My friend and I were watching the annual Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Singapore’s Little India neighborhood. Over pizza the evening before, my friend had told me a bit about the festival. She explained that participants offered their thanks to the gods by mutilating themselves in painful but not life-threatening ways. Then they trekked a four-km course, surrounded by their chanting, clapping families.

It had all sounded terribly exotic. So at lunchtime the next day my friend called for a taxi on her cell phone and we drove past the Prada stores and the Ralph Lauren boutiques, through Singapore’s immaculate highways and manicured streets, to the chattering chaos of Little India, where we found a small crowd gathered behind metal barriers to watch the agony in action.

One semi-naked man with a glassy stare weaved past us with an ornate piece of tin filigree hammered through his tongue and a huge metal canopy festooned with tassels and fabric over his head. The next strolled by briskly, as if he were on his way to the photocopier, although metal skewers pierced his sides. The showstopper was the man who had heavy bottles of sand dangling from hooks that clawed into his back and dragged his flesh into puckered folds.

I felt queasy. Where I come from, self-mutilation means an ankle tattoo. These guys were out of my league. So my friend and I decided to adjourn for a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant.

And that’s Singapore for you. If you want to experience the searing heat and exotic customs of Southeast Asia, but in English and with all the comforts of good food and great shopping, you’ll love this tiny city-state of four-and-a-half million people at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. A former British colony, it gained independence in 1965 under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, who served as its prime minister until 1990. Lee dominated the politics of his little nation in its early years and set out to turn it into a place where Singapore’s explosive mixture of ethnic Chinese and Malay citizens could live in peace and prosperity.

Unlike most would-be utopians, Lee succeeded, perhaps because he balanced his paternalistic belief in central planning and his blatant disregard for civil rights with a wary respect for private property and ethnic sensitivities. Thanks to him, Singapore is an odd mix of the natural and the artificial, of laissez-faire economics and government-knows-best micromanagement. It’s a city that sees nothing wrong with folks impaling themselves on metal skewers, but that fines anyone who spits on the sidewalk. It’s a city that’s fiercely nationalistic, but one that expresses its nationalism by speaking English and wearing Gucci.

To a visitor, the city hums like a well-run hotel. Crisp air conditioning, trimmed lawns and omnipresent Starbucks outlets swaddle you in First World comfort. A high-tech subway system and a huge taxi fleet shoot you to your destination in minutes. English is widely spoken, although garnished with Malay and Chinese words that create a linguistic stew call Singlish. As “eh” is to Canadian English, so “lah” is to Singlish: “That was good, lah?” or “Have a seat, lah.” Count on a few extra moments to make yourself understood, but don’t worry — you will be.

Begin your tour along Boat Quay, the historic heart of the city, close to where Sir Stamford Raffles landed in 1819 and claimed Singapore for Britain. Two centuries later, the economic tables have turned — Singaporeans are now just as rich as their former British masters.

You see Singapore’s prosperity everywhere. Along the riverfront at Boat Quay, expensive restaurants fill sun-battered trading houses that date from the 19th century. Behind them glass-and-steel office towers prop up the blazing sky. A short taxi ride away is Orchard Road, a stretch of blow-your-wallet carriage-trade shopping that makes Toronto’s Yorkville or Vancouver’s Gastown look like rummage sales.

Want something more exotic? You can enjoy a mini-tour of Asia within the city limits of Singapore. Start by visiting the Malay Heritage Centre and the imposing Sultan Mosque for a taste of Islamic culture. Then head to Chinatown, where you can battle the crowds to buy anything from gold jewelry to a cured duck carcass. Finish up in Little India for a spicy curry and cooling lassi amid a jumble of streets that make you feel as if you’re in Mumbai.

Singapore isn’t endowed with much in the way of mountains or lakes, so the government, with its usual efficiency, has built the nature it needs. At Jurong BirdPark you can ride a monorail from one shopping-mall-sized birdcage to another and feed tropical birds shipped in from around the world. You can finish up by lounging in front of a thundering nine-storey-tall waterfall — which is truly majestic and also entirely manmade. When evening falls, don’t miss the Night Safari, a three-km tram ride through the jungle. You can get up close with an imported cast of animals that includes everything from Himalayan blue sheep to African antelopes. All the animals are uncaged, but a network of hidden moats stops them from wandering and prevents you from suddenly sharing a seat with a Burmese deer.

If you have a head for heights, take a taxi downtown the next afternoon and climb on the Mount Faber cable car. It swings you into the air, more than 60 metres above Singapore’s harbor, as it sways and creaks its way to Sentosa Island, a favorite recreation spot for Singaporeans. Volleyball players and sunbathers fill the white sand beaches, then flock to bars that look as if they were airlifted in from California. Buy yourself a drink, sit back and watch night fall over the world’s busiest port. Singapore may be one of the most artificial places on earth, but, at moments like this, it’s tough not to love it.

Note that word “tasteful.” Engaged couples will be delighted to discover that a wedding video no longer has to be cheesier than an Emmenthal fondue. Many videography studios stress their “documentary” or “photojournalistic” approach to covering the event. What that means in practice is no more Godfather-based skits acted out by the groomsmen or freeze frames overlaid with graphics of hearts and doves. “We keep special effects to a minimum and we will not do skits,” says Jamieson Dean, production manager at Markham, Ont.-based Xero Digital, an upscale studio in the Greater Toronto Area.

The studio’s stylish, understated approach was just what Roderick and Anna Oandasan of Toronto had in mind for their wedding last August. The deluxe photography/videography package that the Oandasans chose to document their 250-person nuptials cost about $6,000 and they consider it money well spent. “Your wedding day is so busy and it goes by so quickly,” says Roderick Oandasan, an account manager with a pharmaceutical company. Set to songs by the Dixie Chicks, Usher and other favorite artists of the bride and groom, the Oandasans’ DVD clocks in at three hours and 20 minutes and looks as professional as a rock video.

Although Xero Digital and many of its competitors are shooting a growing number of weddings in the cutting-edge clarity of high-defi nition video, one hot young Toronto studio favors a decidedly retro approach. Nazar Melconian of mimmo+naz prefers to work in Super 8, the medium of home movies half a century ago. Often working with both color and black-and-white stock, Melconian digitally transfers the film after shooting it and then begins editing. The finished product is a DVD 20 to 45 minutes long. “Film is softer — it looks more the way your mind remembers an event than video does,” Melconian maintains. He and his partner, photographer Mimmo Galati, steer clear of what they call “manufactured moments.” Prices for a 30-minute DVD, shot in Super 8 and covering everything from getting ready for the ceremony to the first dance and the cake cutting, start at just under $4,000.

It was the Super 8 option that convinced mimmo+naz clients Carmen Volpe and Travis Kelly of Toronto to have their wedding day filmed. “We wanted something timeless, something we’d be able to watch 20 years from now and still love, and we’re very thankful that we did it,” says Volpe, an occupational therapist. One of the fleeting moments that she is especially happy to have on DVD is the expression on her father’s face when he sees her in her wedding dress for the first time.

Some clients keep the film rolling long after the wedding day. If you want to do some Super 8 shooting of your own — on your honeymoon, for instance — mimmo+naz will rent you a camera, process and digitally transfer your footage, and turn it into a professionally edited DVD, for prices starting at $600.

And the movie version of your life doesn’t have to end there. Susan Dickey MacArthur is a former TV producer for CBS and CNN who now specializes in editing and producing baby videos and email birth announcements. She founded her Manhattan-based company, First Year Films, after becoming a parent herself and realizing that there were never enough hours in the day to assemble lovingly crafted videos starring her offspring. Her company now offers a wide range of services to new parents who find themselves similarly timechallenged.

For $1,575 (U.S.), First Year Films will take video footage that the client has already shot, transfer it onto DVD and edit it into “a seamless montage of your family’s most memorable moments.” New Yorkers preferring to have professionals take charge of the memory-capturing from the get-go can hire a First Year Films crew to spend a day filming their family. The result: a 15- to 30-minute DVD, priced at about $4,000 (U.S.). For $10,000 to $15,000 (U.S.), the crew will film on multiple occasions to produce a documentary charting the child’s transformation from newborn to toddler.

You can honor older memories of your family with the star treatment, too. Jim Cooper of Socratic Productions in Barrington, N.H., specializes in Ken Burns-style personal history videos that combine live interviews with old photos and film clips. Costs range from $2,500 to $6,000 (U.S.), plus travel expenses. Diane Hollands of Life Story Videos in Vancouver produces everything from 50-minute biographies, priced at $4,000, to a budget offering called Fifteen Minutes of Fame — for $100, you can have a DVD of yourself holding forth on a subject of your choice for a quarter of an hour.

Whatever your goal, you should talk to several videographers before making a choice. Look for someone who shares both your esthetic tastes and your instincts about what to keep and what to cut. Roderick and Anna Oandasan are pleased that their wedding DVD preserves not only the big moments of their big day but also little intimate asides, such as the groom murmuring “I love you” to the bride just after the ceremony. But some of what was recorded was a little too personal: killing time while the bridal party was dressing, the groom’s attendants mooned the camera. Xero Digital edited out the backside nudity, and a grateful Roderick Oandasan approved the director’s cut. “That’s one part of the day I only needed to see once,” he says.

Is Anderson on the outs with his heirs? Not at all. But he brought them up to be independent. When his son and daughter were in high school, he decided that he would help pay for as much schooling as they wanted — and that would be the end of his parental responsibilities. Anderson, a retired school principal, wanted to give back to children in general by leaving the remainder of his cash to a foundation that will fund kids’ charities for decades to come.

You might think that his son and daughter would be upset, but they’re just fine with their dad’s plans. They understand their father’s reasoning and they’re grateful because, as his portfolio has grown, he’s continued to give them generous gifts. He set up Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs) for his grandchildren and gave each of his kids cash that they could spend on anything they wanted. His son, a dentist, has already used his share to buy a summer cottage.

Carl’s estate plan was successful because he took the time to think about the goals he wanted to accomplish, then worked backwards from there. To do as he did, ask yourself these questions:

What’s the money for?

Too many people plan their estates by focusing only on how to minimize taxes. While taxes can be important, far more important is knowing what you want your money to accomplish. If you don’t know what your goals are, how can you design a plan to meet them?

You may decide that your money will do the most good if you leave it all to your kids. Or, like Carl, you may decide that your money will accomplish more if it’s left to charity or to somebody else entirely.

When do they need it?

Carl’s kids appreciate receiving their share of their dad’s cash when they need it most — in early adulthood. Michael Alexander, a Toronto lawyer, inheritance counsellor and author of How to Inherit Money, says that giving your kids money while you’re still alive is becoming more popular. “In the U.S. a lot of parents are saying you’re getting your inheritance right now because we’re paying for four years at Duke or Yale,” he says. “They’re realizing that setting up their kids with a good education will do them a lot more good than leaving them a sum of money later in life.”

JoAnne Anderson, a financial planner with The Money-Power Group at Raymond James in Mississauga, Ont., (and no relation to Carl), says that considering the “time value” of your gift is becoming more important as we live longer. Many of us are now living into our 90s, and heirs who are in their 60s often have little need for the money. The three most popular ways to give while you’re alive, she says, are to help with the purchase of a child’s starter home, deposit money directly into a child’s RRSP, or like Carl and Thelma did, set up Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs) for the grandkids.

Who needs what?

Different heirs have different needs, so don’t treat everyone the same. Alexander worked with one family who had an only child who was a very talented athlete. So the parents decided that in lieu of an inheritance, they would spare no expense to provide year-round training for their child at the best training centres. “You really have to give some thought to who your children are, and what their interests and aspirations are,” Alexander says. “A child who becomes an entrepreneur will have very different needs from one who becomes a school teacher.”

Have I explained things?

Alexander stresses that communication is vital. He worked with a family with three children, one of whom felt passionately attached to the family cottage. The parents decided to make him the sole heir to the $500,000 cottage, “but they made a deal with their other two kids, and told them they would get other things which are worth just as much,” says Alexander.

Whatever you decide, explain your decision and the reasoning behind it to everyone involved. Otherwise children can take a bequest as a sign you loved their sibling more.

Carl Anderson took the time to talk to his children and explain all his decisions. That’s why he knows his kids are “really happy with what we’ve done.” When you consider that his will leaves them absolutely nothing, that’s not a bad accomplishment at all.

“You want money? Clean up your act”

It’s possible to do your kids harm by leaving them too much money. Michael Alexander, a lawyer, author and inheritance counselor, says he received three large inheritances while he was in graduate school, and it was the most stressful period of his life. “You create tremendous pressure by leaving a large amount of money to a child,” he says. “Some kids even get involved in self-destructive behavior.”

To avoid problems, give your children a portion of their inheritance when they’re younger so they can learn about how to handle money while you’re still around to guide them. “There’s a learning curve with managing money and giving kids a bit of cash early on allows them to make mistakes,” says Alexander.

Of course, you may have to adjust your strategy if your children have alcohol, drug or gambling problems. “In these cases you should set up a trust that might include a family friend and an institution together,” he says. “You can leave a lot up to the discretion of the trustees, including a provision stipulating that if a child cleans up his act, he gets more money.”

One good reason to pay attention to these upstart economies is their sheer size. The four biggest of the emerging nations are Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are often referred to collectively as the BRIC countries. Just like a true brick, the BRIC countries pack a wallop. China and India are the world’s two most populous nations; Russia and Brazil also rank in the top 10, with populations many times that of Canada.

The BRIC countries are just the beginning of what’s available outside the developed world. The emerging markets category ranges from Poland to South Korea to Mexico to South Africa. Taken together, emerging markets now represent about a quarter of the global economy. Since 2001, their economic growth rate has been triple the growth rate of developed economies. Stock markets in these emerging market economies have churned out 21%-a-year gains over the past three years.

Strangely, though, Canadians don’t seem much impressed by this sizzling growth. Emerging market equities represent less than 1% of the money held in Canadian mutual funds. I fear that Canadians are simply not recognizing the new realities of the marketplace.

The most common objection I hear to investing in emerging markets is that these markets are too volatile. To some degree, I can sympathize with the complaint. Last summer, emerging market equities lost 25% of their value in less than two months. They subsequently regained all their losses, but their temporary plunge was scary.

The unfortunate reality is that you can expect more of the same. Emerging markets involve risk. Brazil and Mexico suffer from social imbalances and inefficient tax systems. Russia is moving back towards autocracy. India has to deal with inflation and a growing current account deficit. China is still a communist country where the rule of law is unpredictable.

But the problems don’t outweigh the potential. The key to investing in emerging markets is protecting yourself so you enjoy a high chance of profit and a low chance of losing your shirt. Here are four tips to help you on your way:

Think about the big picture

It’s reasonable to dedicate 15% to 20% of your portfolio to emerging markets. Don’t invest more unless you are a gambler.

No matter how much or how little you invest, make sure you diversify your holdings to ensure that a downturn in one region or country can’t sink your portfolio. In particular, you should avoid mutual funds that specialize in a single emerging market country or a small region. The risk is simply too high. A well-diversified emerging markets portfolio would have the bulk of its assets in the Asia-Pacific region (outside of Japan) with smaller portions invested in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Russia, and South Africa.

To hedge your bets, look at what else is in your portfolio. Emerging market funds usually move in ways that are out of step with Japanese equities, Canadian financial services or even Canadian balanced funds. If you mix your emerging markets investments with one or two funds from those other categories, you reduce your overall risk, since any downturn in one area is likely to be counterbalanced by gains in the other.

Go global

Choosing your own emerging market mutual fund can be tricky, since the funds available in Canada tend to be expensive and often go on hot or cold streaks that have little to do with management skill. As an alternative, consider investing in a global equity fund that has an emerging market component. The Trimark Global Endeavour Fund, the Chou Asia Fund and the Mawer World Investment Fund are all good examples.

Cut costs

If you decide to go all the way with a pure emerging equity fund, buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF) such as the MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund, which trades on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX: EEM). This ETF gives you instant exposure to emerging markets around the world at much lower cost than an equivalent mutual fund.

It’s not just stocks

Consider emerging market bonds. A diversified portfolio of emerging market bonds is now yielding 2.5 percentage points more than a portfolio of Canadian bonds (or two percentage points more than U.S. bonds). With Canadian 10-year bonds currently offering a paltry 4% yield, this extra return is a welcome bonus for income-hungry investors.

The additional return isn’t without risk, of course. As Argentina demonstrated two years ago, governments in emerging countries sometimes default on their bonds. Still, if you keep a diversified mix of bonds, the risk premium should more than compensate you for any losses caused by default.

Before investing, you should be aware of a couple of specific pitfalls. The first is currency risk. You may take a hit if the currency the bond is issued in loses value against the Canadian dollar. This is true of any foreign investment and the best defence is a well-diversified portfolio that is split up among many different currencies.

You should also be aware that emerging market bonds fluctuate depending on how investors perceive their relative risk. The current two percentage point spread between emerging market bonds and U.S. government bonds is low by historical standards, suggesting to some observers that emerging market bonds are overvalued. Remember, though, that these are bonds, not stocks. If you (or your portfolio manager) hold on to your investment, you can enjoy the extra yield from these bonds and get back your principal upon maturity. The key is to invest only money that you will not need in the next few years.

To find a good emerging market bond fund, you will have to go outside of Canada and look at some of the ETFs available on the U.S. stock exchanges. You can examine the selection at a website called ETFconnect.com. Look for emerging market funds under the “Fixed Income” category. The site shows you the current annual interest payments and the degree of risk the fund is taking on. Risk is measured by the average credit rating of the portfolio. The holdings of emerging market bond funds typically range from relatively low risk BB+ bonds (one notch lower than investment grade) to high-risk C issues. You should look for a mix of high yield with relatively low risk. Right now, I think the Western Asset Emerging Markets Income Fund II, Inc. (NYSE: EDF) is appealing. It offers an 8% current income distribution level and has a BB+ average portfolio rating.

Simone credits his quick response to the extensive training he received at a driving school put on by BMW Canada. “It’s totally changed the way I drive,” he says. Judging from the reaction of a police officer across the street from the near-collision, his new skills have already paid for themselves many times over. “I could see the officer’s face clearly as I passed,” Simone says. “She was standing just outside her car and she had this look of complete shock on her face that there wasn’t a serious collision.”

You, too, can learn to drive like a professional. Several advanced driving schools across Canada promise to break your bad habits and teach you the right way to steer clear of trouble. Prices range from $300 for a half-day session to more than $3,000 for a two-day, fully catered event. While those fees may seem expensive at first glance, they’re a huge bargain if the classes help you escape from just a single accident. Most schools start with class time then take you out to a skid pad for hands-on instruction in emergency braking and avoiding collisions.

“The biggest problem with basic driver training is that it all starts too late,” says Pierre Savoy, 51, a former professional racecar driver and the chief instructor of the BMW Driver Training Program. “By the time we get our driving licenses, we’ve already had 16 years of attitude training. When you mix that with hormones and a sense of invincibility, you have a recipe for disaster.”

Experience corrects some of those problems, but not all. Chances are you’ve developed a lot of bad driving habits over the years, especially in light of all the automotive technology that has come along since we were pimply faced students piled into the back of a driver’s ed car.

Savoy, who has taught such well-known drivers as Jacques Villeneuve, the former Formula 1 champ, believes that advances such as ABS, traction control and stability assist programs can help you drive better, but only if you understand how they operate. “We start off the course with no technology working then turn it back on,” he says. “We let our students see and feel how it works, but all these devices are just driving aids. They cannot tell you or show you what to do.”

Savoy begins reprogramming his student drivers by looking at what most of us take for granted. “We start at the basics — driving position. I tell my students it’s like a golf lesson. The first thing you have to learn before anything is the stance.” Begin by raising your seat until there’s 10 cm between the top of your head and the ceiling of the car. Sit in an upright position with both hands on the wheel in the 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock positions, not in the “10 and 2″ position that you may have learned. To see if your seat is adjusted properly, straighten your legs and plant both feet on the carpeted firewall behind the pedals. Now slide your seat forwards or backwards until your knees have a slight bend. This ensures you can press the pedals as far as they can go without locking up your legs. Next, place your right wrist on the top of the steering wheel (12 o’clock position) and use your left hand to adjust the seat back. Keep your shoulder blade in contact with your seat. Change the angle until your right elbow has a slight bend. This gives you maximum control and rotation of the steering wheel.

Savoy says the correct driving position is critical to reacting in time to an emergency. “A major European study a few years back concluded that if people had just one second of advance warning, 80% of collisions could be avoided,” he says.

Once you’ve learned the basics in the classroom, it’s out to the skid pad for some real thrills. At the BMW school, for instance, you’ll go through exercises designed to sharpen your reaction time. In one nerve-wracking test, you’ll pilot your car at a row of pylons at speeds up to 70 km/h. At the last moment, one of two instructors on either side of the cones will wave a flag, signaling you to brake and steer either left or right around the pylons and then come to a stop as quickly as possible.

Most beginners fixate on the pylons and turn them into orange plastic roadkill. “If you stare at it, you are going to hit it,” Savoy says. “Most people don’t bother looking for an out.” But with practice and the help of a good instructor, just about anyone can learn to “brake, look and steer” around unexpected obstacles.

That’s exactly what Simone did in his brush with disaster and he’s been spreading the gospel ever since. He’s even taken clients out for a day of advanced practice on his dime. “A number of them liked it so much they said they would be signing their kids up for the course,” Simone says.

Schools of hard knocks

Want to learn how to hit the skids — and recover? These driving schools tutor you in the fine points of crash avoidance.

BMW Driver Training
Cost: $300 and up
Where: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver
Info: BMW.ca or 1-866-2BMW-SAFETY (1-866-226-9723)

Powell Skilldriving School
Cost: $395 and up
Where: Port Perry, Ont.
Info: PowellMotorsport.com or 905-985-1600

Skid Control School
Cost: $359 and up
Where: Oakville, Ont.
Info: SkidControlSchool.com or 1-888-516-6522

Canadian Traffic Education Centre (CTEC)
Cost: $495 and up
Where: Edmonton
Info: CTEC.ab.ca or 1-888-466-4962

Sidorov Advanced Driver Training
Cost: $300 and up
Where: Whistler, BC
Info: SidorovPrecisionDriverTraining.ca or 604-905-0146

Hot and steamy

Whether it’s pho — a steaming broth brimming with rare beef and rice noodles best eaten streetside in Hanoi’s Old Quarter — or juicy lemongrass prawns sizzling in a wok amid the colorful markets of Ho Chi Minh City, the food of Vietnam can wow your taste buds and inspire your imagination. But don’t count on experiencing the genuine article in fancy restaurants or tourist hotels. Many of the most unforgettable meals are to be found in humble surroundings. “As long as the food is being freshly cooked in front of you, you should consider exploring local street stands and family restaurants,” says Naomi Duguid, the Toronto-based co-author (with Jeffrey Alford) of Hot Sour Salty Sweet, an award-winning cookbook that chronicles the culinary landscape of Southeast Asia.

A good place to begin your exploration of Vietnamese cuisine is the town of Hoi An, located on the country’s central coast. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is best known for its white sandy beaches, 17th-century colonial architecture and silk shops, but its fusion cuisine is what draws food aficionados. You can trace the culinary legacy of centuries of Chinese, Japanese and European traders among the modest family restaurants along the historic Thu Bon River.

Adventurous diners are rewarded with dishes such as white rose, an incredibly light rice dumpling stuffed with shrimp, or cau lau, a rice noodle dish topped with slices of pork, bean sprouts, and assorted greens such as basil, lettuce, and mint. Visitors can also arrange to experiment with traditional cooking utensils and participate in cooking classes.

Details: Horizon & Co., a Canadian boutique travel agency, offers epicurean expeditions to exotic destinations. Pricing for trips to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia begins at $4,650 per person/double occupancy, excluding airfare. Visit Horizon-co.com to find out more. The Viking Life, a venture of the people who make Viking cooking ranges, offers trips created by The Culinary Institute of America. Pricing for Vietnam is $5,295 U.S. per person/double occupancy, excluding airfare. For further details, visit TheVikingLife.com.

The other Spain

While Barcelona is already firmly established on the foodie trail thanks to Ferran Adrià, the superstar chef of El Bulli, and Madrid boasts a bounty of enticing tapas bars, a growing number of culinary pilgrims are heading to a new frontier: Spain’s Basque region. Where else do thousands of men gather weekly to shop, cook, eat, drink, swap recipes and sing? While these exclusive sociedades gastronomicas are off-limits to outsiders, food lovers can get a taste of traditional Basque fare such as cogote (hake’s head served with garlic-infused oil) and marmitako (a light summer fish casserole made with fresh tuna, potatoes and tomatoes) if they head to the region’s culinary hub, the city of San Sebastián.

This seaside resort boasts 250 gastronomic societies and reportedly has more Michelin starred restaurants per capita than any other city. Revered chefs such as Juan Maria Arzak and Pedro Subijana, credited with shaping modern Spanish cuisine, draw fans who want to experience seasonally inspired dishes based on ingredients such as wild autumn mushrooms foraged from the Basque hills or scallops, sole and mussels purchased straight from fishermen’s boats.

One favorite is Martín Berasategui’s restaurant, located in the village of Lasarte just outside San Sebastián. Treasured for its blend of modern techniques and local ingredients, it offers classic Basque fare served with Txakoli, a Basque white wine. Meals often conclude with Idiazabal, a local sheep’s milk cheese that originally drew its smoky flavor from shepherds’ night fires. Another favorite is Elkano, a fish house in nearby Guetaria that overlooks the sea. It is known for its deliciously simple treatment of char-grilled lobster, wild barnacles and fresh turbot.

Details: Book reservations online for Arzak (Arzak.es), located in a Spanish farmhouse outside San Sebastián, or Akelarre (Akelarre.net), a modern restaurant overlooking the sea. Prices range upwards from €110 for a set meal without wine, tax or tips.

French revolution

It’s easy to spend as much on a meal in a top-tier Parisian restaurant as on the plane ticket to get you there, but an upheaval in dining is underway. Several top chefs have opened casual restaurants that promise affordability and creative French cuisine in laid-back surroundings. Known as “gastro bistros,” these informal eating places are swiftly growing in popularity.

Food lovers are flocking to Benoit, the only Parisian bistro to boast a Michelin star. Although Benoit first opened its doors in 1912, the comfortable bistro was purchased by superchef Alain Ducasse in 1995. It now offers spectacular food for about a third of the cost of dinner at one of his lavish three-star establishments. You can accompany your meal with any of 400 carefully selected wines.

Another hot spot is Le Comptoir, where Chef Yves Camdeborde has developed a cult following. His inventive €42 prix fixe menu often features unexpected treats such as cream of celery soup with black truffles or green pea and mint soup with pieces of foie gras. If you want to dine here, book your table at the same time as you arrange your plane ticket.

Other bistros with buzz include Mon Vieil Ami, which was launched by threestar Michelin chef Antoine Westermann. The €39 menu can include luscious sweetbreads with wild mushrooms, herb risotto and a perfectly poached egg atop a white-bean salad with delicious slivers of smoked haddock.

Details: Meals at top Parisian restaurants can easily reach €400 per person while set meals at traditional bistros average €25. Expect to pay up to €50 at a gastro bistro, although ordering à la carte can easily double this. Good choices include Benoit, 20, rue St Martin, Paris, 42-72-25-76; Le Comptoir, 5, carrefour de l’Odéon, Paris, 44-27-07-97; Gaya, 44 rue du Bac, Paris, 45-44-73-73; Chez Michel, 10 rue de Belzunce, 10th Arr., Paris, 44-53-06-20 and L’Os à Moelle, 3 rue Vasco-de-Gama, Paris, 45-57-27-27.

Foerster is director of the prestigious MBA program at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont., and he’s not the kind of investor who consults Super Bowl games or the phase of the moon to time his buys. He says he has confidence in the presidential cycle because there’s a rational explanation for the effect. “Year one is a bit of a honeymoon period for the president,” he observes. “Year two is when the administration will take any bad medicine — so they can get the bad news out of the way while there’s still a lot of time before re-election. In year three, the administration works towards having the party re-elected, and actively manages the economy so that by the time the election rolls around, people are happy.”

The presidential cycle has become such an accepted indicator that the Canadian research department of the giant Swiss bank UBS has begun advising clients to tilt towards stocks — especially cyclical stocks such as metals, minerals, oil and gas — in year three of the cycle. A UBS report issued in November notes that on average, metals and minerals have surged by 24.3% in the third year of the presidential cycle, and concludes that “in 2007 market gains should be solid with cyclical sectors leading.”

Still, even valid indicators only work on average — you can’t depend on them to work each and every year. As well, the fact that Bush is not standing for re-election himself and the fact that his party no longer controls the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate could dampen the effect this year. So will Foerster take the plunge and go heavy on stocks in 2007? “I’m still doing my assessment at this point,” he concedes. “I’m not sure.”

Antoinette Matlins, an internationally recognized diamond expert in Woodstock, Vermont, and author of Jewelry & Gems: The Buying Guide, can help. She’s seen every one of a diamond buyer’s worst fears realized. She knows that reports attesting to a diamond’s quality can be forged or inaccurate. She knows that diamonds are sometimes heated to thousands of degrees under tremendous pressure, which improves their color but can make them more likely to chip. She’s seen fractures filled with a glass-like material, and laboratory-produced diamonds of such high quality that you can’t tell them from natural diamonds with the naked eye. “The closer you get to a wholesale diamond market, the higher the incidence of fraud and misrepresentation,” she says. “It just boggles the mind what they’ll do to fool you, they’re so creative and clever.” Luckily, she also knows how to make sure that you don’t get duped.

The first step is to familiarize yourself with the four Cs — cut, color, clarity and carat — because these four factors determine what a diamond is worth.

Cut is the most important, says Matlins. As a general rule, she suggests that you ask for a certificate from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) grading the cut as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good.’ “Don’t go below ‘good,’” she says. “the cut is what gives a diamond its liveliness, its sparkle and its fire.”

The next factor, the color of a diamond, is graded by a letter from D to Z. The D grade is the best and means the diamond is completely colorless. Diamonds get more yellowish or brownish as they go down the scale. Matlins says the highest grades are very close together, so there’s no point in paying more for an D grade if a diamond with an F grade looks the same to you.

Next up is clarity, which refers to the number of miniscule black or white specks in the diamond, as well as any other tiny flaws. The top grade is FL (Flawless), followed by IF, VVS1, VVS2, VS1, VS2, SI1, SI2 and I1. Matlins says you can trust your eyes on this one. An IF stone could be dramatically more expensive than an otherwise identical SI1 stone, but you may need a magnifier to see the difference, so there’s little sense in paying for the upgrade. “The clarity grade has nothing to do with the sparkle,” she says, “so this is the place to get a lot of leverage on your budget.”

The final factor, the carat, is the weight of the diamond. The more carats, the bigger and more expensive your rock will be. The price jumps up at each whole number, so Matlins says you can save a lot by buying a 0.95 carat diamond instead of a 1 carat stone (whether you reveal this rounding error to your beloved is up to you). However, in general this is not a good place to go cheap. Your beloved may tell you that size doesn’t matter — but it does.

If you’re familiar with the four Cs, you can price shop among jewelers and be confident that you’re comparing apples to apples, but you could still get swindled. Your jeweler could claim a diamond was graded as a VS1, but it could actually be an SI2. Even a reputable jeweler could unwittingly have a stone that was laser drilled, meaning that a tiny laser beam was used to tunnel down to a flaw so that it could be removed. To make sure you don’t get duped, you should buy your diamond loose from a jeweler who agrees to put the four Cs in writing right on the receipt, and who will refund your money if a third party appraiser comes up with different grades.

After you’ve bought the diamond, says Matlins, take it to an independent gemologist appraiser (preferably one who doesn’t sell diamonds). You can find properly certified appraisers through the American Society of Appraisers (Appraisers.org) and the American Gem Society (AmericanGemSociety.org), both of which have members in Canada. Don’t trust the in-house appraiser or even an appraiser recommended by your jeweler. If your appraisal agrees with what the jeweler wrote on the receipt, you got what you paid for, and you can now have your diamond set. If not, get your money back and shop somewhere else.

Guilt-free glitter

Thanks in part to the recent Leonardo DiCaprio movie Blood Diamond, it’s now common knowledge that diamonds from places such as Angola and Sierra Leone can be used to fund bloody conflicts. If you want to ensure that your money isn’t bankrolling violence, follow these tips from diamond expert Antoinette Matlins.

Don’t fool yourself

There’s no way to be 100% sure that you’re not buying a conflict diamond, says Matlins. The odds are against it, as innovations such as the Kimberley Process have reduced the percentage of conflict diamonds to less than 5% of all diamonds mined. However, certificates and laser inscriptions can be forged, and there’s no surefire way to tell where a diamond is from just by looking at it.

Don’t take the jeweller’s word

The path a diamond takes from a mine to the jeweler’s case can be a long and tortuous one. Some jewelers are quick to assure customers that they don’t sell blood diamonds, but even well-meaning jewelers don’t know for sure, because they’re just taking the word of the cutter they bought the diamond from.

Buy Canadian

Even though there’s no perfect guarantee, Matlins agrees that if you buy a Canadian diamond from a mainstream Canadian jeweler, you can be 99.9% sure it’s not a conflict diamond.