Day 7

Today I got up around 8.30, and Mrs Kirste had to run some errand n stuff for some people in some places around Ulm (um Ulm.. what a mouthful ha ha.. feels like ur gonna swallow ur tongue). So we left at about 9. Bit first we traveled over a part of the schwäbishe Alps. They were really nice, and reminded me a little bit of home!

On the way I asked if we could take a sentimental stop at a Tante Emma Lebensmittlegeschäft (those of you from Herr Vercauteren's german class will know what i mean... *wipes a tear outta the corner of him eye* ha ha!) where i bought a little pudding with cream for 25 euro cents, but had no spoon, so saved it for later.

Oh! Driving on the Autobhan is saweeeet! U can just cranjk it as fast as ud like in some sections!
Altho we were in a small town car so never went much over 120-130, but ud be going that speed and a bigger mercedes or BMW or porsche or the sorts would come screaming past.. it was quite an experience! U cant help but have the reaction like 'what an idiot.. theyre gonna get caught a few meters down the road'. And then you realise that they arent coy they are allowed to do it... and then u just wish u had a porsche ha ha :D.

We then went to this awesome village called Blaubeuren where there was this massive monestry type place with a stunning church.After taking a couple of photos of the church and surrounding buildings from the outside we walked along to the Blautopf. Which was amaying!! Its this little lake where a water source comes out of the ground, and runs into a stream that provides water for the monestry and the village. Its is seriously cool ay!! It has this amazing natural blue colour, and it gets so deep so fast!! Some guy built his own little submarine tpye thing to explore it, and the water tunnels into the ground and goes back into the hillside for miles and miles!!! It must have been some submarine trip!! Altho I think 5 people have died exploring it.. so yeah... But it was stunning ay! and they had dammed it up a bit and had a little watermill thingy.. and yeah, it was really cool!! and the water was SO clear!!

Theres a legend that a mermaid lived in the blautopf.. and as all mermaids seem to be, she was stunningly beautiful, and as all mermaids seem to have, she had a gorgeous voice, and men fell in love with her and her voice. And then as all mermaids seem to do, she would call for them and dive into the blautopf and the men would follow and die... Mermaids ay? But yeah :) it was cool to see a mermaid story from another country! Anf there was a little statue of a women that represented her.

After this we avoided the massive 'no more school' party ragining at a nearby park. and went into the monestary place. It was spectacular, and so old!! There were all these amazing paintings and rooms. And the inside of the church itself was breathtaking!!! They had these massive boards that told the story of jesus (and john the baptist is seems) and they were all plated with gold in places.. and the places the priests or vicors (or whatever they have) sat were totally amazing too. Its crazy to think all this stuff was made by hand with simple tools... Anyway, there was a cool herb garden in the inner courtyard too, and places where they reared animals and stuff (as they were totally self sufficient and all that). We had a look at this little museum type place in the bathhouse of the monestary too which was cool. and walking around the old sauna room out of stone was really cool!!

Then we had to go, and we did some shopping ánd ironing for Mrs Kirste's brother Wolfie (Wolfgang). And then took her moters sister around to do shopping, go to the bank etc. etc. as she has no car. I also got to talk to another uncle and aunt of hers that were really kind and nice people (as was the aunt we took around!!). I found it really easy to talk to them which was great. At first i thought i wouldnt be able to understand them much, and they mightnt know any english to help out.. but we had some great conversations! Even to i wasnt the main participant, I understood and commented etc, so yeah it was really nice! Maybe elder Germans speak a more standard form of German, or speak a bit slower. or maybe they figured i was from NZ and adjusted how they said stuff really well. Most of the errands we did around Erbach, the village where Mrs Kirste grew up.

Anyway we did all that and i helped where i could. Then we went back home (my pudding still in the boiling car.. and now more looking like brown and white slush... (dont wanna trust that cream now!). On the way some randoms car broke down so i pushed it up a hill (good workout!) as he tried to crash start it and his wife watched. altho she was pregnant, so im glad she didnt try and help!! (we were at the bottom of the hill unfortunately). But then i had to go so hopefully he turned it around and got it going!!

So we got home, and now I have hopped onto the computer to write in the blog and slowly clear the backlog of photos i have to put on the flickr site :). Oh! :D Mrs Kirste went out afterwards and shes just come home with a new pudding for me!! She is such a legend! I spose Andrea already knows that.. but yeah.. she is so kind and generous and friendly, its great!

Tonight I think i am going to a practise with Ariane (Tae Kwan Do perhaps?) at about 8, and then probably just come home and relax. Im not sure if Andreas or Jessica are coming.. probably not jessica as she lives a little further away, and probably has to practice flute too, and dunno if andreas usually comes or not. Havent met any of the other friends yet, but maybe there will be others there tonight.

Im having a great time.. altho I can see it will probably get quite tiring always having to use and process things in German.. even if it gets easier. Altho nothing wrong with being a bit out of your comfot yone every now and then either huh!! Ive started reading a bit out of the John Piper book the Fannings gave me as a baptism present. I could tell i would enjoy it, and now im reading it that has been confirmed! Its really good ay. Great message to take onboard and live by. (called Life as a Vapour)

Will check in again soon no doubt!!
Laters!

Day 6

Oh, yesterday Arnulf came home from tennis practise with thi bottle with 8 tiny frogs in it! Seriously, they wouldnt have been more than a centimetre long each. They were so sweet. He said there were hundreds of them jumping around at one corner of the courts, so he grabbed a few and took them home. We released them into the fish pond, where they proceeded to do nothing (i think when they are scared they freeye.. its rlly funny). Anyway, so we rescused them from the water and put them on some leaves. Ive check form them since, so they are either still there and out of sight )most likely), or they have hopped away, or they are fish food... Anyhoo..

Today I woke up quite a bit earlier and hung around the house for a while. Had these awesome omlettes for lunch and then me and Mrs Kirste headed over to a neighbouring village called Plochingen. In Plochingen there is a (ahh whats it in english.. umm.. kinda housing area with a comunal courtyard in the middle.. Anyway, it was designed by an architect who is really famous, and incidentally lived in New Yealand for a very long time, but in NZ hardly anyone knows of him! (except maybe as the guy who made that cool toilet block up north). Anyway, his name is Hundertwasser, and he has a very distinct style. This housing area was amazing to look at, and although you were not allowed to walk through the shared part in the middle (I wouldnt want randoms walking across my front lawn all the time either), you could still look at it all. It was awesome. Took a handful of pictures which I will difinately put up!!

After this we walked around Plochingen, which has a totally awesome old town hall, which I will put up a picture of too. These 'little villages' are all totally awesome, and so different to anything you see in New Zealand, its really great. Oh ha ha and I took a photo of this fountain in the centre of the village and this little girl walked up and asked if i was from the Newspaper :) it was so cute! OH! Which reminds me!! Hearing little kids speak German is SOOOOO cute! Its really weird, coy for me German is just a language i have lernt. So even here when the Kirstes talk ill be thinking *man.. they are really good at german* which when u think about it is a pretty stupid thing to think.. dunno, its hard to explain! But yeah, I can get by really well over here. still dont understand every word of every sentance, but i can follow most the time, and more and more each day, so its cool! Oh and yeah.. little kids german is so cute! and so easy to understand.. ha ha and the annunsiate so nicely and its yeah.. super cute.

Then we walked around some apartment blocks and alongside the river in this area called the Nekar (the Donau isnt far off either). And You got a really nice view of Plochingen, and its church up on the hill, and this awesome old brewery.

Anyway, then we came home and had some food, and then went out for the evening. Today Ariane finished her Abitur (Abi) exams, which are like serious as things similar to bursary.. but a year later than us, and higher stakes. So Me, Ariane, her boyfriend Andreas, and her best friend Jessica (who has also just finished Abitur) went out into Esslingen to celebrate. We went to a local in a huge ex-factory with a massive chimney. its called 'dick', ha ha actually the fact that a massive chimney had the word dick written on it only stikes me as a little funny now im writing it down in english... oh well.

Anyway, we hung out, and talked, and it was good times. Had a glass os Sekt which was really nice (like champagne). I think it was made in Essingen too. They have this awesome, realy old place that makes sekt of all sorts (a few grapes growing here and there on this hills). It was great! Then at about 12.30ish we headed home, and i went straight to sleep.

Day 5

I watched Australia just go down to Italy.. (how close was that!), and then basically fell asleep during the Switzerland - Ukraine match.. which I hear eventually went to a penalty shoot-out, in which the Swiss scored 0 from 2!! (what the!!).. But anyways.. today I had a nice sleep in (dremt in English.. which is to be expected, but was really weird! And then got up for a late breakfast.

The weather was pretty awesome, but then it began to rain a bit. We decided to wait a while, and I played Texas Hold' Em poker with Arnulf. Ha ha I had a straight and bidded up real high, to discover he had a straight flush... so not cool ha ha! But i fought my way back and eventually had him against the ropes before lunch time (these awesome home-made piyyas from the local butcher). Oh, I dunno if ive said this before, but the bread and rolls here ROCK!!!! SOOOOO tatsy, oh man.. puts our stuff to shame.. anyways... Had lunch, and then headed into Esslingen with Mrs Kirste. Esslingen is a beautiful village (altho quite alot of residents for a 'village') with a really beautiful inner city with old buildings and paved streets.. and there are heaps of gorgeous churches! Unfortunately it appears my camera doesnt take quite so nice pictures inside (gets all speckly and stuff (is probably a way i can fix that.. should read the manual!). But yeah..

Oh and there are all these towers around the place that used to be connected by a massive wall around the city (for defence). We walked up a section of the wall that still remains running up a hill, which was great! And from the top you had a great view of the township and surrounding areas. I had an iced chotoclae as it was boiling, and we talked for a while to the waiteress there.

Then we went back into the inner city and walked around some more, went to this AWESOME icecream shop.. (man im gonna get fat soon! especially as i cant go out on runs etc at the mo cozza my stupid feet). Anyways.. so then it was back to home where I am sitting now, watching Brazil beat Ghana.. and later i think it will be dinner, and then probably play a bit of soccer outside, maybe go for a swim, and probably also play some card games again (Bjorn and Arnulf bought this awesome case of vegas gambling chips and dice.. they are really authentic looking and stuff.. its quite fun!

Still havent gotten used to the driving on the right side. normally its fine.. but every now and then u get this sudden rush of adrenaline coy the cars in the wrong place, or you expect us to pull out coy we have right of way, and the other car just carries no. then u realise thay had right of way... Oh also! here they use hazard lights on the Autobhan to warn cars behind you that ahead there is a queue so you will have to stop. and the message just kinda gets passed back. Its a pretty good system really. Tho when i first saw the car infront of us stick on its hazyrds i thought it was in major trouble.. but no.. wrong again ha ha!

Anyways.. im sure if forgotten heaps, coz today was amazing. maybe if i remember anything, and still remember it tomorrow (or later today if i come back online) then i will write it down in this post.

Laters!

Day 4!

Hey all, so Singapore is now all behind me and im in Germany!! The weather here is totally perfect today... I could seriously get used to this!! Oh.. The flight.. meh.. it was as you would expect.. long.. extremely cramped... smell-inducing (still dunno quite how that works.. but there u go!) and yeah. The cool thing was I got to see a sunset and a sunrise from the plane.. and seriously.. If you havent seen a sunrise or sunset from a plane before.. They are always pretty awesome!!

Anyway here I am at Day 4 and im in Germany!!! WOOHOO!!! Although this kinda marks the end of any English (as far as signs, environment etc. etc. goes) for a veeery long time.. which is kinda daunting!! But anyway I'm staying with the Kirste's (who Andrea stayed with when she did an exchange). And they are all great. I already knew Ariane from the exchange, but I have now also met her mother Brigitte who is totally amazing and friendly, and an all round joy to be around :), and Their youngest son Arnulf who is a really cool guy!! I think i will get along with him well.

The flight into Stuttgart was quite bumpy, :) even I got the fabled 'tickle-tummy' quite alot... so im glad some of you Watson family types werent there ha ha! You probably would have been in an unrestrainable state of hysterics. Oh, and the view was awesome! So different to New Zealand!!! There was the main city, but then, speckled all over the countryside, only a few kilometers apart were all these little clusters of houses (all with brick rooves). It was really cool ay!! Kinda had to explain, but really unlike anything ive come across before. It was nice!

Its now 2:30pm, so the day isnt over by a long shot, but I think ill spend most iof it just settling in etc, and watching the aussie team play (and probably loose - but it would be great if they didnt!) at 5. (at last!! The World Cup matches are on at a sane time of the day!! :D!) They have the main, hot meal at lunch here, so thats pretty cool! had this delicious beef goulash today which tasted great!

Oh, now I am here with the Kirstes I think I will be able to load up alot more of my photos very soon, so keep your eyes on my Flickr site for more photos to come too!

Wow.. so here I am... In Germany... Can understand most of whats going on, and the Kirstes are really good at talking slow for me and dropping in bits of English here and there :). I have to say.. Im glad I know what all the keys on a keyboard do.. because 'Einfg' and 'Entf' or 'Strg' dont have a great deal of meaning to me :).. although then again neiher does 'Alt'.. anyways... oh! ha ha and the board is exactly the same except the y and z have swapped positions, so im constatntly having to re-type words like that which have a y or z in them :).

Well im gonna go out and 'faulenz' a bit in the brilliant 27° sunshine, with a small breath of wind :). Till next time!!

Day 3

Im sitting in Singapore airport now so I might aswell write about today, and if anything worth saying happens on the plane ill letcha know on the next post..

Today I woke up around 8 and it was raining cats and dogs so i decided id go back to sleep again :). Slept until about 9, at which point i headed down for my morning feast at the restaurant (had some weird yam-cake things today!). It was still raining stupidly hard so I went to my room for a while and watched some T.V just so i could say i did, and then caught a bus into town (not walking in that weather :) ).

In town i wandered down Orchard road for a while again, and visited some more amazing malls, and there were some cool market-type stalls up again. After a while the weather had cleared up a bit and I thought id go visit the chinese (and japanese) garden. It was either that or visit china town and little india (not enuf time for the zoo). And i figure i can see a china town in Sweden if i really wanna, so might aswell do the gardens. I caught the train out to the relevant stop then walked down a pathway to enter the gardens.

The gardens were really stunning, there were a few awesome pagodas, and it was all surrounded by this big serene lake (with turtles in it!!!! - aswell as some big as fish). It also had a statue of confucious and some awesome white brides across parts of the lake to get to another island-part of the garden.

One part was a Japanese garden, and even though half of it was closed for renovation, the banzai garden out front was spectacular! there were trees there up to 200-300 years old, and they were all so amazing to look at! Ive never seen so many banzai trees before, it was great!!

I then found this place that is aparently in the guniess book ofm world records for having the biggest turtle collection.. so i thought, why not!! And it was so worth it! Inside was firstly a whole lot of turtle memoribilia, kinda like a museum, then you could go out to the main area and see all the turtles. There were SO many varieties it was crazy! I took some photos of some of the stranger ones (but there were too many to take pics of even some of the oddest). One that was really amazing was the only 2-headed, 6 - legged turtle in the world. (yes there will be a pic of that coming :).) Aparently it is 1 in 10 million turtles that have a birth defect, and those usually die within days. But they found this one, half-dead and all infected, but nursed it back to health.. and there it is!!

Anyway the highlight of the turtle place was the feeding! For a dollar you could buy a cucumber and feed it to the turtles for a while. (the lady gave me one free which was nice!). This was hilarious ay! Turtles would go crazy for a bite of cucumber! You would get this seething mass of turtles climbing over each other.. getting higher and higher, bidding for a bite. or if you fed the hundreds of regular (terapin?) turtles in the little lake in the centre, the water would just be this seeting mass of turtles, making little thrusts up to grab a hold of the cucumber with their mouths.. there would be turtles over balancing, falling over and all sorts :) hilarious!! Although some of them had some seriously large mouthes and major strength.. even the little ones would make you nervous!! So i kept a very careful eye out for my fingers (especially when in the lake and turtles would climb out and walk along the bridge to you ha ha!.

Anyways, ive got some cool mid-bite shots of some turtles that I hope to put up (seems to take ages, but hopefully Ill get lots of photos up soon tho!). After this i finished walking round the garden (my foot hurting alot again by now! - its gone all swollen and stuff.. pain in the butt!) On the way out i struck up a good conversation with one of the rangers on a pushbike. So that was cool, he he he thought i was from the Netherlands tho.. so go figure? Was gonna say its the hair (orange.. netherlands...) but its still pretty black.. so know knows!

It was then back to the YMCA via my jem of a discovery.. MOS Burger (droool!!! It'll change ur life!! ha ha) to pick up my bag and head off to the airport. Which I did WITHOUT a stinking cab, even tho it took a while and had to cram into packed bussed and trains lugging around this huge bag ha ha! And yeah, basically now here i am! Just a few minutes ago I saw the world cup going on in a bar so went in to watch. (Argentina - Mexico)... but it was a smoking bar.. so now all my stuff STINKS! Plus a coke was like 5.50 and a handful of spring rolls was 6.65!! But the quoted prices were less than that.. who knows.. either way it was daylight robbery.. but i wanted to watch the game so never mind ;). I was lucky to get in! It was really snooty, and i was in a singlet and boardies ha ha!.

Alright.. better go.. 14 hours of flights are ahead of me... I can barely contain myself for the excitement... And this time round im flying during the time i should be sleeping.. so knowing me i wontb get any sleep, and ill be shattered by the time i get to Stuttgart. Anyways, its so long to Singapore. Totally loved it and I am SO coming back to here and the surrounding countries asap and for a much more prolonged stay!! Europe here I come!

Day 2!!

(first an apology for any bad typos in Day 1 and 2.. this keyboard sux!!)

Alright! Day 2.. Wait first a few observations from last night..

Singapore is HOT! Singpore is HUMID!!
There are millions of taxis everywhere and they all seem to be Toyota Crowns :).
The rest of the cars that arent taxis are either utes with people sitting in the back.. little dirt bike things with people wearing singlets and shorts cranking along at 90kmph, or flash as cars that look as if they have just been driven off the yard!
Dont trust cab drivers.
Singapore is hot.

Anyway, so i got up at about 8 a.m and went down to my buffet breakfast (which i made FULL use of ha ha!) then went upstairs to my room and had another shower, and packed up some stuff and went to catch a free bus into Orchard road (the massive big shopping street). However I missed the bus and so instead of wait another hours i decided to walk in. (found out later i could caught a normal bus for 90c.. doh!) ha ha but anyway.. by the time i got to Orchard road my t-shirt was stuck to me.. and it pretty much stayed that way all day :). although it wasnt smell-making sweat if that makes any sence.. at the end of the day i still smelt fine.. it was weird! just this kinda film over my whole body. Anyways I walked around Orchard road and checked out some of the massive malls and amazing shops.. got prussured by some sleazy slaesmen.. and got mighty thirsty, so got some slurpy thingy that hit the spot pretty well!

I wandered around for a while, saw some amazing buildings (the buildings here are all amazing!) then headed down to the underground to catch a train somewhere. OK.. a few more observations..

In Singapore NOBODY uses the stairs next to an esculator.. There can be a queue for the esculator, but the stairs will be completely empty... weird... also it seems nobody that I saw seems to walk anywhere except around the main city, so it was a rather lonely walk into Orchard road that I took in the morning :). (probably coz the public transport is so good, and it seems most the roads everywhere are 90 kmph).

I decided I'd go to Sentosa Island for a while coz that looked pretty cool, so i headed to the relevant underground station then headed up to the massive queue to buy tickets for the gondala ride over. Once finally on the gondala I got some nice views of some of the city and harbour and took a video and a few pictures, then was on the Island.

Oh that reminds me.. flying into Singapore was awesome! There are container ships EVERYWHERE!! and the lights were soo cool!! You could see all the road and stuf on all the different islands, and Singapore itself look spectacular. I didnt know where to look for the Merlion, but it looks like that gets lit up at night which must be nice.. anyway back to Sentosa..

Sentosa rocked my socks off. It was quite different to over in the city and i really liked it!! There were some AWESOME beaches.. and some amazing forest, and this awesome abandoned replica fishing village thingy (so wanna go visit some more of those things!!). First up I walked over to the Merlion, which is a pretty impressive looking thing! I'd bought a ticket thingy, so I got a little presentation thingy about a brief history of Singapore and the Merlion (and listened to some coll as music). Then I got to climb up the inside to the mouth and ontop of the head (there are a few pictures of that coming at flickr).

After doing the Merlion to death I climbed back down and went off to a beach, then on the way back passed this little herb and spice garden thing that sold this really nice home-made drink (I took all the drink I could ha ha). The whole place smelt awesome too cozza all the herbs and stuff.

By now I was really hot, as it was the middle of the day, but i was kinda used to it. I decided to walk around the island and see what I could see.. Was so the highlight of my trip so far (and probably will be for a while!) First I passed these cool hut things, then these cool stone tablets with faces on them.. then walked along the waterfront beside the jungle (trees). There were lizards sunning themselves everywhere and some seriously awesome insects the like of which id never seen before! Altho it must of been some kind of cicada... but anyway some insect that seemed to be everywhere made the most awful screeching sound.. ha ha sounded like an alarm was going off whereever i went :). Somebody said there were monkeys.. but i never managed to see any.

Next I came to this awesome little ruined palace thingy.. it was cool as! there were hyroglyphics (spelling?!) everywhere, and cool statues and this awesome arch.. It was sooo awesome! Then I wandered around more and found some cool totem-like stone pillars and some cool arranged stones.. (im carrying on a bit). After a while I found that fishing village thing I was talking about (had seen it from the gondala).. and that place totally rocked!!

Ha ha anyway.. better stop yakking about Sentosa.. but anyway, I LOVED it!!! (oh i had some burger king for lunch there. a beef rendang double burger, with iced tea and a 'taro turnover'.. the jury is still out on them both ha ha! Altho the taro turnover was pretty good really!

Anyway, so I left and went back over to the city, and down to the underground (in brilliant sunlight). I got out of the underground which opened into a mall, so I looked around for a while and had an icecream (Haegen Dazs.. MMMMM!!!) and went to go back outside and it was POURING!!!!!
Anyway an old soccer injury of my foot had seriously flared up by then (still sore and swollen now) from all the walking, so a little sit down was quite welcome.

Eventually I ventured outside after the rain reduced to a light drizzle (altho the heat seemed to intensify.. probably the humidity) and visited some more awesome buildings (photos of the best ones coming). On the way i went through this pedestrian underpass, undeground in the massive hall type space that you walked through were TONS of youths breakdanceing, skating, freestyle biking and doing all kinda of stuff. ha ha it was pretty cool, altho i didnt feel completely secure from the looks i was getting so kinda fast-hobbled over to where i needed to go, took a photo and left (to crys of 'hey man, thats not cool!) - In Singapore they have English, Chinese and Malay, all the signs and stuff are in at least english, and most people will understand you etc if you use english (phew).

Anyway, by now my foot was killing me and i was tired so i caught a train then bus, then walked (alone again) back to the hostel, even though i was tempted to catch a taxi cozza my foot. altho i figured out where the taxi rdriver from the airport actually took me on my mini map of singapore, and was quite unimpressed, so i decided that the taxis could do without some more custom from me. Back at my room I rested for a bit (and took pain killers), then headed back into the city.

Another observation.. There are SO many more people out at nighttime in Singapore then during the day.

Anyway, it was cool walking around at nighttime in the city! But I eventually grabbed some dinner (two rice burgers.. totally awesome!) and headed to the station to go to the night safari. I then cought a bus out there and started heading around. The night safari was cool ay! altho all photos i tried to take failed miserably :(. But anyway, on the bus i met to girls from the Netherlands who were also going to the night safari, so we all went round together (must have been the grimy t-shirt and the matt-sheen all over my body ha ha i mean thats pretty irresistable! ha ha ha). anyways, like I said, the night safari was great!!! could have speant twice as long there, and resolved to go to the zoo the next day (dont see that happening now ha ha).
Time came to leave so we got back on the bus, then onto the train. In the city i saw the end of the Germany - Sweden game (awwww! Swedens out already! - but hey im going to Germany tomorrow, so its probably a good thing they are still in the running :). And then my walk back to the YMCA again.. ha ha altho walking alone at midnight with a backpack and camera was a little un-nerving.. but it was all good.

Got to my room finally at about 1 a.m (that i had set at 8 degrees before i left) So i turned off the a/c and went to sleep.

Day 1!!

Hey guys! so heres day one of my trip..
I got up at 3.45am on Friday so that we could be at the airport at 4.30am for my flight out at 6. After the inital pain, and regret of staying up unti 1 am watching the worldcup me dad, mum and Andrea (jenny was out the the world) headed off to the airport and soon after i was in the air.

3 hours later i was flying over Sydney, unfortunately sydney was basically a mass of white with a few skyscrapers sticking out of the fog and a little part of the harbour bridge poking out. So we circled a few times.. then headed to Melbourne (1hr). Once in Melbourne we landed, and basically sat on the plane fopr an hour or so while we re-fuelled etc, and then headed back to Sydney!

A game of cards with the two people sitting next to me passed the time a little bit.. but it was still pretty yuck.. and that awful plane-grossnesss had already well and truely started to set in. Oh! and my old Principal Mr. Moses was on my flight, so i had a chat with him. He was going to Johannesberg then London to a conference and then to talk at some old boys club in london.

Anyhoo after 6 hours in a plane instead of 3 I got to Sydney airport which was just going crazy with delayed flights etc. So of course my flight out ended up delayed too and instead of flying out at 3:45 local time it was more like 5:30.
Another 8 hours in a plane (with NO good movies.. grrr.. and i think i get the same set of movies today aswell!!!) and I arrive in Singapore.. bloated.. icky.. smelly.. dry.. and very uncomfortable from the sardine style seats :). (i hate long flights!)

Well the people who said Singapore was hot were right! I made my way through what i think was customs (walked past a person and out the gate..) And to the taxi stand. :) the taxi ride to my room which was supposed to be 'no more than $15) ended up being $25.. but I was just glad to be in my own air-conditioned room! By this time it was midnight (4am NZ time) which means id been awake for the last 24 hours.. The bed wasnt the longest in the world.. but hey.. I was out to it in no time!!