Destination: Desaru

Well I’m a bit behind, I know, as romsa constantly reminds me. But this week I have a really good reason for not keeping up on my blog. Read on to find out!!

Last LAST weekend (jesus am I really that far behind??), well I can’t remember what I did Friday night, I think I got home late, did a pool workout, and went to bed, but I could be wrong about that. Maybe I skyped. Maybe I went to the grocery store. Maybe I robbed a bank. In any case I remember last Friday thinking THANK YOU it’s Friday. I was ready for the (work)week to be over. not really a particular reason, just an overwhelming feeling. Everyone feels like that sometimes.

Anyways, on Saturday, I do remember what I did. I got up and went for a run in the park. I made it around two full laps this time before the sweat/sunscreen drops were stinging my eyes and my knee was signaling to stop. I went with black eyes peas in the ipod. Their last album actually I really liked. It was definitely their most vanilla/radio friendly, and no song right now is more annoying than ‘tonight’s going to be a good night’ which has 10 words or less but still manages to last more than 3 minutes. It’s like they got together and said… ok fergie you’re busy with josh and trying to pretend you haven’t gained 15 lbs, will.i.am. you’ve got your budding movie career (did you see him in wolverine?), but the rest of us need some money so let’s pull it together, record a few quick, processed, uninspiring songs, and make some quick cash, ok? It won’t take more than a week, we’ll go on a tour where 85% percent of the show is computer-generated and you only have to remember about 10 words to ‘sing’ the songs, and we can all meet back here in about 2 more years and do it again. deal.

And I digress…. So after my run I made my way over to Har Paw Villa, which was LAME, but it’s ok, you try some different things and you win some and lose some. I don’t remember where I read about or heard about the Har Paw Villa, but in any case it ended up on my list of things to do. The villa is advertised as a Chinese history lesson told via a beautiful garden with figurines and statues telling the story. So I’d like to learn more about Chinese history since Chinese new year is coming up soon. So I take the MRT all the way over to the west side which is not a short journey, although if they would hurry up and complete the circle MRT line it would’ve been a lot shorter!! The circle line is the yellow line and, amazingly, runs in a circle. Currently the other lines run north-south, east-west, and then the purple line I don’t know which way that one goes, maybe diagonally. I’m directionally challenged as you all know, but thankfully not colorblind. So the circle line only has maybe 2 or 3 stations built so far, but once the other stations are finished and the circle is complete, it will be awesome and really cut down travel times.

So I got to the Haw Par Villa, and basically it was probably a really cool and fun place about 10-15 years ago. It’s all these concrete statues/figurines in scenes depicting key stories in Chinese history. It’s just really run down and it sort of reminded me of the ‘it’s a small world’ ride at Disney World (florida). you can see all the strings and all the tracks and the robotic movements, but it has a certain nostalgia that keeps you coming back. Here are some pictures below of the villa. The one memorable thing about the villa is that it had the big stone wheel with all of the Chinese animals for the year you are born. My birth year is the Pig, and it said “speaks truthfully and to the point. quick tempered but hates quarrelling.” Hahah that can be true! I forget which animal matt was, the horse I think, but his was ‘cheerful, skillful, and perceptive’ hahah which is just about the opposite of him. well they can’t all be right!

So after the villa, I made my way over down to the Singapore Flyer, which is a huge ferris wheel right on the water, probably on reclaimed land. I timed it so that I could be on the flyer around sunset, which worked out perfectly. It takes about 30 minutes for the flyer to go all the way around, and you really get such an amazing view of the city. Each pod looks kind of like a squarish cylinder and is fully glass except for the floor. There is plenty of room to move around inside of the pod, and there are some benches in the center. You can go in the pod all by your self if you want to, you just have to pay a bit extra. On the rotation up, you can see mostly ocean (and boats boats boats), the marina barrage (where I went for NYE), and sentosa. On the way down, you can see the city side, and the new casino high rises you can see really well, as well as the esplanade and really far into Singapore. You can really see just how many high rises there are from the sky. When you’re actually in the city it doesn’t really feel like such a high rise jungle at all. It doesn’t even feel congested, or that you’re on an island. They do a really good job of camouflaging the urban jungle and making the city very livable. One other really cool thing about the Flyer is that they also built a formula 1 race car track at the base of the flyer… now that is brilliant space maximization. See some pics below from the Flyer.

When you exit the flyer you’re forced to go through the souvenir shop a.k.a a huge room full of crap you don’t need. But, inside the souvenir shop, was the scariest looking mannequin I’ve ever seen. it was wearing children's clothes, had a big scar over one eye, was wearing lipstick, and was missing an arm and possibly winking at me.

On Sunday I got up really early to catch a ferry over to Desaru (Malaysia). I didn’t have a ferry ticket so I was a bit worried. I got to the Changi terminal early and I was the ONLY one there. just me and the ticket agent. It was a room about as big as a high school classroom. So I waited until 30 minutes before boarding. I went through customs (yay another chop!), and got on the ferry, which probably seats about 125 people. There were 3 people on the ferry, including me. Hahah! Oh well, more room to spread out I guess. The ride is 30 minutes over to desaru. The purpose of the Desaru trip was to visit an exotic fruit farm, ag-tourism I suppose. So I had arranged with the farm to pick me up from the ferry terminal, the ride from the terminal to the farm is about 20 minutes and it’s just on a 2-lane paved road through the jungle. Very rural.

The farm is located on about 100 acres and grows over 100 kinds of different fruits. Today it’s luckily not too hot and there is a light breeze. I came on a perfect day. I got a guide who gave me a lovely walking tour of the farm. Normally she says the tours are on modified open-air vans, but I liked the walking much much better. I don’t remember the guides name, but she was so wonderful it really made the experience great. She explained to me all about the farming practices, the fertilizer is all organic and made from on-site compost, the farm itself is an organic farm, and described all the fruits and picked them off the trees and let me taste whatever I wanted. She even let me put a few in my purse and made me promise not to tell anyone hahah. To control the insects attacking the fruit, EACH individual fruit on the tree/vine is wrapped in paper and a little plastic bag is tied around it. Every piece of fruit! They must have many laborers working.
I had lunch at the farm and spent awhile in the little fruit stand on-site. I bought a big bag of all kinds of fruit to bring to the office and share. Dragonfruit, papaya, mango, starfruit, rose apples, and passion fruit. No durian haha!!! I had no idea how to cut any of it but luckily some colleagues helped me out. Definitely the best was the papaya and the dragonfruit. I had bought the purple dragon fruit, and it was such a really vibrant purple. Before I had only had the white kind. The purple tastes a bit more sweet and the texture is a bit smoother. The fruit platter was a big hit at the office and a nice afternoon break.

It was about 5PM by the time I got back from Malaysia, and when I got home I just felt overwhelmingly tired. I very rarely take naps, but I could barely keep my eyes open. Like the time I accidentally took Tylenol PM instead of regular Tylenol and feel asleep while eating lunch at the table. So I just laid down and ended up just sleeping through until Monday. I didn’t think much of it, when I woke up I felt fine. But as the day progressed on Monday, things went downhill. After lunch I had a noticeable fever and my whole body was aching. I struggled for awhile at my desk and finally threw in the towel around 5PM and went home officially sick. On the way home I bought a big jug of orange juice, determined to fight this thing. Sounds good in theory, I had the best intentions. Monday night was the worst, I barely slept, and I self diagnosed myself with the flu. I had a fever, my body felt bruised and sore all over, and I’m quite sure there was an evil gremlin in my stomach. Tuesday wasn’t much better, I finally forced myself at 4PM to get out of bed to take a shower. After the shower I felt a little better and got really suddenly hungry, so I ordered a pizza. It arrived in 20 minutes! 20 minutes! I ate a few pieces and went back to bed. Being sick is so boring. I watched the season 2 of heroes… again. and then I just laid in bed staring at the ceiling.

Wednesday I felt worlds better so I went back to work. mistake. By the end of the day I felt awful again. Thursday I felt crappy still so I just went in for half day. Friday I felt nearly fine again. I haven’t eaten much this week, and Friday I really started feeling hungry again so I feel like that’s a sign things are returning to normal. I was thinking, I’ve never called in sick the entire time I’ve been at fugro. aside from using some hours for a doctor/dentist appointment here or there, I have probably a month of sick time saved up. the FSIN people probably think I’m sickly, especially now that I’ve had the flu and the eye problems. I don’t know what the deal is, but I’m not happy about it. maybe just bad luck, who knows. i went to bed early on Friday night. Big day tomorrow I need to be healthy!!