A Weekend in Singapore

Friday night
Onfriday night, we decided to go Salsa dancing and ended up on this place where in one side they had salsa (Some people even had the moves right but rithm was very off - think about dancing salsa to your own rithm ... and I am not the best on rhytm either). There was a door beside the dance floor and after a while dancing we decided to check where did that door take you to. One of the funniest places I have seen. It was a drag queen and her friend singing a very bad karaoke... It was hilarious... they even had a poster with their pictures behind them. I will have to go back with my camera one of this days and post it.

Saturday Report
A while back while still in Vancouver, I posted a message on www.sailinganarchy.com asking about sailboat racing in Singapore. A guy named Bill answered and invited me to join him on a day sail this saturday on his Sydney 40 Foxy Lady. The day was amazing. Woke up early and met with Bill and Sarab on the Raffles Marina and after breakfast we went sailing with another 2 couples on board for their first sailing experience. We had 2 coolers full of ice and beer and when we got back to the dock we poped a champagne bottle and 2 wines... By the time I left the marina, we could barely talk.

The boat is a 40 feet race boat very similar to the boat I used to race in Vancouver (Farr 47). Bill invited me to join the crew and in 2 weeks I shall do my first race on Foxy Lady...

Sunday was a good day... Met with Huber, Julia, Bonnie and Pedro in Chinatown for foot massages and after that went to Sentosa to meet Manuel and Mimi. Santosa is the sunday sunset hangout here. Enjoy the pics.

Home sweet Home

Well ... after a while house hunting I finally got a place. It is a 2 bedroom ground floor apartment. Unfortunately it does not have a patio but it is about 2 times the size of my old Vancouver apartment.... The area is called East Coast. It is a 5 min walk to the beach. 15 min bike ride to work.


The Pool .... and the tennis court on the background. We also have a bbq, gym and squash courts (maybe Marinho and Hudson wanna come play with me).

Office
Living Room
Bedroom

Sibu - Malaysia

This weekend adventure was in Sibu, Malasya. After long talks we all decided that this was going to be the next stop on our weekend trips. Ben was in charge of the organization of this trip and did a great job... we got picked up at the MRT station (subway) by a mini bus that drove us to a pier in Malasya and from there we had a 1 hour boat trip to the island. Arriving was already pretty cool as there's no pier and some small waves. Basically you jump from the boat to the beach and you are greeted with welcome drinks (that could use some alcohol)... Sibu is an island on the same group as Tioman and less developed. The wild life is not as abundant and the water not as clear... and booze is pricey. Not living up to Tioman standarts does not put this place in a bad spot though. We had an amazing weekend that included some sailing on dinguies, some scubadiving, voleyball, ping pong, hiking on the forrest and a lot of swiming including an AMAZING swim under the full moon. We were all pretty drunk at that point and the memories are blurry as are the pictures so I decided not to post them here. =)

Sunday, me and Hillary went scubadiving while Ben and Jane raced sailboating with Calvin on a dinguy. We saw a few stingrays and a couple of Morrey eels. Water was a bit merky but still looks amazing at the beach. Scuba diving site was average. Partying with everyone on this trip and swiming on that fullmoon was priceless. Thanks to all involved and I will see you next time.

I hope by then I will be able to communicate with Hillary in Singlish (Singapore English Lah ) or at least recognize it as a type of english. For those not familiar with singlish, it's a language where you start from english than you take the ends of the words out.
After that you think :"Where would a canadian say eh ?" .. after you figure that out (and it takes some time to get that too!) you put a "lah" or a "leh" instead of the "eh" and you have singlish.
No matter wich one you pick, it's the wrong one by the way (Lah or Leh).Let me put it this way...I gotta tell you , underwater, understanding him got a lot easier. =)

ie.
singlish: drindrin Lah ?
meaning: Wanna have a drink ?

singlish: cooca lah ?
canadian: Cool car eh ?

Maybe I got the examples wrong but you can get the idea. My singlish is still pretty rusty.



The whole gang consisted of: Snowy, Ben, Calvin, Grace, Julia, Me, Jane and Hillary. Unfortunately, Hillary does not like pictures and did not show up on this one.







This is a map of the area showing Tioman to Sibu.

Tioman Adventure...

Last weekend we left work around 6 pm and headed to Malasya.
We caught cabs to a place called Mersing and crashed on a very crappy place there. No aircon and SUPER HOT. Rooms were cheap and dirty but we got to the hotel very late and did not care much.

Next morning at 7:30 am we caught a ferry to Tioman and had a very rough ride there because of the high winds and waves. It was like being inside a blender (If you managed to suck the air out of it). Me, Ben and Lyon decided to go on the back of the boat so we would get the air. They failed to inform us that was where the water was... it was a WET ride. Ariving in Tioman was already a mind blowing event.. the place is AMAZING. It's an island that is pratically untouched. Only the first 20 meters of island have construction (close to the waterfront) and then it's wilderness in front of a transparent crystal blue water. in the forrest you can still see wild monkeys (I only saw one but the girls saw a few).

Saturday we just hung out at the beach and went for a walk...



People are very nice and friendly and we met some nice "locals". We ended up going to a happy hour on saturday night on a Bar (Fendi's Bar) where they had a beer special (3 beers for 2 bucks) and by 10 o'clock everyone was absolutely wasted. We danced on the beach under a clear sky to some reggae music and by the time we left I was inside the bar teaching Fendi how to mix a brazilian caipirinha.

Sunday we went for a boat trip and saw one of the most amazing places I have ever been to: Coral Island.

I guess you will have to be there to see this place. Come visit and I will show it to you. Check out some pics below.

This picture was taken by a tree. Camera was hanging from a branch .
Thanks to Ben Left to right : Snowy, Ben and Me (1st row)
Ivy (birthday girl), Grace (2nd row),Calvin, Lyon (hidden)(3rd row)

Coral Island

after a while drinking: Ben, Snowy, Calvin, Grace, Me and Ivy

A bit about Singapore

This place is pretty cool and VERY, VERY busy. Did I mention it is busy here ? There is people everywhere you look. The skytrain(MRT / subway) is as crazy as going to watch a soccer game in Brazil. If you stop walking, you have to turn sideways not to interrupt the flow. And no, I am not kidding.
This is my workspace:

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The people at LucasFilm seem to be all into the same mood... work hard, party and travel a lot too. Drinks here are very expensive and we seem to spend a LOT of money when we decide to go out. No need to say we also drink a lot. One night out normally will go for around 80 bucks for drinks. The popular drink here is vodka and red bull and we seem to go through bottles of it everytime we go out (poor liver).

As far as sports, I seem to be finding out more about this place everyday. There is a very cool pool on the roof of the building where we are and I go there sometimes to swim at lunch. Sun tan and have lunch then swim for 30 min. I found a place to wakeboard here that is pretty cool and already went once.. the interesting thing is that u get pulled by cables in a lake instead of a boat (kindda miss having a wake to jump). Today I managed to contact someone about kiteboarding here and apparently you can kite here close to my office. I am dying to see this. Will post more as I know more.

Last weekend a bunch of us here from work went on a trip to Malasya. It will be my next post.

Cheers.

Singapore Adventures Start

Hi all ... Finally I am here, alive and well and ready to tell something about my current adventures. This is my first attempt to a blog and I hope it works.

This is the entrance to the Office here in Singapore. Kindda neat... everything is made onto the Starwars theme.


The building is in a fish shape and by tradition you start filling the office from the head of the fish. The place is enormous and we barelly take 1/4 of the space. The 2nd and 3rd pictures are the outside.