all the wildlife coming together

on our last full day in the archipelago, we chartered this sweet ride to sea. ever the responsible guide, S offered me the 'out' of taking the zodiac to shore with the kiddies to snorkel in the protected bay while the rest powered their way in from the high seas. it didn't take much convincing and i'm glad i spared myself the imminent motion sickness had i been gung ho and adamant about swimming in myself. we moseyed over to the cutest little lagoon at bahia ballena, then walked on the rocks on the other side of the island. 

where all manner of wildlife awaited us. there were blue-footed boobies, sea lioness-es nursing their cubs, too many marine iguanas to count, lava lizard and lava heron. in the water, we swam with sea lions, turtles, rays and sharks. someone even saw an octopus! through the trip i kept laughing every time guide pointed out something and very counter-intuitively, we'd swim to it. who'd have thought i'd ever willingly swim towards a shark...

and M, the darling 15 year old in the group, was ducking out of my way. when i thought she was playing hide and seek with the sea lion. 

there was a magical moment at the end where we sat in complete silence and stillness for 4minutes to take in the sounds of the galapagos. simple as it may sound, it was one of the highlights for me as we sat and watched the animals watch us.

santa cruz

we left isabela after three lovely nights and moved on to santa cruz. the tour outfit was smart to save the best for last, because with a balcony like this...

and breakfast view like this,

it was hard enough to get out of bed, much less out of bed and into a kayak for some recreational kayaking. to my sheer relief, we were done with expedition kayaking on day 3 and had the luxury of taking our time in the lazy backwaters of santa cruz. we paddled by a shipwreck with a squatter of the winged variety, and by some crazy cliffs covered in bird poo.

the colours were amazing! never seen such brilliance and this recreational paddling was so much more my cup of tea than fighting the ocean currents.

sharks and boobies

no, i'm not being naughty here! 

never seen so many sharks in one place in my life, let alone in the wild. there's something about the water temperature in tthis natural channel that appeals to them.

 

the rock is covered in boobies if you look close, and below are two blue-footed boobies about to launch into the mating dance among the lava rocks and tunnels. let's just say they were camera shy when the photo was taken.

isabela and her dive bars

we stayed at a beautiful beachfront hotel on isabela and as the slogan reads, "our pool is the pacific ocean". and hey, they were right! one of the things i appreciated most about going on a land-based tour was how we'd rock up into a fancy hotel every night. well, every night except the first two that we spent in a tent. on second thoughts, maybe that's why we could afford such luxury after... my sea legs are non-existent so live aboard i.e. sleeping on a boat would've been my idea of a floating hell. in fact, taking a ferry from stockholm to helsinki and back, back in the day, was horrible enough. so a big thank you to the mister for recognising my inherent inadequacy and choosing a land-based tour. 

and what this lovely little hotel had going for it was the sheer volume of awesome dive bars just a stone's throw from its patio. now i don't know about you but i don't like chichi beach bars one bit. overpriced cocktails and a 'to see and be seen' crowd? ugh. doesn't help that after camping for two nights, presentable is the last thing i felt. so take the glam factor down a couple of notches, add some authenticity for good measure and tadaaa! dive bars just bursting with genuine personality.

and while this little bonfire looks pretty, the bunch of us were struck with hacking coughs minutes later. guess that's what happens when they burn an entire wooden door.

gratitude

last week was one of those weeks where nothing seemed to go right. and to compound things, i was floored by the worst flu since freshers' flu (october 2011). so coming back from the high that was easter break in ecuador was made worse by the mister leaving the day after for a work trip. now i'm immensely grateful for a husband who works so hard to support our little family of two. it's never easy for the sole breadwinner, much less when married to a huge financial liability. someone asked recently where i'd be if i hadn't met him and the truthful answer is without him signing me up for the medsch entrance exam, and first actively encouraging me to apply, then actually take the offer when i was accepted, i'd be a commercial litigator or a starving pro bono lawyer for mistreated migrant workers but that's another story for another day. it's beyond incredible to have found someone 101% supportive, who lights up when he talks about me doing medicine. so many times i've overheard him tell people how happy he is that i'm here, and how it's something he can see me being very good at. which's why despite being great with long-distance for so long, it's increasingly hard when he goes away.

especially when it's been rough week! that said, i'm just grateful for the luxury of more time off. the fact that i could lie in bed all day for one week (and counting!) goes to show that there's nothing else i need to be doing, nowhere else i need to be. there's no way i'd be afforded so much time off if i was working. our schedule's lightened considerably since first year and i find myself trying to convince people that "yes, i'm a full-time medical student..." and "no, it's not a correspondence course!" which in and of itself are little blessings to have time on my hands for a change. fortunate to be able to take things slow this term (although this might bite me in the backside come year-end exams in exactly a month!) and genuinely enjoy what i'm doing. there's a beauty to the systematic rigour that is medicine, one i'm trying to tease out and appreciate for what it's worth. 

of course, there's the amazing three month summer break to look forward to and while it's my last 'long' break, i start clinicals in september. which, really, is when you start to feel like a medic. so i'm pretty psyched. but before i get ahead of myself, summer is looking pretty darn amazing. starting with a trip home, cordon bleu-bound cousin and faraway friends in london for foodie adventures then spending our first anniversary (!!!) in spain, a week in paris and around a bit later on, phuket and somewhere exciting for the summer bank holiday. so things are looking up despite the stuffy nose and scratchy throat. i dare not go to the GP despite being ill for a week because the last time i went with an URTI (upper respiratory tract infection) i was told to man up and go home. neither of which i appreciated then, or now for that matter, but i guess there's something to be said for paracetemol, lots of fluids and rest.

and every time i feel like lapsing into self-pity (i know, pathetic!) i tell myself the life i traded for this one would be much worse. so thank you God.

floreana

we were supposed to fly from st. cristobal to isabel but the aeroplane broke down. for real. and while the airline had a second, smaller plane and wanted to fly us (ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!) in two groups, S wisely said no. testament to S' versatility was that he chartered a sweet little yatch and we sailed to isabela instead, stopping floreana (an island not originally on the itinerary) en route. 

BEST. DECISION. EVER. because we had this bonus, magical moment where we 1. saw dolphins 2. swam with dolphins in the middle of the pacific ocean 500miles from the continent. it doesn't get better than that. and at floreana, we chanced upon giant tortoises mating (!!!) and it was hilarious. we've a video that i can't post because it's basically tortoisep*rn. we rode a pick-up truck up to the highlands and the fresh, cool air was a welcome respite from the equatorial heat.

expedition kayaking

now i had the privilege of attending an all girls' school that believed in being well-groomed more than it believed in sending us to 'outward*bound school'. while other teenaged girls were doing night hikes and confidence jumps, we were schooled on etiquette, carriage and what colours would match our skin tone. looking at me, you can't tell, but i assure you my alma mater went to great lengths to see we were as presentable as possible. while i don't harbour taitai (lady of leisure) aspirations, secret or otherwise, i'm also hardly the outdoorsy type. regarding being a taitai, i really don't think i could take myself seriously if i dropped everything to be a wife. i mean, if there were children in the equation it's a fair point but to stop work just to look after my able-bodied spouse? no thanks. ohmy now how did this end up an anti-taitai rant? :)

anyhoos i was talking about kayaking. and how i've only ever kayaked once. in the maldives. in crystal clear calm water. this was a whole different kettle of fish ! the current was strong, the sun stronger and there were times when i think our guide feared our fledgling marriage wouldn't survive the kayak. but it was an epiphany, really, and i'm glad we did all five hours (!!!) of it. and when it was time for the boat to tow the kayaks back to shore, i was relieved we didn't have to paddle ourselves all that way back.

out of body

had the strangest experience at the baltra airport when we were leaving the galapagos for guayaquil. i saw the most gorgeous man walking out of the loo and my heart lurched. in the split-second it took to look him up and down, i realised it was the mister. how weird is that? like i checked my own husband out... haha so loser right, my pseudo-wandering eye wanders right back to where it should be. but it was a nice little bolt from the blue where i'm reminded that the mister is indeed a fine looking young man and hmm it keeps things exciting. this also just happened when his sister sent a photo to the family whatsapp and i was like 'dayum who's that good looking creature?' before my brain caught up with my hormones and i realised, again, it was the mister. these flu meds are really pulling a number on me...

but yay to being married to someone who's only gotten better looking with time, superficial as i may be, and here's to giving as good as you get. which's something i'm a firm believer of because... heyyy i've a young husband to look good for, i can't have a third slice of chocolate cake, thank you very much! part of me still pinches myself in disbelief that he picked me and he's mine forever and ever. yes, i gush and babble that way when giddy on promethazine*hydrochloride. oh the joys of being able to self-diagnose and medicate. 

more than once in the galapagos i'd help the mister get breakfast while he kept an office hour in the morning. when asked how i knew what he liked, i said smugly, "well we've been going out for almost 6 years, there's not much i don't know about him." only to have him leave stuff on his plate! pride before fall? and i realise a much humbler, and accurate answer would've been i still only know 80% of his preferences and we're both constantly changing. factor in how he's feeling in the morning and the odds of plating every thing he'd have picked for himself are quite slim.

camping on st. cristobal

a bit of house-keeping by way of introduction to our galapagos trip. the mister is planner supreme (i mean, he only planned and executed our three weddings, no big...) and once he set his heart on visiting the galapagos, i knew we'd be doing it the best possible way. now i'm not a fan of the outdoors, nor exertion, but i'm a fan of the mister and knew how much it meant to him. to his credit, he did warn me and give me plenty of chances to put my foot down, and he finally decided on this great little outfit that practiced 1) "leave no trace" 2) supports local enterprise. what that meant is that when we camped, there was no showers because we couldn't use soap on the island. every trace of waste water, right down to the bit you spit out after brushing your teeth) was bottled and removed from the island. we also had a local naturalist guide with us every where we went, used local charters and engaged only locals (captain, sailor, guide, crew) as we made our way through the archipelago. the only "non-local" but ecuadorian nevertheless was S our amazing guide. 

it was a mixed group to say the least. there were 6 new yorkers (80 year old granny, her three kids, her daughter's 9 year old and 12 year old), a mother-teen daughter pair from mineapolis and us. S basically had to simultaneousy manage guests from 5 decades (<10, 10-19, 20s, 40s and 80) and keep us all entertained. talk about multi-tasking! he did this with aplomb and i'm grateful for how he managed me and my aversion to the outdoors. incidentally, it was sort of how he handled the kiddies haha, constantly reassuring, encouraging me to "just give it a try" and allowing me an 'out' any time it proved too much. the 80 year old, by the way, is an elegant elegant parisian lady who moved to NYC in her 20s to work for the UN, married an american and has stayed on since. she's fit as a fiddle, putting me to shame on more than one occasion and exuding this old world glamour while the rest of us degenerated into a bug-bitten mess.

we spent the first two nights on a deserted beach at st. cristobal where only our outfit was allowed to camp. here's the mister carrying everything, taking photos after peeing next to a pelican in the morning, the campsite bathed in the soft morning light and breakfast being prepared by our ever-efficient campsite crew. the meals were amazing and they worked magic in the very basic kitchen.

guayaquil

after the nightmare iberian*air flight, we finally made it to guayaquil. it's not a pretty city, and our hotel warned us of the perils stepping out would put us in. it was as bad as not even being able to take a taxi that wasn't pre-ordered by the hotel. we thought it was just the hotel being, well, ameri*can and paranoid but we later heard from independent sources first-hand accounts of being car-jacked. hadn't heard of the city till we took off from madrid, and can't say i missed much by not knowing .did an obligatory city tour and was satisfied after two hours that we could safely bypass the rest of the city. nice hotel, albeit dated. felt like we were going back in time to the early 90s. 

against the hotel's manifesto, we headed out for a local brunch. our first meal (tell a lie but i guess argentinian steak in the hotel doesn't count!) was plantains with cheese, covered in deep fried pork and lard in what felt like adam*road hawker*centre. yumyum.

saw this little fella on the city tour, not to be confused with his aquatic cousin, the marine iguana endemic to the galapagos.

on the morning we linked up with the rest of the group and flew to st. cristobal in the galapagos, we'd a slab of crackling each (amazing buffet breakfast!) and knew straight away it was going to be a good day.

goodbye guayaquil, helloooo galapagos!

the horror that is i*berianair

so off we went from london to madrid and then onwards to guayaquil. considering how (relatively) little we paid for the flight, we should've seen this coming. 

1. delayed 2h from madrid to guayaquil because... GET THIS.. they forgot to CLOSE the (auxillary) door. thank goodness they realised this when we were JUST ABOUT to take off and had to back track up the runway, returning to the bay. 

2. completely bypassed quito! it worked for us (final destination guayaquil) and we were on time despite the delay leaving madrid but oh boy there were many unhappy passengers stranded in guayaquil for the night when the plane decided NOT to stopover at quito en route LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO.

3. delayed another 2h when leaving guayaquil for madrid. the plane had come in from quito on time but we weren't allowed to board. saw the captain and crew strolling in about 30minutes after our scheduled departure, and took off late. there was no air con or ventilation on the plane for the first few hours either.

4. late arriving into madrid, almost missed our connection. turns out our connecting flight from madrid to london was similarly delayed so passengers like us could board. took off over an hour late, missed heathrow window, ended up circling FOREVER before we could land.

5. rubbish service - on the 12h flight from madrid to guayaquil the stewardesses were playing on their iPads instead of attending to passengers. same returning from guayaquil. when passengers were boarding, crew just hung around the galley, no help with bags whatsoever.

6. the selling point for our long haul flight was an 'individual front pocket'. i kid you not. by the time you're bragging about a seat pocket, something's seriously wrong.

give me singapore*air any time! we've traveled some pretty dubious airlines. from being told while mid-flight to move to the back of the plane on a malaysian*airlines flight to kunming to "balance" the plane, to air*italia delaying us for 6h in milan without explanation, this consistently disastrous iberian*air service takes the cake.

airline rant aside, the rest of the holiday was rather lovely. will post more tomorrow!

preparation

so the mister and i finally got round to going on honeymoon. we did go to the western fjords after our midsummer wedding last year but um 13h days where we're out at 5am does not a honeymoon make. come to think of it, neither does this 10 day boot camp with crazy amounts of kayaking, hiking, trekking, snorkeling and volcano walking. we did mini-moon in phuket shortly after our singers celebration but it took awhile to save up for this crazy crazy trip. also took awhile for the mister to get some time off work! but here we are and i'm so excited to be going to the galapagos. we're not glamping (boo!) but i hear the tent will be pitched for us. which means i don't have to put my newly acquired tent-pitching skills (learnt at wild*trials2012!) to the test. phew!

tea with M

M is a dear friend and LLM student in london. we met a couple of years ago in shanghai and have stayed in touch since, not realising that we'd both be in london at the same time at some point. i love these chance meetings that turn into something bigger. people argue that friendships are circumstantial and most times we're in touch with acquaintances who are conveniently located nearby. but i'm fortunate to have a couple of friends close by, and many more oceans away. thank goodness for whatsapp! and aren't low-maintenance friendships the best? i've a lovely friend, R, who on her own admission writes 200-300 christmas cards every year, and has for the last decade of so! now that is dedication and i'm so flattered to have found a place on her ever-growing christmas list. while i'm guilty of not being the most organised of correspondents but know that when we do meet up, we pick up from where we left off, wherever that may have been.

the home cooking continues but with vegetables this time!

you can almost say i was inspired by the supper club to actually get some cooking done at home :) and i also realised i can't possibly claim to be a responsible adult if my idea of cooking is zapping frozen lasagne. if i zapped home-made lasagne, well, there's a bit more self-respect in that. i'm also a big believer in having your cake and eating it (see tower of terror below). and even get a bit defensive when people presume that i am hand-less in the kitchen just because i used to be a (ugh) career woman. in fact, i don't like how 'career' comes before 'woman'. why can't i be a woman who works and also keeps house? it's funny how when people hear i'm a qualified lawyer in medical school, i'm automatically an over-achieving and un-marriable shrew till proven otherwise.

our tiny one-bedder is something i take pride in. keeping it clean, keeping the mister in clean, crease-free shirts and cooking our meals is a role that gives me great satisfaction. i've nothing but respect for homemakers who stay at home and do all that. power to you! but i'm at a stage where we've a small flat and no kids, leaving me with plenty of time on my hands. and what better time than now to expand my very limited repertoire? dinner parties are also this fantastically grown up concept for me, like you've really got to have your life together before you can have friends over. and honestly, it's so much more affordable than going to a restaurant. then again, the mister might change his mind after he sees this month's electricity bill. currently we can only fit people into our flat two at a time, sort of like a mini noah's ark, but you know, sometimes two friends with huge personalities is all you need. though it's even better when they come bringing enough dessert for an small nation!

happy 30th D!

i've lovely changmoh cousins who worked at pen*haligon's to put themselves through e*ton. i mean, how cool is that?! it also means one of them has a penchant for sloaney hangouts crawling with old e*tonians (ugh) but the other two are relatively unaffected. ok, make that the middle one who's relatively unaffected. and it was the middle one whose 30th we celebrated, albeit belatedly, with a fantastic evening at a japanese supper club. 

now we'd gone for the french supper club a month before and that's when i realised it was best enjoyed as a double date. who better to ask than my now 30 year old cousin and his gorgeous wife K. dinner was one of the best i've ever had and the three hours just flewww by. we also got talking to the foursome (also on a double date!) next to us and one of them, robbie, has the most amazing food blog that even tells you how to pimp frozen pizza. how cool is that! we enjoyed it so much that we're thinking of going back over summer but part of me wants to quit while we're ahead. give me a few months and my expectations will be so high :(

what the wind blew over

so in the previous post i talked about how T had come by for the weekend! one of the nicest things about being in london is how everyone and their mother seems to pass through. and we've friends in town literally every weekend. i'd last seen T when i was back in stockholm on my graduation trip but she's a sweetheart and we'd kept in touch through postcards and over fb. we were in the same discussion group in stockholm and spent many happy hours discussing swedish law along with the previous night's erasmus shenanigans... she hasn't changed one bit since we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrads but don't mess with this clever cookie. she's on track to becoming an administrative law judge (!!!) in austria and i'm so very proud of her. i mean, if i'm never going to be a judge, at least i can live vicariously through her. am also most touched that she resisted the siren call of the london shops and chose me over an afternoon of indulgence. the first thing she said when she stepped into the flat was how surreal it was because she's seen all the photos on fb and knew what it looked like before even being over. i tried to make scones to give her a right royal london welcome but that didn't go so well. so i made up for that with coffee and lots of sake, then we went to the diner for pineapple mojitos while waiting for her sister to join us for dinner. 

so, this is the cool part! T's sister is just about to graduate from lawsch and my sister just started lawsch. and the way T is with her sister reminds me so much of how i am with mine. there's just something about fellow big sisters that i identify with and like very much :)

smorgasboard with a side of stockholm nostalgia

the invite read:
Inspired by the golden age of 1950s air travel, ‘Mile High’ is their series of immersive dining events, which’ll take you on virtual city breaks to Gothenburg (in March), followed by Beirut, Sicily and Mozabique later on in the year.

You’ll be welcomed to the departure lounge (home to Mile High’s airborne DJ division) by air hostesses handing out ‘check in’ Campari cocktails and gourmet canapés, including fresh roe and dark rye sourdough served with “smoked reindeer”… Donner, probably.

Next - having bypassed the burden of actually having to fly anywhere - you’ll zip into an intimate dining room inspired by “the best of Swedish design”. 

Which may mean that you have to build your own chair.

Once there - while enjoying performances from Mile High’s cabin crew - you’ll enjoy a four-course feast from The Talent, which promises to include pan-fried scallops with puréed potato; crayfish and brown shrimp with smoked bacon and sour cream; chargrilled elk…. and liquorice meringue.

In summary, they'll be serving all sorts.

and with a copywriter that good, how could we say no? credit to our ever-resourceful, hyper-efficient lovely M who came, saw and conquered. well, the guest list at least. she got us tickets and i was psyched for our double date with which to start my easter break on a high.

was too engrossed in the conversation to take many photos and before i knew it, we were already on the smorgasboard. for those who've just started reading this little blog (hello there, sudden influx of readers on my unreliable stat counter!) i was on exchange in stockholm as an undergrad and left my heart in the city of dappled light. stockholm was (and still is!) a big part of my 20s and some of the closest friends i have now are friends i made there. in fact, there's definitely a swedish connection to most of the people i meet up with in london. from T who visited from austria last weekend, to bolognaise G who's finishing his masters' thesis here, to perth-born melbourne-based N who's specially coming by over our anniversary. self-confessed swedophile (?) that i am, i jump at anything 'swedish', except meatballs. despite mysterymeatballs being the name of my exchange blog that continued till final year of lawsch.

ironically i never made it to gothenburg while i was in stockholm -kicks self- but the pop up dinner was as close as i could get to sweden for now. we'd elk which i love but not had since our epic 9h swedish home-cooking dinner with C, a family friend's family friend. he very sweetly invited the mister and i to his for dinner. in fact, i think he went out of his way to gather a 'young people' group (comprising his ex wife's nephew and a friend's son) so we wouldn't feel out of place! isn't that kind? :) so we arrived at C's at 6pm and somehow stumbled out after, like, ten too many at 3am. thank goodness the t-bana (stockholm metro) is 24h on the weekend. if only the tube shared the same swedish efficiency :(

and M and her boyfriend are the warmest couple ever. who'd have thought that M and i would grow up on perpendicular streets to each other but only meet 15 years later in london! singapore is so small, and london is even smaller.

coffee with a side of steamer trunk

i often complain that singers is faddy, that london is faddier and every single hipster and their mother is off on the great coffee hunt, flitting from one single-roaster to the next in search of the holy grail of coffee. i don't like coffee fans who take themselves, or their coffee too seriously. it strikes me as pretentious and but maybe that's just me being sour grapes because i can't tell the difference between your fanciest single origin and nescafe 3-in-1. in fact, i'm not much of a coffee fan because i'm caffeine tolerant. a trait that left me high and dry as an undergrad because when most other people could power up with red bull or a cuppa, only abject fear and desperation would keep the zz monster away. and honestly, i don't think i've ever been so scared that sleep didn't prevail. but now i'm married to one of the aforementioned coffee aficionados (see, god has a sense of humour...) i do find myself going to cool little coffee hidey holes in spite of myself. and this was one of the better finds. but it's never coffee for me, always a hot chocklit with full fat milk because life's too short for skinny lattes :)

t*esco does it

there's been a lot in the press about tesco lately, what with the horse meat fiasco. if i were to weigh in, i don't see what the big deal is. if the packet says 13% beef and presumably 87% random stuff then it's really not misrepresentation if horse is part of the mystery meat / fillers. but what is nice about t*esco is the awesome meal deals they have. one day when i was feeling lazy, i picked up a starter, main, dessert AND A BOTTLE OF WINE for GBP10. the wine by itself retails for GBP8 so it was practically free. yes, i've arguably fallen for some very clever marketing but hey, marketing that throws in a bottle of montepulciano red? i'm down for it :)

the M word

there's an annual charity event that involves what the photo below captures. however, it's somewhat subversive and really not something i want popping up in a search*engine. another perk of living near the pub is not having to go far distances in the sub zero weather in a thin pair of scrubs. not wanting to be the old woman sitting by herself at the bar, i summoned J out of the throes of research paper-writing. and he obliged to meet me for a pint, but he. was. too. cool. for. scrubs. so guess who did end up looking old by proxy...?