En route Peru

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The holiday is over and work is starting. I will try to blog daily about the APEC Youth Camp in Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru. Representing Singapore is Deliang and myself. Deliang is from the NUS Campus Sustainability Committee. First met him while working on the Green Carnival. He was with the NUSSU SAVE and now he's a staff working full time on environmental education and other climate change projects on campus. What a great job! :)

Singapore will be hosting APEC in 2009 and this is indeed a good time to be representing Singapore. I'm honored to be part of this process. Until then... Hasta la vista en Peru!

Update @ 9:06am +8GMT 30 Sep
I am currently at New York JFK Airport waiting for my flight to Peru.

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Going to Peru 1-6 Oct

Reed boats Harboured at Floating Island, Lake Titicaca, Peru by Pet_r

Last friday I got a phone call out of the blue from the National Youth Council. They would like to nominate me to go to Peru to attend an APEC Youth Camp from 1 to 6 October and asked if I was interested. Despite the logistical nightmare of managing going to Japan and then Peru, I decided to agree because as so many has said, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The camp is on sustainable development and water issues, attended by youths from various APEC economies. What more, next year, Singapore is hosting APEC and I will get a chance to organize an equivalent event i Singapore which r0x0r mah b0x0rs!

In order to attend, I had to write a 1500 words essay on water issues and so I wrote about where Singapore can take its next step in water management and building a "water culture". If you're interested, you can read my essay here.

So on 29 September, I will be flying direct from Narita Airport to Lima, Peru. Less connections, less fuel consumed or so I console myself. The camp venue is at lake titicaca in Peru which borders Bolivia. It is supposed to be an example of well managed water resource in the country. Pictures of it reminds me of a surreal version of a "coastal" indo-china up in the mountains 4000m above sea level. If I have internet connection in Puno, Lima, I will update the blogs with happenings at the camp.

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Help needed to identify the sea monster

Could somebody familiar with these maritime industrial monstrosities out at sea please help to identify what this might be? So what is this yellow monster used for? We know it's not a dredger. And it seems to be transported somewhere (to Sembawang or Pasir Gudang perhaps)? Or was it something you use at sea? So many questions, hardly any answers at all. Would some wise maritime guru please advice?

This photo was taken from Pulau Ubin on Saturday 6 Sep 2008.

For scale, we have a tiny (in comparison) container ship on the left of the monster.


And for further scale comparison, this is how a human (that speck of dust over there) compares to a container ship!

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