Until The Fat Lady Sings

"Meet you at the Fat Bird at 1pm okay?"

Those working in Singapore's Central Business District would have uttered or SMSed this phrase to a lunch or dinner companion at some point during their weekdays (I'm really really sorry for those making such arrangements at Raffles Place while back in the office on weekends. It's time to change your job) spent slogging in Raffles Place

Meeting up with friends under the big fat toes of The Bird was my first encounter with Botero, more famously known for his paintings of fat women than birds, actually. The Colombian artist was born in Medellin, a city 9 hours by road from Bogota. Nevertheless, he has an impressive collection on display at the Donacion Botera in Bogota - 123 of his paintings, drawings and sculptures are available for public viewing, free of charge. There are also 85 other pieces by famous artists such as Dali and Picasso. The gallery (located in a very large old house) is a mere 3-minute walk from our hostel in the La Candelaria area.

We decided to explore Botero's artwork one afternoon. Now, we are not really the artistic sort - having never been to any art exhibitions or galleries back home, except for the Singapore Biennale - simply because the event, on both occasions that it was held, was linked to my work. I do like dabbling in art (I speak for myself only because Dan tells me he constantly failed at art throughout school) but spending a day gazing at art pieces isn't quite my cup of tea.

Uncultured as we deem ourselves to be, we went anyway, because (1) which better place to learn more about Botero than in Colombia itself; (2) entrance to the gallery was free of charge; and (3) we were running out of things to do in Bogota.

The Great Hand at the entrance greets visitors with a cheery wave... Hola mis amigos!

The gallery was packed with school children of all ages on the day we were there. I think it's really great that the kids here can enjoy an excursion to an art gallery on a school day. Goes to show that it's okay to screw maths and science for a day in the name of art appreciation. I definitely don't recall having the luxury of visiting a museum or art gallery as part of my school curriculum. Excursions of any sort took place only once a year after the exams ended and were limited to the zoo, Pasir Ris Park and repeated visits to the Science (yawn) Centre. Thankfully, the bar was raised in secondary school and we got to travel overseas. Somewhat. To Kukup (seafood lunch at a kelong) and Malacca (visit to the rubber plantation.)

The primary school kids were pretty enthusiastic about the gallery tour and were giving their utmost attention to the tour guide. Until we appeared and distracted them with our ching-chong Chinese faces. They called out "hola, hola!", "buenos tardes!", "chao!" each time they trooped past us, and 2 little girls took turns to pose with me and photograph each other with a handphone camera. I'm not sure being asked to pose for a photo is a compliment, given that this was a gallery that glorified fat women. Or, maybe, amongst all the fat sculptures and fat-people paintings, I must have looked like a goddess. Yes, yes, I believe that was it...

The older students - girls all prettily made-up and wearing flashy earrings, were alot less excited about viewing Botero's artwork. They preferred to sun themselves in the courtyard, snap pictures of one another, nap or talk on their mobiles. Pity how we all go through this cynical it's-cool-to-be-bored stage at some point during our school days.

Bored with Botero

We embarked on a self-guided tour of the house. Within the first 10 minutes, we managed to embarass ourselves by venturing too near to the paintings, triggering the sensor and setting off the alarm. The security guard and other visitors had to tell us to move further away from the walls. So suaku right. Well, we cosied up to the sculptures, because unlike the precious paintings, the metal men and women weren't surrounded by sensors and welcomed us with open arms, if any.

Paying a courtesy call at Adam and Eve's. They weren't expecting visitors and thus weren't wearing their fig leaves (blush)

Dannie spying on Venus in her (naked) sleep

Botero seems to like depicting men on horses alot, so Dannie tried to model for him. The kids and other visitors seemed to find his pose very amusing.

Photo taken by Dannie (obviously) who was very amused at how such a tiny leaf was all that was needed to give this beefy torso a little privacy.

Botero's pieces are all given very simple titles: Mujer en el Bano (Woman In The Bathroom), La Chica (Girl), Cebeza y Hombros de la Mujer (Head and Shoulders of a Woman), Hombre a Caballo (Man on Horse), etc. Our visit was quite timely actually. Alot of the titles were basically just descriptions of the parts of the human body depicted in the paintings. We had just learnt the names for the parts of the body in Spanish that very morning, so we could could read all the painting titles (no English translation)! Gee, I knew what la cebeza and los hombros were!

Don't hope for any in-depth critique of Botero's works here. All I can say is that I like Botero's style of drawing and painting very much. His work has a very soft and full quality to it - in his depiction of fruits, animals, buildings, rooms, scenery, and people. In my simplistic interpretation of his work, I would say that what he's trying to express in his subjects is the fullness of life?

Dannie obviously not agreeing with my "fullness of life" interpretation when it came to this horse's life-giving abilities

At the end of it all, it was a pretty enjoyable way to spend the afternoon. And I can safely say that this won't be our last visit to an art museum (as long as the others over South America remain free.) Who knows, this may just be the start of a new interest in art.

As the saying goes, it ain't over until the fat lady (not me) sings.

Not quite achieving a successful impression of that famous mysterious smile

PS. Botero's Pajaro (bird) sculpture in the gallery was the size of a chicken. Many times smaller than the one in Singapore and the two in his hometown, Medellin.

How To Not Eat Your Heart Out When Eating Your Heart Out

As mentioned before, for the first 3 months of our trip, we ate our way through all the fast food chains (MacD's, KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Arby's, Domino's), IHOPs and Ben & Jerry freezers throughout the United States. The good thing is - fast food is the cheapest meal option The bad (very very bad) thing? All those burgers, pizzas, fries and ice-cream flooded our bodies with fat, thousands of calories and icky bad cholesterol.

Our health situation isn't much better here in Colombia. Alot of the food we eat is deep fried - roadside snacks, fried plantains (similar to goreng pisang) and grilled meats.

Shaping Up

"You guys should try getting some exercise!" I hear you say. Except for the daily exertion on our lungs from plodding uphill back to our hostel at this high altitude, and short of signing up for a membership at a home gym (no big California Fitness and Fitness First chains here), going for a jog in Bogota is simply not an option. The air is severely polluted and blackened from the toxic fumes spewed out from collectivos and buses, and ever-rampant cigarette smoke. I fear for my lungs every time we step out onto the street. The pavements are crowded with mime artists (yes, irritating clowns who insist on trailing you and imitating your every action, and expect you to pay them for it), vendors spreading their wares on the ground, spray-paint artists, touts shoving everything from thumb drives to menus in your face and the alluring combo of potholes, spittle and pigeon poop. We are looking forward very much to moving into the countryside once our Spanish lessons end.

Looking Inwards

That said, regular exercise can only target one of the problems brought upon by an unhealthy diet - it only burns excess calories. What about all the bad cholesterol that's trapped inside your body? How do you get that damned evil stuff out?

To recap, how is bad cholesterol harmful to our health? While moving through your body via your bloodstream, the cholesterol decides that it likes the snug environment of your arteries and happily makes itself a permanent home on your artery walls. With the intake of more fatty foods, this spot of prime real estate attracts more fat neighbours. Unlike the traffic situation in Singapore, there's no equivalent of Electronic Road Pricing strategies in your body to regulate the speed at which the fatty deposits are building up. As a result, your arteries start to get dangerously narrow. This is what increases your risk of getting a heart attack.

So, just like how you take care of your car - by giving it a good scrub on the outside and cleaning out the interior (all those errant chips and cookie crumbs) - you not only need to care for your body by showering everyday (even if it means freezing your toes off in chilly Bogota), you also need to flush out those toxic residents that are throwing a weekly neighbourhood party in your arteries.

Cleaning On The Go

How do we take care of our insides while on the go, without (1) starving ourselves silly on a self-imposed detox diet (and missing out on all the great local food); and (2) signing up for expensive and time-consuming professional detox treatments?

We take Forever Living Arctic-Sea Omega-3 capsules as a dietary supplement.

Forever Living Arctic-Sea Omega-3 capsules - your Heart's best friend

Omega-3 is a fatty acid present in the layer of oil that lies under the skin of certain types of fish, namely salmon and mackerel. Also known as "good cholesterol", these fatty acids play a part in reducing the risk of contracting heart disease by countering the influx of bad cholesterol. In the case of Forever Living Arctic-Sea Omega-3 capsules, each 1000 mg capsule comprises 75% pure fish oil and 25% olive oil.

Why olive oil too? Olive oil contains Omega-9, which enhances the rate at which Omega-3 works to reduce cholesterol levels. Our friend Jasmine demonstrated this fact to us through an interesting experiment involving some Styrofoam. Styrofoam has a chemical structure similar to that of bad cholesterol. When oil from an Arctic-Sea capsule was added to the Styrofoam, the Styrofoam immediately started to dissolve. The conclusion is quite clear: the rare combination of Omega-3 and Omega-9 in a single capsule helps to dissolve solid fat deposits in the arteries. Liquid toxins are more easily flushed out of the body than chunks of fat. Regular intake of Arctic-Sea thus helps to keep the arteries clear and open, which optimises the flow of blood - and thus oxygen - to the heart.

There's Lots of Fish in the Sea

Exactomento. Omega-3 supplements are a dime a dozen in pharmacies. But where is the fish oil coming from? The polluted sea near you? Or unhealthy farm-reared fish, all packed fin-to-fin in grimy tanks? As you can imagine, the quality of the oil extracted from fishes living in such poor conditions can't be very good.

As clearly stated in the product name, Forever Living's Omega-3 is harvested from fish living in the Arctic Sea, whose remote location and severe icy temperatures work together to keep human activity at bay and its waters unpolluted. The Arctic waters are partially covered in ice throughout the year, and almost completely so in winter. To survive in such harsh conditions, its fishy residents need to store substantial layers of oil under their skin to insulate themselves against the cold. Healthy fish roaming freely in unpolluted waters, all warm and cosy under their thick oily coats? Paints a pretty picture indeed! So, in order to harvest their bounty of plentiful high-quality oil, we... kill them? Uh-huh. No fishes are harmed in the oil extraction process. Forever Living simply extracts the oil from under their skin and releases the fish back into the ocean, unharmed. To avid divers like us (and all you nice, kindhearted people out there!) who believe in the motto "Fish Are Friends, Not Food", that is good news indeed.

The Comparison With Brand X

Yeah, but how do we know for sure that Forever Living Arctic-Sea capsules work better than aaallllll the other brands of Omega-3 dietary supplements out on the market? Well, to be honest, we don't. Simply because we haven't eaten Omega-3 from aaalllll the other brands and we don't know anyone who is crazy enough to do so.

But take my dad's word for it. Prof Tan is The Ultimate Hypochondriac who indulges in an occasional serving of char kway teow, durian pengat, cereal prawns, chendol and buttery goodies that my mum churns out from her oven. He has been taking Omega-3 capsules since ... forever. We gave him a bottle of Artic-Sea capsules to try. After a month, he excitedly reported that he preferred Forever Living's capsules over his Brand X ones because:

(1) Forever Living's soft gel capsules were easier to swallow than Brand X's hard, plasticky rugby balls that stabbed at his throat on their way down;

(2) they helped him poop better (sorry Dad, you were so excited about this - I just had to say it);

(3) as a result of point (2), he felt lighter, cleaner and more energetic; and

(4) ever since he started taking Arctic-Sea, he has not fallen ill (my dad's very prone to the sniffles and sore throats) even though a recent bout of the dreaded Office Flu wiped out his entire department.

Don't Miss The Boat!

It's never too early to start taking care of your heart and keeping heart disease at bay. If anyone is interested in getting on track to a healthy heart, drop our friend Jasmine a note by clicking here or emailing her at jasjas.ng@gmail.com. Don't just stop at the heart though - Jas knows some professional nutritionists who can help do a thorough check of your insides too!

A Spanish Mistake

Although the Spanish alphabet encompasses all 26 letters of the English alphabet (with a few more extra ones tossed in), some of the letters are pronounced rather differently from what we are used to back home.

For example:

- "g", in some instances, is pronounced as "h" (so you make the "hehh" sound) You pronounce "gente" (people) as "hen-tay"

- "h" is silent. You pronounce "hola" as "oh-la"

- "j" is pronounced as "h". Laughter, in Spanish, would be spelt as "jajajajaja" but sounds like "hahahahaha"

As I just found out over a Facebook chat with my Spanish teacher (una Colombiana bonita!) who is living in Singapore, it is REALLY important to keep your ears peeled for such subtle differences when hearing words starting with "g" or "h".

In my last entry, there was a picture in which I was posing with a street vendor selling marshmallow-like sweets, which I had purchased. I thought the sweets were called "heladinas", which was what I had heard the vendors' shouting throughout Bogota and Zipaquera.

Looks good, doesn't it? Like mochi - yums!

Now, because we're such fans of ice-cream, that was one of the first words that I looked up in the Spanish dictionary. Ice-cream, in Spanish, is "helado" (prounounced "ay-la-doh".) Thus, I deduced that it was perfectly logical for the soft, sweet, creamy-white snacks to be called "heladinas" - like, small ice-creams?

To my utmost horror, Alejandra (my Spanish teacher in Singapore) just informed me that the snack I ate was not a mini ice-cream.... but rather a "gelatina" (pronounced "hay-la-tina") - gelatin extracted from boiling the body parts of the cow, namely it's hide, bones and hooves!!!!!

*covers mouth and turns green*

Okay, people, you can all stop laughing now.

At least I got a good dose of collagen! Jajajajaja!