Trip to Canberra and Melbourne 2 - 6th April 2019

The structure outside the AIS Institute of Sports

I have just finished a 5 day trip for business and leisure to Canberra and Melbourne. The first leg is for work, so my colleague Jason and I took the flights from SG to Melbourne (7  hr 30 mins) and then onto Canberra (1 hour 10 mins) seamlessly. Upon arrival at check in at the hotel, we carried on to visit our customer at the UCRISE or Canberra University Institute of Sports and Exercise. That meeting went well and we then proceeded to follow through on the rest of our trip. Jason had some further checks on the equipment, while I was the 'spare man' and decided to make a visit to my long lost relatives in Melbourne. More of that in a later post.

Bush at the Bruce Ridge outside our villa 

Bruce suburb is north of the Town Centre, and Canberra (called the Australian Capital Territory) is about 250 km due southwest from Sydney and about 220 km north east of Melnourne. The city of approximately 300 thousand odd residents is home to the Australian Parliament House (see below).This picture  below was taken in 2017 and both times I came around autumn time (Apr - June) and the weather was perfect, cool at 15 - 20 deg C in the day with humidity hovering in the 40 - 50% rH. 

Perfect for outdoor running, cycling and physical sports. The city is quite spread out, and their is a rising number of Asian immigrants, residents or visitors coming to work, study and play as typified by the food court at the shopping centre in town. Easily 50% of the shops sell Asain cuisine (if I can call economy rice "cuisine" !).   

House along Manuka Avenue in centre of town 

I would say that Australia is a country where a person can have time and space to himself to be 'in the present'. There are plenty of trails and open spaces where walks can be had, people can have time to interact with each other in a meaningful way and there is some semblance of inclusiveness for all communities - although I say this in a time where the world in general is reeling from many attacks and misunderstandings of the new migrant cultures coming in and changing much of the landscape, and also messing with the much held traditions and social fabric of Australia.  

We stayed at a dual bedroom villa off  Bencollen Way 

Canberra, it is my fervent wish I have more business opportunities with the UCRISE and I can come visit and appreciate more of the lifestyle, people and culture of what many people call the Lucky Country. 

New Anti - Drug Ambassador ? What a flaming Joke !

Today I was really amused to read in the local newspapers, that one of Singapore's ex top DJs a Ms Tenasher Long was imprisoned for drug consumption.She also jumped bail and fled the country with her ex-boyfriend.

There is nothing funny about being jailed, but the fact that her mother so early trumpeted that she hopes her daughter can be an anti-drug ambassador for the young adults 'out there'. 

On the same page, you have the said ex-DJ in a low cut black dress showing her assets and her dyed hair. This is sending all mixed signals to the young and vulnerable who go out and party and be entertained by these celebrities. Singapore's laws are strict but not overly so. Drink but not in excess. Party but don't drink and drive. Drugs - No no. How much more simple can these things be ? Apparently not so simple for morons like her. 

You want to push the boundaries ? Fine. Pay the price. Shut up and Crawl your way back. 

Wow, in my opinion, her mother should just shut up, let the girl serve her time and after her period of incarceration, then perhaps humbly state her story. Her association with another ex-hubby of English origin of another Singapore so-called celebrity who was into drugs did not raise any red flags with her ? I think she does not make good judgement calls on her men whom she chooses to have relationships with. The guy is obviously a bad influence and our young people especially ladies should always look at the inner person. Our ladies seem to be taken by the young white men by their good looks and charm but tend to neglect the thing called 'character'. Stupid call by some girls. I won't call them Sarong Party Girls but can you be a little more quality conscious and have higher standards please ??? 

A lot of times their decisions have been the result of the influence of mass media such as Hollywood movies,with the white guy being the hero in 80 - 90% of the shows.  

Singaporean guys are basically good folk, square, not too cool but good folk. Check them out and give our local boys a chance. 

Give up on the Pinkerton Syndrome.  You might be so much happier for it. 

Hard Push to Run 5 km in 32 mins 19 seconds

Time is in short supply as I reduce my running to quality runs. But I was desperate to try the Kayanos 25 as I had just bought them a few days ago. So today, 31st March 2019, I skipped ('pontang' in local slang) my karate class which normally runs from 6 pm to 7.30 pm to run 5 km at 7.02 pm and boy I was eager to see how the shoes held up.

I took off at a quick pace (by my standards anyway) to reach the edge of the forest at about 3 minutes, I then went on to do 10 pretty fast laps inside the forest and headed up back towards the start of the forest trail (I actually have all these recorded in my Polar M 430 so for privacy purposes cant post it here).

On to Goldhill Avenue and then onto Mount Rosie Terrace, at the end of that road onto Mount Rosie and head all the way down to Whitley Road, past the Tanglin CC. I thought about giving the signboard a tremendous 'whack' to show my determination but decided against it so as to conserve energy. 

The run along Whitley road was mainly under some structure (the authorities are building roofing structures over the pedestrian walkways to minimise the pedestrians from getting wet !  Unbelievable but True !) and finally I was on Bukit Timah road and heading back to Goldhill Avenue.

Bam ! I froze the stopwatch at 32 mins 19 seconds ; I was literally out of breath and had hit my maximum heart rate of 172 beats / minute and the maximum km speed was 5.59 minutes per kilometre.

The avearge speed was 6.47 min per km which in my opinion is pretty good for a 56 year old runner ! 

Carpe Diem !  

Selfie taken at Hong Kong Park July 2018

  

My first trip Down Under in nearly 2 years

Chinese seafood by the Rocks, Sydney May 2017

This coming week I will be making a business trip to Australia, for the first time since May 2017, and as I prepare mentally for the things I will be going to say, I am also mindful that I need to re-connect with some relatives of mine who are based there. As I approach my young old age (I guess that would be 60 years of age), I wish that I had the experiences and what I know now when I was 35 - some 21 years ago. 

Beautiful Day with a Cruise Ship in the Harbour 

The energy levels I have now are possibly about two thirds of what I had when I was in  my 30s. However, with age comes a wisdom and I can see things with a lot more clarity now as well as make better decisions which will lead me to the most optimal result. This period can be viewed as the 'purple patch' or when things are moving well for me now. 

Outside Sydney Opera House May 2017 

What do I hope to achieve from this trip ? 

a) Cementing the business relationship and providing an enhanced support line to my customer who so bravely committed to buying from my company after meeting with me just a couple of times in 2017. 

b) Establishing a 'beach head' of agencies or representatives in Australia and New Zealand for my company to then promote the range of Athletic Chambers. Sports in Australia and NZ is the be all and end all for many people. Hence, with the sports industry a booming business Down Under, I hope to provide the sports clubs, Universities with Sports Science facilities etc a way for them to enhance their research. In short, a platform for the scientists to do research with the combined temperature and humidity environment and for them to take samples from the athletes and qualitatively measure their blood for research for rehabilitation and recovery.

With Dr Brad Clark outside UCRISE May 2017

  

Tips to Keeping Goldfish Outdoors

I have reached the number of Goldfish I want to keep in my outdoor feature this week. I have finally amassed (OK slowly collected) 8 teenage goldfish. There are 6 Fantails and 2 Dragonhead goldfishes now swimming happily in the water feature outside my house.  

I took a whole 2 months to add them up as putting too many at once will introduce new bacteria as well as possible diseases to the stock, so I started with 2 on the 27 January 2019 and added 2 more just after the Chinese New Year, another 2 around 23 March and 2 on 29th March. 

The key "No Nos" to keeping goldfish I have painstaking (and painfully watching them die sudden deaths not knowing what exactly caused their sudden demise) experience and can safely say what NOT to do with aquarium goldfish born and bred in fish tanks and now are out in the open elements.

1. Chlorine kills - Buy anti- chlorine water treatment supplements from the fish dealer. Mine cost about $25 (US$ 20) for a 0.5 litre bottle. Put in easily 1 capful per gallon (4 litres) of water. That (so far) works well for me.

2. Put in salt to reduce the acidity in the water. Again this may be a life saver. So far so good.

3. Choose teenage to young adult goldfish ; I try not to buy baby goldfish. The life insurance bathtub curve which is based on infant mortalities being very high is true to both humans as well as fish, or goldfish. You see, babies have not developed immunities to bacteria and viruses, hence alot of them will die at or just after birth, till about (in human terms) 5 years of age.   So buying teenage or slightly older goldfish reduces the possibility of death as they should have some immunity and be stronger than baby goldfish. 

4. Retain at least 25 % of the water when you change water in your aquarium or tank. For me, I keep 2 bucket fulls of water plus some leftover water in the outdoor feature, this retains some bacteria, as well as some alkalinity from the 'old' water and should be mixed with the new water.

5. Algae is good especially for outdoor water features. Algae are living plants, hence photosynthesis occurs and hence they give out Oxygen during the day and oxygenates the water - good for the goldfish. So clean the tank or water feature but some algae should be beneficial for your goldfish.

6. Keep the Pump and filter running 24 / 7. Previously I stopped the pump and water filter every night ; I believe this was harmful to the previous fish as not enough oxygen was being generated and water was not filtered properly. 

7. Never ever use detergents, brushes, buckets for cleaning house, or gloves when cleaning the aquarium or water feature. Detergents and chemicals kill fishes quickly, hence I keep a separate set of pails, 2 buckets, special gloves, brushes, cleaning scrubs, packet salt and water de- chlorinater all specially for the water feature to raise my hobby goldfish.

May they live long and keep me enchanted by their existence, happily playing in their new home.  

Enjoy the video taken today 31st March 2019.    

Egypt Opening Up Again

At the pyramids of Giza

I am very happy to note that the tours to Egypt are reappearing in the Classifieds. It is by far my most memorable trip in my many trips abroad, not least the tons and tons of historical sites, temples, palaces along both sides of the Nile making a tremendous impact to my mind that this is a truly special place, even though the Middle East has always been a place not for the faint hearted.

To say that the Egyptians were a world power some 3,000 to 5,000 years ago is not an understatement, not by a long shot. The architectural and engineering structures they made with immense precision led some to believe that the pharoahs had some kind of extra-terresterial help from outer space. 

I take all these proclaimations by the tour guides with a huge dose of salt. Tour guides says, they say, science and history say and then they correct themselves. This method of deception has always been guided by wrong interpretations of what actually happened and false hypotheses and the greater the lie, the better the story by the tour guides to keep the tourists entranced.

Singapore has a completely made up fireworks show with a BS storyline every night at 8pm outside the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino for the last 8 to 9 years. The free laser cum fireworks show tells about some mythical island called Temasek and the story is so far fetched that only telling and retelling it thousands of times, the tourist promotion board may hope to draw more curious and naive people from distant lands to come and see our "Merlion" - another BS figure spouting water from its mouth and it is a combination of a big fish and lion head.

Yeah, right. Maybe in 1000 years people from all over the world will say Singapore actually had Merlions swimming in the canal and prowling the streets everywhere as and when the need arose.  That is the 'history' created by the spin doctors and legacy story writers.  

Felucca at Sunset - Alexandria 

Back to Egypt, I went there with my family in 2009, when Noel was 15 and Andrew 12 ; the precocious pre-teen and mid teen. See the pictures below, they were at that age where history was confined to dusty textbooks and long forgotten empires. Hence, the Egypt trip was mainly a fun trip to hang out in the cruise ship along the Nile river, play with 2 other boys from the tour, kick sand along the ruined out temples at Karnak, Kom Ombo, Luxor and Memphis.  

Andrew monkeying around; As seen from the columns the temple was built during the Ptolemic (Greek) and Roman times,by the Greek conquerers to make peace with the Egyptians, as there were many temples dedicated to Horus and Sorbek, they chose Isis to dedicate.

Isis was the wife of Osiris and not that modern day Caliphate as created by Baghdadi. 

Kom Ombo 

As a first timer to Egypt, I was struck by how worldly wise Egyptian people, and as this was the pre Arab Spring era, the country of almost 90 million was ruled by the then dictator Hosni Mubarak. Since those days, the country has had 2 changes of Government, and now is ruled by an ex-General al Sisi.  

The history of Egypt is rich and before and from the days of Julius Caesar, Jesus the son of God, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. A visitor can see the influences of Roman and Greek or Hellenistic architecture as seen from the designs on the columns.  

Abu Simbel 

Gods there were aplenty. From Amun - Ra,Osiris,ISIS to Horus (falcon head) and Hathor (Earth Mother) there literally were up to a hundred gods. Pharoahs were like gods too, and from the time they ascended to the throne, the Pharoahs were only interested in building their funeral pyre or pyramids to honour their death.

The beauty of this country is that they can manage to keep their wonderful treasures for thousands of years (with the exception of the looting inside the pyramids) and even had a secret burial ground called Valley of the Kings (and a separate Valley of the Queens) for the lesser kings from the year 3000 BC.

The rise and fall of empires is inevitable so my little red dot called Singapore needs to wake up to the fact that the exceptional leaders of the past (50s to 80s) have gone and all we have in their wake are technocrats and my opinion is that we are facing an era of decline both economically and possibly in the quality of life.  

Move On - Mike Posner

A very touching and personal video by Mike Posner.

Sad, funny, happy all at the same time. 

What can we do about life but to just embrace it with all its massive heartaches, setbacks, joys, triumphs, disappointments, challenges and frustrations. 

Much of it is situational, so how we deal with Life determines who we are as a person.

'Nuff Said.

All Right, Good Night ! (famous last words of MH 370).