Bellini Room, St James Power Station

The Bellini Room is a jazz bar at the newly opened St James's Power Station at Sentosa Gateway. I went there with a few friends last night who wanted to go karoke and despite my not particularly liking that activity, figured it was worth checking out St James' Power Station and I'm glad I did.

The highlight for me was the resident jazz band and singer, the Bellini Room Band. A 7 piece band of mainly local jazz artists, it's led by a very strong music director, keyboardist and singer. The two older musicians, the drummer and the trumpeter both wear these fedora hats adding to the mood. The saxophonists are much younger and do excellent technical renditions. The singer that night was what really made the band stand out much more: a young Aussie jazz singer called Dylan Foster originally from The Flying Pickets in London.

I somehow really liked this guy's performance. It helped that he was cute and could engage the audience with ease by doing the occasional stroll amongst them to get a little audience participation. He really does as he says: put the soul back into swing. Best at the more soulful jazz numbers, he excelled at the more urban pieces as well as the latin jazz ones. He then unfortunately did a Michael Buble number at the request of one of the members of the audience in the exact same style of Michael Buble. While it was a very good imitation, its a bit sad that he felt he should imitate Michael Buble and I hope in time that he will do less of that and more of his own style which has enough individuality to make him stand out.

He then switched to some rock and roll numbers but despite his ability to belt them out, his personality so did not go with them so I hope he sticks with what he does best: soulful swing and latin jazz. And I hope he sticks around. There aren't any other singers like him on the Singapore scene that I know but I figure he's good enough and young and ambitious enough that he'll move on to better pastures soon.

Zaru Soba

In quest for a healthier lunch now that the healthfood store next door to my office has doubled its salad prices, I have decided to try cooking a little at lunchtime. Nothing major ie boiling soba noodles for zaru soba which I love.

I managed to find chasoba noodles at the Holland Village Cold Storage which come prepackaged into little serving sized bundles. I also managed to find tsuya which is the soy based dipping sauce for noodles and a tube of wasabi. I stuck religiously to buying only Japanese brands with ingredient labels in Japanese, and the odd sticker of English translations as to my dismay, any Korean or chinese or even some Singaporean brands have been adulterated to local tastes.

Chasoba is made from buckwheat and green tea so maybe it'll even help me stay awake after lunch instead of falling into a postlunch stupor. Soba is also rich in fibre and selenium and vitamin B...apparently it is the noodle of choice of health conscious Tokoyites.

I boiled this together with some Chinese watercress and rinsed it. And discovered that one rinse with tap water is insufficient to remove all the starchiness. I have a wonderful bottle of australian made organic brown rice miso which I added a tiny teaspoon of to the mixture as well as of course the dipping sauce and gobbled it all up in 5 minutes.

Taste-wise, I need to either go really pure and eat proper zaru soba or convert it into hiyashi noodles, as there's something missing or which doesn't quite gel although overall it's not bad. Hiyashi noodles however is usually made with ramen, though in the interests of experimentation, I can always try a soba version. Overall, I think what's missing is a bit of protien for both taste and nutrients so next time I should try some cold tofu dish topped with bonita flakes in some soy sauce or add slices of omelette and ham.

These however are strictly for alone eating. I don't think it's the sort of thing I'd inflict on anyone else other than myself for a quick working lunch.

Aikido Grading

Grading for aikido ranks is generally a very helpful affair although it's still tense. I arrived just as the white belts were starting out but didn't really watch them as I was distracted with talking to my friend who was grading for her 2nd kyu (black belt). It's always nice to have a friend to go through these milestones with. It's also we had a pact that we would uke (attacker partner) for each other which was possible since we were grading one after the other.

Turned out fine on the whole. I uked (partnered) for my friend as her first uke. I think I ended up making 2 mistakes as uke but corrected them immediately and fortunately these didn't unnerve her. I have to say my friend was quite composed, far more than I was when I was doing my grading at her level.

When it was my turn, I had three very nice guys be my ukes one after the other after sensei (instructor) made my friend step down as uke as she had just completed her grading. Usually at this level the gradings are longer, so ukes tire out and sensei changes them. The last guy I had was a very nice shodan (dan grades are the grades beyond black belt) and he was great as he's got beautiful ukemi (partnering techniques). We ended with tanto (wooden dagger) techniques which were a surprise...shows you how much I've been paying attention at gradings! I should have realised there were going to be these techniques.

The funny thing is now I actually like the freestyle (respond how you want to an attack) section best which is the bit I used to be the most wary of. It's partly that I'm less nervous than the last time, and partly that I know I can't forget a technique since I'm allowed to employ any aikido technique that I know. Whereas now there are so many more techniques that I can be tested on, I could easily forget some of them on the spot.

And of course the best thing about it all is that it's over and generally while I don't think I did that well technically, I'm unlikely to fail. So I'm pretty happy.

Confessions of an Aikido-holic

I'm an aikido-holic. I practice aikido 3 times a week, two hours at a time. When I can't practice you may notice I begin to display symptoms of restlessness, inattention to whatever is at hand unless aikido-related, a predilection to thinking in terms of blending and movement and in extreme cases, a dashing off in the direction of the dojo.

Tomorrow is when I grade for what they call first kyu which is the last stage of learning the basic movements in aikido. Everyone sits in this very large glass walled hall, where the parents, friends, supporters can sit outside and watch. But in the hall itself, it's generally quiet and discipline that rules. They call the white belts up first and then it proceeds up the ladder of seniority. People grade in groups before a large grading panel of sometimes up to about 8 examiners. I'm always hoping that I won't have to be lined up right under the noses of the examiners. Then they call out for ukes or attackers to partner the candidates and off it starts.

I'm grading at intermediate level so it means I sit on the mat for an awfully long time before I get called....that's bad for me because I get increasingly tense and the adrenaline starts flowing but has no where to go. By the time I get up there, I'm so pumped and jumpy I tend to forget movements. not good. But after it's over, everyone is all smiles and saying what they did right or wrong, and since in the time I've been there no one has ever failed, usually everyone is happy although the formal results don't come out for a month.

So wish me luck!