Story of Stuff

Great video on the world's consumption patterns.

buy buy buy.. definitely singaporean too.

*back blogged* read up on Buy Nothing Day here.

Tips for being Green in Singapore

Christmas at CJ

Had a special christmas this year helping Koksheng with his Chek Jawa mortality and recruitment project. Here's us toasting champagne on the intertidal. A memorable first for me. Glad kenny had the chance to see CJ for the first time too. Before this I haven't been to Ubin for the longest time, so even though I was told the diversity of CJ critters has gone down due to lower salinity, the variety of stuff I saw was still exciting - to me la.

We (Liana, me, Kenny, Shuyi) had a fun time surveying peacock anemones, with Liana being the head peacock molester. Other great sightings include a cake seastar, gazillion common seastars and sand stars, flowercrabs - and more that I couldn't take photos of coz I stupidly brought a full SD card. grrr.. anyhow.. will upload pix when dear JUAN has time to pass me photos. :) meanwhile, check out KS's collage of the day's survey here and Shuyi's photos here.

P.S.: anyone wanna go Penggarang to cycle? :)

Dreaming of a Green Christmas

*back blogged*

VideoJug: How To Have A Green Christmas

Christmas time.. time to share our love.. *in the tune of cheesy Backstreetboys song* - yes la.. that was my era.

Tis the season for the retail pple to hear the cash registers ring with big spenders buying all kinds of unnecessary gifts and way too much christmas food. While squeezing my way through the throngs of last minute gift shoppers (all who think SG has way too many pple say 'ay!'. AYYY!!!) in vivocity this weekend, couldn't help but wonder how many Singaporeans think about the amount of wastage we create every christmas. ehem, do remember that Singapore is the ONLY country in the world that dedicates an entire island just for waste disposal.

I guess for me personally it's easy to pull out the 'green' card coz my family and even among friend I don't really have the whole big gift exchange thing gg on. It also helps that I like making/ baking (gingerbreadman!) my own gifts and my family has started getting conscious about not buying too much food for this years christmas dinner - for example, leave out the weird tasting varieties of ham that no one touched last year and get only the family favourite. But hey I don't think it's THAT hard to make a little effort in making your holiday season a little more Earth-friendly.. Read some green christmas ideas here and here.

Think the underlying principle should be this.. 'want not, waste not.'

Merry yuletide.. and in the words of my aussie friends.. stay greeen!

Medicinal Plants of Singapore?

One of my best takeaways from my Alaska trip was how I learnt from my friend to identify plants around us that could be used to make tea to cure illnesses. Like when I was having a bad flu, she showed me how to make yarrow tea. And it was so easy, just pluck leaves from one of the yarrow (which is a weed growing all over the place), put it in a cup, pour hot water, and let it simmer for 10-15 min. And it worked really fast too. I was in cold sweat just minutes after drinking it.

Now that I'm back in Singapore and having a cold again, I find it sad that I can't do the same here- just coz I don't have the knowledge of my own region's herbs. I can't help looking out at the field of grasses behind my house and think: hmm.. i'm sure there's a cold remedy somewhere out there. yes i know fedac and clarinase are easy to get.. natural living is good la.

So here's asking if anyone knows of any good books that has some common medicinal plants that can be found in Singapore and the region. With good photos of plants and its medicinal uses. So far all i've found online is this book: 'Medicinal Plants of Asia and the Pacific' by Christophe Wiart. Don't you find it ironic that its an Angmohs writing the book. hmm..

Wild, Green and Rouge

Reefwalk @ Changi Beach

Yesterday, under Juan's recommendation, me and H tagged along with Samson (semakau guide) and friends to Changi beach. been to a few reefwalks at southern islands and chek jawa and this was my first walk (other than Labrador- which is a rocky shore, very diff) to a beach on mainland. Pleasantly surprised to see all these lovely critters. see also Samson's blog.

sea star

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some weird frigging HUGE nudibranch! bigger than the size of my palm! *added w credits to sonneblume* kalinga ornata.
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peacock anemone.

we later found one that was dug out of the substratum. so sad. looked like a sea cucumber. we buried it back but i doubt it'll survive. curiosity (of prolly some evil kid) killed the anemone!

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moon crab. (Ashtoret lunaris)

tonnes of them all ard. pretty pretty pretty.

more on moon crabs by a fellow changi RWer here

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brittle star

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button shells.

i love these. used to think they can only be found on chek jawa. then samson told me changi is the only other beach where they can be found. sad thing was that most of these shells were inhabited by hermit crabs. din see many live snails.

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leaf porter crab (Neodorippe callida)

maybe i suaku but i don't usually see this on RWs so was quite excited to see it. and evil H put sand on the top of the leaf (the crab is on the underside) to see how the crab would handle the weight of the sand: the crab skillfully tipped the leaf to clear the sand. smartie pants!
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on the whole a pleasant walk. nice to have just a few reefwalkers for a change. only thing was the collectors of fan shells kinda spoiled the mood. oh well. note to future RWers: only go to changi when low tide <0.3m.>

Welcome to the Blooooooo

Decided to start a new blog to share photos and experiences and my rantings on green (and blue) issues here.

enjoy.