This morning, I took Mel to school.  Then I went to the bank - incidentally, my bank is great!  They have 10 service counters, of which only 4 are open, except of course, during peak hours.  During peak hours, only 2 are open.  I love my bank. 

 

Then I went to the printers to check on some artwork I have going. 

 

Then I went to my dive equipment suppliers to order some stuff. 

 

Then I had lunch with a friend. 

 

Then we went for coffee. 

 

Then I came home for a bit before going to pick Mel up, had to use the bathroom, and then realized that the zipper on my jeans HAD BEEN DOWN THE ENTIRE DAY.

 

Mortified doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

 

 

 

Apparently we have not had enough of each other, even though we just came back from spending 5 days and 4 nights diving, eating and fraternizing together.  So the first thing we do at the airport upon landing in Kuala Lumpur is to make plans to have dinner together the very next night.

 

And that is how we ended up at Carnaval Chulascaria in Damansara Jaya.

 

 

 

The way they do things here is slightly different.  You pay a fixed rate per person which entitles you to anything on their salad bars.  The choices are so varied that if I had tried a bite of everything, I would have been too full for the grilled meat.

 

 

Can I just say though that the grilled eggplant, the sauteed vegetables and the potato salad were FAB?!

 

Then here's the unusual bit.

 

Their waiters come around to your table with vast varieties of grilled meat on skewers - which they then slice onto your plate.

 

Here's Albert getting his fish ...

 

 

 

And here's Mel getting her lamb chops ...

 

 

 

And this is me getting my turkey ham ...

 

 

 

So there's chicken, a few varieties of lamb (lamb chops, lamb shoulder, garlic lamb), two types of beef, fish, turkey ham - and then there's garlic bread and grilled pineapple.  The pineapple was kickass!  I would go again just for the pineapple.

 

And by the time they load everything onto your plate, it'll look something like Shen's here ...

 

 

Quite yummy, really, even though I'm not really much of a meat person - so it was a bit of a protein overload for me.

 

Plus if you go on Mondays, you pay for 5 persons, and the 6th one eats FOC.

 

See the happy faces?

 

 

And that was even BEFORE we were served anything.

 

Good fun, it was!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coral planting project was an eye-opening experience for all our divers, I think.  It was cool to be a part of conserving our aquatic environment.  As divers, it is important for us to be sensitive and aware of our underwater heritage, and to want to preserve that for as long as we can.  Every little part we play makes a difference, and hopefully will have long term effects on the conditions of our coral reefs.

 

This is the nitty gritty of the coral planting process:

 

Prior to the actual event, the local divemasters collect broken-off pieces of coral that are still alive and reasonably healthy.  These coral pieces are then kept in cages at the bottom of the dive center jetty, so that the salinity and temperature of the water keep them alive.  On the day of the coral planting, the corals are then put into tubs for the divers to label, measure and record.

 

 

Obviously we were not able to identify the coral species without help.  There was a lovely young lady who is a coral expert, seeing as she spent three years studying them for her thesis.  She was actually scarily freakily knowledgeable.  Just one glance into our bucket, and she not only knew which corals we were dealing with, she even rattled off their scientific names without having to take a closer look at them, and without pausing.  Names like acropora and pocillopora and porites (which sounds more like a skin disease than a coral species - but that's just me). 

 

She could also inform us on the average growth rate for the different kinds of coral - their threats - their distribution - and any symbiotic relationships with other marine animals.  Very impressive.  I found myself wishing I had that kind of knowledge available at my fingertips - but then instantly knew that I will never be able to study corals for three years without giving up sometime within the first week.

 

Thanks, Soo Ling, for sharing your passion with us!

 

The next step was to actually dive and plant the corals.  We were divided into groups.  Our group leader then mixed a kind of underwater cement, which at first is soft and pliable - rather like playdoh - and which then hardens after about half an hour.  The thing is to find a nice solid foundation to plant your coral on.  A piece of rock, for example.  Then we stick our broken coral into the playdoh, and press down on its sides so that the coral stays in place on the rock.

 

 

 

Once we're all done, our pieces of planted coral (or planted pieces of coral) look something like this ...

 

 

 

Easy peasey.

 

The rest of the work of monitoring coral growth - or recording its failure of growth (they could be killed off by a vast variety of things - fish could eat them, sedimentation, careless divers, global warming, etc) - are done by the local divemasters, who make dives periodically to check on - measure and record - growth.

 

Voila!  That's the coral planting process.  And hopefully, fingers crossed, sometime within the next hundred years, what was once an almost barren site, becomes a thriving coral reef.

 

 

 

 

 

I came home from our coral planting project in Mabul to the news that Yasmin Ahmad, filmmaker extraodinaire, and one of the people I most look up to - not just for the amazing work that she does, but for the way she tears down racial boundaries, for her deep profound simplicity, for the way she embraces humanity - had passed away at a mere 51 years of age.

 

She has been a source of inspiration for me in so many ways and I am so sad she is gone.

 

 

 

 

 

This conversation took place today.

 

Him:  Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Vinz - that's short for Vincent.

Me:  Hi, the pleasure is mine!  I'm Lynette - that's long for Lyn.

 

I smiled at him and waited for him to get it. 

 

He didn't.

 

(pause)

 

Me:  So, Vince -

Him:  Not Vince, Vinzzzzzz (and he stretches out and emphasizes the zzzzzz)

Me:  Oh, sorry ... Vinzzzzzz ... and you can call me Lynnnnnnnnn (and I stretch out and emphasize the nnnnnnnnn)

 

I grin at him.

 

He flashes me a quizzical look and - I swear this is true - takes one step backwards. 

 

I thought to myself - oh good one, Lynette, and you expect to do business with this guy now that he thinks you're an absolute crackpot??

 

So I apologized for my sense of humor - though if you ask me, he should have apologized for his lack of one -  and we did manage to discuss whatever we had set out to discuss, which worked out quite positively for the both of us, I might add.

 

However, and let me state this quite unequivocally:  It is my firm conviction that you can never really be friends with someone who doesn't share your sense of humor.

 

 

 

 

Just to let you know that there is a virtual treasure hunt with more than RM100,000 worth of wedding prizes to be won, organized by Weddings Malaysia and a whole bunch of other sponsors.

 

DO NOT ASK why I am involved in a wedding project.

 

But if you're planning on getting hitched anytime soon (what's wrong with you??), click HERE to lend your support and to participate.

 

Good luck!!

 

 

 

 

I apologize for the lack of updates, but I have been up to my eyeballs in work - what with the dive expo, the follow-up since, on-going training, trips, etc ...

 

I've had some thoughts and opinions that I've briefly written down in one of my hundred notebooks which I hope to blog about soon - amongst which are my observations on the dive expo, of course - as well as what I think of the recent announcement that the powers-that-be within our Education Ministry have decided to take one big step backwards by reverting to teaching in Malay as opposed to English.  No prizes for guessing where I stand on that issue!!

 

I have another busy weekend coming up - but a fun one (!) - and about another 35 projects in the pipeline that I really should get cracking on soon if I want to get anywhere - but I promise to blog more soon!

 

 

 

 

This is just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me ... and since I'm too busy (read: lazy) to write my own blog entry today, you can read Doreen's.

 

See you at the dive expo this weekend!!  Drop by our booth and come say hello, okay??

 

xox