East Eats West

Latin American museum airline

Picture: Inside the business class cabin of Aerolineas Argentinas. 

I spent Christmas and New Year celebration in a warm and humid Argentina. To get there I took a flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires on the national carrier Aerolineas Argentinas. It was a twelve hour flight back in time as the plane, a very well-travelled Boeing 747-400 Jumbo, was ancient (telling from the stickers on the food trolleys it probably belonged to Air Canada before). The seats in business class reminded me more of a sleazy hotel lobby, nevertheless they were soft, roomy and comfortable. Underneath the seats loose wiring was visible and retracting the footrest involved some manual labour. However, I had a good night's sleep as the seats were as comfy as in an old pink Cadillac. During the flight the board computer couldn't make up its mind about the correct flight time and the information on the screen was hardly visible as the ancient tube television had lost most of its display colors (only green, blue and any mixed of those colors were available). The flight staff were middle-aged, friendly but could not speak English. And lastly the announcement to stow away the tables and upright the backrest were largely ignored and no staff bothered to check (in fact during landing kids were running around and an elderly couple were clinging on to their suitcases that were placed in front of them and not in the overhead compartment). I did feel like a flight back in time and I was glad we landed safely.

Picture: Wiring dangling from the airline seats. 

  

Cosmopolitan Latin living in Buenos Aires

Picture: Film shooting at the Avenida Alvear in Buenos Aires. 

Wherever one goes in Buenos Aires, the city feels European: from the far-reaching and incredibly wide boulevards to the many green parks littered with monuments and pleasant cafeterias and restaurants, Buenos Aires definitely feels more like Paris or Rome than Rio! But in comparison to sprawling European cities, Buenos Aires, home of over 3m people in the city center and 10m in the metropolitan area, has been able to keep its neighborhoods intact. I have not come across one mega-sized shopping malls like the ones littering Bangkok or Singapore but across lively streets where permanent street vendors sell flowers and grocery stores offer home-delivery. I stayed at a friend's place in the up-market neighborhood of La Recoleta and was amazed by the number of small shops selling locally made leather shoes, home-made pasta or Argentinean beef. Buenos Aires is definitely a city made for people who want more than massive shopping malls. And already $100 000 buys you a nice apartment (top condominiums with three bed rooms go up to $500 000, which is still good value in comparison to Zurich, Paris or London). Just be aware not to stay out late in San Telmo or La Boca neighborhood as crime is still a problem here.

PS: An extra bonus are the reliable, cheap, mostly clean and modern taxis.

 

 

Handmade leather-goods in Buenos Aires

Picture: The Polo gear section at Rossi & Caruso in Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is a city of over ten million people that mostly have European ancestors. Combine the European background with cattle-farming, a love for polo and riding gear and what you get are world-class leather-goods. Therefore Buenos Aires is a prime location for bags, shoes and jackets made out of leather. At least as long as you stick to the top-line brands and not the cheap leather shops on Florida street. A good place to start with is the up-market neighborhood of Recoleta that looks more like Paris than Latin America. Two of my favorite shops are Lopez Taibo and Rossi & Caruso. Both sell well-made leather-goods made in Argentina. The shops are very classy and a big weekender bag will set you back not more than 350 USD (due to a very favorable exchange rate and tax-refund), which is hard to beat for value! You find the websites here:

http://www.rossicaruso.com/

http://www.lopeztaibo.com/

 Picture: My new Lopez Taibo weekend bag. 
 

Merry Christmas from Buenos Aires!

 

 According to the legend Santa Claus brings presents after midnight. In Switzerland it is a fairy who brings the presents during dinner and then rings a little bell attached to the Christmas tree. In Argentina in contrast Santa Claus runs the risk of being set on fire through firework displays. The reason being that in Argentina, people instead of going to bed after having a rich dinner, stay awake until midnight to toast to each other with fizzy drinks. Drinks are then followed by fireworks and opening of the presents. And at the very end everyone crams into a car and drives around in order to visit friends and family. So Santa Claus needs to be a careful pilot over Argentina!

 

Malacca Strait lanterns

During my last visit to Malaysia I ordered two handmade Chinese lanterns from the last Chinese lantern maker in Penang. Unfortunately he has never completed them, so far at least. Now a reader of my blog sent me two pictures of two handmade Chinese lantern he got made in Malacca, Malaysia. Those are even more beautiful! Thanks Lee!

  

Lust for the future or why climate change is nothing new

Do you believe that climate warning might kill humanity? Do you believe that islamist terrorism is a real danger in the West? Do you believe that more and more species go extinct because of us humans? Do you believe that inequality in Western societies is increasing and that this is bad for everyone?

According to the well-known German futurologist Matthias Horx these are modern frames, or stories everyone believes because we read and see it in the media every day. But he begs to differ. He strongly believes that those are overhyped stories sprang mainly based on fear. Because fear is our strongest motivator. By the way, this is also the point Michael Moore made in his movie 'Bowling in Columbine'. Horx showed in his stringent presentation that the climate always changes. Greenland is called Greenland because in medieval times Vikings did farming there. He showed with public statistics that the chance being killed by a terrorist attack globally is less than one in 1.8m and that the most common cause for death is heart failure because of lack of exercise and bad eating habits. He showed that yes indeed species like the Dodo got extinct. But scientists showed that over 70'000 species were created by man (just think ugly little dogs called as pets for blonde girls). Mr. Horx also prooved that never before was there such wealth as today (do you remember another time when they had refrigerators?). It is simple: we are programmed to have fear and react to it. And the media as well as experts and the government live on it. If the government comes up with vaccines for swine flu, we believe that they care for us and once the swine flu is gone, it was the governments doing (flu tends to disappear on their own). If you are afraid your choice will be limited. Fear gives us tunnel-vision and we tend to block out other information. So the key is not to be afraid and be balanced.

So what to do? He thinks we should not read the tabloids or watch TV. And we should make up our own opinion, start to see reality the way it is, not the way it is portrayed. Have lust for the future instead of worrying about the past. Change is our nature. If this sounds familiar to you I might point out the Siddharta Gautama, today known as Buddha, said about the same thing. Buddha would have suggested meditation. It might be worth a try!

Read more thought-challenging stories on his website: www.horx.com

The end of Carcosa Seri Negara?

Picture: A tropical paradise in Kuala Lumpur, Carcosa Seri Negara Hotel.

I wrote about the last colonial hotel in Kuala Lumpur before and how much I liked it. Now news reached me that they want to destroy those marvelous colonial style buildings and redevelop the whole hill. Luckily, according to a reader's comment, the hotel shall only be refurbished (thanks god)!

 

Customers are rarely kings in Switzerland

As a customer you are rarely treated like a king in Switzerland. Whenever I have contact with any professional staff I tend to expect the worst. Positive surprises are rare. A few instances where I was at the receiving end of an such negative surprise are as below......

This summer I wanted to buy a sculpture by Michael Ball, a talented German sculptor. So I went to see a Bernese gallery owner who represents Mr. Ball. Unfortunately Mr. Rigassi, the gallery owner, forgot about our meeting and I went in vain. He apologized and so I went a second time. This time Mr. Rigassi was there but busy playing an arcade game on his laptop! He played for over ten minutes despite us waiting. What unprofessional behavior!

Not long ago I found a nice gallery with vintage watches in Zurich owned by Jim Gerber. I went in and found Mr. Gerber sitting on his desk. He welcomed me but remained sitting, not offering me a seat. I asked him where he gets his vintage watches from. He told me, jokingly I assume, old grandmas sell them to him! I asked how I would know if they are real. His response was that if they were fake, he would not be in business anymore. I was stupefied by his smart-ass answers and left. By the way, the watch I took a keen interest on had a hefty price-tag. And as a consumer one has to be always on guard and not taken around for a ride!

And last but not the least I recently went with friends to eat Raclette and Fondue, two traditional Swiss dishes, at a specialized restaurant. Upon entering we were told by the restaurant owner that he strongly advises to take fondue, as it is served in a pot, not like raclette, that needs to be made fresh plate by plate and would take more time (raclette was as all-you-can-eat). Most of us decided to have fondue and some had raclette. Consequently they had to wait for a long-time to get their raclette. What an odd concept for a restaurant that specializes in raclette!

The gist of these stories is that we the Swiss favor rule-based business practice over customer-service. Customers have to comply with the business owners, not the other way round. A customer is rarely king in Switzerland; he is expected to wait, be quiet and obey. Friendly service is an exception and normally handed out by foreigners, rarely by the Swiss. Maybe we should learn from the German executive chef at Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Josef Budde: “I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about the quality of service that is special to Japan. Respect, humility and quality are some of the most important and wonderful cultural elements.” Swiss service staff lack some basic Japanese humility.

PS: We recently had a rushed dinner at the Restaurant Kantorei in Zürich. Not only was the service lightning fast but the waiter was also very professional, warm and friendly. He was German of course!

 

Mountain hotel Julen Zermatt

While visiting Zermatt this summer we stayed at the charming and rustic four star Hotel Julen. The rooms are cosy and wooden clad with colorful bed linen and a charming restaurant. The only downside was the many guys walking around with shirts untucked and wearing Rado watches.

www.julen.com

Rare tea and wild chocolate tasting

Picture: tea-cups reading for Chinese tea tasting at Shui Tang's. 

Wine tastings are very common and bringing an exquisite bottle of wine to a dinner-invitation is a must. Well, not for me as I do not like wine (I like tea and beer). Arguably tea is much older and more common than wine so it has a much richer history (the Chinese have been drinking tea for millennia). And should you think tea-bags when you drink tea, you sure have to learn a lot. While tea hardly goes along with a standard Western meals, one can easily pair tea with chocolate, as we found out at a chocolate tasting at a local tea shop by the name of Shui Tang. The chocolate that was sampled was made of wild hand-picked cacao from Bolivia. A representative of Reichmuth von Reding, a specialist Swiss colonial goods importer, explained the long and burdensome journey of wild Latin American chocolate. He gave us samples of different truffles, some with ginger, others with cumquat-fruits and some with almonds. Then the owner of the tea shop served us two Chinese tea varieties, one smoked and the other one a slightly sweet Oolong. Particularly the strong-flavored smoked variety was a pleasing combination with the slightly bitter and sour chocolate. Should you be interested to learn more about tea or chocolate, best thing is to visit the quant Shui Tang tea shop in the old town of Zurich and start a lively discussion with the very knowledgeable owner.

Or you can order the premium quality chocolate here: https://www.rvrtee.ch/

And should look for some high-grade Japanes and Chinese tea, visit Shui Tang's website: http://www.shuitang.ch/

Picture: Where high-quality tea meets exquisite Asian interior design.