Week 3

Day 14 and 15
June 18 and 19

Since we have some busy days coming up on Saturday and Sunday, we took couple beach days today and tomorrow. Six of us booked a cheap first class resort in Indonesia, only a 45 minute ferry ride from Singapore. We continue with our Industry visits on Saturday. Sunday we go on an outing with delegates participating in the international student conference.

Day 13 Wednesday
June 17, 2009
This was one of our busiest days yet. We met at 9 am and took the regular transit all across the island to the Unicord tofu factory. At first tofu tasting was not my number favorite activity. To my surprise I was impressed by tasting spicy tofu, bbq tofu and teriyaki tofu. We had a great tour of the factory.

Next stop was the Hyatt Regency hotel. We had a chance to meet the hotels executive pastry chef and the famous district pastry chef Gottfried Schuetzenberger, responsible for the Asian Hyatt hotels. We took the time to sit down in the restaurant and tasted some of the a la carte desserts. Wow, creamy, very flavorful and magnificent presentations. Next stop was the Goodwood Park Hotel, a private owned, first class hotel. Just across the street is the Royal Plaza hotel which we visit next. I was amazed by their pastry display, very contemporary display cases, superb packaging and very creative cakes and pastries. By now we on our feet for 8 hours and needed a break. We hooked up with some of the ITE west instructors for dinner. Before we had dinner we had a chance to do some prawn fishing. It is a little artificial pond filled with life prawns. For $15.00 in an hour you can rent a fishing rod and try to get as many life prawns as you can. Afterwards we cooked the prawns on provided BBQ’s, a very interesting experience.

Day 12 Tuesday
June 16, 2009
All of us went touring through the city again. Both of our groups did some sight seeing in Singapore. Laurie’s group toured little India and the Buddha tooth relic temple.

The baking and pastry students visit a few more small owner operated pastry shops. We also visit a few kitchen and bakery supply stores. Most equipment sold in these stores come from Germany, high end knife, pastry, pot and pan products. We continued on to have lunch, Sie Sie, baking and pastry instructor from ITE took us out for dim sum.

Day 11 Monday
June 15, 2009
Today we met up with some ITE instructors. Laurie and her group are visiting the CPTC. CPTC is the training centre that contains an industry scale petrochemical process plant. Designed to operate as an actual production unit in a typical commercial plant, the process unit will allow trainees to experience real plant operations to enhance their training experience under safe and controlled conditions. The other visit was to the Chem gallery. The Chem gallery showcases the history and development of process chemical industry in Singapore.

Andreas and his group was taking a culture trip to little India, a cultural tour to Abdul Gaffour Mosque and an industrial visit to the intercontinental hotel.
One of our highlights was visiting the Canele Patisserie and Chocolaterie. The information I was given is that this pastry shop is one of the most exclusive one in Singapore. Since we actually bought some pastries, $7 a piece they did not mind to take pictures inside the café. I guess from now on I make sure we buy some things before asking to take pictures. Fair enough, everybody likes to make some money. I also find it very difficult to find chef’s to take some time out to talk to us. Overall, we had a great experience today and sampled a lot of great food.

Day 10 Sunday
June 14, 2009
Tan Sie Sie, Instructor at the ITE college brought us to the Chinese garden where we seen a 300 year old bonsai tree. It was a very traditional Chinese park, one of the most quite and relaxing places in a fast paced city. We continued on to Holland village, this part of the city has a real European flair. Holland village offers besides shopping a variety of specialty bakeries, pastry shops, restaurants and delicatessen shops. I found it very difficult to take pictures inside any of these places.
One of the most famous bakeries we visit was the Provence bakery and café. Provence is a unique Japanese style bakery and cafe in Singapore. Every piece of bread in Provence is hand-made from scratch whole-heartedly by Japanese bakers.
Late afternoon we finally hit the beach. We arrived at East point park where Kristin, Steven and Ryan decided to go wind surfing. I must say it was a very entertaining and fun afternoon.