to be or not to be; zurich
As the weather forecast predicted, the first snow came down today. Nothing much and certainly not enough to stick, but it was nice to see nonetheless and Bao was pressed up against the window, enchanted. She was not so happy after that when she asked to put on her snowsuit and mittens to go out and play in the snow, and when I showed her that the snow had melted as soon as it had fallen. I'm sure we'll get a big snowfall soon.
Just a quick post about Zurich, since it was a short overnight trip and my sister and I basically did nothing apart from eat and shop. A luxury for me, really, to be able to eat leisurely and to window shop without the joys of being accompanied by my offspring. My sister and I have also not really spent much time together since I moved away from Singapore. We are aged six years apart, which made the growing-up years a bit tumultuous, but as we entered adulthood we managed to become proper friends.
I obviously raided the kids' end of the larder for our train snacks.
Our real motivation for going to Zurich (apart from seeing the city itself, a first-time thing for my sister), was to watch the National Theatre's live broadcast of Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in one of the most famous roles in the history of theatre. A long time ago, I had to read Hamlet for my exams in school, and that huge, hefty play resonated with me - at one point the lines would pass through some of my dreams. I have watched a couple of stage versions and a few film versions, and I was very keen on seeing Cumberbatch play the Danish prince.
I would even have travelled to London to watch the play live, but as celebrity crazes go, the play sold 100,000 tickets within thirty minutes, which makes it the fastest selling show in the West End. I know that they reserved some tickets for sale every day, but the queues for those were ridiculous. Anyway, with the marvels of technology, NTLive was able to broadcast the live performance to cinemas worldwide that day. I think it made history - something like an audience of 225,000 watching across the world. It gave me a kind of frission, participating in a weird sort of cinema flash mob. I have seen a couple of other NTLive performances in Geneva over the past year, but the viewership for those were definitely not record-breaking.
The performance turned out to be okay. I think my expectations were much too high. It felt too long and certain parts sagged in terms of focus and energy. I enjoyed watching Cumberbatch's manic energy, but I couldn't quite separate the actor from the character, which spoiled the experience a bit. In case anyone thinks that's because I have a thing for Cumberbatch (which I sort of do, but I lust after Martin Freeman much more), when it comes to him playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series, I find it ridiculously difficult to see the actor beneath the character. Now that's acting.
The two of us in Old Town.
Anyway, apart from Hamlet, my sister and I enjoyed taking our time through the city. It was quite cold so we kept popping in and out of shops to warm up. I took her to eat at the popular Zeughauskeller brewery for lunch, which filled us up so much that we decided to just eat takeaway sushi for dinner before the show.
The best meal that we had, though, was at Sprüngli, a Zurich institution that I always try to visit whenever I'm in the city. Usually I only have coffee and cake, but this time round my sister and I decided to have an early lunch there before catching our train back to Geneva. On a previous visit J and I were sitting near a very elderly lady who was apparently a regular at the restaurant, as she ordered without looking at the menu. One of the things she ate was a creamy white soup that smelled marvellous. I remember J and I debating whether we should order the same thing, but we had reservations at a fondue restaurant that night and I didn't want to spoil our dinner, so we didn't. But we still talked about that 'white soup' dreamily, on and off, for months after that.
Turns out that soup was a creamy mushroom soup, but so different from all the other mushroom soups I have ever had. It was thick but not heavy, and the flavour was intense, without all the diced mushroom bits that you sometimes get in similar dishes. It was served with a few crisp and savoury cheese flutes. Wonderful. I'm having cravings right now just writing about it.
Other things we ate: pumpkin ravioli in a big salad; the ravioli turned out to be deep-fried, like wontons, with creamy pumpkin inside, a pleasant surprise from the pasta we were expecting. We also ordered a roast beef club sandwich to share. And of course, to finish it off, the offerings from the patisserie case - a decadent chocolate truffle cake and a lighter raspberry cream sponge to balance things off, matched with one of the cafe's good lattes to end the meal on a high note.
We rolled out of the restaurant stuffed, ready to snooze and digest it all on our three-hour-long train ride home. Sprüngli may be full of tourists but there are also a lot of locals, especially elderly ones, who go there because they have been going for decades. It is busy and crowded but you also feel free to relax, eat as slowly as you like, and to read the papers. They have cafes and shops all over Switzerland, but the one at Paradeplatz is the original and a definite must-visit in Zurich.
It being Switzerland with its cut-throat Swiss prices, we didn't actually do much shopping, but it was time well-spent with my sister nonetheless. We told ourselves that we'd save the shopping for London instead. Now that's definitely a trip to write about!
Just a quick post about Zurich, since it was a short overnight trip and my sister and I basically did nothing apart from eat and shop. A luxury for me, really, to be able to eat leisurely and to window shop without the joys of being accompanied by my offspring. My sister and I have also not really spent much time together since I moved away from Singapore. We are aged six years apart, which made the growing-up years a bit tumultuous, but as we entered adulthood we managed to become proper friends.
I obviously raided the kids' end of the larder for our train snacks.
Our real motivation for going to Zurich (apart from seeing the city itself, a first-time thing for my sister), was to watch the National Theatre's live broadcast of Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in one of the most famous roles in the history of theatre. A long time ago, I had to read Hamlet for my exams in school, and that huge, hefty play resonated with me - at one point the lines would pass through some of my dreams. I have watched a couple of stage versions and a few film versions, and I was very keen on seeing Cumberbatch play the Danish prince.
I would even have travelled to London to watch the play live, but as celebrity crazes go, the play sold 100,000 tickets within thirty minutes, which makes it the fastest selling show in the West End. I know that they reserved some tickets for sale every day, but the queues for those were ridiculous. Anyway, with the marvels of technology, NTLive was able to broadcast the live performance to cinemas worldwide that day. I think it made history - something like an audience of 225,000 watching across the world. It gave me a kind of frission, participating in a weird sort of cinema flash mob. I have seen a couple of other NTLive performances in Geneva over the past year, but the viewership for those were definitely not record-breaking.
The performance turned out to be okay. I think my expectations were much too high. It felt too long and certain parts sagged in terms of focus and energy. I enjoyed watching Cumberbatch's manic energy, but I couldn't quite separate the actor from the character, which spoiled the experience a bit. In case anyone thinks that's because I have a thing for Cumberbatch (which I sort of do, but I lust after Martin Freeman much more), when it comes to him playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series, I find it ridiculously difficult to see the actor beneath the character. Now that's acting.
The two of us in Old Town.
Anyway, apart from Hamlet, my sister and I enjoyed taking our time through the city. It was quite cold so we kept popping in and out of shops to warm up. I took her to eat at the popular Zeughauskeller brewery for lunch, which filled us up so much that we decided to just eat takeaway sushi for dinner before the show.
The best meal that we had, though, was at Sprüngli, a Zurich institution that I always try to visit whenever I'm in the city. Usually I only have coffee and cake, but this time round my sister and I decided to have an early lunch there before catching our train back to Geneva. On a previous visit J and I were sitting near a very elderly lady who was apparently a regular at the restaurant, as she ordered without looking at the menu. One of the things she ate was a creamy white soup that smelled marvellous. I remember J and I debating whether we should order the same thing, but we had reservations at a fondue restaurant that night and I didn't want to spoil our dinner, so we didn't. But we still talked about that 'white soup' dreamily, on and off, for months after that.
Turns out that soup was a creamy mushroom soup, but so different from all the other mushroom soups I have ever had. It was thick but not heavy, and the flavour was intense, without all the diced mushroom bits that you sometimes get in similar dishes. It was served with a few crisp and savoury cheese flutes. Wonderful. I'm having cravings right now just writing about it.
Other things we ate: pumpkin ravioli in a big salad; the ravioli turned out to be deep-fried, like wontons, with creamy pumpkin inside, a pleasant surprise from the pasta we were expecting. We also ordered a roast beef club sandwich to share. And of course, to finish it off, the offerings from the patisserie case - a decadent chocolate truffle cake and a lighter raspberry cream sponge to balance things off, matched with one of the cafe's good lattes to end the meal on a high note.
We rolled out of the restaurant stuffed, ready to snooze and digest it all on our three-hour-long train ride home. Sprüngli may be full of tourists but there are also a lot of locals, especially elderly ones, who go there because they have been going for decades. It is busy and crowded but you also feel free to relax, eat as slowly as you like, and to read the papers. They have cafes and shops all over Switzerland, but the one at Paradeplatz is the original and a definite must-visit in Zurich.
It being Switzerland with its cut-throat Swiss prices, we didn't actually do much shopping, but it was time well-spent with my sister nonetheless. We told ourselves that we'd save the shopping for London instead. Now that's definitely a trip to write about!