a380 airborne

I’ve seen the A380 quite a few times, but I saw it airborne for the first time a few days ago from the train when I was going to work as it was about to touch down in Singapore. I'm thinking of photographing it airborne, now that I know of a vantage point to do it….

snail in singapore

I just saw a snail. “So what’s the big deal?” you might ask. The thing is I believe this is the first time I’ve seen a snail in this sterile biodiversity coldspot that Singapore is.

trying to be home for reunion dinner

I’m on standby on the second day of Chinese New Year. If only I could give it away, I can be back in KL in time for Reunion Dinner….

2 days off

Finally, after over a month, I’m getting two days off after my five-day Penang-Christchurch flight. The last time I had two days off was on the 2nd and 3rd of December after Cape Town, but I took the opportunity to go back to KL, so it was very hectic. The last time I had two days in Singapore was the 27th and 28th of October!

tapir torch

malayan tapir, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

Someone on Flickr asked about this photo recently and I thought the story behind it is quite interesting, so I decided to blog about the incident.

This photo was taken on a trip to Taman Negara in 2003. There were four of us on the trip, but only three of us made the trip to the hide where this photo was shot, as one guy left us for KL a day earlier. It was our last full day of the trip. We had to leave the next morning.

A guide had told us that Malayan tapirs (Tapirus indicus) had been spotted recently at Kumbang Hide, so we decided to spend the night there and check it out for ourselves. Kumbang Hide was supposed to be an easy 5-hour hike from the park headquarters or an even easier 45-minute hike from Kuala Trenggan. Since we did have the whole day, we decided to hike from the park headquarters and arranged for a boat to pick us up at Kuala Trenggan the next morning.

The day started off well; the weather was good and we found out that it only costs RM5 per person to spend the night in the hide and there were vacant bunks for us. We started our hike late in the morning and soon came across a crested fireback pheasant (Lophura ignita) in our path. We had only been walking for about an hour when we decided to stop for lunch at a little jetty by the river. I can’t remember what we had, but it must have been something simple we had packed earlier.

After a refreshing rest, we continued on our journey. If I remember correctly, it only started raining after lunch. Soon, the hike became torturous in the rain and our backpacks started to feel like they weighed a tonne, and we were getting bitten by lots of leeches. I don’t usually get bitten by leeches as I can usually feel their cold bodies crawling on me, but I just couldn’t feel them when I was drenched in sweat and rain.

There was some occasional reprieve whenever the rain stopped momentarily, but the mud and leeches were still annoying. Our spirits were really lifted when we came across some tracks left by Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), including juveniles. At that time, that was the closest thing to a wild elephant any of us had ever seen.

The map that we had was very straightforward, showing a single trail along the river which veered away from the river and crossed a little stream. However, the trail we were on split occasionally and was sometimes ambiguous. We were definitely not very sure that we were on the right trail but were fairly confident that we were walking in the right direction and just made guesses whenever the trail split. We thought we had crossed the stream until we came across another stream, and then another. By now, we were getting a little worried that we might be somewhat lost as it was going to get dark soon.

Eventually, we came across a river and realised that that was the ‘stream’ in our map. It qualified as a stream I guess, but what I had in mind was more like a brook. I remember it to be about thigh deep and about 10 to 15 metres wide. I think there was a rope to help us get across. It certainly wasn’t an easy task, but not altogether life-threatening.

Now, if the trail before the river was ambiguous, the trail after the river was downright puzzling. If memory serves me well, the map showed a straight trail broken by a stream. However, after crossing the river, there was little clearing and two trails leading to completely different directions, none of which were straight ahead relative to the trail before the river! Suddenly, we were again unsure if we were on the right trail. I can’t remember which trails we took but we did eventually get to Kumbang Hide, albeit via a different trail, we suspect.

When we arrived, after 7 hours of hiking, I counted over 30 leech bites on my legs, which were oozing with blood all over. As expected, the shower was cold, but the door was missing, and it faced the steps up the hide, i.e. the first thing one sees when climbing up the hide is the doorless bathroom, and perhaps a naked bum. However, we were covered in sweat and blood, at least I was, and badly needed to shower, so we took turns to shower and no one walked in on us up the hide.

After we had cleaned up, a family arrived at the hide. They had come from Kuala Trenggan and had taken the correct shorter trail and gave us directions on how to get to jetty at Kuala Trenggan.

We were seated at the viewing window of the hide and waited in the dark. We were not sure if we were supposed to be shining a light around or just wait to see something in the dark. I already had on hand a rather large torchlight which I had bought for the trip. We were sure we weren’t going to see much in the dark but thought that perhaps light would frighten any animals away, so we waited a little while.

Hmm…to shine or not to shine, that is the question. We finally decided to just try shining some light around just for a while, just to take a look. So I turned on my torch and shined it in front of us. Lo and behold there stood a tapir before us, completely unbothered by the light. It didn’t stay long after we spotted it but soon another came along and this one stayed for over half an hour. This is the animal photographed above and the light was supplied by my trusty torch now christened the ‘tapir torch’.

photo (as yet untitled)

IMG_2291a, originally uploaded by dckf_$êr@pH!nX.

This photo was from my recent flight to Cape Town. It was taken at Hout Bay.

paha

It just occurred to me recently that the Malay word paha is not pronounced in the standard way KL Malay deviates from bahasa baku. Usually only the last syllable is “modified”, but the case of paha, both syllables are “modified”, i.e. it is pronounced “per-her” not “pah-her”.

flickr paralysed

Arghhh! I’ve been trying to upload photos to Flickr for the past few days but have been encountering problems and it seems that I’m not the only one.

durian runtuh

I was rostered for a flight to Shanghai recently which was later cancelled, and I was put on standby instead. I was extremely displeased by this arrangement as I had already bought a ticket to watch Wangi Jadi Saksi, a play directed by U-Wei, on the day I was supposed to return from Shanghai, but now my plans were all up in the air.

Much to my delight, on the day that I was on standby, I was called up to operated a flight to Malé, as I have always dreamt of visiting the Maldives. But that’s not all; one of my best friends was also operating that flight, and she had swapped her rostered flight much earlier to be on this flight. We were just talking over dinner the night before about how wonderful it would be if I were to be called up for her flight, but we both dismissed it as wishful thinking. But I did get called up for her flight! What are the odds of that?

How wonderful it was to get to go to the Maldives with my friend for work! It was also our first flight together.

To top the cake with icing, I did manage to catch the play after all as I arrived back in Singapore on the same day as I would have if I had operated the Shanghai flight.

local food

Food is usually good where it comes from. Thai food is good in Thailand, Indian food is good in India, Japanese food is amazing in Japan, as is Italian food in Italy. Penang food is nothing short of heavenly in Penang. So why then can Chinese food be soooo baaad in China?

no lift landing

In my Singapore residence, my floor has no lift landing. I live in an HDB flat block with ancient lifts that stop on certain floors only. Evidently, designed by some fuckwit. I’m on the second floor (third floor/level/storey in Singapore) and the lifts stop at the ground, fifth, tenth, and fourteenth floors only. So, when I got back from Frankfurt this morning, with a cabin bag and a huge cargo bag, I had to go through quite a bit of trouble just to bring my bags up.

After getting out of the taxi, I wheeled both my bags to the lift lobby and had to carry them up a few steps to the lift landing (another stupendously moronic design). I then went up to the fifth floor, carried them down a few steps from the lift landing to the general floor level, wheeled them to the stairwell which would bring me to my flat, and carried them up a few steps to the stair landing. I then locked my cargo bag to the banister with a bicycle lock and carried my cabin bag three floors down to my flat. After depositing my cabin bag in my flat, I then went to retrieve my cargo bag. Whenever I travel without a cargo bag, I just use the stairs and carry my bags up two floors.

photos blogged

Some of my photos on Flickr were blogged here, here, and here.

my 1st pc

Finally, after months of saving, I’ve purchased a Sony Viao FZ VGN-FZ17G. This is the first PC I’ve bought with my own hard-earned money. Now that I’m connected online at home, I should be able to blog more often….