After the giddy is gone...

If a doctor or nurse in Singapore asks if you're giddy, they don't want to know if you're feeling pretty, witty and wise. They want to know if you feel dizzy. The good news is I only occasionally get dizzy now and the headaches are gone. The bad news is I may have a second fracture in my neck or back. No one asks if this makes you giddy. More on that in a moment.

I've been home almost a week and you can see that my black-eye is quickly fading. Luckily, I've had a polo shirt to match the changing colors of the bruises -- black, blue, orange, yellow and now a lovely lavender. It's been an eventful six days, by my bed-ridden standards.

Last Sunday, as I was heading out to watch a little basketball at Boomerang, I met Kumar a construction worker who gawked at me as if he'd seen a ghost. In some ways, I suppose it was a resurrection. I introduced myself and asked if he had seen me fall. "Yes," he said. "Can you show me where I fell?" He pointed down the street. "Did I make it across the intersection?" "Yes."

The road was freshly paved and painted while I was in the hospital. They could have memorialized me by changing the wording to Lump Ahead.

      Kumar explained that as I crossed the street coming back up the hill from the river, I stopped, kind of swooned and then went down like a felled tree, bouncing off my forehead first. The ambulance arrived in minutes, he said.

     "Was there blood?" I asked.

     "Yes," he assured me. "Lots of blood."

     A couple of days later, I was back at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) for a follow-up CT scan of my head. Of course, I demand nothing but the finest equipment and SGH delivered with the Siemens SOMATOM Sensation 64 CT Cardiac Scanner. Don't let that cardiac reference fool you. This baby can show you 64 slices of any body part you want except your soul. I'll get it all on a CD next week.

May you never need this deep a portrait.

     Later, Dr. Raj showed me how my head is mending nicely. There's a much smaller puddle of brain-fluid leaking out, hence my improved color. The skull isn't causing me any problems compared to a nagging pain that moves around my upper body -- chest, back, arms, neck. 

    Dr. Raj said it could be due to a second fracture somewhere in my neck or back, which like my skull can only mend with time. Taking more x-rays won't necessarily find a very small but painful crack, nor would it change the prescription. But he said if the pain doesn't start to fade in a week or so, more investigation may be necessary. Yippee...

    On the positive side, Dr. Raj said my heart is fine and did not cause the blackout. The general consensus is dehydration may be the culprit. It's not just me. I saw in the local newspaper yesterday that two Singaporean soldiers were also recently hospitalized due to "overheating." The army is launching an investigation. 

Dr. Raj looks over my record and pictures.

Doc's orders for now include:

• Avoid exercise except walking for three months.
• Drink something like 100 Plus and eat an energy bar before future running sessions.
• Take calcium pills for three months to help the bones mend.
• Take daily doses of Panadol, Tramadol and Celocobrix pills and apply Ketoprofene plasters to the neck, back, etc., until the pain starts going away. All the meds can be mixed. No kidding.

     The pain meds will be managed week-to-week. They're concerned about Tramadol being habit-forming, but I don't think it's good enough to make anyone crave it. Two pints of a decent ale would likely be more effective. 

     Celocobrix is a different story in my opinion. It's the generic of Celebrex, which has been marketed for arthritis relief. This can seem a bit more mind-numbing than the Tramadol. So take pity on any arthritis sufferers in your midst currently using the stuff. They're not going daffy necessarily, they' may be just high. Quietly do them a favor if needed. Turn off the oven. Get their keys out of the front door. And sweep up any broken glass. It could be you someday.

Down for the count in Singapore

Hua Hin is where Thai royalty goes for vacation.

     We were supposed to spend the first part of this week with friends Amy and Todd, who traveled here from Denver, at the Hua Hin Hyatt Regency. Instead, I managed to get a room with three incredibly stoic cancer patients at Singapore General Hospital. Apparently, there's no wing devoted to skull fractures.

Singapore General's admissions office. I didn't have to stop here. I got the red-carpet
treatment, going through the ER.

     It all started last Saturday morning, exactly 24 hours before our flight to Bangkok. I went out for a jog about 8 a.m. I didn't get home until after 6 p.m., however, on Wednesday.  

All smiles at home now, but still
plenty of aches, pains and dizzi-
ness to go around. Does it show?

    The medical consensus is that vasovagal syncope took me down. That's medical speak for a complete and sudden blackout. The best guess is my blood pressure had fallen too low and when enough blood had drained out of my head, I did a face-plant on the pavement. That was around 9 a.m. 
    I was about a block from home when I went down. Margaret didn't get a call from the hospital around 1 p.m., while she was out looking for me. Who knows how long I was on the street waiting for someone to call an ambulance. Luckily, I had managed to stuff my ID and medical cards into the little key-pocket on my running shorts.
     Conditions weren't particularly hot, 82 degrees, though humidity was right at 100 percent. I listened to my body, I thought, and stopped running when it said to stop. I didn't feel sick or light-headed. The last thought I can recall having was whether or not to stretch out my walk or go straight home. Next thing I knew I was fighting off a gang of young men all dressed in blue, trying to fit me with a neck brace. That's when the pain in my head caught up with my consciousness and I started begging for drugs. They offered pills, but I needed relief, NOW! "I need an injection," I remember saying. I must have been convincing because they jabbed me right away. It was good, not great, but I was grateful. 
     At least my head didn't explode as I had fully expected. That's small consolation because my skull is still fractured, cracked like a hard-boiled egg. It sucks as much as it sounds. 
     I regained consciousness in the emergency room of the world's third largest teaching hospital. It seemed like the entire staff of 7,200 was on hand to put humpty-dumpty back together again. 

Down for the count.

     My team of specialists and the gaggle of interns that appeared around my bed each day with the lead physician, Dr. Bok, seemed to agree I had fainted. 

     "So I have a fairly routine concussion," I said. "There's nothing routine about a fractured skull," Dr. Bok said, unamused. Clearly, he didn't want me taking it lightly. The mystery, and his main concern, was why my blood pressure had suddenly dropped. I wasn't doing anything unusual and I don't have history of fainting. So he kept me around for a few days to try and figure out what had caused the black-out and, of course, to monitor my vital organs. I got the full treatment. I visited the eye doctor twice, the ear-nose-throat specialist once, the neuro-surgeon at least three times, took a stroll around Ward 78 with the physical therapist (her advice: stick to a stationary bicycle for awhile) and saw the cardiology team a couple of times every day. They did an ultrasound on my heart and also strapped a portable EKG monitor to my chest for 24 hours. No clues emerged, but they happily eliminated any heart problems.

     Because I had said my head pain felt like a severe sinus infection, the ENT doc showed me on the CT scan that my sinuses were clean. He then gave me a look at what my skull looks like with a crack in it -- just above my right eye.  I go back to Singapore General next week for another brain scan to see if I'm bleeding or if I'm leaking any other fluids. 

     Thailand will happen eventually. The hotels are paid for, plus change fees. Maybe we'll be able to go in July. Whenever the docs say the cabin pressure on the plane won't blow my brains out. 
     Stay tuned.


(Left) Dr. Han, ear-nose-throat expert, shows me my computerized axial tomography scan. He said the fracture was as clean as were my sinuses. "It should heal nicely," he said cheerfully.

Gray, but not gloomy, Hong Kong

We wrapped up the whirlwind tour of China's three most famous cities in Hong Kong. Below is a view from the top of Victoria Peak that you might get to see if you ever come here.

Spectacular Hong Kong!

Unfortunately, here's the view I got.

Soggy Hong Kong.

I didn't pay extra to reach the very top of the peak because what was the point? It was reward enough to ride the old tram up and walk back down via the Old Peak Road. Uh-huh...

The Peak Tram has reliably climbed the 1,811-foot Victoria Peak since 1885.
The rich people with gazillion-dollar homes just drive.

Indulging in the local transportation options is one of the major "highlights" of visiting Hong Kong according to Lonely Planet. The Peak Tram is one. Then there are the skinny street cars. Two bucks will get you a quick overview of central Hong Kong, or at least one of the main drags.

I rode the yellow one to the end of the line on the west side. 

And last, there's the Star Ferry fleet. Another two bucks will get you to Kowloon from central Hong Kong. 

We were on the Twinkling Star, built in 1964. 

So, you may ask, what do you find in Kowloon or the west side of Hong Kong? On the west side I found a lot of high-end antique shops and fine-looking bistros and nightclubs on Hollywood Road. But the real treat was stumbling upon the Man Mo Temple.

The Man Mo Temple was built in the 27th year of Emperor Daoguang Qinq
Dynasty. I'll do the math for you. That would be 1847 A.D.

The temple is dedicated to the gods Man Cheong (God of Literature) and Mo Tai (God of Martial Arts). Man is symbolized by the pen and Mo by some sort of hatchet weapon. 

This woman was passionately stroking the pen icon while I as there. Perhaps it was an 

effort to conquer writer's block. She similarly honored the martial arts god, stroking the 

weapon thingy on the left. Maybe this was an effort to make her agent more aggressive. 

I didn't interrupt her to ask.

Over on Kowloon, I'm sure there are many fascinating things to do, but we were on a mission for high tea at the Peninsula Hotel. I've had high tea at places like the Pump Room in Bath, England and the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C., so I knew what I was in for food-wise, but I didn't expect to stand in line for two hours to get it. This place is extremely popular and not just with tourists. The people in line with us were locals who had come more than once. By that point in the day, though, I needed food not dessert. I opted for the club sandwich, which was excellent. Let's face it, high tea is for royalty, people with so little to do they can afford to eat a 2,000-calorie snack between lunch and dinner and then maybe take a long nap before cocktail hour. Hmmm... that sounds a little too much like my typical day.

Margaret enjoying high tea in the stately lobby dining hall.

The Peninsula Hotel is the kind of place where the Rolls Royces are prominently parked
right outside the door.

Here's a few parting shots of Hong Kong to complete what we hope isn't our last trip to China. Remember my naive awe in an earlier entry about the use of bamboo scaffolding to remodel a three-story shop house in Singapore? That was nothing. 

Very tall buildings like this 20-plus story apartment house were under repair using
them all over Hong Kong.

Brutal.

Perfect.

Bad feng shui. Hong Kong's Bank of China building (left) is known as the "brutal building." Apparently, everything you can possibly do wrong in erecting a structure was done here. The sharp angles, instead of rounded shapes as seen on Shanghai's Oriental Pearl TV Tower, is likely giving off bad vibes to the buildings around it that could hurt their prosperity. Those giant Xs are considered negative. And some say it looks vaguely like a preying mantis, a threatening symbol to feng shui-ites.


Despite the bad vibes we may have contracted from being near the Bank of China building (I did come down with a cold after taking the picture), we had a good intro to Hong Kong. Hollywood Road turned into a happening party scene after dark and was jammed with expats and/or resident Brits celebrating William and Kate's nuptials -- or maybe just the fact it was Friday night. (Would the women wear plastic tiaras every Friday night?) And the restaurant scene here is the best we've seen anywhere in Asia. You'll get a good meal, with interesting twists and great service, anyplace you stumble into -- hotels included. But it was now time to sail into the sunset and return to Singapore.

Joi gin, Hong Kong!

Shanghai sky-high and down-low

The main tourist destination in Shanghai is The Bund for skyline peeping. It's pretty impressive day and night.

Two yuan (about 30 cents) will get you across the Huangpu River to the modern 
Pudong District.

Another two yuan will get you back to the old-school Huangpu District.

Part of the nightly light-show includes a non-stop parade of highly-decorated tour boats. 

Art deco peeping is also big along The Bund. The best example is inside the Peace Hotel, formerly the Cathay before the revolution. Now it's the Fairmont Peace Hotel. 

I managed to get a few pictures before the guard stopped me.

There are plenty of mildly amusing sites around the older part of town. Such as young scam artists. The fresh-faced gang that targeted me as I entered People's Square sounded like they had read Lonely Planet as a how-to. Just like the guide said, they told me they were students, they took my picture and invited me to a one-of-kind traditional tea ceremony.

Me and my scammers.

Ah-ha, I said to myself. That's right -- ah-ha! But I played along so I could get the photo. The girl on my left did all the talking and she delivered her lines in monotone without taking a breath. I think they must have been new to the scam game. When I said no thank you, they just melted away and didn't even try to give a hard sell. Anyway, the scam involves stiffing the tourist with a large bill after they stuff themselves at a local hotel.

Chinese tourists wear matching hats. Red is the most popular color.

In the the tree-lined French Concession is where you can experience the well preserved, east-meets-west Shikumen architecture that is now home to upscale cafes and boutiques. You can also line up with local tourists and visit the site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party on July 21, 1923. A young Mao Zedong was in attendance. The red-hatted tourists above had to pay to get in, but a uniformed guard intervened when I tried to pay and said it was free. I wonder if he thought I could use a little re-education. Honestly, even at free it's over-priced. The exhibits are mainly old photos and everything is in Chinese. Go figure.

This time I only got off one shot inside before I was told to knock it off.

One can just imagine Mao and some of the boys discussing dialectical materialism
at The Coffee Bean.

Old Town is worth a look if only to see what a Chinatown in China looks like. You'll know you're there when you reach Old Street.

Classic Chinatown entry on Old Street.

Classic Chinatown trinkets and trash.

But wander down any of the side streets and you can still find, uh, rustic Shanghai. Stick 
with this unpromising lane and you come to Yuyuan Gardens founded in the 16th century.

May in China is wonderfully colorful. 

 Time to move on to Hong Kong. But first, a few parting shots:

Only in Shanghai did we see two-wheel vehicles (motorized or other) rule some streets and
all sidewalks.  

Break time outside the mannequin outlet. You can only imagine what those guys stuck
inside might do for a cigarette.

It's almost like Ray Kroc knew that someday China would be the Big Mac's largest market.

 Zaijian Shanghai!

Overwhelming, glorious Beijing!

Your correspondent with a portrait of the original Hair Club for Men model.

Singapore Post Cards is not dead. My computer had a near-death experience and I had a bad cold, but Post Cards lives! We recently returned from a 10-day tour of China's big three metropolises -- half of which felt like it was spent in airports and on airplanes, but all for a good cause. Margaret got to meet with her teams in the country's three main offices and I got to do what I do best, goof around in a strange place. Not even the marriage of our good friends Will and Kate could derail this express, though it did delay dinner one evening. So sit back -- as much as you can at a keyboard -- and try to enjoy the next few postings. 

We learned over the next couple of days that it's always rush hour on the rails beneath Beijing.

Within two hours of landing in Beijing, we had ditched our bags at the hotel and headed to the nearest subway station to embrace rush hour on a Friday evening. First stop was the lowering of the flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square, which occurs every single night precisely at sunset with almost supernatural precision by the Red Guard. 

Due to overcast skies, we can't vouch for the precision of the precise sunset timing, but we did get a first-hand look at the precision with which the Red Guard cleared Tiananmen Square after the ceremony. That was impressive.

We spent most of the next day at the Forbidden City. Aside from the spectacle of seeing perhaps the world's best preserved example of gracious emperor-style living, was the spectacle of seeing it overrun with Chinese tourists. We had heard that domestic tourism was one of the hot new industries on the mainland due to the magic of planned capitalism, but we weren't ready for the borderline desperate enthusiasm of the local tourists. To get a peek inside one of the main halls and forbidden thrones,  you have to fight your up the steps to the open door. 

Congratulations! You've made it to the rail for a view the throne inside the Hall of Central Harmony.

The building has also been known  as Hall of Overwhelming Glory and Hall of Central Extremity over the centuries. We're thinking of renaming our throne room the Hall of Necessary Evil.

Now try getting out.  

Hard to believe an empty chair could be such a draw. What would have happened if somebody important like Stephen Tyler or Charlie Sheen had been sitting there? Side note: Can you find Waldo, I mean Margaret, in the above scene of overwhelming extremity? Sadly, this great human wall defeated her best efforts to bask in harmony and glory.

Margaret got her revenge by pulling up some of the the peonies (the unofficial national flower) growing in the Imperial Garden.

I jest, of course. The Forbidden City is well worth seeing. Truly overwhelming and glorious in every way, except for the Hall of Restrooms. Squatting is hard on the legs. If you're coming here, start the deep-knee bends now.

One of several large plazas and throne halls inside the compound.

Attention to detail that would make any real estate agent's job easy.

Margaret's co-workers and the hotel staff advised us against trying to see the Great Wall during our two-and-half-day visit. They all said we would waste an entire day on a bus or in a car and the weekend crush would be too much. At least it gives us a good reason to return. Instead we headed out to see the Temple of Heaven and beautiful park. On the way we stopped at the nearby Pearl Market -- five floors of shops and stalls all selling pearls.

Margaret praying for a good deal at the entrance to the Pearl Market.

Before going inside, why not stop at this Starbuck's copycat. Too lame? They also sell beer. Nothing lame about that!

While Margaret shopped until the vendors dropped, I went to see the temple. It burned down in the 1800s and was reconstructed entirely from Oregon pine without a single nail. Behold.

The emperor came here annually to make sacrifices to the God of Heaven in hopes of securing a good grain harvest.

That night we went to a restaurant operated by Buddhist monks. As if to prove how versatile vegetarian cuisine can be, they offered the biggest menu we'd ever seen. It was all good -- very classy dining room and lovely presentation of each dish. But the most memorable part of the evening  was our trip back to the hotel. When we asked the folks at the restaurant about getting a taxi, they sent a boy in his flowing robes out to hail us a car. He managed to stop one, but the driver didn't seem to want to take us. But the boy gestured for us to get in as he held the door for us. So far so good. We drove about 100 yards around the first corner and the driver stopped the car and starting yelling at us, waving for us to get out. That wasn't going to happen. We had no idea where we were. So we had a stand-off for several minutes. He kept yelling and grousing. After making a big deal about writing down his I.D. number and showing him I wasn't fooling about reporting him to authorities, he got on the phone and started yelling at someone else. Eventually, apparently shouted out. He drove us to the hotel. Whew!


One of the things that surprised us about China was how easily people in general both laughed and argued on the streets, in the parks and on the subway. You never see that kind of emotion in our new-found hometown. There is a reserve among the Chinese in Singapore that we didn't see in mainland Chinese. Anyway, as we leave Beijing, here are a few random shots of people enjoying one of their favorite pastimes -- hanging out in their truly beautiful parks.

Just outside Behai Park near the Forbidden City.

Ritan Park, near embassy row.

Ritan Park.

Temple of Heaven Park.

Beijing Zoo.

Jingshan Park from just inside the Divine Military Genius Gate at the Forbidden City.

Zaijian, Beijing!