Xmas Plans...

Right, I've decided to go home for xmas. Everyone here is buggering off home and don't fancy spending Xmas day with a bunch of strangers or something - family xmas with all the trimmings sounds far more tempting! So plan is:

28th November - Finish last exam
29th November - Fly to Hanoi, Vietnam
1st December - Sharla flies out to Hanoi
2nd-14th December - Sharla and I travel around Vietnam and Cambodia having a generally amazing time
15th December - I head over to Hong Kong to see Sue and Chris
19th December - Head back to Singapore
20th December - Fly back to UK
21st-26th December - Spend time with family in Devon
27th December-2nd January - Spend time with mates in Leeds
3rd January - Head back to Devon and pack for Singapore
4th January - Fly back to Singapore
5th January - Find some tropical island to warm up on

Night Safari

Went to the Night Safari on Saturday. It was all organised thru the uni on their Singapore Night Tour. Cost us $18 and they wanted us to be at the night safari for only 2 hours! In the end we stayed around till 11:30 and made our own way home. Would put some really cool photos up, but you can't use a flash so all my really cool photos don't exist...

Did sweet FA on Sunday. In the evening we went for dinner at the Cheese Prata Shop which was pretty cool, but I forgot it was muslim and I asked for a beer... Oops! Afterwards we watched Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies (as it is called in the UK - everywhere else its Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, personally I prefer the UK name...).

Just 5 days until me and Ferg head off to Redang! Going to hire our equipment tomorrow, might buy my own pair of fins too (useful for snorkeling?). But until then I need to do some lab work, finish reading a really boring paper so I can present it in class and do some reading for a tutorial.

Oh yeah, just finished d/l Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog) - its awesome. Jet Li going fucking mental whenever Bob Hoskins takes off his collar. Sweeeet. Dodgeball nearly done too - GRAB LIFE BY THE BALLS!

Later!
J

Ko Pha-Ngan Photos

Finally got my disposable camera developed so lots of lovely new photos from the Full Moon party to go up soon. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any from the period I forgot (unless the Singaporeans censored them?!). Also got a few more photos from WOMAD. All looking pretty cool though.













Just found out that the NUS dive club is running a trip to Bali in December... Might go along, or just organise something similar with some mates. All a bit undecided at the moment though.

Later
J

This week at uni...

I have done bugger all. Meant to be doing this research project (which is kinda annoying at times), and haven't been in for over a week. Guess I should make an appearance today or tomorrow. Got a lecture in 30 mins which is boring too - can barely understand the lecturer either; he speaks like Jar Jar Binks. Funny at times, but gets irritating too. Kinda wish I was just travelling for the entire year in some ways. Have made loads of cool mates here though, so it does have some plus sides. Just utterly bored of biochemistry (only now?!) - I find my other modules really interesting but the ones that are meant to be my core modules are sooo crap!!! Should have done a history degree, or geography - something interesting...

Woah...

This guy is just incredible...


In other news... Bought my camera a waterproof housing so I can now go diving with it! =oD Can't wait for Pulau Redang, look at some these photos I found on the net!

Also went to the National Library to see their Zheng He exhibit (see www.1421.tv for more information). Wasn't overly impressed - but there's a second exhibit which is directly related to the book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World". The book is really interesting as it puts forward the case for Zheng He's fleet being the first to circumnavigate the globe, making landfall on every continent (with the possible exception of Antarctica - which they just mapped the coast of).

Stumble!

My mate Fergus told me about this extension for Firefox called Stumble. Tried it out and its pretty cool. Basically it takes you to random websites that are pretty good! Found this one earlier - its a load of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where Calvin is making snowmen...

Long time...

Haven't made any entries for a long time, but thought I might as well get back into it. So what've I been up to for the past month or so?!

Settled in to Singapore reasonably well and taken up kendo (Japanese bamboo sword fighting). Having a really good time and gonna try to get my own gear soon. Was doing silat (Indonesian martial art) but don't think I've got enough time to be honest. Might do taekwon do instead as I know some already so I won't feel like I'm getting left behind so much when I don't turn up for training for a week.

Courses going well - all the biochemistry malarky is kinda boring and tedious at the moment (not a great sign...), but chinese history and evolution are well cool!

Done a bit of travelling - went to Borneo with the parentals after Sri Lanka and been off to Ko Pha Ngan (full moon party a few weeks ago) and Kuala Lumpur (this weekend). Booked up a dive trip to Pulau Redang for mid-semester break, followed by a few days in Bangkok. Should be a good laugh!

Made some great mates here, if you want to have a look to see who they are you can look at my photo gallery - http://www.jkrk13.smugmug.com

Later
J

Sri Lanka!

I'm currently in Colombo Airport in Sri Lanka, where I've been staying for the past 3 days. Have had a great time with lots of interesting bits and pieces happening. After a long and tiresome flight from Heathrow to Colombo we caught a taxi to our hostel, "Rangit's Guesthouse". A suprisingly nice place with a friendly staff, who managed to convince us to part with lots of money for very things (all worthwhile!). First day we arrived (Tuesday 19th July) was knackering so we slept off the jet lag and eventually strolled into town for a bit of a look around. Wandered down onto the seafront where we found a railway station, which was very run down but pretty cool with the waves splashing up onto the rocks and the sunsetting. We spent 10 or 15 minutes here just soaking up the atmosphere, which was very enjoyable. Headed back into town and sat down for some local cuisine at a small vegetarian curry house - we didn't have a clue what was going on so they just brought us out a selection of curries and chapattis. This was very nice and worked out very cheap at just 222 rupees for the three of us - thats around 1 quid!

Yesterday we made an early start and headed off on a tour of some local attractions on route to a place called Kandy (more on that later). It seemed to take hours to get out of the urban sprawl of Colombo but eventually we got into some countryside which was beautiful - lots of small villages and towns with large areas of paddyfields (rice) bordered by jungle. We stopped for breakfast at a really nice hotel where we had a Sri Lankan breakfast buffet - comprising of fish curry and milk rice among other things (really nice). We headed on again (after the usual debate of are we meant to tip, how much, is it included in the bill, etc) to an elephant orphanage! When we arrived the herd was bathing in the local river so we went to have a look - it was an incredible sight. I think we spent around an hour just looking at them - the interactions between herd members were really interesting, particularly the baby elephants. I took loads of photos which I'll put up as soon as I get them developed and the like. After the elephant orphanage we went to another elephant place where they let you ride them! That was really amazing and well worth it if you ever get the opportunity!!!

We saw a few small temples before we finally arrive in Kandy. This is the home to the Temple of the Tooth - supposedly Buddah's left tooth (don't ask which one, its just his left tooth) is kept here. It was taken from his ashes after his cremation and survived an attempt to destroy it. Legend has it that it was struck with a hammer but didn't break - instead it rose up into the air and shone brightly like a star. We were given a tour by an old man who used to be in the army - he blessed us and our parents and siblings, which was nice. We then carried on to the Kandyan Cultural Centre where we watched a selection of local traditional dances and some firewalkers - pretty cool to see, especially when they covered the coals in petrol! By the time we left it was dark and as we drove out of Kandy we saw the most amazing sight of the day - thousands of bats filled the sky. Some were massive with a wingspan as big as your arm - really incredible to see.

As for today we had a bit of a lazy one - couldn't really think of much to do so we slept in till 2 before heading down the beach where we saw first hand some of the tsunami damage. One local man talked to us of it and showed us some photos - it was really quite shocking. We got some lunch in a nice hotel which I guess had been refurbished since the tsunami. Anyways thats pretty much it - should be in Singapore in around 5 hours time. Need to get the keys to my flat and the like and get some more clothes before heading off to Borneo for the week with the family. Think we boarding in a few mins so I'd best be going.

Exam Results

Exams didn't go disasterously as it turned out (56% average). But I've got a lot of work to do to get my biochemical knowledge up to a decent level. Worked out that I need a 77% average in my final year to get a 1st, although 71% might swing it if I'm lucky. Considering that in these exams I got 50 and 52 in two of my core modules, it doesn't sound too promising - time to get down to some work I feel!

End of Exams!!!

The psychotic madness is finally over. And despite only starting revision the day before the exam I think the last one went relatively okay - should have passed at least!!! Kinda put my fears to rest for a bit - was kinda worried that I wouldn't be able to go to Singapore (failed exams=resits=can't be in Singapore). Apparently we get provisional (?!?!) exam results in a couple of weeks which will put any worries to rest for good =o) (fingers crossed...)