Online in Malaysia

The last 48 hours have been rather busy. This is my first opportunity to use wireless since I left Seattle. I will post more as time allows. It's late and we have another big day tomorrow.

OFI Dinner

Shane(Australia), Me, Tim and Raymond(Our host for our trip into Malaysia) at the OFI Dinner at the Convention Center. The back to the left may be Alex and his wife is taking the photo.  They will be going with us into Malaysia.  You will see them from the front in the coming days.

Evening Walkabout

 After updating this yesterday I had a couple of hours so I decided to go walk around.  To keep from getting too lost, I chose a main road and stuck to it.  Aside from the endless shopping centers and huge designer stores there are other interesting sights.  The Line Dance Fiesta and the temple to the right, the 1870's Sri Krishnan, are fitting bookends to the statement "And everything in between."

Sesame Balls!

I like the ones at Sushi Track back home, but I may never eat them again after experiencing these beauties. I placed them on my laptop for scale.  Then I ate them.  Contented munching sounds of delight may have been heard....

Weather or not

 Returning from the convention center the weather decided Singapore needed a good rinsing.  You may not be able to tell here, but it was coming down hard enough that I decided to go back inside the mall to wait it out.  As if it wasn't humid enough....

On the bright side, it gave me time to track down the Koi Gardens hidden somewhere within the giant Suntec City complex.

Seems promising, no?

That's a Tony Roma's in the background.  To the left the "Koi Garden" buts up to the parking lot.  The water is a mere 12"-16" deep and the tiled bottom it kept clean by a score or more of large common Plecostomus.  I even saw a couple of small flower horns.  

Other Events this weekend At Suntec City

A pavilion of 'Tween video game junkies.  They were beginning to gather this afternoon. 

The floor below Aquarama hosts the Singapore Book Fair.  It looks amazing.

The Convention Center entry.  Yeah, the little dots are full sized people.

Singapore vs Singapore

These are shots from "The Lawn" inside the Raffles Hotel.  While the overall feel and history of the Colonial era Raffles is very strong, one just needs to look up above the roofs to see the towers of modern Singapore.

You can't see it clearly, but the yellow lettering on the tower says "SUNTEC CITY".  That's the UberMall/Convention Center where Aquarama is being held.

And then it was time for the Singapore Sling

After a brief stop back at the hotel, we decided it was time to visit the Raffles Hotel and specifically the Long Bar.

As Tim noted to me "It is a long bar"

Comfy Setting.

The famous Sling of Singapore

Tim sizes his up....

There is no doubt they are yummy, refreshing and easy to drink.  Fortunately there is one small deterrent for consuming too many.  They cost $30SD each, or about $25US.  At least we could say we've sat in the Raffles Hotel and sipped a genuine Singapore Sling.

Ok, so you've had enough of AQUARAMA....

 The food here is amazing.  Both in quality and in variety.  Tim discovered a food court that is all Asian.  We settled on Japanese and Sukiyaki.

FoodRepubic Panorama

A true test of chopstick still.  Soup.

Ornamental Goldfish Bowls... As they should be.

 Originally, goldfish were kept and displayed in a manner very similar to what you see here.  There are handcrafted porcelain with elm stands.  They are very impressive and very expensive.  It is probably the one thing I am going to try to import.

So back to AQUARAMA!

That's a red Arowana.  One of a great many in the exhibit hall.  

I have a lot of photos.  A whole lot.  I'm simply going to post a series of them here with brief captions.  I may even get brave a try to post video.

One of many very cool products that are not distributed in the US.

I estimate the value of just the Red Arowanas on display to be over $100,000  I may be way low....

These are just some of the show Arowana.

There were multiple rows

Tim getting ideas for his kitchen counter aquarium....

Gerald Bassleer.  I bought his new book on Fish Health and got it signed.  Geeky Cool.

These are gorgeous and very high end.  More on these later.

Display tanks filled with Arowanas

Clever displays abound.

Well displayed.  Betta then average....  *cough*

First place set-up.

The Marine displays competition.

Too much!

12th floor of the Hotel Grand Pacific.  Waiting for the elevator.

The task of blogging about this trip is not easy.  I had thought that I would have WiFi and could spend free time here and there posting updates and pictures.  After being denied access to WiFi everywhere I have been, I decided to track it down in ernest.  I asked around, was led to Starbucks, 7-Eleven (No, really.  Starbucks sent me) and to StarHub.  I finally asked my friendly local electronics vendor who sold me my spare camera battery.  Turns out, all I needed was to register a valid email address.  What he failed to mention was that I also have to have a local (read:Singapore) mobile phone number.  Well.  Hell.  It now looks like that is a possibility, but really, at this point I'm just not sure if I have the oompf to bother.

A few fish....