Going home

It's with much joy and excitement that I am writing this. Whenever I am travelling, the happiest moment for me is to have my luggage checked in and the boarding pass in my hand.

Travelling always helps me appreciate Singapore so much more: the safety, convenience, food and of course my precious Serene, baby and saxophone!

In an hour's time, I will be leaving for the Tambo International airport and I will reach Singapore at 540am on Thurs, Sept 11th.

Here are some pics of the service apartment I stayed in whilst in Jo'burg:

Baby at 16 weeks

I am taking a lunch break now. We are now in the final phase of the meetings.

I am missing family and home a lot and this trip seems to be too long for good.

I looked through the photos of baby at 16 weeks that Serene sent me and felt a flutter of warmth course through my heart. I love the picture of her hand, it's almost like she is reaching out and wanting to hold our hands.

I look at the side profile of the baby and find her fabulously cute and gorgeous.

The meeting is starting and I need to pretend that I am paying attention :)

Why blog?

I am surprised at myself for constantly wanting to blog when I am alone overseas. It's very difficult for me to publish a post when I am back in Singapore, you can ask Serene :)

Perhaps, in times of solitude when you are faced with your thoughts, you have a big desire to share them with people. Telling them where you are, what you see. This is definitely the relational aspect of people, wanting to communicate and connect.

So happy to hear that Serene's tummy is getting bigger each day. Can't wait to go back to see it and touch it. Thank God that baby is growing each day! :)

But God.

Went to a South African church today. It was more like a western-style church with drums and contemporary music.

Was reminded today of the mission that Christ had when he came to earth almost 2000 years ago. His was a mission where he went down, and down and down and took all our sins. Very different when you think that today, we need to go up and be the very top.

In church, there's a sense that everyone has some sort of trial or affliction. Not hard to imagine when you live in the most dangerous city in the world where almost everyone had been robbed at least once.

Good thing the pastor did not try to offer any answer or solution as to why some very bad things happen to good people. Guess it happens regardless if you are a believer or not.

One thing he said that made sense to me is that through it all, the trials and afflictions, there is but God. Am still chewing on this in my mind. I am sure it was difficult for Jesus before he was crucified. We saw how he struggled greatly in the garden of Gethsemane. God was with Him and eventually, something so wrong and terrible like crucifixion could become a symbol of great hope for people today.

Safari tour in Johannesburg

My colleagues took us to the safari today. It was a great trip.

Never before in my life have I had such a close encounter with lions, tigers, leopards and cheetahs. It was an excellent trip.

For the lions and lioness, there were no fences or big drains (like those you find in the Singapore zoo) between you and the predators. It's only the car doors that provide security. We wound down the windows and took some great shots.

While all these were great and nice, how I wished Serene and my baby girl were here with me. I have a growing sense that I want to explain and teach things to my baby girl, holding her hand and Serene's, bringing them wherever I go.

I am so thankful that I have the phone, sms, skype, blog and email to keep in touch with Serene. Technology is wonderful! Most of all, I am thankful to God for bonding Serene and I with His Love and Spirit. The cord of 3 strands is indeed wonderful and amazing.

Here are some pics for you (Serene and Baby) and of course you buddies to enjoy:

Late night memories

Greetings from chilly Johannesburg!

It's currently 3pm and I am having a break from my meetings.

I started missing my family especially Serene, Baby and Darcy the moment I got into the taxi to the airport. I actually missed the times I woke up in the wee hours of the morning when Serene was terribly hungry or suffering from a bad cough. Those memories were sweet especially when Darcy helped to kill a cockroach. Saved me from my fear!

There was another time we actually ordered Mac's breakfast at 4am!!! Boy, I enjoyed my sausage macmuffin with egg while watching some saxophone you tube videos :)

Tomorrow, we are going to the safari to see rhinoceroses and lions. Good break from day-long meetings!

Fantastic Diving at Sipadan

The sea scape at Sipadan is lovely. Wall dives mean great visibility of 30m or more (no silt to cloud the water), even in rainy weather. Hanging Garden was a magnificent wall of brightly coloured corals of all shapes and sizes, with turtles sleeping in the crevices. Lovelier than the most intricate and ornate cathedral.

Lionfish
Quite common but always thrilling to watch and think about how majestically poisonous they are.

Mandarin Fish

We were fortunate enough to witness these tiny creatures (no bigger than 2cm) engaging in carnal pleasures amidst the grey coral rubble of Kapalai's house reef. Cheek to cheek, the happy couple rose slowly together and quick as a flash, released their embrace and darted apart. It must have afforded them great pleasure as they repeated this over and over (and over!) again!

White-tip Reef Shark
We saw so many sharks that we no longer got excited!
Normally, the dive guide clinks his tank with a metal rod to attract our attention when something interesting is up ahead. The Pavlovian diver's reaction is an increased heart rate followed by rapid finning ahead to have a closer look. In Sipadan, it reached a point where after we raced forward to look and saw it was yet another shark, we thought "Chey! It's just a shark!"(In most of the other places we've been to, if you see ONE shark during your entire trip, everyone hears about it!)

Bumphead Parrot Fish
They are amazing to watch in a grotesque sort of way. As their name suggests, they look like they've just developed a baluku from swimming into a wall. Their parrot-like beaks are for snapping off coral bits. We saw a large school of these huge 4 foot long creatures.

Chevron Barracuda
Being encircled by a school of thousands of barracuda is not something you'll forget easily. You feel hopelessly outnumbered for one, by a silver battalion with mean faces, and you know better than to aggravate them. It is an awesome experience.

Stonefish
If it looks like a stone, acts like a stone but is vaguely shaped like a fish - don't touch it!

Frogfish
These are really hard to spot - because they could easily pass off for bits of coral. They are absolutely cute. They have 4 legs, and if you prod them, they waddle away placidly!


Nudibranch: the cutest slug in the world
I love these cute little self-absorbed sea slugs that come in bright combinations of every colour. But in Sipadan where you have too many huge pelagic creatures to gape at, nudibranches are more often than not overlooked.

Turtle
I never thought of turtles as cute until I saw them asleep in rock crevices, or holding onto corals. After a particularly turtle-filled dive, the first thing Panliang said when we ascended to the water surface, his regulator barely out of his mouth, was - "The turtle's so cute! He looks like Darcy!" At that moment, I could not have loved him more.

The Camouflaging Octopus

One of the most amazing and mind-boggling creatures we saw was the camouflaging octopus. We were about 14m underwater at the Kapalai house reef when we saw this little octopus, about 25cm long, being stalked by 3 nasty-looking fish. They wouldn't let him out of their sight and blocked off all his escape routes. We hovered there for about 10 minutes, watching in awe as the octopus melted into his surroundings. Settling between a blue, spongy coral with vertical tubular protrusions on his left, and a light and dark brown rock on his right, he seamlessly became both, growing light blue moving tubes on his left and melting into the brown rock on his right.

That was one of the most amazing things I'd even seen. I really wished there and then that I had an underwater video camera. It would have been jaw-dropping if I didn't have to keep my mouth firmly clamped around my regulator to breathe. There we were, clumsy and fully dependent on our big air tank and dive gear, watching effortless underwater magic. Diving always fills me with great awe and respect for creation.