Montane plants

No idea what the following are but we did see some weird-looking ferns at the 1900 m level, as well as the whispy moss hanging on the trees and, the highlight for us, two species of wild pitcher plant! The pitcher plants secrete a sweet substance that attracts flies, which are then trapped in the pitcher's trap and slowly absorbed by the plant!

















We found these alien spawn growing out of tree roots. They looked like eyeballs protected by an impenetrable jelly-like substance. What are they??

Possibly the worst hotel food in Malaysia

After the physical and mental exhaustion of looking at Mount Kinabalu from the basecamp, we decided a few days at the beach were in order. The Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park comprises five islands, lying just offshore from the state capital Kota Kinabalu. Only two of the islands offer accomodation and we found ourselves on a speedboat to Pulau Manukan.



The beaches were beautiful, the chalets great, the snorkling pretty good ... but the food appaling and the staff somewhat blur to say the least.




Conversation #1 (in Malay) in the restaurant, after waiting 30 mins for the food to arrive:
Waitress: have you taken back your credit card yet?
Us: what card?
Waitress: your credit card, to pay.
Us: we haven't seen any food yet.
Waitress: Oh! No food?
Us: no, please could you check for us?
Waitress: (blank looks) check what?
Us: (banging head on table) the food?

Coversation #2 (in Malay) in the restaurant again:
Us: do you have a set dinner?
Waitress: yes
Us: what is it?
Waitress: err, five dishes
Us: what dishes?
Waitress: i don't know
Us: can you find out?
Waitress: you want the set dinner?
Us: we need to know what it is first?
Waitress: so you want to order the set dinner
Us: we need to know what the dishes are
Waitress: oh, so you want the set dinner then
Us: no, please ask the chef what the dishes are first
(Finally goes to the kitchen and comes back with a list of nasty sounding dishes)
Us: We'll choose from the menu, is everything available tonight?
Waitress: I don't know ...

Sunset over Pulau Manukan ...







Checking out the Jobs Section for a position on the hotel's wait staff ... but unfortunately over qualified



The island was so relaxing that Holly decided to extend her stay by three nights ... and stock up on pot noodles



Saying goodbye to Holly at the jetty ...

NYE

Sandy and I went for New Year's Eve dinner at Dotty's Carribean Corner (!) at Keppel Marina. This rather obscure place is a real gem, hardly anybody has heard of it but it serves decent BBQ seafood and it's always fun dining on the water's edge, in this case facing Sentosa. It's a working marina so tug boats and passenger ferries keep motoring in to dock for the night. As usual we ordered far too much for two of us: chilli crab; BBQ asam prawns; BBQ baby squid; kai lan with garlic; beef, chicken and lamb satay; and a mountain of fried rice!! Insane. We had to take a stroll around the marina afterwards just to digest the food. Since we only finished the last crab claw at about 10pm, we decided to stay on for the countdown and watch the fireworks from there. Next time I'll bring my own wine, the corkage is only $8!! I had to endure flavourless Carlsberg the whole night.

2005 roundup

Best Movie — the selection of movies playing at highstreet cinemas in Singapore is really crap so we rely on the occasional film festival to put on something special.

Our favourite movie was probably the ethnic comedy from Germany Kebab Connection, directed by Anno Saul (2004). "Kebabs, kung fu and forbidden romance are the ingredients of this multicultural comedy set in Hamburg. Young Turk Ibo is a film director who dreams of making the first German kung fu epic. To convince investors he's up to the task, Ibo makes a spectacular martial arts flavoured commercial for his uncle's takeaway kebab shop. The ad is a raging success, and everything on Ibo's horizon looks bright until his German girlfriend, Titzi, tells him she's pregnant. Thrown out of home, his follow-up commercial is a flop, and Titzi leaves him. In desperation he agrees to make a 'comeback' ad for a rival Greek restaurant. Cast: Nora Tschirner, Denis Moschitto, Güven Kirac. Winner of Audience Awards at the Turkish-German Film Festival in Nuremberg and Festival of German Cinema in Madrid."

Another notable movie we saw was John Lynch's (1999) Irish movie Night Train. "Poole, just released from prison, owes his former gangster boss a lot of money. Before long, his whereabouts are discovered by his acquaintances, and Poole finds himself on the run. Homeless, he takes a room in the quiet, suburban home of a middle-aged woman and her irascible mother. When Alice, his landlady, is invited into Poole's room, she is charmed by the world he has created there. They find themselves falling in love. Inevitably, Poole's past catches up with him, and Alice finds herself drawn into the murky intrigue of his unsavoury friends. Cast: John Hurt, Brenda Blethyn, Pauline Flanagan."

Other fun movies we saw in 2005 include The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and Sideways (2004).

Kan cheong king award for the film with the most chair-gripping scenes goes to Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic King Kong. Amazing special effects! Phil had to close his eyes for the last 15 minutes, when Kong was on top of the Empire State Building, as he was suffering from vertigo (Phil not Kong; hence no bungee jump from Phil in NZ)!

Best Book — a tough one, we both ploughed through quite a lot this year, but I think our combined favourite was Marina Lewycka's "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" (Viking, 2005), which "hilariously and affectingly records the fall-out when an elderly Ukrainian widower long resident in Britain falls for a flamboyantly busty Russian gold-digger in search of a passport to prosperity" says Peter Kemp in The Sunday Times.

Other favourites included Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" (Hamish Hamilton, 2005), Andrea Levy's "Small Island" (Headline, 2004) and Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" (Harper Perennial, 2004). I enjoyed revisiting some classic crime and coming-of-age novels such as Don De Grazia's "American Skin" (Jonathan Cape, 1998) and several re-isssue titles from London-based publisher No Exit Press (thanks to Chris for the recommendations). I tried to read as much as I could from the authors participating in the Singapore Writers Festival in September 2005 (two of Monsoon's authors, Gerrie Lim and Stephen Leather, were also involved) and I did enjoy prose by Australian author Peter Goldsworthy and poetry by Singaporean Yong Shu Hoong. Sandy read Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" (Penguin, 1998) and was particularly moved by it.

Best Meal — hmm, tricky, I did some restaurtant reviewing in Singapore for Wine & Dine at the beginning of 2005 but nothing stood out as being exceptional. We've actually gone out a lot less this year and cooked a lot more at home (unusual for Singapore!). New Year's resolution: try more restaurants! I think our favourite meal this year was probably at Le Bon Bolli in Christchurch, New Zealand.



Touted as the most awarded restaurant in Christchurch, Le Bon Bolli serves brasserie-style French food and a great selection of New Zealand wines. It was very good food but the experince was also accentuated having survived on bad Kiwi pub food for the previous two weeks. We pigged out big time, downed a lot of very good local wines and were still pleasently surprised at how cheap it was compared to Singapore. (As I write this, the bread machine in beeping, announcing another loaf is freshly baked — that is one thing we really need as the selection of bread in Singapore is bad!)

Another memorable meal was at the unassuming-looking Xin Hua coffeeshop in Geylang, where three of us feasted on scallops in black pepper; jumbo prawns in garlic; steamed sting ray; delicious crab vermicelli; and veggie. It's a regular dirty old coffeeshop in the middle of Singapore's redlight district, the service is appalling, it's common to wait two hours for the first dish to arrive, recommended dresscode is shorts and a T-shirt but the food is fabulous and it cost more than Le Bon Bolli in New Zealand! Admittedly Anthony Bourdain filmed here, which might account for the high prices.

Best Bar — oh this is easy ... the open-air Sirocco bar on the 64th floor of the State Tower in Bangkok, Thailand. We found this place with Holly and Nel and, despite the fact that one round of drinks cost more than a night in our two-bedroom hotel suite (OK, it was a crap hotel), we could not get over the amazing views of Bangkok's skyline at night and stayed gawping at the view for hours. You must check this place out next time you're in Bkk.

Boxing Day walk

Boxing Day walk was delayed for a few days but we finally dragged ourselves out of the house and took a quick walk around Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.



Birdwatching ... as well as an unidentifiable cuckoo (see below), we saw a pair of beautiful Chestnut-bellied Malkoha and a Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker



We saw this cuckoo at the summit but we didn't hear it call so it's pretty difficult to identify. It's either an Oriental Cuckoo or an Indian Cuckoo ... anybody able to confirm which?


We saw more monkeys at the entrance to the nature reserve than in it.


A late lunch of eggplant with minced meat and dried shrimps; pork with preserved veggie; tofu with century egg; and dan dan mien at a Taiwanese Hokkien Restaurant in Bukit Timah.

Christmas Day

Christmas at Don and Loretta's has become something of a tradition. Clockwise from bottom left: Idah with Keisia, Ainsley, Philip, George, Loretta, Don, Karen and Kaylee. As usual, many thanks to Don and Loretta.


Twenty-four floors up, overlooking the ... quickly checks a map ... Singapore Strait (?), this is Christmas with a view. The Urquharts have bravely removed all the window grills and, with the window at waist height for adults, it's a long drop if you overdo it on the brandy butter. Don and Sandy ...


Ainsley and Keisia are both fabulous kids and growing up so fast.


Looking down onto East Coast Park


Looking West along the coast towards the CBD


Ainsley ...

Christmas Eve

It was a New Zealand reuninion for Christmas Eve dinner. Having not read the invitation but assuming dinner would start around 7 or 7.30pm, we turned up 3 hours late ... it started at 4pm. (Sandy was in charge of this one so takes the blame; I was in charge of getting to Christmas Day dinner on time, which we managed, but were an hour earlier than everybody else!) Pot luck dinner with paella from Sharina, meatballs and mince pies (not together) from us, melon and prosciutto from Yeoh & Shannon, a Japanese rice dish from Tsegumi, and more. A great evening, thank you Tsegumi and Andrew!

Sharina & Collin practising for the real thing with Jolin and Misaki ...


Beatiful wrapping from Nuts Ideas designer Ling (and great presents inside!) ...


Henry and Sandy


Watching as Collin wins the lucky draw and takes home a 21-in flatscreen TV!!


Joey lifting dumbbells ...


Santarina


The hosts: Andrew and Tsegumi with various kids ...


We brought a box of Christmas crackers only to find that nobody had ever seen them before (provoking worried questions as to whether they would be safe for us to use inside). Also, the food wasn't quite what you would expect for Christmas but it's good to see that one tradition is the same all over the world ... there's always somebody snoring away on the sofa! This time Eric takes the credit!

Dressing the tree

Is that our cat?

From BBC online :
In the dense central forests of Borneo, a conservation group has found what appears to be a new species of mammal.
WWF caught two images of the animal, which is bigger than a domestic cat, dark red, and has a long muscular tail. Local people, the WWF says, had not seen the species before, and researchers say it looks to be new. The WWF says there is an urgent need to conserve forests in south-east Asia which are under pressure from logging and the palm oil trade. The creature, believed to be carnivorous, was spotted in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which lies in Indonesian territory on Borneo. The team which discovered it, led by biologist Stephan Wulffraat, is publishing full details in a new book on Borneo and its wildlife. "You don't find new mammals that often, and to do so must be extraordinary," said Callum Rankine, head of the species programme at WWF-UK. "We've got camera traps there, which are passive devices relying on infra-red beams across forest paths," he told the BBC News website. "Lots of animals come past - it's much easier than pushing through the forest itself - and when an animal cuts the beam, two cameras catch images from the front and back."



Not a lemur
The find was made in Kayan Mentarang national park on Borneo. So far, two images are all that exist. But they were enough to convince Nick Isaac from the Institute of Zoology in London that the animal may indeed be new. "The photos look most like a lemur," he told the BBC News website. "But there certainly shouldn't be lemurs in Borneo." These long-tailed primates are confined to the island of Madagascar.
"It's more likely to be a viverrid - that's the family which includes the mongoose and civets - which is a very poorly known group," Dr Isaac said. "One of the photos clearly shows the length of the tail and how muscly it is; civets use their tails to balance in trees, so this new animal may spend chunks of its time up trees too." That could be one reason why it has not been spotted before. Another could be that access to the heart of Borneo is becoming easier as population centres expand and roads are built. The WWF says this is the heart of the issue. It accuses the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which each own parts of Borneo, of encouraging the loss of native jungle by allowing the development of giant palm oil plantations.

Last week Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak, the larger Malaysian state on Borneo, said that such claims are unfounded and part of a smear campaign. He told the BBC News website that palm oil plantations are mainly sited on land which had previously been cleared for cultivation or are in "secondary jungle". But the WWF says species like the new viverrid - if new viverrid it be - are threatened by such development. It is concerned that other as yet unknown creatures may go extinct before their existence can be documented. The group is planning to capture the new species in a live trap so it can be properly studied and described.

Last post to UK ...

George

George — Sandy's friend Mel's dog — caught in the act of trashing Mel's living room in Bangkok ...



... and taking a well-earned rest before starting on the bedrooms.

Orchard Road Christmas lights

While belting down Orchard Road in a taxi, rushing to make Happy Hour at the local, I managed to stick the camera out of the window and get off a few shots of the Christmas lights.





The annual battle of the shopping malls to display the biggest, brightest and best Christmas settings is in full swing and the displays are as tacky and gaudy as ever. At least there's no fake snow this year. Easier on the eye are the Heineken and Tiger beer girls who have swapped their usual costumes for very flattering Santarina outfits.