ACM - June 27 2009

It was in the TV news Friday 26/6 evening on the extension of the free after 5pm admission on Sat. After dinner i decided to go look. Wah.. the queue was long. I killed some time drafting my last trip report on my E71 as well as being 'entertained' by a couple and their teenage daughter lively conversations.

Luckily the night was not too warm. I started my queue around 8:30pm ( and reached the exhibition hall 10:15pm) I asked the usher whether there will be another free admission on the 28th. He was tired after standing for more than 12 hours.

... and from inside. More queue further up. Imaging those parents with prams and the senior citizen stuck in the stairway's upward traffic jam.

But once you are inside the 2nd storey exhibition hall, there are amble room for you to browse the items on displayed. I saw interesting 12- digit calcular, printed mathematics table, sighting telescope with alt/azimuth , sextants globe, Emperor's dress or 'long pao', KangXi's calligraphy , pottery, the 'abridged' long scroll depicting images of KX's 60th birthday celebration.

( the actual one was 80 metre in length!) . Interesting comment over heard like - " wah so dark and dim inside - everything is a blurry to me cant see properly" .. and exciting visitors from China relating to their kids of familar places back home.

It was a night well spent. The queue was still there around 11pm.. ( imagesof the queue was taken before i left the place)

Tg Sutera (Johore) Trip - June 15-17 '09

The rocky shore off Tg Sutera Resort.

Jambu air or Water Apple ( Syzygium aqueum)

Lontong

Pebbles, pebbles ( quartize pebble) everywhere Quartized rock that resembles a heart

A moth spreading the wing like F117 stealth plane

While others were busy buying fruits , I dashed over the other side of the fields and did a few quick fotos of passion fruit's flower

and the Dragon fruit .. from the Desaru fruit farm.

Sea bat lily or Tacca leontopetaloides growing under the shade of sea- almonds.
This one had very different leaves structure than
the normal bat lily we found on Bukit Timah Reserve.

Melastoma malabathricum or Straits Rhododendron a common wasteland plants.

Wild boar's (?) wallow seen on our forest trails

Sea Lettuce( Ambong-ambong) or Scaevola sericea's flowers the stigma reminds me of
H.G. Well's War of the World invading machines.

Pandanus odoratissimus or Common Seashore Screw pine (Pandan). I saw squirrels nibbling at the fruits.

Padina Mermaid's Fan ( A brown algae) -
noted the characteristics of the banded fronds

Sea cucumber **

The 'gut' of this creature can be seen through the semi transparent 'sac'.

Frilly anemones, Phymanthus sp **.
Another one at dried land try to dig in and throw up a circular fountain of water when disturbed

Rock formation of Tg Sutera Fruits of Oil palm and you can eat it ( see below)

A fallen bread fruit, Artocarpus altilis on our Kampong walk.

Would be a nice breadfruit snack to go down with Tiger Beer

Bright color of a kampung house

While others were focusing on taking the bright red flowers above
i was attracted to the unusual 'funnel'-shaped fruit of Pereskia bleo or Rose Cactus.

Love-in-a mist , Passiflora foetida
One of my childhood edible bush berries ( orange when fully ripe)

Fruits / Seeds washed up on the shorePong Pong , Cerbera odollam

Xylocarpus granatum**

Nipah palm fruits, fossiled version or nipadites exists else where.

Box fruit of Putat Laut or Barringtonia asiatica for making fish poison

and the unmistakably coconut


Group Members' fotos here: Vimala's , Juliana's , Marijn's

**Thanks to Ria Tan for the IDs of seashore creature and the spilled out seed fruit

SBG - June 13 '09

Sterculia coccinea's bright orange fruit pot
- one seed left still attached to the centre right cluster

Raindrops on Ficus kurzii @ Swan Lake

Well shielded ...