~manila, you're not that ugly

10. Random acts of kindness from strangers.

When you’re in a strange new place, it really warms your heart to be welcomed by a local, and we felt this in every leg of our trip, from meeting Mandy, an English-speaking tourguide, on the bus from the airport in Saigon, to sharing fish amok and beers with couchsurfer Ate Elma in Phnom Penh, and of course to the friendly local staff in our hotels in Siem Reap and Saigon.  Tourists are also given to smiling and greeting each other on the road, and being such a tourist destination, smiling was abundant in Cambodia–which I found reassuring and, in a way, a sincere pleasantry.

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I’ve always wanted to do NASA training– zero gravity, food pellets, and that contraption that spins you spread eagled.. look at this new gimmick from Singapore– so exciting! And by 2009, who knows, travel to that country may be as low as a metro ride!

An odyssey in space
CITY SENSE By Paulo Alcazaren
The Philippine STAR 11/04/2006

“Spaceport Singapore to rise soon.” I was dumbfounded as I read that Space Adventures, Ltd., together with a Singapore-based consortium, announced that it plans to develop an integrated spaceport in Singapore. The facility will offer suborbital spaceflights, as well as run training facilities for future astronauts along with facilities for public education and an interactive high-tech visitor center!

I was an avid follower of the space race and grew up with Gagarin, Glen, and all those cosmic white knights all the way up to Armstrong, Aldrin and beyond. My first wide-screen movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey . I figured I would be in my 40s when that year came up and pondered the possibility of commercial space travel featured in that film. Then there was Star Trek and travel at warp speed.

Well, reality has come around slower than the warp barrier. The handheld communicators used by Kirk and Spock are everyday objects now, but phasers and space travel have been an elusive and expensive undertaking, up to now.

A few years ago a competition was launched to encourage the first private vehicles into space. The Ansari X Prize offered $10 million to the first team to launch a piloted vehicle a hundred kilometers above the earth (considered the threshold of space – where you start to float and the curvature of the planet is evident). The feat had to be done twice in a single week for the win. In October 2004, pilot Mike Melvill in a Burt Rutan-designed, Paul Allen-funded SpaceShipOne did just that. The frontier of space was opened to ordinary folk from that day on.

Not long afterwards, Sir Richard Branson boasted that he was going to offer space rides on his Virgin Galactic in 2007. But even he has been slow to jump on the rocket wagon. The company Space Adventures had already put billionaires Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth into space. The two, however, had to pay millions of dollars each for their jaunts via the Russian Soyuz rocket. Recently, American woman Anousheh Ansari, also armed with hundreds of platinum credit cards, took to space. I figured I’d wait till the price came down a bit and for the spaceport to be built for a re-usable space-worthy craft. I did not think that it would come that soon and this close to the Philippines.

Singapore is only two degrees from the equator. Every school kid that grew up in the heady years of Voshtok rockets and Apollo spacecraft knew that it takes the least energy to escape the earth’s gravitational pull at the equator. Besides, Singapore already has the world’s best airport in Changi. It is also one of the busiest, channeling 40 million passengers and tourists to Asia from everywhere else in the globe.

The proposed Spaceport Singapore will focus on the simpler suborbital spaceflights – at least to start with. As the suborbital space craft reaches its maximum altitude of 100 kilometers, passengers on board will experience up to five minutes of continuous weightlessness, while gazing out at the wonder of space and the gentle curve of Mother Earth below.

Not surprisingly, this fantastic venture is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board. The STB realized that there is enormous commercial potential in space tourism and with the backing of the government, went all-out to look for the best company to invest in the business. The market potential for suborbital spaceflights alone has been conservatively estimated at over a billion dollars a year.

For those who have not saved enough for a suborbital ticket, Spaceport Singapore will offer exciting alternatives, high-altitude experiences and a taste of astronaut training. Parabolic flights that will allow passengers to experience the magic of weightlessness, G-force centrifuge training, and simulated space walks in water tanks will also be a blast. For real flight, visitors can suit up and zoom off in a number of cool-jets aircraft, There’s also close-to-real flight simulators and the usual interactive exhibits – or you could just have a jet-boosted latte at the center’s Starbucks.

The actual suborbital transport system is designed by Myasishchev Design Bureau, a renowned Russian aerospace company. Its vehicle, named Explorer, can carry five people into space in comfort and safety. Other systems are being developed along with all the support software and hardware to make it all possible.

The estimated cost of Spaceport Singapore is over $115 million. It will be partially funded by the private sector in Signapore, Singapore itself, along with Space Adventures’ global partner, His Highness Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince of Ras Al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. Additional funds are being raised in Singapore by KPMG Corporate Finance. The company’s advisory board is made up of astronauts like Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, shuttle astronauts Kathy Thornton, Robert (Hoot) Gibson, Charles Walker, Norm Thagard, Sam Durrance, Byron Lichtenberg, Pierre Thuot and Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott. Spaceport Singapore is due to open in 2009.

Everyone is excited. Pretty soon we may be hearing news that Singapore Airlines will go sub-orbital, too. Studies are already being undertaken that will cut hours off trans-oceanic flights via short hops into space. That’ll surely be the greatest way to fly.
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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.

Speaking of Singapore, today I read a short piece about how it rose from the ashes. Was from “Descending to the Top” by Butch Jimenez–it’s another of those graduation speeches meant to inspire (or more aptly, meant to move to action those who are still inspired). Full text here, excerpt on Singapore below:

Discipline is a very fascinating thing. In the world of competition, you’re always competing with somebody else. There is Smart competing with Globe, There is GMA competing with ABS-CBN, there is Sony competing with Samsung, and the list goes on. But when it comes to discipline, you are not competing with anybody else. You are only competing with yourself. And if you lose, guess who actually loses, only you.

A year and a half ago, I went to a leadership conference in Singapore that put together and assembled some of the best speakers in the world. I actually had to pay a huge amount-probably my whole month’s salary-just to be able to enter that conference. Al Ries was speaking. Film legend, Francis Ford Coppola was speaking, Rudy Giuliani, who led New York to rise from the 911 crisis, was speaking and Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore was one of the speakers.

I wanted to listen to Lee Kuan Yew and what he had to say. Lee Kuan Yew shared how he built Singapore from nothing to where it is today. He shared that Singapore , barely a generation ago, was far worse than many of its peers. But today, it is an economic superpower. He narrated that when he first started to lead Singapore , he asked his think tank to visit neighboring countries like the Philippines , Indonesia , Vietnam , Laos , Cambodia , and figure out what they don’t have. He said they all came back with one conclusion: These countries lacked discipline. So to differentiate Singapore from its neighbors, he decided to build his country on discipline. This meant that if Singapore promised something to its people, to its foreign investors, and to other countries, it will be fulfilled. A disciplined country and a disciplined people-that’s what he built Singapore on.

Discipline. Our lack of it as a people is seen everyday in one of my biggest pet peeves: jaywalkers. Steel bars welded to the sidewalk aren’t enough to stop the stubborn Pinoy pedestrian.

Coming soon in theatres worldwide is Fast Food Nation by Richard Linklater, who created some of the first talky movies I thoroughly enjoyed: Before Sunrise and the experimental animation, Waking Life, and who actually said, “My plan B has always been to make a film about people who talk a lot.”

In any case this newest project is based on a book that goes deep into the world of fast food (as opposed to slow or soul food?), exploring the nitty gritty of its underbelly: what goes on behind closed doors, how raw products turn into burgers and fries, and the dirty magic that makes sure it happens.

Recently read an article on Askmen.com that spilled some of these industry secrets: The flavor in the fries is not potato — it’s meat; There are animal by-products in the milkshakes; There may be beef in your chicken; The guy who made your burger may not have washed his hands after using the bathroom; Fast-food meals contain common food allergy ingredients, but they don’t tell you which ones; Fries are not made from 100% potato.

Personally I’m not a fan of fast food (i.e. I don’t crave for it), but without intending to, I’ve used McDonald’s menus as a recent cultural gauge of sorts:

Beer on the Madrid menu shows the Spanish outlook on alcohol (it’s certainly a staple!) but the variety of salads and yogurts also implies a preference for “healthy” fast food.

The Malaysian menu is more or less the same as ours, with a Cheeseburger De Luxe similar to Jollibee’s TLC. One noticeable addition to the menu: Beef and Egg Burger that looks like it has mayonnaise.

In Malaysian KFC, mayonnaise is used in place of sour cream as dip for potato wedges. Reminds me of that same switch to mayo for the Chicken Baked Roll in Pricesmart outlets, a cost cutback which annoys me to no end.

Recently visited relatives in Sabah, Malaysia. Was a quiet holiday, a food fest more than anything else (hurrah for teh tarik or “pulled tea”, nasi lemak, mee goreng mamak, and all the different kinds of roti!). Few observations:

1. Race over class. Unlike Manila, where the haves battle it out with the have-nots, the people of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (Kuala Lumpur or KL is another matter, they say) are loving, non-judgmental, and accepting of people regardless of socio-economic class. My tita told me that rich and poor eat side by side in restaurants and visit the same hawker stalls in the street. No one looks you up and down when you enter a bar or pub (where Tiger beer is king) ; no one judges you immediately based on your car or clothes or language of choice (English, barok or not, etc.) . Small talk is not made by namedropping one’s school or family.

Sabahans (the people of Sabah) are more particular about race, with most news reports citing a person’s race as key identifier (ex. A filipino man was caught on an illegal boat…A local Chinese woman won the Idol search…). Despite this, there is still a sense of racial harmony–Chinese, Malays, Indians all mingling and interacting without apparent bias.

2. Press freedom and bilingual dailies. Friends and I were recently debating whether having “the press with the highest freedom in Asia” is something to be proud of…we have yet to maximize this privilege. I’m sure my old Comm teachers would stone me to death for saying this, but I’d consider media regulation if it meant more full stomachs and economic empowerment for Filipinos.

Malaysia is known to censor the media, and looking through a few dailies did leave me wanting for more diverse and meaty news, but interesting to note is that most of its major papers come out in both English and Malay. Reminds me of a comment a French friend made when I took her to Philippine Independence Day celebrations in Madrid: “Everything (speeches, laws, etc.) is in English? How do the common people understand?”