Bali Trip ... Photos Finally

Yes finally i have gotten down to blog about my trip to indonesia. There is very little photos of jak cos it is an ugly city (sorry stef) but there is little beauty in the streets of jak .. unless you take photos of the pp there. But i did not have one of those professional cameras that can capture those pp photos well. And even if i do .. it would have been stolen by now (ha! another stereotype .. sorry stef) :)

ANyway these are the photos of Bali .. love that place and esp the food .. yummm. You have to try Ryoshi (Jap food - yes ... weird but its real jap food in the middle of indon, prepared by jap chef and owned by jap lady. AND its at Indon Food prices - a plate of Sushi (12 pieces) for about S$9 - you cannot beat that). Then there is Made's Warung, Bebek Bengil, and Warisan. All beautiful restaurants and yummy food.

The hotel that we stayed in - photo was taken from our balcony. It looks wonderful right .. cos that was the only sunlight we had .. the only time being when we arrived. And then the rain stayed for 3 days before leaving on our last day. Talk about luck.


so .. we drove around bali and there are real padi fields along the way. Too bad all the photos came out rather drab cos it was either cloudy or rainy when we were there.
Forgive the photo quality of this - it was taken in the car ... so the photos were taken by luck or chance.


Tanah Lot - temple looks like it is built on an island IF it was high tide. But it wasnt when we were there.


Balinese going to the temple, Pura Tanah Lot, to give their offerings. Kind of strange that commercialism is residing just beside spiritualism. These pp were comfortable with all the tourist gawking at them and taking photos and they carry on doing their thing. I am sure this was covered in that Sociology course on Tourism. I should have taken it... anyway ..


Of course we went for the balinese dances in Ubud - Legong and Kecak Dance. I have tonnes more photo of this and come film that i took. But none of the kecak dance. I think that they have to experience though. The photos do not do them justice.



finally the beach - really beautiful. No wonder pp come to their beaches. There are natural wonders in the distance ...


And man made ones too ...


the End -- i am too tired to upload any more photos. Sorry.
But you should go to Bali - nice place, cheap, and fun. Only thing to worry about is the lack of security (just recently an article came out about the lack of security in their airports. Well .. nothing happened to me. Except for the horrible experience at Pura Besakih - the pp there were trying to scam us into paying for the 'local' guides there. They wanted use to pay about $40 - it's not a lot but when you can buy a restaurant quality meal for $8 and a pair of shorts for $2 and a pair of earrings for 30 cents - that amount is insane.

Anyway, you should go there yourself and experience it. haha... talk about advertisement by word of mouth.

----- sorry about two of the photos that are not upright -- i have not edited them before uploading them. Oh well you get the picture!

Started Work

started work on Tuesday .. right after the Christmas period and it was difficult. So far, there has been nothing too heavy for me. The most difficult presently is how to pretend that you are doing something (but you are not) and also how to keep yourself from dozing off in the afternoon (esp after lunch). BUT thank goodness for the training in NS ... i can say that i accomplished these two things with aplomb.

So I have a window seat with a view ... of the pp hotel rooms in Swisshotel .. and can see the many pp swimming and suntanning at the pool. What luck ..

so .. the work will be coming in prob after the new years when everyone comes back from their leave.

Hope everything goes well.

Back from Jakarta and Bali

Back and had a ball of a time. I will be uploading the pictures soon .. hopefully it would be able to capture some of the fun i had :P
and the great thing is that i got my results when i came home and .. i did well .. 2 As, 1 A+ and 1 A-. So i goal of making a first class honours average for my masters is fulfilled. haha ...

will be starting work tmr .. hopefully i dont make any goof ups and i can end the day in one piece.

going off today

flying to jakarta then on to bali ...
hopefully nothing untowards happen ...
I should keep away from the ang mohs ... just in case :P

so i am off ... goodbye pp.

The linzes have won the Amazing Race

yes .. finally a team that i supported have won the amazing race. As long as the Weavers did not win, I would be happy. I was soooooo hoping that when the Weavers reached the finishing line, there would be very little appluase and the *crickets* soundtrack. That would have been hilarious. I guess God didnt want them to win. hahahaha.

Fort Minor - fantastic band

To the many people that is reading this blog (I am of course being highly delusional here),

go listen to Fort Minor today. Interesting band.

here - you can access the files here. I found them the other day :P here's to the kind hearted pp out there.

http://www.muchmusic.net/fort_minor_the_rising_tied_1312

Lazy Days

I have been running around preparing for my holiday and my work ... went to photocopy the books that steffie wanted (i basically violated copyright laws here .. haha) and also went to buy shoes for work. One pair of black shoes is falling apart and the other pair makes me really tall - the heels are really high and i always feel so strange in that. i really wonder how women wear those freaking high heels (those that are like 5-6 inches). Also went for my medical .. haha .. thought that i would have to strip and cough (ahem.. shan't elaborate) .. thank goodness NO.

I have also been watching A LOT of TV. Watched the finale of suvivor. Really was hoping that Steph would win but Danni won instead. Oh well... Steph was really bitchy and she was rather explicit about it. Of course the jury is not going to vote for the bitch that back stab them. Also project runway - season 1 only - i have to get the dvd for this show. The slow wait is really killing me. But the pp are sooo talented. Its really amazing how they could transform plain cloth into something so fantastic. Makes me want to either be a fashion designer, have fashion designer friends or marry someone who is one. hahaha. And of course the amazing race finale tom. Here's to hoping that the whining Weavers do not win. But who knows with the producers of that series.

I think I have too much time and am indulging in my TV habits too much. Last night while watching all the commercials for upcoming shows, i was thinking OMG .. i will be missing all these shows when i will be holiday. I wanna stay home and watch them. haha. lame.

1000th visitor .. finally

Finally, i have clocked 1000 visitors .. since the time i put the counter which is 2 August 2005. So not bad .. i guess for 4 months .. and 1000 visitors. Of course, part of that is basically me visiting my own blog and refreshing the blog when i am posting new entries or changing the template. But then i have some visitors from other countries so it is not only me.

Weblog Awards

I usually visits daniel Drezner's blog - has interesting observations on politics and economics. So i notice his post on the weblog awards ... seems like a big thing. So i was thinking what can i do to increase the traffic on my blogs .... I still can't think of anything gimicky to try. I dont have such an interesting life to blog about and moaning about my life just seems so unseemly .. seeing that the blog is in the public domain and is subject to the laws of the country. No matter how you think about it as a private affair.

So while i go about thinking about how to make my blog (or maybe my life) more interesting, please go vote for dan drezner on the weblog page. I know it's a long shot but then as long as he beats Megan AcArdle - gotta read his blog to understand. Also since you are willing to vote, why not also vote for the best blog in asia. I went for Simon World - some guy in HK. Again another long shot - seems like that irritating Xiaxue is leading the pack. But also Mr Brown is following.

Oh well... vote for the underdogs.

Does anyone have this book?

I just finished readings the Magician Guild and the Novice by Trudi Canavan (actually I am rereading it .. i read them when i was in Melbourne .. and that was 3-4 years ago). The library does not have the next book - last book in the tirlogy - The High Lord (refer to picture). So does anyone have this book? Can lend me? I would love to finish this trilogy ... there are a lot of loose ends that Canavan has left.

So ... anyone??

Grooming session

Just sent the two doggies for a grooming session ..

i thought i take some pictures before and after they were groomed ... nicky look kinda ridiculous now .. haha .. but cocoa looks alright.

Nicky:


Cocoa:

My holiday is confirmed

I will be off to jakarta next week to visit stef and then we will be off to bali for a few days before i fly back before christmas.
So my wish list:
- buy tonnes of shirts there (hopefully they have stuff that i like and in my size) so that i can actually have clothes to wear when i start work.
- get some .. *ahem* games for my ps2 ... won't comment any further.
- get the west wing season 5 ... also won't comment further
- get to see the Sukarno's erection ... the MONAS
- get away from Singapore ...

so i guess my planning this time has paid off.

btw the pix is from the google-a-montage application.

Ripples from the execution

Putfile - a website that allows you to upload videos and view other videos have decided to ban Singaporeans from using their services because Singapore has executed Van. Shocking that this sort of activism is taking place. Social activism is moving to the internet.

Putfile Says Goodbye To Singapore

At dawn on December 2nd 2005, Singapore hanged a citizen of Australia, despite a plea for clemency from the United Nations. Whilst Putfile is not a human rights campaigning organization, we believe that if a country must have the death penalty, there is no need for it be barbaric. It is enough of a punishment, and a deterrent, to take someone's life in a painless manner, without having to be barbaric about it. Putfile prefers to not continue to provide our free uploading service to a country that executes prisoners by hanging, a method of execution which can take up to six minutes to painfully execute the victim.

For this reason, we are at this time terminating all service to users from Singapore. We shall be happy to restore service following any positive move from the government of Singapore towards abolition of hanging as an execution method.

Goodbye Singapore,

Putfile.

I am done with exams .. and studying

I have finally ended my exams ... and the masters that took me 1 1/2 years to complete. Through National service and then finally finishing it up with NS ending too. So it's off for a month os rest and then i will start work on 27 dec.

It really is kinda of strange that i am done with studying. When i finished my bachelors, i never really thought that i would end studying. Just keep it on hold. But now with the masters over, I really don't see any more studying. Unless a phd? maybe a phd in a few years time. That I have to wait and see. Can't think of a topic to write for a thesis - maybe the political economy of international trade? Maybe the China trade issues with the US? hmm ... will have to explore that. Well at least my work will allow me to think about these issues .. hopefully i am not worked to the bone.

I will be starting my holiday ... in 5 ..4 ...3...2...1. :P

Kiss of death

Just came across a really depressing news story. It was kinda funny but then someone actually died so i should stop chuckling. Anyway, this girl kissed her boyfriend who just ate some peanuts (or something with peanuts). She is allergic and so she died. Very sad .. but seriously what are the chances of this happening?

dont believe me .. here

Christina Desforges, a Canadian teenager allergic to peanuts actually lost her life after she stole a kiss with her boyfriend who had just consumed a peanut-based snack. The allergy that affects just over a percent of the population caused the 15-year old to go into anaphylactic shock despite an immediately administered adrenalin shot. The girl eventually died four days after the lethal kiss of respiratory failure.

One thing i am surprised is that the news story was not titled KISS OF DEATH!! or BOY KILLS GIRL WITH A KISS!! or something equally corny. I bet the newpaper (Singapore's only tabloid) would feature it with such a title.

I got a new pet - Cocoa

Presenting Cocoa - my new pig .. yes this is again another sad attempt of me procrastinating. While blog hopping, i found a tiger in a friend's friend's blog and thought how cute.

if you move your cursor over the pig .. it will follow the pet and click on it .. it will squile (? god my spelling has deteriorated after word spellcheck was invented. haha)

I can't seem to place the codes in this entry but not to worry, i have placed the codes in the side bar. So now cocoa resides at the bottom of the page. Waiting for you to play with her.

Dear Van ... you should have stopped-over in Thailand or Malaysia!

unless you have been sleeping under a rock or have been living in Singapore (there seems to be little reporting of the case in the Singapore press), Singapore is about to execute Nyugen Thuong Van this friday because he smuggled drugs into Singapore en route to Melbourne. The Australians are very angry that they are killing one of their own while the Singaporeans are rather blase about it, as usual in fact.

I myself don't have an opinion on the death sentence. It's good and bad .. yet seriously, if you are going to traffic drugs, WHY did you choose to use Singapore as a stopover from Cambodia, my dear Van? You could have gone to Malaysia, or Thailand (two very popular stopover destinations) and if caught, at least there might be a saving chance that the Australian people and government might "persuade" the Malaysian or Thai government to commute the sentence to life instead of death, right??

Instead, you chose Singapore. The country that refused to commute your sentence to life despite pleas from the Australian people and government. The country that did not reduce the sentence for Michael McFay in the 1990s, despite pleas from the Untied States (the super-power at that time). The country that does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International courts.

To change the sentence would reverse decades of policies.

It would signal to the people that the government is amenable to pressure (get ready all you civil society people!!).

It would basically signal to the people that the government is fallible. (Shock!! 4 decades of party rule and socialisation down the drain).

I seriously doubt the Singapore government will change their stance in this matter.

So pray for Van .. cos there is really nothing else we can do.

I confess .... I am a TV Junkie

I have been watching a lot of TV lately.. Even during the exam period. I would study and plan my study breaks to coincide with the TV shows. Yes my study breaks can last for over an hour. Shocking isn't it :P

well I have always been a TV junkie and even while studying during my honours year, I still watched a lot of TV. And still managed a decent grade so I don't think I will stop watching TV anytime soon.

Recently I stumbled upon this website for TV junkie called TVgasm . So funny the way they blog about the shows. I especially how they are insulting the most HATED family on TV right now .. The irritating WEAVER family on amazing race. Here's an excerpt:

Well, the Linzes left the Pitstop second, but because they really didn't have anything fascinating to say, we'll just move onto team #3: God's flavorite bunch of daffy devotees, the Weavers. Commence self-aggrandizing... NOW!

"The world we live in is obviously not loving and kind; so I think we're just sticking out because we're not as like crude," explained eldest dimwit daughter Rebecca. So apparently throwing garbage at another team does not count as crude. (Maybe it's more rude than crude.) Nevertheless, Linda reiterated her daughter's point, saying, "It's just so against our beliefs just to keep being treated so rudely." I wonder, does anyone actually believe in being treated rudely? Well, as a family sensitive to the way they are received, I'm sure the Weavers will in turn act in a manner that represents their values and beliefs. The higher road, if you will. What's that old Christian tenet? Love thy neighbor as thyself?

You can read more here.

Why do Institutions matter in Politics?

I have been trying to study (read memorise) for my exam in comparative politics tom. and this is supposedly one of the questions that will be coming out for tom - why do institutions matter in politics? So let me revise a little while i Procrastinate and this would be a good crib sheet for those who want the answer to that question ...

- to understand how institutions shape today's politics, we have to understand how institutions shape politics in the past (path dependency)
- institutions shape how politics is conducted
- institutions shape incentives which then shape political behaviour
- the persistance of informal institutions make them important because of their influence on politics
- Insitutions can affect the governance of a country
- institutions provide us with a context to understand how people rationalise and intepret actions and decisions
- even if institutions do not work as they should, they still have an impact on politics

and finally, Institutions matter because ..... IT IS COMING OUT IN TOMORROW'S EXAM. (or at least i hope it will).

It's official

I start work on 27 Dec ... till then I have to go shopping.
Here's to a new beginning.