Tour of Non-Duty

Planned to write something about my trip home after returning to Dubai but procrastinated till now. Well, better late than never. Before leaving for Singapore/PJ in June, I wrote a post about my "Dubai blues". Well, I made my month-long trip back, recovered, and am back in Dubai, good as new.

The first significant thing I did when back in Singapore was my trip out to the intertidal zone in Changi with Wildfilms, the second day I was home. Great way to start off my getaway. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "getting away" from my husband. Just Dubai itself - its intolerable service standards, etc etc... the list just grows n grows.


Lots of new sights greeted me in Singapore, like the horrid "Wheel" that's almost done, the new Ikea, Giant and Courts in Tampines, Sheng Siong in Bedok, and VivoCity.


I spent about 10 days in PJ and 20 days in Singapore. My time in PJ was quality time with family and buddies. I think I've had enough Nescafe Ais to last me the rest of the year, as I was out at the mamak with Nat on most nights, sometimes joined by Sher Hui and Wye Li. Also managed to spend an afternoon in Bangsar with Jamie.

Sometimes I feel like a celebrity back home as my many "Ah Ee"s take turns to "chope" me for lunch appointments and such. It felt really nice, and of course, anything to do with makan is great!


Back in Singapore, I joined Wildfilms on a few more trips during low tide to the shore and a few islands. These were really splendid too - being close to nature again, and my conversations with like-minded individuals like Ria and Chay Hoon.

Earlier Wildfilms footage were shot on tape, so there are a few hundred tapes that need to be digitised, and a lepak "tai-tai" like me always comes in handy for nitty-gritty jobs like these. So I lugged back "Ziggy" (our pet name for one of the small handicams), 500gigs of hard disk, and four boxes of tapes to be converted into digital format. This should keep me happily busy till 2008 too!

I've discovered though, that there's a big difference between tai-tai and housewife. A tai-tai has a maid. I am a housewife.


Another eventful "must do" in Singapore was attending Jo and Leong's wedding dinner. I was pretty zonked out that day as I had spent the early morning out on Pulau Hantu, but the wedding dinner was a really refreshing change to the dreary grey of Dubai life.


Typical Chinese/Singaporean style - lots of red and cheery colours, as pictured here. When I'm really tired, my hands get really shaky, so I didn't take any pictures but have compiled a few here, taken by Mei Ling and the wedding photographer.


I was seated with Louis, Rabind and Wayne, and some intimidating-looking guys I've never met before. Felt pretty lost especially since I was half-awake and attending this as "Ben's wife". Introductions to people were like this, Hey, you know Ben? --- Fatty Ben? or Ben the Chef? --- Yea, this is his wife, Mrs Fatty Ben.


I must say, even though this was like, what... only the second time I've met Leong, and one might ask who I am to comment, I think he looked really, really happy. I hardly got to see or speak to Jo 'cos typical in all Chinese wedding dinners, the bride always kena change baju like a Hong Kong superstar at a concert. It was a beautiful wedding, and I'm sure, the happiest day of their lives.

One thing I sure didn't miss when back in Singapore... no, two things:
1. Being made to feel fat just cos I wasn't like all 'em skinny-ass skanks around.
2. Being told that I speak "very good English for a Malaysian".

I mean, what's up with people presuming that Malaysians can't speak English. If you sat in a foodcourt in Singapore, no, not even food court... If you were seated in a nice restaurant in Singapore, you'd notice that all the chatter around you is in Mandarin. Many Singaporeans think they speak "good" English just 'cos they begin each sentence with words like "Basically..." and try to sound eloquent by saying things like "forget a-bow-rit" and "am I right or am I right?"

First of all, there's no such thing as "good English". Learn to speak proper English, get your grammar, Ps n Qs right, before you go 'round questioning another's language proficiency based on nationality.

It's bloody annoying and such an insult when people ask, You're Malaysian? Are you sure? You speak such good English, I thought you're Singaporean. You studied in Singapore or overseas is it?

I'm Malaysian, I studied in Malaysia, I don't hold a degree, and I speak proper English. Lots of Malaysians do. Wake up....

Ok, back to happy stuff. What felt really good about my trip home was the amount of "me-time" I had. Ya, I know I don't work in Dubai so I have full access to "me-time" here too. But when I was in Singapore and PJ, I was a housewife on holiday!


No need to cook! No need to jaga the big baby! No need to worry about groceries. Hungry? Just walk out to the nearby kopitiam and be spoilt for choice. I didn't even have to make my own coffee. Just 80 cents gets me a nice cup of kopi pua sio. So shiok!


I met up with friends, mother-in-law, father-in-law. Mizan works at the i-Shop in Cineleisure, so he was one of the first few people I met and he even gave me a discount on the adapter for my Powerbook. I had a late lunch and coffee with Razmi just before he went off for National Service, and konlomee with Raena and Shorbs! Dinner with Ben's friends, as well as with my ex-colleagues from Crystal Wines.


I also met up with Peng a few times for kopi or makan. I told him I planned to ta-pau half a roast duck to bring back to Dubai for Ben, and he went ahead and bought it for me. Peng also introduced me to the latest drink fad, those awful cans of "Anything" or "Whatever"! And I finally met Brownie, his chow chow puppy!


All in all, it was a marvelous trip, and it was even nicer knowing that the end of the trip would signal my return home to Ben, so leaving didn't feel so bad. The housewife, refreshed and rejuvenated, is back on duty.

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.