As I Xi It

So, here we are, coming to the end of 2010 and time for yet another retrospective review of the year gone by.

One of the main ambitions of this year was the 12 hols in 12 months project, however, it had to be abandoned in November due to lack of time, and to some degree, funds. Instead of 12 hols in 12 months, it’s become 9 hols in 9 months. Not very catchy. It would’ve been better had it been 10 hols in 10 months, 10′s a nice and round number.

It seemed pretty appropriate to select snowy pics from Richmond Park to start and end 2010.

So, here I am, back at my desk in London having returned from a very chilled out tropical holiday. It was hot, hot, hot.

Spontaneous Singapore 2010 from Xi on Vimeo.

Sometime last week, Marcus and I went to Fika, a Scandinavian restaurant in Little India which I thought was a little odd location-wise. You’d expect that sort of European cusine to be somewhere along Orchard Road. It was quite good, but I didn’t see any reindeer on the menu. No elk either eventhough the logo was the shiloette of an elk. On the menu were the usual Scandinavian type things, potatoes, salmon, meatballs. I was a little surprised not to see chopped dill in the boiled potatoes. After Scandinavia, I had my much awaited cendol at some Malay place, shooting the breeze in the outdoors table. There was a bit of a confusion where our cendol ended up on another table, but then it eventually wound up at ours. It was mighty good and some of the green snotty bits looked like leeches. Nice. While we’re on the topic of deserts, I managed to have my much awaited ice kachung! It was very colourful and artificial and syrupy. Mmmm…. muy bien.

Jac and I caught up with Cherlyn who neither of us have see since Biology and went to the Sunset Grill & Pub in the middle of Seletar airbase. It was really cool, all the roads were named after places in London and the ambience of the place was quite good. Ate outdoors, I believe Jac got nibbled by some mozzies, I didn’t surprisingly.

We also visited Pulau Ubin, one of the offshore islands where we shot some insects and I managed to get attacked by both the sun and those pesky mosquitoes. It was seriously hot, hot, hot! While I was reeling off a couple of shots of a katydid, I could feel myself get drenched from all the sweat. For an offshore island, it wasn’t as windy as I’d expected. However, when we sat down to lunch, the breeze blew the spicy hot chili fumes towards us causing us much occular and nasal irritation. I also managed to get myself sunburnt with the most spectacular effects. In the pics, you can clearly see where my sleeves end and the sunburn begin. I’ve never been so sunburnt, my arms were red hot during the night and turning down the AC to 16^oC didn’t seem to help all that much. I was radiant like a cooked lobster.

I guess no entry (or series of entries) about Singapore is complete without an account of the shopping. Well, there certainly isn’t a shortage of shops there. The other day, Jac and I visited Vivocity where the Singapore branch of The National Geographic Society shop was. It was very much in the same style as the one in London on Regents Street, but I reckon the London one is bigger (spread over three floors) and it has an integrated cafe which the Singapore one hasn’t. There were far more NG London tees than Singapore ones which I thought was odd. Vivocity also had the Japanese equivalent of a pound shop here. It has some pretty cool crap for only $2 (£1). I brought a whole bunch of miniature wooden clothes pegs and other things I never thought I needed till I saw them. There was also a pet shop with some neat pet things (duh!) and everything was laid out so much more neater than the typical British pet shop. It didn’t even have that characteristic pet shop smell of dry cat/dog food and woodshavings. I was a little disappointed not to find a cute little house for Watson. Vivocity had a whole bunch of shops selling odd, useless but very cute things too. Although I didn’t see one, I’m sure there was a Giordano’s in there. There’s always a Giordano’s.

After yum cha with The Lau’s, Jac dropped me off at nearby Raffles City since I had some errands to run and of course more shopping to do. I had a wonder around, popped into the supermarket downstairs and stocked up on a bunch of snacks. I then strolled over to Suntec and got bored there walking round and round the endless collection shops.

On my last night in Singapore, Jac, LK and I went to Fort Canning Park. Marcus was being a poo poo head so didn’t come with us. Apparently, Fort Canning is suppose to be haunted, but I didn’t see any ghosts or poltergeist activity. I’ve also been informed that there are lots of mozzies there, but I failed to get bitten by one. I thought I was attacked, but it must’ve been psychosomatic. Unless they were phantom mozzies… woooo….

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Oh, I should probably say something about my flight home. There were no problems with the first leg apart from me possibly missing my flight due to a combination of Jac and I waiting ages at some food outlet at Changi airport for a rather bland French toast, odd tasting coffee and a rather dry and pathetic so-called “English” muffin and whining about said “edible” items. The last call announcement was made, but I wasn’t the last on board. There were still plenty after me. Didn’t get a chance to do browse duty free. Obviously haven’t shopped enough.

On the way back to London, the transit time in Dubai was only about 2 hours. I browsed through duty free and there were many novelty camel figurines and stuffed toys. None of which I had the desire to purchase. I suppose it would’ve been nice to get a wooden camel to keep the wooden giraffe I brought at duty free in South Africa. I guess I could start up a wooden duty free zoo then. No calamaties for me between DXB and LGW, however, the man sitting in the aisle (I was by the window) did have water spilt on him. Normally, when flying solo, I prefer an aisle seat, however, I predicted that on the flight to LGW there would be a good chance of flying over those man-made islands. I was right. Now I feel like I’ve seen Dubai and can add that to my list of places I’ve visited.

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?