Cleland Conservation Park

I've always wanted to visit the Cleland Conservation Park on Mount Lofty. I am, after all, a sucker for nature and wildlife. I believe things never got off the ground last year as everyone was waiting for everyone else. Earlier this year LH went with XN; they were nice enough to invite me along but I've had had enough of being a tiang lampu for 10 years by then so I declined. Finally sometime last week I heard Thinesh was entertaining thoughts of going there so I jumped at the possibility and attempted to make plans.

Lucky us as it was a fairly nice Autumn day and we took off. The forecast was a sunny 22-ish day. We arrived in due time, paid, bought a couple of foodpacks to feed the kangaroos, emus and waterfowl, and entered the park. As we were heading for the "You Are Here" map we saw a few of these creatures:

Potoroos @ Kangaroo Rats. Could be mistaken for the vermin back home but these are much cuter. They have the same beady eyes though.
We spotted them scurrying about everywhere in the park. However, outside the park they are apparently next to extinct.



We next went into the Kangaroo area. They seemed smaller than I had imagined them to be though. Furthermore the particular species in that area had heads that resembled those of donkeys. Most of the mobs were just lazing around on the ground. Interestingly the lazing position they assumed was incredibly similar to those of my pets back home. Heck, I think I may have been in that position as well when lazing around at home.
A few of the braver ones (almost all of them were fairly tame) came hopping as soon as they saw us/heard the food packs we were holding. Feeding wildlife has never been easier. Some were really insistent, attempting to keep a paw on the hand holding the pack, probably in an attempt to keep us from withdrawing the food. We saw a couple of albinos, a joey suckling, and more joeys in their mother's pouches. That looked really weird since the mom had an extra pair of legs sticking out of its abdomen.

Soon after, the Koala 'exhibit' was opened so we left for that.

It was basically a large enclosure with a huge central 'hut' and a few large Eucalyptus trees for them. We noticed a few that kept 'running' around the enclosure. We chalked it up to their version of exercise :)








The 'Pet the Koala' session. According to the keeper, that was a 10 year old male (Koala live an average of 15 years). One may pet them by stroking the soft fur on their backs as anywhere else will aggravate them apparently.

Koalas eat only Eucalyptus and have evolved such that the normally toxic leaves do not affect them. They have 2 thumbs. Their hearing is about 10 times greater than ours. In fact, there were quite a few times when it stopped eating when we were waiting in line. Apparently that happens when a 'loud' noise surprises them...and there was a baby in line ahead of us.


We next went to see the Dingos. Apparently they are pests in the wild and it is a crime to keep one as a pet. They happen to be the reason why the local carnivores such as the Tasmanian Devil are now only found in certain locations. They also happen to be the reason for the Longest Fence which practically spans across the country.

Next on the map was the Wetlands, where we saw a tonnes of avians.

<-- Can anyone guess why I took this picture?





A snakebird. No, seriously, that's what it's called. It looks really disproportionate because of the long neck. This particular one assumed that position for at least 30 minutes. No, I have no idea why. The ranger said that in the water, its body is submerged and only the head remains above water, hence the name.


When we tried to feed a few we attracted the attention of most of the birds. One really 'aggressive' duck came and pecked away at the pellets in our hands like a machine-gun. For some reason, it decided the tip of my index finger was food a pecked at it and tried to pull it off. As a result, my index finger is now 1cm shorter.

No, I'm kidding :) It was painful though.
Other birds there were swans, pelicans, different species of ducks, geese, stilts and ibises.

There were a couple of aviaries that we visited as well. There was also an enclosure for a Mallee (go Wiki it for more details) where there were a couple of huge Mallee ducks among other birds.

We next went in search for the famed emus that scared the living daylights out of XN. They weren't the only ones there though. More roos aplenty, although these were much cuter than the first group. Managed to get Thinesh to grab a pic of this one's head in my foodpack :)

Overall the roos were really tame. I could even pet them and they wouldn't bat an eyelid (but that's probably cuz they were more interested in the food I was holding).



Finally. The huge-@$$, flightless bird of Australia. Looks like someone just dumped a dishevelled shag carpet on it. About half of them were quite wary of us. The other half approached because we had food.
Feeding them was interesting. Their beaks aren't sharp and when they feed it feels like bucket scoops. Apparently they can grow up to 2 metres tall but all of them were, at most, slightly taller than me. Not sure why XN was scared of them though.



One of the areas we visited was reminiscent of a rock quarry which was the habitat of the rock wallabies. They were so well camouflaged that we had difficulty even locating them.

Another species of wallaby, the Tamaar Wallaby. This is possibly one of the cutest things I've ever seen!

I still can't really tell the difference between a roo and a wallaby yet. The rock wallabies looked quite like the roos.






Caught a pic of one eating an apple...I think...









One of the last creatures we saw was Knuckles. Eat your heart our Sonic!!

Echidnas, like Platypuses, are weird mammals. They lays eggs, then suckle their young. Isn't it cute?



We also saw 2 wombat couples dozing in their caves. They are the closest relative of the koalas but they are ground creatures. A large adult can reach 40kgs. That's like, heavier than Jebbrine.

The only other animal worth mentioning is the Tasmanian Devil. It had an enclosure all to itself, and was basically just running around the entire place the whole time we were there. Either it was really bored or decided to lose some weight.

I'd say it was a day well spent since I've been deprived of animal contact for months now. I'm happy.

Wow.

I should go buy some lottery. 2 incredibly rare occurences occured to me in the last day:

1. I *finally* met Bryan. It's been ever so long since I last met him (since most of us went back home last year actually) and we're both living in Adelaide.
2. I got an email from Eve...albeit it was just one line of randomness in response to one of the funniest emails I forwarded...but still! An email from Eve. That's like watching Haley's Comet!

A wise person (or at least wiser than me) once told me "It takes two hands to clap."

Recently a thought has been bothering me...

If one hand wants to clap but the other doesn't seem to want to, should the first hand stop trying? Or should it keep trying in hopes that eventually the other will respond?

It never ceases to amaze me that the orthopaedic team just waltzes into each and every room, have a minute discussion (or usually less) about the patient and waltz off into the next room.

What's even more amazing is they completely ignore (or are completely oblivious) to the big signs on the doors that say "STOP! Additional Safety Precautions Required".

And we wonder how MRSA and gastro bugs are spread around the hospitals...

*No I'm not dissing the ortho team. In fact I'm quite enjoying the rotation. It's just an observation*

Adelaide, the (literally) melting pot.

Summer ended a couple of weeks back, yet the expected relief with the expected autumn weather never materialized. In fact, quite the opposite happened. The unexpected has occurred with the last 2 weeks being hotter than the summer I've been experiencing so far. Daily peak temperatures hovered between 37-40 degrees with the nights barely offering solace. This is what my room and bed feel like most of the time:








<-- My room










<-- My bed






In fact, this is the first time I can remember in Adelaide that I've been sweating profusely in the house. It is so annoyingly hot that I can't study or sleep for that matter...ok that was an overstatement. I can only sleep after much tossing around on a hot bed or I just knock off if I'm too tired from lack of sleep due to the 1st reason. Add to that the fact that the heat just drains you of your energy just worsens the whole situation.

I so can't wait for the cold weather to arrive. That would probably make me the happiest person on Earth, if just for a minute or so. At least when it's cold you can just put on more clothes to feel comfortably warm. Pity the opposite doesn't work. After all, there's only so much stuff you can take off to cool off. Plus one of the greatest pleasures in life has to be crawling under a nice warm quilt in the heart of winter.
This is one of the rare times that I actually envy the Villagers with their unlimited use of aircon, however damaging it is to the environment.

Mega Pwnage

A gem I found on Youtube :)

I hate the Clipsal!!! Well I have nothing against them personally but it's the event they sponsor, the Adelaide Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar Race!

Dahlah to arrange the race they've cordoned off a section of roads on the east side of the city for the last week. Coincidentally one of the roads cordoned off happens to be the road leading from my area to the city, ie the bus doesn't run there for the week the Clipsal is on, ie I have to walk to the city to take a bus when originally I could just take one from outside my house.

Now the pretty big area cordoned off happens to be less than 500 metres from my place so I can actually here the engine revs and concerts from here. And for such a 'big event' they obviously need media coverage, which comes in the form of 2 choppers circling the area. The event starts in the morning and lasts till late at night.
And they seem to have daily airshows by some Hornets.



No, not these hornets.








These hornets!

The airshow they put on is fairly low altitude, I'm guessing it's so the spectators can clearly see the stunts. This is, of course, not very pleasant to the ears.


I was walking back from groceries yesterday when one flew overhead. In that painful instant I was acutely aware of some loss of hearing ability in my right ear. Fortunately it seems that it's just a temporary thing.

Today being the only day I've been in the house the whole day, I have finally discovered how wonderfully annoying the clipsal can be. The revs start in the morning, varying in intensities throughout the day. This is followed soon by a really annoying cycle of choppers circling overhead. Sometime in midday the Hornets appear, screaming their jet engines off. Thankfully the Hornet show is just about 5-10 minutes. The rest of it lasts the whole damn friggin day!

I can barely concentrate, let alone study.

Worse, I can't sleep from all that damn noise!

....I can feel my sanity falling apart...

Today in OPD, one symptom a patient was having was abdominal pain. After the usual pain history:

X : Hmm...have you had your gallbladder out?
Y : Yeah. Twice.
X : *blink* Excuse me?

I unprofessionally started laughing and the rest in the room soon followed :D

Turns out that Y had been involved in an accident and the surgeons who operated only removed half a gallbladder as it was all they could find then.
Some time later Y started having abdominal pains again and another doctor discovered half a gallbladder still left in him. Needless to say this doctor was less than amused having to remove it.

I am ninja!

Me : ...hey...
LH : *screams blue murder*
Me : ..... -_-"

Above is a scene which has repeated itself countlessly in our place. The only difference is what I want to say in each situation, our clothes and the location. It seems that I tend to surprise her with my 'stealthiness'.

In all honesty I tend to dismiss that and claim she just doesn't pay enough attention to her surroundings. But then today happened.

Today I found the surgeons changing room locked, which is unusual as I never remember it being locked before. So I went into the Admin's room, who was doing some work on the com, to ask if she knew the code.

Me : *walks in* Excuse me...
Admin : *startled with dramatic gasp, hand clasping chest looking as if she's just seen a ghost*
Me : O_O ... *apologetic smile* I'm sorry...I tend to do that to my housemate too...
Admin : *laughs with relief* It's alright.

So either I start wearing a cowbell to announce my presence or I have a natural talent to be a ninja!

No I do NOT want a cowbell for my birthday!

The Story of My Life..

...for the last 3 months now...sigh

Finally back here in the land of the dry where it's fortunately not as hot as it was.
Things here are still pretty much uneventful, but I guess that's normal for Adelaide...or maybe it's just me.

Anyway, the first thing I noticed when I entered the plane was that it was unnaturally warm, almost as if the aircond wasn't working. True enough, after about 10 minutes the captain announced over the PA that something was wrong with the aircond yet none of them seemed particularly bothered about it. I was hoping it wouldn't be that way for the whole journey because I'd be really unamused having to spend 7 hours in a hot stuffy environment.

Then came the usual prattle about who is flying, where we're going etcetera etcetera. Next was the announcement to watch the safety rules onboard and so we all turned to look at the screen when suddenly the whole plane was thrown into darkness. After a few seconds the emergency lights came on.
I remember being vaguely surprised that there was no MSI incident, instead one could here plenty of "Awwwww"s coming from around.

"Well that's reassuring" I said to the fellow sitting next to me.
"Oh definitely," he replied "Welcome to aeroflop."

After a period of time when nothing seemed to be happening, your fears start taking over - especially after having seen one too many plane disasters on the idiot box and I was fervently hoping that would not come to pass.

Finally the lights and warm aircond returned and the captain apologized for the incident and instructed the cabin crew to demonstrate the safety procedures (cuz all the monitors were still blank). Then we took off...

...when we were at last in the air there was another announcement from the captain. Now he was obviously of a Malay education but the annoying things was that he didn't(couldn't?) pronounce words very well and he spoke way too fast so that all his words sounded joined. It actually took some effort to decipher the English he was speaking. As it turns out he was saying how sorry they were for the blackout earlier because some generator had failed. Then, as if nothing had happened, he went on in a cheery voice that we were still scheduled to be on time, the flight would take 6.5 hours, that they were expecting clear skies but warned us to be alert in case of turbulence etcetera etcetera.

I could only come up with 2 conclusions:
One - these events happen frequently enough that it doesn't bother them
Two - the captain sucks at behavioural skills

And so 2007 has lapsed into the obscure realm of memories and 2008 has dawned. So many things have happened but it wasn't a good year, well for me anyway.

May the new year bring us all soothing rains, refreshing winds and bountiful harvests.

Malaysia Boleh

What a welcome back to my home country. The 1st night was agonizingly fannoyingly itchy for me resulting in a multitude of excoriations. Now, I think I've had more excoriations here in the last 2+ weeks than I've had over the 11 months in Adelaide.

Roads have changed somewhat resulting in me nearly getting lost. Road conditions on the other hand are just as bad as they have always been.
Road users have developed even worse attitudes. I was driving home from a friend's house one night and lo and behold - an idiot riding his motorcycle in the wrong direction! That *bleep* was lucky he was at the side of the road. Next I meet the person-whose-grandfather-obviously-owns-the-road @$hole(s) on another bike. The rider and his pillion rider were obviously close (can this be grounds for a khalwat charge?) and were travelling at less than 40kmh...in the middle of the damn road. Lei ah yeah!
Irresponsible, selfish bastards who triple park on busy roads just because it's convenient for them. Irresponsible selfish bastard who was too lazy to reverse another 2 metres to park in a lot blocking my car from leaving.

When I was in Adelaide we had the previous HARDTALK session with our foreign minister which was one of my previous entries. That was followed by the BERSIH (The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections) march which garnered a lot of attention due to the many controversies and spins the government seemed to have put on it. Visit this site for their homepage. There are even videos on Youtube, I remember the police firing their water cannons at the 'illegal' gatherers and the reporter saying "this is democracy...Malaysian style".
The al-Jazeera clip included a faceless interview between one of their reporters who was caught in the conflict and one of our ministers who basically embarassed himself and his nation with his horrible command of English and practically screaming 'answers' and pointing fingers in the interview. I think this is the clip (might be wrong since I can't hear anything without speakers).

Shortly after the whole Hindraf incident occured...and is still happening. To those who have no idea what that is, basically a group of local indians formed a group to petition Queen Elizabeth II claiming that the Indian community were never cared for properly when they were brought over so many years ago. Reported in The Star:

It was reported that the sum sought was US$4tril (RM13.5tril) or US$1mil (RM3.4mil) for every Indian residing in Malaysia.

Well, they then took to the streets, became violent at the police and spread the word to other nations and caused some international dispute. They are now also accused of being extremist, attempting to incite racial issues(and some believe, trying to start another May 13 incident) and liasing with terrorists including the Tamil Tigers.

To top off the cake, news reports that our ministers have 'arguments' in the parliament and many are known for being complete blockheads. Think degrading women and constantly surprising the public at how idiotic they can be.

Lastly (for now anyway):
The incredible story of the lackadaisical attitude of the people at the National Registration Department - here.

Just a thought that hit me: Why read tabloids when Malaysian newspapers are all you need?

The Arbitrary List of Things to Eat

THE ARBITRARY LIST OF THINGS TO EAT UPON RETURNING TO MALAYSIA
[to be updated as and when I feel like it]

• Klang Bak Kut Teh - Achieved; potential for seconds
• Assam Laksa - Achieved
• Curry Laksa - Achieved
• Onion Soup - Achieved
• Hokkien Mee - Achieved
• Cantonese Yinyong - Achieved
• Yong Tau Foo - Achieved
• Chicken Rice - Achieved
• Fish head Meehoon - Pending
• Tau Fu Fa - Pending
• Nasi Lemak - Achieved
• Japanese Food - Pending
• Roti Bakar - Achieved; potential for more
• Garlic Cheese Naan - Achieved; potential for more

Completely pointless blog post

I'm finally home! YES! The flight was 7+ hours long and I was slightly airsick for most of the journey...it was like a mild case of nausea which became a little worse toward the end of the flight but I weathered it.

Watched 3 movies in-flight. The 1st was HAIRSPRAY! Yes, I know I'm seriously outdated with movies but hey, I was in Australia for the last 11 months so it's totally excusable. HAIRPSPRAY was completely enjoyable, as everyone who had watched it said. I was pretty much dancing in my seat while watching it.
Then I chose to watch The Simpson's Movie (due to lack of a better choice...Silver Surfer wasn't available) and had a good laugh. I think I might have attracted some attention as I tend to laugh quite loudly but who's keeping track huh?
The last movie I watched was....get ready...High School Musical 2. Seeing as how (most of the Adelaide people) know I pretty much memorized High School Musical they were pretty sure I'd get my hands on HSM2 asap. Well I didn't. And fortunately so, cuz though I was only able to watch half of it...it was quite crap and the songs weren't catchy at all. Period.

As the plane began its descent, I was smiling all the way. When the co-pilot said to the passengers "to all visitors, selamat datang ke Malaysia and to all Malaysians, selamat pulang" I was ecstatic. For some unknown reason, the national song went through my head. Then I wondered why in the world would they greet tourists in BM? It's not like they are likely to understand it right?

Hypothesis: When I return to Malaysia from Adelaide, I will melt from the heat and humidity.

Fact 1: Adelaide is currently hotter than Malaysia, with max temperatures reaching 40 degrees. Even I was quite surprised when I learnt of the temperature over there.
Fact 2: I did 'melt' from the sheer humidity over here. It's so different from Adelaide where one hardly sweats.

Fact which is totally unrelaated to the hypothesis:
The sudden change in environment, plus walking into a house with 3 dogs triggered a massive histamine release which caused me to itch unrelentlessly which caused me to scratch those damn intolerable itches which has given me excoriations on quite a number of places which has caused me a considerable amount of agony which I haven't experienced since...a long long time ago, which fortunately only lasted a few hours on the night I touched down.

Now if I can just complete the arbitrary list of foods to eat that's floating around in my head...

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Got this from Amanda and it's really good. Applause to Jeff Dunham and Achmed for this :)

Random Update

It's raining.

It's (relatively) more humid.

The temperature is (generally) nice.

THE @#*&^#%LKBJBSDGB&*^* FLIES ARE BACK!!!!

I wish I had the powers to channel electricity ala Raiden. I'd toast all those fannoying flies that keep targetting me. I swear walking to and from the market today was a test of my sanity. Can you imagine holding heavy grocery bags in both hands yet having to fend off (idiotic) flies that land on the most annoying parts of your body. If it wasn't for the fact that I managed to kill at least 3 of them I'd probably have gone crazy.

It's SwotVac time!.....groooaaannnn....

Lalala

I think the slow pace and laidbackness of life here in Adelaide is starting to rub off on us. Last Friday when we were returning around lunchtime...

Jason: Hey you guys wanna eat lunch? I know this great Vietnamese restaurant nearby and I'm super hungry...
Me: Sure, I don't mind. *looks at Shiau Cern* How about you?
Cern: Can la.

A few minutes and some totally unrelated conversation later...

Me: Hey, hang on! Lemme check whether or not I have enough cash for lunch first...
Cern: Ya hor, lemme check also...
Jason: I dunno if I have cash either...

*a minute later*

Me: I officially have fifteen dollars...*fiddles around with his wallet coin compartment*...no make that seventeen
Cern: I have about the same
Me: Is that enough?
Jason: Yeah, should be. I don't have much either but I have a bag of coins in the car.

So there we were, driving down the road towards the restaurant looking out for any ATMs in the immediate vicinity. There weren't in case anyone was wondering.
Well, in the end we did manage to dig out enough dough for a satisfying meal. Just enough.

HARDTALK with our Foreign Minister

Looks like our problems are no longer just limited to our own Nation. HARDTALK interviews our Foreign Minister Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar on all the sensitive topics.

I have to say I am disagreeing with a lot of what he is saying.

"The important thing is that Malaysians feel they are Malaysians. We recognize our diversity is a source of our strength. There is no need for us to change the rules or law."

"We are able to exercise unity."

"But if you look in reality, what is happening is that the economic growth of the non-Malays is faster after the National Economic Policy than before..blahblah...even the Indians have a better household income than the Malays."

The following has to be one of the most contradictory statements I've ever heard:
"So I think that if you take it out of the ethnic dimension then you will see that it is the function of any government to help the less fortunate to make sure the divide that is based on ethnic division can be overcome."

How does that 'take out the ethnic dimension'? If you remove ethnicity from that point of view, the main reason why there would be 'fortunates' and 'less fortunates' is because some people were more hardworking and opportunistic than others. Or they really just got lucky. Besides, that doesn't explain the fact that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer does it?

I was keeping track of all the things he said up till a point when I just gave up because it seemed that his train of thought was just along one line - a one track mind, if you will. I can understand that he doesn't want to bring the country's reputation down but I feel that a lot of what he said was from behind whatever law it is that is protecting their interests. Honestly, you can say whatever you want but I'm sure a lot of people will be disagreeing with you and I don't think we're safe from another May 13 incident if this carries on.

Check out the lame-ass reason he gave for why there have been no other ethnicities in the top cabinet positions since 1973.

Sigh. Another attempt to sweep things under the carpet and have a knee-jerk reaction when something happens? He says it isn't but I guess we'll find out the hard way.
Someone posted some good comments about the video on Youtube saying how hard it is to run a government and that they're trying to improve things. Well said, whoever you are and I applaud you. However it is painfully obvious that whatever it is they are doing, it certainly isn't working. Instead of improving things are getting worse and if that isn't a sign, I don't know what is.

Sigh.

Painful fun

I'm currently aching all over, so much so that I feel really like an old man. All this came about from 2 reasons, specifically a romp on the beach and a slightly excessive training session.

The slightly excessive training session was something I did about 2 days ago. The weather was nice and warm so I decided that I should go train outdoors. Furthermore there is this nice, if slightly uneven, grassy area in between the house units which is more than enough to train in.
So I did the 37 and I was really enjoying the outdoors. It had been so long that I'd forgotten the feeling. After that I decided to try it out but the mirror version.
The next day I found out I had aches in weird places, such as the suprapatellar area, just inferior to the inguinal ligament and my glutes. Heck, going up and down the stairs at home caused pain.

Well, the day was just beginning as that was the day we were to throw a surprise birthday party for Jebbrine at, of all places, Glenelg beach (it seems to be one of her favourite places). Everyone arrived before the birthday girl and so while waiting, we were introduced to beach cricket (thanks Rahul and Kian).
My first impression of the cricket bat was that it would make a really good weapon. The second thought was if I could use it to train the sword form but decided it was too top heavy for it, but it would definitely make for good wrist strength training. The 3rd thought was how the heck I'm gonna hit a ball with it.
It's official, I suck at cricket. I think I must have missed about 80% of the balls thrown at me, but for those that I actually managed to hit I think I hit them pretty well.

Anyways, after Jebbrine arrived with the organisers (read the female Villagers) we started the feast. It was a potluck thing so everyone brought something. We brought garlic bread and papadams, Christine brought tomyam fried rice, Daphne made a really nice lemon yogurt cake, Quinnie made some really delicious samosas, Bryan brought cold-cut meat and crackers and dip. There was also an apple pie, marshmallows, pizza and, you'll never guess the highlight dish - fruit chocolate fondue!

After stuffing our stomachs, we proceeded to continue with the cricket and then initiated a game of touch footy. Two first attempts by yours truly for two games he never played before and it was actually really quite enjoyable...except that running around on a beach was somewhat annoying because of all the shells. We attracted a lot of onlookers and it probably looked odd to them that a bunch of Asians were playing their local sports. Someone mentioned it would be similar to a bunch of Asians looking at a bunch of angmohs playing sepak takraw.

Today I could almost not wake up, tired out from spending almost an entire day at the beach the previous day. The most annoying part was that I could feel individual parts of my body aching, collectively it just felt like my whole body was aching. Sore shoulders, sore lower back, sore aforementioned parts of the legs, sore palms from swinging the cricket bat around and sore soles from all the running of shell-y sands.

I guess it just goes to show how deconditioned I've become and how long it's been since I've played some serious sports.
And yes, it makes me feel physically old.
But I'm still young at heart :)