December 10
Nice dinner with Preetha Pillai, cousin of Kumar Nandan!
Some of you in Pittsburgh, especially Tax people, may know my good friend Kumar Nandin from PPG. Kumar came to PPG a few years ago from PwC and just a few days ago was named as the next Vice-President of Tax at PPG, effective March 1, replacing John Kolling. Congrats, Kumar!
I met Kumar in 2013 at a PwC conference in Kiawah Island. (Tough duty I know but I was a speaker…).
Anyway Kumar and I got along great at the meeting and we decided to have dinner back in Pittsburgh at the Hartwood Restaurant with my wife Susan and his wife Kathy who worked for the Reed Smith law firm. It turned out that Kathy had interned at BNY Mellon about 20 years ago working for Susan so it is a truly small world.
The world got smaller when I found out that Kumar grew up in Singapore so we met him before Susan decided to take the temporary assignment and he highly recommended that she go to Singapore. And it got even smaller when he gave us the contact information for his cousin, Preetha Pillai, who is a corporate attorney in Singapore focusing on Caymans Islands law.
Susan had met Preetha for lunch before I got to Singapore and we both met her again for a delightful dinner on December 10 at the PS Cafe which is downtown and has some beautiful views and excellent food. Preetha and I both had an excellent Pork Chop and Susan enjoyed her chicken dish as well, while we toasted Kumar in a photo.
I told Preetha that I’d be happy to carry some presents back for Kumar’s two children which I did and I also asked if there was anything from Singapore that Kumar would like. She suggested “Killiney Jam” for Kaya Toast, which happened to be at the Killiney Kopitiam location just a couple blocks from our apartment. You can see it on the second one of these places below.
https://www.thebestsingapore.com/eat-and-drink/the-best-5-kaya-toast-in-singapore/
The first day I stopped in the afternoon and they were “cooking” it so I had wait till the day before we left to get it. Doesn’t look too appetizing and the description isn’t much better but I hope Kumar likes it and maybe I will try it when we are back in Singapore.
December 12 – Rainy Day and Super Dinner with Francis Braeckevelt and Andrea Chew.
On this day we met for dinner with Francis Braeckeveld who is the Asia Pacific Chief Operating Officer Asset Servicing in Singapore for BNY Mellon and his wife Andrea Chew.
Susan has worked with Francis for many years and we were excited to meet with him and his wife for an authentic “Peranakan” meal at the National Kitchen by Violet Oon at the National Gallery of Singapore.
I had done some prep work on the restaurant and what Peranaken meant as the Peranaken museum is across the street from our apartment.
Peranakan Chinese, or Straits-born Chinese, are the descendants of Chinese immigrants who came to the Malay archipelago including British Malaya (now Malaysia and Singapore, where they are also referred to as Baba-Nyonya) and Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia; where they are also referred as Kiau-Seng) and southern Thailand, primarily in Phuket and Ranong between the 15th and 17th centuries.
The Peranakan Museum is a museum in Singapore specialising in Peranakan culture. A sister museum to the Asian Civilisations Museum, it is the first of its kind in the world, that explores Peranakan cultures in Singapore and other former Straits Settlements in Malacca and Penang, and other Peranakan communities in Southeast Asia.[1] It is housed in the Old Tao Nan School building at Armenian Street, which once served as an extended wing to the artefact collection of the Asian Civilisations Museum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakan_cuisine
I took the MRT train from our building and walked a couple blocks where I had another good view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.
I got there a bit early (surprising I know) and looked around the National Gallery a bit.
I met Francis, Andrea and Susan at Violet Oon’s and we had a great time and had a great meal. There were too many dishes to remember but some of them included Chicken Satay, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Dry Laksa noodles, Butter Prawns, Deep Fried Barramundi, etc.
During the meal we talked about their two girls and they happened to show us pictures of them on the Asia version of Harpers Bazaar where they had done some modeling so I snapped a couple of pictures. Very cute!
On the walk back to the train I took a picture of Susan’s building which is at One Millinea Tower. It is the lit building where the top looks a bit like a pyramid and the next one is Marina Bay Sands at night.
December 13 – Kevin Hart Irresponsible Tour.
The night before we left we attended the Kevin Hart Irresponsible Tour at the Singapore Convention Center that seats about 10,000. It was pretty funny but they definitely didn’t censure him like they do many of the TV shows in Singapore! We were warned about 20 times that if we took a video we would be kicked out but the third picture is a video they authorized at the very end.
Our driver Kenneth Oon picked us up at 6:30 AM for our 8:20 AM flight to Toyko on Japan Airlines for 7 hours followed by a 14 hour flight to San Diego then to Chicago then to Pittsburgh where we arrived at 10 PM the same day we left with the 13 hour time change and nearly 26 hours of travel but all went well.
On the plane I watched Crazy Rich Asians for the second time. But this version was more fun than when I watched in Pittsburgh as I could say “I was there” or “I know where that is.”
Here are some photos I took from the screen on the plane.
This one is Marina Bay Sands on the left.
This one with the pyramid is Susan’s office. Don’t you think it looks just like the actual one I took 8 photos back!
The Merlion at night,
And Gardens by the Bay at night!
Our Japan Airlines flight attendant after she found my glasses after a 10 minute search underneath the seats in the seat mechanism after I’d looked everywhere.
Our 787 plane.
San Diego – Hi Ian and Allie Fetterman!
Arriving at home and watching Susan cry as Jennifer and Mark had completely decorated the house and put up a beautiful tree! It was great to be back in Pittsburgh! More to come in next installment. Merry Christmas! Jim Hollingsworth
Singapore Travel Blog 