Lonely Stacey

It's been sometime since i last udpated!

Nope, I havent been busy and nope I havent been having that much fun as well.

I've just been feeling a little under the weather and also I went to Mombasa for the Easter Holiday.

Mombasa is a tourist attraction place like what Bali is or Phuket is. I went by myself, to a resort for 4 days. Did stuff like massage, steam room, bake in the sun, snorkel and eat lotsa lotsa buffet every day breakfast, lunch and dinner!

My room was a quaint room (that Jie would never step in) and it has a balcony that overlooks the sea! But I cant go out because there are monkeys around, and if you have food, they will grab it! Or if its raining, they will take shelter in your balcony.

The good thing: It's quiet, it's hot and i got time to relax and think.
The bad thing: It's mosquito/flies/chameleon/crows infested, it's kids infested and it's rainy season.
The worst thing: I'm alone.

Yes. Never again will i go to a holiday by myself anymore. I can do tours, I can do business travels but I absolutely will not do personal and self-indulged holidays anymore. It may be good for other people, but certainly not for myself.

Oh well, at least i learnt that about myself during this trip. :)

Oh! It's confirmed, i am coming back on 27th May.

And Jiang is coming over to Nairobi to watch the Great Migration during National Holiday - August Period! Whee!!

The Great Migration is truly a once in a year event that happens when the wild beast travels from the West to the East of africa across the great river. Thats when you see hordes of Wilderbeast, buffalo, gazettes, zebras, elephant, giraffes crossing. Then you see the lions, cheetahs and crocodiles prey on them as they cross. You can view it from a hot air balloon or you can drive around the park to view them. This occurs between August to October so come on down everyone!!!! (But not during the week Jiang is coming! haha)

Quirks living in Nairobi

Hi Everyone, Thought i'll share some interesting stuff with you. I'm quite in to facebook now so been uploading lots of stuff there and updating my statuses or thoughts...

Below are some pics that has been shared on facebook so thought i'll clarify some of them...

I heard that Uncle Colin shared this picture to the family one saturday, it's the one with me on the train tracks with someone else.

And everyone was shocked at how they cant even see her picture. Some clarifications:

1. This is a GUY


2. This is NOT my friend. It was a random stranger who ran up to me.


3. I was enjoying the view and taking a pic when this guy ran behind me and tried to pull me in to take a picture together. It was not an enjoyable feeling.

Ok, next one... as you all know, i climbed a mountain over the weekend. And did not put enough sunblock on my back.. as a result, here is the tanline i noticed yesterday on my way to work. Haha, everyone was asking me how many layers am i wearing. OK, and the next picture has got me tickled for some time. My dear Jiang showed me the following picture of him 2 years ago, and him now. Haha, I was amazed at the difference and I think he should be the new spokesperson for whatever product he has been using for the past 2 years (which i think are hair medical pills and Jackie Chan's Ba Wang Shampoo)! Isnt this amazing? Dont you think its so funny! Yes, Jiang can always make me laugh... :) Anyway, can anyone update me on what's going on with their life? OMG, am i the only one providing information? I've been receiving emails from Jiang/ Lynette/ Jie/ Kevin!!!! WHat about the rest? I would love to hear how your family is doing. :)

What I did over the weekend

On Saturday, decided to climb a real mountain in Kenya, went online to search and found this:

Mountain Longonot stands at an impressive 2777 m high and is a mountain which is an extinct volcano. The crater at the top occured because during the last volcanic burst, the top caved down. Thought it looked interesting so gathered a group of 3 friends and we headed off on an early Saturday morning.

To those who needs to put things in perspective, the highest mountain you can climb without climbing certificate is Mount kilimanjaro, which stands at 5895m, the top of that is covered with snow. The highest hill in Singapore, Bukit Timah Hill is a mere 187m.

We started off on the trail, being greeted by cactuses, trees with spikes and thorns and the volcanic ash beneath our feet. Within the first 10 minutes, we know this was not going to be easy. The mountain face was steep and we sometimes needed to use our hands to hold onto walls, branches to balance ourselves. There was no safety marshalls anywhere, no railings. We were pretty much on our own to climb the mountain.

The air was also starting to get thin the more we climbed up, sometimes one of us got dizzy and we had to rest for awhile for acclimatization. Our breaks were every 10 minutes because it was just so steep. Mount Longonot, which means steep ridges, has certainly earned its name

After only 1.5 hours of climbing (and it felt like 3 hours), we could see the tip, pushing on, we finally reached the top of the crater! And the view was amazing, the air was so fresh and the group was re-vitalized again. To our amazement, there were other people already there, and they were old people, overweight people, kids... It goes to show that if you took your time, like they did, anyone would be able to make it to the top.

Everyone was feeling mighty proud of this and the feeling of acheivement and awe was immeasurable. Rested for over an hour on the top of the hill, took lots of pics, all of which you can see from this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/staceyrhuang/LongonotAndHellsGate?authkey=Gv1sRgCP6N0cyWqrGZgwE#

Then we started our descent, which was extremely tricky. It turned out, going up a steep mountain is much easier than going down a steep mountain. We had to bend down, sometimes, cause it was so steep, it was easier to run down the mountain path. I'm quite good climbing up but i must admit, i'm lousy coming down the mountain. At one steep turning, i lost my balance and took a fall at the side. The picture below with the X shows where i fell, if i didnt hold on to the side of the wall, would have tumbled over and down the mountain edge.

Was covered in dust but it could all be shaken off. Trekked back down again took another hour. Everyone was exhausted by this time.. and guess what, it was only 12 noon. Went to town to eat a quick lunch as we made a decision to head over the a nearby national partk, called Hell's Gate and explore it.

Hell's gate was beautiful, it had wonderful gorges which we can walk within. We hired a guide who took us through. This was a different type of climbing, we had to side step past muddy streams, climb over boulders, climb up cracks in the gorge. It was very exciting and thrilling. I thought i was in an action movie film! In fact, this was where tomb raider, my angelina Jolie was filmed! The walk within was cooling and the scenery was breathtaking.

This was a particularly challenging area to cross. We had to cross over this big boulder so we had to use a tree branch for us to step and walk on and then we can lift ourselves up to pass the huge rock.

Was not as risky as Longonot but as interesting if not more. Also had some climbing to do such as when we wanted to come out of the gorge. See below...

Came back, we were tired but satisfied, legs aching, back was burnt (not enough sunblock) but my time in Africa became just that more meaningful and enriching.