Booty Call

After a two-year long hiatus, BooTay makes her debut reappearance! This can only mean one thing - the BooTay's gonna get some wet n wild action...

First stop, Tanah Merah.

After finding our way through some lalang (tall, wild grasses) and shrubbery, we reach an expansive shore, lit by the light (not the beam but the light) of the silvery moon and vessels at sea, docked in the distance. We can even see the CBD skyline from here... quite hard not to miss that wheel-in-the-sky (that doesn't always keep on turning).

I haven't been out to the shore at low tide for about 2 years and haven't been blogging about such trips for just as long, so I'm a bit out of touch lah. The pictures are also a bit overexposed because it's the first time I'm using this particular camera for pre-dawn photography, and I have yet to figure out if there's a way to adjust the intensity of the flash.

So here we go...

Ghost Crab

Anemone

Filefish

The BIGGEST slug I've ever seen!

The prettiest slug on shore

Sea grapes

Purple climber crab

Lazy onch hitching a ride on a nerite

I am Prawn, master of disguise! Earghhh!! Darn my Willy Wonka eyes!!

I am Gong-gong, the real master of disguise! Muahaha--- arrghhh! Darn my foot-mouth syndrome!

Now here's the real deal... How many fish can you spot in this picture?

Frogs, Phlegm n Dimsum

We're having dimsum for breakfast after a trip to Frog Island. November has a bad cough. Bernie too. Walter says, "You're partners in phlegm".

"That's Andy's favourite", Ria comments as November takes the last piece of siewmai.

"It's alright. Phlegm sounds good actually", Andy retorts.

--- But scum is cooler --- How about bumble bee? --- Nah, too cutesy --- Killer bee? --- Death by bee --- Death by anemone, that's how I'd like to go --- Death by tripod while drowning --- How about The Cockroach Fund? --- Scum is good --- I think we've ordered too much --- It's gotta be repulsive, like fart --- Anymore, aunty? --- Try this crispy one, it's really good --- Too oily --- Like a wart or pimple? --- No, Pus! --- Mmm... this tastes REALLY good.

Frogs, phlegm and dimsum? Sounds like a rather gross combination, but this is what you'll get at a typical gathering of Wildfilms crew and other volunteers from Beachfleas, The Naked Hermit Crabs, ReefWalk and others. This blog is for the benefit of new friends, and really old friends whom I've only recently been reunited with through Multiply or Facebook and the likes. It provides a little intro and glimpse into a part of my life that some of you aren't aware of. Like why I'm always talking about wild things, seaweed and slugs.


A few years ago, I was your regular (almost) Singaporean 20-something. Lost in the rat-race, I never really toyed with the idea of climbing the corporate ladder and would have gladly accepted an offer to just work without bothering about politics and kissing ass. So the best way to stay out of the high-flyer radar was to be the regular (almost) Singaporean 20-something Zombie.

Drag myself out of bed each day, hail a cab to work on most days since dragging myself out of bed usually took too long. Get in to work about 15 minutes late, sit in front of the computer counting down the minutes till it was time to go home. So between 9.15am - 6.15pm, other than actual work and too many trips to the pantry for coffee, I'd wonder what I'd do when I got home that night... Hmm, CSI? Smallville? And what my weekend plans would be... Hmm, any new movies? No money? Ok maybe just sleep through the weekend.

I also found lots of time to surf the Net while at work. Looking for new ideas to pass the time, new hobbies. I thought, damn, there's nothing to do in Singapore except shopping and watching movies, or study part-time for a diploma or degree or whatever was needed in this dog-eat-dog world to get you a "better" job, a "better" life. I tried the latter. It almost killed me. So one day, I think I Googled something like "singapore things to do nature" and somehow, I eventually found myself glued to a website that I visit on a regular basis now - Wild Singapore.

And so begins the start of my (mis)adventures with "wild things" in Singapore - wild people, wild places, wild life... Not a "better" life. But a life fulfilled.


So who or what is Wildfilms?
"...a small group of volunteers who were moved by the beauty of Singapore's shores. We decided to document these on film as time is rapidly running out for many of our shores. In early 2004, a few of us decided to scrape together our meagre funds to buy professional quality broadcast equipment and try to come up with a 12-part documentary on our shores." "We hope to capture not only the fascinating and unique aspects of our shores, but also the special group of people who work for our shores. These include volunteers who raise awareness of our shores, professionals who strive to gain a better understanding of our shores and ordinary people who simply do what they can."

Why Wild?
"Because you have to be crazy and wild about our shores to commit to the project. Super low tides usually happen before sunrise... This means we start our day at 2am and finish at sunrise. Most of the volunteers on the team have full-time day-time jobs and other commitments. This means exhausting schedules every two weeks. But so far, it has been a wild ride and we are having a great time!"

Many of us go through life feeling that we're missing something. Some think, life would be better if I had a girlfriend/boyfriend, if I was married, if I was thinner, if I had a better job, if I was richer, if I'd just lose 10 pounds I'd be perfect. We try to fill this cavity with a person, then expect this person to fulfill this requirement. So you get two less lonely people in the world, unsatisfied. We try to fit something else in - stuff. Buy new toys, new shoes, new hobbies. But all these little pieces just don't fit. Broke and in debt, with a few failed relationships to boot, I finally realised I was looking for all the wrong things, in all the wrong places.

Your 20-something years is a period of self-discovery. You're stuck between trying to be an adult, actually being an adult, and still being treated like a kid. Perhaps in your 20-somethings, you should be working on getting a good job, steady relationship, money in the bank. But this is not Whole. Some turn to God, or a higher being. Faith and religion is all good. But then it actually also teaches us that money is the root of all evil, it does not condone greed and lust and envy. So how do you balance faith, religion, the pursuit of "happiness" while keeping your feet firmly on the ground?

If you watched the Matrix, you may recall how all things go back to The Source. What is The Source? Nirvana? God? Well, perhaps. But the "ashes to ashes, dust to dust, everything that has a beginning, has an end" part deals with a different journey in our lives. In between, I believe the Source (other than faith in God or a higher entity) is Nature.

In Nature, you find balance. Ecosystems are a fine example of that. X hosts Y, Z eats Y, Z dies and goes back to the Source, giving new life to X, or something like that. The circle of life in Nature includes us. But like X, Y and Z, we add weight to the circle. It's up to us if we want to bring balance to Nature, or eat Z to extinction, build a casino over X, and later realise that Y is a deadly disease, Z is the cure, and X is now a tourist resort.

To say we don't know what we've got till it's gone is too obvious. We don't know what we're missing till we've found it. So instead of ignoring all the signs, and searching in all the wrong places, we should "discover nature". Pick it up, not as a hobby, but a responsibility. We feel we are superior beings, a highly developed race. We're not animals, or creatures without the power to think, feel, act. We are THE force in nature. Like Anakin, destined to bring balance to The Force, do we turn to the Dark Side, screw things up, leaving future generations to clean up our mess and suffer the consequences?


If only all we took from nature was inspiration. Vivaldi composing The Four Seasons. Matisse's paper cut-outs of Polynesie la Mer. Bridges shaped like DNA structures. But we get carried away, and forget Nature's most important element - balance.

How much is too much? If I just lost 10 pounds I'd be perfect? No, if you're lucky, you'd be dead. But it's more likely you'd suffer from gastric ulcers and low blood pressure. How much is too much? Just one more major project, just two more extra hours at work, just three more birthdays I've missed......

Balance, my friends. You can have your almost perfect job, and almost perfect home, or not so perfect life. You can be the regular (almost) Singaporean/Malaysian/or whatever 20-, 30-, 40-something. You can choose to make God a big part of your life, or spend more or less time at work, more or less time with family and friends. Whatever gets you going man. As long as you bring balance to your life.

The point is not to live a perfect life, but a life fulfilled. So if you reach a stalemate and have no idea what's the next move, turn to The Source. Be inspired not by material things or societal needs, but the most inspirational of all. Be it a smelly green bug or even the rain beating against your window.


I found my balance in Nature, but it doesn't mean I'm some sort of nature freak or "activist". We all can play a part in giving back to Nature. Whether big or small, a little help always goes a long way. You don't have to be a volunteer, you don't have to be a rocket scientist. I can't dive and can't really swim, but I love marine life. So I volunteer with groups that visit intertidal areas during low tide. I admit I feel I don't make that much of a difference... I can't work the big videocams or fancy gadgets, but I have two arms and two legs, and a pair of working eyes. So I help to carry barang-barang, help to spot interesting creatures for others to document. If you browse through the lists of volunteer groups just in Singapore and Malaysia alone (even small little ones like the Cat Welfare Society), you'll find there's something for everyone.

If we all are to return to the Source someday, better to give what you can now, so you have less baggage with you on your final journey, don't you think?

Wet n Wild Full Moon Parties

I can almost smell the salt from the sea as a gentle breeze softly ushers the waves up to shore. It is still dark all around except for the moonlight and a few beams of light scattered around the shoreline.

Usually on a night like this, the beach would be dark and quiet unless you bothered to pay attention to the sound of snapping shrimps popping as they ward off predators. And if you listened really, really closely, perhaps you could hear the soft squish as a predatory moon snail grazes along a spongy bed of sea lettuce, or the tip-tapping of little claws as small crabs scurry from one rock to another. But not tonight. It's a full moon night, and the beach is alive!

I can almost picture my friends there (perhaps at BB Bar?), having the time of their lives, not bothered about how wet and dirty things get as the night wears on.

A girl calls out, "Orgy!" and everyone, guys and girls, all run towards her. I can almost feel the excitement, the adrenaline rush at each "full moon" event. I was there with them during the last full moon, but here I am now, back in Dubai, only able to savour the memories from last month, and feel a tinge of envy as I read others' blogs about the mischief they're up to now.

Now that I've settled back to life in Dubai, it's about time I posted pictures and stories of the "full moon parties" I attended while back in Singapore last month. Full moon, night, beach, guys, girls, some underaged... How could all this equate to good, clean fun? How can a marriage of these elements be not just legal, but good for Singapore?

I know some of you are hoping to see wild images of babes wearing nothing on them but foam but this is a different kind of wet n wild, a very different kind of full moon party. Not loud music but a rhythmic thumping in our heads from lack of rest. No alcohol, just lots of coffee and 100Plus to fuel our sleep-deprived bodies. So sometimes we'd be covered in mud, or touch another's 'booty' but it wasn't something we would consider kinky. Sometimes we had to produce our ICs at spotchecks, but we didn't have to worry about age limits either.

The only thing we had to worry about was Mother. Mother Nature that is. We mention Mother wearily if we look up and notice a reddish sky, threatening rain. Our "outings" to a beach or deserted island depended on the moon, the tides and not really the weather since we'd head out rain or shine unless Mother flashed streaks of lightning our way - her way of saying, "You're grounded. Now go to bed!"

Spring tides occur fortnightly, during the full moon or new moon, when the sea experiences the highest high tide and lowest low tide of the month. From May to July, we experience what some of us call the "superlows" (nothing to do with jeans that show off one's buttcrack to the utter disgust of others). This is when the tide sometimes goes down to a minus zero level. And this is when the volunteers from Wildfilms, Beachfleas and other intertidal-related groups have the wildest nights that sometimes stretch on till sunrise!

I'm part of the Wildfilms crew, although I haven't had much action for the past two years. So my trip home in June/July was planned 'swee-swee' to ensure that I'd be in Singapore during two 'superlow' periods and back in KL in between.

First trip out with Wildfilms and a few Beachfleas was to the stretch of beach at Changi Ferry Terminal. I always enjoy my intertidal explorations on Changi 'cos the shore here has so much to offer. You initially just see a flat shore, covered with muck and algae, but this is the perfect place to spot all sorts of creatures hiding or grazing amongst the large mats of seaweed and seagrass.

Clockwise from top left: Sea cucumber's mouth or anus (we're never sure!); Jellyfish; Sea pencil; Swimming anemone.

I know when I first posted pictures from this trip entitled 'Wild Changi', some visitors to my site hoped to see lewd images of certain individuals 'working' a certain carpark... Sorry, apart from my corny sex-related puns, this is very much PG-rated. The sexiest creatures at Changi this night are the Geographic sea hares.

Geographic sea hare (Syphonota geographica)

So cute and chubby! For some weird reason, most of us at Wildfilms share the same goo-goo-ga-ga fondness for slugs. I especially like how sea hares and nudibranchs are slow. Not like 'em little fishes and shrimps that tease and play hard to get 'cos they're usually too fast for me to catch on camera.

It is very sad though that Changi is a favourite spot for poachers, who scour the shore for anemone and other "exotic" marine life. They're "exotic" only because they are endangered, you greedy and ignorant fools!

Clockwise from top left: Juvenile flathead or dragonet?; Filefish; A slender prawn with peacock tail; Moon crab (Matuta lunaris).

Two mornings later, we're at it again. This time, just four of us from Wildfilms on a restricted trip to the Cyrene Reef (Terumbu Pandan). The boatman waits for daybreak to find the reef, so by the time we arrive, we only have an hour of low tide left to explore and document this reef flat. Chay Hoon reminds us that if we leave any later, we'd have to swim back to the boat carrying all the equipment. This always makes me kancheong as eerie images of me drowning while lugging something huge and bulky like the giant tripod come to mind.

Volunteers for seagrass transects on Cyrene would probably have to visit a chiropractor afterwards 'cos Cyrene is seagrass paradise. If dugongs and seahorses were Bollywood stars, Cyrene would be THE location for the compulsory song and dance routine.

A graceful leaf slug (Elysia sp.)

The Cyrene Reef is absolutely beautiful. Very much like the intertidal zone on Pulau Semakau, the reef flat is made up of a long stretch of sand and seagrass meadows, and coral rubble.

Unfortunately, we find out from a boatman on a later trip that Cyrene will be a gonner by 2015. Yup, another tragic victim of development as it is slated for what I call the "slammer" - a tank store will be built on it to cater to the petrochemical plants that were built on other fringing islands and reefs nearby.

I picture it very literally as a crane, lifting a cold, grey and obscenely large piece of metal, dropping it right smack on top of a beautiful reef or island, destroying all life on it while sending bits of flowing debris and sedimentation back to mainland. Slam! Very drama... but goodbye paradise, goodbye Bollywood dreams.

An elegant peacock anemone

So we appreciate it while it lasts. Document it on film, video, digital ink, as I, like other like-minded souls am doing here.

A cowfish!

Brown is beautiful...

In this pic above: What looks like a gross pile of poo is the cast of an acorn worm, and pictured next to it, the acorn worm's butt. Kinky! An acorn worm eats and shits all day, literally. One end gulps sand and the worm filters whatever nutrients or minerals it needs from here, passing out the rest through its other end!

Pictured bottom left is a pair sea stars doin' the 'nasty nasty', and on the right, a 'mutant' sea star tries to recreate the X-Men logo. Sea stars usually have arms in multiples of five - 5, 10, 15, 20... If it loses an arm, it can regenerate a new one. I've even seen a sea star with just one arm, still very much alive!


On a trip to the Sisters Islands, we found this very rare sea star, a Basket Star, pictured above. The reef that is exposed during low tide on Sisters Islands is amazing! Corals of all shapes, sizes, colours, textures... and equally colourful and interesting creatures to match.

Clockwise from top left: Anemone coral; Soft coral; Hard coral; Branching coral

Clockwise from top left: Red egg crab; Swimming crab; "Brown Blob"; Nudibranch (Discodoris boholensis)

You absolutely must check out the video of the "brown blob". In the red corner, we have the red egg crab, a highly poisonous crab.

Poisonous or venomous, what's the diff? Poisonous means, you eat, you probably die. Venomous means, you touch, or you kena bitten or stung, you die die sure suffer in pain.

Clockwise from top left: A blue dawn on Sisters; Mushroom coral; Filefish; Red seaweed.

The next morning, we head out to Pulau Hantu (Ghost Island) for another 'back-breaking' stint. More coral varieties, and more slugs!

Clockwise from top left: Nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginata); Soft coral; Leathery soft coral (Sacrophyton sp.); Sunflower mushroom coral (Heliofungia actiniaria).

My final trip out with Wildfilms this year was to Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island). The shore was teeming with life, from the tiniest of crabs to seaweeds of all sorts. The carpet anemones came in green and violet, while white and gold peacock anemones danced in the morning light.

Clockwise from top left: Sea grapes (Caulerpa racemosa, a kind of seaweed - some varieties are edible); Red seaweed (Halymenia sp.); Avrainvillea seaweed; Brown or red seaweed (Champia lumbricalis?)

Then there were the 'weirdos' - those things that make you go "Ooh... uhh... ugh... wuddat?"

Clockwise from top left: Egg capsules of the Spiral melongena snail; Rose-red coloured sea sponge; Tunicate or ascidian; Beaded anemone with little tentacles retracted.

All 'virgins' to Pulau Sekudu can't leave without taking a compulsory picture of "the frog rock" (some joker added the eyes and smiley of course).


As the early sun grows with the tide, I savour the moment once more, taking in everything - the green and earth beneath my feet, the cool waters in the lagoon and the warmth of day. The sky is washed in shades of pink, purple and blue as the sun rises over our little island home. I could not have asked for a more beautiful morning to last me till my next visit back to Singapore.

How a Taitai Passes Time without Mahjong n Gossip Kaki

Many of you are curious about how I manage to pass time at home every day, without a job or friends. As you know, Ben works from 9am till midnight or 1am on most days. His weekly roster is usually made up of 1 or 2 early shifts (8am – 5pm), 1 or 2 late shifts (3pm – 1 or 2 am) and mostly split shifts (9am – 3pm, 6pm – 1 or 2am).

They usually work throughout their split shift, although once in a while, Ben uses that 3-hour break to go for driving lessons, and if he’s really tired then he comes home for a short rest. Recently, he’s also used this short break to come home to work out in the gym. Ben gets about 6 days off a month – 1 day off this week, 2 days off the next week, and so forth.

So anyway, here’s what I do on most days while the husband’s at work…

On ‘good’ days, I wake up some time between noon – 1pm. Some lazy or down days, I’m up at noon but continue lazing and daydreaming in bed till 3 - 5pm! I usually sleep at around 3am, and often also stay up till around 6am. And once in a while, I stay up till morning if I have an ‘outdoor-jalan-jalan’ day planned, and just zombie around on "low-batt" till evening.

So I’m up at noon most days, have my first cuppa and later have ‘breakfast’ – usually toast loaded with cold slabs of margarine, sometimes a banana and Herbalife Formula 1 with orange juice, if I’m a really good girl. Sometimes I skip ‘breakfast’ and have a plate of Indomie for lunch. Indomie Pedas is the only edible instant noodles here, and it’s pretty good.


I do the laundry at least 3 times a week. Ya, it’s unbelievable how we have so much laundry to be washed when I’m in my pajamas all day and night most of the time. But Ben wears a clean pair of pants or jeans every day, and there’s his pajamas, shirts, socks, towels, etc too. The floor has to be swept every 2 days because it gets dusty and my hair falls a lot more in this dry weather.

It doesn’t help that if I stay in all day, it means I’m living in an air-conditioned environment 24 hours a day, with no chance of fresh air… Not that the air outside is what one can call “fresh” or clean. Then there’s mopping to be done once a week, and washing the balcony, about twice a month.

I hardly watch TV during the day ‘cos you get a 2-minute portion of Oprah, followed by a 5-minute ad interval, then 2 minutes of Oprah again, then more ads… Other than Oprah, daytime TV is made up of other talk shows like Dr Phil, Rachel Ray, and soaps like Fashion House and The Bold & The Beautiful. Towards evening you get more interesting stuff on TV like The Tyra Banks Show, Pimp My Ride, a very censored screening of Desperate Housewives (1st season)…and they've just started showing Newlyweds! Like Hallo? They broke up dudes!

Later into the night we get some rather decent movies. I’m guessing people in the Middle East sleep at around 2 or 3am ‘cos the local English TV channels show good movies only at around 11pm or midnight. They provided me with 4 hours of Harry Potter fun, but the marathon started at 11pm so I was up till about 3am. Then they showed the Matrix trilogy, one installation a week, at 11pm. But even then, I don’t watch much TV ‘cos there are only three English channels (movies & sitcoms) and BBC World, to choose from the eight hundred plus free-to-air local (regional) channels (all Arabic).

So most of the time, I’m glued to my computer. If I’m online, I’d be reading/sending mail, uploading pics onto my Flickr album, updating my blog, checking out favourite sites like Wild Singapore, the Wildfilms & Reefwalk blogs, and other Singapore sites like Channel News Asia, and food stuff for Ben. Sometimes I get curious about something, it could be anything, like say… molecular gastronomy. So I surf all day gathering info about it. I’m at a loss without the internet for my daily dose of info and my virtual connection with the rest of the world, beyond the walls of this empty apartment in this distant and grey land.

But of course, I still can survive without the internet at home… for about one week till I can’t tahan and fork out lots of money at an internet café! I still do lots of stuff on my laptop without having to surf. True to typical Virgo attributes, I can spend hours making lists, organising stuff, planning, sorting, updating calendars and address books, designing stuff, and being an anal perfectionist when it comes to all the above.

I record our daily/monthly expenditures and amend our monthly/annual budgets accordingly. Come up with new stuff for my blog to entertain the rest of u :) If I have new photos from a recent trip out to the beach or town, etc, I can spend the entire day or days, just sorting and touching up photos, saving them into three different file sizes for archiving, blogging or uploading/emailing.

Then there's the stuff I do for Ben. If I download any info from the Net for him, I've gotta resize and re-layout the whole document, whether it's just one page or a hundred page document ('cos Ben falls asleep if reading stuff with a point size of less than 12). So this is really leceh if it's a PDF file 'cos then I've gotta cut & paste the text into Word, and edit each of the pictures in Photoshop 'cos they can't be exported directly into Word from Acrobat Reader. And I'm really anal about layout and type, so I have to make sure each sentence is double spaced, make sure the leading and kerning is just right, etc.

I've also just started the initial layout, designs and pics for Ben's website (akan datang...), so I've gotta figure out my way around Dreamweaver again and keep abreast with the latest internet tools and gadgets...

Some days I’m reading and completing assignments for my Diploma in Montessori Education which I have yet to complete after 3 years! I can’t sit for my Final Exam in Singapore till I’ve submitted all my assignments two months before the exam date, and they only inform students of the exam date about one month before. So even if I submitted all my assignments and projects now, I wouldn’t know when the final exam is until a month before, giving me just a month to prepare for it and plan a trip back. My Montessori diploma is turning out to be like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - something I look forward to attaining, but......

My parents are of course worried that I’ll waste it, just like how I got my Higher Diploma in Mass Communications but didn’t pursue a Degree after that or put it to good use. But I really do make full use of what I learnt every single day. I learned a great deal more about the world, society, culture, the media, government, etc and have honed my writing and analytical skills since graduating. This in turn has helped me a lot in my Montessori course ‘cos the readings and assignments are really ‘chim’ man, and it being a self-study course, I wouldn’t have been able to cope if I didn’t have my Mass Comm background.

So don’t worry, I’ll get my Montessori diploma (one day) and even if I don’t end up teaching, I’ll know a heck of a lot about child development & child psychology. So future kids in my family may be able to save on kindergarten fees... Or they’ll just be very afraid of psycho-anal-aunt Bernie.

BEN OR BERNIE’S RELATIVES OR FRIENDS
Let’s go to Uncle Ben’s & Aunty Bernie’s house for the holidays.

SFX: DARTH VADER’S ENTRANCE MARCH

KIDS
No-o-o-o-O-O-o-O!!!

Anyway, back to my taitai life. Once in a while, if I pick up a book and it’s good, I’ll be hooked on it for the next 2 or 3 days till it’s done. Sometimes if I’m really bored then I’ll pick up my crossword puzzle book and work on puzzles for a while… till I get bored again. About once a month, I meet Jana for coffee at a nearby mall. Jana lives in Gardens too, with Manfred, Ben’s colleague.

Once a month I usually look for a new place in Dubai to explore on my own too, so this gives me the opportunity to take more photos and come up with more interesting blog entries instead of what I do on a daily basis. Now that we have a gym on the 6th floor, I follow Ben to the gym once in a blue moon (he goes more often of course), but I spend not more than an hour in there.


By evening/night or the time I get hungry, I’ll cook dinner. Sometimes just something instant like noodles or porridge, and if I’m preparing it for Ben too, then something more elaborate like rice with dishes or one-dish meals like pasta, curry, stew or “deconstructed Sheperd’s Pie” (sautéed minced beef, peas, mashed potatoes & gravy, minus the hassle of actually baking the darn thing).


I’m not an expert in the kitchen like Ben or my Mom, so sometimes I take several hours or even half a day to prepare and cook a proper meal! Thanks to ready-made sauces from my Mom and Brahim’s, I don’t have to spend an entire day cooking, unless I’m attempting to make something complicated from scratch. If I’m in the mood, I bake cookies or brownies for Ben.


When drystores and fresh produce are running low, I head out to the mall to buy groceries (Ibn Battuta Mall is a 15-min brisk walk away, and the Geant Hypermarket another 15-min walk away at the far end of this huge mall). So sometimes I have dinner at the foodcourt in the mall, since I no longer cook supper for Ben n myself ‘cos we’re getting a little too chubby.


The hypermarkets in Dubai (Geant & Carrefour) are so huge, and with nowhere to rush to, I can spend up 3 to 4 hours just supermarket shopping.

Now you know how Ben developed such a sweet tooth since coming here. Supermarkets are stocked with chocolates, sweets, snacks and everything else, from all over the world.

Apart from groceries and household stuff, I hardly shop (for clothes, shoes, accessories, the usual ‘girlie’ things). But if I’m feeling particularly down, I conveniently forget it’s Ben’s money I’m spending and go ahead and spoil myself a little. Like recently, I spent 55 Dirhams on a book, The Green Guide to the Emirates, to help keep me sane because we didn’t have internet and TV in our new home yet.

When Ben’s off the next day, I usually call the DVD shop (back at Courtyard near Ewan) or take the shuttle bus to Ewan, and borrow 2 or 3 DVDs. On his days off, we either stay in watching TV and DVDs ‘cos there’s really nowhere to go in Dubai. Movies at the cinema are ridiculously expensive, not to mention outdated. But Ben enjoys window-shopping, so quite often we have to go to Mall of the Emirates or Ibn Battuta Mall for him to stretch his legs and ‘cuci mata’.

I’ve always been quite a hermit, opting to stay at home doing “my own stuff” rather than go out, unless it’s to a nature spot. There’s a Bird & Wildlife Sanctuary at the Dubai Creek/mangrove, but it’s not open to the public and you have to get special permission from authorities to visit. Then there are the beaches that are partially man-made on reclaimed land. So I’m quite starved for forests and bugs and rocky shores and slugs and such. When I go shopping or window-shopping, if ever, I usually like to go alone.

I’m not anti-social but I am a loner. Not narcissistic but enjoy spending time by myself, doing “my own stuff”. I don’t ‘party’, don’t drink, and got used to missing nights out at the mamak with friends when I lived in Singapore. So adapting to a quiet life here isn’t that difficult for someone like me as compared to your regular, city girl.

Then again, a ‘city girl’ might really like it here, what with all the big brands at the malls, the nightlife, and rather happening dating scene (Guys chat you up all the time - on the bus, at the mall, at nightspots, by the beach…). Conversations always begin with a stranger saying “ in a very gatal way and asking, "So you work here?" --- “Oh I don’t work. My husband works at the Burj Al Arab.” --- "Oh…" --- Silence. Most effective ‘lecher repellent’ so far.

So that’s about it lah. By the 3rd month I was here in Dubai, I did get really bored and depressed, what with no buddies, horrible housemates and the inefficient, incompetent service standards here. I even told Ben that if I didn’t get a decent job by early 2007, I’d move back to Singapore for good in May, ‘cos I was really unhappy here. Then we got the internet set up at home in November and I’ve been alright since!

Day at the Beach

Missing seaweed, sea slugs and natural beaches, I decided to walk the entire stretch of Jumeirah Beach (from Jumeirah Beach Hotel to Mercato Mall) one day. It didn't occur to me that it was a Friday till I reached the beach and noticed the chaos there.

The stretch of beach next to Jumeirah Beach Hotel was packed with people. Young and old, Caucasian, Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern… There were kids picking seashells and building sandcastles...

Half naked men and bikini clad women soaking up the sun, and two men playing cricket, not bothered about the fact that the tennis ball they were batting might hit a child or passerby.

Then there were hunky surfer dudes, either riding the waves or checking out girls.

White sails dotted the horizon, with the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club not too far from this beach.

I walked to the far end of this beach and found nothing. There was nothing on the shore that was alive (except for the humans of course) – only scattered seashells plus a few seagulls soaring above.

The beach is divided by a marina, cordoned off by a rock wall and barbed wire. The rich and elite of Dubai were enjoying the ‘weekend’ too, taking their boats and yachts out for a ‘swim’.

The next stretch of beach I came across was deserted, as it was not as artificially flat and white as the one before.

However, I still did not spot anything here except for vacant shells and broken bits of coral.

After a while, an Indian couple came by, and to my wonder, performed some sort of Hindu ritual right before my eyes. The lady removed a large, wooden statue of a reclining Ganesha from a bag, placed it in the sand, and walked around it three times. Then she scattered the few flowers she was holding in her hands over the statue. The man with her then picked the statue up and threw it into the sea.

The waves of course washed the statue back ashore, so the man threw the statue back again, a few times, without luck. Finally, the couple climbed the rock bund at the end of the beach and threw Ganesha into the open sea.

After the couple left, an Arab couple arrived, choosing this more secluded beach to set up their ‘payung’ and do a bit of sunbathing.

This stretch of beach also ended with a man-made rock wall, separating it from another marina. So I continued, till I came to the next beach, and the next, and the next, till the sun set and my legs could not take me any further.


My finds for the day…

Sand collar of a moon snail

Sand Star (dead)

Limpet?

Cuttlefish "skeleton"

The beaches are so ‘clean’ that you don’t even see seaweed, so spotting an occasional sliver of algae became some sort of “Desperate Search For Weed”.

Sargassum sp.

Next ‘discovery beach walk’ - the other stretch of beach, from Umm Suqeim to Jebel Ali. I hope to find more there, as there used to be a marine sanctuary at the far tip of Jebel Ali (closer to Abu Dhabi). The Palm Jebel Ali is being developed at this same location (taking over the marine SANCTUARY itself), so this means more walls, barbed wire, tighter security, a lot of sedimentation and maybe even devastation of marine life.