Saturday, September 29, 2012

Botany. Still Evil.

The Singapore Botanic Garden is very pretty, but if you look closely, you can see the orchids are crying. Here, Barry notices the cause.
It's the evil botanicals!


Obviously these plants have very sinister intents.
The above are obviously toxic, and the nodules below are sticky, to trap innocent bunnies I suppose.

The above strangles, the below ensnares.
In addition to the evil, this time I noticed its effects. You can see trauma in the leaf below.
Obssessive-compulsive behaviour in the fern.
A dragonfly taking shelter on a rainbow plant.
Stunted growth. It's all very sad, really.

Hong Kong Summits, Water, Shorts, and Fried Cheese

This is a story about different styles of loud shorts, but mostly about water.
The water journey started in Macau, at the House of Dancing Water show. You know when you buy a fake Louise V purse, and the lining is Burberry plaid? Well if you take Cirque du Soleil O, speed it up, add some bling, and throw in jumping motorbikes, you're in Macau.
Strangely, no choreographed dancing was allowed on the escalators outside the show, especially while wearing crocs. Crocs just make you even less graceful.
Whoops, I forgot this picture last week to remind you that Macau's casino's are just like Vegas. Macau is like Portugal, and Macau is like Vegas, but Portugal is nothing like Vegas. Deep, right?
Anyway, the next day we circumnavigated Hong Kong. I have just dictionary confirmed that this is not entirely true, but that's how it seemed. Where are you headed, guys?
And how hot is it, Dave? (Editor's note: I felt the same level of brain-busting overheat, but luckily a lower level of photography. Neither Dave nor I can now remember much of our respective childhoods).
This is how much fluid we consumed afterwards. Each. Delicious ketchup noodles and extensive popsicles not shown.
I think that we burned off the calories from the day before, even given the fried cheese!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Barry can't count Macau as a Country

How do you enter into the glamour of the 1970s? It is available in the Grand Lisboa Macau.
To get to Macau, just take the Fiber to the Home bus.
We went with our friends of the suprising height differences.
Inside the casinos there is fake sky just like in Vegas. This is how you know that you can't escape.

This picture was taken for my friend Frank to show that Macau is much like Portugal.
Anyway, to get away from the Casinos, we went to the lighthouse.
Unfortunately the orange people followed us there, and we couldn't get away from them!
So instead, we followed the instructions on the workout structures. 
In fact we followed all of the instructions, including trickier ones such as no throwing fish, and no stepping on iguanas.


Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Prambanan Project

Also near Yogya is the Hindu Prambanan temple.So, one city, 2 fabulous wonders of awesomeness.
Once again, the crowds described in the guides didn't show. Barry is shown here abiding by the sign to queue, lest there be anyone else to queue with him.These are the only sculptures I've seen of what I believe is angry ice cream eating.I gazed in wonder. And upon seeing the picture I realized that my wonder face is all wrong and looks like thirsty confusion. Now I'm worried I might also be doing other faces incorrectly!
Around the main temples are ruins for bunches more, needing assembly. Let the archeology students of the world unite! I think this is a great class trip idea.My idea is ideal given that the temple sits in an earthquake zone, so the effort should last pretty much forever.
You can tell something is tall when the picture is missing the peak, right?




Sunday, September 2, 2012

Jogja/Yogyakarta

Along with fabulous relics, Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogja) has a volcano. Now if you think you can go hang out with lava like in movies, then you're wrong, or you'll die. What you can see however, is aftermath. Above, a graveyard. Below, a squatter toilet.This is from the eruption in 2010, we guess.The Internet tells me that:
1) Poinsettias do not grow in ash.
2) They are native to Mexico.
And yet, here we are, with Christmas at the Indonesian volcano. Laura in Singapore provides spiritual mystery!Barry, on the other hand, povides trick shots with bonfire smoke.Yogyakarta is also an artsy town.Even the volcanic ruins were done up!But after our uphill hike we were hungry.We feasted on jackfruit, curry, chicken, tofu and eggs, which are together called Gudeg.And then we relaxed at our hotel's rooftop lounge. It remains unclear to me why all hotels with roofs do not have these.