Objects in the side-view mirror

Here's a shot I took while waiting in the car for J, after lunch today:


Just passing through

And the semi-obligatory self-portrait, since I was a little bored. Yes, so I did what most shy-in-front-of-the-camera people did. :P


Cam in the mirror

Lunch at Buko Nero

Tracy of Buko Nero called this morning. Someone had cancelled their lunch appointment today, and a table for two had become available, did we want it? You bet we did!

This compact Italian-Asian restaurant, nestled in a tiny shophouse at 126 Tanjong Pagar Road, is run solely by Oscar Pasinato and his wife, Tracy. From our experience, lunchtime bookings are difficult to come by and dinner reservations nigh-impossible, despite their one month advance-booking window.


Inside Buko Nero

I started off with the Warm Pumpkin and Crab Meat Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette, and J had the Minestrone Soup with Silken Tofu. The orange-coloured salad was packed into the shape of a small cylindrical island, sitting in the middle of a sea of strawberry-pink sauce. It was like.. wow. I don't know how to describe the taste. Topped with deep-fried (Chinese-style) shallots, the ingredients just blended together in a rush of flavour. Amazing!

J followed up with a small serving of Spaghetti with Vongole, with a distinctive creamy texture that we don't normally encounter in other variations of this dish. Mixed with garlic, olive oil and a bit of chilli (and whatever else Tracy isn't saying ;), it went down very smoothly indeed. I polished up most of the clams.

I had the Beef Ravioli special: minced beef rolled up in wanton skin, served with a substantial brown-coloured sauce and layered generously with truffle oil. Absolutely, absolutely gorgeous! Little sparks of "wow" kept zapping from tongue to brain. J couldn't resist snatching bites off my plate. The Braised Leg of Duck that she had was delicious as well, but somehow paled in comparison to the ravioli.

For the quality of food, the price is extremely reasonable. This is one restaurant where you should make the booking first and decide who to go with later. Must, must try!

Buko Nero's telephone number is 6324 6225.

Bought bought bought

I moseyed down to Peninsula to check out the camera stuff that I was eyeing. Ended up trying the Canon EF 35mm f/2 prime, which was tempting - I definitely want this lens! But I hadn't done price research yet, so I held off forking out the quoted price of S$475 for it.

Picked up the following items instead:


From top left, clockwise: MAHA MH-C401FS battery charger, Sanyo 2300mAh rechargeable batteries, Sto-fen Omnibounce OM-C (fits Sigma 500 DG Super flashgun)

While searching for more info on the 35mm f/2 lens, to my horror, I came across this thread on ClubSnap posted about a week ago, saying that the lens has been discontinued (!!). What's more, further down in the thread, the piece that I tested today is rumoured to be the last available piece, and has been somewhat mistreated. I don't think I want to take the risk with that piece now.

I'm just hoping that kenghor is going to make his order for the lens from the US, so that I can piggyback on it - I'm really very keen on getting this lens.

Maison de Fontaine

The abovenamed restaurant is located along Scotts Road, in the guise of two restored bungalow houses (numbers 33 and 35) just before Indocafe. Our reservation was in No. 35, which suffers from the same creaky-floor syndrome as Flutes at the Fort.

Dinner started out well, but the service quality became progressively worse as the night progressed.

Bread arrived on the table as we were perusing the menu, but water only came later, after repeated requests. We had asked the waiter for water, who'd then informed the bartender, who'd then poured the water into glasses, which were then left on the bar top and happily forgotten by both waiter and bartender.

I began with a salad which was quite decent, Edvine(?) and Avocado salad, with marinated Aubergine (eggplant) and Provencal Bread Chips. Good stuff. J had ordered the Mushroom Cappuccino soup from the degustation menu, which I found was slightly overpowering, had a sour-ish tinge and was lacking a little... something. Couldn't quite put my finger on it.

For the main course, Dad and I had both ordered the lamb, done medium. His lamb arrived pretty red in the middle, but mine was almost cooked through and barely pink. Hmm, a little more consistency please?

Finished with the mains, we chatted as the waiters cleared the plates and walked away. We discussed about tomorrow's dinner and settled for Ju Shin Jung, called the restaurant, and made a booking. Still, the waiters made no move to ask if we wanted dessert. After five more minutes, we gave up and flagged one down for three coffees.

Current credit card promotions: HSBC - 20% discount on food, DBS - 20% discount on food and beverages.

So the food was decent but lacking that special touch, moderately pricy, and service disappointing. The best thing that I can say is that they welcomed and bade us farewell with warmth and enthusiasm. Return visit? Probably not in a while.

Water bottle fun

Through the water and onto the table, the sun's rays played out in interesting patterns as I rotated the bottle. Reminds me of how we used a magnifying glass to burn holes in paper, focussing the beam as tightly as possible for maximum effect. And seeing bright after-image patches in the process.


Blue ray?

Camera-related stuff that I'm tempted to grab at this point
- Canon Battery Grip BG-E1
- Stofen Omnibounce OM-C for Sigma 500DG Super flash
- Canon EF 35mm f/2 lens (cheap! hehe)
- MAHA battery charger
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L lens

Sigh... expensive hobby.

Unskilled and Unaware of It

Dake pointed me to this interesting research journal, titled Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. The title says it all, really.

Which leads me to wonder: am I really capable of determining how capable I am? Is anyone? Life doesn't always provide the references that we need to measure ourselves against. And even we do come across suitable references, will we be able to recognize them for what they are?

And later on, if I look back at my older photos and find that they suck, will that mean that my competency in photograpy is improving...?

Guess I'll just keep shooting.

50mm Lunchtime with Baby K

Here's one of my favourite models - she's charming, chirpy and challenging to photograph. Used the 50mm f/1.8 lens the whole time at fairly wide apertures, since the IS (Image Stabilizer) on my 28-135mm doesn't help when what I need is speed. Baby K likes to pose at 1/125s. :)







Shooting kids at low shutter speeds gets you nowhere fast if the kids are lively and active. Really frustrating. Tripods and IS are great for still shots, but simply hopeless when the subject is moving fast and unpredictably. Now I'm sorely tempted to get a few more wide-aperture prime lenses for low light indoor shots.

Anyone willing to sponsor me?

Guess not.

Photo walk - Raffles Hotel

On Tuesday, we popped over to Raffles Hotel after lunch to look at watches and take some photos.


A matter of focus


Palmy weather


Push - don't sweat it


If you're happy and you know it

We really need to do this more often.

Busy fortnight

Spent most of the last two weeks working late (up to 5:30am) in order to talk to the techie in Sao Paulo. 12-hour turnaround time for questions just didn't cut it, especially when getting one question answered produced three more, so staying up for interactive real-time-ish conversation seemed like the best thing to do.

This week in particular was extremely hectic. Raced to meet the Thursday deadline with stumbling blocks popping out of nowhere on a daily basis. Barely made it, with the extreme fortune of catching a US-based tech online on Thursday itself (and at the most improbable hour, too) who fixed a major roadblock. I discovered then that there was no way that I could have fixed the problem myself by fiddling on my end. It's not entirely over yet, but at least the initial heat is off, and I can actually relax a bit this weekend.

In a bid to stay lively during the wee hours of the night/morning, I half-searched, half-stumbled upon kawaii-radio.net, whose constant stream of Japanese/Anime music kept me going for quite a bit. It's currently my favourite internet radio station. Nothing quite like nice music in a language that I don't fully understand, subconciously backgrounded to concentrate on work, but engaging enough to keep me awake.

Of repairs and recompense
The workshop had managed to track down Kevin Chang's insurance company, so I sent the MINI down again today for their surveyor to take a look at the damage.

The surveyor was a nice old man who went about his job in a very professional and experienced manner. As he ticked and scribbled across the damage quotation, I realized that I'd still have to foot a major portion of the repair bill. The most they'd compensate for labour would only be 67% of the amount, and just 50% tops for the respraying. And that's before the insurance company starts to bargain.

At last, some restitution is headed my way. I hope Kevin's future premiums shoot through the roof. Spiteful, ain't I?


My car's radio panel

Of departures and deals
After the damage inspection, I headed down to J's workplace to pick her up. The plan was to have a quick lunch, then have J drop me at work so that she could have the car to attend a company function later.

My brother called from Melbourne halfway through lunch. His girlfriend's mother, who'd flown over from Indonesia for treatment just days earlier, had passed away in Mount Elizabeth Hospital earlier this morning. Calling back to our respective offices to cancel all appointments, J and I rushed through lunch and hurried down to meet my brother's girlfriend, EC, at the hospital.

Spent the whole afternoon dealing with the funeral arrangements, death certificate registration, arranging flights for EC and the rest of the family, and basically doing a lot of running around. And dealing with a particularly annoying busybody "aunt" who appeared from nowhere and stepped in to make all of the "right" decisions for EC. She was the sister of a friend of EC's mother, or a friend of EC's mother's sister, or something along those lines. We couldn't figure out exactly which.

To cut a long story short, J was hopping mad with the "aunt", whom we suspected of conspiring with the funeral service behind our backs to make a profit. But there was little we could do except to tell EC to be careful and to check everything, lest we be seen as "meddling outsiders" and have the tables turned.

I really hope EC doesn't get swindled out of her inheritance back home.

Colour explosion, Lomo style

At qoomonster's behest, I decided to fiddle with the Lomo Effect in Photoshop, while waiting for a batch job to finish.

Here's the final product:



And here's the original:



Up to recently, I'd been averse to doing post-processing on photos, but I guess it's as much part of the whole process as the darkroom is for film photography. Time-consuming stuff. :)

Thanks to Amos for the props and "studio", and to glutton for setting up the ad-hoc shot.

On logs and searches

Several people landed on this blog while searching for Flutes at the Fort, but most likely didn't find anything since it'd already been pushed to my archives. If you were looking for my experience with that restaurant, please click here:

Flutes at the Fort

Hope that helps.

Inspection and retrospection

Sent the car down to my insurance company's authorised workshop at Eunos, Kan Fook Sing Motor Workshop, for a damage inspection, and to file the accident report and claim.

The damage to the bonnet from the collision becomes more obvious with the hood up:



Click on the highlighted portion to view a close-up.

Now I understand the charges behind the repair quote. The plastic guard on the side of the bonnet is damaged and needs to be replaced. The bonnet itself needs to be knocked out and resprayed, and to do that, the left bonnet stripe needs to be taken off. Once taken off, the stripe can't be re-used, so it has to be replaced.

Response and responsibility
KC has repeatedly refused to return calls when promised. He has ignored all calls originating from my cell phone, repeatedly cutting off after the first ring, then promising via SMS to call back in the evenings on Thursday and Friday, and subsequently failing to call even once. Offers to talk and explain the costings involved have been ignored. J managed to get him once - he turned around to accuse us of "doing something to the car" to make the repair costs go up, and cut the line on her before any meaningful discussion could take place.

Enough is enough. I was hoping to resolve this cordially and reasonably, but my patience is at an end.

Disclosure
Kevin Chang, aka 曾纪发, according to his name card, is a Project Coordinator (which I interpret as 'contractor') with LWT DESIGN Pte Ltd, a RADAC Accredited Renovator.

On Tuesday, July 13th, he reversed his vehicle into mine, and when he was informed of the estimated repair cost, apparently balked and has subsequently refused to respond to calls.

Phone numbers and more available on request.

Big money big money

This friday night is race night for the Singapore Turf Club, and punters throng the sidewalk around its Asia Chambers betting outlet in the Shenton Way business district. Unlike typical weekday nights, the public parking lots in this area are filled, and old men clutching papers with race details sit on the kerb, praying and waiting for the God of Fortune to bless them with his divine favour.



I used the Channel Mixer to b/w this photo, fiddling with the settings until I found one that I liked. Comments are welcome! The original can be found here if you're curious.

Do I smell a runner?

KC hasn't called back yet. Two calls to his cellphone went unanswered, as did an SMS request to meet today. J thinks I'm being way too nice.

I have this nagging suspicion that he might try to shirk responsibility and ignore all attempts to make contact.

Damage report

J sent the car in to PML (Performance Motors Limited, the BMW/Mini dealer in Singapore) at Alexandra today for a damage inspection and repair quote. Diagnosis: bonnet dented, bonnet stripe dented, black moulding dented and scratched. I was shocked when I heard that the repair works would come up to in excess of $900!

The other driver (let's call him KC) was equally shocked by the amount when I called him. KC was busy with a client at the time, so he said he'd call back in the evening to discuss.

Here's a pic of the visible damage, colour levels adjusted for details:



The orange oval on the right shows the bonnet out of alignment with the bumper. In the oval on the left, you can see where the dent distorts the generally smooth reflection of the floor tiles.

During a chat with my insurance people, they advised that outside settlement would be the best recourse for both parties. Via the insurance claim route, KC's insurance company would probably raise his premiums for the next couple of years, and we would have to go through a lengthy investigation/resolution process to settle the whole thing.

Because of the way our motor insurance companies operate, I'm fairly worried that it won't be a quick settlement at all. My car is just over half a year old, and still under warranty from PML. In order to keep that warranty, all body works during the warranty period must be carried out by PML. Now, my insurance policy will cover repairs performed by PML, but I'll need to claim against my own insurance.

Which is silly, because for $900+ of claims for an accident where my car was stationary, my own insurance premiums will go up.

Now, if I were to claim against KC's insurance, his insurer will insist that I get the repairs done at any of their own authorised workshops. Meaning a cheaper workshop (definitely not PML's) which will end up trying to repair rather than replace damaged parts, whether feasible or no. Which will void my warranty with PML, and leave me with a non-guaranteed, less-than-perfect repair job.

Very yuan wang (loosely translated from Chinese: wronged the innocent bystander), as VW likes to say.

Any way I look at it, I stand to lose. Wonderful.

Car accident

This entry is as much to facilitate my future recollection of events as it is a standard blog entry.

Had dinner at my folks' place and sent J home before returning to the office to try and catch the LatAm engineers online and get some work done. As I looped into Tan Quee Lan Street, hoping to find a parking lot, I came up behind a car that was reversing into a vacated lot on the right. I stopped near the left side line of parked cars, leaving substantial clearance as is my habit in these situations, and waited for the reversing car to complete its manoeuvering.

However, the parked black car which I'd just overlapped on the left seemed to think that the coast was clear, and proceeded to back out of his lot. Straight towards the front left of my MINI. Sensing movement to my left, I saw the black car reversing and mashed the horn, but I was too late - our vehicles made contact with a disheartening crumpling sound.

Both drivers got out to inspect the damage. His rear bumper had folded slightly where it appeared to have impacted with the MINI's front-left wheel. There didn't seem to be any physical damage to the MINI's body, but the panel looked suspiciously out of alignment, and the front bumper's alignment seemed off. I'll have to send the car back to Performance Motors to check that nothing else was knocked out of whack. :(

J was pretty upset when I called to tell her about the news. But don't worry hon, I'm safe, and we'll send the MINI in for a checkup to make sure everything's fine.

Funny thing is, the registration number on both car plates were pretty close to each other - the front letters were one cycle apart (second letters differed by one, third letters were identical) and the numbers differed by 1 (XXX7 and XXX8). Talk about coincidence.

Perhaps life is trying to tell me not to work overtime in the office.

Party photos posted

I put up the photos for both the official farewell party and the pizza party on Yahoo! Photos. Get them while they're hot!

My favourite lucky shot is this one, where Amos's youngest son leaps right off his shoulders.

Contact me at imagery(a)gmail*com if you want prints or the original (un-PSed) photos. Most of the photos were either auto-leveled or auto-contrasted.

Traveloguette: Penang-Phuket Cruise, part 2

(This is a continuation of part 1. For clarity's sake, the cruise lasted from June 27-30, Sunday to Wednesday. "Present" time is Tuesday, June 29.)

Woke up on Tuesday morning to discover that the ship wasn't rocking as badly as the night before. In fact, it wasn't rocking at all. Curious. I quietly crept out onto the balcony and took a look outside.


Buses!

Apparently, the ship had docked earlier, and other day tourists were already moving out to the coaches in droves. It didn't look like we'd docked at Patong Beach, which we had expected. A quick check with the reception desk confirmed that we were not, indeed, at Patong Beach; rather, the beach was on the opposite side of Phuket island. And that we were too late to join the coach that was heading there. Doh!


Islands in the sun

Since we weren't in any hurry to catch the bus, we took a leisurely breakfast at Bella Vista (nice ambience, so-so food). By this time Mum had woken up, and we headed down to the dock to find some transport out of this pier-in-the-middle-of-nowhere.

Haggled a little with the taxi driver, before agreeing to take in the sights at Phuket Town instead of Patong Beach (Patong, he said, was in its low season - monsoon period, too rainy, few activities open). I was surprised to discover that his ride was an old silver Honda Civic, with lowered suspension and huge 17-inch rims; definitely not the typical taxi I'd been expecting to see. The side windows and rear windscreen were plastered on the inside with what looked like cheap purple anti-glare film, and the leather seats were torn in several places.

On the way to Phuket Town, we discovered the pitfalls of having a terminally-low suspension coupled with oversized tires. Every time he took a corner - even gently, mind - the rear outer tire would come into contact with the mudguard, producing a nasty plasticky scraping sound. Despite that and his fuel needle hovering dangerously near 'E', he accelerated rapidly and drove fairly fast.

Our first stop was a place that sold gemstones, jewelry and other tourist-y items. We got out of there fairly quickly, it was like the Penang shop. True enough, as we drove out of the premises, the driver told us that they'd give him fuel stamps for bringing in customers.

The next stop wouldn't be giving him a stamp, he promised - the Sea Store just sold local foodstuff. J and Mum bought quite a bit of stuff, which the store packed nicely into a box and sealed up for us. I saw this hawker selling corn in the store's carpark, and bought a bowl from him for 10 baht (kinda in exchange for letting me snap away at him).


Tasty corn, only ten baht

We went up to a hilltop lookout with a fairly decent view over Phuket Town, but I didn't manage to get any photos that I was happy with. The driver then brought us to a waterside restaurant to have lunch. Being low tide, the bay that the restaurant sat on was mostly mud with a few visible trenches of water. Halfway across the bay, people with shovels could be seen working the muddy ground in the hot sun for mussels and other shells. Nice quiet place to have lunch, fairly picturesque.


Relax...

After lunch, J and Mum checked into a massage parlour for a Thai Massage. Armed with my camera and about two hours to spare, I got the driver to bring me around town to take photos. This next photo was a lucky one, shot from the hip, the camera pointed in the man's general direction. The lines converging into the man makes the shot interesting.


The cable guy

The temple just further down the road shared its grounds with a school. Kids played in the shade of the trees, safely protected from the scorching sun. It must have been a recess break or something, as they filed towards the school building shortly after.


Obligatory temple photo


The next Thai sports superstar

Several stretches of old houses had been earmarked for conservation, the driver explained. Owners were allowed to repair their buildings and repaint them in different colours if so desired, but were not otherwise allowed to change their original facade design. I turned the next shot into black and white using Photoshop's Channel Mixer function.


Shuttered

I was then brought to a Chinese temple, but I couldn't find anything interesting to take except for the building on the opposite side of the road.


Blue hues

Along one of the canals that led out to the sea, wooden boats such as these lined the sides. During high tide, the boats would be taken out for fishing. At low tide, they proved to be interesting photo subjects. :)


Beached

Back near the bay where we had lunch was a little footpath which led to a wooden walkway overlooking this mangrove swamp. The sun coming through the trees turned the ground into an interesting texture; a moment later and the sun would disappear behind the clouds, making the swamp look gloomy.


Trees and roots

Out of places to go, we headed back to the town area, where I walked around on my own for a bit. The local taxi drivers could smell 'tourist' a mile away - I kept getting asked if I needed a taxi. Smile, shake head, wave hand, walk past, ignore the heat, and look for interesting stuff to take photos of, like this flower cart.


Splash of colour on a hot day

Thai public buses are small and rickety, compared to what we're used to calling a bus back home. I caught this one as it whizzed past.


Zoom-zoom

Met up with J and Mum after their massage, and we headed back to the ship. Unfortunately, we didn't get back too early this time, and had to contend with the long boarding queue. And of all the luck, it started to rain heavily when we were halfway down the queue, causing pandemonium as shouting passengers rushed to squeeze up the gangway or under the nearest available shelter. The rain didn't last very long, but we were thoroughly soaked by the time we got on board.

The gala dinner that night at the Samurai Restaurant sucked pretty bad. Stick to the "inclusive" restaurants, when you don't expect too much you won't be disappointed.

The return trip down the Straits of Malacca lasted from Tuesday night through Wednesday evening, and was pretty uneventful. We avoided most of the public entertainment areas on the ship, and spent most of the time lazing around until it was time to disembark.

Looking back, I probably wouldn't pay for this cruise if I had to do it again. Too crowded with too many annoyingly inconsiderate and pushy folks. I'm not complaining too much though, since we got the cabin for free. :P

Quick shot

We're about to head out for dinner with my folks, so J's gone to take a shower. J's been ripping her CDs for her iPod the whole afternoon.


Sunset rip

This one's for you, Ross

Tuesday was Ross's last day at work. For the past three and a half years that I've been with the company, he's been a fantastic boss, patient, passionate in his work, hugely optimistic about everything - really great to work with. I owed it to him to dragged myself out of the sickhouse for his official farewell party Tuesday night.


And the winner is

We bought a watch for his farewell gift. Figured that it'd be a nice change from the techie stuff that we usually nick from Sim Lim. :) He ended up wearing both the old and the new watch that night, one on each wrist.

The (Iron) Pizza Chef
Yesterday (Friday) we threw Ross a smaller, cosier make-your-own-pizza party at Amos's place. And there was much laughter and rejoicing as the first pizza crafted by Ross turned out absolutely delicious. The secret? Anchovies in olive oil, which he'd brought back from Tuscany!


The talented Mr. R

Here's a parting shot from me:


Hmm, teh peng or kopi?

See you later, dude.

Traveloguette: Penang-Phuket Cruise, part 1

We didn't bother to check prior to boarding on Sunday. So it came as a bit of a surprise that the cruise itinerary was to include Phuket and not Langkawi. Meaning Thailand as well as Malaysia.

I literally scrambled to call and correct my MINDEF trip notification details. It's moderately annoying that they require a breakdown of the trip by country and duration. Couldn't they just settle for "overseas"?

Anyway. Virgo departed in fairly good weather. Decent sunshine with a smattering of clouds.


Keeping a lookout


Enjoying the weather

There would be a gala dinner event on the ship on Tuesday night, after the Phuket stopover. That translates to a free dinner in one of the ship's paid restaurants. Mum wanted to book a seat at the Chinese restaurant, Noble House, which according to her is the best of the available restaurants. Booking for Balcony Class passengers would begin shortly at 4:15pm, or so we were told. However, when we got there, we discovered that reservations had started earlier at 3:45pm, and Noble House was already fully booked. Between the remaining restaurants, we reluctantly picked Japanese - the Samurai Restaurant.

J and I explored the ship but didn't find anything much to do at all. The pool was already crowded, the jacuzzis and deck chairs mostly occupied. Decided not to hit the casino. Passed an uneventful afternoon taking random photos, then headed up to the buffet for dinner.


To infinity?

Penang
The liner approached Penang in the late morning of the next day. Overcast sky with intermittent showers seemed to be the order of the day. Nevertheless, most of the guests were eager to get on dry(?) land.


Waiting to go ashore


Ah, transport


Bye for now

At the docks, we boarded a taxi and started going around, first to find the infamous Penang char kway teow (not bad but pricey), laksa (not my forte), lor mee (good), hay mee (also good) and kon lou mee (didn't come in the end). Funny place, served iced coffee but not hot coffee.

It started raining pretty heavily just as we finished eating, so getting to the taxi proved to be a challenge. But we managed, thanks to one of the hawkers who loaned us an umbrella.


Wet wet wet!

The driver kept promoting a place that sold bak kut teh powder, so we acquiesced and headed there. Mum and J didn't like the taste of their bak kut teh, so we left fairly quickly. The place was called "Wah Thai", I suspect they had some kickback arrangement with the drivers for bringing tourists there.


Shop signboard. Rain incoming!

Went to have durian (not my forte either), then to buy dried foodstuff. And then we headed for our most important stop in Penang - Ghee Hiang. Stocked up on tau sar pneah (red bean biscuit), phong pneah (sweet biscuit?), and my favourite beh teh saw (molasses biscuit).
Edit: Apparently the bakery that we were actually supposed to go to was Him Heang - J misheard the recommendation. But it turned out all right - the Ghee Hiang stuff wasn't too shabby either. Next time we'll go to Him Heang.


Up the road from Ghee Hiang

Headed back to the ship early, avoiding the queue that would form up later at the docks - and the rain.


Escape from Penang!

Packed up some of the goodies that we'd bought this day, and prepared for dinner at Noble House, the only good meal that we'd have on the ship. Next stop, Phuket!

Dazed

I'm perfectly fine, it's the ground that's rocking from side to side. Ok, so maybe not.

Got off the ship wednesday night, and was ok until I woke up the following morning. I'd probably grown so accustomed to the ocean liner's rolling motion that it had gotten stuck in my head. And it makes its presence felt every time I stay still, or sit down.

Land-sick?

Yesterday, the office kept swaying. Right now, it's my study. If I close my eyes, it feels like I'm bobbing like a buoy in the ocean.

Getting sick later somewhat defeats the purpose of a short vacation.

I hope my head clears up by tomorrow.