A Little Fishy

So for those who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I took a day off work this week to go fishing! It was a great experience, even given the fact that it was a stocked lake and a blazing hot day! The really cool part was that it was a salt water lake next to the ocean, so many interesting species of fish could be caught, including snapper, grouper, and sea bass.

It was a slow day of fishing due to a very sunny and cloudless day. However, I was well rewarded and quite happy with this 2.2 kilo bass (5 lb). I was fishing with very light tackle and 6 lb line, so it was quite a fight with lots of jumping! Even the local fisherman were impressed by the size of the bass, they told me I was quite lucky. Being humble, I chose not to correct them ;)



Here is my friend Stacy with a Mango Jack Snapper, a tasty bottom fish!


The Snapper an hour later, prepared Thai style. Excellent!!


We enjoyed our fresh fish, fresh prawns (also caught by Stacy in a prawn pool), and a nice red wine at a seaside diner, very nice!!


Paying the price - can you say sunscreen?

The Teaching of Buddha

The past few days I have been enjoying reading a hotel copy of The Teachings of Buddha, which believe it or not, was distributed by the Gideons!

(Okay, the last part is a lie! For my Singaporan friends, the Gideon's are prolific distributers of hotel copies of the christian bible). Thus far I am enjoying my read of this abridged text of the teachings of Buddha.


Some of my favorite excerpts thus far, more comments later.

From section II - Causation:

As a net is made up by a series of knots, so everything in this world is connected by a series of knots. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken.

Parable of the wealthy man and the poor son.

A poor little boy ran away from his father when he was very young. He lived in another country for many years. He wandered about in all directions, seeking food and clothing. While wandering here and there, he happened to walk towards his home country. At that time his father stayed in a city of the country. He had been vainly looking for his son ever since. He was now very rich. He had innumerable treasures. His storehouses were filled with gold, silver, coral, and crystal. He had many servants, carts, cows, and sheep. He dealt with many merchants and customers.

The poor son came to the city where his father was living. The father had been thinking of his son ever since he had lost him. He thought, "I am old and decrepit. I have many treasures. But I have no son other than the missing one. When I die, my treasures will be scattered and lost. Therefore, I am always yearning for my son."
At that time the poor son happened to stand by the gate of the wealthy man's house. Seeing the rich man, the poor son was frightened and thought, "Is he a king or someone like a king? This is not the place where I can get some work to get food and clothing easily. If I stay here any longer, I shall be forced to work." He tried to run away.

The rich man recognized him at first sight as his son. He was delighted. He immediately dispatched a man standing beside him to quickly bring back the poor son. The messenger ran up to the poor son and caught him. The poor son was frightened and cried, "I have done nothing wrong. Why do you catch me?" The messenger pulled him by force. The poor son thought, "I am caught though I am not guilty. I shall be killed." More and more frightened, the poor son fainted and fell to the ground.

Seeing all this in the distance, the father said to the messenger, "I do not want him any more. Do not bring him forcibly! Pour cold water on his face to awaken him!" The father said this because he had realized that his son was too base and mean to meet a noble man. He knew that the man was his son, but expediently refrained from telling others that this was his son. Waking up, the poor son stood up and went to a village of the poor to get food and clothing. The wealthy man dispatched messengers in secret. He said to two men looking worn-out, powerless and virtueless, "Go and gently tell the poor man that he will be employed here for a double day's pay. If he agrees with you, bring him here and have him work to clear dirt and that you two also will work with him."

The poor son drew his pay in advance, and cleared dirt. Seeing him, the father had compassion towards him and took off his necklace, his garment and other ornaments. He put on tattered and dirty clothing. He came to the workers and said, "Work hard! do not be lazy!" Seeing this poor man working hard, the father told him, "Do not hesitate to take trays, rice, flour, salt and vinegar, as much as you need! Make yourself comfortable." Years later, the rich man gave him a name and called him son. The son was glad to be treated kindly, but still thought that he was an humble employee. Still more years passed. After that the father and the son trusted each other. Now the son felt no hesitation in entering the house of his father, but still lodged in his old place.

Now the rich man became ill. After a while the father noticed that his son had become more at ease and peaceful, that he wanted to improve himself, and that he felt ashamed of the thought that he was base and mean. The moment of death for the father drew near. The father told his son to call in his relatives, the king, ministers, and members of his household. When they were all assembled, he said to them, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is my son, my real son.

I am his real father. He ran away from me when I lived in a certain city, and wandered with hardships for more than fifty years. His name is so-and-so. All my treasures are his now." At that time the poor son was very glad to hear these words of his father. He had the greatest joy that he had ever had. He thought, "I never dreamed of having this store of treasures myself. It has come to me unexpectedly.

The wealthy man is the Eternal Buddha while the poor son is ourselves who do not realize that we are Buddha's children. We often ask Buddha, "Give me this! Give me that!" It is still a stage of shomon who is base and mean. Through the advice of the Buddha, if we put forth effort without giving up, we will be given precious treasures of Buddhahood.

Bare Foot Conversations

So I said I would post more on my dinner at the Bare Foot restaurant. Well, to begin with, I was luck to stumble into this non-descript building. If it hadn't been for the sign with a picture of feet and the catchy name, I could have easily passed it by. Located on a side street in little India, the restaurant offers traditional Southern Indian dining which consists of removing your shoes and sitting on pillows around a very low table. One important lesson I learned was to never underestimate the power of Southern Indian spices! When asked how spicy I wanted my dish, I chose level 4 out of a possible 6 given my normal penchant for rather spicy food. She hesitated and asked if I really wanted that level of spice, but I felt confident that I could handle it. Boy was I wrong! The first bite kicked me in the mouth like a mule and by bite six I could no longer feel my tongue. When the hostess returned and inquired whether it was too spicy I tried to look composed through my watering eyes and casually stated "nope, its perfect!" Lets just say I suffered later that night for my lie...

The best part of the night was that things were incredibly slow at the restraunt, so the hostess came over to check up on my meal and ended up sitting down to chat for a bit. Before we knew it we were discussing cultures, religion, human goodness, and all kinds-of other fun things! She claimed to have very little formal education in the area, but a Hindu priest had told her she had an "old soul," meaning that through many re-incarnations she had gained much wisdom. While she discarded such notions, by the end of the night I was inclined to believe it! What fun to meet up with such an interesting person in a very random place! In a microcosm this captures my fundamental joy of traveling thus far in my life, meeting people who approach life from very different vantage points, yet finding common ground and shared understanding.

Dinner update - tonight I enjoyed "clay pot frog legs" with friends at a rather well known establishment in an area known for its dining (Geylang). The frogs are live until shortly before your dinner, if they were any fresher they literally would be hopping! If you are a bit morbid, or just curious, you can pass by the side windows where lots of little Kermits wait their turn... If it makes you feel any better, I am told that the frogs had all enjoyed excellent lives and were "ready to go" as it were.

Little India

I spent the majority of today in Little India, checking out the local handicrafts for sale and dining at a wonderful restraunt called "Bare Feet Restaurant" (more on this tomorrow!).

I simply have to post the following picture of a bicycle taxi, Robin's day job!



A table setting at the "Bare Feet Restaurant" (more on this tomorrow).


Pastel anyone? A least directions to your apartment are a cinch: "I am on the 7th floor of the lime green building!"

Want to buy a bridge?

So a closely guarded secret in the Tennyson household is that Ken is fairly insufficient in the area of bargaining. Now this may come as a surprise, given his reputation for cleverness, wit, and brashness! The dark truth is that he has an uncanny ability to trust the slickest, most manipulative, and downright evil hawkers. One could argue that a willingly naive outlook on human nature, coupled with a positive view of the potential of all human beings, would justifiably result in such a state. My wife just takes the credit cards away...

So, given my keenly developed bartering skills, I descended into the infinite jungle of electronic shops that are on every corner in Singapore. My first goal was a 2nd battery as I have been quickly depleting my first one. I entered a shop covered in signs for Canon, Sony, Nikon, with a sense of smugness that indeed, this was my time to shine! In short order I walked out of the shop with the battery I had sought, a telephoto lens and adapter, and an ORIGINAL Canon camera bag thrown in to boot! All for the paltry price of US $300. When I got back to my hotel I thought I should check online for comparison prices (always a good thing to do AFTER you purchase...) to see just how good I did. The results were certain to be good, as I talked them down from $450 US, not an endeavor for the weak or faint of heart!

Much to my terrible surprise, I found that the telephoto lens was a poor quality lens that could be bought for less than $50 in the states! Perhaps I should have noticed the lack of Canon or any recognizable name brand on the lens... Indeed, the package including the battery, lens, and "original Canon" camera bag was worth $100 at best. Hmmm, the dark curtain descends.

Determined to rectify the situation I returned two days later, justifiably outraged and armed with copious amounts of knowledge regarding the prices of cheap spin-off Camera parts in Asia. In short order I threatened to contact the US embassy, the Singapore consumer association, and my credit card company. The now reticent salesman realized his mistake and after consultation advised me that his store does not accept returns and I had signed for the merchandise! Damn!

So, I now sit looking at a poor quality "GroBartig" tele lens that was apparently worth more than many digital cameras. Indeed, I shall not even share a subsequent triumph in which I shrewdly bartered for a 1 Gig memory card for my camera, having done my price comparison prior to shopping, only to find that a day later it conveniently has quit working. I would try to return it but I don't want to embarrass Singapore salesperson's any more than I already have. If anyone has heard of A DATA memory company, they owe me a CF flash card that works!

Signing off for a day of shopping,
Ken

China Town

Today I spent most of the morning and afternoon imersing myself in Singapore's China town. Here are some of the best shots from the day.

An outdoor flea market


An ancient carving in the Tibetian Art Museum.


An ancient remedies shop, selling all kinds of unusual items for anything that ails you!


Not sure how this guy helps, but I decided to stick with my cold medicine!


Inside a hindu temple in the middle of China town, gorgeous!


Standing under these paintings strongly reminded me of the Sistine Chapel!


Roadside market

Singapore Barbeque

Friday night I attended a barbeque at friends Stacy and Chung How's apartment. We enjoyed Satay (chicken-ka-bobs) with a traditional tasty peanut sauce, otay (fish cake wrapped in a leaf), grilled chicken wings, sting ray, a noodle dish, yams, and corn. It was a very nice setting in a courtyard surrounded by the high rise apartment buildings.

Here are the ladies


Otay (fish cake in a leaf)




A candle light table. The buildings in the back are government owned "flats," high rise apartment buildings.


Chung How displaying his barbequing expertise!


The men


Hanging out in their beautiful apartment.


Playing spoons in the study room. Perhaps one drink too many for Oo Wai!


Nothing is free in Singapore, I had to work for my dinner.


A temporarily full bottle of cognac.


Beautiful couple! Barry was saying something very wise at this precise moment! ;)

7-11 Everything You Ever Need

In Singapore, 7-11s are the one stop for almost all conceivable needs. Things you can purchase at a 7-11 here: Phone Cards, Cell Phone SIM Cards, Hard Liquor, Soft Liquor, food, add cash to your 'cash card' (used for parking around Singapore), basically all your essential needs (communication, liquor, and occasional food).

I imagine I have only begun to explore all that 7-11s have to offer, although it really is to my dismay to find the familiar convenience store on EVERY corner! This weekend I will dive into China town and Little India to escape the franchises!

Orchard Road

Orchard Road is very close to my hotel and is one of the top shopping emporiums in Asia (aka major tourist trap). The Christmas decorations are amazing, they go over the top with dazzling lights and displays on every corner.



You just can't escape Starbucks!


Okay, look closely and see see if you catch the incredible irony in the following two pictures. Leave me a response if you catch it....wow.



Simply gorgeous, block upon block looks this way.


Okay, way too many caucasians in the store fronts!


I would have gone shopping at Paragon, but all I could afford was this picture.


Oh, and a quick food update. Tonight I enjoyed sea cucumber and abalone, very tasty once I got over the texture! Last night was eel and sushi, yummy!

Ken

Bukit Timah Natural Preserve

I spent the morning hiking about in Bukit Timah Natural Preserve. It is an original, untouched piece of rainforest that thankfully was set aside years ago. It is home to thousands of species of flora and fauna, and they are still discovering new species. I found it strange that the locals coming down the trail were all carrying small towels around their necks, but after 30 minutes in the sweltering 90 degree humidity under the canopy, I clearly understood! I could barely see sometimes due to the copious amounts of sweat poring off my brow. Needless to say, it was well worth the adventure. Given the poor lighting it wasn't a perfect environment for pictures, but thankfully a few shots turned out nicely, they are below. Click on the images for a larger pic.

Singapore Zoo

A truly amazing zoo, famed fair and wide for its efforts to make the viewer feel completely in the natural habitat of the animals. Bars or other deterrants are hidden from view, giving an uncanny sense of having unhindered access to the animals. Not perhaps as revealing of Sinagpore culture as other posts (look for more to come shortly), but humor me in my love of the natural kingdom.

An amazing fruit bat, with a two foot wing span. They were flying all around me in the enclosed tropical habitat.



Wow, breathtaking. Especially when he would look directly at me!


One of Chloe's (my pot bellied pig) less attractive relatives.


A tropical flower


A wonderfuly playful baby hippo! A few moments later the enormous mother was carefully nudging the baby in order to push it up onto the shoreline. Wow!


Ring tails over my head in the enclosed tropical habitat. These guys are free to roam all around you.


Click on the images for larger pictures.

Captain's Ball

I had a good, but busy, day at work. I was invited to stay after and play with my Singapore colleagues in a competitive game of Captains ball. Essentially it is ultimate Frisbee except that the frisbee is always live even if it hits the ground, it is played in a tennis court, and to score a goal you have to throw the frisbee to your goalie at the opposite end of the court. We played 2 games, one with a frisbee and one with a volley ball. It was a fun game that was mildly competitive but surprisingly team oriented and nice to the opposition, wow! I think I was guilty of fouling more than most, but the refs seemed to give me a beginners grace. I didn't let on that I always play sports that way! ;)

It was great fun to be included, I appeared to be the only non-Singaporean in attendance. We all wore matching T-Shirts and there was lots of emphasis on working together. Everyone were painfully good sports, I really had to shape up. I do enjoy this respectful culture though, it could really rub off (although I wouldn't hold your breath!).

The picture is of our winning team after the two competitions. We soundly beat Dry Etch, much to everyone's pleasure. I was told I did a good job, but I think the main thing I accomplished was a lot of sweating in the humid air.

Map of Singapore

Here is a link to an interactive map of Singapore. I am staying in the south just west of the city. I am working in the north directly across from Johor Baharu in the Woodlands industrial park. You may note that the actual city of Singapore is only a small portion of the island. There is also a surprising amount of green space!

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&country=SG&addtohistory=&city

Also of interest is a wiki entry on Singapore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

And perhaps the most important link is the only remaining original rainforest preserved in Singapore. Scroll down the page for some great pictures of some of the rainforest's flora and fauna.

http://ecologyasia.com/html-loc/bukit-timah.htm

Singlish and Driving

Today was all about learning how to interpret Singlish and driving on the wrong side of the car/road. Singlish is basically an English dialect, with words borrowed from Malay and Chinese, as well as unusual uses of english words. For instance, to add additional funds to a parking card is to "top on" the card. An overpass on an expressway is a "fly over," and a roundabout is called a "circus." Many of the words make sense, some of the novelties are British holdovers from what I understand.

Another fascinating oddity was the way I observed several conversations. One person would be speaking in Chinese, while the other person would respond in English. Sometimes the person speaking in English would switch to Chinese, and so on. Clearly most are very fluent in both languages and seem to be able to easily hold a conversation in two different languages, impressive!

The Singaporean's are very disciplined, as they will quickly point out. I received some teasing from several locals for parking my car "head in," instead of backing in to the parking spot. When I commented that either way, you have to drive backwards once, they said that no one desires to be different from the norm. I tried to explain the concept of a fish going upstream but they just smiled and shook their heads.

For lunch I ate at a "coffee shop." A coffee shop is a food court with out air conditioning. If it has air conditioning it is called a: food court. I had my local colleagues order for me and enjoyed a South Indian chicken curry rice dish, followed by a cold ice drink with milo heavily sprinkled over the top (anyone remember milo from when they were kids?).

Driving was an adventure. I have driven on the left before, but the steering wheel was still on the left. In this case the steering wheel is on the right, so my brain was all screwed up! Needles to say, I made it the 30 KM or so to work from my hotel without major incident. Traffic was surprisingly reasonable, probably due to the cost prohibitive nature of owning a car in Singapore. I was excited to find out that my rental car can cross the border into Malaysia for only a small fee, so that will definitely be part of my weekends!

Well, it is 9:00 PM here and I think I will turn in. For those of you reading this please leave me comments if you are so inclined, I always appreciate them!

Ken

*Hopefully I will have some cool pics up tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Arrival

Well, the trip over was surprisingly quick for a 22 hour flight! I was surprised to see that the flights path covered an arc over the great lakes, above Alaska, and across the Bering straight until we reached our midway point in Tokyo, Japan. Arriving in Singapore at 12:20 a.m. local time, everything went amazingly smooth. The Singapore people pride themselves on efficiency and it really shows!

The taxi drive in showed some really unusual trees that I am anxious to see in daylight. I woke up to a strange sounding bird in the distance. Singapore has a small portion of original jungle that has been protected, complete with primates and trees many hundreds of years old, sweet
!

I am preparing to grab a cab and go pick up my car in a bit, so that's it for now!

Ken

B-Day Thoughts

On the day of my hallowed birthday, I though I would reflect on the BEST birthday present I have every received! Now you might be thinking of a Sony Playstation, or perhaps that first rifle years ago, but I have something even better in mind: The 2006 Mid-Term Elections! Wooo hoo, what a wonderful gift! And lest you think me facetious, this truly is a uplifting and tremendously exciting day for me. After years of watching a beautiful country take hawkish stance after hawkish stance, alienating ourselves from even our closest allies, it is wonderful to see the power in our Government re-balanced. Of course I will be deeply disappointed if the Dems use this as a chance to engage in witch hunts, something I strongly hope they avoid. My hope is that a more reasonable and sensitive government will emerge. Are the Democrats that much better in the end, I'm not absolutely sure yet. But I am sure that an imbalance of power in a Governmental system is NEVER a good thing, so this has got to help some!

For any friends or family members who might be miffed at my words above, gimme a break - it's my B-Day for goodness sake!!

The Morning After

Kieran does not like hoods, hats, anything on his head. Surprisingly, he tolerated the ghost hood quite well. The next day, after his bath, he ran all around the house with his towel on his head, being a ghost.


Raaarrrr!!!


Content by Maranda