dive 02

batu kuti, pulau pinang

this after-lunch dive was the most memorable for the obscene amount of puke that i regurgitated. threw up my entire lunch plus some gastric juices in a series of spectacular pukes. think doris witnessed a part of my underwater performance.

i survived… with a weird taste in my mouth and a contaminated regulator. fortunately, doris didn’t have to do buddy breathing using my regulator. haha… :P

we went slightly deeper to about 9.5 metres for this dive. except for kl, the 3 of us didn’t have any equalisation problems. we revise some of the earlier drills and did new ones like the regulator retrieval and alternate air source breathing.

didn’t pay much attention to the fishes and corals this time round ’cos of my stomach churning experience. just glad that i didn’t need to abandon the dive.

dive 01

telok mariam, pulau aur

our instructor kay yaw gave us a briefing on the ferry roof deck before we proceed to gear-up. gosh, the equipment is really heavy and we made our giant stride entry into the waters with much relief.

kl buddy up with ky while i buddied with doris. we covered most of the drills like mask clearing, removal & replacement, weight belt ditch & don, scuba unit removal & replacement and buoyancy control at a depth of around 7 metres.

visibility was good and we could see as far as 12 metres all around.

we spent almost an hour below and had time to explore a bit. saw clown fishes & sea anemone, magenta sea cucumber and bright orange christmas tree worms.

the abundant underwater life was awe-inspiring.

check-in @ 6 am

that’s right, you didn’t see wrongly… by the time, we reach pulau dayang and were allocated to our rooms, it was almost 6 am.

doris, ky, kl and myself shared room #2 since they’re all quad-sharing rooms. and the room can’t be more basic: 4 beds, a mirror, a ceiling fan, an air-con unit and some hooks on the wall for hanging clothes.

bathrooms? they’re communal and there isn’t hot water!

we were told to catch a nap till 8 o’clock and then have breakfast later. nothing could’ve sounded better at this time.

just to let you have an idea how "ulu" the island is, there isn't any mobile network available and there aren't any phones on the island either. we were told that to make a phone, we need to go over to another island and use a phone card!

gosh...

late night travel

reached mersing jetty at around 1+ am… the place was deserted except for the 2 minibus-load of people from mako.

everyone helped to unload the dive bags from the minibus and loaded them onto the transfer boat. the tide was too low for the ferry to berth. as doris commented, we really felt like illegal immigrants trying smuggle past the coastal guards in the dead of the night.

transferred to the ferry in the open sea and tried to find a place to sleep through the rest of the journey. surprisingly, i was still holding up… the band and the dramamine that randy, the dive master gave me must be working.

open water @ pulau dayang

will be traveling to malaysia tonight for our scuba diver training course open water dives. dunno what to expect except that i’ll probably be sea-sick. :P haha…

will be going to pulau dayang off mersing. got to endure a 4 hour road trip followed by another 4-hour ferry ride. hopefully, i’ll live to tell the tale. :)

kyo nichi @ marina square

met up with alicia, tracy and eric for dinner at this ramen restaurant recommended by sunday lifestyle a few weeks back. it’s supposed to be 1 of the top 10 ramen places in singapore.

had to look hard for the restaurant since it was situated in an isolated corner of the mall. when i reached the place, it was almost deserted with only 1 other table occupied and 1 service staff. doesn’t look very promising at all…

the place only started to fill up as the evening crept by. but it was still woefully under-staffed by 2 wait crew only.

alicia and tracy were pretty excited about having the collagen ramen. turns out that the collagen is actually “dissolved” in the soup due to the extended preparation time of the stock.

the ladies had the spicy char siew ramen while eric and i decided on the thick char siew ramen. we also get to choose a side dish worth $6 each plus a cold drink since we all ordered the $16 set meal. quite good value for money i would say.

took a while for our ramen to be served. very ordinary looking bowls of noodles with slices of char siew and an egg. even though we’ve surmised earlier that the “thick” refers to the soup stock, we couldn’t really tell by looking at it.

the ramen were springy, al dente with a good bite while the stock was a lovely milky-white broth. what about the char siew?

it’s heavenly and truly out of this world! the meat slices just melt in your mouth. i can say without any doubts that it’s the best japanese char siew i’ve ever tasted. and to top it all, it doesn’t even have any fats on the meat. yummy!

eric says that even though he’s not ramen person, he’s really liked what he had.

my recommendation?

as makansutra will rate it: die, die must try! :)

winds of change

my department manager is moving out to an asean role effective 1st april while the manager of another team will expand his role to take over our team as well since we’re all under the umbrella of integrated supply chain reporting to the same asean manager.

in management speak, it’s called integration and synergising. to me, it’s a very obvious cost-cutting measure since 1 management position has been eliminated.

so how will the new “angmoh” boss be like?

only time can tell…

ps café @ paragon

doris called to have dinner together since she’ll be in town. couldn’t get a table at sushi-tei even after waiting for half an hour so we decided to go downstairs to ps café instead.

surprised that the café was not crowded on a saturday night. a table was readily available and we even managed to get a bigger one when janet and jason joined us later. guess this is no longer the “in” branch.

the décor of the café beside the boutique really looks like a kitchen straight out of a hollywood movie or an american sitcom.

i shared a roasted vegetable salad with doris that was pretty good. the red pepper was delightful sweet while the zucchini and sweet potatoes provided contrasting textures to the greens. in my opinion, it’s good enough to be a main course if you’re looking for a vegetarian option.

thomas had the laksa pesto while doris tried the classic beef stew. i didn’t feel like having sandwiches, so i ordered the chicken tau kwa burger. the bun has been replaced by the tau kwa. found the shredded chicken a little dry though.

doris and thomas had no complaints of their mains. cayden likes the mashed potato from the beef stew. he didn’t open his mouth when i fed him, just stared at me. only when janet gave it to him then he ate.

janet ordered the chocolate cake which was served warm. quite good... a huge slice that can’t possibly be just for 1 person. then again, it has to justify its $8.90 price.

cayden still allowed us to carry him and we passed him around without any fuss. he seems to know who’s mummy ’cos he’ll turn to look at janet whenever i asked him, “where’s mummy?”. he also gets “talkative” when’s he happy or excited.

however, there’s one not-so-nice trick that he has learnt and that’s spraying his saliva all over you when he blows air out of his closed mouth with a “boo” sound. jason says he does it when he is bored. apparently, he can’t sit quietly in restaurants.

i think he's just happy to be out and about and don't really care who's carrying him. :)