the funny frenchman

One of my most memorable recent moments was a day spent hanging out with this French guy. He is really quite an amazing character; he is a father, he runs marathons, and as a history buff he actually gives tours of this castle near his home in the Loire Valley. More importantly, he has been working in and around Singapore for more than 10 years, and he knows food places even I haven't heard of. Here are just a few of the more interesting snippets:

On the weather
He related his conversations with the head of our own meteorological service. Apparently, after all these years of studying Singapore weather patterns, they have come up with only one conclusion: that weather in Singapore occurs in 5 day cycles. That means that if it rains in the East but not the West today, it will probably do so for the next 5 days. I'm going to test this one out!

On South Africa
He was working on a project to install CCTVs in the trains in South Africa. Apparently they have a problem with people getting murdered on the trains there. When more people take the trains, the taxi drivers don't get enough business. But when people are murdered on the trains, the passengers will switch to taxis. And apparently the taxi drivers are desperate enough for business to resort to murder.

French Food in Singapore
This started because I was eating a chicken liver pate and he asked if I had it before. Yes, I said, at the French stall. He went on to rave about how good and authentic the food there is. It's not fine dining, but it is certainly authentic French food. After raving about Tiong Bahru Market and some seafood place on Upper East Coast Road, he also went on to list his top French restaurants in Singapore:
1. l'Aigle d'Or
2. Hilton - Apparently there's a new restaurant in the Hilton but I can' find it online
3. Les Amis
4. Au Jardin - Food is superb, but price is even more superb

Air Chance
Apparently that's what they call Air France in private. And when they are flying to Lyon or Bordeaux for example, they have no choice but to take Air Chance because SQ doesn't fly those destinations. And on Air Chance, they only have about 6 movies, on the communal big screen, and half of them are in French so the Singaporeans are always complaining.