Saturday, September 27, 2014

Fishtology Level 2

Valentinni's sharpnose puffer welcomes you to Fishtology Level 2. This level has fewer fish and more confusion.
According to poissontologie, all three of these fish are the same blackspotted puffer. I think we've been shammed by the fishman.
Especially with the one below, which looks like a dog.
The Yellow boxfish, below, is different and does not inflate even though it looks like it has extra skin. It squirts poison instead.
The Spot-fin porcupinefish below inflates, is poisonous and was clearly the originally source of large scary googly eyes.
The subtype of moray eel is not identifiable in level 2. Other than mean and angry, like all moray eels.
Le fishbook tells us not to fear the Lionfish's poisons, as you can negate them by heating the affected area to over 42C. This, however, frightened Barry even more.
In Fishtology level 3 we'll learn what this is. We think it's a tiny baby Lionfish. All we know is that it's freaky.
Finally, we learnt that the day will end before you can get tired of watching an octopus.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Glamcationing Online

Barry and I figured that if you go on a beach vacation in the middle of nowhere, you would normally be ok to, say, go outdoors. However, we noticed that several travellers could neither tolerate the terrifying skin-darkening sun, nor could they swim. With nothing else available, what did they do?
Well, mostly, it seems they posted pictures to say they were having a fabulous time. Apparently, while dining next to the ocean, you should have at least 2 devices to photograph your food, as shown above and below. Clearly, this view is not good enough to disconnect.
Barry and I, realizing we'd been vacationing wrong, decided to assimilate. This is as actually seen at neighbouring tables. Why enjoy your fakation when you can live life online?
That your online impressafriends see pictures of each meal is more important than enjoying said meal. So here is a picture of my banana.
The other very important thing to do is to take outdoor glamour shots. Here, you uncover from your full body sun cloak for 30 seconds in order to pretend you're having fun outdoors. (Actual fun is not relevant to your online glamour).
Above is another actual shot we saw, as is below. Unfortunately we were missing the recommended beach heels and dresses.
Barry got pretty good at glamcationing, but we quickly got bored.
So we went back to the water. Non-swimmers meant more reef for us.
It's harder to take selfies and to update your status underwater anyway.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Fishtology Level 1

This time on our Snorkelcation, we got serious about fishtology. However, the book was only in French. So we learnt poissontologie, and it took us a bit longer to identify the Orange-lined Triggerfish, above.
The Scribbled Unicornfish, below, is a badass. You can tell because his tail is partially bitten off, and since he's blue, which means he's not frightened of us larger, uglier swimmers.
Below, a Bridaled Parrotfish youth, which in French is named after dead leaves.
This one is a Singapore Parrotfish, and is the same colour as the Singaporean passport, a fact missed by the livre de poissons.
Fishdentification can be tough. The fish below is the adult version of the fish above, so you get no extra points. I was disappointed with fish who change looks and gender, making them very hard to chercher dans le livre.
Barry called this a Batfish, which is wrong but does exist, (as do catfish, dogfish, goatfish, lionfish and frogfish, showing a lack of creativity). It's actually a Phantom Bannerfish. I call it the angry eyebrow fish.
This well-named Picasso Triggerfish refuses to be photographed elegantly.
The titan triggerfish avoids plaque buildup by scraping his teeth on rocks all day.
The Sixbar Wrasse (Labre en Français) is vain, has crazy tattoos, and kept requesting more pictures.
This trip, Barry tried to stop being afraid of sharks by realizing he was larger than them.
Below is the Short-nosed Unicornfish. I would not have gone with a nose-naming, myself.
This is the Forceps Butterflyfish, not to be confused with the Long Nose Butterflyfish. Here, a nose-naming makes more sense.
The Scrawled  Filefish is super creepy, and you would freak out if you saw one in the grocery store.
The Squaretail Coralgrouper should be called the Crazy Bluespots Grouper.
The Common Bluestripe Snapper were good to bully and scatter their school a little to get out any snorkel frustration.
The Lunar-tailed Bigeye, which can be red, silver or striped, pictured-bombed the Clown Triggerfish.
Poissontologie helped me to not confuse these Indopacific Sergeantfish with Convict Surgeonfish, so this is something that will help me in life.
Redtail Butterflyfish are one of a zillion type des Poissons Papillons that we saw.
True facts about the starfish: Did you know that each leg is made of a long gonad, that they can change gender, or that they can just reproduce by growing a new leg, as is being done here? So if you don't like the pickings, you just clone!
Finally, how about a Stingray for good measure.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Welcome to Kampong Glam

Good news, we have finished painting and the bar is ready at our new place in Kampong Glam.
There is also the dining room, which we saw no reason to keep indoors.
The bedrooms have contemplation benches. As you can see, we've traded the Hindu temples for mosques.
In other news, we have learnt that bro fuel is flammabl.
This is because it's partially made with deisel.
If this confuses you, you can just cut loose with toberlone.