Malaysia - part 3 - some random animals of Tioman Island

This is not meant to be a fair survey. Those are just random shots of animals I saw.

 These big monitor lizards were amazingly common.

Fish in the clear water

 Just off the side of a small boat: clear blue water and colourful fish

Also flying foxes

 This one saw me take its picture

 ..and walking across the island (you saw in the previous post how mountainous it is) I always saw those giant black squirrels which are meant to be very rare. Just from their behaviour you could tell that they were not monkeys though in all other respect from far they appeared to be monkeys. They were large enough to be monkeys for sure. Wikipedia says that "Head and body length varies from 35 to 58 centimetres (14 to 23 in) in length, and the tail is up to 60 centimetres (24 in) long, with an overall length of up to 118 centimetres (46 in)."

Malaysia - part 2 - Tioman Island

I spent a bit of time (2 weeks more or less) on Tioman Island. I originally went there for no other reason that they are on the East side of the Malaysian Peninsula which was supposed to be monsoonal. Since it was the school holidays the West coast, not monsoonal, was very busy. But once I got there I somehow never left until it was nearly time to leave Malaysia. I had a great quiet time there. I ate great food. I hiked across the island which is an amazing hike. I snorkeled, swam and generally enjoy a lovely quiet time. Here are some photos...and trust me I have quite a few photos of sunsets, tropical island etc but I'll keep it to a minimum.

Flying into Tioman the water was so clear (the monsoon had not started) that you could see the reefs from the plane.

 The first place I stayed at was SO reasonably priced. In fact it was closed. But I called them from the airport when I landed and when I told them that i was there they just said "if you are here already then just come over".

We all know I love trees.

...did I mention it was a tropical island...

A blue fern. This is not Photoshopped or anything. This fern was indeed blue.

Durian fruit: the king of fruits....and not as bad as it reputation leads one to beleive.

The movie 1958 "South Pacific" was film on Tioman

 The mangostene: queen of fruits. Something I had never had eaten before. But I made up for it. I absolutely loved them and ate a lot of them.

 Not a sunset (though pretty close) but I did say I was going to spare you.

Malaysia - part 1

For some reason ... mostly difficult internet access... I never posted any pictures of Malaysia. I took amazingly few pictures of Kuala Lampur though I really enjoyed the city. I was visiting my friends, niece and nephew so of course it always makes a city quite enjoyable but truly KL is an easy city and quite nice.

Here are some random photos which truly do not represent KL well at all.

A woman which I thought looked particularly beautiful

And three photos of the site at Batu Caves

Sorry.... that's all!

Snowy Landscape

I am leaving for South Africa in a few days so I quickly decided to do a last small road trip.
This is where I am:

The black spot at the top of the tree is a bald eagle. In crunchy snow it is impossible to approach creatures quietly, so closer photos are impossible.

And on completely different subject: tomorrow is the first day when banks in Canada will not hand out any pennies anymore. They will take them, but not hand any out anymore, they are taken off the market.
They are still legal tender so you can still use them at the store but what ever goes to the banks will not go back into circulation.

It is snowing

Tonight it is snowing lightly.

South African billionaire gives half of his wealth

Unbeleivable! some good news about South Africa, about humans, in the news.
A South African billionaire, the only black South African billionaire, is giving half of his wealth to improve the lives of the poors.

I want to write his name, because this is the name of an amazing person who should not remain anonymous. His name is Patrice Motsepe

A book recommendation

I am probably going to regret this post, but anyway here it is:

I HIGHLY recommend: "Help Me Live: 20 things people with cancer want you to know" by Lori Hope.

If you know somebody with cancer, if you work with people with cancer, even if you think you are good with it you NEED to read that book.

p. 18: "Six word in sequence that NEVER fail ..... "I don't know what to say"."
The emphasis on "NEVER" is mine. I totally recommend that line. In fact I often say that if I was to write a book on the subject it would be very short because it would be "say" "I don't know what to say"!"

There is much more to the book. There truly are 20 things that people with cancer want you to know. I don't agree with every single one of them, but nearly.

Alternatively you could talk to my friends in Joburg because they have been awesome at it, but they are the exception to the rule.

Columbia Valley ice fishing in Invermere

I am in Canada right now. I took a week off doing taxes, paperwork and the various things that brought me back here in January. I drove to the Columbia Valley and I thought I would show you a little bit about ice fishing.

This is a view of Invermere Lake all iced up with a few fishing shacks on it. The entire flat area under the snow is the frozen lake.

This photo requires some explanations: the buoy you see is "floating" at the edge of the lake and got frozen into it. The truck (ute, backie, depending where you are) and the shack are on the ice. The ice is thick enough to drive right across the lake.

this guy must like to skate and clear himself an ice rink.

Here he is inside his fishing shack pointing to the opening in the ice.

If the hole in the ice is only temporary you just use and auger and drill a hole which very quickly freezes over again. This one was totally iced overbut the ice is clear so it looks like it is still open..

 Here you have it a very Canadian winter thing: ice fishing!

Fun with Jellyfish

When I was in Australia, in Brisbane, there was an amazing bloom of blue jellyfish (amazingly enough I cannot find one picture of the actual bloom). Of course as a result there was also a lot of dead jellyfish on the beach.
What more can I say?

 It started with taking pictures of the beached jellyfish to show their amazing colour, shape and general beauty.

 Then I wanted to show their shape a bit better.

I wanted to show their all architecture even better.

 Then I started to want to be more careful of the background so the picture would be nicer.

 And of course it ended up in trying to take picture of jellyfish thrown in the air so they would be free floating in the air. I can tell you that I have quite a few pictures where the jellyfish are not even in the frame. It is not that easy to take picture of things being thrown...but I already knew that from the oranges in the Sahara.

No no this one is not swimming it is in the air.

Two of them.

And one with a seagull. If I had tried I would have never been able to capture both. It just turned out this way.

It was fun!

Kunming China, random pictures - part 3, the left over

in Kunming they have rough Jade stores... a lot of them... Here is a pile of jade as it looks before it is carved.

Just a regular market. I ate lots of fabulous pomelos when I was in Kunming. 

An old street on the edge of the bird market

the bird market in a small park.

Buying a very weird vegetable? fruit?