Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Keeping History Alive!

During our time in Ohio, Pris and I had pretty full days of visiting family and friends and dealing with the business end of things, which didn't leave as much time as we'd hoped for visiting actual sites. Luckily, we did manage to squeeze in an afternoon at the Natural History Museum, no doubt my favorite in Cleveland, though there's definitely no shortage of other museums in the area. If you have more time than us, you might want to add a few more hours and check out the Art Museum and Botanical Gardens right within a few minutes walk of the Natural History Museum.

The highlights of the museum are always the same for me, so a good 2/3 of our pictures were taken in the dinosaur and animal exhibits, but there are also rooms dedicated to geology, space, gemstones and the like, so you can definitely spend a few hours wandering, very worth the $10USD entrance fee.

(this beauty greets you right at the entrance)

There's one other pretty interesting (and hard to miss) exhibit permanently showing in the museum worth a look at, called the Foucault Pendulum. Used to visibly demonstrate the Earth's rotation, the pendulum makes a complete turn every 36 hours, so if you're willing to stand around a few minutes to watch you'll see a few dominoes falling over which the staff constantly has to put back standing. 

(we're way too restless for that though, so we didn't see anything fall)

Although I may be biased, I'd wager the best exhibit is the dinosaur room, by far. The museum puts up a good show with plenty of life sized models and a few rare artifacts to boot. If you're not interested in the shifting of tectonic plates or soil, this room alone makes the whole trip worth it, and is pretty much the reason we chose this museum as our only stop of the sort, since both Pris and I have a soft spot for old bones.

Alright, the more recent animal room is pretty likely to impress as well. But c'mon, look at that gorgeous beast up there.

(yeah it's nice looking, but there's no t-rex here)

I'm afraid to say we more or less breezed through the rest of the exhibits, because as interesting as natural history is, we just can't spend long looking at soil samples and gemstones.

(a little peace offering to those who do like this stuff)

All in all, it was a nice relaxing way to spend an afternoon considering most of the rest of our trip we barely had time to breathe. Just be thankful we haven't given into the temptation to talk all about all the great US foods we brought back. (...yet.)

The Japanese are insane (in a good way)

Hello again! (If anyone's still reading this?!) We're really sorry we haven't been updating so much as of May! We just got back from our vacation to Michi's hometown in Ohio and then straight back into work and unpacking and all that lovely stuff, so things have been real hectic. We should get regular again starting this June though!

There's so much to blog about but (1) my laptop broke (it's the one with the photoshop program so... no nice pictures anymore until I get it fixed) (2) we have too many pictures, so I'll make a really short post about... Japanese toilets.

...no, seriously. Japanese toilets.

Japanese airport toilets, in any case. We had to make a transit in Narita/Haneda on our way back to Singapore, and with a twelve hour layover there really wasn't much to do but admire the toile-- I'm kidding. But really, look at that toilet. Porcelain white and clean and smelling like cleaning agent, no spills on the floor, nothing. Perfect toilet. Except... what the heck is that thing sticking out on the side, you say? No way, a remote control? For the toilet?

Now with butt, intimate, and fake actions!

Yep, that's what it is. A remote for the toilet, and pressing a button either plays a flushing noise (for the embarassed ladies who don't want others to hear them do their doo-dah), washes your intimate areas, or jettisons your rear end. And let's not forget the stop button to put an end to any of that. There's even a water pressure selector and a volume control! It even comes with instructions for those of us who unfortunately don't have one of these beauties in our homes:

...needless to say, we tried it out. The verdict? Pretty cool to look at and to hear about, but not really that great of a deal and really unnecessary overall. In fact, the bidet and butt-washing functions felt more like someone was gently peeing upwards onto my nether regions with cool, clean water than doing any actual cleansing. Still cool though in any case, I mean, how many people do you know have sat on one of these?

And that was just one toilet cubicle. This is the handicapped washroom. Isn't it the most awesome handicapped washroom you've ever seen?

A Trip Back in Time: Pulau Ubin

This Sunday we took a trip to one of Singapore's 63 islands, Pulau Ubin (or Granite Island, for those who don't speak Malay) to escape the stress and hectic lifestyle on the main island.

Like something out of an old picture book, Pulau Ubin is a far cry from today's industrialized Singapore. No McDonalds, no skyscrapers, not even many people!

To get access to the island we took a bumboat for $2.50 SGD, about a 15 minute boat ride from the Singapore coast. Luckily when we arrived the boat was just full enough, so we didn't have to waste any time waiting around. The first few minutes off the boat see plenty of people. There are a few small eateries and tons of bike shops (as low as $2 for a bike rental per day! If only it were so cheap at East Coast Park!), so there were a good number of tourists hanging around.

From there we decided to hike to Chek Jawa, about a 45 minute hike through the tiny island to the east coast, where there is a vast ecosystem and plenty of cool things to see. Unfortunately, this area has been claimed by Singapore for land reclamation and may not be around as early as next year unless something changes.

Imagine our surprise at seeing no one else making the trip! I think this was the first actual quiet I've had in the last 8 months since arriving in Singapore.

We picked the perfect day. Since we're in the middle of monsoon season it has been raining just about every day for weeks, but the skies cleared just long enough for our day out. We even had a nice breeze and good cloud cover the majority of the time!

After being eaten by dozens of mosquitoes, we finally made it! Like the rest of the island, there weren't many people around so we took the opportunity to relax in the sun and enjoy the nice breeze a while before moving on down the board walk.

Chek Jawa is definitely worth the trouble to get out! Absolutely beautiful and very interesting. We saw mud skippers and a few different types of crab along the coast as the tide went out, although the elusive horseshoe crab never made an appearance. If nothing else I'd recommend it for the ability to get away from the crowds of people for a while.

Around the boardwalk we eventually came to a tall observation tower in the mangrove. Climbing up was kind of scary and we could feel it swaying in the breeze from the top but the views were gorgeous. Around that area we came across one last thing:

Real wild monkeys! It was my first time ever seeing wild monkeys so I was pretty pumped. One of them stole another visitor's orange and was munching away.

Overall we've agreed we'll definitely give Pulau Ubin another few visits at least. The peace and quiet was relaxing, the views were spectacular, and overall the day was amazing. Definitely worth a look at to anyone coming to the little red dot!