I’m escorting my smallest group yet with 28 singles. Over 60 had begged me to offer these destinations, but most bailed last minute claiming fear of bird flu. So it’s like a vacation for me with this quality over quantity entourage of culture-vultures.

We begin with an orientation tour at the top of Mt. Farber with spectacular views. I can see the group is impressed with this sparkling metropolis located between Malaysia and Indonesia. Here is the leader of S.E. Asia, a bustling port that was modernized by the British Empire. It’s called the “Lion City” and inhabited by 4 million souls. 76% are Chinese and the other minorities blend harmoniously. Singapore is a city, state, capital and country all in one and draws 8 million visitors per year, yet few Americans have yet to discover it.

We check into the opulent Regent Hotel of the Four Seasons. I’m given a suite and swear this wins the award for the most gracious staff on the planet. We’ve arrived at a perfect time now with the “Great Shopping Festival” on. There is nothing like some retail therapy to soothe our jet lag. Orchard Road, like a tree lined Fifth Avenue is a block away and center of all life. Shopping is the national obsession and bargain hunting can become a blood sport here.

There are 150 mega-malls with some that never close. I’m a label slave and purchase a used authentic Rolex with documents for a fraction of it’s original cost. We have only 4 days here. So much to do 24/7, its like Hong Kong on steroids. The Arts Festival is on with a multitude of venues. After dark, it becomes party city at the trendy Clarke Quay area by the river.

We have an astute and friendly guide named Farida who shows us all the sights along with a great sense of humor. We visit the lush National Orchard Gardens with 60,000 orchids, China Town with its markets and temples as well as Little India with its intense aromas and vibrant colors. Then on to the ultra-contemporary financial district, Merlion Park with its landmark fountain and the historic colonial area that was established by Sir Stanford Raffles.

We stop to sip a Singapore Sling at the famous Long Bar of Raffles Hotel where rooms start at $700 per night. Other tours included Jurong Bird Park and the Night Safari at the zoo, considered the best in the world with its free roaming cages for 2500 animals. In free time, we ride rickshaws around town and take the cable car over to Sentosa Island.

Some of us opt to head back to the zoo for a Jungle Breakfast with the Orangutans. At night Terry & I dine on jumbo chili crabs and rice cakes. This vibrant island-state of Singapore is glistening clean with purple bougainvillea bushes lining the highways. All cars are equipped with alarms to sound if one exceeds the speed limit. No graffiti, no gangs and in this tightly “controlled democracy”, it’s the death penalty for drug traffickers. We all make jokes about getting caned for chewing gum or jay-walking.

Its been a leisurely visit here. I usually feel like Jack Bauer on the TV series 24 on my trips with non-stop itineraries. I feel rested as I board our 3 hour flight to Vietnam.

We arrive to another world with rice paddies, sampans, lotus blossoms, coconut milk and noodle soups. It’s like time machine travel back to the 15th century in this graceful land that is steeped in history. It is far poorer than I anticipated. There is however, an alluring charm which is found in the gentility of these people with the sincerest of smiles. I am a fan of the Third World. Whereas Singapore was dynamic, Hanoi is culturally stimulating. The city is studded with lakes and shaded by tamarind trees. It is a dichotomy that bustles with Chi-energy and yet is tranquil at the same time.

We check into the deluxe Sheraton Resort, an oasis of calm amidst the chaos. Our fabulous guide named Hong will be with us for 6 glorious days. His first lesson was in teaching us how to cross the streets. The traffic of 7 lanes is horrendous with 2.4 million motor scooters. “It’s called the Chicken Game.” Hong says. “Don’t run, don’t stop, just walk slowly so drivers can predict your direction.” That afternoon I stand in fear stranded 20 minutes curbside as this lesson goes against all instincts. There are entire families on a single scooter, called the “Vietnamese sandwich.” Everything is transported on these mopeds, 8 piglets, a dozen chickens upside down, a TV, a tree and more. Pollution is bad. The inner city looks tired and worn. Suddenly there’s a monsoon downpour. People drape ponchos and it becomes raincoat city. It dissipates as quickly as it began and life goes on.

The sun shined on our daily tours which included the Temple of Literature, One Pillar Pagoda, the French Quarter and the memorial to Ho Chi Mihn. We line up with hundreds of people to enter the tomb where his preserved body is visibly encased just like Lennon in Moscow. Communist armed soldiers command us to silent reverence, no cameras, umbrellas, sunglasses and arms at our sides. Later we visit Hoa Lo Prison, or Fiery Furnace. Built by the French in 1896, thousands of political prisoners were tortured here until 1954. We view the dungeons with leg irons, torture equipment and “head cutting machies.” In the 1960’s the Vietcong used this as a prisoner of war detention center for American pilots shot down during the Vietnam War. It was our captive pilots that sardonically named this place “The Hanoi Hilton.” We also do a walking tour through the Old Quarter where each narrow lane was named for its ancient craft: Silk St., Coffin St., Grilled Fish St., etc. Hong leads us to a food market with turtles , sea slugs, pig heads and other unmentionable creatures for sale. Thit Chow is dog stew which is considered peasant food here. Country rat is ceremoniously served at all birthday parties.

Most of our meals are included with elaborate breakfast buffets and 10 coarse lunches. Every restaurant is affordable. One evening my dinner menu presented salad of jellyfish, deep fried eel, ginger crickets and sticky rice with tender roasted pigeon. It seems the Vietnamese will eat anything that moves because “it tastes like chicken.”

We attend the Water Puppet Show, a ancient art form unique only to Hanoi. This blend of music and dance on water was the source of entertainment of villagers long ago. We then scatter to explore the city, Asia’s oldest capital. Some go for massages and pedicures at prices that can’t be resisted. Some shop for souvenirs while others have clothes tailor made for them. I have an embroidered silk dress cut to my body in 4 hours for $45. We also visited the handicraft villages for bargains in art, ceramics and lacquerware. The currency is a great challenge for us as $10,500 dong equals 65 cents. We felt like millionaires yet it was disheartening to learn that the annual per capita income is just $320! We tip generously throughout.

Vietnam’s pulse is found in its cities whereas its decorous grace is found in its villages. We head out through the countryside for a full day cruise at Halong Bay. The air is fresh as we pass rice paddies, duck and prawn farms. It is rice harvest time and hundreds of rice farmers are bent over their ponds. Timid children wave as we drive by. We arrive at this natural UNESCO World Heritage Site and board our private wooden junk boat. Quietly we sail into a dreamscape that looks surreal. 3,000 islands of sheer limestone cliffs emerge from the emerald sea. There is a timeless, haunting quality to this scenery. Nat. Geo. calls it “magic in stone and water.” We enjoy a seafood lunch with fresh caught crab and prawns. It’s a perfect day in the sun for escapism and serenity.

The highlight of the trip for me was our group cyclo-tour through Old Hanoi on the last day. We turn a corner downtown to see 28 bicycle-rickshaws lined up to peddle us individually for an hour through the narrow scooter filled lanes of oncoming traffic. There are some near-misses at the red lights which are always ignored. We all laugh as locals stare. Terry at 6’4” is considered huge even in America. Here he looked like King Tut seated on a throne as his 90lb. driver peddles him effortlessly in line with our group. We later go our separate ways for independent exploration. After several hours, I found myself lost in an area of town with no taxis. I had to get back to join others for dinner. No choice but to hire a ride on a scooter. Dressed in a skirt with my arms full of bags, I mount the tiny seat and we’re off. On the highway, I wrap my arms and legs around my driver like an octopus. He laughs the entire way to the Sheraton.

We fly back to Singapore for a good nights rest at the Le Meridian before our long flight home to Los Angeles via Tokyo. I reflect on another journey well done with new insights gained on history and cultures. It was like visiting two different planets within one vacation. The contrast of this trip is evident in our photos from the contemporary garden paradise of Singapore to the new renaissance of traditional Vietnam. This is certainly an Asian affair never to be forgotten.

The story of how I met Bruce is also quite intriguing: my brother, who happens to live in Austria, was reading a German travel magazine that was featuring a story about Bruce, so he called me up and said that there is this guy that is doing all these neat walking tours through Toronto and that’s how I connected with Bruce – through a European detour. Over the past couple of years I have taken two of his tours, covering the downtown area and featuring a culinary exploration of Toronto’s famous St. Lawrence market. I have always enjoyed the experience and wanted to do another tour with Bruce for a while.

Well, I figured it was definitely time for more entertaining and informative explorations of Toronto; this time it was going to be Chinatown-Kensington, one of Toronto’s most vibrant and fascinating neighbourhoods. So I called up Bruce and said let’s do another tour. To share the experience I brought out six of my friends and we met yesterday at 6:30 pm at one of Toronto’s modern architecture icons: the OCAD Building at 100 McCaul Street, just south of the University of Toronto campus. The OCAD Building, I call it the “gift box on stilts”, is part of the 2004 redevelopment of the Campus of the Ontario College of Art & Design. The Sharp Centre for Design has a unique “table top” structure which has quickly become one of Toronto’s most recognizable landmarks.

The Grange, undergoing renovation, situated next to the AGO We met in the Butterfield Park area, surrounded by the stilts holding up the table top of this extraordinary building. From there we headed west into a green space that features Toronto’s oldest house: “The Grange” was built in 1817 for D’Arcy Boulton Jr., a member of one of early Toronto’s most prominent families who owned about 2000 acres of land in the area. The classical mansion reflects the British architectural traditions of the 18th century. Today, the Grange is owned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and is in the process of being renovated and integrated into the AGO’s Frank Gehry-led redesign.

After leaving this park we walked north on Beverley Street which features several yellow-brick mansions of some of Toronto’s most pre-eminent families, the “Family Compact” – the true power brokers of the early 19th century. Families such as the Cawthras and others owned huge tracts of land in what is today’s downtown Toronto. The Bolton family even owned a private racetrack near the intersections of Dundas and Beverley and many formal social occasions were celebrated on their enormous estate. We also passed by a former hotel which dates back to 1822, one of the very few hotels left from that era which today is a men’s residence.

Our stroll took us westwards on Baldwin Street, a street with a mix of imposing mansions, historic apartment buildings and narrow Victorian homes with attractive architectural details and amazingly intricate woodwork. Bruce stopped at a mansion of one of Toronto’s most influential historic figures: George Brown (1818 to 1880) was a Scottish-born Canadian journalist, politician and one of the Fathers of Canada’s Confederation. He was also the founder and editor of the Toronto Globe newspaper which today is known as the Globe and Mail.

Bruce enlightened us that George Brown was an important figure in the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses that allowed African slaves to escape from the United States to Canada in the 19th century. Ironically, as much as George Brown supported the cause of freeing black slaves, he remained a staunch anti-Catholic. Bruce elaborated that while the United States was characterized by an ongoing conflict between Blacks and Whites, early Canada’s conflicts mostly unfolded between Protestants and Catholics. Bruce added that in 1880 George Brown was shot by one of his former employees at the Globe newspaper, a certain George Bennet who had been fired from his job for drunkenness. Although George Brown only suffered a leg injury at the time he died about 6 weeks later from the wound.

Just a few steps further west we saw the mansion of Robert Baldwin, a member of the Parliament of Upper Canada and a key public figure around the time of the 1837 uprising of the Toronto population against the entrenched British power structure. The unsuccessful Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 was an uprising against the British colonial government, particularly about the issue of land allocation. Most of the land in and around the old City of York was owned by the “Family Compact”, a group of extremely wealthy Anglican conservative families that represented Canada’s elite at the time. Robert Baldwin was instrumental in establishing Responsible Government, which advocated increased independence from Britain and self-government for Upper Canada.

We had finally arrived on Spadina Avenue, the expansive north-south artery that is the centre point of Toronto’s Chinatown. This historic neighbourhood, one of three Chinatowns within Toronto’s city boundaries, is centered around Spadina and Dundas and is the largest Chinese shopping area in the city. Old Chinatown is actually one of North America’s largest, not surprisingly as Toronto features the second largest Chinese population in Canada after Vancouver.

Recent years have seen a migration of Chinese immigrants to the suburbs which has led to the closure of some of the local restaurants. Many former Chinatown residents, originally from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong have moved outside the City’s boundaries and the void has been filled by many ethnic Chinese people from Vietnam. As a result an increasing number of store signs are now in Vietnamese, in addition to the well-established Chinese stores.

Goods sold include fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, low cost clothing and general merchandise, all of which are sold at very reasonable prices. Recently there has been a noticeable local increase in Latin American immigrants, testament to the fact that Toronto’s demographics continue to be in flux.

The same story applies even more to Toronto’s Kensington area, roughly bounded by Spadina Avenue, College Street, Queen Street and Bellevue Avenue. As Bruce explained, it is one of Toronto’s most ethnically diverse and eclectic neighbourhoods and has been attracting immigrants from different countries of origin for the last 130 years or so. Originally the Denison estate, the Kensington area became a residential area for Irish and Scottish immigrant labourers. The small working-class houses in this historically inexpensive area have been inhabited by successive waves of immigrants from different places. From 1910 onwards, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe as well as some Italians started to stream into the area. The entire Kensington area became known as “the Jewish Market”, and about 60,000 Jewish residents lived here in the 1920s and 1930s who worshipped in about 30 local synagogues.

We stopped at the Minsker Synagogue at 10 St. Andrew Street, home of the Congregation Anshei Minsk, Toronto’s Downtown Synagogue. Construction of the synagogue commenced in 1922 and was finally completed in 1930. As a result of the out-migration of many of the Jewish residents from Kensington, today it is one of the few synagogues still in active operation in downtown Toronto.