One of my favorite places in Manhattan is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (see more in The American story is alive at this New York Museum.)

I tell visitors to Gotham that they really can skip the Statue of Liberty – other than admiring it from the free Staten Island Ferry – and instead spend time at Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum.  That’s where you can truly feel the impact of the “huddled masses” and what they’ve meant to the city and the nation.

The museum makes a tremendous effort at online outreach; they have a blog, they’re on Facebook and Flickr, and you can follow museum activities on Twitter.

My Mom (as much of an info and history junkie as I am) alerted me to a new book out about cooking and food amongst the wide variety of immigrants living in this special building: Jane Ziegelman’s “97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement.”

From the book’s description:

“Along the East River, German immigrants founded breweries, dispensing their beloved lager in the dozens of beer gardens that opened along the Bowery. Russian Jews opened tea parlors serving blintzes and strudel next door to Romanian nightclubs that specialized in goose pastrami. On the streets, Italian peddlers hawked the cheese-and-tomato pies known aspizzarelli, while Jews sold knishes and squares of halvah. Gradually, as Americans began to explore the immigrant ghetto, they uncovered the array of comestible enticements of their foreign-born neighbors. 97 Orchard charts this exciting process of discovery as it lays bare the roots of our collective culinary heritage.”

There’s a post about the book on the museum’s blog, and an interview with the author on NPR’s All Things Considered, “An ‘Edible History’ of Immigrant Families,” that is worth a listen for how it evokes the challenges and unique of cooking in that multistory apartment building.

“[Interviewer] RAZ: One of the jobs that you describe in this area was somebody who was called a cabbage cutter. Describe what that person did.

[Author] Ms. ZIEGELMAN: Sure. He was called, in German, the krauthobler. His job was to go door to door in the tenements with a special cutting device. It resembled a French mandolin, which is a slicing instrument, and for the German homemakers who were making their own sauerkraut, he was sort of the human Cuisinart machine. He would shave their cabbage into the thin shreds that are ideal for sauerkraut-making.

The fact that this individual could exist tells us something about the quantities of sauerkraut that were consumed on the Lower East Side.”

In a world of easy access to every imaginable kind of food in our supermarkets, it’s humbling to see what my US ancestors had to deal with just to make a simple meal.

After a nostalgic but fun filled hour checking out toys at the MINT, I decided I’d better make tracks and find the main entrance to Raffles Hotel. I was scheduled to meet with Annie Choy, the Director of Communications, for a tour of Raffles Hotel and that was something I had no intention of missing. 

Visiting Raffles Hotel and drinking a Singapore Sling has been on my travel list for as long as I can remember, so the chance to actually get to go behind the scenes and wander around parts of Raffles Hotel normally accessible only to hotel guests was a dream come true.

A mine of information, Annie guided me through the maze of corridors, suites, and courtyard gardens that make up Raffles Hotel, all the while highlighting the hotel’s social, architectural, and literary history. And what a history it is.   

Originally opened in 1887, Raffles started out as a modest bungalow hotel overlooking the beach. But by 1899 had, thanks to the brilliant marketing techniques of the Sarkies Brothers, been transformed into a Grand Hotel  attracting a colourful cross section of guests and visitors, including many of the literary lions of the British Empire.

At one time or another, it is thought that Conrad, Kipling, Coward, Maugham all either stayed at Raffles or at least spent time here eating and drinking.

But except for Somerset Maugham, who spent his mornings writing in the cool shade of the Palm Court, no one knows how much, if any, writing these writers actually did while at Raffles.

Standing in the Palm Court, enjoying the peace and quiet in the heart of the city, I could see why Maugham choose it as a place to write. I was tempted to offer my services as writer in residence and settle in for the day but we were only half way through the tour and there was a Singapore Sling with my name on it waiting for me in the Long Bar.

Mind you, after a walk through the Presidential Suite, I stopped dreaming about being the Palm Court writer in residence and started plotting how I could hid away in this amazing suite. With two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, living room, and balcony, I’d never be found.

But then it was back to reality and on to the ‘public’ face of Raffles where many of my shipmates were wandering around.  Much busier than the private side of Raffles, it was still just as interesting, with a museum full of pictures, maunscripts, and Raffles paraphernalia, numerous clothing and jewellery shops, plus, of course, a Raffles shop where you can buy your own pre-mixed Singapore Sling.

Then it was on to the Long Bar, where, finally, after years of waiting, I sat down and drank a Singapore Sling. It was worth the wait.

Sadly, there was only had time for one before I head back to the Dawn Princess.

But I’m already making plans to return, to drink, and maybe even stay much, much longer at Raffles and in Singapore.

(disclaimer: Hotel Tour and a complimentary Singapore Sling was kindly provided by Raffles Hotel)

(photos courtesy of Raffles Hotel)

The first time I visited the radically misnamed Open Air bookstore in Toronto, I was so overwhelmed with delight that I forgot all about it almost immediately.  That was two years ago, and on the occasions when it did pop into my mind, I couldn’t remember where I’d been when I’d encountered the store.  I was almost convinced that the whole thing had been a dream.

But when I returned Ontario last week, and found myself with some time to spare one morning, I had a glimmer that the bookstore had been in Toronto. I resolved to find it once again — if it in fact had a corporeal existence.

I couldn’t remember the store’s name, and my vague Google searches on the BlackBerry came up empty, so I walked around downtown rather aimlessly,  squinting back in my memory. I turned on Toronto Street, which at first seemed utterly unpromising, the sort of place where you’re likely to find little more than stockbroker’s offices and perhaps a sad cafe selling wilted sandwiches for takeaway… but then again,  it was starting to feel familiar.

At the end of the block, just in front of number 25, I spotted a rugged guy, in orange polyester-based wicking fabric and a backpack,  standing in front of a railing, and a staircase leading downward.   I’d found my quarry. I looked down into a window entirely stacked in with cardboard boxes, and saw a small wooden sign that said Open Air Books & Maps.

Just below sidewalk level, I pushed through a heavy metal door and entered into an absolute marvel — a chaos of jam-packed bookshelves, with books stacked front to ceiling in front of and next to those book shelves. Every single book is about travel, or nature, or the environment, and there are also maps. And globes!  Even thought it was a bright blue sky morning, there was almost no natural light in Open Air — the books blocked any sunbeams that could reach the near-subterranean space.

There is a rough order to the stacks — they’re divided by geography, but beyond that, there was no organization scheme that I could discern. In fact there really couldn’t be — if you want a book that is, say, two-thirds down a stack, you must try to delicately pry it out without sending the whole lot tumbling, and should you succeed, you’d have no practical way to get it back in its place again.

Book avalanches are a frequent occurrence, confirmed the young man behind the counter,  with the tolerant weariness of someone who answers the same question several times a day. Mr. Orange Wicking Fabric purchased some maps and asked whether they’d ever thought about expanding, a question that the clerk also answered in the affirmative with the same tone. “If it were up to me…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

Meanwhile I was again in a state of delighted overwhelm. Shall I read about Asia, the Adirondacks, the Adriatic? An anthology, a novel, an atlas? I wandered through slowly, considering all the possibilities, picking up (or rather, prying out) some books, and then returning them to their pile. Too many choices is supposed to make decision-making difficult — the theory is that multiple options create too many pluses and minuses to consider, which makes honing on a perfect choice a frustrating exercise in futility.

In fact, in this way, Open Air strikes me as a perfect analogy to the world we encounter as travelers — packed,  even overstuffed with the interesting and fascinating mixed in with the boring and the banal.

Now, I’m generally not trying to find perfect — either in a book, or a trip that I make, and so I don’t find decision-making that difficult, even when I’m spoiled for choices.  (Although I will confess that when I’m tired and cranky, I can find the world’s variety numbing.)  Without anguish, I made my purchase: The Oxford Book of Travel Stories. And then I left Open Air, glad to be out in actual open air — and also to have a reminder of how limitless our choices are, both on a travel bookshelf, and in the world.

Which, come to think of it, is like a very good dream indeed.

When the Dawn Princess stopped in Singapore last week, my goal was to head to Raffles and have a Singapore Sling. But on the way there I took a wrong turn and ended up instead at the MINT.

A five storey establishment hidden between the tall buildings near Singapore’s Raffles City Complex, the MINT or Museum of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys claims to be the world’s first purpose-built museum of toys.

It was opened in 2007 by toy fanatic Chang Yang Fa who, having started collecting toys from the age of six, had ended up with a massive collection of over 50,000 rare and vintage toys from around the world he wanted to showcase.

Wandering around the MINT, my fingers itched to get hold of the wind up toys, spinning flying saucers, and various Star Trek guns. But due to the fragility and the high value of some of it’s collection (the long nosed Mickey Mouse is valued at $35,000) the MINT is a ‘look but don’t touch’ museum, with all the toys encased in special glass and temperature controlled back lighting.

Still, even with the no touch policy, the MINT is a toy lovers treasure trove. From collectibles such as wind up climbing monkeys, tin elephants, and lunch boxes to board games featuring the Monkees and the Beatles, each theme based floor displays hundreds of items that remind visitors of a much simpler time when playing required simple toys and a large dose of imagination.

South Africa has been waiting a long time for this, and after years, months, weeks of hype and preparation, they’re finally ready. Well… sort of.

With the 2010 World Cup set to kick off in seven short days when the host nation takes on Mexico at Soccer City in Johannesburg, the weight of expectation, curiosity, and, yes, skepticism, is weighing heavily on the minds and mood of South Africans.

On the surface, airports have been given successful facelifts (especially in Jo’burg), extra security has been unleashed to petrol popular tourist areas in Cape Town, and nearly every shop in the country has been stocked from floor to ceiling with soccer jerseys, flags, and every other imaginable World Cup-related knick-knack you can imagine. (Today, I almost bought a pack of Brazil team-colored gummy sour straws at a Pick ‘n’ Pay grocery store; instead, I went with the plastic, candy-filled South Africa soccer shoe.)

The streets of Cape Town are certainly buzzing with wig-wearing, cape-donning, soccer-crazed tourists beginning to trickle in a week or so early. The soon-to-be-omnipresent sound of the vuvazela (a long, plastic horn) is ringing with more and more frequency and ferocity, and restaurants on Long Street and bars on uber-trendy Kloof Street are filling up earlier and emptying out later.

It’s impossible not to get wrapped up in all the hoopla and excitement.

Still, skepticism pervades within both local and international circles. Infrastructure upgrades are ongoing and some of them are, obviously, well behind schedule. Early projections of 2 million plus visitors have dropped to 1 million, then 500k, and according to a recent news broadcast, now hover in the 300k range. Doubts about the begrudgingly beloved Bafana Bafana national team, who’ve disappointed on the international stage in recent years, remain high. Most fans I’ve talked with would be happy if they could just pull off an upset over Mexico in the first game; others fear, are almost predicting, a few embarrassing blowouts in group match play. (I personally think they’ll surprise, but that’s just a hunch.)

The inevitable (unfair?) comparisons to the wildly successful 2006 World Cup in Germany are already dominating international coverage on news outlets like CNN. Indeed, with a number of broadcasts focusing on potential negatives, such as the fact that so far Americans have bought the most tickets and that, now, it’s falling on South Africans themselves to buy up the rest and fill the stadiums, the international press seems to have taken baby steps towards a predetermined narrative that South Africa just wasn’t ready for something of this magnitude. We’ll find out soon enough.

It’s hard to imagine that just 20 years ago South Africa was still flailing under the oppression of apartheid. As a country, progress has clearly been made, but there’s still so, so much more to be done. With unemployment at anywhere from 35 – 45% depending on who you ask, and with 10% of the population effectively controlling 90% of the money, the distribution of wealth remains insanely askew.

You see it on the streets, when the young, rich, and trendy with a taste for 50 Rand cocktails brush by homeless people scrounging for change; such social issues aren’t unique to South Africa, by any means, but here it often feels that much more unbalanced.

It’s a complex problem and one that warrants much more discussion than I have time for here; to be sure, a situation I desperately hope improves sooner rather than later. A good first step, I think, towards boosting the promising South African economy and, hopefully, helping create more jobs would be a World Cup that succeeds with flying colors. So, let’s all root for this sort-of underdog to pull it off. I think they can; no, I know they can… and will.

Photo Copyright Brian Spencer