The Dimwits

The Awesome Twosome are now The Dimwits. How did they achieve this transformation ?

To cut a long story short, wiring was done, walls were plastered and lights were delivered to the property. Dimmers have now become the bone of contention between us and the duo formerly known as Awesome.

2 lessons for dimmer virgins :
- you can dim normal (incandescent or tungsten) bulbs easily through dimmer switches;
- however, halogen and fluorescent lights require special dimmers because of low voltage, and we had bought some in the acquisition frenzy.

There was some insistance from the Dimwits that certain walls had to be re-hacked to accommodate the dimmer fixtures and transformers, which we hope we have effectively countered. Having educated myself overnight on the intricacies of dimmers, I am now well-placed to rebut any assertions that there are no such things as 3-gang dimmers (I did not even understand what they were 2 days ago) and that toggle switches (again, a new term for me) take up less space than dimmer switches.

Having said that, the Dimwits are agreeable enough people, and the work quality continues to be good. We figured that they've factored enough mark-up into their quote to tolerate our requests for rectification where things have gone wrong.

Within the next 4 weeks, the built-in closets and autogate will be complete and we will welcome the Hacker kitchen and other furniture purchases. So we're on track to spend Christmas in the new house, which has turned out to be a 3 month project.

House Makeover: Before and (Slightly) After Pics

Filipino Feasting

The Ananyana on Bohol island lived up to expectations on the accommodation front, but the food far surpassed what we anticipated would be on offer at a small resort.

Taking one meal at a time,

• The breakfast was fabulous - selections included parma ham layered on buttery granary bread, chunky mango yoghurt, an array of Filipino sausages - all lip-smackingly good.
• Lunch carried on the good work started in the morning. I had a fabulous popiah-like creation, with an all-egg crepe encasing a sweet+savoury prawn and veg filling.
• Dinner was when we felt truly in the Philippines. We eschewed the regular selection and went off-menu to order Sinigang and Adobo 3 nights in a row. The chef executed these Filipino classics with aplomb. The 2Bears slurped up the tamarind Sinigang soup and tucked heartily into tender chunks of meat in a soy-suace, black pepper, star anise, vinegar and bay leaf Adobo sauce.

All was cooked in an open kitchen (see the hive of activity in the picture), in front of which we had our nightly Tanduay rum and cokes.

We left satiated on food and sleep. As Bohol was a sleepy isle nonpareil, we had ample opportunity to be horizontal in a variety of places - in bed, in basket hammocks, and on deckchairs, eating juicy mangos like the decadent bears we like to be.

The staff led by manager Joy were attentive to the limited guests (there are fewer than than 12 suites on offer). The guests were a 4-child Filipino family and a mixed bag of Europeans - Russians, a gay pair, a French-Singapore couple based in Holland, and assorted other Western Europeans.

As the 2Bears want to impart wisdom whenever they can, these are 10 Things We Learnt On This Trip (David Letterman-style drumroll please):

(1) It's OK to eat Adobo and Sinigang 3 days in a row.

(2) Boracay still has the best beaches in the Philippines (Bohol's beaches are nice but not topnotch).

(3) Disregard CNN's weather forecast on Bohol (Tagbilaran) which is a complete fabrication.

(4) Go business class on the Oceanjet ferry between Cebu and Tagbilaran - you get to sit on slightly battered but real airplane business class seats, and get served a pork chop with rice while watching a Hollywood movie.

(5) Cebu is the furniture capital of the Philippines but you can hardly buy anything as an individual tourist (masquerade as a furniture distributor if you want to get anywhere close to http://www.kennethcobonpue.com without making a prior business appointment).

(6) Silkair does not serve dessert. It would have made up for the dogfood-like inflight meals we had.

(7) The accounting at small Filipino resorts is lousy - but since it worked in our favour I won't complain.

(8) Ayala Centre in Cebu has pretty good shopping (Mr Bear's favourite Girbaud jeans, a decent Rustan's department store and Starbucks even).

(9) The Filipinos are experts in corned beef confections. Check out the Corned Beef Pandesal. Definition: An oval shaped soft bread roll dredged in bread crumbs and filled with sauteed corned beef, which is then baked to a light golden brown color.

(10) It's OK not to have a TV in one's hotel room. This guarantees that you will sleep 9 hours straight.

2Bears go to the Beach

The 2Bears are going on holiday and Ms Bear is really excited. The last holiday was in New Zealand, where we attended the wedding of our friends the Swannys at the lovely Waiheke Island near Auckland, back in April/May. That's a whole 5 months ago !

In the last 2 years, the 2Bears have gone to New Zealand, Sydney, Phuket, Bali, Boracay, San Francisco, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Siem Reap, Bangkok, KL, Penang, Langkawi, and Jakarta, which doesn't leave many places unvisited. We've ruled out Bangkok and Chiangmai as destinations for now (even though the home decor shopping would've been good) as the new airport and political situation in Thaland both need to simmer down a bit. Since we loved Boracay for the crystal clear waters and Filipino food and hospitality, we are venturing back to the Philippine islands, this time to Bohol.

Where's that ? It's 1.5 hours by fast ferry from Cebu, which is well served by Silkair. There is a lovely resort on the island called The Ananyana and we look forward to being marooned there like Robinson Crusoe. Our (wo)Man Fridays will give us massages and bring us delectable mangoes, and we will gaze out into ... the rain. Although Bohol is outside the typhoon belt, the weather may be awful in the wake of Xangsane, but at this point a thundery blustery break is better than no break. It's a 4-day escape from the renovation woes and the incessant desk work that Ms Bear faces each day.

Lights, camera, action

I went back to Great World City for the umpteenth time to (window-)shop. I like GWC for the wide range of homewares: kitchen appliances (Mayer), budget furnishings (v.Hive), higher-end furnishings (Lifestorey) and lighting (DIY Lighting). I neglect to mention Barang Barang as I've never managed to identify anything buyable there.

I particularly favour DIY Lighting among the GWC shops as they (most of the time) leave you free to browse, unlike smaller stores in the Balestier Road stretch where every salesman is desperate for commissions. As an aside, I've always preferred the American sales attitude of "have a look around, I'm over here if you need me". Singapore salespeople can be like little forlorn doggies yelping at your heels.

On my third visit to DIY, I managed to buy bathroom ceiling lights for the 2Bears' upstairs and downstairs bathrooms for $300. I finally baulked at paying more than twice the amount for the lovely Lightdiscs available on Ambiente Direct, but am fairly happy with my compromise purchases.

After DIY, I crossed the hall to Lifestorey and managed to drop $2000 on a TV console and a floor lamp (pictured). I had been vacillating on the former for weeks until I realised that simple unobtrusive white consoles were really hard to find. The salespeople informed me that there was a waitlist for the next shipment and only 2 were left for booking, so I jumped at the opportunity. Next conundrum: should I buy the table versions and the Kartell E Wall Lamp (below) ? Hmm, decisions decisions.

One thing I've come to realise in my shopping adventures is that good design can hail from unlikely sources. Take the floor lamp I bought. Its pedigree is Chinese and you can check it out at http://www.summergroup.cn. Looking at the quality, we're kidding ourselves if we think all the European brands on offer are made in Western Europe.