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Shared a KFC bucket meal with Junius and Jia Jun. I think KFC in Malaysia is better and I suspect that the chicken is fresher. Got donuts from dunkin donuts which costed around 1 sgd a piece, and for some reason the donuts were square shaped. Also bought clothes from Decathlon and Al-ikhsan sports and Aeon Bukit Indah.

I am VERY disappointed that both Zues coffee and Starbucks ran out of matcha latte and J.Co didnt even sell matcha latte.

In the end we just bought packet white coffee from oriental kopi

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Botanic Garden and Arrival at Frasers Hill

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Botanic Garden and Arrival at Frasers Hill

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Rare bird spotted. I think we were super lucky to have seen this bird. Mr Durai say the bird will go away for a month and then comeback or something like that. Had to be super quiet to avoid the bird flying away.

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Quick introduction to the palm oil industry and plantations. Learnt how trees are planted, spaced, harvested and how barn owls are used as pest control as they will eat the rats. Trees are spaced out so that their fronds do not interfere with one another which affects sunlight absorption.

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Started planning for ant baiting experiment. Decided on 2 independent variables: type of biomolecule in food and texture of food. Did some research and found out that ants prefer carbohydrates as they need them for energy, but amino acids are important too for their larvae. I also found out that adult ants prefer liquid foods as they have specialised organs such as a social stomach to store liquids and that they are actually unable to chew solid food. Also, liquid food can be directly used unlike solid food which has to be processed and regurgitated.

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This was the first thing I saw when arriving at the park entrance. I know the macaques are just helping each other clean the stuff on their body but I though this was a bit suspicious and funny. I also found the small baby macaque clinging on the mother quite cute. This sighting made me excited for what was to come that day, that hopefully we could see many more animals like this.

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Never seen this animal before. First time seeing colugos was cool and I find it interesting how they cling on to the tree bark and how the kid clings onto the mother. Learnt that they can glide and are nocturnal, which explains why they are just hanging on the trees like this.

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Never seen these fruits on trees before, only saw them at the wet market. Mr Yam explained to us how cempedak and jackfruit are 2 completely different fruits and we can tell them apart by the leaves. I learnt that these trees were probably planted by the inhabitants of the Hainan village. Cool to see how the history of the place shapes the types of plants we see. Another example of such plants are dumb canes.

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First time doing Plant O Rama. Found 10 unique species at that spot. It was hard at first, trying to decipher one species from another, but after some help from Mr Wu I got the hang of counting unique species using techniques like looking at the leaf shape, leaf vein pattern and how they grow from the branches.

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One of the most beautiful things I have seen. Mr Ang explained very well why crown shyness occurs and I think it is a great example of how nature has its unique ways of communicating with one another and amazing ways life is sustained and supported in an ecosystem

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The "boss" here I presume, Mr Khairul (Me Jia Jun and Junius calls him Syazwan cos he looks like Mr Syazwan), showed us around their timber processing facility and gave an overview of how timber is processed at Frasers Hill and around the world. Honestly I still don't know the many types of wood but learning about them was fun and I found the big machines very cool. It was also interesting seeing the carpenter bees making noises in the trunks and flying out. They were quite big in my opinion. I have huge respect for Mr Khairul because although his English is not super duper good but he tried his best to explain to us. He did use a mix of English and Malay so luckily I take MSP and can somewhat understand. Question is how did he know the word "concurrently" but don't know "food".

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Cool piece of equipment. The machine pumps air into the containers so the nutrient medium rises and makes contact with the roots periodically so that the plantlets get nutrients but don't drown in the medium(? idk i assume thats why).

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I thought that Jinze look like a prison inmate

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Not what I expected at FRIM. I thought it was going to be mostly forest and trekking but we visited the various labs. I learnt about the different types of research done there eg Genetic, tissue culture. I did not expect that the genetic lab would help with things like illegal logging and legal stuff so it was interesting to see the services they provide there besides researching the forest itself.

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Had a nice walk through the canopy layer. The view from up there is really different as we could see the top of trees. To be honest I did not see many interesting things there but it was nice to see the forest from a different perspective.

Also, it was way hotter up there above the canopy layer. I learnt how much sunlight the canopy really blocks out.

Mr Wu seemed to be very happy taking photos of us.

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In the lake, we saw a few animals. We saw many many dragonflies. We saw a few turtles. I also saw pond skaters and had to ask Mr Wu what those insects were. There was also a little monitor lizard. We also saw small tadpoles in the stream leading to the lake.

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Took a photo of this horse's behind cos the muscle definition is crazy good. One kick from this guy and I will probably die. New physique goal for my legs.

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Surprisingly, no ants went to the sugar and honey at all but a ton of ants came to the chicken and tuna. And more ants went for the solid chicken instead of the mushier tuna. Although our research showed that ants prefer liquid food because they have an extra stomach called a crop which is used to store food.

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Got to learn a lot from other groups presentation. This group in the photo has a weird name. Most of the groups' sugary food were untouched by the ants as well. Perhaps the honey Mr Wu brought was not good for the ants.

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Another massive insect but this one has its guts oozing out probably from being run over by a car. I still find it hard to believe there are so many insects out there that are this big. If any is found in my room I am moving to a different house.

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Got to feed the fish. The fish/fishes there seem to love food to the point that they break out in a frenzy to get the food we throw in the water. Even when there is no food, they are moving their mouth as if trying to reach for more food. Also saw a cute big duck that is apparently not native is was brought here.

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The signature bird of frasers hill. Indeed it looks really beautiful and we got to see the birds up-close at the feeding site. Also saw chestnut capped laughingthrushs there. Blessed to have the opportunity to have such nice birds in close proximity and note somewhere on a tree far far away as I can take nice photos when they are nearer.

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Did not have a photo of the crested serpent eagle that was 1km away but I do have a picture of the man who heard the crested serpent eagle from 1km away. I learnt that the crested serpent eagle can see from 1km away. So we must write it down crested serpent eagle H heard

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First time on such a trial where the terrain is legit a partially cleared section of forest. It was definitely harder to do this trail compared to the nice and easy walks in SG. However I did find it quite fun and I felt connected to mother nature as the mud goes all over my shoes. I notice that the vegetation here is denser than in SG and in FRIM and also a lot more bryophytes like mosses, probably due to the water droplets in the fog or the humidity.

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I always found this plant fascinating when I walk pass it because of how the branches grow. I would not expect such order and design in a plant. There is probably some reason but I dont know why it grows like this. Nonetheless I think it looks cool

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The only spider we found that was in a trap door. Apparently it is not even a trap door spider but is a tarantulla. Probably the only time I have ever seen a tarantulla in real life. Looks a bit scary but luckily it didnt jump on anyone.

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Surprised to see a crab here as I was under the impression that we only find crabs by the sea and in the ocean.

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Again I find it fascinating how big spiderwebs can get and the nice pattern on them. I also realised that webs can stretch from the ground all the way up to the tree to anchor the web in the middle. I assume this is to increase the chance of catching insects flying past.

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Started the walk by catching sight of a group/family of monkeys in the trees. I saw 1 or 2 monkeys who were also carrying babies while climbing the tree. They were also eating food. It seems like they have a highway system with the vines and the branches and they know how to navigate through the trees.

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The water looks very drinkable. Also, I can see why some leaves have drip tips as I can see that this water will probably encourage some sort of fungal or moss growth on the leaf.

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Furry caterpillar spotted by Theo and a few others. It is amazing how well it camouflages and how furry it is. When we blow air on it the flaps on top opened. This is also probably my first time seeing a caterpillar in real life.

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Cool to see such leaf shapes in nature

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The legs are so long and hairy. Good find by Mr Wu. Mr Wu was very excited to see this spider.

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First creature I saw at Frasers Hill. Everyone was crowding around the plant and I was wondering what was going on. I head someone said Rhino Beetle so I went to try to find it. I did NOT expect it to be this big. It was a bit scary looking at it move around. Probably the biggest insect I have seen ever.

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I couldnt upload the video because the file was too big. First time seeing this species of monkey. I could swing on the vine/cable very well and was fast.

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Credits to Cheng Hoon for attracting the Leech. First time seeing a leech in real life. Hong Kai proceeded to pour salt over the leech which I felt was a waste as I thought we were going to put the leech in the test tube. The blood in the leech started leaking out and eventually the leech shriveled into one tiny dot on the tissue.

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Saw this after using the gym late at night. It was hanging upside down on the ceiling. Only Junius and I spotted it.

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A few hours of lecture and briefing and testing out equipment. It was a good introduction to what we were going to do and what the IC was about. There was a lot of information about biogeography but honestly I could not absorb all of the knowledge. Nonetheless, today made me excited and look forward to the week ahead.

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I felt that today was a great eye-opener to nature trekking. Before this, I have never truly went trekking in any nature park. However, today's trip opened my eyes to how diverse the species, both animal and plants, are. Previously, I would have thought that everything where trees and different species just looked different, had different shaped leaves, different heights etc. But today taught be that the forest ecosystem is really much more complex and diverse, how plants can depend on each other (climbers), hurt each other (stranglers), grow on each other (bird nest fern) etc.

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After 2 days of seeing nature parks in Singapore and how even our parks here are so diverse, I was very excited for the trip to FRIM and Frasers Hill, where the biodiversity there is presumably better. After seeing these parks, I don't mind coming back and also visiting other parks in Singapore in the future.

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Did not do much that day but discussions for ant baiting experiment did increase my knowledge on ants and their biology and their habits.

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Unfortunately, I was banned by Mr Wu for saying the word Anaconda (even though I only said it like once and Jia Jun and Junius was at it for like 30 minutes).

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Although my group did not present, I personally learnt a lot from researching literature regarding our research question. I also learnt from the groups who did present. One thing that stuck with me was how light intensity for forest characteristics data was very obviously different between the readings my group took and the other group took. Turns out, one of us was taking luminance and the other once was taking lux, hence, the readings were very far apart. Because of this, our group could not really use this set of data and had to resort to only comparing between Rifle Range and FRIM and the other 2 places' data was in different units.

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Nice day and weather and nice hotel gym

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the ant-baiting experiment was fun and felt very hands-on and interactive. The bird-watching in the morning was also quite fun as we got to see many species (not shown in the photos here) including the rare rusty naped pitta.

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This was probably the most activity-packed day, especially with the night walk and the trail trekking. Got to see a lot of things that I have never seen before. This is probably also the day where Rohit got fully infected by the stupid jokes Junius and Jia Jun and I make.

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Great way to end the trip, especially with the hotpot buffet. Did not get to eat finish everything, probably because I don't really like seafood. Majority of the time was spent just laughing with Rohit because we kept making jokes about Mr Durai (no ill intentions though).

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The trip was insightful, meaningful and really opened my eyes to nature. Even now in Singapore as I walk by the road, when I see plants or hear birds I start to get curious and look around. The teachers and guides were really knowledgeable and taught us a lot of things. I like how a lot of the learning was done hands-on, unlike in school were everything is in a classroom setting and we don't get to 亲眼 see the stuff.

I also made new friends, specifically Rohit, Pranav and Hang Ping as my group and them just kept laughing at stuff (actually its just Rohit that laugh at everything). Memories with them truly made the trip enjoyable and memorable.

After this trip, I will consider going for more nature hikes, maybe even another trip to Frasers Hill. I think there is still so much to bee seen and learnt. I found it quite relaxing on all the walks as I get to see the natural world, unlike the our phone screens or computer screens. I also think it is a good way to stay active.

Maybe I will get into birding and spend 33 years with nature

Overall, I believe that this trip was really meaningful and memorable.

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Mr Durai taught us a bit about bird watching competitions. During the walk he split us into groups, 9 here 9 there. Then he assigned group leaders who carry the bird book and ask them to assign assistant. After bird watching he asked Mr A to share what bird he see and what bird he heard and likewise for Mr B. Then the teams need to ask each other if they are happy.

He also protects us from the dangerous traffic on the road by hearing cars from 1km away and asking us to be careful. He will also tell us if there was a motorbike.

I also appreciate how he is so caring towards Mr Daniel, always ensuring that he is around. Everytime Mr Durai loses Mr Chua for 1 second he will turn around and shout "Mr Daniel" for confirmation that he is still alive.

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He was very knowledgeable and brought us to see interesting plants and fruits and seeds and animals

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Special thanks to Mr Ang who was with us through the whole journey. I enjoyed learning about the palm tree plantation, the barn owl, the fever/weasil/weevel, the dipterocarps aboretum, soi sai at FRIM and much more. He also shared about how fish is a luxury in the hilly areas. He always comes to tell us when there is more food and is very caring.