Travel for Work

They say that "all roads lead to Rome."
Well, the old adage has expired, and today it has been replaced with "all roads lead to China," - So! Here I am.

Cherry Blossoms of Ithaca

Spring came early this year! Or more like,
Spring came early just for me!



I was in Ithaca only for two weeks at the beginning of Aprul, but was lucky enough to see the cherry blossoms and magnolias bloom. We enjoyed having our own cherry blossom picnic lunch by Olin library, with pita and soups from Temple of Zeus. It's quite a privilege to be lazily sitting under the cherry trees, and I find it rather strange that most people don't take advantage of this beautiful location more often. If this was Japan, it'd be spot that one covets for days and nights before the peak blossoming day!

서울

Transit in Seoul on my way to the US. It was at the end of the winter season so it was VERY cold! Regardless, Seoul is elegant.

Distant landscapes

Glass stickers at Seoul Tower tells me that if I look far enough in that direction, I can see Roma!

Rombok Bete

This is a little story of how we got there together, some 20 of us taking an afternoon plunge at the waterfall...
On my last day in Mika, I want to go to the green stones waterfall (Rombok Ece) again. After teaching the year 12 English class, I asked one of them, Dara, if she would like to go to Lombok (I had heard the name from little kids, so they can't roll their 'r' s quite yet). She is confused. Lombok? (As in Pulau Lombok?)
Yes.
Eh?
Oooh...ok, Rombok!
Rombok means waterfall in the local language, Dayak.
While Lombok means the island Lombok, to the east of Bali.

According to her, there is another bigger waterfall at about more than an hour's walk from the school. The walk would takes us into the palm oil plantations and into a small stretch of jungle by the stream. "Oh, that sounds exciting!" I said. So we made an appointment to go there after lunch.

Well, I thought it was going to be fine and dandy, but apparently the teachers didn't think so. The kids technically can't go out of the school compound during the month before their final examination, and I can't go out unaccompanied. I stood in front of them for a while and kinda grinned, "It's going to be fine... they're grown up already!" Finally the let up on the note that we should return should I feel that the walk is too strenuous. At that time I was thinking: What could be more strenuous than that Cinque Terre walk uphill for 4 hours! Besides, Ithaca is uphill, day in and day out. It should be fine... except, should anything happen to them... I can't imagine what the consequences would be.

And so we went. We prayed before we set off.
At first it was nerve-wracking to cross the road... there is no light and the traffic is fast. Then there's a long stretch of villagey road. then finally... we got to the shadier plantations area.


It's quite scenic I must say... with the ferns growing on the pillar-like palms, and it's star-shaped fronds shading over us. Except... the heat was quite something. My friends was very kind to take my bag for me and held up the umbrella =P (me being the city bum)


Seems that the guys are more fond of the umbrella than the girls. It's the same umbrella that I've been dragging around Europe and Australia for the past 6 months! =D


Some people used broad leaves as substitute for umbrellas.


This is the stream above the waterfall.


One and a quarter hours later... we have arrived!
Needless to say, it was LOADS of fun splashing.




Hope to see you again!

MIKA discipline

Day in, day out. Wake up at 4:45. Morning hymns. 5:00 Line up for showers. 6:00 line up for breakfast. 7:00 School. 12:00 line up for lunch. 15:00 school finishes. Rest. 16:00 electives/afternoon shower. 18:00 Line up for dinner. 19:00 praise singing, then study time. 21:00 evening meeting, more singing, some more study. 22:00 lights out.



[above] Fish: the daily fare.
[below] Monday and Saturday electives: Clearing up the fields.



What can I say? After years of training to sit in front of a monitor screen and go click click click, I barely have the muscle to lift up the machete and start hacking at the bushes. So, seeing the kids do this, especially the ladies, is so coool! Although, hacking the bushes is increasingly becoming a lost art among the more 'city' kids who tend to just watch and chat and wait until the clock strikes 17:30... which is, time to take a shower! Oh well, got to cut them some slack!

Pasar tradisional Ngabang

Saturday morning outing to the market with MIKA teachers... with a box truck!

If you have followed this blog since its Roman days, you know that I have a soft spot in my heart for traditional marketplaces. The cacophony of sight and smell of these markets are really something that modern shopping experiences cannot beat!

Sayuran Pakis, edible young tips of forest ferns. Ferns are not farmed, mind you... so these are foraged vegetables. At Rp 5'000 (50 US cents) for three bunches, it's a deli deal.

Two types of wild forest fruits. The long one is sour but the round one is sweet: similar to longans.

P - O - R - K !

What the...?
Looks like blubbers of fat to me. It turns out to be
Jeroan - Chicken innards.

Dried spices and such.

Ngelamun...

Rombok Ece

When the students were on holiday, we took a short outing on one hot Saturday afternoon and played around by the stream there with the teachers and their families. Located right behind the SMP dorm the stream is a a shady jungle grove with gorgeous mossy green stones.






The story according to the students, as told to me by Pandu was this. There was once a boy named Ece. One day the teacher got so angry with him in class that he got punished. Bitter, perhaps, he ran off to the forest, and found this place. And that at least, is the rumor of how this place came to be known by students as Rombok Ece. The kids just refer this place to me as Rombok.

Gone Teaching

Who thought that with my patchy grammar, that I'd be capable of teaching grade 12 English... but I did! Luckily I was not teaching grammar, just reading comprehension and vocab. This is one of the class that I taught most frequently during the 2 weeks I was in MIKA. It makes me happy when the students have an eagerness to learn and ask questions. But most of the times... they just stare at me blankly. For example, after reviewing the various meanings to the word 'shoot,' I tried on one instance to tell the Panda joke (the only joke I can remember off the top of my head). They all laughed on the Panda bit, but at the end of the joke was met with a ten seconds of silent bewilderment... like... why would the Panda do that?


I also taught arts and crafts, which was a more merry affair with everybody getting involved in something. Above, is the year 10s who are orderly in doing their own thing. Below is the year 4 and 2s who have limited listening and sitting-still capabilities... a bit of a zoo to contend with. I guess they look kinda cute in stills.


In any case, being with them gives new meaning to one of my favorite Bible verses: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child." Probably I was like them too.


So. For some of you who missed the story... I went to Sekoah Kristen Makedonia (MIKA), a school in West Kalimantan for two weeks to help out with teaching English and KTK (Arts and Crafts). Over two weeks, I taught at least one lesson in every class from year 1 to 12, and I also did extras (night classes) for year 9 and 12 who are doing their national exam. The kids are mostly pretty sweet, sometimes hyperactive, dedicated folks. It has been fun, much more fun than I expected when I came. It's just unfortunately, what they have to face is a rather poorly written exam with spelling, grammar and numerical mistakes abound.
If only we can all do IB? hahaha. some of you might disagree.

Hortpark

A scientific research on vertical greenery by Singapore's NParks. A number of papers and two books have been published about this research, but I'm not going to go into details because you can find out the same thing just by googling "Hortpark" and "Vertical Green.

Compared to me... it's tall! 6 meters, to be precise.

The gruffiest wall. I like how they used the Rusellia plants here.

It's a live fuzzy soft thing.
Reminds me of the thing that that was growing HILC refrigerator at the end of the year... except that it was blue.
-.- Ewk. I had to take it out.
What was it anyway?

Twigs stuck on brownies.

Good thing that they experimented on the different systems because at least three of the 7 living walls have died or been entirely replaced. There's a picture on here and here of how it looked like originally.

Changi T3

The one green wall that is impossible to miss when visiting Singapore... The Changi Airport Terminal 3's 300-meter long green oasis/green tapestry/vertical garden/indoor landscaping (not sure what they officially call it). This system is a custom design-built system (as opposed to a pre-fab modular product) conceived by Tierra Design of Singapore, and last year it was honored with an award from ASLA.


When the wall was newly built and hasn't grown yet, you can see the service area behind it. But using a double plant support system, the wall quickly achieves a full-lush cover within two years. As you can see in the photo below, there is one climber at the front and one at the back. the plants in the front receives natural light and additional metal halide (?) lighting. While the plants at the back are shaded by the one at the front, so they are almost fully artificially lit.


When I first saw this back in 2008, I thought it's quite barren...
but over the years, it has definitely grown lush and gruffy --gruffy being my new favorite word to describe robust kind of leafy lushness. I definitely had enjoyed spending hours hanging out at the café nearby (for the free internet, really... but the airy greeny space sure puts me in just the right job-application mood. I wrote for and applied for some 10 jobs whilst being there!).

Hotel Naumi, Singapore

Back to blog again!
I just came back from a three week visit to Singapore to look at their vertical greening projects and look for my next job. I didn't have direct internet access when I was there and went for internet cafe instead. As a result of that (and forgetting my camera charger), I didn't upload my photos until I'm back home again.


Hotel Naumi is a luxury eco-chic luxury hotel designed by the Singapore-Thailand based Eco.Id Architects. It was finished in 2007, and has won a number of awards for its innovative use of skyrise greenery.


Wait. Did somebody say... green?
Looks like more steel than leafs to me!


Sure, that this green facade system is not lush green in the same way Patric Blanc's green walls are, but if you look at the system closely, they're much more sustainable than the water guzzling green wall system. In green walls, the entire substrate-surface of the wall is exposed to water loss through evaporation by heat and wind. On the other hand, green facades like this one minimize water loss because the substrate is protected in a pot, and water evaporation only occurs from soil surfaces.


The one problem with this system is that in summer/tropical heat, the sun heats up the steel so much that it could burn the plants foliage or discourage it from growing. Hence achieving plant cover on the facade is rather slow, as you can see from the skinny plant silhouette above.

Well! Let's hope that with enough water, fertilizer and love...
it'll grow and be a gruffy, green MFOpark-ish building.