yuki says...

here's what my friend, yuki, who works in bintan, said:

some divers are so ignorant how fragile our mother nature is. have seen taiwanese divers collecting things such as star fish here in bintan.. i was speechless as well... but when i was a new diver, i was also ignorant, and i remember that i stepped on to the hard coral in okinawa... now i feel so embarrassed and shameful about it.... only thinking about it makes me so angry about myself.

the key point is how we can let those people know about protecting our planet without hurting them.

btw, MBA means "marriage by accident" here in indon, which means "getting married due to pregnancy".... nowadays lots of youngsters get married because of MBA in here..

scuba holidays

nowadays, most of my leisure trips revolve around scuba diving. people ask me if i ever get bored diving. no, not really. there are too many things to be discovered in the ocean to ever get bored. and on land, divers are really interesting creatures.

just came back from tioman. stayed at babura resort at tekek village and dived with tioman reef divers. there was a boisterous group of 22 hongkong divers.

this group was pretty crazy:
* they were putting in 5 dives a day consecutively for 4 days, sometimes coming back only at 10pm to have dinner.
* one of them excitedly and proudly showed me pictures of a bloated porcupine fish which was agitated by the divers. i was flabbergasted and speechless... the porcupine fish only inflates itself when under extreme duress and this is highly stressful for the fish.
* one of the divers pulled the tail of a juvenile nurse shark. no wonder the sharks have all gone into hiding...
* they shone bright torches on a turtle sleeping in a cave causing it to panic. it tried to squeeze its way out of the small cave and getting stuck, reversed back to find another escape route.
* one of them innocently and animatedly said that she luuuuuurrrves shark's fins soup. i whipped out a wildaid leaflet on things you never knew about sharks and hope that she will be a new convert.

before you walk away thinking the worst about hongkong divers, let me say that they were adorable in some ways. here's some funny acronyms i learnt from them:

MBA: Married but available
BMW: Be my wife
ADIDAS: All day i dream about sex

adidas came from a 58-year old gentleman who is a teacher of physical education in a chinese university. what sort of physical education... hmmm... i wonder.

this is my 4th time diving with tioman reef divers. familiarity is a nice feeling. every trip, i find out something new about the divemasters' lives. akemi is reeno's wife and takes very good care of the divers. everytime we return from a dive, there will be hot teh susu and fresh fruit waiting for us. in the morning, there will be breakfast of donut or roti canai. she's japanese and has 2 boys. reeno is the boss of the diveshop and knows the divesites very well. he's a pretty private guy. abect is 28, from kalimantan and worked in tioman for more than 10 years. he used to go fishing with his parents at natuna when he was young and it was common to see whale sharks and manta rays, which the fishermen called 'ikan hantu', meaning ghost fish. tom is 33, a malaysian and worked at the diveshop for some 7 years. on days when there are no customers, the divemasters turn into construction workers. they have to mix cement and construct a new building which will be their new staff quarters.

i am back in singapore now. suffering from a hangover. need to breathe nitrogen again to feel alive.

ps. if anyone wants to dive tioman, give me a yell. can help with the dive arrangements at the very nice, homely Babura Resort/Tioman Reef Divers.

wedding dinners

i wonder who the hey established 10-course dinners as a tradition for chinese weddings in singapore...

wedding dinners are such a chore. need to make small talk for more than 3 hours with people who may be your long-lost ex-classmates (not so bad unless you really disliked them in school), colleagues (bearable), bosses (urgh), or strangers (tough luck! unless they are single and cute).

to rub salt to injury, you have to pay a hefty sum for the pleasure of that 3 hours. it's tradition to give an ang pow to the happy couple according to market rate of at least S$80. most of this goes to paying the hotel for the lavish dinner of shark's fin soup, abalone, steamed grouper, fresh prawns, peking duck... you wish that they would serve them all at one go so you can stuff yourself silly with all that good food.

but good things come to those who wait and boy, do they make you wait...

here's the typical formula for a wedding dinner:

guests arrive and mingle around at the holding area outside the ballroom. served with flat coke, sprite or beer. register at reception manned by pretty ladies. submit ang pow to them.
look at beautiful, studio shots of 'made-over' bride and groom in 3-4 different gowns/suits, in various lovey-dovey poses in a big, hard-cover photo album.
waiters go around pestering guests to please go into the ballroom and take a seat at their pre-assigned table.
guests sit down and wait and wait.
emcee (usually the bride or groom's friend) who is sometimes not funny but tries to be, announces that the bride and groom will be doing the wedding march and can all guests please stand up and welcome them.
sweet love song is played and waiters create dry ice smoke.
bride and groom walk in slowly with happiness written all over their faces.
they go on stage and 'cut' a fake cake (which the guests don't get to eat). guests clap.
emcee makes some wisecracks.
dramatic music played and waiters march in proudly with huge dish balanced precariously on one shoulder.
finally we get to eat... starters is cold dish of peking duck, jellyfish, octopus and some fried stuff.
shark's fin soup
watch presentation of pictures of bride and groom from baby to growing up to meeting each other and getting together.
abalone on bed of spinach
bride and groom's second walk-in.
bride has changed to different gown.
walk up stage.
pop champagne
3 yum-seng toasts
groom gives speech
thank father and mother and in-laws
present flowers to them
surprise item - maybe groom sings to bride
prawns
bride and groom go from table to table to take group photos.
steamed grouper
crispy chicken
e-fu noodles
ah... finally dessert. sweet yam paste with ginko nuts and coconut milk
guests leave and shake hands with bride, groom and their family members who have lined up outside the ballroom.

*yawn*... yes it's finally done.

happily married.

note: post is not targetted at any particular person. author is really really very happy to share the joy of all married couples.

animal testing

the other day, some eye cream got into my eye and i started tearing and thought about poor rabbits used in animal testing for skincare products. so did an internet search on animal testing and here's what i found:

Videos on Animal Testing

You will see that animal testing is cruel and inhumane. And the thing is, it is totally UNNECESSARY!

Read on...
Besides saving countless animal lives, alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable. Unlike crude, archaic animal tests, non-animal methods usually take less time to complete, cost only a fraction of what the animal experiments they replace cost, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible. Effective, affordable, and humane research methods include studies of human populations, volunteers, and patients, as well as sophisticated in vitro, genomic, and computer-modeling techniques.

Click here for full article

A list of companies that do/don't conduct animal testing

L'oreal is one of the companies that DOES animal testing. Brands under L'oreal: Biotherm, Cacharel, Garnier, Giorgio Armani, Helena Rubinstein, Lancôme, Matrix Essentials, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Redken, Soft Sheen, Vichy.

PLEASE DO NOT buy products that are tested on animals. dont support this cruelty.

mac

wanted to load up pictures on the blog but the Hello program is only compatible with Microsoft. i wanna say, hello Hello, why are you discriminating against Mac-ers?!

what revolution?

thought creating a blog would be easy peasy but had trouble just thinking about name for the blog. re-named at least 5 times before finding a name that had not been used by anyone else. was reading up about diving in maratua, known as Big Fish country, and someone said schools of bigeye trevally is common there. that's where the name of this blog came from...
and then had to think of an appropriate title. tracy chapman's song came to mind. although not all that appropriate since this blog wasnt meant for talking about any revolution. but couldn't wait to start writing... so title shall remain as it is.