Japan

Sandy and Ona's farewell gift.

Details can be found on tim-in-japan-2008.blogspot.com

I'll probably update that after i get back to Singapore on 26th May.

Quick Updates!

1. Chicken rice

I cooked chicken rice today! Thank God i think it turned out real well! I didn't know that you had to fry the grains of rice before you cook them. Ona and Sandy helped with the chopping and cutting of the stuffs too. I'm real glad they liked it.

Us at the usual dinner spot ~

2. Pooh Bear and friends...

are almost complete. Gosh how time flies...

3. Maggi Mee

Sandy got me 4 packets of maggi mee from this indian stall somewhere near school. He said it was to replace the 4 that got confiscated and destroyed by the customs people. How sweet!

4. Loughborough, UK

This was from Thai Bear all the way from Lafbra, UK. Thankew!

Big Island Field Trip Days 3 &4 : VACATION!

Here's what happened. We were supposed to carry out intensive fieldwork on days 3 and 4 of our field trip on the big island. The task, if you guys recall was to check out whether the areas we had named in our map were correct. (Un)fortunately though, we couldn't get on to the field site. This was mainly because Volcano HQ did not reply Scott in time (after a week of leaving messages and stuff) as to whether his class could be allowed on the field site that was in the path of the volcanic plume caused by the new vent. And when we went to volcano HQ on saturday turns out that the person in charge of issuing permits does not work on weekends!

And mind you, this project in total was 30% of our grades. But because of this, we couldn't carry out our fieldwork, so the whole field trip turned into a free holiday! Plus, we didn't have to do the final project no more. No post field trip report and map making exercise. I don't know how Scott's gonna calculate our marks now but i know he knows best! Let me take you through what we did for days 3 and 4.

one of the ladies taking the course gave me this! $10 value inside! When i asked her why she did not want it she said she wanted to watch her weight. haha! of course i'll fulfill my chocolate fantasy (unlike ym who needs undies tsk tsk tsk)

this was meant for the fieldwork on the two days. high quality masks!

and sadly since we couldnt do the fieldwork we decided to just don the masks for fun and take a pic with the lovely plume on halemaumau

And then we drove all the way south to the...South Point! The southermost part of the US which I visited in Feb actually.

On the way we stopped at this lookout.

A few guys were playing with mini remote controlled airplanes you'll see in the next pic.

Cool!

At the coast along the South Point. Pple fishing...using a blue plastic bag to carry the hook far out into the ocean.

And some jumped off the cliff!

Scott and Samantha jumping off the cliff at the same time. We then went to the green sand beach but i don't have any pictures from that place this time round. lol

DAY 3

We took the scenic route along the east coast to get to the waipio valley.

This was somewhere along the scenic route. Straight ahead is a remnant of a cinder cone

We pack our own lunch each day. Cool, like there's a spread in the morning in the kitchen and we helped ourselves to what we want (whilst stocks last)

Then we made another stop to this place where a tsunami struck in the 1950s. Reminded me of the time when we went to the tsunami hit areas in thailand last yr.

I think these are T groins or sth? Not too sure. But these were installed after the tsunami hit

smile!

Waipio lookout! When i came here in Feb it was hazy and we din venture down to the valley floor.

But i think Scott didnt know what else to do with us. So to pass the time we hiked down the very very very steep slope. My knees experienced serious spasms on the way down.

At the valley floor!

Scott and I

There we just each took our own little spot. and we didnt even say much and just looked out into the ocean and admired its grace and beauty. surreal.

This was taken on the way back. The mountain closer to us is Mauna Kea (highest volcano in Hawaii) and behind it is Mauna Loa which is the most massive volcano here.

Mauna Kea peeking out from below.

Sunset at O'ahu taken from the plane.

Interesting twist of event saw us having a free holiday for all 4 days! No follow up work!

Big Island Field Trip Day 2: Kilauea

Today's plan was to walk around the fresh lava flows (March 2008) and try find active lava flows in the morning. Scott (the main lecturer) got a permit that allowed us to visit the site in the morning up till 1pm. This was because a portion of the area will be opened to the public after 2pm for them to view the lava ocean entry and they don't want them to start following us. Basically we got to enter where the public wont!

Access road

Closed to the public and opened at 1pm

And we made a right and started walking on the fresh lava flow ara

ropey pahoehoe

oxidation, maybe?

It was alright for the first ten minutes of the walk. then suddenly you start feeling the heat from the ground.

see the gas coming out from the ground? We are starting to get closer to the lava tubes that are feeding the ocean.

Well there wasnt any active lava flow on the surface, but we found this skylight. A skylight is an opening in the ground that allows us a glimpse of the lava tube beneath the surface.

And we found a second one!! This one was slightly bigger.

Scott getting a lava sample

It was HOT. Redhot! Haha.

I barely stood there for 5 seconds and had to move away cos it was burning my left arm.

If you look closely you can see a thin section of the crust forming on the surface of the lava

And we got a chance to sample the lava BUT by the time the first person did the chain actually melted and snapped!

Scott dropping a temperature sensor into the lava.

It was actually scary walking in the area. You know that below the surface is a lava flow...especially when you see smoke coming out from the ground.

And we decided to get close to the ocean entry

A house left standing

This was quite cute, there was a couch and some mugs!

This is where lava enters the ocean. This is the most dangerous part of the coast because the ground is most unstable here!! That's why the public has been restricted access to this section and they can only view it from some distance away.

but anyhow it was cool cos we got to see it real close!

and we sat down and watched the explosive activity while having our lunch. 'twas surreal.

Time to head to our next destination!

Mick was showing us what he's doing for his senior thesis. He's working on an eruption here and he gathers rocks and does analysis on them.

'hiking' gear

Next stop was the devastation trail. Here we got to see an area recently destroyed by a nearby eruption. Plants are growing back and they are of real pretty colours.

Next stop, a Hilina Pali lookout

the vent supplying the ocean with lava (Pu'u O'o) is located somewhere out there

and we just stayed here for awhile and soaked in the atmosphere. It was quiet and for lack of a better word, surreal...

This is Devil's Throat, off limits to visitors. The cool thing about being with volcanologists like Scott is that we get to go to places on Kilaeua that are off the beaten track. There's a guy on the top right hand section of the picture for scale.

It's off limits cos the rim of the hole is very unstable.

Next stop! Jaggar Museum

The museum gives us a real good view of the plume rising from Kilauea's summit crater. This is the one that causes the vog on O'ahu. And there was this guide who was telling us how we can see a red glow and we were like, 'what red glow?'

So went into the museum hoping that we could see the glow later when it got darker.

and when we came out...lo and behold... we saw a red glow from the new vent!

AWESOME

click on this to read more!

As it got real dark all it was reduced to was a blob of red glow. Haha, it was then time to head back. The next two days were solely dedicated to the field work we had originally set out for.
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Time to finish up the hydrogeology labs. There's a good chance that i can skip the finals for hydrogeology provided i turn in the labs by friday. I asked the prof if he could give me a C without having to take the finals! He says we'll meet up on friday to calculate the other portions of the assessment and from there we'll see how. He seemed ok with the idea :)