Global Warming in real time

The oil refinery on Jurong Island has been particularly active lately. The right hand flame in the video must be over 50 meters tall and has been like that for a few days now. It is usually the size of the one on the left. It is like a giant candle lighting up the South China Sea. That's a lot of carnon dioxide. I'm sure it is visible from Indonesia and Malaysia. Do you feel warmer?

The Empire Strikes A Note

This is a Salvation Army bellringer on Orchard Rd! They looked taller on the big screen.

"Hang a shining star upon the highest bough."

Wishing my devoted readership 'season's greetings'. This is Ryan and I at the 'Conrad Continental' for a very enjoyable conference dinner. Look carefully at the composition of the Xmas tree.

Tomorrow the photographer and I are road tripping through Malaysia to Fraser's Hill. Our itinerary is: Day 1 Johor Bahru, Day 2 Malacca, Day 3 KL, Day 4 and Xmas, The Smokehouse at Frasers Hill and Day 6 unknown before returning to Singapore. The forecast is for solid rain :-(

Random shots

You have to admit, it isn't easy finding a theme to unite these three images, although the first two can be tenuously linked. The 'famous last words' on the left came from some arrogant knob prior to the fall of Singapore. The second is where that arrogant knob probably uttered those words (a WELL known colonial hotel in Singapore). And the third is by a Vietnamese poet who probably has trouble getting a girlfriend (but I do applaud the sentiment).

CCBB

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the musical) has come to Singapore and we saw it at 'the Durian' to support a young relative of the photographer's. She was one of 8 local child actors who supported the London cast, which included Richard 'Someone-or-other' from Rocky Horror as 'The Child Catcher' (a tailor made role for a 'timewarper').

Lombok Triathlon

I haven't been to Lombok for 10 years. It is the beautiful but poor relation of Bali amd I competed in the first Lombok Triathlon - billed as 'the toughest race in Asia'. Perhaps this was ill conceived marketing and perhaps 'most beautiful race in Asia' might have attracted a bigger field. The distances were the same as the Phuket Triathlon (1800 swim, 55 km bike and 12 km run), but the run and particularly the bike were hillier. I finished 2nd in the 45 - 49 old blokes category and won this unique trophy.

Happy Deepavali

Much has happened since my last post - the'festival of lights' for one. In our 'condo' we've celebrated the end of Ramadan (Hari Raya Aidul Fitri), Halloween and now Deepavali in the last month (and the Xmas lights are up on Orchard Rd).

Another Riau island

This is Batam in the Riau archipelago. Only 30 min from Singapore. We stayed at the Turi Beach resort which is undergoing renovations. I wouldn't recommend going until they are complete, but we still enjoyed the view towards Singapore and a glorious massage.

'Death Island'

We spent this weekend doing the tourist circuit. A highlight was lunch on Mt Faber followed by a cable-car ride to Sentosa (previously Pulau Belakang Mati - 'island of death behind' - referring to a malaria outbreak or possibly its pirate heritage) and a tour of Fort Siloso - a British fort unsuccessfully employed to defend the harbour behind Sentosa from invasion. It fell to the Japanese early in WWII because they first captured all the British airstrips in Malaysia and then could bomb it (and the rest of Singapore) at will. The guns were not used to sink japanese shipping trying to invade Singapore, rather to shell Singapore itself, because the Japanese had came the other way. Fort Siloso was then used as a POW camp. Just 60 years later it is a wax-works museum.

Hanoi - Perfumed Pagoda trip

A short bus trip from Hanoi through rural Vietnam, followed by a boat ride (courtesy of an indefatigable peasant woman) is the Perfumed Pagoda - a working Buddhist temple in a huge limestone cave. The scale of the dark cave, the rhythmic chanting and the incense is hypnotic and reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie. For more and better photos see http://planetjannet.blogspot.com/

The last photo is the view from our room of the Win Hotel in Hanoi - highly recommended and only US$30 per night.

Hanoi - Harvest Moon Festival

Hanoi is full of young people and on the night of the Harvest Moon Festival they all came out on their motor scooters and did loops of the lake. It was raining, but no one was deterred. Some wore masks, angel wings, devil horns or carried balloons ('click' the icon to play the video).

Hanoi -day 1

I had my handphone pinched on my first day in Vietnam by this young 'Artful Dodger' (right). I wouldn't have known but a passerby saw it happen. This tourist trap is the entrance to the 'Turtle Temple' in Hoam Kiem Lake in the centre of Hanoi. Legend has it that a turtle returned the King's sword from the bottom of the lake (I think).

More from the Aw Boon bro's

The only part of the Garden's that requires an entrance fee is the 'Ten Courts of Hell' depicting the fate of 'nare-do-wells' for such crimes as 'lack of filial piety (which seems to have been the most serious sin). Good taste prevents publication of those tableaus here, but you'll see the punishment for 'cheating' in the Eighth Court of Hell'. This was accompanied by figurines having their intestines pulled out! Not sure why Sumo's and Koala are also included in these Chinese gardens.

Tiger Balm Gardens

Many older visitors to Singapore remember 'Tiger Balm Gardens' aka 'Haw Par Villa', named after the Aw Boon brothers, Haw and Par who made a fortune from Tiger Balm in the 1930's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haw_Par_Villa). The brothers Aw Boon were not conventional men and made these grotesque cement figures for the garden of their mansion. Some of the tableaus impart a moral message on such vices as gambling, cheating on exams (see post above) and being lazy. Some of them have a hidden eroticism, possibly reflecting life at the mansion?

More fruit-salad for ANZAC Day

Last weekend was the Interfaculty Swimming Carnival. Competition was not fierce in the Staff Category and I won a bronze medal for the 100 m freestyle (in 1:28), 4th in the 50 m free (in 37 s) and our Science relay team came first to win the Gold medal on the right. The silver medal in the centre is for participating in the inaugural 'Singapore 70.3' half ironman on 3 Sept (6hr and 39 min!).

There's lunch ..... and then there's eating disorder

I'm currently obsessed with 'Bibimbap' - a Korean concoction of rice, egg, beef (or chicken) and salad greens (with kim chi on the side). My first experience of this staple was on Korean Airlines and now I look out for it everywhere. Thankfully, many food courts have a Korean stall. By comparison, this is what sells for a 'lunch pack' at the Cold Storage checkout. The ingredients indicate that lunch consists of 2.2g of coffee! And it only costs $7.08!! Yes, you would certainly get thin eating a tea-spoon of coffee at mealtimes. I think, however, I'll stick to bibimbap.

Coming out.

We went to a Trivia Night at the Australian International School. Our table finished 'middle-of-the-pack', but won the best themed table thanks to the pink-champagne with which we plied the judges. The AIS has machine-gun wielding guards at the gates to stop gate-crashers.

Shopping malls - the new pleasure domes

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

Majulah Singapura!

Happy Singapore National Day (for last thursday). I started the day with a cycle around the island. The rally-stripes on my head are road grime thrown up by the rider in front (I was in the middle of a pack of riders - peleton in the vernacular)! We did 150 km - the furthest I've cycled since last December. The evening was spent hosting a National Day BBQ for like-minded patriots. This photo is to prove that I can make a fire (eventually).

Still not as painful as it looks

I've been keeping up my cardiac-rehab exercises. I get very little chest discomfort now, so I think the sternum is nearly healed. Ice-cream helps......

Priorities

My priority has been work and so I've been a bit lax keeping this blog up-to-date. I also haven't taken any good photo's lately. We've been here 3 weeks now and the photographer snapped me unpacking my most cherished possession, one of the many storms that sweep over kent Vale and (most remarkably) dawn!

...thus endeth the lesson

Study explains the physiologic benefits of diet and exercise (pinched from http://www.bio.com/newsfeatures/newsfeatures_research.jhtml?cid=31700015

7/19/07 -- One route to a long and healthy life may be establishing the right balance in insulin signaling in the body and brain, according to new research from Children's Hospital Boston. The study, published in the July 20 issue of Science, not only reinforces the value of exercising and eating in moderation, but also helps explain a paradox in longevity research.

Insulin sends a vital signal in the body, telling cells to use sugar from the blood. When cells become less sensitive to insulin, which often happens as we age and gain weight, the body makes more insulin to compensate. For a long time, researchers thought that "more insulin signaling was good," says Morris White, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in Children's Division of Endocrinology, who led the new study. "But this insulin is also hammering the brain, and we now think that's probably a bad thing."
Recent studies in the worm C. elegans and in fruit flies have shown that reducing insulin signaling lengthens lifespan. But in mammals, reducing insulin signaling can lead to fatal diabetes. White suspected that the key to explaining this paradox -- and to maximizing both health and longevity -- is to reduce insulin signaling only in the brain.
To test this hypothesis, White's team measured longevity and other characteristics in three types of mice. One group had normal insulin signaling in their brains. The other two groups were genetically engineered to have reduced brain insulin signaling, having less of a protein called Irs2 that carries insulin's message inside cells.
As the mice aged and gained weight, their sensitivity to insulin decreased, and higher insulin levels began to bombard their brains. The mice with reduced brain insulin signaling lived 18 percent longer than the normal mice. They were more active in old age, retained youthful metabolic cycles (burning sugar by day and fat by night) and retained protective levels of anti-oxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, which protect against oxidative stress, or "biological rusting," in the brain and body.
In contrast, the mice with normal insulin signaling had become more sedentary, had lost the metabolic rhythms of youth and had reduced anti-oxidant enzymes, leaving them vulnerable to cellular damage. Such damage correlates with a host of age-related diseases such as atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and cancer, notes White. White believes his findings suggest a new approach to preventing diseases that shorten lifespan. "If we could hit cancer and cardiovascular disease by attenuating how much insulin that gets to the brain, or the amount of insulin signaling that happens deep within the brain," he says, "that's going to be much easier than trying to cut every cancer out."

Drugs that regulate Irs2 signaling in the brain (but not elsewhere in the body) are one possible strategy, but no such drug has yet been found.

The easiest method, White says, is old-fashioned diet and exercise. Although obesity and sedentary lifestyles tune down the body's sensitivity to insulin, exercise tunes it back up. Furthermore, eating smaller meals keeps insulin low in the bloodstream, ensuring that less reaches the brain.

"This study gives a molecular explanation of why it's good to exercise and not eat too much," says White. "If we can put a sound scientific basis behind the idea that diet and exercise are good, maybe we'll convince some more people to do it."

The study also calls into question the long-term effects of insulin therapy for diabetes, White adds. "Too much insulin might be fine to keep glucose levels under control. But it's probably damaging your brain in the long run," he says. Better treatments for diabetes, he suggests, would concentrate on sensitizing the body's cells to low amounts of insulin.

Source: Children's Hospital Boston

View from the 12th floor

I'm not as freaked out as last time I lived in a high-rise apartment. Out the other window is a view of the ocean, full of tankers and oil refineries - very surreal at night.

Not as painful as it looks......

This photo was taken by Alan, a friend of mine during the weekend race (read his report at http://www.redmanrunners.com/GC%20Report.html ). I had to think twice before putting it up because I appear to be having a heart-attack. Surprisingly, I was enjoying this moment (because I enjoyed the whole race), which proves that looks can be deceiving. I did have a chest X-ray this week, however, because of a recent, rapid weight increase. The X-ray was normal, so my weight gain was not due to fluid build up around the heart, but due to returning health :-)

Second run since surgery

This weekend past was the Gold Coast marathon which is arguable Australia's biggest road race and brings in a good number of Japanese runners. Indeed, a Japanese runner won it in (I think) 2:23.

I didn't run the marathon, but did manage the 10 km run - the same distance as last week and an almost identical time! I ran 0.16 s faster which is an accuracy of 1 in a 100 million (if I was trying to do the same time, of course)! The first half was very crowded which was good because I wasn't able to go out hard and blow up (my usual running strategy). Rather, I had a well paced run 'till half way and then came home strongly (well strongly for an old bloke).

First race since surgery

This is the race number from my first race since heart-surgery 12 weeks ago. I thought the title was appropriate. It was a 10 km charity road race for 'sick kids' at the Brisbane Royal Children's Hospital. I entered on a whim and I'm glad I did. It started at a respectable 8:00 am from nearby Orleigh Park and I was unsure how fast I could go, particularly since I haven't run this far since February. In the end, I was quite pleased with my 51 min 38 sec and with my heart-rate which reached 175 towards the end (that's almost 3 beats per second!). I'm glad the patch in my septum held :-) I've even started doing a little cycling and light weight lifting.

And a few more images from Montville

Montville is absolutely packed on Sundays for all of these reasons and more.