Monkey Business - Langkawi

Enjoying the waters on Pulau Beras Basah.

More pictures from our holiday time in Langkawi... and the islands nearby.  We took a boat trip on one of our afternoons to a secluded beach on Pulau Beras Basah. The adventures included watching sea eagles and Brahmin kites and a beachside barbecue.

Tasty flower crabs fresh off the grill.

The island hosts a private beach club used by a few Langkawi resorts and families.  The breezy, wooden buildings on site look as if they are barely keeping the jungle back from reclaiming the shoreline.  Much of the natural habitats surrounding nearby islands have tangled mangroves growing far out into the tidewaters.

Visitors arriving and enjoying the sands on Pulau Beras Basah.

Even as the owners keep the jungle at bay, the wildlife has already decided that tourists make for rich pickings.  Wild boars and their piglets snuffle at the forest's edge.  Macaque monkeys show up to welcome every arriving group in hopes of a handout.  You can see pictures of the troop after the jump.  Click on the link below left.

Strategic Default Meme

Stuyvestant Town and Peter Cooper Village: another investment underwater.  Photos from the NY Times.

Here's the idea.  The American housing market has become so bad that many indebted homeowners, perhaps up to ten percent of all mortgage holders, are now shouldering a repayment schedule so onerous that they would be better off returning the keys to the bank and finding their family a nicer rental someplace else. If enough people wake up to this reality and act accordingly the feeble property market could enter another round of unrestrained blood letting. 

The theory has been bubbling away in a number of news sources.  I first read about it before Christmas thanks to Daniel Gross at Slate/The Big Money.  He cited the Wall Street Journal's forecasts that in 2009 one million Americans will stop making payments on properties that they could actually afford with a bit more budgeting or additional income.  Then Nudge author Richard M. Thaler opined on these same homeowners in the New York Times, exploring what behavioral norms prevented people from making a rational business decision not to throw good money after bad.  The Planet Money podcast from NPR chimed in on the matter last week, chatting with a property lawyer in Arizona.  When the idea finally landed in the business section of the New York Times yesterday, the meme was certainly off and running fast.

Moulmein Road

The smorgasboard of religions in Singapore.  A buddhist association building stands beside the Church of Christ at right.  To the right beyond is the Sri Sathya Society.

The Passengers spent part of their Sunday afternoon photographing a few local landmarks along Moulmein Road, one of the main thoroughfares in our neighborhood.  Above and below are images of the Kuang Chee Tng Buddhist Association.

The building below stands on the opposite side of Moulmein Road.  It has a high fence around it as part of Singapore's Communicable Disease Centre, located on the campus of Tang Tok Seng Hospital.  This historic turreted house hosts the Tuberculosis Control Unit and outpatient clinic.  Notice the blue pilasters and ornamental plasterwork, architectural features imported during the colonial years.  Numerous buildings around here in the Balestier Road area have similar decoration with several outstanding examples on shophouses.

Singapore's Tuberculosis Control Unit.  The building behind, just visible at left, houses an x-ray unit.

The bluff facade of Tang Tock Seng hospital looms over the historic house of the TCU.

Drunk Monks

This week on BBC Radio 4's "News Quiz" host Sandi and co. get sloshed on a strange caffeinated monastic wine called Buckfast.  The hyperactive tonic comes from a monastery in Devon, but the police in Glasgow (Strathclyde) have cited it as an accessory in 5,000 crime reports.  The "News Quiz" cast thus felt compelled to sample the strange brew.  Even if you don't regularly read the newspapers in the UK, everyone should be able to laugh along to slurred words and double vision.  Follow this link to listen to the podcast on your iPod.

Holiday Villas and Tanjung Rhu - Langkawi

The Sari Village Villas on the southwest shores of Langkawi.

The Passengers have been off the grid for awhile.  The holidays were great for us, and we had wonderful friends visiting us over the New Year. Part of our time together included a trip to Langkawi, the Malaysian resort island.  We had a great villa overlooking the Andaman Sea, complete with a breezy veranda.

The view out to sea from our villa.

Looking back from the cove.

One of our days was spent on the north end of the island at the beach of Tanjung Rhu, where the Four Seasons has set up a resort.  It's a gorgeous setting and a luxurious looking venue. >> Follow the link below left to dig the view.

(Winter) Olympic Dreams

Professional blow-hard Stephen Colbert is ready to race.

Comedy Central's "right-wing" personality Stephen Colbert has thrown his weight behind the US speedskating team ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  For those outside the US and not aware of the Colbert Nation, Stephen plays a bloviating pundit who hosts a news/commentary show airing directly after Jon Stewart's "Daily Show," where he earned his comedy stripes. "The Colbert Report" (don't pronounce the t's) specializes in hyperventilating obscurantist diatribes à la televised rabble-rousers   Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, or Bill O'Reilly.  The mockery extends even to aesthetics with a set  laden with flags, eagles, and red-white-and-blue bunting -- all surrounding a huge desk in the shape of a "C."

Colbert manifests the sort of personality cult that accompanies such commentators by exhorting his followers to attach his name to whatever they can. Fans have responded. His nomenclature empire now includes a water beetle and the undetermined solution to a mathematical problem.  Most famously, loyal voters made "Colbert" the name for a new wing scheduled for installation on the International Space Station.  NASA balked and instead invented a COLBERT acronym for an exercise treadmill in the station. >>Follow the link below left to read on.

A Happy Journey

A short demonstration of Singaporean transportation, manners, and humor.  The MRT system shuttles thousands of people around the island everyday on three (soon to be four) efficient, safe, and air-conditioned subway lines.  Of course, nothing here is really very old so the niceties of daily commuting have not been firmly entrenched.  To help, LCD televisions in various stations play the music video posted above to instruct straphangers about how to behave on the train or the bus.  It's a funny example of the nanny-state chiding visible around Singapore, but I wish London or New York occasionally tried to encourage a few more public-transport pleasantries.

The advisement features the Singaporean television actor Gurmit Singh in his role as Phua Chu Kang of "PCK Pte Ltd."  His gold chain, creepy mole, bushy wig, and yellow gumboots distinguish him as a Chinese contractor on the make, an uneducated type called an "Ah Beng" in Singlish.  Good to know that contractors are well regarded the world over.  Phua Chu Kang also warned Singaporeans about SARS (YouTube link) in 2003.