Cruel and unusual

A friend of mine is visiting Singapore on a business trip, and as he was free this weekend, I took him and a colleague to the zoo. Unluckily for him, I hadn't taken into account that people need more than a few hours sat in air-conditioned meeting rooms to acclimatise themselves to Singapore's heat and humidity. They weren't jet lagged, but they also weren't prepared to traipse around the lush, warm pathways of the zoo. I'm vicious sometimes, I know.

What I did on Sunday

It's been a rather long day.  I went to bed early last night and got up early this morning and took a taxi over to the MacRitchie Reservoir to run five kilometres.  I did this about a month ago but missed the start of the run, and the next chance to run it officially isn't until the start of February, but I thought I'd try it today to see how well my training is panning out.

Giraffes

I spend a lot of my time thinking up new lies to tell people. Most recently, I've been telling people about the strange appearance of a newborn giraffe. Although they emerge from the womb already five feet tall, at least four feet of that height is in the legs: a baby giraffe has a very short neck. This is because a long neck would probably snap off as it passed through the birth canal: I guess that's evolutionary pressures for you.

It's only as the giraffe matures that its neck lengthens, each of the bones in the neck lengthening so that a fully grown giraffe can snaffle leaves from the top of tall trees, while its legs remain pretty much the same length as when it was born.

This information is met with disbelief and derision. I remember when I could lie about the number of nostrils a monkey had, or the number of times I'd had monkey testicles implanted to impart youth-supplying testosterone to my fifty-year old body. Now, it seems I can't convince people of the simplest giraffe-related fact.

I'd tried. I'd told everyone I met. Perhaps that was why I had encountered such scepticism. It must be odd to have somebody tell you about the adolescent development of a giraffe's physique, when the only words you'd said to them were "hello" or "which flight are you checking in for?" or "this table is already occupied, please go away?"

Still, I persevered. I really made an effort. I even memorised some words from a biology textbook, but it turns out that dropping the phrase "large intestine" into a conversation doesn't instantly confer authority upon yourself.

I was on the verge of giving up hope, when my friend sent me this image.


It turns out I was telling the truth all along.

Seriously, there's no such thing as Photoshop.

Another Night Safari

With friends in town at a loose end, we went to the Night Safari. Second time around, some things are more fun, some things are pallid reminders of how things used to be.

Zoo

We went to the zoo today. It poured with rain, which seems to happen whenever we visit anything in Singapore to do with wildlife. Luckily, we still had our rain ponchos from the time we went to the bird park. Unluckily, we'd left my wife's poncho at home.

Well past bedtime for Bongo: Singapore Night Safari

This evening I left work with a skip in my step at six o’clock, and rushed back to the hotel to get changed and then head up to the Night Safari.

London Zoo

Today we went to London Zoo, because there's nothing that fits a wintry day better than looking at tropical animals. Outdoors.

Bronx Zoo

After going for a 4 mile run this morning, I took the train up to the Bronx Zoo, in, well, the Bronx.

Singapore Zoo

Dragged from my bed at the insanely early hour of nine this morning, I struggled through an unsatisfying breakfast of the world's smallest Danish pastry and a cup of horrendous hotel coffee, before taking the express bus to the zoo.

Monkeys and fish and things

Today we got up later than yesterday, partly because we had no more damnfool ambitions to walk up a hill in the rain to look at the back of a shopping centre, and partly because I'd stayed up too late reading The Informant.  Another of the books brought over from Canada checked off my list.  After half an hour of unsuccessful meddling with my laptop's recalcitrant wi-fi connection at The Coffee Bean, Malaysia's Starbucks-a-like, we took a taxi out to the zoo at Lok Kawi.