Gallivanting

I write this ensconced very familiarly at my old desk in my somewhat palatial college room which I am lucky enough to be inhabiting for the second year in a row. Unfortunately it remains very bare and sad looking because the porters are holding hostage all my boxes which I left over the summer till tomorrow. I am living like a refugee and this morning had to shower with two hand towels. In a bid to make it temporarily seem a little more like a home I have put up some of my old posters which I rather cheekily hid in a high cupboard over the summer; and also went shopping at the trusty beginning of year poster of sale. My room is newly beautified by this little series of posters: penguins, snoopy, and a close up of a cow. Must keep up the zoologist face, you know.

September passed very pleasantly indeed in a whole series of trips around South-east Asia:

SINGAPORE
Was lovely for all the usual reasons of seeing the boyfriend, old friends etc. Went to watch E's dance performance at NUS; supper at Holland Village very convivial. Even went to Sentosa and spent a very happy day cycling, kayaking through the muck that passes for sea there, trying to get the boyfriend to sit on the beach; dinner at the lovely and very tasty Capella at CHIJMES. Such idyll.

BALI


Having just gained a professional diving qualification I naturally just had to get into the water again. Bali was a fantastic holiday all round -- far too much to see and do, charming, quiet, tremendously value for money into the bargain. The tourist tackiness we had expected was actually the exception to the norm, and despite the obvious tourist orientation of the entire island, we thought that the development had been done with lashings of taste and care to preserve the famous Balinese charm. The architecture is so lovely, everything done in dark wood and stone and completely open to the environment, melding seamlessly into the gorgeous plants and gardens everywhere.

Diving was amazing! There was amazing macro (little critters) at Tulamben in the north east of the island. I've never been muck diving before but could spend ages and ages peering amongst the sloping seabed of fine black volcanic sand looking for brightly coloured nudibranchs, crazy shrimps and crabs of all shapes and sizes, and various other denizens of the watery world. Saw so much that I'd never seen before in my life and couldn't identify at all. Highlights of the macro were probably the boxer crabs, tiny little 1cm crabs which stick anemones on their claws and wave them around kungfu-style to ward off danger, gorgeously coloured harlequin shrimp, and squat lobsters (AKA hairy blue crabs). I also spent probably something like 10 minutes watching this one cuttlefish. They are the coolest creatures ever, the way they change colours is phenomenal. It would flick from a smooth white with pulsating black, blue and silver spots, to mottled brown with spikes all over its body, and back again through a hundred incarnations within seconds. Despite the display being visual its speed and variety puts you in mind immediately of speech, and I did feel as I swam along with it that it might be talking to me. At one point it spread out its two side tentacles, stretched forward the rest in a tight triangle, pulsating strips of black and white at tremendous speed down them, and glooped a little fish or something (I couldn't see) from the water. It made me want to squeal into my regulator, it was so exciting.

And then, and then, and then there were the MOLA MOLA!! Also known as oceanic sunfish, these are the most massive bony fish in the world and we were tremendously lucky to see two of them as they came into the reef at Nusa Penida (an island off the east coast of Bali) to get cleaned. Both were about my size from fin tip to fin tip and these were small for the species. The Mola mola made the entire trip worth it even if everything else had been a disaster. It was so surreal swimming along with these unbelievably bizarre fish. I shall leave a picture to do the talking:


There was so much cultural stuff to do and of course we had no time to do it because we were underwater all the time. A second trip is definitely called for. We did, however, make it to Jimbaran to have seafood on the beach where a local band played at our request Rasa Sayang (Mum) and Hotel California (my sister and I); they could do Japanese and Spanish songs too! And we also watched a stunningly beautiful sunset from the temple at Uluwatu on the south west corner of the island. Finally, the females of the party had of course to try one of the Balinese spas -- we hadn't much time, but the little local one we went to for an hour long massage delivered quite the goods for USD25!

HONG KONG
Went back to Kuala Lumpur after Bali just in time to leave for yet another jaunt, this time in Hong Kong. I'd never been before and actually really liked the city, it has that sense of bustle and life that makes you want to explore and get carried along with the thousand and one events happening all the time. We stayed right next to the financial district which was certainly impressive.. the view almost everywhere you turn is quite phenomenal, particularly from Victoria Peak at night. Tower after tower, it is such a vertical city! It feels so different from Singapore; more like a Chinese version of New York I think -- less sterility, more life. There was a strange mixture of feeling more familiar than Western cities because of the Chinese culture and food, and more remote because I don't speak Cantonese. But it is perhaps similar to Singapore that there doesn't seem to be much to do! We largely went shopping and I was surprised at the sheer number of high fashion brand names -- I had to console myself with Espirit and Mango. I have such a lovely polka dotted... but you don't want to know about that, so I shall leave you instead with a picture of the Fragrant Harbour (as my sister calls it).



CAMBRIDGE
And now, alas, the Exciting Pre-PhD Summer is most definitely over. Real life beckons, or rather the PhD beckons as it can hardly be called real life. For the next three years I shall hopefully regale you with the trials and tribulations of how to figure out what little fish are doing underwater. See, now I just have to figure out which fish (possibly humbug damselfish so far) and where to do it! Piece of fishy cake. If only!