Today turned out to be a very interesting day, despite the fact that I dragged myself up at 7:30am to feed the parking meter only to realize that today was a public holiday!

I had breakfast at Hai Peng Kopitiam all by myself, among the bustling of the early morning crowd. For some reason, I was attracting quite a bit of attention from people around me, perhaps they have never seen a Chinese woman eating by herself or something.

After breakfast, I went to a family-operated hardware shop to buy a shower head and a brush for the hostel. I know that I should have just informed the landlady and expect her to install a shower head and give the toilet a scrub, but I figured it would be done sooner if I’d just do it myself. Installing the shower head took, like, one minute, and scrubbing the toilet took at most 10 minutes.

I found a cybercafe yesterday but it was closed, and surprisingly, people here do not seem to know whether there are other cybercafes around. You could ask me about hardware shops, restaurants and books stores in Kuala Terengganu, and I could tell you where they are. But I guess Kemaman folks aren’t like that? LOL.

So anyway, I went to (another) family-operated stationery shop, and I casually asked the owner’s daughter if she knew of any cybercafes around. She looked at me rather blankly, so I assumed she didn’t know what a cybercafe was, so I described to her that it’s a place with many computers where I could use the internet and print documents. Then her eyes sparkled. “You want to print something?” she asked me. I said yes, and she said, “You can print here too.” I was delighted. She went to a corner of the shop, retrieved her laptop and connected it to a huge Ricoh printer. And just like that, I’ve got copies of my data collection form :D

And last night, a river terrapin laid a clutch of eggs, so tonight my intern–a young lady from KL–and I are going to the river for the first time this season. Let’s hope for a productive field season! :D

I am now based in Kemaman, and will be here for as long as the river terrapin nesting season lasts. In the past, the local villagers along the Kemaman River observed that the nesting season began sometime in February. But judging from the local weather in the past few days, I am not so optimistic.

Nevertheless, I am almost 100% ready for some field work this year! The necessary equipment have been purchased, e.g. calipers (big rulers with long arms), refractometer, weighing scales, thermo-hygrometer, microchips. Safety measures have also been taken into consideration, as I have prepared a mini First Aid Kit and enough life jackets for use in the river.

I am now renting a bed in an all-girls dorm in Kemaman so that I do not have to commute from Kuala Terengganu to Kemaman daily. Plus, it is more economical this way than to travel two 3-hour-journeys everyday.

That being said, I am looking forward to doing some field work soon and hopefully the terrapins do not disappoint me! :D