Bites: Restaurant Report: Immigrants in Singapore

Immigrants

A squid dish at Immigrants.

In August, a peculiar sign went up among a row of squat shophouses on Singapore's narrow Joo Chiat Road: "The Migrants Are Coming," it read, with no further explanation.

The message was particularly provocative, given that tensions have recently flared in this city-state over the influx of foreigners moving to its shores. In September, however, the mystery was solved when Immigrants, a modern pub-style restaurant run by one of the city's most popular chefs, opened its doors, with a menu and décor firmly anchored in Singapore's layered immigrant history.

During a recent visit, the menu included seh bak, a hearty stew of pig's ears, intestines, stomach and heart braised for hours in soy sauce and spices — a dish that has become a challenge to find in recent years. There was also Eurasian-style bagadale, a cutlet made with minced pork, potatoes, spices and crackers that doesn't often appear on restaurant menus, and ayam kalasan, a Malay-style dish of chicken marinated in coconut and various spices and then deep-fried.

"This is heritage food that you don't really see anymore — a lot of people have forgotten what our forefathers used to eat," said Damian D'Silva, the chef and an owner, who learned to cook some of these dishes as a child, watching his grandfather, whiskey in hand, at the stove. Served in tapas-size portions on the sort of cheap enamel dishware that hawkers and housewives once commonly used, Mr. D'Silva's intensely flavored dishes are designed to be consumed with alcohol — generally beer or whiskey. (The restaurant has a hefty list of Scottish and Japanese whiskeys.)

Singgang, a delicious Eurasian mash of soft wolf herring cooked with seven spices and coconut milk, for example, is served with chilled cucumber sticks for swiping it up like a dip. Fresh cockles — a common accompaniment for Tiger beer in local hawker centers — are served blanched and chilled, with a complex and fiery chile sauce that will have you reaching for that cold chaser right away. Mr. D'Silva's sambal buah keluak, his take on a Straits Chinese dish featuring pork, paired with a pungent filling of a black Southeast Asian nut, makes a return, having drawn crowds to the little hawker stall he ran before opening Immigrants.

Each dish arrives with its own style of chile sauce, some sweet, some garlicky, some citrusy, but all designed to specifically match the flavors on the plate.

Mr. D'Silva, who published a memoir, "Singapore Memories: Rebel With a Course," earlier this year, and his two business partners have been similarly specific with the restaurant's décor and ambience: rock music blares as servers mix drinks behind a bar built with construction-site-style corrugated zinc sheeting. It's a setting that Singaporeans might best describe as "lepak" — the Malay word for relaxed. A fitting pairing, Mr. D'Silva noted, for "food we used to eat at home."

Immigrants, the Singapore Gastrobar, 467 Joo Chiat Road, 65-8511-7322; immigrants-gastrobar.com. An average meal for two, without drinks or tip, is about 60 Singapore dollars (about $50 at 1.20 Singapore dollars to the U.S. dollar). 

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

Journeys: A Food Bloggers’ Tour of Kuala Lumpur

Rahman Roslan for The New York Times

At Yut Kee, charcoal-toasted bread commonly served with coffee.

CHOOSING where and what to eat in Malaysia's food-obsessed capital of Kuala Lumpur is no small feat. From the moment you enter this hot, humid, traffic-choked capital, known locally as K.L., endless culinary options influenced by numerous cuisines beckon, from wok-fried noodles topped with fresh seafood to steaming piles of naan and vats of fragrant curries. So how best to navigate this complex world of food? I turned to the local blogosphere for advice and personal guidance. These passionate food bloggers spend their weekends tirelessly hunting down the city's hidden treats, reporting on their gastronomic adventures to a devoted readership that's just as infatuated with local cuisine as they are. And as the city welcomes a dizzying number of eye-catching high-end restaurants, it's the bloggers who ensure that Kuala Lumpur's age-old culinary gems — and some of its most memorable meals — won't be forgotten.

On a sultry weekend morning earlier this year, I joined a group of local customers — women in colorful headscarves, men in short-sleeved, button-down shirts and slacks — in partaking of a Malaysian ritual: a plate of nasi lemak at R. A. Nasi Lemak (15A Jalan Raja Abdullah; 60-12-354-6800), an outdoor restaurant along a busy road in central Kuala Lumpur, where nasi lemak is about 6 ringgit, or $2 at 3 ringgit to the dollar. Nasi lemak, the unofficial national dish, translates from the Malay as "fatty rice," and it quickly became apparent why. As a server scooped a hearty helping of coconut-infused white rice from a wooden barrel onto a plate lined with a banana leaf, Lee Khang Yi, one of my blogger-guides, looked on approvingly.

"This is nice rice," she said, before selecting from a dozen or so side dishes, which ranged from glistening hunks of fried chicken to paru goreng, deep-fried beef lungs coated in ginger, shallots and shredded lemon grass. Before grabbing a plastic stool at one of the stall's metal tables, Ms. Yi topped her plate with roasted peanuts, ikan bilis (small fried anchovies), a fried egg and sliced cucumbers — all essential accompaniments to nasi lemak.

The bespectacled Ms. Yi, 40, is the authoritative voice behind the popular food blog Masak-Masak (masak-masak.blogspot.com) — literally "cooking-cooking" in Malay — a site she began seven years ago while between jobs. Her site became so popular that Ms. Yi abandoned a career in finance and is now a food editor for a major national newspaper, The Malay Mail.

Drawing from the country's Malay, Chinese and Indian populations, versions of nasi lemak are as varied as the national population. "As the years have gone by, there is a racial division when it comes to food," Ms. Yi said. "People will eat within their group. But nasi lemak has transcended all the races. Somehow or another everyone eats nasi lemak and finds something they like about it."

She was quick to point out, though, that all iterations of the dish share a foundation. "It all starts with the rice, which has to be fluffy, nicely balanced and not too sweet," she said. "I'm quite biased when it comes to nasi lemak."

My next blogging companion, Jonathan Ooi, 32, brought me to Yut Kee restaurant (35 Jalan Dang Wangi; 60-3-2698-8108), where he has been going since childhood. "This was my grandfather's favorite coffee shop," he said as we crammed into a table between families with small children, elderly men reading Mandarin newspapers and servers shouting orders. "He used to come here for his daily breakfast when he worked at the nearby HSBC bank," he continued. "Since he passed away, my parents, aunts and uncles and I have continued his tradition."

Mr. Ooi, who works as a store designer, clearly inherited his grandfather's passion for food: he now runs the blog A Lil' Fat Monkey (alilfatmonkey.com), which chronicles Mr. Ooi's food and travel adventures around the world, covering both trendy new openings and old-school neighborhood favorites like Yut Kee, where the Lee family has been wooing patrons with Hainanese delicacies since 1928 — though at least one of the draws for Mr. Ooi is a ubiquitous one. "There is just something about the coffee here," Mr. Ooi said, sipping a cup of freshly brewed kopi-O (1.50 ringgit), coal-black coffee served with sugar. "You can taste the traditional roasting. The robusta beans are roasted with sugar and margarine."

In the Chinese-Malaysian tradition, the glimmering, potent brew is served with thick slices of Hainanese bread (2.40 ringgit), either steamed into a pillowy texture or toasted on charcoal. "The bread should be full of holes, which gives it a nice crisp," Mr. Ooi said.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

Q&A: Travel Tips for Students, From a Student

Matthew Plaks

Mark Warren, managing editor of the Let's Go guide series, and a Harvard senior.

WITH winter recess, spring break and summer vacation, college students are blessed with the time off to travel, if not the money.

Mark Warren, managing editor of the student travel guides Let's Go and a Harvard senior, is all too familiar with this predicament. Which is why he recommends taking cheap flights with multiple layovers or mixing travel with stretches of volunteering or work. "There's a diversity of opportunities," he said, "everything from teaching English to volunteering on archaeological digs."

Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Warren on how students can travel the globe cheaply. 

Q. How can students find ways to work or volunteer abroad?

A. Of course, my first recourse would be to look at the "Beyond Tourism" section of any Let's Go book, but the Internet is also pretty reliable. UnitedPlanet.org has a lot of volunteer opportunities, especially in the developing world, as does VolunteerAbroad.ca and GlobalVolunteers.org. The British-based site GapYear.com has information on internships, au-pair jobs and volunteering.

Teaching English is the most popular thing to do. For that, I'd suggest LanguageCourse.net, which lists programs all over the world. It also takes you through the steps toward getting your TESOL or TEFL certification, which you'll need to teach English in any official capacity. It's also pretty easy to be an English tutor in an unofficial capacity. A friend of mine in Korea said students there will pay you to just sit and speak to them in English, not even teach it.

Q. Any particular programs that mix well with travel?

A. Some friends of mine worked on organic farms in Europe through Wwoof for a couple of weeks and then traveled around. Friends I know who are eligible for sponsorship from Taglit-Birthright Israel went to Israel, and they tacked on a jaunt through the Middle East or Europe afterward. A pretty common thing to do is find a hostel where you can work at the reception desk in exchange for a room. I'd suggest researching a few hostels and contacting them ahead of time to see if an arrangement could be worked out.

Q. Any tips for picking a region to explore?

A. I'd recommend a place that has cheap ground transportation. That's a tough matrix to pin down: how much it costs to get there versus the costs once on the ground. It's much cheaper to fly to Europe than, say, Vietnam, but if train tickets cost $200 each, those add up. So look up regional train lines and bus companies to get a sense of their prices before deciding where to go.

What's easiest, especially in Europe, is to book the cheapest international flight you can find near your destination and then take a regional carrier like Ryanair or EasyJet to the final place.

Q. Any flight-booking sites you like?

A. For students, I like TravelCuts.com and S.T.A. Travel, which both factor student discounts into the airfare's price. If you don't have a destination in mind, SkyScanner.com gives you a list of all the places you can go from your home city and how much it would cost. Matrix.ITASoftware.com is a straight-up search engine, very comprehensive. And on Hipmunk.com, you can sort by price, duration, departure and arrival. I particularly like their agony index, which is a combination of duration, price and layovers.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

Footsteps: Climbing a Peak That Stirred Kerouac

Ethan Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

View from the trail to Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac spent 63 days as a fire lookout in the summer of 1956.

I PASSED through a stand of fir and out onto the bare ridge, and there it was: the squat white structure where Jack Kerouac spent 63 days as a fire lookout in the summer of 1956. I had assumed that the Desolation Peak lookout would be empty, a silent monument to the Voice of the Beat Generation. But the shutters were propped open on all four sides, the door was ajar, and inside a small, seated silhouette was visible against the hazy late-afternoon sky.

I grew giddy as the figure stood and came into the doorway. Surely this was Kerouac's spiritual brother, a man uniquely qualified to speak about the solitary days and nights that inspired major portions of "Desolation Angels," "The Dharma Bums" and "Lonesome Traveler." A compact man with dark hair, he introduced himself as Daniel Otero, a Marine reservist who had served two tours of duty in Iraq. Kerouac, I remembered, was 34 during his time on Desolation Peak and did stints in the Navy and the merchant marine.

Mr. Otero, who had been up there all summer and was leaving in only a few days, invited me into the shack, which felt like the cabin of a ship with its desk, kitchen, bed and astrolabe-like fire-finder tool all squeezed into the single, tiny room. My eyes latched onto the corner bookshelf lined with Kerouac paperbacks. We made small talk for a few minutes before I finally asked about Mr. Otero's famous predecessor. He took a deep breath, obviously having gotten the question before. "I tried, but ... " he said, gesturing toward the books. Those books, I now realized, did not belong to Kerouac's spiritual brother. They looked new, untouched, as if they had just come out of an Amazon box. "Me and that guy just don't see eye-to-eye."

I knew exactly how he felt. For my college graduation, my uncle gave me a copy of "On the Road" with the heartfelt wish that I would find it as life-changing as he had. I was a likely candidate to do so: avid traveler, a student of English and political science in college and, later, a writer. Instead, I found Kerouac's "masterpiece" rambling and frivolous; it took me two years to get through it.

But Kerouac's hold on the public imagination has only seemed to grow in my lifetime. Two new film versions of his books are due soon, including one of "On the Road" with Kristen Stewart on Dec. 21 and another of "Big Sur," with Josh Lucas and Kate Bosworth, which does not currently have a release date.

When I moved to Seattle last year, I started hearing about Desolation Peak. Ten years older than the last time I read him, I decided to give Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" another shot; I picked up a biography and the relevant novels, organized a few friends for a fall weekend and set out for the North Cascades.

The nice part about the Desolation Peak hike is that it can be as easy or as hard as you please. The trailhead is about three hours from Seattle, and day hikers can pay for a boat ride up Ross Lake to the base of the mountain from Ross Lake Resorts; the lakeside camp at nearby Lightning Creek offers the option to tack on a night in the wilderness. But for those looking to sleep atop Kerouac's mountain, as we planned to do, the price of admission is steep: a 3,500-foot climb carrying all the water you will need for the next day (not to mention camping gear), as Desolation Peak is bone-dry once the snowfields melt in August.

And although Kerouac himself got boat rides both ways, my wife, buddies and I opted to go farther and hike in from the highway, taking the boat only on the return trip. After all, Kerouac had two months in the northwestern woods; even with the extra mileage (almost 30 for the whole trip) we would have only three days.

The first day we hiked 16 miles across slopes of sword ferns and Oregon grape shrubs, stopping occasionally to peer into the clear depths of Ross Lake, whose contours we followed. But pretty views don't make 16 miles any shorter, and we stumbled into Lightning Creek Camp with feet in full rebellion.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

Heads Up: The Pop-Up Surfaces in Buenos Aires

Adrien de Bontin

Daniel Amezquita, one of the chefs participating in the Clubhouse Chef Series, at the Oasis Clubhouse in Buenos Aires.

CASUAL parrillas, a glut of sushi and Peruvian restaurants and the occasional trendy boîte have dominated the Buenos Aires dining scene for much of the last decade. But these days, chefs are importing more than their cuisine. They have embraced a culinary trend that has become commonplace for up-and-comers in cities like London and New York: the pop-up.

In Buenos Aires, the dining events, some called puertas cerradas (closed doors), are promoted mainly through word of mouth, social networks or bare-bones Web sites that are short on details. Patrons must e-mail a request to dine and await a confirmation that includes a time and physical address.

The concept isn't the only thing that chefs are borrowing from elsewhere. Most have worked in the United States or Europe and have been applying skills acquired there back at home, according to Alicia Delgado, a longtime restaurant critic for La Nación newspaper.

One pop-up that has already gained a following was created this year by a group of a dozen chefs who call themselves GAJO, which stands for Gastronomia Argentina Joven, or Young Argentine Gastronomy (info@gajococina.com.ar). "Our group of chefs — each has a different style of cooking but the same spirit in that we are focused on using the most local and seasonal products we can find in our cuisine," said Antonio Soriano, 37, who ran the kitchen at Chez Nous at Algodon Mansion in Buenos Aires after stints at Le Cinq and other restaurants in Paris. "So we thought it would be fun to come together to cook meals for the general public."

Every other month, the GAJO chefs have a themed dinner, with six courses prepared by pairs who team up after drawing names from a hat. Their first one last June, held at the upscale Argentine restaurant Unik, drew 80 guests, with a waiting list that was equally long. The theme — asado, or Argentine barbecue — was evident in the menu: Argentine Kobe beef in a juniper sauce and a farm egg with soggy rice and smoked ribs. The cost was 500 pesos, about $107 at 4.65 Argentine pesos to the dollar, which included local wine. Their next dinner, in late August, was at Chila, a restaurant in the Puerto Madero neighborhood. Here, the theme was to cook only with ingredients from Argentina without repeating a single product. The result was dishes like quinoa, peanut granola and a bread crumb egg with asparagus and Patagonian shrimp. Both meals drew an appreciative young crowd of locals and a few tourists.

Another collaboration, named the Clubhouse Chef Series (clubhouse@oasiscollections.com), is more a supper club than pop-up restaurant. Twice a month, the chefs take turns presenting meals at the Oasis Clubhouse. Their dinner in July featured Rodrigo Castilla, known for his Nuevo Argentine cuisine, and Gonzalo Aramburu, who specializes in molecular gastronomy. The two prepared corn and oyster soup and trout marinated in beets and served with a quail egg, among other dishes, for a crowd of 35; from 90 pesos a diner.

Not all of the puertas cerradas, or pop-ups, are group efforts. Diego Felix, 38, offers dinners (colectivofelix.com) twice a month at rotating spots, including the Oasis Clubhouse, and also a few times a week in his backyard garden in the city's Chacarita district. He usually accepts about 15 diners who pay 210 pesos for five vegetarian- and fish-focused courses like grilled manioc root cake with roasted tomatoes in peanut sauce or Andean stew with grouper. "I want to showcase the best of South American flavors but emphasizing seafood and produce," he said. His interest in the cuisine, unusual in a country where meat tends to be the star, comes from his nutritionist mother and from jobs at vegetarian restaurants in California like Millennium in San Francisco.

Regardless of the cuisine, chefs say the goal is to prove that their city is a serious food destination. "We want to show that you don't have to go to New York City or Paris for an amazing culinary experience," said Yago Márquez, 28, a GAJO member and sous chef at Unik. "You can have it right in Buenos Aires."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 16, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled the barrio where Diego Feliz sometimes offers dinners in his backyard garden. It is Chacarita, not Characrita.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 19, 2012

An article last Sunday about chefs in Buenos Aires who are adopting the pop-up concept there misspelled the surname of the chef who sometimes offers dinners in his backyard garden and the barrio in which it is located. He is Diego Felix, not Feliz, and the barrio is Chacarita, not Characrita.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 21, 2012

An article on Nov. 18 about chefs in Buenos Aires who are adopting the pop-up concept and a photo caption misstated the name of the club where chefs in the Clubhouse Chef Series present meals. It is called the Oasis Clubhouse, or the Clubhouse, not the Oasis.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

In Transit Blog: JetBlue Wants You To Decide on an App

Tablet owners who have little technical expertise but a wish list of what they'd include in a travel app can stop fantasizing and put their ideas to use by submitting them to JetBlue. The carrier is in the midst of accepting suggestions for its new app, to make its debut early next year, as part of a contest that will award two travel certificates each month for a year to five prizewinners.

To enter the contest, would-be developers can go to JetBlue's Facebook page through Dec. 2, detail their idea and decide which category — fun, educational, loyalty, ticketing, functional or other — it falls under. The ideas will then be screened by JetBlue and face a popular vote from Dec. 10 to 17.

JetBlue isn't necessarily promising to use vote winners' ideas. The carrier, perhaps wisely predicting that something like a McKayla Is Not Impressed image for boarding confirmation will sweep the vote, said in a release only that it may use the winning ideas in the app's development.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Getaway: The Afterlife of Your Frequent Flier Miles

IT'S the time of year for family gatherings and year-end estate planning, so here's an interesting topic to put on the table with the pumpkin pie: "Honey, have we ever talked about what happens to your frequent flier miles when you die?"

In most cases, the answer is probably "no," and it turns out that some airlines would like to avoid discussing this subject, too. I asked six airlines if they allow transfers of frequent flier miles after a member's death and got a straight answer from only four. That mixed message has long been a frustration for frequent fliers, who may have miles worth thousands of dollars in their accounts.

"What you often find is that the formal policy, as found in their terms and conditions, says that frequent flier miles cannot be given away through wills, but when you call the customer service center you find out that yes, in fact they will allow that," said Tim Winship, editor of FrequentFlier.com. "What you get is two very different versions of what they will and won't do."

Even so, there are ways your loved ones can use your miles after you die (assuming they can find available seats). Here's an overview of the official — and unofficial — policies of the major airlines, followed by tips on planning for a mileage afterlife.

Airlines That Allow Transfers

AMERICAN Kudos to American for having a clear, consistent policy: AAdvantage miles can be transferred out of a deceased member's account to a beneficiary's AAdvantage account. In April, American even dropped the $50 fee it used to charge for some transfers. On request, the airline will send a packet with an affidavit the beneficiary should fill out, indicating whose account should receive the miles; it should be signed by the surviving spouse, the sole heir or the executor of the estate. A copy of the death certificate must also be submitted (but doesn't have to be certified, which is also the case with most airlines). Michael Maldonado, an American spokesman, said transfer requests are processed within seven business days.

US AIRWAYS Another gold star goes to US Airways, which transfers Dividend Miles to a beneficiary's account free of charge as long as the request is made within a year of the member's death and the account was active when that person died. (Dividend Miles expire after 36 months of inactivity.) Todd Lehmacher, a US Airways spokesman, said the beneficiary must submit a will or other legal document establishing survivorship, as well as a copy of the death certificate.

JETBLUE Mateo Lleras, a JetBlue spokesman, said that although the airline doesn't have a formal policy about transferring TrueBlue points after a member dies, it will do so after its legal team verifies the authenticity of the request — again, based on a death certificate and documentation of beneficiary status.

Airlines That Don't Allow Transfers

SOUTHWEST At least Southwest has a clear (if not compassionate) policy: it does not transfer RapidRewards points once a member dies. Katie McDonald, a Southwest spokeswoman, said the airline will not close an account unless asked, but points automatically expire after two years of inactivity. Family members who know their loved one's account number and password may be able to book tickets during that window (more on this option below).

Airlines That Would Rather Not Say

DELTA Paul Skrbec, a company spokesman, said: "Delta's policy is that miles are not transferable once a member dies." But that didn't square with what I had heard from SkyMiles members, so I called customer service and an agent told me Delta does allow these transfers; she even pointed to a form you can fill out to initiate such a request (delta.com/skymilesaffidavit). When I called Mr. Skrbec and asked for clarification, he reiterated that Delta's policy is to not allow transfers. "We do have exception procedures, and this is one of them," he said. "A policy is something that is a rule of a program; this is servicing customers as scenarios come up."

UNITED I got two different answers also from United's spokesman and its customer service desk. Joe Micucci, the spokesman, pointed me to a MileagePlus program rule (united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/rules/default.aspx) that says "neither accrued mileage nor certificates are transferable ... upon death." But a MileagePlus agent told me customers can call to request a form to transfer miles from a deceased member's account to a beneficiary's account; you also have to submit a copy of the death certificate and pay a $75 fee. Two follow-up messages to Mr. Micucci were not answered.

How You Can Plan

By now, you might be asking yourself, "If I know my dead spouse's frequent flier number and password, wouldn't it be easier to just use the miles?" In many cases, the answer is yes, particularly if the airline does not have a clear policy about posthumous mileage transfers. The United agent I spoke with actually suggested this option. However, one drawback of not attempting to get a formal transfer of miles is that if your family member dies with 45,000 miles in her account and you use 25,000 of them for a domestic ticket, that leaves 20,000 miles — not enough for most round-trip domestic tickets. You'd still have to do the transfer or let those miles expire.

Another problem may be paying the taxes and fees associated with most award tickets; if you use a different credit card from the one linked to the deceased member's account, that might alert the airline that you are not the account holder. A widow I know has used her credit card to book Delta award tickets with her deceased husband's miles, but Mr. Winship of FrequentFlier.com thought that might be a problem if you have a different address and last name from the account holder.

One way you can make things easier on your heirs is to leave a list of your frequent flier account numbers and passwords, and perhaps even designate who gets your miles in your will. Mark Gold, a lawyer who does estate planning, said he has taken this step, and he suggests that people who have a lot of frequent flier miles or hotel points should consider doing the same, especially if there are multiple heirs vying for your million miles.

Here's some sample language Mr. Gold suggests: "I give and bequeath the miles or points, as the case may be, in my American Airlines AAdvantage account, my Starwood Preferred Guest account, and all other loyalty, mileage, points or similar accounts to my spouse xxx, if she survives me and, if she does not, in equal shares to those of my children who survive me."

"I think it makes it easier for them if you're specific about it," he said.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

Footsteps: Climbing a Peak That Stirred Kerouac

Ethan Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

View from the trail to Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac spent 63 days as a fire lookout in the summer of 1956.

I PASSED through a stand of fir and out onto the bare ridge, and there it was: the squat white structure where Jack Kerouac spent 63 days as a fire lookout in the summer of 1956. I had assumed that the Desolation Peak lookout would be empty, a silent monument to the Voice of the Beat Generation. But the shutters were propped open on all four sides, the door was ajar, and inside a small, seated silhouette was visible against the hazy late-afternoon sky.

I grew giddy as the figure stood and came into the doorway. Surely this was Kerouac's spiritual brother, a man uniquely qualified to speak about the solitary days and nights that inspired major portions of "Desolation Angels," "The Dharma Bums" and "Lonesome Traveler." A compact man with dark hair, he introduced himself as Daniel Otero, a Marine reservist who had served two tours of duty in Iraq. Kerouac, I remembered, was 34 during his time on Desolation Peak and did stints in the Navy and the merchant marine.

Mr. Otero, who had been up there all summer and was leaving in only a few days, invited me into the shack, which felt like the cabin of a ship with its desk, kitchen, bed and astrolabe-like fire-finder tool all squeezed into the single, tiny room. My eyes latched onto the corner bookshelf lined with Kerouac paperbacks. We made small talk for a few minutes before I finally asked about Mr. Otero's famous predecessor. He took a deep breath, obviously having gotten the question before. "I tried, but ... " he said, gesturing toward the books. Those books, I now realized, did not belong to Kerouac's spiritual brother. They looked new, untouched, as if they had just come out of an Amazon box. "Me and that guy just don't see eye-to-eye."

I knew exactly how he felt. For my college graduation, my uncle gave me a copy of "On the Road" with the heartfelt wish that I would find it as life-changing as he had. I was a likely candidate to do so: avid traveler, a student of English and political science in college and, later, a writer. Instead, I found Kerouac's "masterpiece" rambling and frivolous; it took me two years to get through it.

But Kerouac's hold on the public imagination has only seemed to grow in my lifetime. Two new film versions of his books are due soon, including one of "On the Road" with Kristen Stewart on Dec. 21 and another of "Big Sur," with Josh Lucas and Kate Bosworth, which does not currently have a release date.

When I moved to Seattle last year, I starting hearing about Desolation Peak. Ten years older than the last time I read him, I decided to give Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" another shot; I picked up a biography and the relevant novels, organized a few friends for a fall weekend and set out for the North Cascades.

The nice part about the Desolation Peak hike is that it can be as easy or as hard as you please. The trailhead is about three hours from Seattle, and day hikers can pay for a boat ride up Ross Lake to the base of the mountain from Ross Lake Resorts; the lakeside camp at nearby Lightning Creek offers the option to tack on a night in the wilderness. But for those looking to sleep atop Kerouac's mountain, as we planned to do, the price of admission is steep: a 3,500-foot climb carrying all the water you will need for the next day (not to mention camping gear), as Desolation Peak is bone-dry once the snowfields melt in August.

And although Kerouac himself got boat rides both ways, my wife, buddies and I opted to go farther and hike in from the highway, taking the boat only on the return trip. After all, Kerouac had two months in the northwestern woods; even with the extra mileage (almost 30 for the whole trip) we would have only three days.

The first day we hiked 16 miles across slopes of sword ferns and Oregon grape shrubs, stopping occasionally to peer into the clear depths of Ross Lake, whose contours we followed. But pretty views don't make 16 miles any shorter, and we stumbled into Lightning Creek Camp with feet in full rebellion.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

T Magazine: The Not So Swiss Chalet

Fifteen years in the making, the $337 million Alpina Gstaad is the first completely new five-star hotel to arrive in the famous Swiss ski village in a century. It opens this month in one of Gstaad's most exclusive sections, Oberbort, a residential patch in the shadow of the Bernese Alps that's sprinkled with multimillion-franc ski retreats and roaming dairy cows. As much as the Alpina summons the rich chalet atmosphere one would expect to find in Gstaad — fireplaces, goat-hair throws, fondue — there is much about it that's refreshingly exotic to Switzerland. And that suits Onno Poortier, the Dutch-born hotelier behind the project, just fine. "There are enough traditional hotels in Gstaad," he said. To start, the 21,500-square-foot Six Senses Spa comes from Thailand. (It has a Himalayan salt room and an appealingly primitive cave that's used for couples' massages). The cigar lounge was inspired by one inside the Partagás cigar factory in Cuba. There's a Swiss stübli eatery specializing in fondues and raclettes, but also a branch of the extravagant Japanese restaurant Megu. Even the price scheme seems a strange hybrid: rooms start at about $910 per night, but that includes a $320 credit to spend on après-ski cocktails, among other things. The hotel jealously guards its Alpine serenity. Cars arrive not in a typical driveway entrance but in an underground passageway lined with hand-chiseled stone; it keeps exhaust fumes away and the air of privilege mountain-fresh.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More

In Transit Blog: Cyber Monday Now Includes Hotel Deals

When Internet users go online tomorrow, Cyber Monday, they will find some notable discounts on hotel stays amid the deals on electronics and toys.

Since the name was first coined in 2005, Cyber Monday has been a marketing strategy used to entice consumers online after they jump-start their in-store holiday shopping on Black Friday, and it has worked well: Last year's iteration brought in $1.25 billion in online sales, according to comScore, a digital analytics company.

Hotels have caught on to the fact that "in one day, you can book thousands of dollars," said Nancy Friedman, a public relations specialist.

Some hotels are offering deals just for the holiday season, but others go beyond it: For reservations made through Nov. 26, Orbitz is offering 15 percent off stays between Nov. 15 and Jan. 5 at select hotels, while the Maritime Hotel in New York City (above) is offering a 26 percent discount on rooms through the end of 2013 for bookings made that day.

17.35 | 0 komentar | Read More