Scuba Diving

Back in October, by boss asked me if I'd like to join him taking a scuba diving course. I'd always wanted to try scuba diving and this sounded like the best opportunity I was ever going to get, so I jumped at the chance.

We spent two Thursday nights taking the classroom parts of the course and then got to spend our first few minutes breathing underwater in a pool in Singapore. I was very happy with the teacher we had and was looking forward to our "open water" certification dives.

During the last week of October, the class piled into a van and drove the 3 hours from Singapore to Mersing, Malaysia. From there, we got on a boat that took us to Palau Dayang island for our dives. Over that weekend, we made 5 dives and took our written test. By the end of the weekend, I was a certified scuba diver.

I'd had such a great time learning to dive, I couldn't wait to get back under water. Over the next three months, I started buying all of the equipment you need to dive. While you can rent the gear pretty easily, I decided I wanted my own equipment that I could rely on and that I knew was well maintained and fit well. (Most standard rental gear in Asia isn't designed for people who are 6'4".)

Now that I had this big bag of scuba gear sitting in my house, I had to come up with a reason to use it. Last week was the perfect opportunity. Melissa and Jack were going to Norway for 9 days over the New Year holiday to visit our old friends, the Ronnings. I didn't have quite enough vacation left available to join them on the trip, but I did have just a few days left that I could use to stretch out the New Year's weekend. Diving trip, here I come!

Where to go? That was the first question, but one that was quickly answered. One of the guys here in the office is a certified master diver. When I asked him where he goes when he's got a few days available to dive, he answered very quickly. "The Similans."

The Similans are an island chain a bit northwest of Phuket, Thailand in the Andaman Sea. They are part of a Thai national wildlife park that is only open to the public 6 months each year. The main source of visitors to the islands are scuba divers on "liveaboard" dive boats. This sounded like a great opportunity and after some research, I found that this was one of the best diving sites in the world. Passionate divers will plan trips from around the world just to dive the Similans and nearby "Richelieu Rock".

The next step was to plan the trip. What it really came down to was finding a boat the met my schedule. I was very happy to find what I was looking for with West Coast Divers and their boat, the M/V West Coast Explorer.

Last Tuesday, I took a 2 hour flight from Singapore to Phuket. From there, I jumped into a taxi and made my way to the West Coast Divers shop in Patong Beach. I had a chance to meet the divermaster and trip director, Andy. I also was able to jump into their pool and test out all of the brand new gear I'd bought over the last few months. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we were off to the boat.

Most of the liveaboard diveboats in the area actually dock in Khao Lak, about two hours north of Phuket. We arrived at the boat around 7pm and were able to meet the crew and all of the other guests arriving in the two other vans as well. The boat sleeps 16 guests, plus 5 divemasters/guides and 5 boat crew. We all got a tour of the boat and were assigned our rooms before departing the pier and eating a great dinner onboard.

It felt wonderful to be out at sea in the night air. It had been a long time since I'd spent any real time living onboard a ship. I spent most of the night after dinner just sitting on the bow and enjoying the ride. I did force myself to go to sleep after a while though. We had a dive briefing at 7am and were supposed to be in the water by 7:30.

A bit before 7:00, I was up on deck having a cup of coffee and a banana before our morning briefing and dive. I was a bit nervous at this point. I'd accepted the divemaster's offer of taking the Advanced Diving course while onboard. While this was going to be my first dive in 3 months, it was also going to be my first "deep" dive as part of the advanced training.

The initial "open water diver" course only certifies you up to 18 meters (about 55 feet). The advanced course trains you to dive past that, up to the theoretical limit of 40 meters that you can dive on regular compressed air. As a safety precaution, almost all recreational dives are limited to 30 meters and that's where we kept ourselves for all of our dives.

I was paired up with my dive buddy for the trip that day as well. She was also a new diver that would be taking the Advanced course onboard. We were in a dive group with 3 other people our age and were lead by our divemaster, Andy.

Me and my dive buddy, Kat.

Me and the divemaster, Andy

Our team: Patrick, Martin, Sidre, Kat and me.

Before I knew it, I was in my gear and jumping into the ocean. After a quick check on the surface, I dumped the air from my BC and exhaled the air from my lungs. I was on my way 30 meters down to Anita's Reef!


I was still nervous, but I was happy to feel like I knew what I was doing. The training dives in Malaysia were fresh in my mind and I was comfortable in the water.

The first thing that hit me when I neared the bottom was how diverse the coral was. All different kinds of hard and soft corals everywhere. At 30 meters, colors are pretty dim. Red is non-existent and the yellows are very faded. Everything looks very blue. As part of the "deepwater" training, the instructor shows you and object that you should instantly recognize to reinforce the point that colors can play tricks on you at depth. Andy reached into his pocket an pulled out a black soda can. But, it wasn't black, it just looked that way. When he turned it around so we could see it, it said COKE on the front. Lesson learned.

From there, we started to swim around and slowly ascend as we looked at the coral and wildlife in the ocean. Our 45 minutes under water ended much too quickly and it was time to ascend to the surface and get back on the boat.

After the dive, everyone at the breakfast table was very excited talking about their first dive of the trip.

"Did you see that turtle?"
"What was the name of that fish?"
"That wrasse was huge!"
"How much air did you have left?"
"When's the next dive?"

The answer to that last question was, "two hours later." We did 4 dives each day for four days.

The next big adventure was my first "night dive". It is exactly what it sounds like. Scuba diving in the dark with nothing but an underwater flashlight. I was very nervous that I wouldn't like it. I was surprised that as soon as I was in the water, I knew that this was something I'd enjoy. I think it's the closest you can get to feeling like you're floating in outer space. When you're diving with a group, there are enough other lights around so that you can keep your bearings. One thing to remember is to always keep you light pointed in the direction you are traveling. If you are looking at something off to your side, you've got no idea what you might run into head first.

Aside from the training and new diving experiences, the beautiful coral and wildlife was the star of the trip. On the the reasons that the Similans are so popular with divers is the clear, warm water and the diversity of the wildlife. There is no better dive spot to see hundreds of different species than Richelieu Rock. It's actually such an amazing spot, we dove there three times in a row and were disappointed when it was time to leave for another location.

That's not a plant, it's an animal.

Awesome eel.

Frogfish

Richelieu Rock is a spot much closer to Myanmar than Thailand. It's a pinnacle of boulders in the middle of the sea that is 1 meter above sea level at low tide and under water at high tide. The small rock you can see from the surface barely hints at what is below. This steep tower of boulders and coral goes down over 40 meters in some spots and is one of the most bio-diverse spots in the ocean. In this one location, you can see everything from tiny schooling fish to huge manta rays and whale sharks. Dozens of hard and soft corals, and hundreds of colorful tropical fish surround the area.

We also spent New Year's Eve onboard. Thankfully, it was a really fun crowd onboard and we had a great night. Everyone had a great dinner served by the crew that even included a nice glass of wine. The party went on from there with plenty of beers and even a bottle of whiskey that somehow found it's way onboard. We had a great night together that ended with a midnight jump from the top deck into the dark ocean.




The most photographed stars of the trip were of course the coolest (and rarest) animals we saw. Searching for manta rays takes a lot of luck. They kind of come and go as they please. All of the boat captains in the area keep in touch with each other by radio. If one boat gets luck with a good sighting, he'll pass the word so others can try that spot too.

We'd been just floating in the water about 20 meters down near an island called Koh Bon hoping for mantas to pass by when there was a "clang, clang, clang" in the water. It was Andy banging on his air tank to get our attention.



It's bigger than it looks. This one was at least 4.5 meters wide. That's almost 15 feet. It looks like a flying car moving through the water. You can just feel the power it has as it passes you. It's an amazing thing to see. Even the divemaster Andy, who has over 3700 logged dives, is impressed every time he sees one.



During one dive, this huge sea snake decided to just swim right through the middle of our group. It was about 2 meters long and moved very quickly.




We also saw a few leopard sharks throughout the dives. Aside from the mantas, these were my favorite. This one was about 3 meters long.

I know you're thinking, aren't these dangerous animals??? Short answer: yup. IF you mess with them, there are dozens of animals in the ocean that will either kill you or poison you so bad you wish you were dead. The thing is, none of them want anything to do with you. The manta swims past you like you'd walk past a pigeon on a sidewalk. It's like it hardly notices you. The snake and the sharks both went about their business, but kept their distance from the divers. As long as you don't cause trouble, or touch something that you shouldn't, you don't have to worry about the wildlife attacking you. The fish are much more afraid of you that you are of them. The best rule of diving in the ocean....look, but never touch.

To sum up a very long post, I think I'm hooked. I'm sitting at my desk trying to figure out when I'll be able to go diving again.

Internet Security

No, I haven't fallen victim to identity theft or some nasty computer virus. On the contrary, I've been the victim of the new, improved "safe" internet. Over the past week, I've run into two situations trying to make purchases on-line that have had me ready to pull my hair out.

There are some places I shop on-line that just work. You select the items you want to buy, click a button or two, and voila, a box arrives on your doorstep with your stuff in it. Awesome. Amazon is one company that jumps to mind. They've even got a "one-click" purchase option you can sign up for.

On the other end of the spectrum are companies like the ones I've been dealing with this week. I understand that the hurdles I have to jump over to make a purchase on-line have been put in place for "my protection," but why is it that some companies can make it easy while other make it so hard.

A big part of my problem is that I'm not making standard purchases. In both cases I was making a purchase on-line that wasn't directly for me. First, I bought myself a few scuba accessories online and had them shipped to my mother in Massachusetts. She is then going to forward them to me in Singapore much cheaper than I can get them sent directly here. The other was buying airline tickes for Melissa and Jack's summer vacation from Singapore Airlines.

After making my purchase online at the scuba company (joediveramerica.com), I got an email from their customer service department the next day. Since my billing address and shipping address didn't match, they needed further verification of my identity before they would ship my package. (Of course, they had already charged my credit card at this point.) They wanted me to fax them a copy of my drivers license and my credit card bill showing the purchase to prove that I owned the card I was using. I debated for a day and a half on whether I would send this to them. Considering that I'd already been billed and I didn't want the hassle of trying to talk them into refunding my money, I gave in and sent them what they asked for. Of course, I made a whiny comment to them that I thought it was a bit ironic that they were asking me for the info an identity thief would want in their effort to protect me. Regardless, even though the gear showed up right when they said it would, no more purchases from these guys.

Singapore Airlines was even more of a pain in the butt. We found tickets for Melissa and Jack's summer trip the the US at a great rate on Singapore Air. After filling out tons of info like passport numbers, email addresses, frequent flier numbers, names and ages for 20 minutes, we finally made it to the payment page. The page first asks you if the person paying for the ticket will be one of the travelers. I had my credit card with me, so I said "no." I then got a message stating that as I was not traveling as part of this purchase, I would have to fill out an affidavit stating I was paying for these tickets and I would be responsible for the cost of the flight. I would then have to bring myself, my credit card and this paper to a Singapore Air office prior to the flight to confirm the purchase.

"Forget this," I said. "Melissa, get me your credit card."

I switch back to "Yes, purchaser will be flying'" and the nasty message goes away. I then enter the data from Melissa's Visa card and hit "purchase". (You don't think this is the end of the story, do you?)

A new window pops up. "This card in enrolled in "Verified by Visa". Please enter your Verified by Visa password."

"What the hell is Verified by Visa? When did you sign up for this?" I ask Melissa.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she says.

Crap.

We try plugging in a few of the passwords we commonly use to no avail. A new window pops up on the screen. "Your session has timed out. Thank you for visiting singaporeairlines.com"

Great googily moogily.

What next? We start researching Verified by Visa. Turns out, it is a service provided by Visa in partnership with a number of vendors in an effort to never let you buy anything on-line ever again. After searching for 20 minutes, we find that we need to apply through the bank that issues the credit card. We then go to the Chase website and find their FAQ on Verified by Visa. We click on the link for "forgot your password" and it asks us to enter the card number. The next message is the one that sent me over the edge.

"As you have not previously set up a profile online, we can not access your information. Please contact Chase at 1-800 blah blah."

Alright....I then go back and try to set up a profile. After again entering the card number, I get this one.

"You already have an account. If you have forgotten your password, please click on the 'forgot your password' link to have your password emailed to you."

Both Chase bank and Visa are now invited to bite me.

At this point , my only option was to pull out my trusty American Express card. I don't know what AmEx does differently than everyone else, but I have never had one problem using that card. Of course, now I have to fill out another form, and drag myself to the Singapore Airlines ticket office downtown next Saturday, and submit my DNA and a stool sample to complete my purchase.

Beijing, China

Regardless of where you live in Asia, you come to realize that almost all culture around here can trace itself back to some sort of Chinese influence. Either China took over at one point through war, Chinese immigrants settled there and brought their culture with them, or a shared border is still in existence.

In Singapore, the Chinese influence is very strong, as are the political ties with China. It becomes such a large looming presence that after a while, you want to get some sort of idea what it is all about. So, Melissa, Jack and I took a trip there a few weeks ago to try to experience China for ourselves.

I have to admit, we did the standard "tourist" thing and kept to only one city. We weren't trying to take in the entire Chinese experience, just to get a little taste. Beijing is a nice choice for that because there is over 2000 years of history available in the old temples, castles and of course, The Wall, that still exist for you to see.

We arrived at our hotel in outer Beijing and were very happy with it. We stayed at the new Traders Hotel on the outside edge of the city. While it was a bit far from downtown, it was a nice place and the price was right. On our first night there we just took it easy and went to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

This is the view of downtown Beijing from our hotel room.

This is the strange little park outside of our hotel. Jack liked going down here to play knights.

The next morning, we had breakfast in our hotel and met our tour guide, Helen.

Hi, I'm Helen.

We were very fortunate that some friends of ours recommended a tour guide they had used when they visited Beijing last year. We essentially had our own personal tour guide just for Melissa, Jack and I. Helen was a Chinese history major in college and had been giving tours in Beijing for 10 years. It was great having her with us to tell us all about the places we were seeing.

Our first major stop was the Forbidden City. This was the old palace of the Emperors of China. If you've seen the movie "Empire of the Sun", this is the place.

Outside a fancy building.

Outside another fancy building.

Taking a seat after a lot of walking around fancy buildings.

These large pots were a favorite of Jack's. They were put in place hundreds and hundreds of years ago to hold water. This water wasn't for drinking though. It was for fighting fires. The buildings were made of mostly old dry wood and were huge fire hazards. Jack's favorite aspect of the pots was they they were set up off the ground on some stones. This was so that you could set a small fire under them in the cold winter to keep the fire fighting water from freezing. Jack thought this was brilliant.

Standing in the main central square in the Forbidden city. This is just a very lucky shot with no other people in it. It was very crowded.

Another old palace that we visited was the Summer Palace. This was the Emperor's summer residence. Back in the day, it was a long days journey outside of the city. Today, it's barely out into the suburbs.

(By the way, we'd had a lot of other good pictures to show you, but the memory card on our nice digital SLR camera decided to die after we got home. Over 200 pictures lost in the blink of an eye. These are the only ones we had left from our small second camera.)

Almost all of the ancient building had the animals on the corners of the roofs. Always an odd number of animals and the more important the building, the more animals. The Emperor's house had nine, a house of a mid level diplomat may have three. This was a temple.

The entrance to the Summer Palace.

Almost all of the outdoor walkways had the inlayed patterns in the concrete. I asked our guide how come they weren't worn down after hundreds of years of foot traffic. Apparently, the government replaces and repairs them every 10 years or so.

Nearby was an old neighborhood we were able to tour. In the background is an old "drum tower." It's kind of like a bell tower. We actually climbed it to see the old drums inside.

This is Jack in the courtyard of a local house we were able to visit as part of the tour.

Melissa in a "trishaw" (three wheel rickshaw bike) that took us around the neighborhood.

The other major excursion of the trip was to the famous "Great Wall of China." There are three parts of the wall that can be reached by car from Beijing. The part we went to was about 2 hours away by car and was a bit less touristy than the closest one.

This is the view of the wall from the parking lot. Thankfully you don have to climb the entire hill to get there.

Just like in skiing, the chairlift is the fastest way to the top.

Jack and I on the wall.


Jack playing soldiers pretending to shoot an arrow from the ramparts.

Quite a view from where we were standing. You can see the wall extend off into the distance.


Of course, if there's a fast way up, there's an even faster way down.



Posing for pictures at the bottom of the slide. Yup...that cost me $5.

Overall, I thought the wall was the most memorable part of the trip. While it has been "refurbished" many times, it was impressive to be standing on a structure that was so large and so old. I can't imagine what it was like to build it. Walking the length of the wall, you see the guard towers and a small barracks. Living there 1500 years ago must have been a crazy life. One thing I can tell you is that everyone who lived there must have had legs of iron. You can"t see it too well from the pictures we salvaged, but the wall is not at all flat. It rises and falls with the terrain. In many places the stairs along the top of the wall are so steep, you have to use your hands on the stairs too to make sure you don't fall. Going down in much scarier than going up.


After finishing at the wall, we decided to take a quick drive past the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Watercube Stadium that were used during the Olympics. We talked about going to see the inside, but were told it basically looks like any other stadium on the inside.

The Bird's Nest Stadium

The Water Cube Stadium

After completing our drive-by Compton style, we called it a day and started thinking about what other little things we could do while we were here. Of course, food was on my agenda. We'd been eating pretty well since we'd arrived. For lunch every day, we'd had local Chinese food for lunch. Helen had picked very good places where I could try something a bit more exotic but we could still find something simple for Jack. After a year and a half in Singapore and a visit to China, I think I've come to a conclusion about real Chinese food that I should have expected. Fancy, high class Chinese food is not for me. It's too delicate and pretentious with lots of strange textures. Chinese workingman's food, however, is delicious. Dumplings, braised pork belly, noodles, duck....good stuff.

Diced greenbeans and pork. Everything is better with pork.

Chinese pancake stuffed with....pork.

Stir-fried beef and veggies. Those are amazing pan-fried dumplings in the background.

Even though the can looks different, it tastes the same.

The one dish I wanted to make sure I had while I was in Beijing was Peking Duck. This is essentially the city that perfected the way to cook and eat duck thousands of years ago. Asking around, we got the same answer from everyone. If you want duck, go to "Da Dong." We think it's a chain of fancy duck restaurants in Beijing. We know the duck was good. We went there with a family we know who was also visiting Beijing at the same time. It was a fun meal and one of my favorite parts of the trip.

The duck is brought to your table for a viewing before they take it back into the hallway to carve it for you.

A wonderful scallop dish served in perfect fried onion rings.

It has to be seen to be believed. The menu at this place looked like an atlas. Over 80 pages long and it weighed about 8 pounds. Truly intimidating when it's handed to you.

The other food adventure we took while in Beijing was to the night food market. It's pretty much just a string of stalls lined up on the side of the street in one of the busier areas of town. The reason we wanted to go was we'd heard about all of the crazy things you could get to eat there.

The view of the Market

Yes, those are starfish on a stick. No, I didn't try one.

This is the face you make after you eat a fried scorpion on a stick. Why eat a fried scorpion? Because when I'm 85 years old, I'll be able to look my great-grandkids in the eye and say, "Let me tell you about the time I ate a scorpion in China."

And of course, we have the two obligatory shots every American has to take when overseas.

TGI Fridays. The height of American cuisine.

...and McDonald's, the #1 US export.

And no, we didn't eat there.


There are other things I could write about, like the acrobat show, the pandas at the zoo and the silk factory, but I'm about ready for a break. It takes forever to upload these photos.

part 2 later.

Permission Slip

I know, I know...I have to get around to the China post. I'll get to it when I get to it.


I've got a cold this week and it made me remember something I wanted to write about.

During one of my first days working in Singapore, my secretary walked into my office one morning and handed me a piece of paper.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Mr. Luo's doctor's note," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"His doctors note. He was out sick yesterday."

I couldn't believe what I just heard. "Seriously?"

"Of course...he was out sick yesterday. This is his doctor's note that confirms he was sick."

You've got to be kidding me. This guy is an adult professional and he's bringing me a doctor's note like he's a 2nd grader asking for a hall pass so he can go to the potty. I couldn't believe it.

It turn's out, this is standard practice in Singapore. I asked around the other expats in the office and even talked to other Americans I know working at other companies. It seems, Singaporeans aren't bothered by this practice at all. Can you imagine being a 40 year old professional engineer and needing to bring in a doctor's note because you took a day off at home with the flu?

I hardly ever take sick days. At most, I've taken two or three days over the last 5 years; one of those was when I threw my back out. If I'm sick enough to not be able to go to work, I'm not getting out of bed. Unless I think I need antibiotics (i.e. not just a cold) or a happen to have a broken bone, I'm going to stay in bed, get some sleep and go to work tomorrow.

I can maybe understand the note if you've needed to be out of work for a large number of days. Maybe you've got swine flu or spinal meningitis or brain cancer and you need more than a day or two off. If you're that sick, the trip to the doctor is warranted. But for one day? Really?

"Doctor, I have the sniffles. Can I stay home from school, um, I mean, work today?"

The thing that drives me nuts is that when these folks come back in to work with their little pieces of paper, they don't seem all that sick. A morning at the doctor's office in exchange for an afternoon of golf? Sounds like a good deal to me.