. My braised pork rice (肉燥飯) today before I check-out from the hotel

So this is what Taiwanese food is all about Stopped at a stall and ordered these Fried oyster with egg and sauce ($3) Thick soup with pork ($1.80) Simply delicious all of them Walked more down the street found another shop Making dumplings My sauces Spring onion cake, amazing Clam clear soup Dumplings Chicken Dinner (total $15.70) This is what I'd call Taiwan food

Ok this post will not make justice to local food nevertheless here it is a dinner at the Kaohsiung city's Marriot Hotel. I've never sat on such a humongous table (for 10) like this in my life Has 2 motors for the center turntable But its pretty The cutleries Very high-end Narumi bone-china The dishes The special drink for dinner Starter - tofu and chives Starter - pickle Starter - bamboo shoots The drink We started with a appetizer consisting of 4 items - prawns, fungus & jellyfish, mullet roe, tofu Creamy soup that has prawns, scallops and white fungus in it And then its the lobster with curry sauce Braised wagyu cheek Beef simply melts in your mouth Mixed vegetables and prawn Grouper with thick rice noodle Fruits Almond cold soup with egg white We had a wonderful dinner certainly however these are not Taiwanese food at all. If looking at what Taiwanese food is all about look at the next video below

Good morning everybody. This 40 seconds time lapse video taken from my hotel room window yesterday from 4.15pm to 8.15pm (4hrs)

The food at this mutton restaurant Freshly boiled mutton Mutton stir fry with bitter gourd Mutton stir fry with spring onions Meesua (fine rice noodle) Mutton stir fry with pineapple Baked mutton Mutton herbal soup Mutton vermicelli Boiled prawns The spread

As this is a very short trip I had on two full days to work, Tuesday and today. So for this trip did not expect any free time for sightseeing or photos of scenery. Tomorrow morning will be on our way to Taoyuan and then back to Bangkok in the afternoon. I was in an industrial area these two days. Yesterday after the morning work the locals brought me to a local restaurant popular for serving mutton (meat from local goats).