Lions and Tigers and Bears...

... and lots of monkeys - oh my!

A couple of weekends ago I used up that combination ticket and went up north to the Singapore Zoo. The girls from Hong Kong joined me and we enjoyed Peking Duck afterwards for dinner. We also discovered that Michelle has a highly trained KFC nose - she smelt the fried goodness from about 300m away and deduced there was a KFC nearby.

Another highlight was the discovery of Cool Shelters. These are little air conditioned huts scattered through the zoo - just pop in if you need to cool down!



I won't say too much - but hooray for an open plan zoo, where all the 'safe' animals are in open enclosures. I think it's a nicer life for the animals and it was quite fun to tease the lemurs!

Lots of photos below - all taken with the new camera!

On the line

What an attractive bunch!

A few things are different about frisbee in Singapore:

• We play in a bit of a swamp, so it's all about the mud


• I have had to learn to play with my mouth closed so as not to swallow any dragon flies


• It's so hot and humid that I drink 2 litres of water and 1 litre of sports drink for just 2 hours of play


• Our captain calls the line each time - unfortunately this makes me play more than I usually want to!


• They love their horizontal plays. I still think that a vertical stack is easier for beginners.

Pretty

Outside Capital tower in the CBD

Painful but fun

Over the last couple of weeks I have been sucked into the hype over the world cup. Singaporeans love their soccer and follow the world cup seriously - even though they didn't qualify. Actually most of them seem to support England - I guess for the historical sentiment? The expats also don't seem to miss a chance to don the green and gold and drink lots of beer.

I've never really followed soccer, but the atmosphere here sucked me in. I decided my top 3 teams were Australia (obviously), then Netherlands (due to my family living there and who couldn't love a team in bright orange?), then Argentina (in honour of my Argentinian friend Romi). So after last night - I have all my hopes hanging on the blue and white.

Hope Australia isn't too depressed today. Congrats Socceroos - I am looking forward to 2010!

On the spot Blogging from Rad-Man

B recently spent 10 days in Singapore. It was great to have him here and see where I was living and working. It was also very difficult to say goodbye last week. But it was fun to come home each night and hear what he had gotten up to exploring Singapore. I'll leave the rest of this post to him:

"I personally don't blog. I'm not sure if there are some subtleties I should be aware of, but I'll just dive straight in with my thoughts and insights into the land known as 'Singapore', which in the native tongue means 'Vocalist with little money'.

Singapore is different: Escalators travel twice the speed of Australian ones, Buses and Trains are reliable, and, as we've seen, there is no Bam. None.

Singapore History 101 with Rad-Man: Like Australia, there isn't a lot of history, relative to other countries, that you have to worry about before you can have a pretty good understanding about what's been going on. Basically the island's natives packed up shop in the same period as when the Dutch and the British were going gangbusters in the South China Sea, and so the island was basically deserted until the Poms colonised it in the 1800's. I really got into the World War II historical aspect of the place as well, and found myself checking out a heap of monuments, cemetaries, battlefields, and other historical sites. It is a little eerie stepping on the same ground that a few thousand Aussies were engaged in hand-to-hand combat for their lives, or witnessing the actual room where the Allied General Officer in Command (GOC) Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, met with the Japanese Commander, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, to unconditionally surrender both Singapore and around 80,000 Aussie, Indian and British troops. Spooky.

Animal Crackers: Oh, and they have spiders over here that look like bats. Small bats.



See. Bat-Spider.... Which isn't really all that surprising, considering when we were at the zoo we saw Sloth-Bears, Mouse-Deers, and Hog-Badgers. One thing about the Night Safari, there is no Flying Squid. I had a lady ask me where the 'Flying Squid' was, and I said that I had no idea but that's awesome. I later worked out she actually meant 'flying squirrel', which is nowhere near as exciting. The squirrel also turned out to be absent - I guess it flew away.

So yeah. Singapore is a pretty friendly place to get around and along with. I'm back in Sydney now and freezing my poor little toes off, wishing I was back there.

Rad-Man out."

Not so Bam in Singapore

Don't worry if you don't get it.

Night Safari

One of the famous spots on the Singapore tourist trail is the Night Safari. B and I made it out there while he was here and I was very impressed!

I must confess I really like zoos, but living in a city with a great zoo, I expect a lot. Night safari didn't disappoint and I reccomend it to any Singapore visitor.

The best parts were having a good chat to the otters and the overall open setup of the zoo. There are times when you are right up close to some of the more harmless animals, and only very rarely are you looking at anything through glass.

The not so great parts are the other people visitng the zoo because they can be very noisy and how hard the zoo is to get to, relative to other parts of Singapore.

Here are my tips for a successful Night Safari visit:

• Get in early. We ran out of time. I would have liked to stay a little longer. The zoo opens at 7:30pm and if you're not paying for the taxi into the city, I'd recommend leaving by 10:45pm to get reasonable public transport.


• Walk. Not everything is visible from the train ride and I had the most fun stopping for a while at my favourite animals. But try to escape the crowds by taking the least popular paths or lagging behind the crowd. I think you'll see more.


• Sit up front in the train. The zoo workers don't like you to, but anywhere else on train exposes you to noisy children. Up the back is a risk because you don't see what the commentator is talking about until much later.


• Research the transport options. The zoo and night safari are in the north of Singapore. I was rushing to escape work so we caught a taxi from the financial district via Orchard. This cost SGD$23 (includes booking fee). We caught a shuttle bus back to Orchard Rd, which stops at various hotels for SGD$4 per person. The bus/bus and bus/mrt combinations are cheaper but more difficult and longer - I think you need about 45 minutes travel time.
  
• Skip the show. I thought it was silly.

I bought the combined zoo + night safari ticket, so I hope to update you within a month with my review of the Singapore zoo.

Finally Frisbee

The Singapore Ultimate Frisbee league finally started on Sunday. I have a very nice team that are all locals except for one American guy. This means that I have to learn a lot of Chinese names that I have never heard before, but at least I know the American guy is Mick!

I started the season off well, scoring the first point of the game. It was a dramatic cut to the open side with the thrower being forced tightly to the sideline. My defender was a few meters behind me but a few other guys from the defensive team decided to jump towards the disc - this left me skidding along the ground so that I was left with a bit of a graze on my arm - not the best quality pitch!

The team (yet to be named - any suggestions?) led to 5-0, when our opposition began their comeback. The scores where tied at 12-12 with 2 minutes to go. We pulled through with the last point to take the game. My lungs were struggling with the humidity and I was drenched with the-sweat-that-will-not-evaporate, so it was with relief that I put my muddy, smelly self back on the MRT to the city.

Impressions of the quality of play are about the same as a Div 3 at NSL. The Singapore League keeps stats on all the players - I've started week one with one catch (point) and one D. I'll let you know when I improve on that.

And yes - B joined me here on Saturday afternoon! He came along to frisbee and couldn't keep himself off the field (I tried!). I am sure he'll write a few blog posts for me before his time here is up.

Qantas vs. Singapore Airlines

I arrived back in Singapore last night. I flew for the first time internationally with Qantas - my company encourages us to fly with them (I suppose they get discounts or some such), but so far I have been going to Singapore with Singapore Airlines. It was good to get a comparrison:

• Check-in: I love Singapore Airlines on-line check in. I can get to the airport 60 minutes before my flight, go straight to the counter and get my boarding pass. I can do this with or without baggage to check in. Qantas do not have this service and I spent 30 minutes waiting to check in yesterday.


• Waiting: This may be coincidence, but I felt that yesterday's trip included much more time waiting in queues. Immigration took longer, bags took longer to come onto the carousel etc. Do the Qantas gates have less immigration officers? Does Terminal 1 at Singapore have slower times for baggage handling than Terminal 2 or was I just unlucky?


• Cabin Crew: I found Qantas staff to be overall less friendly than Singapore Airlines staff. I like my 'thank-youuuuus' as I get off the plane, I don't like being growled at when my computer is taking a little while to shut down.


• Special needs: Here is where Qantas scored points. Yet again my gluten free meal was left off the ticket (I blame the company travel agent, not the airline) but the Qantas check-in guy made some quick phonecalls and I scored my gluten free food. The Qantas staff also paid each family with young children special attention.


• Food: I like my aeroplane food. I think Singapore Airlines has better food both gluten free and not. It just tastes better. But overall for me, the two airlines are still about equal. Singapore makes great tasting food, but their gluten free breakfast has repeatedly been a couple of rice cakes and some pieces of orange. Qantas also offered me an icecream about 10 time during the flight - I like ice cream.
  

Now what?
So I am back at work and recovering from a big couple of days in Sydney. It was great to catch up with everyone and get a couple of games of Ultimate in. The cold weather was a nice change as well - but I am glad to be back in 28 degree days here. Thanks to everyone that made an effort to see me - I appreciated it!

I am looking forward to B coming to visit for 10 days on Saturday and the Singapore Ultimate league starting on Sunday.

Because B is taking my June flyback, I don't plan to be back in Sydney until at least late July. I hope I can last that long!

Getting away from the desk

I recently enjoyed two work related events - both involved a bit of much needed exercise!

East Coast Park by bike



The first was an afternoon at East Coast Park cycling around the various paths, followed by dinner. Highlight was drinking lots of coconuts after we had sweated it out on the bikes for a bit. Dinner was a good chinese seafood meal at the other end of the park.
I will definately be heading back to East Coast park for some roller blading and kayaking in the near future. Not swimming though - the container ships hanging around suggest that perhaps the water is not too clean!
Photo 1 is of flatmate, me and Michelle from the client. Background is some rather impressive sand castle building we found.
Photo 2 is of some of the gals having a rest.

Investments goes skating



I was in charge of the team's May social event. We get a fixed budget each month to spend on just getting out of the office. We all trekked out to Jurong East entertainment centre for some ice skating.
It was amusing to see the guys from India try to skate and we had a huge Dragon (or snake - where everyone skates in a line) happenning by the end. I was proud to see everyone get away from the wall by the end of the night. We then headed to Mezza9's Martini bar for some cocktails to spend the remainder of the monthly budget - a 'Blue Bikini' was a hit. Must try to recreate at home!
However the highlight of the evening was at our quick dinner at McDonalds. I tried my first rice burger- yes there is a burger where instead of a bread bun, it is rice. A nice idea for a gluten free burger, but I don't think I would go back to Maccas for it again. The practicailities of eating rice without cultery, no matter how much it has been compressed, really don't agree with me!