Granada

In Granada Aya and I enjoyed evenings of tapas and sangria then watched flamenco dancing in the square. This was very enjoyable, but of course the big attraction in Granada is Alhambra, the Moorish palace built/occupied from approximately 700 to 1491 when the last ruler signed it over to Isabella and Ferdinand.

When we went it was evening and there didn’t seem to be a large amount of people there. We were advised to get tickets beforehand which we did, but people that queued up to buy tickets got in just as quickly as we did. The sprawling grounds have a good number of gardens and beautiful views as well as some of the most ornate architecture I have seen. I could get used to living in a place like that.

The next day we were to take a train to Madrid so we thought we had better do one more night of bouncing from bar to bar for tapas and drinks. We each had a couple more drinks and felt like we had a full night so went home. Aya wanted to use the computer in the business center so I went up to the room alone. About ½ an hour later there was a frantic knock at the door and Aya brushed past me when I opened the door. More or less we determined that Aya’s threshold is about 1 drink and anything more might be trouble. 

Basilica La Sagrada Familia

First order of business in Barcelona was to visit the Basilica Sagrada Familia, also known as that awesome church that Gaudi built (disclaimer, he didn't actually build it but designed it). Unfortunately the architect Antonio Gaudi, whose wonderful architecture is all over Barcelona, died when hit by a tram. This was well before the basilic was finished, since it still isn't finished and Gaudi was unlikely to live to be 174 to see its completion in 2026 anyways. Work has carried on and continues to, some of which can be seen in the lower levels of the Basilica where there is also located a museum to the history of construction. The designs within the building are mad by today's eye and I am sure they looked like craziness 100 years ago as well. It seems like much of the designs were brand new and people weren't even sure they would work, but they have.

I joined the 2.5 million people who visit this UNESCO world site each year and by that I mean that I started by standing in line for 1 hour in the Spanish sun because I hadn't reserved tickets in advance. The line curved around the front of the building and down the block threatening to reach right round to continue on to the next block. Many people saw the line and turned around. Babies cried and women fanned themselves with cheap Chinese fans bought from Chinese street hawkers taking advantage of the line (the Chinese are everywhere, seriously everywhere). Eventually we got in.

Amazing. I don't know how else to describe it as its not really like anything I have seen before. For some reason I felt like it had been built by lizard people. Columns rocketed to the ceiling in a curvy fashion, stain glass colored the faces of passersby in green, blue, orange, and gold. The depiction of Christ, hanging and yet covered by some kind of canopy was strange. It made me think that there was Christ, under the big top, and this was all some circus. We didn't stay too long as we had little time in Barcelona and wanted to see other things, plus were a bit tired from standing in line so long but this set a nice tone for the rest of our sight seeing in Barcelona.  

100 Flights

A couple of years ago a friend had commented to me that his wife had just taken her 100th flight and I joked if she wrote them down in a book or something each time she flew. He had said that they had a flight delayed and so to pass the time started to count the flights realizing that she was about to make her 100th.

I can't say for sure that Basel to Barcelona was my 100th, but I think so. Flying 100 times doesn't feel like a lot, but I guess it is. When I first started flying I was nervous each time, especially when taking off. I still get a bit nervous during take-offs, but more so during landings now as I know that about 2/3 of all crashes occur then. Not a happy thought, but learning more about air travel also has lead me to realize that commercial flying is incredibly safe: by most estimates I have somewhere between a 1 in 25 million and 1 in 50 million chance of being involved in an air crash depending on which airline I am taking. Compared with train travel flying is much safer though travel by train is pretty safe.  Its much safer even then driving and way more safe then walking or biking. It seems odd to think of walking as dangerous, but walkers and bikers are subject to being hit by cars, who kill them.
I guess it is the lack of control that most people fear. Is this pilot trained sufficiently? Likely so. We should really be asking that question each time we enter a vehicle.
In any case, I made it through 100 and I will likely make it through 100 more. Here we go, into the wild blue yonder! 

On Germany

I finally made it out of Penang for the summer. It was a relief from the heat, montony, and living alone. It felt great to watch Penang drift away in the clouds. After a long series of flights from Penang to KL, KL to Amsterdam, and finally Amsterdam to Basel I was greeted by my uncle, wife, and in laws. As my aunt and I would later find out, it was my 5th (I think) time to visit them. Since I had rested pretty well on the flight, and on the floor in Siphol in Amsterdam, I was able to spend the first evening up with them. Over the next few days my uncle drove around the 4 of us (mom in-law, dad-inlaw, aya, me) to various places and my aunt made delicious meals for us at all times of the day. It was very relaxing and they were great hosts. We had just enough time to visit Neuschwanstein, the reference for the castles at every Diseneyland, and to go to Interlaken (actually not, but a village close to there whose name I can't remember) for a nice view of the Alps and to see one of the coolest waterfalls which carved its way through the mountain from glacial run-off. We also spent some time in Bad Sackingen wandering around and the town and the Rhine R. On the last night we had my favorite meal and then my uncle, dad-in law, and me got excited looking at a book of maps. After 4 days my wife and in-laws were off and I stayed on for another two days spending time with the family before heading to Barcelona to meet up with Aya. I really enjoyed my stay and can't wait to see them all again, whether in Germany or somewhere else (come to Japan Nielecks! I will meet you there!)

Out With the Old. In With the New.

For those of you looking for how to get your passport both through documents and directions skip down to the last paragraph. 

Its been 10 years now and that guy on my passport doesn't look too much like me anymore. I took that photo in a Walgreens on the way to Chicago with my mother. I was apply for my first adult passport because I was traveling to China to meet my friend David. Soon after I got my first visa, a big one page Chinese tourist visa was inside. By the end I think I had four of those one page Chinese visas, plus a few more 1 page visas. 

I love  my old beat up passport, but it was time to get a new one and so I had to get one here in Malaysia. Malaysia, the 22nd country I visited/lived in with this passport. In all there are 23 countries logged in this one. 97 flights under that passport, about a dozen motor car border crossings. I love to look at the stamps and remember each journey. Even though I had to get more pages a few years ago I was reaching the end of those as well and would have had to get a new passport sometime soon, time to say goodbye to my old friend.

So in order to get a new passport I had to fill out some documents online (then print them) from the US embassy. Passport renewal is pretty straightforward as you need only those forms, a form of ID (old passport will do), some cash, and a passport photo. Unfortunately citizen services is only open from 9am to 11am weekdays, so it was hard to coordinate a day to get there. In Malaysia you can't send in your passport by mail as you can in other places/ if you are of other nationality. You have to physically go there.  If you have the proper documents and such the process is pretty quick. It took me about 20 minutes to wait, be called on, and get the documents in. Then they give you a slip of paper, green, as a receipt for your new passport. You do not need to go in person to collect it, anyone who has the slip can get the passport. I ended up going myself to retrieve it as well and that was even faster. Getting to and from the embassy can be tricky, but it need not be. I've posted a map google gave me for walking from my hotel in Bukit Bintang. It took me about 40 minutes to walk that distance and it was easy to keep to the correct streets. If you drive, as I did the first time, just keep on Jalan Tun Razak. Initially you will likely be driving under an elevated highway. Just keep going until the road starts to rise and there is no highway above you. At this point you will see an elevated walkway going over the road. Just after this is the embassy. Pass the embassy and take the next left. This will lead you into a residential area where you can park for free and from which its less than 5 minutes to walk to the embassy. The embassy has no official parking, so this is likely your best option to get your shiny new, American passport. 

Betel Nut

The island where I live is named for the tree which grows here, Pinang. This tree has a unique feature as many people chew the nuts from the tree. Before coming to Penang I researched the island and discovered this fact, which peeked my interest. A couple years prior I first heard of betel nut from a co-worker who had lived in Yap for many years. He said that everyone there chewed betel nut, even kids in his classroom. Earlier this year I tried to locate some, thinking Little India in Georgetown was the best place to find it, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. Thankfully I have recently made friends with a local and when I told her that I wanted to try it she brought me all the ingredients the next day! Not only that but a few days later we did a little "walking tour" and she showed me a few hole in the wall stores where I could buy more.
Taking the meat from the center of the nut, you wrap it in a leaf, add some lime/chalk, chew until gooey and then put into the pocket of your cheek/teeth chewing gently until there is nothing left. It turns your mouth red as the nut is ground down, a sure sign of someone who is using it.
I had read that it would give you a slight buzz and I found this to be true. I felt a light headed feeling, but nothing too severe. Perhaps a bit of a general good feeling too. Now that I have tried it, I don't think I will do it again soon. The nut is bitter and for what it does, I don't feel that it is worth using, but a nice experiment none the less

. 

Sepilok Orang-utan Center

On the last day we left camp early and headed back to Kopel’s main center in Mengaris. We had a nice breakfast there then boarded a bus heading for the Orang-utan rehab center  near Sandakan. This for me was the highlight of the trip. At the center we were going to watch a morning feeding time for orang-utans, but on the walk to the feeding platform we encountered two orang-utans on the walkway and so at once frightening and exciting were able to get within just a few feet of them. The feeding was also interesting as we got to see a small group interact. Apparently orang-utan numbers in Borneo are on the rise. A good sign for nature conservationists.

After a quick lunch in Sandakan we boarded flights for KL where all but myself and one other teacher flew back to Penang. There was another mix up with the tickets and the long story short meant that we would be taking checked baggage via bus back to Penang, a 5 hour ride, while the others flew on.  Wearily we arrived back at the school around 130am and deposited the bags for students to collect the next day. Later on as I was taking a hot shower I thought about how marvelous it is that I get to have aircon, hot running water, a ready supply of clean clothes, a soft bed, and an apartment with space and a nice view. I don’t often think of myself as being rich and I think by relative standards I am not rich for the society I come from, but by absolute standards I have it pretty good.  The best part of this trip was seeing and hearing the students complain about the pit toilets, the bucket showers, the work and the grime. 

Kopel Eco Camp

The next morning we packed it all up and took boats down river to the Eco Camp, another part of the Kopel Community Eco-tourism. Here all students would be staying for the next couple of days, mostly in A frame huts, but some going all out sleeping in the jungle with only hammocks. I must say though that by this point I was very tired because of lack of sleep and hard working days. I decided to take the morning to visit a local museum and then head out with the lunch delivery later in the day. In the village there is a museum, whose name I can’t seem to remember or find, where 50 or so wooden coffins have been found in the caves of a limestone escarpment. It is a bit of a mystery what these coffins, date 600-900 years old, are doing in the caves as by that time locals in the area had converted to Islam which dictates no coffin or adornments at burial. It was an interesting place and from the top there is a lookout area with great views. After spending some time there I and another teacher rode out with the lunches to where the students were planting trees. Portions of the forest near the village had been illegally logged and so the Kopel group was replanting those areas. More work in the sun and the dirt planting and then we headed back to the Eco camp for the night. After a delicious dinner and a couple of hours of charades most everyone headed for bed. I was looking forward to a good night of sleep as there were no highways, chicken coups, or mosques in sight and my mat had a mosquito net over it. Unfortunately I had stupidly left an empty package of peanuts on the floor next to my bag and so was awoken at 4am by what I think was a lizard trying to lick the inside of the foil.

Day two at Eco camp I again decided to take the morning to rest, this time learning some local fishing techniques from the guides and chatting with them about their lives. Thankfully the other teacher with me was Malaysian and so could communicate with them very well. Not that they didn’t speak English, but the English was limited. I learned that most of the guys had 6-10 kids and earned between 200-400 ringgit (about 70-125usd) per month. To supplement their income they fished, hunted, tended vegetable patches, and grew small plots of palm for palm oil production. It was an interesting morning.

I again rode the boat out with the lunch and joined everyone else planting trees. By 4pm we broke from work and took a couple of boats down river to see some wildlife. That trip was rewarding as we saw some crocs, various hornbills, and proboscis monkeys. That night back at camp we had another great meal and prepared our bags for an early departure the next morning.

Miso Walai Homestay

This past week I was a chaperon on a week long school trip for the students CAS week, which is community service. Many groups of students worked at places like homeless shelters and orphanages here in Penang, but others went further afield to Kuala Lumpur and Thailand. There is even a group that will be departing this week that is going to Kenya to build sink/toilet facilities at a local school there.

The group I was with went to the eastern (Borneo) part of Malaysia, a 4 hour plane journey that landed us in the city of Sandakan in the province of Sabah. Another larger group was heading to climb Mt. Kinabalu first and would join us later in the week. Due to some mix up of the plane ticket bookings my small band of 6 arrived late at night. From Sandakan we had to travel 2 hours by bus to the village of Mengaris where we were paired off and sent to stay with local families through the Miso Walai home stay program. Since it was so late, I can’t say that our family was brimming with excitement to see us, but they quickly made us comfortable and we tried to sleep. I found this extremely difficult as my bedroom was 5 meters from a highway, right above a chicken coup, and with no mosquito net.

The next day we headed to a local school to begin work on a covered walkway which kids from our school had started in previous years. Here our real adventure began as we began to see the village in the daylight. About 100 houses spread over roughly 5 square kilometers. The village had no gas station, no grocery, no mini-mart, and no hospital, but they did have a mosque conveniently located about 10 meters from my bedroom which is perfect for the 4am call to prayer to wake you up, whether or not you would like to pray at 4am.

Unfortunately on the first day there was a problem locating the proper tools for work on the walkway, but the pta had another project going on building some walls for a storage room so we helped with that, mostly getting in the way. At the end of the day, very tired and dirty, we decided to take a short ride across the river to where there were some shops, a couple of restaurants, and a gas station.

We perused the shops and had dinner at a Chinese place, then reluctantly headed back to our home stays. The home stays themselves were not terrible. People were nice enough, the food was fine, and there was an effort to make us comfortable, but I couldn’t help but feel like the family I stayed with wasn’t thrilled to have us there. At one point I asked how home stays were decided and I was told it is on a rotating basis so that all families have equal chance to earn some money from the home stays. I imagine that is the overriding objective, to make some money, in household decisions to become part of the home stay program. I can’t say that I blame them, but it didn’t make for very lively evening interactions.

By day two we had the proper tools and so on that day and the next worked on the covered walkway. The students and I would work in bursts of about 40 minutes, then take a break in the shade with water as the heat of the day was too much to bear continuously. Often my students would interact with the local students, which was nice to see. I think overall the home stay was good for them and me as we are used to living in comfort with aircon, flushing toilets, hot water, etc. and it makes us appreciate them even more to be reminded that most people don't have those things. 

By the end of our 4^th day the covered walkway was nearly complete and the larger group who had climbed the mountain joined us. All 30 or so of us stayed in home stays for the night and then were gathered to come to the Kopel Eco Tourism center for a community traditional dance performance. I have been to shows like this before and I must admit that I was expecting some corny dance routine, but it was quite good. The best part is that it seemed like the whole community took part. Not only were many of our guides/helpers/drivers adorned in traditional attire dancing and drumming away, but their kids were ambling around all over the center as the performance went on. It was a real community affair. 

Penang Toy Museum

Working through the list of places to see in Penang my finger fell on the Toy Museum on a recent weekend. I had heard a bit about it in the local papers as it had moved locations from the basement of the Copthorne hotel to a new location in Teluk Bahang. It was a bit hard to find as I thought it would be right by the roadside, but in fact it was set back from the main thoroughfare. My friend and I arrived around closing time and we asked if we could still get in. The owner told us it would take 30-60 minutes depending on how much we liked the things. We had about 45 minutes to the close so we thought we would go for it. The array of toys and memorabilia was amazing and we had a good time walking around taking photos of different things. It took us about 40 minutes to go through it all. When we finally emerged the owner chatted with us for a bit and told us that some people don’t last more than 10 minutes. I can see why this is. Though the toys are interesting, the best part was associations made to my childhood and toys that I may have had. If you are an American male between the ages of 25 and 40 this would probably be interesting for you. If not, maybe you should budget 10 minutes. At a price of 30 ringgit (about 10usd) for admission I was just satisfied with my experience.

Pulau SongSong

A couple of weeks ago I went to Pulau SongSong, located just off the coast of Kedah in Peninsular Malaysia. For the King’s birthday we had a Wednesday off and I jumped at the chance to get off of this rock and onto another one. I went with about a dozen other people and we hired two boats from Batu Ferringi. The ride out was great as the wind was blowing in our faces and the cool clear morning was beginning. Along the way we saw many fishermen and smaller island and each time I thought we might be arriving. It took us about an hour to get there and once we had unloaded the boats took off to find other work for the day. With no agenda we mostly swam, snorkeled, had lunch, had a couple beers, took a nap, played in the sand and relaxed. The beach itself was nice, but littered with debris, mostly plastic. Earlier in the year a group of our students had come to clean the beach and I heard that they had left with 15 large trash bags, but you would have never known it looking at the beach. Still it was a nice day away and riding the swells on the way back was also quite fun. As I arrived home sunburned, tired, and sandy I was happy that I had taken the time to visit Pulau SongSong and thought that I may go back again if the opportunity arises.

Down to the Wire in Malaysian Election

Though Malaysia has a king which follows a line of hereditary ascension AND is elected Malaysia is mostly modeled on a parliamentary system. Despite the availability of Malaysians to elect leaders, more or less the same party has been in power since Malaysian independence 55 years ago. Barisan Nasional formed in 1973 as the successor to the Alliance is the ruling party and it has been that party or say coalition in charge as long as most Malaysians can remember. This party is mostly ethnic Malay and indigenous people which make up about 60% of Malaysia’s population. Interestingly, especially where I live in Penang, there are a lot of ethnically Chinese Malaysians often called the Straits Chinese (at least in Penang). In the last election BN was upset by the winning of other parties on a scale large enough to set up opposition parties in state governments. Penang being one of those as it is ruled by the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which is largely an ethnically Chinese party and part of the Pakatan Rakyat, an alliance between three parties including two others which Islamic leanings. This election is expected to be even more contentious and though BN is expected to win the overall election the margin is set to be close. Penang will almost certainly remain in DAP control, but who knows about other states.

BN has certainly been making an effort here in Penang. Last week they held a free banquet in Batu Ferringi which I heard hosted 3,000 people. I have heard that they are giving away free grain and other goodies to communities, especially ethnic Indians, in the hopes that it will sway voters their way.

Personally I hope the alliance wins more seats. BN has an ok record, but the racism and corruption are too much. I was talking with one of my students the other day, an ethnically Indian girl, who told me she had gotten a scholarship to a local college but choose instead to come pay for our school because after college she had little chance of getting into a university in Malaysia. When I looked up the statistics I saw she was right. 70% of slots are allotted to ethnically Malay while they make up only 50% of the population. This kind of overt racism, touted as a way to help the under-achieving Malay population, hasn’t worked. In addition, I need only look to the efforts on the part of BN to buy votes to see the corruption, but I’m sure that issue goes much deeper.

Last night my friend and I stocked up at the grocery store for what could potentially be a few days at home. The election is contentious enough in our state that our school even put out an announcement that Monday would possibly be a holiday if rioting occurred. I’m hoping that no one gets hurt of course, but it sure would be interesting if that were to occur.  Probably the most interesting thing for me is that the rioting may not occur along party lines, but racial ones. 

Siem Reap

A week ago I was in Siem Reap, sweating profusely as usual. Even though my desire to be in a cool climate is quite strong, my practicality in pleasing my wife is greater. This was my second visit to the temples of Siem Reap. and being wiser, when Aya and I were planning out trip and she talked about visiting temples for 6 days I knew that wasn't a good idea. Plus, I had been there and done that so I was more interested in sitting around the pool and taking naps. In the end we spent each day getting up early and heading out to view temples, back around late morning, lunching and napping, then getting back out again in the evenings to see stuff in town. A compromise because hey, my wife and I are a good team. We did spend some mornings going to temples, 3 mornings in all. The temples were beautiful. Built over a span of hundreds of years and differing dynasties they all have their own slightly unique designs, but as our tuk tuk driver said after our third day, "Why see more? same same." I remember on my last trip here with my friend Richard we struck upon the idea of being, "all templed out." I've had that experience many times now in different places and the bottom line is that even if you have the opportunity that you shouldn’t push yourself to boredom just because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We took it slow. We napped, had massages, went swimming in the hotel pool, etc. and saw the sights in our own sweet time. We also saw some other sights such as the History museum, did some shopping in the night market, went to the military museum, tried to go to Tonle Sap, etc.

One of the odd things about Cambodia is that USD is used more frequently than the national currency, the Riel. Although I haven't researched it, it would be my guess that the US dollar is stable relative to the Riel. Another odd thing, which I found through a couple of arguments with shopkeepers, was that people won’t take a damaged large bill (US). They all told me that when they bring them to the bank they are charged a couple bucks for the damaged bills. Why is this? An economic mystery emerged and I began to speculate. Is it because the banks are charged for swapping bills with new ones from the US? Is it because they are charged a disposal fee for the damaged bills? Is it to discourage counterfeiting? Still a mystery.

Most things were priced as I remembered them. Tuk tuks were cheap, just 1 or 2 dollars per trip or 7 for a 1/2 day and 15 for a full day driver. Meals were slightly more expensive, but this would be expected as it has been 6 years since I was there and GNI per cap has risen about 30% since the last time I was there. What struck me most was the price of entry tickets/tours which have increased greatly. Our tickets to the temples were about the same as I remember, but at one point we went to check out a tour to Tonle Sap only to find out the tour company in charge of bringing people there wanted 50 dollars each person for the tour. So we turned around and came back to Siem Reap and went to the Military Museum (6 dollars each). This was even after our tuk tuk drivers offered to bargain down the price on our behalf to 40 each AND to loan us however much money we need. Such a nice guy, but we said no and that we didn’t have enough money. He must have thought we were dirty liars because we were staying at one of the most expensive hotels in town, the 5 star Sokra. What he didn't know is that we got a deal at 35 dollars a night compared to over a hundred normally and only because I booked at our original hotel for one day less than I should have. For 100 dollars we could have had two nights in a very nice hotel, massages each, and a nice dinner. Tonle Sap tour, not worth it.

 So I still haven’t seen Tonle Sap, maybe I will have to go back again in another 6 years. Probably the most interesting part of the trip for me was going over spots I had been to 6 years prior and seeing hordes of young college kids frequenting these places. One night sitting at Amigos I watched a group of people in their early 20’s chatting, smoking and drinking. The conversations were brash and timid all at the same time. You could tell that they were feeling each other out and that they always wanted to talk about themselves (who doesn’t?) and what they had done or seen. I am so glad I am not young anymore. Youth is great, but age brings wisdom. 

30,000 BC, the Information Age

"Ideas are the most valuable resource.  Humans have been anatomically and behaviorally modern for at least 40,000 years.  Take away our accumulated ideas, and we are cavemen." My friend David Jinkins said  that and I believe he is absolutely right.

This week I had a number of discussions with older colleagues at work that lead me to think again about how information is perceived, how vast a pool of information we have at our fingertips today. I was trying to explain the difference in information between 16GB and 16 MB (the amount of material I have made or gathered and the amount of files that were left for me by the previous teacher). I got mostly blank stares, but the difference is huge. I think I have witnessed again the idea of being on a generational cusp. Those who are just a bit older are used to seeing bookshelves and file cabinets as stores of information. Those a bit younger than me are used to looking at bytes of information. 

The very idea of moving from our caveman ancestors to what we are today is the accumulation of those ideas and the ability to store them outside of our collective memories. Information living outside of the human brain, living over vast spaces of time, must have been a fascinating prospect for Mesopotamians.

I still find it fascinating today. The printing press was the first boom in information, but by 1700 the number of books would only accumulate to about  60 stacks each as high as Mt. Everest. A staggering image, but keep hold your amazement. This was just the beginning though, humans were just to realize the true power of symbols, text was the only information technology people used, but in the 19th century things changed. A symbol of a hole or a blank space led to the creation of what some might call the first software, information to picture and back again. As long as you had enough symbols you could represent anything in the entire universe. By 1950 the  amount of information available to us had multiplied 6,000 times, or 360,000 stacks as tall as Everest. Of course those initial expansions in the way information was stored were quite bulky by today’s standards. By now the planet has built a lattice work of wires and non-wire information networks. Human computers, as they were once referred to, were crucial to the modern world, but the invention of the computing machine, the silicon chip, and the internet propelled us to where we are today. This accumulation of information by our collective society has allowed us in some ways to defeat entropy. Just by having information you could create order from disorder. By expending (almost) no extra energy you could defeat entropy, things were not destined to fall apart, but to become more complex. Of course that isn't exactly true, even the accumulation of ideas has to obey the laws of physics, but it would seem that it is only constrained by the eventuality of reaching the limits of storage, something that is becoming ever more expansive.

Every day in my life I carry a 1terabyte external hard drive to and from work. This is my library, literally. I have taken up just over 900MB which would probably be more information than any library I have ever visited contained in it. Next week I am buying a 1.5 terabyte because I am running out of space. This library in my pocket is no bigger than a small novel.  To me this is amazing. Probably even more amazing is that the current collective amount of data at my finger tips through the internet is now estimated to be about 1 zetabyte = 90 stacks of books reaching from earth to the sun. The implications of this are staggering.

Snake Temple

Last weekend I went with my friend Reed to the Snake Temple just south of Georgetown. I had heard about this place and wanted to see it, but my wife is deathly afraid of snakes so didn't get to until she was gone. Anyways, we rolled up to the temple, which is flanked by numerous shop selling rubber snakes and I heart Penang t-shirts to find a relatively normal temple. The only big difference being that there were vipers strewn about resting on alters, branches, and the tops of pictures. Signs here and there reminded us not to poke them and that we should not worry since they had no venom. Fair enough. There was a wall of pictures with people draping snakes on themselves. I can only assume this was a wall of death, intended to chronicle those who foolishly lost their lives by placing poisonous snakes on themselves.
The real attraction is next to the temple. For a 5 ringgit fee (about 1.5 usd) you can enter the Snake Farm. Not sure why its called a farm, but whatever. Right away when we entered there was this cage with a huge albino boa lolling in it. The guide told us that she and her mate (the smaller yellow snake she is encircling) had mated that morning and that is why she was so chill. I'm no snake expert, but I was skeptical. Anyways, the guide repeatedly told us to stroke the snake. I'm not a huge snake fan, take em' or leave em' I say, so I wasn't in any hurry to touch the snake. The guide proved how safe they were by picking up each snakes head and kissing it. Ok, I get it, the snakes are docile, still the kissing was a bit weird. Finally Reed got the gall to touch it and did so rubbing it from head to tail, which was about 6 meters. Apparently its good luck, but all Reed got was snake on his hand which he promptly washed off (losing the good luck in the process I might add). There were lots of other snakes in the "farm" all along a wall surrounding a courtyard. I would estimate in the walls there were about 50 different kinds of snakes in aquariums. Vipers, adders, even a N. American rattle snake. When we asked about it the guide hit the cage to rile it up and show us the rattle. We asked him if it was de-venomed like the others and he said no. When we asked if he had anti-venom he said no, but the hospital about an hour away did. Though a rattle snake's bite will kill in much less time than that so if bitten you better just make your peace. He then asked if we would like him to go behind the wall and stick his hand in the cage to rile him up more. Uh, no, thanks.
There were turtles, and iguana, a couple of other lizards, monkeys, and chickens. Two other snakes were of note. There was an 8 meter long boa, which was amazingly big. Its head was bigger than my closed fist. There was also a king cobra, pictured. King cobras are disturbing, not because they are cobras and deadly, but because they exclusively eat other snakes. Something feels wrong about that.

Singapore to Hong Kong

A quick trip to Singapore and then on to Hong Kong gave me a great break from the heat of Penang. Having lived in Penang for about 6 months now I think that I have become used to the heat each day. Now I only sweat constantly instead of constantly and profusely. I actually had a dream last night that it snowed in Penang and I can clearly recall dancing in my living room at the sight.

In Singapore the weather was mostly overcast and rainy, so that certainly contributed to it feeling cooler. I only spent about 36 hours in Singapore and I tried to do what touristy things there are, but since it was Chinese New Year half the stuff was shut down. I did see the Merlion, but I am still confused as to why Singaporeans worship a 5 meter tall half fish/half lion that is constantly vomiting. Its weird. I tried to go to the national museum, the horse races, Kinokuniya, and a number of other places all closed. Oh well, I will be back since it costs only about 30 usd to fly there! 

In HK the weather was perfect. Upper 20’s during the day and low 20’s to high teens at night. It was beautiful. If I could find a place with weather like that all year round that would be fantastic. The skies were also generally clear and HK is such a nice place because of all the mountains and waterfront. It really is a unique place. If you are looking at those photos and thinking, did he wear the same thing the whole trip? The answer is yes! (kind of) I packed a very light 4 day set and did washing at my friends so made a week long trip with about 7kg on my back. I figured, no one would really being seeing me more than once anyways so it wouldn’t matter (except for the people who read my blog, apparently). Yeah me for being practical!

Unfortunately flights to HK directly from KL (where I had to route) were expensive since it was Chinese New Year. For some reasons flights to Macau were considerably cheaper. So instead of flying direct I went to Macau then took a ferry to HK. I was staying with my friend Alex, but the first night I would arrive a bit late and the day I was leaving I flew out early so I booked hotel rooms for both of those nights. I made sure to do it far in advance since it was CNY and I knew that prices would only climb the longer I waited.

Arriving in Macau my CNY experience started off with a bang. There is a ferry terminal a short walk from Macau’s airport and as far as I knew you could not reserve tickets, plus ferries left every 30 minutes so I was pretty sure I would be able to buy a ticket. Wrong. All sold out for that day. So I back tracked to the airport and caught a cab to the other and more active ferry terminal on Macau’s main island. Not too much luck there either, but at least tickets were available. I ended up getting super class for about 50 dollars on a ferry that was leaving in 20 minutes. Despite getting in the immigration line immediately I barely made the ferry. Now, I am sure that as some of you read this and you hear the word ferry you are imagining some bulky iron boat. Not so. These are more like large streamlined pleasure boats holding 100-200 passengers. Plus, you certainly aren't imagining the young man standing next to me who was practicing martial arts on a support beam every 10 minutes or so. The ride was pretty good sailing and I got a meal with my ticket which helped me to forget about the cost of the ticket. Unfortunately I didn’t pay much attention to where the ferry would land in HK and so had to take the subway to get to my hotel. After wandering around for a bit to find it I finally arrived around 9pm. Now, because I was travelling alone and not expecting to do much more besides sleep PLUS hotel prices were jacked up for CNY I aimed to spend about 75usd for the night which left me few options. I ended up making both my bookings at the infamous Chunking Mansion on Nathan Rd. The first night I was staying at the Paris Guest House. Immediately upon entering the mansion I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I had been here before. Ah yes, it was in 1995 when I watched Judge Dredd. The crumbling walls, the hustlers and people of varied ethnicity all squishing against each other in this dystopian place brought me back, to the future. My first instinct was to chuck it in and find a nicer hotel. This was even before I reached the place where I had booked.  

From there forward, it got even better. After I had ridden the elevator in which the regulars managed to cram an extra person in after the weight alarm went off, by standing on their tiptoes by the door I tumbled out onto my floor. When I entered a couple of girls entered at the same time as me. They got to the front desk first and asked the man if he had a room for the night. In my head I was saying, “ARE YOU KIDDING?!? It’s Chinese New Year. You must be daft if you think you are going to walk into ANYWHERE and get a room.” So my turn came and I told the man, proudly, within easy earshot of the girls, “Yes, I have a reservation.” and proceeded to give him my information. Now, at first I thought that either he was sick, or he was on drugs. His eyes darted around, he avoided eye contact, and shuffled a bit. Then he asked me to sit and quickly got on the phone and proceeded to converse in rapid Hindi. Long story short, the hotel had sold my room and didn’t have another one. I argued for a bit, then hit the streets in search of another hotel.

After four hours of searching I was walking back by the Chungking Mansion on Nathan rd. when I was asked if I wanted dope, nope, or a girl (standing right there), nope, or a room, oh… uh yeah. So I followed the guy up to his guest house where he showed me the “room”  which was smaller than a prison cell. By this time it was 130am. So when I asked how much and he said 100usd I said, are you kidding? Its 130, you won’t sell this room to anyone else tonight. How about 300hkd? (about 50 dollars) back and forth we went, settling on 400hkd, the exact amount of my refund from my reserved hotel.

From there forward things went pretty smoothly. I slept through the night only hearing, “No, get your hands off of me!” a couple times from the vents leading to the dark alley next to the mansion. The next day I met my friend Alex and we took a nice hike after he showed me the school he works at , HKIS. He told me that sometimes on Fridays he hikes home after work. Lucky. Bugger. A few days of hiking, sleeping, and eating well in the very pleasant weather of Hong Kong and the company of my friend was enough to recharge my batteries. I even went back to the scene of one of the best moments of my life, where I proposed to Aya. Since Alex lives about a 5 minute walk away it wasn't hard to find, but sure was fun. I pretended to drop the ring all over again. 

We hiked the Dragon’s Back one day, a very nice hike with great views and as we were spit out near Shek O we spotted a mini-golf course. Victorious.  One night we went to dinner with a number of other teachers from his school. It was enlightening. They were all a bit older, 40’s and 50’s and had lots of experience. The thing that struck me most was the average age and tenure of teachers at HKIS. It seemed to be an average age of 45 and a tenure of more than 10 years. I think my school would be about 35 and 3 years.

Spending time in HK was great, but all things must come to an end. As I was preparing to depart I decided that I had better get to my hotel a bit earlier in the evening this time to ensure I actually got my reserved room. When I arrived the man behind the desk asked me repeatedly, “You are Kevin Hurley? Did you come here before? Where is your booking number? How do you know this is you if you don’t have the booking number?” I had not brought the print out assuming that I wouldn't need to. I clearly could see my name written on the list of customers he had for the night. Only after I produced my passport to verify my name did I realize what was going on. They had sold my room to someone else who had claimed to be me. I wondered why they wouldn't just kick them out, but it was Chinese New Year and there was money to be made. That’s my guess. Fortunately this time things turned out a little better and the guest house next door had a, better, room available. All things went well and I took the ferry back to Macau and the plane back to KL and then Penang. As I left the Penang airport the sun was just setting. I got into my car, which had been baking in the sun all day. AS I left the airport I was ensnared in traffic and got lost in the myriad of one way streets of Georgetown taking about an hour more than it should have to get to my apartment. I was home.