Home

The trip home was long and tiring. Nothing more needs to be said.

I slept 16 hours straight my first night home - I was very tired. The second night, however, I went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 2am, wide awake. I eventually gave up and read a book, cleaned my desk, unpacked, and now I'm interneting and it's 6am. I'm tired now, so I guess the plan worked.

My final trip to Borneo was amazing. I climbed the mountain, did the wildlife adventure camp - observed two wild orangutans and a 15 foot python - and went scuba diving at Sipadan Island, the #4 scuba dive spot in the world. Do the Google search. I saw 3 sharks, lots on really big sea turtles, and thousands of really colorful little and big fish.

I'm not going to say any more about Borneo. For one, I want to go to bed, and two, I'm home now, come talk to me. I have lots to say.



That's the end of this blog, thanks for reading.

Kinabalu

Kinabalu National Park, 2:18pm, 7-12-07

The rain begins just as I put on my shoes to leave for a guided walk of the botanical gardens. Unfortunate. However, the room that Matt and I are saying in ("Hill Lodge #4") is nice and quite big. There is a writing desk, a couch, and lots of floor space. Its design is kind of like an uberdelux yurt. It's raining much harder now and it's cold too. Frankly, I'm not looking forward to walking through this tomorrow (or the next day, or the next...). But as my dad said it's raining at home too, so while my location is changeable the weather is not.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. After making tea, the rain has stopped - for the moment at least. I will prepare my clothes and go to the gardens. I suppose I'd better familiarize myself with cold rain once again.


Two days later
After two days on Kinabalu, I can hardly walk up the stairs to my room. The trail is 6 km the first day, then 2 more to the top and back to the bottom on the second. Most of the way is steps. And the reward was abstract at best. We got to the summit at 5:30am this morning. There was a heavy fog, a strong wind, and a cold rain. Conspicuously lacking was any sort of view.

The hike down was nice though, as it cleared up some and the barren granite landscape was cetainly unusual and grand. I took pictures, but I have no way to get them to onto the computer that I'm using at the hostel.

Tomorrow we take a 6 hour bus to the east coast of Borneo to the city of Sandakan. From there, we will spend several days in the jungle around the Kinagatangan river. It's like a jugle wildlife safari, I hope.

I can put up pictures when I'm waiting around in airports on my way home.

I just finished my last final!  It's amazing how finishing finals always feels so good.  I'm now waiting to get a foot massage. Life is good.

Almost done

Today is Sunday.  I have a final paper due tomorrow, an exam on Tuesday.  Wednesday, I pack.  Thursday the 6th, I leave for a ten day adventure in Borneo.  I return to Singapore on December 16, when I will occupy my last day with another concert, a trip to the Singapore night safari, and maybe a movie.  I spend whatever's left of that night at the airport, and board my flight home at 7:20 am.  I have a two hour layover in Tokyo, Japan, then fly at 5:20 pm to San Fransisco, arriving at 9:20 am of the same day, eight hours before I left for S.F.  I wait six hours, then board a flight to Portland, where I arrive at 6:03pm on United Flight 0554.  Hopefully someone will be there to pick me up (hint).

The most interesting part of all of that will undoubtedly be my trip to Borneo.  I'm paying an absurd amount of money to be escorted to the top of Mt. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in SE Asia - it's taller than Mt. Hood.  After that, I take a bus east to the city of Sandakan, which serves as home base for an exploration of the Kinabatangan river.  The goal: see a lot of monkeys.  (There are also pygmy elephants!)

I'll publish pictures of that fun event after it's happened.  Then, my trip and this record will be over.  On balance, I'm glad I'm going home.

(now to go write that essay...)

SSO

I haven't been up to much exciting recently. Finals week is bearing down and I'm frantically throwing assignments at it hoping it will pass painlessly.

Last night I went to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. I've never been to "the Symphony" before, but I liked it. Tickets are only $12 for the cheap seats. It turns out a lot of people like that price, because the second balcony where all the cheap seats are was sold out and the good seats on the floor were empty.

pictures from Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore

eeehhhwwww

I took three months, but the wildlife here is finally getting to me. There was the cocckraoch, first alive, then dead, in my bathroom. Tonight's encounter was closer to home, but not as gross.

I decided to go running. I took off my shorts and picked up my running shorts off the hook. There was a leaf inside. Oh wait, it's actually a lizard. I jumped, it jumped and hit under the frisbee. I got a picture before it ran under my door into the hall.



PS There is a large winged ant thing under a coke can on my desk. I keep forgetting and moving the can, so I don't know if it's still there. I'm not going to check.

The Right Honourable Tony Blair

This afternoon I went to the public lecture by former Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair. I went with a British guy, so it really saw a very "Anglo" experience. Tony (we're buddies now - first names only) talked mostly about "The Crisis in Global Governance: Challenges and Solutions." But I thought the most interesting thing he talked about is how isolated he was as Prime Minister. Until he left that job this June he did not have a cell phone. He had also never sent an email.

I was pretty far away

There was a Q&A session after his speech. I went up to one of the mics with a question, but they ran out of time and didn't get to me. I wasn't too disappointed, because right after that there was a reception in the foyer with free food and drink that was actually really good.