As I Xi It

So, here I am, in Singapore. I’ve been here for a couple of days now and I’ve got to say that the weather’s been rather variable from thunderstorms to rather pleasant sunny weather.

It’s been a fairly relaxing holiday, just chilled out really. Took a stroll along Orchard Rd., did a bit of shopping, met some of Jac’s chums and did some photography.

Bioluminescent Fungi

Visited Venus Drive on Friday night to photograph some bioluminescent mushrooms and other night time critters. The fungi did glow in the dark, were reasonably easy to spot and some glowed more than others. Naturally, I got attacked by some mozzies. Bizzarely, all my bites were on my left arm. I counted four. The swelling has reduced significantly over the past couple of days. Still a little itchy from time to time.

On Saturday, I mostly hung out with Marcus, we had a stroll around Little India and made our way towards the Esplanade by foot to take pics of Scouts as commanded by Jac.

Earth Hour by The Esplanade.

It was also Earth Hour where they kill the lights on some of the buildings in the central business district (CBD) as part of the WWF campaign on climate change I think it is. It’s something eco and green. I did notice some buildings and monuments go out, but not that much.

Singapore Skyline

Anywhoo, I took a couple of snaps of the Singapore skyline to go with my collection of skylines from around the globe and I’ve got to say that it’s a pretty good photo. The sky was a nice graduation of blue with a couple of clouds. While sitting along the waterfront, Jac and I reminised about how when we were doing night photography along the River Thames, it’d be absolutely freezing, we’d be all togged up and still cold. There’d be drunken passer by’s inviting us to Coventry, random guys just standing next to us and we’d be hungry for any tasty morsel of food. Here, I’m just in shorts and a tee, reclining on the steps of the Waterfront.

I’m writing this from Dubai airport (DBX) while waiting for my flight to Singapore (SIN)…in 5 hours time. So what better way to will away the hours than to do some writing.

Anyway, lets start with how I got here.

Last Thursday, I had lunch with one of Jac’s mates from Singapore who’s working over here. He’d written a book with Jac about Singapore’s heritage sites. I flicked through it and it made me realise how long it’d been since I saw Jac, how I missed our adventures and how I missed travelling (I know I was in the Arctic Circle a few weeks ago, but that was last month!).

When I got back to the office after lunch, I had a look at last minute flight prices to Singapore, found a reasonably priced one and then reeled off and email to Jac to see whether she’d be free for me to visit. It turned out that she was and so I booked and here I am. Flying Emirates, departing from Gatwick (LGW), connecting in DBX both ways.

It’s been a rather eventful trip so far. First, I had a run-in with security at LGW. I had forgotten that I’d left my credit card Swiss Army Knife in the zip pocket of my Filofax! Given the option to go through check-in again or to have them confiscate it, I just told them to dispose. Can’t be bothered to go through the rigmarole of check-in again, even though the Emirates queue was really short, unlike Easyjet who, unsurprisingly, had a very long queue. Probably mostly Brits all going to the Costa Del’s.

Next, up in the air, the flight attendant managed to throw an ice cube at my head. Not really a normal accident, but it happened. That was fine, it just slipped and aimed at me, I managed to salvage it after it bounced off my forehead.

A couple of hours later, another flight attendant who was serving me tea managed to serve it all over my lap. It was hot, Hot, HOT! I was somewhat soggy, but managed to dry off by the time I’d arrived in Dubai.

I’ve still got my connecting flight from DBX to SIN to go. I wonder what’s next, ambient temperature viscous juice?

This is just brilliant!! For those who don’t know, it won the 2010 oscar for best animated short film and rightly so!

I was about to brush my teeth this morning when I looked out the window and saw some sort of ginger four-legged animal run across the garden and scaled the fence. I rushed back to my room, put my glasses on and saw that it was a fox! At first, I thought it might be that big ginger cat who sometimes likes to terrorise Cici. So, I dashed back to my room, put on the telephoto and shot it. Not the best pic, but you can clearly tell that it’s a fox. It’s not as manky as some of the foxes I’ve seen at night.

Fox!

What would be really nice to see is a hedgehog. Haven’t seen one in years. When I was a kid, they’d always be visiting and staying over in the garage.