Singapore Impressions and a 20 Minute Ferry to Indonesia

[Link to Website: www.teilointheworld.blogspot.com for those of you who want to view/share it] [Click on the Pictures to make them Bigger]

Disclaimer: This post is supposed to be informative and has therefore been designed to give YOU, the reader, a LOT of information using FEW words. (May require an adaptation of your reading style; I suggest reading this to a friend out loud, if you are experiencing any problems.)

Onto Singapore!

Singapore City Center Police Station

Four weeks are over, time flies, and I’m still kicking. I have adapted to the Singapore lifestyle:

•         I live in an extremely small room
•          I eat rice for lunch and for dinner, Monday to Sunday.
•          I ride the MRT and stare at my Smartphone the whole way
•          I don’t eat food in train stations or in the trains (Fine $500)
•          I carry around an umbrella because I know it will rain every afternoon for the next two months
•          I have removed all dairy products from my life and have moved on to improved (and less expensive) soya products (Full sugar, half sugar, or no sugar, depending on my mood)
•          I have accepted the fact that the shoes I brough to Singapore, will have to last for my whole stay here (6 months), as the maximum size sold is 45.
•          I chew no gum, as fines exceed 500$
•          I now consider Potato’s to be a vegetable that is used sparingly

Singaporeans Waiting for the Release of Halo 4 (a computer game)

  However I am still working on a couple of points, including:

•          I do not play loud smartphone shooting games without headphones on the MRT.
•          I do not eat rice for Breakfast.
•          I just cannot stomach fish balls in my meals.
•          I turn off the air conditioning when it gets cold.
•          I go to work before 10:00, and leave before 20:00
•          I do not know all the rules and fines by heart (most likely requires years of work).
•          My smartphone is only half the size of the average Singaporean’s
•          I do not own bright red Beats headphones
•          I do not drink ice coffee out of a plastic bag.
•          I went to the national park wearing my hiking boot, expecting an exhausting day, only to find out that walking the longest trail possible takes less than 1.5 hours.
•          I find Singapore’s tallest mountain at 163 meters to be very small (but I may be wrong)
•          I consider 800$ rent for an apartment that I share with 5 other people terribly expensive.
•          I always thought that living on the 2^nd story in Germany was quite high, whereas the average Singapore Apartment Building has over 20 stories.

Good Singaporeans standing in Line at the University waiting for Food (1 person = 1 square)

My Multilevel University Building and the Department I work in.

Any questions?

Onto Indonesia!

Little girl practicing her strutting at a Local Beauty Show

However, as great as Singapore is, the city does seem to make you a bit claustrophobic. In order to counteract this feeling, Tobias and I spent the weekend on an Island 20 kilometers south of Singapore. The Island is called Batam, and belongs to the Riau Archipelago of Indonesia. It is a Free Trade Zone [an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities - Wikipedia] and has therefore experienced an extreme industrial and shipping boom, drawing workers from areas far far away.

Nearing the Port of Batam, Indonesia

Anyway, we came up with the trip idea on Friday, and took the ferry on Saturday morning at 8 o’clock, meaning we didn’t do any planning (very very un-german). Arriving on the island, we were greeted by a horde of Taxi and Motorcycle drivers all vying for the privilege to drive Tobi and me around. Unfortunately for them, we walked into the city…

After walking around long enough to get a sunburn, we found a hotel and paid 7 EUR per person (not bad for no planning, eh?). However, our grand plans for touring the island and finding hidden beaches were ruined when we found out that this town doesn’t ever get any tourists, so there are no motorcycle/bicycle rentals (only with drivers). Too bad. 

Oh by the way, we saw no other white people that weekend.

Being driven around by our new Friends

Nonetheless, I learned a very important lesson on this trip: how to relax like an Indonesian. To give you a taste, let me tell you about an Indonesian’s perfect weekend:

Fire Thrower at Kampung Bule

Karaoke Club

1. No work at all
2. Wake up at 15:00
3. Go to the mall and shop for fake Louis Vuitton bags and cheap flip flps
4. Go to the game center and spend hours playing various money-losing games such as “Shoot the Fish”, “Beat the dinosaur”, “Drop a coin”, [take a nap on the bench], and end strongly playing a shooter game with a life size machine gun.
   
5. Subsequently, while still at the same huge mall, watch the newly released movie “Breaking Dawn” or any other chick flick.
6. On the way out, buy a box of 12 doughnuts, buy 2 Liters of palm oil and 30 packs of “Mie” Noodle Soup
7. Just before the long ride home, get a foot reflexology massage just outside the Mall doors.
8. At home, meet with your friends at an outside diner.
9. Drink coffee and eat the "Mie" Noodle Soup
10. End the night by singing along at a Karaoke club where everyone has an average height of 1.50 meters.
11. Drink more coffee while waiting for the sun to rise.

Making Friends

Now I must admit, that Tobi and I, being the culturally adaptable people we are, tried to live the perfect Indonesian Weekend. We were successful in doing 10 out of the 11 points I listed above!!! I leave you to guess which one we skipped (feel free to send me an email with your guess).

Here are some of the pictures from our check list of being a perfect Indonesian: 

Game Place

Little People Playing Big Games

Chapter 2: Welcome to Singapore, Singapore

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Good Evening, Fine Sirs and Madams! 

I would like to welcome each and every one of you to the next installment of "In The World". As some of you may have guessed by the title (please don't feel bad if you didn't!), I have decided that since the Near East just doesn't serve as a permanent home, I need to experience the Far East...

Singapore is a city-state located 1 degree north of the Equator, making it highly tropical and subject to monsoon rains. Singapore is surrounded by water on four sides making it an? ... (Yes kids, an ISLAND country :) 

Brief History: Singapore has been inhabited since the 2nd century CE. During the exploratory age, it became a sovereignty of Great Britain, who lost it to Japanese occupation during World War II. Singapore then declared independence in 1963 and united with other British territories to form Malaysia. It separated from the rest of Malaysia two years later and has since risen far, to become an international financial powerhouse with massive wealth increase, massive rain forest losses, and massive space problems.

It is this country that I have chosen as my next location to work in.  Specifically, I am employed as a Research Staff at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) for the next 6 months. My supervisor is Asst. Prof. Terry Steele, who has a laboratory group in the School of Material Science and Engineering.

An extensive survey after Saudi Arabia showed me that people are actually interested in the research I do, so I will increase writing activity in that sector:

My project at NTU is in the area of biotechnology and aims to develop a therapy against a common complication in immunocompromised (people with bad immune systems) patients, particularly HIV/AIDS patients. 

I will start slowly: In this bad bad world there exists a group of Viruses called Herpes. The most important characteristic of a Herpes Virus is that once you have it you cannot get rid of it, as it will lie dormant in long-living cells such as neurons. There are 8 types of Herpes, and the common adult has between 3 and 4 types lying dormant in their body, kept under control by their functioning immune system. Cytomegalovirus is the name of a Herpes Type V virus and is present in 50% of all European Adults. In most adults this virus will never be noticed at all. However, the medical world is concerned with the that subset of people that experience an activation of this virus. This subset is mainly comprised of immunocompromised people. In my project we are concerned about HIV (= human immunodeficiency virus) patients whose immune system is being decimated slowly by HIV. In these patients, CMV is likely to activate and become a widespread secondary health problem. Activated CMV will enter healthy cells and cause them to grow to extremely large sizes which then burst... Just like everyone has a preference for different types of food, CMV also has a preference to which healthy cells it attacks. In this case, it is the cells of the eye, which first leads to a complication called CMV Retinitis and then to blindness. 

Treatment of CMV is done with a drug called Ganciclovir, which is a nucleoside (building block of Virus DNA) analogue and works by being mistaken by the virus during reproduction as the real nucleoside causing reproduction inhibition. Sadly, Ganciclovir has a number of side effects, including liver damage, headaches, hallucinations, and neuronal damage, making it a very delicate drug to use. An idea to reduce the risk of Ganciclovir for the treatment of CMV Retinitis is to only apply the drug locally, instead of injecting it intravenously. 

My project at NTU is aimed directly at this dilemma: we are trying to develop a thin biodegradable film that incorporates the drug Ganciclovir can be placed directly on the eye and release the drug at a constant rate over a long time period.

I start with laboratory work next week, so wish me luck.

On the other hand, I have been in Singapore for a week now and have managed to settle myself into an Ueber-expensive concrete hole that these people call apartments. Although I have done more paperwork than sight seeing this week, the city is kept very tidy, and contains a number of impressive buildings. The public transportation network is fantastic and very modern. The food is cheap and very Asian, although all other goods are over-priced.

My favorite excursion has been a trip to the Singapore Orchid Gardens, where they manage to display an impressive 3000 different types of Orchids.

That's it for now. More Updates soon. Thanks for reading :)

Grand Finale: The Black and White Volcanoes of Saudi Arabia

My Time in Saudi Arabia has now come to an end. I have returned to Germany to soak in all the rain, coldness, and incredible greenery that has been lacking for the past 3 months.

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However, there is one more adventure that I did in Saudi Arabia and found super interesting. I hope you enjoy it.


In the middle of Saudi Arabia lies a 12,000 square kilometer field of pure lava, named Khaybar. The whole area is elevated to an average height of 1500 meters and is extremely dry. In the middle of this lava field lie three great Volcanoes, named Jebl Quidr (Black), Jebl Bayad (Male White), Jebl Abyad (Femal White).




Extremely interesting is the high density of ruins that can be found adjacent to the Khaybar lava field. According to research I did, the Arabian peninsula used to be much greener. Especially the area around Khaybar was a hub for early tribal groups. This lushness seems to have lasted well into the neolithic age, an age that ended around 4,500 BC.

On our way to the volcanoes we passed a number of these ruins, and with a lot of imagination we attempted to to imagine the way these late stone age hunters and gatherers lived their lives.

Picture on the Left: Historic ruins left by tribes that once inhabited the fertile lands of Khaybar. Picture on the right: Me climbing around in neolithic (around 6000 years ago rock formations that were once thought to be part of a graveyard road where these ancient people buried their dead. These graveyard roads could stretch up to over one kilometer in length and were always perfectly straight. 

Ancient vehicles once used by indigenous folk to transport goods from one area to another. Note that this vehicle makes use of the invention of the wheel.

The Whole troup of 14 people, all fitting in two Yukons (that is supposed to be impressive).

The next step in the itinerary: the actual volcanoes. However, after leaving the pavement, it took us over 5 hours to get to the base of the volcanoes, where we then set up camp for the night.

The White Volcano we scaled can be seen in the background. The (not)-road we drove is in the foreground.

We spent that night camped out at the base of the volcanoe, some of us in tents, others in sleeping bags, and the rest laying on towels or jackets to bear out the night on the hard rocks. Thankfully, I had brought my sleeping bag.

The next morning we managed to get up at 0500 in the morning, in order to beat the midday heat and scale the Volcano.

Picture on the Left: An inside view of the Crater of the White Volcano, spanning over 1 kilometer in diameter. Picture on the Right: The strenuous climb up to the white volcano, which can be seen in the background.

View from the top of the volcano over the Laval Field. Our camping spot is the sandy area in the middle of the lava field (top left corner of picture)

It was an incredible adventure. We spent three days in one of the remotest areas of Saudi Arabia; an area where even the sight of Bedouins was a rare sight. We saw rare archaeological sights and immense lava fields, experienced the cruel Saudi Heat of 40+ degrees, and managed to see a geological colossus.

We returned to KAUST safe and sound, happy to be back in civilization, impressed that a country which is 99% covered by desert, has so much to offer. Seek and you shall Find, habibis.

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This concludes my narrative of my travels in Saudi Arabia. I hope you have all enjoyed the stories. I will be leaving for another country soon, so stay tuned...

Explaining The Saudi Mindset...

It has been a while since my last post. But things have gotten much busier as I near the end of my stay in Saudi Arabia. 
My plane leaves in 9 days to bring me back to good old Europe, and I am looking forward to resuming life in a normal world. 

My time here has been wisely spent though. In addition to learning how to become the greatest Scientist since Darwin, I have spent almost every Weekend outside of the KAUST University, seeing and learing about the land and people of Saudi Arabia. 

In order to give you an idea about the Saudi mindset I will share some of my recently formed opinions:
The people here function completely differently than anywhere else in the western world. As a general rule, Saudi's have never heard of efficiency, and it is way too hot to work hard in this country. Couple this with immense oil fortunes, and what you have is a country where people don't have to work very hard and are still considerably rich. Another major difference is the size of families. In the west, your family is mainly your direct relatives, followed by your extended family. Here, your family is everyone that has your last name, and you probably know everyone who has your last name. Family names indicate status and wealth, and marriage is only allowed between certain families. Your last name is also an indicator of what type of job you will have. For example, Saudi Aramco, the largest company in the country, is run by one family that has members of the family as managers in most every department. With the transition from small kingdoms and tribes to a unified country only 70 years ago, it is perhaps a little easier to understand why the family takes precedence over every other social obligation. It even goes so far that each family has a head (old guy in charge), who is responsible for taking care of all the members of the family in times of trouble or confusion, for resolving disputes, arranging marriages, managing family property, and advancing the family's status.

Furthermore, I have completely adapted my driving style to keep up with the Saudi road insanity and to avoid from being run over. You are probably thinking yeah righttt, it cannot be that different... But you would be wrong. Driving here is like going to England and driving on the right side of the road; anything could happen. As I have no interest in boring you with lots of words, here are some videos of the Saudi Driving: 

So in summary: I have learned new driving skills and have gained a lot of new understanding about the Saudi Culture. I have also become well acquainted with a microbiology laboratory and look forward to returning to  the European Union.

Soon I will post an article about my most magnificent adventure yet: The Trip to the White and Black Volcanoes of Saudi Arabia. Expect to see it in a couple of days!

The Red Sea: A diver's Paradise

The Red Sea is one of the most unique bodies of water on this planet. Its high salinity, low nutrient concentration, and high temperatures makes it one of the most biologically diverse oceans. With an average temperature that is 2 to 3 degrees celsius higher than any other ocean, the Red Sea serves as an ecological model for global warming and the effects upon flora and fauna.

And it is in this over-sized lake that I go scuba diving in. Since KAUST is located on the coast of the Red Sea, we have our own marina and diving center on campus. Upon figuring that out, I immediately signed up for the Advanced Open Water Diving course. Three weeks later, I am an Advanced Open Water Diver. This course was probably one of the most instructive recreational course I have ever taken. With a large emphasis on hands-on practice, I did an assortment of dives that taught me underwater navigation with compass and distance measurements, peak buoyancy control, deep diving limits, enriched oxygen (NITROX) diving, computer diving, and night diving.

After all that, I'm pretty confidant off my diving skills.

But lets leave all that learning behind us. The real reason I learned to dive is so that I could explore untouched reefs in Saudi Arabia. And that is exactly what I did last weekend, near a quaint town called Al Lith.

A group of us, 23 people in total, rented a houseboat specialized for diving over the weekend. The boat had beds, an open deck, a crew that drove us around and cooked for us, as well as unlimited number of air tanks for diving. A diving safari would be the correct name for that trip.

And it was magnificent!! We did 6 dives in two days, one of which was a night dive. I will just present a number of pictures without too many words, in order to accurately portray the silent activity that is embodied by diving. (Click on the pictures to make them larger...)

    

On the left: A heroic clown fish defending her home.

Above: Pre-Dive briefing showing the boat location, the reef, and the depths.

 

First rule of Diving: Always dive with a buddy.

    

    






Left: Friendly White Tip Shark at 34 meters, dropped by to say hello.

Above: Beautiful coral with random fish.

It's like a zoo... only better! And I'm in it!

Part of our group at the dive location called "Hanging Gardens". Can you find me? (I'm wearing blue fins with black vertical stripes and have a palm tree on my trunks.)

As you can tell, I don't even have the right words to describe this trip. It's like flying underwater, or like living on the International Space Station, while looking at odd, quirky, colorful, and even dangerous animals.

Cheers,

Teilo

 :)

The Life of Bacteria at KAUST

Since I have been asked a number of times to share some of my top-secret research, I have finally given in and will try to educate the sheep (Jesus tried and failed, so I guess it's my turn now).

Bacteria are unicellular, small, and often round, beings that like to eat and produce energy. Similar to humans, these beings are driven by the need to reproduce, but since they have no legs, they cannot go about it in the conservative christian fashion. Instead, Bacteria perform something that scientists call asexual reproduction. The process is fairly complicated, but the outcome is simple: 1 bacterium divides into 2 bacteria.

Click on the picture above to have an accredited Youtube actor explain it with the help of visual cues. I know that reading and comprehending is difficult!

These little beasts can be found everywhere: in the soil, in the trees, in the air, in your own body, and even in the Red Sea. Particularly in the Red Sea actually. You can imagine the Red Sea as being very similar to your standard bacteria soup, one tea spoon of it contains millions of different bacteria that all get along. Whales love bacteria and eat them for breakfast. 

Since I am working in the Red Sea Research Center, one of our main concerns is trying to understand what kind of bacteria are actually in this Red Sea Soup. Who is the most abundant, who is the coolest, who is the strongest, who is the most exotic, and who is the most extreme, are just some of the questions your typical Red Sea Scientist will ask himself/herself.

I know that I promised to lift the secret of the reproductive method of the giant bacterium E. fishelsoni, but that result will take more time. Instead I would like to focus on a tiny bacteria called SAR11. With a size of less than 0.3 micrometers (1 million micrometer = 1 meter), this beast is the most abundant bacteria in all of the oceans, making up around 60% of the total bacterial population. However, SAR11 highly dislikes growing in the laboratory and has resisted scientific characterization since we took off our monkey suit way back when. Well, it is this bacterium that my supervisor is trying to get cultivated, characterized, and civilized, a task I am doing my best to assist her with.

So far, I have been given a number of bacterial strains (i.e. bacteria families including the extended family) to keep alive and have also been given the engineering task of getting a 6-chamber bioreactor up and running. This bioreactor will be able to do a lot of our work (inshallah), and is going to be responsible for the transcriptomic studies (the study of which miniscule machines [proteins] the bacteria are producing to survive different environmental conditions).

6 chamber Bioreactor "Multifor 2" from Infors Inc

Now I don't want to overwhelm you by revealing my results ahead of time, such as by saying that bacteria actually have feelings and that brushing your teeth is a crime, so I will continue this post once I have drawn up some more definitive conclusions.

As-Salamu Alaykum ( "Peace be Upon you" )

Greetings from the other side of the world.

It has been a while since my last entry, but the process of becoming familiar with this place has sped up the passing of my days. Yesterday, I had to renew my Visa for the first time, which marks the completion of one whole month in Saudi Arabia, and means that I have two more months left.

But I'm not writing this to get sentimental...

Being a white, single, christian male with a government visa (as opposed to having a residency card) has afforded me with the highest degrees of freedom a person can have in the greatest of kingdoms. I am allowed to leave campus alone, I do not have to wear traditional clothing, I do not have to pray 5 times a day in the direction of Mekkah, I have a certain cultural error leniency, I can make decisions, and I can drive a car.

What I am trying to say, is that I work during the week (which means Saturday through Wednesday), and when weekend comes (Thursday and Friday) I leave Campus to discover Saudia Arabia.

 Hold on tight as I share a rather unusual adventure:

2 Weekends ago, we organized a Trip to a town called Ta'if, situated at 1800 meters on the slopes of the Sarawat Mountains, the largest mountain range in the Arabian Peninsula. The area around Ta'if is a popular summer destination for Saudi's, as the temperature is very mild at 30 degrees and the air is completely dry.

                                                                            The road up to Ta'if  

An hour's drive north of Ta'if, we took the highway exit and find ourself driving on a rundown road running straight into the desert. At the end of this road there is a rickety iron gate, which stood open at the time of our arrival. When we got inside, we had finally reached our destination, and getting up at 5 in the morning had paid off!

Ladies and Gentlement, I present to you the fabled Camel Races of Saudia Arabia, the equivalent to Nascar driving in the USA!

As luck would have it, we had arrived on the day that the Saudia National Guard sponsored (conducted?) the races, and we had entered into their compound (through the rickety iron gate). The army general in charge (dressed in camouflage, which means in the color of sand) came up to us and bestowed us with the traditional As-Salamu Alaykum greetting, promptly followed by an offer of protection during the races. The whole rest of the day we were kept close to the military and shown around by them.

Dates and Tea in the Military compound  (look in the back left corner of the picture, shhh)

And then the camel races began! 

The Setup of a camel race: There is a 10 kilometer track that is about 30 meters wide, and runs straight through the desert. The idea is that you follow the race by driving next to the camels as they run down the track (at 30 to 50 km/h). The right side of the track was open to the general public, and hundreds of cars were throwing up dust on that side. The left was the side reserved for the military, and the one that we were one. A race lasts around 20 minutes.

We were actually offered a ride for the race, and one of the military guys drove up in a camouflage bus (I believe it is a renovated US school bus) and motioned for us to get in. In this fashion, we were able to watch the camels race not even 5 meters away from us.

As a small side note, Saudi National Television was there (the equivalent of ESPN in the USA) to film this event live. After the first race, a guy dressed in a white robe asked us to come with him, handed us a microphone, pointed one of those big cameras at us, gave us a count down, and told us to talk. We were being filmed live on Saudi TV, the only white people in a 50 kilometer radius. I must admit, it was somewhat awkward to stand in front of a live TV show, just talking about random camel race things, since there was no one there who spoke English and could have asked us interview questions.

We returned to campus around 1 in the morning, exhausted as usual.