Sungei Buloh

On the northwest shore of the island of Singapore is a protected mangrove-wetlands-estuary-swamp rich in migratory birds (in season from as far away as Siberia), as well as reptiles, fish and crustaceans.

We sighted colorful Kingfishers:

and Storks

 Cute and colorful little snakes on the boarwalk:

 Big monitor lizards in the water:                            

                     and also on the path:    

The monitor lizards are really big but not scary. These probably weighed 100lbs. We saw another half dozen or so little monitors too.

This looks like a forest from the air. It is just the mangrove 'knees' (breathing roots) sticking up out of the muck and moss growing around them. Each of those 'tree trunks' are only 6-10 inches tall and the mossy clumps 3-5 inches.

  

The facilities are clean and inviting

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Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Bukit (hill, in Malay language) Timah is Singapore's tallest  hill (164 meters) and contains Singapore's last remaining pocket of primary rain forest. It is not a very big area but a nice nature get-away from the city high-rise living.

 It is hard to capture the steaminess of the forest, the density of the undergrowth and the steepness of some of the trails. But it is all that.

So many different plants competing for light and nutrients. Vines twist and shoot up the trees in their rush to the top. Some of them you don't want to mess with!

At the 'summit' the height is measured to the centimeter! I was supposed to be pointing that out but I am instead pointing to the latitude, oops.

As usual, there is a warning to not feed the monkeys. (We didn't see any, probably because since folks don't feed them, they don't show up.)

Hungry at the end of our hike, we walked over to a restaurant that had Indian, Malay, and Chinese food aplenty. The menu was in a 12 page double-sided binder, or if you prefered, printed all over the walls, floor to ceiling. See Bill reading the selections across the room.

And I am enjoying an ice cold coconut water while we wait for our food.

Little India

You don't have to travel very far to get to India when you are in Singapore. It's only a few stops on the MRT (metro) and you are there.  Ok, not the real India but a part of town where if you were from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, you'd feel right at home.

You could buy garlands for temple offerings.

You can shop for the spices you need to cook a hot curry.

 And you can chose to cook fish for dinner,

Or stick with fruit.







And then head home through one of the most colorful parts of town ever.

The Singapore Zoo

On Sunday I took Bill to the Zoo. It's a pretty amazing place because of all the zoos I've ever visited, the animals seem the happiest. Clearly the weather suits them (except for maybe the polar bear), and walking through the zoo is like walking through a tropical jungle.

Let's start with a cute little warthog:

Then a white-handed gibbon:

The polar bear:

The beautiful pair of white bengal tigers:

And the two best un-enclosed enclosures of all, that of the hamadryas baboon:

And the free-ranging orangutans.

A Much Better Week

Well, I'm happy to say that this week was much better than last week. First of all the HAZE that was increasing on a daily basis has, due to a change in wind direction, cleared up significantly. We still don't see a clear blue sky, but we can certainly see farther distances, sharper shadows, and colors, that last week were so greyed-out. Fires are still burning on Sumatra but the Indonesians seem to be putting them out, not starting new burns, and it has rained hard twice. Could that have been from 'cloud seeding'? Who knows. Hopefully if the wind turns back to blow this way again, it won't be as bad.

Another reason I've had a better week is that I got out of the house more (due to the better air) and I've met and hung out with two other very interesting women. Bill finally put me in touch with the wife of one of his Berkeley colleagues who is also on this Singapore project and she and I met on Monday and did a guided historical walking tour of British Colonial Singapore. We had a great guide and spent 3 lovely hours walking, visiting and learning about how the British in 1819 purchased the island, how it became an important trade center, how it was ruled, etc. Unfortunately (for me) Marianna returned home to the Bay Area just a couple of days later, so I went back on Tuesday to do a historical walking tour of Chinatown and learn about the arrival of the Chinese and their place in the Singapore story. Again we had a great guide and saw and learned many things but best of all I met and have been hanging out with another woman from the tour, an American who lives in Germany. We got along great and got together to explore while our husbands worked.

This is a view of Chinatown shophouses in the foreground and a public housing block in the background. Our tour guide said that the upper sky bridge on the 50th storey was open to the public so we just had to go check it out.  

This complex consists of 7 residential towers in an 'S' shape with a connecting bridge at the 26th and 50th floors.  There are 1,848 units. The public can access the top bridge for a slight fee by swiping a Metro card on the ground floor of one of the towers. 

At the top is a fabulous view as well as 5 or 6 different 'areas' to hang out in such as:

'THE BEACH'        

'THE CLIMBING CUBES'

There are lots of trees and greenery on these connectors as well as on the balconies. 

This complex went up in 2009. In Singapore, 85% of the people live in public housing, although this is definitely the most high-end of them all. 

Waiting for Clean Air

If you've been reading Bill's blog, you know that we are almost a week into a 'hazardous' haze event here in Singapore due to forest burning in neighboring Sumatra. It's also been in the news -BBC, NPR,
SF Chronicle. Imagine, little Singapore in the US news, unheard of!

Bill sent me an email from work yesterday saying that: "There is suddenly a lot of excitement here about the research opportunity that this haze presents."

He also said he would be bringing home a couple of 'N95' masks, probably the only ones effective against the micron-size particles characterizing this event.

I had to laugh. Here I am this morning trying out my mask looking at the haze outside. In the foreground is a portable monitor Bill brought home that is measuring our indoor particles. No doubt we will be taking it for a walk to enjoy the 'fun' of having a real-time instrument with us as we sightsee.

Other than the fact that it is grey and depressing when you look around you and there is a tiny bit of smoky smell in the air, I don't feel anything in my eyes or throat, and hey, it is cooler because the sun is blocked out. They are advising the elderly, infants and persons of poor health to not do vigorous exercise. (Those chain-smoking seniors in their running shoes pushing jog strollers are out of luck!) 

On another note, there are numerous neighborhood services if you are feeling poorly. Maybe this Ear, Nose and Throat clinic will soon be adding some sort of remedy for the haze discomfort.
  

A City in a Garden

Singapore again. Warm and green. Humid and tropical. Can't stop the plants from growing.

We are living on the 11th floor of a 24 storey hotel in the south-western part of the island, not far from where we lived a year ago. As a matter of fact, we use the very same MRT (Metro) station. We arrived last week in the dark middle of the night but here is the view that greets us "good morning" every day.  Dense hi-rises with lush trees and vegetation.

Singapore calls itself 'A City in a Garden'.

A typical tree is populated by dozens of other plants such as ferns, orchids, vines, epiphytes, moss, etc.














The Botanical Garden and its amazing Orchid Garden are breathtaking. This is where we headed to first on the day after we arrived.

We took lots of photos of flowers,

but leaves are beautiful too:

Snow!

This morning Daniela and I look out of the window and it is snowing! Crazy, because yesterday it was one of the warmest days we'd had so far.

Just outside our apartment on the main street

We walked around then decided to go see the imperial palace where we had been to the day before. The walking was beautiful but very slow because it was slushy wet snow, about 4 inches deep and you sometimes couldn't tell if you were walking on the sidewalk or about to step off. Plus, it was sometimes slippery.

This is what it had looked like the day before:

Odaiba and the Onsen

Well, Bill left yesterday for some meetings in Singapore and we girls called it a Spa Day, or rather, an Onsen Day, the Japanese hot springs. We took the monorail this time. Unbelievably Tokyo doesn't just have three overlapping metro systems intertwined with several competing train companies and the many Shinkansen lines, it also has a beautiful, modern monorail that goes to the airport as well as to the man-made island of Odaiba where the onsen is. 

First we stopped in at a fun house.

Checked out the Statue of Liberty

And then we were ready to experience the hot springs.

They provided coats for the outdoor foot-massage, i.e., walking on the painful rocks!

Soaking our feet in the hot outdoor pebble pools.

The actual hot spring bathing we did in a woman-only part of the facility. First you wash up then you soak in all sorts of different rock-pools and tubs. Some with water jets, some hot, some hotter; some indoor, some outdoor. There is also a dry hot sauna and a hot steam room, plus a cold pool.

No photos are allowed in here because everyone is nude. After you decide you are done you dry off and go relax in a tatami room or go eat from a variety of offerings. You stay as long as you want.

We did the therapy fish for 15 minutes. Crazy tickly at first but then pleasant and a smooth result.

If you have a tattoo though. you can't come in.