OMG My dream came true!

As most of you know I’ve been dreaming of seeing the Sambar deer! Now that it’s towards the end of my experiment, I still have not seen it alive BUT… nature really throws you something as a reward at the end of the tough two weeks!

Probably a juvenile Sambar deer (accident escapee from the zoo?) I have a whole series of pictures of it moving around! It’s quick~! Judging that it is juvenile, COULD IT BE they are BREEDING????????? OMG!!!!!

Sambar Deer (Rusa unicolor)

They are native to Southern and Southeast Asia! Something exciting from Wiki… not sure how true:

“Stags will wallow and dig their antlers in urine soaked soil and then rub against tree trunks.^[4][6] Sambars are capable of remarkable bipedalism for a deer species and stags will stand and mark tree branches above them with their antlers.^[6] A stag will also mark itself by spraying urine directly in the face with a highly mobile penis.^[4] ”

Dog interested in carcass but in the pictures it shows that it runs away from it later. Probably cause the carcass was too decomposed to be consumed.

I taste good to…

Good news and bad news.

Let’s start with a little good news to lighten the mood. 3/7  of have been fully taken away by a scavenger!!! One of the most epic was when the BBQ mesh was dragged 18m from its original location!

Rat (Genus Rattus) running towards carcass

Super big monitor lizard! By estimation, this monitor lizard is min 1m long!

Setting up manpower

Yes! I have some time today to blog again. In the last week, I’ve been pretty busy going to the field and I could not have done it without all the help and manpower (Literally… MANpower)

Carrying those equipment are no joke! It’s heavy as hell… I can understand better now what our NS boys go through and proud to say… SUCK IT UP BOYS!!! I understand its tough but well be like me and just suck it up!

Thanks to very dedicated helpers, I successfully set up at 7 different locations.

Kudos to Rick for bringing in cages. Rick is studying about spatial zonation of mangrove trees at Mandai and would love to have help anytime. Anyone interested can help out! (no picture of him but you’ll see his picture in my other blog logs)

Thanks to Alex who went in thinking he would find alot of figs for his project while carrying a bag that probably weighed like 20kg. He only found 1 fig tree usable. He is studying on fig wasp and heat tolerance. So should anyone see figs fruiting (Ficus fisstulosa and Ficus microcapa), let me know.

Alex so happy with his bag of chickens!

Wen Qing… power women for carrying cages! She is studying on figs and birds, I’m not too sure what she’s looking for though.

Gavin, friend of Wen Qing and the most power amongst all Pharmacy students to come rough it out with us life science people. For carrying all the heavy set-up material, hopefully he does not hate the forest but loves it!

Lastly, my hardworking mentor, Norman! Not much needed to say but he’s the brains behind the whole operation!

We are such nerds!

Johanna, Rick, Rachel and Wen Qing were the fellow culprits and we stayed with intentions to watch movies. Little did we know, all of us are nerds!

We watched a marine documentary and fell in love with the marine researchers!

2 honors students showing their love!

We then realised also, we all watched the same shows!

The preferred song for us would be…..

‘Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur

Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purrrrr!’

Sheldon Cooper, most of the gals favorite too!

While playing scissors, paper, stone, the permutations are limited, so we ought to play, ‘ scissors, paper, stone, lizard and spock!‘

Anyway, we had a really awesome night and I hope to do it again soon!

Prep for LSM1103 Kent Ridge

I’m so excited to be a TA (Teaching Assistant) for the first time! It’s like giving the opportunity to talk about your passion endlessly with people who HAVE TO LISTEN! LOL

When I was in Year 1 taking this module, it gave me the passion to continue my education in ecology so much as to do my honors on vertebrate scavengers (of course the bonus of maggots).  As such, I hope to pass on this passion to this first years.

Kent Ridge Notes being defaced!

While prepping, one seriously learns more when you need to teach.  Although we are hired to facilitate, it’s important to know as much as possible. Hence, learning has gone to a deeper level.

Friday is the practical and I hope I will do a good job!

ICCS Pandan 2011 Registration

ICCS Pandan mangroves cleanup

Pandan mangroves is a remnant strip mangrove in the south-west of Singapore.  I am helping with the registrations of Independents, Toddycats and NUS biodiversity. This year we will be joined by volunteers from EARTHlink NTU and FMC Technologies.

 We have been allocated sector B this year which can be seen on this google map http://g.co/maps/kxhs 

The deeper parts of the inlet is a tough and dirty site to tackle, with no shelters or toilets but soft mud, lots of mosquitoes in tide pools and some snakes instead! We will work rain or shine and are restricting numbers to reduce impact, so there are only 20 places for us.

This cleanup is not for the faint-hearted but you’re welcome to sign-up!

Saturday, 17th September 2011: 7.00am – 11.00am
International Coastal Cleanup Singapore:
Pandan Mangroves
Register at: http://tinyurl.com/4yd2ljy 

Itinerary:

• 0710 – bus pick up at NUS Science Drive 1
• 0720 – bus pick-up from the bus-stop opposite Dover MRT in the direction of Clementi (map)
• 0800 – reach Pandan mangroves bus stop; distribute into sub-groups, apply insect repellent, collect gloves, data cards and trash bags.
• 0810 – Safety Briefing, identification of the Trash Weighing Point (TWP), wet weather plan (carry on unless lightning threat)
• 0820 – Cleanup begins.
• 0845 – Loading teams start moving trash to the TWP
• 1000 – clean-up ends, data collation beings, weighing completed while participants evaluate the situation at Pandan.
• 1015 – participants clean themselves up – note no washing point, so bring a bottle of tap water and a change of footwear.
• 1045 – Pack dirty gloves to bring back wash, dry and return.
• 1100 – Bus returns to Clementi and then NUS.

What we will provide:

1. Transport to site.
2. Gloves.
3. Trash bags.
4. Weighing scales.

What you should bring:

1. Booties or covered shoes with hard soles.
2. Water bottle (at least one litre of water).
3. A snack to munch on after the cleanup, especially if you didn’t have time for breakfast!
4. Hat.
5. Insect repellent
6. Raincoat/ponco (we’ll carry on working in the rain)
7. Towel in a bag – to wipe off any sand and mud off you.
8. A light pair of long pants will help protect your legs from insect bites if you tend to get bitten, as well as from the debris. If you are vulnerable to bites, wear long sleeves as well!
9. A suggestion – dry fit clothes are suitable. If you prefer cotton, a change of t-shirt will come in handy after a sweaty workout.

Transport:
Registered participants can meet us at either

1. the NUS bus stop outside Science Drive 1 (7.10am; meet Ou Yang Xiuling) or
2. Dover MRT Station bus stop on side of Singapore Polytechnic (heading west) (7.20am; meet Meryl Teng).

Baby Nephew! Nicknames

Whuuuuuuu!!!!

Please meet the latest addition to my family. My sister’s baby – Lucas, Wei En!

For a baby, many have little nicknames for their kids, what my family members call this little darling can be really creative:

Example 1:

Myself: Ah ma, what is Wei En’s English name?

Ah ma: Yogurt lor!!!

Well, you all know grandmothers always have difficulty pronouncing English names.

Example 2:

Myself: Ahhhhh so cute!!! Haaaa! So fat!!

My sister (aka the Mother): You’re my little muffin top!

It’s really cute to see him being called muffin top! Personally, I just call him darling. I have no idea why! But look at his face… the most adorable little boy isn’t he?

Pinot Gris

I’m really glad to be taking this wine course at LIFE-KU.

It will be something that I have learnt at school which would be really really applicable to life (very atas!).  Alright, learning how the vines grow and how to manage them may not exactly be useful for me in Singapore, however, learning how to taste the wines, knowing the aromas involved, understanding how wines are made, is very useful knowledge that can generate social topics since wine is a universal thing.

We all had to make a poster and I chose to do on Pinot Gris. It is a grape variety related to the pinot noir. There are mainly two different styles of making Pinot Gris (french way) or Pinot Grigio (italian way). You’re welcome to take a look at the poster to find out more! =P

Møns Klint

Located in the Danish Island of Mon in the Baltic sea are the beautiful white chalk cliffs of Mon.

These cliffs are made of remains from shells of creatures once lived in the seabed when Denmark was still submerged under water, millons of years ago! The cliffs emerged only when the glaciers melted about 12,000 years ago.

Due to the dynamic coastal area which is affected by the wind and weather year round, landslides are can be triggered after large rainfall or frost erosion. On average, about 2-4cm of the cliff will vanish and the complete erosion of these cliffs would be in about 50,000 years time.

From the top of the cliffs

Looking up at the cliffs

View from the shore

Kiruna’s Ice Hotel

Icehotel is unbelievable. I’m really glad I rushed here just before it closed. When you walk in, it feels like a different world. The ice inside the hotel is made from the river just behind the hotel.

Entrance to the IceHotel. Looks small and not very grand but when you walk in…. whoo hoo!

The river which ice cubes of 2m by 2m are cut out!

Some plant material frozen in the ice cubes. The guide told us that this year was the first time, they found a fish frozen in the cube! This certainly redefines ICE FISHING! XD

Cubes of ice are cut out of the river in march yearly and stored for the next year in a huge freezer. These cubes are also shipped abroad to icebars around the world in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan.

Extra blocks of ice used to the protect the icehotel from the sun rays…. sun tan lotion anyone?

The chapel. People come here to get married in this ice chapel. Every time it is built, the chapel has to be blessed by the bishop. Poor guy… so troublesome isn’t it, since the place melts down yearly.

The hotel is designed by multiple artist from all over the world. Each art suite has it’s own theme and the whole place is like a massive artwork.

Arktikos by Anna Sofie Maag

Ice Fishing by Alessandra Falca and Magdalena Akerstrom

Unknown – but the car was the bed.

Almost all the beds were covered in reindeer skin. I couldn’t smell anything because I had a block nose, but my new found korean friends said it smelled aweful! >.<

Apparently, the ice hotel was started in the 1989 as an art gallery on the river itself. However, it was moved in land when they realized the lake could not take the weight of all the ice for too long. Later, it developed into an ice hotel when some guest wanted to stay in the warm accommodation realized there were no more rooms. They were allowed to stay in the gallery which was about -5C. The military was called in to give them warm sleeping bags and tips to survive the night. Apparently, it was a fairly good experience and the concept of the ice hotel grew. There is even a small church which people can get married in. I think it’s just amazing! I would love to get married there. Too expensive though.

Anyway, because I came so late, the entire hotel was melting and the ceiling was sinking. According to the guide, the distance between the chandelier and the pyramid was about 1m. O.o