We're not in Kansas anymore Toto

I have settled into a routine here, which is making the time pass quickly. Admittedly it is not the most healthy routine, as it involves a lot of work, not enough sleep and very little exercise. It also leaves little time for blog posting! It is feeling like a normal life, rather than being on holiday.

But every now and then when I am doing something totally normal something small about Singapore will remind me I am living in a very different place to home. I was reading the paper on the way to work on Tuesday and read a report on a man charged with molesting his niece (as you do...). Two things stuck out:

• The article referred to the man touching his niece's 'private parts'. it struck me as very euphemistic for a serious article about court proceedings. I wonder if testimonies in the case used such terms?


• The end of the article discussed whether the court would waive the normal penalty of 10 lashings with the cane because the defendant was old (51).

As an aside, the opinion pages have been debating whether Singapore companies should remove their requirement for employees to present an MC (Medical Certificate) for every day they have as sick leave. They are worried that employees will abuse the honesty system by taking fake sickies just because they can. I think Singapore companies are safe as long as they employ Singaporeans - from what I see, it takes far more than mere illness to get them to not come to work, let along skipping work for a dose of monday-itis.

Pulau Pinang

Friday the 12th was a public holiday in Singapore, so Romina and I jetted off to Penang for the 3 days.

We managed to combine sightseeing, eating, shopping and relaxing to our own personal recipes for a fun weekend.

Friday was spent relaxing around the pool at the hotel and being rather disappointed with the beaches in Penang! We had expected them to be a little cleaner! We enjoyed just chilling out and then catching up on some sleep in the afternoon. We then headed out to the night markets at Batu Ferringhi and enjoyed cheap hawker food and browsing around the knock-off clothes and cheap souvineir shops. The rest of the evening was spent drinking and dancing in Georgetown.

Saturday was our Buddist day. The public holiday on Friday was for Vesaak day - Buddha's birthday, so we celebrated a day late by visiting a sleeping buddha at Wat Chayamangkalaram and the huge Kek Lok Si temple. We had fun exploring the different rooms and areas of these two temples and Kek Lok Si offered a great view of Georgetown city.

Sunday morning had Romina yawning and me itching to find a good beach on the island. So we parted ways after breakfast and I started my adventure to Monkey Beach. The first challenge was getting the information on how to get there. You see there are two ways to get to Monkey Beach from the hotel. The frist way is to part with 200 MR (about $80) and get a boat to the beach. The other is to walk through the National Park. The Hotel staff pretended like option 2 didn't exist:

"No, the walk takes 3 hours - you do not have enough time"
"No, the bus will not run to the national park because it is a Sunday"
"No, you are on your own, it is too dangerous".

Luckily I worked it out, caught the bus, walked through the jungle and arrived!

The benefit of being alone was that I was adopted into a picnic being had by two different groups. I first met Fong (65), E Ming (64) and John (68) who were sprightly chinese malaysians. They told me stories of coming to Monkey beach when they were younger. They also warned me about the jelly fish so I didn't swim out too far!

The second group were local fisherman who BBQ'd a feast - I was treated to Malaysian hospitality and enjoyed mackerel, iku assam and chicken. The group consisted of several middle aged men and a couple of younger boys. I discovered that the youngest boy, not helping with the BBQ or clearing up and looked like he enjoyed more food and less work than the others was the boss - his father owned their fishing boats. Made for an interesting group dynamic as he bossed them around!

After eating two lunches (the one I brought and the BBQ), watching the tourist boats come and go and laughing at the monkeys try to streal everyone's food, I walked with my new friends back to the National Park Gate and got a lift pack to the hotel.

After enjoying a few Pina Coladas at the pool with Romina we headed back to Singapore. I was exhausted!

Selected photos are below:

Spoon and Fork for you?

Asian waiters and take-out people seem to underestimate me. Yes I can eat with chopsticks!

I know everyone is trying to be nice and I know many Australians that can't eat with chopsticks. So I suppose it is something I will have to put up with as long as I have light skin and my funny accent.

I did laugh when I discovered that at the resort I stayed at recently in Penang one of the daily activities was chopstick class. I hope they give you little grains of non-sticky rice to really test your skills!

Stories of Penang and the reasons for my quietness on the blog to come...

Singapore makes me feel...

Tall
I look up every now and then in the lift at work and it feels unusual to be the tallest in there!

Hot
When we go out dancing I get far more attention than I do back home. This might be the rather rampant misbehaviour in the expat scene (I think I am only detecting the tip of a fairly large iceberg there) or a lack of caucasian females, or maybe I am just hotter than I realised.

Fast
I still walk a lot more quickly along the footpath than the locals. I am trying to slow down, I really am!

Cool
Actually this has nothing to do with Singapore, but check out this link:
http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2006/04/love_hate_tshir.php
I have had this t-shirt for more than 2 years - how much of a trend-setter am I?

More Photos
A couple more photos of what's been going on here:


Singing in the taxi


K! known to Australians as Karaoke, a single letter here will suffice. Do you think I can learn cantonese by listening to my friends sing?


Cows - not sure why, but there are a whole bunch of them on a little hill up the road

A bird in the hand is worth...

Pency and I ventured out to Jurong Bird Park on Saturday. It was on the recommendation of MW, so I was optimistic, but Pency did not have very high expectations.

I am pleased to say we were both impressed and had a lovely afternoon.

The good stuff

So many birds - there are over 9000 birds from 6090 species. Funny shows - We saw the 'All Star Bird Show' and the 'King of the Skies' (Birds of Prey show). Both made us laugh, especially when the birds wouldn't always co-operate! Up close and personal with the vultures - I was lucky enough to be selected in the birds of prey show to feed a vulture. Pency has a few photos, I will post them when she finds her camera cable and can download them. Confusion in the collection: We found a few tamarins in the park, it seems someone was confused between primates and birds.

The not so good stuff

Although most birds were kept in huge averies with lots of flying space if they needed to, there were some birds housed in very harsh conditions and I felt sorry for them. Sam-boy and his other talking friends were particularly sad to see. Though we had a good conversation - maybe he recognised a fello Aussie! There was a lack of information about a lot of the birds. Only about half the signs told me the name of the bird and where it was from. I would have liked to learn a bit more.

We followed the birds with dinner in Chinatown. The heat makes even a short day outside leave me feeling very worn out. So home to air conditioning and bed on Saturday night!

More photos:

Romance for one

On Sunday evening I ended up at a concert of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in the botanic gardens. It was totally unplanned and only serendipity that I decided to wander the gardens that evening, with plans to finish the book I was reading and have a little picnic.

So thanks to the SSO for putting on the concert for me! It was a collection of small pieces in various styles and I particularly enjoyed the finale - 'A tribute to the Bee Gees' - complete with the Stayin' Alive theme. More concerts in the gardens to come in June.



The gardens are quite lovely, and open until midnight every night. They are only a short bus ride from Orchard Road and have lots of different types of plants - orchids, ginger, cactii - and sculptures scattered through the park.

I finished the evening by sitting in a well lit bandstand and finishing my book. I watched some cute lizards playing on the ceiling of the bandstand and listened to the owls sound like an old fashioned game of arcade style pong.