garry blogs

And yes it’s true. Apparently, in Atheron, close to Queensland’s tropical north, this spider was caught eating a bird!

Yummy!

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Just happened to read this article on the NYT on a frugal road trip.

Just really needed to say this: I NEED TO TRAVEL… SOON!!!!!!

So 2 weeks back I took a trip down to JB for some go-karting (man, they have some monster machines over there!) with Wenzheng, Sylvia and Chayying. We were having a ball of a time, until we returned to the car. I found my windows smashed, boot broken into, all bags stolen - except Sylvia’s - lucky girl!

I simply couldn’t believe it. I usually follow all safety precautions, except I didn’t consider parking my car at the end of a line of Singaporean cars (mine being the one at the end of the row) a safety boo-boo. It’s the kind of thing you never expect to happen to you - yes especially you - until it happens. Sigh. And it was in broad daylight. And we were racing right at the track right next to the car. 10 metres. I. Don’t. Believe. It. Still.

To make things worse, the Malaysian police are just a laughing stock. We went to a police station and they told us they don’t do police reports. I’m like, huh?! We went to another one, and it was like oh, broken windows, stolen cards - yeah, they happen two thousand times a day. Just give me the details, let me type it in, and then both of us can go on our way, ok? I’m so totally disgusted at Johor Bahru, the Malaysian police force, and the crime rate in JB. I’ve only gotten pickpocketed once in my life, and it was in Johor Bahru. I’ve only gotten my car broken into once in my life, and it was in Johor as well. And the total number of times I have been victimized by crime in my life is a total of two. And i’ve spent a grand total of not more than 3 weeks of my life in Johor Bahru. The facts speak for themselves.

I lost many things. My camera, my ipod, my wallet. And the bastards had the audacity to charge another RM$10,000 to my credit card, too. And Citibank refused to reverse the charge despite my immediate attempt to cancel the card upon knowledge of the incident - I just received their call, and i was just speechless TOO. What’s up with my luck these days?!

I’m appealing to more senior management with regard to the credit card payment. Keeping my fingers crossed now.

So ends another trip to Taiwan. I was there for just 4 days. I promise I’ll update pictures and more details this week. As of now - I’m so swamped I barely have time to breath. Sigh.

I promise it’d be good - Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park is really pretty! Wait for it…

By the way, I’ll be publishing all my pictures from now on in Facebook as it’s the most convenient way for me to update pictures (direct upload from iPhoto), so if you don’t have an account already, go sign up!

Ali Shan, Taiwan - It was about 6 hours after landing in Taipei (I landed at about 6pm) that I boarded a night bus to southern Taiwan for a 3-day road trip to Ali Shan. And boy, was it luxurious! Each row had only 2 seats (as opposed to the 3-seat-per-row VIP bus we have in southeast asia), and each seat had a LCD monitor with TV and nintendo games! Ooh all my childhood favourites - Balloon fight, Mappy, Tank 1940, Bomberman, etc. Plus, back vibrating massage! Beat that, heh.

We got off at a little town called Chiayi, about 80km west of Ali Shan, rented a little scooter (125cc) with my provisional 2B Singaporean license (haha!) and zoomed up a beautiful, lonely old little mountain road.

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Someone recently commented that I have an American accent after coming back from Silicon Valley. I was like, really? So I asked my girlfriend, Christine, who’s American, and she says no… you don’t speak with an American accent. And she did a demo - and yeap, my emphasis are in different parts of the sentence.

But yeap, I agree that to the best of my ability, I try not to speak with a Singaporean accent. I’m actually trying to adopt a more neutral accent (whatever that means). The basic reason is: so that Christine won’t have difficulty understanding me!

Do you know that when i speak a little Singlish with a Singlish accent in America, people can’t even tell that I’m speaking, basically, English? They think I’m speaking Mandarin (because I’m chinese, not because they think they hear Mandarin). Even Christine, who is effectively bilingual in Chinese and English (wayyy more so than I am), can’t understand a thing when I start blabbering in Singlish.

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Phuket, Thailand - Phuket feels like home already, despite me not knowing much of the language. I know the roads, I know the food, I know how to get wherever I want, and I know the schedule of the night markets. I know the best place to rent a motorbike, and which hostels are best value and which are just plain dirt cheap.

I actually stopped in Phuket intending to get some kiteboarding in the picture but unfortunately, Mr. Weather is against me. I tried asking Mrs. Weather but she was having a little bit of PMS so she plained ignored me. No wind, no high tide, no kiteboarding. So i bummed around on the beach for a bit, did a LOT of shopping, got a nice haircut, and basically bummed.

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Khao Sok National Park, Thailand - Thailand has more than 30 national parks in the northern region alone - did you know that? I didn’t, and I’ll be sure to pay more attention next time.

A 3D 2N visit to Khao Sok National Park, just 3 hours north of Phuket, was an eye opener! The hikes weren’t fantastic, but the visit to the lake and a 1km long huge limestone cave was wooooaaaahhhhhhh!

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I’m in Khao Sok National Park in Thailand now and my friend tells me results are released!

Funny, because the initial leak actually showed my results as getting a B+ for my Honours Year Project (HYP)… and a final CAP score of 4.49, which meant i actually missed my 1st class by a hairline (4.50 cutoff).

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Bangkok, Thailand - The only way out of Yangon was either to Changmai or Bangkok, and at USD$15 apart, i figured I’d fly to Bangkok since it was nearer to the place i was eventually heading to (Singapore). Bangkok was very deja vu. I’d been here so many times since I was a kid, but never remembered where or when, so it was interesting stepping into places and then suddenly realizing that this, here, was where i came when i was a kid!

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