Today I attended the conference at NUS pharmacy school and today was a different format. Groups of students had picked a topic and were required to give a 15-minute, 17-powerpoint slide presentation. Today’s main topics Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the advancement of Clinical Pharmacy.

The presentations on TCM were very interesting to me. Although I am an occasional user of TCM, I didn’t know much about it. As a kid, when I was sick, my mom used to brew us herbal soups that generally tasted bad. When we had upset stomach or diarrhea, we took Po Chai Pills which are these herbal pills shaped in little pellets. It’s seriously a miracle drug for stomach ailments.

Well back to class, one of the presentations focused on the basics of TCM which include things like acupunture and medicines. We learned about the theory of “zang fu”. It’s a concept that describes the function of the organs in the body and the interactions that occur between them. Organs are either classified as “zang” (yin organs, “dark”) or “fu” (yang organs, “bright”). They talked about how medicines are also classifed as either “yin” or “yang” and the TCM practitioners use these properties to balance a person’s “yin” and “yang”.

It makes me wish I could take some classes related to TCM so that I can be better equipped to help patients who use Chinese medicines.

Just a note on the rest of the presentations on Clinical Pharmacy, they involved presentations on Board Certification, Doctor of Pharmacy degree programs, importance of documenting pharmacist interventions, and pharmacist’s role in health promotion and disease prevention. The presentations were very broad and touched on programs in Australia, the US, and the UK. It made me realize that in the US, we’re a bit close-minded since there is not much discussion about other countries’ programs. On the other hand, it also makes me realize how involved pharmacists are in the US, at least in California. It gives me pride in my profession.

It’s a bit strange “going to school” again but I love it! I’ve learned so much in the past few weeks especially about the practice of pharmacy in Singapore.

Some good news, I think I can start practicing here in another week or so. I have approval of my employment pass and my application with the Singapore Pharmacy Board is being reviewed… yeah!

Today our tour was to begin at 9:30am with a visit to the Floating Village on Tonle Sap River. We were almost blocked by a herd of cows in the middle of the road.

It’s amazing how these homes are put on stilts and some of them are floating with barrels and large hollow bamboo rods. They have everything they need on the water as well: schools, provision shops, mechanics, churches, basketball courts, etc.

The only thing that was kind of sad were the children. Kids are all over Cambodia trying to sell things. On the water, kids are with their parents on boats trying to sell drinks and fruits. They would jump onto our boat and attempt to sell us sodas then they would hop back onto their parents’ boat. Rather daring. This cute kid was in a large metal bucket and spinning round and round and using a paddle to move forward.

There are catfish and alligator farms on the water as well. The alligators are kept on a mobile cage and sold to other countries for leather and meat.

There are dogs and cats that live on the water too. This curious puppy was checking us out while we were at the farm.

After the boat ride, we headed to the old market for some souvenir shopping before going for lunch. We had fried frog legs!

Our tour guide ordered for us so we got to try some other Cambodia dishes like Amok Curry, Red Chili Pork, and fried Giant Snakehead (a local fish).

The first stop after lunch was Preah Kahn, aka The Sacred Sword. Ta Prohm (on the first day) was built by the king Jayavarman VII for his mother. Preah Kahn was built for his father. You could tell he loved his father more than his mother because Preah Kahn is humongous! Well, I guess we can’t really conclude that, maybe Preah Kahn is just more well preserved and was less destroyed by the trees.

One of the unique features of the temple is the continuous doors. The doors are built smaller and smaller so that worshippers will bow and look at their feet as they enter each door, as a sign of respect.

At Ta Prohm, the trees are untouched. Here at Preah Kahn, they tried to remove them but were largely unsuccessful as our tour guide said that they grow back.

We decided to try to visit one more temple before we headed to dinner. It started storming with thunder and lightning but we’d come all this way and didn’t want to miss it.

Even the chicken and her chicks were scared of the rain, they hid under this sign:

The temple is known as Neak Poan (aka Sacred Island) and around it is Veal Reach Dak (plain of the royal reservoir). It has a large center temple surrounded by a moat-like area. Surrounding it are four other reservoirs where the water flows into the middle.

Neak Poan

Veal Reach Dak

We went to have a buffet dinner at Amazon Angkor and a show of traditional dance. These girls train when they’re very young in order to be flexible enough to bend their fingers the way they do.

We ended the night at the Angkor What? Bar and this “tuk tuk” took us back to our hotel.

All pictures from Day 2 of our trip:

To view directly fromm Picasaweb, click HERE!

We had a 6AM flight from Singapore to Cambodia so had to wake up at 3:30AM to leave by 4:20AM! It was crazy as we spent most of the night packing and were pretty exhausted.

Once we got to the airport, the checking in and boarding went pretty smoothly and everyone had a short nap before landing. We arrived in Cambodia in about 2 hours, 7AM due to the time difference. We went through immigration pretty quickly since we did our visas online ahead of time. Cambodia has a very simple e-Visa system with a much quicker turnaround time than stated.

We’ve arrived!

We had vans waiting for us to take us to our hotel: City Angkor Hotel. We arrived at our hotel to check-in and have some breakfast at their restaurant. Pretty standard fare, more American food than Asian.

We split up into groups of 8 plus 1 tour guide and 1 driver. Our group consisted of me and Ron, Alex, Isa, Simao, Ian, Mo, and Rui. Our first stop was Angkor Thom and the Bayon Temple.

This is the entrance to Angkor Thom. To the left are statues of gods and to the right are statues of demons. Angkor Thom is surrounded by a high wall all around and Bayon Temple is inside.

A view from the wall (so the left are demons and the right are gods)

Once inside we visited Bayon Temple. Each temple is “adopted” by a country for restoration. This particular one is by Japan.

There were really detailed and well preserved carvings on the walls. This one is of our ancestors: the Chinese! Notice the top knot on the soldiers heads.

Look who Ron is kissing!

Our next stop was Ta Prohm, aka “Jungle Temple” which was recently in the film “Tomb Raider”. These huge trees have grown on top of the temple and in some cases, destroying the structure.

This tree has another tree growing on top of it as well… like a parasite…

Next we stopped at a local place for lunch before heading to Angkor Wat, the most famous of all the temples.

After visiting Angkor Wat, we attempted to go to Phnom Bakheng, aka Central Mountain, which is about a 20-30 minute walk up a hill to the temple to watch the sunset. Unfortunately the clouds started rolling in and started to rain so we had to leave without watching the sun actually setting.

We headed back to the hotel to rest for about 30 minutes before heading out to dinner at “Pub Street”. We ate at a restaurant called The Red Piano and had some Cambodian Curry and Amok Fish. They also had a special drink called the “Angelina Jolie” as apparently she is so famous in Siem Reap that everyone knows her name, even the more rural population is familiar with her name.

After dinner we headed home to rest as it had been a long day already and we had another full day ahead of us.

A great resource for information about the temples, visit the APSARA (Authority for Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap) website.

All pictures from Day 1 of our trip:

To view directly from Picasaweb, click HERE!