Post-lunch Durian adventure

Just a quick note - today (yes, I'm actually posting on the day something happened for a change!) after lunch, one lovely guy from Eoin's group named David was pointing out where durian trees were planted on campus, near our walk back to our offices. For those who don't know, durian are the stink/taste monster fruit that many South-East Asian people love, while most Westerners think smell like rotten-onion/fruit chutney. They are heavy bastard spiked cannonball things that grow high high in order to be able to inflict maximum skull damage when they ripen and fall off. So when David asked us if we wanted to go check them out closer... of COURSE we said yes!

Stinky death machine. And a durian.

And we scored a jackpot - these trees are frequently scavenged by off-scholarship PhD students, but a fruit must have fallen not long before we arrived, so there was a beautiful not-too-stinky weapon of mass destruction for us to play with. We found a rock, and ended up opening it and trying some durian right out of the shell.

The look on his face says it all, really.

It was... not good. It was really hard and not very sweet at all - not like the normal durian experience (but also nowhere near as stinky!). It tasted slightly meaty, and had a texture like a very under ripe banana with surprise sneaky creamy bits. But smashing a newly-fallen durian open with a rock and eating the flesh with our fingers while standing on sensitive grass with the army practising a live-fire drill in the grasslands next door was probably one of the most authentic, non-constructed Singapore experiences I've had so far.

David, durian hunter.

Thanks, David! And thanks for not making us take the leftovers home (we plead inability - you aren't allowed to carry durian on public transport, and they have bag-checkers at each station to make sure you don't stink bomb their rail systems). 

Mum and Lovey go to the Gardens (and then go home)

This might be the last real touristy post for a while (depending on how busy our weekends get), and it pretty overdue. The last few days with Mum and Lovey, we headed to the National Museum of Singapore. Saw a few good exhibits - their permanent exhibition on the history of Singapore is quite good and well put together, but really requires several hours, and we were hungry so we did a quick 1 hour guided tour - highly recommended to get a quick sketch of Singapore's origins. We ate at the cafe in the museum - also a really nice bright comfortable spot. There are a few changing galleries, some "living Singapore" small galleries that tell you a bit about the culture of Singapore and how it's developed, and we saw an awesome exhibition of wildlife, human and landscape photos called Genesis by Sebastião Salgado, which made me realise how much of the world I still have to see. 

The roof in Singapore National Museum.

Lovey's best monkey impression

With their last weekend, we went to one of Singapore's most famous tourist attractions - Gardens by the Bay. Construction of the gardens here started on reclaimed swamp land in 2007 and was opened in 2011. There are some really cool bits to it, and it's not at all like the more traditional botanic gardens. There are a few (air conditioned) indoor gardens to keep us sweaty Westerners happy, and they've put a lot of effort into making as much of what they do (or at least what they talk about) sustainable. The Supertree grove is the best example of this, where each of the giant fake trees is a vertical garden, creates solar energy, is involved in the cooling, nitrogen ad carbon recycling activities they use to reduce their CO2 emissions and recycle their biomass into useful products and also look damn cool.

Anyway, it's a LONG way around the gardens, so we jumped on one of the bus tour groups that circels around to give us an overview, then decided which parts we wanted to see up closer.

Western-sized people on Asian-sized seats on the bus tour

All gardens should have giant floating babies.

Marina Bay Sands from the other side!

Supertrees!

The Flower Dome with the Singapore Flyer in the distance (pretty much the reverse view of this shot from this post)

Martini glass supertrees

Three generations of pink and sweaty :)

Walkway over the Supertree Grove. Wheeee!

I got them both smiling in one photo!

Trees of the future (as long as you don't mind spending millions of dollars on building and millions more on upkeep of your trees...)

Inside the FLOWERDOME.

Paris.... NOPE, fooled you, its the French Exhibition in the Flowerdome. 

Fat trees - Singaporeans do not approve.

Beyond the Flowerdome (he he he)

Watching the Garden Rhapsody, the Supertree Grove lighting up at night. Really awesome to watch, but I'm pretty sure it takes more electricity to put on the impressive light show than those things harvest through the day. 

The indoor waterfall in the Cloud Forest - we had it almost to ourselves at night

The fake mountain in the Cloud Forest.

Waterfall from above

After this trip, it was just about time for Mum and Lovey to head home. There are a few teary farewell photos, but I'll spare us all the embarrassment and keep them contained in my iPhoto library. It was so nice to have visitors to explore with, and now we know a few more interesting places to go (or avoid). The week after they left, I started work, so the timing was great. Most importantly, I got to eat cake every day for about 10 days. I put on 4 kg over their visit (truly!), so it also gave me something to do over the next few months to work it all off. 

5K foam run - wwwwhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

I don't know why we did this. I blame Eoin. He found a Groupon deal and decided that a 5 km outdoor run in a place where it's over 30 degrees every day was exactly what I'd like to do on a Saturday morning. He wasn't really correct in that surmise, but we got up nice and early on May 24th, caught a taxi into Sentosa, and collected our numbers to grating soundtrack of Kati Perry at a million decibels. I was not thrilled at this point. The only thing I was looking forward to was a chance to use my new Go Pro - waterproof and tough and little. Perfect for this stupid, masochistic fun event.

I'm so happy to be here.

Just so thrilled about this.

We sat around wasting time and watching other people start their waves before we realised that the times on our bibs meant nothing, and we could start whenever we wanted. I was pretty nervous at this point, particularly as the sun decided to blare out just as we made our way out to the beach. The "foam" run appeared to just be some bubbles to get you damp so you'd have to run in wet socks, and I was seriously questioning Eoin's judgement at this point. We lined up in a pen where they closed the gate behind us (Why? Why did they need to do that? It worried me), then they let us all into the next pen, where the bubbles were at. After a few minutes to let the foam maker build up a good foam pool (and let the grating Singaporean woman with the microphone work us up into an suitably frothy rage), they sent us off on a narrow path around the resort island of Sentosa).

Look at that pasty whiteness. Eoin's delicate eyes can't even take the glare. Why are we here?

HE'S not nervous. Damn sports people.

A movie of the starting line shenanigans. OK, at least the foam is cool.

The first few kilometers were AWFUL! I'm a terrible judge of distance, and thought I'd come about 1 km by the time we hit the first obstacle. I was not impressed with the lack of foam, or the tires. It was already 35 + degrees, I didn't not need black, sun-soaked rubber reflecting any more heat at me. This is where my ehavy breathing turned into more of an "I hate Eoin" mantra. There is video footage to prove this. I haven't included it. According to Eoin, this was more like 3 km down, so we were past the half way mark. I thought we still had 4 km to go, and I was not about to believe anything that stinking Irish liar said (although he was right, he had a lot of work to earn back my trust). 

This was about 1 km in. So fun. 

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE FOAM TO YOU? NO, I DIDN'T THINK SO.

After the tires, and a "crawl under some stupid ropes" bit which we won't mention due to rage triggering (did I mention that most of this run was on sand? It was), things started looking up. We got to the last beach, where it was time to turn around and run back to where we started, so at least I knew that we were actually past half way. And it was time to get wet. Thank god. I was baking, and realised after I went for a splash that when you took away the heat, this was actually kind of fun. Particularly when there was a foam running thing to fall off into the sea (video 1 below) and a foamy slippery dip thingo (video 2) to ride. OK, a bit of water, my body temperature dipped below 40 and I started to actually enjoy things.

Keep watching until the end for Eoin's fantastic performance, for which he received a round of applause from the spectators.

Slippery Dip!

Foam fixes everything.

From there, there was another big running stretch (but a bit less sand running and a bit more shade, and being damp made it much easier than the first section), then a bit of a line up for a foam-filled obstacle course that was also a little painfully sand-filled. Waiting in line let our joints cool down a little bit and knees and hips started to hurt. Luckily Eoin had a few helpful stretches and a camera to help to annoy and embarrass me a little more.

Lining up for second last obstacle with about 1 km to go

Stretches for sore hips.

There has to be some embarrassing photo of Eoin on here, but he was still cool as a cucumber most of the run.

Before I knew it we were at the finish line. I actually managed to run over the finish line (I probably actually ran about 3-4 km, there were a few walking sections). The last obstacle was a run-and-jump slip-n-slide into a pool (Eoin's award winning attempt in video 1 below), which gave us both some good sand-and-tarp rash, but was a really fun finish. Yes, I actually did have fun, and I have to admit, it was a really good idea of Eoin's. Despite my EXTREME misgivings, he was right and I was wrong and it was fun.

Crossing the finish line.

I don't hate Eoin Murray.

Over the finish line, there were free thongs, icecreams and a dip in the surprisingly warm and salty waters off the beach. There was also lunch at the Jamie Oliver Italian restaurant, to make sure that the 5 km didn't leave us too emaciated - ha!

Ahhhhh, post run swim. NEARLY worth it.

Mum and Lovey go to the Aquarium

One fine summer's day, our valiant trio braved the mean streets of Sentosa Island with the hope of seeing what legend and brochures had told them was the world's largest aquarium. Despite the allegedly world-class status of the aquarium, it seemed to the brave threesome that they were the only ones on the island of Singapore who had ever heard of the place, as the concept confused every person they encountered - hotel staff, taxi drivers and even seemingly the people at the gates of Sentosa Island. However, the beginning of the story had a happy ending, as they soon learned that they could say "near the casino" and lo! All was clear.

Shipwreck tank

Many different populations of fish sharing many tanks

Right, bugger that pretentious tense - we went to the aquarium, right. It really did live up to expectations, and not just for the air con (although that was lovely). It was a really big space, with a lot of room to move for most of the fish in most of the exhibits. There were huge shipwreck tanks, the largest single tank I've ever seen in an aquarium and lots of fish/animals I've never seen before. They divide the aquarium up by different ocean zones, which meant lots of new non-Pacific fish I was unacquainted with. And rays - sting rays, banjo rays, manta rays, so many rays! I love rays.

The first real nautilus I've ever seen.

One of the coolest parts was  the Ocean Dome - the huge tank with the manta rays, and a HUGE goliath grouper. It was about the same size as most Singaporeans. Actually, scratch that, I'm sure it weighed a lot more. This had a really great diversity of fish life, and I've no idea how they manage to arrange such an extensive artificial ecosystem with no predator/prey action going on. Also in the aquarium, there were eels, some impressive jellyfish (cleverly lit), shark tanks, river monsters (OK, only little ones, but every bit as impressive as most of what Jeremy Wade catches), lovely tropical fish, and even a brown trout for Dad.

Ocean Dome

Giant grouper (larger than the people standing in front of it)

MAAAAAANNT (a ray) with its posse

Mum pondering pond life

Mum and the shark tank

Lovey was very impressed with the shark tank

Hammerhead!

A small part of the shark tank.

Would definitely highly recommend this one to any Singaporean visitors, even if no locals seem to know anything about it. Also, the TYPHOON simulator thing was interesting and amusing in a quite tacky way, featuring the most American accented Chinese sailors ever to hit the high seas. I wouldn't delay your visit by the up-to-40-minutes that some people seemed to have waited around to see it, but if it's starting within 5 minutes of when you walk by, it was a bit of fun.