Day 2: Sunday afternoon

A sizzling Sunday afternoon and many of the contestants are still going strong despite the lack of sleep and the almost inhuman heat at the plaza. The thermometer stood at 38 degrees Celsius!! In some faces pain has already left its marks. Time is taking its toll among both genders. They are starting to have problems deciding which position is the best to outlast others. Some are using the idle hand to keep the other palm down on the car. The lovely Class 95 DJ Carol is trying to cheer to not give up. Stretching also helps to keep muscles flexible. Take off your shoes but the tiles are damn hot.Medical staff is constantly checking the condition and immediately taking someone out if there is a health problem.Game Marshalls are spraying water to cool bodies and even palms.MediCorp TV is around to catch the latest developments.
Tim from Gold 90.5 FM is playing games with relatives and supporters of the contestants

Check here for more

Sunday afteroon

Palms down since 01 days 05 hrs 50 mins

DAY 2: MediaCorp Radio Subaru Impreza Challenge 2007

Another beautiful morning and the sun is already heating up the humid Singapore air and Ngee Ann City's Civic Plaza where quite a number of contestants survived the first night. Still bravely standing are: Sunday (3.11.) morning at 9:00
> Guys: 91
> Gals : 86

Click Photo to see album from 1st day

MediaCorp Radio Subaru Impreza Challenge

It's 9:32 now and the Palms are down since 20 hrs 32 mins only!
Yes ONLY (!!!) because the record time of wining a Subaru Impreza was set in
2004: 74 Hours 59 Mins

The shortest time need to win was in 2005 and was 64 Hours 31 Mins. However this was a Team Challenge were a team of 2 had to have the palms down till the end.

Talking About Edurance Again

My last post was about Erich’s endurance over 1095 days. Here’s something about another crazy endurance held in Singapore since 6 years now:
Saturday November 3rd. at 13:00 straight, this year’s
MediaCorp Radio Subaru Impreza Challenge 2007
at Ngee Ann City Civic plaza located on Orchard Road kicked in. Over 2000 hopeful contestants wanted to qualify for hours or even days of heat, rain, cramps, physical and psychological pain, and much more.

For non Singaporeans or others who never heard of this challenge just a short update.

It was 5 years ago when the first Subaru Imp. Challenge was held. Since that time thousands of men and women of all ages tried to win that great car. This year will be a battle of the sexes: one male and one female contestant each will walk away with a Brand New Subaru Impreza 1.5R. However first you have stay at one spot keep one hand on a dedicated painted hand on different spots of that particular car.
Seems easy right? However that’s not the only obstacle that hinders you from winning. Here we go:
- You are not allowed to change hands
- You’re not allowed to even lift your palm or you’ll be sent off by the constantly checking and cruising game marshalls
- You need to pee? No way: got to wait for 6 hours because after that there’s a break, but gotta hurry. It’s 5 (FIVE) minutes only. And this few minutes you have to do all that needs to be done, like eating, drinking, kiss and hug your loved one, etc.
- If you missed anything during the break you have to wait another 6 hours.

And there are a lot more of these tuff rules but only if you want to win this car!
You think that’s easy because you’re good at yoga or meditation? That might be an advantage!
But did I mention the temperature in Singapore. At the starting time it had moderate 30 degrees Celsius (with real feel: 40 deg) and about 90% humidity.
The contestants were lucky because dot 13:00 it was cloudy with some showers predicted. However after 15 min the “planet” showed its real face and wanted to brighten up the competition I guess. If you want to check the actual temperature you can find it on the right hand side of this blog.
So are you still interested? Well too late for this year but I’m sure there will be a 7th year of this competition as well.

Media Corp Radio Class 95 FM one of the main sponsors and some of the best MediaCorp Radio DJ’s (Glenn Ong, FD, Carol, to name a few) will be broadcasting their shows live from the venue. So if you wan to get updated about the challenge just tune into Class 95 FM or check out their live webcam. For our overseas blog readers: You can hook up as well as the station is also available online. Class 95 FM
We keep you posted as well.

Contestants are nervously waiting for the start. Everyone has a question regarding the do's and don'ts which are answered by F.D. and Daniel Ong.

The last minutes and off we go!
Good Luck To All Participants!

Parents, family, loved ones cheering from outside the fence. How many days will the participants last? Last update: 2 hours after the start 15 contestants out of the 400 hundred are already out!

Anniversary Party

Here are some of the guys attending the anniversary party last night and Erich's "official" anniversary photo.

From all of us all the best and good luck for the future to Erich and his team.

HAPPY 3rd ANNIVERSARY ERICH

It’s been 3 years now of successfully selling sausages in Chinatown! That means the Wuerstelstand has been open for 1095 days (!!!) That also means Erich has been working for 1095 days without 1 single day of leave.
CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR ENDURANCE ERICH!
And thank you for your humor, your friendliness to everyone regardless of age, race or income. You are one of the very rare species that don’t care about status.
It’s also great to listen to your famous speeches (“Erich explains the world”) though sometimes a bit weird/funny but that even makes it more worth listening.
Not to mention our appreciation for the best sausages, pretzels, onion buns and bread rolls in the world.

This “nightspot” seems to attract more visitors than most of the other traditional ones. No wonder they are jealous and sometimes try to block your ideas of doing business.
You truly have become a Singapore Icon most popular next to the Merlion.

Anyway I guess no one would have been able to predict your success when you started 3 years ago. Many thought this Wuerstelstand wouldn’t last very long, this crazy Ang Moh will be gone as soon as the bubble tea did, the Cinnabon did and many more other crazes also did here in Singapore!
However you proofed them all wrong. You’re not only still around but in your 3rd year you even doubled the size of your stall and you started your Imbiss & Backstube which both are already very successful as well.

Again from all of us of “Freitagsstammtisch” a very
“Happy Anniversary” and many more to come.

Congratulations Singapore Airlines

Congratulations SQ to the successful start into a new era of flying with your new Airbus A-380.
It's not only a milestone in the quantity of passengers being able to be lifted off but also in the renown quality of services and the extraordinary comfort in all 3 classes.

Starting from comfortable seats, legroom and big screens in Economy, to the flat beds in Raffles class and the new suits in First Class which sets new standards in luxury and comfort.

Happy Austrian National Day

To all Austrians in Singapore and abroad Erich’s Wuerstelstand wants to wish you a Very Happy National Day!
We can all be very proud of our achievements since the end of World War II. Austria’s economy is doing well. Our small Austria is the 7th most important country of the European Union in trading with Singapore.
However it seems sometimes we are hiding somewhere in the Hinterland instead of being proud of Austria.
This occasion and my recent trip to Austria made write the following post.

Dear blog readers.
I’m back from a business trip to Austria where I got the chance to see my parents over the weekend. They had a few amazing autumn days so we had to get up to the mountains for a hike.
It was such a beautiful Sunday with fog in the morning and blue sky from noon to evening which you can see on my photos.

We drove to Hinterstoder which is about an hours drive from Linz (Upper Austria). Hinterstoder is well known as a family ski resort in winter as well.


After hiking around the small lake we broke for a snack (Jause) at the Loegerhuette(website unfortunately in German only) which is the most popular Restaurant there in an altitude of 1420m .
The owner Ernst and his family have been running this business since many years. Dishes are traditional for the region, most of the raw material is from their own farm and their service is the best by far.
Once you enter you feel like being in an alpine and ski museum. It is nicely decorated with original antique stuff and looks cozy like a livingroom . It’s definitely worth a visit summer or winter.

That beautiful weather also brought many paragliders to the mountain top to enjoy a smooth flight and gorgeous view over the peaks.

Lucky me it was only the second last day before I left when the weather changed over night and temperatures dropped from 20 deg to zero. Some of the mountain regions got dumped with 1 m of fresh snow perfect for them and not unusual for this time of the year.
But for me loving the Singapore weather that was exactly what I dislike the most in my counrty of birth: Rain, fog and some very wet snow showers down to lower elevations. brrrrrrrrr

To see more click photo below

Hinterstoder, Hutterer Hoess

Back to lovely warm Singapore I read the Straits Times and saw another annoying report about the beauty of Switzerland and the Alps which you can find at least once a year in various newspapers or magazines.
Dear Swiss readers please forgive me as there’s nothing wrong with promoting your wonderful country since it’s very similar to Austria.
What really annoys me is the fact that whenever I find reports about Europe and the Alps 90% it’s about Switzerland, in fact congrats to your Tourism Board!

What the h*** are the Austrian Tourism Board and the Austrian government doing to promote our beautiful Austria? It seems NOTHING at least in this part of the world. It sometimes really makes me so angry that I have to promote Austria myself:

Additional to the Alps we got a rich culture, history and wonderful people which other countries only can dream of. And it’s not only “The Sound of Music” we have to offer. Which by the way is mostly unknown by Austrians, since it is a pure Hollywood production and to my knowledge has never been shown in Austria's cinemas. This “Van Trapp” family was real however the rest is Hollywood. I only learned about this movie a couple of years ago in the USA and since I’m in Singapore I also had to find out that Sound of Music is about all most Asians know about Austria. So disappointing!
Vienna
Let me name just a few things Austria can offer to tourists:

Austria is well known for music: Classic: Mozart, Strauss (Viennese Waltz) and Pop: Falco (No.1 hits even in the US) and like it or not even DJ Oetzi (with No.1 hits in quite a number of countries).
Cities: Vienna with all the beautiful historic buildings since the monarchy (e.g. Empress Maria Theresia).
Salzburg: this quaint town with the Alps in the background and its monasteries and the Altstadt (old town) with Getreidegasse (a renown narrow street) where Mozart’s birth house is located.
Innsbruck: surrounded by the Alps and “Das goldene Dachl”(Golden Roof).
Austria’s picturesque lakes are another must see visiting my lovely country and not to forget some of the best ski resorts in the world and by far the BEST SKI TEAM.


We also got delicious food (Wiener Schnitzel) famous cakes (Sachertorte- one out of dozens) and tasty wines.
I would be able to continue pages by pages but that would end in probably too much of patriotism. I just felt the need dear reader I do hope I made you interested in beautiful Austria. If you want to know more about it just follow some of the links.

Ending my frustration due to the lack of promoting Austria by the responsible authorities I have to highlight the probably 2 most well-known Austrian export goods:

Red Bull (Energy Drink) and Erich Sollboeck (Erich’s Wuerstelstand)

King Harald is alive!

For everyone wondering how he’s doing I went on a fact finding mission to this remote hinterland.
His Excellency found a few minutes in his tight royal schedule and allowed me to meet in a highway coffee shop. Harald was relaxed, settled and showed his famous big smile when I came to find out about his well being in his new kingdom.
King Harald arrives in his new toy.
He looks great and seems to enjoy the Austrian cuisine again. “Mommy” is taking good care of her “lost” and recently returned baby and tends to spoil the boy with great styrian cooking. To me it looked as if it already has left some visible marks around the mid section.
So far Harald was lucky with the weather which couldn't’t have been better at this time of the year: Golden and warm autumn days to make his move from beautiful Singapore less painful.

However there will soon be an end and fog, cold and rainy weather will be on the daily menu.

The castle

.
Harald fooling around as usual asked me to give his best and greetings to all kangaroos in S’pore.

"The Day After"- actually "The Fridays After"... Harald left

As suspected and mentioned in a previous posting businesses went down in Chinatown after Harald left Singapore. Empty stalls all over the place. The ones suffering the most are Tiger and Erdinger. We are trying hard to compensate their losses. It's tuff though.

Check out the pix, but apologies for the poorer image quality.

One guy only? Very unusual!

Just kidding!

A few minutes after the photo was taken Erich's stall was full as usual. Seems a new big group is holding its Friday after work meetings here.
We'll find out who these guys are soon. They seem to talk in mixed funny accents however they love Erich's 'Leberkaese' and Erdinger Bier from Sawasdee coffee shop.

Chinatown's Lantern and Mooncake Festival

The moon cake and Lantern festival is finally over.
Chinatown was beautifully decorated and attracted the most crowds ever. This festival is becoming so popular that it starts competing with masses turning out to Chinatown during Chinese New Year.

Set up stalls selling everything from religious items to lanterns and most important in Singapore, of course FOOD.

Around the temple huge lanterns symbolizing the Chinese zodiacs were displayed.
Snake
Dragon
Long queues in front of renown mooncake bakeries.


A downturn that I think needs to be addressed as well:

One thing the organizers really have to look into is how to control greedy stall owners to take up more space than allocated. Many of them are moving their displays so close to the centre of the already narrow walkways causing bottlenecks and sometimes even dangerous human traffic jams which leaves everyone unhappy.
Stall owners complaining about not having enough business!! And more unhappy visitors because they cannot enjoy strolling through nicely decorated Chinatown.

To see the full photo album click the photo below:

Mooncake and Lantern Festival 07