Life in Singapore

Batu Caves round 3

2005-07-30T15:10:00.000+08:00

Better and better, every single time! For our 3rd trip up to KL and Batu Caves, we did it even cheaper and more convienent than the last 2 times. This weekend we went July 29th-31st. Debbie, who speaks Malay was a huge help in helping us to organize a ride. She got us a driver to come down to Singapore and pick us up near International Plaza (where Johann lives) and we piled our gear and bodies into a 10 person van. The best part of it was we got to pay in Malay Ringett which is even cheaper than Sing dollars and split it 10 ways! We also got the skinny on how to do the Dynasty Hotel in KL for super cheap too. We got ourselves an Executive Suite and split it 9 ways! Plenty of room for all! Since we had a driver, we just told him when to meet us in the morning, and he took us directly to the wall! It doesn't get much easier than that! Since Izam (our driver) was with us for the weekend, he hung out and watched a bit of climbing too. Then, when his curiosity and our prompting got too much, he finally gave it a try! He loved it! Hopefully he will be able to continue climbing since he's so close to such great rock!

In attendance for this weekend, Johann, Pat, Kenny, Cindy, Debbie, Jim, Jordan, Kumar, Jeremy and myself. (In the van from Singapore). Jordan lives up in KL, so he had a place to crash, but met up with us for the climbing each day.

How to cram 8 people into an executive suite??? Plenty of floor space and a little moving of furniture!

Jim's nook.

Kenny scores bigtime! No worries Tuan, Cindy is merely posing for the camera! I don't even think a leg hair wandered over to anyone else in that bed!

Cindy getting ready to climb! Cindy is the mother of 2 beautiful and awesome children, who at this time we had not yet met. This was her re-debut into climbing after being away from the sport for almost 10 yrs. After we got her harness straightened out, and went over a few knots as a refresher, this woman was a mere flash in your eye as she clearly got her mojo back on the rock!

See, if you don't take a picture of her on the ground, you won't be able to see her since she climbs so high, so fast!

Izam, our driver on his first ever climb!

Izam had no problem on his first climb. Look at that huge smile upon completion!

This is Jordan getting ready to do a lead climb.

Kenny is on Jordan's belay.

Kumar was also just learning how to climb! He did great! And we kept him safe, just before he was to get married! And Pat, Johann's girlfriend, was here this weekend for a visit, so she was also able to join in on the fun! She's usually found on the rocks somewhere just outside of Hong Kong!

This may look a little weird, but what we are trying to prove here, is that climbing rope really is super super strong, even when you think you need to retire it. Jeremy's rope went into retirement on this trip, and Kenny and Jeremy slowly cut away one strand at a time, and then tested it's remaining strength. Kenny is down to the last piece of cord inside the sheath, and it's STILL holding his weight. Climbing rope is super strong!!

When we were leaving at the end of the day we were able to talk to these kids that were hanging out around the base of the wall from the neighboring Kampong. The older girl was shadowing me during my climbs, and before I would start she would gently wisper, "climb well, sister". I asked her if she wanted to try it, but she didn't want to try, she just wanted to watch from the safety of the ground.

Beautiful local kids.

This is Debbie with the kids. She was able to speak to them in Malay, and she was the one that organized our driver, Izam, for the weekend! Since Debbie was fluent in Malay, she was able to get us around KL with relative ease! Half the time, we couldn't keep up with what she was saying!

Everyone likes to have their picture taken!

This was such an awesome trip! We also were able to explore a second wall, aptly knows as "Mosquito Wall". Yes, there were tons of mosquitoes there, BUT, it was in the shade for most of the day. Win some, you lose some--blood that is!

Kumar and Cindy were fairly new to the group at this point, but are now staple climbers. Johann hooked us all up with a website called Multiply, and it's helped to keep us all in touch, and is a godsend when trying to organize a trip instead of trying to use email. On our way back to Singapore from this weekend, we began brainstorming for another trip to the infamous Krabi, which is in Thailand! More to come!!!

CLIMB ON!

Pulau Ubin with Adam and his kids

2005-07-20T16:44:00.000+08:00

Our friend Adam, who is from Wales, moved to Singapore for his job. He loves it here, but what he misses most are his two kids, Jack and Jade. However, in July, Jack and Jade came to Singapore to visit and so we planned lots of fun stuff to do with them for their month long visit! One of the days we went to Palau Ubin, to go mtn biking.

We rode from Adam's condo in the East, up to the ferry to catch a bumboat to get to the island for some off road riding and for what we later found to be a very rich natural history experience. We saw more wildlife on this visit to Pulau Ubin, than any other visit we've had there. It was cooler this day, as it was overcast and drizzly with rain. A pleasant day to ride!

From Adam's condo to the ferry is about 25 km, but this is all road riding. We chose to do the more scenic route and use East Coast Park bike path as our main drag. That way we had views of the ocean for part of our ride, and on this day, there was a photoshoot on the beach, with some scantilly clad models which I believe Jack noticed first, and then of course, Jeremy did too. Unfortunatly, no pictures!

Once on the bumboat, we tooled over to Pulau Ubin. Adam sat at the back of the boat with some of the bikes.

Jeremy and Jade.

Jack and Kelly.

Jeremy cruised through this section of trail in the jungle, without much effort. So, as he waited for us to follow he got pix of the spots that slowed us down.

There were a lot of downed logs!

Alongside of one trail there was some barbed wire that Jeremy found. It had been here for a long while, and the tree grew around it.

At the end of one trail, there was this colonial house. It was all fenced off and padlocked. However, there was a park service guy inside who was cleaning up and packing up to leave. He invited us to go in to check it out. He even let us inside to see the interior. It was pretty run down, but the plans for this old homestead is to clean it up and make it into an interpretive center.

Adam with the kids BEFORE...

...and AFTER. They love this as you can see!

We did a group shot on the patio that faced the ocean and Malaysia.

As we continued our ride away from the colonial house, we had these huge birds fly over head of us. They stopped together and rested up in the trees just over the trail and above our heads. They were two hornbills, and they had a rhombutan (a piece of small round fruit) that they were passing between the two of them. We watched them for a while. Can you see them in the pix?

As we kept going, on our off road singletrack, Adam shot out ahead so he could get some video of the kids coming up this one hill. I was running sweep, and Jeremy was in the front behind Adam. As Adam jumped off his bike and began filming with his Canon digital camera, Jeremy shouts out that he sees a wild boar! Adam swings around and actually catches the boar on the video running across the path! We can't show video on the blog (that I know how to do yet...but it was there!). Unfortunatly, the only boar Jack, Jade and I saw, was on Adam's video and it was moving fast, a small black blurr!

We had a great day of riding! Both Jack and Jade did awesome and the weather, while it was drizzly, was great for riding both on and off road! At the ferry terminal, back on the main island, Adam and Jade grabbed a cab back to Adam's condo while Jack, Jeremy and I rode the 25km back to Adam's. Later that evening, Jeremy and I then rode back to our condo, another 20km.

Batu Caves round 2

2005-07-11T14:24:00.000+08:00

Revisiting the blog!
Since we are back up and running, I thought I'd better take some time to get it all updated! There is so much more to see as we've taken many more trips in the last several months.

This trip however is our second trip up to Batu Caves. It seems that each time we go, we find a better and less expensive, and more convienent way to get there and get around and a place to stay.

This time, we went with a big group of folks: Johann, JJ, Jim, Lydia, Yulian, Mai, "Ben"(real name is Jeremy), Zach, Michelle, my Jeremy and myself. We rented a car in JB Malaysia to drive up to KL. Lydia's Dad was kind enough to drive Jeremy, Yulian, Lydia and I up to JB, we just had to get to Lydia. We met Johann, Jim, and JJ at the car rental place in JB. This way we could split the cost of gas, tolls, and the rental and have the flexibility to get to and from the cliffs. Our vehicle was BRAND NEW! We had to take the plastic off of the seatbelts to use them. And if we had known, we would've been able to watch movies in it too!

Our sweet ride.

Jeremy always likes to get pix of others sleeping, in less than attractive poses, so I thought it would only be fair for him to experience what others do. Curses to him for being able to fall asleep just anywhere!

We stayed at the Dynasty Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Next door to it, was a Bak Kut Teh hawker stall, and we had our first tastes of Pork Rib Soup. It was delish! Don't worry, I'm bringing home recipes!

As well down the road and turning right and walking just a bit further, yielded us a Muslim stall which fed us very very well! We had about 12 folks for dinner and it cost us about 70 ringget, which translates into about $35 SGD, which is about $20USD! So cheap, and sooooo good!

The most expensive part of our dinner were the bananas! After a big day of climbing, we ate many many bananas! And they tasted so sweet and good.

Johann, doing what he does! Johann has an incredible website that you should visit showing pictures of his bicycle tours and travels all around other countries. http://www.joetheman.net

Because we had such a big group, the stall owners asked some of the locals to move out so we could all sit together. We ordered a bunch of food and each of us had at least 2 drinks minimum! And still it was so cheap!

This is some of the yummy Indian food that we had. As you can see, you eat it with your RIGHT HAND! Me, being a lefty, have some troubles remembering this, and it does not go un-noticed by locals! Typically, you eat with your Right hand and you 'wipe' with your left...a-hem...so, you can see why I get stares when out in public.

A big group of tummy satified, climbing satisfied mish mosh of friends!
Going around the table from Left front and going backwards...
Zach, Michelle, Johann(orange shirt), Mai, Lydia, Yulian, "Ben" (really Jeremy), Suresh, Kelly, JJ, and Jim (from Texas). Jeremy Brodhead is taking the picture.

On our way back to the hotel we passed by a police yard with all these motorbikes stored inside. We wondered if they had been confiscated b/c of fines or or some other reasons. It's a sea of motorbikes!

Well, since this was primarily a climbing trip, and not an eating trip...we did do some sweet climbing at Batu Caves. We really loved the rock there, and climbing with Muslim chants, calling the people of the Kampong to pray is really unlike anything else in the world to us! The rock is especially nice, and the higher you go, the more things you see, caves, and views! Just amazing!

And since the climbing area of Damai Wall is situated right next to the Kampong, there is no shortage of the local people hanging out watching us climb. We had visits from several of the local kids and other interested passerbys.

And this group of boys were hanging out, climbing on the bars of this old contruction structure. In the field next to the climbing area, they ended up playing football (to us, soccer).

JJ(front right), Suresh, and Johann, at the end of the day. We don't have any pictures of them, b/c they spent the entire day doing a mutlipitch climb which kept them after the first pitch up in a cave. They only came down at the end of the day.

Some of the young girls of the Kampong playing in the parking area on their bikes.

And this is Yen, he's the guy who helps to keep Damai Wall looking nice and sets the routes with bolts. He checks them, and makes sure that everything is safe. Yen is just starting a small climbing hostel with rustic features for climbers to stay right at the wall. When we were here on this trip, the space wasn't quite ready yet...they were having trouble with water issues. Yen is a nice guy, and knows the area very well. He can also take you white water rafting, and to other climbing areas. Each time we go to Batu Caves to climb, we make it a point to say Hello to Yen!

Dinner & Durian with Kazue's Japanese friends.

2005-07-02T16:23:00.000+08:00

Kazue, one of Jeremy's co-workers and one of our friends here, had some friends from Japan come to visit her for a few days at the beginning of July. She invited us to meet her friends and to have dinner with them at one of our communal favorite Hawker restaurants, "Pine Crane". (Excellent food, and great prices in the Clementi area)

Front Row: Ling (our roomie), Jeremy, Kelly we are all sporting gifts from Kazue's friends.
Back Row: Saki, Junko, Kayo, and Tomomi

One of the dishes we ate for dinner. We had several new to us dishes. All were fantastic! Thanks to Kazue!!!

After dinner, we made the decision to walk around the Clementi area, showing the girls all the shops and hawker areas and temporary fruit stalls. Apparently, durian (either you LOVE it, or you HATE it) is in season now, as we happened upon this temporary fruit stall.

Durian for sale! D-24 is a grade of durian.

Fancy stacked durian for cheap!

Saki showing us it's not that painful to hold a durian.

Kayo showing us the inside of a durian.

Saki is excited to try durian!

Saki braves a bite of Durian!

Kayo braving a taste!

Kayo's reaction to the taste of durian!

Junko's expression after tasting the durian.

Durian, you either love it or you hate it. It smells like rotten sewer sludge. We have no idea how it tastes, but when we do try it, we hope to film it. We were waiting to try it, b/c we didn't have the video camera with us this evening. As I smell durian in our various travels around Singapore, it reminds me of how Meredith ate Vegemite! If she can do it, I can surely try this stinky fruit, right? We are hoping to have a durian connoisseur with us, Adrian, who LOVES it, and claims there are different varieties. So, one day, we will also try the durian! It certainly makes for an entertaining evening though!

Special thanks goes to Saki, Junko, Kayo, and Tomami for giving us the opportunity to meet them, and share many laughs at the Durian stall! You ladies are very brave! Thanks again for our gifts! And a big thank you to Kazue for taking us all to dinner and sharing your friends with us! We had a lot of fun!

Sunset in Little India

2005-07-01T14:07:00.000+08:00

Jeremy and I enjoy going to Little India to smell the wonderful smells of curries and fresh spices and to see the fresh veggies and fruits, and to do some window shopping. The Mustafa Center is in Little India, and that's where we stock up on our chocolate supply as well. This time though, we did some actual shopping for Jeremy's Mom's birthday! We had a very nice chat with the woman who sold us the clothes...after I braved the "changing room" to try on the outfit to make sure it would match and look nice. Can you say, HUMONGOUS COCKROACHES!!! I was seriously scared to be in that back room!

But, the woman was very nice, and helpful, and I think we made her night as well, having a chat and sharing stories.

We got to Little India early enough to catch a beautiful sunset that also captured the essence of a street in Little India. Ronn, what do you think? I want to take you guys to Little India next month!

Biking Pulau Ubin with Adam & Ange

2005-06-27T13:37:00.000+08:00

A couple of weekends ago, we made plans to take Adam and Ange over to Pulau Ubin to go mountain biking, and to scope out other trails for when Adam's kids came to stay for a month. Jeremy and I geared up and took our overnight bags and began our cycle over to Adam's place in the East. We ran a few errands along the way, and even saw a few new things worthy of a few pictures.

We had never seen this bridge before...how could we have missed it? Usually when we trek to the West, we are on the MRT or busses...so it's very likely that we had never been on this road before.

This bridge is not far from the Clark Quay area.

And after we finished our errands, we began to work our way to Adam's place. We couldn't figure out why certain roads were blocked off and soon found out why as we wound around parts of town to get us back on track. We asked some folks what the deal was, and found that the city was 'practicing for the National Day festivities'. However, what we since learned, was that because the committee for choosing the city for the Olympics was going to be here in a few days...we thought that Singapore was pulling out the straws to impress the committee...What we saw was certainly impressive. And awesome, b/c there were NO CARS to fight with on the roads!

Hard to see but at the end of this road, and to the right there are lots of tanks lined up...

Many many tanks. We must have ridden by at least a mile or more of heavy ammunitions!

And missels, and we even saw these bridge vehicles, that are a bridge, they just line up one in front of the other and literally make a bridge for heavy vehicles to drive over! We even saw the land to sea vehicles! Everything was clean and freshly painted and the military men were in their clean camos with painted faces...it's was an awesome site...

That was all on Saturday! Sunday was our biking day to Ubin! We got up, made some breakfast smoothies, had some coffee and tea and began our ride to the Changi Ferry Terminal where we would catch our bumboat over to Ubin.

Here's Ange, Jeremy and myself, loading onto the bumboat.

Jeremy, always happy to be biking!

They stowed our bikes at the back of the boat and there was a family that rode along with us in our smelly biking gear!

Singapore behind us. Very cute kids enjoying the breeze!

Adam and Kelly on the boat. The older, cuter kids!

Bye bye Singapore! The views of Ubin ahead! See, no tall buildings! Pulau Ubin is supposed to be the last natural environment of Singapore. Everything is as it was 50 yrs ago. However, with the avian bird flu on the rise, the Friday before we went to Ubin, all the chicken farmers had to get rid of the rest of their stocks in an effort to protect Singapore from this highly contageous virus! No more chicken farmers on Ubin!

Once we arrived and unloaded the bikes, we were on our way...off into the jungle.

Adam and Jer looking at a flower, which then piqued their interest in a colony of ants!

You can see the pinchers and eyeballs of these buggers!

And since everyone now knows that I sweat from every pore on my body, here is the proof. While we were stopped for the boys to look at flowers and ants, I started sweating! T--this one's for you! Is it really glistening?

Ange lifting her bike over a very big tree that was down over the trail...

Which Jeremy was able to ride over!

On our way back towards the ferry terminal, we passed all these folks getting bags of fresh rambutans.

Adam at our late lunch before pushing off for the ferry.

Kel at late lunch.

Adam and Ange.

Jer and Kel.

The bumboats!

All in all we did a lot of riding that weekend. We were pooped out! Between the distances, and the heat, which we were lucky the sun DIDN'T shine on us, we were exhausted! But had a great adventure to Pulau Ubin with Adam and Ange and found some nice trails!

McRitchie Resevoir

2005-06-20T12:58:00.000+08:00

Near the end of June we went for another hike, but this time at McRitchie Resevoir. I learned that McRitchie Resevoir had a suspension bridge that was 25 meters above the ground up in the tree canopy so of course had to go and check it out. When we got to McRitchie we of course saw the resevoir and began to work our way around the lake to the trailhead. Just before entering the woods we saw a bunch of turtles hanging out on this small penninsula.

What are you looking at?

And Jeremy really likes this shot. I think these are red-eared sliders.

Once we entered the woods we saw all these 'teams' with the same shirts coming towards us, but they were walking. We asked them if they were in a race of some sort, and they said yes. Our friend Ange was also in the race we thought, and at the speed these teams were moving, we thought for sure she could win it! Well, she did, and she beat everyone by a full 15 mins! Jeremy and I are considering doing an adventure race too, just because if we do enter,we think we'd have a good chance of winning! And we could always use another $800!

We saw some amazing butterflies on our hike into the woods! The one above is a Branded Imperial Butterfly. And we saw lots of robust red dragonflies!

And we got to the suspension bridge. The capacity was listed at 30 people. This is what it looked like when we got there...

nice and peaceful....and then, about 60 folks showed up and basically forced us off the bridge. They were talking and yelling and chattering so loud, and they just walked across the bridge, they weren't really even looking at anything, and even if they wanted to see anything, like birds, like we had wanted to see, they wouldn't have been able to b/c they were so loud and it was such a large crowd! It was a disappointing experience, and just solidifies that we are in a space where there is no open space. There are too many people on this island! We long for our quiet woods back home!

But when you do see some wildlife or insects, they seem to be really big! You can see the size of this milipede next to my glasses! And that's only the front third!

We disturbed him so he curled up.

This is one of the trees we saw as we continued our hike, now all along man made boardwalk thru the woods around the resevoir.

The fruit on the trees up close. I think this is the Bat's Laurel tree and the fruit is edible, the skin is very thick and the flesh is very little. There were also supposed to be rubber trees in this forest.

McRitchie is Singapore's oldest central resevoir, completed in 1868 and elarged last in 1904.

A hike in Bukit Timah

2005-06-19T19:49:00.000+08:00

We decided to take a hike in Bukit Timah, that way Jeremy could show me some of the new bike trails he did with our hash friend Simon, and we could explore more stuff a little more closely without it all wizzing by so fast, like when we are on our bikes.

We used Public Transport to get us up to Bukit Timah, and like always it takes so long to get from point A to point B with bus transfers etc...that we decided that when we can, and it doesn't matter if we are all sweaty, we'll be taking our good mtn bikes from now on.

Public transportation is good, don't get me wrong. But we spend half our day on it, rather than doing what it is we came to do...so it wastes a lot of time too. We are really missing our Subarus now! We have estimated that we need to allow an hour to get anywhere to be on average, safe. And let me remind you, that all of Singapore is the size of State College! It's getting a tad frustrating at this point.

I digress, we used the public transportation to get to Bukit Timah for our hike, b/c if we lock our good bikes anywhere, they'll get stolen! So we aren't taking any chances!

Not so sweaty yet, sitting at the bus stop waiting for our bus.

We finally, after about an hour and 45 mins, get to the start of our trail. My my, looks tough doesn't it? It gets a bit more rustic, soon enough...I promise!

See, ok, now we are heading into the woods, and I am now, mosquito bait! The pace has to be quick enough that I can create a breeze to keep the buggers off of me!

We popped out of the woods and found these old BMX bike jumps and we decided to follow one of the bike trails just to see how maintained it was...there was some bushwhacking, but over all it wasn't too bad.

And near the end of the day, we came into a thick section of the woods and discovered a ton of discarded ceramic pots. We're not sure how they got here as the trail is narrow and the woods around it thick, but there were piles and stacks of pots, of all sizes. If this was back home, I would have come back with my Subaru and picked some of for myself. They were fine, just old!

And by now, it was falling a bit later in the day, so the mosquitos were getting worse for me...so, we took some pix and continued on.

The trail opened up in this different section and we kept hearing this rustling in the trees around us, and we found there were lots of monkeys in the trees, but it was too thick and they were too high to get any good pix! Sorry.

But on the ground in the middle of the trail was this butterfly, either paralized or dead, we couldn't tell, but it was in good shape, and this little green spider was deciding where to begin!

And then we began our long haul on public transport back home...

We tried to get to the Botanical Gardens...

2005-06-12T18:41:00.000+08:00

This was from a weekend in mid-June. We went out and about to run some errands, and then we were going to check out a free salsa concert with lessons at the Botanical Gardens and this was just a little bit of what we caught that was new to us. In different locations around the city, and in some parks you'll find these foot reflexology pathways. I had tried one up near Batu Caves on our last visit and it was sooo painful. This one looked a little less jagged and ominous and since Jeremy missed the last one, we thought we'd give this one a go!

There are different types of stone placed in different pathways. We did what we could!

It doesn't look like it should hurt that much, but depending on the angle and sharpness of a stone, and where it hits your foot....man, you may look like Jeremy! ...

He's givin' a valient effort!

But sometimes, he's just a drama queen! : )

This is entering another area of chinatown that we hadn't been to before. It's just rows and rows of shops tightly clustered with shopowners trying so hard to get you to come in theirs!

And in our travelling to get to the Botanical Gardens, we thought, we'd better get a bite to eat before we got up there and had no food options. So we stopped, against our better judgement, at the Newton Hawker Center. There's nothing wrong with eating here. There's great food, but they price it all higher b/c it's the 'touristy' hawker center! This is just a guy making lots of chicken in preparation for the dinner rush...

And unfortunatly, it takes way too long to use public transportation to get from one place to another, and by the time we got to Newton and got our dinner and ate it, the free salsa music and the lessons were going to be almost over and we still had to take another bus to get to the event. So, it was all for not, and we ended up turning around heading back home to find out that our neighbors had just come from there! They said it was really nice, and if we were going to go to another free concert at the gardens to pack a picnic dinner cuz that's what everyone else had done. (They didn't!). So, sorry, no pix of the Botanical Gardens, we just didn't make it yet!

Accupuncture!

2005-06-04T19:30:00.000+08:00

OK OK, I know I've been slackin' off about the blog, but we have only done short stuff lately and well, I just haven't been motivated. Maybe I've been too hot? Well, here is the first of a few things that we did in June, that I hadn't recorded.

Since we were here in the midst of Asian culture, we decided one day to go with some of our friends to a Free Clinic to try Accupuncture. I had a shoulder that had been bothering me from a climbing accident and a cycling crash here! And my elbow was really bothering me from when Jeremy and I were tubing with Uncle Bob on the lake and it got hyper extended. So, I thought, OK, I have some latent injuries that would be nice if they would clear up. Jeremy, who was very skeptical of this 'asian magic' had also messed up his shoulder in a cycling accident, and our friend Adrian has back problems. So, why not go with friends!

I thought I was going to pass out, watching them insert the needles into Jeremy, and when the needles were inserted into me, it didn't hurt persay, but there was definatly a tingling sensation when she connected the nerves or whatever she did.

She is trying to pin point (no pun intended) the actual location of the persistant pain I had been having before inserting any needles.

And then somehow by connecting points on the body, the needles release the badness in the problem area and allow it to feel better. There are 4 needles, can you see them? She drew blood with the one on my Left arm...I couldn't move to see it b/c of the needle in my neck, but I felt it running down my arm!

And Jer took a close up of the one in my neck.

Adrian has lower back problems so his accupuncture was a little bit different, plus, he's been thru this a few times so they could use more aggressive methods on him.

Under these wooden cups, are needles inserted into specific locations. Then, the accupuncturist, lit something to create fire and thereby a vaccuum sucking the cups down onto his back.

And this needle in the back of his leg was connecting something in his back. Each of the proceedures leaves you laying around or sitting, depending on your injury location, for about a half an hour. It ends up being somewhat relaxing, as long as you don't move.

When the cups were removed from Adrian's back, he ended up with these'hickies' that stayed with him for most of the day!

And as we were leaving the clinic we saw this Mobile Clinic van outside. So, we took a peek.

Inside were all these bottles of medicines.

Inside the van from another angle.

At the end of our sessions we were instructed to eat something, to avoid caffein and icy cold drinks, and were also instructed to drink this black liquid that tasted just horrible and swallow several pills with each meal...(3x/day). The 'medicine' was supposed to aid in the accupuncture process of healing you faster. But, Jeremy stopped taking his meds after the first dose I think. Adrian took his first dose and grimmaced...he never finishes his meds, and I really gave it a valiant effort to finish my course of meds...but admittadly, did not...however, I took more than anyone else in this bunch!

Whether due to accupuncture, time, or pysical therapy, both Jeremy and my shoulders are much improved (not 100%) but we are climbing on them and mtn biking again, and my elbow gives me much less problems now, finally after almost 7 months of healing!

Even though this was a Free Clinic, Jeremy and I donated $10 each for services rendered!

Pulau Tioman-Vesak Day Holiday Weekend

2005-05-16T14:30:00.000+08:00

May 20th-23rd

For the Vesak Holiday Weekend, which is a Buddhist holiday, we decided to go diving with Living Seas again. We knew a few folks who would be going and were happy to meet some new folks. We left Friday night from Living Seas at the Riverwalk at 7pm (well, let's be honest, folks in these here parts aren't too concerned with keeping to scheduled times. It was more like 8pm before we were on our way, and that was only 1 of 2 vans that actually left...the second van was soon to follow though). The vans are booked thru a company in Malaysia.

We drove through the night and arrived at our "no-tell Motel" at about 1am where we were given our room keys and promptly made way to bed. We needed to meet the first boat to the Ferry Terminal at Mersing at 6:30am.

The weekend was to be a total of 9 dives, lodging at Saylang Beach 'resort' and food included. And I am happy to report, that I did not have to "take out" a rooster on this trip. He happily stayed at the other end of the resort, and kept Alan awake all night! Thanks Raymond! : )

Oh God it's so early! Up at 6am so we can meet the boat at 6:30 to take us to Tioman.

Early morning purple light at the boat ferry in Mersing, Malaysia.

OK, where is the boat? 6:50am and the morning is breaking...Oh yeah, this is Asia, no one actually adheres to a schedule...I think the boatman finally arrived by about 7:15 or even 7:30am. We fended off the mosquitos while we waited...

When we finally arrived, we got our room keys, changed for diving, had some brunch and got down to some diving business!

Bernard and Susanah, dive buddies for the weekend! Bernard had an underwater camera so he hooked us up with all the underwater shots! Thanks man! We saw some great stuff! Check it out. Some of the pix were taken at different dive locations around Pulau Tioman. We did a few dives each day.

Blue spotted ray!

Giant Clam.

Clown fish, Nemo's family? Clown fish are so fun to watch b/c they look like they are carefree swimming about the aenome, but, when you stop and get close and watch them, they become very territorial and will face off with you. Some may even come towards you. Serko even showed us how to turn on an aenome.

Colorful reef.

Crown of Thorns. These guys are very invasive and end up killing a lot of the reef by killing the live coral. Apparently there are times of the year when the numbers are so many at Tioman, that folks will go out and just go on a spree to kill them back. Jeremy said he used to cut out the centers of these things. I don't know how you'd touch them without proper gloves!

Half of a pufferfish. Jeremy and I saw a humongous porcupine fish, it was huge, under this rock. It must have been at least 3 1/2 feet long!

Jeremy peeing off the back of the boat! Busted!

Susanah underwater.

Kel and Jer, underwater shots are the most flattering, don't you think?

Reef at one of our dives at about 5-7 meters!

Hawksbill Turtle.

Serko and the Hawksbill Turtle, 'Come to Daddy'. Serko actually looked like he was communicating with the turtle...and it responded.

Kel, reaching out for the Hawksbill Turtle.

I just put my hand out and it swam right under it, I was able to run my fingers down the middle of the back of it's shell. It just swam lazily away.

Kel totally siked to have gotten to see a turtle let alone touch it!

Jeremy purging his mask after smiling a big smile when Kelly finally got to see a turtle!

Fishermans' Eyeballs. The silver balls, which are actually part of a green algae family. They looked like balls of mercury underwater.

Reef where we saw the turtle and the fisherman's eyeballs.

Good Trim Susanah! Check out all that new gear, compass, fins, wetsuit, dive computer, sweet back brace BCD, but only one glove?? : )

Underwater plant life.

After our morning dives, we went back to our rooms to fill out our dive books and ID some of the sightings of the morning. Hawksbill Turtle, fisherman's eyeballs, many snorklers...

And we had a little bit of downtime before the next few dives, which Jeremy used the opportunity to take a little nap!

While Serko and Kelly, jumped on the Tim Tam train! Mmmm, Timtams! Chocolate and mint, and then a little nappy pooh!

At this one dive site, near the end of the day, we encountered a very large Baracuda! Well, Bernard saw it most up close and personal!

The baracuda turns from Jeremy and heads towards Bernard...coming thru the unclear waters...He's about a metre and a half long. (Sit back away from your computer screen and you can see him better)

Bernard is shaking in his wetsuit about now, should he snap the pix or swim the other way??? Good choice Bernard! Well done!

And yet another aggressive fish. But, I don't have my log book handy and can't remember what it's called.

Sea Feathers.

And this one, maybe some sort of sea slug? I can't remember and again, don't have my logbook handy at the moment...

Sea Star.

Stone Fish hidden in the coral. Pretty hard to make out but know it's a very dangerous fish!

Serko and Susanah at the end of a dive.

'OK, so tell us more about the baracuda that was following Jeremy's fins....'

Some of the dive crew in between dives.

What a cutie with his new short haircut!

Just waitin' for some food!

A sunset at Saylang beach.

Raymond and Serko with the Open Water divers.

View at Saylang Beach at sunset. A hot Milo to warm us up before our Night Dive to the infamous Roger's Wreck! Right Alan....?

Between dives.

How family style meals are served at Rogers Reef.

Getting ready for dinner. See the fine spread! We are probably looking at our little cat friend!

OK, so the doglady is craving animal affections, even if it comes from a cat. This little cat was quite talkative and kept coming around mealtimes and even visited us at our room.

Kel and Sus between dives.

All washed up!

Leaving a dive site.

Sunset at Saylang Beach.

The last dive group returns.

As is the norm, we usually have dinner prepared by Roger, then, we go and have post-dinner of squid, satay, iced milos (like choc milk) and banana splits down at another restaurant just down the beach.

Squid.

Susanah and her new high tech gear! Now we'll see if she can maintain bouancy...

A thunderstorm approaches over the mountain just before our last dive of the day...

Raymond, Audry, Serko, Kel, Jer, (behind) Alan, Serko

Susanah at the Ferry pier, at the end of our trip.

Sharron and Josh, brother/sister dive buddies!

Alan, probably getting chicks numbers : )

Waiting for the ferry at the end of our trip.

Raymond and Audry at the ferry terminal at the end of our trip.

Kel, waiting at the Ferry Terminal at the end of our trip.

Heading back to Mersing at the end of the trip.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2005-05-11T15:03:00.000+08:00

On Monday May 2nd it was the pulic holiday Labour Day here in Singapore. So, given the extra day off, we decided to take a long weekend and go up to Kuala Lumpur to explore what we had heard of a place called Batu Caves which was noted for lots of great rock climbing.

Saturday

5:30am, the phone rings and the text reads "nothing looks good at this time of morning, not even goats." Adam Turner

We gathered the troops, Lena organized the bus and hotel arrangments and we headed off for a weekend of exploration and climbing.

The cast of characters:

Jeremy Brodhead, our ringleader, keeping the hot Malaysian sun off his head using a banana leaf. Just like the Balinese do!

Adrian Gair on the bus on the way up to KL. Don't let that smile fool you, if you're belaying him, you'll need an umbrella!

Adam Turner at a lunch stop in Malacca, on the way to KL. Have motorcycle, will travel. Have a foxy woman on the back, will travel to Malaysia!

Ange Laning, foxy woman! She's responsible for educating our youth here in Singapore!

Wayne Morais on the bus on our way to KL. This was more flattering than the sleeping pix!

Lena Kwa, coordinator extroidinaire! And bringer of a thousand Baygone coils!

Kelly Shaffer, don't make me shower at that backpacker bathroom! The Executive Suite at the Hotel Istana calls me!

A Durian stand in KL, that we passed on our way to find some dinner. Durian is a very popular fruit here, which many people really love. It's the kind of fruit that you either love or hate though, as if you can get by the stench of it, it really does smell like a sewer, it is supposed to be sweet and delicious. Neither Jeremy nor I have been able to get beyond the stench, and it's odor tends to linger even after you have walked well beyond where you may find it, in an enclosed shop or an open air market, like this one.

One of our first views of the Petronas Towers at dusk on our first evening in KL. Notice, even in Malaysia, there is a McD's! We couldn't wait to get a closer view of the famous Towers at night.

Goofing around on the lawn outside the Petronas Towers.

The gang out in the courtyard behind the Petronas Towers.
(front-Adam, Kelly, Ange, middle-Jeremy, back-Wayne, Lena, Adrian)

After some Margarita's this is what the Petronas Towers looked like to Ange.

Here are the Petronas Towers from the courtyard in the back of the towers. At the base of the towers there is a huge mall! The towers are above the mall! Lots of upscale stuff too! We had wanted to go up to the bridge of the towers but we had to be there by 7am, to reserve tix as they only let a set number of folks up there each day. Tix are sold out rather quickly so needless to say, we did not get to walk where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery walked.

Petronas Towers at night. We ended up walking by an Embassy, and learned that all the Princes and Kings of Malaysia had gathered this weekend for a meeting. We were trying to figure out why there were so many motorcycles and officers standing around but we had also seen some motorcades driving thru the streets as well, with sirens and a big ta-doo about them. We found them, and were able to walk up pretty close to the stretch Rolls Royce parked out front of the Embassy. The officers were quite nice, some posing for pix, and allowing us to do pretty much what ever we wanted to do. It was a crazy feeling and an incredible backdrop.

Sunday

The next day, we awoke, and had a family style backpacker breakfast in the common room, of cereal, toast and PB, with tea or coffee. We met Ange and Adam who luckily got an executive suite at the Hotel Istana (the bike needed to be kept underground!) and made our way to Batu Caves by taxis.

Wayne, Lena and I eating breakfast.

On our way to Batu Caves, since we had 7 people, we had to take 2 cabs. As luck would have it, we had only one guide book, which was in Jeremy's possession in the other cab, (Jer, Adam, Ange) while Adrian, Wayne, Lena and I got dropped off at this park, of which we had no idea where we were. We had one phone, Adrian's, and Adam's phone had roaming. So, Adrian called Adam, and while they were at the climbing wall, we didn't know where we were in proximity to them. Adrian made a few calls, and then called Adam and told him the park name where we were. They then show up a while later, in a Polis car. Ange had worked her magic and got the officer to bring them all to us! All told, a trip to the wall should have taken us about a half an hour from KL to Batu Caves, but for us, it took over 3 hrs! We were, hot, frustrated, and now getting hungry again.

The friendly Polis officer waving to his new friends!

We still had to get to the wall, via on foot now, and made our way thru a Kampong Village and neighborhood to get there.

Walking to Damai Wall in the background.

I just love this picture of Jeremy with the huge banana leaf! It really does work to keep the rain and sun off.

Through the Kampong Village, near the climbing wall, we saw some family run businesses of making prawn crackers, gluten rice crackers and garlic!

Close up of prawn crackers. These were sitting out in the sun to dry, then, they can be packaged as is, and sold or, we've seen them already boiled in hot oil, where each flake gets HUGE and puffy! It's a light, but greasy snack food.

Gluten rice crackers drying in the sun.

A close up of the gluten rice crackers. These, you would just eat when dry for a crunchy snack.

And the one that really caught our eye, our favorite, GARLIC. We've never seen so much garlic in one place. These women were preparing the garlic, by cleaning up the loose paper skins.

mmmm, close up of tons of yummy garlic! Gabe and Jill--this reminds me of the days of baked garlic and baguette!

She's threshing the garlic.

And just outside, here are the bags of completed, cleaned up garlic! BIG BAGS of Garlic!

Adam and Ange at our Kampong lunch! Awesome Mee Goreng and lime drinks.

Old Woman at a fabric/sewing shop next to where we had lunch.

On our way thru the Kampong Village, after lunch, we ran across these kids and families all hanging out.

When we finally got to the wall, we were all so impressed. It was big, and the rock was awesome limestone. There were features in the rock which made it intersting even if you were on the ground. Big Caves you could see up inside of, and climb to. There was a kampong village just next to where we set up to climb and 5 times a day we would hear the Muslim chanting, calling to folks to pray. While up on the rock, it was an awesome feeling to hear the chanting in the background.

Batu Caves, Damai Wall. The blue flag that is up in the left side of the wall is about 3 pitches up! We were setting top ropes for ourselves and only were doing the first 60 feet! And you can see in the bottm left corner, a climbing wall, man made for working out. This place was well maintained and the people here, very friendly. We even recognized some climbers from Singapore all the way up here!

Ange doing her first lead climb since her course on Krabi. She'll set up the toprope for the rest of us. She's just to the left of that staircase.

Close up of Ange setting the top rope.

Kel climbing an easy climb!

Lena and Adrian in the Executive Suite at Hotel Istana chillin out after a shower, Thank You Adam and Ange and a big day of climbing in the heat!

Monday

Monday was the day we had to head back to Singapore so we decided to have an easy morning, of breakfast and packing, and then head out into KL. Since we couldn't get tix in time to go up to the bridge at the Petronas Towers, we opted to check out the KL Tower, boasting being one of the World's Tallest Towers!

I just liked the reflection of the KL Tower with the camel!

KL Tower.

OK, so do I look like a tourist or what? When we got to the top of the KL Tower, they gave us a set of headphones so we could do a self guided tour, which we did. Everyone looks as ridiculous as me, so at least I don't stick out!

View 1 of Kuala Lumpur from KL Tower.

View 2 of Kuala Lumpur from KL Tower.

View of the Petronas Towers from the KL Tower.

It was so hot and muggy that we couldn't see Batu Caves from the tower, but it was out there! We couldn't see too far b/c of the heat but we did notice all the swimming pools on top of the hotels around town.

After our little tour of KL, we had to rush to make it to our bus on time! So we swung by our little Muslim hostel and grabbed our bags and all of us packed into ONE CAB and sped off to the bus station, which we didn't know where it was! Luckily for us, the bus was delayed!

And as we waited for our bus to arrive, we were entertained by a Karaoke competition. This man, was totally serious and not only did he have on the cultural Malay dress, but he sang a Malay song in the competition. Not quite sure how they were gonna judge this one! Karaoke is major big time stuff here in Asia and Malaysia's saying is that they are the 'real asia'!

I like to call this one, 'smokin'at the bus stop'.

This is an example of beating the system. Cigarettes are $11/pack in Singapore, but only like $4/pack in Malaysia and since our good friend Adrian is a smoker, we helped to save him a few bucks and we each brought a pack of smokes across the boarder! Mind you, this isn't something we like to do....but it saved Adrian a lot of money!

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

2005-05-03T20:54:00.000+08:00

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve...a living classroom

After coming back from Bali, we returned to exploring our immediate surroundings. Here on the island is a Wetland Reserve, and nature classroom. It's located up in the North, and is unfortunatly not the easiest place to get to, but once you are there, you really could spend an entire day exploring the wetlands and mangrove swamps. There is an interpretive center and lots of easy trails to explore. We'll have to go back at least once more, as our day was only half of what it should be, AND we had a really big Thunderstorm and pouring rain about halfway in. Not to mention the mosquitos!

Since we went on a Saturday, we had to take the MRT to the Woodlands stop and the get on bus 925 that would take us to the Kranji Resevoir car park. From there, we had to walk about 20 mins to get to the entrance of the reserve. If we had come on Sunday or it was a public holiday, we could take the bus all the way to the entrance, but then we would've missed this...

On our way we saw this:

A crocodile farm, not too far away from the entrance of the reserve.

When we started our walk in, we followed this boardwalk made of recycled wood. And sitting there in the middle was this coppery colord lizard, with part of his tail missing. He's about 6 inches long.

And hidden back in the brush, we saw this lizard hiding.

We kept seeing these structures in the mud, lots of them, here and there. After a visit to the nature center, we learned that they were made by mudlobsters, although we did not see any mudlobsters.

Mudlobster hole

A wet plant. It looked pretty cool at the time.

And when we started our exploration of the area, we decided to take the boardwalk trail out to see the mangroves. This is some of what we saw.

These are Prop roots of Rhizophora. They were all over the place and it was quite eerie to see them all around you. It was low tide, so more of the roots were exposed at this time.

It's hard to see, but there are two mudskippers and evidence of a mudlobster hole in this pix.

Mudskippers are interesting critters. They swim and breathe underwater like fish, and in fact have fins, but they are also able to breathe out of water, and use their fins to drag them selves up onto land. They also have big bulging eyes, that sit on top of their heads so they can see what's going on when they are submerged underwater. They were fascinating too watch, and fun to look for the biggest one we could find, which was about 8 inches in length.

Once we finished the mangrove boardwalk section of trail, we headed out to the rest of the wetland area and as we came across this bridge and turned Left, we were met with this sign showing us to be aware of Crocodiles on trail.

You can see the trail was a pretty easy one to follow and wide enought to spot any on coming crocs!

And along the trail they had built these observation blinds so you could see the birds and wildlife without disturbing them. OK, so Jeremy is wearing the sling, b/c he had a huge crash on his bike earlier this particular morning, OK, well, there were two crashes and he got some good road rash, but the worst of it, was that he really wretched his shoulder. He's not wearing a sling anymore, but his shoulder is still giving him problems...and the road rash is all but gone now. Cool scars though!

A view out to the wetland and the birds from behind one of the observation blinds. We learned that the best time to visit SB would be October- January, as migratory birds use this reserve as a winter stop over. We would like to come back and check it out then, and see how many birds will be there. It's supposed to be an amazing site.

While Jeremy uses the observation blinds to view wildlife, I use the surroundings. This plant was wild, it looked like something you would buy at Walmart in the fake plant section, but no, it was real!

...and we ended up on another boardwalk, where we continued to look for big mudskippers and saw millions of these tiny, I mean, about a half and inch long, crabs that if you just looked quickly, scanning the mudflats, you would miss them ,but if you stop, and really look, they were everywhere! And as we looked up in the trees....

HUGE Monitor Lizard, just hanging out in the trees! He didn't even move much when we stayed to check him out for a while. It's just too hot in Singapore to move. He proves it!

And after we saw the Moniter lizard, we ran into a road block on the boardwalk, so we had to turn around and head back to another trail juncture. But, part way back, we got caught in a massive Thunderstorm and downpour, so we made our way quickly to the Aeerie, which was an observation tower, for shelter. We hung out there and watched many more monitor lizards, from afar begin moving about the mudflats as small pools began to fill. It was starting to get late, so we decided to brave the rain anyway (we did snag an umbrella from one of our busses so we had one between us) and made our way back to the visitor center. We were able to catch a short flick about the reserve (more of a promotional thing) and on our way back out of the reserve we saw these two huge monitor lizards swimming near the visitor center.

Monitor lizard swimming at the visitor center. Monitor lizards tend to stand up on their hind legs and just keep their heads above the waters surface to see what's going on. But, they are very good swimmers. We'll have to go back and visit the reserve again.

Bali post 13-Bali Dance 3

2005-04-28T14:47:00.000+08:00

Balinese Dance-The Legong Dance

The Legong dance is one of the most graceful of the Balinese dances. A Legong is young girl, often as young as 8 or 9 and not much older than her early teens. It involves 3 dancers, two Legong and their 'attendant' (congong). If you did not have the flyer in front of you describing what you were seeing, you would have no idea what this dance was about as it jumped from different dance styles through out the performance and seemingly followed no storyline.

Gamelan orchestra with kedang drum.

Puspa Wresti-a ritual dance where Dancers bring "offerings" for temple ceremony.

Puspa Wresti

Puspa Wresti tossing floral offerings.

Topeng Keras-a mask dance where mask is red and the character is tough, representing the hard intesive denoting anger.

That temple I told you about a few posts ago. Here it is at night, as a stage for the Legong Dance.

Legong Kraton

Legon Kraton

Legong Kraton- dressed in gold brocade very tightly bound. Faces are elaboratly made up, eyebrows plucked and repainted, and their hair decorated with frangipani.

Legong Kraton

This is supposed to be a woman dressed to be a man, BUT, I'm pretty sure it's a man! The dance is called Kebyar Duduk or Tarunajaya.

This is a dancer in the Kupu-Kupu Tarum which is a sacred dance exhibiting the glamorous butterflies iin heaven.

Kupu-Kupu Tarum

Kupu-Kupu Tarum. I'm pretty sure this is a little boy performing this dance.

Oleg Tambulilingan is a graceful love dance.

Oleg Tambuliliangan.

Jauk is a mask dance exhibiting a demon who is alone in the jungle, but happy to move and be free.

Jauk.

The cast of dancers.

Was a paper offering, or Lamak, that had been a decoration on the stage.

Bali post 12-Driving around, Silversmith, Bali Dance 2

2005-04-28T14:46:00.000+08:00

Driving Around

We saw some great stuff just driving to and from our destinations and for lack of knowing where I should put these in the blog, I thought I'd just list them. Anyway, it won't be as much of a cultural 'lesson' as the other posts have been.

I hope I can get this all done too, as now, we've got another trip under our belts that I really want to share. (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Batu Caves COMING SOON)

Bamboo for sale on the side of the road.

As we drove into this little village we saw that they were primarily focused on woodcarvings. Here are some guys working on some carvings that you may even recognize from a Pier 1 store?

Stacked wood carvings, unfinished.

What do you think? You've seen these before at Pier 1 or maybe even Pottery Barn?

And as we came around this corner, we saw these women out doing laundry along side of the road.

And so Jeremy stole some photo opps.

As we were driving up into the mountains we kept seeing these beautiful stacks of fruit along side the road. We had to get a picture. They are just for sale if you want a bite to eat.

And as we stopped at an overlook to catch the view, and a snack at a roadside shop, these women came over to us and tried to get us to buy some offerings. It's hard, but you just have to be firm with them! You get bombarded everytime you stop for anything.

Just another great bike shot!

And along this road everyone was selling watermelons! This year they had great watermelons, nice and sweet b/c they hadn't had as too much of a rainy season.

And we stopped for lunch at this local hawker area and Bill saw this little Muslim girl riding with her Dad on the motor scooter.

They would fry up all kinds of stuff in big woks of hot oil.

And set it out for you to choose your snacks.

We saw a lot of folks using banana leaves when it was raining whether they were working in the fields or walking down the street.

Banana leaves are pretty big!

Silversmith

There are also towns that specialize in just doing gold and silver jewelry. We stopped at this one gallery, hoping to get to see them making jewelry, but ended up back at one of the big tourist galleries...however, we did look around, and we did do some shopping. The ornate and intricate design of this chariot is the same as the design on a bracelet that Sherry bought.

And Jeremy bought me a ring, that is a moonstone (Batu Boolan) ring. It's been rather difficult to photograph, so you'll just have to wait to see it till we get back. Sometimes it looks clear, and other times it catches the light and is a purple/blueish color. Everytime I look at it I am reminded of how amazing Bali was and how amazing Jeremy is.

Balinese Dance-Kechak Fire and Trance Dance

Kechak is a unique Balinese dance in which the artists are accompanied by a choir of 100 men rather than the traditional Gamelan Orchestra. It's origins can be traced to an ancient dance ritual called, Sanghyan (Trance Dance).

The dancers enter a trance-like state which allows them to communicate with deities or ancestors who express their wishes through the dancers.

Sita and Rama

Golden Deer surrounded by the choir of men.

Demon King Rahwana

Kidnapped Rama and Sita.

Sugriwa, the King of the Monkeys.

Sugriwa in the center of the choir of men chanting.

The chanting leads to a man on a horse (Jaran) dancing around a bonfire of coconut husks. If the Sanghyang song leads him to the fire, the man will dance in a trance-like state on the fire.

Fire built of coconut shells.

Man on a horse dancing around the fire...

And he enters the fire! The man is in barefeet!

In and out of the fire he goes, spreading the burning husks out towards the crowd.

And at the end, a man of the temple stood up and said that all the ticket sales would go towards the upkeep and maintenance of the temples and thanked everyone for coming. Each ticket cost 50,000 Rp, which is about equivalent to $5 USD. Then, after the dance was over, people gave donations to the man who was entranced. I admit, we gave him some Rupiah, it was impressive! Can you see his feet?

The other part of the fire and trance dance that was impressive, was the chanting itself, which sounds like 'chak-a-chak-a-chak'. Of course, b/c it's a series of sounds and call outs, Jeremy really got into all the noise! It will be his new songs to practice in the shower. : ) We will hopefully be buying some of the Balinese music when we go back to Bali, but for now, all we have are snippets on our video camera from clips of the dances.

Bali post 11-Farming & Fields

2005-04-28T14:45:00.000+08:00

Rice Paddies

Rice is an essential part of almost every meal, and rice production and cultivation is of central importance to traditional life on Bali. The climate and volcano-enriched soils of Bali are ideally suited for growing rice. Terraced rice fields were a dominant feature of what we experienced as we moved from Padang Bai to central Bali, and near Ubud and probably one of the first things you think of when you think of Bali. The fields have been described as an "engineered landscape" and to see it in real life, you must appreciate all the hard work and man hours involved in creating an area suitable to farming.

Padi is the growing rice plant--hence paddy fields and the rice field is called a sawah.

The cultivation of rice remains much the same way it was in Neolithic times. The Balinese solution (dating from as early as the 9th century AD) for growing rice on such steep terrain was to create an ingenious and complex network of irrigation channels, tunnels and aquaducts to catch and divert water from higher mountain sources.

You can see all the terraces on the steep moutainside. We drove way up this winding road and caught some amazing views.

This road was one of the steepest roads we've ever driven up. The drive was awesome! It's very hard to see in this pix, but that whole mountain on the left is terraced.

And at the top we saw not only views of the ocean out in the distance but also saw what we called 'meditation huts' that were seeminly in the middle of nowhere.

Kel enjoying the view from the meditation hut.

This is the 'meditation hut' roof from the inside, laying on your back in the middle of the floor.

Kel and Jer enjoying the view together.

And as we drove further up into the mountains we stopped to take other pictures and we were met by these two little boys who ran up the mountian road to meet us...

...while these women ran down the mountain road in flip flops (it made quite a noise) to meet us to sell us their wares...

Nothing like being accosted in the middle of nowhere by a hawker trying to get you to buy what they've got to sell!

As we drove we saw some impressive displays on landscape engineering, which is made even more impressive when you learn how the paddies are grown.

Padi Bali is the generic term for several strains of traditionally grown rice, a tall strong plant with a growing cycle of 210 days. Beras is the uncooked grain of rice and nasi is the cooked rice, as in Nasi Goreng (which I have an excellent recipe for this!)

A Paddy field is a basin of packed earth, reinforced with intertwining grassroots. Irrigation water is let in and out of each field individually thru a small gap in the earthen wall that can be open and closed with a hoe. The water is drained off thru channels that empty into rivers.

Up close of water being drained into channels and diverted away.

And after we stood out under an umbrella to get the 2 previous shots, this little boy came out from his shelter to try and whine us into buying pencils...why we would need a pencil...The Balinese are fairly destitute, especially out in the smaller villages, and are not against getting the kids involved in the begging. Look at that face, and if you could've heard his whiney voice...it breaks your heart.

Just as the water had a system for moving throughout the fields, the Balinese also have a system for keeping birds out of the fields. They would string an elaborate maze of twine connecting all of the fields and tie white flagging to different parts of the twine. When the wind would blow, that would scare off the birds.

But then they took it a step further. We all know that birds would get used to just the flagging being tied in the fields, so they would add one more dimension. A woman would sit in a little hut during the day, and pull on strings that were strung out into the fields.

You can see different stages of rice growing in the fields.

A small corner of the the field is planted with seedling rice. Once that rice is of considerble size, it is then lifted and replanted, shoot by shoot into the bigger fields. After that it's easy living for a while, as the rice matures. The walls in the fields need to be kept in working order, and the fields are weeded, but generally this takes very little time and allows folks to do other things, like practice the gamelan, or do woodworking, etc...

Finally, when harvest time comes around the whole village will come out to help.

Gathering the rice.

Threshing the rice.

Rice planting is strictly men's work but everybody takes part in harvesting.

Legend has it that a group of Balinese farmers promised to sacrifice a pig if their harvest was good. As a bountiful harvest time approached, no pig could be found and it was reluctantly decided that a child should be sacrificed instead. Then, one of the farmers had an idea. They had promised the sacrifice AFTER the harvest. If there was always new rice growing, then the harvest would always be about to take place, and no sacrifice would be necessary. Since then, Balinese have always planted one field of rice before harvesting another.

Bali post 10-Coffee and Spice Farm & Carrying things.

2005-04-28T14:42:00.000+08:00

Coffee and Spice Farm

The one day we went and visited a Coffee and Spice Farm. We walked thru a cocoa plantation to a little hut and watched how they roasted coffee beans. They let us stir the beans for a bit over the fire and we could even pound them into the fine grind with a person sized mortar and pestle. Then we were invited to go sit at a small pavillion to enjoy a small sample of the coffee, 1/2 coffee and 1/2 cocoa, or tea. We tried them all, the caffeine glutons that we are! Near the sampling pavillion there was a little open air store that had other samples of local fruits you could try, which we did, and then you could buy the raw cocoa, or coffee with or without wooden carved boxes, and all kinds of other spices and incence oils. We found that even though we could get the goods straight from the source, that the prices were very inflated here. Jer and I bought a little wooden box with cocoa in it, since we like to mix it with coffee, but found out when we got home that the amt of cocoa that was in that wooden box, amounted to the size of a 'dime bag'. We got ripped off in that one and only purchase.

Cocoa plant before it becomes that lovely vitamin CHOCOLATE!

Whiskey on the left, and Sherry roasting the coffee beans.

Up close of coffee beans roasting.

Carrying things

The next few shots are of women carrying different things. We saw this everywhere we went, whether we were in a small village or in a larger town like Ubud.

Doing chores I would assume. These people can carry just about anything on their head.

It looked like this woman had picked up a few things from market as well as some supplies to make her offerings.

Not only do they carry one basket full of stuff, but they stack them up too.

Carrying just a few items home.

Everybody seems to have much better posture than us lazy slouching Americans. : )

This woman is carrying stuff wrapped in a sheet, and a small baby.

The next few shots show women dressed in their formal clothes for going to do a Temple Offering. The Temple Offerings happened around 6pm everyday. The baskets are more decorative and the clothes more formal with each woman wearing the ceremonial waist sash.

This is one woman who was with a larger group of women that you'll see in a few shots.

We ended up at a busy intersection in this little sub village of Ubud, when we went walking up the stairs to the 'real bali' and found this little town. We got to the intersection at offering time, and this is what we saw in the next few pix. Notice the man with the rooster!

On the way to Temple Offering.

This group of women came around a corner right where we were standing.

They were all beautifully dressed and had lovely baskets. In everyday chores many of the women had a piece of material that was twisted and wrapped to form a circle on top of their head to form the platform to start balancing things on top of her head, but for the Temple offerings, the piece was more like a circular disc, made of bamboo and was decorated.

Heading towards Temple, young and old.

As they went by, we got a few shots of them from behind. The routine of these people is amazing to experience. The reason they do so many offerings is to keep everything in balance, between yourself, God and the environment.

Bali post 9-Ubud

2005-04-26T18:00:00.000+08:00

We took a few days to explore the town of Ubud. Ubud is loaded with small shops filled with all kinds of art and textiles. Ubud was said to have been able to concentrate on it's religious and cultural life, and so we took a few days to absorb all that we could in that rhelm. Western Artist Walter Spies was encouraged to visit Bali in the 1930's and he never left, settling in Bali, and creating his home where we had stayed at The Tjampuhan Hotel. He was also a great stimulus to the local art community and was one of the western visitors who helped to promote Balinese culture worldwide.

Jeremy and I headed out in one direction and Buffy and Sherry headed in their direction and these are some of the things that we saw.

Jeremy and I headed out into the main market area to see what we could find.

In the center of the block long building, there was an opening, allowing you to see many of the shops on the inside track of the upper floors. Down on this level, we found the 'fresh food'; fish, and other meats, veggies, fruits and snacks. Some of the food for sale was very questionable, with fruit that was rotting, and fish that were covered with flies...but none the less, people were shopping.

The market was literally a maze of shops, everything you could think of, from sarongs to fresh food, to masks and other carvings. You name it, it was here at the market.

As we wound our way thru the marketplace trying to avoid too much eye contact, we heard small wimpers near some motorbikes that were parked at the far end. We found under one bike this little puppy, that seemed miserable. We pet her for a few moments and one of the other shop keepers, who was following us to get us to buy at her shop, grabbed the dog by the scruff, held it up for us and said, "FREE for you!" We would have taken this pup, (but just couldn't) as we saw many pups around the market, and really don't know if this one will survive, it was a pretty young puppy.

We saw vendors selling Pandan stalks.

All kinds of snack items, and if you look closely you can see an offering placed on top of the piles.

Hand crafted knives.

And with everywhere you go around Bali, there was another Temple at the one end of the market and as we peeked thru a window going down below to more shops, we caught a glimpse of women praying and placing offerings.

Shops along the open air street.

Women selling sarongs.

Sherry at a basket shop. The baskets are all handwoven and the ones directly to her right are covered in beads that are strung on a string and then woven onto the basket.

Here is an example of a beaded pot from another vendor.

Sherry became a master bargainer and was able to make a few nice purchases.

All kinds of woven items.

From tissue box covers to small boxes to store things in.

Wooden bowls.

Colorful masks.

All shapes and kinds of masks.

Close up of masks.

And this was a mask that Jeremy wanted to get to bring home. This was one of the characters in the Legong Dance.

And here is Jer trying on one of the masks he considered.

And we found maks in another store as we walked around.

Up close you can see all the detail and care put into each mask.

Buffy and Sherry also did some Temple sight seeing and caught a remodling in action.

The black hairy roofs on the temple are made from the Sugar Palm. It even resembles human hair. Buffy caught some guys working on temple renovations and learned how they make the roofs.

They pull apart hunks of the sugar palm fibres and line them up to make swaths of 'hair'.

They take each cluster and lay them side by side, tying each cluster to the pole. Many layers of poles are then woven together to create the thick protective roof tops.

Very intricate wood work up inside a temple shrine.

Stone carving on a shrine.

Monkey carving on a shrine.

Gamelan musical instruments. Gamelan music sounds strange at first, it's noisy and jangly percussion, but it's also enjoyable. The instruments are usually stored in the bale gong and are owned by a banjar.

Balinese music is based around the instruments you see above, aside from an occasional simple suling flute and a two stringed rebab it is mainly percussive. It is derived from Javanese gamelan, although the playing style is very different. The main instruments are the xylophone like gangsa which have bronze bars above bamboo resonators. It is played with a hammer and also uses a hand to dampen the sound of each key as it's struck. The tempo is set by two kendang drums (one male, one female) and other instruments are trompong drums, small kempli gong and cengceng cymbols. The gamelan orchestra is called a gong and could have as many as 40 musicians.

The songs of the gamelan are learned by heart and are passed down from father to son.

Buffy and Sherry also found a hotel that was absolutly beautiful. Every village has a temple, and families have village house compounds. This hotel was laid out like like a bit of both.

Upon entering you find in most cases, a wall directly in front of you. This is built here to stop evil spirits from entering the complex. Evil spirits are not supposed to be able to turn corners so they can only come straight in, and then have to back right back out thus keeping the complex free of evil.

At this hotel you could rent a room, which offered a more private sleeping quarter, but your living space was out in the open, though lavishly decorated...

...with all kinds of decorative carvings...

...and ornate gold laden ceilings...

...and impressive sitting areas.

And, b/c we were blessed with so much rain on our trip to Bali, we couldn't resist some of the orchids and how they held onto water drops.

As we moved away from the main areas of Ubud and jogged off into side streets and alleys, we found a whole other area to explore.

We had lunch at an eatery that wasn't much to look at from the outside, but the food prices were so cheap and the food remarkably delicious.

Menu at the Fair Way Cafe. The highest price on the menu for a meal was just over $1.20USD.

And this was the Warung across the alley from where we ate.

A warung is a family run coffee stall, mini-shop which is the heart of village social life, although they have no particular locations. The black dog lying out front wasn't actually all that friendly as we got near...maybe that's why no one is shopping there?

Buffy got himself and wooden Buddah.

At first I was a bit apprehensive about eating a suckling pig...but, our driver said this is where he would eat, as a local, so we thought we'd give it a try. (This was on a different day of course)

This is the suckling pig local eatery, and it was a terrific lunch! Tons of food, and the pig, was delish! In the upper area, there are long family style tables and you took your shoes off and hopped up there to sit on the bamboo mats and eat.

This was at a Temple where we later saw a Balinese Dance. This was the stage area for the dance, and the actors came thru the temple doors.

And we walked to the end of town where we found this grand staircase that we learned was to the 'real Bali'.

These steps we were told, led to the 'real Bali' and once up on top, we followed small motorbike paths around restaurants and living quarters.

Up at the top, it opened up and there was green rice paddies all around you. But, in researching for this post, I've learned that the open rice paddy spaces are becoming a hot commodity for building homes and you could see evidence of this construction just at the edge of the paddys.

But as we followed the small motorbike paths, we also were led into some wooded areas where we found yet more small shrines tucked back away from everything but nature.

And the statue that was there was thick with mossy growth, and donning a yellow and black-n-white sarong.

Unfortunatly when we left that little serence spiritual spot, we noticed down in a steep ravine, a garbage dump. The one big problem on Bali, is what to do with all the plastic bags and bottles and glass, as they do not have a recycling program and within the small villages, they cannot afford to pay for refuse removal. So, what you see when you get out into the villages are dumping grounds, and they are usually at streams, which makes none of the water clean on Bali. We drank only bottled water and used only bottled water for brusing teeth etc, even in our fancy hotels.

We ended up coming into another small village where there were NO tourists, except us! It was quiet and quaint.

We also saw a few roosters in baskets tucked back out of the weather.

And I think this was a homestay place. Homestays are also known as Losmens and are a low-budget form of accomodation. They are not fancy, most likely will not have AC , you may have a fan, and mosquito netting is provided. You may not even have a bathroom, but if they do have a bathroom, will not offer Toilet Paper. However, you will almost always get breakfast included in your room rental.

Women going to put out offerings. It was about 6pm and we started to see a lot of women dressed beautifully, with their offering baskets on top of their heads on their way.

We saw this outside of a small painting shop, again, a natural offering.

And Jeremy and I happened upon this little guy who was happy to have 1000 Rp, which is about equivalent to less than 10 cents US.

The long woven palm leaves are called Lamak and are used as decorations in festivals and celebrations.

Jeremy and I came across these women who were moving this whole pile of stone to a construction site. The woman on the far left, only has one arm, she's missing her Left arm and they all worked together in a team to load the baskets and then helped each other get them onto the other woman's head.

We followed them back to the contruction site and they were dumping the stone for some guys that were working on a temple renovation. They asked us for the time, which was close to lunchtime, and they were able to take a break for lunch, at which time, it poured down rain.

So, Jer and I ran across the street from where they were moving the stone and got ourselves a beer, here, at the Putra Bar after all, it was happy hour and a beer was only $1.60 USD!

And another colorful contrast of floral offerings placed on top of a fierce looking carving.

We witnessed a petrol fill up in a small tucked away village near Ubud.

This is just a Bali scene, of peoole going about their day.

Bill caught this one, 3 generations all hanging out together, and happy to have their picture taken.

It is common for rice to be dried out along the roadsides as this is the hottest, driest place. Cars just swerved to avoid the rice.

Monkey Forest Road heading for the Monkey Forest.

Bali post 8- The Monkey Forest

2005-04-25T18:50:00.000+08:00

Ubud is known to be a town with a big traditional market, lots of shops selling art and other sundries, and just south of it, is The Monkey Forest. We did lots of walking around Ubud and checked out the market and then followed The Monkey Forest Road all the way to the Monkey Forest. Just outside the entrance to the MF, we were accosted by several locals selling bananas to feed the monkeys. We thought, OK, why not? And bought a bunch.

This is a smart monkey. He approached me as soon as I entered the grounds, ran up my leg and grabbed the banana right from me. I didn't even have time to think. I gave the rest of the bunch to Jeremy after that. We didn't realize the feeding rules until we saw the sign about 50 meters in. After this happened!

This guy was really quite aggressive in terms of he wanted the bananas! He ran up Jer's leg, up onto his back and had his arms around his neck trying to get the bananas!

The sign says to let them have the bananas. Jeremy's Mom tried to reach in and get the monkey to let go of Jer's neck, and the monkey just looked at her and beared his teeth and slapped her hand away. Yeesh! This was definatly an exciting start to the monkey forest.

Here's a monkey just hanging out, waiting for some food to be tossed to him.

They seemed to really like Bill. He's a monkey tree.

And I think the face of the monkey on Bill's lap is hilarious!

Remember what I told you all about animals and Bill having the same expressions?

And this young monkey couldn't figure out where this guys hair was? He was seriously confused, and was looking like he was trying to find bugs, but then he would just slap this guys head, then that noise startled him, and he began exploring the slapping noise. It was very funny to watch!

And this monkey is happily eating his banana. But, look at his teeth! That's why I gave Jeremy the bunch and said, that was good enough for me!

Close up.

Momma and baby.

And as we walked from the main area where all the head slapping and body climbing was happening, we came upon this small family unit.

The little guy on the right is sucking his Mom's thumb.

And the little guy on the left was so wrinkly.

And the expressions on their faces and the the actions they would do were so human like. It would have been fun to just sit and watch the monkeys for long periods, but the mosquitos in the MF were unbelievable and I was getting eaten alive. So, we kept moving as there was a Temple to see...

Group effort on grooming!

This carving on the side of the steps was a bit eerie looking.

This is a Banyan Tree and is the holiest Balinese tree and no important Temple is complete w/o a big stately one growing within the Temple limits. It's known as a 'never dying' tree b/c of the way it reproduces...by dropping creepers from above which take root to propagate a new tree.

This Temple within the area of the Monkey Forest is a 'temple of the dead' and is called, Pura Dalem Agung.

Here is a monkey getting a grooming outside of the Temple.

It had to be added. This was the only actual dog carving we saw besides the Barong, but that's a dog/lion creature.

And this carving was near to where we found the end of a cremation.

The temple entries are said to have such ornate carvings of diminishing demon faces placed over the top of the opening to help protect it. And the stone statues in front help to guard it as well.

And this is the end of a cremation. I read that the eldest son gets the honor of raking thru the ashes to be sure the entire body is burned.

And next to the cremation site, there was a graveyard with fresh graves in it. (the date is read as DD/MM/YY in these parts) and for Balinese, a cremation must happen on a 'good day', so if the family doesn't have enough money to do a cremation, or the date isn't considered to be a good day, the deceased is buried until a good day comes around, the body dug up again and then the cremation ceremony can happen.

There's still more to come!

Bali post 7- Tjampuhan Hotel and Spa

2005-04-25T16:20:00.000+08:00

We have to share the Tjampuhan Hotel (pronounced 'cham-poo-han') and Spa with you. This is where we stayed for the 4 nights that we were in Ubud. Again, for the price of the US dollar, you get luxury like you would never imagine.

Tjampuhan Hotel and Spa
Jalan Raya Campuhan
PO Box 198
Ubud 80571
Bali, Indonesia

Tel: (62 361)975368
Fax: (62 361)975137
email: tjampuan@indo.net.id
Homepage: http://www.indo.com/hotels/tjampuhan

This is the entrance to the front desk. The hotel porters carried our bags to our rooms.

The hotel offered each guest a big bamboo hat to protect you from the rain to walk to and from your room, or to the spa or where ever you wanted to go. You could even take the hats into Ubud to walk around if you chose to.

This was our room. They placed fresh flowers every day on the bed, on a tray with bottled water and in the bathroom on our clean stack of towels. The whole back wall was screen so you could hear the river rushing below, the roosters in the morning and the rain. They even came into your room and lit for you these mosquito coils in a pot so your room would be mosquito free when you came back before going to bed.

This was the porch door and how you would latch it.

This is a view from our porch of how thick the thatch roof is and you can see the bamboo structure underneath with the thatch woven onto it.

And everyone had their own little fallic statue hanging off their porch. The penis is removable but I'm not sure what else you would use it for??? See, I told you there was penis art all around us.

This was our front door and this is how we would lock it when we would leave to go out.

Our front door faced this corridor of a stone wall with all kinds of plants growing on or above it. The big leaves on top are Elephant Ears.

Sherry admiring the mossy stone wall.

And everyone's porch was very private. Even though Sherry and Bill were right next door to us we couldn't see them when we were on our porch.

This is the walkway just outside of our doors.

Intricate Stone steps.

After we checked out our rooms we came back to the foyer to enjoy our "welcome drink" which was a nice cool Bali Rice wine. Then we went around the grounds to explore where we would be staying for the next few days.

This was the dining room. The whole right side is open air and when you step up thru the archways, that's where they set up the buffet for breakfast (which was included in our room price of $60 USD/night!)

And up thru those archways, there was another opening in the wall that allowed you to exit and the stone work and statues outside that opening were awesome.

And as you walked around you saw that the statues were given offerings of fresh flowers. And, if you notice again, this guy is otherwise nekkid!

One of the walls.

A giant head that loomed up out of the ground.

Details in another stone wall.

Statue with sarong, and floral and rice offerings.

Steps leading down to the river, which was raging the day we got there due to so much rain.

A Bird of Paradise flower.

More steps leading down into the spa and pool areas.

This is the main pool for guests.

The pool had a pool bar with this ornate stone carving in the center of the pavillion.

These are the steps that lead down into the spa. Along the sides of the steps there are built in gutters so you get the sound of gurgling water at your feet.

Coming down the steps you enter the spa.

I haven't been to too many spas in my time, but this one really seemed lavish and ornate.

Entering the spa. On our right are the saunas.

And this is the hot tub/cold tub. The hot tub is above, and the cold tub is below. You can go back and forth between the two.

This was one of the massage rooms, that was open air and down near the river.

This was another pool, but this one was a mineral pool.

And this was a guy sweeping up fallen leaves and flowers. I like the brooms they use.

We didn't really have time to partake in any spa treatments, but we did use the pool. If we had done some of the spa treatments the costs would've been as follows:

Traditional Balinese Massage for 60 mins = $25 USD.
Traditional Mandi Lulur (epitome of Balinese Massage) for 120 mins = $33 USD.
Swedish Massage for 60 mins = $25 USD.
Accupressure Massage for 60 mins= $25 USD.

and that's only a few of what was offered on the list. But you can see, the prices are VERY reasonable.

Depending on where you stay on Bali, you can get a nice place like what we had for $60/night in Ubud or where we were in Padang Bai, our place was $28/night and I even found some places online before we went, down in Kuta for $4-$12/night. Our friend Adam has now been to Bali twice and he found a great place down in Kuta for $7/night.

The deals don't end either. You also get to barter for what you wanna buy!

Bali post 6-Balinese Dance and Bird Park

2005-04-22T18:30:00.000+08:00

We got up early the one day, had big buffet breakfast and got a ride to see one of the Bali Dances.

We went to a town near Ubud but to the South-East, Gianyar, and caught a local performance of the Putra Barong, The Barong and Keris Dance which cost us about $2.50 USD per person. The dance was held inside a small amphiteatre and as soon as we walked into the room, there were slight gasps from a school group of mostly girls (from Java) who were already seated. Bill entered infront of them first, and in an animated way walked infront of them acknowledging their giggles. This definatly caused the air in the room to rise a bit so when Jeremy walked in next, the gasps increased and giggles became louder and all these girls were looking at him in apparant awe. Neither Sherry nor I received that much attention so we went and took seats. The girls kept looking over at Jeremy and so Bill, encouraged him to go and sit closer to the center of the group. When he did, these girls went absolutly crazy! They piled all around him and wanted to have their pix taken with him. For about 10 mins this crazy, giggling, estrogen filled air encompassed the entire room.

I call the next few shots, "Java Heavan". This group of girls was visitiing Bali from Java, the island to the North of Bali, to learn some of the Balinese Dances. Those of you who know Jeremy, know that he loves his coffee and another name for coffee is "java". These girls LOVED Jeremy and so I think it only appropriate that he got his taste of Java this way this particular morning. I am sitting off to the Left crying, I'm laughing so hard.

It was a sea of estrogen maddness and they all wanted to touch him. You can see them pulling at him right about now, he's trying to decide if he really likes this or not.

As long as they could wrap their arms around him and keep a hand on him they were in heaven. This was Jeremy's 15 mins of fame and he admitted afterwards that he was getting a bit nervous and now understood how famous actors must feel. I wonder if they thought he was a famous actor, like Owen Wilson, or if it was just b/c they hadn't seen a blond haired blue eyed surfer boy before?

Then, when Jeremy came back over to sit with me, freeing himself from the clutches of these young Java hotties, they would come over to us, one by one and ask to have their pix taken with the two of us. There was more excitment before the Dance and you would have thought that Jeremy was the entertainment.

Our driver (we had a different one for this morning) was able to take Bill behind the scenes to see the dancers getting ready for the performance.

Prepping flowers for the performance.

The guys inside the Barong.

Here is the Barong costume hanging up until it is put on.

Close up of the Barong head, with fresh flowers tied into it's beard.

View from inside the Barong mask. You don't get to see this angle everyday!

And then the play began.

I learned doing the write up for this blog, that special preparations are necessary for the Barong and Rangda performances to ensure that a balance is maintained between good and evil. All masked dances require great care (b/c when wearing a mask you take on another personality) and it is wise to be sure that the mask's personality doesn't take over. Masks used in the Barong and Rangda dances are treated with particular caution. A Rangda mask must be kept covered until the instant before the performance starts (A Rangda is a widow-witch and ruler of evil spirits). They feel that these masks have powerful satki (spirits) and you must be careful of their magical, often dangerous, spiritual vibrations.

We actually recorded some of the music as with these dances there is a gamelan orchestra that accompanies the play. I don't know how to add sound to the blog, or if it's even possible, but the music really is quite unique.

Enter, the Barong. The Barong play is about the eternal fight between good and evil spirits. The Barong is a mythological animal that represents a good spirit.

You can see it takes 2 guys to pull off this costume.

The Gamelan which is a traditional Balinese percussion orchestra.

The Barong's friend, the Monkey. He was a real schmoozer! Balinese dances often combine serious moments and slapstick comedy. The Monkey definatly played to the audience posing for pictures.

This is Dewi Kunti.

These jokers are the servents of the Prime Minister...don't even ask how this all fits together, b/c even though I read the script before it started, and followed it along while it was in progress, I just couldn't follow who and why most of the time...

These are the servants of the Rangda and they are looking for the servants of the Prime Minister.

There is the Rangda in the background, supposadly with human entrails draped around her neck, huge parody breasts, fangs protruding from her mouth, and a long lolling tongue.

The Rangda enters the servants and makes them angry.

Not sure how this fits in...I'm trying to follow two scripts for the same play, and I just don't know who these folks are.

Sedewa is Dewi Kunti's son, and Sedewa is supposed to be sacrificed for the Rangda. But, Sedewa turns into a boar (lying on the ground) but is defeated. As with the Balinese slapstick, you can see where they insert the penis for good humor. This portion of the skit lasted for few minutes while the other guy tries to chop it off. Not sure why??? (But, you learn in the end, that it's the boars tail afterall)

These guys are supporters of the Barong and have come to the Barong's aid. But, the Rangda puts them into a trance and they turn their swords (called Kris) onto themselves trying to pierce themselves. But the Barong uses it's magical powers to protect their skin from being pierced.

Finally, the Rangda tires and is defeated and good has triumphed again. But, b/c so many men have become entranced during this dance, they need to be brought of it, so they can return to the real world, so holy water is sprinked on them to release them, and other ceremonies have to be performed like sacrificing a chicken to avert the evil spirits. (We didn't see the chicken sacrifice, hopefully it didn't really happen, but who knows...the people up near Sumatra where the earthquakes are happening want their leader to sacrifice 1000 sheep to calm the spirits who are causing the earthquakes... this stuff is for real around here).

We left feeling duely amused and headed for the Bali Bird Park.

Bali Bird Park

When we got to the Bali Bird Park (Taman Burung Bali Bird Park and Rimba Reptile Park) we had no idea that it would be so interactive. So, if you remember from the "Jer's folks visit" blog entries I said that we missed the opportunity to go to the Singapore Bird Park which was something that Buffy really wanted to do coming to Singapore, we were very pleasantly surprised when we had the opportunity to go to the Bali Bird Park to find it so interactive, upclose and personal with the birds.

These were steps that we saw as we went to pay our entrance fee (which cost about $14 USD per person, so far the most expensive thing per person we have done) and I was just impressed by the details and how time consuming it must have been to place each and every one of those river stones in that pattern.

After a quick potty break (they had nice bathrooms here) we started our tour of the bird park. We came upon a patio area where there was a bird handler and a few species of birds and you could have the bird sit on your arm or head and have your pictures taken with them. So of course we did. Who could pass that up?

Kel with the Bar Pouched Wreathed Hornbill. Remember in the Jurong Bird Park blog entry, the bird that attacked Jeremy thru the cage bars? Well, this is what it was.

And the handler started getting out of hand, and started just placing birds all over us. The red bird is a Lorey, and so is the green one on my head. Remember in the Jurong Bird Park Blog post when we went into the Lorey enclosure and got to feed the Lorey's? More on that in a bit.

Sherry sporting the Hornbill and Loreys. The Hornbill was actually a heavy bird by the way.

And Jeremy making friends too.

I have to say this now, but everytime you see Buffy with an animal, look at the expression on his face, and then look at the expression on the animals face. Notice here, they all have their mouths open. And later you will see even more of the expressions of Bill and animals. Jeremy says that it's b/c he's "in tune with them"...

Family photo opportunity.

After getting several pix taken with the birds we heard that there was going to be feeding time in the Lorey enclosure. So, we hustled it over to that area of the park, but on the way, saw the biggest Pelican, an Austrailian Pelican, any of us had ever seen. He was big, not so graceful and cranky!

And we made it in time to feed the Loreys. In this enclosure they fly all over the place, landing on all parts of you and really just want the food. The staff there monitor that you aren't reaching for the birds or trying to touch them as they are 'still wild birds' that are so hungry they land on your head, even with sunglasses on.

This was an awesome shot with Sherry. We think this bird just liked her hair!

An upclose Lorey shot.

At the Jurong Bird Park these Common Crowned Pigeons walked within their enclosure but all around your feet. Here at the Bali Bird Park, it seemed that spring had sprung, and this bird was sitting on a nest of chicks.

And since we had to run to get to the Lorey cage, we initially missed the Giant Fruit Bat cage. So we went back and saw these massive bats hanging upside down from the mesh ceiling. When they are too hot, they open up their wings and fan themselves. We saw a lot of that as it was after noon here at the park.

We had lots of rain on our trip to Bali, but like I said before, we didn't care. It just allowed for other photo opps like catching water droplets on this red flower within one of the enclosures.

When Jeremy and I visited the Jurong Bird Park we saw an exhibit for a Golden Pheasant to be coming to that park. Here at the Bali Bird Park they already had some, and they are gorgeous birds, but almost too fast to photograph!

Just when you think you'll get a great shot, he decideds to walk away. But at least you can catch a glimpse of his gorgeous tail feathers too.

And one of the main attractions at the Bali Bird Park was that they had Komodo Dragons on display. Komodo Dragons are the world's largest lizards and is native to Komodo, Indonesia.

This Komodo Dragon is at least 8 feet long including his tail...maybe longer. They are carnivorous.

And as with the Jurong Bird Park, we also saw the Single Wattled Cassowary here too. This bird is at least 5 feet tall.

It's amazing the color of blue on that flap of skin too!

After we left the Cassowary we walked by this little sitting area with Balinese statues and a planter. I really liked the feel of this little quiet spot.

And I can picture these statues in my garden at home. Now just how to get them back home...

Blooming flower at the park.

And we saw more of my favorite bird from the Jurong Bird Park, the East African Crowned Crane. There was a pond area as we were working our way towards the exit and the East African Crowned Cranes just walked freely around you and the pond area. The bdg in the background is called a Toraja House and is a typical house from Sulawesi and it's nearly 100 yrs old. It was dismantled, moved and re-assembled at the park.

This one is getting out of the way of Jeremy and his camera!

But this one couldn't go anywhere!

Because it's protecting a nest of eggs!

When we left the Bird Park, we totally forgot about going next door and visiting the Reptile Park. But that's OK. We got to see great birds up close and the Komodo Dragon. And as an update to things going on in the news here in Singapore...in the last couple of days there have been animal attacks at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. One instance, a Jaguar escaped from it's enclosure and was loose for about a half an hour (no attacks though), the second just happened a few days ago, when a Serval (a wild cat about the size of a golden retriever) attacked a woman during one of the performances at the Night Safari, and just two days ago, a crocodile attacked a zookeeper and he had to be rushed to the hospital. So, I think missing the crocs and pythons is OK for now. Somethin's in the air....

Bali post 5-Bat Cave Temple

2005-04-21T17:45:00.000+08:00

Temple Pura Goa Lawah

(Bat Cave Temple) is one of the nine directional temples on Bali and is devoted to the diety Naga Basuki. We visited the Bat Cave Temple on our way up to Padang Bai and got our first taste of a Public Temple.

We had to pay a minimal sum to enter the temple and we had to 'rent' sarongs and sashes to enter as well. Entry fee was 3000Rp which is about equivalent to 30 US cents. The sash and sarong rental was 5000Rp, again, about 50 US cents. This temple is said to be one of the smallest and least impressive temples on Bali, but it is one of the oldest and of great significance to the Balinese. In the back of the temple there is a huge cave that opens to the temple grounds and it is filled, literally jammed packed full, of bats. These bats (fruit bats) are supposed to provide the sustenance for the legendary giant snake, the diety Naga Basuki. It stinks of bat guana and you can see all the droppings covering the cave opening and temple shrines thrush roof tops but none the less, the sheer numbers of bats was impressive.

What we learned though, was that if you didn't shrug off the men waiting at the entrance, that you would be shadowed and given a tour, then when you were ready to leave, you would get a hand thrust out to you asking for more of a donation b/c you had a 'tour'. Our tourguide offered us the same information, over and over and over...we now know that this is 'one of the nine directional temples and is a public temple'....( If you go to Bali, take a guide book, read up on your temple before you go in, and head out on your own). It will be cheaper and less annoying.

What I have learned doing this blog post is that Balinese Temples all have a basic layout and they all follow a consistant pattern, with individual structures oriented along a mountian to sea axis. Degrees of sacredness are reflected in the proximity to the mountain.

Even though the Balinese don't really trust dogs, they are everywhere and they don't seem to mind allowing them free roam of where ever they want to go. This dog seemed pretty healthy, probably b/c she ate all the offerings after they were placed out, but none the less, I liked seeing the 'temple dogs'. This was at the kori agung which is a grand gateway of the temple, and is usually reserved for gods and priests, and she went in just before us.

And perched herself to watch us from the bale gong which is a pavilion where ritual gamelan music may be played. I'll show you instruments of the gamelan music in a later post.

I believe this is the snake diety, Naga Basuki.

And you can see how they incorporated the snake diety into the railing going up to the second level of the Temple. As well, here is Buffy in his sexy sarong! Out in the distance you can see the sea and the 4 small shrines in the background are called Pelinggih or 'seats of the gods'.

The meru shrine has 3, 5, 7,9 or 11 tiers, depending on the importance of it's deity. It symbolizes the Hindu holy Mount Meru, but can also represent other sacred peaks. This one has 11 tiers. The dark fiber used for the roof layers is made from sugar palms, and it actually resembles hair. The 11 tiered Meru is a shrine for deified kings, ancestral spirits and nature gods.

Coconut shells laid out to dry. The coconut shells are used for burning in ceremonies, such as cremations and festival dances. We also saw coconut shells used for creating the coals for making satay. mmmm satay!

This is the opening to the cave and again, you can see several pelinggih just at the opening.

As we got closer to the cave opening we could indeed see the sheer numbers of bats clinging to the opening walls. This is from the Left side.

This is from the right side. Look at all the bat guana coating the roofs of the shrines.

We weren't really sure how far back the cave went. We couldn't go in there, but you really wouldn't want to as the stench from the bat pooh was pretty strong. As well, it is said that this cave leads all the way to Besakih which is a grand complex of 22 temples spread over 1 sq. mile on the slopes of Gunung Agung. (the mountain I showed you in the Waterworx post)

More upclose and personal. You can actually tell the difference between the males and the females if you just take a look. The center bat is most definatly-male!

More bats just hanging out. Fruit bats don't even eat mosquitos, let alone suck the blood of anything! But it sure would be nice for them to eat mosquitos! These fruit bats are about 8 inches long in the body, but had a much larger wingspan.

Here we are infront of a shrine with the cave behind us, all donning our sarongs and sashes.

Offerings to the legendary giant snake.

And when we left the Bat Cave Temple to walk back over to the car, we had a group of young woman hawkers just waiting for us so they could try and sell us their wares. First, they tried to give you bead necklaces... or rather they forced you to take them...even putting them on you and then they would try to get you to come and see their other items for sale. It was so hard to get away, and as you can see, we all abandoned Jeremy, left him to the wolves. : )

Don't make eyecontact! Or we'll never get out of here!

Bali post 4-Scuba diving

2005-04-20T20:44:00.000+08:00

Scuba Diving

Well, like I said in the last post, the reason we went to stay up in Padang Bai was so that we could go Scuba Diving. We booked with a dive company called Waterworx and it was just a few minutes walk from our hotel at Puri Rai.

Address: Jalan Silayukti
Padang Bai - Karangasem
Bali 80871
Phone: +62(0)363-41220

S 8.53037 E 115.51091

www.waterworxbali.com

If you go to their website, there's lots of good info about diving and Bali and the site is maintained by our divemaster, Wolfgang, pictured below with Buffy.

Buffy and Wolfgang at the shop.

On our way to the Tulamben Wreck Dive, we had about a 40 minute drive to the dive site so we got to see some more of the countryside and people along the way. It was an overcast day, put the sun peeked out here and there. In Padang Bai, it was raining but as we moved up towards the mountains it began to clear a bit.

Street market leaving Padang Bai.

We were amused by the motorcycle transports. This woman is dressed for placing offerings or going to Temple, yet buzzing along sidesaddle on the back of a motorbike.

We passed them.

In one of the small towns along the way, we saw some meat that was for sale. Looks great doesn't it? I especially like the dog checking out the meat for sale.

This is how the Balinese carry stuff, well, this is how the women carry stuff. She had quite the load on top of her head.

The road opened up a bit on the right at we caught a glimpse of the valley below. We had a local driver so we were speeding in and out of towns and passing folks, etc...it was a speedy drive. We were lucky to get the shots we did, as it was raining off and on. You can even begin to see some of the rice paddie terraces in the foreground.

Small school children in uniforms.

This was it. This was all we saw of the volcano Gunung Agung, which is home of Pura Besakih, Bali's holiest temple! Even when we went to the big one, Gunung Batur, with craters and lakes, we could see nothing but clouds.

This is where we were to begin our dives. The terracotta roof is where we ate lunch.

Remember when I told you about the Hawkers following you? Well, they even followed us down the beach (this beach is a rocky one!) and hassled you along the way. Where do we even have our wallets? And, as soon as you are stable on the beach when exiting a dive, they are right there to sell you something you do not need. You just had to NOT make any eye contact, and keep saying deducta terrima kasih!

The nice thing about doing the dive in Bali, is that we didn't even have to carry our stuff down the beach. The rocks were hard enough to walk on let alone with all your gear on and full tanks. Local guys are there to carry the tanks and BCDs to the dive start and we just had to walk down and meet them, suit up, and walk into the ocean!

The first dive we did was the Tulamben Wreck Dive. This wreck is actually a US cargo ship The Liberty. It's more 100 m long and the ship is broken into 3 sections. The shallowest sitting at about 7 meters and the deepest going to about 30m. We began our decent and Buffy snapped off the first, and only picture.

Jeremy and Kelly beginning the dive.

Buffy noticed that his underwater camera case was beginning to fill with water, so he aborted the dive and waited at the surface for us to realize that he wasn't with us. We went back to him after a few minutes and he had to take the camera back to the van and come back without it. We are still waiting to hear if the camera is working or if the salt water got to places it shouldn't and is toast...

BUT, not having a camera allowed Bill to actually enjoy the dive. The wreck was amazing and the coral and sea life that surrounded it was abundant! We saw a sting ray, tons of fish, and a few other divers. We were able to get inside the one section of the boat, and even went thru a tunnel that connected the sections and up and around the other side. Wolfgang pointed out all kinds of small critters that we would've otherwised missed. That dive was just less than 50 minutes and then we took a break and had some lunch.

Our second dive was a Wall Dive. Again, we walked along the beach, but in the opposite direction and entered the water directly. The wall dive took us to much deeper depths and at one point when I looked at my gauge, it read 31 meters. Jeremy kept telling me to come up higher, but you just get lost looking at the amazing sea life. We saw a purple fan that was 3 meters across. I swam under and around that one, and that's when I realized that I was at 31 m. We also saw barrel sponges that were big enough for a full grown adult to get inside. We saw 2 stone fish (very deadly!) and 2 lion fish (very deadly!) and got completely encircled by a school of fish (the ones I said to look at in the Padang Bai entry). That was really something. You didn't want to leave. The diving in Bali was amazing! The water was warm, pretty clear, and being that it was a leisure dive for me, I think I got to see more this time, than the other times on Tioman.

I think Sherry said our dives were $45/person for both dives, and transport to the dive site and the extra gear that we needed including the tanks and wetsuits.

We ended our dives at about 3pm, rinsed off our gear, changed, and began the trek back to Padang Bai. We go to see some more great stuff and when we wanted the driver to stop, he would so we could get some pictures.

Taking the cows out for walk.

What we learned was that since there really isn't anywhere to graze cattle, b/c the land is used mostly for rice production, that the people go out and cut the grasses etc...and bring it back to the cow. They really seem to take care of the cows and we also saw some folks washing their cows on a drive one day too.

The cows really do look beautiful and healthy.

Walking Banana Leaf.

Just an amusing shot. The banana leaves are used in cooking so I wonder if this guy is bringing some back to make dinner?

These guys zip around on small motorcycles and you see them carrying the craziest things. This one looked rather precarious, but it didn't seem to slow him down at all. Also, can you see his mudflap on the rear wheel? Resourceful!

Petrol.
We asked Wolfgang what folks were selling in the water bottles? Was it cooking oil of some sort? He said it was petrol! We were shocked and amazed, but he explained that for the folks who live way out of major towns, like most of what we were driving thru, and the fact that they live day by day, they cannot afford to 'fill up the tank' so they just buy enough petrol to get them to and from their daily tasks or work and these little stands make it convenient.

This little boy was too cute! The dog, very tolerant!

Then, he realized we were taking his picture. He's still really cute though! And the dog, still tolerant. : )

As we drove along we got caught in a traffic jam, in the middle of nowhere. We were wondering what the hold up was, and then we heard music and bells, and then saw a procession of people! This was a funeral procession on the way to the cremation! We learned that Balinese only perform cremations on 'good days'. That means, that they have enough money or other factors play in making it a good day. If it is not a good day when the dearly departs, then they bury them, and wait for a good day, dig them up, dress them up, and the coffins, and then do the processional.

Sarongs are a must for the processional. We also learned that these folks were all wearing the same shirt, signifying that they were all either related or from the same town.

The umbrella up ahead is the coffin! There is singing and chanting and supposadly, the more people that are there, the more important you are. As well, the clamor of noises, chants and singing is supposed to confuse the spirit of the deceased and not allow them to find there way back home. The body is transfered to a sarcophagus based on the caste level (of which there are 3) and then the entire thing, body, sarcophagus and coffin is burned. The eldest son is in charge of raking thru the coals and making sure it all turns to dust thereby ensuring that the sprit of the deceased goes to a heaven which is just like Bali!

Notice how the coffin is brightly decorated.

We actually caught the chants and music on the video camera sound recorder, but I don't know how to add sound to the blog. : (

So, unfortunatly we don't have cool pix to show of our day of diving, but we did get to see some really cool cultural stuff and more of the countryside, and how people live.

It was a harrowing drive, Bill was in the 'death seat', but he still got some great shots and the ride of his life!

Still more blog entries of Bali to come. I think we are just over a third of the way there.

Bali post 3-Padang Bai

2005-04-19T18:30:00.000+08:00

When we arrived on Bali, we flew into the airport at Denpasar. From there we knew that we had to make it up to Padang Bai by a reasonable check in time at our hotel. Since we had plenty of time to get to Padang Bai, that's why we checked out the art stuff along the way. Our route took us up along the towns between Denpasar and Padang Bai, staying along the East Coast. We planned to stay in Padang Bai for 2 nights and then move to Ubud.

In addition to massive stone carvings in the middle of towns and store after store of stone carvings or baskets or woodcarvings, etc... we also saw a little bit of the overlaying culture. The streets were lined with these bamboo poles that were either simple in design or much more ornate, but had offering plates built into them.

This is actually a street enroute to Padang Bai but I added it so you could see it in sunny daylight.

I asked Whiskey what these were and he said they were a "Penjor", which is a long bamboo pole with a decorated end, arched over a roadway or pathway used during festivals or ceremonies. At the base of the Penjor there was an offering plate. Like I mentioned in a previous post, offerings were such a major part of each Balinese's day, that they were seen placing offerings morning, noon and night.

Rainy morning in Padang Bai.

Base of a Penjor with a fresh offering added.

Local woman placing offerings in the evening. Notice the dress code. Sarong, sash and top.

After each offering is placed, it is sprinkled with some 'holy' water and a lit incense stick is also added, thereby making the streets of Bali aromatic.

Up close offering.

It doesn't matter if it's raining or not. Offerings are placed every day. You should try not to step on any offerings, but sometimes they are placed right in the path you are walking. As well, some offerings include food like rice, making them tasty treats for the roaming dogs. Balinese don't care that the dogs pick apart the offerings, it is what it is, but, they don't necessarily trust dogs either. Though you will see some dogs have been adopted by families, and you know this b/c they have a collar or are staying right with a specific group.

Once we got to Padang Bai though, we checked into our rooms and went to explore the village.

Hotel Puri Rai

Hotel Puri Rai was a very nice hotel. Our room fee was also inclusive of breakfasts each morning, which if you can get a taste of banana pancakes, with real chocolate sprinkles, (not waxy jimmies) which are more like crepes, you must give them a try! The fruit is also wonderful and the fresh sqeezed fruit juices are a lovely start to your mornings! And, as we found in Singapore, the coffee is always very very good! The room accomodations were Balinese styled bungalows (ours was 'fan cooled'), private showers/bathroom (just like the bathrooms everywhere else around here), hot and cold running water, patios with tables and chairs, 2 swimming pools (one with a swim up bar) and they had hot tea waiting for you at your room each day. The rooms cost about $28 USD/night. ( I think)

Contact info for Hotel Puri Rai:
Jalan Silayukti No. 7 X
Padang Bai 80872
Phone: 62-363-41385
62-363-41387
Fax: 62-363-41386
email: purirai_hotel@yahoo.com

Puri in Balinese, means "palace" and from what we saw, it was indeed like a palace.

Water lily urn.

View of pool from Sherry and Bill's room.

Our rooms. Sherry and Bill were on the bottom Right, and Jeremy and I were on the upper Left.

View of the pool from our room.

More rooms at Puri Rai.

An offering platform outside Sherry and Bill's room.

Our hotel had it's own Temple. This is the Barong outside the entrance to the Temple.

Carved Barong outside the Temple.

Stepping inside the Temple.

Offerings inside the Temple.

Kel and Jer walking to beach and village from our rooms.

Padang Bai is a very small village, with a sandy beach. We stood out like sore thumbs so we began to really get a taste of what it's like to be harrassed by locals wanting to sell you something.

Local women selling sarongs. Sherry considering and in the end buying, a sarong.

The locals who try to sell you their wares are called "Hawkers". If there was anything that dampened our visit to Bali, (the rain actually did NOT dampen our spirits) it was the experiences with the Hawkers. They were relentless. If you made eye contact by accident, you were done for, which made it kind of hard to walk around and actually 'see' stuff. We learned very quickly how to say "Deducta Terima kasih" = No Thank You! BUT, that didn't always stop them. You felt so bad that you were being rude by walking away, but sometimes they would follow you. Or find you later! If you did want to buy what they were selling, you just had to bargain with them. Get your start price, then drop it by a third and barain from there. You should be able to get what you want for half of what they originally asked, and it's still dirt cheap!

Beach at Padang Bai.

Men organizing fishing nets.

Fishing boats lined up along the beach.

Local family having dinner.

Children playing in the water.

Jeremy and I struck out on our own for a few hours and met these girls sitting next to the road in a raised hutlike structure making offerings. They were really sweet and friendly and offered to let us watch, learn and take pix. For all of the offerings that are put out, someone's gotta make them all. Actually, everyone (women) make the offerings and spend many hours a day doing so.

She's making up the bases out of a thick pliable leaf of some sort.

One of her offerings up close. Petals from red and purple flowers, on the bases, topped with another piece of folded over leaf, pinned together with snips of bamboo and then topped with shredded pandan leaves. Kinda like a sundae!

We enjoyed hanging out with these two girls. They were friendly and sweet and this one spoke English Ok enough to converse with, and then she would translate for her friend.

Up close of the base, you can see the snips of bamboo holding it all together.

We got the other girl to show us how to shred the pandan leaves so fine. She even let Jeremy try but it was getting too dark to get a pix of him in action. This girl used a knife that was super sharp and could sit and chat away while shredding. The other girl, claimed to not be able to do the shredding, and that's why she made the bases.

Just chatting and giggling away as she worked.

And when we left the girls to meet Jer's folks for dinner, we walked by this restaurant that displayed the fish of the day, and as you can see above, another offering. As well, please note the 2 silver fish as when we went diving we were encircled by an entire school of these underwater. That was awesome!

And it was funny to see Bill's pix with ours, b/c while we were talking to the girls, this big group of guys doing karate, ran by us and the girls got all excited and giggly. The girls told us that on the 18th, there was going to be a big festival at the local Temple, and these guys would be performing. Also notice the rooster in the basket. I read that the roosters are put outside so that they can find entertainment in things passing by them, and that the owners really care for the roosters, grooming them, feeding them, and keeping them healthy, all up and until the cockfight, when one rooster WILL lose. The 'winner' rooster's owner, then takes the killed rooster home, and cooks it and eats it.

And Bill and Sherry got to the other end of town from where Jeremy and I were with the girls. This man is sitting just outside of a Chinese Cemetary. Notice the raised tombs in back of him. The goats and the local cow graze the areas around the cemetaries to keep them a bit more tidy, although this was in disrepair.

We learned from our dive master (more on that later) that the Chinese were brought to Indonesia to help organize the Indonesians so that they could be more profitable. The weathiest people who live in Indonesia to this day, are still the Chinese.

And Sherry found the Ozone Cafe. Somewhere out at this end of town, maybe even the Ozone, there was live music happening, or maybe it was karaoke, late into the night.

We ate at two different restaurants in Padang Bai, and both of them were very good. However, the first restaurant that we ate in, we had most excellent frozen drinks. So, after dinner the second night we went back to our first restaurant for some drinks and dessert. In each case the atmosphere of the restaurants was warm and welcome.

Black mask decoration.

White mask decoration.

Sherry tried a Balinese food called Gado Gado, which is tofu, tempeh, veggies and eggs with a spicy peanut sauce. It's a very tasty meal, and as you can see by the size of the portion-huge! For all of us to eat dinner at this restaurant, including the alcoholic bevvies, our bill was $17 USD.

And when we came back to our 'fav' night spot for dessert we were seated up on the bamboo mats. There were two dogs that hung out in the restaurant and one of them was this little rammy puppy. One of the waiters brought him over to us and let him hang out while we had dessert. I cannot resist puppies!

The morning we were to leave Padang Bai and head for Ubud, it was raining like cats and dogs. But, Jeremy and I wanted to see the other section of town, where the market was before we had to leave. We had an early breakfast and then headed out in the rain.

This was an alley way off the main street. When we looked down it, we saw this dog, come out to the middle of the alley and cop a sqat. At least the water will wash it all away.

These goats were too cute. They were all huddled together trying to stay out of the rain.

We got to the market and went inside. There were all kinds of fresh veggies and needed items to choose from.

Up close of the peppers and onions and nuts.

This was a small market house under one large roof.

As we walked along the streets and looped around to begin heading back, we came across this place that had big chunks of cut lava stone piled outside. These chunks we later saw (and you will too) are used to make the applicae stonework for the Temples.

The smaller structures that are within the bigger Temples.

On such a dreary day, this red door, with the intricasies of the bamboo wall and the green pandan leaves just lifted my spirit. Then a moment later, a guy came out and asked us if we wanted to rent a room.

I should add that one of the reasons we came up to Padang Bai, was so we could go Scuba Diving. So, I will do the scuba section in a separate blog. But next!

Bali post 2-Paintings, Batik, Weavings, Baskets and Rattan

2005-04-18T18:50:00.000+08:00

Paintings

Here are just some of what we saw in the way of paintings! Whether it be on canvas or eggs, the details were absolutely amazing. 'Vibrant' and 'detail oriented' would be two words that I would use to describe the people and their culture.

A painting of a portion of the Barong and Keris Dance story, which represents and eternal fight between good and evil spirits. The Barong (a mythological animal) represents a good spirit and a Rangda (a mythological monster) represents an evil one. This painting is just of the Barong and his friend the monkey and villagers.

Man carrying a rooster. We saw many men wearing hats like this man, in real life and roosters were an important symbol of weath. Later, you'll actually see a man carrying a rooster.

A colorful depiction of the volcano.

Here is the artist, doing another view of the villages and the land.

This man was actually painting off to the side when we went to visit the Bali Bird Park (more on that later) but his eggs were beautiful and so full of detail.

Close up of making the eggs.

The finished products.

More eggs.

I think this is a depiction of a portion of the Legong Dance which is a classical dance by 3 girls.

Black-n-white.

A less hectic painting.

Batiks

We went to a place where we thought we would see batiks being made and then sold, but that was not quite the case. This again, was a situation where we ended up at a place that was pretty touristy in nature (there were no other people there though so we had it all to ourselves). We saw batiks being made, but it was more of a staging area outside of what felt like "The Burlington Coat Factory". Once inside, you were bombarded by thousands of colorful matierials, however, many looked like prints not the actual batiks. However, in the back room area (which had a sign, "No Cameras Please") there were real batiks on display.

Batiks are made by putting wax on material in a patter you choose, to hold the color that is under the wax. After you put wax on the colors you want to save, you then dye the material another color.

They used different effects, like stippling.

After the material is dyed and more wax is applied to the next part of your design, you then dye it another color. You continue this until you have all the desired colors embedded in wax. The material begins to get very stiff.

Up close of a section of globby wax material.

This is a pot of the very hot liquid wax. They dipped a type of stylus into the wax, which has a cup on it to hold the wax. The wax then comes out of the tip of the stylus like a calligraphy pen. Batik is very similiar to the way you make Ukranian Eggs or Pysanky Eggs.

Ok, so Bill snuck one pix back in the "No Camera Zone" before getting followed. So, this one is an actual Batik. And quite pricey.

The decorative carvings are not isolated to just the carving place. This was one of the doors at the Batik compound.

There was also a woman weaving outfront alongside the women who were doing the Batiks.

And again, another very ornate statue outside the door to go inside to see the materials.

We left the batik place a bit disappointed b/c of it's touristy nature, but firmer in our belief that we wanted to stay off the beaten track.

Weaving, Baskets and Rattan

This just happened to be a basket and rattan shop we stopped at, very random, and it was pouring down rain, but as we drove thru this town of all baskets and rattan weavings, we decided we had to stop and at least take a look.

There were lots of different styles of baskets, the big airy ones on the left, are for keeping roosters inside. What we learned was that while cockfighting is illegal, it's still a very big pasttime. Roosters displayed out front of peoples houses, were symbols of how wealthy they were so sometimes you would only see one or two, but sometimes you would see 5 or 6.

Rattan matting, probably used for ceilings.

Bamboo wall divider.

More baskets.

yep, another set of offerings.

Bali, Indonesia 1st post- Stone Art and Woodcarving

2005-04-18T17:03:00.000+08:00

Wow, I've spent a week trying to figure out the best way to show you Bali, Indonesia. We have so many pix, and saw so much in the way of art, culture, people, food and countryside, that I'm at a loss for how to show you all of it in a cohesive way. Added to the fact that many of the pix were removed from a daily format, to a list of events, so I'm not even sure which pix would go where if I posted by day. So, I think the best way to show you all Bali, in what will be the easiest way for me, is to break it down by the broader headings of Art, Culture, People, Food and Countryside. There will of course be some overlap, but I just don't know how else to start. Who knows I may change how I show it as I go on...

So, here goes,

Bali, Indonesia, so far, the most beautiful place we've ever been to.

Bali is underlined in RED as it is a specialty coffee producer. Sumatra is also underlined in red, and in the last week has had a few earthquakes and some of it's volcanos are beginning to come to life! Singapore has felt the tremors of some of the recent quakes happening in Sumatra. We personally have not felt any tremors though and missed another quake as we were in Bali when it happened. Indonesia has about 130 active volcanos (about 80 or so which are being watched much more closely now as they are becoming more active) and there are big ones on the island of Bali which makes it dangerous, but also extremely fertile at the same time.

First let me start by saying that now is a great time to visit Bali, besides seismic activity in other areas of Indonesia, the island is trying hard to recover after the Bali bombings of 2002 which happened in Kuta (in the South). Because of the decline in tourist visitors, the economy has been suffering, and if you go now, you will be getting great deals. As well, from late April, early May-October/November, is considered the low season, so again, great deals abound if you just look around. The rainy season also comes to an end by early May, so while it may be hot, it is much less humid and the temps are very pleasant and tolerable.

On our day of arrival, we had bright beautiful sunshine a light breeze and while it was hot, it was cooler and less humid than Singapore. Our first images of Bali were artisic in nature, and we had only just arrived at the airport in Denpasar.

Excitment increases as we begin to view the island.

As we disembarked from the plane and followed the tunnel to the main terminal, this is what we saw!

Fountains entering to customs.

A wooden carving on the wall.

We didn't know it when we stepped off the plane, but not long after seeing the many details of the way the Balinese live, we coined our phrase, "where there is one, there is one hundred!" Keep this in mind as you begin to see all that we saw!

Enjoy Bali!

Stone Art Carvings

We had hired a driver to take us around, and his name was Nyoman Whiskey. ("Nyoman"= he is the 3rd son in the family) He met us at the airport holding a sign in hand, reading "Brodhead". He walked us out to his car (offered us cold beers at the car) and this is the last thing we saw as we entered the parking lot. I thought, interesting, it's wearing a sarong. Little did I know how important sarongs would be.

Sarong clad statue.

As we left the airport, we were visually accosted by enormous statues at street centers and intersections. They were massive and incredibly intricate! And also donning sarongs!

We learned from Whiskey that each town had a statue, and each town tended to be insular in what they offered. We experienced this as our discussion with Whiskey brought us to what did we want to see?

Whiskey asked us what we wanted to see, (on our way up to Padang Bai, and we all agreed that we wanted to experience the Art of Bali. So, he took us to see stone carvings. (and more...)

Remember as you look ahead, "where there's one, there's one hundred!" As we left Denpasar the towns became one main art form after another. An entire town would be dedicated to stone carvings for example. Or wood carvings, gold and silver, bamboo, kites, batiks, or furniture. It seemed very strange to us, but Whiskey said that it made perfect sense, it was much easier to find what you were looking for if it was all in the same place. Pasar means "market" in Balinese, and Denpasar was once the great market area.

We were just blown away by the sheer numbers of carvings AND that they were all carved by hand. Each carving of a specific design looked almost identical to the one next to it, but none were cast, it's all Hand Carved.

Shop owner beginning the work on a 'Barong'. This stone is sandstone. But there are a few types of stone that you will see in later pix. The sandstone is harvested from riverbeds, so it's very wet when they start work on a piece, making it a bit softer. But, as it dries out, it not only becomes lighter, but also much much harder.

A completed Barong. The owner said that it woud take 15 men to move this statue to it's new home.

Mossy Budduh face.

Smooth Shadow Face.

This is a Hindu Elephant statue. In this culture, of which it's mostly Balinese Hinduism (which is very different from Hindu practices in India), Balinese believe in making offerings to spirits which they believe to be everywhere, hence, you will find colorful offering plates or flowers just about everywhere you look. The offerings are to pay homage to the good spirits and to placate the bad ones and are placed EVERYDAY, morning, lunch and dinnertime. Bali really was a beautiful place to be!

Another floral offering on this statue.

I call it, "Mossy Balls". And yes, it's exactly what you think it is! We weren't quite sure why penis's seemed to be so prominant, as the female counterpart really wasn't in view at all, but as we explored the art of Bali, we saw more and more of this erect organ.

Oh yes, a pair of them.

I liked the contrast of the dark stone, in the shadow, and the light on the purple and green. He seemed to be peeking out from behind and was happy to have visitors.

This was Sherry's favorite statue, the green faced fisherman.

As you looked around you, you were in a sea of statues. Sherry and I are in the middle.

This is our baby! We didn't buy him yet, but since we are going back, (anyone want to join us?) we'll get him on the next trip. Now we know better how to haggle prices and we know exactly where he is.

This was an amusing line up; Joseph, Mary and a dancing Barong!

Mossy woman.

A Barong in the making. Notice the offering on top of his head.

And if you turned another corner, you found that there were yet more statues to be seen...

There was a temple next door, and it offered us a glimpse of how decorative the temples would be.

Carvings in action.

Making stone parts.

Bali's little elves. : )

Woodcarving

We were pretty overloaded by how many stone carvings we saw, but really wanted to get a feel for the rest of the art that Bali offered. We headed next to see Woodcarving. Unfortunatly, we ended up at an outlet that was more for tourists. We also quickly learned that many of the places we were about to see were for tourists, so after visiting a few of them, we made a family decision to be more clear with Whiskey about getting us out and off the beaten track. Never the less, what we saw was still beautiful just not necessarily what I might want in my house. (Can you imagine beautiful wooden carvings in 'The Doghouse'? Can you say 'Chew Toy'?

An elaborate woodcarved door.

A carving that wasn't quite finished.

The place that we visited was more like a complex. It had separate bdgs that housed different kinds of woodcarvings. This is a separate bdg that held smaller pieces, more like tabletop statues, and carvings for the walls. The stonework was again, extroidinary.

A close up of the center of the bdg.

One of the carvings.

Another carving.

This is a monkey that I'm guessing is from the Barong and Keris Dance.

Elaborate Carving.

Gives the illusion of blowin' in the wind.

Some of the carvings were painted.

Fancy steps on the second bdg.

This was actually a carving we encountered while walking in Ubud but it was so striking in the details, that we thought we should add it to the list.

Ok, since I think this one's long enough I'm going to end it, and start the second one, but still, other art forms.

Enjoy!

An offering.

Jeremy's Folks come for a visit. Day 3

2005-04-14T18:30:00.000+08:00

Day 3-Monday April 4, 2005

One more day till we leave for Bali, Indonesia! But, still so much to see and do here in Singapore. Today is all about Temples and (gaget hunting for Buffy and Jer). The weather was not cooperating enough for us to plan the trip to the Jurong Bird Park, but hindsight tells me that everything happens for a reason. (You'll see later in the Bali post-don't worry, it's coming....)

The one nice thing about not having clear sunny weather, was the lowered temps brought on by the rain. Singapore has passed thru it's rainy season, but with very little rain, and much higher temps that what is normal. So, the cool rain was actually quite welcome, as it made being out and about much more tolerable, and hopping on and off trains and into AC, sometimes believe it or not, chilly. So, rain or not, we ventured back out into the city to find some Chinese Temples.

Chinatown here we come!

The first temple we visited was very simple in design.

I was told that the pronounciation of the first word is "hook".

When you came thru the door, which you had to step thru, like an up and over opening in a wall, and then around another wall, you came to this very simple space, open to the sky, so while it is raining, you hear the raindrops in the stone pot in the center.

Open to the rain.

Inside the space was this old metal locked chest. The locks were big and heavy.

Cool old lock.

Coming thru the second opening in this first temple, you came into another simple space, with a bamboo tree growing and again, open to the elements. It was a really nice place to just sit and hear the rain.

I love the rustic feel of the brooms around here.

This was the most ornate place in the temple space. This is the alter, with a pot in front for placing incense sticks.

After a quick and quiet visit to this temple, we headed for the next one.

The second Temple was the oldest Temple in Chinatown, and much more ornate, right from the beginning. The tiles on the floors were vibrant and most floors were different patterns. There were a lot of gold decorative carvings up in the ceilings, and accents and alters where ever you turned around.

Notice the legs on this shrine pot. And in 3 Chinese Characters reads "Shrine Happy Heaven" or from Right to Left, "Heaven Happy Shrine".

One of the legs.

A painted figure on a door. Lots of gold and the details were etched into it.

Jeremy aspires to have a beard this long. : )

There were stone tableaux on some of the walls. Chinese characters were carved into the stone, and then filled with gold paint...

...and some with red paint. Though we have no idea what these say...

An alter diarama. Only one of many in this Temple.

I loved the feel of the iron pot and the contrast of the color of the back wall and the business of the tile floor and bottom fifth of the pink wall.

A decorative bell on the roof of the shrine pot.

Near the main area of the Temple was this ornate shrine figure.

Reminded me of Medusa only in a different way...Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa (Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara) "Bodhisattva of Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes".

It had to be added!

A nice ornate shrine offering area.

And among all the glitter of gold, and the details of diaramas and stone tableaux and the business and colors of the different floor tiles, I found comfort in a simple stone carving on our way out. Ahhhh

After stopping by a few small shops, (every camera shop Jer and his Dad could find-- a-hem!) we ended up at our third temple of the day. This one, sat right in what seemed to be the heart of big modern buildings. But once inside the walls, you felt like you were taken back in time a bit.

Temple in the city.

Inside the walls were strings of conical incense burning and on each side of the courtyard were two offering stoves.

Inside, offering papers and incense sticks burn.

On top of the temple roof, there were these incredibly ornate scenes that seemed to be constructed of pieces of metal, and tile. The figures were only about a foot tall, but the entire roof line was a scene of a village.

Inside the Temple there were ornate hand carved stone carvings. Bill and I each snapped off a few pix before we were told that pix were not allowed inside the Temple. Ooops!

Dragonface.

Tiger scene.

After leaving Chinatown, we decided to take a walk over to the waterfront of Boat Quay.(pronounced 'key') Boat Quay and Clark Quay were parts of the old town as you'll see the looming buildings in the background. Boat Quay and Clark Quay are also just lined with places to eat.

Boat Quay

Boat Quay from a different angle.

Rickshaw driver nap.

You can walk up and down the Quay and pick what you want to eat.

We crossed over a bride and headed towards the other side of Boat Quay and found this fun sculpture along the wal. A group of naked boys, jumping in the river.

Once on the other side of the river, we found a museum. A stone statue adorned the front courtyard area.

This was just a fun angle to take a pix. Notice the carved totum statue in the midst of the bdgs.

We passed by this beautiful restaurant that had 4 gorgeous cut crystal chandeliers hanging inside. When we asked if we could come in and see them, we found this awesome wood carved statue with beautiful fabrics hanging behind it and a floral offering in her one hand.

Jer and his Mom infront of Boat Quay.

Up and down the waterfront you can get a bumboat ride. Here we found a bumboat driver hanging out.

We decided to go back to Little India so Jeremy and his Dad could look for these watches, one that had an altimeter, and one that calculated the tides. And we decided to find some more awesome food in Little India and then to call it a night, b/c the next day we were to leave for Bali! As if we hadn't already trekked all over Singapore today.

We went in search of some good vegetarian, cheap Indian food for dinner. Our search took us along back streets that neither Jeremy nor I had been before. We found a brightly colored nightlife filled with the smells of Indian food and music and shop owners who were all still quite busy for being so late in the day.

There were several of these stalls on the street with folks busily making floral offerings. The flowers and leaves were fresh and they smelled as beautiful as they looked.

Fresh floral offerings.

An Indian grocer was still open and had these awesome tubs of fresh spices to weigh and sell.

Rows of fresh veggies.

We ended up doing a major behind the scenes tour in the last few days with Jeremy's folks. It was great fun to show them around the places we frequent often, and then to explore new stuff with them. The only way we would have ever got so many great shots of things close up, (people included) was b/c of Bill's zoom on his camera and his relentless pursuit of that "National Geographic" award winning shot.

The next few Blog entries will be of our trip to Bali, Indonesia! We took over 1400 shots (between Jeremy, myself and Bill snapping away) so it's going to take some time to get thru and organize my thoughts about it. Give me a few more days, and you will not be disappointed! And, if anyone wants to come and visit, we'd love to go back to Bali with you....soooooo..........

Jeremy's Folks come for a visit. Day 2

2005-04-14T16:10:00.000+08:00

Day 2-Sunday April 3, 2005

Time to continue the exploration of Singapore and share it with the rents! We decided to take them to our favorite (close) breakfast spot, an Indian Stall at Ginza Plaza where we could get great coffee, and egg pratas for breakfast. Then we showed them our Ginza Plaza wet market and shopping area. On our way to breakfast, we passed by a Buddist Temple, which you were only allowed to take pix of the outside. None, inside.

One of two dragon statues at the entrance of the Temple.

View of the Temple from above.

Details on the roofline.

Dragon art, outside the temple.

Cooking the Egg Pratas.

Yummy Breakfast!

After breakfast, it started to pour down rain, so we decided to do the tour of the market and wet market. You can buy anything from clothes, to pots and pans, to spices, veggies, meats of all kinds, fish of all kinds, and spiritual items at the market and wet markets.

Jeremy's favorite coffee supplier.

Fresh fish.

Fresh spices.

Fresh Squid. I love this shot that Bill took!

Dried mushrooms.

Potatos and Onions and in the bags are small dried fishies.

These are offering papers. The papers are burned for different ceremonies at Temple.

Fresh veggies.

yep, even live frogs!

When you order coffee for takeaway, you get it in a bag. This was Sherry's nectar! If there is one food item that you can almost always get that's good here, it's coffee!

After we had our fill of the wet market, we decided to walk back to our condo and and drop off our goodies and head to Orchard Road and then to Little India...hoping along the way that the rain would stop and we would be able to visit the Jurong Bird Park. But, Mother Nature was not on our side for that. We did however, see lots of great new stuff and ate lots of great, new to us food in Little India!

Orchard Road is merely a place to visit if you want to be overloaded by high end shops and stores. Like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Rolex. You name it, it's here! But, not far from Orchard Road, was the Raffles Hotel. So, after another cup of coffee and a piece of cheesecake, we headed to the Raffles Hotel to check out the joint and get one of the famous Singapore Slings!

Fountain at Raffles Hotel.

Green landscape inside the courtyard at Raffles hotel.

At the Long Bar, the famous Singapore Sling!

So we ended up at the Long Bar, not only b/c we wanted to try the Singapore Sling, but also b/c we were not appropriatly dressed to get inside the entrance of the Hotel. No shorts allowed! From what we could see thru the doors as others entered, it looked really nice...

Singapore Slings aint no cheap drink either! Usually $18S, we got ours for a mere $16.50S. Needless to say, only one was ordered. For a pitcher of beer, it was a measly $33S. Welcome to the world where the rich play freely!

A fancy schmancy painting in the Long Bar.

Now even though drinks were expensive, and the decor was beautiful, when you eat peanuts in the Long Bar, you just toss the shells on the floor. We had a rather good time tossing the shells.

After tossing back a beer and a sling and a bunch of peanuts shells on the floor, we decided to head out to Little India for some further exploration which led us first to The Mustafa Center. The Mustafa Center is a block long and a block wide establishment, that houses, several gold and jewelry stores, a money changer, all kinds of clothing, audio equipment, video equipment, housewares, fabrics, a grocery store with fresh goods as well as dry goods, music, shoes, EVERYTHING is at the Mustafa Center, and what we've discovered is that things are cheaper here. This is where we stock up on Nutella and chocolate bars!

While perusing the store we came across this little girl who was all gussied up and proud to be photographed. (We asked her father first). Notice too all the beautiful fabrics in the background.

The little princess at Mustafa Center.

After leaving the Mustafa Center, (Jeremy and his Dad made plans to return later to look for watches) we headed into the town. We took a side street back to this general meeting area, with local shops and food.

Gathering place in Little India.

Man sewing.

Starfruit at a local fruit stand.

Basket.

We came across these men playing a game, that was like a cross between pool and shuffleboard. They would toss some powdery stuff, maybe cornstarch? onto the board and then shoot the pucks like you would shoot marbles and try to sink their color into a pocket.

Next to the guys playing the game, was a food court, and inside we learned how naan was made. They let us take a video of the process from the dough ball to putting the final product into our mouth!

This clay barrel is incredibly hot! The bread is patted into a thin flat circle and sprinkled with water, then, placed onto a ball of cloth and pressed onto the sides of the hot clay barrel.

The coals at the bottom of the barrel begin to brown the bread that's exposed, while the pot browns the bread where it is attached to the pot. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the process and eating the fresh warm bread!

Bill's camera decided to switch to B &W so unfortunatly we didn't get the color of this man's attire, but he was dressed in a beautiful peach colored swath of material. We thought him to be a very religious man.

The weather had offered us a bit of reprieve from the heat, but on and off it decided to pour. We got slammed with another gusty downpour on our way to one of the Hindu Temples. There were a bunch of these rickshaw bikers carting there passengers in the downpour along the main road.

Wet rickshaws.

You never know what you'll find on a back alley street...(Boose, this one's for you!)

Random local woman walking in the rain.

Old woman sitting outside the Temple.

Full view of Temple in Little India.

Temple decorations in Little India.

After seeing the Temple and getting good and wet on our walk around Little India, we decided to head back towards the Harbor Front MRT and if the weather was good, check out Mt. Faber. Mt. Faber is a point on Singapore, where you can get close to 360 degree views of the city, and out to Sentosa Island. You can also have dinner and drinks up at the top, as well as catch the gondola over to Sentosa. We checked out the views and then opted for a gondola ride over to Sentosa, and back.

The cable cars to Sentosa.

The people in the car in front of ours, when we went across, were having a romantic dinner, with entrees, wine, cloth napkins and they went around the second time for dessert.

A view from a top Mt. Faber out into the sea of HDB's.

A view to the South of the Merlion, with it's eyes lit up at night. There's an observation platform on top of his head, and inside his mouth.

Another view out into the downtown area at night.

Group shot with cityscape behind us.

After checking out the view at Mt. Faber, it was time to go back to the condo, and squeeze in a quick cooling swim. It had been a very long day!

Jeremy's Folks come for a visit. Day 1

2005-04-14T15:52:00.000+08:00

We finally had our first visitors!

Day 1-Saturday April 2, 2005

I'm not quite sure how to start. We saw so much, and there are soooo many pix that I want to show everyone, that I may need to just list pix, and have not too much in the way of commentary, which I'm sure you will all enjoy.

Jeremy's folks arrived at 2pm on Saturdy April 2nd for what we will fondly remember as one of the best 'vacations' we've ever had! We joked that when we went to Bali, Indonesia, that we 'hit the ground running', BUT, we hit the ground running as soon as they arrived here, in Singapore! (Bali will have to be a very separate blog entry, as there are about 1400 pix of our 6 day, 5 night adventure there! I'm going to try and be selective-Give me till the end of the week to pull it all together!).

But first, Singapore, and new stuff for even us!

We gathered the rents, and took them back to our apt via public transportation. Sherry, Jeremy's Mom, has used lots of public transport in various cities all over the world, and she said that it really seemed like Singapore was doing it right! It's very easy, clean & efficient. Once back at our apt, we dropped our stuff caught up a bit, settled in a bit, (ate Nutella! -see it's dangerous!) got some drinks and made a plan. We decided to head up to Jeremy's lab so his folks could check that out and there we could gather Kazue and Davis for dinner plans. After a quick tour and meeting with Davis and re-meeting Kazue, we headed off to Clementi for some great seafood and local favourite, Chili Crab!

Jeremy and Mom outside of TLL

Davis, Jer and Kazue in the lab

Kazue took the pix. Our family style Chili Crab, ginger and garlic fish, and greens.

Ok, so the Chili Crab was really hot and SPICY!

After dinner we decided to walk around the Clementi area and Clementi Neighborhood and show 'our neighborhood' area of Clementi. We were also in search of some dessert.

Sample sign of Muslim Food

We found these awesome chocolate balls. So far the best 'heavy, chocolate' desert we have found in all of Singapore. Deserts here tend to either be some sort of jelly like food, with fruits and corn or very light, spongelike cakes. It's hard to find a nice thick chewy brownie or good sweet cake!

After walking around the Clementi area, we parted ways with Kazue and headed back to the condo. We made a plan for the next day so we wanted to get settled in and a good nights sleep.

Sentosa Island

2005-04-12T19:01:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago we decided to check out Sentosa Island. It's one of Singapore's South Islands and is considered a resort island and a place for the whole family. There is a butterfly park, Underwater World, Dragon Walk, a beach, The Merlion, a 360 degree rotating skyview, gardens, food and entertainment.

We were able to get a free bus from the Harbor Front MRT Terminal over to the island, as the only methods of getting there is the free bus, the cable cars (which is an impressive site), or a taxi. There are no personal vehicles allowed on the island, which makes it pretty nice for getting around. You can get on and off the free bus whenever you like and get to where ever you want.

Our first stop was to the beach area, and the Southernmost Tip of Asia! The beach was a nice white sand and the water in the lagoon looked really nice and blue, but when we saw all the tankers just off shore we thought that maybe that's not a great place to swim.

Beach at Sentosa Island

This is the bridge to the Southernmost tip of Asia, and just off of Sentosa's main island.

Map of Sentosa Island

This is the bridge we walked across to get to the Southernmost Tip of Asia!

We just had to take a picture at the Southernmost Tip of Asia!

Then we decided to walk to the Merlion, Singapore's symbol, which is a combination of a Lion and Mermaid. Not too sure how they came up with it though. We had wanted to get up into the mouth of the Merlion so we could see the views, but found upon getting there, that you had to pay to go up. There is also an observation deck on top of his head too. I also learned later, that the eyes of the Merlion glow firey orange/red at night and we actually did witness this!

Merlion front view

Merlion side view.

Aw shucks, why not get our pix taken at the Merlion! We took someone else's pix, so they offered to take ours.

As we walked around the Merlion, we found behind it an amazingly creative fountain made of tiles. It had squirting smaller fountains all along it and it was really long! Very fun place to hang out and splash in the water.

After our visit to the outside of the Merlion, we walked to find the Butterfly Exhibit but when we got there, we also found that you had to pay to enter. What we were quickly discovering was that you either had to pay entrance fees of $8-$10 per exhibit, or at the very beginning you needed to buy into a package to see everything. We hadn't planned on spending quite that much money for our visit to Sentosa, so we passed on everything that required entrance fees. However our next little adventure took us to the Dragon Walk!

Entrance to the Dragon Walk

The Dragon Walk was a nice walk in the woods with some Dragon Interpretation and sculptures. Everything we saw, from 'remains' to waterfalls was man made, so we just decided to have a nice walk in the woods and check out the plantlife and see if we might see any creatures.

Near the beginning of the Dragon Walk, we had to walk over the head and body of a sleeping dragon...

Another Dragon in the woods.

Dragon 'remains'...

Monitor Lizard

Now our walk did yield some real dragon meetings. We came upon a very large Monitor Lizard off the side of the trail. We took a short movie, but the quality isn't that great. This was the best pix I could find. He turned and decided to go the other way, when Jeremy began to approach him for a photo opp.

After the Dragon Walk we went to see one of the War Memorial sites, with a view out into the harbor. The pix didn't really reveal too much intersting and the second War Memorial we tried to visit, we again, had to pay to get in, so hence, no good history pix. But, we did end up at the entrance of Underwater World. And finally I get to see a real live sea turtle. There was an exhibit outside that housed about 6 of these huge turtles that just leisurely swam around, or let the Koi fish eat the planktons etc. off of their shells. The big attraction to Underwater World is a tube that you walk thru and are completely surrounded by water on all sides so the sharks and fish and sea life swim all around you. Again, we didn't want to pay to get in. : (

Giant Sea Turtle

Later that night there was going to be live Jazz music on the beach which sounded really cool, but we decided that we had had enough of Sentosa and decided to catch the Free Bus and head back to the Harbor Front MRT...

...and finally back home!

Fish we've been seeing

2005-04-12T16:04:00.000+08:00

So, I said I'd add some pix of the fish we've been seeing so this will be a very short post just to show you some pix of the marine life in these warm waters of the South China Sea and the Bali Sea and Lombok Straight. (More to follow on Bali!)

Remember that we didn't have an underwater camera, so I took pix at an aquarium I found in one of the malls while out and about one day a few weeks ago. It was an impressive aquarium in the middle of this mall to say the least, and the elevator went right up thru the middle of it! Maybe for the fish I can't find the names of, I'll ask Raymond to let me know what they are...

Blue Tang

Bat Fish-this is a really big fish! Probably about 20" wide!

Stoplight Parrot Fish (I stole this one from a website)

I stole this one from a website too.

So, those are just some of the fish we've been seeing. In addition, loads of beautiful corals, and fans, and sponges and aenomies and aquatic plant life.

Pulau Tioman, Malaysia-Scuba Certification Trip

2005-03-31T18:00:00.000+08:00

Ok, so we got our camera back, and I've made the time to load the new pix from Pulau Tioman, Malaysia! First, we didn't have an underwater camera, but in the next blog post I will post some pix of fish that we did see underwater, that I found in a huge aquarium at one of the malls last week. At least you'll get an idea of how vibrant the colors were and the abundance of sea life!

As part of my course for getting certified for Open Water Scuba, I chose to be able to go to Pulau Tioman for my final open water certification dives. The options were to dive around Singapore, which would have been a little bit cheaper, but would not have more than an arms length of visibility, or make the trip to Pulau Tioman and get certified in beautiful clear waters and stay on a more rustic feeling island. I chose the latter, and Jeremy was able to come along on the trip for a small fee which included all of our meals, our accomodations and boat ferries and transfers to Tioman, and all gear needed, including tanks for the dives. We thought it a good deal, and signed up immediatly.

We left on a Friday night, loaded into the van with our dive buddies, and new friends and Raymond (our instructor) and set off for Malaysia. The drive up to Malaysia ended up being quite long, as Friday night traffic leaving the island was overwhelming and to leave the island, you must go thru customs. That meant for us, getting in and out of the van, carrying our bags and walking thru, meeting the van on the other side. So tricky! However, getting to customs took over 2 hrs. Mind you that Singapore is only 14 miles wide, North to South, and we were heading to the North. The Malaysians on motorcycles, leaving the island after being here all week working, just wove in and out of traffic, bumper to bumper, and 5 lanes accross. It looked to be very dangerous, but they didn't have to wait in the long lines like we did. There were thousands of motorcycles doing this, and if it weren't for the lack of lighting we would have taken some pix. I've never seen anything like it before. Those guys were insane!

We broke the trip into two parts. First arriving in Mersing, Malaysia (in the middle of the night) which is still on the mainland. We stayed in a budget hotel, and woke EARLY to catch our boat that would take us to the Ferry Terminal. Once others had boarded at the Ferry Terminal, we were on our way to Tioman!

Small village huts along the river early in the morning.

Fishing boats along the river.

A small abandoned boat along the riverside.

Villages along the river.

The trip by boat to Tioman took just over 2 hrs, as along the way, we had to drop folks off at their respective locations along the island.

We stayed at Salang Beach Resort.

Some of the views as we approached the island.

A fishing boat in the distance.

As you can see, we had calm seas for our journey to Tioman, and at one point I looked over at Raymond and we both commented at the same time, that the water looked like a sheet of glass! It was that calm! However, the week before another dive group (one that's just around the corner from Living Seas) took a group out to Pulau Aur (an island just South of Tioman) and they went when the conditions were a bit adverse and at 1am, needless to say, the boat sunk and while no one was injured, a lot of gear was lost, and they found later that for a boat that was supposed to hold 25, they had 39 folks squeezed on board. Believe me, I asked a lot of Questions before embarking on THIS trip! These were some of our first views of the island, Tioman, Malaysia.

Rocky outcrops on Tioman!

Those of you who know Jeremy well, know what he's thinking right now!

Ken, Kelly's dive buddy getting gear together.

Once we arrived at Tioman, we learned that they did not have all of our rooms ready, so we got some late morning breakfast, 'family style' and laid out our gear to get that yellow boat to take us to the bigger boat out in the distance so we could begin our dives. We all embarked together, but Jeremy and 2 others went to check out a fishing boat wreck while Ken, Kelly, Susanah and Sheng Cheong started the cert dives with Raymond.

from Left-Right: Ken (peace sign), Serko, ?, Sheng Cheong, Susanah, Kel, Jer...Raymond is missing!

Jer eating fried fish.

Kel and Ken setting up equipment.

Pre-dive pictures

Ken and Kel-dive buddies. Almost ready to dive.

We can't remember his name, but he had a kick butt underwater camera!

Kel situating the BCD.

Raymond, my instructor! Those into diving know the different levels you can attain, and Raymond is attaining his Tech I Level right now back at Tioman!

Serko came with us, as one of Raymond's friends and another fellow Tech I (he was using the time at Tioman to practice and was one of Jeremy's dive buddies until I was finished with my cert dives)

Susanah and Sheng Cheong, goofing around.

Kel and Jer after a good day of diving.

Jeremy being artistic.

We ended our first day of dives, doing 3 dives and getting to experience loads of exotic fish, and the warm blue/greeen waters. We also learned how the pressure on your body, when you dive deeper, makes you have to pee, A LOT. So, we got to try out warming up our wetsuits, (not that we NEEDED to be warm) and to christen the equipment. Special thanks goes to Living Seas for allowing me to borrow a wetsuit!:)

Tioman Reef at low tide.

Tioman Sunset

When we got back from our last dive, our room was finally ready, and we had about an hour to shower and change and meet back for another family style dinner. When we arrived at our bungalow, we found that we had a resident rooster hanging on our porch. We had a split bungalow half for Jeremy and I, and half for Susanah and Sheng Cheong. We thought it was nice that we'd have a wake up call in the morning, as we'd need to start early to get 2 dives in before needing to head back to Mersing and then back to Singapore. All of our affections for this rooster began to change as when we arrived back to our bungalows after a late night snack with the group and began to settle in with a book to read for a bit before catching our ZZZ's...this rooster crowed a boistrous crow at about 11pm. The crow of the rooster we thought was funny and we all laughed at his mistiming crows! Then we could hear next door, Sheng Cheong mimicking the rooster, thus providing for more laughs.

However, this rooster's timeclock was a bit off, MAJORLY OFF! I was abruptly awakened from an exhausted slumber at 3:30am by this stupid bird. He was sitting, right here outside our window when the commotion began. He didn't stop after one big crow, so I got up and shoo'd him away!

The peace resumed for another hour and half, and then this damn rooster began crowing again, at 5:30am! By this time, I was getting peeved! I was thinking of ways to eat him, Malay style cooking, Indian style Chicken Korma, maybe even just fried chicken legs! If I were to ever stay at this resort again I would make sure I was far away from THIS rooster! Then, he gave a faint crow at 7am, barely loud enough to let us know that we really did NEED to be up. Needless to say, his life was spared, but ONLY b/c we weren't staying there another night.

Let me add that this 'resort' we were staying in, was not like a resort that you all back home might recall being a resort. Now, resort in a third world country has a bit of a different meaning. The bathroom was set up the same as our bathroom at Mana-Mana, only this one was a but scuzzier and had a constant leak, probably from the toilet, so even after you squeegeed the floor after taking a shower, there was still a puddle in the middle of the floor right infront of the sink, thus making a middle of the night bathroom run quite wet! The toilet was quite a bit lower, although a toilet was provided, instead of a squat hole but the height difference was precarious if you weren't prepared for it. As well, we bought bottled water and didn't even use the water from the sink to brush our teeth. We were advised by Raymond to use our bottled water for drinking and hygiene. Our half of the bungalow did come with an Air Con, however, we couldn't figure out how to use it, until I got help from the front desk. Luckily we did have AC at night. And our little bungalow was carpeted...really, not necessary or practical for a beach 'resort'. Nuff said.

The next morning we all got an early start, met for family style breakfast (not your typical egg and toast I might add) but finger style foods, much of which I have no idea what they were. Some pasty like in nature, some fishcake like in nature, there were hard boiled eggs and fried noodles. They offered coffee and tea.

A little lesson in vocabulary now:
If you want coffee or tea there are several ways to ask for it, depending on your cream and sugar preferences. Don't take my spelling to be the way it should be spelled, but rather how it sounds when you ask for it. This is only necessary if you don't like the way it's typically served at the hawker stalls which is usally heavily creamed up and very sweet! On Tioman, they gave us the cream and sugar separate so we could do it to our personal tastes.

Tea or Coffee LARGE = GAJA
Coffee with Cream, no sugar (which is always a little around here) = KOPI-C MYTENG
Coffee with Cream & Sugar = KOPI (how you usually get it at hawker stalls)
Coffee Black, w/ Sugar = KOPI-O
Coffee Black = KOPI KOSONG
(and you can get any of the above iced)

Hot Tea with Ginger = Teh Halia
(you can only get this hot and only at Muslim or Malay eateries) but ohhh so good!

So, as the day before, we got our gear ready, and waded out to the yellow boat, and our boatman took us to his dive boat. He ferried us our dive spots and our lessons began. We only had one more lesson for certification, and then the next dive was for fun. We definatly felt the currents as our last cert dive which we swam into the current took only a few moments to get back with the current.

On our last dive, the one for fun, we saw a huge moray eel, it was so big I thought maybe it was 2 not just one, and again, loads of tropical fish. Think of Nemo and we saw tons of them, some bigger than we expected, clown fish, swimming among the aenonomies. We saw a school of baracuda, a big cuttlefish, mola mola, sunfish but no sea turtles or sharks (which was just fine by me).

Oh how attractive!

Getting the fins on!

Turning for entry. I am just in awe of the color of the water! I have never seen water the color of torquoise before. The pix do it NO JUSTICE!

And Kel's in! What form, what form! See how far away I am from everyone, this is b/c I was so enthralled with the color of the water, I just couldn't get in fast enough. And, there's a good current here.

Susanah and Sheng Cheong before entry.

Our Cameraman!

After we completed our 2 dives on Sunday, we broke for some lunch and got cleaned up and headed for the Ferry Terminal to catch our boat back to Mersing, Malaysia. We ferried from port to port picking up folks along the way.

Leaving Pulau Tioman

At one of the ferry stops, while we were waiting for folks to board, we looked over the edge and saw this school of fish just swimming around our boat. There is no shortage of fish around here, that's for sure!

School of fish

On our ferry ride back to Mersing, we ended up getting the boat stuck in the sand of a low tide and we were unable to efficiently make it to the channel that would take us to the ferry terminal. We watched the waters quickly receeding as our motor screamed behind us as the boatman tried to keep us moving churning up the sand. It was slow going and we thought we'd have to swim, but eventually, our skilled boatman gouged out a path in the sand for us to reach the channel. It's all pretty natural around this area, so we assumed they did not dredge the channel. We also thought, this probably wasn't the first time a boat got caught up here at low tide.

Once we reached Mersing, we loaded our gear into the van and Raymond treated us the 'best burgers' in Malaysia. They were intersting burgers, a thin patty of I guess it was beef? But that was also topped with one slice of cheese, and a fried egg. There was some lettuce and a sort of BBQ sauce all served on a bun that was more like bread. Not your typical backyard burger that's for sure.

We also made a bathroom stop and I saw this little cat just loving up the attention it could get. I had to pet it. All the cats here are so small. And all are feral as well. This one was near an outdoor eatery which is where you usually see them lurking about. If I wasn't the Doglady, I'd consider taking one in.

After a bathroom break and a burger break, we loaded in the van and started our 5 hr journey back to Singapore, filling out our Dive Logs and reminiscing about the weekend. It was a great weekend in Malaysia on Tioman and a fun group to learn to dive with. We are planning to stay in the loop for other dive trips going out and all hope to dive again together in the near future!

Now we are teaching Ken, my dive buddy, how to rock climb!

Pulau Tioman--Patience is a Virtue

2005-03-15T16:08:00.000+08:00

The long and the short is this;

Jeremy left the camera on the van that transported us to and back from Malaysia...the camera has been located, but is in Malaysia and we hope to get it back just before we go to Bali with Jeremy's folks in early April...

If by some miracle, Raymond, my PADI instructor, can get the camera back after he goes to Pulau Aur this weekend, then, maybe I'll have enough time to get our 1st Scuba Trip online. Otherwise, all will be quiet until further notice...

But now I'm a certified Open Water Diver! Whoo hoo! It was beautiful! Once we are re-united with the camera I will update our trip to Pulau Tioman, Malaysia.

Drat the Lyme's Disease!

Just for fun!

2005-03-09T17:30:00.000+08:00

NOTE:

If you can get thru my early dialogue, you'll get to check out some sites that will be weblinked for you to do further exploration as I have no pix of my own to add to this particular blog for reasons expressed below...

Well, I did promise all kinds of exciting pix of our exploratory ride of Bukit Timah Nature Preserve, BUT, a combination of Lymes Disease (= no short term memory =Jeremy) and ADD (attention deficit disorder (a hem- Jeremy) we did not have the camera with us when we arrived at the preserve and saw a whole family unit of monkeys. So, you'll just have to take our word for it, until we can go back and get the shots, that yes, there are bunches of monkeys at Bukit Timah! Long Tailed Macaques

We saw big males, and nursing mothers with really little babies, some without a bunch of hair even, (but long fingers) and some active youngsters who were quite interested in our bicycles when we laid them down to get a little closer to sit with them. The youngsters cautiously came over to within about 3 feet of us, and climbed on the bikes, licking and chewing the seat and jumping up and down on them. For all of you who know the Enduro, this would have been a first time shot for sure! Picture a young monkey sitting on the Enduro seat! Nuf said.

Bukit Timah is more like Scotia as I expected it would be, but take away even more of the rocks and roots! We did find the Dairy Farm Quarry too, and have recently heard stories of experienced climbers having fallen to their deaths, (one guy who climbed at our gym, Climb Adventure is now among the departed but we didn't know him) as of about a month ago when he relied on an existing bolt. Needless to say, we won't be relying on anything there. As well in 2002, a young kid also fell to his death, and Jeremy found the marker that showed that. And yes, there are mosquitos! Have I mentioned yet in the blog that Dengue Fever is a problem here? I'm bound to get either that or Malaria as I seem to be the mosquito magnet, even with a strong breeze, which there was when we were exploring the quarry!

It took us about a half an hour the more direct route, via roads etc..instead of the bike path to get to Bukit Timah from our condo. Not too bad for a half a day of riding. Then, when we got back to our condo we hung at the pool, naturally!

Sunday was our bike hash out at Changi, again, we have no pix. For good reason of course! We did have the camera with us BTW! We got up early and decided, against very strong recommendations of our hash grand master Barbarian, and the article in the newspaper the day before, to get our bikes on the MRT! We cannot afford to get to the hash start points if we can't use the MRT as it's the cheapest mode of transport available to us here besides riding. If we had used a van, it would have been $35 each way. If we took a taxi, it would have been about $20 each way, and they would've been cranky that we put two bikes in it. The MRT, cost us less than $2 per person one way! We calculated that it would have taken us at least an hour and a half to get to the start of the ride, by riding, so we opted to take the MRT. Our plan was a good one, as it seemed to work. Lots of bungee cords and large black plastic bags and removable wheels later, we dressed up our bikes in bags and just nonchalantly went for it! We got quite a few stares from other passengers as you could clearly see that we had bikes with us. Chain rings poke right thru plastic bags as do handlebars and forks and pedals! No matter, we were on! Now, who had the map?

Excellent Q! We quickly learned (from asking someone) that we needed to get off at the Tanah Merah MRT. But, we also learned that neither of us had the directions to the Yacht club, nor our Singapore guide books. We thought, no matter, it CAN'T be THAT hard to find the Ferry Terminal, right? We'll just ask someone. So, we exited the MRT, and rushed to a point out of sight to put back together our bikes and began riding...aimlessly, as NO ONE knew which way the Ferry Terminal was. Funny, there's only like 2 on this island, I can't believe that no one would know where the closest one to us was. No matter, we rode on anyway. We were now about 15 mins from the hash start time and we had no idea how to get there or which direction to go. Finally after riding for about 20 mins we found a bus driver who had pulled over to wait for a group and Jeremy asked him which way we needed to go. We went BACK the direction we came from and eventually found the road that led to the Ferry Terminal. We also then saw signs for the Yacht Club so we knew now that we were on the right path. About an HOUR later of riding on a flat, straight, only slightly breezy, in full sun road, we arrived at the Yacht Club, one and a half hours after the pack had left for trail! We were sweaty, did NOT have our bike gear on, as we thought it would look too conspicuous on the MRT and had no idea what to do next. OOOOPS! Neither of us had a lock either, as we thought we'd be riding our bikes not leaving them anywhere so we weren't quite sure what to do next. Have I mentioned that high end bicycles are a HOT commodity here and young kids will scale the sides of bdgs to get to bikes on upper floors if left on balconies, and we know more than a handful of folks who have had their bikes stolen from almost literally under their noses....??

We knew the hash was going to end at the Yacht Club and that a buffet lunch was to be had but we didn't know what time. We found some folks at the restaurant who said, "one o'clock, 25 bikers come!". So, we had about 45 mins to ride around. We decided to see if we could find the trail. We did, we found the end of the trail and started to work our way backwards and in about 20 mins we saw the first of the returning hashers coming our way. We decided to keep going, and wait till we could join the majority of the pack, in it of course was Barbarian, who was like, "Well, how very nice of you to join us!" in that condensending brittish accent! He's outgoing, that's why he's the Grand Master!

So we rode back with the pack, back the way we came, and enjoyed those showers on site which the ladies room was quite nice! And put back on our sweaty clothes we rode to the Yacht Club in and got ready for lunch!

We met 2 new to the bike hash folks, Ange and Adam. Not together, just individuals. They both had such great stories to share of other adventures, so we had lunch with them. Adam was scuba diving during the Tsunami and discribed some purely crazy underwater experiences of swells and closterphobia with 6 divers and a million fish all trying to stay in one small eddy. And he also told us of a dive where a woman who was with them was nabbed by a whale shark and drug straight down, down, down...only to be released a few moments later! Did I mention that I'm now getting certified in Open Water Scuba???

Ange wants to get back into climbing and is going to Krabi, Thailand in April. We learned of Krabi from one of the guys at Climb Adventure, Hatta! Ange is very cool, and we hope to spend more time with both Ange and Adam in the future!

Adam is also going to Bali in April, like we are, when his two kids come to visit him here in Singapore. He's also a new transplant! So far, Jeremy's mom, Sherry, has booked us to do a wreck dive on our first day in Bali! It will be the Tulamben Wreck dive. To see what we will see click on the underlined link and view, the Living Seas website. Then on the LEFT colum, click on Dive Holidays. Look in March 26 for the Bali Itinerary. As you read down the intnerary, you will see the Tulambem Wreck Dive. Click on that and you see underwater what we will be seeing on this dive. If you put your curser on the pix you can move the view around 360 degrees! Awesome! Our trip to Bali is scheduled for April 5-9th. More on that in a later blog. For a peek at the dive site and description, click here. (and click on Dive Sites--then go to Wreck, drop off)

Oh, we only took the MRT one way, b/c we decided to ride with Ange, Adam and Simon to get us part of the way back to our place in Clementi. One by one, they split off to their repsective locations. Simon got us the closest leaving us in Clark Quay. Jer and I decided, oh what the heck, let's just ride it the rest of the way. The total ride time was just over 2 and half hours! We sorely miscalculated how long it would've taken us to get to the hash start, so it was a good thing we took the MRT in the morning! At least we got to see East Coast Park, which is a bike path along the ocean out in the East. And although it took us a long time, in the grand scheme of things, it's really a lot closer than you think. We had to take a few breaks as neither of us had water (b/c we thought we were going to the MRT) so we had to buy a drink to get us to the end. Our condo!

Now I have to go to my first confined water dive for my scuba certification so I bid you all adieu! By this weekend we will be diving in Malaysia! Can't wait!

Upcoming Events

2005-03-03T14:30:00.000+08:00

Well, this week the blog will lie a bit more silent. We don't have anything big on the agenda this week, but that's all going to change by this weekend, so look for more pix sometime next week. We have however received our shipment from the US last week, and so now we have real mountain bikes, and our bike gear, so with this weekend's upcoming bike hash, out by the Changi Airport in the East Coast, we are hoping to really surprise our hash buddies with them not even recognizing us in our Garb!

Last Thursday I injured my back moving boxes from our shipment...it was silly actually, always BEND YOUR KNEES! They really aren't kidding when they tell you to lift things properly. Someday, it will happen to you! So, Thurs and Friday of last week was spent lying in bed, eating Nutella, which we have found here for dirt cheap! S $3.50. That's about $2 US. It's a bad addiction as we eat it right out of the container off of spoons, and it's even better from the fridge! Be careful, do not try this at home! You will not be able to stop! We've had 4 containers between the two of us since last Thursday!

Jeremy getting sucked into the vortex of the Nutella jar...

By Sunday I was ready to try some riding, and it had given Jeremy a chance to put the bikes back together and figure out what we needed to make them work properly. I needed to do easy stuff, on a bike path. There is the Ulu Pandan Park Connector that I wanted to show Jeremy as it runs along a river, Sengei Ulu Pandan, and there's a bunch of bird life and (OK, I thought it was a crocodile but maybe it wasn't) monitor lizards. The park connector goes all the way from near where we live to Bukit Timah Nature Park. We saw many monitor lizards on our way back home, as we got caught in a monsoon! The thunderstorms and rain here are awesome! The biggest cracks of thunder we've ever heard! And the lightning was cracking down not that far away from us. They would have made my dog Dutton turn inside out! The rain, which was a total downpour brought out the lizards. Because it was raining so hard, we were unable to get out the camera and take our own pix. We were soaked to the bone, but it did cool everything off. What we did notice is how this city has prepared itself to handle an influx of water.

Beginning our ride we noticed this drain was completely empty and then about a half an hour of rain, pouring steady rain, this is what we saw!

We had also met another couple who had heard of the park connector but had never ridden it, so they joined us. This is a pix of Annette, with their dog "Throttle". He seemed to enjoy the ride! I also told her about the Dog Hash and the Bike Hashes as well.

Annette and Throttle.

We are hoping to explore Bukit Timah Nature Park on Saturday. There is supposed to be a quarry where folks do rock climbing so we want to see that, and ride the trails around the Preserve, we'll see if it's anything like Scotia, but I'm pretty sure it will be nothing like Rothrock! Wildlife we may see...Cobras! Well, we read on a chat site that someone said they saw one...but we should see Monkeys! We'll have the camera with us just in case.

On Sunday we have another Bike Hash, which will be on this island, Singapore. It should be pretty easy as it's near the airport, so not likely many hills. However, the forecast (which they do seem to get right most of the time here) is calling for rain. So, we're thinking a mudfest will be the case. They promised us onsite showers! And the on after is supposed to be at a Yacht Club.

Monday I start my scuba course! I signed up last night, and we bought a few scuba items; snorkel, mask, fins, top, booties for each of us, so Sherry and Bill, no need to bring that stuff along for us! This way when I do my certification dive, I won't have to rent any of that stuff. Jeremy is also allowed to come on the certification dive trip, (he's already certified) so we'll get to do some fun dives too! And by Friday of next week, we will be diving off Pulau Tioman, Malaysia! Pulau means island. Click on the link to see where it is. The company that I'm getting certified through is called Living Seas. They have a nice website, with pictures of past dives if you want to check it out. Click on the live link above. My instructor will be Raymond, but we met Gideon Liew as well.

Just a random pix of a butterfly I saw on my way out one day. As I tried to get closer, it flew away.

Center of the Fountain of Wealth.

Last weekend we also went shopping. If there is one thing that you can do in Singapore, it's shop! They have the biggest, multi building, multi-level shopping malls we have ever seen! And it's nice to spend time in the AC! First, let me add, that both Jeremy and I hate shopping, but, we wanted to look for a pair of Chaco's for Jeremy as his Teva's have crashed out on him. What we did find, was a tiny little Royal Robbin's store, that had a huge sale. We found Jeremy a pair of sandals that look just like Chaco's for S $20! That's about $13 USD. We went to the SunTeck Mall and near it was the "Fountain of Wealth". There were ads claiming that many important heads of state had visited the "Fountain of Wealth" and that every night at 6pm the fountain would go off, and afterwards would be a laser show. It is also the largest fountain in the world, and is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records. We had to check it out!

For good fortune, you were to walk out to the center of the fountain, extend your right hand and put it into the water and walk around the circle (with hand in water) 3 times. Which we did. Then, just before the fountain was to go off, they blocked off the walk and turned on the water for the fountain overhead.

It was a big fountain, don't get us wrong, but I guess when I think fountain, I think of water shooting upwards too, not just falling downwards...we sat and watched it for a few minutes, and then got bored, so we decided not to stay for the lazer show...we weren't sure they would be able to outdo themselves like we were hoping. The mist from the water falling was refreshing though.

So, that's what we've got thus far. Next week I'll hopefully have some fun pix of our bike hash this weekend and Bukit Timah Nature Preserve.

Jeremy's folks are coming to visit April 2-10th and we have a side trip planned to go to Bali, Indonesia to soak up some of the culture and do some scuba diving, so we are looking foreward to that as well.

And in the news!
Former Pres. Bill Clinton was just here earlier this week to meet with officials after having been to Thailand to see Tsunami disaster relief efforts. We didn't see him in the flesh, but know that he played golf, at night, at the Orchid Golf Course (I think, if I'm remembering correctly).

And, "Blondie" was just here to play a concert which was well received by a crowd of about 4,000.

Singapore Bike Hash to Bintan Indonesia

2005-02-21T16:44:00.000+08:00

Well, the big weekend we had both been waiting for finally happened! Since we joined the Singapore Bike Hash we have been waiting for the Bintan weekend to arrive. The Singapore Bike Hashers coordinated efforts and took 28 hashers to Bintan, Indonesia one of the small islands of Indonesia just an hour ferry ride away! The all inclusive weekend was staged from Mana-Mana, a resort beach club! For a mere S $200/person, we got our ferry ride over, our own bungalow, a Saturday ride (25km), BEER, a BBQ dinner, (more BEER), breakfast and lunch on Sunday and the option of a long (50km) or short ride on Sunday and the bus transfers from the ferry to Mana-Mana each way, including transport for our bikes. As well, we had motor support provided by the locals for our rides. We thought this to be an excellent deal, and so we signed right up! We chose the 9am Ferry, leaving from the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal out in the South East coast. We called our new "whenever we need a van" porter, David, and he picked us up and got us there on time, early enough for us to check in and get thru customs. Since we had our bikes, we needed something a bit larger than a cab, as they would likely have made us remove our tires, which with the POS's that we have, is much more difficult. So, for S $35 anywhere you wanna go on the island, David took us from our condo, to the Ferry Terminal.

We arrived at Mana-Mana 3 hrs before the next group of hashers were due to arrive. We checked into our room and headed to the beach to check out our surroundings.

This was our half of the bungalow, #27. We went inside saw there was an airconditioner and decided to use that instead of opening the windows. Then, we headed to the beach to check out the water.

The first thing we did was ditch our shoes and head for that awesome blue water. It was so warm and wonderful, that we decided to go back to our bungalow, and put on bathing suits and 30 block. I immediatly found a small sand dollar! I think the water was even warmer than the water from when Pam and I went to Jamaica! Ahhh, the waters of the South China Sea!

Beach view to the right. The tide is fairly high at this point, but beginning to receed.

Jeremy checking for snorkling opportunities.

When the second wave of hashers arrived, we were instructed to all meet at 1pm ready to ride. Now, 'ready to ride' was not really completely possible for Jeremy and I. Our mtn bikes, and biking attire was still on the boat to Singapore, not due to arrive until Thurs Feb 24th. So, in the same fashion as our last bike hash, we had crappy commutuers, here on out known as POS's. (Piece of ...you get the pix) and not the proper biking attire. At least they would all remember us, it had as you know, been 3 weeks since we've seen them all. We had talked to Barbarian ealier in the week and procured helmets, mtn bike tires for Jeremy's bike, and 3 L Camelbak's. We were on our own for the rest.

We all met at 1pm and loaded up the bikes and bodies for transport. Some of the locals help out Andrew, the guy who coordinated our transports, so we had motor support.

Just like refugees in the back of the truck! Everyone has smiles on their faces ...for now. We headed off for about an hours long bumpy ride to the start of the hash.

Which brought us out into the middle of nowhere! At least there was some single track for us to follow. As in all hashes, we are looking for white toilet paper and/or chalk on the ground to find our way...

Not long into the ride, Jeremy's basket fell off making riding difficult at best. We had to stop and began utilizing Zip Ties. We were fortunate enough to have some onlookers who all but one fled when we drew the camera. See one little head in the window? This is a typical backwoods house on Bintan. The single track you saw previously, was the only way in!

And from the shade of those folks house, it opened up into a sunny, clay baked hill. Even with our basket mishap, we are still with the pack for the most part...for now....

And then, a dreaded flat! Luckily it happened near shade, and yet another family to watch us do our repair. They were all quite enthralled with these crazy dressed bikers cruising past their house, especially ours with baskets on the back. They didn't speak too much English, but when we showed them the camera and gestured if we could take their pix, we got a positive response.

Except for the one man who arrived on motorbike, he ran into the house while the rest of the family posed for the shot. Since we had the digital, we showed them the picture and the man came back out and had a look. Most of those we encountered, mostly children, knew "hello" and "bye bye".

We were on our way again. After leaving the still very hot shade of our new friends houses, the trail opened up to a hardpacked clay rutted opening. Uphill! It was probably about 3pm by now, the worst possible time to be in the blazing sun. And now, we were also at the back of the pack, having had to stop for the flat tire, and Jeremy's basket must have fallen off about 4 more times. Thank God for zip ties! We would have been immobilized without them, with our POS's!

But, we caught up to Andrew Young. He's the guy who coordinated all of our transports and motor support for the trail and he was the sweep, waiting for us to catch up. We are officially at the back of the pack now. Andrew speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia and runs a side business like Eco-tourism, so he comes to Bintan quite a lot.

The trail took us through woods and grasslands, and the trail was sandy.

You can see how dry everything is, and there must have been a fire throughout different areas of our ride as the ground was black and the grass dead.

I decided to wait for Jeremy and Andrew to catch up. At this point we picked up a couple of other riders who lost the pack, and weren't quite sure which way to go. So we all stayed together.

Sandy trail through the grasslands.

Through part of the grasslands we hit a section of trail that was quite muddy off to our left. Our new biking pal Melanie, she works at TWA (Two Wheeled Action- a high end bike shop in the Holland Area) happened to take a spill thus earning her a down down for a hash crash of the day. She seemed to have stirred up some insects in that area as when we came upon her, we were getting stung from all directions, Jeremy on his forehead and me on my ass!

After the hottest part of the ride, being in the grasslands, with little breeze and big time heat, the trail opened up to a beautiful sandy, deserted beach!

We were told at the beginning of the ride that we would end up on a beach, and this was it! Jeremy had to get a shot with the blue waters behind him.

This beach was just as beautiful as our beach at Mana-Mana. The sand was fine and soft and white, and the ocean water just as warm and the breeze refreshing. For an image of about where we are click on this map. We aren't at Banyan Tree, but you can see the reference to Singapore and the South China Sea. We are a bit further to the East and North of what you can see on the map, after the horn.

And we cannot believe that our POS's actually made it! The ride was 25km long, took about 4 hrs to complete for us with single speeds. It was probably in the upper 90's F in the shade and I've counted, my bike now has 19 Zip Ties holding it together! We lost quite a few bolts and screws on that trail, and the rack that holds the baskets have also broken off of both of our bikes. For S $80 I guess we can't complain! Our good bikes arrive tomorrw! This group of hashers aren't even going to recognize us when we have our own gear and bikes! And they won't have any more reasons to give us down-downs. Our nicknames as a team, are 'The basket twins'.

It was just an easy ride along the beach to where the rest of the hashers awaited our arrival.

Quite beautiful! And tranquil.

C'mon Fergus!

Ahh, and folks were still smiling! Maybe a little more burnt, overheated and sweaty, but smiling at the prospects of a cold beer or 3 awaiting us!

A great beach!

And a shipwrecked boat!

Those who arrived and were waiting for us, went for a cool off and rinse off swim!

See that red cooler! It holds the nectar we all worked so hard for! Thank You MOTOR SUPPORT!

Barbarian in action, circling us up, and giving out the charges!

And of course the motor support crew HAD to drink too! Needless to say, after many quick drinks and a raucus circle, we had to once again mount our steeds and get back to the trucks...which were not parked that far away, but made for the most crashes of the day by Jeremy, who was by now, quite intoxicated.

I can't believe Jeremy didn't fall off this bridge!

Awesome design eh? This thing was rickety!

Once we reached the trucks, the bikes we reloaded, and everyone got into our refugee trucks and we began our bumpy loud trip home, filled with hash songs, and laughter. We just beat the sun going down as we loaded the trucks, and arrived at Mana-Mana an hour later, stinky, sticky and starving! In the truck I was in, I had a bat end up on my foot. I managed to get my foot out the window of the truck and someone else flicked it off. That was interesting. Not sure how long it was there.

Once at Mana-Mana, we unloaded our bikes and everyone hit the showers and dressed for our BBQ dinner at the bar. Great food and fun conversation followed. We had options of Chicken, Lamb, Prawns, Lobster, Salmon, or Steak, 2 choices with either rice or mashed potatos, and steamed veggies and corn on the cob. The beer was Bintan. But you could choose others if you wanted, or wine or mixed drinks. Soon after the food hit the bottom of our bellies, the efforts of the day mixed with a little food coma began to set in. Jeremy was drunk, and exhausted, and myself tired, so we cut out early and went back to our bungalow where we promptly passed out.

Jeremy never woke until the next morning, but I woke up at 2am, hearing the pounding beat of the drums and hearing the laughter of folks dancing the night away at the bar, which was a good distance away. The night life here (Bintan) doesn't really start until midnight, and from what we learned, some of our hasher buddies may have taken a nap after dinner, but hit the dance floor and rocked out till 4am! We were either too tired, or too sensible although I have to admit, I almost got up to go and check it out. Supposadly, other folks from other resorts come to Mana-Mana for the Saturday night beach party as this was the place to be on Bintan on a Saturday night. Maybe next time???

Sunday at Mana-Mana

We woke at 7am to head for breakfast which was an awesome spread of fruits (papaya and watermelon) and fresh juices, yougurt, and hearty cereals and scrambled eggs and pancakes, and baked beans and vegetarian noodles, pastries and coffee. The rides were to start at 9am sharp! The long ride was 50km with motor support bailout whenever needed and the short ride was a loop, both including lunches. We really didn't think our bikes would make another 25km, so we opted out of riding, and decided instead to hang at the resort and read and explore. We chose wisely, as Andrew, and Fergus, and a few others also snuck out of the rides to hang out by the beach. At about 1pm, we saw the motor support roll back up to the resort. Out piled, EVERYONE else! Some folks had thermometer guages on their bikes, and were clocking average temps of 38C. The highest it got was 43C--(That included time in the shade) That translates into about 110F. They were slowly cooking themsleves out there, and after lunch they made an executive decision to call it quits. Our Ferry didn't leave until 6:30pm that night, so we rode our bikes around the resort, checked out a neighboring resort, and hung out on the beach. We did some swimming, and there were millions of these non-stinging jellyfish in the water, and we met some boys from Bintan who really wanted to practice speaking English. We talked with them for as long as our pale skin could take it and got their teachers' email and promised to get in touch with them when we come back. They promised to take us around the "real Bintan" and show us where they live, and eat, and the shops, etc...We really want to check this out, b/c if we have a good weekend with them, when my folks come, or when Jeremy's folks come, this may be really nice treat, culturally, gastrointestinally, and cheap!

Since we slacked off all day on Sunday, we decided to take some pix of our bungalow before we had to check out of it at 1pm. So, here are some pix of our little bungalow. It was quaint and clean, and the beds were so comfortable, and the AC divine!

We had a twin room but that was OK, we just pushed the beds together. These were the best beds I've slept on so far! Nice and firm!

And our little toilet/shower/bathroom combo room. Very clean and actually pretty nice! Different, but nice.

And the view from the bathroom towards the front door. Again, not a big place, but all we really needed it for was for sleeping and showers anyway.

This was one of the covered sitting areas. You could eat your breakfast or lunch here or just sit and read a book, out of the equatorial sun.

But we chose the lounge chairs on the beach, but in the shade!

The breeze on the beach was really great for learning to Kite Surf! It's been said that you only need 18hrs to figure this sport out. Andrew, Jeremy and I talked about coming back to Bintan to learn to Kite Surf, as you really can't do it legally anywhere near Singapore. Maybe we'll combine it with a trip back to see Marcus and the boys.

Hard to see, but two Indonesian long fishing boats cruised by, and a sailboat while we were sitting on the beach.

This was the more formal eating area and in the back is the bar.

An Indonesian Mask.

There were only a handful of us from the hash that stayed till the 6:30pm ferry so the trucks didn't come for us to transport our bikes. There were many other folks from Mana-Mana who were also going to catch the 6:30pm ferry and so when the 5 of us started loading our bikes on board the bus we got many concerned looks. But, it all worked out. Andrew speaks the language so he and the bus driver were tight, and we were shuttled to the ferry like a bunch of pigs going to slaughter. We weren't the only one's to take pix of this set up by the way.

And we discovered the top deck of the ferry. Roomy seats, tables, and TV and AC. I will admit though, coming over to Bintan, the waters were quite calm early in the morning but by the evening, the waters had become a bit more choppy and I was getting tossed about the upper deck a little too much. It doesn't take much for me to begin to feel seasick, and so I had to move to the lower deck and focus on not puking, while the little kid in the aisle near me was puking...I held it back! I hope this won't affect me too much for future scuba diving trips...

And that was our weekend on Bintan. We also discovered, while many hashers changed their tix to come back on an earlier ferry, having cut their rides so short, that we liked being on Bintan much more than in Singapore. It was much less humid and while it was still hot the less humidity made for a much more enjoyable outdoor weather experience and the beach was fantastic!

I'm not sure what our next adventure will be or when. The bike hash won't meet now until March 6th, and I think it is supposed to be out at Changie (out by the airport) uhhh, pretty flat ride! I am slated to begin scuba classes that following week, as the monsoon season around Malaysia doesn't make for great scuba until about the middle of March. So for now, we are just getting by, hanging at the pool and I can't start work for 2 weeks, until after MOM (Ministry of Manpower) clears my paperwork with my 'future employer'. Frankie Koh of Petz Central.

Jurong Bird Park

2005-02-18T20:33:00.000+08:00

This entry is for all my long lost friends at Shaver's Creek! All you bird geeks, here are some Asian and Australian and Indian peeps to whet your bird whistle. I never would have guessed that I would take the time to write all the Latin names on a pleasure bird tour, nor would I have ever guessed that I would possibly see some things that maybe even YOU have not. Ahhh the glory of it all. Since our visit to Jurong Bird Park, I have seen some of these birds in the wild and now I know what they are.

Last Sunday (Feb 13th) we decided to visit the Jurong Bird Park located at the furthest West MRT stop you could go to on the island. The Jurong Bird Park boasts over 9,000 birds belonging to more than 600 species and is one of the World's best in the conservation and display of birds in natural settings. It's successes include the world's largest breeding colony of Humboldt Penguins and the highly endangered Golden Conure (which we did not see). It is also the first in the world to breed the 12 wired Bird of Paradise and has the largest collection of Southeast Asian hornbills and the world's tallest man-made waterfall (which we also missed--oops!). Since it was a fair ways away, we decided to use public transportation and take advantage of the "AirCon" instead of riding our bikes, which would have left us dripping in sweat. This is what we saw getting off the MRT.

As you can see there are no bike racks. The bikes are just locked front tire to back tire. Now where did I put mine?

Then, from the MRT, we walked a little ways to the main bus terminal where we hopped a bus that would take us directly to the front door of Jurong Bird Park. They have single deck and double decker busses all over the place. Your fee amt is based on whether your bus has AirCon or not. But, regardless, the fee is negligable compared to how much you would sweat getting to and fro walking long distances.

Here is the entrance to Jurong Bird Park. It cost us S$14 per person entry fee. That's about $8.50 USD. But you could get a $.25 ice cream cone from McD's right inside the door!

Before we even bought our ticket to enter the park, there was this exhibit with Roseate Spoonbills (platalea ajaja)...

...and Chilean Flamingos (phoenicopterus chilensis) These birds are listed as Endangered.

and this one, I should know the name, but sadly, it's the only one I didn't write down for some reason. You see this bird EVERYWHERE here!

Penguins on land

Penguins swimming.

In the Macaw court, we saw a variety of colors. And the colors were spectacular! Green, known as the Military Macaw (ara militaris)...

...red, known as the Scarlet Macaw (ara macao)

...and Blue, known as the Hayacinth Macaws (anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) What an amazing shade of blue!

We decided to check out the bird show before we went for our tour of the park. It was pretty entertaining. They had Macaws that spoke in different languages, English, Malay, Chinese, they could count and say phrases. They also had them do flight stunts around the audience and these Chilean Flamingos, came bounding out and did laps, dancing if you will (to pop music) around the podium, which if you look closely, you can see two small bicycles....yep, Macaw bicycle races were soon to follow.

Here is a Blue Kingfisher. This is one bird that you can see when you are out and about Singapore.

This is the back side of a Bird of Paradise. The tail feathers of these birds were so flowey and light they were hard to photograph when they moved about the cage.

This was one of our favorite birds. It is a Common Crowned Pigeon (goura cristata). These birds were quite friendly and were interested in walking about your feet and what we learned after observing these birds with some other visitors, was if you were wearing red, or had your toenails painted red, the males would be very interested in you and you could even get some 'action'. It was very entertaining to watch.

And we were able to get quite close to them.

Next, we headed to the Lorey enclosure. This enclosure housed many different species of birds but the one that was most interested in humans was the Lorey. When you entered the enclosure you could buy some "Lorey water" to donate to the upkeep and maintenance of the enclosure and you were more likely to get some interpersonal bird action. You even walked in the tree tops to be with the Loreys.

Upclose and personal with the Loreys

Feeding the Loreys

A walk in the treetops in the Lorey enclosure.

This is a Bar-Pouched Wreathed Hornbill. When Jeremy got very up close and personal to take his pix he lunged toward the front of the cage and plunged his beak thru the small openings in the fencing, and bit Jeremy right in the hand. This bird definatly knew what his beak would fit through! His beak was probably about a foot long and near the yellow pouch, was about 5-6 inches wide. And the tip of the beak, very sharp! Like Father like son here Buffy! He was doing what you would likely be doing to catch the shot!

This was another Hornbill, with a rather clumsy looking bill above his beak! These birds are quite large, probably about the size of a medium dog. If the didn't eat just fruits and nuts, they could probably carry off a baby. They are strong!

Great Indian Hornbill

Common Hornbill eating papaya and seed mix.

When we left the hornbill section we went to the Birds of Prey enclosures. Here we saw a variety of BOP's. Here, a Secretary Bird (sagittarius serpentarius). This bird reminded me of a road runner. It was rather large though, standing up to about my hip tall.

And a Steller's Sea Eagle (haliaeetus pelagicus) boasting world's largest eagle and on the edangered list. It's habitat is found near Russia, Korea and Japan. Check out the size of it's beak!

Then off to the flightless bird enclosures. Here, of course, an Ostrich (struthio camelus). This was a male who was amongst his herrem of females.

And with the ostriches, was a small family of Slender Tailed Meerkats (suricata suricatta).

Detouring from Flightless Birds for a moment, we headed over to the Jungle Jewels where we got to see lots of flora and fauna, other fast small birds, like hummingbirds, etc... as well as some Cottontop Tamarins (saguinus oedipus). Here they are snacking of fresh fruit.

Some of the flora in that enclosure.

...and then back to flighless birds...This one is a Single-wattled Cassowary (casuarius unappendiculatus).

Then, off to Pelican Cove. Just hangin' out!

Jeremy on the boardwalk towards the end of our trip. We're heading towards the African Grassland section. He was getting grouchy and we both were getting hungry. We totally missed the largest waterfall and aviary and Parrot Paradise. We also missed the Madnarin Ducks and a lot of the Southeast Asian Birds so Sherry and Bill, when you come, we'll have to go back!

East African Crowned Cranes (balearica regulorum)

...and a close up! I love this bird!

Not sure what kind of bird this is, but he belongs in the African Grasslands

And we ended by seeing the Flamingos at Flamingo Lake. We hadn't planned well in terms of timing and didn't allow ourselves enough time to see everything. Even though it's so hot here, within the park it was really nice, lots of covered areas, and lots of shade. If you're feeling really lazy you can take the monorail which is airconditioned, but we don't think you would get to see as much as we did on foot. They do birdshows a few times a day, The All Star Bird Show, which we saw, and Birds of Prey shows too. If you wanted to learn more about some of the specific birds there, they had 'chitchat' times at the specific enclosures and they recommended timing your walking tour (which is on your own with a map) with some of the feeding times for a more spectacular visit. You can get your pix taken with some of the birds, and they even do a simulated "refreshing" thunderstorm, which we also missed. You can easily spend a day at the Jurong Bird Park, if you have an interest in birds and photography. We definatly had a nice time there.

Clark Quay and Dim Sum

2005-02-18T14:45:00.000+08:00

Clark Quay (pronounced Clark Key) was on the way back to Clementi (where we live) and so we thought we'd check it out. Neither of us had been there yet, and we thought seeing it at night, since it's along the waterfront, it would look cool. And it was pretty neat, but what we noticed getting off of the MRT, was that all the 'white' folks got off at the Clark Quay MRT station. Now when I say 'white' I mean they could be from Australia, which many are, or from Britain which many are, or from the US, which there aren't many...so, right off the bat, we knew we were going to a tourist place. Once we exited the MRT station we were right on the waterfront which was basically a river that ran through the area of Clark Quay. Along the opposite side from where we were, the river was lined with many restaurants, pubs, coffee houses, and karaoke bars. There was even a Hooters! Asian Hooters girls in the same small orange shorts. Jer wouldn't take a pix for the blog, sorry! There were bridges at both ends and so we decided to walk along the whole waterfront and check out the scene.

Welcome to Clark Quay!

You could book a ride on the river Taxi, which I'm not sure where it would take you, but at least you could get a ride up and down the river...many people were lined up for this and there were probably a dozen boats running up and down the river.

There were lots of shopping opportunities which we were not interested in and everything here, was really expensive! An ice cream cone was $2.50 and you got about as much ice cream as you could at McDonald's for $.25!

At the far end of activities there was this bungee slingshot thing that hurled it's participants a hundred feet into the air in a cage and you came bouncing back down, spinning and screaming the whole way. We did not do this, as it was rather expensive too, $30 per person. The whole ride was about 3 mins long but it was very entertaining to watch others do it. There was a huge line for this ride, folks proving they were not scared. Unfortunatly, we have no pix of this either. We were laughing too much to take pix.

And, as I have mentioned in earlier blogs, there are cats everywhere! This is just a small sampling of the about 10 that were just outside the MRT as we were leaving Clark Quay. It has been told to us, that if a cat has it's one ear clipped off, notched if you will, which each of these cats and most all of the ones at this MRT did, that meant that the gov't had seized them and spayed and neutered them and then re-released them. The cats aren't afraid of people, but they keep their distance from them. They are wild cats and fend for themselves. Most of them are pretty much the size of LUNA, Meredith's cat.

In the end, I had a very nice birthday and have recieved cards from Mom and Clark, Cheryl and David and Joey, Aunt Ardie (x2) and Uncle Jim, Aunt Ginny, and of course e-cards and birthday emails. (Sue, yours really was hilarious!) Thanks to you all for remembering and for helping me to feel not so far away from home.

Now lucky me, not only was my birthday the beginning of Chinese New Year here, which allowed me more than one day actually....but Valentines Day also happened AND Jeremy and I have officially been together for just over a year! SO, we had much to celebrate in the last week!

Dim Sum with Davis

In celebration of the Chinese New Year, Davis, Jeremy's boss, is now back (for a few weeks anyway) and he wanted to take us all out for festive Dim Sum. Ling, Kazue, Jeremy and me. He took us to a restaurant near Chinatown which was crazy busy! Apparently this is a hot spot for folks wanting some Dim Sum. Basically we went in, sat down, and Davis ordered different tapis style foods for us to try. Of course he can speak the language so he knew what we were getting. The workers there wheel these carts of food around and you point and choose how many of each thing you want to try. The orders are small, so it's not like you're making a huge commitment. We tried all kinds of bite sized chinese foods, some tasted good, others better but I have to admit, that while I was scared to death of what I might encounter with the Chicken Feet, after Jeremy described them so disgustingly to me over the phone before my arrival, I had them two different ways, and while I'm not big into pickling things, it really wasn't so bad. And the other way we had them, had this special sauce on them, and the 'meat' it's really just a bunch of fat, just fell off the chicken's digits. It's not something I would want to eat a lot of, but for a sampler, it wasn't so bad. We should have taken a picture so you could see what we were eating....but alas it was a busy place and the food just kept coming, so you had to be on your toes.

Davis trying a new dessert even to him!

I am about to try porriadge (sp?). It's supposed to aid in digestion, and have lots of good stuff in it, like what I'm pointing at, 'thousand year old egg'. It's, to put in Davis's words, "basically a rotten egg". It's the black thing on my spoon.

Ling, always so cheerful for the camera! Notice the empty seat next to her. Kazue is camera shy!

Kel's Birthday!

2005-02-16T16:11:00.000+08:00

Ok, so b/c Kelly's birthday fell on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, we made plans to be eating in since many places would be closed. We have determined that you can eat out for much cheaper, and with no clean up if you go to the Hawker Centers for all of your meals, however, we also feel that it's not quite as healthy as what we can do at home, so while it may be hot cooking over the gas flame, since we use Olive Oil and can buy lots of fresh veggies, we decided to give it a shot. I have also had some folks ask for recipes of the food we're cooking. This is a very simple recipe that we learned from Yati, Rafi's wife. She called it "Fried Noodles".

You'll need a pot for cooking noodles, the wok for throwing it all together and lots of prep time, or have everyone help as it goes faster!

Ingredients:
1 # fresh prawns (we got these for dirt cheap as you'll see in a previous blog post) but they are the whole prawn. You have to remove the heads, but leave the legs on as they make it taste sweeter and remove the shells. Be careful as prawn shells are very sharp and will cut you. Rinse and drain as the prawn poo is in the head area! Yeah, it's gross!

You can use whatever fresh veggies you like.
We used, fresh red onion, scallions, cabbage, a leek like green (chopped), a cilantro like fresh herb chopped, fresh mushrooms, (they were kinda beefy in texture) maybe a shitake?, and several cloves of fresh garlic (chopped).

We scrambled about 3 eggs in the wok and set aside. Cut them up into smaller bits.

Boil the noodles, these were a flat oriental style noodle, like you would use for Pad Thai. (But not Rice noodles, although you could probably use them too) Drain and set aside. You can also use the green noodles that we used in our previous Fried Noodle dinner at Rafi's house, they add nice color. Or a mixture of both.

We stir fried, in the wok, all our fresh stuff, starting with the garlic and onion and added the scallions, cabbage, leek, and mushrooms. We stirred in a few Tbs. of Chili Garlic Sauce, which is thick and red and chunky. Then, we added the noodles, chopping them up a bit and stirring all the fried stuff, including the eggs together. Then we added about 1 tbs of Sin Sin which is a Sweet Sauce (made of sugar, molasses, water, carmel and preservatives) It's very dark in color and thick! Then we added the fresh prawns and cooked them stirring them into the noodles, etc...until they were pink. Yes, they will cook this way! Then, when we were just about to serve it, we sprinkled Fried Dried Shallots on top with the cilantro and voila! The picture above! Eat with chopsticks or just your fingers for the full effect! And a nice cold beer to wash it down! Marvelous!

(You can add many more veggies, and shredded carrot would also go very well in this...but Jeremy took the carrots to work, and so we had none!)

This was just a dinner we cooked on our own, not for Kelly's birthday, but wanted to share a recipe. What we have found though, is that the Chili Garlic Sauce and Sin Sin sauces work great in most dishes, and you can change up your flavors by adding fresh ginger, green beans and snow peas! We have also used chicken as our 'meat'. And have learned how to make Sweet Potato french fries in a wok! Awesome! We also have been using quite a bit of sticky rice as it makes all of our dishes go a lot farther in terms of leftovers!

Now, for my birthday, I started the day by receiving a gift from Jeremy, a small box, that I had transported to Singapore with the help of Wendy (thanks Wendy!) and it's hard to see them here, but they are Dichronic Glass earrings of which ever since I saw Julie Dana's, Jennie Evan's and Wendy's, I have really wanted a pair of my own. They are different from Julie and Jenni's but are very cool none the less! They pick up even the smallest amts of light and sparkle and glow! Super cool!

Then, for dinner, Jeremy (in Torben's voice--"Woman, get out of the kitchen!"), cooked for me a birthday feast. It's hard to see here but noodles, and in the wok, were green beans, mushrooms, garlic, onions, leeks, scallions, you get the pix!

And because we are trying to be more health concious, we also had salad, and Ling donated nice cold grapes (and of course some of our prawn leftover fried noodles with rice) It was delish! Of course we needed to eat with chopsticks.

This was one of the Chinese Drumming Trucks that would drive around the streets, clanking and drumming. They are all a bit different with different color flags and each of the guys in the truck also has an outfit on too so they all match.

And this is the hawker center that we would go to near our condo, at Ginza Plaza. You can see, with Chinese New Year underway, it is EMPTY!

What Jeremy had also decided to do, was to take me out for my birthday to an Indian Restaurant in Little India, so I could have my Chicken Korma. But since things were closed on the 9th and 10th, he took me on Friday. The restaurant was very bustling, and there was a line to get in, but we got in with no problems even without a reservation. It was set up so you could see along a buffet style table all the food choices from the menu. We were seated near one of the ovens where they make piece after piece of Naan and shiskabobs! We didn't take pix in the restaurant of our meals, but we did have a big bowl of that fish head curry soup (shown in another blog post) and it was really delicious! And the closest thing to chicken korma I could get wasn't called "Chicken Korma" but it was pretty close to what I had at India Pavillion in State College....but I think I like IP's better! Much to Kelly's surpirse and as well Jeremy's, when dinner was over, he had no money, nor his credit card. Neither did Kelly b/c when we went to Chinatown, we emptied our wallets of important stuff in case we were pickpocketed. Luckily however, he did have his ATM card, they call them SAM's here, but he had to run (in this hot humid weather) for about 4 miles round trip to get money and come back to the restaurant to pay. You should've seen the look on the waiter's face. He actually said, "you're kidding right?" And for those of you who know Jeremy, you can just see the look on his face as he really was not kidding. : )

After our dinner was over, and we had paid for our bill, we decided to head home via the MRT. On the way home Kelly thought it would be cool to stop and see Clark Quay. I've heard others talk about it, and it was advertising pretty heavily Valentines Day dinner specials along the waterfront. So we took a short detour to Clark Quay.

Our Condo!

2005-02-11T16:33:00.000+08:00

Ok, so here are some pix of our condo, after we've moved in and cleaned it up a bit. We are sharing the apt with Ling (she's getting her phD at NUS and also came with Davis's lab)

Living Room with lovely entertainment center and new TV.

Fabulous Red Pleathah furniture! Can you say, peel me from the sofa!

Dining room, yep, we've already broken one of the chairs! Ling's Bedroom door is the closed one.

Now, let's talk about a small kitchen! You can't get away from the ants even if you wanted to as you're on top of each other in this kitchen!

No oven, only a gas range. Just fine, it's too hot to cook. We bought ourselves a traditional wok! The place came with the microwave! The silver door on the wall is our garbage chute! Can you say All inclusive Ant Condominium! (Not anymore!)

Kelly & Jeremy's room. I've been eaten alive by mosquitos at night, so now we close the windows and use a fan. The bed while we got it with the condo, is totally smushy, and the firmest portion is along the furthest side away from you. I think the bed will end up killing me in the end.

A view to the master bathroom. Which has a US style toilet and a full tub/shower. That's what I'm talkin' about! If you want hot water, you need to switch on the hot water heater. This helps to save elecricity and the tanks can then be alot smaller per unit. We actually don't turn it on that much. Cooler showers are way more refreshing here!

The master bath sink. Now, see isn't that a good idea for the bar of soap!

Here is our laundry facility. No dryer, all hang dry at this place. This is connected to the kitchen.

And to the left of that stool in the last pix, this is what they call "the store". In our case, it's an extra room only slightly bigger than if two people made a circle with both of their arms. If we had a maid, or "domestic helper" she would live in this room, and do our cleaning and laundry. Most of the condos have rooms like this and they are really tiny. I can't believe that someone would live in something that small, to pick up after you, watch your kids, and cook for you, do your laundry, all for about $80/mo. It's just cruel! My one suitcase and one of Ling's suitcases wouldn't fit in our closets in our rooms, so our two suitcases are pretty much taking up the space of "the store".

This is Ling's bathroom which is also called the 'common' bathroom. The one that guests use.

This is our rather small porch that overlooks a school and West Coast Road. By leaving the sliding glass doors open, and our front door, and the laundry room door, we have a pretty kickin' breeze that rocks through our place. Plus, it give the neighbors baby another whole world to explore when she enters our apt.

Now for some of the ammenities:

Here Kelly is teaching our new friend Nat how to swim. We now have an open invitation to visit India! We swam with Nat for several nights while he was here. He has now left and gone back to India. He worked in the IT field.

Here is the "hot" tub. The hot tub has bubbles and jets, and sitting areas, just as you would imagine, however, it is the same temp as the pool.

And true to Singaporean form, there are lots of rules at to what you cannot do! The craziest of the rules here, is that on most major highways, I mean, 8 lanes N, S, and 8 lanes E and W, they tell you that's where you should do your U-turn! It's the wackiest traffic thing we've seen. You see U-turns EVERYWHERE. Even the busiest intersections!

This is the BBQ area, and my new 'office'. This is where I get the best and most connections of wireless reliably during the day! This is next to the pool, and you can sign up to use this space if you are having guests over to visit.

And this is the bar. You can also reserve this space if you want to throw a party! It's also next to the pool and offers several tables of seating, and is covered by flowering plants over an arbor offering shade and protection from rain, of which has been very scant of late!

We also have a gym! We haven't used it yet but if we ever get the urge, it's also near the pool. We were actually surprised to see such nice equipment for our use.

And of course, no condo would be complete without Tennis Courts. Sherry, bring your racket! We can also reserve the courts, they have lights so you can play at night and there are two! I don't think they supply balls though??

...and we have also learned that we have a small store down in the carpark area for those late night munchies musthaves...this is what helped me in the chocolate department until we found THE MUSTFA CENTRE in Little India, and they also have newspapers, ice cream and lots of condoms to choose from!

As well, there is also a billiard room we can sign up for use but we just haven't planned that far ahead in a day to do that. Hmm, maybe tonight since we need to keep it low keyed before we leave for Bintan tomorrow morning!

Chinese New Year!

2005-02-11T13:14:00.000+08:00

Ok, well, I have had several folks yapping at how I've slacked off and haven't kept up with the blog in the last week. You are all right, but, we haven't done anything worthy of the blog. However, we did move into our new place, and it was totally gross! We have a major ant problem b/c the last tenants were less then tidy in the kitchen. They also had some sort of shrine in our cabinet in our bedroom and must have burned incense in there, making yellow stains all over the inside of the cabinet and burn marks, as well they smeared red paint (likely the stuff used on their foreheads) on everything. So, we spent two entire days cleaning, scrubbing, and buying the small things to make our place work on a basic level. Ant traps were at the top of the list! And now, a few days into it, and all three of us practicing clean kitchen habits, I think we are winning! What little food that we do have though, we are keeping mostly in the fridge as it is likely the only ant free zone!

Once we were a bit more settled into our condo, we took a short bike ride to our local park to check it out. It's only a block away, and is the largest Community Park on the Island! From end to end it runs several city blocks, and has jogging trails, work out pods, a bicycle obstacle course, ponds, playground equipment, McDonalds and McCafe (more free wireless connections and $.25 ice cream cones), a dog park, the whole park runs along the ocean, has a bird sanctuary, BBQ pits, field space, free concerts, etc...it's a really neat park for young and old alike! Here are some pix of what we found. Francis A, Andy & Aaron A, Eron V, Sam and Nathan, you guys would love this park! By our standards it was totally cool, but I don't think you would find playground equipment like this in the states anymore with everyone being so 'sue happy'. Folks here take responsibility for themselves, mostly b/c it's impossible to sue the gov't, but ohhh what fun!

The map of the obstacle course for bikes.

Of course we had to try it out!

We couldn't resist!

Giant Rope Pyramid! From the top you can see much of the park play equipment and out to the ocean!

Some of the equipment

Now, at this time of year, The Chinese New Year, everyone goes around giving oranges out to symbolize prosperity and good luck. Jer's lab got several boxes of oranges from the Scientific Sales Representatives. And many places had these mini orange trees decorating their property much like we all have a Christmas trees and decorations. We thoroughly enjoyed the mini oranges as they were the sweetest, most juicy and seedless bursts of goodness you could eat in one bite!

Look at how small they were!

And these tiny ones tasted THE BEST! So sweet and juicy and seedless, you could eat the entire orange in one bite!

We went to Chinatown on Feb 9th, the first day of the "Chinese New Year" (based on the Lunar New Year) and these are some of the decorations we saw. Unfortunatly, there wasn't a lot of action, much like our Jan 1st in the States.

Bridge Decorations

Rooster with Golden Eggs-hmm, roosters don't lay eggs!

But with a festive New Year's Eve, comes hoodlums and crime. This is what we found at the MRT where we were going to lock our bikes before heading to Chinatown.

It's just like my bike lock which they told me (the guys at the bike shop) takes one hour to cut through!

Ramping up to the CNY, everyone was buying stuff to hold them over for the few days that shops would be closed and the country would grow quiet. Here is a colorful shop we passed while getting supplies to clean our condo. I bet you never knew that mops and buckets could look so pretty!

From the first week I was here, I kept hearing banging, drumming noises, randomly, and then I caught a glimpse of what it was. Trucks full of men would cruise up and down the roads playing drums and pounding on what sounded like pots and pans. It was actually rather festive, but they never did it outside of fair game hours.

Decorated street at night. This one is near where we would go and have dinner near Davis's condo.

In preparation for food stalls to be closed for a few days, folks were stocking up on food supplies. Here is a guy who sells ducks! I guess he keeps the heads! And I'm not sure that he was so siked for Jeremy to take his picture.

Unfortunatly, the most excitement would have been on New Years Eve. But, we didn't go out then. We did however, enjoy all the decorations as they were being put up. I went to TWA (Two Wheeled Action) on New Year's Eve, during the day, and rode my bike. By the time I was heading back to Jeremy's lab, it was just after lunch, and it seemed that a mass exodus was beginning to occur all around me. New Year's Eve was only a half day work for most folks and we were told (by our neighbors, who are in Bangkok right now) that hailing a cab would also be difficult if you wanted to go anywhere during the first 2 days. But, they said that the MRT would still be running and there would also be some bus service. We planned to get some provisions for the first few days and use our new kitchen to test our Asian Cooking skills!

Wednesday Feb 2nd

2005-02-02T13:17:00.000+08:00

Happy Groundhog's Day!

I know a bunch of our friends in PA are enjoying Groundhog's Day to the fullest! That poor rat, but I do wonder what the outcome of the shadow brings for the rest of winter for you all back in PA?

We don't have a lot to comment on yet this week, but I did take some pictures of Jeff and David from the climbing gym on Monday. (so you have names to faces now) John wasn't there as he was preparing for an interview for today!

David actually set his first climb at the gym on Monday, with the help of Jeff. They laid out the course and marked the holds with tape. It seemed to be a pretty hard climb although they haven't officially rated it yet. Someone has to complete it before it can be rated!

(HDB housing we see on our way to the climbing gym)

(David setting his first climb)

(Jeff belaying David)

(David naming his first climb-"Virgin")

(David belaying Jeff)

(Jeff attempting "Virgin")

(The Phoenix!)

We parked our bikes at the MRT station to go to climbing and when we returned, there was this awesome old commuter, "Made In China" it said right on the frame, and it was so simple and sturdy we just had to take some pix. The chainring even has it's name on it! Justin--these are for you! The brakes were on the inside of the rim, and were actuated not by cables, but by metal rods!

(The Phoenix label)

(our bikes are in awe!)

When we stepped back to look at the whole scene, we noticed our bikes turned towards the Phoenix. They seemed to be looking at it in awe! A glorious antique that still had all the workings of a new bike! A simplier design but better engineered for longevity in the commuter world!

Sunday Jan 30th

2005-01-31T10:19:00.000+08:00

The Singapore Bike Hash!

Sunday we decided to try a bike hash. We found out about it from the internet, but then John (from the climbing gym) told us to come, that it would be fun, and really laid back. So, we thought we'd give it a go. The start was 11km away from where we are staying at Davis's. Unfortunatly, we can't take our bikes in the taxi (or at least 2 won't fit) and you can't take your bike on the MRT, so that left us with riding there. It took us about a half an hour, taking the main roads, yes, 4 lanes of traffic and over passes (they call them flyoevers), by road construction and on highways. It was pretty crazy. We don't have our biking gear yet, it's still on the ship coming over...so we did our best with our crappy commuters and no helmets and no chamois. (bike shorts with a lovely padded butt)

We found our start place with no problems, and if I work at the Dog Care School and Salon, we passed right by it, it would only take me a sweaty half an hour to get to and from work. The start was at someone's house. They had a gated home, with patios and pool. Very nice! You can check out the bike hash at www.twa.com.sg

We signed up, met the grandmaster, "Barbarian", and saw that all around us were men and women decked out in nice bike gear, with really nice bikes. We rode up on our crappy commuters, Jeremy's with a milk crate attatched to the back, and me in Chaco's and linen capris pants. We stood out like a sore thumb. But, after borrowing helmets from Barbarian, (helmets are mandatory) we were ready to accept the challenge and put our crappy commuters to the test.

("Barbarian" in red/white/blue)

(Borrowed helmet, linen capris, Chaco's and milk Crate)

The Hash began with everyone heading out to find the first trail marker, which was either chalk or peach colored Toilet Paper!

Part of the trail took us through a Chinese Cemetary. It felt kind of weird riding around all the markers and tombstones but some of them were really ornate with gold leaf and decorative urns.

In the cemetary I had a problem with my seat post slipping all the way down, making it difficult to ride effectively. Jeremy had one adjustable tool, and another hasher happened to have another tool that we could borrow to tighten the seat post. We met the sweep at this point as we were now at the end of the pack.

This trail was both on

and off road...

We met some new folks along the way. Check out the scaffolding...it looks like saplings lashed together.

And saw monkeys on the trail. They were a bit skittish and really fast. Hard to take a picture!

The trees were really amazing. Some of them had crazy growths on them, while others had stringy vines that hung almost the whole way to the ground. We were riding in a temperal rainforest when we weren't on the road.

This hash was the 300th and after the ride was over, we all met back at the start to do the circle, including charges, namings and down downs. Even riding our crappy commuters, and having seat post issues, we ended up coming into the end at about the top 2/3. We ended up passing many many people who got flat tires or multiple flat tires along the way. But not us. We were however passed when we stopped to take pictures. In the circle, they all had a lot of fun picking us out for riding single speed crappy commuters and of course b/c Jeremy had the milk crate attatched to the back of his bike. We got named, Jeremy's appropriatly enough, "Basket Case", and any of you who know him from riding, know that this fits him perfectly, with or without the crate on his bike. And my new bike hash name is "Pole Dancer" b/c of my seat post slipping up and down.

We learned that if we joined the Bike Hash (for $S60) that would get us 18 rides throughout the year, and special "members privaleges", like the next bike hash in 3 weeks to Bintan, Indonesia. We are very excited about going to Bintan to explore another island for the weekend. If you check out the website I mentioned above you can view pix of the hashes as well as Bintan from last year. Bintan was in September of last year.

As well, next Saturday the bike hash is a Dog Hash! We are thinking of going to that one too, to check out the dog scene. So far I've learned that most dogs in Singapore aren't really outside much. You cannot take them on public trasportation, and the maids (Domestic Helpers) are usually the one's to walk them, and they aren't socialized that well, making grooming a little more complicated until the dog gets to know you. Maybe we'll have some fun dog/bike hash pix from next week.

Davis returns on Feb 6th. The day we move into our new condo!

Picture Updates

2005-01-29T19:50:00.000+08:00

Happy Saturday!

Just to let folks know, if you want to see some of the updated and added pix from the first blog, they are found in the archives file. I don't know how to make them appear in the original "Views of Singapore" file. But anyway, they are there, but in archives. I added the pix of a skeezy Singapore bathroom, a pix of our pool at the new place and I put a better, more colorful pix of HDB housing with laundry in there and I'm working on adding another pix of Questionable hawker center food items....

After that, I'm not touching the "Views of Singapore" file again!!! (Unless we can add that movie, which I'm putting Jeremy on very soon!)

But, here are a few more shots you may enjoy from last night and today.

(Kelly & Yati)

(Srina--it's hard to catch this kid still, she hates the camera!)

(Singapore flower from a tree)

(Skyline from Davis's condo on a hazy Sat morn)

(The coconut trees host orchids)

(The MRT's a comin')

(Inside the MRT-standing room only)

(Singapore flower, red & white)

(at the market)

(Temple with Chinese New Year decorations)

(Alyssa-this one's for you!)

(Bird of Paradise)

(Jeremy at Market)

(This is how we steal wireless connections)

(A visitor in our bathroom tonight! It's a Gecko)

Tomorrow, Sunday Jan 30th, we will attempt to join our new friend John and many others for a Bike Hash. It's also the 300th hash so it should be pretty crazy. We'll have to ride to the start as we can't take our bikes on any public transportation, and it will be just over 11km. Hopefully b/c the start is at 10am, we won't be too hot and tired by the time we arrive at the start.

Some Random Thoughts

2005-01-28T16:54:00.000+08:00

A few extra sights

Here are some random shots of things we've seen, but didn't exactly know where to put them but thought you might enjoy. Plus, I'm trying to figure out all this blog stuff anyway.

We finally found some yummy ice cream-Cheap!

Jeremy found another awesome shirt. Here he is sporting it!

I really was working on this whole blog thing for 3 straight days!

These are some of the beautiful orchids that decorate Jeremy's work hallways.

I checked out the Zen Garden on the second floor of Jeremy's work.

I've been eyeing up these purple flowers on the bushes around TLL for a week now. I just love purple!

We couldn't resist this banner! We've noticed where ever there is a sign to not do something stupid, the person in the pix looks to be American. Maybe it's just us?

We've also found that some major roads help us out by having these sweet bikable bridges over them. Most of them we have to carry our bikes up the stairs, but then can ride across the road and then carry the bikes back down the stairs, but this one we were able to ride the whole thing, up across and down!

There are a few places in the first blog that look like there should be a pix but I don't have them accessible here. I will add them into the first blog, when I get them on this computer at Jeremy's work.

I am going to meet with a Grooming School Saturday at lunch. Dog Care They have asked me if I could teach, but I wanted to see the place first. As well, I want to see how far away it will be from where we will be living in the Clementi area. Once I settle on a place to work, it will take two weeks for my paperwork to finalize with MOM. Then, I'll be able to have my own bank acct and Green Card. Prospects here look very good for me. But I have been loving feeling like I'm on vacation lately!

We hope you all are well, and staying warm, if you're still in State College!