This month's photo: banc public (2)

My previous posting was done in such a rush that I forgot half of it!

So first here is a little bit more about my bench.

If you have been following my "this month's photo" serie, you know that I like to take the photo during the month of the theme. And you also know that I'm far away from a brilliant photographer and that my stong point is more the story than the photo (which can even sometimes be taken with the iPhone.........)

So here is the story about this one: This month has been short on trips, by that I mean exotic trips (I have spent way too much time stuck in the office in rainy London), so our trip to the Bako national park on Borneo was MY chance to get the photo!

This bench is actually a good reflection on Bako's environment: back to basic!

I would have loved to show you the view at the same time but really the number of trees and the sun would have killed the shot so I just went for this lonely bench. Actually there were quite a few like that around the loop, one was on a supposed view point but with a wall of trees in front, another was facing a big sign telling you it was your last chance for a smoke (before the vegetation turned drier) but this one had the remoteness factor built in!

I'll write the post on Bako soon and I can already promise some amazing animal shots (that R took, sorry I'm the writer of this blog he is the photographer!:-)

Second part of this post, finally here are the links to the other blogs:

Celiano, Cynthia, Guillaume, 100driiine, 4 petits suisses dans un bol de riz, A&G, Agnès, Alex, Alexanne, Alice, Anne, Anne Laure T, Aparça , Aude, Ava, Babou, Bao, Bestofava, blogoth67, Boopalicious, Carnets d'Images, Caro, Carole In England, Caroline, Cathy Brocard, Cekoline, Céline, Céline in Paris, Champagne, Cherrybee, Clara, Claude, Clem et Chat, Doremi, Doréus en Alberta, Dorydee, E, Edegan, El, Fabienne, Florian, florianL, François, Frankonorsk, Frédéric, Galinette, Gilsoub, Gizeh, Glose, Grignette, hibiscus, Hugo, Isabelle, Jean WILMOTTE, Jen et dam, JoAnn, Karrijini, Krn, Kyn, La Fille de l'Air, La Godiche, La Madame, La Papote, La Parigina, Laurabreizh, Laure, Lauriane, L'azimutée, LE BOA BLEU , Le Mag à lire, le via carmina, Le-Chroniqueur, Les voyages de Seth et Lise, lesegarten, Lhise, Lucile et Rod, M, M.C.O, magda627, Mamysoren, Mandy, Manola, margote05, Margouia, Marie, Marion, M'dameJo, Mérantaise, Meyilo, Nathalie, Niwatori, Nomade57, Noon, Nora, Olivier, Ori, Où trouver à Montréal? , Pavot de Lune, Rene paul henry, Sébastien, Sephiraph, Shandara, Sinuaisons, Sprout©h, Stephane08, Stéphie & les Cacahuètes, Surfanna, Tam, Tambour Major, The Mouse, Thib, Titem, Ty, Un jour-Montreal, Une niçoise, Urbaine, Urbamedia, Vanilla, Viviane, Xavier Mohr.

Sorry about the delay, but don't worry, my brain is already on next month's theme: Bubbles!

This month's photo: Banc public

I'm running really late on this post... Hopefully I won't be kicked out this month!

The shot was taken on Borneo island, Bako national park.
Old fashioned, 3 planks 4 legs bench, looking at the bay.

A bit more on Bako national park soon!

Elephant parade

If you have recently been to London, Copenhagen or Singapore, you may have seen colourful pachyderms hanging around town.

They belong to the elephant parade, an exhibition trying to raise the profile of the endangered Asian elephants. They have been painted by international artists on various theme.
These ones belong to the Singapore exhibition, in particular the ones around Vivocity.

To support Asian elephant, replica in sizes going from 10 to 75 cm) are up for sale

Vertical marathon at the swissotel

It has been all over my Facebook page for a couple of weeks and a lot of people are still wondering what I am on about, so here is the story of the vertical marathon:

Last April, we were heading to Borneo to climb the Mt Kinabalu. In order to train before climbing thousands of steps, I had started to climb the stairs of our residence.  Doing so, someone had mentioned to me the existence of the vertical marathon of the Swissotel, a climb of the 73 storeys of stairs of the famous Singapore hotel.

The training was useful as we had a good time on Mt Kinabalu and I kept the idea of the vertical marathon on one side of my mind.
So when time came, I registered for the race and R decided to join me.
On Sunday the 21st of November, after a good night of French food and wine and before flying off to London, at 9.00am, we completed the climb!
We were split by sexe and age categories, which made us a 30-39 type. R was going first, then he was supposed to come down, get the bag and I would have gone second. As you can guess, despite being the last women of the 30-39 group to go, R didn't make it down on time and I had to climb with the bag...(which probably slown me down by a good 10 minutes:-)

From stat to finish, level 1 to 73, it took R 12', me 19' and the winner 7'...
R was in the top 20% and I was about half of my list!

Surprisingly, muscles did't hurt at all, breathing was ok, but the heart rate went off the chart! (I also had a bit of a stomach issue potentially linked to the garlic butter of the snails of the night before...:-)