Singapore (March 2019)

While Kristin and I were staying in Dalat, Vietname, I made a trip to Singapore, the City of Merlion, for a week. Merlion is a fictitious animal that has the lion's head with the mermaid's body.

The primary purpose of the trip was to attend the Freedom Business Alliance's face to face board meeting focusing on strategic planning session from 2020 to 2030. Mats, Jennifer, Nicole, Heidi and Tun were present. Also in attendance was Rachel Nelson who led the planning session with Heidi. Bryan was the only board member who could not make it and was consulted via a conference call on critical issues.

The two full day training sessions were grilling but productive. We were able to pin down and document core values, core focus, visionary goals and core action plans.

Singapore was the 86th country that I visited. It is one of four Asian Tigers along with S. Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It has achieved a miraculous economic achievement over a half century. It is a highly regulated city state which began in 1958 with the first prime ministry Lee Kuan Yeu.

In this city state, 26 miles long and 13 miles wide, no chewing gum is sold or allowed, other than medical or dental reason. Any public spitting will be fined. The arrival card printed "Death for Drug Trafficking" in large fonts. Tun took time to explain about Singapore and I learned a lot. The government has been seeking harmony in everything.

It was surprising to hear at first that 82% of the 4.5 million population is living in the subsidized public housing, but in reality this public housing is not much different from private housing. Tun explained that it was not only to help low income people but also to build the nation based on their real estate ownership.

There are a lot of Hawker Centers, an open air food courts in the neighborhoods. The foods were delicious and their price tags were quite reasonable. I remember Laksa or Super Laksa with lobster, Heinan Chicken, most common dish, Carrot Cake, not the dessert but a dish made of turnip and wheat flower, Grilled Octopus, super tender and several Indian dishes.

The venue was a condominium where the Tunehags have been living for the past three winters. Apparently, it was made available to them during the winter time by Tun's uncle. This condominum was overlooking the ocean in distance and a golf course right underneath. A breath-taking view.

Three ladies stayed at the Tunehags and I stayed at Tun's house. It was a two-story single family resident in a quiet neighborhood. When I heard that this house was worth Singapore $8 million or US$5.9 million. Wow! They have lived here for the past 20 years since they purchased at S$4 million.

In the evening, we visited several Singaporean landmarks, such as Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Garden. This landmark became more famous because of the movie Crazy Rich Asian in that the finale party took place at the top of the hotel.

Super Trees or Super Groves that hold two light and music shows twice everyday,

Sentosa Island where we saw the Statue of Merlion and we visited Palawan Beach that had access to the southern most point of Asian continent and also showed us the beautiful sunset.

On our departure day, Tun showed us around in the Katong Area. We visited Peranakan Museum, a museum of showing the mixed cultures of different races.

Also, I had another purpose for my visit to Singapore. It was a strategic meeting with John Kim who is leading a business to promote STEM education in Muslim nations through NCIT established in California. We spent very productive time for three days.

John Kim agreed to minister together through SfK. Will discuss more after NCIT issues are more clarified in a month or so.

Our mutual friend Robert Oh also joined us for a couple of days. He spoke at Solomon's Porch Church shepherded by Sam Kim. This young church has 30-40% of Koreans speaking English and the rest of all others. Solomon's Porch Church or called SP in nickname started in Hong Kong and opened a branch in Peking.

I also had a fellowship time with Hoon Hee and Jin Hee Lee over dinner and desserts. They are daughters of Sang Hoon and Song Hee Lee in Rwanda. They both attend NUS-Yale University, a joint venture between National University of Singapore and Yale of the U.S. They both said that they were not attending the church at present. We talked about Martin Buber about I-Thou and also about human feeble effort to trying to bring God down to the human level, which is the same mistake as the human trying to be like God.

Overall, my short visit to Singapore gave me an impression that it is a clean and orderly country, but its atmosphere was somewhat choking to me. Too tight! I suppose that I have been living in loose environments a bit too long. - Jeffrey

Dalat, Vietnam (March 2019)

Chiang Mai or entire Thailand gets very warm from March through May. Kristin wanted to get away from this unbearable heat with humidity. Her choice for 2019 was Da Lat, Vietnam.

It is called the City of Eternal Spring. Its altitude at 1,500 meter high enables the city spring-like weather throughout the year. No wonder France developed the city as the vacation destination for its expats during its colonial period for Vietnam.

Kristin made a reservation at a family-run hostel, namely Gia Pham Hostel. Thai was her primary contact, but Tan, Thai's younger brother studying at Dalat University, and their parents, the Yeop family, all worked to serve the guests. After the first night at a room without any view, we ended up staying on the 4th floor with a common area right across from our room. Because of this easy access to the common area, I called our room a penthouse. The only drawback for this penthouse stay was a lot of walking up and down the stairs. Well... we got our legs strengthened a lot. For this stay, we paid only $8.00 per night. Not bad at all...

We stayed from March 1 - 29, except my trip to Singapore during 13-16. We did not do much at all, other than resting and resting and resting, with some walking. I was at the tail end of my physical recovery from a 6-week illness and the fresh breeze we enjoyed in the common area kept us inside the place pretty much all the time, except our walking time.

Vietnamese streets are filled with motor bikes. Everyone rides one and there are plenty of people traveling everywhere. I rode it for a few days myself, at VND125,000 a day or US$5. But, whenever possible, we walked to most places.

Initially, I complained about the noise from the streets and potential pollution, but I came to realize that it was heavenly after we returned to Chiang Mai where the air pollution was severely hazardous due to the spring burning. They say that PM2.5 level is above 100, it is unhealthy while Chiang Mai's PM2.5 level shot up as high as 500! Yikes!!! I miss the blue skies and white clouds that we took for granted in Dalat.

As we walked around, we found a pine tree woods where we spotted a cozy place to look at green houses growing flowers and veggies. A tranquil pine tree spot drew our visits twice more times.

On another walk day, we visited a place that was supposed to have artificial waterfalls. We decided to pay a visit, but we were disappointed by the stinky sewer smell coming from the water. Well... at least we cannot smell the stinks on the photos.

One day, we were able to walk around the lake located in the middle of the city. We ended up walking 12,000 - 15,000 steps. Our lower back pain caused some pinching pain as we walked, but we overcame the pain to complete the walk.

Dalat has one Big C Supermarket. We found this place a truly affordable market where you can buy almost everything at affordable prices, even lower than at the traditional markets. I ended up buying six shirts and one pants, costing us 5-6 dollars per item. Wow...

As we walked, we experienced several scenes that are noteworthy.

Dalat has only one Korean church, that is fairly new and is renting a space from a Vietnamese Reformed Church, Tin Lan. It is the largest protestant church in Dalat. We worshiped at this church while we were in Dalat. On the second Sunday, this church celebrated its 90th anniversary.

We spent some time with a couple from the Korean church: Mr. and Mrs. Yeol Suh. He is teaching at Dalat University as a volunteer. He used to be a teacher and also got involved in international trade while he was in Korea, particularly olive oil.

There are several Korean restaurants in the city, but we enjoyed Fungi Chingu, a B.B.Q. place. For two of us, an order of octopus, an order of chicken, an egg dish, two orders of ghimbab and one liter of beer, plus unlimited supply of fresh veggies, set us back only $11.90. What a steal! We visited this place four times. Great value for the price!

Cho in Vietnamese means market. So Cho Da Lat means Dalat Market. This market is considered the largest in Vietnam, I heard. A little bit hard to believe. But they had a lot of stuff.

Overall, we enjoyed our stay in Dalat although we could not resist a sense of the city being far too small. - Jeffrey