Italy

Alright, just a quick write on the recent trip to Italy as I don't have a lot of time. This was a conference trip to Florence (Firenze), a truly charming old city that's considered the birthplace of Italian renaissance. But the first weekend went in Rome, an even more historic city with far too many sights to list here. Well, I arrived in Rome in the evening and you know what I like, so it's no surprise that I searched "tango Roma" on my phone and typed the address to the Maps program. So here's a bit of something new to this blog, technology. I'm using a Nokia N95 nowadays and it does, among tons of other features, come with GPS. It can find where it's located, download a map of the area off the Internet, and if you type in an address too, show you on the map how to get there. While updating your position on the map as you walk, as I did, among the historic streets of Rome. It's fun and it works well. But back to tango, Rome has about 5 milongas every night but unfortunately I didn't really locate the one I went for on the first night. I did find the indicated address, but the people outside that said it's like a theater. There was a tango school a couple of houses down but not a milonga at that moment. Never mind.

The next day a penpal of mine agreed to be a local guide to show me around Rome, and therefore a lot of sights fit into that one day! Starting from the Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill etc.




In the evening I looked up another of the tango places, and this time I successfully found a place to dance. It wasn't quite what I had expected, but on the positive side it wasn't only my first time dancing in Europe but also the first time to live music! I was expecting a much more crowded milonga, and hoping for a more youthful one, but it was alright overall.

Then it was off to Florence. I figured I can just walk to the hotel with the GPS, and indeed found a way to walk by the riverside and it wasn't far. It turned out the whole city, or at least all the parts where a tourist would wonder into, are within a walking distance. River Fiume runs through the city, and the Centro Storico (Historic Centre) is filled with wonderful narrow alleys between ancient buildings, and littered with little restaurants and shops. It was almost as if no big supermarkets existed in Italy, and cars were delightably few.




The conference itself took place in the central Fortezza da Basso, an old fortress now used for conferences, apparently. This was CHI08, on Human-Computer Interaction, and quite interesting, lively, and large, with over 1700 people attending. The best part, for me, was the message of "CHI goes green", taking the environmental matters far more into account and presenting papers on sustainability.

My initial plan was to return to Rome after the conference, but with a sudden decision I took off to Sardinia instead, after all, I had never been there before. I took a train to Liverno and from there a ferry to Olbia on the island. Unfortunately I didn't have time to venture further than that city before heading back, to Civitavecchio on the mainland and from there back to Rome. Sardinia seemed beautiful, although I was somewhat at odds as to what to do there in just one day when the wind was too cold for swimming. I mainly just walked around and watched the sea.




And then it was just heading back, via Civitavecchio where I sat for a couple of hours watching the sea.


Almost forgot, Italian food is amazing! And so easily vegan. All you really need to remember is "senza formaggio" (without cheese), and you can get the most amazing food you've ever had. And in the home of pizza, having it without cheese is normal and pretty common, so no-one will question your sanity. The same goes for pasta. The last day wasn't good food-wise though, for one thing I ended up being in the wrong places during the proper meal times and restaurants don't like to serve food other times. For another, Air China forgot my vegan meal as they so often do. And for a third, the restaurant at the Roman airport has "pizza rossa", which is just pizza with tomato sauce basically, but they use pizza bases that already have some cheese in them, rather than making the pizza there. So not for vegans. But overall vegan culinarists will have delicious times in Italy.

Vegan Brunches

One of the reasons I haven't written for a while has been the sheer number of great veggie events recently! First there was the animal rights concert in Wudaokou, to be continued with a concert tour around China (assuming we can raise the funds for that). The club has also switched to three weekly meetings now, with the potluck Sunday brunch being the best of all! It seems our group has some excellent cooking talents. Here's a sample of what was on offer yesterday:

Otherwise it's been lots of work, sports, and dancing. Speaking of which, I shall now return to the least exciting one of the three.

Malaysia

恭喜发财！Happy Rat Year! The Chinese New Year passed again, here in China that means several things:

1. A 7-day public holiday. Yay! (Well, it's 3 days really, just combined with weekend work.)
2. Totally sold out public transport.
3. An incredible amount of firecrackers and fireworks with which people blow up a year's savings. It's a war zone, and your ears are the victims.

Hence, I used #1 to escape from #2 and #3. To Malaysia, because I've never been there before, it's not dreadfully expensive, and it's warm. Arriving in Kuala Lumpur the taxi driver pointed out a crowd queuing for tickets and a sense of familiarity came up, but fortunately it wasn't anywhere near as bad over there. At least after the very first day train and coach tickets were available, there were very few firecrackers, and many businesses stayed open. KL is quite a modern city with at least passable public transport and everything you'd expect in a big city. But nothing overly exciting, what I wanted was the seaside. I was told by a local vegetarian couchsurfer that the nicest beaches, such as Tioman island, were closed due to monsoon season and the best available would be Langkawi.

Therefore, after glancing at Wikitravel, I decided I'd go by train to Butterworth, use the ferry to Penang, then another ferry to Langkawi, and figure things again there. So here's my first bit of Malaysian travel advice to you: Don't take the train, use the coaches! The train was about 4 hours late, really slow, and while ok, not as comfortable as the coaches. Given the late arrival, I decided to stay overnight in Butterworth. My second advice to you is: Don't stay overnight in Butterworth! There's nothing there, and I mean also no decent accommodation. At least I couldn't find any. I ended up in a hotel (the only one I saw) which admittedly was quite cheap, but that's about all the praise I can give it. I guess it was used primarily for prostitution.

This picture from Butterworth demonstrates that Malaysia has a very international feel to it, not only thanks to tourism but also the multicultural population of Malay, Chinese, and Indian people. All of which made it largely quadrilingual, with signage often in Malay (sometimes written with both Latin and Arabic scripts), Chinese, Tamil, and English. Lots of people seemed to speak good English, too many in fact, to put my Malay in test.

The ferry-ride to Penang is really short and nothing to write home about. It arrives in Georgetown, which is a reasonably-sized city and has plenty of accommodation options available. Cheap sleeps are in Chinatown. A cheap single room in much of Malaysia seemed to be around the rate of 30 - 40 RM or around 6 to 9 euros per night (a tad more in KL). This usually means shared showers and toilets. Well, Georgetown is famous for food, and they do indeed also have vegetarian restaurants! Unfortunately many were closed due to Chinese New Year, but I ran into an open one while walking lots in the city as always, and it was a very good one. I'll figure out the address later. Penang island also has some beaches, and that was one major reason to go to Malaysia so I rushed off to the nearest one. It was ok, there were horses, all the usual beach activities (jet skis, paragliding, etc), expensive beach bars, quite a lot (but not overcrowded) of people, and nice sand and warm water.

Penang was good, but when I get on to the travelling around mode I tend to just keep going. Hence I headed off to Langkawi the following morning. That's a much longer ferry ride, about 3 hours, but not too bad, leaving around 8 AM daily. Langkawi had me immediately admiring its beauty, well, as soon as I got out of the awful shopping centre the ferry drops people in. It's a real paradise island with endless white sand beaches, coconut trees and monkeys running around. It's even a tax haven. I soon started regretting not booking accommodation in advance as I didn't know where to go, but luckily Zackry's Guesthouse had a dorm bed free, for just 15 RM. Later I noticed there are plenty of motels around the island pricing rooms to the neighbourhood of 40 RM, even with private showers and during the Chinese New Year.

What comes next is easy to guess. The beach. The endless white sand beaches with the rolling waves of the ocean were so inviting I spent the next few days largely in the water. Swimming for hours, but I did also go island hopping, saw lots of cute monkeys, plenty of eagles, even more of those crab-like little things that make the holes in the sand (what are they called?), and went kayaking around the island. And got my phone broken while heading back. All this, while watching the sailboats around, made want even more to get my own sailboat! Well, some day.





What I haven't really brought up yet is food. I was expecting something similar to Indonesia where things with tempeh and tofu were all around. But to my disappointment I didn't find that at all in Malaysia. It seems the wonders of tempeh goreng or even tahu goreng are very much limited to Indonesia. The Malay food was largely infested with fish sauce, and Langkawi was a pretty bad place for that, the island is full of restaurants advertising sea food. The exception is the 'capital', Kuah, where they do have a vegetarian café at least, but I was on the other side of the island. However, there is a large Indian population in Malaysia and of course that means there is Indian veg food to be found, almost anywhere. Including Langkawi, but to my shock when I took the ferry out and went to the capital of Kedah province, Alor Star, that city seems to have no Indian people nor restaurants nor vegetarian options! So I had to rely on my well-trained stomach to go a day without food and not complain.

Indeed, beach holidays are fun but after a little while you do want something more. Like something to do after the sun goes down. Or, if you burn your skin, something more to do even when the sun is up. And definitely, some good food, for the selection in the Indian places (none of which was pure veg) on Langkawi is limited. So I decided to head south to Singapore. It is true Singapore has overly strict punishments, and it's quite disturbing that they do the largest number of capital punishments in the world (in relation to the population), but even so I do like that city. It's a city where you can be dropped anywhere, walk around randomly for half an hour, and run into at least one vegetarian restaurant. Where it's constantly warm, all year round. Where public transport works and goes everywhere. Where multiple cultures mix without clashes. Where Asian cultures can be met without the bothersome foreigner label you get elsewhere and things are pushed at you because of it. Where cars stop for pedestrians going across the road. Where homelessness seems largely a solved problem. Friendly people, beautiful places, and general cleanness, and all services available all the time. It's just comfortable.

And my favourite place in Singapore is Sentosa island. Fine, the beaches aren't as great as Langkawi by a long shot, but they're still far better than anything a Finn would dare to dream about. And you can go to the city in the evening to dance tango. And eat in various vegetarian restaurants in styles of any culture. Or whatever else you might want to do.


After a couple of days of heavy eating in Singapore I headed back to Kuala Lumpur in order to get back home. I got one of those tickets for the hop-on, hop-off tourist buses going around the city, and it seemed just the thing for a day visit. The Lake Gardens were nice, especially the Hibiscus and Orchid gardens there. And the Petronas Towers actually do look quite nice, especially at night. So, overall, a great trip, and Malaysia as well as Singapore are certainly along the top of my recommended travel destinations. The rest of the pictures are here.

“Don’t Eat Friends” Concert, March 8, in Beijing

The Chinese animal advocacy and vegan outreach group Don't Eat Friends (founded by Giant Beanstalk lead singer Xie Zheng), will be playing an awareness-raising concert promoting veganism on Saturday March 8, at 9pm, at the 13 Club in Wudaokou, in Beijing's University District.

The general theme of this concert is that the health of our planet and our bodies could benefit enormously from a more compassionate and ethical relationship with our fellow earthlings.

The name of Xie's group Don't Eat Friends derives from his most common explanation when questioned about why he is a vegan: "Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends."

This will be the first concert of a planned ten-city tour of China to raise awareness about veganism and to highlight the problems of factory farming, animal experiments, moon bear "bile farming" and fur farming.

For details in Chinese: http://blog.sina.com.cn/biechipengyou
For details in English: http://vegansocialclub.com/?p=73

Vegan Beijing

Vegan Beijing is looking better and better these days. The most important development in that is the newly started Vegan Social Club. We have a vegan dinner every Thursday in a nice restaurant and also the vegan brunches on Sundays have become a nearly regular event. And the number of people keeps going up, our record is 28 people and a cat (the cat wasn't vegan, and actually not all the people were either, but at least interested) during a Sunday brunch, and yesterday we had more than 15 people at the dinner also, thanks to a group of Swedes joining us. It's awesome meeting so many compassionate and kind people at once! And each of course have their own interesting tales. Many are amazing chefs also, this picture is from the Mexican vegan brunch by Pat, not a great picture but certainly great food!

Otherwise I've been highly engaged in the moving issue, the office has moved to a faraway suburb without decent public transport and I don't know if I should move after it and be isolated from the world or move somewhere else and be isolated from the workplace. It doesn't help matters that Chinese housing agents are some of the most difficult to deal with people. If you ever look for housing here, do not expect service, expect to be abused, then you're prepared in roughly the correct way. Anyhow, it snowed yesterday. Beautiful. :-)

The Home of Santa

Happy 2008 to everyone! So, Christmas break and holiday to Finland. Finland is the best place for Christmas, or at least it is for me. The home of Santa Claus. I was feeling like him once again on the way over with the huge suitcase full of gifts. It always feels a little odd returning to Finland and hearing the familiar language everywhere. We headed almost straight to my father's kesämökki / summer cottage in Kihniö, a little town about 120 km from Tampere. I was saddened to see there was no snow and weather reports were saying there wouldn't be any, but fortunately it did snow a little so we didn't have a completely non-white Christmas. We went off to find a Christmas tree, and walking with the ax made me think whether plants can feel pain or not... hope not.

The Finnish Christmas celebration usually focuses on Christmas Eve (24th), but some of my siblings were coming only on the 25th so we delayed some things a little. At noon they announce peace for Christmas, after which they play the most militant song in Finland, quite grotesque actually. Around then people eat rice porridge with plum sauce. The porridge is made with milk but soya or oat milk works fine. After that, well, if you're all set otherwise, decorate the tree!

In the evening there's the Christmas dinner. This has three special casseroles only made at Christmas time: potato, swede, and carrot. The two latter mentioned ones are often vegan even in the traditional recipes (although some put cream in the swede casserole), the potato one has milk but again, soya or oat milk works fine. With those they generally eat ham. One of my sisters made a wonderful ham replacement from cold smoked tofu. Then there's a special Christmas bread (which is vegan) and salads or various other things... different families have different habits. The sweet section has Christmas tarts which have plum in them (vegan unless applied with egg for colour) and ginger biscuits (some are vegan, most have egg). And you drink glögi or glögg in Swedish... fruit juice with certain spices, heated up and often sharpened with wine or spirits. Much like mulled wine.

After that Santa comes, but as there was no-one of suitable age this time around, Santa passed us by and just left gifts under the tree. We didn't even open them before the others arrived on the 25th. The others included the main reason for getting over to Finland this time: the newborn baby of my brother. He takes after his father, just six weeks old and he could already speak a little bit of Arabic and Finnish, albeit only the word "no" in both languages. Pretty negative, then. :-P

The gifts were too many as usual, and after that it tends to be time for various kinds of games. Someone always gets games, and Christmas is the perfect time for playing them. One of the games was Scrabble, which is pretty interesting in Finnish because you can make all sorts of crazy words by combining them. Some of the creations were totally hilarious. The rules exclude conjugation forms as then it'd be one form after another, endlessly. Outside games are certainly in too, unfortunately this time there wasn't enough snow for regular winter games but being outside in the fresh air is good enough. Ah, and sauna, almost forgot that!

Roll over to New Year Eve then, as you may or may not know I turned vegan with my new year resolution of 1996 and hence it was a time to celebrate 12 years as a vegan. My tradition, albeit a relatively new tradition, is to celebrate with a meal in a vegan restaurant on New Year Eve. Last year it was the Millenium in San Francisco, this time it was Veganissimo in Tampere. The foods were amazing, the restaurant was far better than expected! The price level was rather normal for Finland, and actually ended up a lot cheaper than the meal at the Millenium despite more eaters this time.

All the photos are here, including nice photos of a lake, such as the here. Happy New Year!