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Personal Life

Spidey

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My wife and I have been in Kota Kinabalu for three months now, so I thought that it’s time for a quick update. Notably, the inclusion of Spidey, our dog, into our lives. We bought her at the Gaya Street Sunday market about two months ago. At that time, the seller told her that she was two months old and lied to us that she was actually a male puppy, presumably because most buyers would be more hesitant to buy a female puppy. Yeah, that means both my wife and I did a terrible job of checking up on the puppy’s actual gender. So much for being dog lovers huh?

After we got her home and got to know her a little, we couldn’t bear to give her back so we decided to keep her anyway. We’d actually picked the name “Spidey” for her when we thought she was a male puppy, but we decided to keep that name as well. As you can see from the above photograph taken just a day after we first bought her, she looked so tiny, with her body only slightly longer than the length of a hand. She was also very timid and somewhat lethargic on the first day. My wife said that she’d heard that some sellers keep their puppies tranquillized while selling them so they wouldn’t look too naughty or difficult to handle to potential buyers.

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Personal Life

Living in Kota Kinabalu

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Well, I’m been offline and out of touch for a lot longer than I anticipated, but I’m back online now. I’m working in Kota Kinabalu and will likely be staying here for a while. KK turns out to be a surprisingly vibrant, yet picturesque little city. As my brother-in-law says, you can get nearly everything that you can find in Kuala Lumpur here, but there are plenty of stuff here that you won’t be able to find in the Klang Valley, such as great beaches, clean air and fantastic scenic views..

The place I’m staying at is near the University Malaysia Sabah campus towards the north. It’s some way off from the city centre, but that’s more than made up for by the mountain views available here and the fact that the newly opened 1 Borneo, the biggest shopping mall in East Malaysia, is within walking distance of where we are. Mount Kinabalu is theoretically within line of sight from here, but it’s always covered in clouds so it’s not actually visible. Even so, the sight of the mountain covering the whole horizon is mighty impressive, especially so when the sun shines directly on it.

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Personal Life

Visiting Singapore

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I haven’t been able to update my blog or even do much of anything connected with the online world since I’ve been in Singapore for a job interview for the past few days. The job thing didn’t turn out so well, though I’m still holding out some hope that I might get some freelance from these folks Still, since my wife and I had planned on it being a short sightseeing trip as well, at least it didn’t turn out to be a complete waste of time. As always, whenever I visit Singapore, the most striking thing is how orderly everything is. For example, even pedestrian footpaths closed for construction have signs saying, “Footpath closed. Please do not walk on the road. Use the footpath on the opposite side of the road instead.” It’s as if every little thing in Singapore, no matter how small or insignificant, is filed in a huge database somewhere and assigned under the responsibility of a specific bureaucrat. It’s an amazingly efficient way to run things, but in a way, it’s also a bit scary as well.

On the other hand, because we stayed in a dingy hotel in Geyland to save money, we got to see the seamier side of Singapore as well. I’ve known about Geylang’s less than savoury reputation of course, who doesn’t, and I even warned my wife about it and told her that we could pick a more expensive hotel if it bothers her to stay in a red light district. All the same, I was surprised, after having checked in to the hotel and going out in the evening for dinner, to see dozens of scantily clad prostitutes lining the road right in front of our hotel. I expected something, but not that many of them wearing so little clothes standing so brazenly out in the open.

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Personal Life

What I’ve Been Up To (Part 2)…

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One of coolest things my wife and I did over the past month was attending the Mayday concert at Genting on 19th April. This was the second time that we’ve been to the Arena of Stars for a concert, the first time being a Jonathan Lee concert during my holidays last year. As with last year, our main consideration was finding any concert that was being held during the one month that we’d planned we would be in Malaysia. If we’d known that we would be in Malaysia longer, we would probably have opted for the Emil Chau concert later in May. As thirtysomethings, Emil Chau’s songs are a lot more familiar from our school days than us than those of Mayday, about whom we barely know anything.

As it turned out, we’re both glad we went to the Mayday concert instead. Both of us had never been to a real rock concert before this, and the electrifying energy of the performance, combined with the wildly enthusiastic response of the audience, turned it into a truly eye-opening experience. It’s a testament to how out of touch I am with the music scene that I didn’t realize that Mayday is probably the biggest rock act in the Chinese-speaking world today, though the many Mayday songs chosen by my nieces when my wife and I took them to a karaoke earlier that month gave me a clue as to how popular they. And yeah, you know that these guys are popular alright when every little gesture made by a band member is greeted by a earsplitting uproar.

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Personal Life

Local Houses in Solomon Islands

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My wife got me to drive one of the local maids employed in the compound where we live so that we could go take photos of some of the local houses. We’ve already visited this area previously but we didn’t take any photos then, and since there is a slight possibility that we might not be returning to the Solomon Islands after we go back to Malaysia on Thursday, my wife especially wanted some photos as a memento.

This particular house is where Helen, a maid who has worked for us for many years now is currently renting. She is currently building her own house nearby, basically just appropriating the land without any formal paperwork, buying the building materials and having her family members help out with the construction. It’s haphazard, unregulated and messy, but that’s how things work in the Solomon Islands. It also contributes to the tribal tensions here in Honiara. Honiara is located on Guadalcanal Island, while Helen and everyone else who stays in this area are from Malaita Island. Complaints from Guales about Malaitans taking over their land and their attempts to form a militia to drive out the Malaitans were what prompted the Malaitans to mount a coup-d’état in 2000.

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Personal Life

U.S. War Memorial in Solomon Islands

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My wife and I visited the U.S. War Memorial here in Honiara over the weekend. We’ve been here plenty of times already but we didn’t take any photos. Guadalcanal Island was a major battleground of the Pacific theatre during World War 2, with many losses on both the American and Japanese side, so it’s not surprising that there is a well maintained memorial here. The U.S. military makes regular visits to the Solomon Islands, sending personnel and fighter jets in honour of their war dead. The film The Thin Red Line is based on the Guadalcanal campaign and is worth watching if you can put up with its 3 hours running length.

The U.S. Memorial is located along Skyline Ridge, on a hilltop that overlooks Honiara, so it’s a rather pleasant and scenic place to visit. The memorial itself is simply a collection of marble slabs with details descriptions of the battles and lists of losses. They make for good reading if you’re interested in World War 2 history, though in the case you should probably go read the Wikipedia entry on the subject instead.

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Personal Life

A Day at the Museum

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Considering the size of the Solomon Islands National Museum, it’s really more like 15 minutes though. I have to admit that despite having worked in the Solomon Islands for some 8 years now and despite it being located conveniently in the town center just off the main road, I’ve never visited the National Museum. Not that there is really much to see. You can see the entirety of it in the photo above with my wife. That small hall constitutes the entire museum, so it’s pretty underwhelming.

The exhibits are mostly wooden carvings and examples of shell money, bundles of sea shells tied together that used to be exchanged as currency and are still given as marriage gifts in some communities. There are also some old photographs of some of the early explorers who came to the Solomons.

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