blackblog.

Sunday. Glazing sunlight. After having a quite relaxing breakfast with Oli and planning the upcoming trip to Hongkong in February I got in contact with Peter & Pascal in order to use this beautiful day in a Park. To be more precise: Get to the Chinese Gardens. So we got there by MRT – In contrast to most other interesting places in Singapore, it is just 2 Stops away from Boon Lay.

Walking around in these Gardens is quite impressive – Although this garden was built and designed just few years ago, I felt like in China! Really relaxing to walk around and enjoy the silence of this park. By accident, we walked into the Turtle conservation center, which is, according to Guinness Book of World Records the largest (or better: hugest) collection (or how do you call it?) of living turtles world wide. You could see turtles of many different kinds: Small, big, camouflaged, … Even the worlds only double-headed turtle is to be seen there. Especially the giant turtles were really impressive.

Finally we got back to Boon Lay in order to get some dinner at Jurong Point. So another weekend is over.

Update: I really hate it, when I hit “save” instead of “publish”… So this post was left as draft for one week…

Bukit Timah is the highest point in Singapore with 164 meters above sealevel. Actually this hill is nicely located within the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, a 66 ha small area, which hosts the tiny little rest of Singapore’s primary Rainforest. By walking up the hill you can listen to many rain forest birds and even see monkeys. The main way up the hill is paved, so this is not much of an rain forest experience…

But there are some little paths available, that give you a kind of jungle experience. Pretty enjoyable, but only go to Bukit Timah if you have never seen rain forest or you really have to kill time. There are way better places (but not in Singapore) to see a primary rainforest… It’s more a park than a nature reserve – Probably because this area is to small to keep the sounds of the nearby expressway and other signs of civilization out.

2006 is over – and it was a rather interesting year.
Probably one of the best years of my life, but this is closely related to my girlfriend. Many projects were really successful in 2006 and I could complete a lot of things. I got nice opportunities to get around a little and meet people from other background… So I took some time to recall the events that were important and impressive for me – and this list got quite long…

Climbing in the so called Franconian Switzerland was one of my key sports improvements last year – got together with shutdown to many places and climbing nice sites all around. Although I’m not really deep into soccer, I rather liked the WorldCup. Mostly because for just 4 weeks most people forgot about common problems and just did a nice party together. I especially enjoyed watching the games at university – Like at my chair or the summerfest of Chemical Enginering! The visits to Hannover Messe and Achema were very impressive. I saw much impressive technology – Actually the “Messeparty” in Hannover together with some friends was one of the best parties in 2006. The best thing was: For both events we stayed overnight: So we had enough time to dig into details!

Bergkirchweih 2006: The biggest party of the year. Had been on there at 8 of 10 days. Most times just drinking nothing, but just enjoying the athmosphere. Nice was the gathering there with people of CCC. The Schlossgartenfest was my favorite social gathering last year – Being nicely dressed I had the honor to accompany my girlfriend… It was pretty nice to show of the dancing skills, we got in the advanced course of university sports. Besides that, I really enjoyed going to the Erlanger Poetfest in August – Listening to odd lyrical creations in an nicely illuminated atmosphere is an interesting experience.

Best hacking event in 2006 was PH-Neutral in May. I had the chance to meet a lot of relaxed people and watch interesting talks. Nice party and some relaxing time to chill out in Berlin. The (hacking) camp ICMP3 was the most relaxing event this year – Met many people, enjoyed cooking together and finally had enough time to sit down and dig into some stuff. A camp like this is rather better than a big one: Cause it’s less administrative work involved!

I passed my last exams for reaching my university degree. My Studienarbeit was also quite a success – It kept me busy between April and August. The Projectcourse of Chemical Engineering was the biggest team experience I had in 2006: All the people of my academic year trying to solve the problem of a Silane-Waste recovery producing pure HCL – With all the drawbacks like missing thermodynamical data, literature and so on. This was a real challenge and it went out pretty good. A really great academic experience was the High Pressure Chemical Engineering (Intensive) Course in Lissabon. Luckily a good friend of mine (Florian) and me had the chance to get this course. We met so many nice people from all over Europe. Of course we had time for sightseeing: Lissabon and its surrounding area is really impressive. Probably I will get back to Portugal soon! Just for fun I went to the Jahrestagung of Dechema/GVC: It turned out to be a good choice. I caught many interesting details not only about scientific progress, but more how the community works: You meet people and drink beer – And there the real conference is going on. The talks are just to pretend, that there is something big going on!!1
Finally there is the biggest thing in the last few years: In November I left Germany for altogether about 5 month in order to do my academic attachment (internship) at Sulzer Chemtech in Singapore. Just browse around the last entries: It’s not important to say, how impressive and forming this is. Besides my girlfriend this is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Yowhey, I’m back from my Christmas & NewYear vacation (far up north *g*) to Phuket, Thailand. To be more precise, I got to Patong Beach, which turned out to be a… Let’s say: Not perfect decision. Just by hearing “Ah, Patongs rocks!” and so on I decided to go there – But unfortunately, I did not consult background literature… And so I was just trapped in the “Mekka” of the primitive European All-Inclusive-”Party-Palmen-Weiber-Bier“-Hedonists… Actually it was quite funny to watch all these people getting drunk and lurk for Thai girls in order to get you-know-what. I stayed at the Dive Den guesthouse: This place has reasonable prices (around 5€ per night) and is quietly, but centrally located – And: It’s really clean. So maybe when you go Patong, check this place out.

It had been a very relaxing time – Instead of just doing sightseeing or doing party, I just chose to get up to the beach, sit in the shade of a palm-tree and read… This is the next funny point: Almost all tourists there get “Chilli-Crab”-style after the first day on the beach… Yes, in the tropical sun, it is an absolute PERFECT idea to stay in the sun between 11-13h and just use sunblock 8 (Ruhrpott-Lady to other women: “Ja, wir wissen wie stark die Sonne hier ist, gell Helmut, deswegen nehmen wir ja Faktor 8!” – Next day: Completely red…) – I applied 20 as usual and stayed in the shade. Got brown skin, but no sunburn. Harhar!

Of course I also tried out all the famous parts of Thai cuisine such as red, yellow and green curries or (my favourite) Pad Thai. Even in Patong Beach you can get them at a nice price of about 50 Baht (around 1€) when you stay away from the tourist restaurant and get to some places, where locals eat. I found out, that the Patong Wet-Market and the Banzaan Market are a good place to take first steps – After knowing some thai phrases its also easy to get to one of the street restaurants: There I got the best food for the lowest price. Same with fruits: Go to the market! Cheaper and better. But negotiating the price can be fun

Of course I did no spend the whole time just in Patong: I also did daytrips around the island. First of all, I booked a daytrip to the Group of Phi Phi Islands. With rather beatiful beaches and scenic views, I also got the view of destroyed coral reefs and tour-guides that did not even try to stop people from breaking parts of corals… We visited famous Monkey Bay and Ko Phi Phi Leh, where part of the movie The Beach was shot. After that the speedboat got us to Ko Phi Phi Don, where we had lunch at a beach resort. Unfortunantely some clouds arised when we left the island… So the beach & leisure part was aborted by rain (see pic). But this tiny little island, being just a beach: Beautiful!

My next daytrip took me to Ko Raya Yai… This trip for snorkeling was the best I did in the entire time! Intact coral reefs, beautiful scenic views and lots of tropical fish shining in all colors of the rainbow… I enjoyed a full day of just snorkeling, swimming, feeding the fish and relaxing aboard. The best part: The were no other boats around – Because Raya Yai is not very popular for tourists… Because it is just one Island and no movies have been shot there…

One other interesting thing to mention: In my guesthouse I met another guy from Germany. Peter is also doing his internship in Singapore and now the funny part: He’s also stying at NTU! So we spent some time together – Especially one great day at the beach. We both got to Phuket cause we did not know what to do between Christmas and New Year… Argh… Some coordination would have been nice…

Time was running out fast – And New Year arrived. So I decided to get down to the beach in order to get an impression of the fireworks. And yes: There were fireworks. And firecrackers. Everywere. Just: Boom-Boom-Bang. For hours. It just rocked! Somehow I was not really in the mood of doing party or drinking… Maybe you know why

And faster than I thought it was over… Summary: Patong is not the perfect location for chillout. Too many tourists. Too many primitive people. But: Good weather, nice beaches and after some digging: Nice food. Actually this vacation cost me less than 350€ including the flight – This is I think good value. Now I’m happy to be back in Singapore!