Gunman and 8 Hostages Dead in the Philippines

Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency

Policemen smashed windows and stormed the bus.

By CARLOS H. CONDE

Published: August 23, 2010

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MANILA —A former police officer took a busload of tourists hostage in downtown Manila on Monday morning, opening a 12-hour standoff that was broadcast live on television, including its end as police commandos stormed the bus before a watching crowd.

Related

• The Lede Blog: Video of Manila Hostage Drama (August 23, 2010)

Enlarge This Image

Erik De Castro/Reuters

A demand was posted by the hostage taker on the bus window.

Enlarge This Image

Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An ex-policeman who hijacked a tourist bus (inside the bus) speaking with negotiators at the front of the bus in Manila on Monday.

Eight tourists, all from Hong Kong, were killed, along with the hostage-taker. He was identified as Rolando Mendoza, a 55-year-old officer who had been accused of robbery and extortion and was fired last year.

There were indications that Mr. Mendoza, who news reports said was armed with an M-16 assault rifle, was watching the live news broadcasts of the scene on a monitor inside the bus as it sat for hours, curtains drawn, at a major public plaza.

Throughout the day, the gunman wrote his demands for the return of his job and benefits on cardboard and pasted them on the windshield of the bus. One message read, “Big mistake to correct a big wrong decision.”

Late in the afternoon, he posted a message saying, “Media now,” apparently telling journalists to come to him. But by then the police prevented reporters from even getting near the bus.

At one point, the gunman’s brother complained to reporters near the scene that the police were threatening him; the cameras then showed him being detained by officers and shoved into a police car, his relatives wailing behind him. Shortly after, shots were heard from inside the bus.

Gunfire also broke out when the police tried to break the windshield and glass windows of the bus with sledgehammers. A bystander was hit in the leg by one of the bullets.

Mr. Mendoza gave an interview to Radio Mindanao Network, a Manila station, in which he admitted shooting two of the hostages and threatened to kill more.

“I shot two Chinese,” he told the station in Tagalog. “I will finish them all if they do not stop.”

The commandos struck after the bus driver jumped through a window and ran from the bus screaming, “Everybody is dead!”

The cameras captured the commandos, armed with rifles, surrounding the bus and opening an emergency exit, as emergency vehicles converged at the scene in heavy rain.

Police officers threw tear gas inside the bus, apparently forcing Mr. Mendoza to go near the bus’s main door, which they had torn down. Shots were heard and in a split second the body of a man — presumably Mr. Mendoza — was seen slumped by the door.

Several of the unharmed hostages, visibly shaken and some crying, were taken off the bus through the emergency exit.

President Benigno Aquino, in a news briefing around midnight, said Mr. Mendoza might have gained some advantage from the coverage. “To a certain extent, he may have had a bird’s eye view of the developments, which might not have helped,” the president said.

The case captivated — and angered — Filipinos, with many blaming the news coverage for the disastrous end.

The chief executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang, called the case a “major tragedy,” and criticized the Filipino authorities.

“The way it was handled, particularly the outcome, I find is disappointing,” Mr. Tsang said at a news conference in Hong Kong, Reuters reported.

But Mr. Aquino defended the actions of the authorities: “The idea was to let the ground commanders who are the experts in this field handle the operation with minimal interference from people who are less expert.”

Designing for iPhone 4's Retina Display

Designing for iPhone 4's Retina Display

(from http://globalmoxie.com/blog/designing-for-iphone4-retina-display.shtml)

So, um, maybe you heard: there’s a new iPhone out. For my money (and I shelled out plenty for it), the phone’s best feature is the new “Retina display,” the eye-popping high-resolution screen. Everything they say about it is true: at 320 ppi, the pixels are just plain invisible. The crisp bright screen really looks as good as print, absolutely gorgeous.

But what soothes the eye also adds headaches for designers. For three years, the iPhone came in just one flavor of screen resolution: the 3.5-inch screen was always 320x480 pixels. The new phone doubles the resolution to 640x960 pixels. Suddenly, we’re all designing for two different screens. Fold in the iPad, and you’ve got three iOS screens to juggle. (Hey, it’s better than designing for Android phones, which will have around 60 different devices and form factors by year end, but still... device fragmentation has arrived in its own small way in iOS land.)

Apple’s done some nice work under the hood in iOS 4 to make this transition as easy as possible, but designers still have to take on some extra legwork. Here’s the gist.

I’ll Give You Two Pixels for That Point

Starting in iOS 4, dimensions are measured in “points” instead of pixels. Conveniently enough, the iPhone screen is 320x480 points on both iPhone 4 and older models. Since that matches the pixel dimensions on older phones, existing apps look and work the same on those phones in iOS 4 as they did in earlier operating systems. There, one pixel is one point, a one-to-one match.

In other words, dimensions for all the various elements of iOS 4 remain the same, but their units have changed: you just substitute points where you used to say pixels. (Ah, the travails of the hard-working tech writer; the new phone was unveiled just two weeks after my new book Tapworthy went to press. Though the 640x960 screen was already a foregone conclusion, it wasn’t yet clear how iOS would handle the new resolution, so I had to treat the matter with benign neglect. Alas, Tapworthy refers to all of its dimensions in pixels. If you have the book, just squint a little and pretend it says “points” instead.)

On iPhone 4, a point is two pixels; draw a one-point line, and it shows up two pixels wide. So: just specify your measurements in points for all devices, and iOS automatically draws everything to the right proportion on the screen. Text and images remain the same physical size on both old and new phones. That goes for bitmap images in legacy apps, too; iOS 4 blows ‘em up, automatically pixel-doubling them to adapt to the new phone’s resolution.

Of course, pixel-doubled images don’t take advantage of the gloriously crisp display on the new phone. That’s where your extra legwork comes in: to add high-resolution images to your app, you have to include a second set of all your graphic files. For every image in your app, add a second version that’s twice the size, adding @2x to the name. For a low-resolution image named image.png, for example, you would add a second file named image@2x.png. The new image will be picked up automatically by iPhone 4. Everywhere your code requests image.png (or even just plain old image), image@2x.png will be used instead.

Really? Yep, Really

I know what you’re thinking: “Do I really have to make two versions of my images? If I make a single high-resolution set, won’t iOS 4 scale them down on older devices?” Sorry, no, not automatically. While iOS 4 goes seamlessly in the other direction (scaling up low-res images for iPhone 4), it doesn’t work the other way. By default, it scales all images so that one pixel equals one point. That’s a great solution for making sure that old apps work correctly on the new phone, but it doesn’t help you go the other way ‘round.

While you could add additional code to downsize each and every high-res image for older devices, that would a) be a hassle, b) reduce performance, and c) create resized images that don’t look as good as the original. It might be extra work to create two sets of images for both old and new devices, but that’s the right way to go.

In practice, that means Photoshop fans should learn to get comfortable with Illustrator or [insert preferred vector application]. By building your app graphics in vector format, you can export them in whatever size you like with limited muss or fuss. This almost certainly won’t be the last time we see a new iPhone screen resolution emerge, and you can be ready for the next time by prepping all your graphics in vector formats. (Some folks, including Sebastiaan de With and Rusty Mitchell saw this coming a long time ago.)

There’s one exception to that: the app icon. Because of the wide variety of sizes and contexts in which your app icon appears, a pixel-perfect bitmap approach makes good sense. That’s particularly true for the tiniest versions, where the fabulous vector detail of your large icon will just scale down to mush. More on icon Photoshoppery in a sec. First, let’s get acquainted with the growing family of app icons that iOS requires for the various devices.

Boy Howdy, That’s a Lot of Icons

It used to be simple. You used to need just three icon sizes: a big 512px icon for the App Store, a 57px icon for the home screen, and a 29px icon for search results. Now, if you’re building a universal app for iPhone, iPhone 4, and iPad, you’ve gotta create 11 — eleven! — separate icons. And can you believe it: the mix even includes both 57x57 and 58x58 versions. Oh, the humanity. Here’s the rundown:

App Store Icon

• 512x512 (scaled down to 175x175 for display in the store)

Application Icon

• 114x114 (iPhone 4)
• 57x57 (older iPhones)
• 72x72 (iPad)

Spotlight Search Results and Settings Icon

• 58x58 (iPhone 4)
• 50x50 (Spotlight results for iPad)
• 29x29 (settings for iPad and older iPhones)

Document Icon

This is a new icon type in iOS 4. It’s used if your app creates a custom document type. The iPad uses the document icon in two different sizes.

• 320x320 (iPad)
• 64x64 (iPad)
• 44x58 (iPhone 4)
• 22x29 (older iPhones)

Neven Mrgan to the Rescue

And finally, the promised icon Photoshoppery. The inimitable Neven Mrgan put together a handy Photoshop template to help make quick work of this app-icon assembly line. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, Back on the Web

If you're designing mobile websites or web apps, you likewise need to do a tiny bit more work to show off your high-resolution prowess on iPhone 4. WaltPad has all the details on how to use CSS3 media queries to give iPhone 4 (and other high-res devices) their own special style sheets. Good stuff.

Entering the Monastery – great accommodation in religious houses in Italy

Cost and character

I was in Europe for a few months and the idea of staying in a monastery guest house had a fascinating spiritual aura about it. And not just because the budget. In fact the cost had little to do with the desire. It was more about authentic character and immersion in history, as well as the wish to be a momentary part of a long tradition, even going into the chapel to experience the music and the silence, and the deep sense of prayer and tradition.

My travels were a heady mixture of the secular and the sacred, which of course is Europe in a nutshell. To deliberately add a level of spirituality by actually staying in monasteries would seem to enhance and deepen the whole . To choose to stay in a monastery is not so much counter cultural but hyper cultural. So much of Europe’s history is tied up with religion, so the buildings and the monastic communities could tell tales beyond the mainstream tourist guides.

Great locations

Monasteries are usually quite easy to find – Most have occupied their piece of land for long enough to be part of the cultural and geographical landscape – many are tucked in valleys or crouched on hill tops, easy for wanderers and pilgrims to seek them out. Staying in urban monasteries gives you an insider’s view of the area, and quite literally a key for those secretive doors and hidden courtyards.

Before monasteries became IT savvy, there were a few books published which I tried to use. But the nature of print publishing is that it dates quickly, and may of the details and contacts were not correct. And there were few maps. I spent hours with my atlas trying to work out where places were .

Salvation arrives

Thank goodness then for a new website www.monasterystays.com . This wonderful website lists over 500 monasteries in Italy alone in all the cities and enticing towns and villages you would ever want to visit.

Here are photos, google maps and all the information you need to plan a fantastic holiday in Italy. The site is a kind of agency where you choose the place you want, but will be offered another option if it is not available. Started by three friends who wanted to coordinate all they had learnt about this kind of accommodation, Monastery Stays is easy to navigate and full of useful information. The accommodation is honestly described as

• ‘adequate and comfortable’
• ‘ an authentic slice of Italian life’.

All rooms are booked with private bathrooms. These may be ensuite or privately accessed adjacent to your room (usually depends on the age and design of the building). Prices vary but are less than most commercial B&Bs.

Good Advice

I love their advice:’ Do not expect luxury – that is not a monastery’s purpose – expect clean, well presented simple and functional rooms with warm hospitality from your hosts.

Look to longer stays in less destinations to maximise your experience and explore a location from a peaceful base.

What better way to explore Italy ?

For monastery hospitality in other countries, see www.monasteriesofspain.com. Prices in Spain are about 20 euros a night

Good Night and God Bless

Another website listing a whole range of monastery accommodation in many countries is www.goodnightandgodbless.com

Kulana Artist Retreat in Hawaii for Sale

Cristina writes of news of Kulana Artist Sanctuary in Hawaii:

You know how you can make one decision that takes on a life of its own & whirlpools you towards all kinds of future galaxies?
Well, that’s what’s happening at Kulana these days!

Between Cristina’s movie adventures, & 3+ year resident organic food grower Carl’s move to the mainland, & our newest long-term visitor to Kulana being a builder with skills she’s excited to share…we’ve decided to sell the 3 cabin/4 bedroom + main house on 3 acres with its meditation trails & organic food beds, etc. “retreat” that has been our special home & business for the past 10+ years!

We may be selling the property whole to someone dreaming of creating their own retreat/b&b/intentional community/creative sanctuary/yoga or healing oasis/etc. who finds value in having cabins of various sizes along with the main house/land…OR if the right new owner is only interested in the house and land, we may wind up taking our country-cabins with us!

In either case, this means: not only will we be relocating, but also that we have some version of this special property FOR SALE…in case you know anyone interested in purchasing Hawaiian property blessed-by-kahuna in the temperate-year-round tropics?

Though quiet & private, we’re located near national park hiking, Hilo employment, UH, art galleries, the free bus line, etc!

And as the ONLY retreat in our price range in this special neighborhood (or actually anywhere on the island!), we’d be delighted to hook the right buyer up with our realtor (and can provide partial owner financing for the sale of the complete retreat).

Though Cristina will be back & forth to L.A. & elsewhere from time to time, some version of creative community with her will most likely continue to exist. The shape, location, & perhaps how we operate will be different…but the spirit of special people coming together to co-create, with the intension of sharing our best selves & lives will remain.

Right now discussions are afoot with current, new, past, & returning Kulana-ites about what we’ve enjoyed most this past decade that we want to bring forward…along with our evolving goals for the future! Care to offer your 2 cents?

Meanwhile, we’re continuing to welcome visitors & potential new residents to the artist sanctuary as usual…

Huge thanks to recent planters of poha berries & deck stainers & singers & old-time volcano storytellers & massage therapists & inner sanctum healers & weedeatters & pond lilly transplanters & pig fence builders & filmmakers & gourd carvers.

It has been a total joy living creative community with you…& investing in your/our past/present/future as world visionaries.

And for those of you reading this…if you’re someone nostalgically fond of what Kulana has been, or if you are one of the people who perused our almost 11 years of guest books and said: “I wish I could have been part of the dream-storming inception of all this!” …now’s your chance to come be part of our transition & rebirth!

We hear from the latest travelers that Hawaiian
& some of the other airlines are having particularly good deals!

Google chief: My fears for Generation Facebook

'The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we've ever had'

China augments vegetable supply system

Big but affordable: A huge pumpkin in Changchun, China on Wednesday.

BEIJING: China's central government has ordered the expansion of vegetable production, with increased funding and rail links, to stop an “increasingly serious” food supply situation in some major cities.

The State Council, China's Cabinet, on Wednesday agreed to take measures covering the entire process of vegetable planting, storage, transport, distribution, marketing, quality monitoring and consumption.

It ordered local governments to stabilise and expand vegetable farms in the suburbs of large cities, with minimum planting areas, and to set up vegetable reserves to meet demand for five to seven days in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

The State Council pledged more funds and preferential policies to support the construction of major vegetable production bases across the country.

Banks and other financial institutions were encouraged to step up lending to vegetable production firms and individuals. The State Council also urged efforts to step up construction of special railway lines linking production areas with major cities.

Manipulators warned

Those who spread false information to manipulate prices would be severely punished, said the statement. Mayors were to assume responsibility for the so-called “vegetable basket project” to ease pressures on the supply of vegetables and foodstuffs.

The Ministry of Agriculture initiated the “vegetable basket project” in 1988 to improve production and marketing of vegetables and foodstuffs. Under the project, about 4,000 wholesale agricultural produce markets were established across the country. State Councillors at the meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao heard that vegetable prices had fluctuated sharply in some large cities, with the supplies affected by frequent floods this summer. — Xinhua

Life on the lake

Sailing along Ba Be Lake, 150m above sea level and surrounded by primitive forest

The road to Ba Be Lake is winding and crooked.

At times concrete gives way to dirt and I begin to wonder why I’m travelling 240 kilometers northwest of the capital’s comforts.

By car, this trip can take seven hours.

Perhaps it is this treacherous road that keeps the mountains surrounding Ba Be Lake primitive and unspoiled.

As we neared the lake, the sky opened up and a powerful mountain rain began to fall. I was overwhelmed with the strength of this rain, which seemed to blur the soft green lines of the forest.

As the rain reached a frightening ferocity, Ba Be Lake appeared below us. The lake emerged through the tree branches like a powerful aquamarine monster. Stalks of vermillion corn and rice lined its banks while a patch of floating grass hung on the watery surface. The lake continued to peer at us through the trees as we inched seven kilometers down into the valley toward our home stay at the water’s edge.

Ms. Ho, our Tay host was waiting patiently in her raincoat. Behind her, a large wooden house loomed on stilts. Like other traditional Tay homes the main house is situated next to the kitchen. Family life takes place on the second floor while the ground “floor” acts as a kind of barn for water buffaloes and chickens.

Our terrace overlooks a small green field and a winding river that empties out onto Ba Be Lake. From here, the neighboring houses peek through the sprawling green like tiny mushrooms in a damp field. Before long, night falls and tranquility settles over the valley.

Sleep comes to me so softly.

About Ba Be

The 23,340-hectare Ba Be National Park is situated in the northern border province of Bac Kan. Neighboring hills rise up to 1,098 meters above sea level. Ba Be mean three lakes in Tay language, Ba Be Lake is nine kilometers long and averages one kilometer across. The lake’s deepest point measures 35 meters. At nearly 150 meters above sea level, Ba Be is Vietnam’s highest and biggest lake. It remains full all year round.

How to get there

Some travel to Ba Be by motorbike while others book their use a travel agent who can also help book home stays (around VND120,000 including breakfast).

The next morning we awake to the quacking of ducks. Our breakfast consists of fresh vegetables from the garden and fish caught in the small river in front of the house. “It rained heavy yesterday so the fish came up from the river bed. We caught a lot of fish with our vó (lift net, a traditional fish trap),” Ho said.

The pleasant mother said her family began opening their home to guests years ago, but they still maintain land for cultivation. Their days are spent in rice paddies, corn fields and their home vegetable garden.

They keep chickens and ducks. Sometimes her husband takes tourists out for a row on the lake. Life here seems simple and good.

In the morning, before making our way out onto Ba Be Lake we attempt to catch fish using the vó. We set the four bamboo sticks lined with the netting into the water and wait. When we feel a little movement, we yank the contraption out of the water. All around us, we see fishermen engaged in the same hunt.

In the end we catch a few small fries and spend a while under the trees snacking on our catch. “We should come back here tomorrow with some books,” my friend said as we wandered through rows of trees that seemed ready to fall into the river.

At 2 p.m., our boat was ready. Because we wanted to see a lot, we opted for a motorboat over the traditional long boats rowed by locals.

The midday sun had transformed last night’s big green “monster” into a giant, sparkling diamond. “We are on a lake 150 meters above the sea level,” I nearly shout, just to hear my voice echo through the valley.

The lake is so big that sometimes we have the feeling we are at sea. The shape shifts as it curves though channels lined with ancient evergreen forests. We float along on a deep blue; above us, white clouds cling to the mountain tops like the last remaining bites of cotton candy on the cone.

I try to picture myself in this place. Farming. Fishing. Picking fruit in the forest. The boat passes by a stand of v^i trees (a kind of plant whose buds and leaves can be used to prepare a drink like tea). My friend dives into the cool water and begins a slow swim. I step onto the bank and begin picking v^i buds to make tea back in Hanoi. As I begin plucking the buds, our guide tells us about a python that swallowed a whole goat on a nearby hill. I step nervously back into the boat, leaving the v^i trees alone.

The boat man tells us that we are approaching the Dau Dang water fall. Here, a stream bloated by last night’s rain feeds red clay rain into the deep blue.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the quiet streams leading off the lake, following the gentle sounds of the falls, fishing and wandering through the woods.

Reported by To Van Nga

Spa, from the mountain to the sea

A guest soaks in a flower bath at Zen Spa in Hanoi

“Spas” abound in Vietnam. It seems that every new resort has a room full of white beds that are touted its “spa.”

Few of them, however, succeed in awakening your body. A real spa experience ought to activate your five senses and rejuvenate you through top-to-bottom pampering.

Thanh Nien Weekly was invited to explore treatments from four prominent spas in Vietnam. The treatments took me from the mountains to the rivers and finally to the sea - a fantastical journey through the country’s paradisiacal treatment spots.

A growing reliance on local herbs and products has made some of these experiences genuinely Vietnamese.

Zen Spa is located on the bank of Hong River, just 10 minutes from the heart of Hanoi.

After passing the Yen Phu Dike, travelers on the road to the Zen Spa find themselves surrounded by small fields of corn and sunflowers. To access the spa, visitors make their way through a bonsai garden filled with flowers and Zen stones.

Sharp pink Lotus petals peek out of the pond that surrounds the spa’s traditional thatch roof bamboo structure. A Lau Vong Nguyet (a traditional lookout tower meant for moongazing) juts out of the building offering visitors a splendid view of the Hong River.

Zen Spa – Red River Ha Noi 310 Nghi Tam Alley, Tay Ho District, Hanoi Tel: (04) 3 719 9889 Life Spa Life Wellness Resort Quy Nhon Ghenh Rang, Bai Dai Beach, Quy Nhon Town, Binh Dinh Province Tel: (056) 3 840 132 Cochinchine Spa Ana Mandara Villas Dalat 5 Le Lai Street, Ward 5, Da Lat Town, Lam Dong Province Tel: (063) 3 555 888 InterContinental Asiana Saigon Hotel 39 Le Duan Blvd., District 1, HCMC Tel: (08) 3 520 9999

The herbal aroma from dried roses and jasmine immediately lifts me up as I enter the building. With the exception of some facial treatment products, Zen Spa relies on a traditional herbal concoction known as thuoc nam.

The potpourri combines elements that can be found everywhere in Vietnam: ginger, lemon grass, lotus petal, grape fruits leaves and peppermint leaf most. Purists continue to use thuoc nam to treat headache, colds, fever and mild insomnia, particularly up north.

You can smell the freshness of these ingredients wafting through the corridors of Zen Spa.

Road weary travelers may want to welcome themselves to Zen Spa with a chuom nong - a massage in which a small bag filled with steamed herbs is gently pressed to the body in order to relax tired muscles and improve blood circulation.

“When I was a child my grand mum and mom used herbal remedies to nurse me through minor aches and pains,” said Ms. Huong, the owner of Zen Spa. “I was inspired by this tradition way to open [the spa] in 2002.”

Zen Spa has put together a special weekday package for visitors. For US$120++ for women and $130++ for men, this package includes an exfoliating coffee body scrub, a herbal flower bath, a body massage and a facial treatment.

Cochinchine Spa at Ana Mandara Villas Dalat draws its inspiration from the flavors of Da Lat’s hills and forests. The spa is located in the old colonial villas constructed by the French to escape the summer heat.

The holiday spirit of this place continues to permeate the lively old buildings. Warm paintings line the walls and charming silk curtains frame the windows. The special fragrance of this spa reminds me of a romantic holiday in Provence.

But the treatments at the Cochinchine are very much anchored in the mountains of Da Lat. Wild honey, rose, raspberry, cucumber and strawberry collected from local farms are rubbed into the skin during massages giving one the feeling of literally absorbing the landscape.

Until the end of August, there is a special Get Away promotion ($78) which includes a 50-minute body massage and a 50-minute Da Lat facial. The get-away comes with your choice of a half-hour foot or an exfoliating coffee massage.

Vietnam’s beach border has attracted a glut of coastal spa resorts. The Life Spa at Life Wellness Resort Quy Nhon features the remnants of an ancient Cham tower. From the resort’s unspoiled beach, you are surrounded by oceans and the lush mountains of Binh Dinh Province.

Those in desperate need of attention should consider the four hands massage – in which two massage therapists work on your body simultaneously. Imagine feeling as though every square centimeter of your body is being rigorously attended to. From the bamboo windows of the seaside massage bungalow you can just make out the small blue fishing boats that dot the ocean horizon.

For the time being, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the spa offers a 10 percent discount for guests. The spa also offers 60- or 90-minute steam and salt saunas.

Out in the garden, visitors can plunge into a mound of hot salt. Burying yourself in the piping-hot bean-sized grains is said to be good for circulation but the sensation is reminiscent of playful childhood visits to the beach where loving friends and siblings would conspire to bury you in the sand.

If you live in Ho Chi Minh City and can’t get away, try the spa at the InterContinental Asiana Saigon Hotel. With the press of a button, a seamless wooden wall panel in the hotel lobby opens to reveal a galaxy of luxurious Clarin products. After drinking a glass of corn, dwarf sugar cane, and screwpine needles, I selected a hydrating facial treatment ($66) and a relaxing aroma indulgence to relax my body ($89).

I slowly unwind in a velvet chair as a therapist begins gently massaging my feet with a mixture of warm water and cinnamon powder. Following that, she begins to apply raw salt. After that she starts to knead my body with the dry soft cotton towel and begins to apply pressure to key points all over my body.

The body massage lasts for 180 minutes. On a hot summer’s day you can choose a detoxifying massage and re-shaping massage (both $89). Those who are short on time can opt to receive a facial and body massage simultaneously.

Reported by To Van Nga

Singaporean cuisine strikes southern metro

Fried frog egg is among Singaporean specialties at the Ech Xanh (Green Frog) Restaurant

Ms. Thuy Linh, the chef and owner of the Ech Xanh (Green Frog) Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City has been surprised, of late, by the increasing number of patrons ordering her restaurant’s namesake specialty.

At Linh’s District 1 restaurant, the little croakers are served fried with salted egg, stir-fried with vegetables and curry or sliced into pomelo salad.

Most patrons order the traditional frog porridge which runs between VND70,000-180,000.

In Singapore, the dish is prepared using only the best rice and freshly killed frogs. The fresher the meat, the better the dish will absorb the rich flavors of the stew base - garlic, shallot, dark soy sauce, chili, sugar, pepper and ginger. The ingredients are combined with the frog meat and stewed until a rich stew is produced.

Customers can enjoy Singaporean delicacies at the following restaurants in HCMC: Red House 79 Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, District 3 Tel: (08) 3 933 3399 Ech Xanh (Green Frog) Restaurant 245/19 Nguyen Trai Street, District 1 Tel: (08) 6 652 9350 Fragrance - Singapore Barbecued Meat Store 144 Nguyen Trai Street, District 1 Tel: (08) 3 925 9656 Lion City 141 Nguyen Duc Canh Street, District 7 Tel: (08) 5 412 3331, (08) 2 210 1097

In a separate pot, the chef slow-cooks a light porridge of fragrant glutinous rice and tops it off with chopped green onions.

The sheer variety of frog on offer at Linh’s place stands as a testament to the versatile nature of the tiny nation’s cuisine.

“Singapore is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society,” Linh told Thanh Nien Weekly. Indeed, the country’s native Malay traditions have been informed by Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and English influences.

When dining out in HCMC, keep your eyes open for Singaporean chilli crab, Hainanese chicken rice, Rojak (fruit salad), fried carrot cake (steamed rice flour and white radish, fried with egg and garnished with spring onions), Roti Prata (a type of Indian pancake), Hokkien Mee (stir-fried noodles), Char Kway Teow (noodles with soy sauce, bean sprouts, sausages, fish cakes and cockles), Mee Siam (rice noodles in spicy, sweet and sour light gravy) and Bak Kut Teh (pork ribs simmered in herbs).

For Linh’s part however, you haven’t had Singaporean cuisine until you’ve sampled frog porridge.

Where to eat it

People can enjoy numerous delicacies from “the fine country” right here in HCMC.

Seafood lovers should head straight to the Red House which belongs to the owners of the famous Long Beach seafood restaurant on the East Coast Parkway.

Their repertoire includes fried crab with chilli sauce, Canadian elephant trunk snail, and steamed Scottish fingernail snails sautéed in garlic.

Reported by Nguyet Anh